Where the Wedge converged to a point, a two-story stone house straddled the stream like a blockage in a funnel. On either side the road would be wide enough for wagons, but gates blocked both sides.
Two men emerged from a second-story door. One started down the ladder.
Whandall had seen Lordsmen's armor and lumbermen's leathers. Both men wore what lumbermen would wear, like what the boy Whandall himself had worn. Both men were masked in what might have been lumbermen's leathers, but were not.
Wanshig ran at the rightward gate. Whandall followed at speed. Wan-shig climbed the gate like a monkey, with Whandall right behind him. Lordkin didn't ask permission; they went where they would.
The two armored men scrambled to the ground and lifted weapons. They carried... not quite severs. Hafts ended in straight blades sharpened on both sides.
Whandall didn't hear what words Wanshig spoke, but the men stepped aside, glancing incuriously at Whandall as he dropped to the ground. They were climbing back up as Wanshig led off along the stream. The forest had closed in at the banks.
Now out of earshot, Whandall asked, "What was that place?"
"Guardhouse," Wanshig said. "After our fathers took Tep's Town, we made the kinless build that across our path. The path is gone, but the Toronexti are still here. They let anyone through, but they take part of what they're carrying. It's custom. These days they guard something else too."
"The path. I could tell Morth-" He bit it off, eons late. Was it the wine, this long after? "I have to see him, Shig. Don't worry, I won't do anything stupid."
Wanshig seemed unsurprised. "How did he kill Pothefit?"
"I haven't asked yet."
"Don't ask. But find out."
Where the stream bent to the right, Wanshig walked straight into the forest.
The tall straight spikes must be young redwoods. Mature redwoods had been felled here; huge stumps remained. Wanshig led them a careful crooked path around morningstar plants, nettles, spear grass, red-and-green clumps of touch-me. Whandall was ready to snatch him to safety, but his older brother had learned.
They'd traveled a couple of hundred paces before the trees opened out. Here were croplands, a wide expanse of vines planted in straight rows. Kinless men and women were at work. There were Lordkin about too.
Wanshig and Whandall watched from their bellies. Wanshig said, "The Lords get some of their wine here, but of course they need somebody to protect it. That's where Alferth comes in. He got the Toronexti to do it. He leaves them half."
"What kind of half?"
"He cheats a little. They cheat a little." Wanshig began creeping backward. "I wanted you to know. If you've got any ideas-"
"Do we really want more wine in Tep's Town?"
"We do if it's ours."
But wine makes us kill, Whandall thought, and mostly we kill each other. Lords drink wine without problems. Kinless can handle it. We teach kinless to control themselves. Barbarians learn or die. With us, though ...
He said, "What we were drinking, did it come from here?"
"Right," said Wanshig.
"What the lookers give us, is it-"
"Better. Smoother."
"It's not the best, I bet." Wanshig glared, and Whandall said, "Lookers know we don't know the difference, so they buy cheap. Some barbarian somewhere knows how to make better than we've got. We should find him and talk him into working for us."
Wanshig shrugged his eyebrows. Talk? Barbarians brought in wealth. The Lords would spit fire if a barbarian was kidnapped. Alferth wouldn't dare.
But better wine would be better for the city than more wine, Whandall thought.
Chapter 21
Resalet had told him to avoid the magician and give up all his plants and powders. Whandall hadn't seen Morth in just under a year. The boy Seshmarl had grown older. Had he come to look too dangerous?
Two kinless customers looked at him nervously. The magician flickered a smile at him, then finished serving them. When they had left, the magician said, "Seshmarl! Tell me a story!"
Information for information. "If you follow the Deerpiss north out of the city, you get to a meadow, then a guardhouse with masked and armored men. They'll take some of what you're carrying. What they're guarding is the old path where my people cut their way through the forest to the Valley of Smokes. But don't go there, right? Just look."
"You have been busy," Morth said.
Whandall smiled.
"Is the path still open?"
"I don't think so."
"What if I want to leave Tep's Town?"
"The docks-"
"I can't go near the sea. I tried going south once, but it's all marshes."
"I don't know anything about that. Nobody goes that way."
"Seshmarl, the forest-"
"Not through the forest. Been two hundred years. The woods grow back. There's poison plants and lordkiss and morningstars and hemp and foxglove." He didn't intend to speak of the vineyard.
"Curse! And a guardhouse too?"
"You face them, you'd better have a story. But don't you have some spell for finding paths?"
The magician didn't answer. He told a story instead. "The fire god lost many battles. Sydon drowned his worshippers in Atlantis, Zoosh used the lightning against him in Attica, and is said to hold him in torment. Wotan and the ice giants battled him in the north, and again they torment him still. In many places the Firebringer bears a great wound in his side. Here too, I think. Your people must have fled Zoosh's people. You Lordkin may well be the last worshippers of Yangin-Atep."
"Yangin-Atep gave us everything. Heat, cooking-"
"Burning cities?"
"We don't burn the whole city, Morth. Only tellers say that. At any Burning we lose... Resale! says three or four hands of buildings."
"It's still crazy."
Whandall said, "Even a wizard might want to avoid Yangin-Atep's anger."
Morth smiled indulgently. "Yangin-Atep is near myth. His life uses the magical strength that would give my spells force, but there's little of that to start with. In these days magic works poorly everywhere. Yangin-Atep does not stir. I would sense him."
"Can you predict the Burnings?" Tras Preetror would pay well for that information.
"Sometimes," Morth said mysteriously.
He couldn't. But he knew when Yangin-Atep would wake. He had to. "Why did you want to know about the forest?"
"I want to get out," Morth said.
I can't go near the sea, he'd said. Whandall took a wild guess. "Will the ice chase you?"
Morth swallowed a laugh; it looked like a hiccup. "What do you know of that?"
"You brought a mountain of ice once. I wondered how. But if ice would chase you, the Lords would pay well, so it's not ice. Waves? Saltwater?"
"You know a lot," Morth said, no longer amused. The wizard took Whandall's hand again, stared, and nodded. "You have destinies. Most have only one, but you have choices. One choice may lead to glory. Be ready. Now tell me about the path through the forest."
Whandall persisted. "Why do you want to leave? Is it the elemental?" He still didn't know what the word meant.
"Last month I hired a wagon to take me to the harbor. I'd heard nothing of a water sprite in many years. As 1 crossed the last hill, a single wave rose and came toward me. The sprite is still out there in the harbor."