by Dale Lucas
“What are you doing?” he whispered.
“Just staying in character,” she said as she kept kissing him. “Don’t be such a prig.”
Rem surrendered and kissed her. Her mouth tasted of basil and strawberries, quite pleasant. She ran her fingers through his hair and pulled him close. Rem decided to up the ante and laid one hand on her ample buttocks. He gave her bottom a good squeeze. Aarna responded by breaking the kiss and descending into a giggling fit.
When Rem pulled away from her, a dopey, un-unfaked smile on his face, she whispered to him. “Are they watching us?”
He dared a look at the bouncers. “They are. But they don’t seem terribly interested.”
“Perfect,” Aarna said. “Let’s go.”
They lurched on, right up to the front door. When they got there, Rem stood waiting for the bouncers to either ask his business or open the door for him. They did neither. Meanwhile, Aarna hung off him, licking his ear and breathing on his neck. He sincerely hoped Torval understood that all her attentions were faked, for the purpose of getting them through the door.
“What’s your business here, lovebirds?” one of the bouncers asked.
“Business as usual,” Rem answered, smiling cheekily. “Mind getting the door for me?”
“I mind indeed, sir,” the bouncer responded. “This here’s a private club, and you don’t look familiar to me.”
“Did you hear that?” Rem asked Aarna. “This sod says I don’t look familiar to him!”
“You bloody barmpot!” Aarna brayed. “Don’t you know who this is?”
The two bouncers exchanged incredulous looks. “No,” they both said.
Rem decided to go for it. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the little bauble that they had lifted from Ginger Joss. “Does this help?” he asked, holding the medallion by its chain.
The bouncers studied the pendant. One moved for the door. The other stopped him with a raised hand. “Who gave you that?” he asked.
“Joss,” Rem answered, doing his best to sound annoyed and impatient. “You know him, don’t you? Ginger Joss? He’s a kinsman of mine.” Given Rem’s red hair and freckles—a different shade than Joss’s but still similar—he hoped that explanation would suffice.
The incredulous bouncer kept staring. The other one lingered, hand on the door handle. Finally, the suspicious fellow cocked his head. The other one opened the door.
“Welcome to the Moon Under Water,” the doubter said as Rem and Aarna moved past. “Upstairs and to the back, as always.”
Rem feigned annoyance again. “I know my way, you prat.”
In they went, and the noise and smoke and close air of the common room beyond surrounded them.
Rem studied the place, Aarna still beside him, her arms still draped around his shoulders. It was an upscale taproom and gaming house, not unlike the others he’d seen recently, but of a different caste entirely in its particulars. For one, every prostitute that he saw in the room—clearly working professionals, with premium prices attached—were all stunningly beautiful—even the painted and perfumed men. There wasn’t a wasted, wormy, toothless urchin among them. Secondly, it was clear from the lacquered chairs, polished tables, velvet tapestries, and shiny bronze lamps that the owner and operator of the Moon Under Water was wealthy and of a far more elevated caste than the owners of most of the city’s whorehouses. The place was furnished as finely as a lord’s house—in some ways more so—and the clientele, though not entirely made up of the best of Yenaran society, nonetheless seemed to be on their best behavior. The place was lively and loud, but not chaotic. It probably helped that more bouncers were spaced around the room, huge men with bulging muscles, burning stares, and idly crossed arms, waiting for trouble, daring anyone to break the peace.
“Promise me,” Aarna whispered in Rem’s ear, “that if you close this place down and confiscate its contents, I get this furniture.”
Rem smiled. “You have my word.”
“Come on,” Aarna urged, back to business. “Upstairs and to the back, like the man said.”
Rem nodded and the two of them wended their way through the crowd toward the stairs, a double flight, all the way at the rear of the common room. When they reached them, they once more showed their pendant to a bouncer guarding the foot of the stairs, were cleared, and climbed to the second floor. At the top, they found themselves at the head of a long, narrow corridor lined with doors and guarded by yet another bouncer.
This one did something strange, though: he barely noted the medallion, but he took a long, appraising look at Aarna. In truth, Rem didn’t care for the length or closeness of the fellow’s appraisal. Finally, though, the guard smiled lasciviously and stepped aside.
“Late summer instead of bright spring, but buxom indeed,” he said. “Go to the third room on the right. Your service will begin shortly.”
Rem nodded. He and Aarna continued down the hall, arms still around each other, all the way to the door suggested. The door stood open and they ducked into the waiting room without hesitation. Once the door was shut behind them, the world was far quieter.
They studied their new surroundings. There was a bed, a wealth of pillows and cushions strewn about one corner of the floor, a large elaborate Shimzari water pipe, and a table on which waited a pitcher and two cups. There was wine in the pitcher.
Rem started to circle the room, examining the plank walls for signs of spy holes. Occasionally, he would knock upon them, hoping to hear the deep, telltale resonance that suggested a hollow space behind them.
Suddenly, rapping on one of the inside walls, Rem got the sound he’d been anticipating: a deep, hollow thumping, like a drum. He turned to Aarna, rapping on the wall again with his knuckles. “Hear that?”
“Hollow,” she said.
Rem examined the planks before him, peering upward toward where they met the roof beams, then down, to where they disappeared behind the edges of the floorboards. “No sign of hidden joints, though. Maybe it’s just a space in the wall.”
“Or maybe,” Aarna said, “their secret architects are better at keeping their hidden panels hidden than you’d like to admit.”
Rem scowled at her. “Unkind.”
He moved to the water pipe and studied its smoke chamber. It was loaded with a brick of something dense and sticky.
“What is that?” he asked Aarna, assuming that a woman who owned a tavern of her own might instantly know.
She took a quick glance. “Cured witchweed.”
“So that’s what it looks like,” Rem muttered.
“Some like it dried—still green—others like this cured stuff, pressed into bricks. I don’t allow it at the King’s Ass because it brings a cartload of trouble along with it. Fights, weeders gone comatose. And orcs, of course.”
“Orcs? Are they partial to it?”
Aarna shook her head. “Not at all. It doesn’t even work on them. But they know humans like it and they’re the ones that bring most of it into the city. Orc maids cultivate it up in the mountains; war bands trade with the orc maids for food, shelter, and breeding; then the bucks bring the witchweed down to the city and trade it for ale or weapons or whatever they might need. Sometimes they just keep it handy as a peace offering if they’re stopped by orc slayers or bounty hunters—a little something to grease the wheels of understanding and help them carry on their way.”
Rem thought of the drunken orc that he and Torval had arrested on his first night walking the ward—the one bearing a bundle of witchweed on his person. Rem clearly remembered the smell—funereal incense, burnt cloves, and pitch—and when he took a great, deep whiff of the brick packed into the water pipe, the same pungent scent stung his nostrils.
The stench brought an image of Gorn Bonebreaker to Rem’s mind: the arrogant, absurd orcish ethnarch sitting on his too-small throne, eyes betraying the briefest, barest hint of worry when he saw that fat bundle of confiscated witchweed in Torval’s hands. Could that parcel have been bound for th
is very sporting house, for use in these very pipes? Was the dual loss of revenue and a satisfied customer what gave Gorn Bonebreaker that evident, momentary pang when he saw that bundle of contraband in Torval’s little hands?
“Is it illegal?” Rem asked. “Selling witchweed, that is?”
Aarna smiled crookedly. “You tell me, good watchwarden.”
Rem cocked his head. “Third day on the job. Throw me a bone, eh?”
Aarna relented. “Like everything else, it’s perfectly legal if you have a license. Some taverns and innkeeps get licensed and do regular trade in it. Some eschew the licenses but let swaps and smoke-ups go on in their establishments anyway, so long as they get a cut and it all stays quiet.”
Rem nodded and said a silent prayer of thanks. Aarna was turning out to be even more helpful than he’d hoped. He supposed that shouldn’t surprise him, given the fact that she herself was a tavernkeep and businesswoman, and probably knew more about the ebb and flow and undertow of Yenara’s nightlife than Rem and Torval combined.
Aarna stepped away from the water pipe and back to the jug of wine on the table. She poured some of the wine and sniffed it. Satisfied, she tasted a portion with her tongue.
“What are you doing?” Rem asked.
“Spiked,” she said. “Poppy milk, maybe.”
“Poppy milk in the wine,” Rem muttered, “and witchweed in the pipe. How powerful is this stuff, compared to the poppy milk in the wine?”
“Ten times more powerful,” Aarna said. “Or so I’ve heard. So, we can assume the purpose of this room is to get blinkered sideways and robbed blind?”
“Maybe,” Rem said. “It seems so clumsy for such a slick operation. All this secrecy, the medallions, the bouncers, all so a patron can come back here, smoke themselves loony, and get pickpocketed?”
“It doesn’t make much sense, does it?” Aarna placed her hands on her wide hips. “Well, brave watchman—what now?”
Rem moved back to the door. He opened it, just a crack, and peered out into the hallway. “I want to take a look around,” he said, “if I can slip out without the bouncer seeing me. Check out some of the side corridors.”
“And what will I do while you’re poking around?” Aarna asked.
Rem turned to her. “Stay here. Just wait. I’ll be right back.”
“Yes, sir,” Aarna said in an affected city dweller’s accent. “As ye please, sir. I’ll wait right here for ye, sir. Shall I warm the wine and turn the bed down for the night?”
Rem raised an eyebrow. “I know you’re strong and capable, Aarna—but if you suffer even a scratch, Torval will rip me limb from limb.”
Aarna gave him a crooked, mordant grin, clearly indicating that she understood. “Fine. Go have all the fun and leave me here.”
With that, he was gone.
Not six feet from where he stood, the corridor split into two different directions. Rem hove to the left, then peered back around the corner to make sure he wasn’t followed. The bouncer at the far end of the corridor—the one guarding the head of the stairs—still stood with his back to Rem, arms crossed, staring down on the proceedings in the main room below with affected boredom. Rem nodded, satisfied, and padded slowly, quietly, down the corridor he now moved in. At each door he stopped, pressed his ear to the door, and listened. At the first two he heard nothing. Behind the third, he heard voices.
What they said was impossible to discern, but this he could tell: there was a man and a woman, the woman did a lot of giggling, and over the course of the many moments that Rem stood there, listening, her voice and speech seemed to stretch out, growing ever more hesitant and sluggish. The acrid smell of witchweed was in the air, wafting from beneath the door. Rem was afraid that if he stood there too long, he would start to feel its effects.
So, as slowly and quietly as he could, Rem turned the knob on the door. When he felt the latch disengage, he gently pushed the door open, just a crack, and peered inside. The smell of witchweed was immediately stronger, making his eyes water and his tongue dry.
Through the tiny crack that he had allowed for his spying foray, Rem saw a room not unlike the one that he and Aarna had been in. A man and a woman reposed within, the man older, his face pitted and pockmarked by time, his shirt and breeches half-undone as though he and the girl had been ready to engage in some sexual activity. The girl, meanwhile, looked far younger than the man—surely not far into her twenties, and quite beautiful. The laces on her bodice were mostly undone, and her red-rimmed eyes and loose manner told Rem that she’d imbibed quite a bit of the witchweed and the poppy-laced wine. She was swaying where she sat, looking in danger of collapsing at any moment. She sucked eagerly on the pipe nozzle, smoke puffing out of her nose and the corners of her mouth, then suddenly spat the nozzle out as a coughing fit racked her. In the midst of her coughing, she laughed.
“There now,” the man said. “That’s better.”
“I think this is going to my head,” the girl said sluggishly, staring at the nozzle as though it were some alien implement she didn’t entirely recognize. “I can’t … I can’t …”
“You can,” the man said with a smug and satisfied grin, “and you will.”
The girl shook her head, but the gesture was distant and feeble. Even as she did so, she was already putting the nozzle back in her mouth, sucking to get another good cloud of the witchweed in her lungs. She blinked, her eyes glassy, her pupils wide enough to make her eyes look like two black marbles.
The girl’s mouth worked as she tried to form another coherent thought, as she tried to prove that she was still in charge of her own mouth, her own limbs, her own body. Then, as if giving up the ghost, she simply let the nozzle drop from her hands and pitched sideways. She landed on the pillows that surrounded her, curled up in a tight little ball, and settled in for a long, deep sleep. Across from her, the man stretched out one foot and firmly prodded her prone form.
“Darling,” he said. “Darling girl, are you huffing out on me?”
She muttered something, completely incoherent, then shifted slightly. She was fast asleep, snoring. The witchweed had finally overtaken her and done its work. Nothing could wake her now … not for hours and hours.
As Rem watched from the other side of the door, the man did something strange. He reached up one hand, made a fist, and knocked on the inner wall of the chamber. The knock was coded, and after it had been given, another coded knock came in answer. Then, to Rem’s great surprise, a panel of the inner wall slid aside and two men stepped into the room. They were thick and burly and they made straight for the girl lying unconscious on the floor cushions.
One straddled her and turned her onto her back. The other grabbed her limp wrists. The one straddling her smacked the girl’s cheek a couple times, as though trying to wake her. She muttered but remained unresponsive. The girl was deeply asleep, and would not be awakened. The two men threw the third fellow on the floor rapacious looks, then bent to lift the girl. Before taking her ankles to help his partner lift her, the man straddling the girl flipped the man on the floor a small object that looked like a coin or a gambling chip.
“Redeem downstairs,” he said.
“Good doing business with you gents,” the man on the floor said amenably. “As always.”
The two men muttered polite replies, lifted the girl, and slowly removed her from the room, back through the secret panel they had come through. The man on the floor struggled to rise and began lacing up his breeks again. Rem gently closed the door and backed away. He studied the intersecting corridors again. When he was satisfied that no one was nearby, he padded quickly back to the room he had left Aarna in.
So, that was their game! They lured beautiful young women here, plied them with witchweed and poppy-laced wine, then, when they were good and knackered, they spirited them away. But to where? And for what purpose? Was it just some adjunct of the slave trade, dealing in shadily acquired young women of free birth? Or was it something more sinister? Worshippers of dark
gods looking for sacrificial lambs? Vivisectionists or physicians looking for bodies to experiment upon? A rich potentate from the east adding to his harem? And how did poor, dead Telura Dall tie in to it all? Or Freygaf, for that matter?
Or Indilen! Could this have been her fate? Sent here on an errand, drugged and spirited away?
You’re imagining things, Rem thought. Indilen ducking you probably doesn’t have a thing to do with all this. Stop mooning over her. You’ve got work to do.
Rem wondered, but felt something else as well. He was filled with a strange sort of indignant rage. To think—an unsuspecting girl accompanied a man to this place, allowed herself to be plied, and then, after passing out, woke up in a dungeon beneath them, or on a slave ship, already cutting the seas far from the land of her birth. There really was no end to human cruelty and depravity, he supposed.
And that was why they had to stop it, no matter what.
As Rem turned the knob of the door to the room he’d left Aarna in, he sincerely hoped that Torval had found a way to infiltrate the Moon Under Water. If not, the dwarf would just have to take Rem’s word for what was happening there, and forgo seeing it for himself. Either way, they were onto something here, and they needed backup: the other watchwardens would have to be called out and a raid undertaken.
Just as soon as they managed to flee the place with their hides intact.
Rem opened the door.
For just a moment, Rem felt embarrassment, as though he had stumbled upon something he had no business seeing. Then he realized that he should not be embarrassed, but horrified.
There was Aarna, locked in a rough embrace with an unshaven fellow who held a knife at her throat, one dirty hand clamped over her mouth.
And there was a second man, just three steps off to Rem’s right, also with a sharp, rather unpleasant-looking knife in his hand.
The men seemed stunned by Rem’s sudden entrance.
Aarna screamed behind the man’s filthy hand and her brown eyes went wide with pleading terror.
Rem went for his sword.