Swords: 08 - The Fifth Book Of Lost Swords - Coinspinner’s Story (24 page)

      
He was certainly in some city, though. A warm and muggy place, large and heavily populated. He could see palm trees. Wherever this was, he was free.

* * *

      
The wizard had somehow struggled to his feet, but that was the most he could manage, and he was threatening to fall again. Supporting Karel with one arm, and with his soldiers, none more than half-conscious, huddling close to him, General Rostov waved Sightblinder at a veritable horde of hideous demonic creatures. They had come pouring in through the tunnel entrance like so many semitransparent puffs of steam or smoke. In the boldest voice that he could manage, he roared at them all to go to hell. In terms usually reserved for blundering colonels, he directed them to get their miserable, spavined, worthless carcasses out of his way, before he decided to unleash his wrath upon them.

      
There might have been a dozen or a score of the foul things before him, and all recoiled abjectly from his wrath. They seemed to be on the point of retreating.

      
From the way they were cowering now, and abasing themselves before him, Rostov was suddenly sure that they were convinced he was Wood himself.

      
The presence, just here and now, of their mighty human master sorely puzzled these foul creatures, and some of them raised hideous bone-rattle voices in an attempt to justify their presence; but none of them were about to dare to argue with the man they were convinced was Wood.

      
In another moment they were gone. And none too soon. The General, gasping, drenched with cold sweat, sank to the floor and for the first time in forty years allowed himself the luxury of nearly fainting.

* * *

      
Murat lost his quarry in a maze of crawling passages, but like his quarry he eventually managed to achieve his freedom. Unknown to the Crown Prince, his experiences in finding his way out were very similar to those of Kebbi. Murat, too, emerged from a different Red Temple than the one he had so hurriedly entered.

      
One difference in the experience of the two men was that Murat immediately knew where he was when he came out. In his early youth he had several times visited the city of Bihari.

* * *

      
Within an hour after the demons had been routed, Rostov, Karel, and their surviving troopers were all more or less recovered from the encounter, at least sufficiently to travel. The wizard now resumed his role of guide, and led the party on.

      
Long before they found their way out of the Temple, the Tasavaltans realized that they had somehow passed into a different building from the one that they had entered in the City.

* * *

      
For the time being at least, Wood’s force of demons had been dispersed, or had lost the scent, or were reorganizing. Against the more common difficulties and snares that one Temple or another might present to a traveler in its protected regions, Karel’s own powers were more than adequate protection. He could defend his several companions too.

      
The searchers found to their chagrin that the trail of Prince Adrian had long since disappeared, or else it had been wiped out in the most recent skirmish. Karel doubted whether even Wood would be able to track the lad this way, if this was indeed the way the Prince had come.

      
Either Adrian had come this way, or more likely gone boating downstream from the Emperor’s Park … at some point on this difficult journey, the wizard realized that even if he and his companions failed to locate the Prince here, they might well be on the fastest possible track for a return to Tasavalta.

Chapter Eighteen

      
This was the second small suburb of Bihari that Adrian, Marland, and Amelia had entered. Walking down the first street they came to in the town, Marland made another happy discovery.

      
He was moving, as usual, a step or two ahead of his companions when he suddenly bent down with a little grunt of satisfaction. A moment later he had picked up a small purse that someone had dropped in the street. The color of the fine leather nearly matched that of the trodden earth, and however long the purse might have lain there, he was evidently the first to notice it.

      
After a reflexive look around to make sure that no one had taken any notice of his discovery, the man drew his two companions aside, under an overhanging roof, where he looked into the purse. It was just starting to rain, and the few people hurrying past on the wooden sidewalk nearby paid them no attention.

      
Abruptly the purse was empty, and Adrian could hear the coins jingling in Marland’s quick hands, though the transition had been so neatly swift that the boy never did really see anything of them.

      
“Well,” the man said, satisfied, not at all surprised, when his quick hidden count had been completed. “Plenty. For the time being, at least. I think I’m going to be Sir Marland from now on. A knight or baronet, from … well, I’ll decide later where I’m from. Probably no one’s going to worry about that, as long as they can see my money.”

      
Rubbing his chin thoughtfully, he looked at Amelia. “You, of course, will be my mistress. And—”

      
She brushed irritably at a small stream that was trickling on her from the roof’s edge, and shifted her position to avoid it. “Oh. And not your wife?”

      
Warned perhaps by something in Amelia’s tone, Marland hesitated. Then he brightened, as if struck by a new thought. “Well, why not? It would add a touch of dull respectability to my character, and that’s all to the good. All right, you’ll be my wife.”

      
He switched his gaze to Adrian. “And you, muddy one, I can’t say I want to claim you as my son. Besides, as people of status we ought to have a servant. You’ll be my page.”

      
Adrian nodded agreeably. It made no difference to him. He could only hope in passing that the true owner of the purse was not going to be destroyed by its loss. The little leather bag looked to be of the finest quality, so he doubted that that would be the case.

      
Marland’s next move was to locate a clothing shop, where he and Amelia each purchased a new outfit of somewhat better quality than the clothing they had taken from the chest. That had been a vast improvement to begin with, but the garments were now showing the effects of several days of river travel. Adrian too was at last upgraded from his loincloth to a fairly shabby but hole-free jacket and trousers, in keeping with his newly official status as a respectable servant.

      
After that, all three enjoyed a good meal, sitting down, though Adrian had to eat in the rear of the food shop. Having observed the behavior of a good many servants in his time, the Prince had little trouble in playing the role successfully.

      
On emerging from the shop’s kitchen, Adrian passed a kind of notice board, contrived from the tall stump of a large tree. Among other signs tacked to the wood he saw a poster advertising a reward for a runaway twelve-year-old boy whose description matched his own appearance as it had been back in the City of Wizards.

      
He wasn’t familiar with the amount of reward usually offered in such cases, but this one seemed unusually generous. The agency offering the reward was located in Bihari, and its name meant nothing to the Prince.

      
Coincidence? He doubted it. Word of his disappearance had preceded him here. Winged messengers must have been used. Had his friends or family caused the notice to be posted, or was it more of the work of Wood?

      
Certainly he dared not respond. Turning away from the poster thoughtfully, the Prince decided that his cover as Sir Marland’s page was going to be helpful to him, and perhaps even important.

      
Besides, Marland had said: “I need you in my plans.” And this offered Adrian enough hope of getting at the Sword to keep him keen on hanging around.

      
Were other such posters about, and were Marland or Amy going to see them? Even if they did, they might not connect them with their servant. But on the other hand they might.

      
With everyone well fed for the moment, and with Sir Marland and his new wife now rather more than just decently outfitted, in clothes that indicated at least a moderate degree of prosperity and status, and with a servant to accompany them, it was now time to seek out suitable lodging.

      
For their first night in this town, Marland selected a modest inn, no better than was necessary for a man of his obvious affluence. He engaged two rooms, so Adrian had a small one to himself. This was the first time he’d slept in a bed in what seemed like months, though it was really not that long.

      
Draffut still had not returned, and Adrian, with mixed feelings, had about given the creature up for lost.

      
Next day, the three traveled on by wagon-coach, on into the big resort city itself. Adrian rode in the rear, with the baggage. He was impressed by the city’s size and complexity, though not so much impressed as he allowed Amelia and Buvrai to believe.

      
The metropolis of Bihari boasted a number of expensive inns, some large and some small, and many of them within easy walking distance of the city’s huge, magnificent, and very famous Red Temple.

      
The Red Temple offered its own inn for guests; accommodations more luxurious than most of the others, probably more so than any of them.

      
But Marland rejected that choice out of hand. He wanted to be less liable to Red Temple scrutiny once the real fun started.

      
As he was about to begin the process of selecting one of the other hostelries for himself and his small entourage, he suddenly announced that soon, perhaps immediately, he ought to hire a bodyguard or two. Adrian supposed his decision had been brought on by a recent hue and cry after a robber in the streets.

      
“Not that I really need a bodyguard,” he confided to Amelia, patting his Sword hilt. In the privacy of his room, using some expensive pigment, he had whitened that black hilt to something like ivory, in an effort to add to the disguising effect of the oversized scabbard. “Not with the help I’ve got here. But if people size me up as wealthy, which I want them to do, then it might look strange if I travel with no such protection.”

      
Amelia sighed. “If you’re really going through with this, then we must try to do it properly. Anyway, it won’t hurt to have an armed man or two on our side. We could try one of the agencies,” she suggested.

      
The man shook his head, and rubbed his Sword hilt, as if that might help him think. “I don’t know. They’re likely to have Temple connections. Maybe I’d better think about it for a while.”

* * * * * *

      
The former Lieutenant Kebbi had by now melded himself with some success into the city of resorts. Pawning a ring that he had managed to conceal from his uncouth captors at the mountain inn, he provided himself with coin sufficient to obtain cheap food and shelter for a time.

      
Alone in the cubicle he occupied in a lodging house, Kebbi took out the token Karel had given him, and looked at it.

      
Since his arrival in Bihari, he had occasionally been able to feel the little piece of wood tugging at the pocket in which he carried it. And now, when he took it out and held it in his palm, it tended to slide off in one direction. He had to tilt the flat plane of his hand up on that side to keep the fragmentary toy from falling to the floor.

      
The missing Prince Adrian must be here, then, and not very far away.

      
Kebbi no longer had a chance of getting his hands on a Sword, it seemed. But he might, he thought, be in reach of something just as valuable.

      
Thrusting into his belt the cheap dagger he’d acquired with almost his last coin, he started out to search for the missing Prince.

* * *

      
Murat had no ring to pawn in the big city, and certainly no Sword of Chance, but fortune had smiled upon him anyway. He had an old friend in Bihari, a lady—some would not have called her that—he’d known two or three years ago. Daring to call upon her, even in his disheveled condition, he had the great good luck to find her home and ready to receive him. Often nobility of rank did confer advantages.

      
Rising from her lounge on the terrace, she surveyed him with an expression of frank dismay. “Aphrodite and Bacchus, Murat, but where have you been?”

      
He made a rueful little bow. “Busy with military matters.”

      
“At least you have survived them. And does your wife—do your people know you’re here?”

      
“Countess, it’s a long story. I shall be pleased to tell it to you one day—if after thinking things over you decide you really wish to hear it. Meanwhile, if you could advance me some money, I will be eternally grateful.”

      
It was on the tip of his tongue to ask whether he could borrow a weapon or two from her household also. But once he had some money he could buy what he needed along that line.

      
Murat was also aware that the token given him by Karel was leading him to Adrian.

* * *

      
Kebbi, hanging around in the street outside one of Bihari’s more elegant inns, was required to wait only a couple of hours before he was able to identify Prince Adrian, dressed as a pageboy in the service of a couple Kebbi had never seen before. He had no idea who they might be; certainly they did not look particularly Tasavaltan. Kebbi did not know what the Prince looked like, but if he trusted Karel’s token there was no ambiguity about the boy’s identity. The little wooden block almost jumped out of Kebbi’s pocket when the youngster passed him.

* * *

      
Murat, with a substantial supply of money to help him, was content to observe matters from the middle distance. Once he’d located the inn where Prince Adrian was staying—in the guise of a servant, of all things—Murat rented a room there himself.

      
The young Prince’s masquerade was so unlikely, although apparently voluntary, that Murat decided he had better make sure just what was going on before he attempted to interfere, and restore the heir to the Tasavaltan throne to the arms of his grateful mother.

* * *

      
The process of selecting a bodyguard had been concluded much faster than either Adrian or Amelia had expected—no doubt Marland’s Sword had given him a hint that the young redhead calling himself Elgar was the right man for the job, though he hardly looked formidable enough to deter a robber.

      
That task concluded quickly, Amelia decided that she merited, deserved, needed, and wanted at least one maid.

      
Marland, thinking the matter over, admitted that the presence of a maid would add more realism to his character of a wealthy knight. But at the same time, the gambler said he was reluctant to acquire more servants who were not in on his plot to swindle the casino; and he was extremely reluctant to let anyone else in on it.

      
Amelia, getting into the spirit of things in her own way, complained: “It’ll look strange if I don’t have a maid, if we’re supposed to be so rich. You said you didn’t want to attract attention.”

      
“That’s true. But how’re we going to keep her from finding out what we’re up to?”

      
“We just wont talk about it when she’s around.

      
“Buve, do you love me?”

      
“You know I do. I got you out of that hole, didn’t I?”

      
But despite Amelia’s pleas, Marland put his foot down on the subject of the maid, and none was hired.

* * *

      
After the debate on the maid had been settled, Marland grumbled about all the shopping Amelia found it necessary to do to outfit herself properly for high society. It was not the money that griped him, but the delay, when all else seemed in readiness. But the Sword he wore on his back, and in which he had great faith, was refusing to interfere with Amelia’s plans. He was forced to the conclusion that they were likely to be of some benefit to his own.

      
He announced to his two confederates that, before attacking the big casino, he wanted to test his gambling plan in one of the many smaller establishments within this city.

* * *

      
When they reached the chosen place, early in the evening, neither the Sword nor the proprietors put up any obstacles to the entrance of Sir Marland and his entourage. All the rooms were crowded, as Marland had wanted and expected them to be. He and his two companions would attract no particular attention.

      
In these crowded conditions, the knight found it necessary to hand out a small bribe at the door to obtain for himself a table toward the rear of the room. In this relatively modest establishment, there were no private boxes, booths, or balconies such as those the main rooms of the big casino boasted.