"I asked. I asked." Jones swallowed an enormous gulp and washed it down. Two more bites. "Ain't no way he holds out on me, not him nor Mira nor Tommy. I got karma on 'em. Plenty." Two more gulps, the plate clean. Jones took off her neckscarf, wrapped the toast in it and stuffed it in her coat pocket. "Come on, then," she said, and Mondragon heaved himself for his feet, headache and all; and grabbed the whiskey bottle.
As the door opened, bang! and Tommy-the-ex-bar-boy came running in. "Jones! We got a lead!"
CHAPTER VII
A TANGLED WEB WE WEAVE
by Mercedes Lackey
Old habits woke Raj with the first hint of dawn—he'd been so exhausted he'd managed to sleep most of the afternoon before the cold of the wind woke him. Then he'd spent a good part of the night with his teeth chattering hard enough to splinter, until exhaustion put him to sleep for another hour or so. He stuck his head out from under the hidey, still shivering, and peered around in the gray light. No fog this morning, though the sky was going to be overcast. He pulled his head back in, and checked his clothes where he'd put them under his bottom blanket. As he'd hoped, they were dry, water driven out by the heat of his body. He beat the worst of the dried mud out of them, and pulled them on, wrapped a blanket around himself, pulled his coat on over it all, and crawled back out into the day.
Unfortunately, weather-proofing the hidey was his only task. He was more cold than hungry, his stomach was too upset; nothing needed doing except to boil some water so it was safe to drink. It looked like it was about time to have a good long think.
He hopped from the edge of his raft onto the edge of the islet—which was an exposed and weathered ledge of concrete, and a lot more solid than many a landing back in town. He wriggled his way in to the center, having carefully to pull his blanket and clothing loose when branches snagged them, lest he leave tell-tale bits of yarn behind, or rip holes in clothing he didn't have the wherewithal to repair. He was looking for a place where he would be well hidden by the weeds—at least hidden from the casual observer. He finally found a dry spot, one well padded by the accumulation of many years of dead reeds, and made himself a little hollow to sit in. He reckoned it would do well enough; he hunched down to the unpleasant task of confronting everything he wanted most to avoid thinking about. Take it one step at a time—
All this time, he'd been casually saying to himself "Tom will kill me for this." Looking at the mess he'd made of things in the cold light of dawn, and soberly recollecting his own lecture to Denny—might he?
He might, Raj thought reluctantly. And justified. If the Kamats take offense—he could hand Richard my head, and get himself out of it. I've made myself into a pretty expensive liability.
But would he? Raj looked at it from all the angles he could think of, and finally decided that he probably wouldn't. Mondragon never did anything that drastic without having several reasons for doing it. To be brutally frank, Mondragon was too much of a professional to waste anything, even the time and effort it would take to dispose of a stupid kid. And Jones might get upset if Mondragon took Raj out. But just to be on the safe side—
Justice had suggested he hide out here about two weeks, then come back into town. Get hold of Denny first—give him a note for Tom. Use the old Sword codes, and flat ask him if he thinks I'm better gotten out of the way, permanent-like. Then make a counter-offer. Say— say that I'll do what he wants me to do; come in, stay here, or leave Merovingen altogether.
The last wouldn't be easy, or desirable from his point of view, but he'd do it; he couldn't go north— but south, maybe? Or maybe hire on a Falkanaer ship?
That was a possibility. They'd seemed pretty rough characters, but basically good people, when he'd met a couple at Gallandrys. They wouldn't hurt him—
But he had a fairly shrewd notion of what some of the duties of a very junior (and passable-looking) sign-on might well include, and he wasn't altogether sure he could stomach the job. Better that, though, than dead. No such thing as a "fate worse than death" in Raj's book—except maybe a fate involving a lengthy interrogation at the hands of Sword, Signeury, or Kalugin —or Tom Mondragon.
But Denny—if he left Merovingen, he'd have to leave Denny. No good could come to a thirteen-year-old kid in a strange place like the Chattalen, or more-or-less trapped on a Falkanaer ship.
That would leave him more alone than he'd ever been.
He swallowed hard, and wiped his sleeve across his eyes. So be it. For Denny's sake, he'd do just about anything. Including take on that lengthy interrogation.
But figure Tom wanted him back in; in a lot of ways that was worst case. Okay, I go in, I take my licks. God knows what he'll do. Probably beat the liver out of me. Be worse if he didn't, in some ways. He won't be trusting me with much, anyway, not after the way I've messed up. Don't blame him. I wouldn't trust me, either.
So. Be humble; be respectful. Take orders, follow 'em to the letter, and earn the respect back. Even if it takes years.
Thank God he'd told the truth—at least he'd cut the thing with Marina short, before it had landed them in more tangles than could be cut loose.
Give up on the notion of College—too close to the Kamats, especially with Kamat cousins going there. Hang it up; stay content with being Gallandry's third-rank clerk. At least that paid the bills.
Stay clear of anyplace Marina might show, unless Tom ordered different.
Keep clear of the Janes, too. That meant Rif and Rat and Hoh's tavern—again, unless Tom ordered differently.
Going back meant more than facing Tom—it meant figuring a way to pay the damn bills with no money. Rent was paid until the end of the month—but that was only one week away. Borrow? From who? Jones didn't have it to spare. Not Tom—
Raj gnawed his lip, and thought and thought himself into a circle. No choice. Has to be Tom. Or beg an advance from Gallandrys. Have to eat humble pie twice. Charity. Hell.
Sometimes it seemed as if it would be a lot easier just to find one of the gangs and taunt them into killing him; God knew it wouldn't take much. But he hadn't fought and fought and fought to stay alive this long just to take the easy way out.
Last possibility—that Tom would tell him to stay. That Tom would trust to the swamp to kill him, rather than killing him outright. Well, wasn't that what Raj had figured on doing in the first place?
AH right, if he told Raj to stay in the swamp—well, Raj would stay. At least this time he'd arrived equipped to do a little better than just survive. Not much, but a little. So long as he could keep clear of the gangs, he'd manage. And he and Denny could go back to the old routine—at least he'd be near enough to keep in touch.
Now—the Sword—have I screwed up there too?
Denny waded through mud and freezing water; over his ankles, mostly, sometimes up to his knees. His legs were numb, his teeth were chattering so hard he couldn't stop them, and his nose was running. He kept looking over his shoulder, feeling like he was being watched, but seeing nothing but the waving weeds that stood higher than his head. There was a path here, of sorts, and he was doing his best to follow it. If he hadn't been so determined to find his brother, he'd have turned tail and run for home a long time ago.
Justice Lee hadn't told him anything—not directly. But Denny had Rat's training in reading people, and Lee was as open to him as a book would have been to Raj. Raj had told Justice his problems, and Justice had given him some kind of advice; that was the most obvious answer to the art student's evasions. So; given that first—there had been advice, and second—Raj was missing—and third—Justice wasn't too surprised that Raj was missing—
Huh. Uh-huh. Only one answer fit that profile. Justice must have advised Raj to go hide out. Denny had gotten a flash of inspiration right when he'd figured that out, and hadn't waited to try to pry more out of the reluctant Lee—instead he'd gotten Lee's escort to the door, then he'd lit over the roofs again—
It had taken him half the night to reach the apartment on Fife—
To
discover Raj's belongings stripped, right down to the books. And only Raj's things, which ruled out thieves. Stuff gone, plus hiding out added up to swamp to Denny.
So he put on every sweater he had, and two pairs of pants, and made for the roofs again.
He had to get down to the walkways by the time he hit Wharf Gate, and by then he had the notion that it might just be a good idea to let Jones and Mondragon know where Raj had gone, and that Denny was headed out after him.
Damn fool Justice, he'd cursed, more than once, Damn swamp almost killed Raj before this—hell, it could do it now! Damn fool towner, I bet Raj tol' him where he was goin,' an' I bet he was thinkin' livin' in the swamp's like livin' on the canals—
So he'd looked around for a canaler, knowing that canalers stuck together, knowing that what he told one could be halfway across town by midmorning.
"Hey!" he'd yelled at the first head that poked out of a hidey to peer at him, bleary-eyed, in the dawnlight. "Hey—you know Jones?"
"Might," said the canaler; old, of dubious gender.
"Look, you find Jones, you tell 'er Raj's headed out into Dead Marsh and Denny's goin' after 'im." Then he added, shrewdly, "There's money in it."
The whole canaler had popped out of the hidey then, and the creature was jerking at his tie-rope as Denny had continued his run to Marsh Gate and the path Raj had told him about.
Raj had talked so casually about walking in. Denny was finding out now that it was anything but easy. For one thing, you could hardly tell where you were going, what with the weeds being so high. For another, it was hard to follow this so-called path; and it was prone to having deep washouts where you least expected them. He was wet to his collar, and mired to his waist, and it was a good thing wool clothing stayed warm when wet, or he'd have been frozen into an icicle by now. The swamp was eerily silent, with the only sounds being the splashing and sucking noises of his own passage, and the murmur of breeze in the reeds. It was damned cold. And it smelled to high heaven. Worst of all, Denny wasn't entirely certain that he wasn't lost.
"Raj?" he called, hoping he was far enough in that his brother could hear him. "Raj?"
Wolfling crouched in the cover of the weeds on the little muck-and-reed hummock Raven had led him to, watching the boy. Or rather, what he could see of the boy, which from this angle was only the top of his head. So far, this business of guarding Angela's kids had been absurdly easy. He'd stayed under cover most of yesterday, watching the boy work on his hidey until he seemed finished, then waching the hidey after the boy crawled into it to sleep. Then Raven had come to get him; fed him while May changed the bandages on his face and arms, then told him to get some sleep. When dawn arrived, so had Raven—the Janist had given him something to chew on ("Keeps the cold away" he'd said) and sent him back to his hiding-place.
So far all that the boy had done was to make a pocket-sized fire and boil a can of water for drinking. Other than that, he'd sat on the island for the past hour or more, hidden in the reeds, not moving. Wolfling chewed the bitter-tasting, woody stuff Raven had given him; it made his head buzz pleasantly, and did, indeed, keep the cold away. He wondered what the kid was up to. Meditating? Neither Raven nor Angela had said anything about the boy being mystical. But it was a possibility, given Jane's interest in him.
Well, whatever, it was certainly proving to be a lot easier than he'd thought it was going to be.
He was too well-trained to start at the sudden sound of a shout, but it startled the hell out of him. It was the voice of a young boy calling out a name, echoing out of the depths of the swamp.
"Raj?" It was so distorted so he couldn't really tell what direction it was coming from "Raj?"
Belatedly he remembered that "Raj" was also "Rigel" —and refocused his attention on the boy just in time to see him slide off the islet and into the reeds, fast as a lizard and nearly as silently. Wolfling saw the weeds shake once—and the boy was gone.
Ancestors!
That was Denny's voice, echoing among the islets out there on the path from Marsh Gate to the Rim— and if Raj could hear him, it was damn sure so could others.
Raj slid off the islet, skidding on sharp-edged, rustling grass, slipping on icy mud patches. He splashed down onto the path, ignoring the knife-like cold of the water, and then began moving as quickly and quietly as he knew how, passing through the reeds the way Raver had taught him, and hoping to get to his brother before anyone else did. He made scarcely more noise than a snake, keeping his feet under the icy water to avoid splashing, slipping between the clumps of dry, rattling weeds rather than forcing his way over them. Denny's one hope was that at this time of year, most of the bad crazies were either out on Dead Harbor on rafts, or deeper into the Marsh than this.
He burst into a tiny clearing unexpectedly, knife at the ready, practically on top of the kid.
"Raj!"
Denny flung himself at his brother, heedless of the knife Raj held, looking well and truly frightened. He clung to him as they both teetered in ice-rimmed, knee-deep, mud-clouded water. Raj returned the embrace, relieved almost to the point of tears to find him safe.
"Denny—" He hugged him hard. "Thank God— thank God you're okay!"
"Well, ain't that cute—a fam'ly reunion—"
Raj looked up from the kid clinging to him to see that they had been surrounded on three sides.
It was the Razorfins; a gang of crazies, but all canny-crazy types. Mostly younger than the general run of the swampies; late teens to early thirties. Rumor had it they worked for Megary—when supplies of disap-pearable bodies in town ran low, bodies tended to start disappearing from the swamp. There were about ten of them, ragged, dirty, and predatory. They had spaced themselves in a rough ovoid, standing on high spots at irregular intervals between the reed hummocks at distances from fifteen to twenty feet from the two boys, except on the side bordering Dead Habor. Feral eyes gazed hungrily at them from within tangles of filthy hair and beard.
They were in very deep trouble.
Raj slipped his spare knife from his belt, feeling the hilt like a slip of ice in his hand, and passed it wordlessly to Denny. Then he shifted his own knife to his left hand and felt in his pocket for his sling and a stone. He got the stone into the pocket of the sling one-handed, and without taking his attention off the gang. With the sling loose and ready in his right hand, he shifted his weight from side to side, planting himself a little more firmly in the treacherous, half-frozen mud. And prayed his numb feet wouldn't fail him.
"Hear ye finished off old Ralf, Raj."
One of the least ragged of the gang members stepped forward a little, and Raj recognized the leader, MacDac, by his shock of wild reddish hair.
"Hear ye got pretty good wi' that sticker." MacDac made a gesture with his own thin-bladed knife toward Raj's knife-hand.
Raj's hopes rose a little—if he could somehow convince them to go one-on-one with him, they might have a chance. Denny would, anyway, if he could talk the kid into running for it while the gang's attention was on the fight.
"Good enough to take you, MacDac," he said, raising his chin defiantly. "You wanta dance?"
"Maybe, maybe—" the filth-caked, scrawny gang-leader replied, swaying a little where he stood, knee-deep in muddy water, wisps of greasy hair weaving around his face.
" 'Smarter? You scared?" Raj taunted, as the blood drained out of Denny's face and his eyes got big and frightened. "I'm not a kid anymore, that it? 'Fraid to take me on now?"
"Raj—" Denny hissed, tugging urgently at his soggy sleeve. "Raj, I don't think that's too smart—"
The gang-leader hesitated—and his own followers began jeering at him, waving their arms around and making obscene gestures. Under cover of their catcalls, Raj whispered harshly aside to the kid.
"Denny—don't argue. For once, I know what I'm doing, dammit! When you figure they're all watching me, you light out for Marsh Gate—"
"No! I ain't leavin' ye!"
"You damn well do as I say!"
<
br /> "No way!"
"Shet up!" MacDac roared, effectively silencing all of them. He sloshed forward a pace or two and grinned. "I ain't afraid, Raj, but I ain't stupid, neither. I ain't gonna get myself cut up fer nothin'—not when we c'n take both a' ye, an' make a little bargain with Megary."
He sloshed forward another step—his last.
Raj's right hand blurred, and MacDac pitched face-forward into the mud, wearing a rather surprised expression, a rock embedded in his temple.
There was a moment of stunned silence, then the rest of the gang surged forward like a feeding-frenzy of skits.
Wolfling lost the boy as soon as he slid into the reeds. It took him longer than he liked to get to the place where the boy had vanished—if this had been the city, even a weird city like Merovingen, he'd have had no trouble tracking the kid, but here in this foul wilderness he was at a total loss. He floundered around in the mud, feeling unnaturally helpless. Fine Hand Of Jane, he was. He couldn't even keep track of a dumb kid!
Then he heard the shouting; enough noise that he had no trouble pinpointing the source even through the misleading echoes out here. It sounded like trouble, and where there was trouble, he somehow had no doubt he'd find the boy.
But getting there—it was a painfuly slow process; he literally had to feel his way, step by cold, slippery step. Weeds reached out for him, snagging him, so that he had to fight his way through them. The noise echoed ahead of him, driving him into a frenzy of anxiety as he floundered on, past treacherous washouts and deposits of mud and silty sand that sucked at him.
Until he was suddenly and unexpectedly in the clear. He blinked—there was a boy—no, two boys, standing at bay, side by side on a hummock of flattened reeds. They were holding off—barely—a gang of mud-smeared, tattered crazies. One boy was Rigel—" Shit!
The other was Deneb!
Wolfling saw Jane at work, it was too much to be coincidence; first the vision, then Rigel just happening to be holing up out in this godforsaken slime-pit—and now the other boy turning up—
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