by Aaron Pogue
A furious panic now clawed at Corin’s heart, as every time he returned to Ahmed’s lair, he saw the flashing dagger, saw the closing trap. This had to work! If it didn’t, Charlie was a dead man, and Corin likely was too. He caught a heavy breath and leaped again.
Yet another path, and Corin steered a wild course between the points he’d learned to avoid, like deadly rocks off the Spinola coast. Somehow this time he dodged them all. He crashed home in Marzelle—blackest port in all of Raentz—rushing down toward the cellar he’d imagined. That room exploded in his mind just as Ahmed’s had receded, until Corin saw himself standing there in gray-fog darkness, Charlie Claire beside him, still tied to that expensive chair. Corin blinked his eyes, gasped for breath, and shook the spell away.
It took a moment more, but at last the eerie gray faded to black, and time returned.
Charlie never once stopped screaming in his ear.
“Steady on, sailor,” Corin said. “We are safer now.”
“What was that? What happened? Where are we?”
“Marzelle.”
“Raentz? You bring me to Raentz? We may as well have stayed to die at the Fig’s brothel!”
“Be still!” Corin hissed again. “Marzelle is not so bad as that.”
“For us it is! Storming seas, Captain, this is Dave Taker’s home port!”
Corin turned slowly to face his loyal follower. His voice came out a dangerous growl. “You knew this and you didn’t tell me?”
“You asked about the girl and Blake—”
“But Taker’s his first mate!”
“I’ve told you more than once. The ship is sunk. The crew’s split up. And Ethan Blake is gone!”
Corin closed his eyes. “This changes things.”
“Yes! Take us away from here!”
“No! Be still.” Corin turned away, pacing. “So Taker finally rose to first mate, then lost it within weeks. That might serve me well.”
“On a spit, perhaps. Can’t you guess how angry that has made him?”
“Oh, aye. But that anger belongs to Ethan Blake.”
“Perhaps it should, but he directs it at the crew. At the men who rejected Blake’s command.”
“Fascinating,” Corin said.
“Terrifying. You know this man! You saw how his cronies treated me.”
Corin hesitated. Blake’s men had found Charlie just after Corin betrayed him and abandoned him, but Charlie hadn’t thrown any accusations yet. Perhaps he didn’t know. Corin tried to argue in his own defense. “It’s just a shame you weren’t able to see how I punished them for that.”
Charlie offered Corin a grateful smile, without any sign of accusation. “Oh, I saw Tommy Day bleeding from his gut. Pale as a ghost and wailing almost as bad as one. Billy had to hold him up. I just wish you’d done the same to that sneaking scholar. He tried to rob me, just like you said he would.”
Corin shook his head in mock outrage. “The knave! Well, you’ll be glad to know I settled all our debts with him. And now we’ll settle up with Taker and his cronies.”
Charlie swallowed hard and looked away. “Why…why now? If you’re so anxious to do battle, why’d you leave me to ’em back in Khera?”
Corin shook his head. “Tommy had a pistol, and I had to step quick.”
“Ah. You worked your magic?”
“Aye, and it lost me hours.”
“Well…you came for me anyway. And for that I thank you. But I’ll beg you now—take me somewhere else!”
“Steady on, sailor. Steady on. We have our tasks to do, but there is glory in it.”
Charlie shook his head, then had to reach up to steady himself. “I can’t do it. I’m sorry, Captain, but I can’t face Dave Taker. I stole from him. Don’t you understand? And if he finds me here…”
Corin heaved a weary sigh. In Khera, he’d tried to leave Charlie Claire, and Charlie had avowed his faithfulness. But faced with Dave Taker—no, faced with the very city Dave Taker was staying in—Charlie quailed.
And that made Charlie into a risk. Corin didn’t dare turn him loose, and unless he could calm some of the deckhand’s fears, Charlie was going to bolt. Chances were all too good he’d dash right into the hands of their enemies.
So Corin caught Charlie’s shoulder and gave it a strong squeeze. “You’ve convinced me, Charlie. I owe you better. I’ll find you passage.”
“Us! This place is no safer for you.”
Corin hesitated; then for Charlie’s sake, he lied. “Aye. I’ll find us passage. Where’d you like to go?”
“I hear good things about far-off Ellena.”
“Good man! Far indeed, but the architecture’s lovely there. I’ll see it done. You just get some rest.”
Charlie looked around and patted the cool earth wall. “What is this place?”
“A safe house. Aren’t you in the Nimble Fingers?”
“Sorry, Captain. Never been a cutpurse. Honest sailor all my life.”
“You’re missing out. The Nimble Fingers is a powerful brotherhood.”
Charlie rubbed his recently split scalp. “Better brothers than a pirate crew?”
“Oh, quite! If it had been the Nimble Fingers, you never would have felt a thing.”
For a long time, Charlie said nothing. Then he crossed the room to kick at a straw-stuffed mattress on the floor. “This is all for us?”
“For anyone who needs it. This isn’t the nicest house in town, but it’s usually pretty empty. You get some sleep. Heal your hairline. I’ll leave our marking at the door and then go see what ships are sailing soon and what they’d cost us.”
Charlie dropped down on his back, staring blankly up at the dirt ceiling. “I’ll work. Don’t have to pay…I’ll earn my way.”
“Nonsense. I’ve…got a bit of coin. I’ll be glad to pay your way.”
A smile touched the sailor’s lips. “Sounds…sounds good.”
Corin watched his old crewman for a moment, then turned and headed for the stairs. He’d find Charlie passage and get him safe aboard his ship. But first, he had to find some old friends.
The cellar room had its own exit to the alley behind its house. Corin’s senses strained as soon as he closed the door behind him. A warm night lay over Marzelle, and the city provided a strong contrast to desert Khera. Lamps glowed on every street corner, showing the reserved locals, who went quietly about their business in modest working clothes. Here and there among them were the swarthy sailors who made the port town so wealthy.
Corin spent little attention on the locals, though he blended easily among them in his plain black clothes and long, rich cloak. No, his attention focused on those who moved with the easy, rolling lope of seafarers on city streets.
He saw no sign of Dave Taker or his vicious cronies, but there were certainly familiar faces here and there. Corin saw old crewmates—none from his command, but more than one who should have recognized him from his days aboard the Chariot under Old Grim.
But Corin had been more than a pirate. Even without touching Oberon’s strange magic, he had his tricks. He drifted down Marzelle’s city streets like a dim reflection over still waters. He adjusted course and hugged the shadows and turned his face before any old compatriot might recognize him. And he did it all without ever breaking pace. It was almost as good as coming home, to walk the shady streets of a port town in the proper Godlands once again.
He drifted absently, guessing at which ships might be in port, which crews might be broken up, by nothing more than the occasional familiar face. And all the while he made his way toward the east, toward a Nimble Fingers tavern that might offer him more precise information.
Halfway there, he slipped around a corner into what should have been an empty alley and, for all his grace, he crashed into a woman moving fast the other way.
Both figures spilled apart, down to the cobblestones, but even as the woman fell—even as she spat a vile curse—she raised her right arm to keep her weapon trained on Corin.
“God
s’ blood!” he shouted, as astonished as he was angry. “It can’t be you again!”
But even as he said it, he registered what he was seeing. She no longer wore the long white robes of Jepta, but a tailored cotton dress that left her arms bare and revealed quite clearly the outlandish weapon she carried.
It was something like a flintlock pistol, but smaller, with a glossy casing of glass and precious metals. Seemingly too delicate, too light, too small to be any serious threat, but Corin knew better. He’d seen this thing in action—twelve hundred years ago, but less than a week to him.
An instant after he set eyes on the druids’ poison pistol, he saw her face. And then he understood why she had felt so familiar. He knew her. He had met her in the streets of Jezeeli just before it burned, but he would never forget that face. This was the woman who had rescued him, who had defied the tyrant Ephitel to stop a war, and who had clung to Oberon’s rules even after he relinquished them.
This was Aemilia, a one-time moneychanger in the city of the gods. And here, at last, he’d found a friend who might truly understand him.
“I don’t know what you are,” she said, “but if you so much as move, I will make your body a prison for your mind. Do you understand?”
“I don’t,” he said, but he was not so stupid as to move. He had watched one of the tiny darts from that strange weapon incapacitate an elven soldier in a fleeting heartbeat. But still he was confused. Why would she threaten him at all? Why pretend she didn’t know him?
Ah! But it had been more than a thousand years since she last saw him. How many other dashing pirate captains had she met in all that time? How many other grand adventures had she enjoyed? Any answer just raised questions of its own.
He frowned at her. “How can it be that you are still alive?”
She flashed her teeth, though it was not a friendly smile. “I am careful and I’m smart and I overuse my ammo.”
Corin took a risk. Slowly, unthreateningly, he shifted. She twitched the dartgun, but she didn’t fire it, so he rolled up into a more comfortable position. A moment later, almost reluctantly, she did too. On their knees now, two paces distant, they faced each other.
Would a thousand years be time enough to forget a face like that? It lacked the fine, sharp lines of Raentz’s noble ladies or the snowy pale so praised in Princess Sera. Her hair was short, held back with combs, her eyes a boring brown. She was not beautiful, but there was something in her bearing, in her every expression, that was absolutely her. Intelligence and strength and fear in equal measure. He smiled, despite himself, to look on her again and wondered aloud, “Where did you get a thousand years? How did you get here?”
“I will ask the questions!”
“Why?” Corin asked. “Why have you been stalking me?”
“To find out what you are. To understand the threat you pose.”
Corin spread his hands. “You could more easily have asked. I will tell you. I am Corin Hugh, an enterprising manling who has seen much of the world.”
“Manling?” she asked, shock in her tone. “Where did you learn that word?”
“In the same place I learned the tricks that so alarm you. It’s also where I learned that I am not the threat you fear. That honor is reserved for Ephitel.”
Her eyes went wide. She forgot the weapon in her hand and bent toward him. “Do not say such things on open streets.”
“It is also where I met you, Aemilia. A druid in a moneychanger’s shop. Or should I call you Emily?”
The druid’s eyes narrowed. She said, “Everything about you is wrong.” And then she shot him.
Corin saw her pull the trigger. He saw the glass-and-silver dart exit the barrel, flashing distant torchlight. The dart bit into his neck just above the shoulder, sharp and hot like a scorpion’s sting, and the poison went straight to work. Corin’s world turned gray and fuzzy, soft around the edges, much like it had done when he tried to leap away from Ahmed’s place.
And again, he watched time unwind. He felt himself slam back down into the alley. The pain in his neck faded, and color washed back in.
Corin stared, stunned but clearheaded, while Aemilia still covered him with her weapon. Her eyes narrowed. She said, “Everything about you is wrong.” And she shot him. Again.
He had a chance to curse this time, but nothing more before the dart struck home. The tranquilizer seemed to burn worse this time, but the effect was the same. Gray fog enveloped him, pulling him away, but he lashed out against it. No, he thought, furious. I have no time to rest. And back he went. The memory of pain remained, but history unwound itself so Corin found Aemelia once more narrowing her eyes.
“Wait!” he shouted, trying desperately to twist away, but there was no time. She shot him in the back of the shoulder, and that worked just as well.
And once again he clawed his way back. This time he didn’t hesitate. While she was still deciding, he sprang forward, closing the narrow distance between them, and knocked the dartgun from her grip with a full-arm backhand.
She dove after it, but he rolled once and tripped her up with a scissor kick. Then he leaped like a frog and flung himself to cover up the weapon with his body. He curled around it, fighting for his breath, and tensed himself against whatever violence would come next. Surely this toy was not the druid’s only magic.
But before he felt anything, he heard the sound of running footsteps. He shoved then, taking the weapon with him as he rolled to his feet, but Aemilia was already halfway down the alley and moving fast. “Stop!” he shouted after her. He raised the dartgun. “I’ll shoot!” But the woman didn’t slow, and Corin didn’t fire. By the time he reached the alley’s mouth, she was lost to sight.
Corin didn’t dare give serious chase. There had been too many familiar faces in the crowd. Frustrating though it was, he let her go. For now, anyway. He would have to track her down eventually because he needed answers only she could give.
How had she survived a thousand years? She certainly looked no worse for wear. Was that some druid secret, or had she stepped through time the same as Corin?
For that matter, how had she been able to find him? The woman seemed as close as his shadow, popping up every time he turned a blind corner. The thought was an alarming one because Corin needed his anonymity. He had dangerous work to do, and a persistent tail might get him killed.
At least he had her weapon. He looked down at the contraption in his hands and remembered the stabbing fire of its bite. It only had one shot, but it was a strong one. He remembered what had happened all too well: four different chains of events, all of them mutually exclusive. What had happened in that weird gray fog? Was this more of Oberon’s power, or something new at play?
He cursed quietly to himself while he watched the slow tides of sailors and villagers flowing past the alley’s mouth. Only one person in this city could answer his questions, and he had let her slip away.
Again, he felt some small victory at capturing her weapon. If he tracked her down before she found another one, he’d have the upper hand. In the meantime, he had other business to attend to. As Corin slipped back into the flow of traffic, he stashed the druid’s gun beneath his cloak, in a pocket near another pistol that wasn’t his. The dwarven revolver was a piece of mastercraft, but still it made Corin’s skin crawl.
Another memory torn from the past. He had promised to deliver it to its rightful inheritor, the dwarf known as Ben Strunk, but that would have to wait. Aemilia would have to wait. Even Ephitel would wait. There was so much to do, but Ethan Blake came first.
Corin ground his teeth as he remembered the traitor. So much to do, and all of it required information. At least he knew where to find it. Cautious as he was being, the journey took twice as long as it should have, but at long last Corin found the shady tavern used as headquarters by the local chapter of the Nimble Fingers.
Corin watched the door for half an hour, assuring himself that nothing was amiss, but in the end impatience won him over. He slipped across
the empty street, announced himself with a patterned knock, and flowed through the narrow doorway.
The room beyond was barely more than a cellar, with unfinished walls and a low ceiling. Choking smoke hung heavy in the air and almost overpowered the stink of stale beer. At half a dozen little tables around the room, tired-looking men drank beer or wine, but no one seemed much interested in conversation.
Half a pace inside the room, Corin’s eyes burned and his shoulders sagged. He breathed deep of the noxious air and grinned despite himself. At long, long last, he had come home.
Then someone hit him. The blow came in from the side—from the doorman he’d just passed—and it nearly unhinged Corin’s jaw. Light burst behind Corin’s eyes, red and orange, and he stumbled two paces into the smoky room.
His attacker was talking, something puffed up and obnoxious in a deeply slurred Raentz dialect that Corin didn’t bother trying to unravel. He was just waiting for the gray fog to take over, for the chance to unwind time and catch this villain unprepared.
It didn’t happen. Still mouthing off, the villain closed with Corin and slammed a kick right into his gut. Corin folded over, gasping, and rolled away a moment before the brute’s foot came stomping down hard. Still no gray fog. Still no help from Oberon.
If you can’t count on a dead god these days, who can you count on? The thought flashed through Corin’s mind, and the answer was an easy one. He’d never been able to count on anyone—not even Old Grim, once push came to shove—but Corin could always count on himself. And he wasn’t about to lose a fight to some stinking Raentzman!
Corin rolled again, curled up tight, and sprang to his feet. His hand went instinctively for the dagger on his belt, but the Nimble Fingers had its rules. He left the blade alone, ducked a vicious haymaker, then stepped in close and threw all his weight into an uppercut. The villain’s head snapped back with a crack that drew a groan from someone else in the room, and Corin’s opponent staggered back a pace, but he didn’t go down.