Frays In The Weave

Arthur had to agree upon postponing their departure indefinitely. It wasn"t as if he really minded. He needed to be that honest to himself.

Verd, he was back in Verd again. Six months on the roads. No that wasn"t true. Half of that time he"d spent on the Sea of Gra.s.s or as a prisoner somewhere. But now he was truly back in the magical capital of a nation that saw every user of magic shot on sight. Half a year ago he"d sworn that was about as depressing a thought as they came, but now he could taste the beautiful irony in it.

He took up rooms in Two Worlds, the very same he had lived in during his first stay in Verd. That said something about continuity.

This morning, his second after arriving here, saw him down the stairs, out on the shiny streets of the city and away, aiming his feet toward Ming Hjil de Verd.

He tentatively made his way between carts and wagons, crossed Erterius Street, stole a shortcut through Aran and Baran alleys which spat him out on Krante Boulevard. There he halted. Travelling with the caravan had made him forget that traffic moved in two directions within the confines of city walls.

Gaping at coaches, riders in their yellow uniforms with leather details in contrasting colours, young men and women dressed in jackets so short he could have sworn they never reached their navels and old people frowning at the youngsters, he stood. It would take more than a few days to get used to the frantic pace of a city labelled as the centre of the world. He corrected himself. A city who considered herself the centre of the world. In De Vhatic every place was a woman, a mother raising you, a woman loving you and an old crone lamenting your pa.s.sing away.

And Verd, she had a mind of her own. Harbend had as much as admitted that. So much magic woven into her stones that she had grown sentient, or at least that was how rumours went.

Arthur didn"t know about that, but De Vhatic was a poetic language, much more so than the Terran English he was used to from home. If the locals wanted to see their capital as a lover he wasn"t going to complain. They certainly cared for her as if she was.

He kept to the pavement and pa.s.sed spotlessly kept houses in white or red. Marble or granite, because Verd was a shining city of stone, beautiful where Belgera had been imposing, proud rather than strong and always with arms outstretched ready to embrace instead of the impenetrable grey fortification that was the capital in Braka.

Open. He was on his way to find out if a very special place was open. Twice he had entered a Taleweaver"s Inn, and Verd should house one of her own. An outworlder taleweaver since early winter he planned to see that inn for himself, and conquer it.

While his life had seen more change the last year than the twenty preceding it one thing stayed constant. He conquered. Facing holo cams as a newscaster or addressing an audience as a taleweaver mattered little. He thrived on adoring listeners.

He walked on. Krante Boulevard emptied in Ming Hjil de Verd, and he allowed himself to pause and wait for the drifting morning fog to dissipate and disclose the wonders on the square. Statues. Statues made of walking gla.s.s, shifting in colour from blood red to brilliant blue as they wandered, posed and resumed their perpetual dance in a display of magecrafted arrogance and stunning artistry. Gla.s.s on white and gla.s.s on black as the man made apparitions walked the chequered square.

In its centre a dozen warriors of gla.s.s were locked in eternal combat and less than halfway there another planted a banner in the ground, declaring victory for Keen in a war Arthur hadn"t heard of.

Around them hawkers were setting up their carts and Arthur left the square before it turned into its daily bedlam of shouting peddlers and customers. He smiled as he continued down Dagd Boulevard. Less than a year earlier he"d stood frozen here, gawking at what the population took for granted, and now he was part of it all. A taleweaver. A walking wonder of this world in his own right.

He left Dagd Boulevard for Artists Street. Whistling the signature melody that had announced his shows for two decades he pa.s.sed the theatres one by one. He didn"t stop until he saw the sign he"d been watching for. The Taleweaver"s Inn.

Stopping once more, to let a cart laden with dried fruit through, he exchanged insults with the driver and headed for the door.

It was an insignificant wooden door set slightly off centre in an equally anonymous stonewall. Almost as if someone had wanted people to fail finding their way here. But there was a sign. In the De Vhatic letters Arthur had never fully mastered, but this combination he knew by heart. Taleweaver"s Inn. A door to the history of this world, to tales of wonder and to the Weave itself.

Late autumn, barely half a year ago he had entered through a door like this for the first time, and his life had forever changed. That night he became a taleweaver. After that he"d spun the Weave almost every evening, and he suspected legend already grew around his tales.

Hesitantly he stood facing the door. Watching it while horses, wagons and people on foot pa.s.sed behind his back. Then he rapped the door hard and waited some more.

It eventually swung open and a man with a face like parchment challenged him. That face could have belonged to the guardian in The Roadhouse Taleweaver"s Inn, or the one in Belgera, and as identical twins didn"t come in threes Arthur simply accepted that even the guardians were part of the magic that seeped through each inn.

"What is your errand?" came the expected question.

"To Weave, but first I want to see this place," Arthur answered.

"To watch and Weave. Enter."

Arthur bent his head and crossed the threshold. People here were a full head shorter than he on average, and while furniture was simply too often uncomfortable, door frames, and in the worst of cases ceilings, were outright painful.

He pa.s.sed through a corridor and opened the door at the other end. He didn"t even bother to turn. The guardian would be gone only to appear well inside the inn. Arthur knew that by now. That this was the only way in didn"t matter. One learned to take the impossible for granted on Otherworld.

Once inside he threw the stage a cursory glance and headed for the table a servant was already setting. She would return with a breakfast he"d only realize he"d longed for first when he put eyes on it. Another impossibility, another thing to take for granted.

He did wonder how such flamboyant use of magic could exist inside the walls of great Verd. Capital of magic and Inquisition alike, but taleweavers were sacrosanct, and maybe some of that rubbed off to the inns that carried their names. He would eat and then he would scout the inn to find out how an audience were most likely to stand and sit. Weaving might allow him to share his tale with those listening, but that wasn"t an excuse to cheat on preparations. That was what had made him the greatest newscaster in the federation in living memory and, if he had anything to say about it, that was what would make him the greatest of taleweavers.

He entered the stage wondering how Harbend had spent his morning.