The Bilge Rat drifted into the port of Judas four days after leaving Meta-Rikan. Her crew was not sorry to see their passengers gone. Schneider could be intimidating. He could be arrogant and he was feeling close enough to his old self to excel at both. They walked onto the docks of Judas, which at one time had been greater by far than those of Meta-Rikan, but now were a shadow of their former glory. The city had never recovered from its siege, some seven years past, by the Lords of Havoc. Its walls were pitted and gouged. Some of its buildings still the crumbled wrecks they had been left after the siege. It was a city that had lost its heart and only recently, since the marriage of its prince by default to Meta-Rikan's princess, had moneys started flowing in abundance towards restorations. A fair deal of that money came from Meta-Rikan and Larz's wish to see his sister city a strong ally should the need arise. The merchant ships still sailed up the river to Judas, but nowadays they left the best of their goods at the ports of Meta-Rikan.
Yoko and Schneider drifted about the docks, listening to rumors, buying a bit of supplies here and bit there. Something was most definitely astir. The guard that walked the docks was plentiful and the merchants wary. When they asked one swordsmith, from whom Schneider purchased a blade and scabbard, what was afoot, the man professed to have no clear knowledge. He only knew that as of the day before, the city guard had been swarming over all the city. Not good news. A messenger on horseback, with fresh mounts waiting at all the road houses between here and Meta-Rikan could have reached Judas a day or more before them.
"We need horses." Yoko said when they walked from the shop, hugging herself nervously while Schneider examined the sword he had bought.
"I need decent clothing."
One could hardly argue with that. Under the fine cloak he was clad in the filthiest of blood stained rags. She gestured to a common clothier that catered to sailors and the working men of the docks. It did not suit him. He found a richer shop a street past the docks. The proprietor sniffed disdainfully at him when he walked in, shoeless, dirty, with tangled unwashed hair.
"Perhaps you've wondered into the wrong shop. The Good Samaritan's Hand Me Downs is a street over."
Schneider fixed an icy gaze on the man and purred. "Perhaps you'd like to spend the very brief remainder of your days licking the dung from the soles of my boots?"
The clothier blanched, wisely not remarking that Schneider had to boots to speak of.
"We've money to pay." Yoko offered, embarrassed. Schneider cast her a withering glance at her attempts to soothe an awkward situation. Ignoring the shopkeeper, he began shuffling through the racks of clothing. Found a pleated black linen tunic and tossed it into Yoko's keeping while he continued to browse. He had always had a taste for fashion. He was generally quite spectacularly garbed. He had gone to great troubles to learn and perfect a spell of Sartor. Or for lack of a better word, tailoring out of thin air. Arshes Nei and Kall-Su thought it was the most ridiculous and egotistical waste of power ever to grace a summoning. For a refined Sartor spell took as much power, when one got right down to it, as a highly powerful destructive spell in any other self respecting wizard's arsenal. One was calling forth the power to creating clothing out of thin air, after all. It took a fair amount of concentration and fair portion of energy. It had taken him two decades to master it. He enjoyed it more than any spell to his name. It was quite better than the trivial task of shopping for one's outfits.
He found a leather vest with silver inlay along the inside edges that he rather liked and Yoko got that too. A pair of soft leather trousers, dyed black, followed, then a thick black belt with an ornate silver buckle and a long black cloak, (obviously the color of the one Sheela had given him did not go with the dark choice of his new clothing). Yoko piled his choices on the counter while he sat down on the wooden bench by the shoe and boot selection to size boots to his feet. He found a pair of high black boots with knee guards and pulled them on, stood up and stomped about in them before whirling on the morose shopkeeper and stabbing an imperious finger at the man.
"A bathhouse. Preferably one where they change the water on occasion."
"Two doors down." The man said grudgingly. "They've even girls to wash your back."
Schneider lifted a brow in interest. "Perfect. Pay the man, Yoko."
Yoko sniffed, asked the shopkeeper what was owed and reluctantly counted out what she thought was an outrageously high price for the purchase. Schneider was already half out the door, though and she hurried grabbed the bundle the somewhat mollified clothier had packaged for her.
"Girls to wash his back." She muttered to herself. She followed him into the bathhouse where he was already demanding a clean, hot bath of the old woman who ran it. He cast her a look when she leaned on the counter beside him.
"Care to join me?"
"No, I'm quite clean enough, thank you. Besides, I don't like girls washing my back."
"Your loss." He grinned at her, amused by her pique. The old woman returned to guide him to one of the bathing rooms, claiming that a girl would be in shortly. Yoko tossed him his bundle of new clothing and proclaimed that she would wait for him out side.
When the old woman came back, claiming that Schneider had told her Yoko would pay, Yoko grumbled and dug in the pouch for some of the lesser coins she had gotten in change from the clothier. Her fingers trembled on an extra piece of silver.
"Do you have any fat, ugly wash girls?" She asked hopefully. The old woman lifted a brow with interest. "Newly married, huh?"
Yoko blushed. "No!"
"Ah, then you have even more reason to be jealous."
"I'm not jealous."
"For an extra coin or two, I could find a plain faced girl to attend your man."
"He's not my man." Yoko muttered, digging the coins out anyway and placing them in the wrinkled palm. Cackling with glee, the old woman went off to fetch the proper girl. Yoko sniffed, crossed her arms under her breast, then half smiled.
It was a thoroughly unenjoyable bath. Oh, the water was clean and stingingly hot and the wooden tub was a good enough size to accommodate even his long legs, but washgirl who lumbered in was pig faced and almost his own weight. Her giggle sounded like a rat in a trap and her hands had the tendency to wonder to parts of him that had no desire to have her hands upon them. He came away from it clean of the stench of the Prophet's dungeon, though the repulsive scent of the man's presence in his head still lingered. He shooed the cow away when she attempted to help him dry off and dress, accomplishing that task himself. He felt incredibly better in relatively decent clothing and clean, if not damp and tangled hair about his shoulders. He wished for a mirror to gauge the fit of the clothing, but found Yoko's and the old woman out front's reactions to his reappearance assurance enough that he was at least somewhat back to his old self. The old woman lifted both brows in surprise at the difference of the man who came out of her baths from the man who had gone in. Yoko just stared at him, then blinked and caught herself and promptly looked away.
It helped his bruised ego. He caught Yoko about the shoulders and ushered her to the door without a word to the gawking wash house mistress. They walked down the wooden sidewalk in the midst of mid-day pedestrian traffic. The smells of foods from venders and taverns preparing for lunchtime clientele drifted tantalizingly among the passerby, luring folk to their origins. After four days of the Bilge Rat's gruel, the aromas were overcoming. Even Yoko could not complain overly much about putting off yet a while longer the search for horses and supplies.
There was a tavern not far down the sidewalk who's placard boasted a fine and varied menu. It apparently lived up to its bragging for the main room was filled with patrons. A sweet voiced female minstrel played for coin near the hearth. Schneider jostled another set of customers who had been waiting for a spot near the warmth of the fire out of the way and appropriated the but recently empty bench for himself and Yoko. There was grumbling, but the fat little merchant and his fancy boy were neither willing to argue overly with the dangerous look Schneider fixed them with. He ordered a great selection of food from the waitress that passed by the table, while Yoko rested her elbow on the tabletop, shutting her eyes as if exhausted. He had a moment of concern, then noticed that she was humming along with the popular song the minstrel was singing and it was no sudden faint. He glanced at the minstrel himself. A shapely enough form, with a fall of straight dark hair obscuring the face. She had the voice of an angel -- or a devil, depending on who's view you took. She also, he noted, had the tattoo of a slave on the back of the hand that held the neck of her lute. Not a terribly common practice this far south, slavery. It was more a northern and northeastern custom. There was a man sitting behind her, nursing a mug of ale, who kept a close eye on the coins tossed at the feet of the singer. Her master then. He almost turned his eye away, no longer interested in either master or slave, when he noted the rune signs sown into the lapel of the man's vest. And upon closer inspection the ornate and gaudy rings of warding about his fingers. A hedge wizard or a warlock for hire. No proper wizard would parade about with such evident signs of the trade on his person. And obviously this one was not that good, since he had to rely on the income of his slave.
Schneider sniffed in disdain and turned his attention to the mug of ale and the basket of hot bread that the harried waitress sit before them.
"What?" Yoko asked him, sharp enough to have caught his contempt.
"Nothing. Just a hedge wizard pretending jewels and runesigns make him more of a power than he is."
"Where?" Her eyes grew curious. He indicated the general direction of the man with his chin, hands full of ale and bread.
"Oh. I wonder if he might help us with the wards?"
"Not likely." He snorted, but she was up from the bench and scurrying around the table in complete disregard of his opinion. The platter of food came about the same time she came back with the hedge wizard in tow. The man was greasy and imperious, with eyes that plainly told of how high a regard he held himself over the rest of the world. Schneider ignored him, more interested in the roast chicken before him.
"I'm told you need the services of a wizard." The man finally said, after enduring Schneider's lack of notice for several long breaths.
"Rushie." Yoko leaned over his shoulder pleadingly. "He can at least try."
He glanced askew at her, holding a greasy bird leg between his fingers. Large brown eyes begged for compliance, but the twist of her mouth suggested she was about to become petulant if he refused her.
"Fine. Whatever." He snapped. "Let him look at the damned things, for what little good it will do."
"Not here." The hedge wizard said, leaning down to whisper the warning. "The common folk aren't as tolerant of works of magic as they used to be. Outside."
Schneider waved the drumstick under the hedge wizard's nose. "When I finish eating. I'll not abandon a good meal just to listen to your drivel."
The man sniffed, offended. "I can see you have little respect for the powers of the arcane."
Schneider half laughed, turning his attention back to his lunch. Yoko said soft words the man, after which he went back to his minstrel, then she sat down next to him and reached for a slice of bread.
"You could stand to practice a little more civility, you know." She complained. "Being nice to people will get you further than rudeness."
"I don't have to be nice to people and they either get over it or they complain about it and end their miserable lives then and there."
She rolled her eyes in disbelief. "You are so full of yourself."
When the last of the food was gone, she pulled him out onto the street, where the hedge mage waited. His minstrel stood against the shadows of the wall, lute strapped across her back, head down. She never looked up at them when her master beckoned them into the privacy of the alley next to the tavern.
"She says you have wards to be broken." The man said, when they were alone in the dim alley. "Let me see them."
Schneider didn't like the tone of command. He sneered down his nose at the man, then held out his wrists. The hedge wizard pretended concentration as he reached out and touched the bands. With a simple ward, it would be a matter of entering the layers of magic with one's mind, finding the weak spots, if there were any and fraying the knot that held the whole of the ward together. It was not an uncomplicated task, but easy enough if one had the patience for it. This hedge mage might well have been adept at unworking simple wards. Schneider already knew the things fastened to his wrists were no simple workings.
The man's eyes snapped open and he snatched his hands back as though burnt. He mouthed a curse or a prayer and looked at Schneider in shock.
"By the goddess, what are those?"
Schneider lifted a lazy brow. "Why, I though you were the expert on matters arcane?"
The slave girl appeared in the mouth of the alley and the hedge mage's eyes narrowed in indignation. "Lily, I told you never to interrupt."
"Master, Holy Swords come."
The mage's eyes widened in dismay. "They've become a damned inconvenience since the Prophet's teachings have spread."
Schneider wasn't listening. He was grabbing Yoko's wrist and hauling her down the alley towards the open, back door of the building next to the Tavern. Women at laundry looked up in surprise at their entrance, complaining at their passage. Past tables where children and more women folded and pressed clothes, and into the front of the laundry shop, where he pulled her out the door onto the sidewalk, one arm about her shoulders as if they were any other couple out for a stroll. Once glance over his shoulder and he saw a troop of perhaps ten, Holy Swords, the knights of the Goddess, stop by the entrance to the tavern they had taken lunch at. They had stopped the hedge mage and his minstrel, and the man was talking animatedly.
They turned a corner and put the holy knights behind them. Yoko's face was pale with fright and her fingers clutched at his arm.
"How did they find us?" she hissed. "We've been in Judas two -- three hours at most."
"I don't know." He wondered if the wards on his wrists might allow the man who had put them there to track him. Dismal, dismal thought, that.
"We need to get out of here and on the road." She took a breath to collect herself, disengaging her fingers from his arm and pacing ahead with the look that said Yoko was in the midst of plotting.
"We need horses and supplies, but I don't know whether we've the time to risk buying the latter." She glanced back at him for opinion and he shrugged noncommittally. The little details had never been his strong suit.
"Horses first." She finalized her decision and stopped a passerby to ask where horses might be purchased. The bazaar four blocks down from the pier, they were told.
They made haste to that open air animal auction area, where every manner of beast was penned and sold for slaughter, reproduction, work or leisure. She let him choose the animals, while she nervously fingered their dwindling supply of gold. A fair portion of what they had left purchased two horses and tack. At the appearance, whether normal or not of city guard in the crowd that strolled through the bazaar, they decided to make straightway for the bridge that led over the river to the eastern side of Judas. From there on there was nothing but unwalled town separating them from their road eastward towards the mountains and Gara.
One bridge was all that was left after the Four Lords of Havoc had ripped through Judas. There were the remains of three others protruding from the waters of the river. One left standing to accommodate all the easterly passage from the city. One that was crowded with carts and people and herds of animals. And one which stood heavily guarded by men in armor at station houses on either shore. Guards milled about the western shore, city guard and few Holy Swords.
They pulled their horses up across the unkempt garden square that separated town from river and bride and watched. Yoko moaned miserably.
"What do we do? We'll never pass them unnoticed."
"Did you think he'd let me go east to Gara? Did you believe he wouldn't figure out that was the first place we'd go?"
She cast desperate eyes his way. "It's insane that he would go to all this trouble."
He didn't tell her why. He didn't think she needed to hear it then, when her pulse beat so fast in her panic that her breathing was short and ragged.
"Not east then." He said, and reined his mount about.
"There's nothing for us on the west side of the River. Nothing but the Great Forests and the western mountains."
"He'll have every force he can muster out to stop us reaching the moutons and Gara. It'll take him time to shift them westward."
Hooves clattered on cobblestone, people moved out of the path of large equine bodies.
"Stop!" Someone cried out behind them. Yoko turned her head. He half did before a bolt of impact energy passed over his shoulder and shattered the corner of the building directly in front of him. He cursed the wards for shutting out awareness of the spell-casting before it was too late. Only the ineptness of the mage who had thrown it had saved him from a nasty mishap. The horses seemed to have a better sense of it than he did, for they screamed and reared in their fright. Yoko cried out, her eyes wide and he thought she sensed the gathering of a new spell, she must have, for he felt a tiny trickle of power being summoned.
Yoko's mouth worked and she lifted one hand and the impact spell met and rebounded off a shield of her forming.
"Send it back at them." He cried. And her frantic eyes only darted to him, before she kicked her horse into motion, not casting the Rebound spell at the attackers. His own horse followed hers, frantic not to be left in the eye of danger.
"Damnit, you could have taken them out with their own spell." He cried, angry at having to be defended by her and wishing hurt on someone for the indignity.
"I don't know that spell." She cried back.
"What do they teach you in the church?"
She didn't answer. The horses pounded down the narrow streets. People cried out and scattered from their path. There were the sounds of distant pursuit behind them. Damn, damn, damn, someone had fixed a location spell on them -- or him, and passed the magical scent on to the powers that be in Judas. There was no other way coincidence worked so thoroughly against them. No other way they could have been found both at the tavern and at the bridge to the east.
They fled through the city streets, only getting turned about once or twice before they saw the western wall. There was a gate that guards were in the process of closing, to the consternation of the travelers waiting to get in and out of the city. The horn that blared a hollow cadence in the background noise of living, breathing city and the exertion of the horses under them, must have been a notice to seal Judas.
Schneider pulled out his sword, plowed through the people crowded about the half closed gates and made a swipe at the guard attempting to pull the gates shut. The man rolled, more intent on saving his life than closing the gates. Other's came running, weapons out. Yoko was through the narrow opening before they could fight their way through the panicking crowd. He followed her out, and blade still in hand galloped down the dirt road that sloped from the city. A hundred shanty huts lined the pock marked way, its hollow eyed inhabitants coming out from their shabby dwellings to see what the furor at the gates was about. Staring in dull curiosity at the riders thundering away from Judas.
The animals could not hold the all out gallop for long and were leathered and breathing hard by the time Judas had receded in the distance. There was the thin line of a forest to the northwest. They had to veer off from the main road to get there, but he wanted anonymity.
"Yoko there's a trace spell on us. Maybe me. I need to find it and cancel it. Do you know how?"
She stared at him in dismay, her breath as ragged as her mount's. She did not have to tell him she did not know the ways of that spell. He saw it in her face.
"I'll teach it to you." He promised. "In the wood."
"We haven't the time. They'll be after us."
"They've no need to hurry if they've a trace on me, girl. They can find us any time."
He spurred his horse towards the edge of forest and the animal put on a valiant burst of speed. Into the shadows and the buffered silence of the wood. Past the fledgling undergrowth of the fringe and under the canopy of older trees. He swung down and when she stared down in hesitation, wanting very badly to ride on, he reached up and pulled her out of the saddle. A twinge of stubbornness passed her face at the treatment and he shook by the shoulders to impress the seriousness of his intent.
"A spell of tracing is imbued in a person or a thing. It clings to the essence and is a beacon the caster, letting him know where ever the object of that spell is at. You've got to find the spell and then banish it."
"How?"
It was simple enough. It did not require tremendous power or lengthy study. He mouthed the words with her, again and again, until she had them verbatim. Coached her on the wanting of the spell of the need to find the essence of magic that clung to a body. She ran her hands in the air down the length of his body. Up again and paused, fingers trembling at his hands -- at the cursed bracelets on his wrists.
"I think -- it's there, on the wards."
Damn. He had feared it might be on that which he could not shed and that which she could not tamper with. He whirled and paced a few lengths, thinking furiously. What could they do to hamper the spell? The wards were designed to keep his magic power directed inwards. Painfully inwards as he had discovered. Perhaps she might be able to cloud the issue. Not banish the spell, but fog it so the trace was unclear. An outside power might be able to do that, at least temporarily.
He needed to concoct a variation of a spell that she could use. It would take time. They might as well be putting distance between themselves and Judas while he pondered. He motioned her back into the saddle and they rode deeper into the forest.