The next two weeks were the normal hectic scramble to get an expedition ready. Dimitri and I met with Godfrey, who was given the task of gathering the more mundane supplies and recruiting our wagon guards, while Dimitri recruited the party members, and I was to work on the more esoteric matters, mostly making as many healing potions as I could, since finding healers was proving to be the sticking point. Angus knew two other warriors looking for adventure, and Dimitri hired them.
Gerrex became my constant companion and I found it easier to move through the crowded market places of the city as people moved out of the way of the fearsome, tusked faced orc. I found out, mostly by dragging out the information in three word sentences, that he was a fair tracker and woodsmen, so he would be the party's ranger.
The day after Gerrex and Angus joined the party, Dimitri and I went down to the Ash, which is the poor part of town that is covered in soot from blacksmithing quarter that is upwind of that part of the city. Thin and ragged people moved through the dingy streets in an almost feral way. In a seedy boarding house in a narrow alleyway that made me nervous just walking in it, we found the brother and sister who had bought one Greedlie's bogus maps. The sister, Helena, was the older of the two, she was thin with small breasts in a blue dress that had once been rather fine. Around her waist she wore a rope for a belt. Her soft leather shoes had holes in them that I could see when she walked. She wore her straight brown hair pulled back in a long ponytail that reached nearly to her waist. She claimed to be a magic user, but one of limited training, I could tell. Her brother Charles, was three years younger at the age of seventeen winters. Both of them had the same wide cheekbones and pointed chin with full mouths that looked better on her than on him. His eyes were a lighter shade of brown than hers and his hair was cut in a bowl cut. His green tunic and gray woolen pants were in the same condition as his sister's clothes, but his shoes were sturdy hobnail things. Dimitri and I made our desire to finance an expedition based on the map known to them. The boy was excited, but the girl was suspicious. The boy and I sat on two old chairs with a small scarred table between us. Dimitri leaned against the cracked plaster wall by the door and Gerrex stood behind me with his arms crossed. The girl stood on her brother's right side, her left hand on his right shoulder.
"How to we know we can trust you?" She demanded from me. She was young and inexperienced and trying desperately not to show just how young and inexperienced she was.
"How do we know we can trust you?" I countered, a bit petulantly. "How do we know we can trust your map with the thousands of silver coins this expedition is going to cost our patron?"
She really had no response to my questions, but she had a bit of fire in her and she would not back down so easily.
"We have to trust each other out of necessity, I see. We, my brother and I, will lead the party, of course." She said holding her chin up in a defiant manner.
I shifted in my seat and bit my tongue pausing a moment in order to be more diplomatic than I normally am when dealing with people.
"Miss," I said slowly, "it is obvious that you have never been on an adventure, while my friends and I are old campaigners. If you want to lead, then you will have to fund the expedition, and that means coin, a lot of coin, which you do not have. Our patron would not entrust this expedition to either of you, so you would have to raise the money for yourself, which you cannot do. I have been charged with the task of leading this expedition, and Dimitri here is my Second, which means he is in charge after me. You would be going along only because you have the map, and quite frankly, if I wait another week or two, I am sure you would sell me the map for far less than you bought it for and we could just leave you behind. If you want to go on this adventure, you will have to accept that you have a junior roll, a very junior roll in this expedition."
They position was one of weakness, and I held the high ground as far as the negotiating went because I had the coin. They were not happy with me, but I was not there to make them happy.
"My brother and I need to discuss this amongst ourselves before we can give you an answer," she replied sharply. Her lack of negotiating power rankled her no little bit.
"You do not," I replied standing up and quickly losing patience. "You two are out of coin, or nearly so. You have no prospects and no other offers, otherwise you would have your own expedition in the works. You will accept my offer, or you will be living on the streets in a few days. So make your decision now."
Helena looked down at her brother's face and he gave a short nod.
"Alright," she said, not happily, "we accept your offer."
"Come to my shop off the Street of Potters tomorrow and we will see about getting you outfitted for the journey." I said as I laid ten silver pennies down on the table. "This is for you to get started with as far as your personal items are concerned. I have a lot of adventuring gear, so do not spend any money until you have the chance to go through what I have."
The weather seemed to sense the urgency that was filling us as the first of Fifth Month came closer and it offered us clear skies and pleasant days that helped dry the ground. I had fairly given up on finding any clerics to attend us as healers. Two of the main orders where one might find healing priests, the Temple of Mada and the Order of St. Cuthbert had at one time provided most of the clerics one would travel with on a quest. The smiting of evil was the fastest way to get into the good graces of a deity, apparently. However, evil had the tendency to smite back, and both orders had grown tired of losing newly trained priests capable of casting clerical spells to speculative ventures and had banned their brethren from leaving on adventurers.
Helena and Charles were at my shop the day after our agreement had been reached. It was just after midday and they were going through the gear that lay about, looking for items usable by them. Charles, who fancied himself a warrior, awkwardly wiggled into a chain hauberk, feeling its weight lay upon his shoulders. He was excited like a child at a mid-winter's carnival. His sister was more pragmatic and carefully sorted through the gear for useful items. Lenni sat over at his workbench ignoring everyone, and Gerex stood by the door, silent and steadfast.
Dimitri came in then just then and gave me a nod. Lennie looked up and saw who it was and he went back to work.
"How fares your day?" I asked in an almost offhand manner.
"Well enough," came Dimitri's reply. "I believe I have found us a healer. There is a new sect in town, up from Kmet. They need coin to build a temple, and they are poor. The word is they were run out of Kmet for some sort of blasphemy against the official gods of the empire. They have a bad reputation amongst the other temples because they offer to heal people for whatever they can pay instead making them pay the going rate."
"So they are undercutting the other temples' prices," I replied. "I can see how that would make the other's unhappy."
"Yes," replied Dimitri, "but it leaves the Kmet priests poor. They are willing to send a volunteer along with us and hopefully come back with enough gold to build a temple."
"Where is Kmet?" Charles asked from where he stood.
"It is also called Stygia," I replied.
"Oh, I have heard of Stygia," Charles said as he turned back to looking at swords.
"I have invited them to send their volunteer here this afternoon for us to meet him." Dimitri replied as he poured himself a mug of ale from the pitcher on the table.
"Help yourself," I said, ironically to Dimitri.
"I am," he replied, unrepentant. "I am surprised you are being so generous with your gear, it is not like you to be so generous."
"I am charging the cost to our patron," I replied simply.
"Of course, you are," Dimitri said with a laugh.
I turned my attention to Helena and said, "Miss, how much of the magic users art do you know?
The girl stood up and said, "I know how to read and detect magic. I can cast the Dancing Lights, Mending, and I can make an arcane mark."
I nodded, those were all cantrips, this girl who fancied herself a mage was as weak as a kitten, magically. Judging from the awkwardness of her brother, his warrior training was far less than my own, and I was not a warrior.
From a satchel containing my personal effects, I took out my oldest book on magic. In it was not only spells, but each spell had a detailed explanation of its effects and of how to cast it. Most traveling spell books simply had the arcane language and symbols needed to cast the spell and no explanation. I had written this book myself, when I was just starting out on the path to wizardry.
"Come here, girl," I said to her. She came over and I handed over the book. "This is a beginner's spell book, learn the spells within and you will be on your way to mastering the path of power."
She thanked me, but not particularly warmly, but I saw the gleam in her eyes at the prospect of learning spells. Little did she know the pain and discomfort that comes with the study of real magic. I knew all too well as I once more began to work on advancing my own magic by studying the more advanced spells in my collection. Up until now, learning the spells had not been worth the effort and discomfort, but now I meditated on the new runes and magical symbols every night of spells that I could not cast at the moment. I was advancing in my knowledge of magic, but it was a slow and tedious, and mostly painful, experience. I thought I would share my discomfort with the girl.
The priest Dimitri had promised would come came within the hour. He was older than I thought he would be, certainly older than me. He had blanket wrapped around him for warmth, although the day was fine, but then I remembered Kmet is a desert kingdom and very hot. I realized these Stygians must be suffering unduly from our northern cold, but if the cold bothered him, he did not let it affect his mood. He greeted us with warm smiles that brought out the wrinkles around his eyes and shook our hands with genuine warmth. His head was bald and he wore two earrings of black jasper in each earlobe and besides his blanket, he wore a white linen tunic and kilt and sandals on his feet. His skin was red like baked clay and he was not tall, but he carried himself with great confidence.
"Greetings," the priest said in the common tongue, but with a strange accent "and may the blessings of the Aten be upon you. I am called Amenaruu and I am a priest of the seventh circle of the Temple of the Aten"
I returned the greeting and made the appropriate introductions to the people in the room. Amenaruu smiled and blessed them one by one in the name of his deity. I then invited him to sit down and poured him some beer, which he accepted with eager grace. I went over the salient points of our plan and he nodded the while and smiled his beneficent smile. He smiled so much I wondered if he was an idiot, but that concern ended when he began to speak. Mostly he asked questions, very intelligent questions about what would be expected from him. I explained as best I could, without revealing our true destination or even our second false destination since the Helena and Charles were there listening in to our conversation.
"I accept your offer of employment on behalf of my temple," he replied. "I understand I am to serve as the healer of this party and to provide spiritual instruction?"
I sort of inwardly cringed at the "spiritual instruction" part, but I nodded.
"Does your order allow to you fight, and do you have any skill at arms?" Dimitri asked.
"Yes," replied Amenaruu, "but we may only fight to preserve life, ours or someone else's, and we cannot be the aggressors. I have some skill with the shield, spear and the mace. As a young man, like all young men, I had to serve in the Pharoah's army for five years and I learned much there and I have fought in two battles."
"Dimitri and I were both drafted into the Stassi army some years ago," I mused.
"You have had training as a soldier then," Amenaruu observed, "which explains why a mage is carrying a sword. But how did you get drafted, for you are obviously not Stassi for they are of smaller height and have black hair and darker skin than yours, no?
"We mentioned that fact," Dimitri said, "but they thought we looked enough like them to draft us. They were fighting the nomadic Khans and they needed warm bodies and they were not particular where they found them."
"Did you fight in any battles?" Charles asked, fascinated apparently by the story.
"Several small ones," I replied and Dimitri nodded along with me, "and a couple of big ones. We even won some of them."
"But you are a mage," Helena said very puzzled, "why did you not tell them this so they could use your magical skills?"
"Because the Stassi hate magic users and I would have been burned at the stake as they believe only priests to cast true spells and they reckon anyone else who does so must be doing it with the help of demons. So, I kept my mouth shut and learned to soldier."
We spoke a little more, the priest seemed to say little and listen much, but he could get us to talking and for some reason we felt comfortable telling him whatever he wanted to know. Before he left us, we helped him pick his gear. He chose a byrnie of padded linen like minefor his armor, preferring to light on his feet. He picked out a simple bowl shaped helmet of steel with a nasal gard, but no chain aventail like the one on Gerrex's helmet. I had a lightweight shield of wicker covered with rawhide that he fancied and a spear and a mace with a round head. He also took an armload of old cloaks to give to his brethren when he left. I felt the odd little priest would make a good addition to the party.
The expedition coalesced well, and it was the last night of Forth Month, the day before we were to leave, when the tapestry began to unwind, as they say. Dimitri had been making the rounds of the bars with a fake map, not the one the kids had, but one that I had made up to cement the idea that we were not going anywhere near the Ashie Valley. Dimitri had been going from tavern to tavern, drinking too much, and showing the map around to anyone who would listen. But it was a very angry Dimitri came pounding on my door with Godfrey Barlson in tow late in the night before we were to leave..
Gerrex answered the door and Dimitri stormed in.
"The worthless bastards have stolen it and have left the city!" He shouted.
"What are you talking about?" I demanded. "Who has stolen what?"
"That bastard Angus and his two friends I hired have stolen the fake map from me and they have left the city riding on the horses Godfrey provided, and wearing the gear you gave them, hoping to beat us to the treasure!"
Dimitri explained he had gone round to speak with Angus and had found out he had left the city the day before last trying, no doubt, to get the jump on us. I cursed roundly. I hated betrayal more than anything, and I was angry even though the map they thought would lead them to treasure would lead them nowhere. The gear could be replaced, but we lost our fighters, and that weakened us. I let myself have another round of cursing before deciding it was luxury I could not afford. My mind raced quickly.
"Can you get more fighters by tomorrow," I asked.
Dimitri looked at Godfrey and he let out his breath slowly and said, "I think so, but you may not be happy with who I get."
"It does not look like I have a choice," I replied somewhat bitterly, "we need fighters."
"Then I will have some by tomorrow," Dimitri said, "but I may not have them by sunrise."
"Good, I knew I could count on you. I will go with Godfrey and the wagons tomorrow, and we will wait for you at Nur, the little village on the East Road."
That was agreed to, and both Dimitri and Godfrey left me alone with my thoughts. This was an ill start to an adventure that I did not want, but I had no time to wallow in my bad luck. I had a list of things to do before I slept this night.
The weather, which I had thought of as a friend, had turned its back on us as well and when we crossed the river on the ferry, the rain was falling heavily upon us. Godfrey drove the main wagon and I drove the smaller of the two. Helena rode silently beside me, making her dislike for me plain, while her brother rode a horse next to the wagon. Gerrex, his job as a bodyguard done, was up ahead as sort of a scout. I suspected he just did not want to ride amongst humans since we talk too much. Our six bearded mercenary guards, looking tough and capable, rode horses as well, their big war crossbows strung on the back of their horses. On the side of the main wagon were loops of metal. Should we be attacked, the guards would dismount and tie their horses to the wagon and they would fight on foot. The wore a mish mash of armor taken from a dozen battlefields and they had swords and daggers and round bucklers along with their crossbows. Godfrey had chosen well with these men.
We made it to Nur before midday and then we waited at an inn. I stood on the porch of the inn watching the rain drip off the roof and form puddles as much as I did the road. Finally, halfway between midday and nightfall, I saw Dimitri coming with two other riders. One was short, very short and I realized he was a dwarf. The other was tall and he road with his hood up. It was not until they less than thirty paces from me when I recognized the tall man as Brey, the man who had left us to fight alone in the swamps so many years ago.