Wellspring of Chaos

XXXIII

Kharl kept worrying on twoday, but he had a feeling that threeday or fourday would be when the wizard resumed looking for him-or for Jeka. He still had no idea why the wizard was seeking out one young woman disguised as a beggar boy, but it was clear that he was.

On twoday, Kharl checked the harbor, as he had most days, but there was no sign of the Seastag, or either of the other two ships whose masters he knew, if less well than he did Hagen. He tried to push aside the worry that he might not be able to avoid Egen until a captain he knew ported in Brysta.

Jeka woke Kharl early on threeday, even before dawn. “Feel that…like a cord I can’t see, tuggin’ at me.”

The cooper looked at the shivering young woman posing as a ragged boy. As he saw the light frost on the stones, he couldn’t help feeling guilty for his warm jacket, even if he only dared sleep in it. For a moment, her words didn’t mean anything. Then he stiffened and lurched up. “We need to leave here. Now.” He tried not to wince. His back and limbs were sore and stiff, as they had been every morning he had awakened between the walls.

“Leave? So’s he can catch us in the open?” Jeka pulled her ragged brown cloak around her more tightly.

“If we stay here, he’ll follow whatever that cord is until he knows where you are. You want to stay and be cornered?”

“Got a little bread left,” Jeka offered. “Let’s eat first.”

Two chunks of bread took little enough time to eat.

Then Kharl took the rag-covered black staff and his pack and carried them farther along the space between the walls, hiding them-and his jacket-as well as he could beyond the stone-circled hole that served as a necessary, before using the crude latrine.

“Why’d you move that stuff?” asked Jeka.

“So if the wizard or his guard looks, they won’t know someone else is here.” Kharl’s head throbbed faintly at the misstatement. He donned the ragged beggar’s cloak.

“Better get on.” Jeka turned and scrambled over the wall.

By the time the sun was rising over Brysta on what promised to be a bright fall day, one warmer than the light morning frost indicated, the two stood in the serviceway, flanked by long shadows on one side and the flat light of sunrise on the other.

Kharl looked at Jeka. “Can you feel where the tugging’s coming from?”

“No.”

Kharl held in the harsh words he felt at Jeka’s rebellious tone. “We’ll go up the street, say fifty cubits.”

The two walked south on the cross street, and Kharl tried not to look back.

“Stop.” Kharl waited, then looked at Jeka. “Does it feel stronger?”

“No…feels weaker…maybe closer…” She looked puzzled.

“We go the other way.”

“Other way?”

“No pull when a fish on a line swims to the fisherman,” Kharl said.

Jeka paled.

Kharl wished he’d used different words. “Come on.” He turned back north.

Jeka scrambled to catch up to him. As they walked in the shadows on the east side of the cross street, Kharl wished he’d brought the staff rather than his crude stick. At the end of the block, the cross street ended in a stone wall, and they turned westward, taking the walk on the south side, downhill toward the harbor. Jeka darted ahead, then froze for a moment.

Kharl peered toward the harbor. At the end of the next block, there were three Watchmen and an officer-one whom Kharl recognized even from that distance as Egen. He was certain, although he didn’t quite know why. Jeka slipped back toward Kharl.

“Watch ahead,” mumbled Jeka.

“And the wizard’s somewhere behind.” Kharl looked to the serviceway to his left, which connected to an east-west alleyway. “Into the serviceway.”

“Be Watch at the harborside end of the alley.”

“Can’t be any worse.” Kharl hoped it couldn’t be worse, but he wasn’t counting on that, not the way the last few seasons had been going.

In a few moments, they reached the point where the serviceway joined the alley. Kharl peered around the corner formed by two brick walls. As Jeka had predicted, there were Watchmen at the end nearer the harbor.

Kharl studied the alley, noting the thin line of shadows on the southern side. He looked at Jeka. “We turn and start uphill on the sunny side, but we move toward the shadows. Once we’re in the shadows we crouch down, then come back to the serviceway right across from us.”

“It might work.” Jeka sounded less than convinced.

“Might not. Got a better idea?”

“No.”

“Then we’ll try it.” Kharl stepped out of the serviceway and began to walk up the alley at a slight angle.

So far as he could tell, the Watchmen below did not move. At least, he heard no steps on the stones, those that were high enough to stand out above the lower muddy stones. They covered close to a hundred cubits before they entered the shadows. Kharl took several more steps before he began to crouch as he slipped to the southern side of the alley. He ducked into a recess formed by a loading dock, then peered around the corner and down the alley. The Watchmen had not moved.

“The cord thing’s stronger,” Jeka muttered from behind him.

“We need to slip along the shadow here. Keep low.”

“You keep low.”

Kharl tried to keep low, crouching as he made his way back down the side of the alley.

After fifty cubits, they had to duck behind a refuse bin as a loading door opened.

Rats skittered and rustled in the bin as they waited. It seemed like a glass passed before the heavyset man in brown went back into the shop and closed the door. Finally, they slipped into the serviceway and walked quickly to where it ended short of the next street. Kharl halted.

“Now what?” asked Jeka.

“We run across the street and into that serviceway, and we keep moving south until we get to the fountain. Then we head back uphill.”

They sprint-scurried across Wellman Street, and down another serviceway…then another, and a third. In time, they turned down the alley south of Cargo Road and made their way to the fountain. There they waited for a teamster to water his pair of mules, then slipped in ahead of a laundress to drink.

After they had drunk, Kharl turned to Jeka. “Can you feel the cord thing?”

Jeka paused. “No. I don’t think so.”

“Good. We’ll keep moving along Second Cross toward the river.”

“The river? Can’t swim.”

“We aren’t going to. White wizards have trouble with streams and running water. Leastwise, that’s what they say. We’ll circle back later today.” At least, Kharl hoped that they could, but he didn’t know what else to suggest. He also didn’t like the idea that the Watch seemed to be helping the wizard.

He had to wonder what Egen had to do with the white wizard. Was the wizard working for Egen? Or did Egen owe something to the wizard?