Krunzle turned away. Raimeau, he was surprised to find, had remained with him. "Now what?" the gray-haired man said.
The thief pointed to the unbarred window of Room Thirteen. "Give me a boost," he said.
Chapter Six
Thief Meets Maiden
Krunzle's first impression was of three dark circles arranged in a downward-pointing isosceles triangle: the two upper circles were Gyllana's eyes; the lower her open mouth, which was emitting a continuous low moan, the end of a long scream that was running out of air. The triangle motif was repeated below her chin as well, since she was stark naked.
The thief, standing in the space where the barred window used to be, looked around the room. As Mordach had said, there was no sign of a former Mercenary League officer, unless the seducer Berbackian had left his paramour to fend for herself and taken shelter under the unmade bed, from which the young woman had leapt upon hearing the commotion outside.
"Where is he?" he said. Gyllana continued her moan, then broke off to take a breath—Krunzle assumed to begin anew from the top. He stepped forward and interrupted the cycle by seizing her shoulders and shaking her vigorously until she said, "Wait, stop!"
The traveler did not release her. "Where is Wolsh Berbackian?" he said.
The fear had not left her eyes, but he saw it joined now by calculation. "What do you know of Berbackian?" she said.
"All I need to. I have been sent to bring you home, and to deliver justice to Berbackian wherever I find him."
She looked him over. For a naked damsel who had moments before been screaming in terror, she recovered with admirable speed, Krunzle thought.
"My father sent you?" she said.
"He did." Krunzle saw no reason to go into details of motivation. He stooped to look under the bed, saw no Berbackian, and decided that was a sufficient search. "Get dressed, and we will go."
Her eyes went past him. "There is a troll—"
"He is busy roasting Boss Ulm for lunch."
"That may not occupy him long," she said, "and I have heard that the creatures have formidable appetites."
"Don't worry about Skanderbrog. He and I have an understanding." She looked at him curiously. The traveler felt himself being weighed up, and recognized that the young woman was cut from the same timber as her father. "Do not," he said, "think that you can manage me for your own interests. Be assured that I will always be one too many for you. Now, where are your clothes? I wish to return you to your father forthwith."
"Stop staring at my bosom and my... elsewhere," she said, striving for the tone with which she no doubt addressed the servitors in her father's house. "My clothes are in another room. Ulm's bravos took me out of bed just as I was and threw me in here. The door is sealed by an incantation."
"Mordach's?" Krunzle said.
"Does it matter whose?" she said. "Are you a more powerful mage? If so, you disguise it well." Two red spots had appeared on her cheeks. "Will you stop staring at me?"
Krunzle redirected his gaze, at the same time crossing to the door. He turned its knob and pulled it open. The hallway beyond was empty. "Which room?" he said, and when she told him he went there and came back with the woman's clothing he found piled on a chair. He threw them to her.
"Turn your back while I dress," she said.
He didn't like the look in her eye. "And have you brain me with a chamber pot? Pfah! If you don't wish me to see your bubs and underthatch, cover them. And wear stout shoes; I mean to travel quickly."
She pulled a shift over head then reached for a pair of knit stockings and sat on the bed to pull them on. "Think again," she said. "We are not going back to Kerse."
"I would prefer your cooperation," said the thief, "but I am prepared to apply coercion."
"We are not going back," she said, shimmying into the garment known as a chlamys with which Kersite women of means clothed their upper bodies, "because I don't want to, and—"
"Your wishes do not interest me. I am—"
"And," she repeated, "because you'd only be sent back again."
Krunzle had been about to press on with his statement of intent, but the calm assurance with which she voiced her last words compelled his attention. "Why?" he said.
She had stood up and was stepping into a long, pleated skirt of sturdy cloth. She tugged it straight around her waist and buckled its sewn-in belt, then gave him a mocking smile. "You don't really believe that Ippolite Eponion, Second Secretary to the First Commissariote, has gone to the trouble of sending a trace-sniffer all this way to find me, out of a fatherly concern for my virtue?"
Krunzle listened to the tone of her voice. If she was lying, she was very good at it. "Don't I?" he said. "Why not?"
She had sat again to put on her boots, and regarded him from beneath raised and precisely plucked eyebrows as her fingers skillfully did up the row of little buttons. "He wants me back," she said, passing on to the other boot, "so that I will marry the man he has picked out for me."
"And you don't care for the fellow?"
"The circumstances are no concern of yours." She stood up and studied herself in the mirror over the dresser, and seemed to find the image acceptable. "What my father cares about is his reputation. Berbackian has got the better of him, by taking something that should have been under his control. He will not be satisfied until Wolsh is dead. Nor, for that matter, will I."
Chirk placed a thought in Krunzle's mind. The thief said, "There was also mention of an object purloined by Wolsh Berbackian, an old talisman. I am to recover it also."
She smiled the same thin smile that he had seen on her father's face. It was no more appetizing on hers. "He took it with him."
"And where is he?"
"I haven't seen him," she said, "since before two of Boss Ulm's big mutton-thumpers came and took me out of our room and put me in this one." She chewed on her inner lip a moment, thinking, then said, "Berbackian said he had to go consult with a man who knew something about the ..."—here she fluttered a hand to pass over the undisclosed item whose return her father desired—"and that he'd be back directly. But Ulm's plug-uglies said that I had been sold to their employer, and that I would either be held for ransom or auctioned off to the highest bidder."
"Who was the man?" The way she looked at him told Krunzle that she was weighing up whether or not it was in her interest to tell him. "You are not going anywhere without me," he said. "But if I believe I can trust you, you will at least travel without your hands bound behind you and a lead rope around your neck."
Her eyes flashed, but she quickly regained control. "What if I stumbled? How would I catch myself?"
"Exactly," he said. "You would be too busy avoiding a misstep to plot an escape, one that perhaps would involve inflicting painful injuries upon your escort." She scowled but he showed her an implacable mien. "Now," he said, "whom did Berbackian go to see?"
"It was Mordach."
"Ah," said Krunzle.
"You know him?"
"I did. He will not be able to aid us."
"Why not?"
Krunzle gestured through the hole where the window used to be and the gaps Skanderbrog had made in the outer and inner walls of Boss Ulm's saloon. Through the smoke they could see the young troll, hunkered down against the still-standing far wall and chewing on the charred torso of his former captor.
"The troll overcame the wizard?" she said, disbelief in her voice.
"The creature had," the thief said, "some timely assistance."
A light dawned for Gyllana. "Hence," she said, "your understanding." Krunzle made a gesture of confirmation. "You are not," she said, looking him over again, "as witless as you appear."
The traveler resisted the urge to offer a cutting rejoinder. "Tell me this," he said, "do you think that Berbackian was primarily interested in your ...shall we say, feminine attributes? Or was his attention more on the unnamed item that so moves your father, and that has not been seen since your lover abandoned you to the mercies of Boss Ulm?"
>
She bridled at the implication, but the rancor was brief. The thief realized that the young woman was capable of a dry-eyed, even cold-blooded, assessment of her situation. "That," she said, "is a question I will put to Berbackian at the earliest opportunity."
Krunzle turned again to watch Skanderbrog devouring the former despot of Ulm's Delve and saw that the troll was chewing through the large muscle on one of Ulm's seared thighs. "We should leave now," he said. "I propose that we go together to Mordach's house and see what we can discover of your romantical Blackjacket—not to mention certain goods of mine that I last saw there."
"Agreed," she said. They went out through the hotel and onto the main street, now deserted. At the sound of their bootheels striking the boardwalk, Raimeau came out of the alley. Krunzle was surprised that the gray-haired young man had waited for them, with a troll in the vicinity.
They turned in the direction of the wizard's house, which meant they had to pass the half-wrecked building in which Skanderbrog squatted, gnawing the last bits of meat from Ulm's yellowy femur. He looked up as the trio went by and Krunzle offered him a parting wave. Skanderbrog returned him a nod and a long look that appeared again unusually thoughtful for a troll.
∗ ∗ ∗
What do you think? Krunzle asked Chirk when they stood outside Mordach's locked door. He received an answer, not in words, but in an understanding that Mordach had not bothered with wards and barriers but had employed only alarms that would have summoned him to the scene. Krunzle gathered that the wizard had enjoyed dealing with intruders personally. Thus a thief's skills were all that were required to gain entrance. Huh, Krunzle thought back, not a lot to say now? Why did I not hear anything from you when I was having that revealing discussion with the woman I was supposed to rescue?
To this, he did not receive any answer at all, and it was his own thought processes—well honed on the deviousness of humankind—that cut swiftly to the correct conclusion: You knew it all the time! You knew there was more to it than a simple bring-back-my-daughter! He thought again. Thang-Sha! he said to the snake. He was the one who put you on my neck, and it was he who was most interested in the talisman!
Again, Chirk kept its own counsel. Krunzle's mood turned darker. It was bad enough to be captured and set to unwonted effort, not to mention having his life and limbs—to all of which he was deeply attached—put at risk. But to be treated as one unworthy to be told the true nature of the game! To be made what the sham-shifters of the rogues' guild at Elidir called a nonregard, a can-carrier, a gullibloon, a galumph! That was off the board! That was a dire insult to his rank and stature! It made an already bad situation worse, and worst of all was to have to swallow the sharp-edged fact that he had not seen it first!
He swore, a chain of bitter words emitted through clenched teeth.
"What's the matter?" said the woman. "Can you not gain entrance?" She studied the wizard's door. "It looks sturdy enough, but unless I misjudge your character, you have encountered more—"
Krunzle spun on one heel, the other lashing out to connect with the portal just above the lock. Wood splintered with a loud crack! and the door swung inward. He stepped within. First things first, he said to himself, and spent a moment mastering his anger. Then to the others he said, "Wait here. Mordach's spells will have faded, but if he kept a ravenous basilisk to greet uninvited guests, it will still act according to its nature."
To Chirk, he thought, The boots and sword are here somewhere. He did not have to think further before he heard a sound of breakage from the floor above, then the weapon and its scabbard came sailing smoothly down the spiral staircase, trailing gold wires that dissolved into air as the sword pressed its hilt into his hand like a faithful hound offering its head for a pat. The boots came behind, descending the stairs as lightly as if they were on a dancer's feet. They stopped before the thief, turned about, and stood as if awaiting his pleasure. He quickly shook off Chenax's shoes and slid his feet into the familiar old buskins.
He turned back to the others and saw that Raimeau's eyes had widened, while the young woman had taken events in stride. She looked about her with faint interest. Krunzle said, "Do not be fooled by appearances. This place may still offer danger. I will search the downstairs for any risks, then lead the way upstairs. Wait."
They did. He was soon back, having found no basilisks lurking in the house's kitchen and pantry. "Upstairs. I will go first." He received no arguments, Raimeau swallowing audibly before nodding; Gyllana shrugging with her finely arched brows. To Chirk he thought, If there's anything you can tell me that will help, now would be a good time. He received no answers from that source either, but did experience a sense that nothing threatening waited above. Not even Berbackian? he thought. The snake sent him in response two successive pictures: first both rooms upstairs, one after another, both empty; then the second-story chamber alone, with something glowing on the wall.
Krunzle went up the stairs, the sword extended before him, just in case there was something else the entity coiled around his neck was not telling him. He found the second floor untenanted, except by the thing in the cage; again, it hissed at him from its corner, but this time the sound was mournful.
The workbench was littered as before—Mordach had not been a tidy spellcaster—but added to the clutter now was a heavy tome, its pages of yellowed parchment bound in black leather that was cracked from age. It lay splayed open to a page of handwritten text in a cursive script Krunzle did not recognize. He paid it no heed, but saw that his wallet and his hat with its useful panache were on the floor beneath the bench. He was surprised to find the wallet not quite empty—Mordach had left its mundane contents undisturbed. He tucked it away in his shirt. The gem in his hatpiece should have been glowing, given all the magic-infused material in the house. But it was inert, dead, probably drained of its power by the wizard. Still, the feel of his hat once more on his head gave Krunzle a curious satisfaction—he and the battered object had been through much—and he turned with interest to locate the item that Chirk had caused to glow in his mind's eye.
But the snake called him back to the bench and the book that lay open there. Read it, said the voice in his head.
I cannot, said the thief.
Just cast your eyes over it, starting at the top right and going left, then right at the next line, and so on. Krunzle did so, marking his progress with a fingertip underlining the text until he had made his way down the page all the way to the bottom. Chirk then had him continue overleaf, and he scanned a few more lines of the undulating script. Below the text was a line drawing in black ink of what looked to be a conically shaped mountain. A segment of the mountain had been cut away to reveal a many-sided object nestled within its base. More of the sinuous writing accompanied the illustration. Krunzle moved his eyes over it, as ordered, and experienced an echo of emotion from the place where his keeper's consciousness intersected his own.
This has meaning to you? he asked the snake after a while.
Yes.
And what is the meaning?
I don't know yet.
Is there anything else we should be doing here? As he spoke he turned to the spot on the wall that Chirk had made glow in the mental image downstairs, and recognized the oval of dull glass framed in polished wood that he had glimpsed in passing on his first visit. Now he approached it and saw that into the wood frame was carved a frieze of intertwined characters and symbols. Krunzle knew some of the figures, and knew also what the object was.
An isinglass, he thought. A scryer's tool.
Indeed, came Chirk's reply. Now do this—in his mind Krunzle saw an image of his own left hand reaching out to place two fingers on two of the symbols—then this—now his right hand touched three characters, one after the other, on the opposite side of the frame.
He did as bid, and immediately a scene formed in the glass, the last subject the isinglass had been charged with locating. He saw a strongly built man in doublet, cape, britches, and knee-boots, all of a
dark hue, riding a powerful black horse along a twisting trail. Ahead, the land rose into hills. Beyond, the terrain climbed higher, into snow-capped mountains.
Gyllana had come to stand behind him. He was conscious of her scent: cloves and some attar of lush blossoms. She breathed a word in his ear: "Wolsh!" Then another, a very strong word that reflected poorly on the Blackjacket's character—and some would have said on her own, since it was not the kind of word that Kersite ladies of good family were expected even to know, and certainly not to utter in mixed company.
"He's run off and left you," said Krunzle.
"He'll wish he hadn't."
"What has he stolen?"
She regarded him archly. "My father did not tell you?"
"He may have mentioned it," said the thief, "but at the time my mind was on matters of more consequence."
"Hah!" she said, and "Ho!"
"You disbelieve me?"
"I'm sure you must be used to it."
A loud crash came, not too distant, followed by more screams. Raimeau looked worriedly in the direction the sound had come from. "Skanderbrog has finished lunch," he said.
"A good time to depart," said Krunzle. He tugged his hat down firmly and headed for the staircase. But again he was brought up sharp by an imperious voice in his head. The isinglass. Bring it.
"Read this, bring that, befriend a troll," he muttered as he went back to lift the oval of wood and dull glass from the wall. He touched it gingerly, half-expecting it to punish him with some shock or sizzle, but it was inert. He handed it to Raimeau, saying, "Carry this," and turned to leave.
The lanky man took the object but did not follow. He said, "We should free the thing in the cage."
Krunzle saw no reason to disguise his exasperation at the succession of burdens being placed upon him. "Why? So it can wrap its leathery wings about us and drain our blood? Or satisfy whatever other foul appetites might move it?"
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