The Pillars of Creation (Sword of Truth 7)

The hawker cleared his wet throat and then spat to the side. He wiped his mouth with the back of his filthy sleeve. “Well, sir, the best way to find it is if I take you there.”

Oba checked an older couple passing nearby, then pulled the man by his wrist. “Fine. Let’s go.”

The hawker dug in his heels. “Now hold on there. I agreed to tell you, and I can do that. Like I said, though, it’s hard to find. But I can’t be expected to give up my business to go off as a guide. It’s a number of days I’d be away from an income.”

Scowling, Oba leaned down. “And how much is it you want to guide me there?”

The man took a heavy breath as he considered, muttering to himself as if toiling at tallying up numbers in his head.

“Well, sir,” he said at last, lifting a finger on his free hand that stuck up through a short stub of a knit glove. “I guess I could be gone for a few days if I were to be paid a gold mark.”

Oba laughed. “I’m not giving you a mark—gold nor even silver—for the work of guiding me for a few days. I’d be willing to pay you another silver penny, but that’s all. Take it or give me back my first silver penny and be gone.”

The hawker shook his head as he mumbled to himself. Finally, he squinted up at Oba with a look of resignation.

“My charms aren’t selling well, of late. To tell the truth, I could use the money. You have the best of me again, sir. I’ll guide you, then, for a silver penny.”

Oba released the man’s wrist. “Let’s go.”

“It’s across the Azrith Plains. We’ll need horses.”

“Now, you want me to buy you a horse? Are you out of your mind?”

“Well, walking is no good. But I know folks, here, who will give you a good deal on a couple of horses. If we treat the animals right, I’m sure they’d agree to buy them back once we return—less a small fee for their use.”

Oba thought it over. He wanted to go up into the palace to have a look around, but he thought it best if he visited Lathea’s sister, first. There were things to learn.

“That sounds fair.” Oba gave the hunched hawker a nod. “Let’s go get some horses and be off, then.”

They moved out of the quieter side route into a main road thick with milling throngs. There were a number of attractive women about. Some of them looked Oba’s way, the invitation and longing clear in their eyes. They met his gaze, hungry for him. Oba gave them smiles, a token suggesting the possibility of more, later. He could see that even that much thrilled them.

It occurred to him, though, that these women roaming the market were probably lowly peasants. Up in the palace were likely to be the kind of women Oba wanted to meet: women of station. He deserved no less. After all, he was a Rahl, practically a prince, or something comparable. Maybe even something more than that.

“What’s you name, anyway?” Oba asked. “Seeing as we’ll be traveling together.”

“Clovis.”

Oba didn’t offer his name. He liked being called “sir.” It was, after all, only fitting.

“With all the people,” Oba said as his gaze swept the crowds, “how is it that your charms aren’t selling? Why is it that you’re having hard times?”

The man sighed in apparent misery. “It’s a sad tale, but it’s not your burden, sir.”

“Simple enough question, I think.”

“I suppose it is.” He shielded his eyes from the sunlight with a hand, partly covered in a knitted fingerless glove, as he peered up at Oba. “Well, sir, a time ago, back in the thick of winter, I met a beautiful young woman.”

Oba looked over at the hunched, wrinkled, disheveled man shuffling along beside him. “Met her?”

“Well, sir, truth be told, I was offering her a charm…” Clovis’s brow twisted curiously—as if he’d suddenly come across something quite unexpected. “It was her eyes that seized you. Big blue eyes. Blue like you rarely see…” Clovis ogled up at Oba. “The thing is, sir, her eyes looked very much like yours.”

It was Oba’s turn to frown. “Like mine?”

Clovis nodded earnestly. “They did, sir. She had eyes like yours. Imagine that. Something about her—about you as well—that looks…somehow, familiar. Can’t say as I know what it is, though.”

“What does this have to do with your hard times? Did you give her all your money and fail to get between her legs?”

Clovis seemed shocked by the very notion. “No sir, nothing like that. I tried to sell her a charm—so she would have good fortune. Instead, she stole all my money.”

Oba grunted skeptically. “I’d bet she was batting her eyelashes and smiling at you while she had her arm in your pocket to her elbow, and you were too eager to suspect what she was really doing.”

“Nothing like that, sir. Nothing like that at all.” His voice turned bitter. “She set a man upon me and he took it all for her. He did it, but it was at her word—I’m sure of it. The two of them stole all my money. Robbed me of everything I had earned all year.”

Something tickled Oba’s memory. He scanned his mental lists of odd and unrelated things. Some of those things began to come together.

“What did this woman with the blue eyes look like?”

“Oh, she was beautiful, sir, with thick ringlets of red hair.” Even if this woman had robbed the man of his savings, the distant look in his eye told Oba that he was still clearly taken by her. “Her face was like a vision of a good spirit, it was, and her figure was enough to take your breath away. But I should have known, by that bewitchingly evil red hair, that there was something more devious to her than her beauty.”

Oba halted and seized the man by the arm. “Was her name Jennsen?”

Clovis offered only a regretful shrug. “Sorry, sir. She never gave me her name. But I don’t imagine there are many women that look like her. Not with those blue eyes, her exquisite looks, and those ringlets of red hair.”

Oba didn’t think so, either. The description fit Jennsen perfectly.

Well, wasn’t that just something.

Clovis pointed. “There, sir. Down there is the man who can sell us horses.”

Chapter 36

Oba squinted into the gloom under the thick vegetation. It was hard to believe how dark it was in under the towering trees, down at the bottom of the crooked spine of rock, when it had been such a bright sunny morning up in the meadow above. It looked wet ahead, too.

He turned from the way leading in under the vines and hanging trailers of moss, to look back up the steep rocky incline, toward where he had left Clovis by a warm fire, watching their horses and gear. Oba was glad to finally be free of the jumpy little man. He was wearing, like a pesky fly buzzing around all the time. All the way across the Azrith Plains, the man jabbered on and on at length about everything and nothing. Oba would have rather been rid of the hawker and gone alone, but the m

an had been right about how difficult it would have been to have found this place down into the back of Althea’s swamp.

At least the man had no intention of going into the swamp with Oba. Clovis had seemed nervous and edgy about making sure that his customer went in, though. He was probably worried that Oba wouldn’t believe him and was eager to prove himself. He waited at the top, watching, shooing with hands covered in tattered, fingerless gloves, impatient for Oba to go in and see that he was being given his money’s worth.

Oba sighed and started out again, slogging ahead through the underbrush, stooping beneath low branches. He tiptoed across roots where he could, and waded through standing water where he had to. The air was still and as stagnant as the water. It felt wet, too, besides smelling foul.

Strange birds called from far off through the trees, back in the shadows where light probably never reached, back beyond vines, thick clumps of leaves, and rotting trunks leaning drunkenly against stalwart companions. Creatures moved through the water, too. What they could be, fish or reptile or conjured beast, there was no telling. Oba didn’t like the place. Not one bit.

He reminded himself that there would be a myriad of new things to learn once he got to Althea’s place. Not even that cheered him. He thought about the strange bugs and weasels and salamanders he’d seen so far, and the ones he was likely yet to see. That, too, failed to cheer him; he still didn’t like the place.

Ducking under branches, he swept spiderwebs aside. The fattest spider he’d ever encountered fell to the ground and darted for a hiding place. Oba, quicker yet, squashed it good. Hairy legs clawed the air in death before going still. Oba grinned as he moved on. He was beginning to like the place better.

His nose wrinkled. The farther in he went, the worse it smelled, reeking with a strange, pungent, dank rot. He saw steam rising off through the trees, and began to detect an odor something like rotten eggs, but more acidic. Oba was beginning not to like the place, again.

He plowed onward, unsure if it had been a good idea to go to see Althea, especially by the route suggested by the hand-wringing hawker. Oba sighed as he slogged through thick brush. The sooner he got in and had a chat with Althea, the sooner he could be out of the disgusting place.