"Bah!" Duran began to pace up and down in front of his counter. He heard a faint whine, a scratch at the door. He stalked over and jerked it open, let Dog and a gust of wind inside. "Sorry, Dog. Curse me for a fool . . . I forgot to bring you your bones. Perhaps some cheese until morning, eh?"
He went and got that. Dog wagged his tail, took it—more grateful and more faithful than others he had helped.
"All right," he said to Old Man. "You think the neighbors are going to run me out of town. So where the hells do I go? What will I do to survive?"
"You're a doctor. Whatever you choose to call yourself, you're better than most poor folk ever see. You'll never be hungry. A traveling doctor is always welcome, no matter where he goes."
"To what end? Old on the road and starving? I'm not an active man. I've no knowledge how to survive—I want my food from the tavern, my supplies from a market, I want a bed at night—" I want my books. I want familiar things . . . I want to die somewhere I understand. . . .
"You want. It was no helpless man who rescued Keko from the thugs in the alleyway that night. And it's no helpless man who has the mind you have."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Keko tells me. Keko tells me how you make your medicines. How you have your little jars—your little jars with the old bread, the cheese—how you cured the smith with a salve of herbs and mouldy bread—"
Duran shrugged, finding no hope in that, against the thought of exile.
"Our physicians understood moulds. In the Empire they did. We use such remedies. But no Sabirn told you."
"It cures cuts," Duran said glumly. "It can't cure human stupidity, Old Man, it can't cure hate!"
"You have a mind. You want proofs, you want substantiation of things. You don't think like your neighbors. You look past what seems. You think."
"It does me no good."
"Do you want learning? Come with us, and we'll give you what knowledge we have."
Duran stared. "Come with you where? And who is 'us'?"
Old Man leaned on his walking stick. "Not all the Sabirn you see in Targheiden have lived here all their lives. We come and we go. No one notices. You remember when I came to the 'Cat'—not all that many years ago? I suppose you, along with everyone else, thought I came from some other section of town."
"Aye."
"I didn't. I came from elsewhere . . . from beyond Targheiden."
"Why?"
"To serve as a gatherer of information. To find certain trade stuffs we need and can't easily obtain. Targheiden is, after all, a shipping capital."
"What—trade stuffs?"
"Sulfur. Niter."
"For what?"
"I'll tell you—once we're outside Targheiden."
"We."
"As I said—time I was traveling again. You've asked questions. I'll answer them. I'll tell you stories you don't imagine."
It was the storyteller's voice, that mesmerized, that stole a man's sense about what was real and not real. It was a spell in itself—a spell—that broke down the lines between possible and impossible.
"Once," Old Man said, softly, "we had a ship that sailed with no wind."
"With no wind?"
"And no sail. Think about that, Duran."
"But—"
"We digress," Old Man said: the voice became sharp, incisive—commanding. "We were talking about your neighbors—and my advice. Will you take it? Are you willing to come with us?"
"But . . . who is this 'us'?"
"Targheiden doesn't love Sabirn." Old Man shifted, taking some of his weight from his crippled leg, and leaned back against the wall. "We've become unwelcome here—those of us that have become . . . too visible."
The Sabirn woman—hanged as a necromancer.
Duran's head spun. Thirty-five years of his life here—with his parents and on his own—in the same shop, the same small apartment upstairs. He had spent his youth here, had roots here, friends here. And . . .
He could die here.
Possibly.
After what he had heard tonight, more than possibly.
"But I can't take all my things with me," he protested. "I have my alchemist's tools, my books, my notes, my medicines. . . . Without those, I'm worthless!"
"We have a wagon," Old Man said. "We can get others. How much room do you need?"
Duran chewed on his lower lip. "But how in Dandro's hells can I move this stuff without the neighbors knowing?"
"We'll help you."
"Who," Duran asked again, "is 'we'?"
Old Man waved a hand. "Myself. Kekoja. Several more. We have our own possessions to take."
Duran shook his head slowly. There had to be some other way to approach this. He could not run—merely because his neighbors were upset.
Or could he?'
Was his pride worth his life? Was it worth all he ever meant to do, all the notes, the knowledge his father had collected, that he had added to over a lifetime, the pages and pages—
"It's simple, Duran." The Sabirn's black eyes glittered in the lamplight. "We know the dark ways . . . the streets the Guard never travels. We load your belongings—we go. That's all."
Duran shuddered.
"And," Old Man said, "we aren't without wizards of our own."
"Gods . . ."
"Them, too."
"You're asking total trust from me," Duran said at last. "Total trust."
"You have my true name," Old Man said with quiet dignity, "You know what I am. That is a sacred bond."
"Are you—"
"You know," Old Man said, in that Voice, "—what I am."
"I suppose I do," Duran said, and shivered. "When do you suggest we start?"
"I don't think trouble's imminent. Not by what I've heard. And if Kekoja doesn't show up for work tomorrow . . ."
"Wait. If Kekoja doesn't come to work tomorrow, won't the neighbors think something's strange?"
"You said Tutadar suggested you send him off. I would imagine he'll tell the other folk you're going to do something like that."
"All right," he said. He lifted his chin, decision made. "I'll start gathering everything I need tonight."
"Good. You have enough baskets for your medicines, don't you?"
"I'll manage."
"And your alchemist's tools?"
"The baskets I keep things in. But my alembics, my -furnace—"
"We can make you new ones."
"And where is that? Where will we be?"
Old Man's face was very serious, still in the lamplight. "A place where the mind can run free," he said.
Ladirno sat at his lately habitual table in "The Golden Shoe," contemplating the walk back to his apartments, but dreading the unpredictability of his companion and looking, still, for some decision, some sense that things might have settled. Wellhyrn sat in a chair opposite him, looking frustrated and angry. As yet, Wellhyrn had not come up with a suitable punishment for Duran—a revenge that nobody could trace back to its source. The lack of inspiration had thrown Wellhyrn into a beastly—and dangerous—mood.
Oddly enough, some small part of Ladirno took a bleak satisfaction in his companion's discomfiture—but he did not trust him.
Distant thunder rumbled and Ladirno winced. Gods-blighted storms! He, himself, chose to believe that no one controlled the weather, but he could not remember a stretch of weather like this.
Perhaps the Sabirn were behind the weather.
Perhaps.
A darkly cloaked man walked toward their table, and though Ladirno could see no face below the hood, he thought he recognized him. Wellhyrn lifted his head and stared, then smiled coldly, his face relaxing in dark pleasure.
"Ah, Mandani. Please join us."