by Deck Davis
“Sir, the parade…”
“Fuck the parade. If the Queen’s uncle wants security, he can pick up a sword himself. Find the cleric, beat the ever-loving hell out of him, and bring him back. I want him alive, but I want his and his friend’s faces swollen beyond all recognition. Then we’ll heal him, and I’ll beat it all over again.”
Blakely looked alarmed now, and Lloyd knew why.
The word he’d used, the things he’d said.
Beatings, blood, bruises. It was the way the guardship used to work before Lloyd had fixed things.
Maybe there was a time when a man had to act that way. Morals couldn’t fix everything.
56
Although Archibald’s shop was on the Royal Mile, Witas knew a path through the warren of Dispolis alleyways that kept them out of sight. They edged along each alley and checked for movements, and they listened for the sounds of guard boots.
On the way there, Jakub drained soul essence from a pigeon that had met its end at a cat’s claws, then he drained a cat that had been run over by a cart. Finally, he found a rat which had been pelted to death by stones by local kids.
It filled his soul necklace half-way. Not great but it was something, and right now he needed it.
He stopped for a second and rolled up his sleeve to show his glyphline tattoos. His Resurrection tattoo was bigger and darker than the others now, which was a sign of him choosing the Raiser shade.
“Not the best time to stop,” said Witas.
“It feels like something is trying to pound its way out of my skull with a tiny warhammer.”
“We’ll get you fixed up, I promise.”
“That sounded like an actual, genuine show of concern.”
“Blight is bad, Jakub. I don’t want to see blood dripping out of your eyes.”
Jakub cast Health Harvest, changing some of his necklace essence to a healing mist. It washed over his skin, smoothing the parts that were turning green and taking away the soreness. The thud in his head faded to a dim tapping.
“Do I look any better?”
“Still green.”
“Health Harvest can’t cure it then.”
“A spell? We’re not talking about a paper cut or a common cold, Jakub. You need a mender. C’mon – we’ll try and stop Archie completely screwing us on price, then head to the quack.”
They reached Archibald’s pawn shop after another ten minutes of alleyway threading, arriving at his back door. The shop itself was blocked from view by a ten-foot-tall gate.
Witas clambered over it, and landed on the other side. Jakub couldn’t see him, but he heard his voice. “Don’t be shy.”
Feeling feeble, Jakub climbed over the gate and dropped into the back yard of Archibald’s shop. Unlike the shop front, which had a pristine window and a sign that advertised his trade, the back of the building had been ignored.
In the corner there was a pile of old wood and steel parts from all manner of trinkets, while an oil stain on the stone gave off a pungent smell.
“I don’t think he’s going to be best pleased with us coming in this way.”
“Archie has three types of customers; the type who walk in the front door, those who walk in the front door and then ask him to close the blinds, and the type who have to climb over his wall. An old pawner like that, he can’t afford to get snooty.”
Witas approached the back door of the shop, raised his hand to knock, and then stopped.
He turned around and patted his pockets.
“What’s wrong?” asked Jakub.
“This can’t be right.”
He put his hand in his trouser pockets, then his coat, and finally the inside of his coat.
“Holy hells, I forgot about this.”
He held the pickpocket’s finger in his hand. The finger was curling and then uncurling on its own, making a ‘come here’ gesture.
Jakub remembered seeing Witas’s clericism in the basement of the guardship headquarters, where he’d made a deal with his demon contact from the Blacktyde.
“The demon, whatshisname…he said it’d tell us when we were near to where the boy died.”
Witas’s cheeks had turned white. “This can’t be right.”
Near the door, Jakob saw movement in the shop window. He couldn’t see who it was, but he guessed it was Archibald.
He ducked down, and Witas did the same. Out of view, Jakub looked at the finger again. It was pointing now, and when he followed its direction, he saw a discoloured patch of stone in Archibald’s yard.
“Archibald? Really?” he whispered.
Witas shook his head. “Got to be a mistake. Pankratz is messing with me, that’s how Blacktyde demons get their kicks. It’s a problem of being a black cleric versus a white one – at least you can trust divine powers to do what they promise.”
“I know Archie is your friend, but I’m not going in there until we look around here.”
“Whatever it is, assuming it ain’t the demon getting his kicks, Archibald doesn’t know about it. He fixes wind-up ducks, for god’s sake.”
“Does he collect coins?”
Witas shook his head. “Oh no. don’t go down that street. The guy in the Last Rites was taller than an elm tree.”
“We already agreed there could be more than two of them.”
“I’ve known Archibald since I was a kid. When I was at the academy, a bunch of used to go to Dispolis on weekends, and we’d always come here. He used to sell-”
“He used to sell artificed joke stuff. I know, Witas, because I came here too. The guy went out of his way to put stuff on his shelf that academy kids would want to buy. Not just the jokes; he sold vials, mana-rings, spell-reference books.”
“That’s called being a good business man and knowing your market,” said Witas.
“You’re blind.”
“And you’re green, so we’re a great fucking pair,” said Witas. The he punched the stone. “Damn it. Fine – go and look.”
Jakub pointed at the window above. “Keep an eye out for Archibald. Suspicious or not, I don’t want him catching me creeping around his yard.”
“He keeps a blaster staff under his counter,” said Witas. “I’ve seen him practicing with it; he fills the bottom with mana, and it shoots little zaps of lightning.”
“If he sees us, you’ll have to talk him round.”
“Assuming the Archibald I thought I knew is really him. If he’s got anything to do with all of this…I don’t he’ll be happy to just have a blinds-closed conversation.”
“Then I better be quick.”
57
The discoloured stone could have just been wet. It could have had an innocent explanation for looking different to everything else in the yard.
When Jakub got close, he smelled mana. Faint, but there. He felt around its edges, he pressed it, but nothing happened.
“It’s not a pressure plate,” he said. “Probably mana sealed; you’ll need a password to open it.”
“Or it opens when it hears certain people’s voice. If it’s actually a secret entrance to somewhere, that is.”
“Come and smell it for yourself,” said Jakub.
“I’m not calling your nose a liar. If it worked like the traps they lay in dungeons, anyone could stumble over it. There’s no way of getting this open – no mechanism, no latch.”
“There might be something. If you were forming a party to go dungeon raiding, what type of people would you need? You know, in a typical goblin-and-treasure dungeon?”
“A healer. A big guy who can take a few hits. A couple of mud-brained barbarians.”
“And for picking out traps? Finding secret doors? Busting chest locks?”
“I suppose we’d ask a rogue along, yeah. You know any?”
Jakub took the rogue blood draught from his bag. When he’d looted it after his gwarflock fight near the academy, he expected it to be useful for opening a locked door or sneaking by someone, not opening the door to a cellar that possibly led t
o a slaughter house.
The idea made his head hurt again; it brought back the dull wash of pain from his blight.
He uncorked the vial of blood draught. Although the liquid was red, it smelled of leather and copper and looked thin, as though it had been diluted.
He drank it back and felt it hit his stomach. This was his first blood draught, and the feeling was strange; it took a few seconds before his fingers felt sprightlier, his body lighter. He could hear sounds in the distance clearer now; the cheers and yells of children from the nearby school playground, the rumble of a cart’s wheels over the road.
“What was the vial?” asked Witas.
“A rogue’s blood draught.”
“Those things are a con. They take a pint of blood, add a little mana, and then dilute it with twenty times more water, so much that you might as well go drink a thief’s piss; you’d have just as much time inheriting his powers.”
“I don’t know; I feel different. This looks different, too; it’s definitely a hatch. I can see its outlines now, but the whole mechanism is hidden under it, under the stone.”
“No levers or locks?”
“Nothing.”
“Then it works on a password or voice. At least we know that. Come on; It shouldn’t take us long to get it open.”
“Archibald?”
“Who else?” said Witas. “It’s time for a blinds-closed conversation.”
58
Witas raised his hand to bang on the back door, when Jakub rushed up and caught him.
“I used the draught. I can pick our way in.”
“And Archie’s not going to realise anything’s wrong when we sneak into his shop, is he?”
“Do we care if he knows? I want him to open the hatch, I couldn’t care less if he’s singing and dancing about it,” said Jakub.
“You don’t know Archie. Do this wrong, and he’ll clam up.”
“I can open clams.”
“Years ago, before Archie bought this dump, he was an artificer in the Queen’s army. You know how artificers serve in the force?”
“Adding effects to weapons, armor, that kind of thing.”
“Right. They usually don’t see much combat itself, but a unit Archie was attached to were sent to the eastern Valley of Horns. You know it?”
“It was a massacre there, wasn’t it?”
“An ambush. Most of Archie’s unit were slaughtered, and they were the lucky ones. The tribes settled there were working for the Baelin, and they sorted through the unit and chose the guys who they thought might know things. Anyone with a ranking pin on their chest, that kind of thing. They saw that Archie was an artificer, and they took him in for some gentle persuasion.”
“Artificery isn’t exactly a secret,” said Jakub. “Walk down Royal Mile and you’ll see a dozen of their shops.”
“You think that the artificery they use in these little tourist shops is the same as they use in the army? Archie didn’t always screw around artificing wind-up ducks for spoiled brats. Point is, the tribe kept him for two months, and they did all kinds of weird stuff to him, but he never broke.”
“Do you know how to deal with him?”
“Whatever Archie’s got himself into, there will be a reason. We can’t trick him, and we can’t force it out of him. We just need to talk in a way Archie will listen.”
59
It took three knocks on the door for Archibald to open it. When the old artificer stood in the doorway, his back slightly bent, his fingertips stained black, Jakub saw him differently now.
He wasn’t just an eccentric guy who owned a weird shop. There was more to him; a soldier who survived interrogation. A guy who was possibly into much worse things.
“I see you’ve climbed over my wall,” he said, staring at Witas and Jakub in turn, annoyance in his eyes.
“Front doors get a little boring.”
“And dangerous,” said Archibald, “when half the guard force is looking for you.”
“Have people been telling tales about me?” asked Witas.
Archibald waved them through the back corridor of his shop. “This way. Yes, Witty. You’d think it wasn’t the Queen’s uncles parade but yours, by the attention the guardship are giving you.”
One word stuck out to Jakub – Witty. When Witas told him about Ria, he’d mentioned that she called him that.
Were he and Archibald better friends than Witas had let on?
He reminded himself that he’d only known the guy for a few days. Circumstance had forced him to put a hell of a lot of trust in him, and he’d have to carry on trusting him for the time being, too.
After all, he had blight, the academy was no longer his friend, Kortho was gone, and the Dispolis guardship were looking for him.
Archibald led them to his living quarters. Unlike his shop, this room was a mess, full of unwashed plates, clothes strewn all around, repair parts like gears and cogs everywhere. On the kitchen counter, beside the sink, four dead birds lay on a plate, presumably waiting to be plucked and then cooked.
“So, they came and asked you questions about me, right?” said Witas.
“I don’t know why,” said Archibald, “but whenever the guardship want to know about one unscrupulous character or another, they always come to my shop and nobody else’s.”
“I’m shocked.”
“Did they ask about a pickpocket?” said Jakub.
Archibald’s brow furrowed. “Why would they ask that?”
“They think we killed one. That’s why they’re looking for us.”
Archibald shook his head. “No; that’s not it at all. They told me that the both of you slaughtered ten guards in the Rats’ Palace.”
60
Witas leapt from his seat and walked around the room, messing with his beard as he circled.
“You’ll wear out my floor,” said Archibald.
“Slaughtered? The guards died down there?”
“The ones who found them had never seen so much blood,” said Archibald.
Jakub faced the artificer. “The guardship came to ask you about us, and they told you that we’d slaughtered ten armed guards. And you just invited us into your house without a care.”
Witas stopped pacing now.
Jakub felt himself tense up; something was wrong.
“He’s right,” said Witas. “You don’t seem worried.”
Jakub drew his sword from his sheath and held it so the tip pressed against Archibald’s neck. “Whatever you’re so smug about, don’t try it.”
“I told you, we can’t deal with him like this,” said Witas.
Archibald glanced at Jakub, then Witas, and a look of indignation crossed his face. “Deal with me? I bring you into my home - when you are fugitives, no less - and you accuse me of, what? Not being scared of you? I’m sorry if I don’t believe the rumors about Witas. I don’t think he is capable of murder, and if he was, I don’t think he could kill ten guardsmen. And you certainly wouldn’t even the numbers.”
“You didn’t believe them?” asked Witas.
“We’ve known each other a long time. While we were never best friends, there was at least professional respect.”
Witas nodded at Jakub. “Relax.”
Jakub guessed it made sense; the guardship told Archibald that he and Witas were murderers, and he simply didn’t believe them. That was why he was so relaxed.
He put his sword back in his sheath.
As soon as he did, Archibald reached under the table. There was the sound of tape ripping, and he raised a blaster staff. It wooden with a blue gem on the end, and the shaft had been sewn in half to make it more portable.
As Archibald pointed at him, Jakub dove to the side, hitting the floor just before a bolt of energy smashed into Archibald’s wall, sending a stream of sparks over the brickwork.
A chair clattered to the ground as Archibald stood up. He pointed his staff again, this time sending a fizz of energy at Witas.
It hit the cleric on his arm, sp
inning him around and then backward, into the counter. Pots and pans fell off, and ceramic mugs smashed on the floor.
With Witas hurt, Jakub saw Archibald turn to aim at him now.
He’d catch him dead; There was nowhere to hide, so he needed to do something.
He glanced at the dead birds on the counter. He spoke the spellword of Reanimate and sent a gush of essence to them.
One stirred, then another, then three and four. Their wings fluttered, and their claws moved back and forth as life breathed into them.
*Necromancy EXP Gained!*
EXP [IIII ]
Alive and standing upright on the kitchen counter, the birds waited for their commands.
Attack, he told them with just a thought.
Archibald shot one of them out the air, the energy from his staff charring the bird instantly. It smashed into his window and broke straight through and landed in the yard outside.
While the three birds pecked at Archibald’s face, Jakub gave another command. He spoke it this time, because he wanted Archibald to hear.
“Go for his eyes,” he said.
There were two things the artificer prized above all others, he guessed. He couldn’t do his intricate work without his hand dexterity, or his eyesight.
As the birds went for his eyes, Archibald raised his hands to defend himself. He dropped the staff, which Jakub was quick to pick up.
“You okay?” he said, looking at Witas.
Witas nodded, though the sleeve of his left bicep had burned away, and the bolt had flashed across his skin, turning it a mean shade of red.
Jakub tossed the blaster to him, and held his own sword in his hand.
Leave him, he commanded his birds.
Then he and Witas stood there, blaster staff and sword pointed at Archibald, the three re-animated birds hovering inches away and ready to peck at him.
“It’s time we talked properly,” said Jakub.
61
“He won’t talk; I told you that,” said Witas.
“Listen to your friend,” said Archibald.