The Redemption of Althalus Read online

  Unlike the people of the rest of the world, the Perquaines worshiped a female deity. That seemed profoundly unnatural to most people—either in civilization or out on the frontiers—but there was a certain logic to it. The entire culture of Perquaine rested on the vast fields of grain, and the Perquaines were absolutely obsessed with fertility. When Althalus reached the city of Maghu, he discovered that the largest and most magnificent building in the entire city was the temple of Dweia, the Goddess of fertility. He briefly stopped at the temple to look inside, and the colossal statue of the fertility Goddess seemed almost to leap at him. The sculptor who’d carved the statue had quite obviously been either totally insane or caught up in the grip of religious ecstasy when he’d created that monstrosity. There was a certain warped logic to it, Althalus was forced to concede. Fertility meant motherhood, and motherhood involved the suckling of the young. The statue suggested that the Goddess Dweia was equipped to suckle hundreds of babies all at the same time.

  The land of Perquaine had been settled more recently than Treborea or Equero, and the Perquaines still had a few rough edges that made them much more like the people of the frontiers than the stuffier people to the east. The taverns in the seedier parts of Maghu were rowdier than had been the case in Deika or Kanthon, but that didn’t particularly bother Althalus. He drifted around town until he finally located a place where the patrons were talking instead of brawling, and he sat down in a corner to listen.

  “Druigor’s strongbox is absolutely bulging with money,” one patron was telling his friends. “I stopped by his countinghouse the other day, and his box was standing wide open, and it was packed so full that he was having trouble latching down the lid.”

  “That stands to reason,” another man said. “Druigor drives very hard bargains. He can always find some way to get the best of anybody he deals with.”

  “I hear tell that he’s thinking about standing for election to the Senate,” a wispy-looking fellow added.

  “He’s out of his mind,” the first man snorted. “He doesn’t qualify. He doesn’t have a title.”

  The wispy man shrugged. “He’ll buy one. There are always nobles running around with nothing in their purses but their titles.”

  The conversation drifted on to other topics, so Althalus got up and quietly left the tavern. He went some distance down the narrow, cobblestoned street and stopped a fairly well-dressed passerby. “Excuse me,” he said politely, “but I’m looking for the countinghouse of a man named Druigor. Do you by any chance happen to know where it is?”

  “Everybody in Maghu knows where Druigor’s establishment’s located,” the man replied.

  “I’m a stranger here,” Althalus replied.

  “Ah, that explains it then. Druigor does business over by the west gate. Anybody over in that neighborhood can direct you to his establishment.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Althalus said. Then he walked on.

  The area near the west gate was largely given over to barnlike warehouses, and a helpful fellow pointed out the one that belonged to Druigor. It seemed to be fairly busy. People were going in and out through the front door, and there were wagons filled with bulging sacks waiting near a loading dock on one side. Althalus watched for a while. The steady stream of men going in and out through the front door indicated that Druigor was doing a lot of business. That was always promising.

  He went on up the street and entered another, quieter warehouse. A sweating man was dragging heavy sacks across the floor and stacking them against a wall. “Excuse me, neighbor,” Althalus said. “Who does this place belong to?”

  “This is Garwin’s warehouse,” the sweating man replied. “He’s not here right now, though.”

  “Oh,” Althalus said. “Sorry I missed him. I’ll come back later.” Then he turned, went back out into the street, and walked on down to Druigor’s warehouse again. He went inside and joined the others who were waiting to speak with the owner of the place.

  When his turn came he went into a cluttered room where a hard-eyed man sat at a table. “Yes?” the hard-eyed man said.

  “You’re a very busy man, I see,” Althalus said, his eyes covering everything in the room.

  “Yes, I am, so get to the point.”

  Althalus had already seen what he’d come to see, however. In the corner of the room stood a bulky bronze box with an elaborate latch holding it shut.

  “I’ve been told that you’re a fair man, Master Garwin,” Althalus said in his most ingratiating manner, his eyes still busy.

  “You’ve come to the wrong place,” the man at the table said. “I’m Druigor. Garwin’s establishment’s over to the north—four or five doors.”

  Althalus threw his hands up in the air. “I should have known better than to trust a drunkard,” he said. “The man who told me that this was Garwin’s place of business could barely stand up. I think I’ll go back out into the street and punch that sot right in the mouth. Sorry to have bothered you, Master Druigor. I’ll revenge the both of us on that sodden idiot.”

  “Did you want to see Garwin on business?” Druigor asked curiously. “I can beat his prices on just about anything you can name.”

  “I’m terribly sorry, Master Druigor,” Althalus said, “but my hands are tied this time. My idiot brother made some promises to Garwin, and I can’t think of any way to wriggle out of them. When I get back home, I think I’ll take my brother out behind the house and brick his mouth shut. Then, the next time I come to Maghu, you and I might want to have a little chat.”

  “I’ll look forward to it, Master . . . ?”

  “Kweso,” Althalus picked a name at random.

  “Are you by any chance a relation of that salt merchant in Deika?”

  “He’s our father’s cousin,” Althalus replied glibly. “They aren’t talking to each other right now, though. It’s one of those family squabbles. Well, you’re busy, Master Druigor, so if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go have some words with that drunkard and then visit Master Garwin and find out how much of the family holdings my half-wit brother’s given away.”

  “I’ll see you next time you come to Maghu, then?”

  “You can count on it, Master Druigor.” Althalus bowed slightly, and then he left.

  It was well after midnight when Althalus broke in through the door on Druigor’s loading dock. He went on silent feet through the wheat-fragrant warehouse to the room where he’d spoken with Druigor that afternoon. The door to the room was locked, but that, of course, was no problem. Once Althalus was inside the room, he quickly ignited his tinder with his flints and lit a candle sitting on Druigor’s table. Then he closely examined the complex latch that held the bulky lid of the bronze strongbox shut. As was usually the case, the complexity had been designed to confuse anyone who might be curious about the contents of the box. Althalus was quite familiar with the design, so he had the latch open in only a few moments.

  He lifted the lid and reached inside, his fingers trembling with anticipation.

  There were no coins inside the box, however. Instead, it was filled to overflowing with scraps of paper. Althalus lifted out a handful of the scraps and examined them closely. They all seemed to have pictures drawn on them, but Althalus couldn’t make any sense of those pictures. He dropped them on the floor and dug out another handful. There were more pictures.

  Althalus desperately pawed around inside the box, but his hands did not encounter anything at all that felt anything like money.

  This made no sense whatsoever. Why would anybody go to the trouble to lock up stacks of worthless paper?

  After about a quarter of an hour, he gave up. He briefly considered piling all that paper in a heap on the floor and setting fire to it, but he discarded that idea almost as soon as it came to him. A fire would almost certainly spread, and a burning warehouse would attract attention. He muttered a few choice swearwords, and then he left.

  He gave some thought to returning to the tavern he’d visited on his first day in Maghu and hav
ing some words with the tavern loafer who’d spoken so glowingly about the contents of Druigor’s strongbox, but he decided against it. The sting of constant disappointments he’d endured this summer was making him very short-tempered, and he wasn’t entirely positive that he’d be able to restrain himself once he started chastising somebody. In his present mood, chastisement might very well be looked upon as murder in some circles.

  He sourly returned to the inn where his horse was stabled and spent the rest of the night sitting on his bed glaring at the single piece of paper he’d taken from Druigor’s strongbox. The pictures drawn on the paper weren’t really very good. Why in the world had Druigor bothered to lock them up? When morning finally arrived, Althalus roused the innkeeper and settled accounts with him. Then he reached into his pocket. “Oh,” he said, “I just remembered something.” He drew out the piece of paper. “I found this in the street. Do you have any idea at all what it means?”

  “Of course,” the innkeeper replied. “That’s money.”

  “Money? I don’t follow you. Money’s made out of gold or silver, sometimes copper or brass. This is just paper. It’s not worth anything, is it?”

  “If you take that to the treasury behind the Senate, they’ll give you a silver coin for it.”

  “Why would they do that? It’s just paper.”

  “It has the seal of the Senate on it. That makes it as good as real silver. Haven’t you ever seen paper money before?”

  A sense of total defeat came crashing down on Althalus as he went to the stable to pick up his horse. His luck had abandoned him. This had been the worst summer in his entire life. Evidently, his luck didn’t want him down here. There was wealth beyond counting in these cities of the plain, but no matter how hard he’d tried, he hadn’t managed to get his hands on any of it. As he mounted his horse, he amended that thought. Last night in Druigor’s countinghouse, he’d had his hands on more money than he’d likely ever see in the rest of his entire life, but he’d just walked away from it, because he hadn’t realized that it was money.

  He ruefully conceded that he had no business being in the city. He belonged back on the frontier. Things were just too complicated down here.

  He mournfully rode his horse to the central marketplace of Maghu to trade his civilized clothes for apparel more suitable to the frontier where he belonged.

  The clothier swindled him, but he’d more or less expected that. Nothing down here was ever going to go well for him.

  He wasn’t even particularly surprised to discover when he came out of the clothier’s shop that someone had stolen his horse.

  C H A P T E R T W O

  His sense of defeat made Althalus a little abrupt with the first man who passed his place of concealment late the next night. He stepped out of the shadows, grabbed the unwary fellow by the back of his tunic, and slammed him against a stone wall just as hard as he could. The man sagged limply in his hands, and that irritated Althalus all the more. For some reason he’d been hoping for a bit more in the way of a struggle. He let the unconscious man collapse into the gutter and quickly stole his purse. Then, for no reason he could really justify, he dragged the inert body back into the shadows and stole all the man’s clothes.

  He realized as he walked down the dark street that what he’d just done was silly, but in some obscure way it seemed appropriate, since it almost perfectly expressed his opinion of civilization. For some reason the absurdity made him feel better.

  After he’d gone some distance, however, the bundle of clothes under his arm became a nuisance, so he shrugged and threw it away without even bothering to find out if any of the garments fit him.

  As luck had it, the city gates were open, and Althalus left Maghu without even bothering to say good-bye. The moon was almost full, so there was light enough to see by, and he struck out to the north, feeling better with every step. By dawn he was several miles from Maghu, and up ahead he could see the snow-capped peaks of Arum blushing in the pink light of the sunrise.

  It was a long walk from Maghu to the foothills of Arum, but Althalus moved right along. The sooner he left civilization behind, the better. The whole idea of going into the low country had been a mistake of the worst kind. Not so much because he hadn’t profited: Althalus usually squandered every penny he got his hands on. What concerned him about the whole business was the apparent alienation between him and his luck. Luck was everything; money meant nothing.

  He was well up into the foothills by late summer. On a golden afternoon he stopped in a shabby wayside tavern, not because of some vast thirst, but rather out of the need for some conversation with people he could understand.

  “You would not believe how fat he is,” a half-drunk fellow was saying to the tavern keeper. “I’d guess he can afford to eat well; he’s got about half the wealth of Arum locked away in his strong room by now.”

  That got our thief’s immediate attention, and he sat down near the tipsy fellow, hoping to hear more.

  The tavern keeper looked at him inquiringly. “What’s your pleasure, neighbor?” he asked.

  “Mead,” Althalus replied. He hadn’t had a good cup of mead for months, since the lowlanders seemed not to know how to brew it.

  “Mead it is,” the tavern keeper replied, going back behind the wobbly counter to fetch it.

  “I didn’t mean to interrupt you,” Althalus said politely to the tipsy fellow.

  “No offense taken,” the fellow said. “I was just telling Arek here about a Clan Chief to the north who’s so rich that they haven’t invented a number for how many coins he’s got locked away in that fort of his.”

  The fellow had the red face and purple nose of a hard-drinking man, but Althalus wasn’t really interested in his complexion. His attention was focused on the man’s wolf-skin tunic instead. For some peculiar reason, whoever had sewn the tunic had left the ears on, and they now adorned the garment’s hood. Althalus thought that looked very fine indeed. “What did you say the Chief’s name was?” he asked.

  “He’s called Gosti Big Belly—probably because the only exercise he gets is moving his jaw up and down. He eats steadily from morning to night.”

  “From what you say, I guess he can afford it.”

  The half-drunk man continued to talk expansively about the wealth of the fat Clan Chief, and Althalus feigned a great interest, buying more mead for them each time the fellow’s cup ran dry. By sundown the fellow was slobbering drunk and there was a sizable puddle of discarded mead on the floor near Althalus.

  Other men came into the tavern after the sun had set, and the place grew noisier as it grew dark outside.

  “I don’t know about you, friend,” Althalus said smoothly, “but all this mead is starting to talk to me. Why don’t we go outside and have a look at the stars?”

  The drunken man blinked his bleary eyes. “I think that’s a wunnerful idea,” he agreed. “My mead’s telling me to go see some stars, too.”

  They rose to go outside, and Althalus caught the swaying man’s arm. “Steady, friend,” he cautioned. Then they went outside with Althalus half supporting his drunken companion. “Over there, I think,” he suggested, pointing at a nearby grove of pine trees.

  The man grunted his agreement and lurched toward the pines. He stopped, breathing hard, and leaned back against a tree. “Kinda woozy,” he mumbled, his head drooping.

  Althalus smoothly pulled his heavy bronze short sword out from under his belt, reversed it, and held it by the blade. “Friend?” he said.

  “Hmm?” The man’s face came up with a foolish expression and unfocused eyes.

  Althalus hit him squarely on the forehead with the heavy hilt of his sword. The man slammed back against the tree and bounced forward.

  Althalus hit him on the back of the head as he went by, and the fellow went down.

  Althalus knelt beside him and shook him slightly.

  The man began to snore.

  “That seems to have it,” Althalus murmured to himself. He laid his swor
d down and went to work. After he’d removed his new wolf-skin tunic from the unconscious man, he took the fellow’s purse. The purse wasn’t very heavy, but his drinking companion’s shoes weren’t too bad. The trip up from Maghu had left Althalus’ own shoes in near tatters, so replacing them was probably a good idea. The snoring man also had a fairly new bronze dagger at his belt, so all in all, Althalus viewed the entire affair as quite profitable. He dragged the man farther back into the shadows, then put on his splendid new tunic and his sturdy shoes. He looked down at his victim almost sadly. “So much for wealth beyond counting,” he sighed. “It’s back to stealing clothes and shoes, I guess.” Then he shrugged. “Oh, well. If that’s what my luck wants me to do, I might as well go along with her.” He half saluted his snoring victim and left the vicinity. He wasn’t exactly deliriously happy, but he was in better spirits than he’d been down in the low country.

  He moved right along, since he wanted to be in the lands of the next clan to the north before the previous owner of his fine new tunic awakened. By midmorning of the following day, he was fairly certain that he was beyond the reach of last night’s victim, so he stopped in the tavern of a small village to celebrate his apparent change of luck. The wolf-eared tunic wasn’t equal to all that unrecognizable wealth in Druigor’s counting-house, but it was a start.

  It was in that tavern that he once again heard someone speak of Gosti Big Belly. “I’ve heard about him,” he told the assembled tavern loafers. “I can’t imagine why a Clan Chief would let his people call him by a name like that, though.”

  “You’d almost have to know him to understand,” one of the other tavern patrons replied. “You’re right about how a name like that would offend most Clan Chiefs, but Gosti’s very proud of that belly of his. He even laughs out loud when he brags that he hasn’t seen his feet in years.”

  “I’ve heard tell that he’s rich,” Althalus said, nudging the conversation around to the topic that most interested him.

  “Oh, he’s rich, all right,” another confirmed the fact.