The Summoner (9 page)

much as he grieved for his family.

A slow, cold rain pelted off his cloak and made traveling miserable. On top of everything else, more questions. What had Kait meant when she said he was both alive and in the realm of the dead? Or that to her spirit eyes, he looked like their grandmother, the sorceress Bava K’aa? Tris shivered. A few possibilities tugged at the back of his mind, half‐remembered conversations and dreams too real to forget. But at the moment, he was too miserable to ponder them, and so he let his thoughts wander, settling finally on nothing more important than the sound of hoof beats on the cold, wet road.

When they reached their stopping point for the night, a down‐at‐the‐heels inn, Tris caught Harrtuck’s sleeve before the soldier had a chance to unpack his horse.

“I need you to teach me to fight,” Tris said lev‐elly, meeting Harrtuck’s eyes in earnest.

Harrtuck chuckled. “You’ve studied with Jaquard, my liege—Tris,” he corrected himself. “He’s as good an armsmaster as any.”

“Not out here. Not with what I have to do,” he insisted. “Jared almost cut me down in the hallway, drunk and half out of his mind in a rage. That’s not good enough if I’m to take back Margolan.”

Harrtuck nodded, as if the reality of what lay behind Tris’s proposal was becoming clear for the first time. “Aye, you’re right,” he said finally. “As you wish. Let’s get the horses seen to and we’ll have a go‐round right here. No time like the present to get started.”

Later, when Tris could push Soterius and Harrtuck no further for lessons, they went back to the common room for dinner. Sweating and out of breath, the three men were sure they looked as if they’d just come from a wild ride. Carroway was already by the fire, amusing the inn’s few other patrons with romantic ballads and tales of heroes from Margolan’s past. Although almost 69

unrecognizable with his dyed hair and unfashionable tunic, Carroway’s talent still certainly made him the most accomplished bard the inn had seen in quite some time, Tris guessed, gauging by the interest of the serving staff and the innkeeper. The minstrel refrained from his flamboyant sleight‐of‐hand and was deliberately limiting his repertoire to the older songs any wandering performer might know. Grateful patrons tossed a few coins toward Carroway, which the bard acknowledged graciously.

The innkeeper, a haggard man with stooped shoulders, brought hearty trenchers of venison and leeks to Tris and his companions, together with a large pitcher of ale. The man winced at the crash of breaking pottery in the tavern’s kitchen, and shook his head.

“Always happens right about now,” he muttered.

“Sounds like you’ve got a problem with your serving girl,” Harrtuck commiserated, downing half of his ale in a gulp.

The beleaguered tavernkeeper sighed. “I wish to the Goddess it were.” Overhead, a door slammed and heavy boot steps clunked across the floor. The thin man wiped his hands on his stained apron and scurried back to the kitchen.

Tris shivered, feeling a sudden cold. He looked up, as a familiar prickle started to raise the hair on his neck. Though he saw nothing, he could feel a spirit’s presence, an angry ghost flitting just beyond his sight.

“Thin crowd for a cold night,” Soterius observed over the rim of his tankard.

“Aye, and it’s not the fault of other inns,” Harrtuck replied. “Naught else for at least another hour’s ride.”

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“It’s not as bad a place as some,” Tris mused. “I wonder why—”

The crash overhead made the tavern guests jump. Either several travelers were having a row upstairs, or part of the roof just caved in. Tris glanced toward the innkeeper, but the man merely rolled his eyes in resignation, muttered something to himself and went on with his work, determined to ignore the noise. Out of the corner of his eye, Tris caught a slight movement, like a shadow there and gone.

“Damn!” Harrtuck exclaimed, jumping to his feet to escape the cascade of ale that spilled from his overturned tankard. A serving girl appeared at his side with a cloth, gushing apologies and wiping up the spill. “Never saw my elbow anywhere near the damn thing,” Harrtuck mumbled as he daubed the ale from his cloak.

“No problem at all, my lord,” the innkeeper assured him, pressing another tankard into his hand.

“Don’t trouble yourself about it. I’ll take the first one off your tab,” he fussed, bustling away with the empty mug.

Tris and Soterius exchanged glances. “Odd fellow,” Soterius said, glancing toward the bar where the innkeeper conversed with the cook in hushed tones. “Unless the guests upstairs settle down,” he added, “we may not be getting much rest tonight.”

Carroway finished his songs and accepted a tankard passed to him from one of the appreciative guests. With a disingenuous smile, the minstrel struck up a conversation with his benefactor, one that Tris was certain would provide far more information to Carroway than the bard would share. The other guests, realizing that the entertainment was over, rushed to finish their meals and take their leave. Carroway’s companion, seeing the others about to depart, hurried to join them, leaving the four refugees the only remaining guests in the common room.

“They look like they’re in a hurry to go somewhere for so late at night,” Harrtuck commented.

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Tris glanced toward the dark windows. “Should we be concerned?” he asked under his breath as Carroway propped his borrowed lute in the corner and came to join them. Once again, a fleeting shadow flickered in Tris’s side vision. The bard had made it only halfway across the room before the instrument slid to the floor with a twang and a disconcerting crunch.

With a pained expression, Carroway ran back to retrieve the instrument. “I don’t understand,”

he said, puzzled, as he lifted the lute and turned it in his hands. He turned back toward Tris and the others. “I set it down carefully—it shouldn’t have fallen,” he said, looking down at the ruined instrument, its broken neck hanging by its strings.

“I’m sorry,” he said ruefully to the innkeeper, carrying the instrument toward the bar. The innkeeper snatched the lute. “Accidents happen,” he said quickly. “If you’re finished with your meal, I’ll show you to your rooms.”

Just then a young boy burst through the door and ran toward the innkeeper. “Papa, come quick!” he huffed. The innkeeper bent to listen to the boy’s hurried, whispered account, leaving Tris and his friends to exchange worried glances. After a moment, the innkeeper straightened.

“My son tells me there are three Margolan guardsmen riding this way,” the thin man said.

“They’re stopping folks to see if any’s seen four fugitives from the city.” He paused, then seemed to make up his mind. “If you’ve no mind to go back that way soon, come with me,” he said abruptly, gesturing for them to follow him.

Tris could guess Soterius’s thoughts by the look in the guardsman’s eyes and the ready way his hand dropped to the pommel of his sword. They had little choice but to accept the innkeeper’s offer, unless they wished to fight the guards here and now. Still, the innkeeper’s sudden willingness to hide four total strangers was odd enough to

raise suspicion. “Hurry,” the innkeeper urged. With an eye toward the door, Tris and his friends followed the man into the kitchen, where a plump woman stood near a cookfire and a rangy girl—the serving wench—brushed back a sweaty lock from her face. They were, Tris guessed, the 72

rest of the innkeeper’s family, all the help he could afford for such a meager clientele. The boy preceded them, and the others moved aside wordlessly as the innkeeper led Tris and the others to a small storage shed. As if he guessed their thoughts, the innkeeper managed a wan smile.

“There’s a door out the back, if that’s what you’re worried about. You could kick the thing apart, if you needed to. But I’ll not lead them to you,” he assured them. “Been shaken down by enough of their lot. Whatever you did that has them looking for you, Goddess bless,” he said, gesturing for them to hurry.

The door shut behind them, leaving them with the scant light that seeped through the cracks between the boards. The four men drew their weapons and hid behind barrels of provisions and wine casks. They heard muffled conversation, then a series of crashes and bangs as if the inn were being torn apart. Tris shied back into the shadows as the heavy boot steps drew closer to their hiding place. The door rattled, then opened a handsbreadth before a crash of crockery sounded and the soldier turned with an oath.

“Nothing here,” the soldier called back.

“Nobody upstairs, either,” a second voice said.

“You there, innkeeper,” a third speaker barked. “There’s gold in it for you if you see them and turn them in. You look like you could use some gold.”

“Most everyone could use some gold,” the innkeeper replied off‐handedly. “I’ll remember what you’ve said.”

“Let’s move on,” the third speaker clipped. The boot steps receded. There was the sound of a tankard clanging against a wall, as if it had been thrown with full force, and the boot steps drew near once more.

“What’s the meaning of this!”

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“Please sir, it slipped,” the serving girl apologized.

“Slipped!” the outraged guard shouted. “It nearly hit me on the head!”

“Must have been put back too close to the edge of that shelf,” the innkeeper interjected. “So sorry. No harm done. Can I get a wineskin for you gentlemen to take with you?”

That seemed to appease the guard, for the footsteps receded and did not return. Tris could barely make out the outlines of his companions in the darkness, but his own thoughts whirled at the overheard conversation. How could the upstairs be empty, when it sounded as if a pitched brawl were going on? He wondered. But before he could puzzle long, the light tread of the innkeeper came their way, stopping to unlatch the door to their hiding place. “They’re gone,” he whispered, gesturing for them to emerge. Cautiously, blinking as their eyes adjusted to the relative brightness of the kitchen, Tris and the others stepped out, their weapons still at the ready.

“What was all that about?” Soterius questioned.

The innkeeper shrugged. “We’re a natural place for them to stop if they’re looking for fugitives,”

he said, with a sideways glance to his wife that gave Tris the impression the innkeeper was purposefully answering only part of Soterius’s question.

“Whatever your reason, thank you,” Tris said, as Soterius moved to the common room door, glanced out and signaled an all clear.

“With them gone, you’re welcome to stay the night,” the tavern master offered nervously.

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Tris looked to Harrtuck, who shrugged. “Might be safest,” the armsman mused, stroking his chin as if the newly shaven whiskers remained. “We know the guards have already been here. So there’s no reason for them to come back. And there’s nowhere else close tonight.”

Tris looked back to the innkeeper. “We are grateful for your hospitality.”

“One thing I don’t understand,” Carroway remarked as the innkeeper began to lead them from the kitchen. “If there’s no one upstairs, who was making all the racket?”

The innkeeper froze, then exchanged a worried glance with the squat cook. Finally, as if resigned to losing his guests one way or the other, the haggard man turned. “There’s nothing human up there, no,” he admitted slowly. “But there’s a ghost with a fearsome temper that has ruined this inn, and me with it,” he lamented, and at that, he sagged against the wall and covered his face with his hands.

“I won this inn fair and square in a card game last summer’s feast,” he went on miserably.

“Should have known nothing good could come that way. Found out that the haunting started just before that, driving out the travelers, breaking up the crockery, making it hard for a body to sleep, if you know what I mean.” He sighed. “Driven us to the brink of ruin,” he continued.

“Every night, same thing. Sounds like an army tearing the place apart upstairs, but when I go up to look, nothing’s been touched. Don’t even bother any more. Then it moves to the common room, playing tricks, like the lute tonight, and your friend’s ale.” He shrugged. “Likes to bother the girls in the kitchen, too.” He sighed. “There’s naught can help except a Summoner, and there’s been no Summoner in Margolan since Bava K’aa went to the Lady.”

Dejectedly, the innkeeper led them to their rooms. “It’s always like this,” the innkeeper lamented. “Cold as a tomb. Hard to keep a lantern lit. But no one’s ever seen anything, just heard footsteps and bumps.”

As the innkeeper talked, Tris strained to look into the darkness. His heart pounded, though he felt no fear in the presence of the spirit, just a rise of the blood in anticipation of the contact. He 75

peered down the hallway, and frowned. Near the end, he saw a faint glow, like sunlight catching a

mist. He took a step toward it, and the glow started to fade. On instinct, Tris closed his eyes and called out in his mind to the haze.

You there! Stand fast!

The glow hesitated, then grew brighter. Emboldened, Tris reached out his hand, his eyes still closed. Show yourself! We mean you no harm.

Gradually, the mist coalesced, Caking on shape without mass until at last an outline of a man stood before them. Behind Tris, the cook gasped, and the innkeeper muttered a curse, making it clear that the specter was visible to all. Tris studied the silent shape. It was a young man, perhaps a few seasons older than himself, with the strong, rangy build of a plowman and the homespun clothes of a farmer. But what struck Tris most was the anger that radiated from the revenant, in face and stance and feel.

“Good sir,” Tris said carefully, daring to open his eyes. The spirit stood as real before him as it had taken shape in his mind. “We bid you peace,” he said with a gesture of welcome. “Why do you harm this inn?”

At first, Tris could hear nothing as the specter began to speak. Closing his eyes to concentrate once more, Tris strained to hear, and began to make out the voice, as if from a great distance.

“—just last planting season,” the spirit was saying. “I had a bag of coins, all that my family owned, to buy two cows at market. Out back,” the spirit recounted, with a gesture behind him,