The Merchant Adventurer (17 page)

Rattick had not pushed his luck. After killing the boy, he had left the Wizard’s presence as quickly as possible. Sure, there was the question of payment owed, but Rattick knew as well as anyone that dead men collect no tolls or tithes. Best to stay alive, for there was no profit in death. The Orcs carried Boltac’s sack high above their heads, fighting over it as they raced to the Great Hall. Rattick followed in the shadows, waiting for his chance to grab something of value before he escaped from the madness of the Wizard’s lair. Why were rich people always so dangerously out of touch with reality? Rattick wondered.

The Great Hall was ambitiously named yet modestly furnished. A large cavern off the main passage, it was a darker analog of a refectory at a traditional boy’s school. Large wooden tables with benches had once been lined up here. Now half of them were pushed into a jumble at the far end of the room. A mock fireplace carved into the living rock was full to overflowing with bits of discarded bone and gristle. Here and there, a wolf nosed through the scraps. Even to Rattick, this jumbled room looked like the end of a civilization.

Concealed by his cloak, he climbed the rough chamber wall and shimmied down a thick iron chain to a long unused chandelier. There he took up his perch and watched and waited.

The Orcs cleared a space in the center of the room where they fought over the bag. Claws darted in here and there, trying to snatch the contents. The room quickly filled to capacity with the brutish creatures. The noise of their disputations was deafening. The smell of so many of them, packed so close was debilitating. Rattick began to wonder if the chandelier had been a terrible idea. But he remained still and silent. There was nothing else to do.

Soon the bag was upended, and the contents spilled all over the floor. For such a tiny, plain bag, it was shocking to see how much it contained. Among the miscellany–the occasional weapon, rations of food, bits of apparel–came sack after sack of coin. They poured from the opening, landing on the floor with solid, seductive clinks of loot. What would they do with the gold? Rattick wondered. He decided to wait until they were tired of fighting amongst themselves. Then he would swoop down and collect as many of those sacks as he could.

Rattick’s dreams of avarice were shattered as he watched Orcs claw the leather bags apart and cram the gold pieces in their mouths. They clawed and fought and ate until all of Boltac’s gold–of which there was a substantial fortune–had disappeared into their monstrous gullets. Rattick sighed and felt an emotion that was very much like grief. Ah well, the dungeon had been good while it lasted, he thought. He’d wait for the creatures to disband then he would sneak out like the thief he was.

But the Orcs did not leave. Their squabbles gradually died down until, bloated on coin, they fell asleep under, on, and around the tables. Rattick cursed his luck and shifted his cramping legs. How much longer would he be stuck up here? He waited until the strange snores of the Orcs below wafted up to his ears. Then he uncoiled himself from his perch and climbed back down.

He snuck through the sated and sedate creatures as quietly as he could. When one near the door snorted heavily and rolled over, Rattick swore he could hear coins rattling in his belly. A plan suggested itself to Rattick. And, with Rattick, where there was a plan, there was almost always a sharp knife involved. He drew his cruel blade from the sheath on his thigh and considered how he might do this quietly. With an ordinary person, he would just cram a hand over the mouth and slide the dagger down into the neck. This would sever an artery deep inside the torso so that the person would bleed to death internally in a matter of seconds. It was very clean and very professional. Rattick prided himself on his knowledge of this assassin’s technique.

But with an Orc, this presented a number of problems. Not least of which: how do you cover a mouth that has tusks? And he had seen how brutishly powerful these things were. He doubted that they would die quietly. How could he hope to hold this one down? He hunkered in a nearby shadow and considered his prey. As he did, out of habit, he drew a whetstone from a pouch on his belt, spit on it, and began to sharpen the already razor-sharp knife. There was gold enough here. He just needed to figure out how to cut off a piece for himself.

When he heard a noise from outside, he replaced the knife and sharpening stone and then hid his hands under his robe. As the clawsteps drew closer, he closed his eyes so that the whites of them might not give him away when whoever it was entered. This was an old and important trick of Rattick’s. Hiding was a fine art, relying as much upon psychology as camouflage. The only time people looked carefully at a room was when they first walked in. Once they believed they knew who and what was there, it became very difficult for them to see anything new. It wasn’t so much hiding in plain sight as hiding in someone else’s self-enforced blind spot.

He heard another Orc enter the room. There was a shuffling and a scraping of claws. But there was no sharp intake of breath. No sudden movements. Rattick remained unseen. Then the Orc spoke, but in the human tongue.

“It is safe, they are all asleep,” said a voice both alien and familiar to Rattick. He opened his eyes and saw Samga, the Wizard’s clever Orc. And entering the room behind him… BOLTAC! In spite of his own general and considerable sneakitude, Rattick jumped at the sight of Boltac and struggled to stifle a curse.

“Well, somebody had a party,” said Boltac. “Did they eat everything?”

“Most likely just the metals.”

“Good, ‘cause there’s a couple of things it would be nice to have,” Boltac said as he searched the wreckage of the room. After a few moments, he held up a half-chewed, heavy wool mitten. “I suppose the other one is too much to ask for. See if you can find a wand, or the sack.”

Samga held up a shredded mass of fabric that had once been a Magic sack. “You mean this?”

“Ah, crap,” said Boltac. He took the burlap from Samga and examined it carefully. The torn shred contained nothing. Boltac turned it over and then over again. As he folded and unfolded it, something fell out onto the floor. It was a small, lacquered box. “Enh. Well, it’s better than nuttin’,” said Boltac as he tucked the box inside his tunic. “Well, if that’s all we got, it looks like we’ll be doing this the hard way, unless…” Boltac looked around the room at the sleeping Orcs and their bloated bellies. “You know, Samga, there was a lot of gold in that sack of mine. An awful lot. Did they eat all of it?”

“They kept eating until there was nothing left to eat,” Samga said with a shrug.

“En-henh. Not sophisticated and restrained like you.”

“As you say,” Samga said, surveying his kin with sadness. “All of your gold is gone. Such a shame.”

“It’s not gone,” said Boltac, “It’s in your friends’ stomachs, here. Important distinction.”

Samga did not understand much of anything humans said. The gold was eaten. And that other word, he had never heard it before, “Please, what does this word ‘friend’ mean.”

“Ya kiddin’ me, right?” said Boltac.

Samga gave him a flat Orc-ish look that admitted of no humor.

“Okay. You, Samga, you’re my
friend
. You are
helping
me, ergo, you are my friend,” said Boltac.

“But I am just hurting The Master,” said Samga.

“Yeah, it’s a trade. You help me by getting me out. I help you by hurting The Master, and we both benefit. Trade makes friends, Samga.”

“But you cannot be friends with such as I. I am beneath you.”

“What? Don’t be ridiculous. Beneath me? I mean, ya short, there’s no way around that. But I know good people. You, Samga, you are good people. Uh, Orcle? Whatever, c’mon. I still got a lady to rescue.”

Then Boltac noticed his Magic-detecting wand, trapped under a sleeping Orc’s leg. “Hey, uh, Samga, could you…” He pointed at the wand. “Probably better you than me if this thing wakes up.”

Samga lifted the leg and retrieved the Magic-detecting wand. It, too, had been gnawed on but had fared better than the bag and mittens. Boltac used what remained of his tunic to wipe the saliva from it.

“Okay, this will do, now let’s get outta here.” They returned to the door. Rattick thought that Boltac looked right through him–right into his eyes–but Boltac’s eye was drawn to something on the right side of the door.

“Hey,” Boltac said, “The sacred Lantern of Lamptopolis.”

“Lamptopolis?” asked Samga.

“Eh, never mind. It’s a long story. The damn thing doesn’t really work that well for me, but, as I always say, you can never have too much light or too much water.” Boltac reached down and grabbed the lamp by its handle. As he held it up, it blazed forth with a clear, brilliant light that filled the room as if the sun had been harnessed and dragged into the bowels of the earth.

Samga hissed and averted his eyes. Rattick covered his eyes to protect his night vision, but otherwise stayed absolutely motionless. For an instant, he was completely exposed, but there was nothing to be done.

“Holy crap!” Boltac said, and dropped the lamp with a clatter. Its light gradually faded away. Rubbing residual spots of brilliance from his eyes, Boltac stood over the lamp, confused. “I don’t understand. I mean, I’m not–”

“We must go!” said Samga.

Boltac looked up and realized that the Orcs, awakened by the commotion, had begun to stir. He grabbed the remnants of Themistre’s Bag of Holding and wrapped them around the lamp handle. This time, when he picked up the lamp, it did not light. He flipped a loose end of the burlap over the lamp’s motto. “Burns with the Flame of a True Heart,” Boltac muttered. “En-henh.”

One of the lethargic Orcs saw them go. The creature cried, “Hork!” but it was a half-hearted protest at best. The gold, heavy in its belly, made it difficult to rise.

Rattick slipped out of the shadows. How had Boltac survived his fall into the bottomless pit? And where was he headed now? Rattick sensed chaos. And where chaos rode, there were always plenty of spoils for the taking. He followed the Merchant and his unlikely guide.

“Samga. There you are,” said Dimsbury. He stood on the dais next to the Magic Flame. Above the dais Asarah hung by her legs. “Thank the Gods you have returned. Pass me that knife over there so I may open this woman’s neck.” Asarah attempted a scream, but it was muffled by a gag, which Dimsbury now tightened. “I must say, woman, I enjoy your company much more now that you are quiet. I will almost be sad to see you go. Samga, the knife!”

From over his shoulder, Dimsbury heard Samga say, “No.”

“‘No’? What do you mean ‘no’? There is no ‘no’!”

The Wizard turned to see a smiling Boltac standing next to his prized creature. “Samga, what do you have there? And wherever did you find it?”

“Back like a bad penny,” said Boltac.

“Before we get to the question of
how
,” Dimsbury said wearily, “I must ask you: why?”

“I’m here to do you in.”

Dimsbury gestured, vaguely, at Relan’s body, now discarded along the wall. “Yes, that was his idea as well. What makes you think you will fare any better?”

“I am not an idiot.”

“Idiots are always the last to find out,” said Dimsbury

“Eh-henh. You want I should say touché or something, or can we just get down to business?”

“Very well,” said Dimsbury, and picked up a medium-sized silver whistle from his desk. “I shall let my staff handle the light work.” He placed his lips to the whistle and blew. No sound came from the whistle, but Samga writhed in pain.

From outside there was a groaning commotion. Soon, metal-bloated Orcs streamed into the room. They snorted and growled and clanked and bitched in their brutish language about being awakened from their post-gluttony slumber. And, if such a thing were possible, they seemed even more frightening and contentious than Orcs usually did.

Dimsbury drew himself up to his full height. He lifted his arms and electricity crackled along his fingertips and the surface of his robes. In full voice, he began his mighty, doom-filled pronouncement. “Tear him–”

“Hang on,” said Boltac, “Hang on. Sorry to ruin your speech there. But I’ve got one of those too.” Boltac reached for his charm necklace. For the first time in a long time, he felt very, very lucky. He placed the tiny silver whistle to his lips and blew.

Nothing happened.

“I’m sorry, is that it?” asked Dimsbury, his voice dripping with contempt.

“Eh, hang on,” Boltac put the whistle to his lips again and blew as hard as he could. Blew until he was red in the face. Blew until he was sputtering and out of air. He finished with a defeated “huuuuuuuuh” as and then he gasped for air.

The Orcs looked at Boltac. Samga looked at Boltac. Hanging upside down, Asarah closed her eyes.

“Yes,” said Dimsbury, “if you are quite through?” Boltac looked down and away. “TEAR HIM LIMB FROM LIMB!”

There was nowhere to run. There was nothing to do. As the first Orc advanced, Boltac turned to Samga, “Sorry. I thought that would work.”

Snarling, the front line of Orcs reached for Boltac. Their claws and tusks searched in savage arcs for the soft, fat flesh of the Merchant. But before Boltac was torn open, the biggest Orc of all let out a long howl of pain. The other Orcs stopped to watch as it grasped its stomach and collapsed to the floor. Then another fell, and then another, until all of them were lying on the floor, writhing in pain.

“What is this foolishness?” demanded Dimsbury.

Boltac resumed blowing his whistle for all he was worth. As the Orcs writhed in agony on the floor, the largest of them made the connection. He lifted his taloned hand off the ground then plunged it deeply into his own stomach. The whistle dropped from Boltac’s lips has his face contorted in disgust. Coins exploded outward from the unfortunate creature’s stomach. Some spewed to the ground with gouts of blood and intestine. Others clicked and clinked as they ripped tiny slices of flesh from the now dying creature.

Boltac pumped one fist in victory. “NO SUCH THING AS A FREE LUNCH!” he shouted. The Creeping Coins crawled and swarmed over the Orcs, tearing them apart with the gnashing of thousands of tiny teeth.

A bolt of lightning exploded across the room.

Boltac held up his hand with the one Gauntlet of Magic Negation. It absorbed Dimsbury’s lightning bolt. “Hey! That worked!” Boltac said, laughing giddily.

Dimsbury furrowed his brow and said, “Very well. The fat man wants to play.”

The next bolt of lightning was so powerful Boltac thought his eyeballs had been seared from his head. When his sight returned from momentary blindness, he saw that the mitten on his left hand remained intact. As Dimsbury extended his arm again, Boltac closed his eyes. He felt an impact, and another, and another. The palm of the mitten grew hot and he fought off the urge to shake his hand. On his belt, the Magic-detecting wand vibrated wildly. “Okay,” said Boltac, “this isn’t funny anymore.”

“Do something!” Samga cried over the crackle of the lightning and the rush of superheated air.

“I can’t see!” protested Boltac. And the bolts kept coming and coming, pounding into his left arm. He could feel the mitten burning his flesh. And now tiny shocks, the leftover current that the Gauntlet could not absorb, forced the muscles of his arm to contract and twitch violently. He turned his face away from the Wizard, still holding his hand up. Eyes closed in a painful wince, he felt around for something, anything…

Samga pushed the heavy shelves over. They toppled into Dimsbury and knocked him back a step. The Wizard lashed out blindly, and a bolt of electricity caught Samga in the chest. Samga staggered backward, then collapsed. As Dimsbury turned back, he saw Boltac throw his wand across the room.

“Ha!” cried Boltac as the wand spun through the air. Dimsbury sneered and raised his hand to launch another blast at the now-distracted Merchant. But as the wand flew toward Dimsbury, it suddenly veered off toward the jar on the dais, drawn inexorably to the Flame.

Boltac gaped. He’d seen the wand react in any number of disturbing ways to potent Magic. What it would do in the presence of its very source, he had no idea.

The wand dived into the jar, there was a wuffing sound, and the Flame snapped into sharp focus. The wand reached the heart of the Flame and stopped moving. Everything stopped moving.

Boltac ran to the dais, swung Asarah off to the side and her to the ground. As he knelt to untie her, he felt rather than heard the high-pitched whine growing louder and louder, and a buzzing and clacking that raised the hair on the back of his neck. Looking up at the dais, he saw the Magic-detecting wand flying and whirling in the Flame, its brass tip chipping away at the inside of the jar.

“What have you done?” Dimsbury screamed. Then he realized he didn’t care. He threw his hands forward in a gesture of power that was certain to obliterate Boltac. But nothing happened.

Dimsbury looked at his hands, confused, and tried again. “STOP!” he commanded. Still, nothing happened. “What have you done?” he asked weakly.

Dimsbury turned toward the dais and the brilliant Flame trapped by the frenzied wand. The flow of Magic, yes, he thought, that’s what it had to be. The flow of Magic had been blocked. The pressure was building up behind it. Inside the illuminated jar the wand spun furiously, emitting the high-pitched, rising whine that dominated the room. If Dimsbury could stop the wand, unblock the flow. He reached out, trembling, and touched one fingertip to the protective jar.

Boltac threw himself over Asarah. “Stay down,” he shouted in her ear.

As Dimsbury’s finger brushed the surface of the jar, the glass shattered into a million fragments, each of those fragments shattering again with the force of the exploding Flame.

The explosion knocked everyone flat. So close to the dais, Boltac was spared the worst of the blast, Asarah safe beneath him. Samga, still surprised to have survived a bolt of lightning to his chest, had just risen to his hands and knees. He saw Dimsbury fly over his head, then the blast threw him across the room. He landed next to what was left of Relan. Even the Creeping Coins were flung about so violently they retracted into their glittering carapaces and pretended to be currency.

As Boltac raised his head, he heard a moan coming from Relan’s corpse. Wait! Moan? Not a corpse! Somehow Relan was still alive!?! “Too stupid to die?” Boltac asked. Then he searched in his tunic for the small lacquered box. His hands shook as he opened it. Within lay a tiny flask covered in ornately wrapped gold wire. No bigger than Boltac’s thumb, this vial looked as if it could contain no more than the amount of liquid found in a few tears.

Boltac looked at the heap of Relan. The blood soaked into his tunic was already turning brown. There was no color left in his face. The boy’s lips were blue, but still his chest rose and fell. How was it that he lived? Was this not another kind of Magic? The Magic of will alone?

“Kid,” Boltac said softly. “C’mon, kid.” He carefully removed the tiny top from the flask. With even more care, he lifted the tiny bottle to Relan’s blue and lifeless lips. Only the slightest flutter of air against Boltac’s fingers gave him any hope that the lad was still alive. Boltac doubted that there was enough liquid to do more than wet Relan’s tongue. There was scarcely a chance that this would work at all. But there was so little chance that any of this should work, so why not? Why not?

He tipped the bottle up and the few drops it contained disappeared into the cave of Relan’s mouth. Boltac reached up and grasped his charm necklace. He squeezed all of the many charms so hard they cut into the palm of his hand. Boltac prayed. As the charms cut into his palm and the facets and limbs of the main strange charms filled with his blood, Boltac prayed to everybody.

On the other side of the room, Dimsbury felt the tingle of power dance along his limbs again. The Magic was back! He sat up and exclaimed, “I will have power again.” Then he sneezed twice, not understanding the sharp pain that was shooting through his skull. And why did the room look different? Flatter? What was in front of his face? He brought his hand up and bumped something. The pain became excruciating. Dimsbury realized that the Merchant’s wand was lodged in his left eye. He collapsed back to the floor with the shock of it and lay there, hyperventilating. He tried to calm himself and think.

With his one good eye he could see what was left of the Flame, the Font of all Magic, guttering and flickering in the circle of jagged spikes that were all that remained of the massive glass jar. The Flame was about to go out. No, thought Dimsbury, this could not be! How could this Merchant–how could this fat, ignorant, money-grubbing aberration–stop a mighty Wizard like Alston Dimsbury? Did he know what a world without Magic would be like? Could such a thing even exist? For himself, and for the greater good, Dimsbury realized he must touch the Flame to restore his power, then somehow coax it back to a fuller life.

As he struggled to regain his feet, a shape appeared before him. Dimsbury looked up and saw Samga. The Orc held his chest with one hand and sagged in pain. Samga said, “Master,” because he didn’t have another name for the man who lay before him.

“Yes, Samga, my faithful servant after all. Thank goodness I did not strike you down. Please, help me,” said the Wizard, not entirely aware that he was begging.

“You made me strong,” said Samga.

“Samga, Samga. You are my finest work. All is forgiven, my creation. Bring your father closer to the Flame so that I may regain my power.”

Samga bent and picked up Dimsbury.

“Yes, good Samga. Brave Samga,” whispered Dimsbury, touching the wand in his eye gingerly.

Samga looked up at the circle of heads mounted on the wall. The broken and aborted things that had led to him. The trial and the error, the arrogant misuse of power in an attempt to craft life itself. Not for the first time, Samga wished that he had never been made.

“Yessss,” said Dimsbury. “Just a little closer. Let me dip my fingers in the torrent of Magic and then, and THEN!” Dimsbury was interrupted by a fit of coughing.

As his clacking steps took Samga closer to the flame, he lifted the Wizard high above his head.

“What? What are you doing Samga? Lower me! The Master commands!”

“The Servant does not obey!”

Samga threw the Wizard onto the sharpened teeth of the shattered jar. Dimsbury felt the teeth of glass bite deep into his stomach. Then there was a terrible, tearing noise. The Flame leapt up, again in perfect focus. With perfect hunger, it sucked greedily of Dimsbury’s blood. As Dimsbury screamed the flames turned white and leapt up as hungry as any non magical fire had ever been. Dimsbury continued to scream as power shot through him and raked the top of the chamber. The very earth around them shook and still the Wizard screamed.

The Flame folded in on itself. With a crunching of bones and a whimpering, the Wizard was folded up with it. His form flickered in the Magic light, tinier and tinier and tinier, until the Flame shrank to the flicker of a mere candle, and nothing remained of the Wizard.