In Pursuit Of Wisdom (Book 1) (4 page)

“You filthy liar
—we’ve stolen none of your coin!” Sindar shouted as his hand dropped to the hilt of his giant sword.

Lionel put his hand on Sindar’s to steady him and stepped forward. 
The alehouse was tense, and Magi felt a tiny bead of sweat begin to build near the top of his back.  He had never faced the proposition of a real fight like this.  He had dueled and trained, of course, and there had been some minor skirmishes— the occasional fight at school with other kids driven to prove themselves against Magi or due to some other petty, adolescent-boy squabble.   He never gave a second thought to these minor battles.  His Master had taught him well, and he was easily the best student in Marik’s school.  He was, in fact, pretty well known in the entire village of Brigg for his magical exploits.  But this was different.  Three guards stood before him now, hands on sword hilts, openly accusing him and his group of thievery.  With a pinch of gritty marble held between his thumb and forefinger on his left hand, he began twisting his ring on that same hand with his right, ready to cast his spell.  He eyed Lionel closely, looking for a sign, shifting his eyes around the inn.  Everyone looked tense.

Except
Helmut.  He looked amused and stayed in his seat.

Lionel took a slow step toward the guards, in front of Sindar. 
“Theft, you say?  What proof do you have of our robbery?  We have taken nothing from this good merchant.  Had we been hungry this morning, his fish looked very fresh.  Perhaps we might have bought some,” Lionel said, his pleasant smile never leaving his face.

“He LIES! 
He and his friends are filled with lies.  Told Manny they were going to the Great Library.  What business does a group such as them have in our Library?  Search him!” screeched the merchant.

The soldiers
drew their swords, and immediately so did Sindar.  Magi took a quick glance at Kyle, who was tensing and had raised his hand a bit, ready to scatter his dust and cast his spell.  Magi looked back at Lionel, who hadn’t made a move yet to defend himself.  Swords drawn, the soldiers approached Lionel. It was then that Manny spied the coppers on the table.  “There!  You see!  I notch all my coppers so as to keep the thieves from taking me poor days’ wages.  Yet still they steal from old Manny.  Manny the fish merchant always does an honest business, yet still they steal from him.  I demand justice from Lord Corovant!”

An accomplished liar, this peddler
,
Magi thought as he examined Manny more closely.  He seemed to see him for the first time.
 
His thin hair was grey and stringy. He looked as if he was trying to grow a beard, but couldn’t, since only scraggly patches of hair sprouted from his chin and cheeks.  He looked to be about sixty years old.  Magi guessed he was closer to forty, and had simply lived hard and poor.  If it was possible to feel sorry for a man who had just falsely accused him and his friends of theft, that’s how Magi felt.

He
glanced at the coppers Lionel had put onto the table to pay for their food and drink.  They were notched in an unusual way—the same as the coppers he had seen Manny playing with earlier that morning. 
Manny’s a clever fellow, planting them on us.

“Soldiers, there is no need for
your swords here,” Helmut said.  “I bought fish from this peddler a few days ago when we landed in port, and the coppers you see on the table are mine. Search them if you like, but I can assure you that these coppers here were not stolen.”

Manny the peddler looked at Helmut, who smiled
back at him.  Manny looked at the four of them, the soldiers, back to the four, and finally back to Helmut.  “Perhaps…you’re right.”  He gritted his teeth one last time, and then relaxed.  “Manny is just a simple fish merchant.  Perhaps…Manny was mistaken.  Beg your pardon.”  He left without looking back.

The soldiers eyed Sindar, Lionel, and Helmut suspiciously still, but eventually sheathed their swords.  “Keep out of trouble.  Lord Corovant
does not suffer thievery.”  They turned to leave, with their purple capes snapping behind them as they whipped around to exit.

Helmut drained the last of his mug of ale.  “Now then,” he began, wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve.  “I’m going to need another pint of ale from your
lady
before we discuss the library.”

Lionel just flashed him a smile and ordered another round.
  Magi caught Kyle’s eye, and they both relaxed slightly as their hands disappeared under their cloaks, carefully sprinkling marble dust back into a hidden pouch.

“Bah!  Corovant dandies.  I’d a had them strung up by their pretty little sashes if they came any closer.”  Sindar said, barely whispering.  Magi just smiled and shook his head. 
Sure you would have, big guy.

Chapter 2:  Of Thieves and Assassins

~Veronica~

Veronica Edgewild took her seat in the dimly lit room.  Fragrant smoke curled up from a small bowl of smoldering incense in the corner, filling the air with a spicy scent.  She was underneath a small livery shop in the port city of Shoal, or “the Middle Finger” as some sailors liked to crudely put it.  The shop sold all manner of shirts, pants, dresses, hats, boots, cloaks, capes, and gloves.  All of it was made by a pair of sisters, Miranda and Belinda, who were well into their fifties or sixties to look at them.  Of course, only local officials or a handful of merchants bought their finery.  Their top seller was simple bolts of cloth; virtually everyone in Shoal made their own clothing.  The sisters were able to stay open in part because they repaired and tailored old, torn clothes that could be passed down a generation, trading for a few coppers here or there.

The other reason the shop existed was as a front for the Assassin’s Guild, located in their cellar.

A handful of heating lamps provided a bit of light for the meeting room in which Veronica was seated.  Adjacent to it were a series of underground rooms, creating a footprint far larger than the shop above.  The Assassin’s Guild was never stumbled upon by chance.  It was possible to search the entire continent of Elvidor and never find it.  Typically, someone had to take an interest in you.  Veronica recalled how someone had taken an interest in her…

***

Years ago, when Veronica was in her mid-teens, she watched as a man brutally killed her parents.  Not over a dispute.  They killed her parents for seed.  She was the only child of a wheat farmer in the village of Fostler growing up, and they grew wheat to sell to bakers and millers and other families.  But there wasn’t enough for the entire village.  A man came to grow his own wheat, and didn’t have any coins.  Her father tried to barter for something else, but he just took out a dagger and began cutting everyone up.  Veronica was terrified, and ran.  The last thing she saw was her mother’s throat being opened.  For wheat seed.

Three years in the village orphanage hardened her.  Food was scarce, but she didn’t need much anyhow.  She was tall and thin, with a strength born from a childhood spent farming.  When she turned eighteen, she left, unsure of everything in her life but committed to one thing.  It took her a day to win a knife in a dice game at a local tavern off a man too drunk to pay close attention.  Learning to cheat at dice was one of the skills she had acquired in the orphanage.

She had seen her father sharpen his tools with stone before.  Veronica went back to her old house; it was overrun with squatters who had moved in when her family had been killed.  Too many for an eighteen-year-old with a dull knife to try and evict.  She moved on.

Her home for the next few weeks became the forest, which forced her to learn some basic survival skills.  She found a good stone along a riverbed to sharpen her knife, and she found that her skills at squirrel and pigeon hunting had not diminished over the past three years.  Her father didn’t own any goats or sheep; if they were to have meat, he would hunt for it, and usual
ly it was birds and squirrels.  An occasional deer.  Veronica learned well how to strip off the fur and butcher even tiny game.

A month of living off berries, fish, roots, bark, grass, squirrels, pigeons, and a handful of rabbits, Veronica had steeled herself.  Her grey orphanage tunic and pants were still tight and too small for her six-foot frame.  They were drawn across her body like skin, and were covered in dirt and stained with the blood of small animals.  Looking at her face in a
brook, she saw the pale skin that came from her mother and the coal-black hair that came from her father.  It was too long and unmanageable.  Impractical.  So she cut it short with her knife, which she religiously sharpened every night now.  She took another look at herself, with doe-brown eyes. 
Uneven cut, but short and clean.

She waited until after dinner.  Perhaps he liked to drink.  Leaving the woods, she made her way back into the village of Fostler.  There were some people out, mostly the homeless like her, who chose to beg on the outskirts of the village.  Smoke rose from most homes, not because it was particularly cold yet, but because they were cooking fires.  Town mages kept glow balls lit to provide some lighting along main streets.  It was humid tonight, having just rained.  Instead of washing the stench of refuse away, all the rain seemed to do was amplify it.  The current road she was following was particularly bad, with several people starving and sick along the side of the road, too far gone to beg.  She pulled her tunic up over her nose and picked up the pace.

The man lived on the other side of the village; she had recognized him three years ago.  She could see a small crop of summer wheat growing, with four serfs guarding each side of the small golden rectangle, carrying long knives. Not swords or hunting knives; farming blades for work in the fields.  That wheat field might as well have been gold, for food was the most valuable commodity in all of Fostler. 
Smart – we should have guarded our crop as well.  My father didn’t own slaves, but if he had, things might have been different.  I bet he’s feeding them in exchange for their work in the field.

As the sun s
ank behind the grey clouds, Veronica saw one of the most spectacular sunsets.  Orange and pink light seemed to shine
up
and highlight patches of dark grey.  It was gorgeous and eerie at the same time. 
Fitting for this night.

She was pretty sure this would be the last sunset of her life, so she allowed herself the simple pleasure of watching it.  After about ten minutes, she set her jaw to the task at hand. 
His house was simple—four walls, but they were stone.  The man was wealthy enough to keep four slaves, a horse, and she saw three sheep in a nearby pen. 
A lot wealthier than I remembered.  Apparently our wheat seed has been good to you.

She went over to the sheep pen and rubbed some mud on her face; her pale skin seemed to reflect even the dimmest of light, now that night had fallen.  She crept to the wooden door and listened.  Veronica heard at least three distinct voices inside, two men and a woman.  They had finished eating,
and one of the men was complaining about something.

Hidden behind a water barrel, she took a large stone and hurled it at the head of the closest sheep.  The rock hit the sheep in the eye, making it bleat loudly.  The other two chimed in, and they all started running around the pen, causing a ruckus to a chorus of “Baaa!”

“Go see what the commotion is, boy.”  Veronica heard the older man shout at the younger.

The door opened.  Out came a young man, probably a few years younger than Veronica, no taller than she was, though he was pudgy.  It was unusual to see someone carry a little extra weight when the entire village was starving.  Veronica clenched her teeth.

As the boy passed the barrel to get to the sheep pen, Veronica slowly rose, came up behind him, and before she could talk herself out of this, she killed her first person.  She dropped her arms over the boy’s head and slid the edge of her blade quickly across his neck, hoping for a silent kill.

It was not to be.  She missed the voicebox, and he was able to garble a half-scream as the blood poured out of his severed artery.  He fell to his knees, turning around to see who had done this, clutching his hands to his neck in a pointless attempt to stop the bleeding.  He yelled as loud as he could again as he stared up into Veronica’s muddy face, collapsing on his side.

Veronica fought back the panic and returned to her spot behind the barrel.  This time the woman came out. 
Probably his mother. 
This would have to be much quicker.  Once she saw her son bleeding, the screaming would bring the slaves and probably half the village as well.  One last deep breath and she lept up from her hiding space as soon as the woman was out of view of the door to their house.  Covered in mud with a jagged, uneven hairline, Veronica must have looked terrifying.  The woman was startled and got off a quick scream before Veronica shoved her blade into the woman’s neck in a surprisingly fluid motion.  This time the vocal cords were severed and the scream abruptly stopped.  Veronica tripped the staggering woman easily, jumped on her chest, and drove the knife into the other side of her neck while the woman clutched her throat.  She found the key artery, and once she saw the blood spurting, she got up and returned to her hiding spot, hoping the serfs in the field were too far away to hear. 
Two down.

“What is going on here?  What are you screaming about now, woman?”  bellowed the man as he strode out of his house.  He was much heavier than he was the day he came to murder her parents, but his face was the same.  Finer clothing, too – Veronica could see in the moonlight that he was wearing a white tunic.  Nobody in the village wore white.  It was simply too hard to keep clean when everyone’s principle occupation was working or begging to keep yourself fed. 
Wealthy indeed.

This one would be different.  Veronica, using her unusually quick reflexes, pounced.  She lunged at the man just as he was taking in the scene of a woman struggling silently on the ground in a pool of blood, shining black in the darkness.  Not far from her was a teenage boy, who was no longer moving, also in a pool of dark, shiny blood.

The man, completely caught off guard, stumbled backwards on his fat legs while Veronica plunged her blade, still wet with blood from the other two, into the man’s side, below what she hoped were his ribs.  Having occasionally butchered animals on her own farm, whenever her father got lucky, she had been taught a rough understanding of anatomy.  She hoped it translated to humans. 
We’re all animals, anyhow.

She didn’t care at this point whether he screamed.  Let his slaves come.  The point of the evening was for this man to die.  Her living was a bonus.  The village Elder would see her hung, or perhaps burned alive if they thought she was possessed.  But this man would know that her parents had been avenged.

“Three years ago you killed my parents for seed.  I hope you enjoyed it,” Veronica said. She twisted the knife deftly before withdrawing it and plunging it into his other side while he frantically put his hands over the first wound, crying in pain, eyes wide with terror.  The blade again sliced through his flabby belly and found a home.

“AHH!  Mercy, woman!  Please…MERCY!  Ahhh!” he cried.

She took out her blade with a jagged twist and held it to his throat.  Leaning down close to his face so he could smell her rotten breath from a month’s worth of fish, squirrel, and berries, she whispered to him, “My name isn’t woman.  It’s Veronica.  We live in a Dark World, don’t we?”

This time she sliced his throat expertly, one cut taking care of the arteries, the voicebox
—everything. 
Third time’s the charm.

~Magi~

“So, how did you know
that fishmonger was lying?” Magi asked as he took a pull from his mug.  He wasn’t particularly fond of beer, but he wasn’t going to order goat’s milk, either.  He was big for his age, and figured he could drink with these men.  Kyle preferred spiced wine, and had a cup of it in front of him.

Helmut gave the young mage an approving look and a quick wink.  “I didn’t.  But I figured if I was right, you’d owe me
food and drink tonight.  And if I was wrong, you’d be hauled off in front of Lord Whatshisface.”  He downed his third and had already easily lapped Magi, mug for mug.  “A sailor’s got to keep his eyes open for these, ah, ‘opportunities,’ shall we say?  By the way, what an interesting ring.”

Magi had been twisting it again without thinking.  Immediately he stiffened.  “Really?  What makes it so interesting to you?”

Kyle’s hands were quietly underneath the table.  Magi stared at the sailor with unblinking eyes.  After an awkward silence, Helmut allowed a smile to slowly creep along his face, revealing a gap in his yellowing teeth.  “Meant nothin’ by it, mage.  Just a thirsty sailor with an eye for pretty things.  And you don’t see something that pretty very often in this Dark World.”

Sensing the tension,
Sindar clapped his hand loudly and ordered another round.  He was on his fourth, at least.  “Aye—you’ll drink on us tonight fer saving me the trouble of lopping the heads off a couple piss-ant guards.  Wench!  Another round, and taller mugs if you have ’em.”

They carried on throughout the night.  Magi did note how Lionel carefully answered all of Helmut’s probing questions about why they were looking for a library without actually saying anything.  Magi stopped counting his mugs
after about four, knowing full well that his companions were well past that and on the road to roaring drunk. 
Best to keep my wits about me.
  He caught Helmut staring at his ring several times throughout the evening.

Late
into the morning hours, when Lionel dug into their money pouch for more silver, he pulled Magi aside and whispered, “The building across from Lord Corovant’s quarters, with three pillars out front, near the center of the city, away from the sea.  That is the Library.  The keeper of the books is a man named Wyzle or Shyzle or some such nonsense.  You’re a wizard, good at memorizing.  I’ll forget this in the morning; see that you don’t.”  He flashed Magi a sloppy grin and said, “Wench!  I mean
lady
!  One more, and a room, if you pleassh.”