Web of Eyes

by Rhett C. Bruno

  Whitney didn’t have time to linger—nor did he want to. He took two leaping steps across the curtain, then made a break for it. Carefully monitoring the sounds of his footsteps, making sure they landed heel-to-ball so he’d go unheard, he reached the end of the hallway and peered around the corner. No time to catch his breath. Ahead of him was an open gate. A bridge beyond it spanned a narrow ravine. Water gushed somewhere amongst the shadows at the bottom, and he could hear the bronze wheels of a mill turning in the current, still operational.

  He’d hoped to escape the ancient dwarven fortress without incident, but with each step, it seemed less likely. Now he knew why they hadn’t bothered leaving a guard by the cages. There was only one way out, through their entire hideout. But they hadn’t encountered Whitney Fierstown before.

  His heart beat steadily, rhythmically. It took him a second to realize it wasn’t his heart, but actually a distant drum beat. Whitney skulked toward the bridge, staying low. It crossed to a clearing at the bottom of a narrow valley. The fortress was apparently built into the cliffside, hidden. A perfect place to bury a cult of the Buried Goddess.

  Pesky dwarves and their hiding places.

  He stuck his foot out to test the brass planks. Satisfied they seemed sturdy enough and grateful for the sound of the rushing water below to muffle any noise he made, he swung his legs over the edge. He couldn’t uprightly cross it in front of everyone, so he placed the dagger in his mouth, grabbed onto the side of the bridge and hung down. Making sure not to look down as his feet dangled, he sidled along, hand over hand.

  One of the planks at the halfway point was loose, and he lost grip with one hand. His body swung, and the dagger fell from his mouth, causing him to look down at the rapids far below. He quickly grabbed back onto the next plank and continued along. He expected his recent luck to run out and someone to have heard. They didn’t.

  Once he was safely across, he climbed up, ducked into the shadows, and began to plot out his next move.

  A dozen of the robed figures were in the clearing illuminated by the light of the moons. They were distracted by what he imagined was an unholy ritual taking place around a fire pit. A narrow path behind them skirted up the bluff, dotted by torches. It was the only way unless he wanted to take a swim in the rapids and see where they dumped him out.

  Always go up.

  It would’ve helped if he could’ve understood a word the cultists spoke, but he had no such luck. While they chanted and drummed, he tiptoed around the clearing, back pressed against the rock, keeping to the shadows. He wrapped back until he could see the front of the dwarven fortress carved into the opposite side of the ravine.

  Two massive relief sculptures of dwarven warriors stood proudly on either side of the open gate, their axes crossed above it. They were so large, their eyes were literally windows. He could tell by the flicker of flame through them.

  He reached the path and didn’t bother looking back. He picked up his pace, sticking to the wrinkles to avoid torchlight. A chilly breeze hit his cheeks when he got high enough to see the heads of the dwarven statues. When he turned back to the path, he noticed a torch bobbing towards him.

  Someone was approaching.

  He backed up into a shallow nook that barely concealed him and listened for footsteps. It was impossible to hear anything that subtle over the echoes of drums pounding below. Ducking low and counting on the minimal throw of torchlight to keep him hidden, he waited until the time was right to strike. Now without a weapon, he was at a clear disadvantage, but these cultists only seemed to wield daggers, and he’d slipped by guards with halberds plenty of times.

  The figure rounded the corner and Whitney sprung into action. He threw a punch into the groin of whoever it was. A cheap shot, sure, but only fools like his father valued honor over survival. The only problem was, the person he punched didn’t go down like he should have.

  That complicated things. Whitney wasn’t one to hit women, but this one took full advantage of his confusion by lashing out with a perfectly targeted chop of her hand. It connected with Whitney’s upper arm, and it felt like a bone had snapped.

  “Ow!” Whitney yelped as he leaped back. “Okay, we’re really fighting then.”

  “Stop talking, fool,” the woman snapped. Her voice had a softness, despite her tone.

  Whitney swung at her with his fresh arm, and she dodged him with ease. Then again. He tried one last punch, and she absorbed the blow, grabbed his forearm and flipped him. He landed hard on his back. His hood fell off, and his head dangled off the edge of the bluff so he could hear just how far a fall awaited him. She drove her knee down into his chest, twisting his arm to the side.

  Whitney gazed up at his defeater, expecting to see one of the ceramic masks of his captors, but instead found a familiar face. Shrouded in the shadows of a hood or not, it was a face he could never forget.

  “Sora?” he said.

  XIX

  THE THIEF

  “Sora!” Whitney sprang to his feet and wrapped his arms around her without thinking. His joy at seeing his old friend dwindled when he realized she wasn’t squeezing him back. He held her at arm’s length and saw that she didn’t look happy either.

  “Wait, why in the world did you hit me?” he asked, releasing her.

  “You hit me first,” she said. “In the balls.”

  “But it didn’t hurt you!” he said, brushing the dust off his pants and rubbing his lower back where he’d landed. “What are you doing here? Oh, shog. You’re one of them?”

  She gave Whitney a light shove. “Do you want to stand here and talk, or get out of here before they find us?”

  “So, you’re not one of them?”

  “Move!”

  She shoved Whitney harder this time, sending him stumbling down the path.

  “All right,” he groaned. “Still as impatient as ever, I see.”

  She led him to the top of the winding path where they came across the bodies of two cultists, spilled tankards of ale between them. One wore robes, the other, nothing. At first, Whitney feared they were dead, but their chests rose and fell.

  “You did this?” Whitney asked.

  “I needed a robe, and they were standing guard,” she replied matter-of-factly. “Slipped some of Wetzel’s sleeping tonic into their drink.”

  “I… wha…”

  “They weren’t planning only to punch a woman in the balls if they caught me sneaking about.”

  Woman. Hearing her say that gave Whitney momentary pause. The last time he saw her back in Troborough, she was far from a woman.

  Whitney collected himself. “Smart,” he said, then squatted down and grabbed the small, curved dagger from the still-clothed body. The other cultist’s weapon was deposited next to his stripped body. He raised it for Sora to take.

  “I have my own,” she said.

  “More for me.” Whitney tucked both daggers into his belt, then leaned in further to check the robed man’s pockets.

  “Seriously?” Sora said.

  “Once a thief, right?” Whitney winked but doubted Sora could see him in the dim light.

  She shrugged, lifting a small pouch of autlas out of her robes with one finger and rattling it. “Well, you’re too late. Let’s go.”

  After giving him a shove, they delved back onto the path up through the cliffside, moving faster this time. When they rounded the last bend at the top, Whitney saw Pantego’s moons hanging high above the tree line. Ice-cold water from a light drizzle splattered on his cheeks.

  He stopped and drew a lungful of fresh air. He always forgot how dank and foul the air could get deep underground until he smelled the surface again. Fresh grass and a cold autumn breeze which, for once, he welcomed. He let out a hearty laugh.

  Sora threw her hand over his mouth and shushed him. “We aren’t free yet, you dolt. C’mon.”

  They avoided the roads and kept to the trees in case they were followed by cultists—or Torsten in the off-chance he’d managed to escape th
e ruins. Once they built a safe distance, Whitney turned to Sora, and the sight of her back in his life gave him momentary pause.

  He'd nearly forgotten what she looked like. The years had been kind to her. The young Panpingese woman was somewhere between cute and beautiful, with a turned-up nose and almond-shaped eyes bearing just the right amount of wrinkles at the corners. She wore her jet-black hair long and straight, the pointed ears indicative of her heritage poking through on the sides. She could have been deadly gorgeous, but she barely tried, and Whitney had a thing for the effortless.

  “Okay, now can you tell me what in the name of Iam’s, shog-yigging sake you’re doing here?” he asked, finally.

  “Saving you, apparently,” she replied.

  “I was well on my way to escaping before you attacked me, in case you forgot.”

  She glared at him with her piercing, amber, almost yellow, almond-shaped eyes. Whitney felt like their color was even more vibrant now than he remembered them being. Those eyes always spoke of her uniqueness. Most other Panpingese he’d ever met had brown eyes, but hers were the color of the rising sun.

  "You're lucky it was me you ran into," she said. "The way you fight, it could have been one of them with their knee at your throat and a dagger through your eye."

  "I had you right where I wanted you." He chuckled. "I meant, how in Elsewhere did you know where I was or that I needed saving?”

  “I saw you in Troborough the other day and followed.”

  Whitney stopped. “You were there when—”

  “Yes,” she said solemnly, looking to the ground. “I’d just returned after a few weeks visiting Yarrington when the Shesaitju attacked. I only wish I’d spent one less day there and maybe… maybe I could have helped stop those traitorous animals.”

  “Imagine that. After all this time, we were minutes from running into each other on the road.”

  “Imagine.” She seemed far less enthused.

  “So, you saw me fighting off those Black Sands savages then?” Whitney asked, puffing out his chest.

  “I saw something, but it didn’t look like fighting.”

  Whitney dismissed her comment with a playful wave of his hand. “Yet you decided not to help? Doesn’t sound like the Sora I know.”

  “Knew,” she corrected, and Whitney noted her harsh tone. “Someone had to get the children to safety. Besides, I wasn’t completely sure it was really you until you went for my nethers back there. Thought I was seeing things from breathing too much smoke in the attack. You’re much taller now.”

  A moment passed.

  “Still can’t grow a beard, though,” she remarked.

  “What, you don’t see it?” Whitney smirked, scratching at stubble. A brief bit of laughter passed between them until suddenly his smile faded and he realized what her being in Troborough might mean.

  “So, you still live in Troborough then?” he asked as if it were the worst possible thing he could imagine.

  “Lived,” she said, terse. “Not all of us are deserters willing to abandon everyone who loves us.”

  Whitney could have kicked himself for embracing her back on the cliffside as if no time had passed. Of course, Sora would feel abandoned. All these years later and Whitney rarely had a chance to think about her, but there was a time they were the closest of friends; perhaps, the only friend he’d ever really had.

  “Sora, I’m—”

  “It doesn’t matter now,” she interrupted. “I got to hear your mother weep for weeks and your father curse the name of their only child. Did you ever even say goodbye to them?”

  “In my own way,” Whitney lied. His teenage self said goodbye the moment he hit the road, slipping out in the dead of night. Same way he’d said bye to Sora. Without a word.

  “Lucky them,” she muttered. “You know they died, right?” She didn’t let him answer. He could tell she had something she needed to get off her chest before they got anywhere. “A plague. Even Wetzel’s cures couldn’t save them, their illness got so bad. I thought you’d come riding in proud on a great steed after some unexpected adventure took you away. I watched the road the entire night, but you never showed.”

  “I only heard about them when I came through Troborough a few weeks ago,” he replied, throat going dry.

  “So that was you,” Sora said, as if it were the answer to a riddle.

  “Wait, you knew I was there, and you didn’t come say ‘hi?’” Whitney asked, desperate to veer the conversation in a new direction.

  “I could say the same for you.”

  “I passed by Wetzel’s place, and it looked abandoned! I figured nobody was home.” It wasn’t the whole truth, but Whitney had perfected the art of half-truths.

  “Well, I stay away from that awful tavern. Hamm doesn’t even have decent bards anymore. You know how many drunks and vagabonds stop by to bloat their legends? I didn’t imagine the bragging thief passing through who everyone wished would pack up and leave was you.”

  Whitney scratched his chin. “Weird, I’m never one to leave out my name.” Nearly everything about that night with Grint was a blur. All he really remembered was the dwarf challenging him, and then him setting off for Yarrington. Grint was so drunk he probably remembered less, and now he had half the Glass Crown and Whitney nothing.

  “Nobody seemed to care about it if you said it,” Sora said, shrugging. “Even Haam couldn’t remember.”

  “Now you’re just being hurtful.”

  “Good. A part of me still thought it was you, but by the time I got away from helping Wetzel with his work the thief was gone.”

  “I was sent on an important quest by a trader, which I completed by the way.”

  “I’m sure. It must have been something earth-shattering for Whitney Fierstown to return home twice after ten-and-a-half years.”

  “It’s been that long?” Her glare made the end of his sentence trail off. He honestly hadn’t realized it’d been that long. For him, the moment he saw her it was like no time at all had passed.

  The rain started to pick up. Sora brought up the hood of her stolen robe, making Whitney wish he’d taken the time to take one for his own.

  “What about me?” Whitney asked, breaking the uncomfortable silence and desperate to change the topic.

  “I’m sure you learned how to weather a storm or two out there frolicking in the real world,” she replied.

  All he’d accomplished was making things more awkward. Her pace became brisker in response to the weather, forcing him to keep up.

  “So, you spot someone you thought could be me in Troborough and followed him all the way here?” Whitney asked, finally. “I’m flattered.”

  “I had to do something. I tracked the Glintish Shieldsman back to Yarrington after they took you prisoner. Next thing I knew, you were back on the road with that…”

  “Torsten,” Whitney said.

  “What?”

  “His name is Torsten. He’s the Wearer of White.”

  Her eyes went wide. “The what? And you’re with him?”

  “I’m moving up in the world,” he said, putting on an air of sophistication. He held his breath, hoping she’d kept her distance enough not to notice that Torsten had him tied up for half the journey.

  “I’ve got to hear this. You go from stealing bread from Big Ben Barenstein to leaving all of us behind to become some sort of… noble?”

  “Noble?” Whitney scoffed. “Gods no! I’m still the same me you remember. The Queen pretty much had to beg me for help. She needed someone with my… particular talents, and after I stole King Liam’s crown right off his head for that trader in Troborough, even they couldn’t deny I’m the greatest thief in all of Pantego.”

  Sora laughed. “You’re the greatest thief in Pantego? I haven’t heard of you since the day you left Troborough.”

  Whitney’s lip twisted, but he kept his cool. “I wouldn’t be a very good thief if you had, would I?” He reached into his pocket and displayed the same bag of coins Sora had stol
en off a cultist.

  She patted her pants, then shot a glare his way. “Why in Elsewhere would the Queen need a silver-tongued devil like you?”

  “Must be for my quick fingers.” Whitney winked.

  “You’re gross.”

  “Or maybe she just couldn’t resist my charm. Either way, Torsten and I were heading south to the Webbed Woods when that oaf of a Shieldsman got us captured by cultists.”

  “The Webbed Woods?” Sora asked. It sounded like her breath got caught in her lungs. Whitney didn’t recall her being afraid of anything, but only a fool wouldn’t fear those cursed woods.

  “The Queen wanted us to retrieve the Prince’s... or King’s... whatever he is now. She wanted me to steal his special doll back from a Drav Cra Arch Warlock who happens to be the Queen’s brother or something like that. Somehow, it’ll help him recover from sickness. Highborn and their trinkets.”

  Sora just stared at him, dumbfounded. Whitney couldn’t help but smirk.

  “I think that’s enough, you? They won’t be catching up. Let’s rest.”

  “Thought’d you’d never ask,” Whitney said.

  They found a relatively dry spot under a thick canopy of trees to block the rain. Whitney took a seat on a fallen tree trunk, and Sora sat beside him, scooting in close. She smelled like a farm, which wouldn’t have been awful if not for the fact that it was now a smell so foreign to him. He was used to city folk and city smells—shog and piss and everything worse.

  "So, what now?” Sora asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Whitney said, “but I’m sure as Elsewhere not going to die for some Shieldsman.”

  “You’re going to abandon him?”

  “Better me do him before he does me.”

  “Good to see some things never do change.”

  “That’s not fair,” Whitney argued. “He hired me to steal, not to fight. He was supposed to be the muscle, and he goes and gets us captured by a mob of crazies who probably wanted to cut our throats to please a goddess that’s not even listening? How do you think he’ll fair against Arch Warlocks or giant, bloodthirsty spiders? He’d throw me at them to save his hide.” Whitney shivered at the thought.