By morning the month of Snowfall was living up to its name. It was snowing, and Sterren decided that Shiphaven Market was not going to be worth another visit. Instead, he left Annara and the warlock aboard ship while he, Lady Kalira, Alder, and Dogal all set out in the early gloom for the Arena and the Wizards’ Quarter.
None of the other four soldiers had turned up yet, and that meant Lady Kalira was in a very bad temper. Sterren made no attempt at conversation as he led the way up Warehouse Street, through Shortcut Alley to North Street, and on out of Spicetown.
As they neared the Grand Canal, however, the overlord’s palace gradually became visible ahead, and Sterren noticed all three Semmans staring at it.
They weren’t being quite attentive enough to encourage escape, and besides, he had promised not to, but he did venture to remark, “Pretty, isn’t it?”
“Is that where the wizards live?” Lady Kalira demanded.
Startled, Sterren said, “No, of course not! That’s Lord Azrad’s... ah... castle.”
“How far to the magicians, then?”
“Well. North Street forks ahead and we go left on...” He hesitated and then switched to using Ethsharitic for place names. “We go left on the Promenade, then on the other side of the Palace Plaza we take Arena Street, and then it’s about a mile to the Arena, I guess.”
“You’re joking!”
“No, I’m not.”
“A mile?”
“About that.”
“I will never get over the size of this city,” Lady Kalira said, more to herself than to Sterren. “What a mess!”
Sterren did not consider his home city a mess, but he knew better than to say anything. They made the rest of the journey in silence.
The streets were almost empty because of the snow, and the city’s normal odor was largely suppressed by the pale gray blanket that covered the rooftops and most of the streets, but the scent of spices, wood smoke, and charcoal was still strong. The mansions of the New City were silent and elegant, the snow hiding much of the damage that time had done them; even the slums of the outer Arena district were quieter and less offensive in such weather.
They passed Camp Street, then the Arena itself, and came to the plaza just south of the main entrance.
There, to the right of the rampway into the Arena, was the message board that Sterren had remembered, a six-foot-high wall of rough pine planks weathered gray, fifteen feet long, plastered over its entire surface with faded and torn bits of paper, parchment, and fabric.
Sterren had written up his notice the night before, aboard ship, but he realized as he looked for a place to put it that he had not thought to bring any tacks or nails. With a shrug, he found a notice that had been attached with unusually long cut nails, announcing an estate auction that had taken place a sixnight before, and he rammed the corners of his own message over the blunt ends of the nails.
Satisfied, he read it over again.
“Magicians,” it said in large letters at the top, then continued in smaller writing below, “Employment opportunity for magicians of every school. The Kingdom of Semma is recruiting magicians for government service for a term of several months, but not to exceed one year. Room and board furnished, and transportation both ways, as well as payment in gold and gems. To apply, or for further information, contact Sterren, Ninth Warlord of Semma, aboard the Southern Wind, now docked at the Tea Wharves in Spicetown. Final application must be made by nightfall, 24 Snowfall, 5221.”
He stepped back and realized that his fine, big page was almost lost amid the jumble of paper and cloth.
There was, however, nothing he could do about it.
He looked at some of the other messages on the board, wondering what they were all about. One caught his eye immediately.
“Acclaimed prestidigitator seeks part-time employment. Leave message with Thorum the Mage, Wizard Street.”
Sterren was unsure exactly what a prestidigitator was; some sort of magician, surely! Part-time employment, that wasn’t exactly what he was offering, but still...
Thorum the Mage, he told himself, on Wizard Street. That wouldn’t be too hard to find.
He was about to start looking for more notices when he was reminded of his companions by the sound of feet shuffling in the slush.
“Hai, you three,” he said, “come here and help me read these! Some of them are from magicians looking for work! I should have come here in the first place, instead of bothering with Shiphaven!”
Dogal shook his head. “I can’t read,” he said.
Lady Kalira and Alder started forward, but then Alder stopped. A moment later, as she got close enough to make out the messages, so did Lady Kalira.
“We can’t read them, either,” she said. “They’re all in Ethsharitic.”
“Well, of course they...” Sterren let his voice trail off as he realized that he was the only one present who could read Ethsharitic. He turned back to the board and drew a deep breath, then let it out in a sigh.
“I’ll read them, then,” he said.
Two hours later he felt he had covered the board adequately. Snow, meanwhile, had attempted to cover Alder and Dogal; Lady Kalira had taken shelter in the arched entrance of the Arena.
“Doesn’t this stuff ever stop falling?” Dogal asked.
“Of course it does!” Sterren retorted, instinctively leaping to the defense of his native city.
“And then what happens to it?” Alder asked. “What do you people do with it all?”
“Nothing; it melts, of course,” Sterren said. “This isn’t Sardiron, where it piles up all winter.”
“Well, how would we know that?” Alder replied angrily, his temper obviously shortened by the long, cold wait.
“From experience, of course. Haven’t you ever seen... seen it before?” He could not think of a Semmat word for “snow.”
Alder and Dogal both stared at him, startled. “No, of course not!” Alder replied.
“How could we have seen it before?” Dogal asked.
It was Sterren’s turn to be startled. “Oh,” he said. “Doesn’t it... I mean, don’t you have this stuff in Semma?”
“No,” Alder answered.
“It doesn’t fall in the winter, like this?”
“No, it rains in the winter in Semma. We don’t have snow.”
Sterren noted the word for later use, then dropped the subject. “Oh. Well, I have a dozen messages here from magicians looking for work and I want to follow up on them, before I forget any names. Come on.”
The “dozen” was actually fifteen, though there was some overlap in the message drops they used.
With much grumbling, the soldiers came. Lady Kalira emerged from the entryway and joined the party as Sterren led them back out to Arena Street and on to the southeast, toward the Wizards’ Quarter.
Five blocks took them to Games Street, a thoroughfare that Sterren remembered well, even though he had rarely played there. The times when he tried it had all been remarkable enough to stay very clear in his memory.
And Games Street, of course, marked the line between the indeterminate streets between the Arena and the Wizards’ Quarter, where various performing magicians made their homes, and the heart of the Wizards’ Quarter proper, where virtually all the city’s magic shops were clustered.
In fact, just one more block south on Arena brought them to Wizard Street. There was no marker, but it was unmistakable. “Tanna the Great,” advertised a signboard at the corner, “Wizardry for Every Need, Love Charms a Specialty.” Peculiar odors mixed with the inevitable smell of wood smoke, the city’s famous spices had been left behind a mile to the north, but here there were strange new scents that might have been spices, or herbs, or something else entirely.
