The Bonding (The Song and the Rhythm) (42 page)

When they finished their meal, the party members turned to their discussion of the night before. Merdel still said he wanted to try to obtain the wand on his own. His companions voiced the same arguments they already had.

Drath pointed at the mage with his fork. “You realize if you’re caught there’s not much chance of us rescuing you. No one has ever escaped the Mahalian dungeons, and I’ve never heard of a rescue attempt. Of course, this is assuming they don’t kill you on sight, which they’ll probably do.”

“Maybe not. It was a long time ago. Surely my offenses have been forgiven by now.” Still, Merdel sounded like he didn’t believe his own words.

“I’d wager against it.” Dart turned to Drath expectantly at the words, prompting the tall man to hastily amend his statement. “I mean, I doubt it. I’ve never heard of Quiris forgiving anyone, much less a criminal like you.”

Merdel’s eyes widened in mock indignation. “I beg your pardon.”

Vaun grinned. “What’d you do, Merdel, to be so hated by the emperor?”

The wizard hesitated. “I’d rather not say, because it might color your opinion of me. But I will tell you that one of the things I did was help someone escape the headsman’s axe.”

“Must’ve been an important person for the emperor to hate you so much.”

“Not really.” Thorne had that sour expression that appeared whenever the discussion turned to things he didn’t like. He eyed each of the men sitting around him, almost challenging them to dispute his words.

Vaun wasn’t about to argue with him.

Merdel coughed, breaking the sudden silence. “Now that that’s settled,” he began to rise, “I’ll be on my way to the castle.”

Drath grabbed the mage, pulled him back down into his seat, and held him down firmly by one shoulder. “You’re not going anywhere alone. If you insist on carrying out this foolishness, at least take one of us with you. That way, if they try to kill you, you might have some chance to escape. Or at least we’ll know if you’re beheaded.”

Merdel glanced shrewdly at Drath until the tall man frowned. “You don’t understand. I must go alone, otherwise it’ll look suspicious. I’ll see if I can have a conference with Pascor, wizard to wizard. That sort of thing isn’t unusual, so they might let me in. I didn’t have my beard when I left, and I was somewhat younger, so I might not be recognized. It’s the only easy way. If he won’t give me the wand, or won’t see me, we can let the elves try. At least let me do this first.” The wizard seemed desperate to prove his worth, as if someone had told him in recent days that his friends thought him useless.

Drath sighed. “Okay. If you must. But Rush and Dart are going to follow you so they can inform us of any trouble. I don’t know what we can do, but I’m sure we’ll figure out something. If not, we’ll at least come to your funeral.”

Merdel rose. “Thank you. But don’t worry, Drath, I’ll be all right. I’m a grown boy; I can take care of myself.” Smirking unlike a grown boy, the wizard walked confidently out of the tavern, his posture not quite concealing the dread the others knew he felt.

Drath mumbled what were probably insults toward the retreating wizard. After a moment of staring at the door, mumbling about how Merdel had talked him into this idiotic plan, he nodded to the two elves. Rising smoothly with unusually serious expressions on their angular faces, Rush and Dart hurried from the tavern and went in pursuit of the bearded mage.

“Okay, so now what?” Drath looked at both Thorne and Vaun across from him. The dwarf appeared to be trying to drink as much as possible before he remembered what city he was in, and Vaun was staring around as he usually did in an effort to see everything at once. “I know you probably want to stay as immobile as possible, Thorne, so I won’t ask if you wish to accompany me on a brisk stroll through the city. I need to walk around a little. What say you, young Swordsman? Would you like me to show you the gods-cursed city of Mahal? I won’t be as informative a guide as perhaps Thorne, but in our present location I will certainly be better company.” Drath made as if to rise.

Turning to Thorne, who shrugged off-handedly, Vaun bid farewell to the dwarf, who growled at them and drank off the rest of his ale. Vaun and Drath left The Silver Platter.

Mahal was by far the largest city Vaun Tarsus had ever visited. Granted, he had never been to any of the great cities of his own world, but he doubted they surpassed the splendor of this one. Buildings of all sizes rose on every side of him. Some were gargantuan structures of stone, looking as if they’d been there for centuries, while others were smaller, finely crafted buildings of wood, seeming to have been built only the day before. Almost all bore paint in bright and varied colors, and many had ornate signs or covered entranceways to proclaim the name of the establishment. The merchant stalls were almost as large as the houses, and Vaun wondered how they could possibly be moved.

Houses, shops, warehouses, taverns, inns, temples, and a hundred other establishments sat right next to each other, with no plan as to organization or structuring. Warehouses might be prevalent on one block, while on the next were nothing but houses, with a tiny workshop of some kind squeezed in. Thrown together as if by some spoiled giant child with too many toys to play with, the buildings outnumbered anything the youth had ever seen. And then, of course, there were the people.

Hundreds of people. Thousands of people. People everywhere. People buying, people selling. People walking around with seemingly no clue as to their destination, with others looking like they were on a divine mission. People from almost every known land mixed with the natives of Mahal to form the largest jumble of races in the world. Tall, dark-skinned foreigners milled about with shorter, light-skinned Mahals and other visitors. Elves and dwarves weren’t very common, but they were present. With the Western Kingdom’s attitude toward non-humans in general, Vaun found any individual of another race a surprise.

The snow falling moderately from the cloudy, though sunny sky seemed to have no effect on these people. The flakes failed to accumulate on the streets because of the number of feet that trod them, making the cobblestones slick and difficult to travel. Fortunately, enough people surrounded him that Vaun could use them as supports when he lost his balance. If he’d fallen, he doubted he could have avoided being trampled. He felt like he was pushed or shoved by at least one member from every known race, and if he’d been keeping track he might have discovered he’d guessed right.

The size and colors of the houses and the multitude around him, however, paled beside the noise assaulting his ears. Mules, oxen, and other beasts of burden snorted loudly as they hauled at their loads. The humans doing the same work made almost the same sounds at nearly the same volume, although their burdens tended more toward sedan chairs. Merchants virtually screamed at passersby, and those buying from them shouted back, all in a dozen or more different languages. Children laughed and cried, and parents scolded or praised. Birds for sale squawked and chirped, bells rang incessantly in high towers, and carts rattled noisily as they moved along. Vaun was approached almost every five steps by sellers of everything from shoe leather to a place in the Divine Playground. After being swamped by what seemed a hundred beggars dressed in rags, when he’d only given to one, the Swordsman heeded Drath’s advice and gave away no more coins. He still had a little bit left over from what Drath had given him earlier, as well as over half of the reward money Baron Hugo had given him in Landsby. He didn’t buy as much food as he did before, and he kept searching for more weapons to add to his arsenal. All the time he’d spent working with Rush and Dart gave him new respect for short blades, although he had a difficult time finding acceptable weapons. Drath told him Mahals weren’t known for their weaponsmithing.

The rest of the time, he followed Drath dazedly, thinking that if he left Mahal without being crushed or robbed, he’d probably end up deaf…or he’d be arrested for slicing the greedy smile off one too many merchants who thought him an ignorant Ramener. And if not for that, it’d be for punching one of the myriad of people who stared at the Vaulka on his back and talked about it while he was within earshot. It was almost as if they dared him to hear them. Another thing he was afraid of was Drath leaving him behind, for the tall man nearly ran in his frustration and talked almost nonstop.

“He’s a wind-blinded fool,” Drath muttered. “What if he’s caught? What can we possibly do? Getting inside the fire-blasted dungeons is next to impossible unless you’re being taken there, and it’s even harder to get out. And I’m leaving out the gigantic, ice-eaten task of getting Gwyndar’s wind-begotten Wand, which for all we know was eaten by some hungry rat. Doing both the same night would be sheer idiocy. Not that that’s anything new to us. I should never have let him go alone.” And Drath launched into another long tirade of calling Merdel names. Vaun had never heard some of the terms Drath used to describe Merdel, but from the sound of them they weren’t flattering.

Vaun glanced hesitantly over at Drath when he paused to catch his breath. “He could succeed.”

Drath scoffed indignantly. “Not likely. Even if Pascor is still Court Wizard, which, this being Mahal, is only remotely possible, if someone just happens to recognize him he’ll never leave here with his head on his shoulders. Fire and burning water, I never should’ve let him talk me into it.”

Vaun decided reasoning with Drath was futile, so he saved his breath. Even though the day was close to half over, they had only visited perhaps three districts, an area amounting to roughly half again the size of all of Landsby. “And this,” Drath said at one point, “is only a small portion of Mahal.”

They had yet to enter the temple district, one of the largest, which he studiously avoided because people were continually
recruited
into the orders, many never to be seen or heard from again. Neither had they made it to the university section of the city, which the tall man liked to visit despite its philosophy of teaching. The Mahalian university, called by Mahals the Place of Wondrous and Sundry Knowledge—Mahals always had flighty names for things just to make them seem more important—was considered among the top institutions of learning. The curriculum, however, revealed a certain amount of bias on the part of the professors. They taught the students that the entire world, in particular the south, belonged to the Western Kingdoms, which in turn belonged to Mahal. The more the students learned about how to take over the world, either through commerce or war or a clever combination of both, the better their grades. Of course, they remained all too painfully aware of the failure of past armies, something Drath relished immensely.

Despite his prejudice against the city and his insults of Merdel, Drath did manage to tell Vaun a little of Mahal’s sordid past. It started as a small shipping facility and trading post centuries ago, slowly growing with years of successful trade to its current vast size. Being naturally clever merchants, the Mahals had quickly learned the finer arts of negotiation, and some even mastered the more discreet art of piracy. Mahalian pirates, though, were nothing compared to those from Veldan. Legend held that Veldanese pirates could steal goods from a ship guarded by the entire Darim war fleet. Open trade deserved most of the credit for Mahal’s rise to power, which demonstrated just how skilled Mahalian merchants were. Now Mahal was one of the leading trade centers, and despite the corruption inside the city their dealings with other kingdoms, in trade only, had been relatively honest.

Kings, or emperors as they called themselves, had come and gone throughout the city’s history. Whether by assassination, war, suicide, or just plain bad luck, Mahalian rulers have been notorious for getting themselves killed. Suntikan I, Mahal’s first ruler, seemed to be the only one to have died without controversy, having passed away quietly in his sleep at the age of ninety-eight. Also, he was the only one that can be said to have been truly liked by his subjects.

“Not that Mahals hate their kings,” Drath told his friend. “They just don’t like some of the stupid things they do. Like impose order on their activities or levy taxes. You know, unfair things like that.”

Most of the monarchs, though, have been very clever and astute leaders, so Mahal has managed to prosper under them. The large noble families and the immense merchant population have always influenced, one way or another, the rule of the city. But the king, unpopular or not, has always been acknowledged as the supreme ruler. At least until his death. So much political turmoil has occurred inside just one room of the thousand-room palace that Drath abandoned any hope of describing it all to the Swordsman. Vaun found he didn’t regret the loss of information, as what the tall man had already told him made his head swim. He did, however, ask about Merdel and his connection to the city.

With the wind making low moaning noises in their ears and the other people’s voices a constant, noisy babble, the two friends had to virtually shout at each other to be heard. The snow had slackened since the morning, but the temperature had not. Despite the sun and the progression of the day into early afternoon, it only seemed to grow colder.

“That’s a tough one.” Drath jostled roughly against a swarthy easterner taller than himself. The lanky foreigner glared down indignantly and called Drath what, in his own tongue, was probably a very bad name. “I don’t know everything, and Merdel would turn me into a toad if I told you all I do know. I can tell you he was Court Wizard for a long time a number of years ago. He won’t even tell me exactly how long ago. He served well, he says, then made a few mistakes and was, shall we say, encouraged to leave. Actually, he was chased, but he likes to say the final decision to leave was primarily his own and one he’d considered for a while before everything happened. Of course, you’d choose to leave, too, if the king had ordered your head served to him on a platter alongside your hands and other essential body parts. That’s about all I can tell you because Merdel seldom talks about it. I don’t blame him.”

Vaun nodded. “And Thorne?”