7. I met a disciple and a slacker

Yerris was wrong. Alvon put up with his sari for more than two days in a row. And I, seeing myself without a guide or mentor, spent the first few days wandering around the city with no clear purpose, going in and out of taverns, roaming through parks and even begging, as Yerris had taught me to do, with discretion and a wet-dog, beaten-down look. On those days, I watched a group of newspaper sellers, and realizing that they were collecting quite a lot of money, on the third day I went up to them and asked them where they got the papers from, to which one of them replied: from the office! And he was kind enough to show it to me, because they were already on their way to return the morning papers and collect the afternoon ones.

In front of the press office, there was a noisy, cheerful crowd of children and teenagers who were having fun making bets by playing dice. One of them had his pockets emptied and, as he found himself three siatos in debt, the boy lamented:

“May you hang, my father will kill me!”

And while he shook his head, uttering desperate imprecations, his friends, and especially the winner, laughed and tried to console him in a light tone.

“Don’t worry, Tens! The same thing happened to me last moon,” a youngster of about twelve years reminded him. “And you know what I did? I said I was attacked in the street by mobsters. Daddy, Mommy, I was attacked and they stole all my money!” he cried.

“And did it work?”

“Well, yes, but somehow, it was worse: my father called me a coward because I had given them everything without defending myself. Believe me and tell your father that you were attacked by a whole gang and that you smashed a guy’s head in, but that you were outnumbered.”

“Well, I’ll give it a go,” Tens assured.

Others continued the game. I was watching them when another scene caught my attention: a redheaded elf had just violently pushed a little boy a few meters away on the Imperial Avenue. It reminded me so much of what Warok’s friend, the caitian, had done to me that, with a frown, I went over to see what was going on.

“You owe me twenty nails!” the attacker said to the attacked. The latter did not resist but did not lower his head either, he looked away, acting as if the attacker’s words were, to his ear, nothing more than a bird song.

“You hear me, you isturbag?” the red-haired elf insisted, shoving him.

“Isturbag yourself! Don’t hit him,” a little dark elf shouted, stepping in and standing up like a watchdog. “Go away!”

“Well, well, Manras. Are you defending the demon now? Don’t you know it’s contagious to associate with those devil-eyes?” the boy threw at him.

“Shut up! Dil is my friend!” the little dark elf growled.

“He owes me twenty nails,” the redhead replied.

“He doesn’t owe you anything!”

“Yes, he does: he’s a devil.”

“It’s not fair!”

At that moment, the red-haired boy turned to me when he saw me so close and frowned.

“What are you looking at?”

It must be said that, after I became interested in the scene, my eyes had remained intensely fixed on the redhead’s face. It was totally ravaged by a nasty disease. I shrugged.

“Why do you say he’s a devil?”

The redhead huffed.

“Why, you ask? Just look at his eyes.”

Only then did I notice, in fact, that the kid called Dil had almost reddish purple eyes with a vertical pupil like snakes. I shrugged again.

“Have you ever seen a devil? No, right? Then how do you know it’s a devil?”

The redhead arched an eyebrow.

“What? Well, shyur, don’t you know they say sajits with eyes like that are devils? This kinchin is not a human: he’s a devil.”

I saw a trembling gleam in Dil’s eyes. So he was actually listening to us and predictably didn’t like being called a devil. I faced the attacker.

“Stop calling him a devil, it’s cruel. Get out of here or I’ll wring your ears off.”

To my surprise, the boy smiled.

“You don’t lack guts. Can’t you see I’m way older and bigger than you, shyur? Keep it down. You’re a gwak of the Cats, right?” It hurt to admit that he was right: he was much stronger and taller than me, he must have been Yerris’s age, which meant that my chances of coming out on top in a fight were pretty slim. I moistened my lips and nodded. “It shows. And you sell newspapers?” I shook my head. “No? Then what are you doing here?”

“I was taking a look around,” I explained. “To see how this newspaper thing works. I heard somebody say he made fifteen nails in five hours, and sometimes more. But I don’t know how it works.”

The red-haired elf looked at me mockingly. And, suddenly, he held out his hand to me.

“My name is Draen the Swift, from the Cat Quarter too,” he introduced himself.

I was still apprehensive about holding out my hand to shake someone else’s, but Yalet assured me that my right hand looked real, or almost real: the only difference was that it wasn’t as warm as the other. So, after a hesitation, I shook Draen’s hand and replied:

“I’m Draen, too.”

Draen smiled.

“Oh, a namesake. You know, shyur? Fifteen nails for five hours is a pittance. I earn more begging in the temples. Tell me, are you in a gang?”

I looked at him warily and shrugged.

“Why do you ask?”

A commotion arose in front of the desk, and as the children clumped together to fetch the papers, the red-haired elf inhaled casually through his nose and shrugged as well.

“No reason. Ayo, namesake. Ayo, devil,” he threw at Dil. “Don’t dawdle on your way home, you don’t want to get attacked!”

He gave us an amused, joking, and mocking look, and walked away down Imperial Avenue with a quick step.

“Quite a vulture…” I huffed.

“Come on, Dil,” the little dark elf said, urging the alleged devil. “If we don’t hurry, there won’t be any papers for us.”

Dil nodded without much enthusiasm, glanced at me, and said a laconic:

“Thank you.”

I smiled.

“You’re welcome. Say, guys, can you explain to me how this office thing works?”

The little dark elf stopped pulling Dil by the sleeve and bit his lip, looking into my eyes. He couldn’t have been more than eight years old, I judged.

“Okay,” he said suddenly. “Come along.”

I followed them inside to a counter where I had to pay a nail in exchange for a small brass plate with the office symbol engraved on it. When we reached the dimly lit basement, we waited our turn to ask the clerk how many papers we wanted. When it was my turn, I said:

“Twenty.”

And the clerk looked at me with a sideways glance.

“You’re new, aren’t you?”

“Yes, this is Draen, a friend of mine,” the little dark elf interjected.

I arched an eyebrow, and my new friend smiled at me. He whispered to me:

“By the way, my name is Manras. How about we sell together?”

I smiled.

“It runs.”

I picked up my twenty newspapers, and a few minutes later, the three of us were walking the streets, “The Red Rumor! The Red Rumor! For a penny!”. I was pretty good at shouting, and I was pretty good at singing too, and by the time the four bells of the Great Temple rang, I had composed my sales refrains:

Hey, the Red Rumor,

informs in good humor!

What happened today?

Find out for one nail

in the Red Rumor!

The Red Rumor!

The Red Rumor!

Smarten your brain

for one nail!

The Red Rumor!

The Red Rumor!

Manras imitated me, and in a few days, we formed a terrible newspaper-selling duo. In the parks, in the squares, everywhere, you could hear us going by, shouting, singing, handing out newspapers and collecting nails. It must be said that Manras was ready to imitate me in everything, and his support also encouraged me to improvise, to play at being the old-timer: one could hardly tell that only a few moons ago I could not remember what a house or a loaf of bread was. Dil, on the other hand, was less inclined to imitate me—he had nothing against me, but, according to Manras, Little Prince was simply a first-class slacker. When we sang, he sometimes looked at us as if we had gone mad, other times he rolled his eyes or scratched his head and reluctantly walked up to a gentleman to hand him a newspaper almost without opening his mouth. All in all, if Manras was as active a kid as I was, Dil was a sleepy, friendly lebrine bear, but also a total I-don’t-care sort of person and silent as hell… Definitely the opposite of the Black Cat!

Precisely, a few weeks after I began my work as a newsboy, seeing that Yerris had not yet returned, I asked Rolg when my guide and companion would return, and the old elf told me that, from what he had heard, Alvon had taken him on a mission outside Estergat. The first thing I thought was that he had taken him to keep him safe from that Black Hawk. I was about to ask Rolg for confirmation, but I thought twice and told myself that doing so might have been a bad idea. Besides, an oath was an oath. Anyway, I was impressed that Yerris was going to work with his mentor; however, lying alone in the Den, I also felt a loneliness I was not used to. And I thought: I can’t wait for Yal to finish his studies and come back to give me some attention. Honestly, if I had known where Yalet lived, I would have gone to visit him to disturb him a little, even if only for a few minutes. I sighed, caressed my small silver pendant with my right hand, and reached out to try and hear Rolg’s breathing on the other side of the door, but to no avail. It almost seemed as if, when the old elf disappeared through that door, he disappeared from the world. What could be behind it? I don’t know why, some nights I thought there was something dangerous there, and I could hardly fall asleep. And that night was one of them. Alone in the room, I felt unsafe, just like when I was traveling in the woods. And this was something that had never happened to me with my master, because I knew that he never needed to sleep, that he was always watching, and that he was out there, looking at the stars and repelling the mountain monsters with his presence alone.

“Ferilompard,” I muttered. “I must find a ferilompard.”

Then I could go back to my master. With this thought in mind, I finally managed to fall asleep.

* * *

“Earthquake in Veliria! The Night Gazette! The Night Gazette!” I shouted.

It was a feast day, the first Kindday of Joys, a day for celebrating the harvest, and the streets were crowded with people. It was the best day for a newspaper seller: sales were more than good. The only drawback was that I hadn’t yet found a word that rhymed with gazette and made a nice refrain, but people didn’t seem to mind either.

I saw a gloved hand reach out with two nails, gave the newspaper, and took the coins, shouting:

“The Night Gazette! Earthquake in Veliria!”

Manras stopped beside me, panting.

“Gee, Sharpy, you only have one left?”

“And you, ten, I see,” I said. “What’s the matter with you, shyur?”

Manras shrugged, looking grim.

“My throat is hoarse. My brother’s gonna wring my ears off…”

I gave him a sympathetic pout. Manras had the misfortune to have a brother who took everything he brought back. He lived with Dil, in the Labyrinth, but I had never been to see them there: not only did Manras say his brother didn’t allow visitors, but I didn’t want to run into Warok on the way.

“Listen,” I said to the little dark elf. “I can give you a little. I have thirty nails left. If you want, I’ll give you fifteen. With what’s left, I’ll have dinner and lunch, don’t worry. Nobody’s going to wring my ears off.”

Manras looked at me, his eyes wide.

“Really?”

“For real and in Drionsan,” I assured him, putting the coins in his hand. “Here. Don’t you know that friends help each other out? Well, there you go. But I’m doing this because you’ve got a bad throat, eh? Any other day, it won’t work.”

The little dark elf smiled broadly and jumped on my neck with all the newspapers.

“Thank you, Sharpy!”

I smiled and rolled my eyes. A newspaper vendor had started calling me Sharpy because I made up my own refrains and competed with him, and the nickname had stuck. I hit Manras with my newspaper in a friendly manner.

“You’re welcome, shyur. Say, in return you take my paper; I’m gonna have dinner and go home. Where’s Little Prince?”

I saw him standing next to a lighted street lamp, handing a newspaper to an opulent lady.

“It can’t be! Isn’t he selling better than you?” I said, impressed. “Well, well, ayo, Manras, see you tomorrow!”

“Ayo!”

I walked away, passed behind Dil, and pulled on his cap.

“Good night, Little Prince!”

He gave me a half-exasperated, half-amused look before readjusting his cap and making an almost imperceptible gesture by way of greeting.

I ran down Tarmil Avenue, returned to the Cats without almost slowing down, and, arriving at The Wind Rose, threw to the tavern-keeper:

“Mr. Tavern-keeper, I want some rice!”

And the tavern-keeper served me rice. In the last few weeks, for the first time since I had been in Estergat, I had started to feel like a real Cat, for I was earning my meals, just as in the old days in the mountains when I hunted rabbits, except that now, instead of hunting them directly, I was hunting silver coins. I smiled as I ate my rice, and turning to a group of people who were singing in celebration of the Day of Joys, I quickly finished my plate and went over to listen to them.

“Kid!” a man said, seeing me standing there idly by their table. “Sing with us, come on, we’ve gotta celebrate!”

“But I don’t know the words,” I said.

“Well, you’ll learn them quickly, it’s simple!”

In fact, the lyrics were so simple that I learned them in no time, and I ended up shouting along with them. My throat was already a little hoarse from shouting for The Night Gazette, but it didn’t seem to matter whether I sang well or badly. At one point, I tugged at the sleeve of Fiks, the old worker who had asked me to join them, and pointed to a bottle.

“What’s that?”

In all honesty, I knew perfectly well what it was, but I played the naive on purpose, and my tactic worked: Fiks looked at me, his eyes widened.

“What? Don’t you know what wine is, boy?”

I shrugged.

“I’m from the valley, sir. There’s no such thing there.”

“You never drank it? Want to taste it?”

“Ragingly!” I exclaimed with a smile.

The worker smiled and shook his head.

“Well, you came at the right time! Dabel! Pass us the wine, the kid’s thirsty.”

I really was, so I took several long sips before someone laughed:

“That kid’ll knock back the whole bottle, Fiks!”

“He sure can hold his drink!” another said, laughing.

The old workman forcibly took the bottle from my hands, and I cried out joyfully:

“Damn, it burns!”

Fiks huffed.

“Who taught you to drink like that? This ain’t spring water, boy! Come on, get a move on and go home, wherever that is, before you turn a blind eye. On religious holidays, we drink to be merry, not to get drunk. Ah, young people…!”

He ruffled my hair, handed me back my cap that had fallen off, and gently pushed me out the door. I gave him a big smile and laughed.

“Thank you, Fiks!”

I staggered, hit a dog, and backed away. I stumbled across the Grey Square, staggering and looking very bright. Fortunately, the Den was not too far away, or I wouldn’t have made it. In the streets, I passed some blurred figures, and strangely enough, I thought it was a good thing that I had given the rest of my coins to Manras, for now, if I were attacked, the attackers would be in for a disappointment. I was not far from the house when I stopped to look at the sky and saw some very bright stars.

“Count them, Mor-eldal, count them!” I exclaimed. “One, two, three, four…”

I continued to count each step I took, and at last, I reached the small courtyard. I climbed the stairs, counted the steps and frowned.

“Twenty? Impossible.”

I went back down the stairs, up the stairs, and this time, I counted six. That made more sense. I was about to push open the door when it opened with a bang and a light hurt my eyes.

“Draen?” a surprised voice called out.

I blinked, and when I saw that my master’s eyes were wide open, I laughed.

“Ayo, Elassar!”

And I sang:

Give me your hand,

brother,

Follow the path

And let’s sing together:

Long live summer!

Long live autumn!

Long live the Daglat and the Hundred Spirits!

Long live wine!

I lost my balance, and fortunately, the railing kept me from falling.

“By the Four Spirits of the Dawn,” Yalet muttered incredulously.

He took my hand and led me in. The sound of the door closing seemed as loud as if lightning had fallen on my head, and I let out an “Ouch,” followed by a brief chortle.

“Thunders, can you explain to me how the hell you got in this state?” Yal asked.

“The how is obvious enough,” Rolg said, amused.

The old elf sat at the table with a paper in his hands. I greeted him with a wave of my hand and a smile, and turned to Yal, but I had to look up so much that I felt dizzy, so I lowered my eyes again, and seeing that I was free to move, I wobbled to my pallet.

“Bah, leave him be, son,” Rolg added; “it’s Day of Joys.”

“Day of Joys!” Yal repeated, bewildered, as I lay humming. “When I was his age, I didn’t do that sort of thing!”

“Times are changing, son—”

“Yeah, sure! As if they change in just six years. You know what? I think my sari has learned enough from the Cats for now. What I’m going to do now is find him a job where he doesn’t wander off. I don’t want him to end up like some people I know who are Black Daggers in name only. Do you hear me, Draen? Draen!”

I opened one eye and saw him crouching beside me, watching me with an expression of… concern? Joy? Fear? I couldn’t tell. I smiled and said:

“Yes, yes, Elassar.”

“And you better work hard,” Yal continued.

“Yes, yes. Say, Yal!” I exclaimed suddenly. “How is the dip-hip-diploma thing going? Eh?”

“Uh… I’m taking the exams in four days,” Yalet replied. “And now sleep, sari. Tonight there will be no lesson, obviously. I don’t teach my art to drunks.”

I yawned and was about to say a “yes, yes,” again, but before I could even open my mouth, I fell into a sleep like a log.