The Colors of Magic Anthology (magic: the gathering) Page 8

  Penkin's was at the bottom of a steep hill near the harbor. Argivia's harbor had steep, bowl-shaped sides. All the warehouses and businesses catering to the sea trade were sited down in the bowl, while the landlubber residents inhabited the high ground above the harbor. Penkin's was a typical waterfront dive, a gaming house as well as a tavern, much frequented by sea captains and foreign traders. Edgur trod down the steep cobblestone lane, the shore breeze blowing in his face as he went.

  He thought about the first time he met Riliana, at the guildhall of the coppersmiths during the Feast of Fruits. He'd not wanted to go, but Meckie, Artulle, and the other journeymen chided and teased him for two weeks until he sullenly decided to attend. Normally he didn't like formal events. Graybeard guildmasters made windy speeches while he suffered in the stiff, uncomfortable guild uniforms. Edgur forgot all that when he beheld Riliana.

  Her hair was black as onyx, and her enormous dark eyes spoke of wit, kindness, and passion. He was smitten, and he followed her around the hall like a marionette. She was good-natured about it and even consented to dance with him. Their one slow caper was the most wonderful six minutes of his life. The idyll ended when Joren showed up. Riliana introduced the big sap as her fiance. Joren monopolized Riliana for the rest of that night.

  But Edgur didn't give up just because she was engaged. He contrived ways to return to his master's house and steal brief moments with her.

  "What will you do if my father catches you loitering here?" Riliana once asked him.

  "I'll tell him I love his daughter," Edgur replied simply.

  She smiled. "Shouldn't you tell her first?"

  Edgur ran straight into the broad back of a sailor idling at the red brick quayside. Muttering apologies, the youth got his bearings and realized he'd walked ten yards past Penkin's tavern. He quickly doubled back. It was still early, and the house was not yet full. Edgur skirted the patrons at the bar and took a dark booth in the corner, facing out so he could see whoever came in. Though he preferred Penregon beer, Argivia was a wine town, so Edgur nursed a flagon of muddy Korlisian burgundy and waited for his rival to appear.

  He was in the dregs when Joren and four cronies entered, laughing and calling loudly for dice. The young blades cut a swath through the other gamblers clustered around the dice and card tables. Edgur watched Joren bet and lose more money in a single pass of the dice than he earned in a year.

  Wastrel. Spendthrift. And he had the nerve to lay claim to Riliana's hand!

  Quite unconsciously he found himself stalking toward Homdallson's heir, flagon hanging at his side, dribbling drops of blood-red wine on the holystoned floor. One of Joren's pals spotted Edgur and dug a warning elbow in his friend's ribs.

  Joren straightened, dice poised in his hand. "What are you trying to do, jinx me?" he said. Conversation died when the rest of the gamblers spied Edgur. His grim countenance was plain evidence he'd not come to join the game.

  "You?" Joren said breezily. "What do you want?"

  "I want you to renounce Riliana."

  Joren frowned. "Are you mad? Is that your problem?" To his friends he said, "Here, I beat the poor fool in a pitiful duel that would do shame to a street fair, and he has the gall to accost me in public and demand I give up my fiancee. Now, I ask you, is this man mad or what?"

  "He looks distracted," said one of Joren's cronies, "or drunk."

  "Give her up, you worthless filth, or the gods themselves will take vengeance on you!" Edgur cried.

  "Five korls to anyone who removes this annoyance from my presence," Joren said, bored. A dozen sailors and stevedores rose from their benches, eager to comply.

  One of Joren's friends, a dark-skinned Jamuraan, slapped another fellow on the arm and said, "Let's you and me do it, Varno. We'll save Joren five korls. "

  Varno, a rugged-looking fellow who wore the emblem of the stonecutter's guild, stood up and replied, "Oh, no. If I do Joren's dirty work, I want the money!"

  They advanced on Edgur, who swung his pottery flagon at the Jamuraan. He wore a gold-chased headband, and the cup shattered against it. Before Edgur could put up his hands to fight, Varno knocked him to the floor. There among the boots and slippers of the dice table patrons, he was kicked and hammered by Joren's friends. The beating abruptly ended when Penkin's bar-keep and some of the burly hired help intervened.

  "Who started it?" snapped the barkeep, tapping a well-worn oak cudgel against the palm of his hand.

  "He did, " said Joren, tossing the man a coin and pointing to Edgur. The coppersmith was curled up in a ball on the floor.

  "Right!" With a nod, the barkeep signaled his boys to remove the offender. They grabbed Edgur by his heels and dragged him out the door behind the bar to the profane cheers of the customers.

  In the alley out back, the Penkin bouncers beat Edgur with staves, even though he did not fight back or speak out. The barkeep finally ordered them to stop, saying, "Nobody makes trouble in my place. You come here again, you're a dead man. "

  The back door slammed shut. Dazed, bleeding from a gash over his right eye, Edgur blazed with inner fury. He propped himself up against the rear wall of the alley and fumbled in his coat with aching fingers for the emerald. Before, he just wanted Joren out of the way. Now he was going to exact a less discriminating revenge.

  He found the heavy stone and clasped it to his chest. He wasn't sure exactly how it worked, and he assumed when the time came the transformation would be automatic. For a long time nothing seemed to happen. Edgur clutched the stone so tightly the sharp edges cut into his fingers. One thought raced through his mind: Change. Change. Change!

  Raucous laughter filtered through the dark brick walls. The beating and ejection of one poor journeyman didn't disturb Penkin's patrons. Edgur blinked through swollen eyelids at the rear door, four planks strapped with black iron. He struggled to his feet. The emerald slipped from his grip and fell to the dirty cobbles.

  His anger still burned deep inside, but outwardly he felt strangely muffled and disconnected. Edgur raised a hand to pound on the rear door of the tavern. He would make them fight him fairly this time… but it wasn't a human hand that swam before his fevered eyes. It was the broad, hairy paw of a huge bear.

  Edgur froze. Was this some kind of trick? He had seen no flash of light, felt no surge of power when he willed himself to change. People always said those sorts of things happened when magic occurred, but he had experienced none of it. Holding up his other hand, he found it was a paw as well, tipped with five razor-sharp claws. His heart beat faster. It was true! Praise Dare and his green magic!

  Instead of knocking on the door, he demolished it with two blows. His new body was almost too bulky to fit through the doorway, but he wormed inside just in time to confront one of Penkin's servants, arms laden with a washtub full of dirty flagons. The man gazed in horror at the grizzly bear, standing on its hind legs, its head scraping against the dark-beamed ceiling. He was one of the ones who'd beaten and dragged Edgur from the dice table, so the grizzly smacked him on the side of the head with one broad sweep of its paw. The man somersaulted sideways, losing the tub and crashing against the wall. His head was twisted at an odd angle, and his empty eyes stared sightlessly.

  The commotion brought more apron-clad servants through the swinging doors. When they saw Edgur, their eyes widened in shock and they scrambled back through the door to the barroom. Edgur dropped to all fours and charged, bursting through the flimsy wooden partition in time to toss two men onto the bar with a shake of his enormous head. The tavern erupted in screams as the brown bear tore in. There was a mad rush to escape, and several of the drunker patrons were trampled by the rest in their haste to depart. Edgur rose up on his hind legs again and waded through the crowd, swatting men like horseflies. One man cowered by the overturned dice table. Edgur batted the furniture aside and picked the screeching fellow up by his shirt. Only then did he realize he'd cornered a woman, a prostitute by the look of her. He had no quarrel with her and set her gently on
her feet.

  She stopped screaming and stared at the terrifying bear. For a few seconds there was a calm center to the vortex of chaos in Penkin's. Then a fiery pain shot through Edgur's rear haunch. With a roar, he spun and found Joren and his Jamuraan friend backed against the wall with short swords in their hands. Since Penkin's didn't allow sidearms they must have smuggled them in.

  There was blood on Joren's blade. He'd stabbed Edgur, running his eighteen-inch blade into the bear's leg. Edgur felt the pain, but it troubled him no more than a pinprick.

  Joren paled when he saw the grizzly turn on him. The beast roared, baring yellow fangs three inches long. Shaking its head from side to side, the bear lumbered forward.

  "What's a monster like this doing in Argivia?" gasped the Jamuraan, readying his slight blade.

  "You're asking me?" Joren replied. He lunged, jabbing his point at the bear's eyes. Edgur swatted the sword tip away.

  "Did you see? He set that whore back on her feet and didn't harm her," the Jamuraan said. "Maybe it's a tame bear?"

  Edgur flung a broken tabletop at Joren and his friend. Joren lost his sword when it became imbedded in the table.

  "He disarmed me!" cried the astonished young man. "Adal, give me your sword!"

  "What? What will I fight with?"

  "Never mind that-give me your sword, Adal!"

  The Jamuraan reluctantly handed his weapon to Joren. Edgur advanced. Joren lunged, hoping to drive his short blade through the bear's heart. Edgur twisted away from the sword tip and brought his powerful paw down on Joren's sword arm. Joren screamed as the bone audibly snapped.

  Adal swung a chair leg at the bear. Edgur brushed this feeble attack aside and thrust his claws at the Jamuraan. With a simple scooping motion, he eviscerated Adal. Only Joren was left.

  The richest young man in Argivia crawled on his knees with one hand toward the door, cradling his shattered arm close to his chest. Edgur stood over him, blowing hot breath down Joren's back. Joren collapsed, rolling on his back.

  Edgur stood astride him and roared, "Now you die, worthless parasite! I, Edgur, will kill you!" No one understood him, for he could only make the inarticulate sounds of a bear.

  He grasped Joren in both paws and hoisted him into the air. Joren fainted with terror and the pain of his broken arm, so Edgur shook him awake.

  Eye to eye with a ferocious, implacable grizzly, Joren shrieked, "Let me go! Let me go, I'm too rich to die!"

  Edgur did let him go-he dropped him, and before Joren hit the floor he thrust his claws under his rival's chin. With a shocking rip, he tore Joren's head from his shoulders. The lifeless body fell to the floor, and Joren's head, no longer handsome, landed on the bar and rolled to a stop among the overturned cups.

  Penkin's was empty. Exultant with his terrible deeds, Edgur had only to revert back to human form in some quiet, out of sight place, and his revenge would be complete. Dropping to all fours, he waddled back through the kitchen and into the alley. All he had to do was use the emerald again.

  But where was it? As a bear, he had no pockets, no place to keep the vital gem. He pawed through his clothing now lying torn apart in the gutter. No emerald! Frantically Edgur searched the alley from side to side. His bear eyes were not very strong, but his nose was keen, and he soon found the lost gem in the shadows by the tavern's slop buckets.

  Bells clanged in the street beyond, and he heard shouting and the clamor of armed men. Survivors from the tavern had summoned the town watch! Edgur frittered away precious seconds trying to take the emerald in his paws, but they were too clumsy to pick up and hold the gem. The shouting was getting louder. As a last resort, Edgur lapped up the jewel with his tongue. It was hard and sharp in his mouth.

  Lamplight flooded the alley. "There it is!" a voice shouted. Bowstrings hummed, and a volley of arrows flickered down the alley. One struck Edgur in the left shoulder. He groaned, careful to keep his mouth closed. With a sudden burst of speed he tore through the band of watchmen into the side street. There were at least a hundred people gathered there with torches and makeshift weapons. At the sight of an eight-hundred-pound grizzly, bleeding from wounds on its left leg and shoulder, the mob yelled and hurled brickbats, bottles, and stones. Edgur turned away and galloped up the hill. Fortunately the mob impeded the city watch and their bowmen.

  He tore past the closely packed houses, startling the life out of an old gentleman in a white nightcap who opened his door to empty his chamber pot in the gutter. A blood-soaked grizzly whizzed past, and the old man stumbled backward, dropping the jar on his own doorstep.

  Edgur's leg and shoulder ached. The mob was hard on his heels. Where was an alley he could duck into? He needed a few minutes' respite to change back into a man. The emerald, slick and hot in his mouth, rattled against his teeth as he ran. He was terrified it would shatter if he was to stumble.

  He topped the hill, forty yards ahead of his pursuers. The harbor lay spread out below, gleaming with a thousand lamps and lanterns. Major thoroughfares in Argivia ran parallel to the shoreline, but the intersecting road he'd reached was no help. To the left was the street of the leather vendors, to the right, the forges and furnaces of Ironmonger Lane. Edgur ran straight across. This was Lanyard Street, where the ropemakers had their shops. If he kept going in this direction, he'd eventually reach the city gate.

  Arrows beat on the pavement at his heels, spurring him onward. To his increasing fear, he saw masses of torches flanking him on other streets. The mob was trying to cut him off. He paused to look back and saw the ranks of the city watch had swelled to more than fifty. Even as he looked on they lofted arrows at him.

  An awful noise rose from the adjoining streets. Householders were turning out, banging their pots and pans and shouting. Edgur turned away from the side street when he saw it was full of housewives armed with carving knives and ropemakers wielding hatchets. He galloped a few yards into the next street, but his left leg failed, and he tumbled to the pavement. Before he could get up, a gang of yelling boys threw a heavy net over him. Men on horses had hooks and ropes attached to the net, and they pulled it tight, so he couldn't move.

  The street filled with torch-bearing Argivians, quiet now that their quarry was caught. The city watch pushed through the crowd and surrounded the bear, pikes leveled and bows drawn.

  Edgur could not change back now. If he suddenly resumed human shape, the people would slay him where he lay, city watch or no watch. No, he had to be patient. Perhaps if he acted passively they would cage him up, and once alone, he could return to his natural form.

  The captain of the watch was haranguing the crowd. Whose bear was this? Where did it come from? No one knew.

  "It must have come from somewhere! Bears don't just roam the streets of Argivia!" shouted the irate captain.

  A middle-aged man in long robes appeared. He had the pale skin and soft hands of a man who read books all day, and Edgur saw him approach carefully. The captain and the robed man exchanged whispers. Edgar grew cold with fear. If this man was a wizard, his plot would be unmasked for sure.

  — something unnatural about this beast," the pale man muttered.

  "What are you saying?" asked the captain.

  "I'm saying this animal could be bewitched. It should be killed without delay."

  Edgur began to struggle. He rolled over on his back with such force he toppled one of the horses keeping the net lines taut. A flurry of arrows punched into his hairy hide. Edgur bawled with the pain, and Dare's jewel slipped from his mouth.

  "Hold!" shouted the captain as the gem clinked on the cobblestones. Gingerly he leaned in to retrieve the amulet.

  Edgur watched helplessly as the key to his metamorphosis was taken away.

  "What do you make of this?"

  The pale man examined the stone. "It's a diamond," he said. "Of the first water. The clearest specimen I've ever seen."

  Diamond? Clear? What had happened to the green magic?

  "The animal had it in its mouth," said th
e captain.

  "There's your proof," said the apparent sorcerer. "Gems are often used in enchantment spells."

  As Edgur's life ebbed, he tried to summon the image of his lost Riliana in his mind. She did not remain long. The last thing he saw, before the pikemen finished him off, was the face of the trickster Dare, laughing. Somewhere he was enjoying his jest.

  Riliana, veiled in black, departed the funeral of her late fiance Joren in an open coach. It was a fine day despite the grim business of the morning, and she relished the sunshine as an antidote to her sadness. A small wicker tray was laden with letters addressed to her, no doubt condolences from her friends and relations.

  "Lady," said the coachman, "I hope you don't think it forward of me, but we'll be passing near Bowline Square."

  "So?"

  "The monster bear that slew Master Joren is on display there," he replied. "The city watch gave the carcass to the Ropemakers Guild in recognition of their catching the beast."

  "Why should I want to see it?"

  He tugged his forelock respectfully. "I thought it might do you good to see the culprit's fate, lady."

  Riliana knew her coachman was curious to see the enormous bear everyone in Argivia was talking about. It brought no pleasure to her heart to think the carcass of the poor mad beast was on display, but the coachman would be more careful and appreciative if she indulged him, so she allowed him to detour to Bowline Square.

  With an elegant ivory letter opener, Riliana broke seal after seal on the letters in the tray. Each was full of the usual platitudes and the empty rhetoric of regret. After three in a row that essentially said the same thing, she set the rest aside unopened. One letter remained.

  "My dearest love," it began. Who wrote this? She turned the page over and saw Edgur's copper-engraved signet. A flush came to her face. "This will be a difficult day for you-"

  "Whoa," called the coachman, drawing hard on the reins. The carriage stopped. The crowd was very large and surprisingly orderly. They couldn't drive any closer than the edge of the square. The coachman stood on his seat, trying to see the infamous man-killing bear.