“I will guide you true. Take you where you want to go.” Then, as an afterthought: “Safely.”
“And what payment for this service?”
Geoffrus smiled and danced a jig. “Knives and meat. Meat and knives. And rainbow scarves for me and mine.”
Aedric looked to Neb with raised eyebrows. His hands moved. Do you think we can trust him?
Neb looked at the patchwork man, then back to Aedric. He could read what Aedric thought clearly in the way the First Captain sat in his saddle. No, he signed.
He glanced at Isaak. The metal man was watching the direction their quarry had fled to, eye shutters opening and closing as if calculating distance.
Aedric saw the same and made a decision. “We will consider your kind and generous offer for a later time,” he said. “But for now, we must ride.”
Geoffrus howled. He leaped and spun in the air, beating his chest with his fists. Above him, in the hills, other voices hooted and howled as well. “Rainbow Man, why do you spurn me and mine with the kin-clave so lovely between us?”
A new voice rose above the din. This one was deep and gravelly, and the laughter that it rode upon was bemused. “The Rainbow Man is wiser than you credit him for, Geoffrus,” the voice said. A figure stepped onto the highway. “Perhaps he knows that the only digging holes you’ll lead him to are shallow graves to hide their meat-picked bones. Perhaps the Luxpadre told him about the Ash Men you killed and ate.”
Geoffrus’s cavorting stopped. He fixed his eyes onto the figure, and Neb followed his gaze, surprised at the fear and rage that replaced the mirth so quickly. The newcomer was slender as a willow and tall, wrapped in the charcoal cloak of a Gray Guard. Beneath the guard’s cloak, he wore the rough fabric robes of an Androfrancine archaeologist. His salt-and-pepper hair and beard were both close-cropped, and his crooked smile betrayed a relaxed confidence. His eyes were hard points of bright blue. He held a long lacquered wooden stick loosely; a large bulb of some kind at the base of it rested easy in the palm of one hand. The man stepped forward, and the wind rustled his cloak and robes as he came.
“We have kin-clave with these men,” Geoffrus started, taking a step back. “We have nearly reached agreement.”
“It sounds to me,” the man said, “as if they seek a more polite way of extricating themselves from your company.” He took another step forward. “I will not be so kind. I hold the contract with the Ash Men. I hold the letters of introduction and credit from the Luxpadre that say so.”
He raised the lacquered stick and pointed one end at Geoffrus. Neb noted the dark mouth at the end of it and wondered what the strange object did. He did not wonder for long. With the slightest squeeze of the bulb, a small cloud of what looked like pollen spat from it, and something small and hard shot out, hitting the paving stone near Geoffrus’s feet with surprising force and clattering off to clack against the canyon wall. Geoffrus jumped back, the anger fading as the fear took front and center in his eyes. “No call for such, no call for such,” he cried, raising his hands in supplication. “Geoffrus knows an unwelcoming lot.”
“If you keep following these men,” the robed man said with a smile, “then you and yours will be the eaten and I will sell your skin to the Waste Witch for carrots and pepper.”
Geoffrus looked around at the silent Gypsy Scouts, looked up to the heads that watched quietly from above, and his shoulders slumped. “No kin-clave here,” he said, his mouth hard and straight. His eyes met Neb’s for a moment, and Neb saw the hatred and hunger in them. Bowing with a flourish, he spun on his heels and clambered back up the rocky slope.
When Geoffrus vanished, the newcomer looked to Aedric. “You pursue the metal man,” he said simply. “I doubt you’ll catch up to it unless it wishes you to.” He looked to Isaak. “They’re crafty, these, and dangerous.”
Isaak said nothing. His bellows whispered quietly, and the massive stallion he rode shifted beneath his weight.
Next, the guide studied their uniforms. “And you’re not from the Luxpadre’s Gray Guard, yet you play with his toys. You have the look of Forest Gypsies about you.”
Aedric nodded. “The world beyond the Keeper’s Wall has changed. Windwir is fallen. The Order is no more.”
Neb thought the news would carry more impact. But instead, the man patted a courier pouch that hung from a worn leather strap around his neck. “Then these letters will be worthless now. I’d wondered when the caravans stopped coming and going so suddenly last year.”
“Lord Rudolfo has inherited the Order’s holdings, including the Eastern Watch,” Aedric said. “I am empowered to honor or execute any contracts on his behalf. Are you Androfrancine, then?”
The man shook his head. “I’m not. But I’ve served them long enough, and my father before that.” Stepping forward, he extended his hand. “I am Renard,” he said. “I will gladly escort you to Fargoer’s Town, where you may secure other arrangements to go after your wayward metal toy.”
Aedric nudged his horse forward, leaned over and shook the man’s hand once, releasing it quickly. “I am Aedric, First Captain of Rudolfo’s Gypsy Scouts.”
“Well met,” Renard said with a nod. He turned, lifting his stick with one hand and pointing northeast. “Fargoer’s Town is yonder. We could reach it by nightfall.” His eyes shifted from Aedric to Neb and then last to Isaak. “We should reach it by nightfall. The Wastes aren’t safe by night.”
Aedric’s eyes narrowed. “And how do we know we can trust you to guide us true?”
The crooked grin was back. “You are a dozen. I’m alone. But more than that. ” He opened the flap on the pouch, rummaged about inside, and withdrew a tattered letter. He passed it to Aedric.
The First Captain read it quickly, then ran a finger over the seal at the bottom before passing it to Neb. It was a letter of introduction signed and dated by Pope Introspect some twenty years earlier, declaring that Renard son of Remus bore the grace of His Holiness the Pope and could negotiate freely such terms and conditions on behalf of the Order as necessary for its work in the Old World. Neb couldn’t resist; he also touched the imprint of the papal signet before handing it back to his First Captain. He’d seen the signature many times before, and he’d carried that signet in his pocket for days before passing it to Petronus there near the craters that marked the Great Library’s grave.
Renard looked up to him and winked, digging a black bit of root from his pocket and sucking it into his mouth. “You’re Hebda’s boy,” he said as he chewed it. “You’re early, but your father told me to expect you.” Then, he turned even as Neb opened his mouth to speak. “We’ve a lot of ground to cover,” their new guide said over his shoulder. “Let’s run.”
He set out at a jog that stretched into a sprint, and Aedric whistled them forward. At first, Neb wondered how it was this strange Waster thought he’d keep ahead of magicked horses moving at full speed. But even as they spurred their mounts forward, he saw that Renard had no difficulty matching his pace to theirs. His feet slapped the broad paving stones of the Whymer Way, and he threw back his head, laughing wildly as he ran.
Your father told me to expect you.
Later, he would ask about that. But for now, something was happening to him. Something he could not fathom nor explain.
As Neb leaned forward in the saddle, something caught in his soul and expanded. It was as if they’d crossed an invisible border that marked their true arrival in the place he’d longed for since earliest childhood. The air carried the smell of burnt spices and ancient dust. It tasted bitter on his tongue when he opened his mouth, and the sun, hanging like a golden wafer in a bright and cloudless sky, called for him to laugh as well, to give himself over to something feral and mad in this place and run with the wind to places long forgotten. To the graveyards of the former Age’s light.
This place will seduce me and swallow me if I let it, he realized.
And with that realization, Neb forced the smile away from his lips and bent his mind to watching the road roll past beneath the whispering hooves.
Rudolfo
When they rounded the bend in the lane and approached the small shack and its nearby boat house, the memory of the place struck Rudolfo like a fist.
I’ve been here before.
His men had followed the magicked Gray Guard back to this place and had watched it through the night from the cover of a nearby thicket. In the late morning, after he’d availed himself of the innkeeper’s best fare-poached eggs and broiled salmon with seasoned potatoes and sweet, black beer-Rudolfo and the rest of his men had joined them. Two birds had gone out from the back window of the boat house, and there was no movement whatsoever in the shack. Its windows and door had been boarded up, and no smoke leaked out from its stone chimney.
Had he known back then that this was Petronus’s home? He didn’t think he had-he thought he would’ve remembered such a thing. But those had been dark and tumultuous times, and there had been days, washed in the grief and rage of Windwir’s loss, of Gregoric’s loss, that he’d not even remembered his own name.
Still, he remembered this place. He remembered the men outside the door, waiting. He remembered the stink of feces and urine in the boat house and the croaking of Sethbert where he hid in the corner, demanding to see Rudolfo, threatening to hurt him but having no blade in his hand with which to do so.
“I will hurt you with words,” the mad Overseer had croaked.
And he’d spoken truly. Those words had twisted Rudolfo’s life into a black and angry river, for it was there that he first learned of Vlad Li Tam’s work in his life and of House Li Tam’s role in the murder of his family.
The memory of that day tasted like copper in his mouth, and he swallowed it. He looked to the men that flanked him and signed for them to watch and wait. They scattered, taking up positions and melting into the underbrush to guard their liege.
Rudolfo went to the boat house door and rapped upon it lightly. “It is Rudolfo,” he said in a quiet voice. “And I no longer have the time or forbearance to wait.” He paused, then offered, “I’ve a medico among my scouts and you’re ill.”
At first, he heard nothing behind the heavy wood. Then, he heard faint coughing and quiet, careful movement. There was the sound of a bar being lifted and the door opened a crack. “You followed me for nothing,” the voice said plainly. “I’ve no word for you, Gypsy King.”
Rudolfo easily pushed the door open, and the Gray Guard fell back. The odor of sickness and bird droppings choked him as he stepped into the room, letting the sunlight spill past him. The haggard man was nearly visible as the magicks gradually released him. Still, it could be too late. The magicks required years of gradual, measured use to build up immunity to their darker side effects, and these Gray Guard couldn’t have been using them for more than a handful of months. The Order stood above such things, though they tolerated-and even encouraged-their neighbors to use such reminders of the former times. The Gypsy King whistled, and one of his men slipped forward. “Are you alone?” he asked the Gray Guard.
The Gray Guard said nothing, and Rudolfo’s eyes narrowed. He let menace and honey mingle in his voice. “I have kin-clave with your master, regardless the Order’s standing. I am the Guardian of Windwir and the heir of P’Andro Whym’s holdings. I expect you to deal truthfully with me according to the Articles of Kin-Clave and tell me what I need to know that I might be on my way. I’ve business to attend with Petronus, and I’ve been gracious thus far. But I will not let the stubbornness of a dying man bring about more death.” He took another step closer to the man. “I will speak and you will answer,” he said. “Are you alone?”
The man coughed, bending as he did, and when he vomited onto the floor Rudolfo saw blood flecked with white foam. “There are two of us. Jarryd is sick, as well.” He nodded to the far corner of the room.
Rudolfo stepped over the puddle of blood and let the medico in. The scout took the man by the elbow and guided him to the shadow-wrapped pile of blankets where the other guard slept. “Do you have what you need to treat them?”