“So you know nothing about the two dozen people said to have attacked them in an alley when they had you cornered? Several died as a result of the confrontation.”
Two dozen? She suppressed a laugh. I guess they didn’t want to admit that only two foreigners defeated them. “I know nothing about two dozen men.” She held his gaze, daring not to look away in case he might suspect her careful phrasing.
“The money?”
“With me.”
“Pass it under the table. Carefully and without drawing notice.”
Lela reached into her robes with one hand, pretending to scratch at her chest. She withdrew the tightly packed merchant’s pouch that also held the contents of the banker’s purse. She passed it to Chand.
He slipped it inside his clothes. “Heavy. A good haul.”
Lela beamed with pride.
“But not what I told you to do.”
She frowned.
“Your test was not about stealing money. It was about following directions and doing so unnoticed. You did neither and now people on the Gold Road will be looking for a young girl in dirty clothes that fits your description. You won’t be able to work the area for months without being noticed.”
“I can change my appearance.”
“You still aren’t listening, Little One. I thought you were ready to meet Beladeva and become part of our organization, but it appears you still have much to learn. Leave me to finish my coffee in peace.”
She stood slowly, trying to hide both her disappointment and anger. This was not how she thought the meeting would go. She paused.
Chand took another sip and held the cup near his mouth. “Why are you still here?”
“I . . . I was waiting for my portion.”
“You think you deserve to be paid for not doing the job you were tasked to do? His mouth thinned. “Go now, before my patience with you wanes.”
She had seen that look before and needed no other warning.
She left quickly.
* * *
Lela shuffled down the street, hunched over, looking hungry and pathetic. Any other behavior would have struck suspicion among the poor lining the road in the Low District. The act wasn’t too difficult considering she had only eaten once in the last day.
Part of the act included crossing her skinny arms over her stomach, pretending that if she pushed hard enough her hunger pains might lessen. In truth, her arms concealed a small piece of bread hidden under her tattered clothes. She bought the bread with a chip of copper stolen from the banker’s purse before her meeting with Chand. Under normal circumstances, she’d never consider gleaning money before giving it to her boss. However, she knew none would expect the banker to carry such a small denomination of currency. For a brief moment she had considered taken a larger denomination of money, but spending such coin would have drawn far too much attention to her.
And how would I explain that to Chand?
She cursed Chand silently. The chip was supposed to be something extra, something I could have saved to get ahead, not the full amount of my take.
She ignored a curious stare from a grimy old man who sat beside the doorway to her building, mumbling to himself. He sat in a pool of urine and smelled like he had soiled himself recently. She stepped past him quickly.
Once inside, Lela darted up rickety steps. Even with her slight weight, the wood moaned, and popped. At the third floor, Lela left the stairs, and went down the hall to her door. A thin line of light shone between the frame and the door beside the handle.
Not even latched. She set her jaw and pushed her way inside.
As expected, Kunal rested at the back wall of the single room, near the lone window. His chin sat on his chest, and his eyes danced in their sockets as he looked her way. His lips moved, but no sound came out.
She shook her head and closed the door, barricading it with a large rock she had rolled upstairs weeks ago in response to a murder across the hall. She doubted it would stop many intruders, but the gesture gave her greater peace of mind.
She turned and quickly took in the rest of the mostly empty space. A chamber pot spilled over in one corner and a few pieces of moldy cloth they slept on lay balled in another corner.
And we’re considered lucky because we’ve at least got a roof.
She padded over to Kunal, torn between rage and despair. “It had only been two days,” she whispered to him. “The worst of it was almost over.”
She knew from past withdrawals that the symptoms had been too much for him to bear.
How did you even pay for the drugs? We have no money and you don’t work.
As she neared, she realized Kunal did not wear his dhoti. He covered his lower body with one of the dirty sheets from the corner. Her hand went to her mouth. She was young, but not naïve. “Oh, Uncle,” she whispered.
Even inebriated, Kunal had the awareness to look away, cheeks flushed. Selling himself for money was a low he swore he would never sink to.
Something he once judged others for.
She knelt beside him. “Promise me you won’t do this again.” A small whine passed through his lips. “Promise me, Uncle. I’d rather pay for the vile drug myself than know you were doing this.”
Tears ran down his face. A wet sob passed through his lips. He nodded.
Lela fought back tears herself. She kissed his forehead and carefully laid him on his back, covering him more fully with the sheet. “Things will get better soon. I have a job now and it won’t be long before I’m making good money. Then we can move into a nicer home, and I can pay for a doctor to help you get cleaned up.”
He mumbled something indecipherable.
“Rest. I have some bread for you when you’re up to eating.”
Kunal closed his eyes. After a moment Lela crawled up beside him, placing her head on his chest and his arm around her shoulder for warmth.
As with most nights, sleep did not come easy.
CHAPTER 2
Every day, Andrasta paused in the same spot during their approach to the tower. Said to be millennia old, the stone on the tower’s face looked as new as if the carvings of the tens of thousands of animals, symbols, and long dead languages had been etched yesterday.
According to Rondel, sorcery protected it from both the elements and time.
Thalamanak, a great sorcerer, the great sorcerer, had erected the tower during the Sorcerer Wars as a way to flaunt his power. It was during an age when powerful figures created fabulous creatures to use as weapons against their enemies. Dragons, unicorns, gryphons, manticores, and many more died to the last in those battles, living on only in tales and carvings like those adorning the tower’s exterior.
Most tourists congregated around those images, forsaking the more common likenesses of elephants, pythons, and tigers. Admittedly, Andrasta had done the same on the first day when she could still study the pieces without drawing too much attention to herself. She had realized by the end of that first day that the true skill and beauty in the work resided in what could only be seen up close. Every inch of the stone bore some carving or design so that every symbol or glyph was a small part of a larger image.
It’s even more magnificent than I imagined. And it mocks me. Every day it mocks me. After all this time I’m finally here, and yet the jewel seems more difficult to reach than ever. Beauty or not I’d just as soon tear it down stone by stone to reach the jewel.
“Will you stop staring,” hissed Rondel.
Andrasta blinked at her partner. Rondel had cobbled together a mismatch of attire, part local, part foreign in order to make it seem as though the two had been in the region for a greater length of time. The clothes were old, and white stained pale yellow from sweat and grime. He stood hunched, using a walking cane crafted from a discarded piece of wood salvaged near an old furniture shop. The yellowish brown color had appealed to him, saying it went well with his outfit.
Andrasta had joked that he just wanted something to wave around.
“Am
I not supposed to stare at things?” she asked, referencing the persona she was told to adopt.
“It’s one thing to stare off with a blank look, or that of a child seeing something spectacular for the first time. That’s the type of look you’re supposed to have. Examining something with keen interest and introspection, which is what you were doing, is a different story. Your character should never be introspective.”
“Why do I have to play the idiot?” she grumbled.
“Because in situations like the one we’re in now, it’s best if your true personality has little opportunity to shine. We’re not trying to kill anyone just yet. Now hush. Anyone watching might notice you’ve just said more words to me now than you have in the last week.”
She bit her lip—one, in an effort to get into character, and two, to prevent herself from saying what was really on her mind. Rondel grabbed her hand and walked a step ahead, leading her like a child.
As they neared the entrance to the first floor of the tower where they would receive the day’s assignments, Rondel yanked her arm down and whispered. “Quit looking so intimidating. Roll your shoulders forward. And smile. You’re supposed to have the mind of an adolescent.”
“I need something to smile about. I can’t just put on a fake smile like you. It doesn’t come easily,” she hissed back, frustrated by their whole charade.
Two weeks of this.
“If you can’t smile, then drool. I’ve watched you sleep enough to know that comes easily.”
Andrasta squeezed Rondel’s hand until he yelped. He gave her a dirty look which she returned with a grin.
Now I have something to smile about.
* * *
Rondel picked up the bones of a small, half-eaten carp. It was the third dried skeleton in the last hour. Scraps of wood, soiled clothing, and rotten vegetables weighed down the sack he dragged.
Garbage collector was far from the top of his most humbling experiences, but that didn’t mean he liked what he was doing.
A means to an end, Rondel. Just like practicing that stupid flute.
Rondel never cared for the flute, but according to his research, the particular instrument they stole from Erba was key to getting through at least one of the tower’s dangerous obstacles. Though he had worked out the basics of the flute over the last few weeks, the lack of fingertips on his left hand hampered his ability to consistently close several of the instrument’s air holes. Part of his practice consisted of him searching for a solution to that problem.
A means to an end.
He repeated the mantra to himself almost as often as he said it aloud to Andrasta. His partner berated him daily for being no closer to obtaining the jewel than when they entered the city. She had never shown tremendous patience before, but of late her anxiety had risen to levels that bordered on obsession.
What do you expect? This has always meant so much to her. And I promised I’d help her get it.
A young couple walked toward Rondel while sharing a thin paper bowl of gulab jumun. The small dough balls were fried, dipped in syrup, flavored with green cardamom. Rondel tried to ignore the sweet smell, smiling at the couple as they passed. Neither acknowledged him at first. Then the man wadded the empty container and tossed it purposefully in his direction, smacking Rondel square in the chest. The man smirked.
Rondel’s hand slid to the short sword hidden under his clothes. He caught himself and scratched his side instead. After a deep breath, he picked up the trash and tossed it in his sack.
A means to an end.
Rondel hefted his sack off the ground.
The lone solution he had for avoiding the notice of patrolling guards while trying to study the lower level of the tower was to find work nearby.
And the only work available was the work few wanted. He sighed, frustrated at the difficulty in pulling shifts inside the tower’s entrance where the tours were held.
“Rickar!” a voice shouted.
Rondel recognized the baritone of his boss before his mind registered the false name he had chosen. Andrasta had thought the fake names were unnecessary until news of their recent adventures in Erba and Iget followed them east.
He cast aside somber memories brought on by their Erban adventures and bowed in the direction of the thin man storming toward him. “Yes, sir. What can I do for you?”
“You need to go talk to your sister,” the man said through gritted teeth, arms folded over his chest.
“Half-sister,” he corrected.
“Whatever. You look and act nothing alike. Your accent is even different than hers. I don’t know what your relationship with her is, but it’s obvious you two are not related.”
“Not true. The difference in our accents has to do with her state of mind. Even in our native tongue, she doesn’t speak clearly. And as for our differences in appearance, well, we just carry more attributes from the blood we don’t share.”
“You’re old enough to be her father.”
Rondel shrugged. “Our father never let age slow him down.”
The man frowned, obviously not believing a single word.
I don’t need him to believe everything, just enough not to bother pursuing the truth.
“Regardless,” the man continued. “She’s refusing to clean the privies again.”
Rondel didn’t bother hiding his frustration. “My apologies. I’ll take care of it.”
“Things had better change. I hired you because I felt sorry for the both of you. If you can’t handle the work, I’ll find someone else.”
Yes, I’m sure you hired us out of pity. It had nothing to do with the fact you don’t have to pay us the minimum wage due a citizen because we’re foreigners.
Rondel bowed lower. “Again, my apologies. I’ll see the privies are cleaned right away.”
Rondel found Andrasta near the entrance to wide, wooden stairs that led up to what amounted to the first public privy he had ever seen or heard of. In order to keep people and their coin in the tower area longer, someone created closed-in structures two stories off the ground. Inside the structures sat rows of privies, sectioned off for men and women. Chutes carried the waste under ground and into the city’s sewers. Rondel thought the entire thing genius, especially since the designer of the structure had enough foresight to build it high off the ground so odors would take to the wind rather than linger around the food sold below.
Andrasta scowled at his approach.
“Why do you keep doing this?” he asked.
“A good question. I am a warrior, trained by the greatest master in the world. And you were considered one of the greatest minstrels in all of Untan.”
Rondel cleared his throat. “The greatest.”
“Whatever. We’ve seen and done more in the last year than most people could even dream of. Yet, we’re picking up trash and cleaning up after people who’ve had too much spicy food to eat and can’t properly aim. I have a better question. Why do we keep doing this?”
“We’ve been over it.”
“Remind me again.”
“As I told you, my notes can get us inside the tower, but not without first spending time studying the entrance. And that’s hard to do with all the guards out and about. We need to study the glyphs more so when we do decide to break in we can hopefully just walk right up and open the doors. The last thing we want to do is get arrested before we make it inside.”
“And how is all this studying going again?”
Not as well as I would like. “Slower than I had hoped.”
“Slower than you promised. A few days. A week at worst is what you told me before.”
“That’s before we even got to Bashan. I told you none of this stuff was here before. I thought we’d be able to sneak past the guards at the wall several nights in a row and take our time studying the place. I didn’t think we’d have hordes of people up our backs night and day.”
“How long did you spend studying the markings yesterday?”
“Not long because—”<
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“And this morning?”
Rondel signed. “A few minutes before our sections were handed out.”
“At the rate we’re going, it will take another year just to get what we need. I can’t have that.” She spat at a passerby who quickly shuffled away. “This is a waste of time.”
“Really?” He shifted his tone. “Then please tell me a better way to accomplish what we need to do. Oh, that’s right, you don’t have a better way. You just complain and get angry. So, until you come up with something else, don’t screw up our cover.”
She scowled, scar puckering. “Fine.”
He sighed and gestured to the stairs that led to the privy, voice softening. “C’mon. I’ll help. Let’s get this over with.”
* * *
Despite the steaming lamb and rice Andrasta carried, the smell of the privies would not leave her nose. Walking down the old, dusty hallway of their bug infested inn, even the odor of rodent feces, mildew, and vomit could not stamp out the foul stench of her earlier work.
“Of all the jobs for Rondel to pick as a cover,” she muttered.
She climbed the stairs to their small apartment in the Low District three at a time, eager to eat after another long day. She hoped a full stomach might change her sour disposition.
The sound of a flute tickled her ears as she reached the second floor.
Good. He’s practicing again.
She reached the end of the hallway and opened the door. The music stopped. Rondel sat with his back against the wall nearest the window. Sheets of parchment and paper lay strewn out on the floor before him. His cheeks seemed to redden as he quickly set the instrument down, tightening his damaged hand into a fist.
“Why’d you stop?” she asked, while closing the door.
“I was done for now,” he answered quickly.
She noticed the lie, but decided not to push. She had before and knew his confidence suffered because of his injured hand and an apparent hatred of the flute altogether.
She sat down on the floor beside him and handed him his food.
“You’re getting better,” she said as they began to eat the spicy food. Unlike Rondel’s, her comment was not a lie. It amazed her how quickly he had improved over the last few weeks especially. She offered the compliment in hopes of making up for her attitude at the tower.
The Tower of Bashan Page 4