On a Crooked Track

Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

The street leveled off for a block or so and then opened up ahead. The cob pulling the cart turned left and walked far enough along the edge of the square for the two wagons behind to do the same before all the drivers stopped to let their horses catch their breath from the long climb.

Penrys dodged around the cart to get an unobstructed view of the entire grand plaza, the Stone Square, the center of Stokemmi. It extended for a distance of four blocks on each side, on level ground, across a stone-paved surface. The road from the docks had led them to the middle of the southern side. The far side held institutional buildings she didn’t recognize, but on the right, she thought one long colonnaded front might mark the exchange, and on the far left, she saw the blue pennant and second story open porch of the wizards’ guild hall, familiar to her as the subject of many illustrations back in the Collegium.

The buildings around the square were of similar heights—four or even five floors high—but at ground level, many were occupied by restaurants and shops, everywhere but the side directly across from her. It was too early for dinner, but she turned her head to seek the appetizing scent of broiled meat somewhere nearby.

Stone buildings were not unknown in Ellech—the Collegium was built of stone, for the greater safety of its books—but the Stone Square and its immediate environs were the greatest concentration of stone-built structures in the country, outside of some of the factories.

After Kigali, I shouldn’t be impressed, but for Ellech, this is quite a sight. Penrys noted the massive nature of the stonework, as if the architects hadn’t trusted the strength of an unfamiliar material. Where there were arches, they suggested the shapes of tree branches, in ornamentation if not in actual curve. In fact, all the decorative carving used the vocabulary of plants—leaves, flowers, and trees. She realized, looking back, that it had been the same at the Collegium, as though the stone buildings were just forests in a different medium.

In Kigali, they used stone as stone. Here, it’s stone as trees. How surprising she’d never noticed it before.

Najud and Munraz joined her, and Vylkar explained the sight to them all. “Across from us are the buildings of the Great Council and the Governor’s Seat, the nation’s leadership. In the corner, you see the Magistrate’s building, for the city of Stokemmi itself.”

“We’re going to be staying over there”—he waved at the wizard’s guild hall—“but first we have to get our goods stowed away. I suggest…” He looked them over and pointed to the left. “Najud, you go with the wagons to the guild warehouse on the west side and make sure everything is done to your liking. I’ll take the cart and Munraz with me and arrange for our stay at the guild hall, then we’ll come meet you at the warehouse and finish up there.”

“You,” he said, turning to Penrys, “should go to Redenchek’s over there and get your robes. I want you in formal blues tonight for dinner, like any Ellech wizard returned home from her travels.” He pointed to a shop at the near end of the left side of the Stone Square, but he hardly needed to. The sign over the door was enough—they were the legendary outfitters for the wizards in the capital. “When you’re ready, and not before, you can meet us at the guild hall.”

He raised a quizzical eyebrow at her, and she nodded. The gold in her pockets in the form of Kigali coins would be enough, and the exchange was just across the square if they had any reservations about it.

She stepped out of the way of the wagons, and Najud winked at her as he moved off with them. *You sure he was never your father? Acts like one. Why blue?*

She explained, and he rolled his eyes. *Too bad—I liked you in those worn out, ratty old work clothes I met you in. Of course, I like you even better without them on.*

*Stop that! You never know who might be listening.*

He winked at her anyway, and she could feel the heat rising in her cheeks as she stepped away with the cart to accompany Vylkar and Munraz partway down the left side of the Stone Square, until they abandoned her at Redenchek’s shop.

“Perhaps a band for the hair in a matching blue?”

The tailor assigned to Penrys gestured to a display of ribbons, but she shook her head, with difficulty restraining her hands from rising to check that her ears remained covered by her shoulder-length hair. The last thing she needed was to expose her dark fur-covered ears, shaped like a fox’s. All the chained wizards she’d met had them, and the why was as much of a mystery as the chains themselves.

She was here to follow a trail that might give her some answers, she reminded herself, not to take up some task as a wizard newly come to her blues, preening herself in her new robes.

“No, thank you.” She looked over the pile of clothing that had accumulated in the course of the last hour. Both the informal and formal robes had required shortening to accommodate her less-than-Ellech height, but the fit of the layers worn under the robes was straightforward enough. The tunics for working clothes, rightly speaking, should also contain the blue, though it needn’t be solid, and they would need to be shortened, as well. Shirts, undergarments, and even shoes presented no difficulties, the latter provided from the separate establishment next door.

“I require both robes and the matching items immediately—I intend to wear them tonight in place of the clothes I entered in.” She eyed the discarded Zannib garments with regret. “I can return tomorrow for the rest, and for my original clothing.”

“That will take just a few minutes, rerri. Rather than put you to the trouble of returning, shall we deliver it all to you at the guild hall?”

“Delivery would be more convenient—thank you. I’m part of Vylkar’s party there.”

He nodded and went off to make the arrangements. Penrys walked out of the measuring room in the shirt, sweater, and freshly-hemmed pants of the under-layers, respectably clothed if not presentable without an outer robe. She admired the materials along the walls behind the counters, sorted by the colors of rank—the minutely differentiated student fabrics in their bright yellows, oranges and reds, and the senior ranks, greens, blues, and purples, less varied and more somber.

The blue she’d chosen was dark, rich, and quiet—well within the range of accepted colors—but now her eye was caught by the greens. Most wizards who visited an institution other than their own borrowed its green robes to wear rather instead of going to the expense of buying such infrequently used garments, and so they were characteristically ill-fitting, worn, and mended. Only the traveling scholars who spent their careers visiting one wizard hall or academy after another went to the trouble of purchasing green robes of their own, and then only if they were wealthy, as few of them were. Well-fitting greens were a rare sight. Her own greens at the Collegium had been a trial for her, with temporary hems to shorten them, and plenty of evidence of previous ownership.

Adult wizards in Ellech wore blue—that’s just the way it was, unless they were out of place somewhere or officials of some sort encouraged to announce their status with the purple.

It still bothered her. It proclaimed a solidarity with Ellech that she was no longer sure she felt. She agreed with Vylkar’s reasoning, but…

When her tailor returned, she waved him over and pointed. “I would also like to look at fabrics for both short and long robes, in that green there, or that other one next to it. And work tunics, too.”

I can afford it. No one has to know.

“Think she’s still there?”

Najud watched Vylkar’s face as they approached the shop he’d sent Penrys to. Amusement flickered over it before he settled on his usual sobriety and replied, “She is in many ways an unusual person, our Penrys, but she is certainly a woman. I will be surprised indeed if she has already left. Entire plays have been written about the donning of one’s first blues.”

*Ready for us, Pen-sha? We’re about to pass the tailor’s shop.*

He felt her doing a mental inventory of her possessions and garments. *I’ll be right with you. Come on in.*

Vylkar led them in and waved aside the staff who came to assist them. “We’re meeting someone,” he told them.

Munraz glanced around the place wide-eyed, but Najud only had eyes for his wife, clothed in alien fashion in an informal dark blue robe, like so many of the people on the streets he’d been passing through, almost as though she had suddenly renounced sarq-Zannib and her family. He blinked in momentary uneasiness, until she smiled at him uncertainly.

“What do you think? You should see the long one.”

“Like the ocean waves and the peaceful mountains,” he said, with a mock bow.

She half-grinned at him, reassured.

Munraz glanced at Najud. “Do we have to dress like that?”

Vylkar commented, dryly, “I would not advise it. Foreign wizards have different customs, as everyone knows. Your best Zannib garments will be very suitable for formal occasions.”

Penrys finalized her arrangements with the tailor while Vylkar looked over the display of awards and badges presented on top of the counter nearby. “You are entitled to some of these, you know,” he told her. “Travel, scholarship, and so forth. The Collegium seal, for example. Anything we can do to help people understand how to position you is to the good.”

“And misleading,” she responded. “Compared to this”—she gestured discretely at the chain around her neck—“very little of that matters.”

“Nonetheless,” Vylkar replied. He lifted out three small badges for the left breast of her robe and fastened them on. All three were silver.

Najud realized that all the wizards they’d seen on the street had something similar on their robes, but he hadn’t known how to read the code.

“I know the Kigaliwen run to wax seals and ribbons, but didn’t you receive an honor from the emperor?” Vylkar asked.

Penrys snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous—it’s a great big thing, and gold. No one wears something like that here.”

“Not so, young Penrys. You’ve just never seen one—how many wizards of Ellech do you know outside the Collegium?” He turned to the tailor who was following the conversation. “Whom do you recommend to produce a badge version of a foreign honor?”

“We can arrange that for you, raer.”

Vylkar nodded. “Send someone to our rooms at the guild hall, and we will show him the original—I assume it’s in your packs, Penrys? Warn him that we may be leaving as soon as the day after tomorrow, so the sooner the better. If it could be completed before dinner this evening, impossible as that sounds…”

“Someone can be with you in an hour, if that will be convenient. With tools and materials.”

“That will do very well,” Vylkar said. “We’ll expect someone then.”

Najud marveled at witnessing Vylkar in his element. Under his imperious gaze, the transactions were concluded and the four of them back on the street almost before he could take a breath.

He shared a look with Penrys. *Impressive. Is he always like that?*

*Don’t know, Naj-sha. I’ve rarely seen him in this mode either.*

Vylkar glanced at them both as if he’d overheard. “Money speaks, as they say. Might as well get what you want, eh?”

“True enough,” Najud answered.

They strolled down the west side of the Stone Square on the way to the guild hall, taking their time and exploring the windows of the shops. After the fourth shop, Penrys noticed Munraz lagging behind, rapt by one particular display. She went back to see why, and to hasten him along. Plenty of time tomorrow for shopping.

She smiled to herself when she saw what it was—a supplier of power-stones, devices large and small, and shelves of pamphlets and books. They may not use devices in sarq-Zannib, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t startling to see the things for sale out in the open, like so many lamps. It’s a veritable wizard shop to him.

Vylkar looked back to see what had detained them. “You wouldn’t want to buy anything in a rystet like that —too expensive. I can show you better places later, outside of the main district.”

Munraz shot him a look of disappointment, and Penrys was surprised to see Vylkar relent, returning with Najud so they could all enter the shop. Munraz and Najud went first, and Penrys could almost hear the proprietor size them up as foreigners and dismiss them, puzzled at their presence.

The appearance of a blue-robe and a purple-robe behind them was another matter, and Penrys saw the shopkeeper’s eyes travel first to Vylkar, as the more important, and then to her. When he caught sight of her chain, his eyes widened, and he started to speak, but then he raised them to her face and stuttered to a stop, puzzled.

What was that about? I should pin him to the spot and have it out of him. She glanced sideways at Vylkar and he shook his head almost imperceptibly.

But he knows something, he’s seen a chain before. This isn’t something from a generation ago—it’s now, today!

She seethed in frustration but consoled herself with the thought that she could always come back later to interrogate the man.

Her fingers itching to grab for the fellow, she walked past him and joined Munraz. She showed him some of the devices, explaining what they did and how they worked. The power-stones themselves were laid out under glass on the counter, sorted and graded.

When she glanced over at Najud, she saw that the posted prices were a revelation to him, his trader’s mind quickly estimating the value of the pouch of power-stones still in their possession.

I told you what they were worth, Naj-sha. She’d share the thought with him after they were out of this place, when no one could overhear them. She could still feel the shopkeeper’s eyes on her. Did Najud even notice?

The proprietor joined Penrys and Munraz and casually answered their questions about devices Penrys didn’t recognize, as though nothing had happened when they first walked in.

Vylkar kept his thoughts to himself while they waited. “We haven’t much time, Munraz. We can return tomorrow, if you wish.”

“Oh. I’m sorry, rair— I just hadn’t expected a place like this.” Munraz drew back from a magnifying device reluctantly. “I didn’t mean to delay us.”

“No harm done.”

Vylkar looked directly at the shopkeeper. “Thank you for your attention.”

And try as hard as she might, Penrys couldn’t decide if she heard an edge to that remark or not.