The Beggar King (7 page)

“I will not be a scribe for the Brinnian Empire,” he roared, one furry hand punching the air. “I remain loyal to High Priestess Arrabel and the Cirran mysteries.”
Liar
, hissed the voice in his head, but Sarmillion ignored it. “Long live the priesthood. May the Great Light shine upon you all,” and the crowd that had surrounded the undercat and his little bonfire cheered. Sarmillion noticed the tanned skin and dark curly hair of the Elliott boy among them.

Suddenly there was a whistle and the call of “Landguards” from someone who'd been watching. An older man in work boots hurried to stamp out the fire and Sarmillion eased himself into a group of Cirrans and made his way off the Common wearing only a pair of silk pants and sandals.

Mars grabbed him by one arm and fixed him with those eyes that shone such a bright blue in his weathered face. “Are ye going to Omar, then?”

Sarmillion nodded.

“Listen well,” he said quietly. “We'll need to find out where they're keeping Arrabel and the others. Keep yer eyes and ears open, underkitty. Omarrians talk, specially in their taverns. And I expect them black boots will be about, as well. Stay out of trouble, now.”

“You know me,” said Sarmillion.

“'Tis exactly what worries me,” said Mars, but the way his bushy eyebrows rose and fell, Sarmillion couldn't help but smile.

As the undercat set off on the road to Omar, Jordan caught up with him.

“You'll get yourself arrested acting like that,” he said, though Sarmillion noted with pleasure that the boy's green eyes were warm with admiration.

Sarmillion puffed out his furry chest. He could become the self-appointed saviour of precious Cirran parchments before Rabellus destroyed them. He could steal them. Burglary could be his redemption.

“My boy,” Sarmillion intoned, “We're going to fight this Brinnian rogue. We're calling ourselves Loyalists. We will — ” he stopped. “Why aren't you in school?”

“No time for school.” Jordan had that same gleam in his eyes. “I'm going to be a Loyalist, too.”

Sarmillion swatted the air. “Oh, absurdity. Oh, recklessness. You shall do no such thing. Your father would never forgive me. Besides, you need an education.”

“I'm getting one,” said Jordan.

The road sloped downwards and they followed it for several minutes without speaking.

“Do you know anything about a brass door near the library archives?” Jordan asked.

Sarmillion's whiskers drooped into a scowl. “That door is forbidden. It's no place for a child. And how ever did you hear of such a thing?”

Jordan coughed. “A scullery maid showed it to me.”

Sarmillion studied the boy, who immediately focused upon a hideous display of porcelain rooftop ornaments, and then the undercat understood. He could sniff out a lie as easily as a piece of fried trout. “What sort of mischief have you been dirtying your fingers with?”

“Nothing. I told you.” But Jordan still refused to look at him.

Sarmillion put an arm around his shoulder. He admired anyone who had the courage to follow the dark and twisting labyrinth that led to that door. A person could get lost. And there were spiders.

“You didn't touch it, did you?” he asked. “It's enchanted, you know.”

“Enchanted?” Jordan said and pulled away.

“Your maid forgot to mention that, I suppose,” said Sarmillion. “Scullery maids know their nutty-buns, may the Great Light shine upon ‘em, but when it comes to enchantments their only education is whatever they learned on their grannies' laps. Once long ago Master Mimosa touched that door, I'll have you know, and two weeks later his great uncle dropped dead of a heart attack. I'm telling you, it's a hazard. It should never have been put there, but there's not a thing anyone can do about it now.” He grunted. “Next you'll be telling me you opened the blasted thing.”

They walked in strained silence for another minute and then the boy asked, “Does anyone know what those runes say on the outside of the door?”

“Indeed,” said Sarmillion. “They say, ‘This door does not open for fools, rascals or teenaged boys. Period. All fools, rascals and teenaged boys who find themselves in front of this door should take themselves home immediately and douse themselves in cold water and then perform ten years of penance for their stupidity.'”

“It doesn't really say that,” said Jordan.

“I forgot, you're wise beyond your years,” said Sarmillion with a good-natured chuckle. “No, it doesn't say that. But I'm under palace oath to keep certain secrets.”
Like the secret of the
Book of What Is, for example.
The thought came unbidden, and he was quick to stuff it back down where it would keep quiet. “In Arrabel's time there was always a Landguard posted at the entrance to that hallway. You wouldn't have gotten within a hundred feet of that door.”

“Why? What's behind it that's so dangerous?”

Sarmillion wagged a finger at him. “I told you, I'm sworn to secrecy, loyal to Arrabel and all that.” He cringed inwardly, for a memory had come to him all at once, the way bad ones always do, as if they've been called by one of those high-pitched whistles only dogs can hear. It had all been foretold, his treason, long ago and when it had had little meaning, by Willa — in the days when she'd still been a seer.

He'd been fifteen, Jordan's age now, and his father had taken him to her to determine if he might truly have the writer's gift of tale-spinning. Willa had taken one look at him, just one, and declared, “Liar! Traitor!” which had scared the fur off Sarmillion's teenaged self. But his father had been elated.

“We have a writer in the family,” he told all the neighbours.

Sarmillion had all but forgotten the incident. But now, as he fled the scene of his own traitorous crime, he realized he had fulfilled Willa's prophecy.

Besides, hadn't he snuck down that very hallway once in his life when the fellow guarding it had slipped away for his nightly nip of mug-wine? The truth was, Sarmillion had gone to seek out that door specifically to read the ancient runes he'd heard had been set into them. He'd never forgotten them; blast it anyway, he'd absorbed the words through his fingertips until they'd sunk into his blood, and wasn't that why the door-maker had done it? Of course it was.

Beware this door, beware your soul! May this door never be opened, or the beggar shall be king. Think twice and thrice, for if it be opened, this door can never again be shut.

Now he remembered another one of Balbadoris's questions. “How would one rid the world of the Beggar King if ever the circumstances arose?” the old scholar had asked him.

“If the circumstances arose?” Sarmillion had scoffed. “But they never would. How can you rid the world of an idea?”

“By drowning it in the River of the Dead,” he'd hollered. Oh, Balbadoris's ire had been great that day. He did not share Sarmillion's view that the Beggar King was merely a metaphor.

But there it was. Sarmillion had considered it silliness then, and he thought it so now. Even if there was such thing as the Beggar King, a person would have to be dead before arriving at the River of the Dead (hence, the name) and so would not be much use as far as drowning was concerned.

The sound of the river brought Sarmillion back to himself. The Balakan River ran grand, clear and wide, spanned by the twelve bridges which connected the mountain-island city with the rest of Katir-Cir.

“Can I come to Omar with you?” Jordan asked.

“You most certainly cannot. And if the Great Light knows what's what, there won't be a single bridge in Cir that will grant you passage. Now, go back up that road and get to school. Learn something that will make your father proud.”

He leaned towards the boy and confided, “A Loyalist needs to know his history if he wants to fight with the sharpest weapons.” Then Sarmillion gave a gallant bow. “May the Great Light shine upon you.”

But something must have occurred to Jordan, for his forehead wrinkled and he asked, “What robes will you wear? What will you do?”

The undercat shrugged. “I won't take robes under Brinnian rule. I shall live by my wits, boy, and stout glasses of mug-wine.” It sounded impressive, but in reality Sarmillion didn't have a single idea what he would do now, and he wasn't convinced his wits were sharp enough to earn him even a place to sleep.

He gripped Balbadoris's varnished oak walking stick and set his foot upon the stone Bridge of Resolve, which admitted him immediately.

Six
S
PELLS FOR
B
OYS

J
ORDAN GAVE
S
ARMILLION A SAD WAVE
as the undercat embarked upon the stone bridge. But as soon as he was out of sight, Jordan moved towards the same bridge. He was going to Omar to find a door-maker named Willa and ask her about a brass door that should have been guarded, but wasn't. Jordan grimaced. He hadn't just touched it, he'd opened it — and hadn't Sarmillion told him about Master Mimosa's great uncle who had died just because the scholar had touched the door? What if Jordan had doomed his mother? Great Light, what had he done?

He approached the Bridge of Resolve with a determined stride. But as soon as he tried to put his foot down on the stones, he felt a force like a giant hand push it back and knock him to the ground.

“Slag,” he said as he got up, rubbing his backside.

Each of the twelve bridges connecting Cir to the mainland possessed a particular wisdom which people had no choice but to respect. You were granted passage upon the bridge that best reflected your state of mind. It forced you to think every time about why you were entering or leaving the Holy City. Practically speaking, it sometimes meant you had to walk for miles before you found a bridge that admitted you. Sometimes it meant not crossing at all.

Jordan moved on towards the bridge he used most often when skipping school to spend the afternoon in Somberholt Forest — Ne'er Do Well — but to no avail. He sped right past Amethyst, which required complete tranquility to cross, and past the Bridge of No Return, which no one ever used. Finally he reached the Undetermined Walkway, but it was hopeless. He was stopped in his tracks by an invisible force so strong he felt as if he'd smacked right into a wall. The distant shimmer of the Bridge of Many Happy Returns was so out of synch with his mood he didn't bother checking it. Now what?

There was nothing for it but to go all the way back and try Peril. As he made his way once again past the tar-black Bridge of No Return, something made him stop. But no, surely it would be futile to try this bridge. And yet, if he didn't, he would spend the rest of the afternoon trekking from one bridge to the next, and then it would be time to go home.

Jordan knew only one thing about this bridge: no one ever used it except Balbadoris, once a year on the Feast of the Great Light, when he dressed up as the Beggar King and had scores of children chasing him towards it. But he'd always come back, so the name couldn't mean what it suggested.
It won't admit
me
. Still he hurried towards it, as if his feet knew something he didn't.

Not a soul was about this morning. Most people were probably still stunned by Emperor Rabellus's performance in the Meditary the night before. So no one gasped as Jordan took hold of the black wooden handrails of the Bridge of No Return and hoisted himself up onto its slanted entryway. No one cried out in shock as he took one step forward, and then another. He walked as if in a trance.

Halfway across, Jordan realized where he was. He realized with this horribly sensible adult reason that had begun forming inside him, which told him if he made it to the end of the bridge he might be doing something irreversible, something he would regret forever.

He spun around and ran back the way he'd come. This time he knew the Undetermined Walkway would grant him access, and it did. As he crossed, he glanced over at the black bridge and while the sensible adult told him he'd made the right decision, the teenager in him couldn't help but tingle at what might have happened if he'd stayed on it.

Once across the bridge, he found himself on a path with three choices. Before him was the entrance to Somberholt Forest, a place he knew well. To one side was a path that led to the bridges on the Omarrian side. And to the other was the footpath that led into Omar and, of course, to the bazaar.

This was not the first time he'd crossed to the Omarrian mainland, but on every other occasion he'd lacked the courage to veer towards the bazaar. His father's warnings of drunken underrats and dirty-dealing merchants had scared him enough to limit his truancy to Somberholt's cedar grove. But today he did not head into the trees. Today he set his feet towards Omar and, with his eyes averted from the adults who might ask why he wasn't in school, he walked.

While the Holy City's buildings were made uniformly of whitewashed stone, Omarrians painted their homes and shops in brilliant reds, blues and yellows. Crossing the Balakan River felt like entering a different country.

The bazaar was Omar's most infamous attraction, stretching like a maze from one end of the city to the other. As Jordan wandered in, he overheard two men arguing over the price of a goat. Nearby, some kind of meat sizzled in a sauce that smelled of pepper, and several women were shrieking about a snake that had fallen out of somebody's basket. A flash of yellow slithered past Jordan's feet, making him jump back. Chickens and goats sauntered by the canvas-partitioned stalls as if they, too, were browsing the merchandise. Merchants called to customers about the best prices for porcelain figurines or sasapher pipes, while in the background there was the erratic hammering of tradesmen. He closed his eyes and breathed it all in.

“Trinkets,” called a man in a striped suit. “Almost free.” Nearby came the jittery music of several twangers accompanied by a single flute. Jordan had heard about the wild women belt-dancers who moved with the travelling musicians, selling woven belts scented with cinnamon. He'd heard that sometimes the dancers took strangers with them for the night and that when you came home you couldn't speak for a whole week.