Aethersmith (Book 2)

by J. S. Morin

  * * * * * * * *

  “Yeah, looks like they lost the scent of him,” Jodoul explained. “Kid musta gone through, though, ’cause they had a sure hurry headin’ there in the first place. If’n they’d have gotten nothin’, they’d have come back out the way they gone in.”

  Faolen looked down at the huge table around which the four of them gathered. Upon its surface was Zorren, rendered in miniature by Faolen’s magic. It had started days ago as a crude copy, based on a paper map they had brought with them from Kadrin, but as they learned more of the city, it grew more detailed and more accurate. Many of the houses were still just little boxes with roofs, but the buildings they had studied bore more detail, especially the ones that Faolen had seen personally. The ships in the harbor bore tiny names scrawled upon their sides, keeping track of the comings and goings of Megrenn’s merchant and naval fleets. The beautiful granite structures near the center of the city were the headquarters of the Megrenn High Council, the royal palace, the tournament grounds, and the Hall of Emissaries, where foreign lands housed their diplomats on a semi-permanent basis within Megrenn. Also rendered in greater detail were a number of seemingly random lesser buildings, whose roofs Faolen had turned red, breaking with the otherwise faithful—if incomplete—rendition of the city.

  “High Councilor Fehr would not have stopped there in such haste had a sighting not been reported. I will mark it anyway, just to be safe.” Faolen waved a hand over that portion of the city, and the roof of the Pickled Swine Tavern changed, along with a few details as Tod and Jodoul had described the building to Faolen earlier. There were two glassed and shuttered windows flanking the door, a back entrance to the alley, and a fanciful sign depicting a pig poking its head up out of a barrel.

  Aelon shrugged. “If there’s any melody to this song, I can’t hear it. Lad seems to be running around the city on a lark. Could it be these Megrenn are having it on with us?”

  “No. If they knew of us, I suspect they would have just killed us and been done with it. Chained in the dungeon at the very least. They have nothing to gain from leading us on a merry chase in their capital, with one of their High Councilors keeping out of the war atop it,” Faolen reasoned.

  “Well, figure it like this,” Jodoul began, trying to make himself sound erudite. “The little fella starts at home, see?” Jodoul pointed to the Fehr estate in the northwest of the city, on a hillside with expansive gardens and a view of the Aliani Sea. “Then they find dead horses and a stable boy here.” He pointed again. “A dockworker here.” He pointed to a warehouse near the harbor. “A butcher and his apprentice. A librarian and some old scholar. A fisherman and half his crew. A greengrocer but not his wife or daughter. A pair of city watchmen. A Safschan caravan master and eight of his guards,” Jodoul summarized, giving everyone a knowing look to add to the suspense. “The lad’s lookin’ for food and good places to hide. Think about it: warehouse, stables, library, caravan … all great hidin’ spots. The rest he got somethin’ to eat.”

  Aelon looked to Faolen and rolled his eyes, keeping Jodoul at his back. “I must get up front,” Aelon said. “It’s dawn and who knows, we might see a customer today.” They had rented a storefront to work from, and ostensibly to sell the wares they had brought with them from Kadrin. While names like “The Mysterious Shop of Wonders,” “Things from Kadrin,” and “Exotic Goods” seemed like fine names for attracting business, Faolen had overruled them all. They called their shop “Marod’s Goods” at Faolen’s insistence, as he deemed it about the least likely name he could think of to attract neither unwanted business nor suspicious attention from authorities. They had a crude sign painted up on the short coin, just black paint on a plain wooden plank. The humble and boring facade kept away most; it was Aelon’s job (in the role of the eponymous “Marod”) to dissuade any stalwart shoppers who made it past those safeguards. Aelon spoke pidgin Megrenn, drove hard bargains, and made no attempt to win over any would-be customers.

  Tod and Jodoul lingered as Faolen stared dreamily at the city model. They had no real business to attend to and no good excuse save fatigue for wanting to take their leave. It was not technically a military hierarchy, but since leaving Kadris, Faolen had been very clear about who was in charge. Faolen had not given them any further orders, nor permission to leave.

  “Hungry. Yes,” Faolen said, half to himself. After a long pause, he continued. “But not hiding—at least that is not his first thought. Stables, docks, caravans … He wants to escape the city but has failed each time. And he cannot be hiding in these places for long, since the bodies have been discovered quickly enough. He must have some other place he is taking refuge.”

  “Like where?” Tod asked. “Sounds like he got chased out of some good spots already.”

  “Has anyone considered the sewers?” Faolen asked, cocking his head curiously.

  “Yeah, a bit,” Jodoul replied. “It’d be the kinda place I’d have hidden if I was ten summers and runnin’. But nobody said anything about seein’ dead folks standin’ around down there.”

  “Only three sorts of folk make a habit of walking the sewers,” Faolen observed. “Crews who keep them in working order, thieves, and guards who go down to protect work crews from thieves. I shall need you two to—”

  “No problem, already ahead of you. Me and Tod ain’t makin’ enough coin at the export racket; we want some easy gold. I’ll ask around and see what turns up, if any of them are talkin’ about dead thieves in the sewers.”

  “Very well. I will make my rounds of the brothels,” Faolen replied, straight faced and all business.

  “Hey now! That don’t seem fair,” Tod replied.

  “Jodoul noted that the boy left the grocer’s wife and daughter alive. So far he has only killed men and boys. Brothels are also places known for harboring the sort of women whose maternal instincts may not be entirely fulfilled. They might take pity on a runaway. He might not take it into his head to kill them,” Faolen said with a shrug.

  Jodoul gave Faolen a hard, suspicious look but said nothing. Gut them sorcerers. Can’t win, fightin’ ’em with words.

  * * * * * * * *

  Anzik blew a frustrated sigh that flipped a lock of his filthy hair out of his eyes. Why does everyone try to grab me? Podley seemed so nice that time Mother brought us to see the Delamis. The footman stood smartly aside the door of the Delami family carriage, just the way Anzik had remembered him. He seemed to belong that way, dead or not, so Anzik had put him there after reanimating him. Maybe they will not notice … for a while.

  The carriage house had seemed large enough—and cluttered enough—that he might have hidden there a night or two. If the carriage had been readied to leave, he might have tried sneaking aboard to see where it got him. Alas, it appeared the carriage would be going nowhere; the one who put people in it was dead and Anzik did not intend to stay around to make him carry out his job.

  The back of the carriage house opened onto a narrow road. Anzik poked his head out to make sure no one was around, even though he could see in the aether that there was not. It seemed like the thing heroes in the fairy stories did when hiding, so he thought he ought to as well. He darted across the narrow road to an even smaller one—more a man-width gap than a proper street. It was well that no one watched him go, as the sight of an awkward, scrawny boy trying to “dart” while carrying a staff half again his height might have given cause to laugh. Anzik hated being laughed at.

  With barely a thought, a wrought-iron grating in the ground rose up, revealing an iron-runged ladder. Tucking the Staff of Gehlen under one arm, Anzik climbed down into the sewers.

  The grate settled itself back down with a faint grating of metal on stone.

  * * * * * * * *

  Jinzan sat in the foyer of his home, slouched across the arms of a velvet-upholstered chair. He looked haggard and scruffy. Unshaved stubble threatened to turn into a proper beard if left wild much longer. His eyes were red-rimmed from lack of sleep. A stink of sweat and ma
nure wafted off him from days spent chasing reports of his son in stables, alleys, and warehouses. He had slept little, interrupted by new reports every few hours throughout the day, at his request.

  Why did you have to choose now to show signs of competence?

  Anzik had always been bookish, if he was indeed much of anything. He was often willfully ignorant of his surroundings, but had an enviable amount of focus. He acted however he wished much of the time, not out of unruliness, but rather obliviousness to the requests the world made of him.

  All about Jinzan were Megrenn agents of import, all as haggard as he. They had run themselves to exhaustion chasing the elusive Fehr child. Normally a runaway would be no match for the forces the High Council could bring to bear, but few young boys possessed such innate gifts with aether as Anzik, nor did they carry a staff meant to swing the pendulum of power between the Megrenn Alliance and the Kadrin Empire. The boy was simply proving himself to be too clever to be trapped, and too well armed to be confronted.

  If I send more men after him, Anzik will be found but Anzik will kill them. If I wait for him to return, the war will not be so kind as to wait for me. I began it. I must fight it. I also cannot allow the boy free rein to kill at will in the alleys and stables of Zorren while I wage war.

  Jinzan closed his eyes and rested his forehead in the palm of his hand. I must find a way inside that twisted little mind of Anzik’s and find a way to bring him home.

  Jinzan was glad to have shielded his eyes with his gesture, as tears began to well in their corners. “Leave me some respite. I must think,” he managed to order without his voice breaking. He heard the shuffling of feet and mutters of obeisance as his subordinates left him to his solitude. Silently, he began to weep.

  … but I do not know my own son well enough.

  * * * * * * * *

  Small splashes played around two pairs of boots, echoing in the dim light of the Zorren sewers. The conduit was arched and only man-height at the center, where a channel was cut down the middle to carry a flow of water. Small walkways ran along the sides, but due to the curvature of the masonry, a full-grown man could not walk upright along the sides.

  “Cleanest sewer I ever saw,” Tod commented. “Ain’t even no rat dung or stains.”

  “Folk don’t live hereabouts is why,” Jodoul replied. “I’m sure’n it’s an arse-brown mess in the districts. This all is just runoff from the rains and such. Prob’ly be dry in a couple-few days if’n there ain’t another rain. I’ll be hunkerin’ over on the sides if’n we get to some such as that.”

  “Aww, you gone soft on me? I mucked Naran Port’s sewers durin’ a Founding Day festival once—twice the folk in the city as ya see most days. The water was like pudding and—”

  “Yeah, yeah, stuff it. I don’t need to hear nothin’ ’bout what we’re lucky we ain’t stompin’ about in,” Jodoul said.

  He held up a hand suddenly and both men stopped. There was banter aplenty during a long, boring assignment, but both had the good sense to go silent when either got the slightest hint of trouble. The light that came down from the occasional grating to the streets above was just enough to see such gestures by.

  “I hear someone up ahead,” Jodoul whispered, leaning close to Tod’s ear. Tod nodded. They heard, faintly but growing steadily louder, a rhythmic clacking. It sounded like wood against stone.

  No bodies had been found, but Tod and Jodoul had found that the sneaks and drifters of Zorren had become wary of the sewers of late. The trail of bodies around the city had spooked them and more good sense than real information had given them cause to suspect the tunnels below the city. They assumed anyone who had evaded detection for so long must have been making some use of them. The clacking sound was both promising and ominous.

  “We should run,” Tod said softly, taking Jodoul by the arm. “That kid’s a killer. Let’s get to Faolen, make it his problem.” Tod gave a tug, but Jodoul resisted, shrugging free of Tod’s half-hearted grasp.

  “Naw, kids ain’t no killers, even if’n they kill. This one’s a runaway. Ain’t you never run away when you was a lad?” Jodoul replied, a plan slowly coming together in his mind.

  “Yeah, but I never had me one o’ them kill-staffs, neither. Might’a settled some scores right quick if’n I had.”

  “Runaways need friends,” Jodoul reasoned, staring down into the darkness of the passageway where the clacking sound was growing clearer.

  “Live friends is good,” Tod replied. “You make a friend. I’ll be off and get Faolen. Best o’ luck, Jo.” Tod made a careful motion to extract his feet quietly from the water, then darted softly down the walkway, crouched at the waist.

  Jodoul swore under his breath but held his ground. He was a gambler. He was also a coward. There were times, though, when a pot is so large that even a coward’s eyes become clouded. If’n I get that staff back for Warlock Rashan, I’ll be rich as I want to be. I’ll have whatever I ask, I know it.

  “Hey boy!” Jodoul shouted in a whisper when he began to hear soft footsteps of leather shoes mixed in with the tapping of wood against the walls of the sewer. “You need some help?”

  “Who are you?” the voice was high-pitched, as Jodoul would have expected of a lad too young to shave. It was not a fearful voice but a curious one. It made no pretense of avoiding the notice of those who might have heard through the sewer gratings.

  “A friend. My name is Jo,” Jodoul replied, not raising his voice but ceasing to whisper.

  As the boy continued to approach, he passed beneath one of the gratings, where Jodoul got a good look at him. He was a ragged, dirty thing, dressed in ruined finery. A skinny lad at his best, he looked hungry atop it. He was short enough to walk the sides of the sewers comfortably, but the staff he carried was too tall to hold upright. He had allowed it to bang carelessly against the wall in time with his gait.

  “My name is Anzik. You do not work for my father, do you?” Anzik asked. The question sounded innocent the way he asked it, but Jodoul suspected that being a known associate of Jinzan Fehr right then might be an invitation to a restless death.

  “Naw. I’m not from around here. I ran away too, like you,” Jodoul responded. Tod might have been the better of the two of them at confidence schemes, but Jodoul had run away more times than he could count when he was a boy.

  The boy looked at him strangely, cocking his head to one side. He had stopped approaching. “You do not want to catch me, take me back to my father?” he asked.

  “’Course not. What you need is a place where you—” Jodoul began, but stopped when the boy suddenly dropped the staff with a clatter and clutched the sides of his head.

  “Not now! Stop it! Be quiet!” Anzik shouted, squeezing his eyes shut and shaking his head. He covered his ears.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t—” Jodoul babbled, thinking Anzik’s commands were meant for him.

  “I don’t want a bath! Leave my shirt alone!” the boy ranted.

  “I won’t make you take a bath. I swear,” Jodoul promised, his heart racing. He looked to the staff on the ground and wondered if he stood a chance to get to it before the boy could recover his senses and retrieve it.

  “Not you! The voices.” Anzik looked up at Jodoul from his hands and knees.

  The boy’s mad as monkeys! No wonder no one’s caught him yet. Prob’ly been killin’ voices in his head and catching up real folk instead. Aww, arse me, Tod had the right of it, runnin’ like a little maid.

  Anzik picked up the staff and stood, not bothering to brush the grime from his pants or hands. “What kind of place do you know?” Anzik picked up their conversation where he had interrupted Jodoul.

  Jodoul’s thoughts spun circles. Maybe I can wait for another fit to come on him and run for it. Maybe if I just run now, he won’t do nothin’ to me. Maybe I can still reason with him despite those voices … he … hears.

  “Hey there, Anzik,” Jodoul ventured. “I think I know someone who could help with those voices you hear. A
smart fella who won’t give you to your pa.”

  * * * * * * * *

  Faolen’s daytime tour of Zorren’s brothels had been enlightening, but not in any way that would help with the search for the lost Fehr boy or the Staff of Gehlen. The night ladies were as frightened of the lad as anyone in the city, and none admitted to having seen him, even when asked by one who appeared in the guise of a Megrenn officer, as Faolen had. He had learned, however, that he was unlikely to spend any coin at the establishments he had visited. He remembered the women he had seen … and shuddered.

  It was near to dusk when he arrived back at Marod’s Goods, having taken a small meal at a street vendor. The streets had been growing quieter the past several days, Faolen had noted. The monstrous child on the loose had scared the common folk enough that many had locked themselves indoors at night, and kept clustered in groups in the daylight. No one had yet been killed openly in public, but that did not comfort those who needed to travel to and fro along lightly traveled streets.

  Faolen paused before entering their shop-front hideout. As his eyes adjusted to the aether, he scanned the inside of the building to see who was within. He carefully navigated one of the alleys aside the building to look into the back room, as his vision was not strong enough to view the whole of the interior from out front.

  Just Aelon and Tod, by the look of it. I hope nothing has befallen Jodoul.

  “Welcome back,” Aelon greeted him at the door as he entered. “Go and talk to Tod. He has news for you, and has been plucking his head bald waiting for you to return.”

  Faolen misliked the way that sounded. Aelon was nervous, but he preferred to hear whatever news from Tod directly. Aelon followed him into the back room.

  He entered the back room cautiously, and was ambushed by Tod. “We found ’im! He was in the sewers. Jo and I went down, see, and we heard him. Then I says ‘We should go tell Faolen,’ and Jo says ‘Naw, I got an idea,’ and I says ‘Best o’ luck, I’m fer gettin’ to Faolen,’ and so’s I did.”