The Emerald Crown Page 11

  Ahead of them in the queue was a Dark Elf, dressed in pale blue robes. He was on his own, and apparently eager to talk.

  ‘It’s normally difficult to get so close,’ he informed them, ‘but during the Festival they put up this scaffolding so you can just reach out and touch the crown. During the day, there are so many people waiting to try that you can’t even see it.’

  ‘We saw them earlier,’ Lanvik agreed. ‘This afternoon.’ He was standing closest.

  ‘Afternoons are the worst time to come,’ the man agreed. ‘The best time is from midnight through to dawn, first and second watch. This is my third time.’

  ‘Third time? Are you going to just keep trying?’

  ‘I will never come back to Darkfall, so I may as well try as many times as possible while I am here. Perhaps my prayers have not been earnest enough before. Or perhaps the Statue will only release its prize to someone who perseveres.’ He added: ‘I am a follower of Enfireon of the Circle, from Vallierta,’ like an introduction.

  ‘My name is Lanvik, but I’m afraid I don’t remember which Gods I follow. If any.’

  ‘He lost his memory,’ Ethryk explained.

  ‘Who have you prayed to? Obviously Tohros, but I would add Quinara of Corvak, the Goddess of Old Knowledge. Darkfall is the best place to ask favours of the Gods: there are all the temples you can think of here. All of the Gods know that this is a holy place. One of them will be able to restore you to yourself – you simply need enough faith.’

  ‘And something to sacrifice?’

  ‘If you like, yes. As a token: proof that you are serious.’

  The conversation, together with the man’s earnestness, made Lanvik feel uncomfortable. His wide-eyed cheerfulness was quite different from the laughter and good humour of their group.

  ‘Well, good luck,’ he said, in a way he hoped would end their conversation in a polite way.

  ‘Yes. You also,’ the follower of Enfireon replied. He looked as if he was about to carry on, perhaps proselytise, but then changed his mind: some of the others were beginning to glower at him.

  ‘What do I do?’ Lanvik asked, when they were almost at the bottom of the steps. There were only six or seven people ahead of him now.

  ‘Well, most people just try to lift it off, or pull it,’ Vrosko Din told him. ‘Maybe say a prayer, if you’re that way inclined.’

  ‘I’ve no idea if I’m that way inclined,’ Lanvik said.

  ‘Would you believe some people have tried to blow it up with explosives?’ Vorrigan said. They were climbing up the steps now, and he pointed: ‘You can see from here – the inside of the Grotto is charred and broken; cracked in some places, and even melted in parts. That’s from people trying to remove the Crown by force.’

  As he reached the top of the platform, Lanvik saw that the Crown and the Statue themselves were completely intact and unmarked, with no sign of any repairs, despite all these violent attempts. He wondered what the statue was made of. It was grey, far lighter than the black rock of the Grotto: the Crown was a dark green, like glass, but angled with bold facets.

  And then he was suddenly in front of it. The Statue seemed roughly life-sized, and had looked small from the other side of the square. It stood on a pedestal, and the gantry had lifted him so that the Statue’s head and the Crown were at the level of his chest.

  Now was the time.

  He couldn’t stop himself feeling excited, nervous, and optimistic. Perhaps none of his journey had been truly random, and this was his destiny, his fate: maybe it wasn’t an accident that he had been brought to this place at this moment.

  And even if he couldn’t lift it from the Statue, if the Emerald Crown really possessed strong magic then perhaps it would give him some kind of jolt: something that might restore some of his memories and his own magic.

  Come on, he thought. He put his hands on either side of the Crown, held it tightly, and tried to think and feel like a mage with magical powers: someone who could accomplish things by simply thinking them. Come on, he thought furiously at the Crown as he tried to pull it up from the Statue: Lift!

  There was no response from the Crown.

  I command you to come free, he thought at it, as he tried to lift the Crown a second time. There was still nothing, not even a hint of movement.

  Feeling a little deflated and disappointed, he shuffled on and descended the steps on the other side.

  One by one, the others joined him at the bottom after each had tried taking the Crown in their own way. He wondered if the Crown might actually be a part of the Statue: might be painted with some finish so that it just looked separate, but was actually only a clever decorative effect.

  He smiled at the idea that the whole thing might be a joke played on all the pilgrims through the ages.

  None of the others managed to lift the Crown either and each of them seemed a little deflated as they stepped away, as if every one of them had secretly expected to succeed.

  3

  Lanvik slept well that night: he was clean, safe and dry, indoors and although the temperature of the room wasn’t warm, it was certainly the most comfortable that he remembered. He woke well after dawn. Half the Company had already gone out: Vorrigan had accompanied Kiergard Slorn and Bane today.

  ‘We’re going to steal from all those poor penniless pilgrims again,’ Lisamel told him later, after he’d eaten breakfast.

  ‘You and Magda?’

  ‘And Tremano.’

  ‘Isn’t it dangerous, if they notice?’

  ‘They don’t notice,’ Lisamel shook her head. ‘Magda is very good, one of the best, and Tremano’s very good at holding their attention. You should come and watch.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ he said.

  ‘You definitely should,’ Magda said from behind him, startling him. She had her boots and jacket on already. ‘In five minutes, downstairs at the front door.’

  Five minutes later, the four of them headed out into Darkfall: Magda, Lisamel and Tremano, and Lanvik. They found an open square, with no lying snow. Lisamel and Tremano had brought two packs with them, which they laid on the ground and began to remove a number of items.

  Magda took Lanvik aside. ‘You can watch, but you must stand towards the back and give no sign at all that you know them or me. Most importantly, however tempting you might find it, do not turn your head and watch me. People around you will notice and are likely to look in the same direction.’

  ‘Of course’, he said, though he hadn’t thought about that at all.

  ‘I’ll talk to you when we’re all back at the inn,’ she said. ‘Not before. Same with the others. Make your own way there.’

  ‘Fine,’ he agreed. And she walked away from him, and out of the square. He wondered what he was supposed to do, simply standing there. Tremano and Lisamel had removed their coats to reveal brightly coloured costumes underneath, and they started to perform. At first, passers-by only paused to idly watch for a moment but soon there was a crowd.

  This early in the day there were a greater number of women and children than Lanvik had seen yesterday. He wondered who would bring their children to a place such as Darkfall, at this time of year.

  As he watched, Tremano juggled, performed spell-binding gymnastics and magic tricks, jumped and danced and spun. He talked all the way through, addressing members of the audience and sometimes pulling a “volunteer” from the crowd to help him; describing what he was doing; telling jokes and laughing. Lisamel managed his props, engaged in banter with him from time to time, performed a number of tumbling routines with him and encouraged the crowd of spectators to give as generously as they could.

  It was remarkable, fascinating, hypnotising. Within a few minutes, Lanvik could hardly see them because of people jostling and pushing. They were all completely focussed on Tremano. Young children were hoisted onto shoulders to get a better view. From time to time, he glimpsed Magda moving through the crowd in a way that looked as if she was struggling to get a good view. Not onc
e did he see her do anything more sinister than accidentally brush against other people.

  After about half an hour, he stopped seeing her and, a few minutes later, Lisamel and Tremano brought their performance to a close, to loud applause. As the crowd dispersed, they bowed, stowed away their props and gathered their takings.

  Lanvik resisted the temptation to go over and congratulate them, to express his admiration. Instead, he thrust his hands in his pockets and headed back to the inn.

  He’d been expecting to find Magda already back since she had left first, but he was alone in the room.

  His old clothes were waiting, folded in a pile at the end of his bed, so he tried them on and was pleased to find that they fitted him far better than anything else he had. There were a number of rips and tears unfortunately but nothing that couldn’t be repaired, he hoped. They brought back no memories at all as he looked at them, ran his fingers over the fabric and turned them over in his hands.

  Now that the dirt had been cleaned off, he could see that they were coloured – pale reds and blues, mostly, rather than simply brown and grey. They were also much thinner and less warm than the clothes he had been wearing for the past few days. He liked the jacket: it had a high collar, but unfortunately no hood. He was so used to the idea of concealing his head that he would have felt vulnerable and exposed going out in it. Even though he had the wig, he was still awkward in it and normally kept his hood up as well.

  He decided to wear both the tops, but stuck with the trousers and jacket that he’d had since Din’dorroden. He rolled up the other items and put them in his pack.

  Quarter of an hour later, Tremano and Lisamel returned to the room. Magda was a few minutes after them.

  ‘You can never be careful enough,’ she explained. ‘If someone had noticed me, I had to be certain that I wouldn’t lead them back here.’

  She reached into her coat, and started emptying the contents of half a dozen tiny hidden pockets. Then the four of them sat on the floor together and picked through what she had taken – a similar mix to what he had seen the evening before: mostly coins and jewellery. Lisamel counted all the little coins they had taken, as she added them to the pile. ‘That’s almost eight Crowns,’ she said. ‘You?’

  ‘Just over sixty in coin,’ Magda said. ‘We’ll see what Vorrigan can get for the rest, but I’d say another thirty or so.’ She grinned at Lanvik: ‘Not bad for an hour’s work, eh?’

  ‘I didn’t see you do anything,’ he admitted.

  ‘These two make my job easy,’ she told him. ‘Everyone’s looking at them, and no-one’s paying any attention to anything else.’

  ‘Yes,’ Lanvik agreed. ‘You were great,’ he told Lisamel and Tremano. ‘I mean amazing. I could have stood and watched you for hours.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Lisamel said. ‘The credit for that should go to Tremano.’

  ‘Don’t listen to her,’ Tremano shook his head. ‘We take it in turns. If you want to see real talent, then come with us next time. She is far better than me.’

  Magda was sorting through the pile, pushing a number of the coins to one side.

  ‘What are those?’

  ‘Fakes. Counterfeits,’ she said. ‘And not very good ones. We’ll try to get rid of them here in Darkfall, as quickly as we can. We’ll put the real coins aside. Save them.’

  ‘What about the other things? The jewellery and so on? You said Vorrigan would sell them?’

  ‘Yes, but not here. Nowhere near where you take the stuff, in case there’s a particular piece that someone’s looking to recover. Darkfall would be an awful place to sell, anyway: there are no real jewellers, goldsmiths or pawnbrokers here. No-one has come here to buy.’

  ‘The only merchants in this town are here to push overpriced rubbish on simple believers to use as temple offerings,’ Vorrigan said from the door. Bane and Slorn were with him. ‘Good morning’s work?’

  ‘Fair,’ Magda said. ‘Less than yesterday, but it was only an hour. You?’

  ‘We’ve been busy,’ he nodded. ‘Let’s gather the Company together.’

  Most of the others were somewhere in the inn, apart from Ubrik, Vrosko Din and Menska. They arrived last.

  ‘Well?’ Ubrik prompted. ‘What’s the plan?’

  ‘We visited the Imperial compound this morning to discuss their programme of entertainments, so we were able to look around some of the public areas in person – the audience hall, at least.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And it’s much as we heard: a large open hall, with a raised area at the far end for the Imperial delegation, so the entertainment or the supplicants have to look up at them. There is a guarded door to the left, and another at the back of the platform. Members of the delegation sit there every evening and are entertained by a series of performers, while they dine or drink or simply enjoy the spectacle. Our plan is to form part of that entertainment. While some of our Company are performing, others will effect the rescue of Vander of Arrento.’

  ‘Darkfall must be packed with groups during the Festival,’ Menska said. ‘Why would they want us to play?’

  ‘The number of groups is large beyond imagining, but the range of material on offer will be very narrow. By now, members of the delegation are doubtless bored beyond belief of religious songs and plays. A musical troupe that offers to play a mix of traditional Arvedan songs together with a few exotic numbers will be a welcome change. Dull, but far safer than genuinely exotic performers.’

  ‘We will give them simple music to clap and get drunk to,’ Bane explained.

  ‘That’s exactly it,’ Kiergard Slorn agreed. ‘I couldn’t have put it better myself.’

  ‘But how can we pass as a band of musicians?’ Lanvik asked. ‘Who can play, apart from Lisamel and Tremano?’

  ‘We all can,’ Magda told him. ‘We use it as a cover and we’ve worked very hard at being proficient, despite starting with some very unpromising material.’ She looked pointedly at Bane, who smiled back broadly.

  Kiergard Slorn continued: ‘During our visit to the compound, we talked with Urbold Pendisson, Master of Amusements for the Imperial Delegation. He’s a minor functionary, a bit of a bureaucrat – pompous and nervous at the same time. He is responsible for the schedule and selection of acts, as well as organisation, payment and so on’

  ‘And?’

  ‘We introduced ourselves, gave him our details – who we are, and what we play – and offered to audition for him. We explained that we are free for the next two evenings on account of a misunderstanding with a previous client.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And he turned us down, of course. His entire schedule of entertainments will have been booked for some time – months, probably – so there are no opportunities for late bookings.’

  ‘However …,’ Bane prompted.

  ‘However, we managed to get hold of his schedule, and we tracked down a number of the groups that are due to perform. Akalia’s Strummers from Arrandor are currently scheduled to play a convenient two hour session, late tomorrow evening when the kitchens will be quiet. Unfortunately, they will be unable to perform.’

  ‘You haven’t …?’ Lanvik wondered how far Slorn’s Company might go to succeed with their mission, given that they had killed a number of people while they rescued him.

  ‘We haven’t done anything, yet,’ Bane frowned at him.

  ‘It will probably be a case of food poisoning,’ Slorn said. ‘But we haven’t decided yet. I imagine there won’t be many other options available to Master Pendisson at such short notice. Only groups specialising in religious drama and music will have come to Darkfall without any existing promise of work. And as I said, the Imperial delegation has probably experienced more than enough of such material already.’

  ‘Even if any other appropriate groups are in Darkfall at this time, Master Pendisson will have very little chance of locating them quickly,’ Vorrigan added. ‘But, conveniently, he now has our details and knows where he can find us.’
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  ‘So, what do we do next?’

  ‘We have arranged for additional costumes to be made,’ Kiergard Slorn said.

  ‘At well above the normal rate,’ Vorrigan interjected.

  ‘Including what we brought with us, we will have two complete liveries for each of us, one for Vander, and a couple of disguises thrown in for Garran, Magda and Ubrik in case we need them. They should be here tomorrow morning. ‘Other than that, we probably need to practice. And our mage must find an appropriate role.’

  ‘Do you play an instrument, Lanvik?’ Tremano asked.

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t think so.’

  ‘Well, we’ll try you with a selection. If you can play, you’ll know when you pick it up. It’s not all up here,’ he tapped the side of his head. ‘It’s in the fingers as well.’

  ‘Tremano and Lisamel will sort you out, don’t worry,’ Menska assured him.

  ‘Where will you get instruments? In Darkfall?’ he asked.

  ‘We brought our own with us, in the packs,’ Ethryk explained. ‘We collected them in Stormhaven.’

  ‘So this was always your plan?’

  ‘Well, this was always one of our plans, yes,’ Bane agreed, ‘depending on the situation here.’

  A number of them rummaged in their packs, brought out instruments, mostly in small hard cases, and passed them over for Lanvik to try. There were metal trumpets of different types, which he couldn’t persuade to surrender any sound other than a raspy and echoey imitation of his own breath. There were a number of stringed instruments which he held and plucked awkwardly and unconvincingly. And there were woodwind instruments of varying complexity, some of which squeaked and shrieked as he blew into them and others which he couldn’t persuade to make any sound at all.

  By the end of it, half the Company were laughing.

  ‘I think we can be confident that no – our friend Lanvik does not play an instrument,’ Garran announced.

  They were slightly incredulous and mocking, but not angry; not resentful. Not yet. Again, Lanvik was reminded that he would need to become useful to these people, somehow.