Sending the Swords of the Magicians into Althea -- no, surely no one could be that mad. I do believe it is time for us both to find a way to leave this dreadful place, Naitachal decided. If we left now, we might take them by surprise. Yes. We will be on the road, headed back towards Althea, tonight.
"Alaire?" Naitachal called softly, as he closed the door behind him. He found only an empty room.
"Good gods," he muttered, picking up a note on the bed.
Your Dark I have gone out again with you-know-who. I promise to be careful. Don't worry about me. And don't stay up; it may be late.
Alaire.
Gazing at the note, Naitachal began making soft, strangling noises.
Chapte While Naitachal went off on his diplomatic searc Sir Jehan, Alaire returned to their room to catch a few hours of his lost sleep. The drink with the Prince's bevy of beauties had made him sleepy, and this seemed as good a time as any to catch up on some rest. Just before he fell into deep slumber, he won- dered belatedly if he had remembered to lock the door or no Alaire woke to someone shaking him by the shoul- ders. "Wake up, sluggard!" Kai shouted in his ear.
"We've got to go out! Hurry! We're losing time!"
The boy roused him with such intensity in his voice that he struggled out of the tentacles of sleep in a panic, wondering what emergency was upon them.
"Wha -- " Alaire managed, feeling about for a weapon.
Kai let go of his shoulders, and laughed sardonically at the expression on his face. "Oh, relax," Kai told him.
"If I had known it was so hard to wake you up I would have been in earlier."
Alaire finally focused on Kai, who sat on the edge of the huge bed. He wore a new outfit of court clothing, topped with the embroidered red cloak, but he still looked like he'd thrown his clothes on in a hurry.
"We're going into town tonight."
"Oh, not again," Alaire started to say, but as he sat up, he realized that Kai was not in a good mood.
Sullen, stormy, perhaps even angry; there was nothing teasing or playful about Kai at the moment. "What's wrong, Kai?" he asked, completely awake now.
"Sir Jehan told me I should -- " Kai hesitated, then shook his head, his jaw tensing. "Nothing," he finally appended "Nothing at all. I'm going to go get drunk.
You can come if you want to."
He flung himself off the bed and started out the door.
"Wait a minute," Alaire said, getting up.
Kai paused, and looked back over his shoulder. "You coming?" he asked hopefully.
"Well, I -- " Alaire shrugged.
"Good," Kai interrupted. "Bring your harp. You can cheer me up with it."
" -- guess I am," Alaire finished.
They took the carriage to the edge of the tavern dis- trict, under cloudy skies that grew darker by the moment. Tonight's driver seemed sober, so the ride into the heart of town wasn't as exciting as the pre- vious evening's. The tavern they ended up in was a notch or two below the other places they'd gone to; it took them a moment to find chairs and a table that hadn't been damaged in a brawl. Even so, the night was still young, and according to Kai the very best of the establishment's stock hadn't run dry yet. It appeared that this was the only thing that cheered Kai up -- a steady supply of liquor, the prospect of total oblivion.
All he wants out of life is out, Alaire thought. He wondered if going with Kai had been a good idea.
Now he felt as if he were inadvertently aidin Prince in his quest for that oblivion.
This evening's poison was not ale or wine, as had been the choice the night before. This place Deadman's Drunk, its name burned into a tombstone- shaped wooden sign above the door, served only the hardest of liquors.
"They distill aakaviit from a tuber that grows wild in the hills," Kai explained easily as he downed small glasses of the stuff. He drank it like water. Alaire couldn't understand it. He stared at his own small glass. A single sip had set his mouth and throat on fire.
He eyed the burning candle between them nervously.
This is almost pure alcohol! he thought.
Now he wished he hadn't brought his harp. There had been some heated discussion over taking it along, but Alaire had finally relented, thinking that pe Kai wouldn't drink as much if he did. The harp was the most important possession he owned, and here it was, exposed to danger in this wretched place.
Though wrapped in a thick canvas bag, and looking like a random sack of possessions, it would not fare well in a fight. He placed it so a bottle of aakaviit, if spilled, wouldn't drench it. The potent fluid would probably eat right through the finish.
He had hoped the liquor would loosen Kai's tongue a bit. That cryptic sentence about Sir Jehan had him wondering just what the man had said to Kai, and if they would see him out again tonight. For additional clues Alaire had suggested they go to the tavern Sir Jehan had been last night. Seeing them together might yield useful information. But Kai had insisted that place would be closed so early in the after The Deadman's Drunk was going to be their destina- tion for now, and when Kai started to get a little testy about it, Alaire shut up and sat back in the coach.
Kai had confined his discussion to trivial matters; the good time he had with the twins, this year's grape crop, which had been poor, and the turning weather.
When they had left the carriage and started wal Alaire noticed the air had become considerably colder than he remembered it being last night A biting cold singed his nostrils. Breath clouded visibly before them. Snow fell lightly as they reached this place; Kai predicted it would get worse.
"I love getting drunk when it snows!" he said. "Any bad weather. Thunderstorms, floods, as long as I'm not in it, and snowstorms. Don't ask me why. Maybe it's the hint of anxiety in the air that makes it exciting!"
Snow was not unusual back at Fenrich, but it rarely fell early. It snowed enough to accumulate about a month before midwinter, and usually melted off by spring equinox. But Suinomen was further north, and the shift in temperature had been rather drastic this evening.
"How much does it snow up here?" Alaire asked.
"Oh, I guess it will probably be waist-high by morn- ing," Kai said casually. "Why?"
"What?"
Kai laughed, finished his glass of aakaviit. "You act like you've never seen snow before."
"Well, I have," Alaire said, proudly. "But not waist- high!" He tried to imagine what it would look like.
"How do the roofs stay up? Don't they collapse under the weight of the snow?"
Which sent Kai into another round of laughter.
"Whatever gave you that idea? What are your roofs made of down there, thatch?"
Alaire frowned. "Some of them are."
"Of course," Kai said, as suddenly subdued as he had been roused to laughter.
Alaire was more concerned with the effect the snow was going to have on the state of the streets. "Well anyway, if it's really going to snow that deep tonight, perhaps we should make it an early evening?"
"Not a bad idea," Kai said, but his mischievous smirk indicated he didn't take the idea very seriously.