by Jaxon Reed
He shouted, “They call me Deef, ’cause I’m deef! I cain’t hear a word you’re sayin’!”
He cackled, the sound echoing off the ship’s timbers as he filled Stin’s slop and water pails.
“They say you gots a silver tongue! Well it ain’t no use ’gainst me! ’Cause I’m Deef!”
“Yes, yes. I get it. You’re deaf.”
“What? I cain’t here you! I’m Deef! That’s mah name!”
And so it went. Deef would come in and bellow out some conversational snippets, swap out his respective buckets, and leave again.
Stin napped. He woke to find the captain’s key around his neck. He wondered if the marines would come back and take it again. When they did not return for it by the second day, he decided if the marines were anything like the seadog pirates he had sailed with, they likely thought it lost or stolen.
The scrip from the Mystic Bank reappeared, too. It showed up in the same pocket he’d left it, as fresh as the day Mandross handed it to him.
He marveled at the magic that brought both items back to him, and he wondered whether they were related somehow. By the time Deef showed up to swap out the buckets again, Stin had decided they must be under the same spell, or at least very similar spells.
At last, on the third day, movement seemed to slow. He felt the thump of what he presumed to be a pilot boat. A few hours later, the ship scraped against a dock and stopped moving altogether.
Deef came in again, carrying ropes and a rag. He said, “Ah’m sorry, but Ah gots to gag you! Not everybody’s deef like me! Gots to protect them from your silver tongue!”
Stin let the old man gag him and tie him up, offering no resistance. He hoped for a trial, which was his right as a subject of the Coral Throne. Surely they were docked in Coral City, he reasoned, and if he were brought before a maritime judge he could plead his case and come up with a plausible explanation as to why he did not return with the hostages from Lightfish when they were ransomed. He could probably also think up a good reason why he was back on Wavecrest while it was committing another act of piracy.
Fortunately, as far as he knew and if all went well, nobody from Wavecrest would be around to offer a counter-narrative. They were all dead by rope, arrow or blades, their bodies left in the sea.
All except Quent, who was posing as his dead brother Quarl back with Old Denn on the little merchant ship they had attacked. And the handful he saw escaping in Wavecrest’s launch. But those few were unlikely to show up at a trial.
He mulled over the possibilities and considered the best arguments to make at court as the marines marched him up and out of the hold. The sun hurt his eyes after so much time down below, and with his arms bound he couldn’t cover them. He walked with his head bowed and eyes closed until they could adjust.
The marines led him across a gangplank and through the docks. Finally, Stin looked up and squinted. He could see Coral Castle, its orange-red spires topping a hill in the distance, the highest point of the city.
He was home.
The marines handed him over to the first group of Royal Guards they found. They gave the leader a parchment with an official-looking wax seal, and said the prisoner was to be placed in the Coral Dungeon immediately. The guards were also warned that under no circumstances were they to take Stin’s gag out until he was safely behind bars.
The guards chuckled at this, and one of them made the inevitable dirty joke. Then they pushed him roughly forward and began the long ascent to the castle. Once out of sight of the marines, they searched him. This time the scrip from the Mystic Bank was ignored, but inevitably they found the key on the chain under his tunic and took it.
At the castle gates he was transferred again, and the orders about keeping him gagged were repeated. The captain on duty appointed two of his men to bring him to the dungeon, where they handed him over to the jailer who guided him down several flights of steps, deep below the castle.
At long last, the jailer opened a sturdy wooden door and pushed Stin into a small, dark cell. Unlike the ship’s pen, used mainly to hold the occasional drunk marine or disorderly sailor, the dungeon cell reeked of long and perpetual use.
“Stand against the wall, and I’ll cut the ropes,” the jailer said. “No funny business, or I’ll stab you.”
Stin obeyed, and let the man cut his ropes. The jailer made a hasty exit and shut the door on rusty hinges that screeched in the darkness. Stin listened carefully as the jailer’s steps receded up the stairs. The he removed the gag and took stock of his surroundings.
He had spent considerable time in Coral’s Royal Dungeon, after having the misfortune of being caught stealing too many times by the City Guard as a youth. It was here, under the tutelage of Syphon, he had first learned how to be an effective thief.
The memories of Syphon teaching him how to pick the lock on their cell door brought back a smile.
“What are we waiting for? Let’s leave!” he had said, full of youthful exuberance, the door to their cell wide open.
“Don’t be daft,” Syphon responded, closing it and relocking it. “You’ll never get past the jailer, then you’ve got the Royal Guard to worry about. No, it’s better to blossom where you’re planted. And you’re planted with me under the castle now, boy. Remember, even mushrooms can grow in the dark.”
“That’s true,” the younger Stin said, “But think what mushrooms grow in!”
Syphon smiled and said, “Mushrooms feed off decaying matter. And down here we can thrive in the dark.”
How, exactly, they could thrive in a dungeon young Stin never stayed to find out. When he felt he had learned all Syphon could teach him, he sneaked out one night, slipping past the sleeping jailer and staying in shadows to avoid the guards.
He made it. He grew, developing his powers of persuasion along with height, and enhanced the skills Syphon had taught him. He never came back. Until now.
This time, he thought, things seemed different. The dungeon felt smaller. This cell, similar to the one he had been confined in as a boy, seemed far more cramped than he remembered. Perhaps, he thought, it had to do with the fact he saw the world through a grown man’s eyes now.
The key reappeared on his chest. He smiled and looked down at it, wondering what the guard who just lost it was thinking. Perhaps he hadn’t noticed yet.
With it, the key’s power returned. He could suddenly feel every living thing all around him. He could sense every passageway, every door, even narrow crevices the rats sneaked through and the cracks through which water seeped.
Above all else, Stin could feel Corsairs Cove. He knew, even deep in the dungeon under Coral Castle, how to get back. He could feel the way, just as surely as a compass needle pointed north.
He wondered briefly if the marine and the guard who possessed the key for a short while felt its power while they had it. He decided they did not. The key was bound to him. Cessic had named him captain, and with it the key and its power had transferred to him. Others possessing it before it reappeared around his neck could probably not grasp the key’s full significance, or power.
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, outlining 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 led 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 probably bolt immediately. 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, escaping 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 to bring in 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 . . .”
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 tim
e.
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.
