The Price of Hope

Extract from

Spring was always a busy time for the docks at Kyer Altamar, the Centadorian capital. Ships from all over the North brought timber, grain, cloth, spices, and many other things besides.... along with the merchants who were trying to sell them. Click here for a map of the continent (320K JPEG)
    Not all those leaving ship here had come to Centador in search of profit, however. Some travelled purely out of curiosity and a desire for adventure... for instance, the slim, black-haired woman who had just disembarked from a small passenger and cargo vessel named The White Gull. She was tall for a woman of those times: not far off six feet. The clothes she wore marked her as a traveller: her trousers and short-sleeved tunic bore the scars of many miles, but on her feet she had a good solid pair of brown leather boots. Having walked across most of the kingdoms on this side of the continent, she knew the value of dependable footwear, and was prepared to go some lengths to obtain it. Her pack, much lightened now after many months of travel, hung limply over one shoulder. At her belt was a sword in a leather scabbard, a plain but sturdy weapon that had seen her through a good many battles. She reached for its hilt only when diplomacy had failed, although she was far from cowardly: her swordarm was strong and quick, and she stood a better chance than most in a fair fight, but she did not like to wound or kill. For that reason, she preferred to talk or trick her way out of any disagreement.
    She was in fact returning home, not that she actually felt able to call any place "home" these days. She would wander, sometimes aimlessly, sometimes seemingly with hidden purpose, from town to town, from village to village, never staying more than a few weeks in any one place. Occasionally, she would feel that she had found a place that would be ideal for her to settle down in; but after a week, or a month, she would be overcome by restlessness, a desire to see what lay beyond the next hill, and she would be on the road again, all thoughts of domestication now forgotten... until the next time. In her quieter, contemplative moments, she often confided to herself that whatever did lie beyond the next hill was seldom as interesting as she had expected, and as for her hopes of seeing something new, she might as well have turned around and gone back the way she had come.
    Such melancholy thoughts were far from her mind at the moment, however. Although she had probably visited Kyer Altamar as often as any other capital city, in the eighteen months or so since she had last been here, the place was likely to have changed sufficiently to be counted as "new".
    As she reached the end of the wharf, the traveller turned to take a last look at the vessel that had brought her here. Hardly worth a second glance, she thought. The ship was of Centadorian manufacture, based on a popular Torian design. To be more precise, it looked as though it had been built in accordance with the instructions of a Centadorian who didn't speak Torian all that well, and thus had some difficulty in conveying to the builders the subtleties of the guidelines given to him by an old man who had once worked as an errand boy in of the less distinguished Torian shipyards. It floated, like a Torian ship and it moved when the wind blew, like a Torian ship, but that was about all.
    The traveller wondered briefly why she had ever even contemplated entrusting her life to such a hulk. Of course, she thought, if people don't travel on Centadorian ships, their owners won't be able to afford better, safer vessels. I knew it was something patriotic like that. With that, the traveller turned and headed towards the city.
    The city, like the ships, that the Centadorians had built for themselves showed strong signs of Torian influence, but here, the builders had not copied the examples so badly that the place was a danger to its inhabitants. There were, however, plenty of features that gave the Torians cause for much mirth. The city walls were no more than twelve feet high at best, and riddled with hand- and footholds on both sides. Foreigners generally reckoned that the walls were intended not so much to stop invaders from entering the city as to allow the inhabitants to escape while they still could. On the basis of that theory, the number of buildings that had sprung up outside the city walls, particularly in the dockland, would indicate that Altamar's inhabitants lived in perpetual fear of a surprise attack. The simple truth was that the area was so peaceful that there seemed to be no point in extending the walls to protect the new buildings.
    The dockland hadn't really changed all that much: the long, low timber warehouses, with their roofs gently sloping this way and that, were more or less as the traveller remembered them. Occasionally, she caught glimpses of taller buildings, two or maybe three storeys high, which stood out like grown-ups in a nursery. Once you had left the quayside, there weren't really any streets in the dockland: just the open spaces between buildings. Some of the more often-used routes had been paved or cobbled over; the others were just bare earth - or mud or dust. The Centadorians were rather uninspired as far as architecture and town planning were concerned; in fact, they were generally insipid at any craft which required them to make anything larger than themselves.
    One thing that the Centadorians could build as well as anybody else was taverns; small, cheap, seedy places, hiding furtively amongst larger buildings, partly to keep the rain off the roof, and partly to prevent them from being discovered by the authorities, who in most cities were taking an increasing interest in the money that these places made. They were noticeably rare in Altamar, but the new building which the traveller was now approaching suggested that this situation was now changing, and not for the better, either. Though it bore the hallmarks of Centadorian construction, there was no doubt that the tavern had been inspired by those of the Anorene Empire. The crooked corners where the walls met; the ill-fitting, rickety door; the tiny, narrow windows; and the piece of driftwood hung over the doorway, proclaiming the establishment's name, were enough to make the traveller feel for a moment that she had been transported to Molkolin, or Frakhni, or Dargeth. The characters of the building's sign helped to reinforce the fact that it was in Kyer Altamar, but not much; the traveller found it hard to believe that the Centadorian script, so elegant and fluid when it came from a scribe's brush, could be made to look so ugly. The fact that two or three of the letters had been turned round was probably something to do with it. The misplaced diacritic marks didn't help much either. The name of the place, not that it mattered very much, was Ire's Repose, but the signwriter appeared to have been in such confusion over which way round the letters went, and what they in fact looked like, never mind how the name was actually spelt, that the sign could just as easily have read elaz rubaz, or eesas lepys, or...
    "Excuse me, my lady..."
    She blinked in mild surprise at this interruption, and turned to face the speaker. He was a soldier, dressed in the standard barracks gear of a brown half-sleeved tunic and ankle-length breeches. There was a small insignia on the left breast of his tunic, which she supposed denoted his rank. He had a sword at his belt, but wore no armour. He was a few inches shorter than her, with short brown hair, and a plain, serious face. She guessed that he was about thirty-five. Behind him stood two more soldiers, slightly younger, dressed in the same manner. She wondered if they had been given the day off and wanted directions to a tavern, or something like that.
    The soldier in front of her reached inside his tunic and pulled out a small square of metal that he wore like a pendant. He held it up to show her. About two-thirds of it was covered in neat, angular lettering. He introduced himself: "Sergeant Elishar, of the Centadorian Army." She could see the man's name written on the pendant, but the rest was a clutter of abbreviations and numbers, as if whoever had made it had just been practising carving the individual characters, not feeling ready to try whole words just yet. "May I ask if you are the sorceress Adramal?" the Sergeant said flatly.
    Ah, she thought, he doesn't want directions.
    To give herself time to think, she asked him: "Who told you that?"
    Predictably, he replied: "I am not at liberty to reveal the source of my information, my lady. However, my colleagues and I" - he indicated the men behind him - "have been given a description of the sorceress Adramal, and we are agreed that you fit that description very closely."
    "That doesn't mean that I'm her," she countered.
    "Indeed so, my lady, which is why I ask whether you are Adramal."
    "What do you want with her?" she asked.
    "I am not at liberty to reveal that, my lady," the Sergeant said. "Now I would be grateful if you would answer my question: Are you the sorceress Adramal?"
    The traveller made no reply.
    "I think it only fair to tell you, my lady, that since you fit the description so closely, my colleagues and I are entitled to take you into custody until your identity can be confirmed."
    "How do you know that I wouldn't turn you all into rabbits if you tried it?" she asked.
    "We are prepared to face such hazards in the line of duty, my lady," he said calmly. She fancied that the other two didn't look quite so sure. "Now would you please answer my question?" His voice carried hints of small, dark, cold rooms, with locked doors and bare wooden furniture.
    "Very well, then," she sighed. "Yes. I am Adramal. But get it right: I'm a wizard, not a sorceress. And don't say it too loudly, or everybody will want to see that trick with the ale mug, the silver piece and the beggar's cloak."
    "Thank you, my lady," the man said patiently. "Would you come with us, please?"
    She was rather taken aback at this. "Why?" she asked after a moment.
    "I am not at liberty to reveal that, my lady." The phrase seemed to be something he had memorised.
    "Look, this is stupid," she protested, "I've done nothing wrong. I've been out of the country for a year and a half - I've only just stepped off a ship. You can't arrest me just like that. Don't tell me the King has made wizardry illegal or something..."
    "My lady," the Sergeant replied, "I am not placing you under arrest. I am merely asking you to accompany us. To the best of my knowledge, you do not stand accused of any crime against the laws of Centador or Kyer Altamar. That would, of course, be a matter for the City Watch, rather than the Army, but I am sure that my briefing would have mentioned it."
    When he said "a matter for the City Watch," her perspective suddenly shifted, and she caught a glimpse of what might really be going on here. Oh, Lorgrim, she thought.
    She nodded heavily, and sighed: "Lead the way, Sergeant."
    After they had gone a few dozen yards, she asked him: "What does the Army want with me, then?"
    "Our commander didn't see fit to tell us that, my lady. Our orders are to escort you to a certain place, and wait there with you until our commander arrives."
    "And will he be able to tell me what's going on?"
    "He didn't say, my lady, but I would expect so." He moved a little closer, and a wry grin flickered across his face. "Between you and me, my lady," he said quietly, "I wouldn't like to be in his boots when he does tell you."

"A certain place" turned out to be a little cubby-hole of a room in a large, rambling inn known as Enlorgar's Rest. It was one of the oldest buildings in the city; people sometimes joked that Kyer Altamar had been built around it. Legend had it that the inn stood on the spot where, some five hundred years ago, the first Centadorian King, Mekrinom Enlorgar, had proclaimed the land to be free of the dominion of the evil God, Zorian. Certainly Mekrinom Enlorgar had existed, and certainly Zorian had existed, and certainly Enlorgar and his sister Ashuri (later to be first Queen of Centador) had defeated Zorian, thus putting an end to fifteen centuries of oppression... but Adramal knew for a fact that, at the time, nobody had lived within twenty miles of where Kyer Altamar now stood. The fishing village that was to become the Centadorian capital hadn't been founded until the reign of Ashuri's grandson, Zemil. (note) The problem was that when you told people that, they tended to think that the rest of the story wasn't true, either.
    The door opened, and Adramal looked up expectantly. A man poked his head into the room. To her disappointment, it was the landlord, a large, stocky, balding man, who looked as though he was expecting one of his ale barrels to explode at any moment. She wasn't sure whether she and the soldiers were causing this nervousness, or merely exacerbating it: from what she remembered of her previous stays in Enlorgar's Rest, he was always like that.
    "You're still here, then," the landlord said. It was somewhere between a statement and a question.
    "Yes, sir," replied Sergeant Elishar.
    The landlord looked across to the other side of the room, where the two soldiers who had accompanied Adramal and the Sergeant were sitting. They were showing distinct signs of boredom. A few minutes ago, one of them had produced a pack of cards, only to be told by the Sergeant to put it away. "No sign of the Captain, then?" said the landlord.
    "No, sir," replied the Sergeant. "As soon as he arrives, I will send one of my colleagues to tell you."
    The landlord nodded gratefully. As he was about to leave, Adramal asked: "Any chance of something to eat while I'm waiting?"
    "Well..." he said uncertainly. "There's some stew left over from luncheon. I could find you some bread and cheese to go with it... three silvers." Again, from the way he said the last two words, it wasn't clear whether he was stating his price or asking whether it was acceptable to her.
    She sighed, reasoning that she would have had to buy a meal anyway, even if she hadn't been dragged here. Her hand reached for the purse at her belt, and stopped halfway there. "I'm sorry," she told the landlord, "I haven't any Centadorian coins on me." She gave the soldiers a dirty look, and explained: "I've just stepped off a ship, and I didn't have time to visit a moneychanger before I came here."
    The Sergeant reddened at that. Taking the hint, he said: "If you would allow me, my lady." He stood up and handed some coins to the landlord.
    "Thank you, Sergeant," she said, with as much grace as she could gather.
    The landlord returned a few minutes later, carrying a tray with a bowl of stew, a plate with a thick crust of bread and a slab of pale yellow cheese, and a small mug of ale. The stew wasn't very hot; Adramal guessed that it had gone cold, and the landlord had been in too much of a hurry to heat it up. The bread and the cheese were a little dry, but palatable. She dipped the bread in the stew, thereby improving both of them. Taking a sip of the ale, she found it pleasantly cool and smooth. She suspected that she would want more of it when she had finished, but told herself that she would need a clear head when the Captain arrived.
    She didn't bother to look up when the door opened again, and so was rather surprised to hear the soldiers scrambling to their feet.
    The newcomer was a blond-haired man, some five and a half feet tall. He had a small, carefully-trimmed moustache, and wore a brown cloak about his shoulders. He was dressed in a dark green tunic, and pair of breeches which were a lighter green. The soldiers were standing to attention, and this, Adramal guessed, meant that the newcomer was "the Captain."
    "Sergeant Elishar," the Captain said, saluting.
    "Sir," the Sergeant replied, returning the salute. "The... wizard Adramal, sir." His eyes flicked briefly in her direction. "We encountered her outside the tavern known as Ire's Repose. As per your instructions, sir, having confirmed her identity, we escorted her directly to this building, where we have been awaiting your arrival."
    "Good." The Captain smiled slightly. "Thank you, Sergeant. The three of you may take lunch in the city, if you wish, and then you may return to barracks."
    "Sir?" The Sergeant was plainly surprised.
    "No further instructions, Sergeant."
    Adramal finished her ale, and replaced the mug on the tray. She looked carefully at the Sergeant for a moment, and then turned to the Captain. "I think he's afraid," she told him, "that if he leaves you alone with me, I'll swap your nose with one of your ears."
    "Sergeant?"
    "Sir, it is my duty to protect my commanding officer," the Sergeant said.
    "It is one of your duties," the Captain corrected. After a moment's hesitation, he added: "I appreciate your concern, Sergeant, but I am giving you an order."
    "Yes, Sir." The Sergeant lowered his head slightly.
    "Sergeant," Adramal said, "don't worry. If he did make me angry enough to do something like that, you wouldn't be able to stop me." She thought of adding that she could cast spells even if bound and gagged (that being one of the differences between a wizard and a sorcerer), but decided against it. If the Captain doesn't know that already, let him find out the hard way.
    "Dismiss, Sergeant," said the Captain. The Sergeant and the other two soldiers saluted, and marched out of the room.
    After a rather awkward pause, the Captain sat down on the stool that the Sergeant had just vacated. His posture was more casual now, and some of the military bearing seemed to have left him. He was nervous - more nervous, in fact, than the landlord. Adramal had no doubt that this time, she was the cause of it. She returned her attention to the tray on her lap.
    "So," the man said, after what seemed to be a long time, "you're the famous sorceress Adramal."
    "Wizard," she said, without looking up. "May I know to whom I have the displeasure of speaking?"
    "Oh... Captain Malrin Tagahra, Centadorian Army Intelligence Section."
    Slowly, unwillingly, she turned towards him, her supercilious manner draining out of her even as she did so. A sickly feeling formed in her stomach. "Lorgrim preserve me," she said, as if she had just found a severed finger in her stew. "What does the Intelligence Section want with me?"
    The Captain took a deep breath and replied, his voice heavy with reluctance: "I was just coming to that."

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Back to the Fiction page Back to the homepage Note: Nominally, King Enlorgar and Queen Ashuri ruled jointly after the downfall of Zorian. Enlorgar, however, was much weakened in both mind and body by the battle with Zorian. By mutual agreement, Ashuri took the greater part of the burden of ruling the country, and the crown passed to her descendants. Enlorgar's children were appointed Lords of the land between the Rivers Tamandar and Aglos. Back to the main text.