by Claire Frank
Rhis leaned over the table and smiled. “I have a strong desire for myself and my companion to reach Altia in one piece.”
“How strong?”
She hesitated. She didn’t want to be the first to give a number. Too high, and she’d spend more than was necessary. Too low, and he’d get up and leave before she had a chance to negotiate. “What will it take?” she asked.
He crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. “Altia? No other stops?” He rubbed his chin again and looked at the ceiling as if running the calculations in his head. “I’d say I can make that happen for … fifty thousand.”
Rhis let out a laugh. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Did that sound like a joke?” he said. “Because I’m not laughing. All right, forty-five.”
Rhis narrowed her eyes. “Twenty.”
“Oh, come now. Don’t insult me. Thirty-five.”
“Twenty.”
He rolled his eyes. “That isn’t how this works. I say a number, you say a number, then I say another, and you go a bit higher. Or have you not negotiated before?”
“Thirty,” Rhis said. It was still an exorbitant amount for passage to Altia, but she needed the assurance of secrecy that the smuggler could give her.
His eyes flicked up and down. “Fine. In advance.”
Rhis’s heart sank, but she kept her face still. “Hardly. I’ll pay you a deposit now, and the balance when we reach Altia.”
“Afraid not, sweetheart. I don’t do business that way anymore. Requires too much trust, and that isn’t something I deal in. I prefer Imperials.”
“It isn’t as if I’m a stranger. We’ve done business before. You know I’m good for it.”
Rickson shook his head.
She licked her lips, wracking her brain. Although she still had some money with her, it wasn’t close to the sum he wanted. She went through a mental inventory of all they carried. Her weapons had value, but she’d have to give him her entire arsenal to equal the cost of passage, and there was no way she was traveling unarmed. The boy didn’t carry anything worth selling, and although she would sell their horses, it didn’t come close to thirty thousand Imperials.
A thought occurred to her, and she curled her mouth into a small smile. The stone Asher’s mother had given her. Although she wasn’t sure what it was, the rune on the outside was exotic, and the way it felt in her hand indicated some sort of magic. That meant it was illegal, and magical contraband was precisely the sort of thing Rickson dealt in.
“All right,” she said. “I have something else that you’ll be interested in. I might be willing to part with it, for the right price.”
“What is it?”
“I’ll have to show it to you,” she said. She made a show of glancing around the room and leaning in close. “But not here.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Assuming this … item is interesting enough, how soon do you want to leave?”
“As soon as possible,” Rhis said. She didn’t want to stay in Varale a minute longer than necessary.
“Here’s the thing,” he said, tapping his fingers on the table. “I have a run I have to make, going to take me about a week. When I get back, we can load up and head for the capital. Assuming we can come to a suitable arrangement, of course.”
Rhis pressed her lips together to keep from smiling. This gave her a little more leverage. “Hmm,” she said, putting a finger to her mouth. “I don’t think I can wait a week. But thank you for your time. I’m sure I can find someone else to accommodate my needs.”
Rickson snorted. “Good luck with that. This is Varale. You’ll be lucky to find someone with more than a dingy schooner, and luckier still if it’s actually seaworthy. Besides,” he said, leaning toward her, “unless you’re bringing along that second passenger as muscle, some crews might consider your presence an invitation. You’ve sailed with me before. You know you’ll get no hassle from my men.”
“I can handle unwanted advances,” Rhis said, her voice casual.
“I don’t doubt you there,” he said. “All right. Twenty-eight because you have to wait. But we both know I’m worth it.” He flashed her another smile.
Rhis ignored the tingle that ran up her spine. She’d always thought he was too pretty to be a smuggler. “Fine.”
Rickson gave her a quick wink. “Good. Let’s see about this item of yours.”
They stood and Rickson followed her out the door. “I have a room up the road. It isn’t far.”
“Taking me back to your room already?” Rickson said.
She glanced back and shot him a glare. Really, Rickson thought far too much of himself.
She led him up the road to her inn, making her way through the empty common room and up the stairs. Pulling her key out of a small pocket, she laid her hand on the latch. Her heart leapt into her throat as the door opened. It wasn’t locked.
Pushing open the door, she rushed into the room and looked around. Their packs were where she’d left them, next to the bed, but the boy was nowhere to be seen. “Oh gods.”
“What’s wrong?” Rickson said, peeking through the doorway. “You get robbed?”
“The boy,” she said as she raced to the dingy window, a sense of dread building in her gut. “He’s gone.”
“What boy?” Rickson said.
“My companion, he’s a boy. A kid. I left him with our things, but he isn’t here.” Panic began to rise and her breath came fast. Where could he have gone?
“Maybe he went outside and wandered off,” Rickson said.
Rhis shook her head as she rifled through her pack. It didn’t appear to have been touched. “He wouldn’t wander away. He’s a country kid, too scared to walk around the city on his own.”
“Who is he?” Rickson asked.
“He’s my nephew,” Rhis said, deciding it was a good an explanation as any. She whipped her head around. “Help me find him. I’ll pay extra.”
“How much?”
Rhis looked around the room again, willing the boy to appear. “The artifact I carry, plus twenty thousand when we get to Altia.”
Rickson raised an eyebrow and shrugged his shoulders. “All right, but only because we’ve done business before. I’ll warn you, though—pretty you may be, but if this artifact is worthless you’re going to owe me a lot more. And I always get what’s owed to me.”
“Fine. Just help me find him.”
Rickson held out a hand to her and she took it absently. “I believe we have an accord. Now, what does the kid look like?”
THIRTEEN: SEARCH
Looking around the room, Rhis put a hand to her forehead. Where could the boy have gone? She had told him to stay put. If she lost Asher, returning to Altia would be much more complicated.
“Damn it,” she said.
“Stay calm,” Rickson said. “Let’s think this through. You said he’s a country kid and he wouldn’t wander off. Are you sure about that? Varale is full of interesting diversions for a boy.”
“No, he wouldn’t leave without me,” Rhis said. “How often does the City Guard patrol this area?
Rickson raised an eyebrow. “You are risky. Is the City Guard after you?”
Rhis put her hands on her hips as she looked around. “I don’t know. I’m just thinking about the possibilities.” If the Varale City Guard had been instructed to look for them, they would have followed her to the tavern, rather than bother with the boy. She wasn’t even sure Varale had a City Guard; if they did, it wasn’t a very effective one.
“Did you kidnap this kid or something?”
“No, I told you, he’s my nephew.”
Rickson snorted. “Right, your nephew.”
Rhis shot him a glare.
“Hey,” he said, holding his hands up. “You’re the one hiring me to take you and this kid to Altia, and it isn’t because you’re on the right side of the law.”
“Are you going to help, or stand there trying to analyze me?”
“All right,” Rickson said. “Bu
t I think we can rule out this room. Unless he can turn invisible, he isn’t here.”
Rhis cast one more glance around. The other possibility was an assassin. Cormant had sent one already; she knew he would send more, and there was a lot of money riding on Asher being dead. But they wouldn’t have taken the boy, they’d have killed him, and there certainly wasn’t a body. For now, she could assume Asher was still alive.
“I’ll go ask the innkeeper,” she said. “Unless he jumped out the window, someone must have seen him leave.”
Rickson followed her down the stairs, hovering behind as she stopped to talk to the innkeeper.
“The boy I came with, have you seen him?” she asked.
The innkeeper was unusually short with a rotund belly and a balding pate. “I did at that. He left not long ago.”
“Damn him to the abyss,” Rhis said under her breath. “Did you see where he went?”
“Afraid not,” the innkeeper said. “Ran out the front door, in a hurry. But I didn’t see where he went after that.”
“Thanks,” Rhis said as she turned and made her way to the front door.
“Boys, what can you do?” Rickson said, his tone flippant as they walked back out into the street.
“I can tie him up next time.”
Rickson laughed. “Remind me not to get on your bad side.”
Rhis stopped on the side of the road, watching the passersby, and forced herself to slow down. She needed to think this through. “Why would he leave?”
“As I said, a young boy, in Varale for the first time. Maybe something down here caught his eye.”
“Like what?” she asked, looking up and down the street at the faded gray buildings. A few people ambled by, their eyes downcast, and a scrawny cat slunk through the shadows then darted down an alley.
Rickson tucked his thumbs into his belt and gestured with his head to a building across the street. “Maybe them?”
Two young girls lounged on a sagging porch a few buildings over. Their low-cut blouses brushed the tops of their cleavage, and their lips and cheeks were stained red. One fluttered her fingers at Rhis and Rickson.
“He wouldn’t have gone in there.”
Rickson raised his eyebrows. “You know this boy that well, do you?”
“Whores?” Rhis said. “He’s a child.”
“So are some of them,” Rickson said with a nod toward the brothel. “And those sly little things know how to be very persuasive.”
“I take it you’re a regular.”
“Hardly. Man like me doesn’t have to pay. Even if I did, I’m not one for young girls. I prefer women,” he said with a smile.
Rhis lifted an eyebrow. “Whether he’s there or not, and I highly think not, they might have seen something.”
As she walked over to the brothel, the girls sat up, leaning forward and fanning themselves with paper fans. They turned to each other and giggled, covering their mouths with their hands.
“Care to join us inside?” one asked as Rhis approached. Her voice was pitched high and she tilted her head down, looking at them through her eyelashes.
“Actually, I’m looking for someone,” Rhis said.
The girl glanced at her companion and stifled a giggle. Rhis resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She didn’t care how these girls earned their living, but their act of false innocence was irritating.
“Looking for someone here?” one of the girls said. “We can show you inside, if you’d like. We can show you all sorts of things.”
The second girl turned her gaze on Rickson. “Nice coat, sailor.”
He brushed his hands down the fabric and fussed with the collar. “Why thank you, little lady. It is one of my favorites.”
“Can I touch it?” the girl asked, holding out a finger toward him. “It looks so soft.”
“Did a young boy come here in the last hour?” Rhis asked, casting a sidelong glance at Rickson. “A bit shorter than me, dark hair, striking eyes.”
“Mmm, he sounds nice,” the girl said. “But no, we’re empty right now. Unless you two want to come in. You can have the place to yourselves.”
Rhis raised an eyebrow at Rickson. “I told you he wasn’t in here.” She turned back to the girls. “So you haven’t seen him?”
The first girl licked her lips and picked something off her dress at the neckline, then adjusted her clothes to make her breasts bounce. “Don’t think so.”
Narrowing her eyes, Rhis looked back at the entrance to the inn. If these girls had been sitting there, they must have seen him come out.
“Listen,” Rhis said, adding a hint of distress to her voice, “my nephew is missing. I swore to my sister, as I sat by her bedside, that I would take care of him when she was gone. He was in our room at the inn across the way, but now I can’t find him. I’m so worried.”
The first girl looked up and her eyebrows drew together. “Aw, that’s terrible. I lost my mama, too.”
Rhis tilted her head. “Oh, how sad. That must have been so hard for you. My nephew has been terribly upset over the loss. He’s just a child, he doesn’t know how to cope with his grief. I don’t know what could have become of him. Are you certain you didn’t see anything?”
“Now that I think about it, I reckon we might have,” the other girl said, dropping the girlish giggles and speaking in a normal voice. “There were a few street kids out here getting into a tussle—a couple of bigger ones picking on a little girl. A kid came out of nowhere, I didn’t see if he came from the inn, but maybe. He walked right up to the boys and told them to leave the girl alone.”
Rhis drew her eyebrows down. That didn’t sound much like Asher. “What did they do?”
“Tried to pummel him. He was quick though. I don’t think either of them got their hands on him. The girl ran away while he was talking to them.”
“A regular gentleman,” Rickson said.
It was hard to imagine Asher walking into a fight, but he was quick. “What happened then?” Rhis asked.
“He ran off. He tripped both the other boys somehow, so he had a good head start. Went that way,” the girl said, pointing down the street, toward the harbor.
Rhis turned to Rickson as she started walking. “Let’s go.”
Rickson dug into his pocket and tossed each of the girls a coin. “For your time.”
“Thank you, sailor!” they called as he left.
“What was that for?” Rhis asked as he took a few steps to catch up to her.
“They were helpful. And if you think about it, they charge for their time.”
“Men don’t pay them to talk,” Rhis said.
“Regardless, it seemed like the thing to do,” Rickson said. “That was a nice performance back there. For a second, I almost thought you cared. Do you think they saw your kid? Brave little guy, is he?”
“I don’t know if it was him,” Rhis said. Would Asher have done something like that? “But I don’t see anyone else out here who might have seen him, so for now, this is our best lead.”
Rhis took in every detail as they hurried down the road, looking for any sign of the boy. He could have turned down any one of the numerous side streets, and she paused frequently to peer into the shadowy alleys. She asked the few people they saw along the way if they’d seen the boy, but her questions were all met with a suspicious look and a mumbled “No.”
“I’m not sure this aimless wandering is going to get us anywhere,” Rickson said. “Why don’t we go back to your room? Could be he’ll come back on his own, and we still have the matter of that artifact to discuss.”
Rhis whirled on him. “If I don’t find him, I don’t leave, and you don’t get paid. Is that clear? He goes with me to Altia, or I don’t go at all.”
Rickson held up his hands. “Okay, fair enough. But if he bolted, he could have turned a hundred times, trying to shake off those street kids.”
As if on cue, they heard shouts from around a corner, the sound of young voices over a gruff yell. “Get back here, ya
grubby pissants!”
“If you’re avoiding the City Guard, you might want to stay here,” Rickson said, holding up a hand. He jogged a few steps to the next corner and peeked around while Rhis faded back into the shadows between two buildings.
Rickson disappeared down the next street. Rhis waited, wrinkling her nose against the putrid stench in the alley. She counted her heartbeats, trying to force herself to relax. This was why she worked alone; other people only made things complicated. After this ordeal was over, she’d be happy if she never had to see another child again.
Her hand strayed to a knife beneath her shirt as footsteps approached. She let out a breath as Rickson rounded the corner, and she stepped out of the alley.
“It was the City Guard, all right,” Rickson said, running a hand over his hair and smoothing out his coat. “I saw a couple of street kids running away, but just the two. No sign of your … nephew.”
Rhis touched her fingers to her lips and looked away. How far did Cormant’s contacts reach? He’d alerted someone in Sunhold with enough pull to set the Guard on them, but did he have that kind of sway in Varale? And if he did, would they know to look for Asher? Or could the Guard have simply picked him up for his association with the street kids? Asher was fast and tough to catch; she’d seen that first hand. He might still be on the run, but if that was the case, she had little chance of guessing where he went.
“I need to know if he’s been caught by the Guard,” she said. “Do you know anyone who can find that out?”
“I do, for the right price,” Rickson said.
“Let’s see what we can find. If that doesn’t turn up anything, we go back to the room, in case he returns there. If he can even find it again.”
***
Rickson sauntered down the path along the waterfront, seeming for all the world as if he had nowhere important to be. Checking her impatience, Rhis followed, keeping her face expressionless. As time ticked by, she grew increasingly convinced that she was not going to find the boy. He could have disappeared through the city gates by now, on his way back through the countryside in an ill-fated attempt to find his parents. Or the Guard could have him under lock and key. Whether or not they knew who they had, it would be difficult to get him out. That was all assuming he was still alive. In a place like Varale, that was not a foregone conclusion.