Garth touched the medallion lightly, then raised his eyes. “It’s the royal insignia.”
The man nodded.
“Only to be worn by the king or his heir,” Garth said, his voice firmer now. “And the royal guard. No-one else.”
The man shrugged, pretending disinterest. “If you wore it under your tunic, then who would know? Besides, you’re hardly likely to stand forth in Ruen and lay claim to the throne yourself, are you, young master?” The man’s eyes were unashamedly sharp now. “Where’s the harm, that’s what I say. Wear it, and you show your loyalty to the true king.”
Garth glanced at the man. Had he slightly stressed the “true”? His eyes slipped back to the medallion. He was a little surprised to see that at some point in the last few minutes it had somehow worked its way into his hand.
It lay there, firm and cool against his warm skin. “How much?”
“Five marks, young master. Five marks and I’ll give you the thong to tie it about your neck as well.”
Garth’s fingers closed about the medallion. “Five marks? For this small bauble? I’ll give you two.”
The man grinned. Two was twice as much as it was worth. “Three, and a spare thong as well.”
“Three,” Garth murmured. He did not want to let the medallion go, yet three marks was close to his entire worldly wealth. A cart rattled behind him, and Garth flinched. For an instant it had sounded like the cage as it clattered its way into the depths of the Veins.
He made up his mind. “Three. Very well.” His free hand rummaged about in the pocket of his trousers, then he halted, confused.
The stall-holder had grasped his arm and was staring at him with a strange, almost fanatical expression in his eyes. Garth took a step back, but he could not dislodge the man’s grip. “What? Who are—”
“It’s of no matter who or what I really am,” the man hissed. “Keep the medallion. It’s yours. If you’ve found the dead, then don’t forget him! Help him find the dream, boy, help him!”
About him the market bustled cheerfully, but Garth and the dark, intense man seemed to exist in an isolated pocket of silence. The street trader—or whatever he really was—reached behind him and pulled a leather thong from a small holdall. “Here, take this. Tie the medallion about your neck.”
Still numbed by the man’s words about the dream, slowly Garth took the thong and threaded it through the small ring at the top edge of the medallion. As he tied it about his neck the dark man visibly relaxed. “Good, good. Now, slip it inside your tunic. Yes, just like that.”
Garth felt the cool disc against the skin of his chest, and he fingered it through the material of his tunic. “Who—” he began as he raised his head, then he started in fright.
The stall before him was empty, the canvas above flapping mournfully. There was nothing, not a single item of merchandise, not even the cloth used to cover the boards of the stall itself.
And certainly no sign of the tall, thin man.
Garth trembled and he slowly backed away from the stall.
“Hey, you! Watch out!”
He leaped aside only just in time to avoid a heavily laden cart, its driver gesturing angrily at him.
Garth turned and ran through the market and the back alleys until he was breathless—but when he finally stopped, leaning against a wall while he caught his breath, he could still feel the medallion pressing against his chest.
In his dark, sticky eternity, Lot No. 859 raised his pick and buried it in the rock-face before him. Gloam tumbled to the floor—already he was up to his ankles in the tarry substance, and 859 hoped that the gang whose job it was to cart the gloam back into the tunnel would shovel it away from his legs before he drowned in it. At his left shoulder Lot No. 65 toiled away; to his right loomed the tunnel wall.
It was a measure of his seniority—earned simply through his ability to keep on surviving—that 859 had the privilege of working at the head of the line. It gave him added freedom and privacy, for he could always turn his head to the right and encounter nothing but his own thoughts.
And the black rock.
He raised the pick again and again, his muscles bunching rhythmically, black dust floating about him and covering his body. The bandage about his right arm was so coated that it was indistinguishable from his equally blackened flesh.
Lot No. 859 had not removed the bandage since the day the boy had placed it there. He had not known why, for the boy had been irritating, and had probed painfully with his questions and assumptions. His insistence that there was a world—and a world worth returning to—beyond the hanging wall unsettled 859, and in those brief hours when he was permitted to sleep he dreamed of vistas and breezes that must have been the product of his imagination.
For Lot No. 859 knew there was no world beyond the hanging wall. He knew it. There was nothing, nothing, nothing but the rhythmic swing of the pick and the crumble of the gloam. Nothing but the rock-face before him and the blackness to his right. Nothing but the cursing and the sweating and the dying chained to his left ankle.
Lot No. 859 had no comprehension of the time he had been shackled beneath the earth. Had anyone muttered seventeen years to him he would have gone mad and buried the pick in his own skull.
EIGHT
THE LIBRARY
He stood for a long time, his hand grasping the medallion through the material of his tunic, trying to make sense of what had just happened.
Release the dream, Maximilian had said.
Help him find the dream, the strange dark man had urged.
And had given him this medallion with the outline of the Manteceros emblazoned across its surface.
Making sure no-one was looking, Garth slipped the medallion free of his tunic and gazed at it. It was of plain workmanship, but striking because of it. He ran his finger around the blue outline of the Manteceros, idly thinking that it was a strange creature for a royal line to take as its emblem. Almost ugly, certainly ungainly, the Manteceros surely was no creature of war, nor even of pageantry. Roughly the size and shape of a horse, the creature had a bloated body and legs that were thick and trunk-like. A shapeless head sat on a neck too thin for the body. There was a faint suggestion of a spiky mane and a thin, tufted tail. Garth shook his head slightly. He’d heard of royal houses that took bears or dragons or even one of the great cats as their emblems, but the royal line of Escator had apparently decided on this strange creature.
For the first time Garth found himself wondering at its true nature, then laughed at himself for assuming the creature existed.
But even to his ears, his laughter sounded forced, and Garth fell silent again, his hazel eyes reflective.
So, all he had to do was to find a dream.
“Well,” he muttered. “Where am I going to find a dream?”
He looked up, and for the umpteenth time that day, jumped in surprise.
His headlong flight from the marketplace had brought him to rest before the great library of Narbon. It was an imposing building, colonnaded in gleaming white marble and with scrolls and quills carved deep into the great portico at its entrance. Garth had never been inside, although he knew his father had. It was owned by the town itself, and run by an obscure religious order that kept the books and scrolls free from dust and sticky fingers.
Garth stared at the building, slipping the medallion back inside his tunic. Any citizen was supposedly allowed access to the building—although access to the books and scrolls themselves was controlled by the monks—but Garth had never had any excuse nor any desire to enter. What books he needed were shelved in his father’s surgery, and his mother’s store of legends and tales were enough to keep him entertained at night.
And what boy ever entered the library when an exciting game of hoopball called?
Garth shifted from foot to foot. To free Maximilian he had to find the Manteceros—and yet, as far as he knew, the beast lived only in legend. Well, what better place to start hunting a legend than inside the library? Perhaps one of the monks could help him.
And perhaps they’ll as soon chase me out of their beloved reading rooms with brooms and dusting cloths, he thought dryly as he slowly crossed the street and stood before the sweep of marble steps that led under the portico and to the door. It stood open, and ultimately that was what decided Garth to try his luck inside. If the doors had been closed, he would have turned his back and gone home to help his mother for the afternoon.