“No one’s going to bother with a fairy!” Lydia corrected with a grin. “Not a little thing like you!”
“Little, is it?” Tich’ki pinched Lydia so hard the woman jumped. “Little, is it?”
“Well, you ore little—Aie, stop that! I apologize!”
“Hey. remember me?” the bardling asked. “I’ve got some say in this, too, and I—”
“This is nonsense.” Eliathanis shook his head again, stubbornly. “I think we should continue to search out here.”
“Search what?” Lydia exploded. “I tell you, there isn’t the slightest due. There isn’t even the slightest trace of a clue! In the city, it’ll be a different matter. Give ‘em enough money, and we’ll be able to bribe nearly anyone to tell us whatever we need to know.”
The White Elf straightened, staring at her as though she’d uttered an obscenity. “Humans lie,” he said shortly.” How much truth do you think you will get out of anyone who can be bought?”
“He’s scared,” Tich’ki taunted. “Poor elf is scared the humans will throw things at him. Dirty his pretty face.”
Eliathanis took a furious swipe at her, but the fairy, fluttering heavily because of her still-damp wings, soil managed to evade him, mocking him with, “Temper, temper!”
“Stop that, Tich’ki!” Lydia caught one small foot and pulled the fairy back down behind her on the horse. “I say we go to Westerin.”
“And I,” Naitachal voted.
“Me, too.” Tich’ki grinned sharply. “I lake human dues. So many folks careless with their belongings. So many ... opportunities.”
“Huh,” Lydia muttered. “Just don’t get us thrown into prison.”
“Have I ever?”
“Yes!”
The fairy ruffled her wings. “Thought you’d forgotten all about that—It wasn’t my fault the gems fell into your pouch!”
“Oh no. The pouch just happened to come open at just the right time,”
“Well ... it might have had a little help ...”
“And it’s not going to have any more help! If I find your fingers anywhere near that pouch, Tich’ki, I swear I’ll cut ‘cm off!”
“Spoilsport.”
“I sure hope so! What about you, Eliathanis? Are you with us or not?”
After a reluctant moment, the White Elf nodded. “Not that it will do any good.”
“Hey!” Kevin shouted with all his breath, and the others stared at him as though seeing him for the first time—”Remember me? I get some say in this, too!”
“All right, Kevin,” Lydia said, a little too cheerfully. As though she’s humoring a child! Kevin fumed. “What do you say?”
What could he say? No matter what Count Volmar had said, Kevin knew he certainly wasn’t the leader of this group! “I say,” the bardling grumbled, “we go to Westerin.”
Kevin reined in his horse without even being aware he’d done it, staring in sheer wonder.
“Westerin,” he breathed.
Oh, he had been taught his geography as a child. He knew that the walled city lay at the junction of two trading routes, on a wide, fertile plain fed by a tranquil river. But hearing about it and actually seeing it were two very different things! Westerin was a beautifully picturesque sight beneath the dramatically cloudy sky, the thick, crenellated wall that girded it broken at regular intervals by pointed towers topped in bronze that gleamed like gold in the shifting rays of sunlight.
The city was also much larger than the bardling had ever imagined—no, no, he thought, it wasn’t merely large, it was enormous!
Particularly, Kevin added wryly to himself, compared to quiet little Bracklin.
The others were riding on. The bardling urged his horse after them. trying to ignore Tich’ki’s mocking, “Boy acts like he’s never seen a city before.”
Well, all right, maybe he hadn’t! What of it?
With an indignant sniff, Kevin straightened in the saddle, doing his best to pretend there was nothing at all amazing about those thick stone walls towering over them as they approached, nothing at all amazing about the mass of buildings he glimpsed through the open gates.
But for all his attempts at keeping calm, the bardling’s heart had begun pounding wildly.
Westerin. Westerin!
Why, the very name rang with adventure!
Despite Eliathanis’ worries, they had no trouble at an getting into Westerin. In fact, the city guards hardly glanced their way, waving the party inside with bored indifference.
Kevin struggled to copy that indifference. But how could he possibly keep from gawking? The street up which they were riding was wide enough to hold them easily even if they had been riding abreast And it was paved with cobblestones! Only the innkeeper of the Blue Swan back in Bracklin had been able to afford those expensive things.
And how could Kevin not stare at all the buildings? He’d never seen so many in one place. He’d never dreamed so many could exist! They seemed to have been set out helter-skelter, as though each owner had put his house wherever he wanted it, without worrying about how the whole thing was going to look. The casual jumble of buildings created a maze of smaller streets branching out in all directions.
Kevin shook his head in confusion. Not only was there no pattern to the way the buildings were laid out, no two houses looked alike. Some of those he glimpsed were small, low to the ground, looking somehow meek amid all the bustle, of the homey, wattle-and-daub sort familiar to him from Bracklin, even if their roofs here were of red tile rather than thatch. Other houses were eccentrically painted half-timbered buildings, their upper stories leaning drunkenly together over their narrow streets, only wooden props keeping them apart. Kevin gave up trying to be aloof and stared openly when he saw a row of out and out mansions of beautifully worked stone, some of them, amazingly, three or four stories high.
And the people! There must be thousands here inside the encircling city walls, all of them speaking a jumble of languages. Their tunics and gowns and cloaks were a dazzling confusion of colors: red, blue, gold, even some hues he couldn’t name.
And despite the White Elf’s uneasiness, not all those folks were human. In one block alone. Kevin saw two haughty, elegant White Elves stride arrogantly by, acting as though humans didn’t even exist, a couple of more relaxed people whose not-quite human features and ever so slightly pointed ears revealed them as half-elven, three hulking guards who almost certainly were nearly full-blooded ogres, even a pair of Arachnia dressed in priestly robes, chittering together in a language that seemed made up only of consonants.
Rows of shops lined the street, and the air rang with the cries of merchants bawling out their wares in half a dozen dialects. The bardling ached to examine the pile of scrolls one dealer offered, or the harps and lutes hanging in another booth, but he didn’t dare let the rest of his party get too far ahead. He’d never be able to find them again in this crowd!
“It stinks,” Eliathanis muttered.
Well, maybe it did, of animal and cooking oil and too many people of all sorts crowded in together, but overwhelmed by wonder as he was, Kevin hardly minded.
Lydia unerringly led the way to a livery stable, a well-kept place warm with the friendly smells of horses and hay.
“Smells better than the city,” the White Elf muttered.