continuing. “Get your club, we're going to visit my Mother!” I glanced down at my robe and slippers. “But find me some clothes first!”
2
“Sumto!”
I strode on. I had a mission to accomplish and a time limit to accomplish it in. Sheo, the acquaintance who hailed me in the street would not, I knew, be able to help me with that. The streets were busy and noisy enough that I could realistically pretend not to have heard him, and with any luck he would not be able to catch up to me through the throng because of his ruined leg. A horse had fallen on it years ago and he had not then been able to afford a healing. Ironically, though he now hated and feared horses with a manic passion, he was damned to ride them if he wanted to make progress at any speed. A few months after the fall he had inherited a small fortune from one of his few surviving relatives, but by then the damage had healed as well as it was going to. He walked with a pronounced limp. I ignored his second hail, stepping out at a brisk pace in the wake of Meran who was clearing a path for me by the simple expedient of looking fierce and keeping his cudgel on the move. I was shocked and appalled when someone reached out of the crowd and grabbed my arm.
“Get your bloody hand off me… Kerral!” This last exclaimed as I recognized who it was who had caught me and plucked me from the crowd. A grin leapt unbidden to my face. I was peripherally aware that Meran spun about, cudgel raised, and that Sheo was rapidly gaining ground. Neither one mattered to me, though I was just as glad to see Meran relax. He might be a rangy and useful fighting man but Kerral was lethal. You will have seen short men who are unnaturally broad of chest and shoulder. Well, Kerral was my height and built that same way. He filled a doorway side to side, though not top to bottom. I have seen him pick up an anvil by the horn and hold it out at arm's length, a small smile playing about his lips and showing not the least strain.
“Sumto, my friend.” His voice was softer than you would guess from his size, though deep as a chasm.
“Kerral,” the hug was entirely spontaneous. It's not my custom to be over-familiar or physical, especially with men, but it's hard not to love a man who has saved your life. “How are you here? I thought you had been exiled! Why didn't you write?”
He grinned at me as he grabbed me and held me at arm's length. “So I was, but I managed to redeem myself. And I did write, at least once, I'm sure.”
“Sumto!” Sheo had caught up with me and I turned my face to him, smile still in place.
“Sheo! Good to see you.” I paused for a beat and then let the day go for now. “Let's go for a drink.” Yelian Shen was right of course. Drink has ever been my downfall, the cause and solution to all my problems.
“Good idea,” Kerral chipped in. “I'll buy.”
I heaved a mental sigh of relief at that, turned and gestured Meran to lead the way. “Find us an alehouse. The Damned Hangman is round the corner,” I reminded him.
3
“I was lucky. Ran into a rogue sorcerer and broke his neck.”
It was only then that I noticed the red gem, glowing with that effervescent light that told of its origin, set in a gold ring on his finger. His hand was wrapped around a clay tankard of watered wine; anything smaller than a tankard would just look stupid in his big hand. Not that the stone would be any use to him until he learned to use it; almost all nobles knew some magic, but I guessed Kerral would be the type to put his money and energies elsewhere.
“Is that it?' I couldn't help feeling his telling lacked polish.
He shrugged. “Pretty much.”
“How did you find him?” Sheo said.
Kerral shrugged. “I wasn't looking. Just out at night and saw him. He was using the power to lure a girl. It was obvious.”
“Not to mention base,” Sheo sounded genuinely offended.
I resisted the urge to shrug. Every noble-women in the city wears a charm that will protect her against such inimical magic. As for the commoners, well, who cares, frankly? I had to agree it was a pretty trivial use of magic, and a pretty stupid thing to die for.
“How ugly was he?”
Kerral laughed. “That's the funniest thing; he wasn't, you know,” he inclined his head toward Meran who was sitting a few yards away at the door. He watched us to see I was not molested but was not close enough to be privy to our conversation, “really ugly. Just a kinda ordinary looking Gerrian, really.”
“Retreni?”
Kerral looked puzzled. “Does it matter?”
“Not really, just wondered.”
“How would you know, anyway?”
I didn't feel it would help me at this point to ask if he had changed shape at all. Unlikely, as I'm sure Kerral would have mentioned it, as in “Strangled this shape shifting bastard,” for example. I thought it best to change the subject. “So you are a noble now! Congratulations, cousin!” Not all noblemen call each other that, but it's polite whether related or not.
“To the new knight! Welcome to the order.” It was the law that a commoner be raised to Knight status for services to the city, and taking down a rogue sorcerer who had been using our magic definitely counted as a service to the city. Bad enough that our potential enemies had spirit magic without them having access to the power of the stones. The magic that we dug from the volcano gave us powers we most definitely did not want to share. To sell a stone to anyone not of our own nobility was a crime punishable by death. Sometimes, through various means, foreign individuals would get their hands on a stone. Sometimes they caused problems, but large and powerful stones were rarely taken from the city, and then only in the hands of experienced and knowledgeable sorcerers. Getting one of them meant getting by the sorcerer. It doesn't happen often.
We drank a toast to our new cousin.
“Of course,” Kerral said, “I still need to make money, so I'm off to war!”
“War?”
Sheo looked disgusted. “Yes, Sumto, war. With the Alendi.”
“Oh.” It didn't seem like enough. “I've been busy.”
“You've been drunk. The patron Orthand is taking his clientele to war. Tulian too. I'm going, of course,” Sheo said.
Of course. He was a client of Tulian, of the right class and unable to give money instead of service. Being of a more illustrious family I was no-one's client. Technically I should be a patron and have clients of my own, but having successfully ducked military service I had not yet stepped foot on the lifelong Course of Honors, the political career that was my birthright and toward which my father's occasional stiff messages directed me. No one could make me do military service. I was a free born man of this city, my own master, and I owned no armor. My family occasionally had some delivered and I sold it. Weapons too.
“You should come with us,” Kerral said.
I'd known he would say it.
Sheo nodded enthusiastically. I had my cup to my face and was taking my time. They were both going to be disappointed, it was just a matter of how to say it without appearing spineless. Which I was, by the way. Have you seen what swords and axes, maces and spears do to a man? Well, neither have I, at least not that I remember well, and I have absolutely no desire to do so. I am fat and lazy and I like it, and anyone who doesn't can shove off, frankly. My family included. Uncles, cousins, the lot. But I didn't want to upset Kerral. He was my friend and had saved my life once. Sharp things, dark alley, bad people, I was drunk. “I'll see if I can get some armor.”
“Good man!” Kerral said.
