What could he do about the wizard? Should he even try? How could he not, when Jeka had been the only one to offer him help and a place to hide? He glanced at his pack, debating whether to take out the book and start once more.
With a sound between a grunt and a groan, Jeka rolled out of her hidey-hole and looked at Kharl. “Need to get us something to eat.”
“You don’t feel the wizard?”
“No.” She shook her head. “I’ll go to the lower market.”
“I can go.”
Jeka shook her head. “No one’d sell cheap or fair to you. No one looks at me. Some folk still watch you. They might tell Egen. You never know.”
She was probably right about that, Kharl thought. “But…if you see or feel the wizard, you stop and come back here. Quick as you can.”
“I can do that. Got some coppers?” The gaminelike urchin grinned.
“Just a few.” Kharl grinned back as he handed her three.
He watched her scramble over the wall, gracefully, wondering if he should have insisted on going himself, but he wanted to try to read more in the book, because he still didn’t know what he could or should do about the white wizard.
After a moment, Kharl took The Basis of Order out from his pack and opened it once more, hoping that the words would make more sense. The first words he read seemed so obvious that he wondered why they were there.
…there is more that lies beneath the surface of anything, whether it be the ocean or the mountains…Do not assume that what lies beneath is the same as what lies above, nor that it is different…
The next words were far from obvious, and meant nothing to him, nothing at all.
In substance, there is no difference between chaos and order, for neither has substance in and of itself…
Nor did many of the pages that followed help much, either. His head began to ache, but he kept reading, doggedly.
Sometime in early afternoon, Jeka climbed back over the wall and dropped down before Kharl. Her face was contorted.
“Hurts…he’s after me…”
“Who? The wizard?”
Jeka nodded. Then she pulled out half a loaf of bread and a small wedge of hard cheese. “I got you this.”
“Have you eaten?” Kharl took the bread and cheese.
“Yes.”
“As much as this?”
“About the same.”
The words rang true, and Kharl began to eat. The headache he had not thought had come from reading began to subside, if slowly. When he had finished, he made his way along the walls and past the crude latrine to retrieve the black staff.
Jeka looked at him as he brought it back. “You want me to touch it?” She shivered.
“It might help.”
Jeka edged forward, then grabbed the staff, suddenly, before Kharl could reach out. Without even a cry or a murmur, her eyes closed; her knees buckled, and she dropped in a heap.
Alarmed, Kharl bent forward, but he could see that she was breathing. He half dragged, half carried her into her sleeping space. When he was certain she was still breathing, and seemed to be sleeping, he eased back away and sat down against the wall.
The staff had some power. That was certain. It could break whatever spell the white wizard laid on Jeka, but the effect didn’t last.
Kharl tried to read more of The Basis of Order, but the words flowed by him without making much sense. Then he stood and stretched, and tried to figure out how he could deal with the wizard-or if he should even try. Then he just sat against the wall.
A good glass passed before Jeka moaned.
Kharl lifted the canvas and peered into the hidey-hole. “You all right?”
“No…my head still hurts.”
He waited for a time, and finally Jeka eased out into the indirect light of a cloudy afternoon, although the only place where rain looked to be falling was offshore.
“Wizard…he’s…bastard like Egen,” she muttered.
Kharl agreed silently. “Do you feel any better?”
“The cord thing is gone. My head hurts.”
Kharl looked at her. “Do you know someone who could tell you where the wizard lives?”
Jeka dropped her eyes.
Kharl waited, but she did not reply.
“You already know? Because that’s where you stole the silver from him?”
“He was kicking a peddler woman…pushing her…she said he hadn’t paid…He was awful mad…served him right.”
“But stealing from a wizard?”
“Told you…didn’t know he was a wizard then. Just thought he was a dandy. Never miss a silver. He was stealin’ from her…didn’t think it was so bad to steal from him…”
“I need to know where he lives.”
“Not all that far from the White Pony, ’cept it’s up the hill and north.”
Kharl glanced to the west. The afternoon rain that was so common in mid-and late fall looked to be moving inshore. He hoped that the coming storm would help conceal Jeka from the wizard. “You’ll have to take me there.”
Jeka looked down. “I’m tired again…don’t know why.”
Kharl gestured in the direction of the wall and the serviceway beyond. “Let’s go. You climb over first.”
Jeka dragged herself to the wall and over it, with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm. She just stood and watched as Kharl climbed, then descended into the shadowed serviceway.
“You bringing that staff?”
“It might help.”
“Long as no one looks too close,” she replied.
Kharl stayed almost abreast of Jeka as she wound her way through alleys, serviceways, and, occasionally, streets, but they did not stay on the streets long, and only on those streets that seemed crowded. The general direction was eastward. They did stop by a fountain, one that Kharl had not visited before, and drank. The water helped Kharl some, but Jeka looked pale and drawn, more so than earlier.
As they paused in an alley entrance, Kharl glanced at the cross street. Jeka was turning onto one of the older streets in upper Brysta, where large houses had been set within twenty cubits of the street itself, with ancient brick sidewalks, The yellow bricks were worn and, in some places, had been replaced with more reddish bricks. In other spots, there were just muddy gaps. The dwellings remained imposing two- and three-story edifices, but Kharl could sense the feeling of time and wear.
“Not far…” she said in a low voice. “Past the next street, on the right side.”
The next block had slightly larger dwellings, but they seemed less well kept-and older-and several had iron fences, and a few had iron-banded doors and shutters.
Jeka suddenly stiffened, then sprinted away from Kharl, moving faster than he’d ever seen her move. She dashed down the street, then turned in at a high wooden gate in the middle of a short stone wall. The gate opened as she neared. A guard in burgundy stepped outside and closed the gate, stationing himself directly in front of the closed gate.
Stunned into momentary stiffness and silence, Kharl drew back into the shaded part of the alley. Trying to grasp what had happened, he stood close to the brick wall that enclosed either a courtyard or a garden. Where he was would have been in the shadow cast by the wall and the dwelling to the left of where he stood, except that the western sky was now completely cloud-covered. After a moment, Kharl shook his head, trying to clear his mind. Then, he bent forward and peered around the corner.
The guard did not even look in Kharl’s direction.
The cooper straightened. Now what? What could he do?
He had to do something. For eightday after eightday, he’d just tried to survive, and one of the few who had helped was Jeka. Knowing what he knew about the wizard, he just couldn’t walk away. And he couldn’t wait. Not with what had happened to the other girls.