It did seem all too likely that Kilian had discovered that the book was gone, and he was probably searching for it this very minute. Like all Brothers of Zeth, he possessed powerful magic of his own that he could use to hunt for lost items. Stergos had once explained to Snudge that the windsearch was a faculty closely related to scrying. It could be focused intensely over nearby areas, “calling out” to the object of the search. Its effectiveness varied according to the power of the individual adept, but not even the sprawling expanse of Cala Palace would faze the Royal Alchymist. Beynor had said that sigils couldn’t be scried. But the book might not fall under that exemption, even if the moonstone on its cover did.
Perhaps Snudge’s personal immunity from windwatching would keep him and a book in close proximity to him safe from the wizard’s scrutiny—but maybe it wouldn’t. He wasn’t going to take chances, especially now that he had firmly decided to eschew Beaconfolk magic.
Both the book and the sigil named Concealer were going down down down—to the bottom of Cala Bay, before another hour struck on the palace chimes.
The other armigers were still snoring merrily. Snudge crept out from the covers, cautiously opened his trussing coffer, and found a stout winter jerkin, a wool tunic, and leather trews. After he finished dressing, except for his boots, he stowed the book and sigil and retrieved his new heavy cloak and swordbelt from their wall-pegs. Then he picked up his boots and slipped out of the chamber.
The bare flagstones of the corridor were like ice beneath his stockinged feet, even though Cathra had yet to experience its first frost. He pulled on his footgear quickly. There were no rush-mats or other frivolous luxuries in the Square Tower where the household knights, squires, and palace guardsmen lived. The tower also housed the armory and the cells for high-ranking prisoners. It was a comfortless place where the walls had no tapestries and the leaded windows no drapes, only strong oak shutters that would be closed when the terrible Hammer and Anvil storms of winter finally returned and smashed the lands around Cala Bay between them. A single hanging oil-lamp at the far end of the passage lit the juncture with another corridor, as well as the stairs leading down to the warriors’ common rooms.
Two guardsmen were on nightwatch there. Snudge hid from them with the ease of long practice and continued down the stairs to the first storey, where signs of opulence became evident. There were fine brass standard-lamps every dozen feet, having only a single flame burning at this hour. Polished wood overlay the stone flooring of an enclosed arcade, where there were beautifully carved marble pillars and ornamental pots holding living shrubs. The arcade led to the main block of the palace and the apartments of the royals and the high nobility. There were more guards, splendidly accoutered, stationed at the entrance, but he crept past them unseen.
To reach Vra-Kilian’s rooms, Snudge would have had to turn right at the arcade’s end. He only paused for a moment, concealed in heavy shadows behind a statue, before turning left. After descending a handsome flight of banistered stairs and slipping through an unbarred but guarded door, he arrived in the royal mounting-yard. Beyond lay the stables sheltering the king’s horses, which numbered nearly two hundred, and behind them were buildings devoted to the care of the pampered animals and their tack. When he was young, Snudge had worked there with his grandfather. He knew every inch of the area, and was familiar with its special-purpose gate.
Even in the dark of night, there were plenty of people moving about. Some were unloading firewood or other bulk goods from the wagons of tradesmen. But most were bent on shoveling muck, befouled straw, and kitchen garbage from a big pile near the curtain wall and loading it into stout carts that would haul it away. This homely task was attended to every other night in the late autumn and winter, when the stench from the accumulated refuse was only moderate. In warm weather, the carts rolled in and out of the palace every night, using the appropriately named Dung Gate. They were forbidden to travel the city streets after sunrise.
The Dung Gate guard detail was not drawn from the cream of the palace’s men-at-arms. Its roster was composed of unfortunates who had been found drunk on duty or were guilty of brawling, petty theft, or other derelictions. The guards were notoriously susceptible to bribery, and denizens of the palace who wished to slip out anonymously into the town on clandestine errands invariably went by way of the Dung Gate.
Snudge didn’t even bother to hide as he approached the wide-open portcullises. He simply gave one of the men-at-arms a silver quarter-mark, said, “Back before sunup,” and strode out in the wake of a creaking load of ordure.
“And a good morn to you, messire!” the soldier said, with a sloppy salute. “Watch where you tread.”
Snudge made his way to the docks by means of familiar byways, easily eluding the circulating squads of night-watchmen. Cala was quiet, and the moon had gone down so that the alleys were exceptionally dark. There were no beggars in Olmigon’s beautiful capital city, and very few footpads, since the citizenry was obliged to observe the tenth-hour curfew. The only area where the law was winked at was the waterfront. Ships might arrive or depart at any hour, according to the tide, so dockworkers and sailors were abroad around the clock. Many of the taverns, cheap inns, and bawdy houses that catered to them never closed.
Water Street was only moderately crowded when Snudge reached it. The Wolf’s Breath had put a severe dent in commercial traffic, and most of the sailors still carousing belonged to Cathran warships at anchor out in the Roads, come into port after a tour of blockade duty. Some of the noisy, reeling seamen were heading for Red Gull Pier, where small craft could be cheaply hired to ferry them out to vessels moored in deep water. Snudge followed a gang of them, keeping his head down and his hand on his sword hilt.
The sky was going grey now, and not many boats were manned and available. The returning sailors piled into the last pair of them, and the boatmen promptly cast off and rowed away over the oily-calm water, leaving the boy standing on the dock cursing through clenched teeth.
“May I be of service, messire?” said a voice behind Snudge.
He turned and the light of a nearly spent torch mounted on a pole showed him a smiling, rather portly man of medium stature. He wore a brown leather tunic with gartered trews and a hooded cloak of raggedy fur that muffled his hair and beard. His eyes were kindly.
“Do you have a boat?” Snudge asked, after a moment’s hesitation.
“If you have the hire of it, young lord. Three silver pennies, no matter how many are carried.” The boatman had a slight foreign accent and his voice was unexpectedly cultured.
“Good,” said Snudge. “There’s only me.”
“Which ship are you bound for?”
He had a story ready: The Wronged Lover. “No ship, goodman.” He touched his breast. “I carry some tokens—of value only to a poor scorned and wounded heart—that I wish to cast into the sea so that I may forget ever having met… a certain lady. I will pay your fee gladly, twice over, if you’ll take me to some deep spot in the bay where I can be certain that no current or tidal flux will ever bring these forlorn objects to the surface again.”
The boatman nodded. “I know such a spot. But you must swear to me that it’s not your own self you intend to cast overboard. I won’t be a party to suicide.”
“I swear by Bazekoy’s Bones that I won’t jump. I just have to get rid of these damned things.”
The boatman cocked his head, and his eyes caught the gleam of the torch guttering above the quay. Or did they?
“Are you certain you won’t regret throwing the tokens away?” he inquired.
“Absolutely,” said Snudge. “Let’s go. I want to get this over with.”
The boat was a sturdy sailing dinghy with a raked mast, such as was favored as a tender or auxiliary craft by the big trading schooners of Tarn. It was by no means the usual sort of nondescript puddle-skimmer engaged in the Cala Bay ferry trade. Snudge expected her skipper to row, but no sooner had they settled in than a fair breeze sprang up. The boatman hoisted a striped sail and they moved off swiftly, giving a wide berth to the men o‘ war riding at anchor.
“You are not a native of Cathra,” Snudge said to the skipper.
“You’re very observant, young lord. Nay—I’m of Wave-Harrier stock, but living in Cala now, and eking out a living as best I can. You were fortunate to find me at Red Gull Pier. I’ve been doing other work of late, hardly taking to the water at all.”
“Are… your people back in Tarn suffering because of the ashfall?”
“There’s always the sea to feed us Harriers, but folk who work the gold and opal mines will just scrape by this third bad winter. Thanks be to the God of the Depths, the Wolf’s Breath is belching its last. By the time the Boreal Moon wanes, the skies of my homeland will be clear again.”
“You’re certain?” Snudge was both astounded and skeptical.
“Oh, yes,” said the rotund skipper with supreme confidence, and for some reason the boy didn’t press him further about the matter, nor did he feel like asking him any more casual questions. It was getting very cold now that they were farther from land, and the sky was lightening, beginning to dim the stars.
“Are we almost there?” he finally asked. “I really don’t have much time left.”
“This is the place.” The Tarnian came about, spilled wind from the sail, and then lowered it. “I can’t anchor here. Better do what you came for.” The dinghy rocked in the light chop. The wind had gone dead.
Snudge opened his belt-wallet and gingerly fished out Concealer by its thong. The pendant moonstone dangled from his fingers, and for an instant he thought he saw a faint greenish glow. Averting his eyes, he held the sigil over the gunwale.
“Are you sure you want to do that?” the boatman said softly. “Look out there. They’re waiting to take it.”
Snudge lifted his gaze and gasped. Three forms were rising from the dark wavelets not a stone’s throw away. They were almost man-shaped but considerably more bulky than humankind, with enormous shoulders, peculiarly shaped heads, and wideset bulging eyes that shone scarlet-gold, like coals in a blacksmith’s forge. As the boy stared at them, struck rigid with terror, the creature in the center began approaching the boat, extending a tentacular limb with a four-fingered hand at the end of it.
Hanging from a cord around its wide neck was a glowing sigil.
“Stop,” the Tarnian skipper commanded in a loud voice. He held high an object like a short club, fashioned of ivory and gold. “Do you know me?”
The thing paused. For a moment it was still. Then it reared up, boneless arms flung violently toward the sky and fanged mouth wide open. It roared, shocking Snudge to quivering life, then fell back into the sea with a tremendous splash. The rocking boat was drenched with icy spray.
“You are Red Ansel,” it cried in a rasping bellow, like storm-surf on a rocky shore. Its teeth gleamed in the halflight as its grotesque mouth formed the Cathran words with difficulty. “Give the thief to us. Give back our sacred Coldlight Stones.”
“Go below and wait until I summon you,” said the shaman.
The monster uttered another frustrated roar. It subsided slowly, its baleful gaze lingering above the surface before finally submerging. The other two creatures also disappeared.
Ansel turned a mild face to Snudge. In his eyes, the glow of talent was more powerful than the boy had ever known before. “They are Salka. The sigils were created by their wise ones in an era long gone to conjure the power of the Beaconfolk. Their language is still used to empower the stones. Once, there were countless thousands of Salka and they ruled the island of High Blenholme. Human invaders killed off many of them because they’re slow-moving and awkward on land, and drove the rest away. A few Salka still live in the Great Fen of Moss, but most of them have retreated to the Dawntide Isles, far away to the east.”
“I—I’ve heard the legends.” Snudge had jerked Concealer back into the boat. It lay on the thwart beside him.
“Beynor sent these three. If you’d gone out in an ordinary boat, you and its skipper would have been eaten alive, and the sigil and the book would have been taken back to the Conjure-King.”
“He knew just what I’d do,” Snudge said bitterly. “The Mossbelly bastard! He played me like a farthing flute!”
Ansel smiled. “I think he’s rather afraid of you. Wild talents are messy to deal with. Especially one pledged to serve a pivotal figure such as Conrig Wincantor, who has Bazekoy’s eye watching him. And mine.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Why did you take the sigil from Iscannon? And why did you take the book from Vra-Kilian?”
“I thought they’d help me be a better snudge,” the boy said tiredly. “I’m Prince Conrig’s man. His intelligencer. But I didn’t have the courage to activate the sigil even though Beynor told me how. I was afraid he’d trick me—but I suppose it was a bluff.”
“Not at all. If you’d followed Beynor’s instructions, the Beaconfolk would have slain you in a particularly ghastly fashion. You see, he left out one important part of the activation formula. After asking you your name, the Lights would say: ‘THASHIN AH GAV,’ which means ‘We accept.’ And that would be your signal to say ‘Thank you,’ which is ‘MO TENGALAH SHERUV.’ If you neglected that final courtesy…”
Snudge uttered a hollow laugh. “I’d be dead, just as Beynor planned it. Why are you telling me this? Who are you, Red Ansel?”
“I’m the High Shaman of Tarn, and I was summoned from that country by Princess Maudrayne to ease King Olmigon’s suffering. I stayed in Cala when the king went journeying to Zeth Abbey, and I was most intrigued when you arrived with Prince Conrig’s party, carrying a sigil. Wild talents aren’t common, not even in my country, and one possessed of a dead moonstone who received dream visitations from Beynor of Moss was something extraordinary. I windwatched you as you rifled Kilian’s library—”
“But that’s impossible!”
The shaman shook his head benignly. “Not for me. I watched you and I consulted my Source to discover where my duty lay. Was it proper for me to let you die, one way or another, or was I obligated to save you to serve a higher purpose?”