Firehurler (Twinborn Trilogy) (37 page)

They stopped at another cart, this one sporting a
series of wooden rods down the length, from which numerous necklaces,
medallions, and charms were hung. They ranged from the exquisite to the quirky
and the whole spectrum between. The finest appeared to be carved from ivory and
jade, and some bore stones that looked real enough. Others were simple carved
wood, either painted in bright colors or left to the natural wood.

There was an older man, wrinkled and bent and with
deeply tanned skin attending to the necklaces. Like many of the foreigners in
the market, he was bundled tightly against the northern cold, though it was
only a mild spring day by the locals’ standards. He wore a knit hat pulled low
to just above his eyes, his grey, wispy eyebrows just poking out beneath it. He
kept his hand inside the opposite sleeves of his jacket, which was a
collarless, large-buttoned style with voluminous sleeves common farther south.

“You do not want these,” the necklace peddler said,
his voice gravelly and slightly wheezy with age.

“Pardon me?” Kyrus replied, expecting that he had
misheard the old man. The accent was one he was not familiar with, though
Kyrus’s experience was rather limited in that regard.

“Go away, I said,” the old peddler said. “You look,
you touch, you no buy. I know you kind. Waste my time.”

“Well, we
might
buy something, but we have yet
to look,” Abbiley said, examining the necklaces nearest her. She seemed
especially fond of the jade, which was an uncommon sight in Acardia.

“Hmph,” the old man snorted. “Fine. Look. I not stop
you.”

The old man looked perturbed, and Kyrus began to
suspect that yet another crafts trader had just sunk his claws into them.
Abbiley picked one of the necklaces from its pole and unlatched it. It was jade
shaped to form a tiny dragon, curled up in a roughly oval shape. She dangled it
in front of her throat and showed it off to Kyrus.

“What do you think?” she asked him, smiling.

“I think it gives a bit of green to those blue eyes of
yours. I think it suits you,” he answered.

“Amulet have old magic. Priest bless. Protect who wear
it,” the peddler said.

Kyrus was immediately suspicious and cast his sight
into the aether. He could not help showing a bit of surprise when he realized
that it indeed
was
magical. He had heard of swindlers selling “magic”
tokens, but until recently, it would not have occurred to him to check their
claims. He wondered how many opportunities he might have missed out on to get
real magical protection at peddler-in-a-dark-alley prices.

“How much?” Kyrus asked, though the peddler had been
speaking to Abbiley and not him.

The old man turned to Kyrus with a critical eye.

“For you, eight hundred,” the peddler said and then
fixed Kyrus with a stern eye and jutted jaw, in challenge.

Abbiley quickly put the necklace back on the cart,
afraid to touch it once she knew the price.

“Two hundred,” Kyrus countered. “That spell is old and
not so strong. My lady just likes the look of it.”

The old peddled seemed to be caught a bit off guard by
Kyrus’s reasoning, but the last gambit he recognized and understood.

“Six. Amulet still make of jade,” the peddler said.

“Two hundred fifty.” Kyrus dug in, starting to get a
feel for the process. “I know that jade is common in Khesh and Feru Maru. This
did not cost you much at all. I shall pay for the trouble you took in bringing
it here but will not be fooled to thinking it a rare stone.”

“Five hundred. Lot trouble bring amulet here. You get
fair deal,” the peddler said.

Kyrus was sensing that he almost had the hang of this
haggling thing; the peddler was backtracking quickly on his price.

“Come on, Abbiley. We shall find you another at one of
the other traders,” he called to Abbiley and held out his hand to take hers.

As they turned to leave, the old peddler grabbed
Kyrus’s sleeve.

“You win. You win. Three hundred,” the peddler said.
“You take advantage old man.”

“Deal,” Kyrus agreed, smiling, before Abbiley could
object.

He counted out the three hundred and took the jade
dragon amulet from the peddler’s cart. Handing the wine jug to Abbiley, he came
around behind her and looped the chain around her neck, securing the tiny
clasp. He took her by the shoulders and led her to the tiny, grubby mirror that
sat on the cart for customers to see themselves in. She bent down and inspected
her reflection.

She turned and looked up at Kyrus. “So beautiful,” she
said. “But you really did not have to. Thank you.”

“Worth every eckle.” Kyrus smiled down at her.

While he meant it in the way Abbiley took it, he also
wondered at the magical properties of the amulet. If it truly did offer
protection of some sort, he very much wanted to strengthen the enchantment so
that it would last and function properly should she need it.

Their wanderings in the market had taken longer than
either had realized, and the sun was growing lower in the sky. It was late
afternoon, and the shallow warmth of midday was already beginning to wane. More
importantly, both were growing hungry.

*
* * * * * * *

Kyrus had taken them to a cozy little tavern that
straddled the unofficial line between the wealthy portion of town and where the
craftsmen plied their trade. The sign above showed a bowl of stew and a ham
hock, but its proper name was The Fattened Sow. Davin had told Kyrus about it
as a place where the Scriveners would occasionally have their meetings, and he
had always described the food in the fondest terms. Kyrus had never been there,
but his knowledge of nicer dining establishments was rather limited.

They were also fortunate in that there was a visiting
troubadour who had arrived on the trade ship and was performing at the Sow that
night. He was a Kheshi native, with pale yellow skin and light blond hair, and
eyes that were so deep a brown as to appear black. He wore his hair in a mop of
braids that were woven with beads that clacked as he moved his head. His long,
thin beard was likewise braided, but tied with ribbons rather than beaded.
Kyrus suspected that was because beads would have been a distraction as he
sang.

And sing he did. The troubadour, whose Kheshi name
Kyrus and Abbiley could not quite understand coming from the butchering the
proprietor made of it in introducing him, possessed a haunting voice. While
none in attendance could understand a word the chap spoke, the emotion came
through clearly. As he sang, he played some sort of twangy-sounding instrument
whose strings he struck with a pair of tiny hammers.

The troubadour apparently spoke none of the Acardian
language, and a second Kheshi who accompanied him stood between each song and
explained it a bit in halting Acardian. They were local folk songs and
children’s stories that were common in their homeland. Neither Kyrus nor
Abbiley had heard anything of the like before.

The two supped on game pheasant and honey-glazed sweet
potatoes, some of the finest fare Kyrus could remember, and certainly the most
elegant meal Abbiley had ever had. They talked little during the meal,
enraptured by the evening’s entertainment. They sat together on the same side
of a small table, just watching the master troubadour as he mesmerized the
room.

From there, they had gone down to the shore, to watch
the ships coming in from the harbor as the sun set behind them. They sat
huddled together as the chill of the evening deepened. They had gone down at
low tide and scampered down to the rocks that dominated the north shore of
Acardia and found a seat upon a low flat rock, worn smooth by centuries of
waves.

“Khesh is off that way.” Kyrus pointed to the
southeast. “Our friendly troubadour tonight came a long way to play for us.”

He passed the jug of wine to Abbiley, who took a swig.
They had stopped to find a blanket at one of the less exotic stalls, but not to
find proper glasses to drink the mushroom wine, and Abbiley had been curious to
try the drink. They had already passed it several times between them. It was
perhaps not the proper way to partake of an expensive wine, but Abbiley was
unfamiliar with the etiquette of fine society and Kyrus could not be bothered
with it if Abbiley cared not.

Abbiley looked across the sea in the direction he
pointed. “A long way to come just to sing to us, do you not think?” she joked.
“It was awfully nice of him.”

She rested her head against Kyrus’s shoulder. They
were warm beneath the blanket, but the sea breeze brought a chill that kept
them from dozing as they relaxed together. They just sat for a time and looked
out into the sea, watching the reds and oranges of the sunset reflect off the
waves, and the pink of the clouds as they hung above.

As the last of the fishing ships pulled into port,
Abbiley asked, without lifting her head from Kyrus’s shoulder, “Have you ever
dreamed of sailing the world, of seeing all of Tellurak? You know, exotic
places and strange languages, and where music like we heard tonight is common.”

“Actually, no. Ever since I can remember, I have
dreamed of being a knight, like the ones in fairy tales. Not the stodgy old men
that the king knights from time to time in Golis, but a true knight with a
sword and armor, who fights battles for glory and honor,” Kyrus said.

“The kind who rescues princesses and wins their
hearts?” Abbiley asked dreamily, looking up at him.

“I am not quite sure I ever dreamed that far,” Kyrus
said, smiling. “I think maybe I was not dreaming of being the kind of knight
that went about looking for a princess that way.”

As the sunset gave way to dusk, the air grew even more
chill, and uncomfortably so. Kyrus and Abbiley gathered up the shoes they had
taken off to walk on the beach. They scampered quickly through the ankle-deep
waves that seemed far colder than it had when they had arrived.

“What a magical night,” Abbiley commented, as they
brushed as much sand as they could manage from their feet and replaced their
shoes.

Kyrus just smiled in reply.

Oh, but what magic I could show you
, he thought.
I do not think you are ready to see
it, though. I will not spoil a wonderful night by risking it. Soon, though, I
promise.

Kyrus walked Abbiley home, as a good gentleman should,
and returned to his shop.

Also returning was a gentleman in nondescript garb,
who had been watching him from a distance all evening.

*
* * * * * * *

Kyrus threw the bolt on the door and sighed as he
escaped to his sanctuary of quills and spells. His evening with Abbiley had
lifted his spirits and left him feeling a little dizzy in the head—possibly
aided by the mushroom wine. It was a wonderful sensation, but Kyrus knew he had
work to catch up on. Money aside, he had promises to keep to several clients.
He set the half-empty wine jug aside on the table nearest the door.

“Aleph kalai abdu.”

Kyrus lit the workroom and began going through papers
with instructions on a playbill for the Acardian Theater. It was quite a coup
to win the job over the typesetters, since this was precisely the sort of thing
they claimed to be best at. He had told the theater’s proprietor that he would
have a dozen completed by tomorrow evening, and he had split the day between
sleeping and enjoying Abbiley’s company rather than work on it.

That’s all right,
Kyrus mused,
I shall just work through the night again. I get much
more done with no risk of interruption.

He walked over to the stove and set on a pot of tea.
He was far from drunk, but a bit of wine and the late hour had him less alert
than he would have cared for.

Making a circuit of the room, he laid out an array of
blank pages, using any available flat surface he could find, and setting a
quill and ink pot down next to each. By the time he had cleared enough space to
work on all the playbills at once, his tea was done steeping. He poured himself
a cup and went over to stand by his writing desk, where he had one of the sets
of quill, ink, and paper, as well as the instructions on how to compose the
advertisement.

Setting the cup down, he spoke,
“Haru bedaessi
leoki kwatuan gelora,”
sweeping his arms together and up, and the quills
rose in unison along with them.

Just at that moment, there was a great crash. The door
burst open and three men rushed in, one in the plain coveralls of a laborer,
the other two dressed in the uniforms of the constabulary.

“Surrender, by decree of the king’s justice!” one of
the uniformed constables shouted.

Kyrus stood agape, frozen in sudden fear as he looked
alternately from the intruders to the floating writing implements and back
again. The men carried clubs, and both uniformed constables had shackles
hanging from their belts.

The constables looked shocked as well, seemingly
unsure how to proceed through the cluttered maze of tables and papers without
having to
touch
one of the bewitched quills. The constables’ resolve
mustered itself first, however, and they charged across heedless of the tiny
floating obstructions.