He slowed at the crossing of two streets, gauged which way had the least amount of people, then turned in that direction. Here, the longtime denizens of the Chalice only gazed at them with mild interest. The foursome was marked, to be sure, but any danger would come from the shadows, not head-on.
Kian reined in before a tavern with a hanging shingle on the stoop displaying a large, frowning green eye. Around them, the Chalice looked much the same as it had the last time he had been here, when meeting Varis to discuss his journey. Better had he wandered into a winehouse and guzzled jagdah until he was blind, than to have sold the skill of his sword for highborn gold. Regardless, Varis would have found his way to the Qaharadin. And, too, Kian would never have met Ellonlef, now sitting astride her horse gasping, her eyes wide. Thankfully, she appeared uninjured. He looked away before she noticed his scrutiny.
From a dozen different doorways, the music of zither and cymbals played a dozen different tunes, all drifting out into the street, and birthing another song altogether. Disharmonious as it was, that song blended easily with drunken laughter and the banter of trulls and their prospective clients. It did not seem to Kian at all odd that life in the Chalice should be going along as it always had. In the Chalice, there was no time to care about the end of the world, for here, every day was the end of the world for someone.
“Gods!” Ellonlef blurted when she caught her breath. “I would never have believed good folk could turn brutish so quickly.”
Azuri, looking over his shoulder to ensure they had not been followed, said, “Do not judge them too harshly. They are hungry, terrified, uncertain. Some few of them learned hard lessons this night.”
“Such as?” Ellonlef asked, obviously more shaken by an attack from commonfolk than she had been after the Bashye had run her to ground. Kian envied her innocence in this aspect of the manner of men. He himself had seen too much butchery in his life to believe that a dark beast did not lurk in the hearts of every man, woman, and child. Most often that beast remained hidden, restrained by morality, but in times of great peril it crawled from its lair to do unspeakable atrocities.
“They found out that cunning and audacity often bests sheer strength,” Kian answered for Azuri.
Ellonlef gave him a quizzical look, as if trying to see into his mind. Kian returned her scrutiny with a bland expression. While he did not know exactly how he would use the tools of cunning and audacity against Varis, he wanted neither Ellonlef nor Hazad and Azuri to suspect he was planning anything that did not include them. Ellonlef’s lips parted, and he feared she was about to speak aloud the question he wished to remain hidden, but a clamor drew their attention.
“Touch me not, you reeking pile of dung!” Harsh laughter followed the insult, mingling easily with the rowdy music and general clamor of the Chalice.
A group of three lordlings gathered in a semicircle around a legless beggar propped against a wall. Vibrant linen robes hugged the men’s torsos and flared out below broad belts woven of gold or silver. In the fashion of the eastern kingdom, the lordlings disdained common Aradaner top-locks for side-locks, and wore waxed chin beards shaped into ebon daggers. After spewing oaths and spittle, the lordlings set upon the beggar, kicking and stomping until he was a bloodied mound. To the cheers of onlookers, they all urinated on the huddled man, brazenly stole his few copper saarqs from an overturned clay cup, then sauntered up the street, trading lewd jests with a pair of trulls leaning out of an upper window.
“Do something,” Ellonlef snapped, glaring between Kian and the others.
“No,” Kian said, pointing at the beggar. “Watch and learn how the Chalice takes care of its own.”
A double handful of leprous-looking men emerged like roaches from an nearby alley and gathered around their fallen compatriot. Only, he was not fallen-bloody and battered, yes, but not nearly as injured as he had behaved. Nor was he legless, as evidenced when he tossed aside his soiled blanket and got to his feet. Staring after his attackers, face puffed and bloodied, the man looked nothing like the cowering cripple they had set upon. His eyes burned with malevolence, as he motioned his fellows forward with a dagger half as long as his forearm. The music of the street seemed to grow louder, and nearby trulls squealed with an almost sinister glee that was missed by the strutting lordlings. Like brown, grimy shadows, the beggars closed on their prey. No one raised a warning cry, no one so much as blinked in alarm.
Such is life in the wolves’ den, Kian thought, as the beggars pounced. In less than three heartbeats, the lordlings were dispatched, their blood spilling into a rank gutter. Moments later, the beggars had dragged the corpses into a dark alley to loot their victims, before casting them into the sewers.
Ellonlef stared in shock. “Does no one care?”
Kian shook his head, sorry for her distress. “Here, justice is done, if wearing a different, crueler face than what you might see in the court of a king.” Hazad and Azuri shot him an accusing look, but he ignored them. “In the Chalice,” Kian said, “men die each day with the sound of laughter in their ears. Such is it everywhere.”
“Where is your friend?” Azuri asked, attempting to distract Ellonlef.
She looked away from the scene of wanton murder, her eyes dry and hard. “We go to the Street of Witches.”
Chapter 34
“You take us to a witch?” Hazad gasped, drawing a few looks from passersby.
Not a season gone, Kian would have chided his friend for his irrational fear, but no longer, not since Varis’s actions had given truth to what most folk believed to be superstition and myth. Most witches were but charlatans, using gibberish words, herbs to cloud the mind, and potions to make breathtaking smokes in an effort to dupe desperate folk into handing over coin for some secret knowledge. While he believed that held mostly true, now he had to admit some witches might well have secret wisdom and ability.
“Hya is no witch,” Ellonlef said, “but she lives among them posing as a pyromancer. Though it is said she is quite skilled, she is in truth a Sister of Najihar.”
“Still, it is not safe,” Hazad countered. “Only fools have dealings with witches.”
For the first time since coming to the Chalice, Ellonlef grinned. “You need not fear women who grind herbs and gaze at leaves to scry the future. As for Hya, she is a gentle old woman who has secretly served the Ivory Throne for three score years. Come, I will guide you.”
Hazad did not look convinced, but he followed. Kian wondered if Ellonlef was as sure as she seemed, or was simply hoping for the best. Azuri, was always, seemed outwardly indifferent, although it was evident that he was keeping a sharp eye for troubles. Kian was glad of his friend’s diligence, for he sensed danger all around, felt it closing in, as if hunting.
Ellonlef led them on a zigzagging course through the Chalice. At every turn drunken laughter, music, and revelry filled the air. Nearly naked women danced or made love for coin, merchants of illicit goods sold to both poor and rich, and assassins laid plans over watered wine. Where shadows abounded music and laughter died, drunkards slumbered on middens and down alleys, and motherless urchins sought food of any sort, be it kitchen scraps or rats.
When at last they came to the dim street Ellonlef sought, they wandered up and down it twice, before she halted them with a raised hand. “It appears she has moved … or passed. She was old a decade gone.”
A flicker amid a pocket of deep shadows caught Kian’s eye. A robed woman sat on a stool a few paces away, looking directly at them with recognition in her stare. Without glancing away, she struck steel to flint. Sparks caught in the tinder below a mound of dried dung, setting it alight. A small, soot-streaked pot hung on a shaft above the rising flames. In the growing luminescence, Kian noted a collection of clay pots and small, dried animals laid out on a dirty swatch of pale cloth.