Author: Darragh Metzger
Category: Literature
Go to read content：https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/darragh-metzger/page,13,25749-tales-from-opa-three-tales-of-tir-na-nog.html
7
The sun was past its zenith on the following day when Jean came over the crest of a hill and looked down on a city.
He pulled his horse to a stop, drooped the reins across the dun's neck, and leaned on the saddlebow. "Well, Jacques, it seems we have arrived at last. That has to be Yasenovo. Surely no other place of such a size could lie in this direction. Unless we have been misled entirely."
The horse flicked an ear back to listen to him. He grinned and stroked the gelding's neck. He had never been much of a horseman, but during the journey from Tisza, he had come to feel a warm glow of affection and gratitude for the animal who carried him with such tireless sure-footedness over the often treacherous mountain paths.
He had named the faithful beast Jacques because it was strong, sturdy, hard working, and obviously without a drop of noble blood in its veins. Jacques was from the same world as Jean, a living bit of home. They were two castaways together in this great, alien wilderness. The thought made Jean feel less alone.
He pulled a tuft of hair, matted and sticky with old sweat, from Jacques' neck. "The end of the first part of our journey is in sight, my friend. Tonight, with fortune, you will eat oats and get a grooming that will bring a shine to even a coat like yours. And I will sleep in a real bed again. With stone walls all around us and no night noises to keep us awake and shivering in the dark."
He pulled another tuft loose; the horse bobbed his head in response to the tug as if nodding agreement.
Jean laughed and straightened again to look down at the city. "Well, I suppose we should go down. We need to find lodging before dark. And I'll need to find a money changer." Yet he did not move.
Though he had spent most of the journey praying for refuge and the reassurance of his own kind, he now felt a strange reluctance to enter the company of other people once more, as if the stillness of the wilderness had worked its way into his soul and was unwilling to release him.
Below him, Yasenovo filled most of a sloping triangular plain between two vast, white-frothed rivers. Its narrow, more sparsely settled end, mostly carved into what appeared to be farms and estates, overlooked the fork where the rivers met.
The city sprouted up as the land widened, and grew until it nestled against a mountain escarpment which reared protectively behind it, a sheer wall of black rock soaring skyward.
The only approaches were two great stone bridges that arched across each river, and those were stoutly defended. Built-in guard towers bracketed each bridge, with massive wooden gates standing open between them.
Across the rivers on either side, the land flattened into grassy plains that stretched out of sight, carved by farms and small settlements into neat squares connected by dirt roads. People traveled the roads to and from the bridges, driving sheep, cattle, carts, and carriages, riding horses, walking, passing freely from the city to the countryside.
He looked back over his shoulder into the forest-shrouded mountains, tracing the trail behind him until it disappeared into the shadows of the trees.
The route upon which Commander Freimann had set him had quickly dwindled to little more than a deer track, marked now and again by blazes cut into tree trunks or signs scratched on stones. It wandered through forests, hills, meadows, streams, canyon beds, tortuous trails that clung to cliff sides of heart-stopping steepness, and anywhere else that was not in a straight line, as if whoever had marked the route originally had decided that travelers must be given a tour of the entire district along the way.
Yet time and again, despite the fear that lurked at his back and urged him to foolish speed every step of the way — an urge it took all his willpower to ignore — Jean found himself beguiled by the country's beauty. Every mile, each turn in the trail, presented him with something rare and marvelous that made him catch his breath in wonder, or stop and stare, round-eyed, until Jacques, less impressed, insisted upon moving on. Only the thought of trolkien, ogres, or hobs — whatever those were — hiding in the shadows marred the splendor around him, kept him moving toward the promise of civilization.
That thought made his shoulders twitch, and he looked back down at the city, at the promise of safety implicit in its stone walls. He did not know if the danger of trolkien was past, how far their reach extended beyond the Mists. He wondered if he would ever again feel safe outdoors at night.
Now that he was surrounded by the sights, sounds, and smells of the world, the Mists seemed distant and unreal to him; almost, he could dismiss it all as a horrible dream.
Almost.
And here he was, wasting time mulling over such things when he should be riding down to the well-traveled road below.
He shook his head and took another deep breath. All his arguments to the contrary, he was not looking forward to entering the city. He watched the people moving back and forth and licked his lips
It was silly to be nervous, but for all its size, Yasenovo reminded him a little of Tisza, and he had no fond memories of that place. He had never learned if Uros lived or not. And though events and conversations from his time at Tisza were gradually resurfacing in his memory, there were still uncomfortable gaps.
Perhaps they were caused by his injuries and state of fatigue at the time, but he could not rid himself of the feeling that there was another, less natural, reason.
Yasenovo, did, at least, present a more cheery aspect. Most of the houses appeared to be either painted or built of colored stone, and sported red tile roofs. The streets were cobbled with colored bricks, mostly red.
And each one of the people bustling through the streets and passed to and fro on the bridges had an answer to a question, just waiting. Surely some of them must speak a civilized tongue.
His nervousness eased. "Come, Jacques; let's see what this fine city has in store for us." He gave the horse his heels. Jacques grunted and leaped into a fast canter down the hill and toward the bridge.
Jean reined in the horse as he approached the bridge and saw the bristling attention of the guards turned in his direction.
But of course a galloping horseman would draw suspicion. Besides, other folk were using the walkway as well. He did not want to start out by trampling a citizen. He eased Jacques down to a trot, then a walk.
As he reached the gate, two guards, dressed like those at Tisza, lowered their pikes in his path and barked an order in one of the Slavic tongues; Jean recognized the sound by now, if not the meaning.
He halted Jacques and raised his empty hands. "I am a peaceful traveler," he said in English. "I have just come from Tisza."
"Tisza!" one of the guards exclaimed, and both of them lowered their pikes. The other guard waved a farmer with a laden cart past while the first studied Jean with interest. "I spent three summers there. Who is the Sergeant?"
Jean hesitated. Would the guard believe him if he said it was a woman? But he must, if he had been there, surely. "Frau Klara Freimann."
The guard shook his head, but not in negation. "She is Sergeant now? No wonder you're riding so fast."
Surprised by the jest, Jean smiled. "Would it not have been a better test to ask me who was in command?"
"Ha! Tisza is still standing; that means Johannus the Grey is there." His sudden grin was filled with admiration. "Now, there's a true Cavalier if ever there was one."
The guard paused to watch a woman with several children and a donkey go by, then looked up at Jean curiously. "So, what news? I don't recognize you. When were you stationed there?"
The fear that it might not be safe to declare himself a total stranger flickered at the edge of his mind, but lying did not come easily to him. "I am not of the garrison. I just came through the…the Gate. They told me to come here."
"Ah." The guard's eyebrows shot up, but he merely nodded. "Well, go on in, then. If you have any money, I recommend the Moon and Star. Decent food, good beer, stabling for the horse, innkeeper won't cheat you. Dancing Bear is not bad, either, or the Three Kegs. Avoid most of
the others. And stay away from the riverfront until you get your legs under you." He eyed Jean's armor with interest. "Of course, if you want to sell that brigandine, I can probably give you enough to see you through for a few days."
Don't give up your steel, the guard at Tisza had said. Jean shook his head. "No, thank you. Where is this place you mentioned?"
"The Moon and Star?" He turned and pointed. "Straight down this street, take the second right. You can't miss it." He turned away from Jean to examine an ox-drawn cart being led up.
Jean waited for him to finish. He had no reason to linger, but he was unwilling to end the conversation with the friendly guard. Here was someone who seemed willing to talk to him at last. "You speak English very well," he commented when the guard had finished.
The guard shrugged. "I should. I was born in Killaloe. I came to Yasenovo to get away from the damned tainted. They're practically overrunning Killaloe."
"Tainted?" The word meant nothing. He took a guess. "You mean the trolkien?"
The guard looked surprised. "What? No, they're not as bad as all that. At least tainted don't eat you."
The other guard spoke. "Sobaka do. Koshka if they can't find anything better."
The first guard rolled his eyes, then glanced at his fellow with a look that said this was an old argument. "I doubt that. Maybe here they do. Not in Killaloe."
"Huh. Just because you never caught them at it—"
"You there! Hold!" The first guard, his attention abruptly returning to duty, pointed his pike at something coming up behind Jean.
Turning in his saddle, Jean saw a train of three lavishly decorated wagons, each drawn by two pairs of stocky horses little bigger than ponies. The sides of the wagons were painted with dancing figures with the heads of animals on the bodies of men and women, etched in shining gold and painted in brilliant colors.
How had they got so close without him having seen them? He had not noticed them from the hill. Jean's puzzled attention immediately left the wagons themselves, however, as he noticed the driver of the first.
The man staring impassively at the guard was small and slim, and dressed a little like a Moor — at least, his clothes were made of embroidered, brightly-colored silk, with bloused trousers that were drawn in tightly at the ankle — but he was clearly not Moorish. Nor did he look exactly Persian — or at least, not as Jean had always imagined Persians looked — though that seemed a less unlikely guess.
His skin was an odd hue, almost pale ochre, and his eyes, so dark they looked black, were long and narrow in his face, like those of a fox. His brightly colored clothes were partially covered by elaborate armor of bizarre design, and from beneath his peaked helmet, long, black hair snaked down in a single braid.
In the wagon behind him, seated alongside a pile of canvas-draped crates, were four more men enough like the driver to be his brothers, each armed with spears longer than they were tall.
Jean hastily scanned the other wagons and saw they carried similar passengers, all with the same almond eyes, strange faces, and gorgeous, garish clothes.
The first guard moved to the side of the lead wagon. "We weren't told to expect any caravans from Angkor. What's your business here?"
The fox-eyed man responded at some length. It took Jean a moment to realize he was speaking in English, but with an accent unlike any Jean had heard. It wasn't until the man paused, then spoke more slowly, that Jean was able to follow the words. "If Yasenovo does not have need of it, I am sure Torsick does," the stranger said with an air of finality.
The guard hesitated. "The caravans went out on time. Something must have happened."
The driver shrugged his slim shoulders. This time, Jean was able to follow his speech. "That is not our concern," he said. "We bring you alloy. If you want it, you let us pass."
The first guard opened his mouth to respond, but his comrade interrupted. "Let's check out the cargo and let them in. If the caravan's gone missing, we have to report it, but that's nothing to do with Angkor. They'd never come all this way without good reason. And the guilds have been yelling for more alloy."
The first guard nodded and waved a signal toward the stone towers that bracketed the bridge entrance. Immediately two more guards appeared, brushing past Jean as they hurried to join their comrades.
The two newcomers and the second guard made a quick, orderly search of the wagons while the first stood by the strange driver. The other riders in the wagons watched in stolid silence, their eyes flickering warily from the guards to the people passing by.
A moment later, one of the other guards called, "It's alloy, all right."
"All right, you can go in. The main street will take you right to the smith's guild house." The first guard stepped back and waved the wagons on.
Without a word, the driver in the first wagon shook his horses' reins and the three wagons with their fantastic burdens rolled past Jean onto the bridge.
Jean stared after them, but started as the first guard spoke to him from his other side. "You'd best be moving along too, friend."
Jean looked down at him, shaking his head. "Those men — where were they from? And do they all look…like that?"
"Yes, of course." The guard nodded, his attention obviously elsewhere. "They're Khmer, from Angkor."
Neither word meant anything. "Who are they?"
The guard glanced up at him with growing impatience, but answered him civilly enough. "Khmer. People from Angkor are called Khmer — don't ask me why, they just are. They all look like that, more or less. I hear they dress even fancier in Angkor itself. Pretty amazing place, from what I'm told. It's built over a river, they say, right in the middle of the jungles around the Inland Sea."
Warming to his subject, he nodded after the receding wagon train. "Anyway, they said the dwarfs sold a shipment of alloy meant for us to this group from Angkor instead; seems our caravan didn't arrive to pick it up. We send out a caravan every spring and fall, see, with goods to trade to the dwarfs for all the alloy they can spare."
He shook his head. "Well, the Khmer'll sell it at three times the price they paid the dwarfs, but at least we'll have it. I suppose they've a right to make a profit. Means the smiths will be raising their prices, though."
Jean stared down at the guard, certain he could not have heard correctly. "Excuse me, but I thought you said they got it from the dwarfs."
The guard sighed, with just a hint of exasperation. "Yes, yes, dwarfs. They don't just trade with Nilka or Teticaca-Chao-chao, you know."
"But…dwarfs do not exist," Jean persisted. "They are fables."
The guard shot him a peculiar look. "Where'd you hear that? They're a rare sight, to be sure; they don't leave their hidey-holes very often. But where do you think alloy comes from?"
"But—"
"Sorry, but I've no more time to chat. Off to the Moon and Star with you. Can't keep holding up traffic, and I've a report to make. Good luck to you." The guard turned away, leaving Jean staring after him in bewilderment.
Well, it was nothing new to have his questions unanswered. He pulled himself upright and turned Jacques toward the bridge again, joining the flow of traffic into the city behind a flock of sheep.
"Impossible," he said aloud. He fixed his attention on the backs of the wagons ahead and their bizarre occupants, trying to make his own knowledge and beliefs merge with what he had just heard. He was torn between the desire to push his way through the sheep and speak with the men of Angkor, and a desire nearly as strong to head straight for the inn and pretend the entire conversation had never happened. Would he never understand this place?
The bridge led onto the main street of the town. The wagons rolled down the cobbled street, turning neither right nor left. Jean followed a short distance behind, trying to decide what to do. He wondered about the land the fox-eyed men came from, lavish Angkor built on a river, where people apparently had commerce with dwarfs. Or b
elieved they did.
Where did they come from, these Khmer, besides their strange city? He could not place such a people anywhere in the lands he knew, and the thought of wasting such a rare opportunity to learn about an entirely unknown culture was repugnant to him.
On the other hand, there were already so many questions he needed answers to that he scarcely knew where to begin. The idea that he was even more out of his depth than he had believed was almost too daunting to face.
Though the Khmer were the focus of his single-minded attention, he could not help glancing now and again at the city through which he rode, getting his first good look at Yasenovo.
Though the architecture betrayed the solid practicality typical of most fortified cities of his experience, rounded turrets, arches, and artistically carved facades gave the buildings he passed grace as well as strength. Gay flags and pennants hung from windows, draped over gateways, or waved from rooftop poles. The brightly colored cobbles beneath Jacques' hooves formed patterns and sometimes pictures, creating something of a hazard as strangers like Jean paused in the streets to study them.
Almost every man and woman wore weaponry strapped to their sides, and a look of alert readiness he normally associated only with soldiers. Was everyone here trained in arms?
Well, if the surrounding countryside was filled with creatures such as Commander Freimann had named, it made sense.
Most surprising was the cleanliness. None of the animal dung looked more than a day old, and nowhere did he see the piles of garbage or other litter common to his experience. Even the usual scents of people, animals, and cooking rode the air lightly, diluted by occasional whiffs of flowers growing in window boxes here and there.
What did they do with their wastes? It was impossible for so many people to live in a place and not generate waste, and that waste left a smell that was inevitably part of any city.
The lack of that smell added to his sense of disorientation, as if somehow Yasenovo was not entirely real, as if he rode through the illusion of a city.
He remembered the guard telling him to turn at the second right just as he came upon it. He paused, torn between conflicting desires. As much as he wanted to get settled in and talk to some of the inhabitants, he did not want to lose sight of the wagons. They might vanish as if they'd never been, slipping back into the realms of imagination.
Practicality won. With an exasperated mutter, he turned Jacques down the street on his right and began to look for the Moon and Star. It proved as easy to find as the guard had predicted.
Eventually, he found himself sitting in the common room with a cup of wine in front of him. He looked down at the dark liquid and took a sip, trying to shake off his daze.
"Khmer," he muttered aloud. "Gates. Dwarfs. Trolkien. I'm surprised a sphinx was not standing at the gates asking riddles." He took another sip. The wine was quite good, actually, though it was not French. He hoped he could pay for it. Another set of questions to ask.
He raised his head and looked around the room. It was a perfectly ordinary room; a bar at one end, a fireplace at the other, tables, benches, and chairs in between, some of them with normal-looking people sitting at them.
Did they take for granted the things that so shocked Jean and turned his views of the world upside-down?
He sipped, savoring the essence of berries, oak, and things he could not name, while he pondered what little he had learned of this country. He wished desperately for something to write on. He always put his thoughts in order more easily when he wrote them down.
"You like the wine, yes?" a gruff voice asked beside him.
Jean started and looked up, blinking. A man with a slightly stained apron over his clothes stood smiling down at him. The innkeeper, Jean recalled. He had spoken to the fellow briefly on the way in. "Yes," he said, "yes, the wine is quite good."
As the innkeeper's smile broadened, a phrase surfaced in Jean's mind. Innkeeper won't cheat you. Ah, yes, the guard at the gate had said so. "Er, pardon me, but may I have a few moments of your time?"
The innkeeper had begun to turn away, but looked back politely. "Yes sir, what is it you wish?" The voice was harsh, the tone was not. Evidently, the fellow had shouted his voice raw once upon a time, and so it remained.
Jean gestured to the chair across from his. "Please, I need to talk to someone. If you could take the time, I would be most grateful."
The innkeeper brightened and looked around. "I am not too busy. We will not fill up for another hour or two. Let me get a drink myself and I will join you."
He bustled away and returned moments later with another clay cup, like the one from which Jean drank, and a carafe. He set them both on the table, then seated himself with a sigh.
Jean recognized the eagerness in the other man's manner; here was a man who loved nothing better than talk. Doubtless it was why he owned an inn. Blessing his luck, Jean took the initiative.
"My name is Jean LeFleur, and I have just come through the Gate at Tisza. They told me to stop here on my way to either Anagni or Tir. But I—"
"God Bless, a newcomer!" The innkeeper beamed with delight. "What an adventure you are having, yes? I enjoy speaking with newcomers, although to me you often sound half-mad. But it is always good stories you have, exciting, yes? I am Piotr, just Piotr, no distinction of any kind. I was born outside the city, but after my Pilgrimage I came back here and thought, 'well, if I am not made for adventures, at least I will hear of them. 'So I made this place. It is good, yes? I am proud of it."
Jean opened his mouth, but Piotr went on without giving him a chance to comment. "But you asked how to get to Anagni. A grand place, Anagni. I was there, once. Such food! And the wine! I have never forgotten. This wine you are drinking now is from Anagni, though it is not one of the best. They do not often export their best to the other city-states." He paused to take a drink and smacked his lips with satisfaction.
Jean cleared his throat. "What I—"
"The caravan route from the Widdershins bridge will take you to either place," Piotr continued. "If you wish to go to Anagni, I recommend following the river road inland toward Torsick, but do not go to Torsick. Mind you, I like Torsick, good people when you get to know them, but they have some strange beliefs and fight with everybody.
"Before you get there, the road joins with the caravan route again. Take that heading across Kalmar, but do not go to Kalmar, either. It will take you too far out of your way, add an extra day or two of travel, and you don't want that, no?
"Besides, the food in Kalmar is terrible. You would not believe it. Though the ales are quite good. Anyway, if you stay on the caravan route from that point, it will take you through Drachenfel to Killaloe."
Jean opened his mouth, but Piotr raised a hand and leaned forward with a warning frown. "A strange place, Killaloe. English people live there. And all the other mad ones as well — the Welsh, the Scots, the Irish — half-crazy all the time. The food is barely endurable and I will not even speak of the wine. But from there, the caravan route goes directly to Anagni."
Piotr paused to take another drink, while Jean sat in daze, rendered dumb by an excess of information for which he had no reference. He hoped he would be able to recall it. In any case, his earlier hopes were withering; it seemed unlikely that the Anagni the innkeeper referred to was any place with which Jean might be familiar.
Oblivious to Jean's confusion, the innkeeper rolled relentlessly on. "Now, if you want to go straight to Tir instead, I recommend taking the caravan route directly across Kalmar, until you get to the Kalmar river. I forget what they call it. Don't worry, it's very big, you can't miss it. Anyway, follow it until you reach the Inland Sea. The Kalmar ferry will take you across.
"Or you could follow this river straight to the Inland Sea, but then you would end up at the Torsick ferry, and you don't want that, no? Anytime you have to take a boat anywhere, get a Kalmar ship. All the Kalmar people ha
ve the sea in their blood, yes? They come from the Danes, the Norse — good sailors, they know all the safe routes. They fight a lot, though, and think books are good only for kindling.
"Then again, you may want to go to Kalmar city and join the first caravan heading for Tir. Since you are new and the ways of Tir na n'Og are strange to you, that may be the wisest course. It is better to be slow and safe, yes?"
Jean leaped into the breach, fearing he might not get another chance to speak. "Is there some place where I can buy a map?"
The innkeeper laughed as though Jean had made a great joke. "A map! You would trust your life to a map? No, no, no, my friend, maps are no good. Kinshasa fights with Magdan, and the borders change. Torsick fights with Sahyun, and the borders change. Sobaka move into the plains, and the borders change. The Mists close in here, there, and the borders change." He shook his head. "Do not trust maps. The rivers and roads are the only boundaries, and they never change. The caravan routes, I tell you, you stay with those and you cannot go wrong, yes?"
Jean swallowed. Well, he'd always had a good memory. He offered a quick prayer that it would continue to serve him. But Piotr's emphasis of the caravan roads brought up another point. "The caravans — when I came in to the city, there was a caravan from Angkor with something called 'alloy' coming in. The drivers claimed they got it from dwarfs. Were they telling the truth?"
Piotr looked surprised, but laughed heartily. "Who do you think makes alloy? Do you? Do I? If I did, I would be a very rich man, of course, but I do not have the secret of alloy; no human does. Only the dwarfs know how to make it, but they are terrible farmers, since they live underground most of the time and don't even like the open air all that much, or so I hear. So, we send them food and such, and they trade us alloy so we can make weapons, armor, tools, and other things. It works out well."
He frowned in puzzlement. "But it is strange that a caravan from Angkor should come here at all. It is very dangerous, the route between Angkor and Yasenovo, yes? They would have to pass the Koshka hills and go through Kinshasa — mind you, we often trade with the Gokomere…."
Jean listened with a growing sense of helplessness as another flood of incomprehensible information poured over him, wondering if he should simply give up and wait until the innkeeper ran out of words. None of it made sense. He finally leaped into a small pause as Piotr drew a breath in the midst of pondering aloud why the Khmer would want to be rid of an entire shipment of alloy.
"They said something about the caravan from Yasenovo never reaching the dwarfs," he interrupted, "so the dwarfs traded with them, and they came to sell it here. Now, perhaps you could tell me—"
Piotr looked at him in astonishment. "Truly? They said this?" He shook his head. "That is bad, very bad. Something must have happened to the caravan. Ah, my heart is sad. I had friends on that caravan."
"I am very sorry," Jean said with as much politeness as haste allowed. "Are the men of the Khmer in league with the dwarfs? Are they kin of some kind? What land, then, are they out of?"
Piotr blinked at him. "What a strange place the Outer lands must be! Kin to dwarfs? Dwarfs are dwarfs and kin to no man. The Khmer are men, much as you and I are. I do not know what you would call them where you come from."
"Are they Chinamen?"
"What? Oh, no, you must go to Magdan if you wish to find Chinamen." Sure of his ground once more, Piotr settled back in his seat. "Of course, while you are looking for them, the Mongols will find you first. Bad men, the Mongols, very bad. I think there may be some Chinamen in Angkor — certainly if I were a Chinaman I would rather be in Angkor than Magdan — but the Khmer, they are something else entirely."
Jean stared at Piotr, his confusion rapidly giving way to dismay. He had assumed the country to be settled primarily by Hungarians and Germans. The thought that there were colonies from almost every nation of the civilized world — and, apparently, a good bit of the uncivilized as well — smashed the half-formed picture in his mind and once more scattered it like pieces of a broken puzzle. How had so many different peoples come to co-exist in this place? Or did they? "Are you at war with any of them?"
Piotr looked shocked, then laughed. "What? Oh, no, no, what a laugh that would be! Ha! While you were trying to have a war, you would spend so many summers passing back and forth just to fight one another, by the time you found each other you will have forgotten why the war started in the first place. Or you will be too old to fight."
Jean opened his mouth and closed it again, at a loss. How vast was this land in which he found himself? More questions, and the innkeeper was too busy talking for Jean to ask them. He decided to try another tack. "Well then, what of the dwarfs?"
The thought seemed to shock Piotr even more. "War! With the dwarfs? No, no, of course not. No war. Not with them. Not ever with any of them."
He leaned forward and lowered his harsh voice. "Listen my friend, we do not offer to make trouble for any of them. The Fair Folk. You understand? The dwarfs, they are more sociable to us than most of the others, we trade with them, but still…they are of the Folk. The Folk, we do honor to them, and try not to draw their eyes."
"The Fair Folk," Jean repeated. The word Frau Freimann had used sprang to mind, and he found himself leaning forward and lowering his voice as well. "Do you mean, the Fey?"
Piotr flinched and raised a hand. "Please, to speak of them is to draw their attention, yes? You understand, we do not speak of them so openly."
"But—" Jean's voice rose despite himself —"you mean that they are real? They exist?"
Piotr stared at him as if struck dumb, but only for a moment. He snorted and jerked his head toward the front door. "Listen. This is their land, and it was not always a good place for humans, would not be a good place even now, if they did not make it so, for us.
"The Folk, the Great Ones of the Folk, they rule here, they put the Triumphants on the thrones of the city-states, they choose the Triads and send them to do their bidding, but so long as we obey the laws and do not make trouble, they mostly leave us alone. If a man must have a master, then the Fair Folk are good ones to have.
"But their little cousins, the lesser of the Folk, they are not always so good about staying out of the places Ohma gave to men. If you doubt they are real, look above the doorways. Wherever you go, you will see a little something there; an old horseshoe, a few nails driven into the wood, an old ladle or some such. That is how real they are. Iron and steel, it keeps them out. Best for them and for us if they mind their own business and we mind ours. Leave magic to the Mystics, I say."
"Mystics." Jean stared at him. Commander Freimann had called Keppler a Mystic. "Then, are the Mystics given their magic by…by the Fair Folk?" he asked softly. "Are they in league with them — with the forces of darkness?"
Piotr choked on his wine. "What a question! The Folk are the Folk, neither good nor evil, but some of each — just as men are, yes? The magic of the Folk is one thing, the magic of the Mystics is another. The Folk, they are as God made them, it is in their blood. Mystics must be trained. If you have the gift, count yourself fortunate and find a tutor. The Church will give you Her blessing. Why, without Mystics, where would we be?
"Myself, I never had the gift, but my wife does. The Second Sight, yes? Not much of it, it is true. She can sense the ley lines and find lost things. But she never learned to influence the thoughts of others, or to heal, more's the pity. But our son, now — he had the gift."
Piotr paused to drink, and when he lowered his cup, his face had aged. "I would have liked him to stay here, help me run this place. He was our only child, so by law he had the right to stay. He chose to honor the Codes, and took the Pilgrimage when he turned sixteen, and he has never returned. It often happens. The journey to the Temple of Ohma is not an easy one, no? And time — time is an odd thing, and sometimes those who travel are swept away by it, if they are not careful
.
"But we are proud of our son. It is what every family hopes for, yes? That the children will be better than their parents. And he was a Mystic. That is a very fine thing." He rose suddenly. "Excuse me; I must tend to other customers. It is fine talking to you. I always learn so much, yes?"
Jean opened his mouth to protest, but his host was already heading across the room to another table.