‘Bloody
freeloaders,’ Piers said without rancour, addressing Pickle once
they were gone. ‘They want the best information to save their
hides, but they hate to have to pay for it. They forget I’ve been
out there in the Unstable for three months, risking my neck half a
dozen times a day. I was attacked by Minions near the Fist, nearly
lost my life fording the Flow, got bitten by a snake-devil within a
leyflame’s throw of the Wanderer—do they think I do it all for
nothing?’
Pickle
laughed. ‘A normal trip, eh? By all that’s dark in Chaos, Piers, I
reckon you must be the toughest bit of leather ever to roam the
Unstable. There’s not many can say they’ve lasted as long as you
have. And often alone, what’s more.’
‘True.’ He
felt a quiet pride. ‘Thirty years I’ve been at it. And I reckon it
may well die with me too. That damn son of mine’ll never make a
decent surveyor. Maker knows what sort of maps he’ll turn out, left
to himself.’
‘Seemed tough
enough to me the few times you’ve brought him here.’
‘Nah, he’s all
bluster. He’s about as tough as melting sugar-cakes.’ He thrust out
his left leg and waved a hand at it. Flesh and bone ended just
below the knee and the stump nestled inside a leather cup attached
to a wooden peg leg. ‘This happened twenty years back, and it never
stopped me. Saw my own foot disappear down the gullet of one of the
Wild and I survived. That son of mine winces when his hipbone
nudges a pebble under his bedroll!’ He sopped up the last of the
stew with a piece of bread and shrugged. ‘He’ll run the business
into the ground when I’m gone. My girl’s got twice his gumption and
it’s a jiggin’ shame she’s the wrong sex. Jiggin’ shame too, that
Chantry took the other son we had, the over-encoloured bastards.
Still, why worry, eh? I don’t suppose I’ll be around to see what
happens to Kaylen the Mapmaker’s twenty years from now.’ He paused
suddenly, head cocked in disbelief as he listened. ‘Chaosdamn,
Pickle—you’ve never got a baby in here?’
From somewhere
above the unmistakable sound of a hungry infant wailed down into
the common room.
Pickle gave a
grimace that made deep green furrows in his face. ‘What’s the Halt
coming to, eh? Yep, it’s a babe right enough.’ He lowered his
voice. ‘The parents are a young couple, making the Long Pilgrimage,
so they say. But the babe’s Unbred, or I’ll be pink and white
myself. They are certainly keeping it away from yon chantor.’ He
nodded at the man who had appropriated the room’s most comfortable
chair by the fire. He was dressed in the scarlet and mauve robes of
Chantry and was reading the text of a book with the aid of a gold
wire-rimmed lorgnette. Every now and then he shook his yellow silk
stole to emphasise the importance and holiness of what he read, and
the bells along the hem tinkled.
‘So what are
they doing dragging a baby all the way across the Unstable?’ Piers
asked.
‘Looking for
sanctuary in Havenstar, or I’ve missed my guess.’
He shook his
head in disbelief. ‘Poor souls! Ah, Pickle, when will people stop
believing in miracles? They’ll get themselves and their babe
tainted, and all for a dream that doesn’t exist.’
Pickle gave
the mapmaker an embarrassed look. ‘Maybe it’s a dream worth
having.’
‘Ley-life! Not
you too! Next you’ll be telling me there are winged fire-elementals
sitting on your kitchen hearth.’ He yawned. ‘My friend, I’m for my
room before that chantist kinesis-maker over there really gets
going. Just listening to his bloody bells is bad enough.’
Pickle
regarded the red and mauve figure pensively. ‘Don’t knock ’em,
Piers. Kinesis devotions stave off the predations of instability
and I’m damned sure they keep the Wild at bay, too.’
‘So they
reckon. I wonder myself if they don’t just make the Wild flipping
wilder. Anyway, I’m off.’
~~~~~~~
As he limped
away, his wiry frame all muscle and sinew, in the eyes of those in
the room who watched him go there was both envy and respect. Only
his swinging walk betrayed his lack of a foot. The polished black
staff he carried was more ornament than necessity. Piers Kaylen was
a legend: an Unstabler who had survived thirty years of crossings,
a mapmaker who often travelled alone in places most men would not
go without an armed escort, a man who possessed all the instincts
of a hunted animal and yet had the talents of a hunter. It was said
that even the worst of the Minions of Chaos slunk away rather than
face the throwing knives Piers wore strapped to his chest, at his
hip and, so it was rumoured, in his single boot.
~~~~~~~
He was halfway
undressed, stripped to the waist with his knives lying on his bed,
when there was a knock at the door. Habit made him pluck up one of
the knives as he went to answer it. He expected no attack and
scented no danger, but you did not stay alive in the Unstable by
being careless about anything.
‘Who is it?’
he asked. He laid his face against the door and was immediately
aware of the faint vibrations of wrongness given off by one of the
Unbound.
‘They call me
the Mantis,’ came the reply. ‘You probably noticed me down in the
common room. I want to talk to you ’bout a map.’
He unbarred
the door with a fair idea of who it was he would see. The man
standing there was, like Pickle, one of the Unbound, or an
Untouchable as they were sometimes called, and the Mantis was an
appropriate name. Piers had indeed noticed him in the common room.
At seven feet tall, with limbs and body as elongated and as thin as
the insect whose name he bore, he would have been hard to miss. He
had to fold himself up to enter the room, and there was no way he
could stand erect once inside. The ceiling was too low.
Piers put his
knives away and waved a hand at the bed. ‘Sit down. You want a map?
Are you buying on your own account?’
‘Well, no. I
mean, I don’t want to buy at all, really. I want to sell, see.’ He
shoved a hand inside his shirt as he sat and withdrew a mapskin
wrapped around a rod of wood.
‘I don’t buy
maps,’ Piers said. ‘I make ’em.’ But he reached out a hand to take
the skin nevertheless. One could always learn something from
another man’s chart.
He’d spent a
lifetime dreaming about this, the wonderful instant when his hands
would unroll a trompleri map and he would feast his eyes on magic.
Yet as he opened up the skin and the dream became reality, he could
not believe the moment had arrived. He stared at the map in his
hands, felt his jaw dropping, and still could not believe it.
A
trompleri map
. One of the legendary wonders that he’d only
half-believed existed now unfolded before him in all its glory…
‘Where—where
did you get this?’ he stammered finally. His knees gave out and he
sat down heavily on the bed next to the Mantis.
‘What does it
matter? What I want to know is, are you hankering after such like?’
The man poked his lean features into Piers’ face. His nose and chin
and jaw were all sharp-edged, insect-like. A long-fingered hand
seized his arm, circling it. There was surprising power there, even
though his wrist was scarcely wider than a broom handle, and each
finger as slim as a pipe-stem. ‘Do you want to buy it, master
mapmaker?’
Piers strove
to regain both his native caution and to avoid shuddering. He hated
to be touched by one of the Unbound, even though the man was
careful not to cause him pain by brushing against his bare skin.
‘Well, it’s not really of that much value to me,’ he said. ‘I deal
with the land north of the Wide; this appears to be some place
south of the Graven. Who in heaven’s ordering wants to go there?
That’s even beyond the Eighth Stab.’
‘Don’t fool
with me, mapmaker! I know the value of a trompleri map to one of
your ilk. You’d sell your soul to have one of these, in the hope
you can ferret out its secret, so you can produce the like. How
much will you give me for it?’
‘I don’t carry
much money with me. What need have I of money in the Unstable? I
keep what meagre wealth I have at home in the First.’
‘And you know
full well, you do, that I can’t go that far into a stability. Quite
apart from the fact that any stab makes me as sick as a cat with
worms, I’ve no wish to challenge Chantry, now have I? How much you
got on you?’
‘Hardly more
than a handful of coppers. Just enough to tip a stable boy or two
and buy me a meal or two between the kinesis chain and home.
Nothing more.’
‘Come now, any
shrewd-nosed mapmaker is going to travel with a little stash for
emergencies, right? Don’t take me for some newly-tainted lad who
doesn’t know his way about the Unstable and who’s never met an
Unstabler. I know what’s what. You have more than a few coppers
hidden about you.’
‘Well, three
silvers and a gold. That’s all. And yes, I’d part with them to own
a trompleri map, but you must know it’s worth more than that.’
‘I’ll take the
coins and your nag for it.’
‘My
pack-horse?’
‘No, your
mount.’
He was
genuinely dismayed. ‘That mare and I have been together a long
time. We’ve been through a lot. Besides, it’s a crossings-horse.
Ley-lit Unstablers don’t take kindly to other folk having
them.’
‘There’s no
law agin it. That’s my deal. And it’s a generous one. Take it or
leave it.’
‘I ask myself
the reason for your, er, generosity.’
‘Don’t be
daft. You don’t need me to spell it out. I’m in need of cash and a
mount. My nag took a tumble and is as lame as an old man’s pecker.
I’ll give her to you, if you want.’
He was silent,
thinking. The map was obviously stolen. He’d never be able to admit
to ownership of it, or resell it. The fact that the Mantis was in a
hurry to rid himself of it also seemed to indicate the real owner
was only a step behind him.
But Piers’
hands itched to hold it, his mind begged to analyse it, his
mapmaker’s soul longed to solve its mysteries…
‘All right,’
he said. ‘I’ll buy it. And I’ll take your lame nag. Come back in
half an hour and I’ll have the money and the papers ready for
you.’
~~~~~~~
By the time
the Mantis returned, Piers had retrieved his money from its hiding
place and had the horse’s ownership scrip ready. Wordlessly, he
handed them over and received the map and another horse scrip in
return. As he checked the skin to make sure it was the same one he
had first seen, he said casually, ‘Don’t think to divert your
followers to me, Mantis. I’m too wily to be taken like that. This
map disappears the moment you leave this room. They wouldn’t find
it on me, and then they’d still be after you, madder than
before.’
‘I don’t have
the dribbling tongue of a betrayer,’ the Mantis said indignantly.
‘No one’ll ever hear aught from me, even if they ask.’
‘Look after my
horse. If ever you want to sell her back to me, send word to
Kibbleberry. Her name’s Ygraine.’
‘A
high-falutin’ handle, that.’ Legend—or was it history?—said that
there had once been a great Margravine of Malinawar called Ygraine.
She was said to have led an invasion into Yedron with particularly
nasty results for the Yedronese monarch of the time, simply because
she’d thought herself insulted. The Mantis evidently did not think
much of the choice of name, but he said, ‘I’ll take care of her.
She’s my passage out of here.’ He tucked away the paper and the
money, nodded briefly, and let himself out.
Piers hardly
noticed his going. Instead he pored over his acquisition, revelling
in the beauty and workmanship, touching it with reverent fingers,
already looking forward to the moment when he would share his awe,
his joy, with Keris. And Thirl, of course.
Reluctantly,
he secreted it away in the hiding place he used for valuables when
travelling. He was hoping that he would have another one or two
visitors, people wanting to buy his maps this time, and he did not
want anyone to see this purchase.
Within the
next hour he made four sales of maps roughly updated with the
latest information, then—just as he was about to spread his bedroll
out on the straw mattress and turn in for the night—there was
another knock at the door. As before, the habit of a lifetime made
him pick up one of his knives and caution made him ask the visitor
to identify himself, but he was tired and he didn’t notice the
emanations that might have warned him what waited for him on the
other side of the door.
The name given
in reply meant nothing, but he thought he recognised the voice of
one of the chambermaids and unbarred the door anyway. After all, no
one really expected to be attacked inside a halt. Certainly no one
expected to confront one of the Minions of Chaos within its walls,
especially not when there were kinesis devotions being performed in
the common room to ward off just such evils. And most of all no one
would have dreamed of seeing one of the Wild…
Yet no sooner
had he lifted the bar than the door was flung open with immense
force, catching him across the chest and arm. His knife went flying
and before he could utter a sound he was flattened by his attacker
and two clawed hands the size of dinner plates were around his
throat, squeezing, crushing his windpipe. It happened so fast—and
his assailant was so unnaturally strong—that he never had a
chance.
Even as he
struggled, even as he battered at the thickened nose and gouged at
the yellow eyes, he glimpsed the Minion standing with folded arms
behind her pet. He saw her blood-soaked nails tapping impatiently
on her bloodied forearms, and knew he was going to die. His only
thought was one of surprise it was all going to end this way, in
the relative safety of a halt, and not out there in the Unstable
somewhere as he had always thought.