by Jaxon Reed
He wondered what would happen if he named someone else captain. The ship was gone, along with almost her entire crew. Still, the power of the key remained. If he named another captain, would its power leave him and transfer to them?
He stretched, easing the kinks in his muscles from the ropes, and walked to the door. He reached out the barred window and felt down for the lock. It was the same simple iron lock Syphon had taught him to pick so many years ago. Three tumblers. He didn’t even need a pick anymore, with the spell he’d bought from Ocularus.
He ran through some options in his mind. Leaving the dungeon would be easier this time. He didn’t have to avoid the guards. A simple explanation, and he could put their minds at ease. He could probably even convince them to escort him out to the street, and cut their purses while he was at it.
And yet . . . he had the niggling suspicion that somebody wanted him here.
The more he thought of it, the more sense it made. The marines actually seemed to know who he was. And nobody knew who he was. He made sure of it over the years. Nobody connected to guards, royalty, or the military knew of him. Recent service fighting in the Battle of Greystone Village notwithstanding.
More than that, the marines almost seemed to be expecting to find him. They even had instructions on how to render him harmless, tamping down his most effective magical powers. Those orders they mentioned said to gag him, and that meant he could not talk himself out of anything.
Then there was the whole business of using a deaf sailor to take care of him, and gagging him again before handing him over to the city guards.
No, Stin decided, this was all very deliberate. Somebody wanted him here. Somebody who knew him, and knew his powers. Even the use of ropes to tie him up instead of iron shackles, which he could pick and escape from, indicated that someone knew him very well and wanted him here.
Who? Why?
He pulled his arm back inside the cell and rubbed his chin in thought. He refocused on the heightened awareness the key gave him, and reached out in his mind to the nearby cells. Perhaps he could ask somebody in this wing.
They were all empty.
That surprised him. Even as a child, at least some of the nearby cells always had prisoners. But as far he could sense, not a single person was locked up anywhere nearby.
He expanded his reach, searching above and below. He felt a small group of men nearby. They were below him, one level down.
He looked in their direction. He counted ten men. They were sitting at a table. They seemed bored. Some sat with their arms crossed. One tapped his foot, impatiently.
This perplexed Stin. What in the world were ten men doing sitting around a table in a dungeon? Were they guards?
He checked again, and they didn’t seem to be. They didn’t carry themselves like guards. He could make out their weapons. Most were daggers and various short blades hidden in pockets and folds. Guards tended to wear sheathed shortswords.
This proved even curiouser. How were the men able to get this deep into the dungeon with all those weapons? And what were they doing just sitting around a table?
Stin thought about it some more and could come up with no reasonable explanation. Then he noticed the crack along the back wall of his cell. The key’s enhanced perception let him notice a hairline opening, in the shape of a rectangle. Like a doorway.
He approached the wall and cast his new spell. The stone slid forward a couple of paces.
“A secret passageway! I never knew about these.”
Before him, steps went down to a lower level. He stretched his senses with the key’s power, and could see they exited into the room where the men were sitting.
Stin shrugged. He said, “Why not?” He went down the steps and pushed open the door.
The men turned and looked at him. They were all dressed in fine clothes. Stin could sense their hidden weapons, and the gold each one carried. Most wore well-tailored jackets of silk, in all the various colors of the kingdoms. And they wore expensive boots.
The boots were the clincher for Stin. Expensive clothes could be faked, and often were. But expensive shoes were much more difficult to replicate on a budget. These men were all genuinely wealthy. Stin supposed he made a poor appearance, still in the clothes he had been wearing when the marines fished him out of the water.
He turned and looked at the man sitting at the head of the table. His coal black hair showed wings of gray above the ears. That was the major change that time had wrought upon Syphon. His sparkling blue eyes and ready smile were the same, though.
Syphon said, “Hello, Stin. We had a bet as to how long it would take you to get down here. I said within the hour. You’ve just earned me nine gold.”
The other men groaned, but each produced a gold coin and slid it to the front of the table.
Syphon said, “Somebody was going to go fetch you if you didn’t make it by suppertime. We were also prepared to intercept you if you decided to try and escape. I figured you’d bolt immediately and we’d have you down here soon. But I must say, none of us expected you to take the secret passageway. Consider us duly impressed. Please have a seat.”
Stin noticed an empty chair at the end of the table. He pulled it out and sat down, crossing his arms and maintaining eye contact with his old mentor.
Syphon said, “Gentlemen, I present to you Stin of Coral, a native of Coral City and my former protégé. An extraordinary thief, he has for the most part evaded capture since escaping this very dungeon on his own as a boy. He can retrieve any item, if the price is right, and can mingle with nobility as easily as servants, passing for either one as needed. He has a dozen aliases, and contacts in every major city who can get him anything he needs. He flits in the dark, taking what he wants, and he has had a long and illustrious career, ecaping nooses and knives along the way.
“And, judging by that silver Gloomis Key hanging from his neck, he is also a pirate captain of Corsairs Cove. Well done, Stin.”
Stin leaned back in his chair and unconsciously tucked the key under his tunic and out of sight.
He said, with a glare of disapproval at Syphon for speaking so openly, “You all know who I am, and I know Syphon. But I am at a disadvantage with the rest of you. Who are you, and why did you bring me here?”
Syphon stretched out his hands to both sides of the table and said, “Stin, meet the Thieves’ League. We have representatives in most of the major cities throughout the lands.”
The men seated at the table nodded respectfully at Stin, and he suddenly realized why they all wore different regional garb.
One, however, did not nod back at him when he caught Stin’s eye. This man was dressed in Ruby red. He looked older than most of the others, corpulent to the point of chubbiness. He had fat cheeks and a shiny bald spot ringed by light brown hair. He stared at Stin intensely, to the point Stin began feeling uncomfortable.
Syphon continued. “The reason we went to the trouble of fetching you here is because of this man.” He nodded toward the fellow in the red jacket.
“It seems you took something from him, and he’d like it back. Stin, meet Chedwick of Ruby, Duke of Windthorn. I believe you stole a certain dagger from him.”
-+-
Kirt followed Bartimo and Bellasondra into the public house, dutifully helping bring in the sample casks on a hand truck. He watched Bartimo begin his spiel, much the same way as Bartimo had in every other public house and inn they had visited in Coral City. Tonight they called on the Green Eel.
“Gather round, gather round! Now listen here, my good fellows. I have the finest brew in the land, made exclusively for me by the greatest dwarven brewer in existence. This brew, Dwarven Stout, can be found nowhere else. I am the exclusive distributor. And, pay attention now, I am prepared to hand out free mugfuls to prove my boast!”
Cheers erupted. Bartimo smiled and waited for the applause to die down. He had the eyes and ears of everyone in the place.
“Now, there is a catch . . .”
&n
bsp; Laughter. Good natured jeers and raspberries followed. Bartimo raised a hand and waited for silence.
“If you believe this is indeed the finest beer you’ve ever tasted, then all I ask in return is you let the proprietor know, and encourage him to stock Dwarven Stout!”
Everybody looked at the owner, a tall man with straw-colored hair wiping off a mug behind the bar. He smiled and nodded. Kirt knew Bellasondra had prepped him for this, in an earlier visit. It didn’t hurt that Bellasondra was quite attractive. Almost always, especially if the proprietor was male, permission to make the spiel was given ahead of time.
Kirt and Bartimo hoisted a cask onto a table and Bellasondra lined up the mugs. They always brought their own mugs, and Kirt knew this was for three reasons. One, the proprietor did not have to give up mugs that would otherwise go toward paying customers. Two, the proprietor did not have to wash the mugs. This was all explained and agreed to ahead of time.
The third reason was because their mugs were smaller than those typically offered at most establishments. This allowed more people to sample the beer with a full-looking mug, rather than giving out half-full mugs in the regular size.
Bartimo tapped the cask, using a mallet to drive in a spigot, and Bellasondra filled mug after mug, handing them out to patrons.
As usual, everybody liked the beer. Several quaffed it, and immediately returned for seconds. Bartimo and Bellasondra made sure everyone who wanted a mug had one before giving refills.
Eventually, amidst the bonhomie free beer generates, the proprietor walked over and took a mug himself. His eyebrows went up and he agreed the brew was very good.
Bartimo offered to return that very evening with more casks at the standard rate of one gold each. The proprietor balked, as they always did when first hearing the price.
“You can sell this beer for more, though,” Bartimo assured him.
Then a local suggested, as one typically did about this time, that he would be willing to throw some more coin down for Dwarven Stout. At that point, Bellasondra gently suggested that it was available in the establishment down the street, which had already purchased ten casks, and if the owner here decided against carrying it, the customer could find it practically next door.
As usual, that did the trick and the proprietor capitulated. The only thing varying from pub to pub was the number of casks agreed to be purchased. Tonight, their newest customer agreed to buy five.
Kirt helped load up the now empty sample container while Bellasondra and Bartimo grabbed the mugs. They made their way out and found Horse and the cart, paying the boy who watched them a copper for his time. Once everything was loaded, Bellasondra drove them back to the dockside warehouse they had rented.
After arriving in Coral City from Osmo, Bartimo arranged for their cargo to be unloaded and stored. Following some haggling with the owner, Bartimo leased space that encompassed roughly three times what they needed. The owner, a short man with a lazy eye and a bad limp, could see no reason for the twins to rent the larger of his two warehouses. Bartimo assured him the bigger space was needed, and the deal was struck.
The following day, Bartimo set out in search of empty casks and fresh water. Obtaining both, and arranging their delivery to the warehouse, Bellasondra and Kirt helped him prepare the Dwarven Stout, diluting the thick rich beer into something more palatable for human consumption. Soon, they had triple the number of original casks.
Then the twins began selling. The first day in the pubs, to Kirt’s surprise, they sold 120 casks. That amount covered most of their expenditures thus far, Bellasondra told him. A single establishment, a huge pub and gaming hall right off the docks called Dead Man’s Reef, purchased 50 casks on the spot. The owner loved the beer, saying he’d never tasted anything like it.
The next day they sold more, with other pubs and inns buying anywhere from three to 30 or more. By the third day, Bartimo said word had spread, and he expected middlemen to begin approaching with offers.
Indeed, on the morning of their fourth day, an elderly lady with a straight back and a surprisingly quick spring in her step, knocked on the door to their warehouse. She wanted to know how much beer they had in stock. Bartimo showed her, and her eyes bulged at the casks stacked up to the ceiling.
Then the bargaining began. She offered to buy 1,000 casks for 500 hundred gold. Bartimo held firm as she steadily upped her offer. Finally, he explained that their backers expected a return of one gold per cask, and he could not return home with any less. If she was not willing to meet the price, he and his sister were content to continue selling pub to pub until their inventory was depleted.
“Besides,” he said, “when those existing customers run out of Dwarven Stout, you can always charge them more.”
At last, the lady agreed to Bartimo’s terms. She left, then showed up an hour later with guards carrying gold and a wagon train for the beer. Hired hands transferred 1,000 barrels to her wagons, and she left to store them in a different warehouse.
Over lunch, Bartimo and Bellasondra discussed whether they should remain in Coral City and try to sell the remainder of their stock, or if they should load everything up in a ship and go to another port. Bellasondra thought introducing the beer to different places might be good for sales next year. Bartimo felt that selling everything in Coral City would be a more efficient way of making a return on their backer’s gold.
“Let’s at least wait a while and see if more brokers are interested in making a deal,” he said. “If we sell another 1,000 casks all at once, we can start thinking about booking passage home.”
Bellasondra agreed, but she wanted a break from selling beer. Bartimo wanted to scout out some new establishments, so they agreed to part ways for the afternoon. Stin decided to go with Bellasondra to explore and see the sights.
Coral City offered an extensive commerce district, with several blocks and city squares devoted to market stalls and shops. One of the reasons the twins started selling Dwarven Stout in Coral City, Kirt knew, was because it was the largest and wealthiest port.
As they wandered past the products hawked from dozens of distant lands, Kirt realized Bartimo might have a point. If they could sell everything here, in the midst of all this trade, there’d be no need to travel anywhere else.
After a couple hours, they wandered onto another street and found storefronts offering services rather than products. Many beauty shops lined the boulevard, hawkers offering a variety of aesthetic spells and glamours.
Bellasondra ignored these, laughing off the callers’ attention. Privately, Kirt agreed with her choice. He did not think she needed the help of any spells for her looks.
Then they entered a street offering more serious fare. Signs greeted them, rather than hawkers, and the services included things like representation at court, handling matters of estate, sales in foreign lands, petitioning the king for personal redress and the like.
At the end of this street, the sign in front of the last shop caught Bellasondra’s eye. It read, “Ye Olde Agency. Tempolius, Locator of People, Finder of Lost Things, & Sundry Other Matters of Investigative Nature & Inquiry. Serving Merchants & Nobility in Confidence since 3150.”
Bellasondra gasped and said, “Maybe he can find Stin!”
She grabbed Kirt by the hand and hurried into the shop with him in tow.
Inside, they met the owner. Tempolius appeared to be a man of considerable magical skill, Kirt decided. He stood at average height and build, and his black hair had a cowlick that sometimes dropped down in front of his right eye. He’d brush it back and it would stay put on his forehead for a while before inevitably dropping down again.
Despite that quirk in appearance, he held an undeniable grasp of the magic arts. After they were seated in his office he offered them water, and full drinking glasses appeared on the table when they accepted. This trick alone ranked him at least in the lower ranks of court mages, Kirt thought.
Bellasondra began telling him all she knew about Stin, and how he had b
een captured by pirates on their voyage to Refugio.
Minutes later, noting the way he carried himself and the confidence with which he spoke to Bellasondra about being able to find Stin, Kirt decided perhaps Tempolius belonged in the upper ranks of court mages.
His fee was 12 gold. Kirt thought the sum was preposterous, and audibly guffawed.
Tempolius acknowledged the boy’s skepticism. He said, “It’s not all for me. I have contacts everywhere, and finding a man who has been taken like you say, who has disappeared on the high seas, will require a considerable amount of coin. I’ll be starting with my acquaintances at the maritime courts, and their words don’t come cheap. Information is expensive in this city. But if I can find him, I will. You have my word.”
Bellasondra opened her purse and counted out the coins for him. Tempolius promised to bring news from his contacts to their warehouse on the morrow.
When they left, making their way back, Bellasondra had a spring in her step that Kirt had not seen in a while. She talked all the way home about Tempolius and his chances of finding Stin again.
19
Mita woke up and immediately jumped to her feet. She looked in the direction Darkstone had stood before she cast her sleeping spell. His mangled body lay on the ground in a pool of blood. Gashes and gouges and chunks of flesh were torn and scattered about. Flies buzzed around his open belly and neck.
“It was a sight to see,” Loadstone said from the edge of the clearing.
Redstone nodded and said, “You were both sleeping. Then his body started ripping apart. Never seen anything quite like that.”
The three of them approached the corpse together.
“We should bury him,” Redstone said. “He was a sorry bastard, evil to the core, but he was a wizard. And a human being. He deserves a proper burial.”