“Okay. Risky, but probably okay.”
“More than okay. Tavos will never see me coming. He’s blind now — totally without his usual intel, wouldn’t you say? I mean, I always knew he had grown a good intelligence gathering arm within the guild. I just didn’t realize it was just one person.”
She gives me a short pout and then puts on a blank stare. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Look, the guild didn’t get into blackmail until your late teens. I’m thinking that the trick you pulled with the ravens and the mouse is more than just a trick. I’m thinking you’re able to talk with them, control them, see through their eyes, all sorts of stuff. The ravens grabbing us as we fell, that’s not natural behavior. That’s something significantly more hocus-pocusy than just summoning.”
“That was pretty unusual, wasn’t it?”
“More than.”
“Yeah, more than.”
“Which is why your dad was more than unhappy we hooked up. It wasn’t just, ‘Hey, some undeserving shortkin is bedding my daughter.’ It was, ‘Uh oh, I’m losing my grip on a valuable resource.’”
“Close, but Pinty, it was always I that bed you. You weren’t the one in control of that relationship.”
Now it was my turn to give her the blank stare. It didn’t last. “Yeah, you’re right. Hey, I can only assume that you were spying on me when we dated. Do you still keep tabs on me now? You know, get ready to shoo away possible new suitors to the awesomeness they call Pinty?”
“Not a chance. First off, your freaking cat is a mass murderer of both mice and ravens. He kills everything. It’s a blind zone around your tavern. That cat of yours does more for you than you will ever know.”
“Other than change loyalties. You’ve still been feeding him live treats, haven’t you?”
“Yeah, I have. And he loves it. Last night His Royal Highness Gloom slept at the foot of my bed. I think he’s in love.”
“Arrrgh! I did not save your butt so you could sow dissension in my ranks! Cut it out!” She gives me another pout. “Anyways, without you, I don’t think Tavos has a clue what’s going on. Hell, thinking about it, I would probably be paranoid too if I knew that every mouse and raven could be your spy.”
I reach over and flip through the maps. “Okay, I’ll go get these copied correctly and delivered to the governor. If you could do your stuff and confirm that your dad is down in the warren where we believe him to be, we can do this all organized and stuff. Might actually work.”
“No problem. Give me a bit to beg some dinner from Mavis and I’ll get to it. You sure you don’t want me to tag along as well?”
“Naw, I think this is just the right operation for one person — in, through, and then bang! Surprised by a shortkin!”
“Suit yourself, then. I can certainly live with the consequences.” Amber bends down, gives me a peck on the top of my head, and makes for the door.
“Wait!”
“What?”
“What’s the thing after ‘First off?’”
“Oh. That I actually have to concentrate to see through my pets, and for all your belief the world only exists because of you —”
“It does.”
“I don’t actually spend all that much time thinking about the Great and Amazing Pinty.” And with that, Amber gives me a mocking curtsey, turns and heads off down the hallway to the tavern’s common room.
I sit for a while in her room, going over the maps one more time to make sure I have everything memorized, until it strikes me. “Hey, wait a minute! If you know that Gloom kills everything around the Bottom Up, then you’ve been trying to keep tabs on me! You’re totally jealous! Hey, wait up!”
I boot it for the main room myself. This I have to rub in because, you know, I am the model of mature.
Chapter 32
I should have brought a wagon of socks with me. Just tie a rope around my waist and attach it to a nice, red cart loaded with fresh, dry footwear. For the third time, I’ve stopped to wring out my socks from walking the sodden tunnel.
It’s my fault, really, thinking that an underground passageway that arcs well out below the harbor and back would be the perfect approach to the guild headquarters. When I was active, this was one of my favorite entrances, generally unused and unguarded. What I forgot was that everywhere it buckles or bends it collects large sums of standing water that rides high up my shins.
If I’m lucky, with my feet continually damp I’ll grow some nice, exotic fungus between my toes that Mavis will find charmingly useful in a poison.
Fine, I give up caring about how wet my socks are and just put them back on sopping. Never fight the inevitable, I say.
The light of my small handlamp plays against the stone and water as I slosh down the tunnel. An iron grate secured with a large but amateurish lock appears in the shadows ahead.
“Well, that’s unexpected.” The gate isn’t marked on the map and I don’t recall it being here when I was a regular with the guild. Then again, it has been a couple years since I’ve been down here. Someone must have added these new refinements. On the gate hangs the really friendly sign “Closed due to certain death”. Below the text are four slashed lines in red paint with a fifth line drawn through them.
I stand there a moment and contemplate turning back. Doing so would mean I would have to give up on ambushing Tavos underground and fall back to the plan of waiting for when he exits the warrens to flee the sweep of the governor’s soldiers. Contemplation is well overrated.
The lock takes just a few seconds to pick and snaps open with a loud clack that reverberates down the stone passageway before being muted by the standing pools of water. I step through, close the gate and relock it. A few hundred more feet and the passage will pass back into land, running under the docks and into the warehouse district.
But it doesn’t. It’s just a short fifty feet before it is once again blocked with an iron gate, another large amateurish lock on the other side and another sign. I reach through the bars and flip the sign over so I can read it.
It reads, “Closed due to certain death.” It also includes the red slashes below the text.
“Huh. Okay.”
I pull out my pick and reach through the bars, flipping the lock upside down so the keyhole faces me. The keyhole has been filled with cement. I must say, it’s very difficult to pick a lock that’s jammed with filler. More honestly, it’s impossible. What also sucks, given how little light the handlamp casts, is the small cord that I didn’t see attached to the lock. Flipping it up pulled the cord taut.
Somewhere beyond the gate there’s the grinding sound of a stone being dislodged, followed by the splash of it landing in a pool of water.
I start counting in my head. I’m pretty sure that I’ll make it to five. It feels like that kind of moment.
One. Two.
A sharp wind rips through the passageway, moans through the gate and has gathered enough force to snuff my handlamp. Right. Darkness. This is awesome.
Three.
Water. I hear an angry creek of water gurgling, gushing and tumbling. Got it. Water is heading my way.
Four.
I don’t make it to five. The first wave of the oncoming water tears through the gate and takes me out at the legs. I go face down. The small lamp leaves my hand and I hear it clink against the wall as the water takes it away. Everything else blurs as I go under the rising waters and get swept back to the first gate.
I hit face first, hard, but I likely still have the same number of teeth. The draw of the water keeps me pinned. There’s nowhere to swim up and nowhere to swim to. Everything offered by the situation comes down to one option: being pressed against the gate and drowning.
I’m not happy with that choice.
The angry torrent keeps bashing me against the gate every time I try to pull away and my hands immediately turn numb from the water’s cold. I fumble at the latches of the strongbox and retain just enough dexterity and strength in my
fingers to succeed at the locking combination. The box opens up and one of the vials is lost to the flow of the water before I can react. I run my hand over the top of the remaining caps and count across. The one I’m wanting should be the third one in, with rounded bumps on the lid.
With the pitch black of the flooded passageway and the numbness in my fingers, I can’t confirm if the lid has any bumps, but I’m sure the vial I draw is the third in from the left. Well, mostly sure. I pull the cap with my teeth and suck the liquid from the tube before it washes away. In a moment, I should be able to breathe underwater.
Nine. Ten.
My vision explodes in a radiance of rainbow and sparks and my hearing mutes, except for a “ping ping ping ping” that I hear over and over.
Wrong potion. This won’t save me from drowning. I just imbibed Mavis’ concoction for seeing in the dark. Well, it’s successful. The passageway becomes visible in a crisp, clear monotone of grey. Great, now I get to view everything while I drown.
I see the texture of the lovely stone walls of the passage, a small school of lithe fish swimming against the current near my feet, the insufferable gate that’s going to drown me in a moment and, on the other side of that very gate, a hugely muscular man with his hands clenched on the bars, holding tight against the pull of the water.
I try to process this, but the current rams a stray log into my side and I open my mouth in the smallest expression of pain. Water rushes over my teeth and into my lungs, causing me to convulse. I come close to expelling that small swallow of sea water and, with that, all the air from my lungs.
No time for anything else. Even numb, I successfully run my hand across my bandolier for the lock picks. I grab the appropriate pick and ham fist it into the lock on the other side of the gate. I bump the man while doing so and, with a start, he grabs my arm. I shake it off, but now he knows I’m here.
The small part of my brain that’s still running outside of the “I’m going to drown” conversation is still counting. Fifteen. Sixteen. Sixteen what? What sixteen? Then I say to myself, “Seventeen.”
I pop the locking mechanism once again, free the loop from the latch and let the lock drift free, where it smacks against the man’s face before being pulled out of sight and down the corridor by the current.
With the latch freed, I pull on the gate’s door. It strains to open inward, against the current. My feet are planted to the side, but my hands are now completely numb and they keep slipping, falling off the bars, as I try to pull the gate towards me and open.
Twenty-five. Twenty-six.
I can’t do it. My hands can’t hold a grip. The fingers wrap around the bars, but there’s no strength. They just slip off. On the other side, the man is furiously mashing his foot at the door, attempting with all his might to wedge it open far enough for me to pass through.
And then, it’s all over. There’s nothing further to count and my lungs are screaming for oxygen. I open my mouth and let the water in.
Chapter 33
“I have no idea why he likes you.”
I’m groggy, cold and blind, but I still know that isn’t my voice. “Whaaaa. Whaa. What . . .” I’m also shivering so hard I’m having a hard time talking. “What did you say?”
“I have no idea why he likes you.”
“Ahhh, that’s what I thought you said. It’s like a gift. I get saved from drowning to be told someone loves me.” And I highlight my witty response by puking up about four gallons of seawater. I hold out my hand in front of me. “You wouldn’t have some potable water anywhere, would you? I’m not looking forward to the leg cramps I’m about to get.”
“Yeah, the salt will do that. Here. And I said likes. I don’t think I’ve seen him love anything.”
A large goblet gets pushed into my hands. It’s filled with a very weak beer and it tastes like crap. I swallow every bit. “I know you, don’t I?”
“Yup.”
“You’re one of the governor’s Goblins.” The Goblins are his personally picked super-soldier squad. When he needs something absolutely done, he hands the job to the toughest bastards to ever make it through military training. They’re not actually goblins, but they seem to have a lot in common, like coming for you in the middle of the night and making you disappear.
“Yup.”
“Andeos, if I remember.”
“Yup.”
Great, I get the head of the whole freaking squad.
“I don’t know why you said he likes me. Last time I saw him, he offered me a goblet of what I’m sure was poison. I’m of the opinion that he believes the world would be a better place with me dead.”
“Did he make you drink it?”
“No.”
“Then like I said, I don’t know why he likes you. If I had my way, I would march you back to the tunnel from which I dragged your short, ugly, thieving excuse for a carcass and put it face down in the water once more until you were dead. No more bubbles.”
He actually would be one to do that, even against orders. “But you didn’t.”
“No.”
“Well, I appreciate that. Thank you.” There is a definite silence in the conversation, even above the pinging that still, though much more faintly, continues to ring in my ears. “Okay then, so why are you following me?”
“Don’t take this personally, but the governor doesn’t trust you. When you show up and promise the guild master’s head on a silver platter, he’s thinking all isn’t what it seems. So he had me trail you.”
“I’m totally trustworthy!”
“Not when you strike a plan to have almost every one of his soldiers committed to going underground, into a maze of traps, all at the same time, for a prize that sounds way too good. Seems like a nice way to eliminate the governor’s security in one go.”
“Well, when you say it that way it sounds kind of risky.” Another pause. “So what now?”
“I leave and go make a report to the governor. Let you dry out on your own. No need for me to be here any longer. Against my better judgment I will report ‘still lives.’”
“That’s succinct.” I might push too far with this next question. “So, do you think I’m leading you into a trap?”
“I saw what you did to Squints, been following you from the moment you left the palace. I also led the interrogation on him afterwards. I’m pretty sure the maps are as good as they can be. I’m still not convinced, though, about your intentions.”
“But we’re still on, I mean, we’re going after Tavos, right?”
“Maybe. That’s the governor’s decision. Anyway, you’re fine here for now.”
“Uhh, hey, I’m going to be ultra-sensitive to light for a while and have difficulty seeing.” I hold up my hands to my face, trying to block out the blaze from the giant, burning aura of orange that fills my vision. I fail and still can’t see anything. The side effects of Mavis’ potion are still in effect. “If you abandon me somewhere, I might be in danger. Why don’t you just take me back to the Bottom Up?”
“You’re safe. I’ve made arrangements with the proprietor. You can stay here in the back room for a couple hours. There’s a dry change of clothes, some more beer and some food.”
“Wait, where am I?”
“You’re in the back room of the Sea Maiden. It’s a pub near the docks.”
“You brought me to a competitor? I’m drinking the beer of a competitor? I’m never going to live this down! Seriously, you have to get me out of here! I can see the headlines now: ‘Pinty dines at the Sea Maiden, Food at the Bottom Up isn’t good enough’. I’ll be a laughingstock! I demand you take me away from here right now!”
Damn it. Even blinded in the light, I can tell he’s gone already.
Chapter 34
I eat and change into the dry clothes. Though my eyes hurt to look at anything brighter than a dim lantern, I nonetheless head out towards the city’s south side, home to the Bottom Up. The wharf district’s Sea Maiden was hospitable, but not where I need to be.
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The city in which the Bottom Up resides was founded almost three centuries ago on the edge of the great Edoic Sea. Over the years the city’s population has ebbed and flowed, much as the tide upon the beach. When commerce is good the city is filled with a wash of people overflowing homes, spilling into the streets, and bringing the revelry that follows a population rich with coin in its pocket and hope in its heart. And then, as it always does, the tide pulls out, leaving only the most loathsome of human debris within the city walls. Never does this cycle of boom-then-bust allow the city to grow so big as to become self-sustaining, or empty enough to become abandoned to the elements.
It would be nice to say there’s a good part of town, but that would be like showing which part an apple is rotted the least. For the city, the concept of good is simply figurative, indicating what part of the town is less likely — not unlikely, just less likely — to be where you are robbed.
Case in point: it’s been about five blocks of walking and already I have someone following me. This has been an exceptionally long day and I’m in really no mood.
The potion, though its effects have mostly worn off, still gives me some benefit in the dark of the night. Even now it lightens the shadows and adds hazy outlines to the living, allowing for surreptitious glances to be all I need to spot my stalker.
Two blocks up I play the simplest of games. Round a corner and huddle into a doorway until your hunter passes by. It’s just a minute until his steps stop at the corner and can almost hear his mind racing, “Where did he go?”
In these cases, patience will always win out.
He’s tall and wrapped in a long cloak, from which a sword can be seen outlined in the material. The hood is up and he misses seeing me as he chooses a direction and continues on.
My knife is already waiting. I move out from the doorway and lunge. Light from somewhere glints off the blade’s tip before it punctures deep into the back of his knee, hitting cartilage, bone and the thick of muscle.
The cloaked figure immediately buckles as the strength in his leg gives out. I can hear the knee pop as he collapses. That’s a really unfortunate tumble.
I take nothing for granted. The next thrust of the knife goes straight into his back above the hip, hitting only flesh. It bleeds open like there is no tomorrow.