Dross (Sphereworld: Joined at the Hilt Book 2)

by Caleb Wachter

  Having no words sufficient to the moment, Randall returned her embrace and Yordan reluctantly rejoined them. After a few moments of shared silence he said, “Actually…I’ve come to take you two out of here.”

  “Take us out?” Yordan repeated incredulously, giving him a head-to-toe look of appraisal. “You might have nicked a fancy get-up with that well-reviewed tongue of yours, but beneath all that you’re just another pointy like us.”

  “I might be,” Randall allowed, moving his hand to Dan’Moread’s hilt where he rested it pointedly, “but I’ve made a few friends since I left Three Rivers.”

  “Isn’t that the same…” Yordan muttered as she looked at Dan’Moread’s hilt. “No, it can’t be.”

  “I’ll answer all of your questions after we leave the city,” Randall promised, “but for right now what I need you both to do is gather a satchel of things each—only include the things you can’t bear to leave behind—and be ready to leave as soon as possible.”

  “What is going on, Doll?” Ellie asked, pushing away and giving him a concerned look. “Are you in trouble?”

  “That’s a long story,” he shook his head, “and I promise you, Ell, that I’ll tell you everything once we’re out of the city. We can’t stay here…it’s not safe for us in the Federation, but I know of a place we can go.”

  “The Feds are everywhere, Randy,” Yordan scoffed. “You can’t escape them.”

  “We can,” Randall said fiercely, “and we will. But it can only be us,” he said, taking them by each by the hand and squeezing emphatically, “I can’t get anyone else out.”

  “How do you plan to get us out?” Ellie asked as a glimmer of hope shone in her uncharacteristically sunken eyes—eyes which spoke of recent hardships that Randall could only guess at.

  “I don’t know just yet,” he said with a dismissive shake of his head, “but that’s not your problem. I’ll get us out, but you can’t tell anyone else that we’re leaving. Do you understand?”

  “Aye,” Yordan said warily as she slowly seemed to buy in to what Randall was saying, “we get the swing of it. When do we need to leave?”

  “I’m going to go see Lorie,” Randall explained, “to see if she wants to come with us. If she does, we’ll have to wait until tomorrow night to leave. But if she doesn’t, we’ll get out of here before dawn.”

  “Lorie?” Yordan repeated skeptically. “I thought you and her parted on rough terms?”

  “We did,” he acknowledged, “but she’s the only other person in this whole city that I care about. I have to make her the offer, even if she isn’t likely to accept it.”

  “Doll,” Ellie grasped him by the upper arm and locked eyes with him, and for a brief moment he remembered the haunting look on her face after she had cut that soldier’s throat in the alley, “if you tell me this is best, I will follow you. Is this best?”

  Randall felt Yordan watching him intently as he took Ellie’s hands into his own and nodded gravely, “This is best for us, Ellie.”

  Ellie searched his expression for a long moment before nodding, “We will make ready. Throw three stones through the window, then wait, and then throw three more stones. We will come down to the back of the store after the sixth stone, and go where you will take us.”

  Randall looked over to Yordan, who seemed reticent but eventually nodded, “Aye…we’ll make ready.”

  “Good,” he nodded as he turned to the window, “then I’ll go see Lorie. Remember,” he said after reaching the window and giving them each a purposeful look, “only bring what you can’t bear to leave behind. I imagine some walking is in our future.”

  “We will be ready,” Ellie said firmly, once again displaying uncharacteristic assertion while Yordan simply nodded.

  Randall ducked out the window and, after checking the street for anyone who might be watching, made his way to the rear of the building where he lowered himself to the alley below.

  Pulling his cloak around his body, he was comforted by Dan’Moread’s serious demeanor as she said, They trust you greatly.

  “They’re my friends,” he replied as he made his way out into the night, “we trust each other with our lives.”

  You are fortunate to have found each other.

  “Yes we are,” he nodded, “just like we’re fortunate that you found us.”

  Her silence was noteworthy, but ultimately beneficial since the streets grew ever more crowded the further he went into the Native District.

  The Last Coin should have been bustling with activity at this time of night, but instead it was dark and empty as Randall approached.

  “This isn’t good,” he said under his breath, instinctively placing a hand on Dan’Moread’s hilt.

  A tavern should be filled to the brim with riotous patrons at this time of night, she agreed. We should leave, Randall.

  “Something happened to her,” he said, the worst imaginable fears flitting through his mind as he stepped up to the front door. “I have to find out if she’s ok.”

  Be mindful of interested eyes, she said tightly.

  “I am,” he nodded, checking over his shoulder before slipping into the narrow gap between The Last Coin’s tavern house and the adjoining stables.

  He made his way to the rear of the building and found the door there, which was generally used for bringing in kegs of ale or wine, was locked. Thankfully, the key which Lorie had kept hidden between a pair of siding boards was exactly where it had always been, and he was able to unlock the rear door before entering the tavern.

  “Hello?” he said, his voice barely above a whisper as he made his way through the hall which joined the cellar and the bar.

  His keen hearing—a gift courtesy of Phinjo’s Ghaevlian blood—detected footfalls coming up from the cellar, and he quietly drew Dan’Moread as whoever it was approached.

  Shall I—

  “Not yet,” he whispered as softly as he could while gripping her hilt tightly. He had not yet opted to wear the armored bracer since he was convinced it would be as dangerous to him as it would be to his enemies until he learned how to properly use it. But he had to admit that the added protection afforded by the other items he now wore beneath his cloak was more than welcome as he ducked into a narrow alcove in the hallway which normally held a stack of kegs but which was now conspicuously empty.

  The footsteps approached and, just as they came level with the alcove, he placed his foot out and managed to trip whoever it was that had come up from the cellar.

  Focusing his mind as he had learned to do several Wanderings ago, while in the White Knight’s company, he caused his flyl to flash with a bright, orange light which briefly filled the hallway to the point that he could see the person he had tripped.

  “Lorie?” he asked, seeing a wood axe gripped in her hands as she scrambled away, swinging the weapon blindly in his direction while she did so.

  “Who are you?!” she spat.

  “It’s me—Randall,” he said, focusing his mind and causing his flyl to fill the hall with a light roughly equivalent to that of a candle.

  “Randy?” she repeated skeptically. “I thought…I mean, after Ellie and Yordan told me about that night…” she squinted, peering at him in the darkness for several long seconds before relaxing. “What in the Lady’s name are you doing here, boy?!”

  “What happened to the Coin?” he asked, looking around the hallway pointedly. “Where are your children?”

  She scowled, “The Coin is dead, Randy. After those soldiers were killed, the Feds tore the Rickety apart looking for the culprits. When they couldn’t find anyone to pin it on, they started putting pressure on local businesses. They…they interrogated me,” she said, and Randall felt his heart clench as he remembered suffering an ‘interrogation’ at the hand of the Senatorial Guardsman who had been trying to find Dan’Moread. She spat before continuing, “Apparently I had already been interrogated so many times that my mind was too big of a mess. After two days of interrogation, they couldn’t
find anything more concrete than a suspicion that I knew who killed those soldiers.”

  “They know I did it?” he asked, less concerned with his own well-being than with Lorie’s.

  “How could you do that?” she hissed, her query both rhetorical and inquisitive. “I’ve lived with you since you were a young boy, and I know that you’re only dangerous to a lady’s coin purse after she’s passed out. How could you kill five Federation soldiers?”

  “I…” he hesitated.

  She is clearly distraught, Randall, Dani said warily. Perhaps we should leave.

  He shook his head adamantly, “I can’t go into any of that right now, Lorie. Are your children safe?”

  She eyed him for several seconds, and in the dim light of his flyl he could not quite tell if her expression was more curious or angry. “They’re in the cellar. The Federation ordered us evicted after they seized my inventory, but where am I supposed to go? My business accounts were seized and my suppliers were all warned not to engage with me after the Feds released me following my interrogation. Don’t you ever think about anyone but yourself, Randy?!” she snapped, slugging him in the shoulder angrily.

  “They were going to rape Ellie and Yordan,” Randall growled, “and then they were going to…torture me before they killed me. What was I supposed to do, Lorie?”

  She shook her head as her expression softened, “I…I didn’t know that. Yordan didn’t tell me anything like that.”

  “None of that matters any more, Lorie,” he said urgently. “I came here to get you and your children out of Three Rivers.”

  “What?” she said blankly. “Why?”

  “Because—” he said, pausing upon hearing an approaching group out on the street in front of the bar. The group seemed to stop in front of the bar and converse for nearly a minute before moving on down the street, after which he resumed, “Because Three Rivers isn’t safe. I came back to get you, Ellie, and Yordan, but we don’t have time to argue about it. If you want to come with me then I need to get you out of here,” he said, looking around the darkened hallway.

  “You? Get us out of here?” she repeated in disbelief as her eyes fell to the flyl hanging around his neck. “How did you—”

  “I will explain everything,” he assured her, knowing those words were unlikely to be of much comfort. “Do you still have any contacts down at the docks?”

  “Of course,” she said warily, “but they’ve all backed off.”

  “Did Rhekim Fisherson get back all right?” he pressed, recalling the rather unpleasant river passage he had spent in the Jiggling Maid’s forward hold.

  “He did,” she nodded slowly. “But he’s not going to ferry us upriver for free and I just told you that I don’t have any money. I can’t even afford a flophouse, which is why we’re hiding out in the cellar!”

  “I’ve got money,” he assured her, “two gold bars’ worth. It should be enough to get the seven of us up the Snake.”

  “How did you get…no,” she shook her head, “never mind—don’t answer that.” She cocked her head as her eyes drifted back to the faintly glowing flyl around his neck, “What happened to you, Randy?”

  “I…I found some new friends,” he said, glancing down at Dan’Moread’s hilt, “and they’ve helped me start a new life. I’m not going to lie, Lorie: where I’m going isn’t paradise, but I think it might be the perfect place for us.” He produced the traveling documents which declared his unlikely nobility and handed them to her, “Read those.”

  She took them in her hands and he sharpened his focus, causing the flyl to increase its luminosity enough that she could read the papers. She eyed the glowing crystal fragment suspiciously before doing as he had instructed, and it took her three full readings of the nobility patents before she exhaled in resignation, “Randall, forgeries aren’t going to do us much good.”

  “They’re not forgeries,” he assured her, “they’re the real thing: my new friends made me a Baron.”

  “But…you’re just a street rat,” she objected.

  “You’ll get no argument from me on that point,” he agreed, “but I told you that I’ve made some new friends. Frankly,” his mood darkened, “I don’t trust them nearly as much as I trust you, and you and I haven’t ever been on the best of terms. I could use your help, Lorie,” he said earnestly, “and from the look of things you could use my help. If after we make it back to my new home and you decide you don’t want any part of what I’m mixed up in, I promise that you and your children will be able to leave. You’ll have no trouble making your way in Greystone,” he assured her.

  “Greystone?” she repeated with an arched brow. Then her face drained of all color as she whispered, “The Federation is going to go to war with Greystone, Randall!”

  “I know,” he nodded, “but it’s not a war of the Federation’s design—Greystone and the Ghaevlians have been planning it for decades.”

  “The Ghaevlians?” she repeated, clearly at the edge of her ability to process so much information.

  “Lorie, I’ve already said too much,” he said, taking the papers from her and stuffing them inside his cloak, “but I’ve been as open as I can because I want you to come with me. Three Rivers isn’t safe any more,” he said with a piercing look. “Do you understand?”

  “I…” she hesitated before her visage hardened and she nodded, “Rhekim pulled into port two days ago. He was complaining about the lack of cargo to haul upriver, so he’ll probably be open to ferrying us. But I’ll need a down payment.”

  He reached into his cloak and produced a quarter bar of gold, “Tell him he’ll get the rest of the first bar after we board the Maid, and another bar once we reach Murkwater. Do you think he’d leave tonight?”

  “Maybe…” she mused before shaking her head, “but it will probably have to wait until tomorrow morning. The Feds have clamped down on the harbor lately; no more late night departures are allowed.”

  “Fine,” Randall said, suspecting the late night departures had been curtailed at least in some small part due to his flight from the city, “I’ll go get Ellie and Yordan and we’ll meet you on the Maid before dawn. Take your children—and only your children—to the harbor and get aboard the Maid. Find whatever hiding hole he used to smuggle the special vintages in through security and stay below decks until we’ve left the port, ok?”

  Looking at her in that moment, Randall was less than confident that she would agree to go with him if her family had not already been persecuted by the Federation. But he saw the same grim determination in her that had fueled her efforts to build The Last Coin into the going concern it had become, and he knew that whatever their former issues might have been she was more concerned with the well-being of her children than with any past grievances.

  “We’ll get down there,” she nodded before adding, “but don’t be late, Randy…this is my children we’re talking about now.”

  “I understand,” he said gravely. “I came back here to get you to safety, Lorie; I’m not going to leave you twisting in the wind.”

  She nodded and he let his focus on the flyl break, causing the warm crystal to darken until no more light filled the hallway.

  We should go, Dan’Moread said after Lorie had made her way to the cellar and begun to gather her children.

  “Agreed,” Randall nodded, “let’s get down to the harbor to make sure there aren’t any surprises waiting for them down there.”

  Pre-Dawn, 3-2-6-659

  Randall scouted the harbor immediately after leaving The Last Coin and found nothing untoward. There were no indications that security was significantly higher than it had been during his entry into the city, and Rhekim’s ship, the Jiggling Maid, was indeed moored there just as Lorie had said it would be.

  He was tempted to contact Rhekim directly, but he decided against it for a variety of reasons. There might be a bounty out on his head following the bloody affair in the alley, or Dan’Moread’s description might have been circulated throughout the city
in an effort to help the Senatorial Guardsmen retrieve it. There were just too many valid reasons not to go down to the Jiggling Maid himself, even though he wanted to clear the way for Lorie and her children before retrieving Ellie and Yordan.

  Thankfully, Lorie and her three children—the youngest of which was three Judgments old while the eldest was nine—appeared on the docks and made their way to the Maid just as Randall had hoped they would. After a short exchange with Rhekim, Lorie shuffled her children aboard the riverboat and quickly disappeared below decks.

  Randall watched for a good half hour before concluding that Rhekim had not chosen to alert the guards of his undocumented passengers. When he was satisfied they were safe he returned to the Native District, where Ellie and Yordan were waiting for him.

  With each carrying a bundle of their most precious belongings, Ellie and Yordan followed Randall to the harbor where Rhekim’s boat awaited them. Randall’s general anxiety was nearly as high as it had been during his previous escape from Three Rivers, and he remained on high alert as they made their way through the winding streets which led from the Native District to the docks.

  “Just stay calm,” he said after Yordan spooked from a cat hissing at them as they passed by. “We’re almost there.”

  A few minutes later, they were standing at the base of the ramp which led onto the Jiggling Maid. Just as before, Rhekim Fisherson stood there waiting for them with an expectant look on his face.

  “You again,” Rhekim grunted. “I should have expected as much.”

  “I can’t thank you enough for doing this, Rhekim,” Randall said as he reached into his cloak and produced the rest of the first gold bar, “but a bar of gold is a good start. When can we leave?”

  Rhekim accepted the money, eyeing it appraisingly for a moment before stuffing it into his coin purse. “We’re not allowed to go until dawn breaks. I’ve already put Lorie and her littles down in the hollow keel, but there’s no more room to fit the three of you.”