Shadows of Sanctuary978-0441806010 (2 page)

'We should stop at the first inn we find,' Quartz said.

'All right,' Wess said.

By the time they reached the street's end, darkness was complete and the market was deserted. Wess thought it odd that everyone should disappear so quickly, but no doubt they were tired too and wanted to get home to a hot fire and dinner. She felt a sudden stab of homesickness and hopelessness: their search had gone on so long, with so little chance of success.

The buildings closed in around them as the street narrowed suddenly. Wess stopped: three paths faced them, and another branched off only twenty paces farther on.

'Where now, my friends?'

'We must ask someone,' Aerie said, her voice soft with fatigue.

'If we can find anyone,' Chan said doubtfully.

Aerie stepped towards a shadow-filled corner.

'Citizen,' she said, 'would you direct us to the nearest inn?'

The others peered more closely at the dim niche. Indeed, a muffled figure crouched there. It stood up. Wess could see the manic glitter of its eyes, but nothing more.

'An inn?'

'The closest, if you please. We've travelled a long way.'

The figure chuckled. 'You'll find no inns in this part of town, foreigner. But the tavern around the corner - it has rooms upstairs. Perhaps it will suit you.'

'Thank you.' Aerie turned back,.a faint breeze ruffling her short black hair. She pulled her cloak closer.

They went the way the figure gestured, and did not see it convulse with silent laughter behind them.

In front of the tavern, Wess puzzled out the unfamiliar script: the Vulgar Unicorn. An odd combination, even in the south where odd combinations were the style of naming taverns. She pushed open the door. It was nearly as dark inside as out, and smoky. The noise died as Wess and Chan entered - then rose again in a surprised buzz when Aerie and Quartz followed. Wess and Chan were not startlingly different from the general run of southern mountain folk: he fairer, she darker. Wess could pass unnoticed as an ordinary citizen anywhere; Chan's beauty often attracted attention. But Aerie's tall white-skinned black-haired elegance everywhere aroused comment. Wess smiled, imagining what would happen if Aerie flung away her cloak and showed herself as she really was.

And Quartz: she had to stoop to come inside. She straightened up. She was taller than anyone else in the room. The smoke near the ceiling swirled a wreath around her hair. She had cut it short for the journey, and it curled around her face, red, gold, and sand-pale. Her grey eyes reflected the firelight like mirrors. Ignoring the stares, she pushed her blue wool cloak from her broad shoulders and shrugged her pack to the floor.

The strong heavy scent of beer and sizzling meat made Wess's mouth water. She sought out the man behind the bar.

'Citizen,' she said, carefully pronouncing the Sanctuary language, the trade tongue of all the continent, 'are you the proprietor? My friends and I, we need a room for the night, and dinner.'

Her request seemed ordinary enough to her, but the innkeeper looked sidelong at one of his patrons. Both laughed.

'A room, young gentleman?' He came out from behind the bar. Instead of replying to Wess, he spoke to Chan. Wess smiled to herself. Like all Chan's friends, she was used to seeing people fall in love with him on sight. She would have done so herself, she thought, had she first met him when they were grown. But they had known each other all their lives and their friendship was far closer and deeper than instant lust.

'A room?' the innkeeper said again. 'A meal for you and your ladies? Is that all we can do for you here in our humble establishment? Do you require dancing? A juggler? Harpists and hautbois? Ask and it shall be given!' Far from being seductive, or even friendly, the innkeeper's tone was derisive. Chan glanced at Wess, frowning slightly, as everyone within earshot burst into laughter. Wess was glad her complexion was dark enough to hide her blush of anger. Chan was bright pink from the collar of his homespun shirt to the roots of his blond hair. Wess knew they had been insulted but she did not understand how or why, so she replied with courtesy.

'No, citizen, thank you for your hospitality. We need a room, if you have one, and food.'

'We would not refuse a bath,' Quartz said.

The innkeeper glanced at them, an irritated expression on his face, and spoke once more to Chan.

'The young gentleman lets his ladies speak for him? Is this some foreign custom, that you are too high-bred to speak to a mere tavern-keeper?'

'I don't understand you,' Chan said. 'Wess spoke for us all. Must we speak in chorus?'

Taken aback, the man hid his reaction by showing them, with an exaggerated bow, to a table.

Wess dumped her pack on the floor next to the wall behind her and sat down with a sigh of relief. The others followed. Aerie

looked as if she could not have kept on her feet a moment longer.

'This is a simple place,' the tavern-keeper said. 'Beer or ale, wine. Meat and bread. Can you pay?'

He was speaking to Chan again. He took no direct note of Wess " or Aerie or Quartz.

'What is the price?'

'Four dinners, bed - you break your fast somewhere else, I don't open early. A piece of silver. In advance.'

'The bath included?' Quartz said.

'Yes, yes, all right.'

'We can pay,' said Quartz, whose turn it was to keep track of what they spent. She offered him a piece of silver.

He continued to look at Chan, but after an awkward pause he shrugged, snatched the coin from Quartz, and turned away. Quartz drew back her hand, then, under the table, surreptitiously wiped it on the leg other heavy cotton trousers. Chan glanced over at Wess. 'Do you understand anything that has happened since we entered the city's gates?'

'It is curious,' she said. 'They have strange customs.'

'We can puzzle them out tomorrow,' Aerie said.

A young woman carrying a tray stopped at their table. She wore odd clothes, summer clothes by the look of them, for they uncovered her arms and shoulders and almost completely bared her breasts. It is hot in here, Wess thought. That's quite intelligent of her. Then she need only put on a cloak to go home, and she will not get chilled or overheated.

'Ale for you, sir?' the young woman said to Chan. 'Or wine? And wine for your wives?'

'Beer, please,' Chan said. 'What are "wives"? I have studied your language, but this is not a word I know.'

'The ladies are not your wives?'

Wess took a tankard of ale off the tray, too tired and thirsty to try to figure out what the woman was talking about. She took a deep swallow of the cool bitter brew. Quartz reached for a flask of wine and two cups, and poured for herself and Aerie.

'My companions are Westerly, Aerie, and Quartz,' Chan said, nodding to each in turn. 'I am Chandler. And you are -?'

'I'm just the serving girl,' she said, sounding frightened. 'You could not wish to be troubled with my name.' She grabbed a mug of beer and put it on the table, spilling some, and fled.

They all looked at each other, but then the tavern-keeper came with platters of meat. They were too hungry to wonder what they had done to frighten the barmaid. Wess tore off a mouthful of bread. It was fairly fresh, and a welcome change from trail rations - dry meat, flatbread mixed hurriedly and baked on stones in the coals of a campfire, fruit when they could find or buy it. Still, Wess was used to better.

'I miss your bread,' she said to Quartz in their own language. Quartz smiled. The meat was hot and untainted by decay. Even Aerie ate with some appetite, though she preferred meat raw.

Halfway through her meal, Wess slowed down and took a moment to observe the tavern more carefully.

At the bar, a group suddenly burst into raucous laughter.

'You say the same damned thing every damned time you turn up in Sanctuary, Bauchle,' one of them said, his loud voice full of mockery. 'You have a secret or a scheme or a marvel that will make your fortune. Why don't you get an honest job - like the rest of us?'

That brought on more laughter, even from the large, heavyset young man who was being made fun of.

'You'll see, this time,' he said. 'This time I've got something that will take me all the way to the court of the Emperor. When you hear the criers tomorrow, you'll know.' He called for more wine. His friends drank and made more jokes, both at his expense.

The Unicorn was much more crowded now, smokier, louder. Occasionally someone glanced towards Wess and her friends, but otherwise they were let alone. A cold breeze thinned the odour of beer and sizzling meat and unwashed bodies. Silence fell suddenly, and Wess looked quickly around to see if she had breached some other unknown custom.

But all the attention focused on the tavern's entrance. The cloaked figure stood there casually, but nothing was casual about the aura of power and self possession.

In the whole of the tavern, not another table held an empty place.

'Sit with us, sister!' Wess called on impulse.

Two long steps and a shove: Wess's chair scraped roughly along the floor and Wess was rammed back against the wall, a dagger at her throat.

'Who calls me "sister"?' The dark hood fell back from long, grey-streaked hair. A blue star blazed on the woman's forehead. Her elegant features grew terrible and dangerous in its light.

Wess stared up into the tall, lithe woman's furious eyes. Her jugular vein pulsed against the point of the blade. If she made a move towards her knife, or if any other friends moved at all, she was dead.

'I meant no disrespect -' She almost said 'sister' again. But it. was not the familiarity that had caused offence: it was the word itself. The woman was travelling incognito, and Wess had breached her disguise. No mere apology would repair the damage she had done.

A drop of sweat trickled down the side of her face. Chan and Aerie and Quartz were all poised on the edge of defence. If Wess erred again, more than one person would die before the fighting stopped.

'My unfamiliarity with your language has offended you, young gentleman,' Wess said, hoping the tavern-keeper had used a civil form of address, if not a civil tone. It was often safe to insult someone by the tone, but seldom by the words themselves. 'Young gentleman,' she said again when the woman did not kill her,

'someone has made sport of me by translating "frejojan", "sister".'

'Perhaps,' the disguised woman said. 'What does frejojan mean?'

'It is a term of peace, an offer of friendship, a word to welcome a guest, another child of one's own parents.'

'Ah. "Brother" is the word you want, the word to speak to men. To call a man

"sister", the word for women, is an insult.'

'An insult!' Wess said, honestly surprised.

But the knife drew back from her throat.

'You are a barbarian,' the disguised woman said, in a friendly tone. 'I cannot be insulted by a barbarian.'

'There is the problem, you see,' Chan said. 'Translation. In our language, the word for outsider, for foreigner, also translates as "barbarian".' He smiled, his beautiful smile.

Wess pulled her chair forward again. She reached for Chan's hand under the table. He squeezed her fingers gently.

'I meant only to offer you a place to sit, where there is no other.'

The stranger sheathed her dagger and stared down into Wess's eyes. Wess shivered slightly and imagined spending the night with Chan on one side, the stranger on the other.

Or you could have the centre, if you liked, she thought, holding the gaze. The stranger laughed. Wess could not tell if the mocking tone were directed outward or inward.

'Then I will sit here, as there is no other place.' She did so. 'My name is Lythande.'

They introduced themselves, and offered her - Wess made herself think of Lythande as 'him' so she would not damage the disguise again - offered him wine.

'I cannot accept your wine,' Lythande said. 'But to show I mean no offence, I will smoke with you.' He rolled shredded herbs in a dry leaf, lit the construction, inhaled from it, and held it out. 'Westerly, frejojan.'

Out of politeness Wess tried it. By the time she stopped coughing her throat was sore, and the sweet scent made her feel lightheaded.

'It takes practice,' Lythande said, smiling.

Chan and Quartz did no better, but Aerie inhaled deeply, her eyes closed, then held her breath. Thereafter she and Lythande shared it while the others ordered more ale and another flask of wine.

'Why did you ask me, of all this crowd, to sit here?' Lythande asked.

'Because...' Wess paused to try to think of a way to make her intuition sound sensible. 'You look like someone who knows what's going on. You look like someone who might help us.'

'If information is all you need, you can get it less expensively than by hiring a sorcerer.'

'Are you a sorcerer?' Wess asked.

Lythande looked at her with pity and contempt. 'You child! What do your people mean, sending innocents and children out of the north!' He touched the star on his forehead. 'What did you think this means?'

'I'll have to guess, but I guess it means you are a mage.'

'Excellent. A few years of lessons like that and you might survive, a while, in Sanctuary - in the Maze - in the Unicorn!'

'We haven't got years,' Aerie whispered. 'We have, perhaps, overspent the time we do have.'

Quartz put her arm around Aerie's shoulders, for comfort, and hugged her gently.

'You interest me,' Lythande said. 'Tell me what information you seek. Perhaps I will know whether you can obtain it less expensively - not cheaply, but less expensively - from Jubal the Slavemonger, or from a seer -' At their expressions, he stopped.

'Slavemonger!'

'He collects information as well. You needn't worry that he'll abduct you from his sitting-room.'