The Hidden City

‘A penny a gill,’ Senga replied.

‘That’s outrageous!’

‘They don’t have to buy it,’ Senga shrugged. ‘Get the money before you start to pour. Don’t take promises.’

‘You’ve put my moral qualms to rest, Senga,’ Kalten laughed. ‘At that price, this is hardly honest.’

‘There’s that building I was telling you about.’

Kalten tried to look casual as he turned to stare at the substantial-looking ruin. ‘They really don’t want anybody to look into that place,’ he said. ‘Those bars on the windows make it look like a jail.’

‘Not quite, Col. Those bars are there to keep people out, not in.’

Kalten grunted, still staring intently at the building. The barred windows had panes of glass in them, cheap, cloudy glass that had been poorly installed. Drapes on the inside cut off any possibility of seeing anything or anyone who might be in there. There were guards at the door and other guards stationed at every corner. Kalten wanted to howl with frustration. The gentle girl who had become the center of his life was possibly no more than twenty yards away, but she might as well have been on the other side of the moon; and even if she were to look out through that clouded glass she would not recognize his altered features.

Senga paid the guards in the square with beer, and then he and his friend got down to work. Scarpa’s rebels were rowdy, shouting and laughing, but they were generally in a good humor. They lined up in an orderly fashion and came to the rear of the cart two by two, where Senga and Kalten filled their containers with the amber beer. There were a few arguments about the capacity of the assorted tankards, jugs, and pails, but Senga’s word on the subject was final, and anyone who objected too loudly was sent back to the end of the line to think things over for an hour or so while he worked his way back to the front again.

It was after the two entrepreneurs had drained the last barrel and sent the disappointed late-comers away that Kalten saw a familiar figure come weaving across the mossy square toward the ox-cart. Krager was not wearing well. His head was shaved and as pale as a fish-belly, and his dissipated face was eroded by decades of hard drinking. His clothing, though obviously expensive, was wrinkled and filthy. He shook continually with a palsied tremor that ran through him in waves.

‘I don’t suppose you brought any wine,’ he asked Senga hopefully.

‘Not much call for it,’ Senga told him, re-fastening the tail-gate of the cart. ‘Most of these fellows want beer.’

‘Do you know any place where you can get wine?’

‘I can ask around. What’s your preference?’

‘Arcian red, if you can find any.’

Senga whistled. ‘That will cost you, my friend. I could probably chase down some of the local reds for you, but the imported stuff – that’s going to take a big bite out of your purse.’

Krager smirked at him. ‘It’s no problem,’ he said in his slurred voice. ‘I’m what you might call independently wealthy at the moment. These local reds taste like pig-swill. I want real wine.’

‘It might take a while,’ Senga told him dubiously. ‘I’ve got contacts in Delo that might be able to find some for you, but Delo’s a long way off.’

‘When are you coming back?’

‘A couple of days. The brewery where I buy this slop’s running day and night, but I still can’t keep up.’

‘Bring me a couple of barrels of the local pig-swill then – enough to tide me over until you can find me some Arcian red.’

‘You can count on me,’ Senga assured him. He gave Krager a hard look. ‘I’ll need something in advance, though. I’ll have to buy the Arcian red before I can sell it to you. I’m doing fairly well, but I’m not that rich yet.’

Krager fumbled for his purse.

Kalten was suddenly gripped by an almost intolerable impatience. He was sure now that Alean was here. Krager’s presence virtually confirmed it. The prisoners were most likely being held in the building with barred windows. He absolutely had to get back to Narstil’s camp so that Bevier could pass the word on to Aphrael. If Xanetia could enter Natayos unseen, she could either penetrate the prison walls or reach into Krager’s wine-sodden mind to verify what was almost a certainty now. If all went well, it would be no more than a few days until he and Sparhawk were reunited with the women they loved. Then they could all come here and do unpleasant things to the people responsible.

Vanion and Betuana reached Sarna late that afternoon, and the Atan Queen scarcely paused before setting out for the border.

‘It was ghastly, Sparhawk,’ Vanion said, leaning wearily back in his chair and putting his visored helmet on the table. ‘They’re like no soldiers I’ve ever seen before. They’re big, and they’re fast, and their hides are so tough that most of the time my sword just bounced off them. I don’t know where Klæl found them, but they’ve got yellow blood, and they made mincemeat out of my knights.’

‘Kring and Tikume ran into them as well, I guess,’ Sparhawk told him. ‘Anosian was trying to pass the word to Aphrael, but he garbled the spell so badly that she couldn’t make any sense out of it. She’s a little unhappy with Tynian. When he was gathering up the knights he brought back to Matherion, he accidentally picked every Pandion who has the least bit of skill with the spells. That’s why she can’t get any reports from Komier.’

‘We might have to send somebody to join him and handle communications – except that it’d take weeks for him to get there.’

‘Not if Aphrael takes him, it won’t,’ Sparhawk disagreed. ‘She carried me from Beresa to Sopal – almost a thousand miles – in about a half an hour.’

‘You’re not serious!’

‘You’ll love flying, Vanion.’

‘You’re carrying tales, Sparhawk.’

They turned quickly.

The Child Goddess was sitting in a chair at the far end of the room with her grass-stained little feet up on the table.

‘I wish you wouldn’t do that,’ Sparhawk told her.

‘Would you prefer some kind of announcement, Sparhawk? Multitudes of spirits bawling hymns of praise to introduce me? It’s a little ostentatious, but I can arrange it.’

‘Just forget I said anything.’

‘I’ll do that. I had a chat with Anosian. He’s practicing now – very hard. Kring and Tikume ran across Klæl and his soldiers out in the desert, and they discovered something you gentlemen should know. I was right, Vanion. Klæl’s soldiers have bile in their veins instead of blood because they breathe with their livers, and that means that the air where they come from isn’t anything like the air here – probably something like marsh-gas. There’s something in it that they need, and they can’t get it out of our air. The Peloi used their standard cut-and-run tactics, and after a little while those monsters started to collapse. Next time you come up against them, just turn around and run away. If they try to chase you, they’ll choke to death. Did Betuana leave?’