Demonkin (27 page)

Morro woke with a start. He quickly sat up, nearly tossing Sparky to the floor. The elf’s hand immediately came up to his breast pocket and felt the dampness. Sparky leaped into the air and hovered.

“That is disgusting,” scowled Morro as he stripped off his tunic. “No one warned me about this.”

Sparky grinned as the bare-chested elf grabbed his tunic and rose to his feet. Morro opened the door to the corridor beyond. Sparky retrieved the damp strip of cloth and flew to the table to wait. A while later the elf returned. He hung his damp tunic on a pointed stone coming out of the wall and rummaged through his pack to find a dry tunic. He pulled the tunic on and glared at the fairy on the table.

“I hope this one doesn’t have stale breadcrumbs in the pocket,” complained the fairy. “If it does, I will be forced to pour ale in that pocket, too.”

“Ale?” frowned the elven thief as he stared at the strip of cloth in the fairy’s hands. “You made me wash my tunic for some spilled ale?”

“The crumbs might not bother you,” glowered the fairy, “but I have to live in that pocket.”

Morro looked at the tiny defiant face before him, and he started laughing. “You could have just explained the problem,” Morro said. “I have never carried a fairy before. I would have cleaned out the pocket.”

“That might have worked once,” retorted the fairy, “but now you will never forget again. Is that tunic clean?”

“Ready for your inspection,” chuckled the elf.

Sparky shot to the pocket and peered in. He nodded in approval. “Now we can get some sleep.”

“Actually,” replied Morro, “it is nearly time to get up anyway. Let’s go for a walk so we don’t wake Karicon.”

The dwarf opened his eyes and gazed into the fairy light. “Do you really think a dwarf could sleep through such a racket? Sure glad I don’t have a practical joker living in my pocket. Go for a walk. Maybe I can catch another hour of sleep.”

Sparky extinguished the fairy light and slid into the pocket. Morro apologized and slipped out of the chamber. He wove his way through the maze of tunnels until he reached the work zone at the extreme northern end of the mine. The dwarves were digging the tunnel night and day, and the elf stopped to watch their progress for a while. It amazed him how efficiently the dwarves moved tons of stone and how quickly the length of the tunnel grew.

“Careful there, elf,” called one of the miners as he pushed a heavy cart loaded with stone. “You don’t want to get caught in the way of one of these. They don’t stop too quickly.”

Morro pressed his back to the side of the tunnel as the dwarf pushed the loaded cart past him. While the dwarves were safety conscious, Morro still recognized the work zones as a dangerous place to dawdle. His mind wandered to the dangers of the mine and eventually fell on the ability of the hourglass to save him in an emergency. No sooner had he thought about the magical artifact when another thought entered his mind. He stirred the fairy to life.

“I feel as if I just got to sleep,” complained Sparky.

“You have an excellent sense of time,” smiled Morro. “How adventurous are you, Sparky?”

“Adventurous?” echoed the tiny man. “Fairies love adventure. Where are we going?”

“I want to perform an experiment,” explained Morro, “but there is potential danger in it for you.”

“I can defend myself,” the fairy said bravely.

“There will be nothing attacking you,” replied the elf. “I have the means to make time stop. The problem is that it only stops for me. Everyone else will appear frozen in time while I will be able to move about.”

“So what is the danger?” the fairy asked with confusion.

“What happens if you are in my pocket when time stops?”

“You would move and I would not,” frowned the fairy.

“But that is impossible if you are in my pocket.”

Sparky pondered the situation for a few moments. “If I was in your pocket when time stopped, where would I be if you moved in the meantime?”

“That is the question I seek the answer to. You might move with me, or you might stay behind only to drop to the floor when time started again.”

“Can you really stop time,” asked the fairy, “or is this some kind of prank to get back at me for the ale in your pocket?”

“It is no prank,” assured the elf. “I have done it before and there were problems with it. One time I had planned to ride a unicorn when time was stopped, but the unicorn was frozen.”

“I did not know that you were a mage,” frowned the fairy. “I am glad that you did not use magic on me for my prank.”

“I am not a mage,” chuckled Morro as he produced the hourglass. “I have a magical artifact that stops the time. If I press this tiny lever, time will stop until the sands run out.”

Sparky stared at the hourglass with wonder. “If I fell from the height of your pocket, I might die. That is a big drop for someone my size.”

“What if you hung on my boot?” asked the elf. “You would either move with me or fall to the floor, but that would not be such a great distance to fall.”

“I could get stepped on,” frowned the fairy.

“No one but me will be moving,” promised Morro. “Will you try it?”

Sparky looked down at the elf’s boots and then the floor. “Will I get to see time stop?”

“We won’t know until we try it.”

After a moment of hesitation, the fairy nodded his tiny head. “I will try it,” he declared bravely. “Wait for me to get into position.”

The fairy shot out of the elf’s pocket and landed on Morro’s boot. He gripped the boot with both hands and told Morro to try it. Morro triggered the device. The sounds of the dwarves working immediately stopped. He looked down at his boot and saw the fairy clinging to it, but the fairy appeared to be frozen. He carefully took a step. Sparky moved along with the boot. Walking carefully so as to not dislodge his passenger, Morro moved out of the main corridor of the mine and into a smaller tunnel. He bent over, picked up the fairy and carefully slid him into his pocket.

When the sands ran out, Sparky was in darkness. The little man panicked and started shouting. Morro quickly opened the pocket and the fairy’s head popped out.

“What happened?” Sparky asked anxiously.

“You moved along with me,” answered the elf. “After determining that you would be safe moving with me, I put you in my pocket so you wouldn’t fall off when I ran.”

The fairy gazed around and noticed that they were in a different section of Tarashin. It was a fairly far distance from where he had grabbed the elf’s boot.

“It happened all in the blink of an eye,” the fairy said in amazement. “One moment I was gripping your boot, and the next I was in your pocket. I didn’t get to see time stopped.”

“I am sorry,” said the elf, “but at least we now know that you will stay with me. That is far better than leaving you behind.”

“I suppose,” the fairy said with obvious disappointment.

* * * *

The seven strangers entered Valdo through the southern gates. The leader of the group led his party on a wide looping tour of the city. They rode along the fabulously wealthy coast road and past the Royal Palace of Queen Samir. They passed through the fashionable market district, and the neat blocks of homes of the lesser bureaucrats. As they neared the western gates, the leader halted the group at a public stable. The group dismounted and gave their mounts to the stable hands. The leader spoke softly to the Stablemaster and then addressed the group.

“Bring all of your packs with you,” advised Fakir Aziz. “We will be staying in the city for a while.”

The mages nodded silently and gathered their packs. When they were ready, Fakir Aziz led them on foot through the streets of the city. Once they crossed the main east-west road, the nature of the city began to change. The well-kept homes of the bureaucrats gave way to dilapidated structures in need of repair. The farther they walked, the worse the structures became. The class of citizenry also changed. At first, the clothing of the people went from clean, tidy clothes, to worn and patched garments, but as they proceeded deeper into the slums, the people wore little more than filthy rags.

Refuse littered the streets, and beggars were rampant. The heart of the slums consisted of the sick, the lame, and the dying. Bodies littered the streets and alleyways; some were already dead; others would soon join them. As the Mage led the group through the disease-ridden area, he kept watch on the reactions of his group.

Kalmar’s face was stricken with horror. His eyes were filled with sorrow, and he often turned away from the lame and crippled, as if he could not bear to look at them for fear his heart would break in two. Zynor pretty much ignored the people of the slums, but his eyes followed every mangy dog that crossed their path. He often shook his head in silence. Theos checked every cross street so he would be the first to recognize the exit when they got close to it. Valera looked at everything dispassionately as if she were reading a book, and what she was looking at was what was supposed to be in the story. Eulena carried the look of a healer who examined each of the sick and lame and was trying to decide who needed healing the most. Crystil showed no emotion at all. Her old, cold eyes mechanically observed everything, recording it for future use.

When they reached the very center of the slum, Fakir Aziz called a halt. Everyone looked around to find the inn they would be staying at, but there were no structures nearby that even resembled an inn. The group stood in the center of a narrow street. A narrower alley ran between the buildings to both their left and their right, and an intersection of another narrow street stood a score of paces away.

“Where is the inn?” asked Theos.

“We have no need of an inn,” answered the Mage. “This street is seldom traveled. We will camp here.”

All of the mages looked at Fakir as if he were crazy, but only Theos grumbled under his breath.

“There are some rules to our encampment,” Fakir said. “There will be no use of battle magic for any reason. The Federation does not take the use of such magic lightly. As for other magics, it would be wise to use only spells that do not broadcast our existence here. While it is not illegal to use magic within the Federation, it will draw attention to us, and I would prefer not to be noticed.”

“Do we just sleep in the street?” asked Kalmar.

“There is a broad walk on each side of the street,” shrugged the Mage, “but as I said, the street is seldom used. Whichever you prefer, I would avoid blocking it off completely. These people still need to use this street to go wherever it is they go.”

The street was filthy and the mages glanced around for a place to put down their packs. Theos scowled and called forth a spell of wind. The tiny whirlwind picked up the debris from a small section of the sidewalk and blew it down the alley. He deposited his packs in the clean area and sat down with his back to a dilapidated building. Crystil walked around and gathered up stray bits of straw. Her old bony fingers moved rapidly over the collection of straw, and she soon had a primitive broom. She started sweeping the sidewalk.

“You did that quickly,” smiled Eulena. “If you can make another, I will start sweeping with this one.”

Crystil smiled at the elf and handed her the broom. She moved off to gather more straw. Zynor befriended a passing dog. He sat down on the dirty street and rummaged through his pack for food. The dog snatched the first piece of dried meat from Zynor’s hand as if he were stealing it, but the Zaroccan mage soon had the dog sitting beside him. Valera stood watching Kalmar. The healer from Korocca held a handful of coins, and he gave one to each cripple who happened past. The reactions of the recipients varied greatly. Some were suspicious of the Occan mage, while others were so grateful they could not stop bowing to him. A blind man walked by with a tin cup, and Kalmar dropped the last of his coins in it. The blind man halted at the sound of the coin hitting the bottom of his empty cup.

“Bless you, stranger. May your life never know misery.”

“I wish I could do more,” Kalmar said softly. “That is the last of my coins.”

The blind man turned towards the sound of Kalmar’s voice, and he extended the cup towards the mage.

“I have been so long without,” he said, “that I can survive another day or two without it. Take it back so you will not be without a coin. No man should be without a coin.”

“No, friend,” smiled Kalmar. “I have had far too many coins in my life already. Take it and find food to eat.”

The blind man’s lips spread in a toothless grin, and he bowed in Kalmar’s direction. “May the gods shower their blessings upon you.”

The old man hobbled off, his unsteady feet carefully testing the pavement before him. Valera walked across the street and silently stood next to Kalmar. When he looked at her, he saw her holding a small pouch out to him.

“What is that?” he asked.

“Some coins,” smiled the Vinaforan mage. “I have no use for them, and you seem to enjoy handing them out. Take them.”

“You could hand them out yourself,” objected Kalmar.

“I have no sense of people.” Valera shook her head. “I would probably give them all to someone who has no need other than greed. You see people in a way that I cannot understand. What little good these coins can do, you are the one to decide who should have them.”

Kalmar sighed and took the pouch. “The truth is, these coins will not do much for these people. They are more than hungry and sick. They have lost their spirit and their will to live. They are like living corpses waiting for the proper moment to lie down and die. It is sickening.”

“You are a healer,” stated Valera. “Why don’t you heal them?”

“I have been thinking about that,” answered Kalmar as he turned around and looked for the Mage. “I wanted to ask Fakir how long we will be camped here, but he has disappeared again.”

“Does it matter?” asked Valera.

“It does.” Kalmar nodded. “If we will be here for even a few days, these coins would be put to better use buying supplies for a healing shop. I could make up some potions and ointments that might lessen the incidence of disease here.”

“Well,” mused Valera, “it is rather late in the day. Hold onto the coins until you speak to Fakir Aziz. I have given you all that I have and I doubt that many of the others have any coins. Eulena and Crystil come from places where coins have no value.”