Guardians Of The Flame - Legacy Part 23

He threw his things into his saddlebags and retrieved his disguised rifle. "What does it look like?"

"You're not leaving. Listen to me. It can end here. Here's where you can turn around, and head back to Home. By the time you get therea""

"No."

"Then at least stay with me for the night. We'll drop off the horses and cart at the Hand Residence; I'll go find us a room somewhere and we can talk about it." She muttered a few quick words and hung the reins in the air, rising from the bench and crawling into the wagon.

Doria drew herself up straight. "I swear, Jason, you put all that down and agree to stay with me tonight, or I'll Compel you." She turned halfway away from him, almost into a fighting stance. "I swear it."

"You can't." He sneered. "You can't help me, remember?"

"I could." Doria smiled thinly. "Once. The spells are in my head, boy. My . . . standing wouldn't be forfeit until I used the spell, until I actually helped you."

"This isn't help."

"I say it is. Now, do I have your word?"

"Go ahead, Doria. Try it. Then what'll you be? A nothing, a n.o.bodya"how would you get by?"

She shook her head sadly. "I don't know. But I swear, unless you give me your word, now, that you'll stay with me tonight and hear me out, I'll Compel you."

"Doria, you're bluffing."

"Am I now?" She swallowed, once, twice. "Very well." Her eyes went vague.

She wasn't bluffing, "Wait! Noa"don't." The words tumbled out. "Agreed, Doria. Agreed, dammit. I'll stay with you tonight and talk to you."

"That's listen to me."

"Agreed. Whatever you say. Just don't. Please."

She lowered her hands, all menace gone from her manner. "Good. Now, let's get ourselves ready to go through customs, okay?"

Her voice was light and steady, but her forehead was covered with sweat, and her hands shook until she clasped them together.

The inspection proved to be even more pro forma than Jason had suspected; the elf asked them their business in Pandathaway, charged Doria a silver piece for entry, and waved their wagon through the gate, into the city of Pandathaway itself.

Just then, the wind changed, and blew the stench of the city toward him: Pandathaway smelled like a well-used outhouse. Like Biemestren on a hot day, only worse.

Doria's nose wrinkled, too; she brought up a finger and rubbed at it. "It wasn't this bad last time. But we won't notice it after a while."

Thankfully, the wind changed again. There was a row of stables down the street to their right; Jason turned the wagon, the wheels rattling on the cobblestones.

"First thing is to find a stable," he said.

"No, Jason, we've got to find a place for us to stay tonight. We can leave the team with my sisters."

"Not my horse, though. We take care of Libby, first."

"Mmm . . . agreed."

That was one thing that both Valeran and he had always insisted on: You fed and watered your animals before taking care of yourself.

They left his horse and too much of his pay as a deposit for Libertarian's care with the third hostler they tried, a bored dwarf whose prices were merely highway robbery.

And then they went into the markets.

It was all new to him, but somehow it was all very familiar. It took him a while to figure out what it reminded him of.

Back when he was just a baby, back before they had made the move from Home to Biemestren, Mother used to occasionally cook, giving U'len the night off. She always made the same thing, a dish she called paella. When she brought it to the table, Father always went into the same little speech about how it was a d.a.m.n strange thing for a good Greek girl to make as her specialty, which always puzzled him, because he knew that Mother and Father came from a country called America.

She would always laugh at that, and the stern lines in both of their faces would soften. It didn't bother Jason, being left out of their private joke, their own little world that contained just the two of them. It warmed him.

Besides, he liked paella.

It was always different, but the general theme was that of saffron rice cooked in chicken broth and a whole variety of spices, surrounding a rainbow of things that had all been cooked together: little cubes of chicken, beef, and lamb, all of which had been carefully browned until their outer crust was a dark brown, almost black; tiny wild onions; headless freshwater prawns and the huge mussels from the Seven Streams; strips of slow-cured ham; and tiny little peppers, always hiding so that they could make your eyes tear when you bit into one accidentally.

He had always loved paella, and perhaps not just for the taste. Maybe it was the fact that Mother was doing something for him, for once; perhaps it was just that the idea of mixing different kinds of things excited him.

The Pandathaway markets were like paella: a collection of sights and sounds and smells, some of which weren't things that he would have thought would go together . . .but they did, nonetheless.

The walls near the markets were plastered with broadsides proclaiming the virtue of some wares for those who could read, and the air was filled with the cries of loud-voiced merchants for those who couldn't.

One of the broadsides caught Jason's eye. Are You a Swordsman or Bowman with Great Skill and Greater Ambition? it asked.

He nodded for a moment as the press of the crowd swept them by the poster. He wasn't at all bad with a sword, and he did have a great ambition: to kill Ahrmin. But he doubted that that was what the broadside was all about.

"What about my horse?" he asked.

"What about your horse? Hea"ita"should be fine where it is."

"No. After. After I . . . do it. I may have to get out of Pandathaway quickly."

"True. In which case you'll either have reclaimed your horse first, or you'll find another way out of town and just leave the horse behind." c.o.c.king her head to one side, she eyed him quizzically. "Or do you really think that the hostler will let a valuable beast starve to death rather than decide that it's been abandoned?"

"Good point." Still, the idea of abandoning the animal rankled. But she was right. As usual.

Doria guided him down through the markets, past basketweavers and cobblers, coopers with freshly made barrels bleaching in the sun, and one baker's stall where the scent of fresh bread momentarily threatened to overpower the miasma of stale donkey urine and rotting dung.

She stopped for a moment by a sandalmaker, a shrunken little man with tired eyes and a graying ponytail, and bargained hard for a pair of sandals to replace the riding boots that had Jason's feet sweating, then insisted that the sandalmaker shorten the anklestraps on the spot when they were too loose, threatening to leave him with blisters.

Shortening the straps took about a fifth as long as the argument.

The next stop was at a Spidersect stall, of all places, where a fat, greasy-bearded, black-robed cleric muzzled his puzzlement at Doria's presence long enough for Jason to purchase a small pot of unguent that the fat man swore would take all the sting out of Jason's saddle sores. Checking to make sure of the wax-and-cork seal, Jason tucked it in next to his boots in his backpack.

They walked on.

Ahead, a dwarf armorer worked at a portable forge, beneath a sign that proclaimed, in awkward Erendra phonetics, that he sold genuine Nehera bowies. His list of posted prices looked reasonable, but Jason didn't stop. For one thing, he didn't need any blades. He had a good sword at the left side of his belt and a bowie at his righta"and both of them had actually been made by Nehera; Jason knew full well that this blacksmith was selling only weak imitations.

But pointing that out wouldn't accomplish anything except drawing attention to himself.

Another copy of the broadside he had seen before caught his eye.

Are You a Swordsman or Bowman with Great Skill and Greater Ambition? it still wanted to know.

Possibly, he decided.

Over by a fountain, a flute player and a dancer were setting up; he sitting down crosslegged on his straw mat, she stripping off layers of clothes, leaving behind little besides a few silks and beads. While most of her face was hidden by a silken veil, the rest looked interesting. She started to move in time to the flutist's hesitant runs, then stopped as the crowd gathered.

He started to move toward where the show was obviously going to be, but Doria caught his arm.

Her look held only disappointment. "Look again," she said.

This time, Jason saw the black iron collar, almost hidden by the silks, and was more than a little disgusted with himself.

"Sort of an owned dancing prost.i.tute," Doria said. "She'll get the men worked up, and then take them on, one by one," she said, in a flat expressionless voice. She shook her head, as though to say that there was nothing that he could do, so there was no shame in doing nothing.

"We go left here," she said.

The Hand Residence stood out on the street like a clean spot on a well-used napkin; the other two-story stone buildings on the narrow street sagged with age, the cracks in the stone mortared in places, all crumbling around the edges.

The Hand Residence, though, looked new, the corners of the building sharp as razors, the granite blocks clean enough to suggest that dirt was intimidated away. Jason pulled up the horses, set the brake, and gathered his gear together, while Doria climbed down from the wagon.

"I'll just be a short while. I have your word that you will be here when I come out, Jason." She raised an eyebrow.

"You do."

Doria looked at him for a long moment, then eased herself down to the street and walked in through the Residence's archway, without a glance behind.

She disappeared into the dark of the building.

Now was his chance to disappear, but . . .

But he wouldn't. He wouldn't let her talk him out of anything, but he'd given his word.

I may be a coward, but I don't have to be a liar, too, Jason chuckled to himself. Idiot. He noticed another copy of that same broadside on the wall beside him, and glanced at it.

Great Risk Great Pay

Are You a Swordsman or Bowman with Great Skill

and Greater Ambition?

AHRMIN, Master Slaver

is hiring WARRIORS

for an expedition past Faerie.

Apply immediately at the Slavers' Guildhall.

TRAINING in the ART of GUNNERY will be

provided.