Well Met in Molos

by J. Hepburn

  They come quickly to the corridors Orianna has walked before. Her feet become much more certain. Kalle does not have trouble staying with her, although several times she has to check he is there at all.

  At the top of the stairs, Orianna gestures Kalle forward.

  He ghosts up the stairs, pauses while listening, or even possibly sensing in ways Orianna cannot understand, then beckons her after him. There are no guards in the antechamber, nor any visible through the lattice doors, through which moonlight streams to the balcony over the internal courtyard.

  At the bedroom doors, Kalle listens intently. Orianna listens at the other door. She hears Gabrio sleeping fitfully.

  Kalle gently pushes one door. Orianna eases the other. Both doors moan softly on their hinges, but neither squeaks.

  Gabrio mutters, then is silent.

  Orianna doses her hinges with oil. Kalle uses a similar bottle.

  When Gabrio begins snoring again, Kalle jerks his door open, the hinges not silent but giving up only a faint, single chirp.

  They both slip through that one entrance.

  The inner doors to the balcony are open, allowing a breeze and a glimmer of moonlight. Kalle gestures sharply at each side of the doors. Orianna stares, then sees. There are guards on the balcony.

  Orianna moves to the desk, silently but quickly checking every drawer.

  Kalle moves to the balcony doors, where he melts into the darker shadow beside the patches of moonlight.

  Orianna moves to the painting on the wall. She eases it away, then busies herself with the safe.

  There is a click from the lock.

  Gabrio mutters in his sleep. There is no sound from the guards. Orianna and Kalle freeze.

  Gabrio turns over and is soon snoring again.

  Orianna eases open the safe, then a few moments later closes it. Kalle is at her side almost immediately. She shakes her head sharply.

  Kalle nods once, then holds up his hand for Orianna to wait.

  He returns to the balcony doors. Orianna stands poised to flee. One of the guards on the balcony, to this point disciplined and as still as a statue, utters a sharp, annoyed exclamation, shifts position, stumbles, then falls.

  The other guard rushes towards his comrade. The lattice door jerks open slightly. She hears a hard, wet thud followed by the second guard collapsing.

  She rushes to the doors as Kalle opens them far enough to pull the first body inside. The guards were positioned so they were as difficult as possible to see. Their absence will be easily missed, but their bodies lying on the balcony would not.

  With both bodies inside and the door once more closed, Kalle inclines his head towards Gabrio, whose snoring is undisturbed. Orianna nods.

  Kalle takes one step, then leaps onto the bed.

  Gabrio wakes with a scream muffled by the cushion Kalle shoves into his mouth.

  "I will slice your neck open like a pig if I have to," Kalle says, pressing the quillons of a dagger against his throat. His voice has changed into a deeper, savage, unrecognisable growl.

  Gabrio freezes, his eyes huge with terror.

  Orianna steps forward, uncovering half of her face and gathering her robes tightly to accentuate a girlish figure against the broken moonlight shining through the lattice. "Oh, my Gabrio! He wants the key to the Egg of Valmong's chest! Please, you must give it to him! He will kill you if you do not!"

  Kalle's head twitches towards Orianna.

  Orianna reaches out one trembling hand, her fingers glowing ghostly in the moonlight, to caress Gabrio's cheek. "Please, my Gabrio! I could not bear it if you forced him to kill you!"

  Kalle's head twists fully towards Orianna before jerking sharply back towards Gabrio.

  "Please, my love!"

  Gabrio's eyes are mad as he stares between the two dark figures.

  "The key to the chest! He will have the Egg of Valmong or he will butcher you where you lie!"

  Gabrio gurgles.

  Kalle begins easing the pressure on the pillow. He leans slightly lower. "Shout or call for help and they will find your blood soaking this bed," he growls. At the same time, he shifts his dagger so more blade, and less blunt quillons, press against flesh.

  "Necklace," Gabrio manages to squeak.

  Orianna reaches for Gabrio's neck. Kalle hesitates. Orianna makes an impatient clucking sound. Kalle shifts position to give her easier access, then pulls the dagger back slightly when blood from Gabrio's neck trickles along its edge.

  Gabrio shivers as Orianna's fine, cool, delicate fingers find the chain around his neck. She has to tug sharply to pull up a small bunch of keys upon the end.

  She is less delicate when she seizes his hair to lift his head so she can free the necklace.

  She hurries to the balcony doors, where there is more light for her to examine the keys. After several moments, as Gabrio whimpers even through the pillow and the sharp tang of piss begins to make itself apparent in the bedroom, she gives a soft "Ha!" of triumph.

  Kalle's dagger hand moves. Gabrio twitches convulsively, then looks surprised, then passes out.

  "What did you do to him?" Orianna hisses. "He is not dead, is he?"

  "Contrary to what you may imagine about me, I do not like killing unless it is necessary or profitable," Kalle hisses back in his usual voice. "Geese that lay golden eggs should be left to lay! The guard was unfortunate—I couldn't afford to risk drugging him, he was forewarned and might have cried out. Do we leave the way we came?"

  They are halfway down the stairs from Gabrio's bedroom when an alarm is shouted.

  They both freeze only long enough to hear running feet.

  Without needing to confer, they sprint silently back to the bedroom.

  "Courtyard or bedroom?" Kalle asks.

  "Camel dung!" Orianna says, frantically making the chest secure in a pocket inside her robes. "Courtyard means having to get through the house and roused guards, bedroom balcony takes us down to the guards on the front door or up to the guards on the roof!"

  "Ha!" Kalle says. "Down is too far to drop with the Egg, to guards who may react too quickly. Courtyard balcony, up to the roof!"

  Orianna stares at him, eyes wide. "Are you mad?"

  "No, practised," Kalle says. Then, "Follow," and he is at the balcony doors in a bound.

  There are no solid, light-blocking, siege-strong doors to pass, merely the sturdy latticework panels.

  Kalle eases them open only enough to slip through.

  Orianna, heart in mouth and praying furiously, slips after him.

  "Close," Kalle hisses. "Up! You run, I will draw them off. Keep the prize safe, make for my lodgings!" He presses another key into her hand. "For my door!" Then he leaps for the wall next to the doors, the situation now so urgent he does not even seek a final kiss.

  Compared to the rough but unadorned stonework they have already climbed this night, the elaborately carved stone of a wealthy man's house is like a ladder. Kalle is on the roof before Orianna begins to follow.

  Inside the house, she hears guards bursting into Gabrio's bedroom, and breathes a thanks that Kalle thought of closing the lattice doors and buying them a little more time.

  Startled shouts tell how little that time was.

  Before Orianna's head clears the parapet, a death rattle signals that one guard will not be bothering them further.

  Kalle is moving like a demon, too quickly and unpredictably for any archer to draw a bead, using his size as an advantage.

  A guard on the opposite wing of the house draws a bead on Orianna as she reaches the roof. Seeing him, she ducks low and dodges sideways.

  "Run!" Kalle hisses, swapping his sword for the bow of the guard he has already killed, and standing to offer an easier target. He calmly steps out of the way of the arrow, letting it whir a mere finger's breadth from his shoulder, before returning his own missile with much greater success.

  In front of Orianna is the broad road before Gabrio's house—a gap too far to jump across. From lef
t and right, guards run towards them with swords drawn, seeing two figures too flighty to easily target with arrows. Kalle, having no more arrows immediately to hand, drops the bow to retrieve his sword.

  To the right, a hatch is thrown open by guards inside the house. The first one up loses his throat even as Kalle prepares to face a man in a sergeant's uniform.

  Orianna sprints to the left.

  A guard in front of her has his sword drawn, quite prepared to hurt or kill any thief, a woman included.

  She throws a simple but well-balanced knife into his unarmoured thigh, making him howl in pain and stumble, but not fall.

  With one arm holding the Egg's chest to stop it bouncing, and only long knives to fight with, Orianna is sorely handicapped. She dodges the guard on the side of his wounded leg, flourishing her knife to parry and threaten a riposte she never makes, but does not slow down.

  She hears him turn to follow her, but she has far too big a lead, and he is injured.

  The house is separated from its neighbour by another gap too big to easily jump. She turns up the next wing. The alley at the back of the house is narrow. An arrow whistles behind her, her speed confusing the guard who aimed it, then she clears the gap easily, landing with a roll that takes her back to her feet.

  She risks a look behind her.

  With his injured leg, the guard chasing her is not trying to follow her across the gap. Instead, he is making for his fallen comrade.

  Orianna turns to run before he can pick up the bow and knock arrow to string.

  There is nowhere for her to hide on this roof, which is flat and open. The house next door has a pagoda and raised garden beds, but the gap to it will require her best effort to clear.

  If she wants to make the jump, she has to sprint in a straight line. If she wants to survive, she has to expect the guards to be good shots, and try to avoid their arrows.

  She risks her speed against his.

  She dimly hears Kalle shout as she makes a final burst of effort onto the parapet to push herself with both feet across the gap separating roof from roof.

  The sharpened head of an arrow slices through her robes and the outside of her thigh a second before she hears a cry of pain from behind her.

  Her jump is as close as the arrow. She manages to get her feet over the edge of the parapet but cannot avoid tumbling gracelessly over the stone and down to the level of the rooftop proper, breaking her roll against a planter but keeping the breath in her lungs.

  Her thigh burns but still works, so she pushes the pain out of her mind. She still has the chest cradled against her belly.

  She is up and moving instantly.

  The shouts of more guards come from beneath the roof she has just left, and from underneath her feet. She makes the shelter of the pagoda, but does not slow down.

  In order to hurt you, they must first catch you.

  By choosing her direction with care, she can make good speed over the rooftops, but may be targeted by arrows. If she slips to the ground, she will have to avoid patrolling city guards attracted by the uproar. She can hide, but every niche will be searched.

  She hops onto a parapet to check her options.

  She can make the larger gap.

  Behind her, voices rise in frustration as guards decide they have not the speed or strength to follow her jump. There are screams of pain that do not sound like Kalle, but few sounds of metal on metal.

  Where in all the Hells is Kalle? What is he doing?

  What Orianna Does Next

  Orianna does not stop to take stock until she is certain she has escaped pursuit.

  The cut in her leg is throbbing and she can feel her thigh slick with blood, but when she examines it in a sliver of moonlight, the cut does not seem deep. She binds it with a strip of cloth cut from her undershirt. The chest with the Egg is still intact. She shakes it carefully, her heart in her mouth. Relief floods her when she cannot feel or hear anything moving inside. An opal would not easily break, but the chest itself might.

  She binds it securely against her belly inside her robes before she lets herself think about Kalle.

  He told her to run. He told her he would draw them off. She knows he had—or at least claimed to have—done similar before.

  She will have to trust him at his word, but still feels an unfamiliar knot in her chest.

  Keeping one hand on the Egg to remind her of the stakes, she heads not for the Artisans' Quarter, but for the eastern edge of Saradakh.

  She makes good time home, encountering no trouble and detecting no following presence at any time. For speed, she enters off the street.

  Inside, she lights a single lantern before scrabbling to put together a small bag of necessary items. She rebinds the chest securely against her belly, padding it to make a rough approximation of pregnancy or plumpness.

  Then she is out again, dousing the lantern and giving her eyes a good time to adjust first, scanning with a mouse's paranoia before sprinting away too quickly even for anyone lurking in ambush to attack her.

  She runs steadily, but the exertions of the day and the evening are wearing on even her usually indefatigable energy, and she makes twice as many checks, doubling back more often, becoming even more paranoid as she works her way through the Merchants' Quarter back to the Artisans' Quarter.

  When she finally approaches the wall outside Kalle's purloined secret shed, she knows exhaustion is written on her face. She climbs the wall slowly, limbs heavy but the chest hampering her only a little.

  She sees no light, hears no sound. She trusts Kalle to have sealed the walls against light escaping, and imagines that even here he would hide, making no noise that might encourage anyone to investigate, but she feels a trickle of cold sand in her blood. She can imagine nothing that would delay him this long save death or capture.

  His key is growing warm in her hand as she hesitates, caught between wanting to be inside and safe, and not wanting to resolve a question that might not have a pleasant answer.

  She knocks gently. "It is I, Orianna," she calls as she unlocks the door and cracks it open.

  No light spills out, but she hears a strangled cry of relief and stronger emotions from Kalle, and a carpet-softened footfall towards the door.

  She twitches, almost going for a knife, even as she recognises his voice with a rush of relief.

  As she slips inside, into velvety blackness, her arms are seized.

  "Where were you?" Kalle asks, his breath tickling her face. "I was thinking someone had caught you! Were you hurt?"

  "Light?" Orianna asks, tentatively.

  Kalle's hands release Orianna. "Of course!"

  Light flares as Kalle uncovers the dark lantern.

  "Were you safe?" he demands, seizing Orianna's arms again.

  Orianna stares at him.

  His eyes are wild with worry turned into relief. His hands on her arms are clenched almost hard enough to hurt—and would have hurt any girl less tough.

  Orianna had been prepared to apologise for taking so long, but now cannot find anything to say.

  For all Zerris's talk of his associates and his status, his power and his position in Molos, it is a delicately crafted mirage. Tiglis has other faces than Zerris and Orianna, and no other comrades or colleagues once the negotiations and planning have been completed and risks must be taken. There is never anyone else to worry about. Zerris keeps Tiglis safe, Tiglis keeps Zerris safe. Until this night, Orianna had nobody to report to save Zerris, and nobody else to worry about. Zerris in his plotting created other faces, for other purposes, but never had to worry about others compromising his safety or being concerned for it.

  Worry for someone else is an emotion not experienced since Zerris's mother died, and having someone worried for him, Tiglis, or indeed Orianna, is an even more alien experience. Zerris resolved to never again be responsible for any other, nor to put himself in any other's hands, and before tonight never broke that vow. The creation of Tiglis did not merely satisfy the deepest part
of his own self, but was useful in far more ways than her association with Vara. Having a duty to keep his sister safe gave Zerris a very handy respectability, opened doors, and—perhaps most crucially—allowed him to avoid becoming part of anyone else's plans.

  Not Zerris, nor Tiglis, nor Orianna, have any experience in knowing that someone might truly care for them.

  All Orianna can do is stare back at Kalle in silence.

  Kalle shakes her. "Are you safe? Were you hurt?"

  Orianna seizes his head in her hands and pulls his lips to hers.

  Kalle grunts in surprise as the chest against Orianna's belly presses into his, but merely bends around it to keep their lips together.

  Orianna, forgetting to breathe, breaks the kiss when she sways on her feet.

  Kalle is immediately full of concern once more, but Orianna shakes him off.

  "I am well! I am sorry, I had to come via my rooms. We are not finished tonight."

  "We are not?" Kalle asks.

  Orianna begins rapidly removing her outer clothes, still tired but moving with renewed purpose. "Can you make coffee? We have one more job. Now I finally have the Egg, I must deliver it tonight."

  "Are you expected?"

  "I will not be unexpected," Orianna says as she releases the Egg's chest from its bindings against her belly.

  Kalle's hand shoots out. "You were hurt!"

  Orianna looks down at the bloodstained bandage around her pants, startled into remembering it.

  She shrugs. "It is only a scratch. An arrow winged me, but did not slow me down."

  "Horseshit! I should have been faster. I didn't get that guard until he had already loosed."

  Orianna shrugs. "It was a lucky shot."

  Kalle kneels by her, reaching for the bandage. "Let me see."

  Orianna tries to wave him off. "It is nothing."

  Kalle glares at her.

  Orianna is simultaneously unsettled by his glare and surprised, with a warm glow, at his insistence to care for her.

  She meekly acquiesces as Kalle deftly unties her makeshift bandage.

  Her blood has soaked her pants, but it looks worse than it is, and the cut is neat. It begins bleeding a little again as the bandage comes off.