Katharine Kerr - Darkspell

“We haven’t seen you in ever so long, Sarco,” she said. “Do you have any?”

“I do, but your mistress is the one who’ll be handing it out.”

A drop of sweat ran down between her breasts. He reached over and wiped it off with the side of a lingering hand. She simpered and moved closer.

“Where’s Gwenca?”

“In the cellar, but can’t you let me have a little bit right now? You can come fish in my bucket if you do.”

He took one slow kiss, then pulled away, grinning at her.

“I’ll give you naught until your mistress says so.”

The tavernman moved aside two ale barrels from the curve of the wall, then pulled up the trapdoor to let him go down into what seemed an ordinary cellar. Ale and mead barrels stood in profusion; hams hung from the ceiling amid nets of onions. But on the far side was a door, and when he knocked, a gravelly woman’s voice snarled, asking who he was.

“Sarcyn, back from Bardek.”

At that the door opened, and Gwenca stood smiling at him. About fifty, she was a stout woman with hennaed hair and brown eyes that looked out from a web of lines and pouches. On every finger she wore a jeweled ring, and round her neck a chain with a blue-and-silver charm against the evil eye. Sarcyn smiled inwardly; she knew him only as a drug runner and had no idea that he was exactly the sort of man who could cast the evil eye.

“Come in, pretty lad. I take it you’ve got somewhat to offer me.”

“I do, at that, and good quality it is.”

Gwenca’s private chambers were oppressively stuffy. Although there were vents near the ceiling, the room reeked of scent and stale opium smoke, as if the tapestries and cushions exhaled the smell. She sat down at a small table, inlaid with glass in a gaudy spiral of red and blue, and watched while he unbuckled his sword belt, laid it close to hand on a chair, then pulled his shirt over his head. Slung from his neck like saddlebags were a pair of flat leather pouches. He took them off and tossed them down in front of her.

“Five silvers the bar. You’ll see why when you open them.”

With greedy fingers she untied the pouches and brought out the first bar, about three inches long by two wide. She unwrapped the oiled parchment and sniffed at the smooth, black opium.

“It looks good,” she pronounced. “But I’m not saying a word more until I smoke some of it.”

A burning candle lantern stood on the table, next to a long white clay pipe and a stack of splints. She shaved off a pipeful with her table dagger, laid it in, then set fire to a splint. First she heated the pipe bowl, then coaxed the sticky opium to burn. The first mouthful made her cough, but she kept sucking at it.

“It’s splendid,” she said with a spew of smoke and another hacking cough. “What’s the price if I buy ten bars?”

“Fifty silvers.”

“What? Naught less at all?”

“Naught.”

“Well, then, maybe I won’t buy a jot.”

He merely smiled, waiting.

“You’re a hard man, Sarco.” Reluctantly she laid the pipe down to let it go out. “I’ll get the coin.”

While Sarcyn counted out the bars, she disappeared into another chamber, finally returning with the heavy handful of silver.

“Do you want one of the lasses while you re here?” she handed the coin over. “Free, of course.”

“My thanks, but I can’t. I’ve other business to attend to.”

“Come back tonight if you want.”

“I will, then. That blond with the kohl round her eyes—tell her to be ready. Will you remember the price you just set?”

Gwenca smiled, all gap-toothed.

“For you I’ll remember. Huh. Someone told me your tastes ran to lads. Did they lie?”

“What’s it to you?”

“Naught. Just an idle wondering. What are you, like some of them Bardek merchants, rolling your dice with either hand? They get their good time out of both cheeks and fur that way.”

Sarcyn stared straight at her.

“Old woman, you go too far.”

Gwenca flinched back. While Sarcyn finished dressing, she crouched in a chair and fingered her amulet.

When he left the Bilge, Sarcyn walked upriver, keeping off the main streets whenever possible. Although to avoid attention he was staying at an inn in another poor section of town, he refused to lodge anywhere near the Bilge, which held too many painful memories for him. His mother had been an expensive whore in a house much like Gwenca’s. On some whim she’d actually borne two children out of her many pregnancies, Sarcyn and his younger sister, Evy. She alternately spoiled and ignored them until she was strangled by a drunken sailor when Sarcyn was seven and Evy three. The brothel keeper kicked them out into the streets, where they lived as beggars for months, sleeping under wagons or in broken ale barrels, scrounging what coppers they could and fighting to keep the bigger boys from stealing their food.

Then one day a well-dressed merchant stopped to give them a copper and asked them why they were begging. When Sarcyn told him, he gave them a couple more, and that day their bellies were full for the first time in months. Naturally, Sarcyn began to keep an eye out for this generous fellow. Every time he saw Alastyr, the merchant would give him more coins and stop to talk with the lads, too. Even though Sarcyn was a prematurely wise gutter rat, slowly Alastyr won his confidence. When the merchant offered to let the children come live with him, they wept in gratitude.

For some time Alastyr treated them kindly but distantly. They had nice clothes, warm beds, and all the food they wanted, but they rarely saw their benefactor. When he looked back on how happy he was then, Sarcyn felt only disgust for the innocent little fool he’d been. One night Alastyr came to his bedchamber, first coaxed him with promises and caresses, then coldly raped him. He remembered lying curled up on the bed afterward and weeping with both pain and shame. Although he thought of running away, there was nowhere to go but the cold and filth of the streets. Night after night he endured the merchant’s lust, his one consolation being that Alastyr had no interest in his sister. Somehow he wanted to spare Evy the shame.

But once they moved to Bardek to live, Alastyr turned his attention to the girl as well, especially after Sarcyn reached puberty and became less interesting, at least in bed. The year Sarcyn’s voice changed, Alastyr began using him for dark dweomer-workings, such as forcing him to scry under the master’s control or mesmerizing him so thoroughly that he had no idea of what he’d done in the trances. Alastyr did offer repayment for using him in this particular way: lessons in the dark dweomer itself. Evy he taught nothing. When she reached puberty, Alastyr sold her to a brothel.

Without even his sister left from his old life, Sarcyn devoted himself to the dark dweomer—it was all he had. Not, of course, that he phrased it that way to himself. In his mind he’d endured the first stages of a harsh apprenticeship in order to prove himself worthy of the dark power. And so he was still bound to Alastyr, even though Sarcyn hated him so much that at times he dreamed of killing him in long, detailed dreams. It was worth putting up with the master to gain the knowledge—he told himself that constantly. At least he’d be free of Alastyr for some days now while he sold his wares. The master never stayed long in Cerrmor; there were too many people who might recognize him.

His way back to the inn took him through one of the many open squares in the city. Although there was no market that day, a good-sized crowd had gathered round a platform improvised from planks and ale barrels. On the platform stood a tall, slender man with the palest hair Sarcyn had ever seen and smoky-gray eyes. He was also very handsome, his regular features almost girlish. Sarcyn stayed to watch. With a flourish the fellow pulled a silk scarf from his shirtsleeve, tossed it up, and made it disappear seemingly in midair. The crowd laughed its approval.