“We also killed that animal—with a boot!—after stealing a different animal from someone. We’re unstoppable!”
Kali laughed and further crinkled the paper cup in her hand. She tried to share in the qarm’s optimism.
“You don’t think we’re in over our heads?” she asked him.
By now he had finished with his snack and balled up the flimsy cup. “Nah,” he replied nonchalantly. “I think the job’s the same as it ever was: steal a book. Easy.”
It did sound easy. But anything sounded easy when put in simple, uncomplicated terms.
Kali tried to relax. There was no use getting worked up over it at this juncture. She simply had to adapt to the changing situation.
While they walked, Kali pored over Haratti’s route to Pontequest in her mind. Luckily, given her years of constant travel, she could easily visualize a pretty clear, if not exact, image of the entire route even with only one look at the map. That gave them a leg up; perhaps finding the town was what had delayed Haratti’s first recruit.
Like she always did before a voyage, Kali calculated how long each leg would take. With an early start, they could get from Restick to the travelers’ outpost within one—admittedly long and tiring—day. She chuckled, thinking about whether Jeth’s blood had stained the floor or been fully washed out, then banished the morbid thought.
From there, it would take another full day to reach Weynard. The town would be a little out of their way, but it was their best opportunity to get some rest in a real bed. The extra cost would be worthwhile. Not to mention, after two full, long days of travel, Bella would be exhausted.
Or maybe not. She’s the most energetic ayote I’ve ever met.
Weynard to Pontequest would be the final stretch, and the riskiest. She estimated that it would take another full day, stretching into the night, to reach the elusive village. And that was assuming they found it at all. She couldn’t be one-hundred percent positive it still existed, but…
Haratti claimed that it did. His “associates” did, anyway.
For now, that had to be good enough.
With Myrisih’s port closed until the following day, they had plenty of time to meander around the city before bothering to figure out where Zenib had scuttled off to.
It was disconcerting how utterly normal the city felt in spite of all the illicit goings-on throughout its dark, damp streets and within its cavernous walls. Kali had to remind herself that the merchants and customers here were trading in drugs, illegal weaponry, stolen goods, maybe even other people (which she admittedly had not witnessed any evidence of, but she’d heard rumors)—yet on the surface, it seemed like any other city in Herrilock. People buying and selling in shops, restaurants hocking various styles of cuisine, inns with complimentary breakfasts.
At one point, Puk suggested she open up a shop here. Find a nook or cranny somewhere in the Mass and start selling.
She wrote the suggestion off as lunacy, but as the day wore on, she found herself wondering if there was a way to make it work. Though she quickly discarded the idea again after watching a man rub a healthy smear of oporist over his lip before strutting into a firearm shop.
They spent much of the day wandering the city. Puk showed her his favorite spots he could remember from his rare trips, which included a grotto over near the port that he claimed was a place for people to visit and flip coins into the water like a wishing well. It was outfitted with carved stone steps leading down into the clear water of the pool. The two meandered down to the point where the rock and water’s edge met, and dipped their feet in while they sat and chatted. The water was icy cold and refreshing.
“Was there something you wanted to ask me?” Puk asked during a lull in their conversation.
It took her aback. “What do you mean?”
“It seemed like you were gonna ask me something in Restick,” he said. “When we were talking about singing. Right before Zenib showed up at the dock.”
“Oh.” She tried to recall what she might’ve wanted to ask, replaying the conversation in her head, but nothing immediately came to mind. “I’m not sure,” she shrugged.
Puk said nothing and stared down at the water’s wavering reflection of himself. He then said, “I guess I’m done as a musician.”
Kali was surprised by him leaning into this topic again. It must have been weighing on him ever since the incident in Eva’s bathroom. Or probably since he got kicked out of his troupe. Maybe even for years before.
“Why’s that?” she asked, granting him the opportunity to vent or talk things through.
“Like I was sayin’ the other night, I’m just not getting anything out of it anymore. Might sound kinda cynical, but I’m not really making any money off it, and it’s incredibly disheartening.” He kicked at his reflected face. “If it’s not succeeding and no one gives a shit, it’s hard to give a shit yourself.”
“What’ll you do instead?” She didn’t think resigning himself to spit or alcohol would be good, productive alternatives.
He stopped moving his feet and the water stilled. “I’m not sure yet. I have very few skills, as you can probably imagine,” he laughed. “A childhood buddy of mine is an alchemist now. Am I too old to become an alchemist?” Another laugh. “I could picture myself being bored out of my mind all day, as long as the money’s good.”
“Somehow I can’t really see you doing that,” Kali chuckled. The prospect of Puk performing a “normal” job was impossible to grasp.
“What about a blacksmith? That’s another hard-working, real person job. Something respectable.”
“They make less money than you’d probably think, except for the really skilled ones.”
“Well then I’d just be a really skilled one, obviously.”
“Problem solved, then. There’s a lot of heat involved, though, and you don’t do too well with heat, in my experience.”
“That’s a good point. Probably why you don’t see any qarmish blacksmiths anywhere, huh?”
“Probably,” said Kali. “Is there anything else creative you’ve wanted to try out? You could become a writer. Maybe there’s a good story in you somewhere.”
“Fuck no, I’m not writing. I can barely speak coherently, let alone write a flowery sentence. Do writers even make money?”
“No idea,” Kali confessed.
She was about to jokingly suggest he try his hand at teaching when an unfamiliar voice piped up behind them.
“Sorry to interrupt,” the voice said. It was accompanied by a faint sizzle and crackling.
Kali turned to look over her shoulder and saw a jeornish man with short, shaggy hair and an unkempt beard standing at the top of the staircase, his hands engulfed in fireballs.
“Let’s have a quick chat,” the man said, descending a few steps.
“You wanna put those fireballs out first?” Puk asked him.
The man shook his head. “I don’t think so, no.”
- -
The black mage stopped several steps above them, maintaining his higher ground. Puk nearly shit himself, though it was less out of fear and more due to the diarrhea he had been suffering all day.
Puk asked Kali, “You know this guy?”
“Why would I know anyone in this place?”
“I dunno, you’re all over the damn country. Don’t you know lots of people?”
The man spoke. “I don’t know her, but it seems we have a mutual acquaintance. I couldn’t help but notice the two of you leaving a meeting with Warren Haratti earlier today.”
Suddenly Puk remembered spotting the man amongst the crowd at the Rabid Dog. The bar had been so full of people, he hadn’t particularly stood out at the time. But now that he thought about it, Puk could place him.
“You’re mistaken,” said Kali. Simple. Leaving it at that.
The mage shook his head, unaccepting of her response. “Myrisih is my home. I know its ins and outs, the way it operates. The two of you spoke with Niska Cill at the bar and were escort
ed out the back. Which only means one thing: that you met with Haratti.”
It was no use denying what the man had clearly seen. “Fine,” said Puk. “Yes, we went and talked to our old friend Warren. He’s hiring us to renovate his personal library. The shelves keep fallin’ down. Can’t hold any damn books!”
The fireballs flickering around the mage’s hands grew slightly larger.
Kali groaned.
Well, I thought it was a solid lie.
“I’m no fool,” said the man, “and you’ll do well not to lie to me. I’m very good at picking out liars. My friend Jack is even better; I can introduce you both if you’d like. But I was rather hoping the three of us could be friends.”
“Just you is fine,” Puk muttered. “What’s your name, again?”
The man smiled, though the fireballs did not decrease in size nor disappear completely. “Thom,” he answered.
“What do you want?” Kali asked, cutting to the point.
Thom appreciated her candor. “My employer was recently made aware of the job Haratti is hiring for, and she is very interested in the book he’s seeking. If you met with Haratti, then it had to be about the book.”
“Sounds like a good book,” said Puk. “I can see why everyone wants it.”
“Indeed,” Thom said in a low growl. Puk made a note to dial back on the sarcasm before he received a fireball to the face. “The issue my employer faces is that she is unsure of where to find the book. We’ve heard, however, that Haratti possesses such information.”
“And I take it you can’t schedule a meeting with him yourself,” Kali said flatly.
“Correct. So, if you’d be so kind as to divulge the information Haratti passed on, I can be on my way.” He raised his hands slightly higher, as if they could have somehow forgotten he was equipped with fireballs.
“We’ll have to decline,” Kali answered. Her voice was weak, unconfident.
Puk was impressed nonetheless.
“Yeah,” he chimed in with his support. “We’ll have to pass.”
This was a disappointment to Thom. “If I may be perfectly blunt,” he continued, “the information is going to come out one way or another. Either we can have a civilized discussion, or I can incapacitate you and introduce you to Jack. As I said before, he’s very skilled at weeding out lies and learning what he wants to know.”
“I think we passed the point of civilized discussion when you came to us already sporting fireballs,” Kali pointed out.
“Yeah,” Puk said again, contributing nothing but wanting Kali to know he was backing up her defiance. Though the idea of fighting this mage and then being tortured by his associate did not sound appealing in the least. The rumbling in his stomach did nothing to ease his reservations about combat.
Thom threw the fireballs.
Kali dove to the right, slamming her body into the cave wall and narrowly avoiding one of the flaming balls.
The other flew toward Puk, who instinctively leapt backwards, backslamming into the pool of water and sinking below its surface.
Both of the mage’s fireballs impacted with the water and fizzled away. Puk remained underwater but poked one eyestalk out to assess the scene. What he saw shocked him.
Kali was rushing Thom.
He had the upper hand, being several steps above her, and he took advantage of the fact. His hands and fingers gestured in a blur and a blast of air shot from his palms, sending Kali flying backward and tumbling down the stone steps, her head smacking on the hard surface as she rolled down toward the pool.
Puk’s eyesight wasn’t good enough to see if any blood was spilled.
His stalk receded back into the water and his eyes shot open. There was a protective layer over his eyeballs allowing him to see underwater, and he desperately looked around for something to aid him.
The pool was empty, naturally, save for the expected flora and gravel at its bottom. The only other thing he could spot was a collection of old, forgotten coins.
There were a lot of them.
We should take some of these, Puk thought for a second before getting back on track.
But then he did take some of those.
He kicked his stubby legs down to the bottom of the pool, and while doing so heard a muffled splash behind him. He rotated one stalk and saw that Kali had completed her painful descent and ended up in the pool with him.
There was some murkiness in the water around her. Blood.
Puk told himself that Thom was not intending to kill them, he needed them alive to get the information he wanted—but then he realized only one of them needed to live.
He kicked his legs faster. The twisting in his tummy and the motion of his kicks increased the need to unload himself even more. He started to second-guess himself for a moment, wondering if he should turn back and help Kali instead.
His idea was inane anyway, it wasn’t going to help.
But on the other hand, it was all he had, really.
It took a few more seconds to reach the pool’s bottom, where Puk gathered up as many coins as his grubby hands could grab and shoveled them all into his mouth.
With his cheeks puffed out and a nasty metallic taste on his tongue, he made for Kali’s location where she floated at the bottom of the stairs.
Above the water, Thom said something in a booming voice, but the words were unintelligible.
Puk reached Kali and grabbed her under the armpits, praying she hadn’t swallowed too much water. Her eyes were closed and her head bled freely. They needed to get to a white mage, but he didn’t know if there was one stationed in Myrisih.
Worry about that later, he told himself, and worry about the black mage right now.
He held on to Kali and popped one stalk out of the water again. Thom was still fairly far from the bottom of the steps, though he was methodically making his way down.
Puk popped the rest of his head above water, keeping Kali submerged for the time being, and spit one of the crescents from his mouth with as much force as he could muster.
The misshapen coin flew through the air and dinged the stone several steps down from where Thom currently stood.
Shit.
Thom laughed.
So Puk aimed higher.
This time, the coin hit its mark—kind of—and smacked Thom in the chest, falling to the steps in a noisy clatter. The mage laughed again and asked, “What the hell are you doing?”
Puk aimed slightly higher now and spit the remainder of the coins in rapid fire, most of them pelting Thom directly in his face.
Thom frantically threw his hands up to deflect the rest, which either clattered onto the steps or plopped back into the water.
With his ammunition now depleted, Puk ducked back underwater.
That was fucking stupid, he chastised himself, though he had known it would be. He was out of options, and Kali was heavy. Plus, she needed to breathe.
Puk repositioned himself to get a better grip on his companion in order to more easily extract her from the water. As he did, he noticed the clasp on her bag had been undone and the flap was floating freely, ruining the bag’s contents. But he also spotted the reason she had been rushing the mage before being knocked back.
Inside the bag was her dagger.
Of course she wouldn’t be walking around Myrisih without protection. How had he not realized it before?
An idea came to him in a flash.
He yanked Kali up out of the water and struggled to pull her back up onto the steps, bringing her to rest beside her own blood. More leaked out to form one large, crimson puddle.
“Gonna throw some more coins at me?” Thom asked, amused.
“She’s dead!” Puk screamed, ignoring the well-deserved mocking. He gripped his friend by the collar of her shirt and tugged her face close to his. “You killed her!” he cried. His stomach gurgled.
He channeled what few acting skills Jit and Dern had imparted on him so many moons ago with their ill-conceived sketches and shitty script
s. Hopefully their expertise would be enough to help him power through this.
Thom seemed unfazed by the revelation that he had murdered a person. Fireballs engulfed his palms once again, and he continued down the steps toward the distraught qarm. “Let’s go see Jack,” he growled.
Puk placed his palm in the pool of blood by Kali’s hand and then looked at it, caked in red. “This is her blood!” he screamed, recognizing even in the moment that he was laying it on a bit thick. He needed to tone it down.
“I’m sorry about your friend, but what’s done is done,” said Thom. He was now only a few steps away.
Puk surprised himself by crying real tears. “You…” he muttered. “She’s…”
Thom dissipated his fireballs and walked the final few steps down to where Puk crouched beside Kali’s unmoving body. He frowned, ever so slightly, at the sight of tears streaming down Puk’s stalks in rivulets, dribbling onto his lips.
The mage stopped on the step above Kali’s head-blood and crouched down. “Come on,” he said softly. “Let’s not make this any more difficult than it already is.”
The man wasn’t going to come down any farther. This would have to suffice.
Spit and Song (Ustlian Tales Book 2) Page 27