Part 2 (1/2)
She alluded to the Veiled Alliance, a loose-knit a.s.sociation of magic-users that was banned in Urik and everywhere else in the Tablelands.
Templars got the thrust for their spells directly from their sorcerer-king. Templar spells, Pavek knew from his archive research, belonged to the broad tradition of what the archive scrolls called clerical or priestly spellcraft.
But there was another spell-casting tradition, just as broad and in some respects more powerful than priestly spellcraft. At its apex, it was the magic of the departed Dragon and his minion sorcerer-kings. In lesser forms it was the magic of the outlawed Veiled Alliance. This other magic was completely inimical to clerical spellcraft, and Pavek knew little about it, except that every spell required specific ingredients.
And, as Metica had pointed out, since the outlawed Alliance magicians could wreak spells with just about anything, any substance that was useless to them was noteworthy. Small wonder, then, that King Hamanu allowed Ral's Breath to be sold for city profit. Except- ”If these seeds are so useless, how can anyone truly tell if the Ral's Breath has been overcut?”
”Useless to the Veil, Regulator, but as you said, the zarneeka seeds have a distinctive taste and numbing texture. Someone's shrinking the amount of zarneeka that goes into every packet of Ral's Breath. You'll find out who, and why, and then you'll tell me. As a favor to me... for my inconvenience dealing with the dead-heart. Simple?”
The sinews holding the tripod together creaked protest as all the implications of Medea's ”favor” sifted down through Pavek's thoughts. Harmless, practically useless Ral's Breath was a city commodity, stored in the customhouse and sold to the licensed apothecaries who resold it in their shops. If, the bitter, numbing ingredient in Ral's Breath was zarneeka-a word Pavek had never heard before-then zarneeka was also a city commodity, stored in the selfsame customhouse. Either the suppliers who sold zarneeka were shorting the city or the templars who made up the Ral's Breath packets were pilfering yellow powder. Pavek had his suspicions between the two possibilities-and his hopes.
”Where do we get zarneeka, great one?”
”Itinerants trade it directly for salt and oils.”
Pavek couldn't resist a frown: itinerants weren't merchants who paid city taxes and spelled out their names with trade tokens (and probably knew city-script, just as every civil templar knew the token code). Itinerants didn't even live in market villages where their lives were lived under constant observation. Itinerants dwelt beyond civilization, deep in the wastelands, in places that had no names. They were dirt-poor and as free as a man or woman could be.
Direct trade meant no coins changed hands when the itinerants exchanged their seeds for the other commodities, and that meant procurers from the civil bureau handled the whole transaction. There were at least twenty procurers working Urik's customhouse, but when Metica wouldn't meet his eyes, Pavek knew which one handled the zarneeka trade: the dwarf, Rokka.
If Rokka's dwarven focus-that innate need dwarves had to organize their lives around a single purpose-wasn't greed for gold, it was only because Rokka'd found something more valuable.
But zarneeka? Seeds that turned a man's tongue into a useless lump? Seeds that King Hamanu himself certified were useless?
Not if gold-hungry Rokka was involved.
Had Pavek been anywhere but Metica's chamber, he would have spat the evil thought into the nearest hearth.
Instead he recited an old street rhyme as casually as he could. ”Itinerants: 'Come today and gone away. Come again? Who knows when?'”
”They registered last night at Modekan.”
Coincidence? Pavek felt an invisible noose settle around his neck. He gulped; it didn't budge. Modekan was another of the villages that lent its name to one of Urik's ten market days. Today, in fact, was Modekan's day.
Coincidence? Not unless his luck had suddenly gotten a lot better.
King Hamanu didn't like surprises in his city. The ma.s.sive walls and gates were more than convenient places to carve his portrait. n.o.body came into Urik without registering at one of the outlying villages. n.o.body brought a draft beast into the city; the streets were crowded enough with people, and hard enough on that account to keep clean. n.o.body stayed inside the city after the gates were closed at sunset unless they paid a poll tax or could prove residence.
The great merchants paid the tax. For them, it was a pittance. Just about everyone else, including itinerants, stopped in a market village, stabled their beasts, announced their intent to visit the city to a civil bureau registrator conveniently a.s.signed to the village inn, and then set out for Urik the following morning.
He a.s.sessed the angle of the morning sun streaming onto Metica's worktable. If he a.s.sumed the itinerants had set out from Modekan at dawn and weren't crippled, they should be approaching the gates right about now. He'd rather lose every thread of orange and crimson in his sleeves than poke his nose into Rokka's affairs, but he owed Metica. She'd made that perfectly dear.
”How many? Names? Descriptions?” He hoped for anything that might give him a chance to get out of this without earning the dwarf for an enemy.
”Three. One female, two males. A cart, four amphorae-large clay jugs with pointed bottoms-filled with zarneeka. They should be easy to spot coming through the gate.”
Pavek supposed he should be grateful that the registrator had recorded so much extra information. He wondered, idly, how much Metica paid for that extra knowledge. And whether she'd told him everything she'd bought. ”Anything else?”
The administrator pretended not to hear the question, instead of answering she selecting a stick of ordinary sap-wax from a supply in an expensive wooden box. She sparked, a little oil lamp-also expensive-and held the wax in its flame until it softened and shone. Pavek watched with morbid fascination. Metica was preparing to give him an impression of her personal seal.
He could think of worse omens... maybe...
If he tried hard.
”What else?” he rephrased the question as she dropped a viscous bead on a piece of slate and flattened it with a roll of her carved turquoise seal. else?” he rephrased the question as she dropped a viscous bead on a piece of slate and flattened it with a roll of her carved turquoise seal.
Metica rehooked her cylindrical seal onto the thong around her neck, where it hung beside her gold-edged medallion. She blew on the impressed wax to hasten its hardening, and smiled sweetly at her debtor.
Pavek held his breath.
”The amphorae are bonded-sealed at their point of origin. Be careful when you break them open. Take this to the gate-” She held out the molded lump of wax. It was about as long as Pavek's thumb and half as thick. He took it like a death sentence. ”You're clever, Regulator. You'll think of something. Don't forget who you're working for. I'll be waiting for you tomorrow.”
”I'm off tomorrow,” he replied, feeling like a fool as the words left his mouth.
Her smile grew broader, showed teeth filed down to sharp, precise points. Pavek had never noticed his taskmaster's teeth before, but then, he'd never seen her smile like this before.
”Then the day after tomorrow. You'll know twice as much by then, won't you?”
Sap-wax didn't hold a sharp image for more than a day in the oppressive Athasian heat. The way Pavek's hands were sweating, the impression would be gone by the time he got to the gate. He quickly tucked the wax into the slit hem of his sleeve. When the wax was out of harm's way, he got to his feet. He was at the threshold when he remembered the messenger.
”The girl you sent. She asked me to put in a good word for her.”
”And do you?”
”Yeah-she'll make a fine regulator someday.” There was more irony in his voice than he'd intended, and more anger than was wise.
”I didn't send a messenger,” Metica replied, losing her smile.
Pavek was acutely conscious of the little wax lump in his sleeve as he made his way past the customhouse-he hadn't stopped to see if the girl was waiting or if she'd stolen all the salt-to the western gate. Modekan was west of the city. Its villagers used the western gate when they brought their produce to market. So did anyone who'd registered at the Modekan inn, unless they wanted to walk the extra distance to one of the other three midwall gates.
The city's main avenues were filling quickly with the usual market-day traffic, but a templar in his yellow robes had little difficulty moving against the traffic-as long as he didn't mind the glowers of contempt and the constant splatter of hawking as his shadow pa.s.sed.
A regulator had the right to answer any challenge to templarate authority with a fine or corporal punishment. But, like the right to call upon King Hamanu for magical aid, it was a right that only a fool would choose to exercise. Pavek contented himself with a purposeful scowl and kept an eye out for two men and one woman pulling a cart loaded with cone-bottomed clay pots. Unless they'd chosen to drag their heavy cart along the narrower side streets, the zarneeka traders had yet to pa.s.s through the gate.
The regulator in charge of the western gate, a grizzled human whose robe sleeves matched Pavek's except that they were frayed and threadbare, accepted Metica's wax without enthusiasm. He snapped the wax in half and tossed the pieces into a filthy bowl where they were lost in a handful of similarly broken lumps.
”What're you looking for?” he asked Pavek, hawking into a fire pit for good measure.
”The usual. I'll know them when I spot them. Give me an inspector. I'll keep him busy. Anything in particular you're on watch for?”
”The usual,” the older regulator replied with wink, then he shouted a name, ”Bukke!” and an inspector joined them in the gatehouse.
The new man was human with spiked, sun-bleached hair and pale, mean-spirited eyes. There was a distinct family resemblance between the two, especially when they stared. Bukke was a big man, accustomed to looking down into another man's eyes, but he wasn't bigger than Pavek, who let his scarred lip curl and held Bukke's stare until the younger man turned away.
”I'll tell you which ones to roust out of line. You lead them aside for a shakedown, and do a thorough job of it, like I'm sure you can, while I watch from here.”