Illusion's Child (The Mindbender's Rise Book 1) Page 10

  Only somebody looking for an easy mark would bother him. Somebody like Jorjan.

  Fraying bullies, to go after a little thing like him. Not a chance he could protect himself.

  Too bad she couldn’t beat Jorjan up again. He wouldn’t dare report it to his father, but he’d rat her out to Faye, and the boss would get pissed. Besides, it was ages since she’d seen him without a bunch of people around him. Couldn’t smack him around with Faye watching. Or Kraken, for that matter. It might be worth the boss getting mad, though, just to teach him a lesson.

  That scumbag might still be too proud to admit a girl had thumped him good.

  The gang spent a lot of time in Blue Dye Alley, so she’d patrol it more often from now on. Maybe she’d catch Jorjan there. Alone.

  Chapter 11.

  He was honored to be allowed to carry Faye’s shopping bag every morning, but he wished Lorel would help for a change. Between the two sacks, his and Faye’s, Viper thought his arms might fall off before they reached Thorn Lane.

  Once he got home, Lorel could carry Faye’s bag. He hoped he didn’t drop it before the overgrown turybird remembered to take it. She’d been sulking all morning.

  He wished he could pull Trevor’s coat back into place. And button it. Teach him to leave it open when winter winds skulked through the streets. He didn’t need to pretend to be strong anymore.

  Lorel’s last comment finally sank in. “If you want to join the guard, go find someone to give you lessons.”

  Faye rolled her eyes.

  “They won’t take me. Besides, I gotta have a sword first. It ain’t like I can just go out and buy one.” Lorel reached high and picked a yellow daffodil out of a window box. “Only soldiers get to carry metal weapons. Even Jorjan and his ghouls can’t have them. They gotta train in the armory with practice weapons.”

  Yeah, right. Should he tell them? They deserved to know. “Kraken has a fighter’s knife.”

  Faye gasped and shook her head. “He can’t. They’d hang him from the seawall.”

  He kicked at the curb and wished he’d kept his mouth shut.

  “Ain’t gonna happen.” Lorel stole a long pin from Faye’s hat and tried to pin the flower on her cloak without dropping her own market bag. “He’s an officer’s son. They might ground him for a dreizhn, but that’s all. They’d tell his daddy, but that old pervert would just laugh.” She managed to get the daffodil settled on her shoulder, but the yellow blossom drooped at a peculiar angle.

  “A dreizhn.” Viper snorted, both at the weird Zedisti term and at the thought that anyone would dare punish Pock Face. “In thirteen days that monster would have the wardens begging him to leave.”

  “Not Kraken.” Faye sighed. “He’s the perfect gentleman in public. You’d never guess he likes to torment children. They’re all that way. I used to believe in them, in their act, but lately I’ve caught them teasing other kids like you.”

  Teasing. That was one way to look at being kicked down the alley. He still had bruises he didn’t dare show Trevor. “Since they’re so good at acting, I wish they’d go join the actors’ guild and put on a performance for someone else. A comedy, preferably. Maybe the Mermaid’s Revenge.”

  Faye tittered and swished the draperies of her embroidered skirt through a few steps of the mermaid’s dance.

  Viper stared in fascination at the waving fabric of the red and black skirt. No matter how much Faye swung it about, the skirt never pulled tight against her legs. There must be fifty feet of fabric in that skirt – his four sisters could make a festival dress apiece out of it.

  He snapped out of his trance when Faye smiled at him. “Come on, let’s go,” she said. “My mother’s liable to come looking for me if I don’t get home soon. And your father, Lorel. He gets so mad when you stay at the market all day.”

  “I ain’t at the market. And he don’t really care where I am no more. He’s finally figured out I ain’t no good around the shop. I ain’t no good for nothing. He don’t want me no more.”

  What? Had he gotten her into trouble with her father? He didn’t really know anything about her. “What does your family do?”

  “My family makes instruments, musical instruments.” Lorel shook back her hair defiantly. “Everybody but me.”

  “And she’s supposed to be learning,” Faye whispered.

  His heart thudded against his throat. Ay, to make music, that was a gift he’d wanted all his life.

  The Cantor had forbidden him to touch the flute and the horns. The old man threatened to cut off his hands if he so much as looked at the drums. Even he flinched at the noise he called singing, but he could listen for hours to the Cantor and his apprentice. He had hoped to be that apprentice, but music was simply another dream he’d never fulfill.

  Maybe. Maybe not.

  “I’ll make you a deal, Lorel. You make me something I can learn to play, and I’ll make you a Setoyan sword.”

  “You’re making fun of me. You can’t make no sword.”

  “Not a bronze or steel sword, no.” Viper clutched both sacks to his shoulders, trotted ahead of the girls, and stopped in front of the stubborn turybird. “Of course not. I said a Setoyan sword. We carve them out of a bahtdor thigh bone. When I’m through with it, your sword will be harder than bronze or iron, and almost as hard as Crayl steel.”

  Lorel crossed her arms over her market bag and frowned down at him.

  “I’ve heard of Setoyan swords.” Faye stared into the distance, a slight smile on her lips. “They’re highly prized in Nashidra. The northern lands don’t have much copper, and steel is reserved for lords.”

  “You’re making fun of me.” Lorel snatched Faye’s bag out of his arm and started walking again. “Where did you learn to make a sword?”

  “I studied with the blade carver for five years.” Viper wrapped both arms around his sack. “I thought if I were needed they would let me stay, let me earn the Knife. The old man said I was the best apprentice he’d ever had, so I thought– But my father said I shamed him.”

  His throat closed tight.

  Faye wrapped her arm around his shoulders. They walked in silence for a block.

  He swallowed hard. Surprising, how much his father’s rejection still hurt.

  Agrevod. Not his father. He didn’t have a father now.

  Not a father nor a family nor a name. Did a made up name count for anything?

  Viper caught a deep breath. “Anyway, I learned to make a thunderous good sword and top grade knives. My teacher was always proud of my work. Can you say the same about yours?”

  “I do good enough, twerp. Nothing I do ain’t good enough for my father.”

  “I hear you.” Viper stared down the length of the outlander sack filled with outlander food, down at his new outlander shoes. He more than understood the pain in her voice. “Except for him, do others say you do good work?”

  “Yeah.” Lorel scowled down at him. “Everybody else. But I hate it.”

  “And I’m not a Setoyan anymore!” Viper shouted back. “I gave up my past when they made me Outcast. So we’re even. What do you say? Is it a deal?”

  “I’ll think about it. I’ll tell you tomorrow.”

  Lorel’s long legs sped her down the lane, but Faye planted her feet and glared at him. “You’re going to get yourselves in a lot of trouble.”

  “I know, but if she wants it that bad…” Viper hesitated and glanced through his lashes at her beautiful eyes. “If you say not to, I won’t do it.”

  Faye smiled and patted his shoulder. “You are a dear. And you’re right, Lorel wants the silly thing so much. Working might even get her out of trouble with her father. He’s a fine man, but a little picky. His reputation depends on it, after all. Please do be careful. Promise me.”

  “I promise to be very careful.”

  “Good.” Faye gave him a quick hug. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Viper hugged his market bag and gazed at her retreating back. He was so lucky to have found her.
So incredibly lucky.

  Chapter 12.

  Ladysmith Street was deserted. The whole neighborhood must know how pissed she was this morning.

  Lorel glared at the kid when she caught up with him. Too bad he’d already found the boss. “I don’t know if I should thank you or bust your nose. Maybe I should do both.” She wished she could just the punch the frayed thread and let some of the anger out. Even if he was so tiny a little tap might break him.

  He laughed. Icy fog billowed around his face. “What did I do now?”

  “I told my mother that a friend dared me to make an instrument, and she told my father.”

  Faye giggled.

  Lorel glared at her. “My father said if I made drums or panpipes he’d disown me.” She held her head and fought to hold her temper. Smacking the boss weren’t a good idea. No matter how tempting it was. “He decided I gotta make a mandolin. I tried to tell him you’d never played nothing in your whole life, but he ignored me. Like always. He must have talked at me for a full two hours, and he never even noticed me since the Alignment until last night.”

  “What’s so bad about that?” Faye planted her hands on her hips. “I’m glad you’re part of the family again.”

  “That’s all right, boss. That ain’t the problem.”

  “So what’s the problem?” The kid grinned and spread his arms wide. Was the frayed thread planning to fly or something?

  “Now he’ll notice when I come and go, and worse, now I’ll really have to make a thread-snipping mandolin.”

  “Bodyguards don’t swear,” Faye muttered.

  All the guards she’d ever met swore. A lot. Still, she better try and keep the boss happy. But her miswoven father!

  “He’ll be watching over my shoulder day and night and nothing I do will be right and I’ll be bored all the time. That better be one fr– good sword you make for me, kid, or I’m going to stuff that mandolin down your sn– throat.”

  “It’ll be the best sword ever made.” He hopped up on the curb and spun like a toy Shuttle. “It will be balanced like a dancer and as sharp as lightning. I’ll carve magic words into it to make it sing like a Cantor and soar like a hawk. It will never bend and never break and will cut through anything weaker than Crayl steel. It will be the most magnificent sword ever.”

  He tripped off the curb and grinned up at her. “Now all we have to do is find a bahtdor thigh bone.”

  “We?”

  He laughed and pushed honey-colored hair out of his eyes. The frayed thread needed a haircut before somebody decided he was a girl. Or a warrior. Nay, nobody’d ever think he was a warrior.

  “The more people looking, the sooner we’ll find it. And the sooner you’ll have a sword in your hand.”

  “What’s a bahtdor, anyway?” Lorel flicked her fingers at a passing cart. “Some kind of ox?”

  “Hardly. It’s a herd animal, but not that kind. The cows stand lots taller than you, and the bulls are even bigger. They move slow most of the time, but it’s a grumpy beast and when it gets mad it moves like lightning. You have to jump to herd them. All the slow kids get eaten up quick. It’ll eat anything. The important thing is the bones are huge, so they can be made into infamous weapons. You’ll have a grand sword, I promise.”

  They ate little kids? And had bones strong enough to hold up against Crayl steel? Like she’d believe any of that crap. She wasn’t near young enough to trust in magicians’ stories. And this rubbish sounded like magic to her.

  She grunted and marched on, forcing the kid and the boss to scramble to keep up. Nobody needed friends like them.

  The kid grabbed the boss’s arm. “You will help, won’t you?”

  “I suppose.” Faye tossed her head and looked away.

  Traitor. The boss shouldn’t listen to his lies. She didn’t want nothing more to do with either of them, so she walked faster.

  “You really shouldn’t talk about it in public, though.” The boss sounded sorta worried. That wasn’t much like her. “They will hang us all if they catch any of us with a weapon, even if they won’t touch Jorjan or his friends.”

  “Right. It’ll be our secret.” The kid trotted a little faster. “Hey, wait for us.”

  Lorel snorted. She wasn’t gonna wait for the little noodle brain. Ever.

  But she did let him ask around in the marketplace. And she listened hard to the answers.

  The kid talked to a thousand shopkeepers, and they’d never bought any Setoyan trade goods. They never even heard of a bahtdor. Not a single shop owned up to a bahtdor bone of any description that day, or the next, or the next.

  Chapter 13.

  Viper stared at the worn canvas chair the fat trader placed between her wagon and a tall, windowless building. He’d never seen a folding chair that looked so close to falling apart. And she wanted him to sit in it?

  She strutted to the end of her wagon, her thick silk brocade skirt twitching like a bahtdor cow about to birth two eggs. The flame-patterned, red and orange silk announced her wealth more loudly than her weight did. Why hadn’t she replaced the ratty old chair? She obviously could afford to. Was using it a calculated insult?

  He eased into the seat a careful inch at a time. The Wind Dancer favored him today: the struts didn’t break and the fabric didn’t tear. There wasn’t a chance it would survive the trader. Good thing she’d put out her own, much larger chair on the far side of the battered little table.

  The gray-haired trader’s skin was as tawny as any Setoyan, but she was far too short, almost as short as Faye. And she spoke with a thick Kerovi accent. The blasted Kerovi were famous for driving a hard bargain. People said they had to be hard, to survive in demon country. He’d never understood what demons had to do with bargaining. Demons didn’t talk.

  He leaned forward, trying to see where she’d gone. Why had she parked her wagon in such a dim alley?

  Old men in rich clothing strolled into a gaudy entryway at the other end of the street. They didn’t skulk precisely, but most of them looked around before ducking through the door. What was going on in there that they didn’t want to be seen? And look at that old guy, dressed all in red just like Jorjan. Some fancy Nashidran style.

  He hated waiting anywhere the blasted Nashidrans might see him. The Zedisti forbade slavery, but he knew from the caravans that the Nashidrans sold slaves. He’d never liked the way they looked at him.

  Why was the trader taking so long? She wanted to make him nervous, that was why. The stinking vulture knew how badly he wanted a bahtdor thigh bone and would make him pay heart’s blood for it. His handful of coins wouldn’t go very far with this grizzled old trader. She knew the game far better than he did.

  This predicament was his own fault. He’d looked too interested when she said she had Setoyan bones. But he’d waited so long and searched so hard for the lightning-blasted thing. Faye gave up on him a dreizhn ago and yesterday Lorel accused him of promising to give her Loom lint. Whatever that was.

  He’d prove he kept his promises, no matter what the cost.

  The obese trader finally emerged from the back of her wagon, hauling a narrow box that was longer than he was tall. She thunked it onto the low table in front of him as if it weighed a thousand pounds.

  What a childish trick. A whole bahtdor leg didn’t weigh that much.

  She pulled a lace handkerchief from her skirt pocket and mopped sweat from her face, taking her time, watching him slyly through slitted eyelids. She put away her dainty handkerchief with a flair before opening the lid.

  Finally. He tried to not lean closer to the table. Maybe even succeeded.

  Several dry bones rested on rags padding the bottom of the box. Some of them actually came from a bahtdor. A shoulder blade, several vertebrae (Trevor’s books were proving useful for long words), a three-plus-foot-long humerus, two broken ribs. He suspected the rest came from an ox.

  Not a single thigh bone. Blast. Now he’d need to begin searching again. Maybe that was for the best. The woman’s attit
ude put spiders down his back.

  Viper started to stand. “It’s not there.”

  She lifted the longest bone and used it to nudge him back into the chair. “This won’t do?” Even from that distance, her breath stank of Kerovi peppers.

  “That’s a humerus, an arm bone. It’s too short.” He thumped into the chair and leaned away from the end of the bone. Did she plan to club him with it?

  “For a grown Setoyan, maybe, but not for you.” The trader swung the bone from side to side. “It’s not too short for any non-Setoyan.”

  Stench flowed from her immense body. Old sweat and hot-pepper hair oil engulfed him. His stomach writhed as he fought to keep from gagging. He’d heard the Kerovi had a sect that didn’t bathe because they thought strong odors would scare away the demons. He’d also heard it didn’t work. Demons ate whatever they caught.

  “The curve is too great,” he said breathlessly. “It’s shaped more like a scythe than a sword.”

  “I’ve seen that style among the northern Setoyan.” The trader coyly pushed back her greasy gray hair. Was she flirting with him? “It makes a dangerous weapon.”

  “But it’s ancient. As old as it is it’ll be brittle. Listen, I’ll give you ten coppers for it, but I’m doing you a favor to take it at all.”

  “Coppers? You mean pence?”

  He nodded. Was there a difference?

  “Ten pence! It’s worth five shillings if it’s worth a farthing.”

  “Maybe I should give you a farthing.”

  “Don’t you sass me, boy. Five shillings.”

  “I don’t have even one to give you.” For all his errand running and careful saving, he was one copper pence and two farthings short of one silver shilling. Who’d have dreamed old bones could cost so much?

  He pushed away from the table. The chair screeched. Don’t break now! The situation was embarrassing enough without ending up in the dirt in a tangle of sticks. He hated admitting he was too poor to bargain with her.

  The old scoundrel grinned at him, and more spiders skittered down his back. “Sit down, boy. Maybe we can make a deal. You have something I’ll take.”