Magister Melly cleared his throat, the only one of the brothers still sitting. “Let us not be hasty.” The others moved aside a bit so Girl and I had a good view of him. He’d produced a brass-rimmed monocle and peered at us. The monocle distorted his eye bizarrely. “My companions are quite correct in that the nearest habitation with an inn or hostel lies considerably beyond the few hours you have left to travel before night falls.” He paused to give us an even keener inspection. “You certainly do not have the appearance of traveling aristocrats, but it is our duty, nay, our privilege to provide lodging for the few pilgrims that make the considerable effort to visit us.”
I offered him a look of haughty reproach. “It is better, as I am sure you understand, not to blatantly advertise goods one is not prepared to part with.”
“Quite so, quite so,” he murmured, and his companions bobbed their heads in agreement. A waggle of Melly’s fingers drew Brother Two from the crowd. “Brother Enmenkima will show you where you may rest and take care of anything else you might require.”
Hands together, gratitude shining, I bowed. “Thank you, your Eminence, for your understanding and for your truly gracious hospitality.”
:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:
In spite of his suspicious attitude Brother Two was not completely unapproachable, and it didn’t take much to persuade him to tell us something about the history of the temple, the works of the good brothers, and so forth. I smiled and nodded at all the right places, murmured appreciative responses or ventured leading questions as the conversation required. Tanris was as talkative as a rock, which suited me perfectly. I had no particular desire to listen to him, and the attitude of silent-and-deadly guard benefited the circumstances. While he practiced being stony and Girl tried not to look utterly bored, I coaxed Brother Two delicately along by the nose until I got him bragging about the temple’s fantastic collection of statuary, jewelry, bottles, scepters, carvings, pictures, weapons and the like.
I pretended skepticism.
He was surprisingly mercenary.
For the price of a generous donation, which I managed to convince him to suggest, I persuaded him to allow us to view the fabled treasure ourselves. Girl, I must say, played no little part in his seduction with her attitude of quiet despair and her occasional expressive looks of fragile hope. I would clearly have to pay more attention to her in the future. I might even have to consider sponsoring her career as an actress.
The Vault where the artifacts resided was, of course, underground—and dismayingly small. Walls of fine, polished marble of a pale gold enclosed the collection. A channel carved into the upper portion of the walls held burning oil, which lit the room very nicely. Brother Two told us in a reverent voice that the flame never went out. Unimpressive though the collection was, nearly every treasure sat upon a block carved of marble and draped with an embroidered cloth of rich gray velvet. A great number of the “treasures” were downright ugly, poorly made, or bore the appearance of common, everyday items. The Plate of Yousak, for example, was wood. That’s it. Just wood. Plain, ordinary, undecorated, though highly polished wood. Apparently, under the proper circumstances, it would be filled with food the likes of which we had never tasted before, and once we ate that food we could run for days and not be weary nor hungry.
Brother Two gave me a disapproving look when I asked if he could show us. I didn’t touch anything. I do not like magic, no, not at all, and I certainly didn’t want to inadvertently activate something fatal. I wanted to postpone meeting the gods in person just yet. Keeping my hands to myself did not keep me from experiencing the strangest sensation as I walked slowly along. I prickled as though a tiny charge of energy scurried over my skin. It was most disconcerting and distracting, but I had work to do. Pasting a reverent look on my face, I admired a fuzzy woolen cap, a half dozen nearly identical statuettes Brother Two identified as likenesses of the famous, saintly Peyumi brothers. I’d never heard of them, but I nodded and encouraged a story from him. I nearly lost my composure when I came to a ratty-looking nest, slowly disintegrating into a pile of dust.
It didn’t take us long to tour the room, and I looked everywhere for an egg, or an egg shape, but nary a single eggy anything presented itself for my ogling. We stopped in front of each piece so Brother Two could tell its miraculous—and usually long and boring—story.
While we listened and gawked and scoured the place for the slightest clue, a pair of guards each the size of a house followed behind, one of them carrying a loaded and spanned crossbow and watching us with depressing attention. It rather detracted from the reverent atmosphere.
And it made Girl cry.
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We had hardly closed the door of our room before Tanris spun, features intense. “That was the priest!” he hissed at the very same time I said, “That was Melly! The priest with the horrible name in the letters.”
He nodded, mouth tight. “It has to be. Is that going to complicate things?”
“Hard to say,” I shrugged. “We’ll find out.”
“You have something in mind?”
I brushed past him. “It’s my job, let me do it.”
The brothers had fed us, bathed us, provided proper tools for shaving, given us clean and dry clothes, and showed us to our rooms. Once again, Tanris and I were forced to share a space, but Girl got a blissful room of her own. The rooms—with or without Tanris—would have been nothing to get excited about except that I’d recently spent so much time lying on the cold, wet ground with ever more wetness falling on me. Though thin, the ticking on the narrow beds was warm and dry, and we even had small fireplaces flanked by little shuttered windows looking out upon newly worked vegetable gardens.
Evidently unimpressed, he cracked his neck, one side and then the other. “There was no egg.”
“Lo, Captain Tanris of the good ship, Obvious. What would we do without you?” I didn’t even try to keep the scathing tone from my voice. I needed viable ideas to solving the puzzle of Duzayan’s egg, not repetition of what I already knew. Stretched out on one bed, I took out the Beisyth Web, turning the ball over and over in my fingers. Utterly quiescent, it gave me a good point upon which to focus.
“At least I’m trying to come up with a solution. Will you quit playing with that thing and help me?”
“Playing with this thing does not preclude thinking. Your pointless jabbering does.”
“Do you have a plan?”
“Yes.” I lied, but maybe it would get him to shut up.
“Does it include resting and changing your clothes?” he sneered, and it took a moment or two to recall where that had come up in our conversations before: right after Baron Duzayan had made his oh-so-generous offer to let me help him or die. After an eternity of torture.
“I would love to change my clothes,” I agreed and plucked at my borrowed tunic. “These are all well and good, but I grow weary of such dull, practical garments, though I will have to admit it is nice to wear something clean and dry.”
“And how is that going to help us?” Tanris growled. “Can you not be serious? If we can’t find the egg, what are we going to do?”
“From my point of view things are fairly simple.” I looked at the ball, a frown tugging at my brow. My fingers were tingling. I thrust the thing into my pocket and sat up, shoving one foot and then the other into disreputable boots that had been new two months ago. The coat I shrugged into was still damp, still smelly. “Things will be quite tragic for you, but I will merely die.”
I let the door bang shut behind me and stalked down the hall. The door at the end of the hall slammed, too, and I stepped out into the cold. Sharp stars punctuated the ebon sky overhead, and my breath hung in clouds. I paused for only a moment before making my way down the path leading around the building. I could not think with Tanris whining at me and I did not like him this way. I wanted to keep the old image of him, the Tanris that followed me doggedly and did his utm
ost to catch me and stuff me in a cage; the Tanris that challenged me, and skillfully exchanged insults with me, and was strong enough to keep coming back in spite of numerous defeats.
I heard the door open and close again. The corners of my mouth turned down. “Go away,” I muttered.
“Crow?” Distance and caution muffled Tanris’s inquiry.
I was sure he saw me, but I hurried around the corner building anyway—and ran smack into someone else.
— 20 —
And It Was This Big...
We struck fairly hard. My automatic grab didn’t keep us from going down and a grunt exploded from me as we landed. Having the wind nearly knocked out of my lungs didn’t keep my eyes from working.
“You!” I gasped.
Kem Bohadri stared at me for a fraction of a second, then struggled to get free, but I had a good hold on the front of his coat and I wasn’t going to let go. Not, that is, until he hit me. Twice. The fist that met my chin produced a shower of stars that had nothing at all to do with the sky. The other fist landed in my gut and very firmly finished the job of expelling my breath. My assailant leaped to his feet and sprinted away, and all I could do was lay there and suck madly at the too-cold air in the hope of filling my lungs again.
But, aha! Trusty Tanris, right behind me as I had rounded the corner, leaped over my prostrate self as gracefully as a deer, barreled after Kem, and flew into a tackle. The two of them went tumbling across the ground, eliciting more grunting, only it was accompanied by thumping, too, and I seriously hoped Tanris gave more than he got. Well… A good thump on the noggin would probably do him a world of good, but timing was everything and having him incapacitated right at this moment was not at all conducive to happy endings.
“You skunk!” The accusation was punctuated with another thump-and-grunt. “You lying, stinking, rotten—” Thump! Thump!
“Tanris,” I wheezed, managing to roll up onto my knees.
“I ought to take your fool head off!” Thump!
“Tanris, don’t kill him!” Had I just said that? The man was a lying, stinking, rotten snake. He’d deserted us, robbed us, and then attacked me, but for all we knew he had twenty or thirty cronies stashed someplace nearby and we didn’t need them making things difficult. I forced myself to crawl over to them. In the mud. So much for the nice bath and clean clothes.
Tanris straddled Kem, and Kem held his arms up defensively, wheezing and groaning something about stopping and letting him go. As if that were going to happen.
“Just hold him down, will you?”
While Tanris very ably tended to that, muttering some surprisingly dire things under his breath, I searched our erstwhile guide. I found nothing inside his coat, tucked in his belt, or under his jerkin. “What did you do with it?” I demanded. Wheezing still myself, I didn’t sound horribly menacing, but neither did he when he croaked out a reply.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“What are you talking about?” Tanris parroted.
“The map!”
“I haven’t got any maps!” Kem fought to free himself, but he didn’t get anywhere at all.
Crawling around, I sat down (in the mud) and grabbed hold of one of his boots. He kicked at me with surprising vehemence, and removing the thing was a struggle that did not come without a price. I would very likely be sporting colorful bruises on the morrow, thanks to his flailing feet. When the boot came off, a folded parchment slipped out, a bright rectangle in the glittering starlight. Picking it up, I unfolded it and lo! there was our missing property.
“Ha!” I exclaimed and clambered to my feet to go wave the paper in Tanris’s face. “This map! Does it look at all familiar to you? Didn’t I tell you he took it? Do you believe me now, you self-righteous prig?”
“Fine! You were right! Is that what you want to hear?” He smacked at my hand, which freed Kem to smack at Tanris, and another tussle ensued. I brought that to a quick stop with the application of Kem’s boot to his head and was rewarded with a satisfactory groan.
“Stop that,” I ordered, completely put out with the pair of them. “I would also like an apology. And then I want to hear what our dear friend Kem has to say.”
“I got nothing!” Kem spat and then swore when Tanris pinned one of his wrists beneath a knee.
“You didn’t have the map, either,” I pointed out, folding it up again and tucking it safely into my shirt.
“Start talking,” Tanris ordered, winding his fists in Kem’s coat and giving his battered captive a good shake. “Are you alone?”
“Yes!” With his one free hand, he clutched at Tanris’s arm, though all the pulling he could do couldn’t free him now.
“He’s lying.” I narrowed my eyes, and Tanris looked at me as though he wanted to argue, but he already owed me one apology.
“How many are with you?” he asked Kem instead.
“There’s nobody!” Blood stained his mouth dark and he licked his lips.
“How many?” Tanris asked again.
“None, I swear!”
Tanris hit him. “Now how many?”
Kem shook his head and groaned softly, and Tanris raised his fist again.
“Wait,” I said. Much to my surprise he paused, though he didn’t relax. One arm pressed against my aching middle, I edged close and stared at our prisoner intently, silently. Moments slipped by, and rasping breaths settled into a more normal pattern, though Kem’s were peppered still with little hisses of pain. Maybe Tanris had broken something. I didn’t much care. Kem watched me apprehensively.
“What are you doing?” Tanris asked, finally lowering his fist. He was still sitting on the man, still holding a handful of coat, still leaning on Kem’s wrist. That had to hurt.
“Do you remember what happened in the cave?” I whispered, not letting my evil glare waver for an instant.
Kem’s eyes widened further and he licked his lips again. The fear radiating from him grew considerably. “Let me go. Please. I haven’t done anything.”
I bent a little closer. “No?” I whispered. “You brought me to the Ancestors. Do you know what they did to me?”
He shook his head back and forth violently.
“Do you want to find out?” I hissed.
“No. No, please…“
The smile I gave him was not meant to be reassuring, and indeed, it had quite the opposite affect. “Then tell me what I want to know.”
He couldn’t talk fast enough. “Three. There are three others! We’ve got a camp about a mile east of here and up on the side of the mountain. In a grove of trees.”
“Where’d you get them?” Tanris asked sharply.
“On the moor. I found them on the moor when I was following you. They run with Kiral Stone’s lot.”
Following us… There had been someone there, just like I’d thought! I gave Tanris a tight-lipped look that he chose to ignore.
“Friends, then,” he said.
“No—Yes!” Kem changed his mind quickly when Tanris raised his fist again. “I know them. I work with them sometimes. They were going to rob you, and I stopped them!”
Yay for Kem! Our hero! “And you robbed us instead,” I pointed out drily.
“I—yes.” Misery and fear bathed him.
“Why?”
Kem looked from me to Tanris. Open to speak, bloodied, his mouth trembled for a moment before he went on. “I wanted whatever you were going after.”
“Where is it?” Tanris asked, teeth clenched and voice strained.
“I don’t know!”
“Liar!” His hands wrapped around Kem’s throat and squeezed.
I eased back a fraction. “You have a strange way of interrogating prisoners, Tanris. When he’s dead, what will he tell us?”
With a snarl and a shove, Tanris let him loose, hands on his thighs and breath straining. I had never seen him so angry. I didn’t much like this side of him, either, but as I crouched there looking at him, it occurred to me that the twin blows of
having his wife taken and his prize captive freed—and worse, he was forced to cooperate with me—had been too much for him to take. It wasn’t especially comforting to know that I was now partners with a man on the edge of madness.
“So, then, Kem,” I said calmly, “let me see if we’ve got this straight. You left us in the Ghost Walk in spite of promising you’d guide us through in return for your freedom. You followed us when we left. You ran into some of your old mates and stopped them from robbing and murdering us—” I paused and crooked a brow. “Why did you keep them from doing that?”
Kem swallowed noisily. “Because—if they got the map I wouldn’t get the treasure.”
“Ah, you wanted it for yourself.”
“Yes!” He spat and struggled uselessly against Tanris’s weight.
“Jackal,” Tanris growled.
“You got the map. What are you doing here?”
An ugly, sullen look crept over Kem’s face and he didn’t answer.
“Ha,” I smiled, and levered myself to my feet. He didn’t have the egg; didn’t even know where or how to find it. Maybe not even what it was. “I’m going to go get some of those ridiculously huge guards. You can kill him now, Tanris.”
No, I didn’t want to have anything to do with the guards. They’re a nuisance when I’m working, and they generally want to turn me over to the local authorities—a project they are especially passionate about when there is a chance of reward. However, Kem didn’t want anything to do with the guards, either, and he was even less thrilled to be left alone with a violent and apparently homicidal Tanris. In short order, we knew everything he knew about the alleged treasure, where he’d looked, what he’d found out, how much his companions knew, and what he’d had for dinner.
And then I fetched the guard. We could not, after all, have Kem running about and getting underfoot, and we certainly didn’t trust him to work with us on this venture in spite of his begging and pleading for us to save him from his partners, who would surely kill him when they found him. Alas, such were the consequences of choosing felonious friends.
As the Crow Flies: An Epic Fantasy Adventure Page 25