Flames Over Frosthelm

by Dave Dobson

  Also, my injured side ached from sitting so long. We’d been in the Pig since before the supper crowd arrived. Why there was a supper crowd, I couldn’t imagine. Perhaps they were doing penance for some sin or other. The establishment was big enough and crowded enough that we’d been able to remain somewhat inconspicuous at two positions, me at one of the long common tables in the center of the tavern, Boog against the wall at a smaller table off to the side. From then on, it was just a matter of avoiding the food and nursing our drinks. Actually, my drink needed an undertaker more than a nurse.

  Algor hadn’t been too hard to track down. We’d done some research, looking for records of Algor, who appeared to be an upper-class tradesman with a jewelry shop. We'd also scouted the tavern, which was close enough to his shop for convenience, although five or six others were as near or nearer. This had taken two days since my meeting with Lucianna, and now, on the third day, we were ready to execute our plan. Upon arriving at the Pampered Pig, we’d sent in an apprentice, a young dark-haired woman named Bierte, on a pretense of having a message for Algor. The tavern keeper had told her that Algor came in about the same time every night, sat at his usual table, and ordered supper. He pointed out the table and gave her a good description of Algor. Bierte had said she would try to return then, but just in case, she left her message with the tavern keeper. This was a sheet of cheap folded parchment that read: We have Bernot. Need to stay hidden tonight. Meet here tomorrow. This was, of course, completely false, and fairly feeble at that. Algor might well know that his team was dead or captured, depending on the quality of his information. He might even know where Bernot was, or that Bernot was dead. Even so, we hoped the note might at least trigger Algor to check with whoever was giving him orders. If anyone was. The tavern keeper had agreed to pass on the note if the apprentice didn’t return.

  Our apprentice had met us outside a few blocks away, passed on the information, and gone back to headquarters with our thanks. We’d taken up stations in the tavern and waited until Algor arrived, as predicted. He’d ordered his supper, and I saw that he wisely requested soup and bread rather than the mutton. The tavern keeper had sent over the note, which he opened and read with apparent interest, scratching at his beard thoughtfully. He’d gone over to talk to the tavern keeper then, and I presumed he was asking about our messenger. We’d tried to find an apprentice who looked a bit like Lucianna, but we couldn’t duplicate her scars, her accent, or her attitude, so it was probably a futile attempt. Still, our only real purpose was finding Algor and learning more about him. If he bought into any of our deception, it might help, but it wasn’t necessary.

  Algor made his way out the door, and I followed a short time later. He’d turned left, toward the inner keep. I saw him moving up the street at a relaxed pace. We didn’t seem to have scared him or pushed him to rash action with our note. I followed along, stopping occasionally in shadows. I spotted Boog leaving the tavern about forty feet behind me, and he saw me too. He followed along on the other side of the street, as inconspicuous as a big strong multiply-scarred guy with a six-foot staff can be, which is to say, about as inconspicuous as an ox wearing a dress. At least he was silent, and Algor didn’t seem to be looking back. Thinking back to Lucianna, I wondered if Algor had hired another team of assassins who were following us as we followed Algor. That would be pretty funny, except for the killing us part. I couldn’t help but look back to check, but I saw no one sneaking furtive glances our way.

  He continued toward the keep, occasionally turning down one of the many crooked streets we passed. I followed, keeping a clear view of him as much as possible. He greeted a passing woman. A friend perhaps. I tried to record a memory of her face as I passed her. Algor was oblivious. Following people through the city was usually surprisingly easy if they didn’t have reason to suspect it. We’d practiced this often in our training. On one occasion, I’d followed Gueran all the way across town to a flower shop, where he’d purchased a set of pink and yellow lilies for his ladyfriend of the moment. I’d bought a duplicate set of lilies, picked the lock on Gueran’s chamber, and left them in his room with a note professing Boog’s undying love and affection for Gueran. It was one of my happiest moments as an apprentice, even though I’d ended up with some extra bruises during my next weapons training session with Boog.

  At last, Algor arrived at a house about a block from the keep wall. It was built of stone and wood, of modest size, two stories, with white plaster and crisscrossed wood beams on the upper level. There was a line of well-manicured hedge across the front, about three feet high, with a gap where a flagstone path led to the front door. The left side of the house pressed up against the neighboring building, but there was a small garden on the right, wrapping around to the rear. A nice house, but we were in a nice part of town. I didn’t know the name of this particular street, but we’d just turned off Karela’s Way, and I was confident I could find the house again.

  Algor lifted the large cast-iron ring set in the door and pounded a few times. Not his house, then. I supposed he probably lived closer to the Pampered Pig. There would be no reason other than proximity to dine there. I slowed my pace and stopped behind a bush in the foreyard of a house across the street. Through the branches, I saw the door open. In the doorway stood the wizard from the Jezarmi warehouse! I shuddered a bit and tried not to think of orange dust. The two men exchanged some words I couldn’t hear, and the wizard let Algor in. The door slammed shut, the iron ring bouncing a few times.

  I waited for Boog to catch up, watching the house carefully. He arrived at the bush and touched my elbow. “What’s happening?” he whispered.

  “He’s meeting the wizard from the warehouse.”

  Boog frowned. “That’s not good.”

  “At least we know why he wants to kill us.”

  “We stole his favorite blue woman?”

  “Something like that.” I pulled up the hood of my cloak, making myself a mere shadow in the twilight. Or so I imagined. And hoped. “I'm going to take a closer look.”

  “Wait!” hissed Boog. He pointed at the side of the house. Two cloaked figures had emerged from a side door and were conferring in the garden. After some discussion, they started toward the street, and therefore toward us. Even though they weren't moving directly to our position, I worried that the bush I’d chosen wouldn’t be adequate to conceal us. Winter had stripped it of leaves, and despite the dim light, we might well be spotted.

  Need better hide place, I signed to Boog.

  Wait. Watch. I was confused by his reply, but I followed his advice. He picked a rock from the soil at the base of the bush and hefted it in his hand. The two from the house neared our position. Boog gestured at an alleyway up the street to the left. I nodded. He then threw the rock to the right in an upward arc down the street. It soared high, then clattered down upon the cobblestones.

  The two from the house looked at each other, then moved quickly to peer around the neighboring house. As they scanned the street where Boog’s rock had fallen, Boog tapped my arm, and we ducked silently into the alley. I pressed myself to the ground and looked around the corner, my eyes at foot level, my cloaked head barely (I hoped) peeking past the edge of the building where we crouched.

  The two spoke briefly, too quietly to be heard, then looked back down the street in our direction. One pulled his hood off his head, and I saw a head full of scraggly brown hair and an unkempt beard. He pushed aside his cloak and drew his sword from a scabbard at his belt. As his cloak parted, I saw something gleaming on his chest in the moonlight. I squinted to see better. There, hanging from a leather strap, was a metal amulet, just smaller than my palm. A full moon in beaten silver covering most of a golden sun.

  I pulled back around the corner. “One’s wearing an amulet!” I whispered. “Moon and sun. Faerans.”

  Boog looked troubled. “Should we follow them?”

  A good question. They might lead us to somewhere interesting – a secret base. Or maybe the House of Marron
. But we had also found the wizard, and he merited observation as well. “Split up?” I asked, uncertain. One of the first rules in apprentice training is that inspectors work in teams. Frosthelm is a dangerous place – a lesson I’d learned again all too well during our adventure in the Red Rabbit. There were situations, however, where it was unavoidable.

  “Are they armed?” whispered Boog.

  “Yes. A sword on one, probably the other too.”

  “Then I should go after them, not you.” He looked uncomfortable, suddenly. “I mean, with your injury, you might not be in your best fighting form."

  I grinned. “It’s all right. I concede your towering superiority in battle. I am unworthy even to shine your boots.” I touched my forehead in salute. "I hail you, Lion of Frosthelm, Slayer of Criminals, Defender of Justice—”

  “Shut up,” said Boog.

  “I’ll watch the house, see if I can hear anything interesting. We shouldn’t try to confront them or follow them into anywhere dangerous." Boog nodded his assent. “Meet back at headquarters by second bell?”

  Boog nodded again, then took a peek around the corner. “They’re moving.” He rose to follow. "Be careful!” he hissed, and then was gone.

  I waited for a moment, pressed against the side of the building. Boog was very quiet in his pursuit. I could barely hear him moving across the cobblestones. I wished him well. After a time, I checked around the corner for any unwanted observers, and finding none, I stole quietly across the cobblestone street, between the hedges, to the front of the house. Much of the building was dark, but light spilled forth from two windows on the first floor, one on either side of the doorway. I selected the nearer one and approached, step by step, wary of any twigs to snap or dry leaves I might rustle. I needn’t have been quite so cautious. The window revealed a kitchen area with a healthy fire on the hearth, but it was empty. No people in sight.

  The second window might be more promising, and I crouched and dashed silently across the path. From my vantage, pressed against the wall of the house in the gloom, I couldn’t see much. I stole across the small yard to the low hedge. The window was tall and wide, so from there, not eight feet away, I could see a good section of the room. It appeared to be a study or reading room of some sort, with books in shelves on the wall, large wooden chairs, and low tables around another smaller fireplace. The wizard paced around the room, occasionally speaking and making gestures. He looked angry. The man he was speaking to, or maybe lecturing to, was presumably Algor, but I couldn’t make him out too well. His back was turned, and he seemed more at ease, sitting in the chair, occasionally sipping from a large pewter mug on a table nearby.

  I strained to hear what they were saying, but the house was too well-made or well-insulated for the sound to travel outside. I could only catch a word now and then, and I could make no sense of them, singly or together. The wizard was angry with Algor, but Algor was remarkably unfazed by this, making unhurried statements in response to the wizard’s rants and chastisements.

  Something, a hand, touched my shoulder. Boog? Back so soon? I turned to look. The hand was connected not to my partner, but instead to a short woman with light brown skin, short dark hair with a long braid hanging to one side, standing behind me against the hedge. With her other hand, she held a short sword with a jeweled hilt, the unpleasant end pointed at my stomach. The gems on the sword were reddish-brown – garnets? This must be the woman Bernot mentioned, who’d come for the amulet from the evidence room. Not good.

  “Good evening, inspector,” she said, her voice soft and gravelly. “Perhaps you wouldn’t mind coming with me.”

  I looked quickly around for an avenue of escape, but I was backed up against the hedge, and there was nowhere to go that her sword would not reach first. I looked wildly up and down the street. I was stuck. I wasn’t going to defeat this woman, not with my daggers and warding rod hanging uselessly in their sheaths, with her blade at my chest. She touched the point of her sword to my throat and waited. I raised my hands in surrender.

  25

  Bound and Determined

  I tested the ropes around my wrists, but unfortunately the woman who’d captured me seemed to be quite competent with knots. A sailor, perhaps, or possibly just experienced in tying people up. Working for the Faerans, I guessed she might get a good deal of on-the-job practice. Or perhaps it was a standard part of training for all armed lackeys. Regardless, my wrists were bound expertly together behind my back, and both of them were now tied to a curved metal bar sunk into the stone wall of the house. I wasn’t going anywhere.

  My daggers and rod lay across the room on a table next to a stout wooden door. They might as well have been in Gortis. There was a window across from the door, but it was shuttered and inaccessible. I doubted my voice would carry more than a few feet outside, even with a full-throated yell. My shoulders were stretched uncomfortably, my side ached, and my cheek felt puffy and bruised from when she'd pressed me to the floor, her knee on my neck, while tying my hands. She’d also taken my boots. I wasn’t sure why. Perhaps she thought it would hinder any escape attempts, or perhaps she just fancied them herself. If so, I hoped they pinched her toes and gave her many blisters.

  I tried to hear the voices from the other side of the door. The woman had gone through it after tying me up, and from my rudimentary survey of the house before my capture, I thought it must lead to the room where Algor and the wizard were talking. I could only hear a murmur, wordless sounds of several voices.

  I didn’t have long to wait, though. The door opened, and my captor emerged, followed by the wizard and Algor, all looking at me with a variety of expressions ranging from disdain (the swordswoman) to amusement (Algor) to contempt (the wizard). I tried to look dignified and resolute in response, but it turns out that becomes more difficult when one is tied to a wall. The woman with the garnet-trimmed sword waved a hand at me, and the wizard approached. Algor leaned on the table, poking idly at my warding rod.

  The wizard studied me for a moment. “So young, and so small,” he said icily. “And yet such a nuisance.”

  He paused, so I figured I’d give it my best try. “I’m here to arrest you for murder,” I said confidently. Well, almost confidently.

  Algor burst out laughing. The wizard frowned. “Murder, eh? And whom have I slain?”

  “Two of those you hired. In the Jezarmi warehouse.”

  His frown deepened. “The warehouse. And what evidence do you have?”

  “We’ve got their… remains, back at headquarters.”

  He smiled, but it was mirthless. “That hardly implicates me, does it? People die in the city all the time, and most must leave corpses.”

  He was being careful not to admit anything. I suddenly suspected he didn’t know Boog and I had been there. “We have a witness to the crime, as well,” I continued carefully. There were three witnesses he had to know about – the remaining three women who’d left the warehouse.

  “I see.” He rubbed his brow. “How … interesting." He came over close to me, his face only a few inches from mine. “Who is your witness, then? I’d love to speak with him or her.”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  “But you know who it is, do you not?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, it is not that you cannot tell me. Rather, you do not wish to tell me.”

  “I suppose.”

  “That is important, you see.”

  “Why?”

  I must at this point recommend never to ask such a foolish question to such a cruel person. Quick as lightning, the blond wizard stabbed two fingers into my side, upward, under my ribs, right beside my wound. I screeched and doubled over. Pain flashed through me, rushing outward from Lucianna’s handiwork. The pain spread like ripples in a pond, reflecting again and again across my chest and stomach.

  He chuckled. “It is important because one’s wishes can change, especially when one is aware of all of the alternatives.” As I raised my head back up, he slapped me ac
ross the jaw with the back of his hand. My head whipped back, and I saw stars dancing about. I tasted salty blood trickling from a new split in my lip.

  I didn’t lift my head again. I’m not sure I could have at that point if I had wanted to. “Who is your witness?” he asked. I didn’t respond. He slapped me again. “Who?” I maintained my silence. It was the only way I could resist him.

  He yanked my head up by my hair, staring straight into my eyes. The swordswoman was watching the proceedings dispassionately, but Algor looked away in discomfort. Odd, I thought blearily, since he’d not a week ago hired ruffians to kill me.

  The wizard continued his questioning. “Who told you? One of those fools?” I remained mute. “My chest, that you stole – where is it?”

  I didn’t answer, so he slapped me again. “Now you’re just being foolish. I know it’s in your storeroom.” Through the haze of pain, I realized he must have an informant at headquarters. Not too surprising, but something to remember. If, in fact, I ever got a chance to tell anybody.

  “Did you open it?” he asked, his hand raised for another blow.

  I spat out some blood. “Of course we did.”

  He lowered his hand. “Now, that’s better. You’re being more reasonable. Is the princess still inside?”

  I couldn’t think too clearly, but I figured that wasn’t important information, and I must admit I did not want to be struck yet again. “Yes, she is."

  “The amulet,” he said. “Where is it?”