The Towers Of the Sunset (16 page)

QUICK STRIDES HAVE taken Creslin more than three kays from the trader’s grounds and to another flat, if rutted, road. Glancing back over his shoulder, he looks for the faint haze that has hovered over the traders’ grounds, a natural haze of not exactly natural moisture and smoke from the many cook fires in too small an area. Instead, a thundercloud continues to mushroom into the sky, growing darker underneath, with white cotton plumes on the top reaching toward the sun.

A thunderstorm out of a clear sky? From a single call to the high winds?

The road he walks is clearly a farm road, with wheel ruts, heavy hoofprints, and horse droppings. He may find a farm wagon headed into
Fairhaven. If not, his legs will eventually bring him there.

After another kay, Creslin looks back toward the clouds that have spread well beyond the traders’ grounds and cast a shadow across the road he walks. On top of the rolling hills behind him, he sees a farm wagon, with two figures on the wagon seat. He keeps walking.

He can feel the wagon’s ponderous approach, pulled by a draft horse a third again as big as the black stallion he had taken from the dead bandit. A spare man, his black hair shot with white, holds die reins. A thin-faced woman, her hair still pure black, sits beside him.

“Looking for a ride, young fellow?”

“I would not turn one down, ser.”

“Then don’t. Climb aboard, if you can avoid the baskets.”

Creslin looks over the sideboards until he sees a narrow area free from baskets of what appear to be potatoes and assorted greens. Then he vaults in, teetering on the jolting boards before catching his balance and easing down on the dust that has sifted from the produce bushels.

“You some sort of acrobat?” asks the farmer.

“No. I just couldn’t think of any other way to do it.”

“You are headed for
Fairhaven?” asks the woman.

Creslin nods.

“Not much for soldiers, the wizards aren’t,” adds the man.

“That’s what I’ve heard. I can use a blade, but I’m not really a soldier.” Creslin’s stomach agrees with the statement, and that agreement sends a chill down his spine. If he is not a soldier, what is he?

“Hope you’re not a wizard, either,” adds the man. “They don’t care much for wizards, excepting their own, of course.”

“They don’t sound terribly friendly,” observes Creslin. “The traders say that they don’t like traders. You tell me they don’t like soldiers and wizards. Who do they like?”

“It’s not that bad,” laughs the farmer. “They like merchants and children and farmers, and people who live their lives without messing into other people’s ways.”

Creslin nods, listening.

“
Fairhaven’s a good city. You can walk the streets day or night and feel safe. You can find some place to eat day or night, and the money and the people are honest. How many places can you say that about?”

“Not many,” Creslin admits. “Not many.”

In time, they reach another road, wider, smoother, and of stone, heading south along a wide ridge. Overhead, the thunderclouds have continued to mass, cutting off all but scattered sunlight.

“This leads straight into the city?”

“Sure enough does, young fellow. Sure enough does. What are you planning to do there?”

Creslin shrugs. “Look around, watch, have a meal, find a place to sleep.”

“Hope you have a few coins.”

“Some.”

“The wizards are death on theft. First time, you’re on the road crew. Second time, you’re dead.”

“The road crew?”

“The great east-west highway. Someday, they say, that highway will cross all of Candar.” The farmer flicks the reins.

“Be after our time,” adds the woman. Her voice is almost as deep and husky as the man’s.

“I don’t know, Marran. I can recall when it wasn’t barely into Certis. Now they tell me that they’re near as to halfway through the Easthorns.

Creslin listens, asking a question or two, as the wagon creeks along the stone highway.

A messenger, dressed in white and with a red slash across his tunic, gallops past, and horses and carts continue to pass in the other direction.

“Is this rather late to be going to
Fairhaven?” he asks.

“Works better this way,” explains the farmer. “Things get picked over in the morning, and the vegetables sort of wilt. Don’t know why, but some stuff doesn’t long stay fresh there. Does in our cellar, but not there. Too much magic, I’d guess. Anyway, our customers know we come in late, and their servants are there waiting for us. Don’t have to fight the crowds, don’t waste the whole day.”

Creslin nods. So there is something in
Fairhaven that wilts the vegetables sooner than elsewhere. Curious, but why vegetables? Or just some vegetables?

He rises to his knees on the swaying floorboards and glances ahead toward a pair of buildings.

“Those are the old gates,” says the driver, following Creslin’s gaze. “From back when the wizards ruled just the valley.”

Creslin looks at the gates, at the green trees and bushes beyond them, and at the whitened granite of the gate house and the pavement and curbs. His stomach twists. “Think I’ll get off here.”

“Square’s a good two or three kays farther.”

Creslin straightens up and shoulders his pack. “I need to…”He finally just shrugs, unable to explain why he needs to walk into the town from the old gates.

“We could take you all the way to the square, young fellow,” the farmer offers. “Long walk from here.” He holds the long leather reins to the swaybacked horse loosely, waiting for his passenger to reconsider.

“Thank you, but I need some time…”the silver-haired young man says, knowing that he must stop and reflect, try to think out what he hopes to attain in Fairhaven, the White City, before he descends into the center of all that is Candar and will be Candar for generations, if not for millennia, to come.

“If that’s what you have to do, we’ll not be telling you otherwise.”

“Thank you.” Creslin repeats, then grasps the sideboard and leaps from the wagon, landing lightly. The stone is hard, and he staggers.

“You sure?” asks the bronzed farmer, flicking the reins.

“I’m certain,” confirms Creslin. “But thank you, anyway. I need some time to think.”

“Geee… ah.” The farmer flicks the reins again. “Don’t think too much. It isn’t what you think that counts. It’s what you do.”

Creaakk. The wagon pulls away, heading east down the wide, divided boulevard that the east-west highway has become as it enters the
White
City
.

White is the city, as white as the noonday sun on the sands of the
Vindrus
Desert
, as white as the light from a wizard’s wand. White and clean, with off-gray granite paving stones that glisten white in the sun, and merely shine in the shade.

From just outside the west-gate towers, Creslin looks across the valley, amazed at the confluence of white and green. Tall trees with masses of thick green leaves thrust themselves above the intertwining lines of white stone walls and boulevards. Yet for all the grace and curved lines, the great avenues-the east-west highway and the north-south road-quarter the city like two white stone swords.

Slowly he moves past the empty old buildings, across an invisible line inside which almost all the buildings appear white. Even under the roiling gray clouds that promise rain, the streets of white stone seem to glitter with an inner light.

Creslin takes a step along the boulevard, where a central strip of grass and bushes, curbed in limestone, separate two roads. Despite the mist of spring, he sees no flowers, no colors except for the green of shrubs and grass and the white of the curbstones and pavement. He studies the roads for a time before realizing that all of the horses and carts headed into the city are using the right-hand road, while those leaving the city use the left-hand road. Those who walk use the outer edges of the roads.

Toward the center of the shallow valley, the whiteness becomes more pronounced, the greenery less. None of the buildings exceed three stories.

Creslin takes a deep breath, then casts his senses to the wind… and reels in his tracks, withdrawing into himself at the swirling patterns of whitish-red that seem to fill the entire valley, that seem to twist and tear at his whole being. For a moment, he thinks that he has sensed a patch or two of cool blackness amidst the unseen turmoil, but the strain is too great for him to seek further, not until he has learned more.

He wipes his suddenly dripping forehead with his sleeve. Wizardry indeed, and it seems to underlie everything around him, for all that the stonework appears laid by the most skillful of masons and the trees and grasses fully natural.

With another deep breath and another attempt at wiping the moisture from his brow, he pushes forward, one cautious step at a time.

“REPORT.” THE DARK-HAIRED woman’s face is as impassive as always, despite the circles under her eyes and the long, strong fingers of the left hand resting on the knife hilt.

“He made it off the Roof, down the Demon’s Slide on skis-”

“How do you know?”

“We found enough traces in the high forest, and the patterns were all guard patterns. No tracks remaining, of course. In that respect, he was careful.” The senior guard stands before the
Marshall.

“You couldn’t catch up to him-a mere man?”

The senior guard lowers her eyes. “He had somewhat of a head start, and we didn’t know where he was going. Once we could estimate his direction, it got easier.”

“Then why isn’t he here?” The
Marshall’s voice remains cool, distant, as if she were discussing troop deployments.

“Because you ordered us not to enter Fenard or to cross the Easthorns.” The guard swallows. “By now, he’s probably in
Fairhaven. At least, that’s where all the signs point.”

“He traveled quickly,” observes the
Marshall.

The guard lowers her eyes even farther. “Will you require my departure?”

The
Marshall laughs, a harsh sound that echoes brittlely against the stone walls. “For what? You did what I asked. You could have caught him only if he had failed or been injured. Have you asked the arms-master about his abilities?”

“No, ser.”

“Don’t bother. You’d find that he meets all of the guard standards, and most of the senior-guard levels. He doesn’t know that, and it was difficult indeed to ensure that few guards knew it.”

“Oh. Why are you telling-”

“I sent you out under a deception. I don’t want your performance hampered by false feelings of failure. Ask Aemris. No son of mine would be helpless, yet I may have played him false by allowing him such training.”

“Ser… why?” The guard refuses to look to the black leathers, but her back is straight.

The
Marshall stands, turns, and looks at the heavy flakes beating against the leaded windowpanes of her study. “In his place, would you have wanted to stay here, or to have been a pampered pet in Sarronnyn?”

There is no answer.

“Of course you cannot answer that. It was an unfair question.” She continues to watch the whiteness outside the citadel. “I only hope he finds something to run to . .‘t . in time.”

She stares at the falling snow long after the guard has left, watching as the thick flakes cover the tops of the parapets, watching as the night drops to enfold that impenetrable whiteness.

IN THE GOLDEN light of the pre-twilight sun, a handful of people gathers around three carts in the paved open space. From the closest cart, the one painted green, a woman plucks something off the grill at the rear, wraps it deftly within a flat pastry and hands it to a bearded man. She repeats the process with the next customer, then slaps two more slabs of meat on the grill.

The smell of roasted fowl drifts toward Creslin. His mouth waters. He has had nothing to eat since an early breakfast many, many kays westward, and now it is late afternoon.

He steps toward the green cart and takes his place behind a stout man dressed in green trousers and a sleeveless green tunic with no shirt beneath.

“Grilled fowl pie.” The voice drifts back.

“That’s two.” Two coppers change hands.

Two younger women and the husky man stand between Creslin and the woman serving the food.

“… Father thinks that he’s so upright.”

“Ha! Should see him on
Winden Lane
, or ask why Reeva went to live with her aunt and uncle in Hrisbarg…”

“… believe ill of a cadet in the White Guard?… must be joking.”

“Do you have any lamb pies?”

“They cost three.”

“Lamb and fowl, then.”

“And you, ser?” the woman asks the man directly before Creslin.

“Two fowls.” The man steps partly aside.

“What about you, silver-hair?” The woman is perhaps as old as Aemris, but she has a friendly smile, and her figure cannot be concealed entirely by the baggy brown tunic.

“A fowl pie.” Creslin extends the coppers.

“Oh, Certan coins.”

“Is that a problem?”

“Hardly. We just don’t see them that often.” She smiles again, then turns and plucks two more slabs of meat from the grill, deftly rolling them in the flat pastries she pulls off a stack on a platter beside the small grill. She presents them to the girls. “Here you are, one fowl, one lamb.”

The two girls wander toward one of the stone benches, not looking back.

“… Father will be furious. Late…”

“Let him…”

Beyond the bench where the girls have settled, three bearded men, wearing identical green-and-red surcoats and holding flasks, have stopped at the edge of the open space that is too small for either a park or a square, and they stand on the grass behind the benches.

… thirteenth day, they said that he was dead, but up he rose and bashed the captain’s head… Ohhhh… wild was the sailor, wild was the sea, and wilder still the girl they called Maree…

This is the first music that Creslin has heard in the entire day he has been in
Fairhaven. He looks behind him, but he is the last one in line, at least for the moment. No one stands around the two other carts, and he cannot see what they might be serving.

“Here are your two fowls.”

The other man takes the two meat rolls and waddles toward the bench to the right of the one taken by the girls. At one end sits an older man, nearly bald, dressed in drab olive, walking stick in hand. His eyes are fixed on a pair of brown pigeons that scurry under the benches for crumbs.

“Silver-hair…”

Creslin jerks his eyes back to the vendor “I’m sorry…” He takes the chicken in the roll, warm to his hands.

“Are you an outlander?”

“It shows that much?” He doesn’t have to force the laugh.

“What do you think of
Fairhaven?”

“It seems to merit the name. A very clean city, and the people seem happy.”

Behind them, the song grows louder, and more off-key.

… he blew so hard the sails came down. But he rose with the prefect’s crown… Ohhhh… wild was the sailor, wild was the sea, and wilder still the girl they called Maree…

Threeppp…

Creslin winces at the piercing nature of the whistle. “What’s that?”

“Wizards’ guards. You’d better stay right here for a little bit. All right?” She hands him a small flask. “Have a drink.”

THHHREEEPPP…

“Might I ask why?” Creslin looks around, then notices that no one else is paying attention, that the girls look only at each other and that the old man stares at the ground. He looks back at the vendor.

Her smiled is strained. “Singing…” Her voice is so low that he can barely hear it.

… wild was the sailor, wild was the sea, and wilder still the girl they called Maree…

Despite the whistle, the revelers continue to sing, waving their arms in a rough semblance of rhythm.

THHHHREEEEPPPP…

“That’s enough now.” The harsh voice jolts Creslin, but he follows the example of the vendor and the girls and does not look over at the guards whom he knows have surrounded the three men. “You three know better. Sure, it’s the road camp for you.”

“Frig you, White boy!”

Thud…

“Come along, you two. Lerrol, call the waste crew.”

Creslin swallows, catching the vendor’s dark brown eyes with his, questioning.

“The lamb pies are three,” she says cheerfully, but there is a trembling edge to her tone.

“Come along…”

The vendor exhales slowly as the footsteps of the guards and the former revelers fade away.

No one looks at the body lying on the ground behind the benches.

“Drunkenness?” Creslin asks hoarsely.

She shakes her head. “Public singing. Upsets the White magic. They say people have been killed.” Creslin finally takes a swallow from the flask he has been holding. “Thank you. What do I owe you?” He returns the flask.

“Nothing. I’m glad you were here. I’m not from
Fairhaven either.” She takes the flask and starts to turn back to the grill, then stops. “Be careful. You’re an outlander carrying cold steel.” Then she sprinkles water across the grill. The coals hiss as she begins to pack up the pastries.

Creslin takes the bench farthest from the body, one where he cannot be seen directly by the clean-up crew-whatever or whoever that might be. He takes a bite of the fowl pie, still warm, although the flaky pastry has become somewhat sodden with juice from the sauce on the meat.

Despite the tangy taste of the pie, Creslin has to force himself to take another bite. As he does, the two girls pass by, not looking in his direction.     “~~——^

“… can you imagine… as if being a White Guard meant anything…”

“… late. Father will be…”

“… let him… always mad about something.”

By now Creslin sits in shadows, for the sun has dropped behind the low western hills, yet the small square is not gloomy. The vending woman has finished stowing her supplies in a wooden locker in the cart. Then a cover goes over the grill, and the tailboard comes up.

As he watches, she wheels the cart out of the square and northward along the gentle incline. The other two carts have already left.

Three more slow bites, and he finally finishes the roll. As he stands, so does the old man, who peers at him for a moment as if to ascertain in which direction Creslin intends to walk.

Creslin turns south and back onto the boulevard.

The old man turns north, the direction the vendor has taken.

One by one, the oil-fired street lamps flicker on, and as each one lights, Creslin can sense a brief touch of redness, of flame.

Fairhaven murmurs, like all towns murmur, and his ears, cast to the breezes, catch but the loudest of the murmurs. He has to strain against the encircling mist of White magic.

“… not here. My father…”

He grins at that.

“… the same old story… never enough…”

“… and I told her that it was nothing to me. If he wants to think something…”

“… thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two. Not a bad day… a good number of outlanders, and they pay more.”

“… a lot of white coats out tonight.”

Down the boulevard, another pair of white tunics on the other side of the divided road stroll slowly uphill.

“What are we looking for?”

“… didn’t say. Just said we’d know it if we saw it.”

“Funny orders, if you ask me…”

“… didn’t ask.”

The silver-haired man drifts to the outside of the boulevard and bends down, as if to adjust his boot. Then, as the two pass abreast, not even looking beyond the low bushes and the rolled grass, he slowly straightens and continues on his way.

Should he turn and leave? But why would they be looking for him? No one knows about the incident at the trader’s camp, at least not one who would have recognized him. And there is no way that either the Marshall or the Tyrant would ever ask anything of the wizards.

Still, he shakes his head. He needs to know more. He continues until the gradual slope of the boulevard levels. With measured steps, he comes to another square, where he finds a shadowed bench. Even as night descends, the slightest glimmer from the oil-fired streetlights is magnified ten times over and white light sparkles from the stones, the red tinge apparently invisible to anyone but himself.

Creslin sits on the bench next to the fountain in the warm evening, listening, trying to sort out the city. On one side of this central square is a long arcade, lined with shops of every variety-cabinetry, cloth, baskets, coopers, silversmiths, goldsmiths-every variety except one. There is no establishment that handles cold iron. Many, but not all, of the shops are closed. A woman’s laughter, chiming like off-key bells, rings from the open cafe on the far side of the boulevard.

The more he learns, the more confused he becomes. He is called a Storm Wizard, yet cold iron does not bother him, while an entire city of wizards far more powerful than Creslin shuns the metal.

The other strange thing is the ban on public singing, and the fact that everyone ignores the killing by the White Guards; it is as if the people do not want to have to acknowledge the guards’ power.      ‘t^

Finally he stands and heads for a doorway through which he has seen a number of outlanders pass and from which issue the muted sounds of a guitar and singing. Perhaps he may find out more there, and perhaps the White Guards do not patrol the taverns quite so thoroughly. Then again, he reflects, they may patrol the taverns even more thoroughly.

No one accosts him as he enters the smoky room and peers around at the tables. At one end of the stone-walled structure there is a low stage, and upon the stage is a single figure; a man who strums and plays a song of some sort.

… la, la, la, la-la, and the cat would play with the dog on the spring’s first day…

The notes are copper, if that. Creslin could do better, scarcely trying. A small table along one wall is vacant, although two empty mugs rest there. He edges forward.

“Careful there!” snaps a voice.

He turns to see a pair of young men, with a woman between mem.

The man who spoke, his hair curled in ringlets, thumbs a knife. “Don’t like outlanders much. Maybe you ought to go back to the outlands, huh?”

Creslin’s eyes flick down at the man. “I’d rather not.” His voice is flat, like the wind before a storm.

The man looks away, and Creslin continues to the table, where he eases down his pack and slips it under the table next to his feet, the hilt of the Westwind blade within easy reach.

“What’ll you have?” The serving girl has already collected the two mugs as she speaks, and she smears a damp cloth across the wood.

“What is there?”

“You a singer?” She has a round face under black curls that tumble not quite to her half-covered shoulders, and a cheerfully hard voice.

“Not here,” Creslin laughs. “What do you have?”

“Too bad. They say the next one is better, though. What do we have? Cider, mead, red wine, mead…”

Creslin shrugs. “Cider, then.”

“That’s three.”

His face expresses amazement.

“You’re paying for the singing, bad as it can be. This is one of the few places that’s got a license.”

Creslin digs out the coins, puts them on the table but leaves them there.

“Fair enough. But no magic. They’d better be there when I get back.” The lilt in her voice indicates that she does not seriously believe he will cause the coins to vanish. Her hips brush him ever so slightly as she turns toward the trio he had dodged on his way in. “Ready for another?”

“Here…”

“… not yet,” adds a feminine voice.

“Fine.”

Only a few hands clap as the guitarist stands and departs the stage.

While he waits for his cider, Creslin slowly observes the others. Besides the three who sit two tables away, there is a table of four outlanders, garbed in varied livery, the wide belts and equally large swords proclaiming a familiarity with violence. Next to the outlanders sit two couples of indeterminate age. As his eyes continue their circuit of the room, Creslin picks out what appear to be two traders, three men in garb that he guesses may mark them as seafarers, although why a set of seafarers’ would be in Fairhaven is beyond him.

Five women, each with short hair and a belt dagger, sit at a corner table, and the entire corner seems shrouded in white. As quickly as he can, but without hurrying, he lets his study move onward. Another table contains five outlanders-one woman amid four men-but only two wear swords, and one of them is the woman.

“Here you go!” The professionally cheerful serving woman delivers a heavy brown mug.

Creslin smiles. “Here you go. No magic.”

“Thanks, fellow. They tell me the new guy is better, much better.” Her head turns toward the stage, where a stocky man is seating himself on a chair, cradling a guitar, and facing the audience directly.

“… better be better, for what these cost,” someone says.

Creslin agrees with) the sentiment.

“… hush. Just listen.”

The silver-haired man leans forward and takes a sip of the cider, heavily spiced and warm. The taste is of apples and spices, with the faintest of bitter undertastes, though not enough to mar the overall effect. He glances toward the stage, then continues to watch.

He can see the order behind the notes played by the guitarist-almost as if the notes are pasted on the heavy, smoke-filled air. He sips from the weighty brown mug, no longer really tasting the mulled cider. The faint memory of another time drifts behind his eyes, the memory of a guitarist with silver hair, of grasping at a note floating in the air.