The Scrolls of the Ancients

CHAPTER

Forty-two

In a sense, time has no place in the practice of the craft. For to those who shall grant themselves the time enchantments, sometimes a year shall seem as a day, and a day as a mere moment. And the Forestallments granted into their blood shall give rise to great gifts, some wondrous, and some terrible in their applications.

– from the Scroll of the Vigors

A s Tristan walked through the double doors of the Wing and Claw he stopped for a moment, taking in the scene.

The room before him was very large and very dark, lit only by several dim, oil lamp chandeliers. Tables filled the room, and a long bar sat before the wall to his right. In one corner a stairway could be seen leading to the second floor-to the bedrooms, he assumed. Men and women were cavorting loudly. Some, already in varying stages of undress, were locked in passionate embraces. Others were busy drinking and playing at dice or cards, the losers shouting out obscenities and invectives at the Afterlife. One man sat on a chair in the corner, a pipe held between his teeth as he happily ground out ditties from an ancient-looking squeezebox. The entire place smelled of sweat and stale liquor.

No one seemed to take any particular notice of Tristan, and for that he was grateful. As casually as he could, he walked up to the bar. The one-eyed barkeep was a thin, greasy-looking creature who walked with a decisive limp. Where his other eye should have been there was only an empty hole, crudely sewn shut with bits of leather. The stitches looked as if they had been there for a long time.

Forcing down his revulsion, the prince looked steadily into the man's good, blue eye. "Ale," he said simply.

"Don't got none," the fellow said, almost proudly.

"Why not?" Tristan asked skeptically. "They're drinking it on the street."

"Like I said, don't got none," the man repeated. He smiled, revealing the absence of two front teeth. The same man who had taken the bartender's eye had probably gotten the teeth as well, Tristan thought.

"Then what do you have?" he asked.

"Mead," the fellow answered simply, as if it was something the prince should know simply because he was standing in the Wing and Claw. "Produced special on the island, and it's all we sell here."

"Very well," Tristan said. "Mead it is."

"Do you want the cheap stuff, or the good stuff?" the bartender asked.

Tristan reached into his pocket, produced a single kisa, and dropped it on top of the bar. "Cheap," he answered, almost immediately questioning his decision.

Greedily picking up the coin, the bartender bit into it, testing its worth. Apparently satisfied, he walked down the length of the bar a bit and stopped before a great keg that sat atop it. Turning the spigot, he released a dark, amber substance into a tankard that looked as if it had just been dredged up off the floor of the Sea of Whispers. He walked back and unceremoniously deposited the pungent concoction before the prince.

Tristan took a swallow.

Gagging, he immediately spat it back out, sure he was about to vomit. He had had mead before, but never any so vile as this. After a fit of coughing, he glared back up at the man behind the bar. The fellow once again smiled, displaying the dark vacancies between his remaining teeth.

"Takes a bit of gettin' used to, don't it?" he asked happily.

As the prince wiped his mouth, he sensed someone beside him. Turning, he found himself looking directly into the bloodshot blue eyes of a blond woman about his own age. She wore a tattered dress and long earrings, and smelled something like a musty, abandoned candy shop. Smiling, she inched a bit closer, at the same time reaching down to touch his groin.

"You're new here, aren'tcha, love?" she asked. Her hungry, greedy eyes looked him up and down. "Believe me, if I'd been with you before, I'd remember." Brazenly leaving her hand where it was, she looked at Tristan's tankard, then over at the bartender.

"Now, Caleb!" she admonished him, still smiling. "Don't tell me you served this fellow from the community keg!"

The bartender's greasy, perforated grin returned.

Reaching down, Tristan moved her hand away. He was almost afraid to ask. "The community keg?" he inquired, amidst another short cough.

The blond pointed down the bar, to the keg Tristan's drink had come from. "All of the mead from every partially drank tankard is saved, and poured back into that barrel," she explained. "Then it's aged good 'n' proper, and served as the cheaper stuff. Rolf-he's the owner, see-he doesn't let a drop go to waste, ya see. Waste none, want none."

Nauseated, Tristan looked back into her eyes. "I'm not interested," he said simply. "I'm looking for a man."

"Well why didn'tcha say so, love?" she answered. "I can arrange that, too. But such a waste that is, a fellow the likes of you."

"Not that kind of a man," Tristan answered. "I'm looking for Ichabod, the sailmaker. I was told that he might be here."

The whore raised a tattooed arm. "He's sitting right over there," she answered. "Practically lives here now, he does. Loves to play at cards, and always seems to win. You can't miss him. Handlebar mustache and expensive black clothes."

Then she came closer-so close that Tristan could smell the stale mead on her breath. "And if you change your mind, handsome, I'll be waiting."

Quickly nodding his thanks, Tristan left both her and his tankard of mead and sauntered across the room. He stopped short of reaching Ichabod, and sat down at an empty table nearby. He wanted to watch and listen first, hoping to form some idea of what the sailmaker might be like before trying to bargain with him.

Ichabod was seated at a table with three other men, playing a game of dreng. A large pile of coins sat in the center, and the game was very animated. Of the four players, the biggest winner so far looked to be the sailmaker.

He was tall, and dressed in black breeches, jacket, ruffled white shirt, and vest. Rings adorned nearly every finger. Shiny black knee boots were on his feet, and he sported an equally dark mustache that he worried almost constantly by twisting its curled, waxed ends. Unlike the other men at the table, Ichabod looked very prosperous. He also seemed to be unarmed, but the prince knew that in a place like this, that meant nothing. Tristan smiled to himself, realizing that the sailmaker reminded him of a particularly unctuous Eutracian undertaker he had once had the displeasure to know.

Watching the game for a few moments, Tristan could see that Ichabod was indeed a very accomplished player. Almost too good, in fact. Then his eyes caught something else, and he smiled to himself.

Certain he had found his edge, Tristan walked casually over to the table to stand directly behind Ichabod. He looked down at the sailmaker's hand, then over at the values on the front sides of the cards being held by the others.

One of the other players glared angrily up at him, then, after looking Tristan over, went back to his cards. Any moment now, one or more of them would most certainly object to his presence. As the precious seconds ticked by, Tristan held his breath.

Finally the moment came that the prince had been waiting for: It was Ichabod's turn to play a card. Reaching down quickly, Tristan selected one of Ichabod's cards and threw it on the table, amidst the others already lying there.

"Dreng," he said quietly.

Ichabod was up on his feet in no time, as were two of the other players, daggers drawn. For a moment the entire place went silent as a tomb, rife with tension. All seventy-three eyes in the tavern had fallen directly onto the man with the strange, curved sword lying across his back.

"And just who are you to be playing my cards for me, you insolent bastard?" the sailmaker shouted. A vein in his forehead beat noticeably. He looked Tristan over, and his face screwed up at the sight of the prince's unorthodox weapons.

"I'm the one who just made you fifty kisa," Tristan replied calmly, never taking his eyes from the sailmaker's. "Your king over the last player's pageboy."

Tristan gave the man a short, conspiratorial smile that he hoped would soften things a bit. "I won't even ask you for half of the pot," he added craftily. "All I want is a little of your time, and now you can afford to give it to me."

Sensing the possibility of a profit, Ichabod calmed a bit. Glancing back down at the table, a short smile crossed his mouth. "Dreng it is," he said softly, looking back over at the prince. "But that's not good enough. Who are you really, and what do you want? Surely it isn't to give me card lessons. I've never seen you before. Tell me true, or I'll have my friends here cut you from groin to gizzard with a dull deer antler and feed what's left to the sharks."

Tristan looked over to the two glaring pirates who had so quickly risen from their chairs. The light from the chandelier glinted off their weapons. The fact that he had just cost each of them money had only added to their desire to act on Ichabod's grisly suggestion, and he knew it. But he stood his ground, holding his own in the contest of wills.

"I'm a prospective customer," he told Ichabod. "One with money to spend. I need a rush job, and I'm willing to pay extra for it. Is there someplace where we might speak in private?"

Thoughtfully rubbing his chin, Ichabod looked back at his friends. With a decisive grunt he finally picked up his money and directed Tristan to a table in the corner. As the tavern slowly returned to normal, the sailmaker came straight to the point.

"I assume you have a list of your needs?" he asked. Tristan produced Tyranny's list and handed it over.

"This is a very big job," Ichabod mused. "You must have more than one ship in distress."

Tristan nodded shortly, almost rudely. He didn't want much small talk, for that might only trip him up. "We were attacked by screechlings," he explained simply.

"When do you need these?"

"By dawn."

Ichabod tossed the list to the table. "These are unusually large and must be custom-made. Not only that, but you want them very quickly. All of my people would have to put everything else aside and work straight through the night in order to accomplish this. And that is going to cost you."

"How much?" Tristan asked, holding his breath.

"One thousand," Ichabod said confidently, leaning back in his chair. Reaching up, he began twirling one end of his mustache with his fingertips.

"Three hundred, and you deliver them to my ships by dawn," Tristan countered.

Ichabod scowled at Tristan as if he had just descended from another world. "I don't even get out of bed in the morning for less than five."

"Four hundred, then, take it or leave it," the prince said.

Pushing his chair back with finality, Ichabod stood. "You're insane," he said gruffly as he turned to go. But before he could, he found Tristan had taken him by one wrist.

"If you don't accept my offer here and now, you will never be able to visit this place again," Tristan growled quietly. "In fact, you may lose your life over it. Tell me, is it really worth it?"

Bending over, Tristan reached down and stuck his hand into the surprised sailmaker's right boot. He pulled out several playing cards, examined them closely, and casually tossed them down onto the table.

"What do you think will happen to you if I drag you back over to those men by your hair and show them what you keep in your boots? Whose friends do you think those drunken morons with the daggers will be then, eh? Not to mention that you have been cheating your partner's patrons, right under his very nose. And I seriously doubt you've been giving Rolf a cut-that's something he won't take kindly to." Tristan's face turned as hard as granite. "Now sit down, before I cause you some real trouble."

Still unimpressed, Ichabod gave Tristan a confident, arrogant glare. "Go ahead and try," he dared. "I'll tell them the cards belong to you. Who do you think they'll believe?"

Tristan only smiled. "Actually, I think they'll believe me," he said softly.

"And just why is that?"

"Because there is wax on the edges of these cards," Tristan answered casually, as he grabbed one up from the table and held it before the sailmaker's eyes. "The same as that on your mustache. And in case you haven't noticed, I'm clean-shaven. So tell me, sailmaker, now which of us is the insolent bastard?"

Ichabod's face went white. On trembling legs he searched absently behind himself, finally finding his chair. He sat down carefully.

"Four hundred, you say?" he asked, his voice breaking. His tone had suddenly become far more agreeable.

"Four hundred," Tristan nodded. "Far be it from me to swindle a card cheat. And no deposit. Rather, payment in full on delivery to my ships tomorrow at dawn. You'd best not cross me. I wouldn't take it well."

"Where are you anchored?" the sailmaker asked.

"On the eastern shore. In the rocky cove, just off the wooden docks. Do you know it?"

"Yes."

"Then I will see you there at dawn," Tristan replied. "With the sails."

Ichabod's eyes narrowed a bit. "Once you leave the Wing and Claw, how do you know I'll keep my end of the bargain?"

Reaching back, Tristan casually produced one of his throwing knives and held it to the chandelier. The soft light glinted off the dirk's razor-sharp edges.

"Because if you don't, I'll come to you tomorrow night," the prince said quietly. "Sanctuary is a small island, and I'll find you no matter where you try to hide. I'll find you, and I'll cut you." Looking back down into Ichabod's eyes, he smiled. "From groin to gizzard."

Ichabod swallowed hard. "Very well," he said in a much smaller voice. "It shall be as you say."

Remembering what Tyranny had taught him, Tristan spat into his right palm and held it out. After a moment, Ichabod followed suit, and they shook hands. The prince had been inordinately lucky. He also knew that he should leave quickly, before anything went awry.

But as he stood to go, someone else entered the Wing and Claw. Someone he knew. It was Scars.

As might be expected, the giant's frame filled the doorway, blocking out much of the afternoon sun. But as Tristan looked more carefully, he saw that something was very wrong. Scars' hands were tied behind his back, and his face was bruised. He was being prodded into the room by two leering pirates, their sabers held to his back. Tristan froze, trying to act as though he had never seen the colossus before. His mind began to race.

Scars and the pirates finally entered the tavern and slowly walked over to one side. Then, from the sunlight beyond the doors Tristan detected something standing there, its silhouette dark against the afternoon sun. It looked like a man. But it had too many arms and legs to be a man, and some of them weren't where they were supposed to be.

Then he saw the thing start to spin around, and Tyranny came flying through the air to crash into one of the nearby empty tables. It collapsed beneath her, and she went down hard. Dazed and hurt, at first she seemed unable to get up.

Tristan started to go to her, but somehow her eyes found him in the crowd. She gave him a short, decisive shake of her head, telling him to stay put. Understanding, he fought down the impulse to help her and forced himself back down into his chair.

He heard boot heels on the clapboard sidewalk, and a man walked arrogantly into the tavern. Striding over to Tyranny, he reached down and, viciously grabbing a handful of her short hair, wrenched her face up for everyone to see.

"I'm looking for the other man who came into town with this!" he shouted. "It has come to my attention that there is another rooster in my henhouse! Reveal yourself, whoever you are, and I'll let her live!"

Staring at the man with hatred, Tristan's endowed blood began to rise hotly in his veins.

His hand closed automatically around the handle of his knife.