This scene fits somewhere around chapter 6 to 8. (I often move scenes and events around during editing, especially in the early part of the book, which tends to be written before I'm sure of where I'm going.) I cut it because you never find out what happened to the missing wizard, and worse than that, his disappearance doesn't seem to have any consequences. It doesn't raise the stakes or ratchet up the tension.
You'll notice that two characters, the missing wizard and the wizard who might've been the last person to see him, don't have proper names. I often introduce minor characters as I'm writing, and I don't want to slow myself down by having to think of a name (and having to check that it's not too similar to the name of another character, or worse, the same). So I use a placeholder of a letter (W for wizard in this case, obviously) and a number. Once I'm confident that the character will stick around, I think of a proper name and use the search and replace function to drop it in.
Tagahra neared the inn known as the Cob and Pen, shivering. How could it be so cold and yet not have started snowing?
He went in, finding the barroom deserted except for Galbreth and Sethraim. They sat at a table next to the fireplace in the left-hand wall, looking as though someone had died. Maybe someone had. The message had just said Sethraim wanted to meet him and Galbreth here. Galbreth stood, saluting Tagahra.
The landlord emerged from behind the bar and intercepted Tagahra. “Thank Tanshalm you’re here. Lunch will be starting soon, and if I can’t open, it’ll cost me a fortune.”
Tagahra gave the man a sceptical look. He’d been in here a few times at lunchtime, and the place had never been full. “Well, Sir, that depends on what we find.”
“What do we have?” Tagahra asked.
“W1, one of the wizards who came with me from Thuren, was staying here,” Sethraim said.
“Was?”
“He’s missing.”
Tagahra bit his lip to stop himself from swearing. They weren’t going to be able to write this fellow off as a traveller who’d had enough of city life. “When did you last see him?”
“I saw him on Pethandril’s Day,” Sethraim said. “W2 saw him yesterday, and was supposed to be meeting him this morning. When he didn’t show up, she came to me.”
“And where’s W2 now?”
“I don’t know,” said Sethraim. “I can find out if you like.”
Tagahra shook his head. To Galbreth, he said, “It would’ve saved time if you’d asked her to come here for questions, but we can find her later.” He asked the landlord, “Did you see W1 yesterday?”
“He stuck to a routine — breakfast in first hour, then he left, then he returned around sunset, went up to his room, came down for dinner in thirteenth hour, then went back up.”
“Is there anyone else here who might have seen him?”
“I have a girl who helps behind the bar in the evening. She won’t be here until third watch.”
“Where does she live?”
The landlord gave her address, and Galbreth made a note of it.
“Any other guests?” said Tagahra.
“Three, but they’re all out.”
“I’ll send someone to question them this evening, if they don’t return while we’re here. Did he ever have any visitors?”
The landlord said, “I’m not sure I would’ve noticed, but I don’t think so.”
Tagahra nodded. “Now, do either of you know of any reason why W1 would leave willingly?”
Sethraim shook his head. “He was quite enthusiastic about our, ah, mission.”
“He’d paid in advance for the fortnight,” the landlord said, “and tomorrow would’ve been when the next lot was due, if he wanted to stay.”
Tagahra rubbed his chin. It couldn’t be that simple, could it? These people weren’t rich — Adramal had barely known what to do with money when he first met her. “Did he mention anything about needing money, or not having enough?”
“Not in my hearing,” Sethraim replied.
“Do you know of any reason why he might leave unwillingly? Any disagreements or fights, anybody threatening him, anybody who might have a reason to harm him?”
“No,” said Sethraim, but Tagahra saw the unspoken apart from dead Gods and stone men in his eyes.
The landlord shrugged. “My guests don’t tell me their business, and I don’t ask.”
Tagahra supposed many guests preferred it that way. “Let’s take a look at his room.”
The landlord led them up a narrow staircase at the side of the bar. At the top, a corridor ran across the width of the building, doors leading off either side. He opened the one at the far end, and a cold draught came from the room.
The shutters were open, which explained the chill. Even though the window faced east, the room was dark. Galbreth cast a light spell, revealing the room to be typical of others in the city. The one obvious exception was a man-sized symbol of Mathran painted in black on the wall opposite the bed.
“I assume that wasn’t there yesterday,” Tagahra said, pointing to it.
“No,” the landlord growled. “I’ll have to paint the whole damn wall before I can let this room out again.”
Galbreth closed his eyes and faced the symbol. After a moment, he opened them again. “That’s interesting.”
“What?” said Sethraim.
“I can’t see any magic in that symbol.”
“Really?” Sethraim looked at the symbol, frowning. “You’re right. No wizards’ magic, and no priests’ either.”
“Why is that significant?” asked Tagahra.
“Well, Captain,” Sethraim replied, “if you were a priest of Mathran, and you’d abducted a wizard, and you wanted the other wizards to know you’d done it, you might well paint your God’s symbol at the scene of the crime. But, knowing that wizards can see magic, would you not make sure to use magic to paint it? Otherwise, the wizards would say to themselves, anyone could’ve painted that — perhaps someone who wants the wizards to jump to conclusions and attack the priests.”
“I see,” said Tagahra. “And do you think someone is trying to stir up trouble between the wizards and the Church of Mathran?”
“I think it would be unwise for us to attack the Church at the best of times.”
Galbreth squinted and turned his head this way and that. “There’s something odd about the symbol, even though there’s no magic in it.” He took a few paces nearer to it, his hand outstretched.
“I wouldn’t touch it,” Sethraim said.
“I wasn’t going to,” Galbreth replied, a hint of tetchiness in his voice. He waved his hand in front of his face, fingers spread, then slowly moved it towards the wall. A few inches away, he flinched. He moved his hand back and forth a couple of times, now looking at the symbol sidelong.
“It looks as though it’s hanging in front of the wall, rather than being painted on,” he said. “But when you put your hand through where it appears to be, it stays behind your hand.”
“Well, whatever it is,” Tagahra said, “I think it’s safe to assume it’s not the work of the priests of Mathran. Let’s see what else we can learn.”
A bed, big enough for two, lay against the wall opposite the symbol. Only one side had been slept in. “Do you make the beds every day?” Tagahra asked the landlord.
“Yes,” the man replied, in a tone that suggested he wanted to add, Of course.
“So he left in the night,” said Galbreth.
“Or someone wanted us to think he left in the night,” said Tagahra. “Is that the side he usually slept on?”
“How would I know?” said the landlord.
“You just said, you make the beds every day.”
“Yes, but you surely don’t expect me to notice things like that.”
Tagahra walked through the room. A brazier stood in a corner, no ashes in evidence. “Did he ever use this?”
“He never asked for fuel for it,” said the landlord.
Next to the brazier was a washstand, with a bowl but no jug. “Do you know where the jug is?”
The landlord tutted. “Something else I’ll have to replace. Guests are always helping themselves to the pottery. I’m thinking of charging a deposit for it.”
Beside the brazier was a small travel chest, almost new. “I take it that’s his?”
“Yes,” Sethraim and the landlord said almost together.
“Do you have any objection to its being opened? There might be clues to his whereabouts in it.” Even as he said the words, Tagahra wished someone would slap him for holding out false hope to Sethraim.
“Go ahead,” Sethraim said.
Galbreth put a hand on the lock and cast a spell to open it.
“Why does a wizard not have a wizard-proof lock on his chest?” Tagahra asked.
“In case he loses the key?” Galbreth offered.
“I won’t insult you by saying a wizard wouldn’t steal from another wizard,” Sethraim said. “But a wizard who could open that lock without the key could probably also sense what was in the chest, and tell it wasn’t anything worth the bother of stealing.”
Tagahra flipped the lid open. The chest held clothes and other items he would’ve expected anyone who’d made a long journey to have. In the middle of the clothing was a small leather purse holding coins totalling about twenty-five silvers.
“How much would his room have been if he stayed another fortnight?” Tagahra asked.
“The usual long-stay rate is seven silvers a fortnight,” the landlord said. “I might’ve dropped it to six or five, seeing as he’d already stayed a fortnight, and we don’t get many guests at this time of year.”
Tagahra jingled the purse. “So I don’t think he left because he was worried about paying the bill.” To Galbreth, he said, “Travel chests sometimes have a false bottom for hiding valuables. Can you tell whether there’s a secret compartment?”
They lifted everything out. Galbreth knelt in front of the chest and knocked on the bottom in a few places. Then he closed his eyes and swept his fingertips over the wood, front to back and left to right.
“It’s solid, Sir,” he said as he stood up. He turned around, then slipped past Tagahra and picked something from the floor near the window — a large potsherd.
“Marvellous,” the landlord muttered. “That’s where the jug went.”
Tagahra moved to that side of the room. The pieces were scattered over a wide area, spreading towards the bed from a point about two feet from the window. “I don’t think he dropped it — more likely he threw it at something or someone in front of the window.”
Just under the window, one of the floorboards had been dented, as though a small, heavy object had landed on it. “Was that here before?” Tagahra asked.
“I don’t know,” the landlord said.
Tagahra crouched for a better look. Where the surface of the wood had been broken, the exposed interior was still pale yellow, suggesting the damage was recent. He looked out of the window, seeing a small cobbled yard with a horse trough and a couple of posts for tying the animals to. Neither the trough nor the posts were in use.
“I’d say if someone abducted W1, they got in through the window,” Tagahra said. “So we’ll take a look at the yard next.”
The yard was reached through a door at the opposite end of the bar from the staircase. An alley led out to the street. The wall containing W1’s window was built of large uneven bricks, offering plenty of hand- and footholds to a climber. A few of the cobbles immediately below the window had been chipped recently.
“Probably horseshoes,” the landlord said when Tagahra pointed this out.
“Since when are those straight?” Tagahra asked. It was hard to be sure, but whatever had made the marks looked to be about the same size as whatever had dented the floorboard. On a hunch, he checked the rest of the yard, concentrating on the shortest path to the alley. The picture became more confused because of dirt, straw and all the marks from genuine horseshoes, but he found more short straight lines cut into the cobbles, one every two or three yards. Once he reached the street, the other marks and scratches were too numerous for him to tell which way the straight marks went.
“So our kidnapper has child-sized feet and metal-soled shoes,” he said.
The landlord looked at him as though he was mad. The two wizards seemed to think his statement perfectly reasonable. “Perhaps we should continue this conversation at the Watch Building,” Sethraim said.
Tagahra nodded. “Thank you for your help, Sir,” he said to the landlord. “I’ll send one of my men this evening to speak to your girl and the other guests.”
“What about the wizard’s chest?” the landlord asked.
“I’d better send someone to collect it,” Sethraim replied.
“Just so you know, the law allows me to keep it or sell it if it’s still here seven days from now.”
“I’ll bear that in mind, Sir,” Sethraim said.
They made their way back to the Watch Building in silence, and went to Tagahra’s office.
“You’re not expecting to learn anything from the girl or the other guests, are you?” Sethraim said.
Tagahra sighed and shook his head. “You think one of these stone men took him.” A statement, not a question.
“Kreztalin? You seem much more willing to accept their existence than I would’ve expected.”
“I’m not sure I believe in them,” Tagahra said, “but I’ve seen a lot of things this year that I would’ve dismissed as fanciful stories last year.” He gazed out of his window, across the river to the Marchwood. “What’s worrying me is that if these… Kreztalin exist, and if some of them are living in that ruined fortress in the forest, and if one of them kidnapped W1 in the hope that you’d blame the priests, then they’ve been able to reach past the wizards who are supposed to be keeping watch on them without those wizards noticing anything. Which means currently we have no defence against them.”
This goes at the start of chapter 61, and is a longer version of Adramal's farewell to the village of Darund-Kerak.
The following morning, Yisea’s Day in the twentieth fortnight, Adramal battled a stinking hangover to visit Drakhshaf and Speph, the bank in the city that held her account. The clerk accepted the draft for her “back pay” without any objection, and told her that as long as it cleared, she would be able to draw on the funds the following day.
She went to the Watch Building and found Watchman Morakh. She convinced him to borrow a horse and take her to Darund-Kerak. They had to stop a couple of times when she feared she’d be sick, but they reached the village without mishap. They sat in the barroom of the Jolly Hare, where a few people drank and quietly chatted. Most were strangers to her, but one man seemed to recognise her, as he stared at her for a moment before darting through a door behind the bar.
Deverana, the inn’s landlady, emerged from the same door, arms outstretched. “Healer Adramal!” She hurried over to them. Adramal stood and let the woman embrace her.
“I’m so happy to see you,” Deverana said. “We heard you had a baby. Was it a boy or a girl?”
“Girl,” Adramal replied.
Deverana let go of her and nodded to Morakh. “Is this your husband?”
Morakh went scarlet.
“No, he’s a… a friend from the City Watch.” Thinking she’d better head off this conversation before it went somewhere she didn’t want to go, she asked, “Are the elders around? Hispar and Ramarkhel, particularly.”
“Yes.” Deverana called for Chavaen, who came down the stairs. His face lit up when he saw Adramal. Deverana told him to gather the elders, and he left to find them.
“Fancy a pint while we’re waiting, Sergeant?” Morakh asked.
Her stomach squirmed at the thought. “I’m not a Sergeant any more.”
“‘Reserve Sergeant’ is a bit of a mouthful, though.”
“Will you be staying for dinner?” Deverana asked.
From the look on Morakh’s face, he wanted to say yes, but Adramal answered, “This won’t take long, I hope. Is there something left over from breakfast?”
“There’s some porridge.”
Adramal tried to hide her disappointment. “We’ll have some of that, then, please. And a pint of ale for my friend, and water for me.”
Chavaen returned with Hispar and a few other elders while Adramal was enduring the meal. Ramarkhel and a couple elders arrived shortly after she’d finished. The customers who’d been here when Adramal and Morakh came in left. One or two lingered, but Deverana shooed them.
“So, Healer,” Hispar said. “Welcome back. It’s good to see you again. I understand you’ve got some news for us.”
Adramal cleared her throat. “The first piece of news is that I’m not a healer any more.”
“Did the Academy throw you out?” one of the elders asked.
She tried not to scowl. “I’m no longer a wizard. I’ve lost the ability to perform magic.”
“How do you get it back, then?” said Hispar.
“I don’t. Or at least, I don’t know how. A healer from the Academy tried everything she can think of.”
“Is this connected with the… battle in the city last year?” Hispar said.
“Yes,” said Adramal.
“So does that mean you won’t be coming back here?”
“I’m afraid it does. I should’ve told you sooner, but I’ve had a lot of other things on my mind.”
Hispar said, “Some healers from neighbouring villages visit us for a couple of days a fortnight, but they’re nowhere near as good as you.”
Adramal allowed herself a little pride at that, but answered, “As good as I was.”
“There must be something you can do, surely,” said Ramarkhel.
She shook her head. “That brings me to the other thing I wanted to say. I want to give Nurfadel’s house back to you.”
His eyes widened, and he sat up straighter. “I can’t afford to pay you what it’s worth.”
With a weak smile, she replied, “I said ‘give,’ not ‘sell.’”
“And where would you live?”
“I haven’t been living in it for the last year, have I?” Ramarkhel didn’t reply, so she added, “What if I sell it back to you for the same price I bought it for?”
“If you put it like that,” he said, “I suppose it’s fair.”
The house had been “sold” to her last year by the simple expedient of Ramarkhel offering it and Adramal accepting it. As long as the elders witnessed the transfer, there was no need for any documentation. Transferring it back to Ramarkhel was just as easy.
It wasn’t until she and Morakh were nearly at the gate of the city that she remembered she still had something of Nurfadel’s — two books, one on herblore, the other on anatomy. They were in her locker in the Watch Building, assuming it hadn’t been cleared out since she left. She wondered whether to return them to him, and then thought that if she wanted to continue healing in any form, she had more need of them than any other healer who might come visiting.
Last update: 25/7/2020 17:09