Wellspring of Chaos

XXXI

Early on fourday morning, Kharl woke to find a cloudy sky, with cold mist half-drifting, half-drizzling through the open ends of the makeshift roof between the walls, a harbinger of late fall and of the winter to come. Intermittently, water dripped down off each end of the roof, and, every so often, from somewhere in the middle.

Kharl drew the winter sheepskin jacket around him, taking comfort in its warmth, but knowing it was too fine to wear on the streets, at least not in his guise as a beggar. He reached out and ran his fingers over the black staff. It wasn’t exactly warm, but it didn’t feel cold, and somehow, touching it had a calming effect on Kharl. He almost felt as though life had somehow become more clear. He knew that was not true, not at all, but it felt that way.

Jeka had come back late the night before-long after he had trudged through the alleys and serviceways-and she had scuttled into her hidey-hole without speaking.

Kharl pressed his lips together tightly, swallowing. Charee was dead. Her sister despised him. Arthal had stormed out. The cooperage would be sold, and Kharl was hiding like a rat between walls. He’d lost everything and everyone he had loved. While he’d learned long before that fairness was absent in much of life, he hadn’t expected such unfairness to descend on him.

His lips quirked into a sardonic smile. He doubted that his life would ever be clear again. If he didn’t get out of Brysta before too long, the length of that life was likely to be short indeed. Yet, he couldn’t walk far enough because all Nordla was under the laws of the Quadrant. That meant that, if he were discovered elsewhere in Nordla, Lord West-or Egen-could request his return from any other lord. At best, that meant living like Jeka, or living a lie, waiting to be discovered. Neither alternative appealed to Kharl.

“Gettin’ cold,” observed Jeka as she eased from her cubbyhole. “How was your boy?”

“Doing fine. He’s learning how to be a grower.”

“So…he didn’t want to be a cooper?”

“He lost his mother. He’d rather stay with his aunt and uncle than lose more.”

“I’da stayed with Ma anywhere,” Jeka said in a low voice.

“Your mother was lucky you felt that way.”

“Didn’t help her none.”

From the bleakness of her tone, Kharl decided not to pry. “How do you make it through the winter?”

“Well as I can…I keep the cubby sealed, much as I can. It’s higher, so water doesn’t come in.” Jeka shrugged. “Got pretty thin by spring this year.”

“You can’t keep doing this.”

“What else is there? I won’t go to a pleasure house. No one else’ll have me…”

Kharl glanced at the section of sky visible between the wall and the crude roof, dark gray and getting lower. “Won’t find much at the lower market today. Anyplace else we can get something to eat?”

“We could go to the White Pony. See if there’s stuff left. Sometimes, there is. Durol’ll let the girls sell it cheap, copper or two.”

“Might as well try.” Kharl’s stomach was growling, as it often did of late. The slight paunch he had developed over the past few years had already begun to shrink, but the process wasn’t pleasant-or noiseless.

“It’s all right…you know,” Jeka said.

“What’s all right?” Kharl had no idea what she meant.

“That you got some coppers. Everyone hides their coin. You have to. You been real generous.”

“So have you. Sharing your space. You helped me with shelter. I help with food.”

“Maybe…maybe…” Jeka’s eyes dropped.

“What?”

“Maybe you’re too honest to be…a cooper.” Her words trailed away.

Too honest to be a cooper? Was Brysta that bad?

“…shouldn’ta said anything,” Jeka mumbled.

“Never thought of that,” Kharl replied. Still mulling over her observation, he packed away the winter jacket, regretfully.

Before long, they were over the wall and out of the serviceway, making their way uphill and eastward, toward the slightly better section of the harbor area where the White Pony was located off Third Cross, but farther to the south.

The wind picked up, and the misty rain struck Kharl’s face like icy needles, despite the hood of the ragged cloak. The icy needles also penetrated the ragged fabric in too many other places.

“Shoulda holed up for the day,” suggested Jeka.

“You want to go back?”

“Not that far now.” After a moment, she added, “’Sides, then I’d have to give back your coppers.” A gaminelike grin appeared and quickly vanished.

They walked another long cross block before Jeka turned up a narrow alley. “We take this to the stable.”

“Stable?”

“Pony’s got a few rooms upstairs. Some folk stay there, those that don’t know better.” Jeka eased close to a red brick wall irregularly darkened by the misty rain. “Best you wait here just around the corner, by the old gatepost.”

Kharl followed her instructions and huddled in the corner formed by a short gate-wall and the corner of the stable nearest the alley. As Jeka scurried urchin-like toward the inn, from under his thin and ragged and increasingly damp cloak, Kharl watched her.

Jeka slipped along the stable wall toward the rear kitchen door of the inn. She had barely passed the open stable door when a squarish man, with an oiled-leather cape to protect him against the damp, stepped out of the stable. A burly man in a dark burgundy wool jacket followed him, and the second carried a knife in his belt, long enough almost to be a shortsword, and a truncheon in his right hand.

A sense of…something…surrounded the squarish man, something that Kharl couldn’t exactly see.

“You, beggar boy!” ordered the man in the cape. “You owe me something.”

Jeka froze for a moment, then shook her head and started to dart away, but the bodyguard was quicker and grabbed her arm. A flash of something-white-flared from the fingers of the well-dressed man, and Jeka once more froze.

“Now, young woman dressed as a boy…you will wait here with Farn…until I return. I will not be gone but a few moments to collect…your companion.” The squarish man laughed softly. “Since you owe me…” He laughed again.

Jeka said nothing.

A broad and not terribly pleasant smile appeared on Farn’s face.

“You will not disturb her, Farn. My uses come first. Two will be far better than one. What a wonderful coincidence, especially in this weather.” The broad man walked along the side wall of the White Pony, ignoring the rear kitchen door and heading for the front door. He did so without so much as a look backward.

Kharl eased his way out from the alley, shuffling toward the tavern and leaning on his stick. He tried not to look anywhere near the bodyguard or Jeka, but toward the kitchen door.

“You!” snapped Farn. “Go somewhere else.”

“Hungry,” whined Kharl. “Copper for a hungry man? Copper, kind ser? Copper…?”

Farn let go of Jeka. She did not move. The bodyguard lifted his truncheon.

Kharl moved, bringing his shaped timber up in a single swift motion and driving the sharper end into the other’s gut with all the force that a cooper could bring to bear. The bodyguard staggered. His breath puffed out with an explosive grunt, but he held on to the truncheon.

Kharl grabbed the middle of his weapon and, holding it in two hands, slammed it straight up into the other’s jaw. There was a dull crack as the guard’s jawbone snapped. This time the truncheon fell, but the man slowly, so slowly, it seemed to Kharl, reached for Kharl’s neck.

Two-handed, again, Kharl drove his crude staff into the other’s nose.

Blood welled over the guard’s face, and his entire body went slack, slumping, then crumpling onto the muddy ground. For just an instant, Kharl thought he saw a netlike veil of white and black, a spiderweb of sorts within the body of the guard, appear, then disintegrate.

He shook his head, then lowered the makeshift staff.

Jeka still stood immobile, and the stillness and the total lack of expression on her face shocked Kharl. What had the other man done to her? Used some sort of wizardry? He glanced toward the White Pony, but no one seemed to have seen what had happened.

He grabbed Jeka’s arm. She didn’t move.

“Come on. Follow me.”

This time, when he tugged at her arm, she followed, but her movements were stiff and jerky. Kharl hurried them into the alley and out of sight from the tavern. They had gone almost another block before the mist began to change into a light rain. Still, it took far longer to return to the serviceway leading to Jeka’s hidey-hole than it had to travel from it.

Once there, Kharl looked at the wall. He could easily boost Jeka over the wall, but he worried that she’d fall on the other side. He couldn’t carry her and climb the wall himself.

“Climb over the wall and down the other side. Wait there,” he finally said.

Jeka followed his commands, again awkwardly. After a look back, Kharl scrambled after her. She stood waiting on the other side, her face blank. Drops of rain from the edge of the roof fell on her. Some dribbled down her face. She had not moved.

“Move under the roof.” Kharl guided her into the drier section of the makeshift dwelling, then set down his crude short staff.

He just looked at her for a time. What could he do? The wizard had done something with the white flash. White? He frowned, thinking, then nodded. It certainly couldn’t hurt. He stepped to one side and slid the long black staff from under the rags.

Then he turned toward Jeka.

Her eyes widened, and she began to tremble. Kharl took her hand.

“No!” she screamed, struggling to get away from the staff.

Kharl pressed the staff to the hand he held.

Hsssttt! The hissing sound was almost like water on a red-hot iron blank.

Jeka collapsed like a street-show marionette whose strings had been cut, and Kharl had to struggle to hold her one-handed, while he set aside the black staff. Then he propped her form into a half-sitting position against the stone wall. The hand that had touched the staff was reddened, as if it had been slightly burned. Yet the staff had not been that hot to Kharl’s touch.

Did white and black magic always react that way?

“Ohhh…” Jeka looked up, eyes darting around. “What…”

“How much do you remember?”

“There was a white flash, then…” She shook her head. Tears seeped from the corners of her eyes. “I would have done anything anyone told me.”

“That was what he wanted.”

“But…won’t they come after us?”

“The bodyguard won’t.”

“You killed him.”

“I didn’t mean to.” Kharl thought about his words, then added. “No. He felt so evil that I had to. Except I really wasn’t thinking that then.” His actions still confused him.

“Won’t the wizard come after us for that?” Jeka shivered.

“He might,” Kharl conceded. “But it’s raining, and it’s hard to track people in the rain, even with dogs. He didn’t see me, I don’t think.” He paused. “You have any other hiding places?”

“They’re not very good. This is the only really good one.”

“Then, we’d better stay here. We’ll have to be very careful when we go out. And I’m coming with you.”

“Guess…guess you’d better.” The faint tears still oozed from the corners of Jeka’s eyes.

Kharl didn’t have any idea what he could say to make her feel better.

All that because he’d been hungry.