The Beggar King (25 page)

“I'm fine.” Jordan was bounding towards the back door when Tanny yelled, “Wait! Your uniform. The Cirrans won't know you. You'll be in danger.”

“I'll change,” said Jordan.

He turned to one of the other women. “Go spread the word to Theophen and the others, now, while surprise is still on our side.”

The bright sun nearly blinded Jordan as he left the tent. The black Landguard uniform he wore drew in the stifling midday heat, and beads of sweat trickled down his temples. In his mind he chose a white suit of Uttic fabric and commanded the change, but the change did not come.

Jordan's eyes darted from the rows of tents to the barbed wire barriers farther away. Thanks to the sickness he'd inflicted on some of the guards, Uttic soldiers had already burst through the north and south gates of the camp and were felling Brinnians with their arrows. An arrow flew past Jordan's shoulder and he cursed. A second arrow grazed his leg.

He had no choice; he would have to disappear. He reached behind him and tugged at the air, taking himself out of the Uttic camp and back onto the dark path, but he found it was dark no longer. The vulture people and their candles milled everywhere around him, some alone and others clustered in small groups. Farther away on a platform near the riverbank sat the Beggar King. He was perched not on any simple chair but upon a golden throne, his eyes fixed on Jordan.

“It will want feeding, carver's son. It is inclined to want, just like you. Have you anything to give it?”

Jordan shouted, “Give it what it wants. I can't afford to be without it now.”

“As you wish.”

Jordan used his hidden path to find his way to Arrabel's tent. The world he'd left behind was now in chaos, with Brinnian guards running in every direction. Some languished near the gallows at one end of the camp, while others struggled to flee. Many were so sick with Jordan's curse they could do nothing to save themselves. Theophen's men had gathered planks, hammers and anything else they could use as weaponry. There were the hard, heavy sounds of wood making contact with human limbs. Jordan heard cries of pain and the sound of bodies hitting the ground. In the distance he could hear Theophen issuing commands.

When Jordan arrived at Arrabel's tent, there were two wooden chairs sitting at the entrance but no guards. He re-entered the world, snuck inside the tent where it was cool and smelled of damp sand, and nearly fell into an enormous hole in the ground.

“My lady?” he called down into the opening.

“Who's there?” Her voice was clear and strong.

“My lady, it's Jordan Elliott, Tanny's son. I've come to set you free.” He spied a rope coiled in one corner of the tent. He fastened one end to a metal bar that must have been intended for that purpose, then dropped the rope into the dark hole and shimmied down.

It was so dark in the underground cell that, without thinking, Jordan pulled the candle from his pocket so that he could see. Arrabel was in a corner, her arms and legs fastened with ropes, her blue robes stained and torn, her long blonde hair in a tangle. She was staring at him with terror in her eyes.

“Don't worry,” he said, fingering the black lapel of his uniform, “this is just a disguise.”

“Where did you get that candle?” she asked. Her words were almost inaudible over the grunts and calls of battle that sounded above them. “Jordan, what have you done?”

“It was the only way, my lady. Nothing else would have saved you in time. Watch.” And with his gaze he made the ropes fall away from her limbs.

In an instant she was on her feet. “Do not use that detestable power on me.”

Jordan shoved the candle back into his pocket.

“Give it to me at once.”

He took a step away from her. “No.”

“Jordan. Give it to me.”

“Listen to the battle above us. That's thanks to the undermagic. I was only able to get here before half-moons because of it. Don't you see? Nothing else would have worked.”

“You don't know the price you've paid for it.”

“I felt ill, at first. That was the price, and I was willing to pay it to save my people.”

Arrabel stood rigidly straight. “Is that what you think?”

She grasped his arm, covered his eyes with her hand and said, “Look!”

At first Jordan saw only darkness, but gradually it gave way to visions that faded in and out, one after the next: crows, as far as the eye could see, darkening the whitewashed stone of the Holy City; vulture people lurking in the shadows; yellow finches dropping from the sky. And the seven seers gathered together, chanting the prayers for desperate situations over the inert body of Ophira.

“It needed feeding,” he heard the Beggar King say. “You told it to take what it wanted.”

Jordan's knees gave way and he sank to the ground. “I didn't know,” he cried.

“It was the Beggar King who came to you, was it not, Jordan?” asked Arrabel.

“Yes.” His voice was small.

“He'll say anything to make you do his bidding. And he will never reveal the full price of what he provides until it's too late.”

“Is it?” he rasped. “Is it too late?”

“I can't say. We'll have to return to the brass door. I cannot make promises. No one has ever brought the undermagic back to Katir-Cir. The runes upon the door itself say that once it has been opened, it can never be shut.”

Arrabel's blue eyes were steely. “It was Sister Lucinda, our bright moon, who wrote those words, Jordan. Her warning was meant to be heeded. It took all of her power — her very life — to seal that door.”

“But maybe we could use this,” he held up the candle. “Couldn't it heal Ophira? It certainly brings sickness quickly enough.” And he winced, for he had said more than he'd intended.

“The undermagic is what's making her sick, Jordan. It does not have the power to heal. This is a magic that brings curses, and twists the world into the shape of your desire. It chooses darkness. Only the power of the Great Light can heal.” She put out her hand. “Give me the candle.”

Jordan held the candle before him. He did not give it to her.

“We are all inclined to want, my friend. But the Great Light provides, if only you ask.”

“Cirrans have been praying for a full year for you to come home, and nothing has happened.”

“Are you so certain of that?” In one movement she knocked the candle from his hand.

“It can't touch my skin,” she said. “I'll have to find something to contain it.”

Jordan was doubled over, holding himself tight at the elbows. Every part of his body ached. Sweat formed on his face and he clenched his teeth.

“I know a potion that might help,” she said. “It requires sasapher, which your mother has in her kitchen garden.” She stroked his head. Her hand was cool against his face. “You know, I had such a terrible premonition about you on the day of the coup.”

He had scarcely the energy to nod, but he remembered how she had looked at him that day so long ago, on his fifteenth birthday.

“That was the day I first saw him,” he breathed.

And while the battle clashed above them he lay down in the sand and she began to sing, a soft sad tune that made Jordan think of falling leaves and a north breeze. He rested in the gentle light of her gaze.

Twenty-Five
T
HE
S
EVEN
S
EERS OF
C
IR

T
HE POSTERS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS WERE PLASTERED
on walls all across the Holy City declaring that a Half-Moons Festival would be held in a few days at the palace. There would be feasting and mug-wine and contests, and sometime that afternoon Emperor Rabellus would make a grand statement. Sarmillion didn't know what this would entail, but he feared the worst. Jordan had been gone for four days now, disappeared from the guest room of the seers' house. And it was entirely his fault.

He'd encouraged the boy. Blast it anyway, he'd damn near begged him to open that brass door. “We'd both be heroes. Glory, girls and groder. It's the only way to save them.”

He cringed at the memory. That night — the night it had all happened — Willa had stood there, her eyes blazing. “I knew ye never cared for the boy,” she'd said. “Yer a selfish undercat, right down to the bone.”

Sarmillion had left the Alley of Seers with his head down and his heart heavy, and had hidden in The Pit, drinking Bloody Billy's and listening to Binur charm the cobras. He'd burrowed into his grand apartment, and even went shopping — the known cure for every ill, though he'd come home empty-handed. The truth was, he did care about Jordan. That was the trouble.

This was no metaphor haunting the Holy City streets, he had to admit it now. All his scribing wisdom and fancy words and pretty little ideas — oh, fat-headedness, oh, conceit! There was evil in the murders of crows that blackened the sky. The nights bore the evidence of imbalance in the moons themselves, one now unmistakably darker than the other. Sarmillion had thought the stories of ghoulish vulture people appearing with candles were sheer nonsense, until last night when he'd seen one himself. He'd been a fool, a pretentious, hot-aired pumpkin head who had never truly believed in the undermagic until now that it prowled the city streets.

What could he do? He had to do something.

He spent that night at the Elliotts' empty house, setting lanterns in every window and hanging two more sets of glass chimes outside. He tried to coax green out of what had once been wild-evergreen ivy, but no amount of watering could undo this curse. The new growth of poisonous stinkweed choked even the stubborn peppermint plants.

The next morning, Sarmillion awoke at dawn — an hour he usually only saw if he'd happened to stay out all night — and headed out. The sun rose with a shadow across it, barely brightening the whitewashed Cirran stone.

“Be gone!” a butcher cried, as crows flew at the meat he was setting out at the market, but they paid him no heed.

Down the road Sarmillion spied a tall, bearded man dressed in brown robes, walking at a determined pace and talking to himself. The robes bespoke a tradesman, but there was no mistaking the clipped stride, the aristocratic tilt to his nose, and the way the fellow's expression soured as he passed the agricultural stalls. He acted as if he expected someone to throw flowers in his path or touch the hem of his garment. And why not? For this was none other than Emperor Rabellus himself. Emperor Rabellus, disguised as a commoner.

No jewels? No fanfare?
What in the name of dried dung is
he up to?
There was only one way to find out. The undercat followed him.

Eventually it became clear where he was headed, to an alley where the doorways were closely set, and the air was already heavy with prophecy and the scent of frying fish. It was the Alley of Seers, Sarmillion's own destination.

There they were, all seven of them in veiled saffron, sitting on their front stoops. Mama Bintou held her knitting on her lap but she just stared straight ahead. Next to her sat Mama Cantare, humming a mournful tune. Appollonia's eyes were fluttering open and shut as she discussed something heatedly with Mopu the Monkey-Maker, while Willa and Petsane were engaged in a passionate argument about which healer should be summoned next. Manjuza sat with her veiled face to the darkened sky.

The undercat tucked himself into a shadowy corner and watched.

Emperor Rabellus strode right up to Manjuza and then stood there. Probably he was waiting for her to offer him one of the Brinnian greetings, “Glorious Rabellus,” or, “Emperor be praised,” but she kept gazing up into nothing as if it was by far the more interesting view.

“Feirhaven!” he barked.

“Eh?” She pressed a small bony hand to her face and peered at him as if he were a curious specimen of lizard. “Well, if it ain't our fine Mister Mucky-Muck, the man what pretend to be king, wearing his slumming clothes.”

His face reddened.

“You come about the girl,” said Mama Bintou, and her knitting needles clattered to the cobblestones. Rabellus's face contorted as he tried to come to terms with the fact that these women really could see what others could not.

“I have no idea what you're talking about,” he said.

“Sure you don't,” said Grandma Mopu.

He huffed and said, “I would prefer to have this discussion in private.”

Manjuza waved away his concerns. “Our visions are like meadows to us, Mister Mucky-Muck. We all tramp about on them in our bare feet. Ye got no secrets here.”

“Where is she?” he said huskily. “She was supposed to come to my chambers. She hasn't been there these several nights.”

“Ophira has taken ill,” said Grandma Mopu, “and has suffered many days of fever. You will not disturb her. In any case,” her eyes hardened, “you don't seek her for her prophecies.”

“You come about the girl,” Grandma Bintou said, “when you ought to be coming about the undermagic.”

Rabellus stiffened. “Don't speak of such absurdity around me,” he said. “There is no magic, and there is no undermagic.

But, as it so happens, I'm also here to inquire about this,” and he waved his hand vaguely at the sky. “You are creating chaos.”

“Us? We're the ones causing a rumpus in this city?” said Willa.

“This thing you've brought on, this is the work of charlatans.

Seven crotchety con artists who use trickery to call birds and kill plants and make foolish peasant folk believe they see vultures that are part-human. Fah! You will cease and desist with this claptrap or I shall throw you in prison. You're spoiling the mood for my festivities.”

Mopu chuckled. “Spoiling the mood, are we? Ah yes, I'd forgotten, everything in the Holy City is about you now. The universe revolves around the emperor. Careful, big man. This world will make a monkey of you yet.”