Arm Of Galemar (Book 2) Page 19

  “The ones who are able might be the newest lives in the Soul Cycle. Magic might be an ability it has learned throughout the course of its existence. It may be testing this during its lives, the ability growing with every subsequent birth. This explains why certain magic users are weak, while others are powerful. The strongest mages in history might be the last lives the Soul has lived.”

  A shudder ran through Marik, envisioning a world where everyone possessed magical talents, with the freaks being those born as normal people. “Sounds like your soul might actually be a sort of god in training.”

  “We have debated that very possibility. From whence came the gods we know today? Perhaps the Soul, once it has fully matured, will command such vast knowledge and power as to take a place in heaven’s pantheon.”

  “I don’t know. This sounds like a pretty wild religion to me.”

  “As I said, we are not a religion at all. We all follow our own faiths, though with different views on the afterlife than the priests teach. I do not wish you to abandon your faith in favor of any other. Which god do you patronize?” Her attention fixed fully on him.

  “Well…I don’t usually pray very often.” Shalla still studied him intently. “Uh, but when I do it’s usually to Ercsilon.”

  She nodded. “I rather doubted you would be a follower of Amit, given your profession. How can you expect your god to answer your prayers if you only speak to Him when you need a favor?”

  “Oh, well…”

  “You should find time to visit His temples with greater frequency. The more devote the follower, the more a god is likely to listen when you are in need.”

  The conversation had been interesting, but Marik had no wish to discuss his religious shortcomings. “As the God of Conflict, I speak to Him whenever I raise my sword.”

  Except she would not be led aside so easily. “That may be so, yet how many of His teachings are you familiar with?” When he struggled for a reply, she looked saddened.

  “We’ll be in town for awhile during the tournament,” he hastened to say, her expression making him feel guilty, though what had he done to be sorry about? “Maybe I’ll look around after we get Hilliard registered.”

  She brightened. “So tomorrow, then?”

  “Uh…” He’d meant the comment in the abstract, generally implying the coming eightdays he would spend in Thoenar.

  “I have no duties tomorrow, so I will be happy to help!” Her smile returned, as bright and genuine as before. “I’ll take you to the Eternal Twelve’s cathedral. Archbishops for the accepted eleven maintain large temples there.”

  She had obviously adopted the notion wholeheartedly. Marik even understood why, after a fashion. In her eyes he must be a young child, unknowingly causing trouble because he misunderstood the world. By helping him improve his discipline regarding worship, she must believe she also helped whatever stage of existence the Soul residing within him might currently be in.

  While a believer in his own right, Marik was not a regular for church service. An inner scowl darkened his thoughts until he remembered he owed his life to two men he had never met, both of whom were able to save him because their faith was far stronger than his. Being observant definitely had its pluses. Besides, he also remembered the Cathedral of the Eternal Twelve from his many talks with Maddock during his first ever journey.

  “I suppose we can stop there on the way back,” he decided. “I think I’d like to visit the cathedral.”

  Happy, she tied the last stitch on Dietrik’s sling. “Good! I will be ready.”

  * * * * *

  In the entrance foyer the next morning, they performed one last check to ensure they forgot nothing. The packs were left in the spare rooms that the One Soul members kept for infrequent visitors. Weapons, belt pouches and documents were the priority today.

  “How’s that feel?” Marik eyed Dietrik’s slung arm.

  “Amazingly comfortable, on the whole. She has me snug as eggs in a basket.”

  “I imagine. I think she takes your suffering as seriously as her own.”

  Dietrik looked at him in silent inquiry as the woman in question appeared from the hallway. Shalla wore the same robe as always, or perhaps she owned many such, tied around the waist with a decorative cord. She had re-braided her hair from the single hanging rope into twin tails.

  The group stepped into the morning. Shalla took the lead to guide them through the day-lit streets. No sooner had they emerged than they were intercepted by three men in cityguard uniforms.

  “Morning, Shalla.”

  “Sergeant Wynn. Isn’t it early for you to be on shift?”

  “The lieutenant rousted me out to deal with several irate merchants.” He drawled the word, extending the eye in irate. “Beal around, by chance?”

  “Oh, dear. I’m afraid he is at that. I saw him taking breakfast.”

  “He takes a lot of things. Good day.”

  Shalla stepped aside. The three guards entered the order’s house. She sighed a sorrowful outpouring. “Nothing to do, I fear. Come. Let’s be on our own way.”

  “What was that about?” Marik asked. He followed her south along a street that looked much wider in the daytime.

  “Beal is a little…strange. He understands the reality of the One Soul, but falls short of grasping the deeper implications.”

  “Sounds like a thief.”

  “He doesn’t mean to be. Beal suffers from distorted understanding. Since we are all merely different vessels housing the same existence, Beal’s view is that any item belonging to one belongs to all.”

  “Then I’m surprised the guards let him run around loose.”

  “He’s always sorry when he causes trouble. This isn’t the first time Sergeant Wynn has needed to come for him. Beal always returns whatever he has taken, and apologizes in person, so the local guards look lightly on him. Wynn is a very understanding man.”

  “I apologize,” Hilliard interrupted from her other side, “but I’m afraid I don’t understand. Is this to do with your religion?”

  Still leading the way, Shalla delighted in explaining all about the One Soul to everyone else. Hilliard listened closely, absorbing every word. This odd view of the world, which he had obviously never encountered either, captured his interest. Marik ignored the story to concentrate on the roads.

  Free to look around at leisure this time, Marik gradually sensed the pattern in the road/alley network. The buildings were arranged in blocks, with anywhere from ten to thirty filling a side. Dozens were crammed into the center of each block. Larger roads formed a framework, allowing traffic to come and go as it pleased. A finer web of alleys filled in the cracks, which let carts and people turn off the road once the appropriate block was gained and attain the deeper buildings within.

  The ratio of alleys to roads might have been as high as ten-to-one. This explained how they had become so easily lost among them. In the night the alleys had seemed to stretched on forever. Though they had crossed several of the wider roads, those had been too open to risk taking with pursuers hot on their heels.

  With Shalla showing them the way, they would reach this district’s edge in under two minutes. Marik marked every crack and weed around them and caught sight of a man loitering by a yard.

  The yard belonged to a large building similar to the warehouse they had broken into. Wagons in various construction phases filled the walled-off yard. A signboard over the open loading door read ‘Marker & Sons’, while offering no further description regarding the family business. Five men fitted an axle to the rear of a large carriage.

  But it was the man outside the building who caught Marik’s eye. He slouched against the dirty brick wall, bent on nothing except minding his own business. Yet he looked over at the group approaching. A natural enough reaction, except he put Marik’s back-hairs to spiking.

  The misfit’s eyes studied them with greater intensity than a man merely watching the world pass by. A hostile air radiated from him. He stared openly, and Ma
rik, meeting his gaze, stared right back.

  With a shrug, the man trudged off around the corner. Landon noticed the incident and drew abreast with Marik. “I don’t like this.”

  “This is a rough part of town from what Shalla says. He’s probably a street rat with nothing better to do than trying to look tough.”

  “Perhaps. But let’s watch for him or any others when we return.”

  “Right. It doesn’t hurt to be cautious.”

  Though he knew the idea for foolish, Marik expected a dividing line between this district and the next. Instead, about twenty-thousand additional people choked the roads as the buildings changed shape and purpose. They entered a shopping district. The ironic twist, of feeling secure with people crushing in on all sides whereas he had jumped at the slightest peripheral movement before, played to his sardonic worldview.

  Their destination was the Thoenar Central Guild Hall. It had been commandeered by the tournament officials for the contest’s duration. With the roads quickly clogging, Marik worried over their travel time. Shalla might know a quicker route but he was disposed to turn down possible shortcuts, given recent history.

  They waded through Thoenar. The group traveled four miles total distance in approximately three candlemarks. When they arrived, Marik’s body insisted it had spent an entire day on the road, laden with sword, mail and pack.

  The guild hall rested within sight of the wall separating Second Ring from the Inner Circle. It would have loomed menacingly tall had its flanking edifices not been as impressive.

  Sixty feet tall if an inch, it reached three times that in width. Stone steps the building’s length rose to a column row, twenty of which were spaced along the hall’s face. Gray marble sheeted the exterior with carved friezes running under the roof line.

  Shalla spoke to the group while they scaled the steps. “Because it belongs to no specific guild, the Central Guild Hall is home to all. Every major guild maintains a presence, conducting business among each other and providing contacts for those wishing services.”

  “Do architects have their own guild?” The gambling gleam illuminated Kerwin’s hopeful eyes.

  “I imagine you could find contacts to them here through others if they don’t. However, Cartrus informed me last night that most guilds have removed their functions to their individual guild houses for the duration of the tournament. I don’t know if any are still to be found inside.”

  The entrance doors behind the columns were massive. They joined the crowd inside. Marik thought he could feel the building’s weight above as he passed through the giant doors. His mind immediately placed the entire town of Kingshome within the entrance foyer, trees and all. Space expanded in every direction, forward, sideways and vertically.

  Several desks were clustered in the middle of the polished wood floor. A crowd was congregated around them. That must be the place they wanted. Kerwin, Landon and Hilliard fell into the serpentine line while the others stayed back, seeing no need to clog the queue.

  His awe still undiminished, Marik studied the foyer with a keener eye. Couches and chairs were arranged in private groups further back, mostly occupied by talking parties of hopeful entrants. In the side walls he counted twenty-two doors, each an expensive dark wood and bearing brass plaques he could not read from such a distance. Numerous decorative plants were scattered everywhere and an antique mahogany desk served duty as a watering trough. Whoever normally cared for it would be livid when he returned and found the rings left behind by water pitchers staining his treasure.

  Landon eventually returned alone while Kerwin stood aside with their charge. “They have to wait for the registrar.”

  “Then what was that line for?”

  “Separating out the bona fide entrants from the lower class dreamers.”

  Marik sighed. “Didn’t this contest used to be open to everyone in Galemar?”

  “Not for the last fifty tournaments or so. The only way for the likes of us to enter these days is to be sponsored.”

  “Any particular reason that happened, other than the nobles keeping everything for themselves?”

  “Who can say? At a guess, I’d say it’s the result from a lack of serious warfare directed against the kingdom for so long combined with the aristocracy’s view of everything as a sport.”

  Marik found no reason to disagree. The ones like Hilliard were the exceptions who only proved the rule, in his experience.

  A harried man who could only be a clerk jogged forward to claim Hilliard. The bodyguards rejoined their charge, Shalla included, and retreated to the enormous entryway’s rear. Six padded chair formations were vacant. They claimed the nearest.

  “Yes, yes,” the clerk said, examining Hilliard’s papers. “I have a notation regarding you. From Spirratta, yes?”

  “I am fostered under Duke Tilus.”

  “Indeed, yes. I’ve already handled your foster-mates. They’ve been coming in for days.” He shuffled through several papers he had brought. “I see you make the ninth! The Baron Garroway’s son. Not many future barons with the Duke of Spirratta!”

  Though the clerk obviously meant it as a compliment, a flush rose to Hilliard’s cheeks. Marik wondered how many other fosterlings’ fathers were ‘mere’ barons. Had the other young fosterlings accepted him, or had there been a gulf despite them all owning titles?

  Oblivious, the clerk pressed on. “The preliminary paperwork has already been completed. I must say that Seneschal Locke is certainly on top of matters! I can’t tell you how many I’ve had to deal with who simply showed up at the desk with no prior correspondence!”

  “He is a great asset to the duke.” The four mercenaries suppressed smiles at Hilliard’s straight face. They remembered the stories the young man had gifted them with on the road.

  “I could wish the registrar staff were as capable! But to matters!” The clerk withdrew a sheet and handed it to Hilliard. “Here is the event schedule for the contestants. Opening ceremony is in nine days, with the first event being the races the day after. King Raymond is providing the mounts to ensure equality. I assure you they will all be fine stock and manageable.

  “With each event, the bottom twenty percent is eliminated, so use your judgement during the longer trials!” The clerk made a fist, gesturing enthusiastically as he finished. “You don’t need to perform your absolute best until the sixth event, so don’t injure yourself needlessly.”

  They spent the next half-mark listening to the registrar clerk, learning where to report on which days and going over the list of participating training facilities throughout the city. Hilliard signed more documents than Marik would have credited to the army payroll attendants, then the young baron-to-be was officially a contestant.

  Their clerk disappeared through one of the many doors with the signed papers. The group huddled while the mercenaries studied the schedules. People swirled inside the hall, busy with their own matters except for the well-dressed loiterers. These were young men for the most part. Their attention quickly focused on Hilliard, the obvious upper-class citizen within their tight ranks.

  Several studious moments would ensue before they shifted attention to other groups clustered in the foyer. Marik determined these youngsters must be contenders as well, given to spending their time sizing up other entrants. He ceased noticing the sharpers until an older gentleman stopped to great them.

  “Ah! Participating in the tournament, are you?” The older man, dressed as exquisitely as the younger talent hawks, radiated warmth and cheerfulness. Frilled lace hung from his oversized cuffs, matching the ruff around his collar. “It’s splendid to see to see so many of the younger generation stepping forward to take on the responsibilities of the Arm.”

  Hilliard bowed. “Thank you for your gratitude. I am Hilliard Garroway, and I am indeed participating.”

  “How superb! But forgive me for not introducing myself at once! I am Baron Santon Sestion of the Court of King Raymond Cerella. My son, Ferdinand, will also vie for the Arm.
See? That is him over there, with our registrars.”

  The baron pointed to where a solidly muscled young man sat, perhaps a year older than Hilliard’s sixteen summers. Three clerks fluttered in a cloud surrounding him, each shoving documents before him to sign faster than the others could remove theirs.

  “With so many contestants arriving each day, this will be the most interesting tournament we’ve held in recent memory!”

  “And not so recent memory,” growled a new voice. Everyone shifted to find a dour, unattractive man nearby. His face held angles rather than curves, and he had obviously been on his way past before pausing. He glared at the baron, adding, “Couldn’t resist tossing your own lot in after Keegan declared, could you Sestion?”

  “Ferdinand had long since decided to participate, I’ll have you know. And I was welcoming young Hilliard Garroway to the competition. The more the merrier, eh?” Santon gestured at the stranger. “And may I present the Baron Argen Gardinnier. I heard his son Keegan will also be entering the field!”

  Hilliard bowed to the new arrival. “A pleasure, Baron Gardinnier.”

  If Argen felt mutual pleasure, he concealed it masterfully. A barely discernable nod of his head returned the honor. His attention diverted to the couch clusters. Marik could not see who specifically he gazed at, but it must be his own son registering.

  Santon ignored Argen upon noticing Dietrik’s sling. “Your man seems a little worse for the wear. I hope you haven’t run into trouble.”

  “I’m afraid such is the case,” Hilliard admitted. “We ran afoul of a street gang upon our arrival. Fortunately, Shalla of the Faith of the One Soul provided us with refuge during their pursuit of us.”

  Shalla curtsied as best she could in her robe. Argen kept his silence. He cast his narrow, nearly sneering gaze over her. Santon expressed his shock. “Pursuit! How terrible! What a thing to happen! I’m afraid Thoenar hasn’t greeted you with its best face forward. Attacking a noble!” His chin waggled in dismay. “These street people are running out of control! Something must be done about them, yes, something.”