Tangle of Thornes

by Lorel Clayton

  Duane frowned. “Freeing slaves.”

  Plenty of people wouldn’t like that. I eyed Randall and other slavers in the distance. Instead of making progress, my list of suspects was growing. I’d keep my suspicions to myself for now. Nobody else deserved Duane’s baleful attention.

  I stumbled into the open, my legs rubbery. I had already witnessed so much; my gaze did not shy from the cages when I passed them.

  The merchandise smiled vacantly, and I envied their contentment, even knowing it was due to magic. Did some deeply buried part of them understand what was happening?

  Randall pawed an attractive slave girl a few years younger than me. I knew how he liked them young. She was shiny as black shoe polish, made for a sunnier land than this. It was cruel to bring her here, where winter never ended. Randall combed her hair, preparing her for the evening sale. I shivered, remembering his fingers reaching for my hair when I was nine. I couldn’t stand to watch any more.

  My head swam. I clutched metal bars to steady myself. Something soft and leathery moved beneath my fingers, and I snatched them back. The place where my hand had been shimmered, revealing a small creature with hairless, ashen skin and eyes like ripe cherries. A bogle. Ick! I wiped my palm on my dress, afraid of disease. The pests were everywhere, camouflaged, and impossible to eradicate. It snickered and scampered away.

  I stood unevenly, a heel broken off. Great. I snapped off the other one so the shoes matched. I must have exuded a miasma of anger, because no one disturbed me as I made my way back to the neighborhood.

  The City Guard should have been my first stop. My untrusting nature made me suspect corruption everywhere, but they were the good guys. I needed that right now. Still, I could improve my chances of being heard if I spoke to Karolyne’s cousin.

  I trudged into the restaurant where I worked most of the week. I was a customer today, so I took a seat and leaned back with a sigh.

  Karolyne was tending the tables herself. With her deep red hair and stylish clothes, not to mention perfect deportment, she looked like she should have been surrounded by servants rather than doing the serving. She came over as soon as she saw me. “Were you sat on by a grall or something? You okay?”

  “I will be, once I get a kick in the gut. Whisky, please.” It worked for Stanley the detective.

  “Not before dusk.”

  “What? Since when?” I had only taken a few days off for Viktor’s funeral. Left to her own devices, Karolyne tended to get strange notions. I should have been here to reason with her.

  “It brought in the wrong sort. I’m trying for a better clientele.”

  I shook my head. “Clientele? Sounds like an elf word.”

  “And I’m catering to the elf crowd.” She pointed to a new placard mounted on the wall: Authentic human food available.

  “There’s un-authentic human food?”

  Karolyne fidgeted with energy, and I practically saw her thoughts buzzing with calculations.

  “Gypsum told me about this new fad in the Central City—Southern food cooked by human servants. Plus, lots of young elves come to the Outskirts these days looking for some excitement. I thought I’d seize the opportunity. Elves have all the money.”

  “Except what my uncle, or Duane, has stolen. Well, what do you serve in the day then?”

  “Food.”

  “No, I need a drink.”

  “Try some kaffe.”

  “What is it?”

  “Southern. I’ll get you a stein. On the house.”

  On the house? My old school chum never gave anybody anything.

  Since her parents went broke, thanks to bad caravan investments and gambling, she was stingy, keeping every last silver hidden. While the cut of her clothes was stylish, it was three seasons ago style, and her favorite shawl was moth eaten. She wouldn’t replace anything that didn’t disintegrate first. If the kaffe was free, it must be crap. But I was willing to drink sword polish right about then.

  She came back with a steaming stein.

  “It’s hot?” I was dubious.

  “Yep, perfect for winter, which is about all we have here. Try it.”

  I took a drink and a bitter taste sucked the moisture from my tongue. “Blaahhh.” I was right; it was awful. Yet...there was something, a kick. “It needs sweetener.”

  “How much?”

  “Eight sugar ants.”

  “Eight!” She would subtract the cost from my next pay I was sure.

  After I sweetened the drink with a few popped ants—disgusting but better than the green cane they used in the South—I downed the whole cup. Wow. Now I understood why she was giving out free samples. It was addictive. I paid for the second one, and Karolyne grinned. She had a winner.

  Feeling better, I said, “I wanted to ask you about your cousin.”

  “Which one?”

  “The one trying to join the Guard. Did they let him in?”

  “Oh yes. Conrad. I already told Gypsum. It’s wonderful! They say he’s an example for his entire species. His dwarven captain said if he maintains his current level of performance, he’ll not only be the first human guard but the first lieutenant. An officer. Things are looking up, opportunities everywhere. We just have to keep our eyes open.”

  I didn’t want to dampen her enthusiasm, but a token guard posting and an interest in human food did not mean equal rights was on the horizon. Solhans had further to go.

  I forced a smile. “Great.”

  A pewter mug clanged off the stone wall. “Kek!” A goblin retched at a corner table, a mercenary or caravan guard judging from his leathers and the sheath on his hip. Not everyone liked the kaffe.

  “You trying to kill me?” The goblin accused Karolyne.

  His friend made a phlegmy hacking sound that was supposed to be a laugh. It was best when goblins didn’t smile. They were all teeth: just two beady eyes, a pug nose, and a freakishly huge mouth brimming with ivory needles. Why bother with a restaurant? They ate their enemies.

  Karolyne went over and spoke to them. After a few heated words, she handed them a bottle of fermented milk and blood from the back and asked them to leave. They knocked over the table before obliging her.

  When she had righted things and calmed her other customers, she came back to me. “See what I mean? Wrong crowd.”

  “Can I talk to Conrad? Where do I find him?”

  Karolyne gave me his home address. I thanked her, freshened up in the bathroom upstairs, still technically mine until I moved out the few boxes of things I owned, and started for the city.

  I had been ready to sleep the rest of the day away earlier, but the kaffe invigorated me. Some of Karolyne’s optimism had transferred as well. Perhaps her cousin could help?

  3│ KNUTS

  ~

  I FOUND CONRAD’S BOARDING HOUSE in the Goldsmith’s Quarter, north of Market Square, one tier up, and as deep into Highcrowne as our kind was allowed. He really must be the new poster boy for humanity. It was primarily a dwarven neighborhood, children running around, the corner pub crowded at noon.

  The town clock chimed. It was louder the closer you were to the inner city. Purportedly, it was made of pure gold, crafted and fueled by magic of course, and mounted on the highest tower of the palace, but few had ever seen it.

  I had to wait minutes before an elderly man answered the door. He barely reached my navel yet managed to look down at me.

  “Quit that racket!”

  I had been knocking continuously, waiting for someone to respond.

  “I’m trying to find Conrad Faulconbridge.”

  “He’s not here!”

  “Do you know where he is?”

  “I’m not his mamma!”

  I could only take so much abrasiveness before my thin veneer of civility got stripped away. “What would your mamma say if she caught you being so rude to a lady?”

  I didn’t actually consider myself a lady, despite having been to finishing school. I only wore a dress when I needed to show off my legs or
attend a funeral. I couldn’t pour tea worth a damn either. Still, I knew how much dwarves respected their mothers.

  “I’m,” his face turned sour, “sorry.”

  “Apology accepted. Now...?”

  “He’s at work! Sorry. He mentioned the Red Precinct.”

  “Thank y—” He slammed the door before I finished. I bristled, but, if I couldn’t take it, I shouldn’t dish it out.

  Red Precinct was the other side of the city. I wished I had a horse. I could come back tomorrow, but I had a fire burning in my belly and not just from Karolyne’s drink. I needed to see this through, needed answers, and I couldn’t get them sitting on my behind.

  Highcrowne was like a layer cake with a mountain at its center, not the most scrumptious filling, but that’s as far as I wanted to take that analogy anyway.

  The fat bottom piece held everything important to most people: pubs, markets, craftsmen, mills, foundries, steamworks, wetworks, dryworks...the works. The road penetrated the outer wall in one well-guarded place and then spiraled around to the upper levels, where less useful things could be found. Like elf detectives and dwarven Guardhouses. Staircases connected the different levels at random points.

  The inner city, the center, where the Three Crowns and nobility dwelt, was a fortress made of marble and stone. The walls were twenty feet high, most of it cut into the mountain, with no entrance, except through heavily guarded gates. I smiled at the soldiers, but they didn’t smile back.

  It would be a terrific short cut, going through the middle, but I decided against sending a message to Gypsum. She would happily give me an escort, but I had hired her brother-in-law and gotten him killed. I felt guilty and wanted to put off sharing the bad news. I’d have to take the long way around. The newer, flatter version of Ilsa’s shoes would survive the trip, so I got walking.

  It was a shorter distance than if I’d started from the bottom layer of the cake. I still wanted to drop the analogy, but it was stuck in my head, and I don’t let go of things easily.

  The Outskirts didn’t qualify as part of the dessert, not even a pretty doily around the edge, and was more like a ramshackle pile of garbage. So, picture Highcrowne like a layer cake with a mountain in the center resting on a pile of garbage. And everyone would rather be on the prettily frosted top where the Avians and The Crowns lived than down in the muck, but you had to start somewhere.

  I was warm and breathing hard when I set foot in the Red Precinct. The dyers’ vats stunk up the place, red being the most popular color.

  I figured Conrad would be guarding the main square, where dripping cloths hung to catch the feeble warmth of the sun. I saw dozens of human workers, but they were slaves.

  This was an elven-owned area. It took ten slaves to operate every mechanoid that hefted cloth from vat to vat or churned the liquid to keep the rare dyes in suspension. More inefficient human technology spreading like the plague.

  A glint of golden hair and white, lacquered armor caught my attention. Was that Conrad? I wove between the clotheslines, dodging splatters. As I drew near, I really started to heat up. I completely forgot my recent decision to swear off men. He gleamed.

  “Hello,” I said.

  He was watching a group of traders gathered around a wagon but turned and smiled when I addressed him. “Hello, yourself.”

  Wow. He was the reason I was off balance this time. “Conrad?”

  “How come you know my name and I don’t know yours?”

  “It’s Eva. I’m a friend Karolyne’s.”

  “You’re the Solhan?” There was no distaste in his tone when he called me a ‘Solhan’. He was scoring very high on my test for perfection.

  “Isn’t it obvious?”

  “I don’t know why you’ve come looking for me, but I’m glad you did.”

  I stared at him for a moment before I remembered why I was there. “I need a Guard.”

  “Trouble?” He instinctively put a hand on the hilt of his sword. I noticed the shield strapped to his back. He was ready to take on an army.

  “Nothing immediate. It’s my brother—he was murdered.”

  “I’m sorry. What can I do?”

  “Find his killer.”

  “Tell me everything.” He wiped off a seat for me, making use of a deep lintel in the window of the nearest building.

  After hours of hiking around the city, it was a relief to sit. Conrad listened attentively to my sob story, his eyes regularly checking our surroundings. He was on duty and didn’t let my legs distract him.

  I explained about the inheritance, although I chose not to mention it was my sister spreading rumors of my guilt. I told him about Viktor, his kindness, how he was a good father…but I left out the part about freeing slaves. It was illegal and, as much as I wanted to trust Conrad, he was a Guardsman.

  When I finished, Conrad thought for a moment, absorbing it all. “Anything else?”

  I remembered Duane murdering Killian and one of his henchmen right in front of me, but I bit down on my tongue. Perhaps I was afraid to reveal the neighborhood’s business to the authorities, or maybe I did believe Duane had done it for Viktor. Either way, I couldn’t betray him.

  I shook my head. “That’s it. Can you help?” I’d told him almost nothing useful.

  “I’ll report this to my sergeant, but I can’t promise anything. I’m new, still learning the system, and no one owes me any favors.”

  My hopes sunk. Who was I kidding? This would be classified as ‘a human problem’ and forgotten.

  Conrad saw the dejected look on my face and rested a hand on my shoulder. “I swear I will do everything I can. I put on this uniform because I believe the Outskirts needs the rule of law. Someday, we will all live as safe as the Central City.”

  He meant it. I sighed. Where had that come from? I hadn’t sighed since seeing Tommy the stable boy working with his shirt off when I was thirteen. I was not a sigh-er. Then I blushed. Blushed!

  “Thank you.” I stood and took a few steps towards home.

  “Eva, is it all right if I call on you? In case I have any more questions, I mean.”

  “I’d like that. I mean, yes of course, if you need to.” I floated away. Could it be all men weren’t the same? Was there hope?

  I ran into a robed merchant loading bolts of dyed cloth into a wagon. I recognized the keen brown eyes, crooked nose, and beardless chin. Ahsaed. Not my first disaster, but the latest. My burgeoning re-interest in men was quashed all over again. What were the chances of running into my ex right after meeting someone who might well be the ideal man? Was the universe trying to tell me something?

  “Eva!” He put his arms around me, and I stiffened. “You’ve changed your mind!”

  He didn’t believe I was here to see him, did he? The arrogance. “Get your hands off me.”

  He obeyed immediately. He knew me well.

  There was a time when I thought Ahsaed was as perfect as a man could get—only a few dozen things wrong with him—then I discovered he was married. A traveling merchant could have a woman in every town with none of us the wiser. He claimed it was an arranged marriage, and he didn’t love her, but I’m not the type to be anyone’s mistress. So, I broke up with him there and then. Oh, and I broke his nose.

  “Are you well?” he asked carefully, like he was tiptoeing across a floor covered in snakes.

  I folded my arms. “I think your nose is better this way.”

  He stepped back, putting more space between us. After a moment of heavy silence, he took a bolt of sky blue linen from his wagon and held it out to me. “A peace offering. It’s your favorite color.”

  “I know what my favorite color is.”

  He cringed and held it out further. I yanked the bolt out of his hands and tossed it back on the pile. It was awkward, and I made a mess of the roll as I levered it over the wooden side panel, but it felt good to throw something. I straightened my hair and stomped off without another word.

  “Wonderful seeing you again,” Ahsae
d called.

  This day was getting on my nerves. The sun was a few hours past its zenith, and I willed it to move faster. I had investigated a dead end with Duane—not funny, I told myself—and spoken to Conrad. What else could I do?

  I should go home, clean Ilsa’s clothes and finish packing. I was moving into the house Viktor left me. Part of me thought it was wrong, gaining from his death, but I’d be broke if I had to pay to live above Karolyne’s place much longer.

  I caught sight of the Merchant’s Bank. My feet carried me inside before I was aware of what I was doing. This was where the silver Viktor left me was deposited, five hundred coins. I’d never seen so many in one place, so I spoke to the manager and asked to see my strongbox. The thin container was brought out and opened. Candlelight glinted on polished pieces.

  “You don’t clean them, do you?”

  The elf snickered. “No.”

  “I’m taking it with me. Can I have the key?”

  Nonplussed, the manager resealed the box and handed the key over. He eyed the other customers, most of them focused on the money counters, double checking their numbers. “Are you certain you should be carrying this alone?”

  The strongbox was little larger than a loaf of bread, but I knew what he meant. I lived in the Outskirts, and I’d grown up with Duane, so I wasn’t an idiot.

  “Can I borrow that vase?” I indicated a large urn, filled with dried flowers, which rested on a plinth behind his desk. “I’ll return it tomorrow.”

  When he continued to stare at me like I was mad, I opened the box and dug out a coin. It was foreign, an unfamiliar image of a winged woman stamped on its side.

  “I’ll buy it then.”

  He shook his head, flabbergasted, but handed the vase over. I pulled out the crackling stalks of lavender and dropped the strongbox inside. After shoving some flowers on top, leaving the rest on the manager’s desk, I walked out cradling the vase with the strongbox safely hidden inside.

  I slowed going downhill, as I had to peer around long stalks of lavender to see where I was going. The city clock tolled dusk, which came early in winter. I hurried, making it to the slave block just as the bonfires were lit.