The Merchant Adventurer Read online

  “Oh yeah. Real prince of a guy. He said that’s to cover mine, too. And he wants another ale over by the fire.”

  Asarah stabbed him with a look. “So nice to have a quality customer for a change.”

  Boltac held her gaze without flinching. “I’ll get outta your hair.”

  6

  Boltac slammed the door of the inn behind him. He was angry at Asarah for reasons he didn’t fully comprehend. He looked up at the stars. He looked down at the muddy cobbles at his feet. Then he looked across the square to his store. For a time, he stood in the middle of the square, trapped between inn and store. He paced in a circle, not knowing which way to go. But he avoided looking at the bench where the Farm Boy slept.

  Damn what that woman thought! Her fool ideas of Romance and Heroism. Damn the world, for that matter. The boy was an idiot and searching for death. No good to anyone and a great deal of trouble to whomever he meant to poke with whatever sword he could beg, borrow, or steal. That was the thing that all the would-be Heroes forgot. The people they meant to stab to death in the name of Glory thought that they were Heroes too.

  In the end, observed Boltac, it wasn’t even the Heroes that got the worst of it. It was the people in the middle. The shopkeepers, the peasants, the simple folk just trying to get through the day. To make a buck, raise a crop, or raise a family.

  This dark line of thinking steeled Boltac’s nerve so he could get across the square. But, when the shop door closed behind him, his resolve faltered. He peered through the window at the boy he had knocked unconscious. For a moment, Boltac was worried that he had killed the lad. But then the boy stirred a little in his sleep.

  Boltac remembered when he had been the Farm Boy’s age. Young and strong and chained to a store. His father had been fond of saying, “Keep a shop, and it will keep you.” And so it did, keeping a young boy from doing anything that he might want to do in this world. Keeping him at endless, boring work that served as torture for a young man who craved Adventure.

  He did not feel guilty for braining the lad. If it was Adventure the boy was after, he would have to withstand far worse. And if his younger self had appeared by Magic before him in his own store Boltac would have done far, far worse. He would have worn his arm out trying to beat some sense into his former self.

  Why couldn’t Asarah see the logic of that? Why did she never approve of Boltac’s carefully negotiated ways? He craved her affection and approval more than he understood. But it was a thing of which he could not speak. Even to himself.

  There was no way to tell a young man of the hazards that awaited him–of the costs to life and limb and family–of all the ways of hurt and all the ways those hurts could radiate beyond himself. It was a terrible thing to be a Hero. And Boltac wished the pain of it on no one. And on no one’s family.

  But there was no way to frame the words, no order to put them in that could make it through a testosterone-addled brain and overcome the lust for Glory. If not this Priestess con, the lad would find some other cause, or scrape, or trouble. At least he wasn’t off in search of the Evil Wizard all of the other Adventurers were always harassing. None of them ever seemed to come back. Who knew, maybe that meant the Wizard was real and terrible after all.

  No, Boltac realized, there was no stopping him. So why had he tried? Because he saw himself in the lad. Because he would have given much to take back the poor choices of his own youth. He spit and cursed the bards. It was all their fault. Putting all these ideas in young men’s heads. Sending them off to war or in search of gold.

  Damn it all. He stomped to the sword barrel, drew a blade, and tested its balance. Awful. He sighted the edge. It was as curved as an old whore’s back. What an awful piece of workmanship. It was the kind of item he would willingly sell to a fool, but not the kind of weapon he would wish on his worst enemy. A man needed a sword he could trust. Boltac saw the shape of a terrible memory rising from the dark waters of his mind. Before the thought could fully take hold, he slammed the sword back in the barrel.

  He walked to the rack of weapons. He removed the blade on the bottom. It was the one he would have chosen, if he were spending his own money. It was a stout Mercian sword. At one end, its straight blade came to a broad triangular point. At the other, the hilt was a heavy round pommel that, in the hands of someone who knew what he was doing, qualified as a weapon on its own. The blade sang softly as he unsheathed it and begged to dance in his hand. He sighted this weapon and its hard edge was as crisp, final, and unforgiving as the border between life and death.

  There wasn’t a soul on the streets as Boltac crossed the square. The stars seemed impossibly high and uncaring. When he got to the Farm Boy, he hung the sword around the lad’s neck very carefully, so as not to wake him. Underneath the thick head of straw-blond hair, Boltac could see a freshly-risen lump. Ouch. He reached out to touch it. His fingers almost made contact. Then Boltac became self-conscious. He looked around as if he were afraid of being caught doing something wrong. But there was no one watching. He scuttled back across the square.

  7

  Back in his shop, Boltac barred the door and retrieved the heavy lockbox from beneath the counter. It hadn’t been a busy day, but in dribs and drabs the coins had piled up. He had sold a bit of lace here, a poultice there. It added up to a living.

  He poured the coins out on the counter. Then looked out the window and across the square. The boy was there and still unconscious. For an instant, Boltac thought about retrieving the blade. If the kid didn’t wake up, surely someone would come along and steal it. But, if Asarah came out and saw the kid with the sword, it would go halfway to getting Boltac back in her good graces. On the other hand, if she came out and caught Boltac taking the sword back… ergh, she’d never forgive him for that. Anyway, she was probably too busy fawning over that slumming aristocrat to tear herself away. That fop, throwing a gold coin away like it was nothing. Who did he think he was? Coins were for being careful with. For counting, for hoarding, for saving for a rainy day.

  Boltac divided the coins for the day’s sales into three piles on his counter; gold, silver, and copper. He quickly counted the copper coins and made a note of them in his ledger. With the silver coins, he took more time. He used a set of weights and measures to make sure that not only the count was accurate, but also the total weight.

  Boltac was very careful not to take any coins that had been clipped, or were too light to be pure. With copper, clipping was rarely a problem. The coins just weren’t worth enough to go to the trouble. With silver, clipping became a problem, but that was easily spotted . The gold coins presented the greatest difficulty for Boltac.

  Gold coins were worth enough that instead of merely clipping them, counterfeiters would dip lead slugs into molten gold to create a coin that was worth less than silver. This presented a conundrum for a shrewd Merchant who did not want to be taken advantage of. It was insulting to test a customer’s coin on the spot, yet painful to take a loss.

  Boltac grabbed a small glass dish and a bottle labeled Aqua Fortis from a shelf beneath the counter. He carefully poured the liquid from the bottle into the dish. Then he picked up one of the gold coins, dipped it in the liquid, and examined it carefully. If it had turned green, it would have been a sign that the coin was some alloy, or plated lead. But this coin remained its reassuring yellow color. With a satisfied grunt, he placed the sound coin on the other side of the dish.

  He tested coin after coin, pleased to find that all of them were real. Finally, only two coins remained. When he dipped the second-to-last coin of the day, it did not turn green. It did not smoke. It did not sizzle or emit a smell like rotten onions. Instead, it hissed, came to life, and bit his hand.

  Boltac cursed and threw the evil little thing across the room. Then he immediately regretted it. With surprising speed for a fat man, he scrambled out from behind the counter and pursued it. In the middle of the floor, the gold coin sprouted thin, insect-like legs and scrabbled for purchase against the boards.
Boltac tried to stomp it and missed. He stomped again and again, hopping through his store, knocking items over in a strange, destructive dance. The coin scrambled under a rack of rope and strips of leather. With a roar, Boltac kicked the rack over and brought his booted foot down squarely upon the creature.

  “HA!” he cried in triumph. He shambled to the other side of the room, dragging his foot as he went, grinding the creature across the floor, until he was able to reach a set of pliers hanging on the wall. Then he bent down and, ever so carefully, clamped the edge of the angry, savage coin in the teeth of the pliers. It let out another metallic shriek, but Boltac was unmoved by its pain.

  He carried the coin into the back, past the foul-smelling bundle of gear he had purchased from Rattick and to a set of iron-bound chests that were sealed with fearsome-looking locks and bolted to the floor. The one on the right had a hole in the top of it, sealed with a piece of cork. He removed the cork, crammed the coin into the hole–having to hit it several times with a hammer to convince it to go in–and then replaced the cork. He put his ear to the chest and listened to the evil thing clawing in vain against the wood. Only when he heard the “clink” of the coin-creature settling down, did he lift his ear from the chest.

  Boltac looked to his hand. A fingernail-sized disc of flesh was missing from his palm and blood leaked down his forearm. Damned coin. He kicked the chest and immediately regretted it. The chest didn’t move, and all he got for his trouble was a hurt foot. A bad trade.

  Boltac smiled and pulled the thong from around his neck. There, amid the countless tokens and charms was a small silver whistle. He grabbed it with his uninjured hand and blew on it for all he was worth. Such a furious, shrieking commotion erupted from inside the chest that Boltac worried it might burst. He imagined the hundreds, maybe thousands, of coins in the cramped, dark space–all angry, all clawing at each other in fury. He smiled.

  Boltac had named these treacherous pieces of currency the Creeping Coins. At one time, he had thought to train them to perform, as he had seen traveling mummers train fleas, snakes, monkeys, and even bears. But they were either untrainable or Boltac hadn’t the knack for it. For all his time and experimentation, he had earned only some nasty bite scars and the knowledge that a certain high-pitched frequency drove the Creeping Coins mad.

  Who had created these creatures, and why? Boltac had been unable to find out. What he had learned was that they were a species of Magical animal that preferred to stay unseen. They had a most sinister method of reproduction. If you placed one of these Magic coins in a pile of regular coins, they would slowly but surely convert all of the real money to animated hunks of metal with sharp little teeth. One at a time, they were an annoyance. But in the depths of a dungeon, in a chest full of gold that might not be opened for years? These creatures could turn a payday into a nightmare.

  He rubbed a healing ointment into the fingernail-sized bite in his hand. It stopped the bleeding but did nothing for the pain. What could a school of these things do? Or just a few of them under a suit of armor? He shuddered. At least death by Dragon would be quicker.

  But that’s the way it was with any enterprise. People feared the big things, but it was always the little things that did you in. The demons were in the details, as they said. All the work you spent polishing your shield in preparation for a basilisk would be lost if you forgot to bring oil to protect it from rust.

  It was a terrible business, Adventuring. Another reason Boltac was glad he had grown up, settled down, and learned to enjoy a warm fire and a crisp profit. Again, he reassured himself that he had done that lad a favor by knocking him on the head.

  8

  As Dimsbury sat with his feet by the fire, it took him a good hour to give a name to what he was feeling. Contentment didn’t quite do it. Comfort was part of it, but there was something else. A warmish feeling in the stomach that he was quite unaccustomed to. There was something about a good meal after a good day’s work. His plans all in order, everything tilting and tending the way it should. Sated, yes, that was the word he was looking for. He felt sated.

  For a moment, he considered ordering another whole dinner. But there was no time. He had completed his errand and should really leave the city before the carnage started. But perhaps he should take a leg of mutton to go. Or–would they have such a thing–some mutton sandwiches?

  It was so hard to get good food at the bottom of a dungeon. Yes, he had servants, but they were creations. Not flesh and blood. They viewed roasting as an information-gathering technique, or at best a method of discipline, not as an essential part of cuisine. And spices? Well, Orcs are rare minerals and raw flesh. It was a practice guaranteed to keep the palate in an unrefined state.

  None of this even touched on the degradation of his decor and living conditions. Of course, the Wizard could have taken some pains on his own behalf, but there was his work to think of. All else paled in comparison to that. But even here, in this homey inn, the Wizard felt a longing for the comfort he had almost forgotten he could have. A woman’s touch. Yes, that was the phrase.

  When the wench came around again, he asked, “Do you make sandwiches? You know, to go?”

  “My sandwiches are so good, men have proposed to me after the first bite,” said Asarah with a playful toss of her hair.

  Outside, a wolf howled.

  “What was that?” Asarah asked, her smile becoming tainted with concern.

  She had a nice smile, and the Wizard thought it was all the sweeter for being mixed with fear. Oh yes, thought the Wizard, he would definitely be taking something to go. “It sounded like a wolf,” he said with exaggerated innocence. “I’d like two mutton sandwiches, please.” He smiled.

  “With lettuce and tomato?” asked Asarah.

  “However you like them.”

  “Well, you could enjoy the hospitality of The Bent Eelpout and take fresh ones with you in the morning. Evidently, there are wolves about.”

  The Wizard smiled again. “But what assurance do I have that it will still be here in the morning?”

  “What, the sandwich?”

  “No. The inn.”

  9

  When Boltac heard the howl, he looked up and out the front window. Across the square, the boy still slept in the moonlight. Boltac stood motionless, watching, with the last gold coin clamped in his pliers. After having been bitten, he was taking no more chances. All coins were now guilty until proven innocent.

  The peaceful scene outside his window did not change, so Boltac shrugged and touched the coin to the acid. It did not come to life and attack him, so he dropped it in the pile with the others.

  He carefully poured the acid back into the bottle and wiped down the counter. Then he gathered up the coins and carried them into the back. He placed them in the other chest, the one that held the normal coins. Then he turned his attention to the pile of soiled goods he had purchased from Rattick.

  From the corner of his eye, he caught a flash of something moving past the window. He looked up and out the front of the store. There was a flash of grey. And then again.

  Boltac walked forward slowly. He had no idea what was going on, but he was pretty sure he didn’t like it. It was out of the ordinary. And, in Boltac’s experience, anything out of the ordinary was bad for business. In the distance, he heard someone sound a horn. Then, he thought he could hear a woman scream. Or maybe it was a horse? What was going on?

  He stepped outside into the empty square. To the north, across the river, he saw the red glow of fire. Ah, thought Boltac: Raiders. He knew this game all too well. He had hoped that the new Duke’s garrison was strong enough to keep the Raiders out. The tariffs and taxes from a crossroads town like Robrecht were valuable. As long as Boltac had been here, the nobles and empires of the world had passed Robrecht back and forth like a toy.

  They didn’t even pretend to install a King anymore. Robrecht had been pillaged so many times it didn’t even get to keep the illusion of being its own state. It had been reduced
to a mere protectorate. “En henh,” Boltac grumbled. There was scant protection to be found in a protectorate.

  Maybe if the Duke had released his tax collectors on the invaders? That might have done it. Boltac shook his head and went inside. He pulled his stool out from behind the counter and set to loading crossbows. Just let them come, thought Boltac grimly; they would find his prices very, very high indeed.

  Across the square, he watched the Man in Black emerge from the Tavern holding two sandwiches wrapped in parchment.

  “Heh,” said Boltac, “if they come across the river, this prick sure is in for a surprise.”

  The Man in Black took notice of the Farm Boy, still asleep on the bench. He looked him up and down. Then he nudged the lad with his toe.

  “Some Adventurer,” muttered Boltac, “he doesn’t even wake up! Did I ever do that kid a favor.”

  The Man in Black reached into his pocket and produced a whistle. He put it to his lips and blew it. It produced a slightly lower note than the whistle Boltac had used on the coins. The Man in Black sounded the note three times, and then waited.

  Boltac heard them coming before he saw them. It sounded like a crowd saying something like, “Hork, Hork, Hork, Hork!” From the darkness came the largest wolves Boltac had ever seen. As they advanced, they snarled and snapped at each other and their riders.

  Whistles, thought Boltac, I knew it had to be done with whistles!

  Boltac shrank back from the window as one of the wolves sniffed at it and fogged the glass. What in the Gods’ name were they? And the men that rode on their backs? They seemed more animal than man. Their greyish green skin looked thick and inhuman, as if it should have scales. Their evil little eyes were set too close together. Their proportionally small mouths were overflowing with teeth, and gave the impression they would gnaw rather than chew. They had large, wide noses and pointed ears set high on their heads.