Not until they reached the first crossing street, called Saddler’s Row, did they encounter traffic. Carts and wagons, single riders on horseback, and a modest crowd of pedestrians moved in either direction. Far down Saddler’s Row the lighted doorways of taverns and theaters beckoned. Miya and Valaran were ready to go that way, but Tol insisted they at least try to find Narren and the Juramona soldiers.
The closer they came to the canal, the brighter the lamplight and the thicker the crowds. Valaran was enchanted. She stopped to listen to a slanging match between a pushcart vender and a woman who apparently didn’t have the price of a grilled sausage. Words were getting quite heated as Tol dragged her away.
“Wait!” she pleaded. “She just called him the three-fathered son of a pox-riddled goatherd. I want to hear his response.”
“Keep moving! We’ll end up in the middle of a knife-fight,” Tol said.
Farther along, they came across two gnomes, pink-pated fellows with silky white beards, who had set up a table at the edge of the street. They were demonstrating an apparatus of their own design. Four flattened glass globes turned on spindles, while a rack and pinion allowed them to move backward or forward, up or down.
“With the new Solar-Optical Domestic Stove Lighter, you’ll never have to buy fire again!” proclaimed the green-clad gnome. They were so alike only their clothes set them apart.
“My estimable colleague is correct,” said the other gnome, who wore brown clothing spotted with gray patches. “The Solar-Optical Domestic Stove Lighter is clean, dependable, reliable, safe-”
“Sounds like the perfect husband,” said Miya.
The small crowd chuckled appreciatively. Ignoring the interruption, the gnome in green resumed his spiel. “Throw away your flint and steel! Forsake dangerous and smelly tinder boxes! The Solar-Optical Domestic Stove Lighter makes all those old-fashioned items obsolete!”
“Excuse me,” said Valaran, stepping up to the table. “Do I understand from the name this device uses sunlight to ignite fires?”
Both little men first looked surprised, then immensely pleased. “Just so, lady, just so!” said the brown-shirted gnome. “It’s so nice to meet an educated person so far from home.”
“Thank you. However, I see one grave problem with your invention.”
Twin looks of approval changed to displeasure, and Valaran added, “How does it work at night?”
If she’d slapped the gnomes, she could not have stunned them more. The gnome in green faced his colleague and punched him on his cherry-red nose.
“Imbecile! How will it work at night?”
“Who are you calling imbecile?” retorted Brown. “I have a diploma from the Institute of Higher Gnomish Engineering-”
“I wipe my nose on your diploma!” Green shouted. “I dribble gravy on it too! How can a stove-lighter work without the sun?” A new thought seized him, and he shook with emotion. “Or when it rains?”
Brown attacked Green, and the two gnomes rolled on the ground, locked in a furious embrace. When they fetched up against the table, its folding legs collapsed, sending their invention crashing to the pavement. Instantly, scavengers converged on the broken device, ransacking the gnomes’ goods while the two fought on.
Tol and his party moved past. Miya, looking back at the melee, said, “They’re crazy. Why use that big thing when flint and iron fit in the palm of your hand?”
By the canal, boats and barges were tied up for the night. The streets were crowded, and waterfront taverns were doing a roaring business.
Valaran’s head swiveled left and right as she tried to take it all in. Catching Tol’s eye, she smiled, dimple dancing at the corner of her mouth.
As they strolled along the plank quayside, Miya said quietly, “We’re being followed. Since the gnomes’ table. Stocky fellow, dressed in black. I can’t make out his face.”
Tol chanced a glance. He saw no one of that description, but trusted Miya’s woodland instincts. They were acute, even in the city.
Sword and dagger reassuringly in place, Tol kept his expression pleasant for the girl’s sake. “Let’s find Narren and the men,” he said. He took Valaran’s hand, and was pleased when she didn’t pull away.
They visited four inns before they found the Juramona company. The fourth spot was called The Bargeman’s Rest, and it was a sprawling place, combining dock, boathouse, wineshop, and hostel.
Standing on his toes to see over the crowd, Tol spotted Narren and five of his men leaning on hogsheads, drinking from the short tin cups favored by Daltigoth’s tapsters. Narren hailed him. Tol elbowed his way through the press, drawing Valaran after him. Miya hung back a few steps, watching their backs.
There was much cheering and back-slapping as Tol was reunited with his comrades. Narren spoke for all when he said, “Who’s the kid, Tol?”
Valaran flushed scarlet. “Mind your tongue, rascal!”
Tol cut her off by squeezing her hand tightly. “This is a friend-Val.”
“Want a drink, friend Val?” said Narren, offering her a cup.
She would have taken it, but Tol got it first and drained it down. Out the side of his mouth he said to her, “Better keep your wits about you here!”
Miya sidled up and spoke in Tol’s ear. “He followed us inside. Over there, by the pile of rope.”
This time Tol saw him. Dressed in black as Miya had said, the stranger seemed to blend into the dark corner.
Cutpurse? Thief? Crimper? Drunken idlers on the canal often found themselves kidnapped and put aboard outgoing barges, forced to work off the price of their passage. This fellow looked too well-heeled for such lowly work. Tol made a swift decision. Straightening his sword belt, he told Miya to keep Val out of the way.
“Narren, Gustal, with me,” he said. The three of them wedged their way through the noisy crowd, straight for Tol’s black-garbed shadow.
The fellow didn’t react to their obvious approach, even when they effectively boxed him in against the wall. Instead, the stranger pushed the hood of his cape back slightly from his face, revealing he was masked. A fitted black cloth covered his entire head, leaving only dark eyes visible.
“Gentlemen,” he said, voice muffled as it came through a thin slit cut in the hood.
“You’ve been following my friends and me,” Tol said. “Why?”
“You’re mistaken. I often come here.”
“Who are you?” demanded Narren. “Why do you hide behind that mask?”
The fellow shrugged. “I’m no one. My face is my own concern.”
Tol dithered. Miya had seen the stranger follow them here, but perhaps he was telling the truth. Perhaps his presence was nothing more than a coincidence.
The stranger put two fingers in a pocket on the front of his tunic. Tol and his friends tensed, but he brought out only a silver coin.
“Have a pitcher on me,” he said. “No hard feelings?”
Before Tol could accept or decline, Gustal cut him off. Somewhat the worse for drink, Gustal said belligerently, “I say we yank that hood off, get the truth out of him!”
Gustal made a clumsy grab for the mask. In a flash, the stranger’s hand went beneath his cloak and came out holding a long, thin dagger. Swift as a striking snake, he drove the blade upward into Gustal’s belly and then withdrew it, all in one smooth, practiced motion.
Astonishment bloomed on Gustal’s ruddy face. He sagged to his knees and fell heavily against Narren, sending them both sprawling. By the time Tol looked around for him the stranger had slipped away.
“He’s dead!” Narren cried, pulling himself from beneath Gustal’s weight.
Tol already knew by Gustal’s staring eyes it was true. The suddenness, the pointlessness of the death shocked and sickened him, but he had to put aside his feelings. Even as Narren spoke, a woman nearby saw blood flowing and she screamed. The inn erupted.
“Juramona!” Tol yelled, trying to rally his men to his side.
Close to a hundred bargemen, stevedores, serving women, and assorted jetsam of the canal district filled the inn. They didn’t take kindly to being manhandled out of the way as Tol’s soldiers fought to come to their commander’s aid. What started with shoving and oaths quickly developed into a brawl. Stools and wine jugs flew.
Tol leaped onto a table, scanning the melee. He saw Miya pull Valaran to the far wall. By tribal custom, the
