Ran patted his pockets causing metal balls to clink and a slingshot to protrude. At least they had one weapon to hand.
“No wonder she liked you, she’d found someone as screwed up in here as she was.” Gray pointed to his head and relaxed. He’d cracked a difficult nut and exposed its meat, leaving Sarn vulnerable and hating it.
“What do you want?”
“I want to know what happened. She was close to you; closer than she’d been with her previous lovers. You knew her better than anyone else even though you were half her age.”
“And I keep telling you—I don’t know what happened to her.” Sarn heard the chiming of bells, but he ignored them since he had until twentieth bell to meet the Rangers—somewhere. Right now, they were the least of his concerns. “Who are you people and why do you care?”
“You have no idea who we are?” Gray exchanged startled looks with his compatriots.
“No.”
“Well since we know your name and your boy’s, I suppose introductions are in order.”
Dirk was the one Sarn had tagged as Gray. His companions included Ragnes, Villar, Crisso, and Gorfen. None of their names registered.
“How do you know Beku?”
“She didn’t mention us?” Villar looked put out as he threaded his belt through the loops on his pants.
“I’d remember if she had.” Would he? Sarn suppressed his doubts. Now wasn’t the time to entertain them.
“Interesting, well if you’re the jealous type, I doubt she would have.” Ragnes took pleasure in delivering such a low blow.
Great, they were old lovers. Sarn ground his teeth. Should he expect more of Beku’s old flames to show up and threaten him? His life offered enough complications.
“We grew up with her. We were all foundlings at one time,” Dirk said taking pity on Sarn. “We’re not old lovers. Though some of us might have wanted to be, you know why it wouldn’t have been possible.”
The man’s phrasing threw Sarn for a loop, and he rubbed his temples with his free hand. What the hell was Dirk getting at?
Dirk blew out an impatient breath. “You’re not real bright, are you?”
“I don’t know much about Beku’s life before I met her,” Sarn snapped. Of course, he’d never asked because he hadn’t wanted to field the reverse questions.
“Oh,” Dirk’s face softened in understanding. “So, you didn’t know some jerk raped her when she was young? Afterward, she couldn’t stand to be around grown men, so she went after teenage boys.”
“She did tell me that.”
Ran shifted, so his head fit the hollow between neck and shoulder. His breath warmed the fabric bumping over Sarn’s collarbone. “What’s rape mean?”
“I’ll explain later.” Sarn would too even if the explanation dredged up memories of an incident he’d failed to prevent. The Lower Quarters teemed with users, abusers and the indifferent. His son needed to know what to do and when to get help.
“I’m hungry,” Ran whispered.
“I know, and I'll get something for you as soon as we get out of here.” And he still had to deal with all the strangeness of yesterday and this morning, but later after food cleared away the mental cobwebs.
“I know. I didn’t want you to forget.”
As if Ran would let him forget, Sarn shook his head at his son’s lack of faith in him then stilled. Echoes bounced off the naked stone in the corridor fronting the storeroom. Two sets of footsteps approached, and so did the complaints of men who never ventured below ground. Voices he knew well indeed. Their symbols ignited on the map his magic had constructed during the fight and Sarn bit off a curse. Why did it have to be them?
Chapter 15
“Why the hell can’t the fletchers fetch their own arrowheads?” Jallister protested. He’d worked up to a good passion for his subject by now.
“Where are these bloody arrows? We’ve been all over this level looking, and they still haven’t appeared. Are you certain this fool even knows where to look? And why send us? Aren’t there dozens of lads with nothing else to do who could trek around for hours down here? We’ve got important things to do—”
“Where the hell is Sarn when I need him? He’s at least quiet,” Gregori said aggrieved by his loquacious companion. Nothing could have induced Gregori to take Jallister on an errand except direct orders from Jerlo.
“Where is he? This is his kind of work—I mean he’s indentured. Fetching and carrying are all well and good for him. He’s got nothing better to do. Besides, he’s much stronger than I am—”
“Will you shut up? I can’t hear the man, and he might have found them. Say again Linnear, have you a lead?” Frustration kicked Gregori’s voice up a notch sending echoes of his question to bounce around the storeroom.
“Not a lead but well—" Linnear broke off, and footsteps resounded. “Dirk? Dirk, where are you?” Linnear raised his voice and repeated his call over Jallister’s continued grumbling.
Part of Sarn wanted to break out in hysterical laughter. Could rescue show up in a useable form next time? If either Gregori or Jallister saw Ran, they would take his son away. Sweat beaded on Sarn’s brow as fear looped molten bands around his chest and squeezed. Wizards, blizzards, and bloody damned gizzards—how could he prevent such a disaster?
Ducking behind a bunch of crates, Sarn draped his cloak over himself and his son and hunkered down. Magic uncoiled inside him and stretched its wings over them, though who knew if it helped.
“Papa?” Ran shifted in his grip, and his son's concerned eyes caught his. “Are you okay?” Ran touched his skin, calming and reassuring the magic.
The fire constricting Sarn’s chest eased. A door creaked, and muffled voices sounded in the tunnel outside the storeroom. Shutting his eyes, Sarn trapped their emerald inferno, making them tear until Ran’s cool fingers muted the searing heat.
“What’s happening?” Ran whispered, half strangling Sarn in the process.
Sarn shushed the boy since he had no answer and loosened Ran’s grip on his neck.
“Sorry I hurt you. I’m scared.”
“Don’t be. Just be quiet and still. I’ll get us out of here.”
“Then we have breakfast?”
“Yes, now hush.”
Ran nodded, and his forehead smacked into Sarn’s jaw. His son had a hard head just like his father.
“Sorry.” Ran’s fingers probed the new bruise. “Did they hurt you?”
“I’ll be okay.”
Sarn felt a padlock click closed from across the room. His sixth sense walked its pitted surface seeking weaknesses but found none before he redirected it. No way would he exit that way, too many witnesses.
“Excuse the mess, an accident happened in there, but we'll get it cleaned up." Dirk’s muffled voice assured someone.
Sarn’s head snapped up as claws clicked on the stone floor and a rat icon appeared on his map. What an interesting complication. Would Rat Woman show up next?
Rising from his crouch, Sarn peered over the boxes hiding them. Where was the rat? He pulled up his map just as the rat icon shattered sending a wave of tiny, writhing icons scurrying away. One threat was down, five were still to go. Keep talking Jallister.
The hairs on the back of Sarn’s neck stirred. He pivoted. Air currents and escape routes went hand in hand under the mountain.
“What’re we looking for?”
“A way out.”
Ran nodded and narrowed his eyes in concentration as his head swiveled.
A gray shape coalesced dropping the temperature in its wake. Sarn’s breath misted the air, and in his arms, his son shivered. He rubbed Ran's back to warm him as a wrongness wrenched his stomach doubling Sarn up.
A spectral hand floated past, and he retreated from its grasping fingers. Next, the ghost boy’s head popped into view, and it drifted toward its disembodied arm. Its leg followed with part of a torso close behind.
“What happened?” Sarn stared as the ghost boy gathered its scatt
ered parts and reconnected them. “Why didn’t they save you? Was there something wrong with you?”
Dull green eyes fixed on Sarn begging for help, and he nodded. Of course he’d help, but first, he had to untangle the events of the last day and a half—if he could.
"What is it?" Ran extended a curious finger toward the ghost boy. It shuddered and fell apart, scattering its limbs to the four corners of the storeroom before they winked out.
Twice the specter had gone to pieces when his son was present. Ran was too young to use magic, wasn’t he? The realization chilled Sarn as he searched his son’s eyes for the trademark glow of active magic, and found none. Relieved, he held tight to his son. Let the magic leave the tyke alone for a while longer.
"Papa? What is it?"
"It’s something I need to deal with.”
Ran's face scrunched up portending more questions, none of which he had the answers for right now.
“We’ll talk about it later. Right now, I need to find a way out of here.” When the walls all proved to be solid, Sarn scanned the ceiling out of sheer desperation. Air was entering from somewhere.
“What does a way out look like?”
Sarn pointed at what he’d seen as a voice intoned, eam’meye erator. A warning flashed on his map.
“How will we reach it?” Ran asked, pointing to the trapdoor forty feet overhead.
Nausea punched Sarn in the stomach as he studied his options. The one wall with brackets sticking out of it was too far from the trapdoor to be of use, and the granite was too smooth to free climb without magical assistance. Why was escape never easy?
"Stay close to me." Sarn set his son down.
Ignoring the sealed crates, he rifled through the contents of the open ones searching for anything he could fashion into a weapon. A grappling hook would be awesome, but all he found was a box of belts. Connecting two together, he tugged on them. Would it hold his weight and his son’s? He doubted it. On to plan B then—Sarn shucked off his boots and tied the laces together.
“What’s that?” Ran pointed at something in between two rolled carpets.
A gray shape boiled up from the floor. Flies covered its back. Ants made up its limbs and cockroaches formed its thorax and head. More insects piled on fusing into a chitinous exoskeleton complete with mandibles. Sarn swallowed bile at the sight. What vile magic was holding this abomination together? There were no mages anymore, not like in the old tales.
“That's trouble."
Sarn ripped strips from his cloak and tied them together into a crude harness. While he attached his boots to it, threads extruded from both sides of the tear reweaving a garment which had become more magic than cloth over the years. Moments later, his cloak was whole and just in time too.
The creature turned compound obsidian eyes full of intelligence on Sarn. Green lightning snaked over his knuckles. But the elemental magic in his veins felt paltry in comparison to the black waves of power mashing an uncountable number of insects into the man-shaped piece of filth staggering toward him. Sarn doubled over and vomited stomach acid.
A metallic ball whizzed past Sarn’s head and bounced off the creature’s forehead. Ran shot the creature in the left eye then took out the right one before cowering against Sarn’s leg as he searched for more ammunition.
“Good shot,” Sarn smiled despite their situation, proud of his son’s ingenuity and aim.
Enraged, Insect Man hissed and charged. Sarn yanked his son out of the way. It crashed into a heap of debris, sending a bolt of shimmering green fabric flying. As the Insect Man thrashed, it unspooled. His claws scratched at the tough, entangling fabric, but they failed to cut it.
“Climb on my back and get your arms and legs under these.” Sarn pointed to the makeshift harness across his chest, “and hold on tight. We’re getting out of here."
“How?”
“Magic.”
Not his preferred option, but Sarn crouched by his son and ignored that fact. He’d used more magic in the last two days than in the last three years combined, and that couldn’t be a good thing.
Once Ran was in place, Sarn pushed up into a dead run and zigzagged around the struggling creature. It had almost freed itself by the time he hit the wall and rushed up it. His bare feet slapped the stone, sticking to it, and so did his hands, allowing him to defy gravity.
The magic decided to toss some support his way. It surged through Sarn, dumping fire into his veins. The green glow of his eyes intensified, but Sarn ignored it and concentrated on his goal—the trapdoor. Nothing else mattered except reaching it before the Insect Man transformed into something nastier or Jallister ran out of words. Sarn cursed. He couldn’t concentrate on climbing and consult his map, not while his magic was fixated on the abomination crashing into things below.
The wall undulated, extruding blobby arms to embrace him. Sarn slapped the granite hands gripping his shirt, but they kept flowing down the wall toward the ascending rat. “Stop it! I don’t need your help. I have a plan."
But the damned magic paid no attention to his orders. It had a plan of its own and to hell with what he wanted. Sarn gnashed his teeth in frustration to keep from vomiting. His stomach heaved each time he came within ten feet of the rat.
“Stop it!”
"Why’s it taking us down? Down is bad." Ran pointed to the stone arms holding onto them.
"I don’t know." And Sarn had no idea what to do about it. If his magic refused to help him, then he was trapped.
"It's okay. Papa will get us out of here." Ran patted the stone hand fisted in his tunic and it quivered.
A barrage of images shot through Sarn’s head from the connection his feet maintained with the wall. It wasn’t his magic fighting him. It was Mount Eredren.
A command broke free from the tumult—destroy it.
“How?” Sarn asked not at all surprised when he received silence from the mountain.
Abomination—commented his magic.
Yes, it was, but what the hell could he do about it? “Hold really tight,” Sarn said to his son as the stone arms stilled.
“Why?”
“Because I’m about to do something really stupid.” Nothing was ever fair when magic was involved, but there was no use complaining about it.
“Why?”
Because being a spectacle was his special skill in life, but Sarn refrained from pointing that out. Instead, he said, “on three, I need you to hold as tight as you can to me.”
“Okay.”
“One.”
A section of wall pushed out providing Sarn with a platform.
“Two.” Magic rushed to his feet encasing them in emerald fire.
“Three.”
The mountain let go. Sarn jumped, tucked and tumbled backward piledriving both feet into the abomination’s head. Emerald fire edged in silver bored into the creature breaking the bonds holding it together. It shrieked as it shook, sending billions of insects flying in all directions.
Overcome by a sudden wave of dizziness, Sarn fell. Before his feet hit a floor free of insects, he bent his knees to absorb the impact. But the green magic kicked in the instant before he landed and the stone floor turned springy. Sarn sank into it and tipped forward toward a nearby crate. Twisting, he missed a date with unconsciousness by mere inches and landed on his side, so he didn’t squash his son.
Ran patted him seeking injuries. “Are you hurt?”
“No just a little lightheaded.” Sarn sat up and almost blacked out. He blinked until the gray haze cleared, but Jallister had either stopped talking or fled the area. Sarn cursed and tried to rise, but Ran was still attached to him, and his son’s scant weight overbalanced him, and he planted his rear.
“What now?”
“We get out of here.”
The how eluded Sarn as he glared at the trapdoor forty feet overhead then he shrugged. Too dizzy to climb, he crawled to the nearest wall and hoped he could reprise his spider impersonation from yesterday. All he needed was skin contac
t, and it should work. Sarn paused and rested his head against the wall. He’d play spider in a moment when he felt less light and floaty.
Magic, or maybe it was the mountain, took the decision out of his hands. Green light leaked out of his eyes and inched up the wall and across the ceiling. A detailed image of the rope contraption balled up at the trapdoor’s corner flashed across Sarn’s mind along with a silent query—what now?
Indeed, his magic had asked a good question. Sarn studied the bundle. “Please let that be a net of some kind.”
“Papa? What are you doing?” Ran squirmed out of the make-shift harness and stood next to him.
“Trying to figure out how to unhook it.” Sarn pointed at the trapdoor.
Ran squinted at it and produced a slingshot from his pocket. After lining up a shot, Ran fired. The first projectile missed by a hand-span, but the second, third and fourth, struck the bundle, jiggling it and revealing the problem.
“Huh, the damned thing is caught in the door.” As Sarn realized this, so did his magic and it lifted the trapdoor so the net could cascade down.
“Do we climb now?” Ran bounced in anticipation.
“Yes.” Sarn pulled his boots on and using the wall as an aid, he rose. Thank Fate something had worked out in his favor. The bottom of the net dangled ten feet from the ground, and he was six foot six. Escape was no longer a problem.
“Climb as fast and carefully as you can.” Sarn held Ran above his head, and his grinning son grabbed hold of the net. Its square holes were wide enough to fit an adult's boot but Ran scampered up the net enjoying the climb. It was the first bright spot in the debacle this morning had turned into.
As soon as Ran had climbed a few feet, Sarn jumped and seized a handful of the net. His body protested when he chinned himself up, but he ignored it. He felt a key apply itself to the lock Dirk had left, and his sixth sense warned of the hasp's imminent release. Damn, he’d hoped for a longer head start.
Reaching the top as voices faded and the door handle jiggled, Sarn swung himself up and gathered the net into a bundle. Ran reached out to help. They left the net bunched up on the floor. With luck, Dirk and company would take time figuring out where they had gone.
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