"You know, Harold," Gozmo said nervously, giving me another wary glance. "I wanted to apologize for what happened. Believe me, I'm very sorry, if I'd known it would all turn out like that, I would never have-"
"You mean the garrinch in the duke's house?" I interrupted, playing ignorant and forgetting to mention the incident with Lanten and the fact that I knew perfectly well who the client had been.
I'm going to keep that conversation for a more appropriate moment.
"The garrinch? Ah, yes. That's what I mean," Gozmo said uncertainly, in a slightly surprised voice. He sat down on a chair, relieved to realize that I didn't intend to declare war and spill blood. "I just wanted you to know that I had absolutely no idea."
"Calm down, will you, Gozmo! What's got you so nervous all of a sudden?" I said, waving my hand magnanimously. "After all, nothing terrible happened, did it? No one got hurt. I've got other business to attend to, so I'd better be going."
"So you accept my apology?" Gozmo asked in relief.
He looked as if the full weight of the Zam-da-Mort itself had fallen from his shoulders. It was all very strange-good old Gozmo wasn't usually tormented much by his conscience. And even the fact that he hadn't told me the client was the king shouldn't be making him this nervous. In any case, Gozmo had the right to conceal the name of the client.
"Forget it," I said, and the young lad and I walked back out into the street.
"What did that man want from you?" he asked after we had walked in silence for a minute.
"Do you have a name?" I said, answering a question with a question as I watched a guard patrol go by.
"Roderick."
"Well then, Roderick, do we have much farther to go?"
"We're almost there-we go through that lane," he muttered.
"Are you certain that's our way?" I asked the young magician, jabbing my finger toward a dark, foul-smelling corridor formed by two buildings huddling close to each other. "To the Street of the Apples?"
"Yes."
I shrugged, nodded to Roderick to go first, and followed him, taking my crossbow out from under my cloak. What could I expect from this youngster who knew nothing about the customs of the Port City?
More people die in dark, smelly alleyways like this than on the border in battles with orcs and Miranuehans. But the alley turned out to be empty. When the way out onto the Street of the Apples was already close and we only had another twenty yards to go before we broke free of this narrow trench, I relaxed. And so, Roderick and I came face-to-face with five rather unfriendly-looking thugs who had appeared from the Street of the Sleepy Dog, shutting us in the narrow alley.
"What do these men want?" Roderick whispered in alarm.
I recognized the third man in the group from the Street of the Apples. "We've got serious trouble here."
"Haven't you g-got any m-money?" Roderick asked in a frightened voice.
"I wouldn't exactly say that. Only it's not money they've come for."
"F-for what, then?" asked Artsivus's apprentice, growing even more frightened.
"For my life. And I think they'll dispatch you to the next world for good measure. When I make a move, you attack the ones behind us."
"B-but I don't know how," Roderick protested. "I haven't even got a weapon."
"Then we'll die."
His only answer was a loud gulp.
Four of the men were clutching short, heavy armored-infantry swords, the kind used by the soldiers of the Border Kingdom. The most efficient weapon in confined spaces or dense ranks, where you can't turn with a long blade. The fifth man, whose right shoulder was bandaged, hung back behind the others.
"How's your health, Paleface?" I asked politely when they walked up and stopped five yards away from us.
"Better than yours will be in a moment," the assassin replied.
"Kill them!"
My crossbow gave a click and the hulk that Paleface was hiding behind started tumbling backward with a bolt in his forehead. The second ugly brute yelled and raised his sword above his head, and then there was a roar behind me and I felt the searing heat as a ball of fire the size of a good horse's head went flying past me straight at the killers. I abandoned everything, dropped down onto my belly, and put my arms over my head.
A loud boom struck my ears, I felt the earth shake, and crumbs of stone came showering down on me. Someone howled. What's the advantage of wizardry over shamanism? Wizardry takes effect instantly, while shamanism is an entire ritual. Goblins dance, orcs sing. That's why shamanism acts a lot more slowly, but the shamans don't lose any strength after they use it, unlike magicians.
The fireball, that weapon so beloved of all novice magicians, had transformed one attacker into a heap of ash, then struck the wall of the building and exploded.
Paleface was howling and yelling somewhere beside the end of the alley. I could see that his face was burned, and bloodied by small splinters of stone. A hole big enough to drive the royal carriage through had appeared in the house to the left of us. Roderick certainly hadn't been stingy with his spell.
Tearing my eyes away from Paleface, I turned toward the magician's apprentice. The young lad, totally drained of strength, was half sitting, half lying, propped up against the wall, and the two remaining thugs were staring at him in amazement.
"Let's run for it!" howled one of the killers, throwing away his sword. In his fright he obviously hadn't realized that Roderick couldn't hurt a fly right now.
They ran off in the same direction they'd just come from, stomping their feet and howling in terror. Of course, I didn't bother to follow them. I was more interested in Paleface, but he had vanished without a trace.
"Lucky bastard," I said, shaking my head in admiration.
I went across to Roderick.
"Are you alive?"
He nodded feebly, but his eyes were glowing. "I did it! That's the first time I've made that spell work!"
"Oh yes! I almost got roasted. Thanks for the help. Now let me help you up. Or the guards will come running in a moment."
Roderick gave a brief nod of his light-haired head. I helped him get up off the ground, then supported him as I led him toward the deserted Street of the Apples.
7
DISCOVERIES
The look on the face of His Magicship, Master of the Order of Valiostr, Archmagician Artsivus boded no good to my own humble personage. The old dodderer received me in his own home, located in the Inner City, right beside the king's palace. The archmagician was seated in a deep armchair and swaddled in a heap of woolen blankets that would have warmed a dead man in the very fiercest of winters, but that was still not enough for his frostbitten bones. "Harold, may you be torn limb from limb!" the old man screeched. "What have you done? Have you completely lost your mind?"
"What's happened, Your Magicship?" I really didn't understand.
"Hmm." Artsivus cast another keen glance at me. "So you don't know anything. You're as innocent as Jock the Winter-Bringer? Hmm ..."
The old man drummed his fingers on the little table while he pondered something and then asked abruptly, "What were you doing yesterday? Mind, think before you answer me; I shall recognize a lie."
I wonder what it is I'm suspected of now? Should I confess to stealing the magical scroll? After all, it was lying there unwanted for all those years.
Years?
I strained my memory, trying to remember what the magical spell had looked like. I seemed to recall it was the only one not covered with a thick layer of dust. That was why I'd chosen it from among all the others. But if it wasn't dusty, that meant it had been put there quite recently. ...
I began my story in a very roundabout fashion. The archmagician, however, showed no signs of impatience and didn't interrupt me. He simply knitted his bushy eyebrows whenever I started throwing in unnecessary details or long descriptions in an attempt to divert him. Then I decided to tell him about the scroll after all, and then about the unexpected effect it had when I took a chance and tried the spell on the Doralissians. Surprisingly enough, the old man wasn't even interested, as if it wasn't me that had driven all the demons out of the city. The archmagician was only concerned about the Doralissians.
"Say that again, what was it they were shouting?"
"Well, something like: 'Give us back our horse.' "
"Did you hear anything else about horses last night?"
"No," I lied, deciding not to mention Vukhdjaaz, although he had harped on about some horse or other as well. I was interested to see if the archmagician would notice my lie.
"Good." Artsivus didn't spot my fib. "The scroll is very interesting, especially since I'm sure that no one in the Order has ever heard of any such spell."
The old man squirmed in his chair, adjusted the edge of a blanket that had slipped off onto the floor, and looked at me thoughtfully again.
"So where is the Horse?" he suddenly cooed in a sweet voice.
Only there was nothing sweet about the look in his eyes.
"What would I want with a horse? What would I do with it?"
The archmagician knitted his brows and said nothing for a moment, but a hint of doubt appeared in his eyes. "You mean it wasn't you who stole the Horse from Archmagician O'Stand's house last night?"
"He must be raving mad, if he keeps a horse in his house!" I exclaimed in amazement.
"What horse are you talking about, thief? Yesterday a magical stone-the Horse of Shadows-was stolen by persons unknown from the house of Archmagician O'Stand, who came here from Filand. We were planning to use it to drive the demons back into the Darkness. But now it has disappeared!"
"But the demons have gone. I pronounced that spell."
"Yes, they've gone." The archmagician nodded. "And it worries me very much that you did what the entire Order couldn't do. How did that scroll, which no one knew about, come to be where it was? Who else paid a visit to this Bolt of yours and asked about plans of the forbidden zone? Who is the Master? Why did the killers attack you and Roderick? Who wanted the Stone, and how could anyone have found out about it?"
"But why did you immediately suspect me, Your Magicship?" I asked, squinting at a nearby armchair.
"Sit down, you might as well," said the archmagician, spotting my glance. "Who else could have pulled off a trick like that, Harold? Not a single magical trap was activated, the Stone simply disappeared. Any fool can see it was the work of a master."
"Well, I'm not the only thief in the city. There are at least two more men in the capital who are capable of doing a job like that. But what does O'Stand himself say?"
"Nothing. He's dead." The archmagician closed his eyes wearily. "The servants found him with his throat cut. He was killed like some drunk on a spree at Stark's Stables. An archmagician of Filand! It's more than just a political scandal, it's a serious blow to the prestige of the Order of Valiostr!"
"Did he come here especially because of this Horse?"
"Yes. We summoned him as soon as the creatures of night appeared in the city. Filand owns-used to own-the Stone, a great relic that can be used to drive demons into the Darkness."
"Are you concerned that the dark creatures might reappear?"
"I'm by no means certain that they have gone anywhere," Artsivus muttered. "What makes you think that the spell worked correctly? Perhaps that demon simply lied to you?"
Actually, it was me who had lied to Artsivus, when I told him that after I read the scroll I saw a demon appear, yell that the spell was dragging him into the Darkness, and then disappear. Of course, nothing of the sort had happened, but I didn't want any magicians who specialized in demons scurrying about after me in an attempt to capture Vukhdjaaz.
Of course, he had to be exterminated, but right now I had to take a necessary risk, otherwise the magicians would shut me away somewhere behind a hundred locks just in order to lure a real live demon into their clutches.
Demons, as everyone knows, are immune to almost all kinds of magic, and therefore represent a substantial and dangerous mystery. A mystery that many generations of magicians have puzzled over. After all, there's nothing a battle magician would like more than to acquire immunity to his enemy's spells. And if the Order had a real live demon, then it would do everything in its power to discover the secret of invulnerability to magic. It takes very special objects like the Stones to set the demons trembling. And, of course, demons can also be trapped using the spells on scrolls written by anonymous know-it-alls or the demonologists of the Order.
"How should I know?" I asked, shrugging and raising my honest glance to Artsivus's face. "That brute disappeared. And what difference does it make now who has this Horse?"
"It can be used, not just to drive demons away, but also to summon them," the archmagician said wearily, and started coughing again.
"But what have the Doralissians got to do with all this?"
"Well, it happens to be their artifact. The Filanders took it from the goat-men about twenty years ago for trying to cheat them in a horse sale. It was all fair and square, of course, according to the terms of the contract, but this Stone was something like a holy relic to the goat-men. They've been trying to get it back any way they can. Time and again they've tried to buy it back, offering immense sums of money and entire herds of the finest horses, but the Order of Filand has always refused. And it is right to do so. The Stone contains a great power, although only magicians with a diploma in demonology can control it. And also the demons themselves."
"You mean to say that if this Stone falls into the hands of a demon ..."
"No one knows what would happen then. The demon could release all his brothers from the Darkness or, if he's clever, keep the Horse for himself. And then no spell in the world could do him any harm. He would be stabilized. Magically neutral, if you know what that term means."
"Then why hasn't one of those brutes already grabbed the Horse for himself?" The question was simply begging to be asked.
"I don't know where the Doralissians got the Horse from. Perhaps one of the gods gave it to them on a whim, but the Stone has a special property: No demon can take it in his hands unless a human or a Doralissian gives it to him voluntarily."
Vukhdjaaz is clever. The voice in my head had a superior ring to it now.
"And now I have to find this bauble for you?"
"You get on with the king's Commission," the Master of the Order said dismissively. "We'll search for the Horse ourselves, since you have nothing to do with the business."
"That's not what the Doralissians think," I said, shaking my head.
The goat-men could be a real problem for me in the days ahead.
"I wonder why they decided that Shadow Harold was involved? Either they drew the same conclusions as I did, or someone has set you up, thief."
"I've got plenty of enemies," I admitted as casually as I could, but something clicked in my head. The cogwheels were already creaking and groaning as all the pieces of this dwarves' puzzle gradually slipped into place.
"Be careful. The king needs you. Perhaps I ought to give you an escort of magicians of the Order?"
"No," I retorted hastily. "Thanks for the offer, Your Magicship. It would only be an unnecessary burden for me. I'll deal with the Doralissians myself."
"Very well, very well." Artsivus had recovered his good mood. "It's your choice, and I shan't insist, although I ought to."