The Beggar King (17 page)

And so, for once, he chose the Right Thing instead of the Desirable Thing, and headed down a lane that would take him through the blustering maze of the Omar Bazaar and eventually to Trades Alleyway.

The bazaar was nearly his undoing. Horse blinders would have been an asset, although they probably wouldn't have been adequate, since the place was a sensory extravaganza. He smelled freshly ground cinnamon, the typical scent of belt-dancers, and then he heard the tinkling of finger cymbals and felt a whoosh of soft-spun silk at his face. A crowd of men was already trailing the dancers, and Sarmillion's feet moved in their direction until —
Stop!

Horse blinders wouldn't be enough. He'd need a mask to cover the mouth and nose. And gloves. And ear muffs. In the absence of any such aids to good sense, Sarmillion kept his head down and tried not to breathe until he reached his destination.

Trades Alleyway at night was like a ghost town. All the honest sounds of hard work had gone to sleep. Doors and courtyards were closed and locked. Only the odd window cast its yellow candlelit hue upon the cobblestones. Though Sarmillion knew where Willa's workshop was, he'd never been there. He'd avoided it the way a Cirran avoids a sorcerer, as if any proximity to it would set the bells ringing: stay away, danger! The closer he came to Willa's creaking wooden sign about doors that opened and shut, the dizzier he felt.

Finally he stood before the hundreds of tinkling glass chimes, clenched his whiskers, and knocked at the closed workshop door. And waited. No one answered. He knocked again, now noticing there wasn't a single lit candle in the windows. She was out. He let out the long breath he'd been holding, and began to relax. There, he'd done his best. His intentions were impeccable. But she wasn't at home, and that was that. He would go to The Pit after all and, for once, with a clear conscience.

And then a rumble of laughter erupted from within the workshop that nearly made him wet his pants. The door slid open and there stood Willa, older than he remembered but just as fearsome as ever. “I wondered when you'd be back,” she said.

All along she'd known he was out there. She was waiting for him. Sarmillion backed away from the door.

“I'm sorry, feirhaven,” he stammered, but Willa spat a stream of brown liquid that landed right next to his two-toned shoes.

“Never apologize!” she barked. “Come in, and have out with it.”

Reluctantly Sarmillion entered the dark shed and the door slid shut behind him. Willa lit a small rusty lantern. The place was dusty and cobwebbed and smelled like the inside of a farmer's work glove. Casting around for somewhere clean to sit down, Sarmillion settled on a three-legged wooden footstool.

“It wobbles,” he said as he balanced himself gingerly upon it.

“Ain't a footstool maker, now, am I? Doors is what I'm about,” and she guffawed so loudly it sent a flock of night birds flapping away outside. Willa was wearing rubber boots and an overcoat that was too heavy for this time of year, though she didn't seem inclined to take it off. She turned over a large wooden bucket and sat on it spread-legged across from Sarmillion. There was no avoiding that familiar weathered face, that hair so wild it looked like it hadn't been brushed in years. She even smelled the same, of coriander and wood smoke.

“I was right about you, weren't I?” she said without smiling.

“More than you know,” said Sarmillion.

“I know,” she said, and Sarmillion felt the air go out of his lungs.

“How much?”

“All of it.” She stared at his slender ringed hands, and he knew she was seeing the long feather pen he once wrote with, the bone-dry ground with scant patches of brown weed where once there had been a fertile garden of stories.

“It was I who gave the Brinnians our Book of What Is.” His voice was so low even he could hardly hear it.

“Aye, it was.” She was watching him. “Ye can't stand in the path of destiny.”

No kidding
. Once that mean woman fixed her eye on something she was like an Omarrian fishwife at a boot sale. Sarmillion sighed. “Can't you tell me what to do to make things right? Can't you see ahead for me?”

She scowled. “I'm not in that line of work no more, ye know that.”

“Too true. You are a door-maker. And as it happens, I have a need to open a particular door that is locked.”

Willa straightened. “What door?”

“Does it matter?”

“It might. A locked door would be needing a key, and I ain't in the business of keys.”

“Let's just say in this instance a key would make no difference.”

Willa's eyes narrowed. “That door was sealed because ‘tis meant to stay closed.”

“Are you not a patriot, feirhaven?”

“Patriotism ain't got nothin' to do with nothin'. You're wanting to use bad to make good. A cake don't come out so nice if ye make it with rotten eggs.”

“Nonsense. This is a Loyalist venture. We shall use the undermagic for one thing only — to free the Cirran prisoners and rid our land of this Brinnian scourge forever. Then we close the brass door with the undermagic snug behind it, seal it up as good as new, and there's an end to it.”

“Is that how ye think the world works, underkitty?”

“Why shouldn't it work that way?”

“Because the undermagic don't bend when ye bend it, or leastwise not in the direction yer expecting. Ye let it out and it will run from you and never come back. Ye'll be rid of the

Brinnians, maybe, but ye'll have more of a problem on yer hands than ye bargained for.”

“That's your opinion, feirhaven.”

“This ain't guesswork, beef-wit, ‘tis a straight-up fact. You're naught but a dabbler in the magical world, and when it comes to sorcery, dabbling's the greatest menace there is.”

Sarmillion glowered at her. She didn't think him up to the task. Well. “I suppose you're going to tell me some nonsense about the beggar who comes for his kingdom, are you?” Immediately Willa was on her feet, picking Sarmillion up beneath his padded shoulders and pushing him hard against the shed wall.

“Feirhaven! The suit! You'll ruin it.”

“A bucket of steaming goat slag on yer damned suit! ‘Tis a difficult task ye got ahead. How about ye start it by not being a fool? Open yer eyes, underkitty. You've got yourself a dangerous friend, or haven't ye noticed?”

Sarmillion was trying not to be a fool, but at these words his whiskers stood straight and his considerable eyebrows furrowed. “Whom do you mean?”

Willa rolled her grey eyes. “The boy ye hide. Have ye not seen what he can do?”

Sarmillion nodded. His voice had left him.

“Where do ye think such a gift comes from? From the Great Light? Not likely.” She let go of him and backed away, but not far enough to make Sarmillion relax. “The Beggar King is back. He's roaming the streets and hunting for someone to help him. Run as fast as ye can in the other direction and take that slagging boy with ye, ye hear me? There's another way. The Great Light always shows ye a new way if ye just wait. A fool's road is wide and flat and makes for easy traveling, but that don't make it right.”

She moved towards the large sliding workshop door, looking suddenly stooped and frail. “Stay away from that brass door. Tell yer Loyalist friends to find a different solution.” And then she gripped the undercat hard by the arm. “Don't ye go sending that boy into the palace to feed yer guilty maw, neither. He's got no business being messed up in this and ye don't care for him anyhow.”

“Now that's a dirty lie.”

“Leave off, undercat!” she hollered. “You know very well what he's into. Ye saw him come off that bridge. Don't let him use his gift again, or there'll be trouble.”

Sarmillion couldn't speak.

Willa released his arm. “About the parchments in yer drawer,” she said almost softly. “Don't give up on ‘em. Ye'll have that feather in yer hat one day.” She slid the door open. “Go straight home. And mind ye stay out of trouble.”

Sarmillion took his leave with whatever shreds of dignity remained to him. As soon as the door closed behind him he decided to obey Willa's orders at once. He would not involve Jordan in anything, not even a Loyalist fact-finding mission. He cared too much about the boy to put him at risk. And so, as she had directed, he went home — to his apartment, to find that prying bar.

Sixteen
G
IVE AND
T
AKE

J
UST LIKE THAT, THEY CALLED IT
off. Sarmillion and Mars told Jordan they would not be requiring his services at the palace after all. So now he was hiding in the cave with absolutely nothing to do. The risk he'd taken in placing flowers at the holy tree had been meaningless. Jordan wore a path from one end of the cave to the other with his pacing.

He wrote, and rewrote, notes to Ophira, but they never came out quite right and he ended up tossing them all into the fire. If he could only sneak up to see her, just for a moment. He would have disappeared and slipped away, except for how it made him feel. Three times he had disappeared, and even now, after almost two weeks of hiding, he wasn't completely well. Just the thought of reaching into the air and pulling it back made him dizzy.

Yet at the same time he had an inexplicable urge to go back to that dark path. “You could be great.” Had he really heard those words? Willa had mentioned the possibility of a great gift. Were the two connected? He had crossed the Bridge of No Return; he had been worthy — but of what?

One afternoon the courier hawk finally arrived from Ut. Mars burst into the cave with the bird on his arm, Sarmillion right behind him fussing about the droppings that might stain his bed roll.

“Unfasten the binding,” Mars instructed. Jordan bent back the thin wire that held a small rolled parchment to the bird's leg. “Careful, now. Don't poke the creature.”

Jordan tried to unroll the message but Mars's work-hardened hand was swift in taking it from him.

“Classified,” he said. He moved towards a lantern in the corner of the cave and stood in his awkward hunch, eyes focused on the note.

“So?” cried Sarmillion.

“The prisoners are alive,” grunted Mars. “That's one thing. Prison camp's five miles due northeast of Utberg, but our spies say ‘tis well-hidden behind sand dunes. Took ‘em a long while to find it.” Then Mars said nothing. He didn't seem to be reading anymore.

“And?” said Jordan.

“That's it.” He toed the dirt floor with his work boot.

“There's more, isn't there?” said Jordan.

“No, there ain't.” Mars tucked the message into his overalls and exchanged a hard look with the undercat. Jordan suspected they would discuss it later when they thought he was asleep.

Sure enough, the hushed conversation came that night.

“Wanted to spare him some misery, is all,” Mars said, and Jordan listened with one eye open just a crack. “Spies say there's been plenty of trouble down in that Uttic prison camp, Cirrans sabotaging all sorts of stuff, plans to escape and what-not. Rabellus has lost his patience. He's given the order: build gallows and hang the lot of them at next half-moons.”

In one week.
Great Light.
Jordan clamped his mouth shut to keep from shouting. How would they ever save them?

Sarmillion was shifting from one foot to the other as if he had to go to the bathroom.

“What've ye got in yer pants, underkitty?”

“I shouldn't,” he sputtered. “I mean, I'm not supposed to, but she didn't say anything about matters of life and death.”

“Out with it!” hissed the gardener. “We ain't got all night.”

“Oh, blast the Right Thing anyhow. We must go up to the palace and open that brass door. We've got the undermagic at our fingertips. What choice do we have but to use it?”

Mars's face darkened and his hands clenched. “I ain't got time for foolishness, underkitty. There's not a case so desperate in the world that ye need to rely on dark sorcery to help ye out.”

“Well, Marsy, what do you propose we do? Send a contingent of untrained Cirran soldiers down to Ut with long sticks and bucket helmets? We don't have the men to fight an armed insurrection. We're not organized. We're a ragtag band of rebels with big hearts and no hope. And, I might add, no time. It takes ten days to sail to Ut; we have seven.”

Jordan lay there with his eyes half-closed. The undermagic. He wasn't sure what exactly the undermagic was; the underside of magic, whatever that meant. Glorious darkness.

“The undermagic may be our only hope,” Sarmillion said.

There was no mistaking Mars's quiet response for calm. “What if ye do open that brassed door? What if ye do find the undermagic? Ye got no idea what sort of power yer calling into this world. Wakin' the vultures; it could be worse by far than what we got with them Brinnians. Ye ever thought of that?”

Sarmillion ignored him. “The moons are new and we have nothing to lose. I'm going up there tomorrow night.”

In the candlelight the enormous shadow of Mars's head shook in dissent. “I've been burning offerings to the Great Light for guidance.”

“There's no time to waste, Marsy. Tomorrow night I'm going, with or without your help.”

“Then more the fool are you,” he snapped.

An air of foreboding hung about the three of them all the next day. Supper that evening was a simple meal of roasted eggplant and crusty bread. There was little conversation, and no laughter. Sarmillion dressed in black and waited grimly near the cave entrance for the sun to set.

“Off to see the little lady again?” Jordan couldn't help his sarcastic tone.

“Hmm?” said Sarmillion. “Oh, yes. Precisely.”

“With a prying bar?”

“No, old friend. I borrowed the prying bar. I'm dropping it off on my way.”