by A Van Wyck
Looking at the boy’s furious expression, he felt a rare twinge of pity.
“I know,” he said, trying to ruffle Gav’s hair but the boy pushed his hand away angrily.
He sighed.
Gripping his purse, he yanked it off its string and handed it to Gav.
“That’s everything I’ve got on me,” he lied. He’d be needing the rest if Gav was right and he had to run for his life. “But if I survive, I’ll make sure to find you again. Someday.”
“Yeah,” the boy said, obviously disbelieving as he weighed the paltry purse in his hand. “There’s almost nothing in here,” he complained.
“That’s mostly your fault,” he told the boy. “You’re the one who suggested Merly. Now, is there anything else you can tell me?”
“For this?” the boy held the purse away in disgust, like one would hold a drowned rat.
“Hey, I thought you liked me.”
“Not that much.”
The boy pocketed the purse, shuffling dirty feet uncomfortably and arguing with what must be the unaccustomed voice of conscience.
The grime smeared mouth opened as if to speak but shut again.
“Yes?” he prompted.
The narrow shoulders drooped in defeat. “If you’re going back to your ship, take Carters’ Avenue through the warehouse district. It’s a roundabout route and they’d be spread thin there.”
Bare feet slapped the cobbles as the helpful urchin skittered back into the darkness.
“Hey, Gav.”
The pattering feet halted in the gloom. He could just make out the dirt smeared face.
“For Merly… thanks.”
A leering smile gleamed briefly in the gloom. “Told ya,” the boy snickered and then was gone.
Alone, he turned to stare towards the darkened street. What to do? The Spear would be in port two more days. He could try to sneak back aboard. But this new revelation made his welcome uncertain. Especially if he stank of ten golds. And, he knew now, hiding on that boat had already failed once. It would be too much to hope that the ways out of the city were not also being watched. The mere promise of gold would have bought many eyes and ears. But… if they didn’t know he knew they were looking for him, maybe there’d be gaps in their net wide enough for him to slip though.
That was the smart thing to do. He always did the smart thing. So why was there a churning in his stomach, competing with the crawl between his shoulders? It took a moment to realize he was angry. He didn’t like being hounded like this. First from his home and now from his ship? Hound the Surprise of Hammerham’s Dive, would they? He carefully reined in his temper. Thievery demanded caution as much as confidence. He hadn’t survived this long by being brash. Still. Looking over your shoulder was bad enough without wondering who you were looking for. Knowing the who might give a clue as to the why. And the why might hold the key to his freedom. It made perfect sense.
He’d take a look, that was all. He’d take a look and if no answers were forthcoming, he’d let it lie and make a run for it. He felt his anger niggling away at his resolve.
The brick wall opposite him offered some decent handholds and roof tiles were under his soles in moments. The warehouse district, huh? Fine. If they were expecting a sailor, they were in for a surprise.
Now if he could only find Carter’s Ave…
These foreign roofs were a nightmare. The wetland peoples didn’t have the common sense to build flat-topped houses. On top of that, they’d tiled their peaked monstrosities in terra cotta. When the tiles weren’t treacherous with snot-slick moss, they were wafer thin and unsafe. Even so, he made good time, flying across the roofs of the sleeping city.
Of course, he couldn’t read the street signs from up here but since he couldn’t read Heli anyway it was no big loss. He just headed for the docks and swung in the direction of the most industrial looking section he could see. Warehouses, built to have a clear line of traffic to the main harbor. During the day, carts loaded down with trade goods would be drawn by animals of the four- and the two legged variety.
He slowed to a stealthier slink as he neared the angled roofs of the warehouses. His pursuers would presume that he’d take the most direct path back to the Spear. That meant watching the main arteries, not the back alleys. He found the broadest road, wending its way through the warehouse district, and shadowed it from on high. He moved slowly, keeping his eyes peeled and his ears perked.
His instincts had him flattened against the quickly cooling tiles even before he’d properly registered what had snagged his senses. He scanned the streets below with intent eyes… and saw again the telltale plume of breath. The sentinel had wormed himself into the deep shadows of the alley across the street. But he’d have done better to wrap his nose and mouth with wool.
Amateurs.
There was nothing humorous about his smile as he flitted, unseen, across the street and reclaimed the roofs. Circling, he slithered across the tiles to come up behind and above the lookout. Easing his weight slowly over the eaves, he peered down. The lookout was a young ruffian in dockers’ drab dress, looking bored and peeking periodically about.
Not exactly the contract killer he’d been expecting. Still, Nan had said his pursuers also recruited from local sources. A lookout meant a larger group nearby. Faint firelight came from deeper down the alley. He glanced at the unfortunate lookout again and weighed the man’s value as a possible source of information… but no. Employers didn’t share their reasons with lookouts but with leaders. This disheveled runt was no leader.
And he could not risk investigating further while leaving a live lookout behind him. But getting close enough to silence the man would be problematic. A master thief worth his salt would find a way to incapacitate the lookout without killing him. He hadn’t killed anyone – in cold blood – in years. But these bastards had followed him across an ocean and his blood was plenty hot. He judged the distance between them, discarding the idea of dropping onto the lookout with ready knives. That would definitely make noise and, if he sprained something, he’d be unable to flee. Best stay where he could make a quick get-away.
Sorry friend, he thought as he drew his heaviest knife, moving slowly so the rasp of steel didn’t give him away. He extended his arm out above the alley, the blade depending from a feather grip. He drew in a quiet breath… and let go.
The sound as the plummeting knife punched through the top of the docker’s head was of someone ripping an apple in two. The roughly dressed man gave a violent start but remained miraculously upright.
He watched in breathless astonishment as the lookout reached with tentative fingers to probe at the top of his head.
“Oh, no…” the man breathed in horror as careful questing identified the knife handle. With gentle precision, the lookout slid down the wall to sit, dead, beneath Jiminy’s perch.
He spent tense moments listening hard, alive to the possibility of discovery. When it seemed certain the lookout’s death had gone unnoticed, he slipped lightly over the edge. Using one hand to slow his descent, he dropped beside the body. Another pause before he began working his knife from the dead man’s skull.
Blegh… brains…
He wiped it on the docker’s rough-spuns and committed to a brief search. He spared a moment to slice away the purse the dead man no longer needed. The man’s knife was pitted and nicked, the wooden handle warped. He left the piece of whoresteel where it lay.
His blood pulsing coldly with the thrill of stealth, he set off deeper down the alley.
The rusty glow of a fire came from the small yard behind the nearest warehouse. Murmured conversation guided his eyes to two big men. They stood warming their hands over the heavily smoking fire they’d lit in a holed bucket. The third man was more difficult to spot, sitting cross-legged atop a stack of packing pallets, hidden in a fine dark cloak and hood. The way the other two carefully avoided looking at the cloaked one made it obvious that here was a leader. If there were answers to be had here, they res
ted within that hood. So. Take out the dockers first and hope the hooded bastard wasn’t some master swordsman or something.
Right. Easy.
He gave some serious thought to turning around then. But necessity drove him. If nothing else, he needed to know which way to run to avoid his pursuers. Gritting his teeth, he eased his knives into his dry palms. The big dockers were uneasy around their mysterious companion and had opted to keep the seated figure, rather than the alley where he hid, in their line of sight. Their solid frames cast wavering shadows as they gazed unwisely into the flames of their little fire. They would be night-blind.
He exploded from the alley. One of the dockers turned at the sound, eyes shooting wide as a knife whistled from the darkness.
He’d aimed for the throat but, thrown mid-run, the shot went wide and sunk to the hilt in the hollow above the man’s clavicle. In a knee-jerk attempt to dodge, the docker tumbled away with a grunt. The other docker, oblivious, didn’t turn in time. He bulled into the man’s back, knife first. The solid impact rocked him back on his heels but he grabbed a handful of shirt and planted his knife again.
Heart. Lung. Kidney.
When you were killing someone three times your size, there was no such thing as overkill.
The heavy man went down, coughing pink froth. Even sidelong, he recognized Meris’s pudge features.
What do I smell like now, lardass?
Whirling, he leapt at the wounded, scrabbling docker. A wild blow scythed at him. It was a simple thing to reach past it. The docker howled as he plucked his knife free, and gurgled as the blade winged back for the jugular. The second docker collapsed, bleeding out.
A familiar, searing pain threatened his ring finger. He went cold all over.
Whirling from the dead men, he saw the cloaked figure on its feet. Spindly arms traced arcane symbols in the air, calling on mystic energies.
A dune-damned sorcerer!
He let fly with both daggers, one chasing the other. The magicker, tattooed face distended in a grimace, gestured sharply. The knives clanged discordantly as they were slapped away, skittering away across the cobbles.
Crap!
He’d never make it if he turned and ran. Desperately, he took a single step and kicked hard. The bucket jumped under his foot. It spun up and away, vomiting coals and cinders – over the sorcerer. The man cried out and staggered back, shielding hooded eyes.
The warning heat of his ring winked out.
He closed the distance in three long leaps, already reaching for another knife as he sprung onto the heaped pallets. Even as the sorcerer slapped sparks from a smoldering robe, he gathered both the man’s hands – pale and long fingered like white spiders – into one of his and slammed them against the wall above the man’s head. The spindly sorcerer grunted, pinned against the warehouse’s side.
Eyes, already widened in terror, crossed completely as a knife slipped into his mouth, depressing his sorcerous tongue. The magicker screeched inarticulate supplication, pleading with wide eyes. He was a coward, then. Good. That would make this easy.
“If you so much as twitch,” he growled at the frozen man, “you’ll be whistling out your ear.” He wiggled the knife minutely to make his point. “Understand?”
Not daring to nod, the magicker blinked a furious affirmative.
“Good. Now, I’m going to take out the knife. If you say anything that sounds even remotely like a spell, I’m putting it back.” His tone made it clear he wouldn’t bother to make sure the man’s mouth was open first. “Right?”
Mewling pathetically, facial tattoos fading slowly like heat from a cooling iron, the man blinked again.
He moved his knife to hover at the corner of an eye, awake to any changes in temperature from his ring. The man choked, a single runnel of bloody spit rolling down a trembling chin.
“Now,” he asked, “who are you?”
“Rulis,” the man coughed hoarsely, “Rulis Cuvvis. I own a shop on Stile Street.”
“Hi, Rulis. I’m angry. Why were you waiting for me?”
“Not my idea,” the man pleaded. “I don’t do this kind of thing. They found me. I was press-ganged into helping them!”
The innocent bystander, of course.
“Who’s they, Rulis?” He hovered the blade closer. If Rulis blinked, he’d be minus an eyelid. “Who hired you?”
“I don’t know!” the man sobbed. “I’ve never heard of him and he didn’t introduce himself. His kind don’t set up shop in the Empire. He just walked into my store today! Him and a small army of professional strongarms. Merciful goddess, he just walked right in! Brushed my wards aside like they were nothing! Nothing!”
He felt the hair rise on the back of his neck.
“A mage?”
“Mage?!” Rulis shrilled in disbelief, a hysterical glint to his eye. “I’m a mage. And my head nearly split just looking at that… that thing!”
This sounded bad. Salt and silver, they really had been on his tail this whole time. A small army? And a mage who had other mages pissing in their pants? This was getting worse by the moment. He was as convinced now that they’d mistaken him for someone else as he was that it didn’t matter. If he were caught, he’d never survive long enough for them to realize their error. Rulis was still blubbering incoherently.
“Please! I make inks and dyes and tinctures! The other stuff… It’s not like I commune with spirits or raise the dead! The odd hex or tracking spell maybe… That thing wanted– He spoke to me. His voice was inside my head…!”
“Focus, Rulis,” he interrupted, lightly tapping the man’s nose with his knife. “What do they want with me?”
“I don’t know!”
His layed open the sorcerer’s cheek. His blade raked a path through the now bare skin, before returning to threaten the eye. The man shrieked.
“You’re not helping yourself here, Rulis. Now, again, what do they want?”
“I don’t know, I swear,” the man begged, voice breaking. “We were just supposed to capture you. It’s you they want. You!”
No, it bloody well isn’t!
“Why?”
“I swear I don’t know!”
Growling, he put his knife flush against the magicker’s other cheek, dimpling the skin. The man cringed, head trying to retreat through the wall.
“Wait, wait, wait, please wait!”
“You strike me as a smart man, Rulis. Why do you think they want me?”
“I don’t–”
He let his knife glide a hairsbreadth downward, parting the skin. Blood welled instantly.
“Alright, alright, alright! Something… it– he, said. The way he called you thief – I assumed you’d stolen something from them.”
That narrows it down…
“What?” he voiced the question aloud.
Money? Despite his success, he didn’t have that much of it. After all, what good was it if you didn’t spend it? Some trinket or heirloom he’d stolen somewhere along the way? It would have to be the Fahliid’s maidenhood, rendered in gold and jewels, dusted in cinnamon and wrapped in silk, to justify all the expense he’d seen.
Seeing his anger, Rulis cried out miserably. “On my life, I don’t know any more! Please! Please let me go!”
He sighed inwardly. A dead end. And if the odds at the end of this road were as dire as Rulis believed, then he was going the opposite direction.
They might not believe him, but he’d leave them the message anyway. Mayhap Rulis would be able to convince them they had the wrong person.
“Alright, Rulis,” he told the cowering magicker, “here’s what’s going to happen…”
The hairs of his neck pricked the same moment the pinned sorcerer’s gaze shifted to something behind him. The terror suddenly blooming in the man’s eyes was warning enough.
He dove to one side, rolling off the pallets. Two heavy quarrels thrummed through the space he’d vacated, stapling poor Rulis to the wall. Gasping, he rolled into a crouch, his legs bunche
d beneath him. In the exact center of the yard stood a motionless figure, swathed completely in dark robes. The cowled head turned to track him. Air, and the will to move, rushed from him as that singular regard settled on him like a stone. Sour fear congealed in his tissues, locking his joints. He didn’t have to be told that this was the mage Rulis had been talking about. Fine hairs all across his body writhed as if trying to escape his skin. His throat closed.
This was it. He was dead. He gritted his teeth. And realized that the heat he felt from his ring was… negligible.
His eyes narrowed as he realized he could see the brick wall behind the mage, see it through the murky folds of the robe.
He is not here in the flesh…
But his henchmen were.
Through the insubstantial mage, he could see their bulky figures rushing towards him from the alley. And poor Rulis could attest to the efficacy of the weapons they cradled at the ready.
He bolted.
Crossbows twanged and quarrels seemed to tug at his clothes, shattering on the hard walls all around him. The sound of pounding boots chased him up the alley.
This wasn’t turning out at all the way he’d planned.
What had happened to taking him alive?
The feel of that mage’s gaze clung to him. The suffocating, overpowering filth of it. In the wake of the experience, the question was no longer which way to run. The question was whether he could run far enough.
He sprinted up the unfamiliar alley.
“Let’s find out…” he puffed between breaths.
* * *
He thanked Helia for the training he’d received in Clatter Court. If he were being honest, he thanked Master Crysopher to a greater extent. Shifts of eight bells or more... How did the palace guards stand it – ‘stand’ being the operative word – with no knowledge of waking trances?
The first day he’d stood a shift, he’d been too excited to notice. Too taken by the honor and the novelty of it. At least, for the first three or four bells.
Then he’d noticed.
At least the guards got to go home, or to the barracks – or wherever – at the end of their shift. Not so for him. He was irreplaceable. That sounded grand, but it was small consolation when it required doing absolutely nothing for bells on end. And doing so in a professional manner. According to the brusque guardsman he’d asked, that entailed keeping his fingers clear of his nose, his bunghole and his torch and not fidgeting overmuch. These helpful hints had been frankly confusing. Especially since not even the guards on night shift were issued torches.