The Sword of the South: Chapter One

Belhadan

    “Out of the way, you idiot!”

    The drayman snarled, the heavy goods wagon swerved, and a redhaired man slid from under the horses’ very hooves into the gutter. The wagoneer’s round Belhadan accent drifted back in a picturesque curse, but the grating roar of iron-shod wheels drowned his profanity. And despite his anger, the wagon neither slowed nor stopped, for this was Belhadan, commercial hub of the north. Those who served the port’s voracity had little time for idle pleasantries with strangers.

    Muddy water flowed over the pedestrian’s legs as the stamp of horses and rattle of wheels faded. The mingled smells of salt, tar, and garbage overlaid the scents of hemp and fresh timber, and thunder muttered. Night cooking smells rode a sullen breeze from the west, but their comfortable aroma couldn’t cloak the sharp, damp smell of the looming tempest. There was thunder in those clouds, and lightning, and the promise of cold, drenching rain.

    The redhaired man shook his head and rose. He dabbed at his worn clothing, but it would never again attain sartorial splendor and he gave up with a shrug and peered into the wind. Gusts fingered his hair, and he leaned into them, feeling the approaching storm on his cheekbones. Belhadan loomed before him, laced with strands of glowing streetlamps, windows gleaming against the darkness. Much of the dwarven-designed city was buried in the bedrock of the steep mountainside and foothills its walls and fortifications crowned, but its broad streets were thickly lined with the above-ground houses, shops, and taverns preferred by the other Races of Man. Now the redhaired man scratched his jaw thoughtfully, then moved off towards the streetlamps leading towards the city’s heart.

    He wasn’t alone. An old man in an alley straightened from his slouch against a handy wall and squinted warily at the low-bellied clouds. Then he raised the hood of his Sothoii-style poncho with resigned hands and waited until the redhaired man had half-vanished into the dark before he hitched up the sword belt under that poncho and followed softly over the paving.

* * * * * * * * * *

    The thunder’s mumbled promise was redeemed in a downpour. The wind died in a moment, leaving the air still and hushed, prickly and humming. The next instant was born in the stutter of lightning and the hiss of rain. The wind returned, refreshed by its pause, billowing the skirts of the old man’s poncho and forcing the redhaired man to hunch into the raindrops which rode it.

    The old man muttered balefully into his neatly trimmed beard as the younger man continued at the same pace. Tolerance for thunderstorms was a youthful vice sensible old bones no longer boasted. Rain pelted the old man’s shoulders like pebbles and wind threatened to snatch the hood from his head, but he grunted with something like satisfaction as he peered at a passing corner marker.

    Ahead of him, the redhaired man scanned the darkened shops and warehouses as he trudged into the downpour, shielding his eyes against the rain with a cupped palm as he sought a haven. No one walked the streets in such weather — indeed, the approaching storm helped explain the drayman’s surly haste — but he glanced constantly over his shoulder, as if somehow aware he wasn’t alone on the deserted street. Yet no matter how quickly he looked, the old man always contrived to place a corner, a shutter, or an out-thrust stone buttress between them just before he turned.

    His present neighborhood seemed singularly lacking in the shelter for which he searched, and the water gushing from rooftops and downspouts filled the street’s gutters. They were well-designed, those gutters, yet the last month had been rainy. They were already half-filled by older runoff, and the sudden, massive deluge flooded them and sent a sheet of water swirling out across the hard-paved street. It washed about the redhaired man’s ankles, and he grimaced as its icy outriders found the leaks in his worn-out boots. His feet squelched with every step, adding a fresh stratum of wretchedness to the night’s misery.

    He turned a corner and paused suddenly as diamond-paned windows poured light out into the night, turning raindrops into plunging topazes in the instant before they slammed into the flooded street in dimpled explosions of spray. Then a door opened between two of those windows, spilling light and laughter, and a pair of sailors staggered out of it, arms draped about one another, loudly proclaiming their disdain for such a paltry zephyr.

    They wandered down the street, drunkenly bellowing an utterly reprehensible ditty to the thunder, and the redhaired man’s smile was etched in the welcoming light before the door slammed once more. Taverns offered warmth, even to those with empty purses, he thought, provided one didn’t attract too much attention to one’s poverty.

    He crossed the street and relief sighed from the old man’s lips, but he didn’t follow into that oasis of light and warmth. He watched the redhaired man enter the tavern without him, instead, for he knew something more than tempest prowled the night. He’d searched his mind at length and found no hint of what was to come, which was even more worrisome than it was unusual, but he cocked one eye speculatively upward and probed the storm for clues once more.

    Finally, he shook his head, muttered something under his breath, and clapped his hands once, sharply. The sound of his clap vanished in a roll of thunder — a roll unaccompanied by any flash of lightning — and a blue hemisphere whuffed into existence about him. It was faint, its glow more sensed than seen even in the darkness, yet rain hissed into steam upon its surface, and he peered about alertly, eyes slitted against the faint blue haze. A longsword materialized in his gnarled, scarred hand, swinging easily, edged with a glitter of silver-blue radiance.

    Something, yes . . . but what? His enemies wouldn’t wish to draw attention to their art: not in Belhadan. Wizards might be tolerated — barely — in some realms; with one notable exception, however, they received short shrift and a long rope in Belhadan. So what form would the attack take?

 

---

 

    His eyes flicked to the clouds, and he grinned. Of course. He lifted his sword’s tip to touch the underside of the hemisphere, then closed his eyes and murmured more words under his breath. Power welled, filling the blue shield with vibrating urgency, and the old man smiled at the familiar tingle and cracked his left eye to scan the clouds.

    Nothing.

    Well, such things took time. He closed both eyes and settled into a hunch-shouldered wait. He was reasonably certain what was about to happen, and he had no wish to carry it into the tavern. Indeed, he had every reason to keep any danger away from that inn. And at least his wards kept off the rain.

    His wait was shorter than he’d feared. Thunder rumbled again, and a lance of lightning, blue-white and screaming, forked from the clouds. It smashed into his shield, rupturing the rain-shrouded darkness with prominences of destruction that splintered back towards the heavens which had birthed them. The old man swayed, and his grip on the sword hilt went white-knuckled as the lightning sheeted back in clinging waves of flame. The shaft of brilliance lingered unnaturally, ramming sullenly against the old man. It seemed to endure for hours, shifting and probing at his defenses with self-aware malevolence as his mind flashed through the calculations of a wizard lord, beating back the attack with his own shifting strength. The battle swayed back and forth as minds and wills clashed and struck like edged steel in skilled hands.

    And then, finally, unwillingly, the bolt of light withdrew into the clouds and the savagery at its heart bled away into the all-absorbent earth. The old man straightened and opened his eyes, grinning up at the storm lashed clouds.

    “Nicely played,” he told the storm calmly, sheathing his blade with a snap. “A lightning bolt. What could be more natural? A nice touch, but not, I think, quite good enough, My Lady!”

    He bowed ironically to the raging sky and crossed to the tavern. The blue light retreated into his body as he touched the latch. It clung for a moment, like glittering blue frost, then vanished as he opened the door.

 

---

 

    The redhaired man paused inside the door and peered about. The place was crowded, the air thick with the smell of food and drink. Pipe smoke hazed the rafters, drifting overhead in a lazy canopy, and freshly spread sawdust covered the floor. Voices rumbled, glass clinked, and eating utensils clattered about him.

    Most of the Races of Man seemed represented. Stocky dwarves brushed shoulders with ivory-horned halflings and the tall, broad-shouldered men of the northern provinces. There were even half a dozen patrons with the slashed eyebrows of the half-elven, and the dark-faced harper perched on the end of the bar boasted Wakuo blood, to judge by his hooked nose and bold, black eyes. Slashed doublets and silk breeches matched their finery against the plain shirts and canvas trousers of seamen while life and vitality bubbled like simmering porridge, rising even stronger and more welcomingly against the pound of rain on roof slates and the echoing rolls of thunder beyond the tavern’s stout eaves. It all made the redhaired man even more aware of his own bedraggled appearance, and he hesitated before plunging into the press in search of some corner in which a man with an empty purse might find a haven from the storm.

    “Ho! Look what the wind’s blown in!”

    The redhaired man turned towards the deep, jovial bellow . . . and froze in mid stride, as he found himself face-to-face with two fathoms of midnight-black death. He stood there, not daring even to breathe, as the immense direcat gazed up at him out of amber eyes. It was one of the great direcats of the plains, almost seven feet in length, not counting its tail, and well over three feet at the shoulder, with five-inch bone-white fangs. It was also the most feared predator of Norfressa, with absolutely no business in a Belhadan tavern.

    He waited, frozen, anticipating its spring. But it merely seated itself and wrapped its yard-long tail neatly about its toes like some enormous house cat. It cocked its massive head to gaze straight across at him out of those frighteningly intelligent yellow eyes. And as it did, he realized no one else in the entire tavern seemed to consider its deadly presence the least bit out of the ordinary.

    He inhaled cautiously, pulling his gaze away from the direcat by sheer force of will to look at whoever had spoken, and his nostrils widened in fresh astonishment. No stripling himself, he was overtopped by the man he faced, and his green eyes widened as he recognized a hradani. Not just any hradani, either. This was a giant among them; at six and a half feet, the redhaired man’s head barely topped the other’s shoulder. The white apron over the leathers of a fighting man — and the sheathed Wakuo hook knife at his hip — only added to the aura of unreality, for the hradani were the only foes more savage in combat than the huge direcat which sat with such bizarre daintiness at the giant’s side.

    “It’s a powerful thirst as brings a man out on a night like this!” the hradani laughed, and the redhaired man studied the massive figure carefully, reassured by the other’s cheerful manner . . . and the fact that the direcat hadn’t yet pounced. He glanced back at the beast, and it yawned through its fangs as it returned his regard.

    “Not thirst so much as an excess of drinking water,” he said, kicking his wits back to life, and smiled. The hradani’s tufted ears, fox-like and mobile, twitched in amusement, and his huge laugh bounced back from the rafters like enclosed thunder.

    “Aye, I’m thinking Chemalka and Khalifrio are after having their heads together this night,” he agreed. “Myself, I’m one as prefers my drink in a mug and not so cold! If it’s something stronger than water you’re seeking, you’ve come to the right place in the Iron Axe.”

    “I may have, but I fear the contents of my purse haven’t,” the redhaired man confessed candidly.

    “No money?” The hradani eyed him thoughtfully, then shrugged. “No matter. I’ll not turn any man out on a night such as this. We’ll fire your belly with rockfish stew while the fire’s after drying your hide.”

    He chuckled rumblingly at his own humor and turned to plow through the crowded taproom like a barque under full sail. The press parted before him like foam, and the redhaired man trailed gratefully in his wake. He stayed carefully clear of the direcat, but the beast only glanced at him as he passed and began grooming a scimitared paw. The redhaired man met its incurious gaze respectfully, for the cat must have weighed at least eight hundred pounds which made it worthy of all the respect he could muster.

    “Leeana! Leeana!”

 

---

 

    The hradani’s bass bellow was as loud as before, and the redhaired man wondered if he ever spoke at less than full volume. Even as he wondered, however, his strange host was answered by a sweet contralto. The contrast was astonishing, but the volume of the response almost matched that of the summons.

    “‘Leeana,’ yourself! What now? Another drinking bout to oversee?”

    Customers moved aside to let the speaker pass. She was tall for a woman, within three inches or so of the redhaired man’s own height, though she seemed tiny beside the giant, and her red-gold braids fell below her waist. A flowing skirt of deep green wool swirled about her ankles, covered by a spotless apron; opals gleamed in the silver bracelet clasped around her left wrist; and a massive golden necklet set with a single ruby flashed about her slender throat. The redhaired man’ eyes flickered past her leather headband, then returned with a jerk. What had seemed a simple band was in fact many windings of a thick rawhide thong, and what he’d taken for large wooden earrings were carved wooden grips, instead. He eyed her with the same respect he’d shown the direcat as he recognized the Sothoii garrotte for what it was.

    “And what are you and your cronies up to now?” she demanded, hands on hips as she gazed up at the towering hradani through green eyes a shade darker than the redhaired man’s own.

    “No cronies this time, love . . . though Wencit did say it might be as he’d drop by for a visit.”

    The hradani swept her off the floor, huge hands more than spanning her slender waist, and kissed her enthusiastically before he set her down and tucked her comfortably under his left arm. Then he turned with her to face the redhaired man . . . who noticed the matching silver bracelet around the hradani’s left wrist.

    “No, lass,” he said. “We’ve a guest without the price of a pot of ale in his pocket. Surely there’s after being a place by the fire and a bit of something in the stew pot still?”

    “I’m sure I can find both, if you’ll take the time from your lowborn friends to watch the bar for me.”

    “To be sure,” the big hradani murmured, tugging his forelock respectfully. His dark face was alight with humor as he kissed the top of her head and swatted her behind gently — two liberties the redhaired man would never have dared with someone who carried a Sothoii garrotte. She fisted him in the ribs and spun away like a dancer, and even the roughest-looking patron moved respectfully from her path.

    She smiled and gestured to the redhaired man, and he followed her through an arched doorway and down a short, stone-flagged passage into an enormous kitchen. He was puzzled by how silently she moved until the hem of her skirt swirled to show him that she wore no shoes.

    The kitchen was almost uncomfortably warm, for a fire crackled and seethed in a hearth large enough for a ship’s mast. Wind roared across the chimney tops like a hunting beast, and rain hissed and spat in the flames as drops found their way down the flue. The rumbling storm was barely audible, yet he felt a warm puff of damp breeze on his neck and turned cautiously, then held very still as the direcat padded past, prick-eared head almost level with his own chest. The beast ignored him to curl neatly beneath a high trestle table, and the redhaired man drew a deep breath of quiet relief.

    Leeana waved him towards another table while a half-dozen or so aproned women and a trio of men looked up briefly from their tasks, then nodded respectfully to Leeana and returned to chopping vegetables, peeling potatoes, turning the spit before the main fireplace, or tending pots and kettles on the immense stove which formed an island in the center of the room. Half of the kitchen staff were hradani, as well, he realized with a brain becoming inured to (or at least numbed by) repeated shocks. That mix was certainly odd, though not inherently impossible, he supposed. It was merely unheard of for humans and hradani to keep their swords out of one another long enough to discuss coexistence. But the girl who ran to meet Leeana, pausing in passing to lavish a rough caress on the deadly direcat, resolved any doubt as to how well this human got along with at least one hradani. Her flaming hair and fox-like ears marked her as Leeana’s daughter by the unlikely tavern keeper.

    “Sit. Sit!” Leeana told him briskly. “Fetch a bowl of stew, Gwynna. And you, Sir — haul off that wet jerkin and set it aside to dry.”

    “You’re too kind,” the redhaired man protested. “I can’t repay the courtesy you show me.”

    “Nonsense!” Leeana snorted. “It does my layabout of a husband good to have a guest about the house. And I’d rather feed one man in the kitchen than wait bar for half a hundred,” she added with a sly smile. “You did me a favor there. It’s my night to tend bar and his to circulate, so you can see I actually stand in your debt.”

    “I’m relieved to have paid my score, then,” he chuckled, shrugging out of his jerkin gratefully. Steam rose gently as he spread it across the back of an unoccupied chair before the flames, and he unlaced his tunic as well, hanging both by the hearth. He rubbed his hands, offering them to the heat and feeling the welcome warmth against his rain-chilled skin and —

    Shattering crockery snatched his head towards the girl, Gwynna. She was a striking child, for all her mixed blood, with the mobile, tufted ears of her father’s people pricking piquantly through the rich red and golden hair of her mother. Her proud cheekbones were lightly dusted with freckles, and huge, dark eyes of midnight blue shone under delicate lashes. She was only a child, but her face already showed the elegant beauty to come. Yet at the moment, that beauty was clouded by shock.

    He had only a second to realize that before a sound of tearing canvas ripped from his left as the direcat surged to its feet. The table under which it had lain crashed aside as the beast rose, lips drawn back, mouth gaping in fanged, bristling challenge. It bounded to the girl’s side — seven feet of midnight menace rumbling a deadly snarl that chilled the redhaired man’s blood.

    “Stand, Blanchrach!”

    Leeana’s voice whiplashed through the sudden tension, and the cat paused, tensed as if against an invisible leash. The redhaired man stared into its amber eyes and felt sweat on his brow, but the cat only edged forward, placing itself protectively between himself and the girl.

    “Your pardon, Sir,” Leeana said more calmly. “I beg your pardon — for myself, as well as for my daughter and her friend. But I’ve never seen such scars. Not even on Bahzell.”

    “Scars?” he asked blankly.

    Her eyes led his own down over his chest and belly, and he sucked in wind and thudded onto the bench like a string-cut puppet. His torso was seamed and ridged, scars running in all directions across hard-muscled flash. Craggy peaks and valleys turned his body into a livid mountain range, and the firelight traced lines of shadow along their curves. He touched them fearfully, and his face blanched.

    A tiny sound pierced his shock. He glanced up, green eyes stunned and confused, and adrenaline spurted afresh as he saw the garrotte in Leeana’s hands, the balls of her thumbs poised on the wooden grips.

    “You didn’t know about your own scars.”

    It wasn’t a question, and he shook his head numbly. Her face hardened, her eyes flicked to her daughter, and she spat a brief sentence in a strange tongue. Gwynna’s hands lowered from her mouth instantly, and she stepped back, her own eyes wide as the direcat crouched, tail lashing, and its deep rumble pulsed. The others in the kitchen — including two powerful, dagger-armed hradani — stepped back to give Leeana and the cat room.

    “What manner of man are you?” Leeana’s words were courteous, but her voice was cold and her eyes bored into his. “What do you call yourself? Where do you come from, and why are you here?”

    “I —“

    He stared at her, his eyes half-glazed, and tried again.

    “I —“

    His tongue clove to the roof of his mouth and an expression of utter helplessness flashed over his face. He sought desperately for answers, knowing his life rode upon them, yet his mind spun from the surface of his thoughts into an endless well of silence. He licked his lips and sagged down on the bench, the roaring fire fingering his back with heat, and shook his head slowly, fear for his life overridden by a terror infinitely worse.

    “In the names of all the gods,” he said hoarsely. “I don’t know.”

    Wind howled in the chimney tops, and the flames danced behind him, laughing with the ageless malice of burning wood. His gaze locked with Leeana’s, and his voice was a cry of anguish.

    “I don’t know!”

 

---

 

---

 

    A trio of dwarves filled the door, gripping a protesting halfling with ungentle hands, and the old man stepped smartly aside. One dwarf’s sliced pursestrings told their own tale, though the halfling continued to protest his innocence. His protests grew more forceful as he smelled the pounding rain, and the old man swallowed a smile as the dismally wailing thief arced gracefully outward. He landed in the far gutter with a terrific splash, his cries quenched in flying spray, and the old man nodded to the dwarves as they stood just inside the door, exchanging comments on the thief’s probable ancestry. Their imaginative speculations held his amused attention for several seconds before he turned away.

    He picked a path through the crowd, sniffing the pipe smoke while his eyes flitted about like a hunting cat’s, and a pocket of silence moved with him as people recognized him. He hid another smile and eyed the crowd speculatively, estimating the sums which would change hands as they paid their shots. It would be a tidy amount, but no more than it was worth.

    The Iron Axe Tavern was always busy, but tonight it was packed. The tavern was known for song, good food, and better drink . . . and the fact that no one’s throat was ever slit within it. When bad weather stalked Belhadan, the Iron Axe filled as though by magic.

    His eyes searched busily. Bahzell had to be somewhere, but where? Normally, he stood out like a tower, yet now he was nowhere to be seen.

    Ah! The old man grinned as a bellow arose in the rear taproom. He should’ve known he could find his host by following his ears to the loudest noise in the vicinity! He made his way quickly into the rear room and headed for the long, polished bar.

    “Wencit!” the big hradani called, thumping the oaken surface. “Come in! It’s a right soaking you’ve had this evening, but I’ve some Granservan Grand Reserve put by for nights such as this. Let me be pouring some of it down your throat.”

    “Good evening, Bahzell,” the old man replied more sedately, pushing back his dripping poncho’s hood, and wedged up to the bar.

    Other customers pushed back to give him elbow room. Most Belhadans knew him, either by sight or description, and respected his reputation, but wizards were chancy companions at best. No one wished to crowd one unduly; not even one who was their host’s longtime friend. Besides, one glance at his peculiar eyes deterred even the hardiest of strangers.

    Bahzell reached under the bar for a bottle encased in old leather, tooled and warm with the polish of years, and his brown eyes laughed as he carefully filled a glass and set it before the old man.

    “Drink up and be telling me why you’re here,” he ordered. “It was urgent enough your message sounded, yet here you come like a drowned cat. Not the best image for a master wizard, I’m thinking!”

    “Even master wizards melt in the rain,” Wencit said sourly, toasting the hradani gratefully before sipping the amber, honeyed fire. “And nights like this,” he sighed, lowering the glass after one long swallow, “would wet Tolomos himself.”

    “Aye, true enough,” Bahzell nodded. “And you’re not the first drowned cat as scratched at my door this night. There’s a redhead back in the kitchen who looked as if he’d been after swimming the Spear — north to south.”

    “A redhead, you say?” Wencit cocked a bushy eyebrow over his wildfire eyes. “A tall young fellow? Perhaps thirty years old?”

    “The very man.” Bahzell sounded unsurprised. “A friend of yours, is it?”

    “You might say so,” Wencit smiled, “although he doesn’t know it yet. The kitchen, you say?”

    “Aye, he’d no coin for drink, so I gave him meat. Leeana’s stew will be taking the chill from him. He reminded me of someone . . .” The hradani drummed on the bar for a moment, head cocked, eyes intent upon the wizard. “Would it happen I’d be after knowing him, Wencit?”

    “I doubt it. You know a great many very odd people, Bahzell, but this fellow’s outside the circle even of your acquaintance.” Wencit met Bahzell’s measuring gaze levelly. “I’ve no doubt he does remind you of someone, but I give you my word you’ve never met him before.”

    Bahzell regarded him steadily for another brace of heartbeats. Then he flicked his mobile ears and nodded. It was a strange sort of nod, one which seemed to acknowledge more than Wencit had actually said.

    “Well, that being so, I’m thinking there’s naught more to be said,” he said out loud, and it was Wencit’s turn to nod.

    The wizard finished his whiskey and straightened.

    “With your permission, I’ll take myself off to the kitchen.”

    “Aye, you be doing that.” The hradani’s expressive ears twitched in combined amusement and resignation. “You’ve something deep in mind. But then, you always do, don’t you just?”

    “As you say, I’m a master wizard. Master wizards always have something deep in mind.”

    Bahzell’s lips quirked and he snorted.

    “Well, be off with you! I’ve a full bar, and you’ll say naught till it suits you, as well I know.”

    “Alas for my reputation,” Wencit mourned, then grinned and pushed off through the crowd.

 

---

 

    He found his way to the Iron Axe’s kitchens with the ease of long familiarity, and his boots clumped down the passage, but none of the kitchen staff noticed. They were too intent on the confrontation between Leeana and the redhaired man. Wencit felt the tension as he entered the kitchen, but no sign of it colored his voice or expression.

    “Good evening to you, Leeana Flame Hair,” he called pleasantly. “The mountain behind the bar told me I’d find you here.”

    “Wencit!” Leeana twitched in surprise, but there was relief in her voice. Only two pairs of eyes did not turn to the wizard: the redhaired man’s, which stared sickly at the tabletop, and the rumbling direcat’s, which watched the redhaired man unblinkingly.

    Wencit glanced quizzically from the taut garrotte to the redhaired man’s ashen face. His expression softened as the man’s trembling fingers traced his cruel scars, then the old man extended a hand to Gwynna.

    “And good evening to you, young Gwynna,” he said gently. The girl scampered over to hug him tightly, her face alight with welcome, but the light faded as she looked back at the man whose scars had startled her.

    “I’m more pleased than usual to see you,” Leeana said frankly. She allowed the garrotte to slacken, raised her eyebrows at the wizard, and twitched her head sideways at the man seated before her fire.

    “Indeed?”

    “Indeed,” she replied firmly. “Bahzell offered this man hospitality, but now he can’t — or won’t – even tell me his name.”

    “Strange, but not surprising,” Wencit said cryptically.

    “Oh, thank you ever so much!” Leeana said, then snorted. “Have you ever in your entire life given someone a straight answer?” She demanded, yet her voice was more cheerful, as if she drew reassurance from his presence.

    “Wizards always give straight answers — those of us who claim to be honest, that is. But our affairs are usually so tangled the straightest answers appear most crooked.” He lifted Gwynna’s chin with a gentle forefinger and smiled into her eyes. “Tell me, young Gwynna. Could you fetch another bowl of stew for my friend? And perhaps one for me, as well? And —” his smile widened gently “— not drop them?”

    “I never drop bowls!” Gwynna said indignantly.

    “Ah?” Wencit’s eyebrows crinkled as his gaze rested on the broken crockery on the flagstone floor. “Did it fly, then, young Gwynna?”

    “Well,” she twinkled up at him, “hardly ever.”

    “Very good. My supper will doubtless arrive intact, which is a great relief to my mind.”

    He pushed her gently towards the stewpot and shifted his gaze once more to the redhaired man.

    “Wencit, do you know him?” Leeana asked quietly.

    “Yes and no.” His raised hand forestalled her indignant retort. “I know a great deal about him, Leeana, but he doesn’t know me.”

    “Is he all right?” Her anxious eyes edged meaningfully to Gwynna.

    “You, of all people, should know it’s seldom ‘all right’ to be of interest to a wizard, Leeana Hanathafressa,” Wencit said gently. “But I think no harm will come to Gwynna from him.”

    Leeana peered into the multi-colored depths of his strange eyes. Something deep and hidden looked back from their whirling depths, and she nodded. He’d answered her as fully as he would. He wasn’t telling everything — he never did — but she trusted him. Especially where Gwynna was concerned. There was some link between the wizard and her daughter, one Leeana had never understood but whose strength she could not doubt. Her hands moved precisely, rewrapping the garrotte around her head, and Wencit sighed inwardly at her affirmation of confidence.

    “Let me sit and eat with him,” he said softly. “I have to speak with him, and this is the best time. Besides —” he smiled teasingly “— it will convince you of his harmlessness.”

    “Japester!” She stabbed his ribs with a stiff index finger and he whuffed. Then she tossed a word at the direcat, and the great beast retreated slowly into his original place. He lay down neatly, chin on massive forepaws, but his eyes remained on the redhaired man.

    “I’ll see you’re not disturbed,” she said softly, “but you won’t leave this house until you tell me more than you have!”

    “All that I can,” he promised, touching her forehead gently. She gripped his forearm tight.

    “Ha! You mean all you want me to know!”

    “It’s the same thing, my dear,” he said, smiling faintly.

    “Here!” Gwynna dashed up, a full bowl in either hand.

    “Am I supposed to stand in the corner and eat with one hand?” Wencit demanded. “The table, you little wretch!”

    Gwynna laughed and ran to set the bowls in place. The redhaired man scarcely noticed her, though she stared at him with frank curiosity, certain it was safe to do so now that Wencit had come.

    Leeana gathered up her daughter and moved into the scullery, setting the girl to washing trenchers and glasses. She bustled the kitchen staff back to its tasks and took her own turn at the great sinks, but her eyes returned ever and again to the redhaired man and the old wizard by the fire, and a puzzled frown creased her brow.

 

---

 

    “Give you good evening, young sir.”

    The redhaired man looked up at the soft voice and saw an old man with a face creased by laughter, tears, and weather. Hair white as snow but thick and healthy was held back by a tooled leather headband, and bushy eyebrows moved expressively above strange eyes — glowing eyes that seemed all colors yet called no color their own. The old man’s body looked younger than his face, and he had the scarred, powerful hands and wrists of a swordsman. He stood as tall as the redhaired man himself, and under his wet poncho he wore the sheathed weapons of a warrior. His appearance was shabby, yet an indefinable sense of power clung to his deep voice and ancient frame.

    “I beg your pardon,” the redhaired man made himself mutter. “I’m afraid I feel . . . unwell.”

    “Hardly surprising.” The old man sat opposite him and spooned up stew, regarding him through the aromatic steam. “It’s . . . unpleasant to realize one has no past.”

 

---

 

    “Yes,” the younger man said softly. “I don’t —” then he broke off.

    “How did you know?” he whispered, his right hand searching his belt for something that wasn’t there.

    “It’s my job to know things,” the old man said lightly. “I’m a wizard.”

    “Wizard?!” The word was a hiss, and those searching fingers closed convulsively on a missing hilt. The old man only laughed and pushed the second bowl towards him.

    “Indeed. Come now, man! Not all wizards have been evil, though I grant the breed has an evil name these days. But Bahzell Bloody Hand would have no dark wizard in his house!”

    “Possibly not.” The redhaired man’s voice was harsh as he reached blindly for a spoon, eyes on the wizard’s face. “Only I’ve never even heard of any ‘Bloody Hand,’ and even if I had, it wouldn’t follow that any wizard was worthy of my trust.”

    “But you’ve met Bahzell,” the old man said. “Come. Eat! His lady’s made you free of her kitchen, and that’s not a privilege that’s easily come by.”

    “No, I imagine it isn’t.” The redhaired man smiled unwillingly. It was a thin smile, edged with bitter uncertainty, yet a smile for all of that, and he dipped his spoon into his own bowl. “A daunting lady indeed.”

    “The Sothoii war maids have their little ways,” the old man said dryly.

    “Sothoii war maids?” The redhaired man looked back up sharply. “They’re pledged never to wed!”

    “So they are. Or were, at any rate.” The old man shrugged. “Their charter was . . . revised slightly in that respect some years ago. In fact, Leeana had a bit to do with that. Or her example did, anyway.” He smiled. “She does rather tend to set the entire world on its ear just when the people around her think it’s safe to take their eye off her. Of course, she comes by it naturally, I suppose.” He shook his head. “Surely you’ve realized our Leeana is special in every way? This whole household’s special, my friend, and Leeana carries the rank of a commander of one thousand.”

    The redhaired man’s eyes went back to the tall, slender woman with something like awe. War maids were seldom seen beyond the borders of the Wind Plain, but their reputation as fighters was second to none. The Sothoii’s splendid cavalry was the terror of their enemies, yet the war maids — for all that they’d never been considered truly “respectable” by most Sothoii — were equally skilled in their chosen role as light infantry, scouts, and mistresses of irregular warfare. If Leeana had led a thousand of them in battle, she was a force to be reckoned with. No wonder men stepped aside when she crossed a room! But what was she doing wed to a hradani, one of the Sothoii’s hereditary enemies? And why did the two of them manage a tavern in the Empire of the Axe, of all places?

    He turned eyes filled with questions to the wizard across the table, but the other man shook his head ever so slightly.

    “Your curiosity’s apparent,” he said softly, “but it isn’t my right to enlighten you. Not that it isn’t a tale well worth the telling — or that half the bards in Norfressa haven’t already tried their hand at telling it, for that matter — but none of the ballads get it quite right. Except for Brandark’s, perhaps.” The old man’s lips twitched on the edge of what looked like a smile. “Just understand that all the questions you’ve already imagined about them fall well short of the reality. If there’s time later, I’m sure they’ll be willing to tell you more, although it’s unlikely there will be time for it tonight. The evening’s schedule is likely to be a bit too much on the . . . full side for long stories, however good they may be. One word of caution I will give, however: offer no harm to anyone under this roof. Especially not to Gwynna Bahzelldaughter! If you do, no power on earth will save you.”

    The redhaired man shivered as the wizard’s expression offered the second part of his warning — that Bahzell and his redoubtable wife might be the least of his dangers if he posed a threat to the child. He couldn’t understand why that might be, but the cold certainty of it burned his nerves. Then the wizard’s expression relented and he smiled crookedly.

    “But we should speak of you, shouldn’t we?” he said more lightly.

    “What about me?” the redhaired man asked warily.

    “Don’t be foolish. A blind man could see you’re troubled, and I’m far from blind. Besides, I’m a wizard. I may know more about you than you do.”

    “You know who I am?”

    The younger man’s spoon dropped and his hand locked on the wizard’s wrist with bruising strength. The rumble of Blanchrach’s displeasure rose, and the direcat’s head lifted from his paws.

    “Softly, my friend. Softly!”

    Wencit’s eyes compelled the redhaired man back onto his bench.

    “You know who I am!” he insisted desperately.

    “Who you are?” The old man toyed with the words, not tauntingly, but is if tasting their meaning. “Who can say who a man is? Not I! I can’t even tell you who I am myself — not accurately. Tomorrow I’ll no longer be the man I am today, and the me of yesterday has already died. No, I can’t tell you who you are, but perhaps I can tell you what you are, and that’s almost as good.” He paused and eyed the other levelly. “Almost.”

    “I see.” The redhaired man smiled, and it was not a pleasant expression. “Isn’t there a proverb about asking wizards questions?”

    “A great many of them, actually. But I think the one you want says ‘Ask a wizard a question only if you know the answer — and even then, his answer will confuse you.’”

    “You’re right. That’s the one I was trying to recall.”

    “I thought it might be. Do you want an answer?”

    “Will it confuse me?”

    “Undoubtedly,” the wizard said calmly, spooning up more stew.

    The redhaired man regarded him across the table, filled with a queer calm, like ice over a fire. He hadn’t known he was a stranger to himself before Gwyna reacted to his scars, and the aftershock of finding that he had no past still echoed in his soul. He had no idea of who or what he was, no idea of what he might have done. Was he a criminal? An outlawed man with a price on his head? He remembered no crimes — and wouldn’t that be a poor defense? Did he have a wife of his own? A family who’d become less than ghosts as they vanished from his memory? Was someone desperately searching for him, or did no one in all the world care what might have become of him? All those questions, and a thousand more besides, poured through him, yet the old man seemed unconcerned by his anguished confusion. He sat playing word games and swallowing stew as if things like this happened every day! Perhaps they did happen to wizards, but the redhaired man was ill prepared to cope with disaster on such a scale. If the wizard had the smallest clue to this . . . this absence, this negation of his past, of course he wanted to hear it. However confusing or frightening it might be.

    “Tell me, then, Wizard.” He made his voice mocking, though it took more courage than he’d thought he had. “What am I?”

    “An important piece of a very large puzzle,” the old man replied.

    “You’re right,” the redhaired man snorted, green eyes dark with disappointment. “I’m confused.”

    “It’s generally confusing to be a puzzle piece,” the other man agreed. “Especially when the puzzle is vaster than you can possibly imagine.”

    “Really? Just how does this piece fit in? What makes me so important that a wizard chooses to play riddle games with me? Or is that question permitted? the redhaired man asked bitterly.

    “The question’ permitted,” the old man said, suddenly serious, “but I can’t answer it now. Not in full, though I can tell you some things.”

    “Such as?” The redhaired man bent across the table, unable to hide the eagerness in his eyes.

    “I will tell you this much. You’re a fighting man, as your scars proclaim, but you’re also much more than that, my friend. You’re a man people will find it easy to like – perhaps even to follow — and such men are always dangerous, not least to themselves. You have strengths of which you’re not aware, strengths which are hidden deep within you, and they make you a sharp edged tool for a knowing hand.”

    “Wonderful,” the redhaired man said bitterly. “Are you trying to confuse me? Isn’t simple ignorance enough for you? Why can’t you give me something useful?”

    “I have.” The old man swallowed and waved his spoon. “Put it together. I’m a wizard, and wizards’ answers are limited because we know too much. An

injudicious word, a hint too much, and the damage is done. An entire series of plans, of strategies — years of effort — can slide down into ruin because we said one word to many.”

    His spoon cut the air to strike the table with a crack, and the redhaired man snorted angrily.

    “I don’t recall asking to be included in any strategies!”

    “But then, you don’t remember everything, do you?” The question was asked gently, and the younger man stiffened. “Perhaps you did ask . . . once. And consider this — your memory loss is selective, my friend. You know what hradani are, and direcats. You’ve heard of war maids. Selective amnesia’s probably no accident.”

 

---

 

    “You mean . . . You’re saying someone took my memory?”

    “Precisely. And that means you’re already part of someone’s plans.

    “But . . . why?” The younger man shook his head, eyes dark.

    “For any number of reasons. I can’t tell you much, but this much I will say: all wizards are puzzle solvers at heart, and most of us cheat. We may not like the way a puzzle fits together, so we change the pieces or rearrange their patterns. For every wizard who seeks one solution another wants a different answer, or simply for it to remain unsolved. It wasn’t always so, but the past is the past. We have to deal with what is, not what we’d like to be.”

    The old man paused to stare into the fire. When he spoke again, his voice was softer.

    “Some of us try to believe our solutions are in the best interest of all, or at least of the greatest possible number, but we’re all quite ruthless. As for you, it would seem someone wants you ignorant of the part you might play if you still had a past.”

    “But what makes me important? Who did this to me? You say you’re a wizard — how do I know it wasn’t you?”

    “It could have been,” the old man agreed, his spoon chasing the last stew around his bowl, “but if I wanted you removed, it would’ve been easy enough to simply kill you.”

    He looked up and met the younger man’s eyes levelly. The redhaired man swallowed, and nodded with a jerk.

    “Then what is your interest in me?” he asked softly.

    “At this moment? To keep you alive,” the wizard said simply.

    “Really?” The hairs rose on the back of the redhaired man’s neck. “And why shouldn’t I stay that way on my own?”

    “Because ignorance doesn’t change what you are. You’re a danger to too many who follow the tradition of the Dark Lords of Carnadosa. Perhaps you’re safe from the one who stole your memory, but there are others who not only can but certainly will kill you if they even suspect you’re alive. And the reason will be simple. You threaten them, whatever you know or don’t know . . . so long as you remain alive.”

    “So.” The younger man studied the wizard as the fire roared to the gusts sucking across the chimney. “You may be telling the truth — or a truth, at least. But how do I know your truth is one I’d like?”

    “No one wishes to know all the truth.” The wizard’s voice went gray and old. “Believe that, young sir.”

    “I do,” the redhaired man said softly, “but I can’t just take the word of the first wizard I meet. I remember another proverb. ‘Trust not in wizards. The best are none too good, and most of them are evil.’”

    “All proverbs have a core of truth,” the old man agreed. “The art’s fallen on sad times. There’s no Council, and the majority of my brothers and sisters in the art are at best some shade of gray. But if you don’t trust me, you’ll be dead within twenty-four hours.

    “Not by my hand,” he went on quickly, raising a palm against green eyes that were suddenly burning ice. “If I wanted you dead, not even Bahzell could keep me from killing you now, while you’re too ignorant even to understand the reason for your death.” Power seemed to smoke above him, and the redhaired man’s mouth dried as the shabby old man suddenly became a perilous menace that belied his wet, bedraggled appearance. Danger hovered about him like some invisible fog, but then he shook his head, smiled, and the peril withdrew. Yet it never quite disappeared entirely, and his flaming eyes gleamed between his lashes.

    “As it happens, however, the last thing I want would be your death,” he said. “If you die, I’ll undoubtedly accompany you to Isvaria, and I still have much to do. I’ll admit to selfish as well as selfless motives, but you have enemies, both mortal and of the art. Your own skills may protect you against the former, but only I can aid you against the latter.”

    “But why?!” The redhaired man half-shouted. “Damn you and your cryptic hints!” He mastered himself with a visible effort. “At least answer me this much Wizard — how did you find your ‘puzzle piece’?”

    “I didn’t find you; I waited for you.”

    “Very helpful.” The younger man drummed on the table, frowning, and tried another approach. “Give me one good reason to trust you — one reason I can understand now, Wizard!”

    “I still honor the Strictures of Ottovar,” the flame-eyed old man said softly.

    “Words! This is my life, Wizard! I don’t know one single thing about you, and even less about your damned puzzles. I know nothing at all about altogether too much, so give me a better answer. How will trusting you keep me alive? Tell me, Wizard!”

    “I never said it would.” The old man’s voice deepened and his fiery eyes flashed. “But if you trust me, you won’t be the first, and no man who’s ever trusted me has been betrayed, though many have died of knowing me. They died attempting to aid me, or simply because they came too close to my world of darkness and half-shadows. Don’t mistake me! I offer you no promise of life, only a choice. I live in the shadows at the edge of what you’re pleased to call ‘the world,’ and I’ve lived there a very long time. But I’m not part of the darkness.”

    “How can I know that?” the redhaired man whispered. “I want to trust you — the gods know I’d sell my soul to know who I am! But I don’t know how to trust you. I don’t even know who you are!”

    “Remember what I said about asking ‘who,’” the old man said gently. “I can’t tell you that, but I can tell you what men call me. After that, you must judge for yourself. Perhaps you may even know my name. But beware! Reputation is only hearsay, and even if I mean you no ill, you may yet come to curse the day we met.”

    He paused, his face cold with warning, and the redhaired man felt a sudden urge to disavow his questions before he could hear their answers. The strange eyes burned brightly, their polychromatic depths dancing, and when the wizard spoke again, his deep, measured voice rang like iron on an anvil.

    “I am called Wencit of Rum, last Lord of the Council of Ottovar, Keeper of the Strictures of Ottovar, Chief Councilor to the Gryphon Throne of Kontovar, and I’ve waited thirteen centuries for this conversation!”