Shadowmage: Book Nine Of The Spellmonger Series (8 page)

“Well done, Sir Foghorn,” Rondal nodded, taking both urns away from him.  “I had every confidence in your ability.”

“What the bloody hells are we supposed to do now?” Tyndal asked, making a face at the belch.  “That first one wasn’t bad, but the second one tasted awful!”

“We take a walk,” Rondal said, slapping the taller lad on the shoulder.  “Come on.”

A few moments later they were walking through the street in front of the warehouse, patently ignoring the place as the street fell into darkness.  Ironically, as the light faded the place seemed to come alive, as the folk of the night began their routines.  Whores and pimps began their promenade, as the few employed workmen and porters headed home for the night.  Drunkards stirred out of their holes as the heat of the day receded in favor of the cool sea breeze from the Bay.

“They call it the Maiden’s Hour,” Rondal lectured Tyndal, as he led his suddenly-drunken friend from one end of the long street to the other.  “In Sea Lord myth, it’s when the Maiden of the Havens convinces the Salt Crone to take a nap, allowing her to let the weary mariners into her hall for wine and food.”

“She’s the goddess of comfort and hospitality, right?” Tyndal slurred.  

“Among other things.  But she gets an hour before the Shipwrecker takes control of the Wheel of the Day.  Or something like that.  Sea Lords are weird.”

“Sea Lords are weird?” Tyndal asked.

“Well don’t you think so?,” Rondal said, smiling at two pretty whores - or perhaps honest women, blessed with the glow of twilight - as they giggled and passed by.  “Consider. They have no mother goddess, just a dad and five daughters.  And some really horrific iconography,” he added.  

“Is there a point to this ethnography?” Tyndal asked, belching again . . . and then again.

“Actually, yes,” Rondal conceded.  “In that the original Alshari, the people who lived here before the Sea Lords came and conquered them, originally seemed to have all of the usual agricultural gods . . . but after the Sea Lords came, they started worshipping what was essentially the counterpart and counter to the Storm Lord and his daughter.  They called her Vingata.”

Another belch, another face.  “Your point?”

“Vingata is basically everything the Storm Lord is not.  She’s a mother goddess, like Trygg, a fertility goddess like Ishi, and an avenging goddess like Briga.”

“Sounds like a hell of a lady,” Tyndal agreed, drunkenly.

“Actually, when the Alshari slaves revolted, the myth said that Vingata rose up from the fields and called forth a bunch of magical . . . imps?  Land spirits?  I don’t know, some kind of little demon folk, and they helped the slaves overthrow their masters.”

“So what happened?” demanded Tyndal.  

“The Sea Lords returned two years later with a dozen ships and enslaved the entire bay, again.” Rondal said, helping his friend over an early drunkard sprawling from a doorway.  “They rounded up six of her priesthood and slaughtered them in honor of their gods on a rock out in the bay,” Rondal explained.  “That’s where the Great Bell is, now.”

“So what happened to Vingata?” Tyndal asked.

“She continued to be worshipped in secret in the hills, back in the swamps, the usual out-of-the-way places where Sea Lords don’t often go.  She became associated with the river drakes over in the swamps.  Her priesthood turned bloodthirsty, kidnapping young Sea Lords every now and then and throwing them to her pets in secret.”

“That doesn’t seem very ladylike,” Tyndal said, blearily.

“She was pissed off,” Rondal explained.  “But every time a Sea Lord would disappear, they would send out parties to brutalize the Alshari slaves on general principal.  In any case, her priesthood organized the next round of slave revolts.  While the fleet was away raiding Farise or something, they made a pact to all act at once, at the same time.  So they waited until the sun went down over that ridge, there,” he pointed into the darkness.  “But apparently all of the Sea Lords spend the Hour of the Maiden drinking that revolting wine and seawater stuff and eating delicacies off the arses of slave girls - the usual,” he shrugged.

“The usual,” Tyndal nodded, drunkenly.

“So the Alshari slaves all waited until the remaining Sea Lords were drunk, then they wrapped them up in sailcloth and took them into the swamps and strung them up over the river drakes.  They armed themselves, looted the havens, burned a good number of them, burned some ships, and retreated into the interior.”

“Sounds like a good plan,” Tyndal agreed.  

“They thought so,” nodded Rondal.  “When the fleet returned, they found some of their kin slain, their homes burned, their slaves fled, and their fields destroyed.”

“They were not happy pirates,” concluded Tyndal.

“No, my friend, they were not.  The Sea Lords of Solashaven rounded up as many stragglers and survivors as they could find, and found out that most of their kin were being held hostage.  For every slave who was put to death, a Sea Lord would be fed to the drakes.  The unhappy pirates didn’t have much choice – those were their
kids.

“So they agreed to Vingata’s terms.  All the escaped slaves could go up to the furthest inland Sea Lord settlement, on a lake at the other end of this river, where their masters were the cruelest and they’d slain every one, and they could possess it in freedom.  And work the lands around it as free Alshari.  They called the place
Vatyne
.  It means ‘sanctuary’.”

“Pretty,” Tyndal grunted.

“The Sea Lords didn’t think so.  The Vingati priests made a law than any slave who came within the province was free, which irritated the Sea Lords . . . but they dare not take action.  Every night, during the Maiden’s Hour, if there had been an incident against the Vingati, they would throw a Sea Lord captive into the pit.  And then light a torch to let them know.  After a couple of episodes, they reached an uneasy truce.  But it only held as long as the captives were held, and the Sea Lords were patient.

“Eventually,” he said, halting near the corner of the warehouse they’d been watching all afternoon, “the two sides reached a deal: the Vingati would release all but one of the captives, but that one had to stay in Vatyne a full month as hostage.  At the end of the month, another Sea Lord would arrive, and they’d return the first.  And so on.”

“So if there was any trouble, they had one to sacrifice,” nodded Tyndal.

“Right.  That didn’t make the pirates much happier, but they had most of their kids back.  And they quickly imported enough slaves to get the plantations running again.  They ignored the Alshari.  They repaired their towers or built new ones, built a new fleet, and essentially carried on being bloodthirsty bastards.”

“And the slaves were free and happy to this very day!” Tyndal pronounced dramatically, as another girl walked by and giggled.

“Don’t be stupid.  The Sea Lords bided their time.  They resented the hold their former slaves had over them, and hated more the extraordinary wines the Vatyni produced - they’re in the middle of the Bikavar region,” he added.

“I am passingly familiar with their wares,” Tyndal agreed, reverently.

“Indeed.  So were the Sea Lords, and they resented most the high price the former slaves put on each barrel.  But they bought it anyway, because--”

“It’s wine, and when you’re thirsty, what can you do?”

“You reason just like a Sea Lord, my friend.  So that’s how they carried on.”

“Until . . .” Tyndal said, expectantly.

“Until one day, a few years later, when most had forgotten the way that Vatyne was settled, the Sea Lords ordered a prodigious amount of wine for their festival to the Storm Lord, and pledged to pay a premium amount.  Then, while the Vatyni merchants watched in horror, they took them captive and sent a fleet up the river.”

“Didn’t the Vatyni slay the hostage?”

“Oh, yes . . . but he was an old man, a warrior who agreed to sacrifice himself for the rest of the Sea Lords.  When the priests pushed him into the pit full of river drakes, one of his esquires threw him a sea axe.”

“What were they doing with a sea axe?” Tyndal asked, suspiciously.  “If they were captives and all?”

“By that point the Vatyni had relaxed their guard, and looted many heirlooms from the Sea Lords in their rebellion.  I’m sure that there was a spare sea axe somewhere,” Tyndal assured.

“I think it’s awfully convenient,” Tyndal said, skeptically.

“In any case, this old captain pledged to kill river drakes until they killed him -- and it’s not like anyone was itching to haul him out of there and try to run the execution properly.”

“Not when he’s got that highly convenient sea axe,” Tyndal pointed out.  

“Exactly.  So he holds off the drakes while the army of the Sea Lords rows up river, and everyone is praying to Vingata, but the old drake lady is apparently otherwise occupied - no helpful demons, this time.”

“Shame,” Tyndal shrugged.  “That would have been something!”

“Wouldn’t it?  Instead, the priests slink off back into the swamps and leave the valiant farmers to defend the walls.  Slaughter ensues.  They’re farmers and terrorists, but the Sea Lords are warriors.  They fight their way up the river, to the city gates, past the city gates, and into town.  The few defenders left end up surrendering.  Blood flows in the streets.  One male in every household was fed to the drakes, until they wouldn’t eat any more.  Then they were sacrificed to the Storm Lord.  The women . . . well, you can guess.”

“So what happened?”

“The old geezer in the pit was made the Viscount of Vatyni, and he and his heirs brutally ruled the land until the lake silted up, Remeran wines got cheap, and the Coastlords arrived with the Magocracy and took over most of the inland settlements.  The priests kept the secret cult going and every now and then they’d kidnap a Sea Lord and feed it to the drakes.  The town is now one of the most decrepit crapholes in Enultramar.  And one of the most dangerous.  Even the Brotherhood is afraid of the place.  It makes this one look like Vorone.”

“Rondal?”

“Yeah Tyn?”

“I have to take a piss like the Storm Lord, himself.”

“Then you should take a piss,” Rondal said, nodding toward the sewer in front of the warehouse.

“What?  Right here?  Can’t we find a luck tree or a public privy someplace?”

“This is the Maiden’s Hour, in Enultramar, in Solashaven.  Taking a piss in a sewer is just being civilized.”

“Oh, all right!” Tyndal said, hauling up his doublet and hauling down his hose.  In a moment a loud - very loud - sound of liquid spilling into the sewer below filled the night.  Rondal stood patiently by while his friend relieved himself, even smiling and waving at a pretty whore as she sauntered by.  

“Ah!  Thank the . . . whichever of the old goat’s daughters is in charge of pissing.  So . . . what do we need to do to do the . . . whatever it is we need to do?”

“We just did, Tyn,” Rondal assured him.  “Now we’re going back to the inn, crawl into bed, and get some sleep.  We need to be up with the dawn to survey the tides.”

“We do?”

“We do.  And then we need to find a pawnbroker and procure some more appropriate garb.  I feel like a pilgrim, walking around dressed like a Riverlord.”

“Magelord,” corrected Tyndal.  “But . . . if you . . .  how did we . . . ?”

“Relax,” Rondal assured him, as another pair of whores approached them . . . and then quickly walked away, giggling.  “I’ve got this well in hand.  But we need sleep more than we need . . . company,” he added, looking fondly at the shapely girl who he was certain could be his for a shell.

“Why aren’t any of these ladies approaching me?” Tyndal asked, confused.  “I’m young, I’m handsome, I’m drunk . . . how can they resist me?” he asked, as he watched the giggling girl pass by.