It would be wisest, of course, to simply scurry away. But Bryck found himself taking the drink. It was his first taste of the tart, green wine. It was at first quite awful, almost stinging; but as the aftertaste came, the richness of the flavor took hold.
"I've a niece in Windal, you see," the vendor continued. "I asked you of her that night by name, but you didn't know her—and, of course, why would you? I couldn't but hope, though."
"I'm sure she's well," he found himself saying.
"The uprising," she said.
He took another swallow of stife. It was helping the general ache in his head.
"Violence in the streets, you said. Windal in chaos."
"So I've heard on my travels." He bit into the kabob now. It was well past midday. He was tired, already nearly spent. And still there were several sigils to go.
"You've not seen Windal yourself?" she pressed.
"I never said I had." It was true. He had been careful never to claim that; had maintained he was only circulating prevalent rumors from the outside world. It was a way of not getting pinned to the "facts." It was delicate ... all of it, what he was trying to do, the machinations of his revenge.
"I must go," he said. He drained the cup and handed it back to her.
Her hand touched his elbow—lightly, but with tense fingers. "Please ... where will I see you again?"
He knew he should flee—now. "Why?"
"Because there are others, others I've told of your news from Windal. They want to hear the tales themselves."
"They're not tales," Bryck lied.
"I know. Yes, I know. But... all of us who heard that night, we carried the news, passed it onward. Now others want to hear it firsthand. From you. Where will you be that they can come to listen?"
He blinked. It had worked. Worked better than he'd imagined. He had played half a dozen times in the city, at various taverns; and after each evening's playing, his audience had implored him for news of the lands outside Callah. And so he told them about the "uprising" in the Felk-occupied city of Windal.
"What is your name?" he asked impulsively.
"Quentis."
Her eyes were a soft amber, Bryck noted. Then he turned and fled down a side street.
IT WAS NOISY in the marketplace. Private industries were still doing business in Callah. Ceramicists, tool-makers, leather goods manufacturers. Bryck wondered about their raw materials, though. Eventually, it seemed, they would run out of local supplies. If the Felk wanted the city's enterprises to survive, they would have to allow goods to be brought in once more from outside the city limits. Some travel restrictions would have to be lifted.
Restrictions that didn't apply to him, he thought with more than a little satisfaction. It had been damned clever of him to have that copyist, Slydis, falsify a new civilian travel pass for him. Now Bryck could take up his string-box and light out of Callah as a verifiable traveling minstrel whenever he wanted. He kept the paper on him at all times.
The large whitewashed stones of the Registry loomed over the stalls and tents. The building was a natural hub, located as it was in the city's center, and now serving as the seat of the occupying Felk bureaucracy. Callah's largest marketplace abutted it.
Bryck wandered through the haphazard rows. Lacfoddalmendowl hadn't slowed business much. He desperately wanted to return to his rented room, there to collapse into sleep. But there was still a watch
of daylight left. He had work to do.
He had collected a huge sheaf of bogus Felk scrip from Slydis's workshop two days ago. The dwarf copyist had done outstanding work. Bryck had studied the notes. The Felk evidently used an inked stamp on the differently colored bits of paper. Slydis had reproduced that stamp flawlessly. He had also scrounged up from gods knew where the precise stock of paper the Felk were using.
Citizens hadn't liked trading their coin for paper. Merchants didn't like accepting it for goods and services. But the Felk decreed their scrip to be lawful currency.
So be it.
Bryck made continuous purchases in the marketplace. He looked for items that were easily portable and expensive. He bought things for which he had no need whatever—gaudy jewelry, ornate eating utensils, overpriced vials of exotic spices, a necklace of shells belonging to creatures that lived in the Bane Sea to the east (which apparently didn't mind swimming poisoned waters), if the dealer was to be believed.
He haggled as little as possible, trying to pay as near to the full scandalous amounts as he could. He unloaded handfuls of the paper money Slydis had manufactured. He made many merchants very happy.
Finally he headed for his lodgings. He would dispose of his purchases before he reached his room, though he thought he might keep the utensils, strictly as an indulgent luxury. It had been quite satisfying to commit his crimes in plain view of the Registry, beneath the very noses of the Felk. He had even passed a few soldiers among the stalls. No one had questioned the authenticity of his money, though more than one vendor had furtively hinted that coin would get him a more economical price.
Meanwhile his counterfeit scrip, which was truly worth nothing more than ink and the paper it imprinted, now circulated among dozens of trading hands.
HE FELL ONTO his bed. He had truly driven himself today.
Bryck had already commissioned Slydis to create another large batch of notes, which he was due to collect tomorrow. Slydis, of course, was no doubt using the forged imprinting stamps for his own use. That served Bryck's purposes just fine. It didn't matter who was moving the crooked money, just as long as it got into circulation. Slydis could manufacture wealth that had no theoretical limits. He could make a thousand of the blue-colored goldie notes. Two thousand—or twenty. He needed only paper, ink, and time
Falsifying coins wasn't a practical business. Perhaps that was why coins had remained the Isthmus's standard currency so many hundredwinters.
This Felk system of paper money, however, was something else entirely. Bryck likened it to those "I-owe-unto" notes that desperate gamblers sometimes tried to pass. Like cheaters, those players usually found out quickly that games could become very serious, indeed.
Criers were announcing the curfew in the street below. Lacfoddalmendowl had run its course.
He'd had fun inventing the sigil. That was odd—enjoying himself, even just a little bit. He had become a creature of cold hate and little else. He was seeing to his vengeance against his enemy with cold-blooded callousness.
Yet, crafting that emblem had engaged him. It wasn't of great importance what he settled on; he knew that. He needed only some distinct—preferably simple—symbol that people would readily recognize. It need only be original.
Nevertheless, the former artist in him insisted the sigil be just right.
Bryck had finally settled on a circle cut through by a vertical line. Simple. Easily memorized. It satisfied him. The circle, in old myths, was regarded as a symbol of evil. Its closed loop represented the eternalness of what was wicked in life, since bad times never went away entirely.
That was still true today, he thought ruefully.
The vertical line, of course, cut the cycle. Bryck was pleased with the sign's underlying message, even if no one else ever grasped it. After he had first conceived of the slashed circle, he had practiced awhile here in his room scorching it onto a scrap of cloth he'd found in the street.
That emblem was now burned onto twenty-eight wood surfaces in twenty-eight different places in the
city.
He found his weary eyes unfocusing as they turned up toward the ceiling. His left wrist was still trailing the pink and red streamers. He had used more wizardry today than on any other single day in his life. It had been costly, and now he was paying. He felt feverish.