“Faerie cake. I found it at a stall.” The big man drew in asigh. “And I bought you a silk scarf and some rabbit skins to turn intoclothes.”
“Thanks, man,” Escalla said. She seemed very pleased but abit embarrassed at the ranger’s sudden kindness.
Down in the water a small brown frog floated with its toes splayed and a look of lazy pleasure in its golden eyes. Around the jetty pilings, water weeds bloomed and damselflies flew. It was obviously a fine place just to be a frog. The Justicar joined Escalla in sprawling at the water’s edgeand watching the frog, the plants, and even the flies. When Escalla sat very, very still, a damselfly landed quietly on her hair. She sat straight and tried to see it from the corner of her eye, careful not to scare the pretty little thing away.
“Hey, Jus?”
“Hmmm?”
“You know a lot about the north.” Escalla carefully bit intoher faerie cake. “I mean Iuz, abyssal bats, and everything.”
“Yes.” The Justicar watched the frog floating dreamily in theshallows. “Yes, I suppose I do.”
“So are you going to tell me why?”
The Justicar remained silent. He sat and stared at the frog floating in peace and quiet down below. Ripples spread as the frog made a lazy turn. All around him, a city flowed past, distant and forgotten.
“You don’t remember it much.” The Justicar had eyes only forthe river shallows. “It was a green country up there before the war. The farnorth of the river was all bandit kingdoms, but Urnst was fairly calm, a pretty place-cattle country up by the river, manor holdings all through the hills.” Hisstubbled face quirked up in a rare smile. “I went south to study inCeladon-learned the sword from the elves, then learned to fight from thedwarves. I came back north, though. It was the kind of place that seemed worth coming back to. Lost all of it in the war, of course. Lost pretty much all of everything. Just ashes… one end of it to the other. Even the corpses weregone.”
The Justicar’s hand rested upon Cinders’ fur.
“I killed a lot of Iuz’s minions then, hunted them like pigs.You lived alone, you trained alone… and then you hunted them alone. Thatwas just what you did. Then one day, they stopped coming.”
Escalla looked at Jus quietly, her face propped up by her hand and the brilliant red damselfly still preening in her hair.
“So after the war, you joined up with the law?”
“No. Too much has happened to worry about law.”
The man rested his sheathed sword across his folded legs, his long fingers tracing the stark shape of the wolf-skull pommel.
“You think more when you’re alone. You take a lookaround, and you see that the law is there only to protect power, to make things run. The common people just get ground down. When the wars were done, no one helped the little folk. They just looked at them and demanded taxes or told them they were serving the state and rounded them up like slaves. They keep rebuilding shattered kingdoms. You’ll see plenty of law, but what you won’t seeis any justice.”
Escalla looked at him and seemed to finally begin to understand.
“So for Justice, you need a Justicar?”
“Yes. You need a Justicar.”
Jus had invented himself and created a name for his new role. Monastically simple, incorruptible, and grim, he was the perfect instrument. Escalla felt the damselfly whirr away into the air then gave the man a kiss upon the ear.
“We’ll get ’em, big guy. We’ll get ’em.”
On the road up above, the sounds of morning traffic had increased. Escalla rose and dusted the faerie cake crumbs from her lap, ready to face the rest of her day.
“Well, Justicar, let’s go catch this two-toned sorcerer.”
“Call me Jus.” The big man rose to his feet and threw Cindersabout his shoulders. “Let’s go.”
They climbed the wood-boarded walkways that overhung the riverbanks. The Justicar tromped his way past boat owners and troupes of dancing girls alighting upon a pleasure barge and walked out into Trigol City’s mainmarketplace.
The wide square was lined upon three sides by buildings and lay open to the river at the south. Overshadowing each end of the marketplace stood huge, frowning temple gates, and behind the wrought iron were two temples, one decorated with symbols of water and fish and the other with images of hammers, flame, and steel. It was architecture imported from the Duchy of Tenh: gaudy, bright, and indolent. Escalla made vomiting sounds as she took a long, hard look at the decor.
The stalls in this busy place were rather strange. Half were tricked out in blue-green ribbons and the other in red and iron gray. Coded ribbons, hats, or feathers similarly marked people on the streets, and both opposing mobs eyed each other with hostility.
Now invisible and sitting upon the Justicar’s left shoulder,Escalla drew up her feet to avoid touching the crowds. Spying the Justicar’slack of ribbons, followers of both temple factions tried to block his way as he approached, but the big man simply shoved them out of his path. His silent stare froze a dozen others in place. Several glances at the ranger’s massive sworddecided it for them, and suddenly it became much easier to walk through the crowds.
Escalla frowned. “These are seriously rude people!”The faerie spat and sneezed as a passing lady swung her feathered hat into her face. “What are all these damned ribbons for?”
Jus thrust through the crowds by sheer force of ill temper.
“Worshipers from two competing temples: Geshtai andBlah-something.” The ranger strode forward through the street, pushing thehostile crowds apart. “Refugees from the Duchy of Tenh brought their cults withthem when they moved in about five years ago. Now the wars are over, and they’reboth flexing muscle and trying to get their claws into the city. It really puts the polish on the place.”
“Yeah, real homey.” Perched upon Jus’ shoulders,Escalla cracked her knuckles and wriggled her posterior in glee. “Hey, I can doan illusion spell. Do you think they’d clear the streets if it suddenly rainedpus?”
“Don’t.”
“Hey, just a suggestion. I’m trying to offer positive worksolutions here!” The faerie planted her hands on either side of the Justicar’sface and steered his view to a midpoint between the two temples. “Hey, look. Alibrary! That’s pretty smooth.”
The library spread its squat shape along the northern edge of the markets, frowning like a toad at all the noise and bustle outside its doors. Immediately intrigued, the Justicar marched inside, paid a stiff entry fee, and walked into an echoing hall that smelled of beeswax, candleflame, and dust. Shelves thirty feet tall reached up to the ceiling, each one filled with leather- or wood-bound books or with pigeonholes for countless scrolls. Scholars in dust-streaked robes rode long ladders that rolled on tracks, travelling soundlessly about the rim.
Perched happily atop his friend’s head, Cinders began to waghis tail in glee.
Paper!
“Keep a lid on it, flame boy.” Escalla swatted the hellhound’s ears. “We are rapidly running out of places to stay.”
A rampart of desks, each of them covered with maps and scrolls, surrounded a central dais. In deep conference behind the barriers were three librarians, each wearing immaculate gray robes. The two junior men were paying devoted attention to the orders of their senior, and all three men ignored their visitor. Thus freed from exchanging pleasantries, the Justicar walked heavily over to a reference desk, fished a vast ledger up from its hiding place, and made space for the huge book by simply shoving scrolls and pamphlets off the desk onto the floor.
The ledger held confused notes upon the scrolls owned by the library. The Justicar searched for “Keraptis,” “Sorcery,” and “History” andfound that the appropriate entries had been cut from the pages. Annoyed, he slammed the book shut, making enough noise to attract the attention of one the librarians upon the dais.