The Fire Cage

by Scott Hungerford

  “But the screws,” Davin said, “would need to be screened by hand to remove all the jagged bits still left over from the pressing. If they had done that at Florin’s, or at any other factory in the city, it would require silencing dozens, if not hundreds of workers. No matter how hard they insisted, word would have gotten out by now. With an order this unusual, it just isn’t possible. Somebody would have talked by now.”

  “The screws were delivered,” Rajon answered, tapping the pages of invoices, “without any charges for degraving or filing. Whomever is receiving these screws has their own people ready to do the polishing for them, as unbelievable as that may seem.”

  “It would take an entire village of people a month to do that kind of work,” Davin said, as he took the invoice lists from Rajon and scanned them up and down, looking for any additional clues.

  “That it would,” Rajon said. “But there are only a few small towns in all of Abbeyshire County, as the pastoral place is more suited towards hunting, embroidery and noble pursuits than working tirelessly day in and day out with a metal file.”

  “Then, there’s something else you found out,” Verona asked Rajon. “Something more dangerous than a boat-load of mystery screws, isn’t there?”

  “There is,” Rajon said, “which is why I spared no expense in getting us out of the city as quickly as I could. At the factory, I nearly had a run-in with a person I assumed long gone. After the wrath you delivered upon Florin’s production lines with that sweet voice of yours, I drew the luck to see Jacob Florin, the owner of the factory, talking with Charette zan D’Alabastria, Vermeni’s daughter.”

  Davin rocked his head up so fast from the invoices, he neatly whacked his crown on the low wooden ceiling. “Vermeni had a daughter?”

  “He did indeed,” Rajon answered. “She’s thriving, busy, and up to no good. After she fled the Empire after her father’s death, I know that Charette was residing in the Teutoron Baronies, where she spent the last ten years in exile. I’ve dealt with her in the past. She’s a nasty piece of work, with a bloody reputation for killing whoever gets in her way without taking an ounce of blame.”

  “She’s also a reputed sorceress as well,” Verona added. “Her father explored the black arts in his lifetime, and from what I’ve read, before she disappeared after his death, she continued the family’s forbidden investigations into the occult.”

  “That’s enough.” Rajon said. “We don’t have time for your fortune-teller’s rubbish. There are very real things afoot.”

  “Well, it’s true,” Verona continued, carrying on like the village midwife. “I’ve read the flyers that she published before her father died. It was mostly tripe about the arts of summoning spirits, reading entrails and some curious thoughts on etheric theory, but the subtext behind the wording makes for a fascinating read, as she implies a lot of things without saying anything directly about them. Did you know that her mother was an authentic desert princess, a seeress from the northern tribes?”

  Rajon cleared his throat, signifying he’d reached the end of his patience on the matter. “Let’s stick to the facts, shall we? Now, Charette saw me at Florin’s, and she knows my face…” Verona pouted, but her father gave her no heed. “Years ago, Davin, when your father was still alive, Charette and I shared the same... circles. I trust that she’s smart enough to put together the disturbance at the factory and the raid on the Ledger’s office with my presence, and will very likely take steps to protect her interests.”

  “So that’s why we’re riding out of the city then, in a steam-carriage?” Verona asked.

  “We’ll arrive upriver at Coventon, Abbeyshire’s country seat, by dark. This evening Davin and I will take time to explore the warehouse mentioned in the paperwork. Verona, I’m going to have to ask you to attend — ”

  “The Ladies’ Circle,” Verona said with disgust, already seeing where he was going. “To collect news and gossip about anything odd in the county. As if the knitting stews in Marble weren’t terrible enough to sit through, with all the yammering and chattering about who is good enough for who, and what little strumpets young ladies are becoming these days.”

  “Yes,” Rajon said. “Exactly. I believe I can arrange an invitation for you from the Lady Tweedy without too much trouble.”

  “But, Rajon,” Verona said, putting on her sweetest, most lethally innocent smile. “Can’t I just go with you to the warehouse and steal something with you instead? I really wouldn’t mind creeping around in the dark, breaking into things and tripping people down stairs, all in the name of the common good?”

  “No,” Rajon said, to Davin’s disappointment. There were worse things than creeping around in the dark with a pretty girl that was prone to kissing. “We’re up against a time limit, as it’s only a matter of days, if not hours, before Charette decides how she wants to handle our involvement, with either nominal or lethal force.”

  “But are you really sure that Charette is involved?” Davin asked.

  “The timing of her arrival in Agora is...” Rajon faltered, trying to find a word that wouldn’t set Verona off on another eldritch tangent. “Coincidental at best.” He looked over at his young protégé, to see if she was going to be all esoteric again. But she stayed blissfully quiet this time, obviously biding her time for a better opportunity to annoy him.

  “By what I’ve deduced,” Rajon continued, “by the raw coincidence of her recent arrival back in the capitol, and the significant risk that breaking exile could cost her, it makes sense to me that she got word of you looking up your father’s inheritance and came here by the fastest transport available. Like lightning striking poor Saint Phillip twice, Charette just happened to be at the scene of our most recent spree. If she isn’t involved in this dirty affair, I’ll give you my share of the spoils for free.”

  “It was Guiseppe’s assistant,” Davin said, putting it all together. “The brother. He was working for Charette.”

  “I’d bet my share on that, too,” Verona said, even as Rajon nodded his assertion. “So what do we do now?”

  “We do everything we can to get to the bottom of this, as quickly as we can,” Davin said, even as Rajon turned and moved aside the blinds at the coach’s back window with the tip of his cane, to see if they were being followed through the winding city streets.

  “We follow the trail we found as expediently as we can,” Rajon added, “before our enemies can cover their tracks. If we’re too late, I fear the days to come would be wrought with peril, as whatever mad scheme Charette is planning will be unleashed upon the Empire.”

  Chapter Ten

  Leaving Agora was a strange adventure for Davin, as riding through the city streets, past many of the shops and haunts he’d spent his whole life in, made him feel more like he was riding in a hearse more than a prized carriage. Even as they approached the Western Gates, as he looked out the window towards the high hill and his dead mother’s house beyond, he felt apprehension to leave the encroachment of the city’s walls. Out there, beyond the gates, lay fields and forests and roads that led to all of the countries of the wide world. His sense of self-significance within that larger picture seemed to dwindle with each passing turn of the wheels.

  But when they finally crossed through the ceremonial gate, unhindered by any guard, and were out upon the roads of the world, Davin realized then that it wasn’t such a different place out here in the green, amongst the oak trees and the twinkling waters of the Upper Dob, and neither was he such a different man. Yes, it scared him, to be out here in the wilds with two crazy gamblers for company. But in many ways the outdoors was not much different from home, if not a little less dangerous than the life he was rapidly leaving behind.

  After travelling until sunset, playing cards all the way to Coventon to pass the time, Rajon had the driver stop off at the Lane House. As the Lane House was a local high class boarding-and-breakfast establishment in the heart of the town, Rajon personally arranged with Mrs. Spindlethorn to get rooms for the thre
e of then, then assigned Verona to change clothes and to lock herself and Davin’s funerary goods in tight until they returned.

  After his daughter was safe upstairs, Rajon returned the carriage and had his driver sing them over to far edge of town, to where a series of abandoned refineries and run-a-down warehouses skulked along the road’s edge. Amidst the misty darkness, lit only by the shuttered twin swinging lamps hung on either side of the driver’s bench, Davin and Rajon disembarked just a few hundred steps up the road from their darkened destination.

  Up above, the nearly full moon was cast amidst the gnarled fingers of the tree branches overhead, obscured from time to time by clouds of mist and fog. Even when sitting alone in the statue gardens and churches of Agora, Davin had never been anywhere so remote in his life. For all his days, people had been within a stone’s throw within one direction or another, and peace and privacy was a privilege that couldn’t be bought on a workman’s salary. But out here, amidst the whispered trees, Davin’s skin was a graveyard of goose-bumps.

  “I’ll wait for you just up over the rise,” the driver told Rajon. “I’ll wait until dawn, and if you don’t come back, I’ll go back and get the girl home safe.”

  “Good man,” Rajon replied. “Keep out of sight, and I’ll let you know when I’m coming. Just like last time.”

  “Yes, sir,” the driver said, then quietly sung his horse in a neat turn-about with a melancholy series of notes. As the steam-horse made its way back into the fog, hooves occasionally kicking up white and green flash-sparks, Rajon turned to Davin, with a bare-bladed knife already in hand. Davin nearly jumped back in shock at the sight of the naked blade.

  “Do you know how to use this?” Rajon asked.

  “No,” Davin said. “But I can use my fists. And a stick and a thrown stone.”

  “An honest answer,” Rajon said, sheathing his knife back in his boot. “That might keep you alive tonight, if you’re lucky. There are bound to be guards about, likely professional thieves who know their business and won’t ask questions twice. Follow my lead, walk in my footsteps, and if I tell you to hide and stay out of the way, do exactly as I say. I can’t run a successful bit of blade-work if I suspect you’re one of the men I’m stabbing in the dark.”

  “Do you really think you’re going to kill anyone?” Davin asked.

  “If I have to,” Rajon said. “Would you kill for your country? For your Emperor?”

  “Honestly?” Davin replied, a little wobbly at the thought. “Probably not.”

  “Would you kill for Verona?” Rajon asked, with a cutting edge in his voice.

  Davin paused, not sure what to say, unable to make out Rajon’s face in the darkness. “Maybe…” he said. “If she doesn’t kill me first.”

  “Kisses can kill as much as any sword,” Rajon said, with a bit of smirk in his voice. “Keep that in mind. She is my daughter, after all, as I won her fair and square.”

  Davin swallowed down a draught of nervous bile. “Yes, sir.”

  “Come on, then. We have work to do.”

  Following Rajon through the darkness was tougher than Davin had expected. While the occasional dog barking in the distance startled him, what spooked him even more was how quietly the gambler moved through the dark, his blade sheathed to avoid any possible chance reflection of moonlight. Ducking under the shadow of a stand of sugar oaks positioned just across the road from a row of shabby buildings, Davin stood at Rajon’s side even as he counted the guards circling the structure. After a time, he came to the conclusion that there were two of them, meeting up with one another every forty seconds or so by their simple but circuitous route.

  “You get the one on the left, and I’ll get the one on the right,” Rajon whispered. “We have to be quick and dirty about this. If they sound the alarm, I’m assuming that there are going to be more men than we will be able to handle.” Davin nodded. “Are you really ready for this?”

  “Yes,” Davin whispered, his courage emboldened by a stray thought of Verona’s soft lips.

  “Then on my mark... three... two... one... Now!”

  As Rajon sprinted across the road, Davin made his own way, slower by half but as quiet as he could make himself in the misty darkness. Holding his breath, he managed to reach the corner of the warehouse wall just as his target was about to come around the edge. With every nerve jangling with anticipation, the young man clenched his fists and made himself wait as the footsteps came closer and closer.

  At the first trace of motion Davin sprung, clothes-lining the smaller man hard across the throat with a vicious forearm sweep. As the man gurgled and went down, feebly trying to unsheathe the sword at his belt, Davin crouched down by him and punched him in the face, one-two, three-four, and then five-six for good measure, as hard as he could swing.

  When the man didn’t seem to be moving anymore, Davin stood up, grabbed him by his feet, and dragged him into the shadow of the building’s edge, tucking him in by a pair of barrels. From around the other side of the building, he heard the sound of something heavy hitting the dirt, but no outcry or clash of blades. Peeking around the edge of the building, thrilled by the outcome, Davin waited for Rajon to appear, heartbeat by heartbeat, waiting to see if he had won the other fight.

  But when he felt a blade touch the front of his neck, sharp as a razor, Davin froze, and slowly raised his hands over his head.

  “You hit like a girl,” the guard said, his voice still rough from where Davin had plowed his throat. “Barty! Flem!” he shouted out hoarsely. “We’ve got company!”

  The guard’s outcry prompted an explosion of movement and lantern light from within the building. “And, you there!” the guard shouted out into the darkness, in Rajon’s general direction. “Show yourself, empty handed or your lad gets it through the neck.”

  “Let the lad go,” Rajon shouted from the far side of the building, “or your man gets it through the eye first.”

  “I don’t give a rat’s ass about Kirk,” the guard shouted back. “I’d more likely pay you the pence for doing it. Now, I want you front and center by the count of ten, or I’m skewering your little sniveling here like a rat for the fire.”

  “Don’t do it!” Davin shouted out, earning a sharp poke in the neck as result. But he was dismayed when Rajon indeed came out, dragging Kirk’s dead-weight behind him with one hand, and sword at the ready in the other. At that point, the main door unbolted, and two more men came out from the interior, the fat one with the tallow jowls holding a hurricane oil lamp, and the skinny one beside him holding onto an arm-length of rusty pipe.

  “You have mine, and I have yours,” Rajon said to the men. “I believe we are at an impasse.”

  “So we would seem to be,” said the fat man.

  “That cuts us a card partner for the night, Barty” the skinny man said, thwacking the pipe into his hand with lethal intent. “That puts me in a real bad mood.”

  “You be careful, Flem,” the fat one said, holding the lantern up high. “A city boy and a gentleman in noble’s clothes, skulking around Abbeyshire at night. They can’t be all they seem.”

  “Let my boy go,” Rajon demanded, “or I’ll give your Kirk a new buttonhole.”

  “Let Kirk go,” said the thief behind Davin, “or I’ll cut the boy’s throat before you can jump.” For effect, he lightly cut at the skin of Davin’s throat, showing that he was all business.

  “Well,” said the fat man, looking back and forth from one captive to the other. “Now what do we do?”

  “I’ll play with you,” Davin said desperately, even as he felt a trickle of warm blood dampen the front of his collar. In front of him, Rajon moaned, and Davin could swear that he rolled his eyes.

  “For what stakes?” Barty asked.

  “For my life,” Davin said.

  “Perry already won your life,” Barty said.

  “But you haven’t won Kirk’s yet,” Rajon replied, his sword still held at the ready. “I suggest you play Assassins. With the first out gi
ving up his throat and his prisoner, and winner takes all.”

  “In exchange for what? Nobles?” Flem said. “We don’t need your money. We’ve got money coming out of our asses.”

  “We play for information,” Davin replied. “Don’t you want to know how we came to find this place — and who else knows about the precious cargo you’re sheltering?”

  Barty sucked his teeth, unhappy with the revelation. “Perry, bring the boy inside and we’ll lash him to a chair. You, nobleman, you come in through the back with Kirk all tidy and get yourself settled on the boxes at the rear. Do it nice or I’ll shout the word and have my man put your youngling to the quick. Once we’re all settled, we’ll play some cards like the young man wants, winner take all, and blood’s the loser.”

  “Deal,” Rajon and Davin said at the same time. “By my word,” Rajon finished.

  “Blast your word,” Barty spat out. “Now, let’s get inside and get shuffling. I don’t have all night.”

  .oOo.

  Inside the old butcher’s shed, the inner walls of the place were ringed with stacks of crates and boxes, each marked with the Florin’s seal. Lit by a series of lanterns hanging from rusted meat hooks swinging from the rafters above, the dimly lit room boasted a single round barrel-table, big enough for four men to sit around, with stools and benches enough for each. Sitting in the only true chair was Davin, tied by his ankles to the lower rungs, with a rope circling his neck down to where his ankles touched tight. While Davin’s hands were free, the wrong movement, such as tipping over in his chair, could easily set him strangling.

  Across from Davin sat Barty, and next to him, Flem. Perry stood behind Davin, straight-razor at the ready, while Rajon lounged with the still unconscious Kirk on a row of screw boxes some twenty paces away. While Barty shuffled, Flem fingered a stack of chips, expertly flipping clay disks from the bottom of his fisted stack up onto the top in a practiced sequence.