[Chronicles of the King's Tramp 01] Walker of worlds by De Haven Tom

Author:De Haven, Tom [De Haven, Tom]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Doubleday
Published: 1990-10-25T14:30:53+00:00

CHAPTER 22

AFTERCLAP

On his last ramble through port Tiedek in Lostwithal: by chance, Jack had seen two shadowed claws, at a seamen’s masque.

Most revelers at the Maritime Hall that evening (it was the Feast of the Most Temperate Season) wore costumes that satirized nobles: mage robes sewn from coarse wool blankets, pythoness habits stitched together from jute sacks, art-princekin formal jackets fashioned from burlap, chips of broken glass substituted for splendent jewels. There were countless Agels, of course, feigning exhaustion and perched on shipping crates and wooden barrels. Some Agels were even part of tableaux vivant, with ministers of state, pages, attendants, a naked fool.

Dressed in a soiled purple cape with a raveled hem (Hill Barons fancied purple), Jack had gone alone, Lita having traveled ahead the previous morning to her home-lake for Chiidling Days.

The crowd was thick-pressed and giddy, and he’d wandered through it with his ears tuned, pausing only whenever he failed to recognize a name. Or was intrigued by some fragment of drunken conversation. Eavesdropping. Nothing of much interest, though—till very late in the evening, as the revel wound down. Jack was taking yet another turn around the hall when he’d glanced up to the balcony and spied two russet claws pressed against the railing.

To everyone else, they were tall, stoop-shouldered mariners, wearing tattered versions of courtiers’ clothing.

But Jack could scarcely see those auras, the shadows they’d borrowed.

It was one of the few privileges that came with being a tramp in the service of His Majesty. You had a certain … vision; an extra-sight. It would take a great mage, indeed, to cast the shadow that could fool even a first-degree Walker.

Jack wondered idly for whom they’d come, the two claws; he had not heard of any intriguers during his brief stay in Tiedek. And he wondered also if their Finder were near at hand. He knew all the Finders up and down the Major Coast, and most of those practicing elsewhere; had he looked, he surely could’ve recognized whichever one had brought the claws. But why bother? The Finder might’ve recognized him, too, and Jack, a Walker wasn’t keen on speaking to someone of that ilk. All Finders were his social and professional inferiors.

It hadn’t crossed his mind that the claws might be there for him.

After spotting them both, he’d lost interest, and passed the remainder of the evening cadging drinks at the bar. Several times he was offered vapors, but declined. He spoke and flirted with a shy pretty girl who’d come to the masquerade dressed as the Throne Widow, King Agel’s Queen. Then, around three in the morning, he stumbled from the Maritime Hall, by himself. (The girl had been far too shy to agree to what he’d suggested they do.) Both of heaven’s moons were bright. Almost immediately Jack became aware of scuffling noises behind him.

He started to turn when something slammed into the side of his head and knocked him off the pavement. When he hit the street, he rolled, and the claw

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.