The name startled Nalea, and she scrambled back right to the dizzying edge of the roof. The rain pattered against her head and shoulders once more. “You’re the Thief-Taker? I’m not going away! I won’t!”
Talus clucked disapprovingly. “Do mind the drop there. I’m afraid there is no way to avoid a visit to the prison at this point.”
The elf glowered at them. “Don’t come any closer, or I- I’ll throw you off!”
The sylicate hmmed softly, the sound nearly lost in a rumble of thunder. “That would be uncharacteristic of you, but the desperate do wild things.” They shrugged. “At any rate, I have no intention of restraining you, madam. I will tell you, however, that the Hub City enforcers will be here soon.” The door slammed open at the other end of the roof, and figures began to pile out. “Ah, here they are now. A bit early, actually. Go-getters.”
Nalea turned to the edge, her stomach in her throat.
“I do not suggest it,” commented Talus with maddening calm. “You are hurt and exhausted, and they will simply be waiting for you at the bottom.” They tilted their head. “Think. Your whole life lies ahead of you. ‘What is one moment in the dark to avoid the shadow of death?’”
Nalea froze. That phrase. She looked back. “What did you say?”
The sylicate just smiled and stepped back as the hubbers rushed forward past him. “We’ll speak again!” they called.
Dizzy and weary, Nalea allowed herself to be seized and carried off.
Hub City prison was spare, but not horrifyingly grim. At least, the one run by the High Council itself. Some districts maintained their own, and a few of those were better not spoken of. Assuming the octogrix took you alive for violating their Eight Edicts, few would enjoy the “re-education” that followed. These cells were well maintained and clean, lit by high barred windows to let natural sunlight in.
They came in a wide variety, suited to the panoply of creatures they had to be able to contain. Sealed tanks for holding aquans, soil-floored pits to allow phylls to root, and even extra-large chambers for Brobnars who got even more out of hand than usual. The Logos had been persuaded to set up a monitor system to track them all, making sure there were no breaches in security and that no one ended up in too bad of a way.
Inspector Virdon was watching one of those screens with a frown. The figure of the elf thief, once called “The Slip” and now known to be Nalea Wysasandoral, was curled up on the bed of her cell. Her wounds had been treated, and she’d been fed and allowed to clean herself. Now she slept fitfully.
“You do not seem pleased, Inspector,” came that reedy voice from behind him.
Virdon glanced back with a sad smile. “Don’t get me wrong, Master Talus, I congratulate you on your success. You live up to your reputation. I’m just sad to see such a free spirit caged, I suppose. I wish she’d chosen a different path.” The human shook his head, dismissing the thoughts. “What brings you? I figured you would be off being feted, or on to your next case.”
The sylicate hmmed softly and nodded. “I see. Well, I must speak with the prisoner.”
“Why?” asked Virdon. “She was obviously the thief.”
“No, nothing like that,” replied Talus. “She has requested to speak to me, and I am curious what she could have to say.”
Virdon frowned and scratched his jaw, glancing to where the day guard sat.
“If you prefer, I could have Councilor Learmont arrange–”
“No,” said Virdon hastily. “That won’t be necessary. I’ll take you in to see her now. I’ll escort you myself.”
The sylicate smiled and nodded. “Thank you kindly, Inspector. Your presence will be reassuring.”
Virdon returned the smile and gathered the keys, guiding Talus within. They continued down the corridors past various other prisoners until they reached where the elf was being held.
The inspector tapped on the bars of the cell. “Wysasandoral, you have a visitor.” As she stirred, he stepped off to the side.
The elf rolled over and frowned blearily. “You–”
“Yes,” Talus interjected. “You wished to speak with me?”
The thief frowned and rose to her feet. “I suppose I did. I have questions.” She glanced uneasily towards Virdon.
“What makes you think I have any answers for you?” asked the sylicate scornfully.
The venom, however restrained, startled the inspector. It seemed to do the same to the elf. She withdrew a step.
“Who are you?”
“Talus. They call me the Thief-Taker. I would think it a name they’d know well in the dark circles of your ilk.” The remark was dry.
The elf tilted her head. “What would you know about me and mine, bounty hunter?”
“Enough to catch you. More than any daylight person in their right mind would want to. They go through their routines, blind to your machinations. Not me.”
The thief looked to Virdon again. She seemed less worried now. He could have sworn she had even smirked for a moment, but it was gone before he was sure.
“Just the best at what you do, huh?” she asked. “No way out once Talus is on the case.”
“Better than you have tried to escape me. Never say never, but I have seen it all. Traps and tricks.” The sylicate shrugged. “Even outright violence.”
The elf made a repulsed face. “Violence.”
“Not everyone has your squeamish foibles,” the detective said flatly. “Not everyone can afford them.”
The inspector couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something off about the whole conversation. Talus verged on unreadable, but the thief’s emotions seemed all over the place. Hardly in line with what he would have expected.
“All right, hurry it up,” Virdon said.
The thief’s eyes flicked to him and she bit her lip. “I just… want to know: why me? Why come here?” she asked finally.
“You break the rules of society. You flaunt the order of things. Did you imagine that could continue forever?” Talus snorted delicately and stepped right up to the bars. “They treat you better here than I would, thief. If it were up to me, they’d throw you in a shadowed hole and forget you. I’d do it this very night.”
“You’re too clo–” Virdon started to warn the Thief-Taker.
It was too late. The thief’s eyes had gone wide. She lunged forward and seized the sylicate through the bars. They struggled back and forth, a clumsy battle between two smallish creatures.
Virdon heaved a sigh and strode forward. He separated the pair with forceful shoves, getting the sylicate back over towards the wall and the elf back further into her cell.
“Enough!” the human said. “Don’t make your situation worse,” he snapped at the elf. Then he turned to Talus. “And you! This is beneath you. Leave, if all you’ve come to do is harass her. She has enough problems.”
Nalea just stood, panting. Talus cleared their throat and retrieved their top hat from where it had fallen to the ground.
“You are quite right, sir. I apologize. I will be on my way.” The sylicate turned and departed without another word.
The elf was staring after them with narrow eyes.
“Are you all right?” asked the inspector.
“Yes… I… yes. Just leave me alone.” She turned away and climbed back into her bed.
Virdon sighed and turned away. His shift was almost done anyway. At least this was over.
Night had come, bringing darkness to the jail. Nalea lay in the cot in her cell. She had been here for hours. It had started as pretending to sleep, but she was still so exhausted and overwrought that she had actually slumbered after a while.
She had waited all this time to examine the item. Quietly, tucked up against her body, she retrieved the tiny thing from her sleeve. It looked like nothing so much as a gemstone button in a golden circle. She peered at it as unobtrusively as she could.
The sylicate had slipped it to her during their fake scuffle. They had used the right phrases throughout. It
had convinced her to follow along, to surrender and to pretend to attack them. They had even suggested she not use it until tonight.
Now was the moment of truth. There was no telling what pushing the button would do. Silence her somehow, keep her from drawing too much attention to Shadows? The alternative was a long, long time in a cage.
Nalea sighed and pushed the button.
It hummed and shimmered, but for several seconds nothing seemed to happen. Then golden mist began to pour out of the tiny device. It washed over her in a wave. She scrambled to her feet in alarm, but it clung to her. The whole world vanished in the haze.
Then it cleared all at once, and she was standing on a road out in the open air. Farmland surrounded her and the starlit sky was above. She took a deep breath, and released it. She was free.
Someone cleared their throat behind her, and she nearly jumped out of her skin. She whirled and found Ruvyn standing there with a flightcycle parked nearby. A few bags hung from the ramshackle vehicle, which appeared to have been pieced together with scavenged tech from a dozen sources. The other elf held up his hands soothingly and offered her a smile.
“Hello, young one.”
Nalea blinked at him. “Ruvyn… so Talus was Shadows, after all? Was this whole thing a guild setup?”
The fence shook his head. “A guild course correction, more like. You had drawn a lot of attention to yourself, young one. Sooner or later, you would make a mistake and the hubbers would catch you. Then you’d be in a spot for real.”
“But Talus is famous for catching thieves!”
The elder elf chuckled. “For certain. It’s useful. The ones like you, who belong, they can help. The ones who don’t belong to Shadows, well, who needs the competition?”
“Won’t they trace this back to them? I didn’t really have contact with anyone else,” she asked.
“No. The night guard owes a few favors to the right people. The footage will be erased. A master thief slips away in the dark under mysterious circumstances.” Ruvyn shrugged. “Stranger things have happened. And – this is the key part – she’s never seen again in Hub City, so no one has any reason to fuss about it.” He patted the flightcycle.
“Ah.” Nalea deflated a bit and looked off down the road. She could see the city there, a mass of lights in the distance. Her home. At least, it used to be. “What do I do now?”
“You’re a smart one. You’ll figure something out. I heard Quantum City is a lovely place.” Rubyn stepped out of the way. “I took the liberty of packing up what you will need from your home.”
“What about the bits you owe me?” she asked.
He smiled slightly. “Consider it a fee for services rendered.”
With a sigh, Nalea nodded and went to climb aboard the flightcycle. She settled into the seat and got comfortable, then looked the other way down the road. Her spirits were starting to rise, just a little. Hub City was full of variety, it was true, but the wonders of the Crucible were never ending. Who knew what adventures were there to be had out in the world?
“Oh, and Nalea?”
She blinked and looked to Rubyn once more.
“Do try to be more subtle this time. The best thieves, you never even know they were there.”
Nalea grinned at him. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Then she gunned the flightcycle and shot off down the road towards the horizon.
Useful Parasites
M K Hutchins
Taryx had once removed a broken tooth from the maw of an æmberdrake that could swallow him whole. He’d set the legs of ether spiders. He’d even treated an entire school of piranha monkeys for stomach aches after they’d devoured a pack of cyber rats – flesh, fur, bolts and all. He did dangerous, difficult, complicated things all the time.
And yet something as simple as gathering the motivation for a morning shave seemed impossible, however much he needed it. Digging his root-like toes into the bank, he leaned out over the water. He didn’t just have lichen shadowing his face; moss grew in tufts on his bark-like skin. If he left it for a week, it’d cover his face and start moving down his neck and up his forehead. Still, he wondered if he shouldn’t just go back to bed and deal with it tomorrow. It wasn’t like he planned on talking to anyone today.
A crash broke the quiet of the forest, sending a flock of screeching sparrows into the sky, where they lived up to their name. Taryx spun around. Some creature was almost certainly hurt. And it would need his help. The melancholy that usually weighed him down dissipated as he catalogued what kind of creature it might be and what treatments it would likely require. Taryx put his obsidian shaving blade in the pocket of his cotton robes and ran. His two dozen long, whip-like toes were perfect for sprinting over uneven terrain.
In under a minute, he covered a half mile of ground. There, on the other side of the woodchip bed where he grew sky cap mushrooms, he spotted a twitching wingtip. Cresting the woodchips, he stared down at a being he’d never seen before. Its purple-magenta spherical body and tangle of black tentacles looked like something a school of piranha monkeys would cough up. Its body couldn’t be much bigger than that of a jewel-footed heron’s, though its thin tentacles looked like they might be nearly as tall as himself.
He had absolutely no idea what it was. Taryx could hardly claim to know about everything that lived in the Lesser Uncanny Forest, let alone on the whole of the Crucible, but his stomach still sloshed with unease. There was something deeply unnatural about this one. The wrongness of it seeped up through his toes and oozed into his gut, like he’d rooted himself near a toxic gurgle pool.
It pathetically twitched a tentacle and let out a whimper of pain.
Unnatural or not, Taryx’s patients had rarely lashed out at him, however huge or ferocious. If a creature had the instinct to find Taryx’s house for help, it had the good sense not to gobble him up afterward.
Taryx approached slowly. It was obviously injured, with an oozing cut on its round body. “Hello. I don’t know if you can understand my language, or any language, but I’m here to help you.”
The thing reached towards Taryx with the feathery end of a long, tangled tentacle.
Taryx flinched back, then curled his toes in shame. What was wrong with him today? Just last week, he’d patched up a lost human bureaucrat; no creature could be more terrifying than that, surely. This thing wasn’t going to try to drive him insensible by talking in acronyms.
It gave a whimpering, burbling coo. Taryx knelt and held out his long, thin hand. “I’m sorry. You startled me. That’s all.”
It reached out once more, laying its feathery tentacle on Taryx’s palm.
“Brmbrm,” it purred.
Taryx’s panicky unease melted away like slush under a bright spring sun. Yes, this thing was incredibly ugly, but that somehow made it cute again, in the same way that the scrunched-up faces of interdimensional bats were adorable. Taryx gathered it up in his arms, gently draping the tentacles over his shoulder. “Let’s take you inside and get you patched up, shall we?”
“Brmbrm,” it agreed, nestling against his chest.
Taryx eased the door to his home open and laid the creature on his spare cot. He put a few slices of dried quickbalm mushroom into his ever-hot kettle – a gift from Minerva, a former patient. It was the only piece of advanced technology he owned, powered by a chip of æmber in its base. He picked it up, and moved it to the far side of the room.
His home was made of a dozen rib bones from something as large as an æmberdrake, staked in a circle to form a dome. The lower half of the walls were wattle and daub, but his roof was made of cheerful, living red æmberflowers. Instead of facing the sun, they turned their blooms toward any source of æmber.
Taryx didn’t know if the æmberflowers had been bred to seek out æmber, or if they’d evolved that way, perhaps to soak up the æmber itself? Or to lead useful pollinators towards it, who would then flourish and propagate the æmberflowers?
In any case, as he took the kettle fro
m the center of the hut, the flowers rustled and turned and snaked over the ribs of his home, opening a large skylight directly east, right where the sun was brightest at the moment. Taryx needed good light to treat his patient. A few of the flowers turned their faces to the injured creature, suggesting it, too, had a bit of æmber inside. That didn’t surprise him; plenty of species absorbed æmber into their bodies for a multitude of reasons.
Taryx poured some of the quickbalm tea over a clean cloth and used it to dab at the wound. With a dozen thin, many-jointed, branch-like fingers on each hand, Taryx could do delicate work with great precision. The stuff that seeped from his patient didn’t quite seem to be blood. Some kind of ichor? It was an awful shade of magenta, with a strong whiff of sulphur. The creature gave a few soft whimpers as Taryx worked, but didn’t seem overly distressed.
“This tea is both a disinfectant and a mild anesthetic. I’ll have you cleaned up in no time, little guy.”
And then he’d have to burn these rags. Whatever he was cleaning up, it didn’t belong in the compost pile – that was for certain.
After enough of the ichor was cleaned away, he could examine the wound. Two deep gouges gaped between its wings. Perhaps it had been raked by claws? Whatever had happened, the poor thing had clearly been struck from behind.
“What got you, eh? I don’t suppose you know if it was poisonous?”
The creature whirred noncommittally. It probably couldn’t understand him, but Taryx always talked to his patients. They seemed to be calmed by his tone, if not the content of his words.
Taryx mixed the tea with cool water until it was pleasantly warm, then poured it all over the wound. Poisoned or not, flushing the cuts couldn’t hurt. They were deep enough to show black bone beneath. No – not bone. Wiring.
“You’re part cybernetic?”
It lazily flicked one of its tentacles. Perhaps the quickbalm was making it tired. Or its wounds. Or both.
Tales From the Crucible Page 15
