Days of Air and Darkness - Katharine Kerr [99]
“Well, I’ll tell you what. When this war’s over, you remind me of my promise, and I will.”
The boy grinned as bright as a rising moon, but Jill felt a coldness wrap round her heart, as she wondered if either of them would live long enough to sit down to that tutoring.
The note turned out to be a pair of wooden tablets, smeared with wax. Jill wrote her message with a stylus, put the tablets wax side together, and tied them up with a thong.
“A dwarven invention, this,” she remarked. “You can use them over and over, you see. Here you go, lad. Ask for Jorn.”
With the tablets safely in hand, Jahdo hurried out of the dun gates into the town. At the best of times, Cengarn was a confusing place, with streets that curved round the hills and dipped randomly into the valleys between them. Round houses, sheds, shops, most roofed with thatch, stood where people chose to build them, some set off with woven withey fences, others right on the streets. Here and there stretched bits of grass, and trees grew here and there, as well, nodding over chicken coops and public wells. Now, of course, with the siege, farmers, cows, chickens, children, sheep, wagons, improvised tents, dogs, lines of washing hung to dry, extra horses, cooking fires, stacks of hay filled every spot and nook and spilled half out in the street, while loose creatures and children ran round between other people’s houses.
It took Jahdo a long time to find his way, asking directions every time he saw someone who looked like an actual townsman, to the dwarven inn. Round back of the hill topped by the public market—a campground now—he found a rise so steep it came close to being a cliff. Set right into it, between two stunted little pines, stood a wooden door with big iron hinges and a big iron ring. Jahdo grabbed the ring and used it to pound on the door. After a few minutes, a dwarf with an enormously long black beard opened up and fixed him with a suspicious eye.
“I do have a note from the dweomermaster up in the dun,” Jahdo stammered. “For the man known as Jorn.”
“Ah.” The dwarf stepped back. “Well, come in, then.”
Jahdo followed him into a stone hallway, lit with the eerie blue glow of phosphorescent fungi gathered into baskets and hung along the walls. Much to the boy’s surprise, the air inside smelled fresh and sweet. At length, they reached a round chamber, some fifty feet across, scattered with low tables and tiny benches round a central open hearth, where a low fire burned and a huge kettle hung from a pair of andirons and a crossbar. The smoke from the fire rose straight up to vent holes in the stone ceiling. At one of the tables lounged a dwarf who was on the lean and lanky side, with a brown and curly beard.
“Message for you, Jorn.” The innkeep jerked his thumb at Jahdo. “From the dun.”
Jorn read Jill’s message, then smiled.
“Well, now,” he said. “If your master would like to learn geomancy, I do know a bit about it. Get him started, like. But the man who really knows how it works isn’t here, alas. He went off with Rhodry to look for that dragon months ago, before the siege came, like. Otho’s his name, and—”
The floor shook. Jorn swore in Dwarvish and swung himself clear of the bench to stand just as the shaking came again. It felt as if a giant hand had slammed into the side of the hill from outside. The innkeep turned dead white.
“An earthquake?” Jahdo said. “We do get them in my home city, but I didn’t know they happened here.”
“They don’t,” Jorn said. “Worse’n that, lad, much worse. The Horsekin are up to somewhat, I’d say. They’re ramming the walls, most like.”
Jahdo felt as if all the blood had drained from his body. It was an attack, then. As they all stood straining to hear, a sound at last filtered through the thick walls and under the hill, a faint susurrus like an unnatural wind.
“Fair lot of shouting outside,” the innkeep muttered.
Suddenly, Jahdo remembered that he had duties.
“My master! It be needful for me to get back to the dun.”
“Then you’d best hurry,” Jorn said. “I’ll just