The Unicorn Trade Read online

  “I bargained him down to four hundred aureates—”

  Vardrai whistled.

  “—of which I can provide half, if I pledge sufficient property to Master Pandric,” Natan said. “But we must be swift. Unlike so many merchant skippers, Haako expects to sell his cargo at a brisk rate, to wholesalers as well as the rich and the noble. Then he’ll be off.”

  The jeweler halted before Vardrai’s couch. “My lady,” he pleaded, “I came to you because your trade is still faring well, and it is general knowledge that you are not extravagant, but put money aside. What say you to a partnership, share and share alike?”

  Slowly, she shook her lovely head. “I say wonderful—but impossible,” she told him with regret. “I have not the likes of such cash, nor could I leave it with you to ripen for ten years or so if I did.”

  “But,” he protested. “But.”

  “I know.” She gestured at those velvet hangings, ivory-inlaid furnishings, crystal chandeliers, fragrant incense burners which decorated the room. She ran a palm down the thin silk which draped her in luster. “I command high prices, because the alternative is to be poor, miserable, and abused down in Docktown or along the canals. But this means my gentlemen are not many. It also means that they expect this sort of environs, and much else that is costly; and it must be often changed, lest they weary of sameness. No, it’s true that large monies pass through my hands, but what remains is scant, hard though I pinch. Besides, as I said, I cannot wait ten years.”

  “Why not?”

  Vardrai turned her left cheek toward the window and pointed to the corner of that deepviolet eye. A sunbeam, slanting over a roof opposite, brought forth the tiny crow’s-feet as shadows. “I am less young than you may think,” she said quietly. “Time gnaws. I have seen what becomes of old whores.”

  Despite his disappointment, Natan felt a tinge of compassion. “What will you do?”

  She smiled. “Why, I hope within that decade to have collected the wherewithal to buy a house and start an establishment wherein several girls work, paying commissions to me. That will give me my security and … and freedom.”

  Her gaze went outward again, fell on a red-haired youth who was crossing the marketplace with furious long strides, and followed him. A madam could have whatever lovers she chose, requiring no more of them than that they please her.

  A gong sounded. “Come in,” Vardrai called. A maidservant opened the door and announced: “My lady, there’s a patron. Somebody new.”

  “Indeed?” Interest quickened the courtesan’s tone. “Who?”

  “He’s a Norrener, my lady, but seems quite decent. Says he’s the captain of a ship.”

  Natan chuckled, a trifle bitterly. “Ah, ha!” he remarked. “I expect you’ll find Haako Grayfellsson rather a change from Zulio Pandric.”

  “Let me hope so,” Vardrai replied. “Well, go back, Jayinn, and entertain him while I make ready. I fear you must leave now, Master Sandana; and I am sorry I couldn’t help you.”

  Over the cobblestones, between high, half-timbered walls, through arcades, beneath overhangs, across the plazas and a bridge spanning the Imperial Canal, Arvel Tarabine stalked. Almost, he ran. Passersby whom he jostled would begin to curse, espy the fury on his brow and the white knuckles on his fists, and keep silent. A couple of wagoners halted their mules to let him by, as if otherwise he would have cut a way for himself. Dogs barked at him, but from a safe distance.

  Truth to tell, he fled his rage and grief, lest they cause him indeed to harm someone; but they rode along with him, inside his breast. They kicked his heart, squeezed his lungs, clambered about on his rib cage, and mouthed at him. Perhaps, he thought, he could exorcise them by wearing his body down to exhaustion—but how much liefer would he have gotten into a fight!

  Out the Eastport he went, and soon left Tholis Way for a trail northward. Seilles had long since outgrown its old defensive walls, but not far in that direction, because there the land climbed steeply, in cliff and crag and ravine. Not even shepherds cared to make use of it, nor did noblemen risk breaking their horses’ legs in the chase. Peasants sometimes went afoot after deer, or set snares for birds and rabbits—yet seldom, for wolves prowled these reaches and, it was whispered, beings more uncanny than that.

  The trail was merely a track winding up hillsides and along ridges, often overgrown by whins. Strong though he was, after two hours of it Arvel must stop to catch his breath. He looked about him.

  Stillness and warmth pressed down out of a sky where no clouds were, only a hawk whose wings shone burnished. The air had a scorched smell. Gorse and scrub trees grew around strewn boulders, save where the heights plunged sheer. Afar and below was a forest canopy, richly green, and beyond it the Ilwen estuary gleamed like a drawn blade. He could just discern the city, walls, towers, ruddy-tiled roofs, temple spire, Scholarium dome, Hall of Worthies and palace of the Lord Mayor, warehouses and a couple of ships at the Longline, all tiny at this distance and not quite real. It was as if Lona were a dear dream from which he had been shaken awake.

  His glance traveled westward. The sun cast a blaze off the rim of the world yonder—the bay, and behind it the ocean. Despair lifted overwhelmingly in him. That dream was also lost. Everything was lost.

  How he had implored Sir Falcovan! “I proved myself a good fighting man in the war, one who can lead other men, did I not? Your colony may well need defenders. It will certainly need explorers, surveyors, hunters, and you know I can handle such matters too. As for a regular business, well, I’d be ill at ease on a plantation, but the trade in timber, furs, gold, ores—Take me, my lord!”

  The great adventurer twirled his mustachios. “Most gladly, son,” he answered, “if you can outfit yourself and engage whatever underlings you require, as well as help pay our mutual costs. Two hundred and fifty aureates is the price of a share in the enterprise. The Company cannot take less, not in justice to those who’ve already bought in. And you’ll need another hundred or so for your own expenses.”

  That much money would keep a family in comfort for some years, or buy a large house or a small shop here at home. “My lord, I—I’ll have to borrow.”

  “Against prospective earnings?” Sir Falcovan raised his brows. “Well, you can try. But don’t dawdle. The ships have begun loading at Croy. We must sail before autumn.”

  “My … my wife, the wife I’ll have, she’s strong and willing the same as I,” Arvel begged. “We’ve talked about it. We’ll go indentured if we can’t find the money.” Lona had resisted that idea violently before she gave in, and he misliked it himself, but passage to the New Lands, to a reborn hope for the future, would be worth seven years of bondage.

  The knight shook his head. “No, we’ve no dearth of such help—nigh more than we can find use for, to be frank. It’s capital we still need: that, and qualities of leadership.” His weathered visage softened. “I understand your feelings, lad. I was your age once. May the gods smile on you.”

  They had not done so.

  Abruptly Arvel could no longer stand in place. He spun about on his heel and resumed his flight.

  The weariness that he sought, he won after a few more hours. He staggered up Cromlech Hill and flopped to the ground, his back against the warm side of a megalith. A forgotten tribe had raised this circle on the brow of this tor, unknown millennia ago, and practiced their rites, whatever those were, at the altar in the middle. Now the pillars stood alone, gray, worn, lichenous, in grass that the waning summer had turned to hay, and held their stony memories to themselves. People shunned them. Arvel cared nothing. He thought that he’d welcome a bogle or a werewolf, anything he could rightfully kill.

  The heat, the redolence, a drowsy buzzing of insects, all entered him. He slept.

  Chill awakened him. He sat up with a gasp and saw that the sun was down. Deep blue in the west, where the evenstar glowed lamplike, heaven darkened to purple overhead. It lightened again in the east, ahead of a full moon that would shortly rise, but murk
already laired among the megaliths.

  “Good fortune, mortal.” The voice, male, sang rather than spoke.

  Arvel gaped. The form that loomed before him was tall, and huge slanty eyes caught what luminance there was and gave it back as the eyes of a cat do. Otherwise it was indistinct, more than this dimness could reasonably have caused. He thought he saw a cloak, its flaring collar suggestive of bat wings, and silvery hair around a narrow face; but he could not be sure.

  He scrambled to his feet. “Joy to you, sir,” he said in haste while he stepped backward, hand on sword. His heart, that would have exulted to meet an avowed enemy, rattled, and his gullet tightened.

  Yet the stranger made no threatening move, but remained as quiet in the dusk as the cromlech. “Have no fear of me, Arvel Tarabine,” he enjoined. “Right welcome you are.”

  The man wet his lips. “You have the advantage of me, sir,” he croaked. “I do not think I have had the pleasure of meeting you erenow.”

  “No; for who remembers those who came to their cradles by night and drew runes in the air above them?” A fluid shrug. “Names are for mortals and for gods, not for the Fair Folk. But call me Irrendal if you wish.”

  Arvel stiffened. His pulse roared in his ears. “No! Can’t be!”

  Laughter purled. “Ah, you think Irrendal and his elves are mere figures in nursery tales? Well, you have forgotten this too; but know afresh, from me, that the culture of children is older than history and the lore which its tales preserve goes very deep.”

  Arvel gathered nerve. “Forgive me, sir, but I have simply your word for that.”

  “Granted. Nor will I offer you immediate evidence, because it must needs be of a nature harmful to you.” The other paused. “However,” he proposed slowly, “if you will follow me, you shall perceive evidence enough, aye, and receive it, too.”

  “Why—what, what—?—” stammered Arvel. He felt giddy. The evenstar danced in his vision, above the stranger’s head.

  Graveness responded: “You are perhaps he for whom the elvenfolk have yearned, working what poor small magics are ours in these iron centuries, in hopes that the time-flow would guide him hither. You can perhaps release us from misery. Take heed: the enterprise is perilous. You could be killed, and the kites and foxes pick your bones.” A second quicksilver laugh. “Ah, what difference between them and the worms? We believe you can prevail, else I would not have appeared to you. And if you do, we will grant you your heart’s desire.”

  There being no clear and present menace to him, a measure of calm descended upon Arvel. Beneath it, excitement thrummed. “What would you of me?” he asked with care.

  “Twelve years and a twelvemonth ago,” related he who used the name Irrendal, “an ogre came into these parts. We think hunger drove him from the North, after men had cleared and plowed his forest. For him, our country is well-nigh as barren; unicorn, lindworm, jack-o’-dance, all such game has become rare. Thus he turned on us, not only our orchards and livestock but our very selves. Male and female elf has he seized and devoured. Worse, he has taken of our all too few and precious children. His strength is monstrous: gates has he torn from their hinges, walls has he battered down, and entered ravening. Warriors who sought him out never came back, save when he has thrown a gnawed skull into a camp of ours while his guffaws rolled like thunder in the dark. Spells have we cast, but they touched him no deeper than would a springtime rain. To the gods have we appealed, but they answered not and we wonder if those philosophers may be right who declare that the gods are withdrawing from a world where, ever more, men exalt Reason. Sure it is that the Fair Folk must abide, or perish, in whatever countrysides they have been the tutelaries; we cannot flee. Hushed are our mirth and music. O mortal, save us!”

  A tingle went along Arvel’s backbone. The hair stirred on his head. “Why do you suppose I can do aught, when you are helpless?” he forced forth.

  “For the same reason that the ogre has not troubled your race,” Irrendal told him. “You have powers denied those of the Halfworld—power to be abroad by daylight and to wield cold iron. Uha, so named by the Northerners, knows better than to provoke a human hunt after him. We elves have already tried to get aid from men, but too much iron is in their homes, we cannot go near; and in these wilds we found none but stray peasants, who fled in terror at first sight of one like me. You do not. Moreover, you are a fighting man, and bear steel.”

  His voice rang: “Follow me to Uha’s lair. Slay him. You shall have glory among us, and the richest of rewards.”

  “Unless he slays me,” Arvel demurred.

  “Aye, that could happen.” Scorn flickered. “If you are afraid, I will not detain you further. Go back to your safe little life.”

  The rage, that had smoldered low in the man, flared anew, high and white-hot. An ogre? Had he, Arvel, not wished for something to attack? “Have done!” he shouted. “Let’s away!”

  “Oh, wonder of wonders,” Irrendal exulted. And the moon rose.

  Its radiance dimmed the stars that were blinking forth, turned grass and gorse hoar, frosted the starkness of stones. It did not make the elf any more clear in the man’s sight. “Follow me, follow me,” Irrendal called and slipped off, shadow-silent.

  Arvel came after. He saw well enough by the icy light to trot without stumbling; but the hillscape seemed unreal, a mirage through which he passed. Only his footfalls and smoke-white breath made any sound. The chill grew ever deeper. Now and then he thought he glimpsed strangenesses flitting by, but they were never there when he looked closer.

  Once Irrendal showed him a spring, where he quenched his thirst, and once a silvery tree whereon glowed golden fruit; he ate thereof, and an intoxicating sweetness removed all hunger from him. Otherwise he followed his half-seen guide while the moon climbed higher and the constellations trekked westward. The time seemed endless and the time seemed like naught until he came to the cave of the ogre.

  It yawned jagged-edged in a cliff, like a mouth full of rotten teeth. Despite the cold, a graveyard stench billowed from it, to make Arvel gag. The bones, tatters of clothing, bronze trappings that lay scattered around declared that Irrendal had spoken truth.

  Or had he? Sudden doubt assailed Arvel. Fragmentary recollections of the nursery tales floated up into his mind. Did they not say the elves were a tricksy lot, light-willed and double-tongued, whose choicest jape was to outwit a mortal? Was it not the case that nothing of theirs could have enduring value to a man? Irrendal had promised Arvel his heart’s desire, but what might that actually prove to be?

  Doubt became dread. Arvel was on the point of bolting. Then Irrendal winded a horn he had brought forth from somewhere, and it was too late. Cruelly beautiful, the notes were a challenge and a mockery; and they had no echoes, even as the bugler had no shadow.

  Hu-hu, hu-hu, attend your doom!

  The ogre appeared in the cave mouth. Monstrous he was, broad and thick as a horse, taller than a man despite a stoop that brought his knuckles near the ground. Eyes like a swine’s glittered beneath a shelf of brow, above noseless nostrils and a jaw where fangs sprouted. The moon grizzled his coarse pelt. Earth quivered to each shambling step he took. Hatred rumbled from his throat as he saw the elf, and he gathered himself to charge.

  “Draw blade, man, or die!” Irrendal cried.

  Arvel’s weapon snaked forth. Moonlight poured along it. Fear fled before battle joy. His left hand took his knife, and thus armed, he advanced.

  The ogre grew aware of him, bawled dismay, and sought to scuttle off. Faster on his feet, Arvel barred escape, forced his enemy back against the cliff, and sprang in for the kill.

  Uha was as brave as any cornered beast. An arm swept in an arc that would have smeared Arvel’s brains over the talons had it made connection. The human barely skipped aside. He had accomplished only a shallow slash of sword. But where the steel had been, ogre-flesh charred and smoked.

  Uha lumbered after him. Arvel bounded in and out. His sword whistled. When a hand clutc
hed close, he seared it with his knife. Uha bellowed, clattered his teeth, flailed and kicked. Irrendal stood apart, impassive.

  The fight lasted long. Afterward Arvel recalled but little of it. Finally Uha won back into his den. The man pursued—altogether recklessly, for in there he was blind. Yet that was where the nightmare combat ended.

  Arvel reeled out, fell prone upon the blessed sane earth, and let darkness whirl over him.

  He regained strength after some while, sat painfully up, and beheld Irrendal. “You have conquered, you have freed us,” the elf sang. “Hero, go home.”

  “Will … we meet … again?” Arvel mumbled with mummy-parched tongue.

  “Indeed we shall, a single time,” Irrendal vowed, “for have I not promised you reward? Await me tomorrow dusk beneath the Dragon Tower. Meanwhile—” he paused—“leave your steel that slew the ogre, for henceforth it is unlucky.”

  The thought passed through Arvel’s exhaustion that thus far his pay was the loss of two good, costly blades. However, he dared not disobey.

  “Farewell, warrior,” Irrendal bade him, “until next twilight,” and was gone.

  Slowly, Arvel observed that the moon had passed its height. Before the western ridges hid it from him, he had best be in familiar territory; nor did he wish to linger here another minute.

  He crawled to his feet and limped away.

  Entering Seilles at dawn, he sought the sleazy lodging house where he had a room, fell into bed, and slept until late afternoon. Having cleansed off grime and dried sweat with a sponge and a basin of cold water, and having donned fresh albeit threadbare garments, he proceeded to the Drum and Trumpet, benched himself, and called for bread, meat, and ale.

  Ynis regarded him closely. “You seem awearied,” she remarked. “What’s happened?”

  “You’d not believe it if I told you,” he answered, “nor would I.”

  In truth, he was unsure whether he remembered more than a wild dream on Cromlech Hill. Nothing spoke for its reality save aches, bruises, and the absence of his edged metal. The loss of Lona was more comprehensible, and hurt worse.