Andine? Althalus asked.
Thats her name. Its a pretty name for a pretty girl, but shes got a very ugly mind.
Youve seen her?
Oh, yes. She stood up on top of the city wall to gloat while her soldiers butchered us. She kept screaming for more blood and waving Eliars dagger around. Shes a total savage, and shes the ruler of Osthos now.
A woman? That startled Althalus.
Shes no ordinary woman, Althalus. That ones made out of steel. She was the Aryos only child, so theyre probably all bowing to her and calling her Arya Andine. If Eliars lucky, she just had him killed outright. I sort of doubt that, though. More probably, shes been carving pieces off him with his own knife and making him watch while she eats them. I wouldnt be at all surprised to hear that shes trying to come up with a way to cut out his heart so fast that hed still be alive long enough to watch her eat it right in front of his face. Stay away from that one, Althalus. Id advise you to give her forty or fifty years to cool down before you go anywhere near her.
CHAPTER NINE
Why should we care if she kills him, Em? Althalus asked. Its the Knife we want, not some half-grown little boy from Arum.
When are you going to learn to look beyond the end of your nose, Althalus? Her tone was a bit snippy, and there was enough condescension in it to be offensive.
Thats about enough of that, Em, he told her crisply.
Sorry, pet, she apologized. That was a little nasty, wasnt it? What Im getting at is that everything is connected. Nothing happens in isolation. Eliars probably some crude, unschooled barbarian from the back country of Arum, but he did pick up that Knife back in Albrons arms-room. It might have been a whim, but we cant be sure of that until we test him. If he cant read whats written on the blade, well pat him on the head and tell him to run along home. If he can read it, though, hell have to come with us.
What if hes like I was before I came to the House? I couldnt even read my own name back then.
I noticed. It wont matter whether he can read or not. If he happens to be one of the selected ones, hell know what the writing means.
How will we know if hes got it right?
Well know, pet. Believe me, well know.
Why dont you enlighten me? Tell me what the word on the blade is.
It varies. Itll mean something different to each person who reads it.
Emmy, that doesnt make any sense at all. A words a word, isnt it? Its supposed to have one specific meaning.
Does the word home have a specific meaning?
Of course it does. It means the place where a man lives or maybe the place he originally came from.
Then it has a different meaning for each person, doesnt it?
He frowned.
Dont beat yourself over the head with it, pet. The word thats carved into the Knife-blade is a command, and it tells each one of the people we have to locate to do something different.
It cant just be one word, then.
I didnt say that it was. Each reader will see it differently.
It changes, then?
No. Its permanent. The writing stays the same. Its the reading that changes.
Youre starting to give me a headache, Em.
Dont brood about it, Althie. Itll make more sense to you once we get the Knife. Our problem right now is getting the Knife and Eliar away from Andine.
I think Ive already got the answer to that one, Em. Ill just buy them from her.
Buy?
Pay her to give them to me.
Althalus, Eliars a person. You cant buy people.
Youre wrong about that, Em. Eliars a captured soldier, and that means that hes a slave now.
Thats disgusting!
Of course it is, but thats the way things are. Ill have to rob a few rich people to get enough gold to buy Eliar and the Knife. If Arya Andines as dead-set on butchering Eliar as Sergeant Khalor seems to think she is, Ill need lots of gold to persuade her to sell him to me.
Maybe, she murmured, her green eyes going distant. But then again, maybe not. If we use the Book right, shell be more than happy to sell him to us.
Ive come across vindictive ladies before, Em. Believe me, itll take a lot of gold. If Sergeant Khalor was anywhere at all close to being right, shes developed a strong appetite for Eliars blood by now. Lets see if we can find some rich mans house. Ill rob him and then we can go and make Andine an offer.
There are other ways to get gold, Althalus.
I know mining it out of the ground. I dont care for doing it that way. Ive seen a lot of deep holes in the mountainsides of Kagwher, and from what I hear, only about one in a hundred has turned up even a speck of gold.
I believe I can improve on those numbers, pet.
I still dont like chopping at the ground, Em. It makes my back hurt.
Thats because you dont get enough exercise. Lets move right along. We have several days travel ahead of us before you get to start digging.
There isnt any gold down here in the low-country, Em.
There is if you know where to look. Ride on, my brave boy, ride on.
Was that supposed to be funny?
They rode south across the parched grainfields of Perquaine for the next several days, moving at a steady canter. It was about mid-afternoon on the third day after their meeting with Sergeant Khalor when Althalus reined in and dismounted.
Why are we stopping? Emmy asked.
Weve been pushing the horse a bit. Ill walk alongside to give him a rest. He looked around at the sun-baked fields. Skimpy, he observed.
What is?
This years crop. It looks to me as if its hardly going to be worth the trouble to harvest it.
Its the drought, pet. It doesnt rain much any more.
We should be getting close to the coastline, Em. It always rains along the coast.
Were a long way from where the coast is now, pet. We talked about that back in the House, remember? The ice locks up more of the worlds water every year. That causes the drought and lowers the sea-level.
Are we going to be able to repair that?
What do you mean?
Melt the ice so that things go back to the way theyre supposed to be.
Why do men always want to tamper with the natural order of things?
When something breaks, we fix it, thats all.
What gave you the absurd idea that its broken?
Its not the way it was before, Em. To our way of looking at things, that means that its broken.
Now which one of us is thinking the way Daeva thinks?
Drying up the oceans and turning the world into a desert doesnt make things better, Em.
Change doesnt necessarily mean improvement, Althalus. Change is just change. Better and worse are human definitions. The world changes all the time, and no amount of complainings going to stop it from changing.
Change doesnt necessarily mean improvement, Althalus. Change is just change. Better and worse are human definitions. The world changes all the time, and no amount of complainings going to stop it from changing.
The sea-coast shouldnt move around, he declared stubbornly.
You can tell it to stop, if youd like. It might listen to you, but I wouldnt make any large wagers on it, if I were you. She looked around. We should reach the place were looking for sometime tomorrow.
Have we been looking for someplace special?
Sort of special. Its the place where youre going to start working for your living.
What an unnatural thing to suggest.
Itll be good for you, love fresh air, exercise, wholesome food
I think Id sooner take poison.
They set up a rudimentary camp in a scraggly thicket some distance back from the road that evening and started out again shortly after dawn.
There it is, Emmy said after theyd ridden for a couple of hours.
There what is?
The place where you do some honest work, pet.
I wish youd stop rubbing my nose in that. He looked across what appeared to be a long-abandoned field at a kind of knoll, sparsely covered with stunted, tired-looking grass, Is that it? he asked.
Thats the place.
How can you tell? Its just a hill. Weve passed dozens of others just like it.
Yes, we have. This one isnt an ordinary hill, though. Its the ruins of an old house thats been covered with dirt.
Who buried it like that?
The wind. The grounds very dry now, so the wind picks up dirt and carries it along until it comes to something that blocks it. Thats where it drops the dirt.
Is that the way all hills get built?
Not all of them, no.
Althalus squinted at the rounded hillock. I think Im going to need some tools. Ill dig if you insist, Em, but Im not going to do it with my bare hands.
Well take care of it. Ill tell you the word to use.
I still think itd be easier just to rob somebody.
Theres more gold in that hill than youre likely to find in a dozen of the houses weve passed. You say that youll need gold to buy Eliar and the Knife from Andine. All right, theres the gold. Go dig it up.
How do you know theres gold there?
I just do. Theres more gold in those ruins than youve ever seen before. Fetch, boy, fetch.
Thats starting to make me a little tired, Em.
If youd do as youre told the first time, I wouldnt have to keep telling you over and over again. Youre going to do what I tell you to do eventually anyway, so why not just do it immediately instead of arguing with me?
Yes, dear, he gave up.
Good boy, she said approvingly. Good boy.
She gave him instructions on how to manufacture a shovel with a single word and then directed him to a spot about fifty paces up the south side of the slope. As he led his horse up the hill, he saw some very ancient limestone building blocks half buried in the soil. Theyd obviously been sawed square when the house had been erected, but wind and weather had rounded them to the point that they were almost indistinguishable from native stone. How long ago was the house abandoned? he asked.
About three thousand years ago. The man who built it started out in life as a plowman. Then he went up into Arum before anybody else went up there. He wasnt really looking for gold, but he found some.
Probably because he got there first. Why did he go to Arum if he didnt know there was gold there, though?
Thered been a slight misunderstanding about the ownership of a certain pig. His neighbors were a little excited about it, so he decided to go up into the mountains for a while to give them time to calm down. Im sure you understand. This is the place, pet. Get down off the horse and start digging.
He dismounted, lifted Emmy out of the hood of his cloak and set her on his saddle. Then he took off his cloak and rolled up his sleeves. How deep do I have to dig? he asked.
About four feet. Then youll hit some flagstones, and youll have to pry them up. Theres a little cellar under the stones, and thats where the gold is.
Are you sure?
Quit wasting time and start digging, Althalus.
Yes, dear, he sighed, and very reluctantly thrust his shovel into the dirt.
The drought had made the soil very dry, so digging wasnt really as hard as hed thought it would be.
I wouldnt throw the dirt so far down the hill, pet, Emmy suggested after a while. Youll have to shovel it all back in the hole when youve finished.
What for?
To keep somebody from finding the gold youll have to leave behind.
Im not going to leave any, Em.
How do you plan to carry it?
Youre sitting on him, love. Hes a strong horse.
Not that strong, he isnt.
How much is there here?
More than our horse can carry.
Really? Althalus began to dig faster.
After about a half hour, he struck the flagstones Emmy had told him about. Then he widened out the hole hed dug to give himself some more room. He leaned his shovel against the side of the hole, knelt on the stones, and began to probe between them with his bright steel dagger. Exactly what am I looking for here, Em? he asked. These flagstones fit together so tight that I cant get my knife into the cracks.
Keep looking, she instructed. The one you want to find fits a little more loosely.
He kept poking until he found it. The dirt the patient centuries had blown in had sifted down into the cracks between the stones, and it took him a while to dig it out with his dagger-point. Then he resheathed his dagger, took the shovel and began to pry.
The stone lifted out rather easily, followed by a rush of stale-smelling air. There was an open space of some kind below the flagstones, but it was too dark down there to see anything. He pried up another stone to let in more light.
There were tightly piled stacks of dust-covered bricks in the cellar, and a hot surge of disappointment came over him. But why would anyone take so much trouble just to hide bricks? He reached down through the hole and brushed the dust away from one of the bricks.
He stared at it in absolute disbelief. The brick which had been concealed by centuries of dust was bright yellow.
Dear God! Althalus exclaimed, brushing away more dust.
Hes busy right now, Althalus. Could I take a message?
There must be tons of it down here!
Told you, she reminded him smugly.
The gold had been cast into oblong blocks, each about the size of a mans hand and slightly thicker. They weighed about five pounds apiece. Althalus found that he was trembling violently as he lifted the blocks out of the hole and laid them on the flagstones.
Dont get carried away, Althalus, Emmy suggested.
Twenty? He said it with a great reluctance.
I dont think the horse would want to carry any more.
Althalus forced himself to stop at twenty of the gold blocks. Then he replaced the flagstone, shoveled all the dirt back into the hole, and uprooted a number of nearby bushes. He replanted the bushes in the freshly dug-up dirt to conceal his private gold mine.