by Jeff Ayers
Kite turned his attention to her. “Ready yet? We don’t have all day.”
“We’ve got at least a few hours, and you know it. He’s going to the Baron’s district, and it’ll take him a while to find who he’s looking for.” She got the second boot on and got to her feet. “All right, let’s get it.”
Skate walked over to the hidden staircase and activated the false book. The case unlatched and swung forward. She raised the collar of her coat over her face and was about to step down when Kite spoke up again.
“Wait,” he said, his smile gone. Something about her confidence and what she was doing had unnerved him. While she was nervous, he was in control. Now that she was confident, he didn’t trust her. He pointed to two of the thieves who had secured Rattle. “Follow her. Make sure there’s no way for her to get out.”
These other thugs did as ordered. Skate said through her collar, “You might want to cover your face until we get the vents open down there. The work he does is hard on the eyes, otherwise.” The thieves followed her lead and covered their faces with their shirts. She led them down.
The coat helped but didn’t get rid of the eye-burning effect of the vapors completely. Skate pointed to the levers of the vents, and the thieves moved to shift them and begin airing out the room. While they were busy, Skate reached into her pocket to place her hand on Petre’s prison. “We’re in the lab,” she muttered.
Petre’s voice resounded in her head as if he were speaking right into her ear. You’re going to want to mix cockatrice bone dust with calcified spider’s eggs. Both white powders. High shelves. Barrison keeps one in a blue jar, the other in green. Get out of the room as soon as you mix them.
“All right, you two. I need you to look for a key to this door,” she said, as businesslike as possible. She knelt in front of the closed door and took out her lockpicks. She inserted the tools into the proper place, knowing full well she was picking an unlocked door. “I’ll try to get through without it, but it’ll be easier if you get the key. He keeps it in either a blue jar or a green jar, way up top. The jars are usually full of flour.” She did not turn to look to see if her words were being heeded; she had to focus on “concentrating” to sell the lie. After a few moments, the sound of glass scooching on heavy wood filled the room. She continued pretending to attempt to conquer the lock, muttering at her continued failures to do so.
“In here?”
Skate turned and nodded. The scar-faced ruffian held a blue jar filled with white powder, slightly smaller than the flagons they used in pubs. “Dump it there,” she said, pointing to the middle of the room, “so none of the flour touches anything else in here. If it’s not in there, look for the other jar.” She returned to her performance. The rattle of the empty jar rolling across the floor echoed quickly from wall to wall.
“Nothing,” scar-face said, and the sound of glass on wood resumed.
Eventually, the other thief in the room said, “Hey, I think I got the other jar. I don’t see no key in here, though.”
She turned and saw this other fellow, pimply and pockmarked, shaking a small green jar of white powder, holding it up to one of the room’s magical lights to get a better view. “It’s small. Just dump it with the rest of the flour and get it out of the stuff. This stupid lock is giving me too much trouble.” She put the tools away in her coat and stood up, waiting by the door with apparent interest in seeing the key pulled out of the pile of white. The pimply man poured out the “flour” into the other pile, sifting through the powder with his hands and creating a mixture of the two substances. “Both bottles empty?” she asked, placing a hand on Petre’s globe to make sure he knew she was actually talking to him.
“Both bottles empty?” You weren’t supposed to mix all of it together! Get out of the room, now!
It took her long enough to register the words that she saw the scar-faced man nodding as he looked for the key. “There’s no—hey!”
Skate shot through the storage room door and closed it behind her, leaning against it with all her might. They’re gonna break it down; I can’t hold against two grown men. This isn’t gonna work; it isn’t—
Skate was thrown backward from the door, getting the wind knocked out of her as she collided with a busted old dresser. She looked up, expecting to see two very angry thieves ready to knock her silly. Instead, she saw what looked like very thick wooden spider webs crisscrossing in every direction in front of the door. The webbing stopped at the threshold of the room and covered about three quarters of the doorframe. Inside the lab were cries for help, muffled as if being shouted from underneath several layers of blankets.
Skate got to her feet and scratched her head. With her other hand, she pulled out Petre. “What did I just do?”
“Alchemy,” Petre said, turning his eyes to look at her handiwork. He was no longer hiding his voice. “It’s a mixture that creates a very fast-acting adhesive. It’s not advised to use the reagent in such volume,” he added, turning back to look at her, “but I should have explained that. Speaking of explanations: What is happening? Who are these people?”
“They’re thieves. They’re here to steal the thing that Mr. Belamy has put his soul into, to try to force him into service for them.”
“They what?!” His eyes widened in shock. “How do they even know he has one of those?”
“Because…” She winced and forced the words out. “I told them. I was supposed to steal it for them.”
“What?”
“I’m not gonna; that’s why I needed your help,” Skate said, casting her gaze frantically around the room for the statuette. She saw the blue gem of the woman’s small staff peeking through the drawer she’d left it in. She scrambled over the detritus of the storage room to get to it. “They’ve already caught Rattle upstairs. I need to get it free before we get out.”
“Stop!” Petre shouted. Such was the power in his voice that Skate did stop, though she was only a few feet from the small statue. The display case for the war robes stood open and empty nearby. “Skate, you’re here to steal from Barrison? After all he’s taught you, after all the time—”
“No, you’re not listening. That was why I first moved in here, but I’m not gonna do it. These guys are still gonna want it, though, so I gotta grab it and take it to Mr. Belamy. Is the statue his soul tether?”
“I…” Petre’s eyes were wrinkled in concern. “He never told me what his tether was, and I never asked. But the statue he used to keep on the mantle upstairs is a likeness of Alphetta. He may have made that his tether.”
Skate nodded and reached into the drawer. “That’s it, then. We gotta get outta here.” Without another word, she dropped Petre back into her pocket and put the statue in another pocket. She returned to the almost-blocked doorway and tested the webbing; it did not stick to her skin. It was like touching stone or very sturdy polished wood. It seemed able to support her weight, so she began climbing it, using the intersections of webwork as foot- and handholds. There was just enough space at the top of the webbing for her to slip through.
The alchemical reaction had created a network of holes through which the magical lights could shine, sending spots of light throughout the room that was suddenly much smaller. She had to crawl toward the staircase over what used to be the lab.
Skate looked down and saw the thieves, her would-be gaolers, trapped in the webbing. The scar-faced one was unconscious; his heavy breaths lifted his head, which dangled limply from his body suspended against the wall, with each fresh intake of air. The pimply thief was very much awake. His wild eyes were darting around the room. His were the cries she’d heard in the other room. The webbing had hardened right across his mouth. His nose was free, and his breaths were not the deep breaths of unconsciousness, but the frantic breathing of terror. She stopped her crawling and pulled Petre back out.
“Are they gonna be all right?”
Petre’s eyes roved over the damage. “They should be as long as someone eventually gets down here to
cut them out. If it takes a few days, they may starve. It looks like the web managed to break some of the containers, but it hardened around them instantly. They shouldn’t have to worry about any poisoning.”
At the mention of poison, the pimply thief redoubled his efforts to be heard. Satisfied, Skate slipped Petre back into her pocket. “He said you’ll be fine,” she said to the muffled man, and continued her uncomfortable crawl to the stairway.
“What’s going on down there?”
Skate recognized the voice as that of one of the thieves who had followed her upstairs earlier. “Ungor Egeiro!” she shouted up at him.
“What? What was—” His words were drowned out by his yelp of surprise and pain. There were other voices yelling, but their sense was lost as they echoed down the stairs.
A mighty croak reverberated down to Skate as she reached the base of the stairs and slithered through the small opening left to her. She took the stairs two at a time and found a bizarre scene unfolding.
The talkative thief was sprawled on the floor, his blade out but neglected in his limp hand. He wasn’t moving, and one of his legs had an angry red splash where his pants had been torn. The silent thief was engaged in a tug-of-war with a rope wrapped around his throat—no, not a rope, she realized, but a tongue. Ungor the statue had become Ungor the Giant Toad, a great bloated monstrosity the size of a sofa, with red blotches scattered all over its bumpy skin. It was trying to pull the thief into its gullet. Kite, meanwhile, was hacking at the tongue to no avail. His blades might as well have been trying to cut solid stone.
He saw Skate and pointed at the toad. “Help us, you little slug! It’s trying to eat him.”
Instead of answering, Skate spoke the Dwarvish words to revert the fireplace to its natural color. “Gerunk haktha.” The room was now awash with red-and-orange light. The change in color created a dizzying effect, and Kite looked around in a clear panic.
“You’re a witch?” He looked from the toad to his companions. With a whimper, he bolted wide-eyed out the door into the cold, his panting nearly becoming a scream with each vaulting step. Skate ran and shut the door as soon as he left, and then turned around in time to see Ungor take a step toward the remaining thief, who had been brought to his knees by the might of the beast.
“Stop!” she said, knowing it was useless; the mouth was already shadowing the doomed man’s head. To her surprise, the toad turned her way and stepped back, still holding its tongue around the neck of the struggling, silent thief. Stunned into silence that yelling had actually worked, Skate took a few seconds before saying, more calmly but just as forcefully, “Let him go.” Again, inexplicably, the monstrous toad obeyed, sending a wave through its tongue that slackened the grip around the man’s neck until it came loose. Ungor then snapped the impossibly long tongue back into its wide mouth and unleashed another reverberating croak. Looking at her expectantly, it sat back on its huge haunches—knocking over an entire bookcase as it did so and scattering leather-bound tomes over its own head.
Skate walked over to the thief on the ground. He had several large scratches that were seeping red onto the floor and the rags of his pants. She looked at Ungor and saw a telltale red tinge on his left webbed claw.
Skate ran over to the shelf where Belamy’s healing decanter sat undisturbed. She ran back over to the injured man but was stopped by an inarticulate grunt from the other thief. He was standing and massaging his throat, but he had his long knife pointed at Skate. Seeing his mouth open, Skate suddenly understood why he did not speak: he had no tongue.
Skate looked on, incredulous. “You’re threatening me? Seriously?” As if to accentuate her point, Ungor croaked again. The thief winced but did not lower his blade. Instead he pointed from the decanter in her hand to the man lying on the floor and shook his head. He said something incomprehensible.
“It’s going to help him,” Skate said, moving over to the man despite the weapon pointed her way. “Don’t be stupid.” She knelt and poured the liquid—not all of it, as she remembered Belamy’s warning that it must always contain some of the liquid within or be ruined forever—over the man’s injured leg. The wounds sizzled and smoked as they began to close immediately. The unconscious man sighed as his breathing got easier and heavier.
“Now,” Skate said, walking back to the shelf from which she’d taken the decanter, “go down those stairs and start hacking away at the mess. Your two friends are down there, and one of them is still awake. If you want them to live, go get to work.”
He wavered, the blade in his hand shaking. After looking at the healed man on the floor, he darted toward the open bookcase. The sounds of heavy snapping began to echo up the corridor.
Skate pulled Rattle out of the net. It clicked its legs in thanks. When its attention turned to the man on the floor, the clicking intensified in agitated pops. It waved a spindly leg at the gigantic toad, as if there were nothing out of the ordinary about its presence.
Skate retrieved Petre from her pocket. “Ungor listens to me.”
“Of course. You’re the one who called him out of his sleep.” The awoken toad croaked again, shifting the toppled bookcase and sending even more books sprawling. “He’s a great guardian, the last one that Barrison kept after the war. Other than Rattle, of course.” Skate dragged the unconscious man near the door and tried to pile up the disheveled books.
After several minutes of hacking from downstairs, there were grunts. The silent thief returned, carrying the unconscious scarred man on his shoulder. Behind him came the pimpled man, who eyed Skate with hateful intensity. He whispered something to the tongueless thief, who shook his head emphatically. Skate guessed what the topic of conversation was.
“Listen to your partner. You’re outnumbered. There’s four of us and only two of you. And you don’t have any magic,” Skate said, speaking the words of the fireplace to make it turn blue once more. The pimpled man’s frown deepened, but he looked away. He scooped up his fallen comrade.
As the thieves crossed the house’s threshold, the pimpled man looked back and said, “This ain’t over. Not by a long shot.”
Skate said nothing, but Ungor managed a hideous growling croak in response.
When they were gone, Skate shut the door and looked around. “He’s not gonna be happy,” she muttered, looking at the mess and thinking of what must be an even greater catastrophe downstairs. Still, his soul tether was safe. She pulled the statuette out of her pocket. Maybe the soul tether. “Probably,” she corrected herself aloud. It wasn’t safe to stay here. The pimpled man was right; once Kite got back to the Ink with word of her betrayal, they’d converge on the house ready for an all-out war, searching for the statuette and for her.
“We need to go,” Skate told everyone, putting the statuette back safely.
Petre swirled into view. “Yes, I was afraid you’d say that. They won’t just cut and run, will they?”
“Not a chance. I caught them by surprise, but they’ll be ready when they get back. We gotta leave.”
“To escape vengeance.”
“To find Mr. Belamy,” she said, nodding toward the door. “We’re not safe with just us, but if he knows we’re in trouble, we should be fine.” She looked at Ungor, who was looking very content nestled in the corner. His fist-sized eyes blinked lazily. “I’d like him along, but I don’t think he’ll fit through the door.”
“You can put him back to sleep. Say ‘Koimao Ungor,’ and he’ll revert to his trinket form.”
Skate spoke the words, and Ungor became something less than solid. With one more belching croak, it shifted back into the figurine that could fit on a shelf. She scooped it up, placed Petre in her pocket, and went into the street. Rattle clicked and bounced behind.
Chapter 26
In which a spy is sent skyward, a confession is made, and stomach fires are deliberated.
Skate was something of a spectacle as she made her way through the streets. She knew it was nothing to do with her and everything to do with t
he thing that was flapping along behind her, with spider-like legs clicking loudly in the cold mid-morning air. The streets had been partially cleared in the night, so commerce was back in full swing, with wagons and carts being slowed interminably by scads of pedestrians off to buy and sell and trade and visit and gossip, all desperate for the end of winter.
Rattle—or, rather, the spectacle that Rattle provided—gave the benefit of creating a comfortable berth around Skate. Those who gawked did not wish to get too close, and those who weren’t gawking found themselves swept up in the tide of shifting movement. Even the Keepers would look up from their endless struggle against the snow to mark Rattle’s passing, discussing amongst themselves if any of their number had ever seen such a thing, only to reach the inevitable conclusion that no, they had not. The attention, while uncomfortable, made Skate’s trip to the Baron’s district much less of an exercise in drudgery, despite the frigid conditions and distance.
The crowds thinned a bit as they got closer to the area of town dominated by the Baron’s mansion and influence. Clothing became finer, more decorative. The stares became more disapproving. And, worryingly, Skate and Rattle had managed to attract the attention of a passing patrol of the Guard.
Skate picked up her pace. The patrolmen were not running: apparently, they did not want to alarm any of the pedestrians by appearing to rush. She cut through an alley to save time.
The biggest issue at the moment, of course, was that she did not know where exactly Belamy was, and finding him was going to be difficult with the Guard taking such an interest in Rattle’s sudden and bizarre appearance.
Once they were safely nuzzled between the two random buildings, Skate turned to Rattle. “Can you hide or something? You stick out like a sore thumb. The last thing I need is the Guard following me and asking a bunch of questions about you, what we’re doing here, or who I am.”
Rattle clicked once and pointed a leg upward.
“You want to just float above us until we need you? That’ll work. Hey, you can even get a better view of the place to try to find Mr. Belamy easier.”