by Guy Antibes
“I hope this is something,” he said. He had to kneel to pull the box out, but it contained all they sought. Letters, notes, and bills were there, but Sam sighed. Everything was written in Vaarekian cursive or Wollian. “Nakara has more work ahead of him. Let’s go.”
“Not yet,” Banna said. She knelt down by the wardrobe and replaced the ward that Sam had removed. “Get back by the door.”
Sam went onto the staircase. “Don’t trip the ward until you are safe,” he said.
“I won’t,” Banna grabbed a ball of solid glass from the woman’s dresser and tossed it just short of the ward. It rolled up short. She retrieved it and missed again.
“Let me try.”
Banna frowned. “Suit yourself.”
Sam held onto the doorway and hit the ward square. He had sought cover before the ball hit the ground. The room shook from the explosion. The wardrobe had been destroyed, and tiny tongues of fire emerged from the wood.
“Are you all right?” Nakara said. He wasn’t calling from the bottom of the stairs but from the hole in the floor.
Sam and Banna took the box down the stairs. Nakara still stood beneath the hole, standing on debris.
“We were lucky no one was underneath,” he said. “That is even worse than the wards we experienced.”
“Here is what we retrieved from the woman’s room,” Banna said, handing the box over to the spy. “The ward was meant to protect this, of course.”
Nakara’s eyes widened. “Papers?”
Banna nodded. “You will understand these better than Sam Smith, since they are written in Wollian.”
Sam didn’t correct her. There were Vaarekian documents that he couldn’t read, either, but he didn’t expect that to be a barrier for Vizier Tandar.
The shop owner’s body was brought into the shop.
Nakara’s eyes flashed. “You fools! How can I interrogate a dead woman?”
“She took her own life,” a constable said, handing over a knife.
Banna leaned over to get a better look at it. “Definitely Vaarekian.” She turned to Sam. “I think we can go.”
“Yes, I’ll send for you once I’ve gone through these,” Nakara said.
“Uh, we might need a bit of help finding our way to the docks,” Sam said.
Nakara collared one of the constables who had been stationed at the end of the alley. “You take them.”
The man looked blankly at Nakara, who instructed the constable in Wollian. The man nodded and showed Banna and Sam out.
~
“What did you learn today?” Banna said as they strolled back to the ship.
“Shiny is bad?” Sam said, smiling.
“That and more. Viktar Kreb has very dedicated servants who are willing to kill themselves for the cause.”
Sam nodded. “And they don’t care who is obliterated along the way. I don’t like wards.”
“But if they protected something you valued greatly?”
“Ah,” Sam said. “The problem is that people value things differently.”
“Are they necessarily bad if they value something that others don’t?”
Sam hesitated to say anything. Banna was close to the edge, and Sam didn’t want to break their truce.
“Then there is bound to be conflict.”
“Not always, but it depends on the situation.”
Sam knew what she was getting at, but he couldn’t agree. “If innocent people get hurt when someone pursues their values, I think that diminishes the values. The cost of life and limb are high. Luckily no one today, you and I included, were killed. But some were injured. The woman took her own life, but that was by her own decision.”
“But what if there is a greater good?”
Sam had a cynical thought that Dickey said once, he couldn’t remember when. “Does it make me better if I insist my greater good is greater than your greater good? Just because my values are greater, does that make my actions better? To whom?”
Banna pursed her lips. “There is no answer to that, Sam.”
“There is an answer, and everyone has their own. That is why people join together in a society, to determine what rules and laws to follow,” Sam said. It was something he learned in school a few years ago.
“Laws,” Banna scoffed.
“And what happens when there are none?” Sam asked.
“That is something that I will have to reflect on. Politics is where these issues are decided.”
“For a society,” Sam said. “Different societies have different rules. If you let too many little societies exist, people get confused at best and injured or killed at worst. Wollia is an example of that.”
“The factions.”
Sam nodded. “Yes, the factions, the nomads, the Wollians, the Lashakans, and everyone in between. That is why I couldn’t think of settling here. It is hostile to anyone who wishes everyone would live by the same rules.”
“But that doesn’t happen, even in Toraltia. Look at the nobility and the commoner,” Banna said. “It is happening in Vaarek, and you’ll see that not all the rules are easy to follow or easy to accept.”
Was that why Harrison Dimple lived in the woods? He could live by his own rules, that way. But then, people had told Sam he could do the same thing as Harrison if he got off the ship in Carolank and headed back to Toraltia. No, Sam didn’t think he could become a hermit and make up his own rules. As much as he liked and respected Harrison, he couldn’t do that.
He had enjoyed living in Baskin, but the nobility had thrown him out. The king, himself, had told him he couldn’t stand being around someone who couldn’t use pollen. Sam didn’t understand how a person could think that way, but experience told him more people felt that way than those few who didn’t. Did that make him bad? He shook his head at that thought.
“I guess the only real thing I learned is that life is more complicated than I would like, and I won’t be returning to live in Wollia. Is that enough?”
Banna nodded. “It is, for now.”
~
“Two more days,” Captain Darter said to those assembled for dinner in her cabin. She waved a yellow paper at them. “His fee has barely made the wait worth it.”
“At least the ship is in very good shape, Captain,” the First Mate said.
“It is, and when we are done here, circulate the news among the crew and passengers.”
There weren’t many passengers, Sam thought. Most of them kept to themselves in much the same way Banna did, despite repeated invitations to the captain’s table. At least Sam had had a full day to help Jordi with a final inventory of the cargo. All that was left was stowing the Smallbug group’s possessions, and the ship could sail.
Sam was about finished with his meal when a sailor knocked on the door. He poked his head in the cabin. “A message for Sam Smith and Banna Plunk.”
Darter beckoned the man in and took the message. “More time with your Wollian playmates?” she said, handing the paper to Sam.
He read it and gave the message to Banna without saying anything. Another raid tonight, the message said. Nakara had been busy, it seemed.
They brought Emmy with them, and all three walked off the dock and found that Nakara had arranged a carriage. Sam looked out the window at the fading light of day. It made the colors of the buildings turn into orange or blue, depending if they were in light or shadow. He wondered what color he felt right now, orange or blue? He didn’t know. Sam still reviewed his discussion with Banna and his thoughts during and after the journey from the curio shop while he rubbed Emmy’s head.
Sam had his own ideas about his relationship with Banna, but he was sure they weren’t the same as hers. He always felt uneasy about sharing his thought about a lot of things with her. He felt his continued silence was the key to their truce.
He fingered the hilt of his Lashakan sword. Sam would be glad to be gone from Wollia where anything could be counted as a slight to one faction or another. In a way, it wasn’t much different from
how he felt around Banna.
“Thinking about fighting with that?” Banna said.
Sam nodded. “It seems I’ll have to fight with more than a sword,” he said. Sam wouldn’t go into any more detail.
They arrived at their destination, a warehouse district on the east side of town, hugging the main road to Wollin, the capital.
“You are to walk one block east and one block south,” the driver said before turning the carriage around and heading back to the central part of the city.
Emmy barked softly at the carriage and turned to Sam, nuzzling her head in his upper back. Sam smiled. He rubbed Emmy’s ears to thank her for reminding him that she was by his side. He knew he had to focus on what was ahead in the warehouse.
They found Nakara surrounded by twenty men holding shuttered lanterns. The Lashakan beckoned to him. “That is your dog?”
Sam nodded. “She has helped out in cases before. Her name is Emmy.”
Nakara gave him a twisted grin that reminded him of Dickey Nail. “Emmy, huh? Not what I would name such a beast.” Nakara took a breath and looked at the men. “I didn’t show the papers to Pamon Tandar. I’d like to surprise him with a success, for a change. The papers had enough references to this warehouse. We’ve had it under surveillance for the past day, and goods have been moved in and out. Nothing out of the ordinary except that there seem to be more people entering than leaving.”
“A tunnel,” Sam said.
“Huh?”
“There must be a tunnel that leads somewhere else,” Sam said. “I spent a day observing a shop in Baskin that was the front for a gang’s headquarters. Tunnels were leading out of the shop to the real headquarters. It could be the same thing, here.”
Nakara winced. “That means escape will be easy for them.”
“Then spread your forces throughout the district to see if people emerge from other buildings,” Sam said.
“My thoughts exactly.” Nakara made the assignments. “Supposedly, the warehouse is closed for the night.”
“Easier to spot escapees if we act before it gets too dark,” Banna said.
“Right.” Nakara asked them to follow.
The warehouse seemed deserted as they approached. With the twilight Sam wouldn’t be able to easily detect the sheen of a ward, assuming there was still someone with ward-making talents in the rebel group.
“We will need to walk on pads,” Sam said, “until we get enough light to detect wards.”
Nakara nodded, and soon Banna shoved two pads into Sam’s arms. Sam needed to use the lantern that Nakara had given him to examine the lock on the door. He couldn’t detect a sheen, but no one had the expertise or the tools to unlock the door.
“Miss Plunk, can you come up with something?” Nakara asked.
“A ward. Your people can stand back.” She created a ward, and when Sam looked at the lock again, he could see the faint shine that told him a ward was present.
“A sword will trip the ward. It will explode outward, so if they stand at the side, the person should escape injury.”
Sam took his pads and protected himself as he drew his Lashakan sword.
“No,” Nakara said putting his hand on the blunt side of Sam’s single-edged sword. “That sword is too valuable to be used. I will do it.”
The spy’s act to protect the sword made Sam want to know more about its history, but now was not the time. He backed up a little farther and let Nakara set off the ward.
When the man touched the ward with the tip of his sword, a small explosion obliterated the lock. Nakara looked at his sword to see the end had been bent over. “See?” he said before grabbing one of the double doors as Sam took the other.
Everyone rushed in. Emmy barked in the darkness. The warehouse was two-thirds empty.
“This was to be the final destination of the weapons taken from the Rakwall Armory,” Nakara said.
The constables and snoops spread out. Banna and Sam split up and examined the goods for wards. A few wards were found as Nakara’s men stood waiting for them to do their work. Emmy ran around in the big empty spaces. Boxes were opened, and bales were spread out. Sam could hear the clattering of weapons falling to the floor.
“Awful quality,” Nakara said, showing Sam a cast sword.
“I saw the same kind of stuff in Carolank,” Sam said. “Maybe that is why the Vaarekians ended up raiding the Armory. Troops wouldn’t last any longer fighting with these than they would using pollen weapons.”
Banna cleared an area twenty paces away from a door. “A layered ward, the only one I’ve seen,” she said.
Sam leaned over and looked at the floor. “This has had something over it. See how the wood is lighter and a little less worn?”
Nakara held out his lantern. “I can see it. That means that there might be something important behind that.”
“Maybe, or more wards. It could be a trap,” Sam said.
Banna gently pushed Sam aside. “Then let us find out.” She knelt and examined the ward. “I think your wand can take care of this. Even though it is layered, it isn’t as potent as the pollen ward in the shop.”
Sam twisted on the gold tip and held it over a corner of the ward, a hand-span in diameter. He counted the layers when they disappeared.
“All done.” He checked the door, but there wasn’t another.
Inside the room was an office with a few stacks of papers. Sam examined them quickly. He saw more Vaarekian cursive and Wollian writing on shipping documents. “I can’t help you here,” he said. “I’ll go back out and wander around.”
Nakara’s men continued to stack and count weapons. Emmy nudged his hand, so Sam began to scratch behind her ears. He examined the dirt floor of the warehouse, looking at the footprints, the hoof prints, but then they abruptly stopped. Someone had groomed the dirt.
He examined the floor and found that the warehouse people had swept the floor all the way to a jog in the wall. Sam took off his spectacles to inspect to see if anything was made of pollen, and the jog disappeared, showing a door. Sam used his wand to eliminate the pollen facade as the men gathered around him, watching the pollen disintegrate at Sam’s touch.
“What have you found?” one of the men asked.
“A false wall,” Sam said. He looked up at the top, but it was dark despite the lamps. “Help me move this.”
Two of the constables hurried to his side and pulled where the pollen had left holes. The wall began to topple toward Sam, but the rest of the men ran to prop up the wall. Sam and the two other constables ran out of the way as the other men dragged the pollen wall out into the center of the warehouse.
“What is this?” Nakara said exiting the office. “A false wall?”
A few of the constables spoke in excited Wollian to Nakara.
Sam stepped on the flat surface, studded with handles. The pollen was multicolored behind the wall’s front surface. “A group effort, I think,” Sam said.
He looked at the door but didn’t detect any wards. Once the wall was up, whoever was behind had to get out. He lifted the latch and swung the door out. “It isn’t even locked,” Sam said.
Nakara said something, and every Wollian pulled out their weapons.
“Be ready, Smith,” he said as he took the first step through the door. The next step was down and down again.
Sam had discovered a secret stairway. “I think Nakara is surprised,” Banna said, sneaking up on him.
The head spy appeared again and spoke Wollian. A few of the men took positions in the warehouse. Nakara looked at Sam. “It is time to see where this leads.”
Sam smiled. “I guess everyone uses the same tricks.”
“Especially if they work. This one nearly would have if it wasn’t for you. I wouldn’t have detected anything,” she said, “unless I touched every surface in this building.”
Except this was the second subterranean hiding place Sam had found. He guessed his tricks worked, as well as the rebel’s tricks did.
Th
ey were the last two down the stairs, but Nakara called them to the front. “We may run into wards.”
Sam didn’t think so, but it wouldn’t hurt to be cautious. Banna and Sam led the men step by step, but they couldn’t detect any wards. “Let’s make mats,” Banna said. The corridor soon was carpeted in thick pollen mats of various colors as they walked through the tunnel.
They stopped at another door. Sam detected a ward on the doorframe. “It wraps around to the other side, I think,” Sam said. He pulled out his wand and began to disable the ward. “There. Now we can open the door.”
“Let one of my men try,” Nakara said.
A constable made some armor and a pad and pulled on the door. An explosion filled the small space, and the doorframe was shattered.
“That is a dramatic way to open the door,” Sam said, as he struggled to calm Emmy.
She bolted through the door and into the dark. Sam had to follow, regardless of other wards that he might trigger. He stopped when he realized he was in a large room.
“Another warehouse,” he said. “This one is totally empty.”
The men filed into the room half as big as the warehouse above. “They are gone,” Nakara said to them. “They went through those double doors.” He pointed straight ahead. Banna followed them and began checking for wards.
Sam looked around at the timber-lined walls. He decided to check for another exit, and took off his spectacles, walking the perimeter. He found what he was looking for, another pollen facade.
This wasn’t warded. The pollen was thinner than the wall, so he eliminated the pollen enough to reach the door behind. He stepped through the hole, opened the door, and entered the room beyond.
He looked at a conference room with a desk filled with paperwork that still eluded Sam’s ability to read, but these weren’t just shipping manifests. This was someone’s headquarters.
“What have you found?” Nakara said.
“We were looking for this,” Sam said, pointing to the documents.
Nakara grinned. He put his lantern on the desk and began to read the documents. “This is much better,” he said. He made a pollen box and began to transfer the documents and then worked on the drawers. “I won’t get much sleep tonight,” he said. “You’ve proven your worth, Smith.”
