Chapter 2
Before long they were standing at the side of the street, each munching on a piece of sausage on a stick just dripping grease. Evann savored the flavor of the hot meat. He was hungrier than he had realized. Of course, he’d had a pretty good hike this morning, so he should have been hungry.
Evann matched Chander bite for bite, grinning at the boy as the grease ran down his chin. After pulling the last bite off the stick into his mouth, he followed Chander’s lead and tossed the stick into the sausage man’s little fire that kept them good and warm. He swiped his hand across his face, then, mindful that he was wearing his best clothes, wiped it on his sack rather than his pants.
“So,” Chander said around the last bite of meat he was still chewing, “what are you looking for, really?”
“Wizards,” Evann said.
Chander’s eyes widened, and he stopped chewing. “W . . . wizards?”
“Uh-huh,” Evann said, enjoying the boy’s surprise.
Chander started chewing again, then swallowed such a large lump of sausage that Evann almost hurt watching it go down his throat.
“You want wizards, we got wizards,” Chander said, affecting nonchalance. “What do you want wizards for?”
“Just take me to the best wizard in the city, please,” Evann said.
“All right,” Chander replied with a shrug. “It’s your copper. Come on.”
Evann fell into step beside the boy. “So how many wizards are there in Morshton?”
Chander looked up at him sort of sidelong. “Three,” he said after a moment. Evann nodded. That matched what his friend Rufous had told him. “That everyone knows of, anyway. There might be more, but . . .” he shrugged again, “. . . if a wizard is on the quiet, who’s going to know?”
“And who’s going to tell?” Evann said after a moment’s thought of his own.
Chander nodded. “There’s that. It’s said that wizards are chancy folk. Wouldn’t want to be on the bad side of one.” Having been in exactly that position not too long ago, Evann could only agree wholeheartedly. He didn’t say anything about it, though. He didn’t know Chander that well.
The conversation dropped for a while. Evann was content to follow his guide, trying to keep some idea of where they were in relation to the city gate through which he’d entered. The buildings they were walking by got larger, and cleaner, and began looking even a bit on the fancy side—at least by the estimation of a lad from a village on the other side of Carryl.
With Chander leading the way and more walking than Evann had expected, they arrived in front of a large house with windows set on each side of a large and ornate door. Chander stopped across the street from it and leaned back in a corner formed by a projection from the house wall on this side of the street. “That’s it,” he said, nodding at what was apparently the wizard’s house.
Evann looked at it. Since he’d never known a wizard, he had no idea how one would really live. But from all the old stories he’d listened to growing up, he’d really expected something a little grander than this. He looked back at Chander. “Really?”
“Really,” the boy replied.
“So what’s his name?”
“Her name is . . .”
“Her?” Evann interrupted.
“Her,” Chander confirmed.
Evann considered that. All the wizards in the old stories were all men. But none of the stories said that women couldn’t be wizards, either, so he guessed he didn’t have a problem with that.
He looked back at Chander, who had been waiting impatiently for his attention to come back to the present. “Her. Got it.”
“Her name is Alemandra—or at least that’s what she says it is.”
“Alemandra,” Evann repeated. Chander nodded. “Wait here.”
Evann looked around, then hurriedly crossed the street to get out of the way of an oncoming dray with large barrels stacked on it. He walked up the three steps to stand in front of the door. It took him a moment to realize that the big brass ring with the ball on it was a clacker like they had back in the village. He lifted it, then let it go to thunk against the brass baseplate.
The ball on the clacker had lines on it. He leaned forward to peer closely at it, and just as he realized that the lines made an image of an eye, the door opened and he found himself starting at the chest of a very tall man.
“Yes?”
The voice was deep, perhaps the deepest Evann had ever heard from a human. And it had a very gravelly tone to it that almost reminded him of Rufous. He straightened and stared up—quite a ways up, as it turned out—into the face of what just might have been the homeliest man he’d ever seen.
“May I speak with Wizard Alemandra, please?” Evann was being as polite as he knew how to be.
Evann wasn’t sure how he knew, but at that moment he realized that the big man was looking down his nose at him.
“The mistress is not available. Be gone.”
The door shut firmly. Evann stared at it for a moment, perplexed by the man’s attitude. Maybe if he explained it better.
He raised the clacker and dropped it again. This time when it opened, the man said nothing, but the frown that appeared on his face was almost frightening in its severity.
“I, uh,” Evann started, “I need the wizard to teach me,” he completed in a rush.
If anything, the frown got deeper, and the man bent forward until he was almost nose to nose with Evann. He couldn’t help taking a half-step back, barely mindful of where the step he was on ended.
“Listen, boy,” the man almost spat at him, “the mistress takes her students from only the best families. You have nothing to offer her, you village bumpkin, and if you don’t get off her doorstep and away from her house I’ll have you thrashed within an inch of your life.”
The door was slammed this time, and its impact on the doorframe was no less of a shock than the impact of the man’s words on Evann’s mind. He shook his head sharply. If this was the manner of house the wizard ran, Evann was pretty certain he didn’t want to be a part of it. He went down the steps and back across the street.
Chander looked at him. “Didn’t get what you wanted, huh?”
“No,” Evann said curtly. “Next wizard, please.”
Chander started to say something, closed his mouth, then just said, “Right.” He led off back the way they had come, staying by Evann’s side but not saying anything.
They crossed a rise a few streets later. From the top of it, Evann was able to get a glimpse of the northern and northwestern parts of the city. Lots of houses and buildings close together, with narrow twisty streets, lanes, and alleys running between them. He was very glad at that moment that he had a guide, because he would have very likely gotten lost otherwise.
Chander gestured to their right, and they turned down another street. Evann followed Chander quite a ways down this street.
The houses on this street were smaller than Wizard Alemandra’s house. The outsides were all plain wood or plaster, with an occasional small window.
Chander stopped in front of a house that looked much the same as the houses all around it. “This one,” he said with a jerk of his thumb.
Evann looked at the door; smaller and plainer. After his reception at the previous house, he had no complaints about smaller and plainer. “Name?”
“He goes by the name of Thosapater.”
“Thosapater,” Evann said it slowly, to make sure he was saying it right. “Seriously? That’s his name?”
Chander chuckled. “Someone said his real name is Sammo, but he insists that everyone call him the other.”
“Thosapater,” Evann repeated, trying to keep a grin off of his face. Chander chuckled again.
Taking a deep breath, Evann crossed the street. It was only one step up onto the porch in front of the door. It had a clacker as well, also brass, but smaller and very plain. Evann lifted and dropped it. Thunk.
There was no response for a long moment, but just as Evann was about to use the clacker again, the door opened to reveal a youth somewhat older than Evann, not quite as tall, dressed in what would have been nice clothes had they seen soap and water sometime recently.
The youth straightened in apparent surprise to see only Evann on the porch. “Deliveries go to the back door,” he snapped, and started to shut the door.
“Wait,” Evann said, placing the bottom of his spade handle in the path of the door. The door struck it hard and rebounded, shivering. The youth turned to him with an outraged expression. “I would like to speak to Wizard Thosapater about teaching me.”
“Ha!” the youth exclaimed, outrage changing to snarky laughter in a moment. “The master charges twenty silver pieces to take on a student, plus five silver pieces a month thereafter, and you have to find your own dragon’s blood. So unless you’ve got more hidden under those rags of yours than an empty belly, be gone, and don’t bother coming back without the money.”
The youth kicked Evann’s staff out of the doorway and slammed the door. Evann noted with detachment that it slammed almost as well as the door at Wizard Alemandra’s house.
He walked back to where Chander had stood, observing the encounter at the door. “Next wizard?” the boy asked.
“Next wizard,” Evann said in an even voice.
Chander turned and led back toward the main street they had been walking down. Evann paced beside him, throttling back his anger. He was really beginning to wonder if this idea of Rufous’ was any good. The two best wizards in Morshton had turned out to be rather less than polite, much less courteous. Well, he couldn’t exactly say that about the wizards themselves, but he could for sure say that about the people in their houses, and if that was the kind of people the wizards wanted around them, Evann was pretty certain he wouldn’t like the wizards. Crows only flock with crows, as the old saying went.
That jogged a thought in Evann’s mind, and he looked around at the roofs and the sky. Not a sign of a raven. He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.
Chander looked at him with lowered eyebrows. “Thought I saw something,” Evann said.
“Well, you’d better keep your eyes down here starting now,” Chander muttered. “This next part of town isn’t one of the better ones. You know how to use that stick for anything besides propping yourself up?”
“I think so,” Evann replied with a slight smile.
“Good. Just pay attention to me and to what’s going on around us.”
“I was warned about thieves before I came to Morshton,” Evann said. “I haven’t seen any yet.”
Chander snorted. “Friend Evann, the ones that you could see at work are not out on the streets right now. They work at night, because it hides their lack of skill. Only the best work during the day, and you don’t have the eye yet to catch them. And don’t go patting yourself,” the boy added. “You’ll just give away where you have stuff stashed.”
Evann stilled the hand that had just started to move to do that. “Ah, right.” They walked a few more steps. “So why haven’t I been thieved, yet?”
Chander looked at him sidelong, and snorted again. “Partly because you’re a kid from out of town, who doesn’t look to be carrying anything more valuable than a sack and a big stick. Although,” the boy dropped his voice, “if you’re going to wear a belt under your clothes, you need to either wear a flatter belt or looser clothing. And don’t touch it!”
Evann stutter-stepped as he swung his hand away from his belly. “I’ll remember that. Partly? What’s the rest of it?”
“I’m with you, of course.” That was said in a matter of fact tone. Chander kept his eyes moving around them as they walked.
“So you’re a guard as well as a guide?” Evann tried to put some humor in his voice, but he wasn’t sure how well he succeeded.
“No, but anyone who screws up one of my jobs knows I get my own back. Always.”
That was said in a very hard tone. Evann looked at Chander. The boy’s face matched his tone, and for a moment Evann felt a chill run down his spine. “How old are you?” Evann asked after a moment.
“Older than I look.”
That Evann now believed. “So why are you doing the guide to the city bit for a copper and sausage?”
Some of the hardness leached away from Chander’s face, and he looked up at Evann with a bit of a gamin’s grin. “I’ve got my reasons. And hey, if nothing else, I get to meet new people almost every day.”
The grin dropped off of the boy’s face. “We’re almost there, but this is the worst part. Eyes up.”
“So why does this wizard live in such a dangerous part of the city?” Evann asked. His eyes were moving left to right and back again.
“I didn’t say he was a good wizard, did I?”
“So is he not-good in the sense of not-a-nice-person, or not-good in the sense of he can’t do much?”
“Yes.”
Evann had to think about that response for a moment before he got it. He chuckled, but before he could say anything, Chander led him right up to a door.
This house was nothing like the other two. The walls had long since lost their last coat of whitewash, and the plaster had sloughed off in places, leaving bare wood here and exposed wattle and daub there, all now a muddy almost uniform grey color. The sagging door still showed traces of a bright blue paint having resided there once upon a time. That only served to contrast with the time-bleached wood.
There was no clacker. Evann raised his hand to knock on the door, but paused to look at Chander and raised his eyebrows.
“Rogier.”
“Rogier.” Evann hefted the name in his mind, then shrugged. He rapped his knuckles on the door three times.
After a moment, the door eased open and a beady eye appeared in the open crack. The eye looked Evann up and down. He was apparently judged innocuous enough, because the door eased open and revealed a gaunt-featured man with straggling oily grey hair and beard, wearing a threadbare robe that might have originally been brown in color and had obviously been made for someone of a larger frame.
“Yes?” Despite his appearance, the man’s voice was firm. “What do you want?”
“If you are the wizard named Rogier,” Evann said, again trying to be pleasant and polite, although that was getting harder to do as his day progressed, “I would like for you to teach me.”
“Hmmph.” The old man measured Evann with his eyes again, consciously ignoring Chander. “I’m very busy right now. You bring me two measures of powdered dragon’s blood, and I’ll consider it. Now if you’ll excuse me . . .”
The wizard moved to shut the door. Unlike the previous encounters, Evann made no attempt to reason with him a second time. He turned away as the door closed behind him, and slowly walked away.
“Hey,” Chander bustled up beside him. “We’re not out of the rough area yet, friend Evann. Keep your head up and your wits about you for a while longer until I can get you back to the better streets, all right?”
Evann straightened up. He was bitterly disappointed, but Chander was right. This wasn’t the time or place to give in to those feelings. “Right. Let’s go.”
Just before they reached the end of the street Evann learned why Chander was on edge. Three youths stepped around the corner and barred their way.