A Magic Broken

by Vox Day

  “What a captivating collection you have here, madam. Is this the complete set?”

  “Aye, my lord,” she replied. His disappointment must have showed in his voice, as she responded a little stiffly. “My girls are young, and they’re clean. Ye’ll have no complaints, of that ye can be sure.”

  “I mean no offense, madam. The red-haired one, in particular, is lovely. But I was wondering if you might be keeping anything more exotic on hand for those whose tastes have become, shall we say, a little jaded over time.”

  The woman eyed him suspiciously. “Ye won’t be hurting any of my girls, captain. No one got enough coin for that, not even the Bankers Guild. And if ye’re looking for boys, ye’d best go elsewhere. I don’t hold with no abomination.”

  Nicolas shook his head. “I fear you misunderstand me, madam. I spoke with a friend earlier, and he happened to suggest that in establishments of a certain refinement, there were occasionally…unusual experiences to be had.”

  “Unusual experiences?” The madam’s eyes, set deep in her fleshy face, widened with disbelief. “Ye want to stick it in a gobbo or something?”

  Nicolas managed to suppress the laughter that threatened to erupt from him, but it was a close-run thing. He had no doubts that this was not the place for which he was searching. The woman’s vulgar bewilderment was sufficiently convincing testimony, as far as he was concerned.

  “No, madam, I most certainly do not wish to befoul anything by sticking it in a goblin, least of all my sword. However, I should like to inquire if your little redhead there might be amenable to a private tête-à-tête.”

  “Ye don’t have nothing strange in mind?”

  “Nothing out of the ordinary, I assure you.” He held up five copper coins.

  The madam adroitly relieved him of them.

  “All right, then. Ye’ll find that what Dalérie misses in exotics, she makes up for with her enthusiasm.”

  “Indeed.”

  The girl, responding to an unseen signal from her owner, stepped forward and met Nicolas’s eyes. Her eyes were green and served as a pleasing complement to her hair. She smiled with what appeared to be honest pride that she had been the first girl chosen tonight. That, or she was simply pleased that Nicolas was not a fat old man with rotting teeth.

  Nicolas took her slender, unpainted hand and made a mock-bow over it. To his surprise, the wry gesture made the young whore blush.

  “Enchantée, mademoiselle. Shall we dance?”

  • • •

  The slaver was already sitting at the same wooden bench as before when Lodi entered the shabby tavern a week later. Except for the fact that he had only one jar of ale instead of two in front of him, he looked as if he might have been sitting there since Lodi had left. No, Lodi saw as he approached the man, the slaver’s grungy vest showed that he had received a bloody nose at some point since their last meeting.

  But he had news. Lodi could see it in the avaricious gleam in the slaver’s eyes. Lodi slipped the pouch of the fifteen promised silvers from his pocket and placed it on the table, then sat down facing the man.

  “Where?”

  The slaver grinned and reached out for the pouch, but drew his hand away when Lodi lifted a finger.

  “You tell me first.”

  “I heard tell that a man from Orontis called Jericas Servilio caught hisself an elf girl not far from the lands of the tree elves. Sold her to Quadras Aetias.” He leaned back and nodded knowingly, as if he expected Lodi to recognize the names.

  “Who is Aetias?”

  “You ain’t heard of him? He’s the richest whoremonger in Malkan. Runs at least three brothels that I knows of. Has a couple taverns too. I ain’t never been to one, though—too rich for my blood. All cats is grey in the dark, hey?”

  Only if you’re blind as a man. Lodi shrugged. “If you like cats, maybe. You say he have three brothels. Where do he keep the elf?”

  “Don’t know. But my guess is the Golden Rose. That’s the swankiest whorehouse in the city. It’s where the bloods and the bankers go. Aetias didn’t pay Servilio no twenty gold bears just to trick her out for coppers in one of his taverns.”

  Lodi silently pushed the pouch toward the slaver, who winked at him and scooped it up.

  “Looks like I got my price, after all, dwarf. And since I wouldn’t mind collecting if I runs across more of yourn, let me give you a piece of advice. You got what you came here for, right? So leave the elf be. You can threaten folks like me if you like, but a rich man like Quadras Aetias is too big for you to touch. Cross him, and he’ll put a bounty on your head faster’n you can dig yesself a hole.”

  Lodi frowned, then held out his hand. The man might be a slaver, but he wasn’t a bad man as such. He’d treated young Tallsmith and his friends well, according to them, and the warning was well-intentioned. It was also beside the point, however, as Lodi already had a rudimentary plan in mind.

  “For the advice, I thanks you, Man. Fare you well.”

  “Likewise, dwarf. And do me a favor…if Aetias catches you, don’t you be telling him it was me who put you on to him.”

  For the first time in their brief acquaintance, the dwarf found himself warming to the man. “I tell no one nothing,” he promised sincerely. “But no fears. No Man can catch a dwarf once he go underground.”

  • • •

  Nicolas had known more scintillating conversations at sieges than the one in which he now found himself trapped. In fact, he mused, as the merchant Jervais continued to fret about the likelihood that their plans would go awry, there had been sieges he enjoyed more than this dreadful Malkanian party. Hosted by one of the city’s leading importers, the wine was mediocre, the music was off-key, the women were dressed in drab fashions that had been out-of-date for two years in Lutèce, and his companion was tedious in the extreme.

  “What if they’re caught? What if they name names?”

  “They’re not going to be caught. I will see to it.”

  “But you can’t be certain. How can you be certain?”

  “And what if Aetias doesn’t come?”

  “He’ll be here. No banker of his magnitude and habits would snub one of his most important clients.”

  His only satisfaction in listening to his nominal employer concoct yet another disastrous scenario, this time one in which the two street assassins he’d hired earlier that afternoon turned out to be agents of the present Duc, was knowing that the fat little man’s interminable tongue would soon be stilled forever. It was hard fortune for the man’s wife, he supposed, but any regrets Nicolas might have had about the need to silence the man permanently vanished as Jervais continued to regale him with nonsensical predictions of doom and gloom.

  It was strange, Nicolas thought, how often a man worries about everything except the actual threat at hand. We jump at shadows in the distance and somehow manage to miss the beast right at our feet. He ran a finger over the blade hidden in his right sleeve. Swords had been forbidden by the host’s guards, but the three knives he had secreted about his person would be more than sufficient for his purposes tonight.

  “There is Quadras Aetias now,” Nicolas said. “You see, it all goes according to plan. When he moves near the window over there, go and greet him. Take off the white scarf, and let the red one show. Don’t make a theatrical production out of it. Our friends will see. They are watching.”

  Sweating despite the cool evening breeze that entered through the open windows, Jervais reluctantly complied. Nicolas eyed the two killers to make sure they’d seen the signal that the target was in sight. The woman, wearing the purple dress Jervais had given her earlier that day, appeared to be occupied with fending off the advances of a red-faced innkeeper, but Nicolas could see she was keeping an eye on both Aetias and Jervais.

  The other assassin was roaming through the crowd in the white tunic of the slaves holding a plate of pastries on his shoulder; Nicolas had no idea where he’d gotten either the tunic or the pastries, but he guessed Quadras
Aetias would find himself short one male slave tomorrow.

  Aetias greeted a tall, handsome couple who appeared to be married, called over a slave, and gracefully offered the woman a goblet of wine. Pleasantries were exchanged, and then Aetias continued to circulate, finally approaching the open window on the western side of the room that Nicolas had told the killers would be their escape route.

  He’d lied, of course. There would be no escape. Not for them.

  “Go,” Nicolas hissed at Jervais, but the merchant was too frightened to hear him. “They are ready. Go, damn you. Do it now!”

  Jervais looked at him, his eyes pleading to be relieved of his duty, but Nicolas simply put his hand on Jervais’s plump side, spun him around, and gave him an inobtrusive but firm push in the back. His shoulders slumped with defeat, Jervais approached Quadras Aetias as if he were a convicted criminal walking toward the gallows. Nicolas followed two steps back, as any good bodyguard would.

  The banker greeted the shorter merchant with a tolerant, if condescending welcome, and they had barely begun the conventional formalities when Nicolas sensed a sudden movement behind him and whirled around to meet it.

  With the woman’s speed slightly handicapped by her dress, she was three steps behind the male killer. Both had their daggers out but were holding them low, where they could not easily be seen, although one woman cried out in alarm as the man pushed past her.

  “Ware, my lords—assassins!” Nicolas shouted.

  With the precision born of many hours of practice, the sleeve knife slid into his hand as he stepped behind the man rushing past him.

  Moving perpendicular to the man’s own movement, he grabbed the man’s chin with his left hand and drew his blade across the exposed throat with his right as he used his weight and momentum to take the man off his feet.

  Blood sprayed toward the ceiling in a crimson arc as Nicolas hit the ground and released the convulsing body as it flipped over his side, then rolled to his feet with the bloody knife in his hand.

  People were screaming, but Nicolas could hardly hear them as he saw the woman punch her blade into Jervais’s stomach, rip it upward to gut him, then remove it before burying it again in his throat to silence his screams. It was a good kill, fast and sure, and Nicolas thought that she would have easily been able to escape through the window behind Aetias if Nicolas hadn’t known exactly where she was headed.

  Aetias stumbled backward and fell. He was screaming in fear as the woman moved toward him with her second blade. But Nicolas had chosen the purple dress she wore specifically for the way in which it shortened her stride, it slowed her down enough to permit him to catch her from behind in what was almost a leisurely manner.

  One broad sweep of his arm sent her tumbling as his foot smashed against her ankles.

  She grunted hard as her back struck the marble floor, then again a little more softly as he kneeled on her stomach. His knife found her heart as his other hand gripped her throat. She looked nearly as astonished as Jervais had when she’d gutted the little merchant.

  As she died, Nicolas whirled around in a crouch, as if he was ready to meet any more attackers, even though he was the only man in the mansion who was certain there were none.

  How amusing it would be if there were, he thought, and he nearly laughed out loud before managing to control the violent passions that were rampaging through his body. He didn’t actually enjoy killing, but sometimes the act could prove alarmingly exhilarating in the bloody moment.

  He counted to ten, partly to add verisimilitude to his actions and partly to calm himself, before dropping to one knee at Jervais’s side. The merchant was still alive, but barely, and his eyes were wide and frightened like those of a thoughtless animal that couldn’t understand its fate.

  The woman’s blade was still in the merchant’s throat, blocking the free flow of blood that would finish him, so Nicolas carefully drew it from its fleshy scabbard. Choking and gurgling, his eyes bulging in unseemly terror, Jervais finally expired with a disgustingly loud release of his bowels.

  Nicolas sighed and sat back on his heels, shaking his head as if in sorrow over his failure to protect his charge.

  A hand came down upon his shoulder. Nicolas didn’t look up. He could guess to whom it belonged.

  “You saved my life,” Quadras Aetias told him. “I don’t know who you are, man, but I cannot tell you how grateful I am.”

  “No, I… I failed,” Nicolas muttered, still staring at the slackened face of the recently deceased merchant as if he were in shock. “Master Jervais—he hired me… I tried to stop them, but I was not in time. I was too slow.”

  Staggering slightly, he let the other man help him to his feet. Quadras Aetias was a tall, lean man with a bald head and a bony face. Everything about his elegant demeanor suggested the banker, not the whoremaster. But was there really a difference, in the end? The man’s expression was deeply solicitous.

  “I am deeply sorry about poor Jervais, but there was nothing you could have done. You say that he hired you—does that mean he had cause to fear for his life? Do you know, I was certain they were after me. The first man you killed was rushing directly toward me when you so bravely intercepted him.”

  “I don’t know,” Nicolas replied. “Master Jervais didn’t tell me anything. It all happened so fast. I’ve only been here for two weeks. I was hired through the guild, but Master Jervais never said anything to make me think something like this might happen. He didn’t speak of any enemies. I suppose my impression was that he hired me because he wanted to look important for this affair tonight.”

  Aeties nodded as if he had begun to understand. “I see. May I ask your name, good sir? We must acquaint ourselves, I am afraid, because poor Jervais is in no condition to perform any introductions, and because I begin to believe that you have absolutely no idea whose life you just saved!”

  Nicolas looked into the sincere face of the wealthy man and stifled a smile. My dear whoremonger, I suspect you would be very surprised if you knew exactly how much I know about you.

  • • •

  Lodi sat in darkness in the company of the four dwarves he’d purchased from the slaver. He didn’t own them, not under dwarven law. The Law of the Deep forbade one dwarf to hold title to another. But all four of the newly free had readily agreed to follow his lead until he could arrange to get them safely back to Iron Mountain.

  Now, however, he was having second thoughts about making use of them to free the elfess. He had an obligation to see them home, and he doubted their fathers would appreciate him putting them at risk this way. Especially since it could be quite reasonably argued that he was putting them in danger on behalf of an elf!

  On the other hand, with their aid he would be able to rescue her tonight, instead of in the two weeks he estimated it would take him working alone. After some quiet inquiries gave him sufficient confidence to conclude that the elfess was indeed to be found somewhere inside the Golden Rose, he’d rented a small room on the ground level of a building that was behind and slightly to the west of the upscale brothel. It was expensive, so he’d taken it for only one week, and this had rendered the assistance of the four young dwarves a necessity. And, to be fair to himself, the elf was nothing more the means to an end that every dwarf understood.

  A shape emerged from the floor next to him. It was Gulfin’s head, his cap covered by dirt, cobwebs, and small bits of wood. He handed over a large bucket of dirt, which Lodi added to the big pile growing in the corner.

  “We’re deep enough. You wanted twenty fores, and you’ve got them. Do you want us to start with the horizontal tunnel yet?”

  “Not yet. They keep late hours in these parts, and we don’t want to wake anyone overhead. Does the ladder extend all the way down?”

  “We’ve just been boosting each other up to reach it. It’s only about five fores, so we can lash whoever comes last to the dwarf before him.”

  “No, make sure it reaches the bottom. We may be in a hurry, and if s
omeone is injured, not having it will slow us down even more.”

  “What if we put in a pulley system too, just in case? That way, if we have more than one or two who need help climbing out, we can get them up quickly. It shouldn’t take long.”

  Lodi nodded, impressed by the young dwarf. “Yes, do that. We have time. You have a good head on your shoulders, Gulfin. How did you ever manage to get yourself captured by orcs?”

  Gulfin grinned ruefully. “Listening to Thorald. He never worries about anything, that one, not even when he should. A pair of human hunters told us there were mountain orcs raiding about, but he didn’t believe them.” He looked over his shoulder. “You know, he’s convinced we’ll dig right in there, grab the girl, and stroll out without any trouble.”

  “I hope he’s right,” Lodi said. But he had made preparations operating under the assumption that Thorald wouldn’t be. He didn’t have the coin for properly equipping all five of them for an armed raid, but he’d pawned his battleaxe and used the money to buy four sturdy leather jerkins, three hand-axes, and a pair of small wooden shields.

  He’d borrowed the two pickaxes and the shovel they were using for digging from a dwarf at the Pick and Axe. In the hands of a dwarf, a pickaxe could be a fearsome weapon, although a little awkward for indoor use. The shovel might actually be the most useful tool since Lodi didn’t intend to kill anyone if he could help it. It was considerably easier to recover from a crack over the head with a shovel than from a pick driven squarely through the chest.

  It occurred to him that regardless of how well it went tonight, he’d probably need to arrange for someone else to procure his battleaxe from the pawnbroker. It seemed likely that he would henceforth be nana non grata in Malkan.

  As Arbhadis, the second moon, came into view, Lodi decided it was time to start digging again. The picks gouged out chunks of the clay-heavy earth, the shovel filled the buckets, the buckets flew up and down the hastily rigged pulley system, and Lodi was satisfied with the rapid progress they made underneath the stone foundation of the building next door.