Free Magic (complete)

Chapter 5

Anders walked nervous circles in his room. He was wearing the white cotton shirt, the leather apron, and with his unusual leather breeches he looked like a worker of some kind. He hoped.

He was in an isolated part of the keep, but relatively close to the front gate. Down three flights of stairs and two hallways and he would be face to face with the very soldiers who were trained to run him through if he got caught. The keep was large and he wasn't likely to be recognized, though he did what he could with his hair and posture to appear as different as possible. Brown robes didn't get windows, but he figured it was still a few hours until sunset.

"Well, now or never." Anders took a deep breath, grabbed the trunk from his room, and marched to the front gate with purpose. He passed no one, but every noise had him jump. The guards at the gate were lazily observing the empty hallway when Anders approached.

"Halt. What's your name and business?" The shorter guard with a trim beard and sharp eyes inspected him closely.

"Dugan sir. I've got repairs to take to town for Quartermaster Gaines." His trunk was large enough to block the tattoo on his neck but still show most of his face so they wouldn't ask him to put it down.

"Dugan? Wasn't the new one's name Barton?" The other soldier asked.

"Barton got caught layin' around with a kitchen maid Sirs." Anders said innocently. "Please Sirs, my arms are going to fall off."

"Alright Dugan. Just see you don't lay about like the last one. Gaines doesn't give second chances." The shorter guard signaled the gate workers above to raise the iron bars part way.

"Wait." The other guard said. Anders thought his heart would beat straight through his chest. "Contraband check."

The two guards lifted the lid of the small trunk and searched it's contents.

"Broken tools eh? Well, get 'em taken care of. You're good to go." The first guard closed the lid again and patted the trunk. It broke Anders's heart to break his own supplies, but he had to prepare for this very possibility. Aside from two small hammers and a pair of pliers, he brought a cloak and his coin purse. The heavy iron gate was up and he could see his goal in the distance. Anders had to duck a bit to get under the bars, but he strode through the yard as though he belonged there.

The Whitethorn square was the single longest walk of his life. He knew how to get to town, anyone with eyes could see the road that lead straight there. The problem was, he wasn't quite sure where to find a thief when he got there.

Anders hadn't been past the gate since he was brought to Whitethorn as a child. The outside held wonders he hadn't encountered in years. He had forgotten the smell of leaves, the sound of inland birds, not the gulls that covered Whitethorn which overlooked the sea. The road sloped down, and he stumbled to not fall on the incline when all he had walked on in years was flat floors or sharp stairs. Rolling rocks on the dirt path threatened to tip him over, but he didn't care. He let his legs grow accustomed to the hills of Selstad again. He saw a stray dog and stopped to pet it, remembering the dogs from the farm that his father would take hunting. He saw a shepherd boy and his flock. Smelled the grass and stared out over the down as he descended the hill.

It took almost one bell to make it to Cliffside by foot. Even from the edge of town he looked like a country bumpkin gawking at the city, though Cliffside wasn't that big by any means. When several people stopped to stare at him or ask him if he was lost, he snapped out of his stupor and walked towards the middle of town. Anders stared up at the buildings as he walked. They weren't as tall as Whitethorn, but they still towered over him. The streets were laid out like a grid. Nothing wound lazily around a corner or over a hill like back on the farm, but reflected Selstad's militant organization.

The movement of daily life drew his eyes all over. Horses, when was the last time he was near a horse? And the smell of baking bread. Much better than the stale loaves they were fed at the keep. The colors dazzled his eyes, apart from market day all he ever saw was soldiers' armor and grey mage tunics.

The streets were busy and after a while Anders put his trunk down and sat on it. He had a vague idea of how everything was laid out. After all, he had been brought to Whitethorn through the main street in a wagon. But as big as Whitethorn was, and as long as he had been captive within the keep, he was wholly unprepared for what was before him. As a farm boy, he had only been to the villages back home a handful of times, and they weren't even as large as the keep. The keep housed a thousand mages and soldiers, but Cliffside held many more people than that.

After catching his breath, Anders pulled the light cloak from his trunk and put his coin purse on his belt. It was still mid spring, and that meant it was cool enough to pull the hood up and hide the glowing mark on the side of his neck. Carrying the trunk hid it enough, but soon he would have to put the trunk down. Next he needed to figure out where a thief would hang out. He probably slept during the day and would be just waking up.

"Well at least I'm going to look suspicious, maybe I'll fit in." Anders lifted his trunk again with a grunt, and set off to find a carpenter to fix his tools. After all, he couldn't get back in without having them seen to.

He wandered around, not daring to ask anyone for directions until he spotted two maids with empty baskets walking with purpose towards a wide street ahead. He followed them to a shopping square with great relief.

Most of Cliffside's merchants were represented in the square. A panic started to rise in his chest. He recognized some of the merchants from Whitethorn market day. Which means some of the merchants might recognize HIM from Whitethorn market day.

IT'S OKAY, CALM DOWN. THEY WON'T BE THINKING ABOUT MAGES, YOU'LL BE FINE. EVEN IF YOU LOOK FAMILIER HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE IN THIS TOWN? YOU COULD BE ANYONE.

Anders walked the outer edge of the square until he came to a small carpentry shop. It wasn't too busy and he took a deep breath before walking in. The room smelled of sap, and freshly cut wood. It was actually very appealing, and brought him back to a day where he helped his Da fix fences.

"Can I help you?" A tall, TALL man with a lazy expression was carving something at a table on the far wall.

"Yes, I need some handles replaced." Anders didn't talk much so he wasn't worried about his voice being familiar. His nerves dulled his sharp tongue and he sounded even less like himself.

"Let's see what you've got then." Anders showed the broken and splintered tools, and the man whistled.

"Some fool doesn't know the right end of a hammer. Well, I can get them to you in a couple days, or if you don't mind apprentice work I can maybe have them done up tonight."

"Tonight will be perfect. How much?" Anders opened his bag of coin, grimacing at spending his savings.

"Eight copper for the lot of them." The carpenter took Anders's coin and trunk to a boy of twelve or so. "He's young but he's good. Try back around the seventh bell or so."

"Thank you." Anders left, glad he didn't have to haul the trunk around for a while, and set out to find the lowliest pub he could. Every city guard made him shiver. As long as they didn't tell him to remove his cloak he was probably fine, but the fear was still there. Anders tried to make as few turns as he could, so that he could get back to the carpenter's shop when he needed to.

He didn't want to raise suspicion to himself, but he eventually gave up and asked a passing child on the street.

"Eh? The worst tavern in town?" The boy scrunched up his face. "Prob'ly the Nest."

"Not the worst, the roughest. Where does," Anders thought for a moment of how to word this question for the boy to understand. "Where do the sailors go? Or where do the city guards have to raid the most?"

"Oh, that's still th' Nest." He nodded solemnly. "It's down that way, you'll hear it before you see it."

"Er, thank you." Anders walked towards the street the boy had pointed to, and indeed heard it well before he saw it.