An ancient flint road long ago followed the course of the Derna, but now the exaggeration of the meandering has cut into the pavement, so that Liane, treading the road to Kaiin, was occasionally forced to leave the road and make a detour through banks of thorn and tubegrass which whistled in the breeze.
The red sun, drifting across the universe like an old man creeping to his death-bed, hung low to the horizon when Liane breasted Porphiron Scar, looked across white-walled Kaiin and the blue bay of Sanreale beyond.
Directly below was the market-place, a medley of stalls selling fruit, slabs of pale meat, molluscs from the slime banks, dull flagons of wine. And the quiet people of Kaiin moved among the stalls, buying their sustenance, carrying it loosely to their stone chambers.
Beyond the market-place rose a bank of ruined columns, like broken teeth — legs to the arena built two hundred feet from the ground by Mad King Shin; beyond, in a grove of bay trees, the glossy dome of the palace was visible, where Kandive the Golden ruled Kaiin and as much of Ascolais as one could see from a vantage on Porphiron Scar.
The Derna, no longer a flow of clear water, poured through a network of dank canals and subterranean tubes, and finally seeped past rotting wharves into the Bay of Sanreale.
A bed for the night, thought Liane; then to his business in the morning.
He leapt down the zig-zag steps — back, forth, back, forth — and came out into the market-place. And now he put on a grave demeanor. Liane the Wayfarer was not unknown in Kaiin, and many were ill-minded enough to work him harm.
He moved sedately in the shade of the Pannone Wall, turned through a narrow cobbled street, bordered by old wooden houses glowing the rich brown of old stump-water in the rays of the setting sun, and so came to a small square and the high stone face of the Magician’s Inn.
The host, a small fat man, sad of eye, with a small fat nose the identical shape of his body, was scraping ashes from the hearth. He straightened his back and hurried behind the counter of his little alcove.
Liane said, “A chamber, well-aired, and a supper of mushrooms, wine and oysters.”
The innkeeper bowed humbly.
“Indeed, sir — and how will you pay?”
Liane flung down a leather sack, taken this very morning. The innkeeper raised his eyebrows in pleasure at the fragrance.
“The ground buds of the spase-bush, brought from a far land,” said Liane.
“Excellent, excellent … Your chamber sir, and your supper at once.”
As Liane ate, several other guests of the house appeared and sat before the fire with wine, and the talk grew large, and dwelt on wizards of the past and the great days of magic.
“Great Phandaal knew a lore now forgot,” said one old man with hair dyed orange. “He tied white and black strings to the legs of sparrows and sent them veering to his direction. And where they wove their magic woof, great trees appeared, laden with flowers, fruits, nuts, or bulbs of rare liqueurs. It is said that thus he wove Great Da Forest on the shores of Sanra Water.”
“Ha,” said a dour man in a garment of dark blue, brown and black, “this I can do.” He brought forth a bit of string, flicked it, whirled it, spoke a quiet word, and the vitality of the pattern fused the string into a tongue of red and yellow fire, which danced, curled, darted back and forth along the table till the dour man killed it with a gesture.
“And this I can do,” said a hooded figure in a black cape sprinkled with silver circles. He brought forth a small tray, laid it on the table and sprinkled therein a pinch of ashes from the hearth. He brought forth a whistle and blew a clear tone, and up from the tray came glittering motes, flashing the prismatic colors red, blue, green, yellow. They floated up a foot and burst in coruscations of brilliant colors, each a beautiful star-shaped pattern, and each burst sounded a tiny repetition of the original tone — the clearest, purest sound in the world. The motes became fewer, the magician blew a different tone, and again the motes floated up to burst in glorious ornamental spangles. Another time — another swarm of motes. At last the magician replaced his whistle, wiped off the tray, tucked it inside his cloak and lapsed back to silence.
Now the other wizards surged forward, and soon the air above the table swarmed with visions, quivered with spells. One showed the group nine new colors of ineffable charm and radiance; another caused a mouth to form on the landlord’s forehead and revile the crowd, much to the landlord’s discomfiture, since it was his own voice. Another displayed a green glass bottle from which the face of a demon peered and grimaced; another a ball of pure crystal which rolled back and forward to the command of the sorcerer who owned it, and who claimed it to be an earring of the fabled master Sankaferrin.
Liane had attentively watched all, crowing in delight at the bottled imp, and trying to cozen the obedient crystal from its owner, without success.
And Liane became pettish, complaining that the world was full of rock-hearted men, but the sorcerer with the crystal earring remained indifferent, and even when Liane spread out twelve packets of rare spice he refused to part with his toy.
Liane pleaded, “I wish only to please the witch Lith.”
“Please her with the spice, then.”
Liane said ingenuously, “Indeed, she has but one wish, a bit of tapestry which I must steal from Chun the Unavoidable.”
And he looked from face to suddenly silent face.
“What causes such immediate sobriety? Ho, Landlord, more wine!”
The sorcerer with the earring said, “If the floor swam ankle-deep with wine — the rich red wine of Tanvilkat — the leaden print of that name would still ride the air.”
“Ha,” laughed Liane, “let only a taste of that wine pass your lips, and the fumes would erase all memory.”
“See his eyes,” came a whisper. “Great and golden.”
“And quick to see,” spoke Liane. “And these legs — quick to run, fleet as starlight on the waves. And this arm — quick to stab with steel. And my magic — which will set me to a refuge that is out of all cognizance.” He gulped wine from a beaker. “Now behold. This is magic from antique days.” He set the bronze band over his head, stepped through, brought it up inside the darkness. When he deemed that sufficient time had elapsed, he stepped through once more.
The fire glowed, the landlord stood in his alcove, Liane’s wine was at hand. But of the assembled magicians, there was no trace.
Liane looked about in puzzlement. “And where are my wizardly friends?”
The landlord turned his head. “They took to their chambers; the name you spoke weighed on their souls.”
And Liane drank his wine in frowning silence.
Next morning he left the inn and picked a roundabout way to the Old Town — a gray wilderness of tumbled pillars, weathered blocks of sandstone, slumped pediments with crumbled inscriptions, flagged terraces overgrown with rusty moss. Lizards, snakes, insects crawled the ruins; no other life did he see.
Threading a way through the rubble, he almost stumbled on a corpse — the body of a youth, one who stared at the sky with empty eye-sockets.
Liane felt a presence. He leapt back, rapier half-bared. A stooped old man stood watching him. He spoke in a feeble, quavering voice: “And what will you have in the Old Town?”
Liane replaced his rapier. “I seek the Place of Whispers. Perhaps you will direct me.”
