Chapter 3
“So, Chander, what’s your friend carrying in that sack of his, hmm?” the boy in the center said with a swagger. “Anything we’d like to see?”
“Be off with you, Lorsh, and take your friends with you. You really don’t want what we’ve got to give you.” Chander’s voice was very even, but at the same time very sharp.
“Tired of you talking big, Chander. Time for you to put up or shut up. Either that, or your friend here gives us what he’s carrying.” Lorsh’s voice was going increasingly harsh.
Evann shrugged his sack off his shoulder and caught it with his left hand. “You want this? Here,” and he tossed it to the street between them. As the thieves moved toward it, he sprang into action.
The bottom of his staff swept up and hammered the left knee of one of the youths. At another time, Evann might have laughed at how his eyes bulged and he fell clutching his knee, moaning. Evann recovered and backed a step to stand beside Chander, holding the staff sideways in both hands. He looked over to see a slim and wickedly sharp knife in Chander’s hand.
“Tch, tch,” Chander said, shaking his head with a nasty grin plastered on his face. “Looks like your boy tripped and fell, Lorsh. Now, you want to clear out of our way before someone else takes a tumble?”
The other youth was already edging back out of their way. Lorsh looked around, and apparently decided he had no reason to get thumped that day. He stepped back without a word.
“Always knew you had more brains than people said you had, Lorsh,” Chander said as he went by, snagging Evann’s sack up from the street as he did so. “Even if it’s only a little bit more.”
Evann stepped clear of the downed thief, and kept an eye on the other two until he and Chander were some distance away. Chander set a brisk pace, and Evann kept up with no questions. Before long, they were in streets that had a better look, and Chander slowed down a little. “Over here,” he said, and led the way to where two trees stood nestled next to each other in a planting outside a larger home, branches rustling in a breeze that was passing above Evann’s head.
The two of them stood in the shade of the trees, regaining their breath and letting their nerves calm down. At least, that was what Evann was doing, and he suspected the same was true of Chander. He didn’t think the boy was all that much older or experienced than he was.
Chander handed the sack back to Evann. “Thanks,” he said as he slung it back on his shoulder.
“So you weren’t kidding when you said you knew how to use that stick,” Chander said.
Evann shrugged. “A little, anyway.”
“K-k-k-k,” sounded above them, softly. Evann jerked and spun away from the tree trunk to stare upward. A gleaming black eye stared back down at him from among the branches. If it wasn’t the raven from the forest, it would do as a twin.
“What’s wrong?” Chander said, staring from Evann to the raven and back again.
“Do you see ravens in town very often?” Evann asked, hefting his staff into both hands.
“Sometimes,” Chander replied. “Mostly in winter, but sometimes we’ll have one or two flying around town even in summer.”
“You know this one?”
“No. Do you?” Chander sounded rather nonplussed by Evann’s fixation with ravens.
“I . . . might,” Evann finally responded. “Leastways, I saw one an awful lot like this one at the edge of the forest before I walked down to the city this morning.”
Chander snorted. “Raven, shmaven, they all look alike to me. Forget about it.”
“Kwourk,” the raven pronounced. It then defecated, the thick greenish slurry splashing on the roots of the tree, after which it launched itself a-wing, flapping strongly to clear the peak of the roof on the other side of the street.
After a moment, Evann relaxed. “Sorry, I’m just not sure I know what to make of that.” He leaned his staff against one of the trees and swung the sack around to cover his other hand as he reached into his purse. “Here,” he offered a copper to Chander. “You took me to see the wizards. You earned it.”
Chander reached out and took the coin, but just stood there holding it. “So what are you going to do now?”
Evann shrugged again, this time with a grimace. “I guess I’ll find someplace to sleep tonight, then head for another city tomorrow. Surely somewhere I can find a wizard who is a worthy teacher.”
“That’s really why you are here? In Morshton, I mean,” Chander said slowly. “You want a wizard to teach you?”
The repressed disappointment welled up in Evann, and he wrapped both hands around the staff and leaned on it. “Yes. R . . .” he remembered just in time that he wasn’t supposed to mention Rufous, “. . . a friend of mine told me that I should be able to find a wizard in Morshton to teach me. Looks like he was wrong. All the wizards in Morshton are more interested in gaining wealth and power than in teaching me.”
Chander pushed the copper back at Evann. “Here. We’re not done yet. Come on.”
Evann let go of the staff with his left hand and took the copper. “What do you mean?”
“Just come on!” Chander wouldn’t say any more, only took Evann by the arm and urged him forward.
Several streets later, Chander halted in front of a building that could only be a tavern, in front of which hung a painted board sign which even in its faded condition had a red boot on it. Now Evann hadn’t been in too many taverns so far in his short life. There was the one in his village, where he sometimes did odd jobs, and where he occasionally was sent by his mother to remind his father that it was time to come home. There was one in Carryl, where he had bought some food and a mug of new beer a couple of times. And Farmer Charymann had taken him to the one in the town near his farm one time when Evann had helped take a load of tubers to the local market. So he had been to a few taverns; and of course some of the old stories had a few words to say about taverns, not to mention what his mother had muttered from time to time when exasperated with his blacksmith father. All in all, taverns sounded a bit chancy to him.
“What’s in here?” Evann asked, disengaging his arm from Chander’s hand.
“The man I want you to see,” Chander said. “If anyone in Morshton knows of a wizard who might teach you, it’s him.”
“Oh. Is he a wizard?”
For the first time, Evann saw Chander exhibit uncertainty. “I don’t know for sure. He might be, and he might not. But if he isn’t, he knows as much as any wizard, I’d wager.”
Evann squared his shoulders. “Well, he can’t waste my time any more than the other three did. Lead on, guide.”
Evann found the inside of the tavern to be lighter than he had expected. He stopped short as Chander paused in front of the bar at the front of the room. “Quinton here?” he asked the man behind the bar.
“Usual place,” the grunted reply came as the barman shifted a small keg to its place on the back counter.
“Thanks,” Chander said. He led the way to the very back corner of the room, well away from all doors, where two high-backed benches flanked a table that was large enough to allow three people to fit on each bench.
Chander led the way directly to the table, and slid sideways onto one of the benches, gesturing to Evann to slide in beside him. He did so, slowly, because he was staring across the table at the man sitting on the other bench.
The first thing that Evann saw clearly was a pair of large knobby-knuckled hands laying out thin rectangles of wood with brightly painted pictures on them in a pattern on the table top. There was an oaken mug to his right at the outside edge of the table, and a very battered low-crowned wide-brimmed hat to his left against the wall.
The man’s head was down as he stared at what his hands were doing, so his face was very shadowed. His hair was thick, long enough to brush his shoulders, and was a dark brown color shot through with many threads of grey. His shoulders were wide, giving a hint that there might be some strength to his body.
“Quinton,” Chander said quietly as the man continued to lay out the pictures, “Evann here needs a wizard.”
Quinton, since that was who the man across the table had to be, grunted, and said, “What for?”
Chander looked at Evann. Evann still wasn’t sure what was going on, so he said nothing. “To teach him,” Chander finally replied.
Quinton grunted again as he laid down the last wooden picture and folded his arms along the edge of the table, head still down, apparently studying the pattern of pictures. “So take him to the wizards.”
“I did. He wants somebody better than them.”
At last Quinton raised his head, and piercing blue eyes focused on Evann from under very bushy eyebrows. He lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. “I applaud his good sense and his apparent taste in teachers. But why is he here?”
Quinton had a beard, too. It was short, not quite bushy, with more grey in it than his hair. He stared at Evann for a moment, gave Evann’s staff a glance where it was gripped by Evann’s left hand, then lowered his head to look at the pictures again. Evann’s anger started to burn again, as the older man basically seemed to be ignoring him.
“I thought maybe you might know of someone who could help him,” Chander said.
Quinton grunted for a third time, didn’t look up, didn’t speak.
Right, Evann thought. He still had the copper in his fist, so he slapped it down on the table by Chander. “Here’s your fee, Chander. Thanks for trying, but I don’t see that he’s much different from the real wizards. Goodbye.”
Evann ignored Chander’s call of “Wait!” He was on his feet the next instant, and as he took his first step toward the door, he heard Quinton say, “Why is a shovel pretending to be a walking staff?”
That froze Evann for a moment. Then he slowly turned back to the table. He stood, looking down at the back of Quinton’s head.
“It’s not a shovel,” Evann said. “It’s a spade.”
“Shovel, spade, either way it’s a tool for moving dirt.” Quinton looked up at Evann again, his gaze even sharper than before. “The question is, why is it hiding?”
Chander was looking back and forth between them, a confused look on his face.
“To help me,” Evann said, holding on to his anger with both hands. If Quinton could tell the real shape of the spade, then there was more to him than met the eye.
Quinton’s eyebrows rose into an expressive arch across his forehead. But Evann could still tell that the older man was skeptical. He pulled the spade around so that his body was between it and the rest of the room and the bar keeper. He focused his gaze on it, and whispered, “Come out.”
There was a very small flash of blue light, and the spade once again was in his hand, pulled up against his chest. There was a sense of a giggle, and a sense of stretching stiff muscles, then things quieted down except for an occasional glint of blue from the edge of the blade.
Chander’s eyes were big and round, and his mouth had dropped open. Quinton’s eyebrows were still elevated, but in surprise now, not in skepticism. They lowered abruptly, and he pointed a long bony finger at Chander. “Not a word,” he hissed. “Not to anybody. Got it?”
Chander’s mouth snapped shut, and he nodded with energy.
Quinton’s eyes tracked back to Evann. His expression looked somewhat on the grim side, now. “You’re already a wizard, it would seem.”
Evann nodded.
“Been one for very long?”
“No.”
“So why do you want a teacher? You’ve already had the blood, obviously, and you’ve already found your staff,” Quinton gave a pointed glance at the spade, “such as it is. What do you want a teacher for?”
“To teach me what to do with the stuff I got from the other wizard,” Evann blurted.
Quinton’s eyebrows went up again. From the rest of his expression, Evann gathered he was shocked. “You’ve already survived a wizard’s duel?”
“I guess so,” Evann said. He shrugged. “I broke the other guy’s staff, and now I’ve got a head full of stuff I don’t know what to do with or how to keep . . .” His voice dwindled away.
Before Quinton could respond, Evann heard steps behind him, and he saw Quinton’s eyes look beyond him. Evann shifted his gaze back to the spade, and whispered, “Hide. Please.” Another sense of giggle, this time mingled with a bit of pout, then the staff was back in his hand.
Evann heard voices behind him as the bar keeper talked to the new customers. His eyes were focused now on Quinton, who was scooping the painted rectangles into his hat, which he clapped on his head as soon as the table was cleared. A moment later, Quinton was on his feet beside Evann. He reached a long arm down, picked up the mug and drained it, then wiped a sleeve across his mouth as he grabbed Evann’s arm with his other hand. “Come with me. We need someplace a bit more private than here.”
Quinton was as strong as Evann’s blacksmith father. Evann found himself turned and taking long steps to keep up with the older man before he knew it. Chander was apparently right behind them, from the sound of his light footsteps.
They burst out the tavern door into the sunlight. “This way,” Quinton said, swinging Evann around like a weight on a string before settling into a path down the street in the opposite direction from which Chander and Evann had approached the tavern.
Seen standing up and moving, the older man was indeed of a size to match Evann’s father, and the strength of his hands was certainly no less than the blacksmith’s. Evann tried to pull his arm away from the older man’s almost punishing grip, and Quinton released it.
“Do keep up,” Quinton said as he lengthened his stride. Evann had to stretch to match the older man, but he did so, step for step. Chander fell in on his other side, and the three of them hurried down the street.
“Where are we going?” Evann asked, puffing a little bit. Quinton was charging ahead like a bull splashing through a creek, and people moved out of his way as if they were water droplets.
“My rooms, for now,” the older man replied curtly. “Say nothing more until we’re there.”
Evann followed down the street, past two cross-streets, around a corner at the third, then around another corner into a dark and curving lane. At that moment, he had no idea where he was.
They were far enough around the curve when they stopped that Evann couldn’t see the street they had left, but at the same time couldn’t see another street at the other end. They stood in front of a three story building which was taller than Farmer Charymann’s tallest barn, which made it tall indeed to Evann. The plaster facing it was a dull green. A sign swung in the slight breeze that had a bundle of plants carved and painted on it. As paintings went, Evann decided, it probably wasn’t very good because he couldn’t tell what the plants were. It looked more like a bunch of mouseweed than anything, which was silly, as he’d never heard of mouseweed being good for anyone or anything.
“What’s this?” he asked, pointing at the sign.
“Granny Cosan’s herbal shop,” Chander said. “She lives on the floor above the shop.”
“And I have the third floor loft,” Quinton interrupted. “Come on.”
Evann looked back at the sign just as a raven alit on the sign pole. “Wait,” he said, pointing at the bird.
“Ignore him,” Quinton said. “Come on.” He opened a door that was at the corner of the building, revealing a steep flight of stairs up which he charged with the same energy he had shown in the streets. Evann sighed, and started after him, with Chander bringing up the rear.
The stairs ran the full length of the building, and Evann was definitely slowing down when he finally got to the landing at the top. There was a low door off the landing which was standing open, so Evann ducked his head and stepped through it.
Thump.
“Ow!”
Evann had tried to straighten up as soon as he had cleared the doorframe, only to ram his head into a beam. He crouched and looked around, and realized that the top floor was all one open room. There was no ceiling, as such. The unclad roof sloped steeply down from the center peak to side walls that were about three hands shorter than Evann’s height, but a couple of steps away from the wall he could stand tall. There were windows in each wall, two of which had their shutters thrown open to admit light. The breeze flowing through the left from them was pleasant at the moment. Evann was certain it wouldn’t be so nice in the winter.
Quinton was standing in the center of the room. He took his hat off and threw it. It landed on a nearby table with a soft plop. Evann looked at the hat for a moment. Weren’t those little wooden plaques . . . ? Chander perched on a tall stool to one side.
“How old are you, boy?” Quinton had turned and was facing Evann with crossed arms.
“Almost seventeen years.” Not an out and out lie, but not the utter truth either. Evann wanted to be seen as older than he was.
“How long have you been a wizard?”
Evann thought for a moment. “Not quite two weeks, maybe.”
“What?” Quinton’s tone indicated he didn’t believe that answer.
Evann took the staff in crook of his elbow, and counted on his fingers. “Yes, that’s right. It was two days after the new moon, so a week and a half.”
Quinton’s eyebrows lowered. “And how soon after that did you have the supposed wizard’s duel?”
The room seemed a little darker.
“Right afterward,” Evann replied.
Quinton’s frown deepened. “Two days later? A week later? How long?”
Evann considered, trying to figure out exactly how long it had been.
Quinton apparently ran out of patience, for he uncrossed his arms and took a step forward. “Let me see your staff,” he said as he reached for it.
Evann started to flinch back just as Quinton’s big hand made contact with the staff. There was a crack of sound, a flash of blue light, and Quinton staggered back two steps, shaking his right hand. The spade had reappeared, and there was an angry buzzing in Evann’s head which died down to a very low mutter after a moment. Blue light gleamed from the sharpened edges of the blade.
“Ow!” Quinton exclaimed, rubbing his one hand with the other.
“Twelve breaths,” Evann said.
“What?” Quinton said crossly, still rubbing his hand.
“Twelve breaths. That’s how long between the time I took the dragon’s blood and the fight with the other wizard began.”
Quinton shot him a hot glance. “I don’t believe it. You mean you stood there and took the powdered blood and then immediately got into a fight?”
Evann shook his head. “I didn’t have any powdered dragon’s blood.”
Quinton inhaled deeply. “Boy. Did you or did you not take in some dragon’s blood?”
Evann bobbed his head. “I did.”
“So how much dried blood did you have? A measure? A half-measure?”
“I already told you,” Evann said, starting to get cross, “I didn’t have any dried blood.”
Quinton stopped rubbing his hands and crossed his arms again, obviously trying to keep from yelling. “You took in some blood, but you didn’t have any dried blood. Is that what you’re saying?”
“Uh-huh,” Evan said, glad that the older man seemed to finally be understanding.
“Then where did the blood come from?” Quinton’s voice was soft and level, but his face was getting red.
Evann tilted his head a little. “A dragon gave it to me.”
Quinton’s voice got flat and hard. “A dragon gave it to you. What, some dragon just walked up to you and handed you a packet of dried blood?”
“No,” Evann sighed. He wasn’t sure if Quinton was being difficult, or if he just didn’t understand, but either way it was getting frustrating. “He offered it to me from his tail. From a hole he punched in his tail,” he elaborated.
Quinton froze. He didn’t move for a very long moment; then he slowly unfolded his arms and leaned on the table.
“Boy, are you telling me that you have tasted living dragon’s blood?”
Evann smiled. “Uh-huh.” At last Quinton seemed to get it.
“Is the dragon still alive?” Quinton’s voice was hushed.
“Yes.”
Quinton slowly sank down on his stool, facing Evann. “Name of the Name,” he said softly. “Who would have guessed it?”