“Hold on,” said Tielyr. “I have an idea.”
The trio turned to see Tielyr standing up behind the bar, Derana clinging to him. Tielyr was a man of few words who rarely inserted himself into other’s conversations, so to hear him do so now made it feel like he was about to say something important. Also they were desperate.
“What’s that?” asked Mazik.
Tielyr gave them a rare, tight smile, and then turned to the patrons still shouting and cheering over the imaginary fight. He raised his voice so he could be heard above them.
“Who has a bar tab they’d like cleared?” asked Tielyr.
Nearly everyone in the bar raised their hands.
“I’m still confused, and I don’t really know whether this is even worth asking, but do I qualify?” asked Mazik hopefully.
“No. You’ll be the one clearing them,” said Tielyr.
“Ah. Right-o. Fantastic,” said Mazik. He thought about it for a second, then shrugged. “Whatever. If you’re thinking what I’m thinking you’re thinking, it ought to be worth the money.”
“I’ll see about giving you a discount,” said Tielyr as he pointed to some of the patrons wearing robes or wielding weapons. He waved them over. “Just don’t die.”
Mazik nodded. “I’ll do my best.”
*
The fat man in the too-tight suit looked at his pocket watch again and sighed. The people inside had asked for more time twice, and he gave it to them both times because he and his allies’ chances of finding the knife before the authorities arrived would be seriously reduced if they had to burn the building down and search through the wreckage, but now it looked like he had no choice. Or rather, he did have a choice, but he was choosing to follow through with his threat rather than retreat. Giving up would have proven much more certainly fatal for him than a little arson and murder.
The fat man waved to a cultist holding a box of matches and an unlit torch. “Go ahead.”
“Yes sir,” said the other cultist as he lit the torch and dragged it along The Joker’s front wall. The aged wood resisted lighting at first, but soon it began to blacken and smolder.
Suddenly, a bright blue spell flew down from above and struck the arsonist, spinning him around and dropping the torch to a dead piece of ground.
“Has the city guard arrived?” demanded the fat man, spinning around.
“Not quite!” called a voice from on high. The fat man looked up, searching for the source, and that’s when a sphere of blue mana crashed into him, burning away most of his shields and dumping him soundly on his rear. That was when he found him.
“Come on, you bastards! Up here!” yelled Mazik from atop the Dirty Hammock. Over his battle-damaged robes Mazik now wore a coarse brown cloak with a hood that was currently thrown back. In one hand Mazik held the cultists’ black knife, waving it like a cat toy, while in the other was a sphere of blue mana. The latter was growing rapidly.
The fat man shuddered and tried to get to his feet, but found they weren’t working as well as he would have liked. “They’re up there, on the roof!” he yelled, pointing.
“There ya go. One point for the dead man!” said Mazik, grinning from ear to ear.
The fat man’s comrades moved away from The Joker and began to converge on the Dirty Hammock. They also began to chant, deep indigo mana curling around them as spells were intoned.
“Hey, I have names for some of my spells too!” said Mazik, his grin not receding at all in the face of all the power amassed against him. He stowed the knife in his robes and cupped the sphere of mana in both hands, raising it high over his head. “You want to know what this one is called?”
The closest of the fat man’s allies finished her incantation and fired at Mazik. He ignored her, the spell splashing harmlessly against his barriers. Mazik didn’t even blink.
“C’mon, ya wunna know?” Mazik asked again. Then the sphere over his head inflated to many times its size. “Oh well, I guess I’ll tell you anyway,” he said, dark delight dancing in his voice. “It’s called … Mazik Missiles!”
And the magick sang out, the sphere separating into ten, twenty, nearly thirty individual bolts, each one tracking toward a different target.
The fat man was unlucky. It was hard to aim so many projectiles at once, especially when so many of Mazik’s targets were invisible, moving, far away, or in a crowd of bystanders. While some bolts hit, many missed entirely, while others exploded harmlessly overhead on purpose. Some missed so badly their targets wondered if he had even been aiming at them at all.
But three bolts struck the fat man. The first shattered the rest of his barriers, the next hollowed out his chest, and the third flash-fried his guts.
By the time the fat man fell, Mazik was already gone.
*
Cultists tracked Mazik as he ran across the Dirty Hammock’s roof, putting The Joker’s front door and the fat man’s corpse directly behind him. They watched up until Mazik’s body glowed blue. Then spells struck the cultists watching him from the rooftops, pushing them back into the streets below.
Mazik flipped the hood of his brown cloak over his head as he approached the edge of the roof. He didn’t slow down, his hands glowing brightly as he sped toward the edge. He cast another spell.
Blue bolts reached down into the alley between the buildings on The Joker’s side of the block, facing Halnh Avenue, and those facing the street behind it, the blinding light performing what could be aptly described as a firebombing of the alley. Mana belched skyward as the cultists shielded themselves or ran away, escaping into nearby alleyways in an attempt to escape the flames.
—and in the process, several cultists ran right past the side of The Joker, a wall which very deliberately did not have a hole in it anymore. The circle of wood had been carefully pulled back into place and sealed with sawdust and corkscrews, while the side door Mazik and the others used to enter the Dirty Hammock was closed as well.
As Mazik’s spell scoured the alley so harshly that even the stubborn Houkian dirt and rubbish began to burn away, Mazik ran right up to the edge of the roof and leapt.
Mazik sailed gracefully over the firestorm, his arms outstretched like he was flying, and then he collapsed on the other side into an awkward roll. When he popped back up he kept running.
Then Mazik ran out of roof, and he leapt again. This time he aimed for the waiting hands of his similarly brown-cloaked friends, who were waiting for him on the street below. Together the three of them looked like friars doing a trust-fall exercise they had learned from an action movie. This time Mazik kicked his arms and legs the whole way down, as if he was drowning in midair.
Gavi and Raedren caught their airborne companion, and set him down unharmed.
“See any of ’em?” asked Mazik—only he wasn’t Mazik. Scraggly adjusted his hood and stood on his tiptoes, hoping no one would realize he was too short for his role.
“Oh yes, lots of them,” said the Professor, who was the perfect build to play Raedren. He pulled the cloak tighter around him, because build was one of the only ways they matched.
“I know you’re playing the stupid one, but no need to act it out,” said their third member, a caster named Mis Ahai. Her cream robes had been bunched up and tied around her waist, but she let her hair escape from her hood, to aid the subterfuge.
As maroon and silver barriers appears around Scraggly—only to change to light blue and green, as Mis Ahai and the Professor remembered they were supposed to be aping Mazik and Raedren’s colors—Mis Ahai grabbed Scraggly by the wrist and pulled him across the street. “Let’s go.”
The decoy trio sprinted toward another alley as the cultists closed in.
*
Mazik stared up at the sky as he listened to the sounds of combat grow farther away. It seemed like a long time since he and Gavi returned to The Joker and sat down for a meal they didn’t quite get to finish, but the sun was in almost the same position as when he was last outside. He supposed a lot had happ
ened since then. Part of him hoped it wouldn’t stop.
There was a dull ringing inside his head, and Mazik raised a ringer to his ear. “We good?”
“Come down on the left side of the building—left from the way you were running before,” came Raedren’s voice in his head. “We haven’t see anyone, and Gavi has the place for us to move to next.”
“Crawling that way now,” said Mazik, and he cut off the connection. Flipping onto his stomach, Mazik scrabbled on his hands and knees over to the edge of the roof. Looking around for any unwelcome attention, he swung himself over the edge and dropped to the ground below.
Mazik and Raedren whispered quickly, and then snuck over to the bar three doors down. Gavi was at the back door holding it open, and they ducked inside.
*
The decoy trio was surrounded. Things were going well until several blocks away from The Joker, when the pursuit became intense. That’s when the trio was forced down a tight alley, a thick knot of cultists right on their tails. Just as they were about to burst out onto the street beyond, another group of cultists dropped in front of them, twisted gray knives leveled at their heads. As the cultists behind them caught up, the three decoys quickly lowered their gazes and raised their hands.
“Don’t make any sudden movements or cast any spells. Just give us the knife,” said one of the cultists, a steel replica of the knife they were looking for hovering centimeters away from Scraggly’s neck. Scraggly noticed he didn’t say anything about letting the three of them live.
Scraggly let a long second pass, and then said, “Knife? What are you talking about?”
The cultists didn’t react immediately, so Scraggly’s companions filled in the gap.
“I have no idea,” said the Professor, his gaze still lowered so that the cultists couldn’t see his face.
“Me neither,” said Mis Ahai. “I don’t carry any weapons. Do either of you?”
“Not I,” said the Professor, shaking his head.
“Me neither. I hate weapons. Dangerous things,” said Scraggly. “Could get somebody killed.”
The knife moved closer to Scraggly’s neck, the barriers the Professor and Mis Ahai had cast around him discharging as the point pressed against his skin. “Give us the Edge right now,” growled the cultist.
Scraggly let another long second pass, and then decided they had kept the ruse going long enough. He raised his head and looked the cultist straight in the eye. “I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”
The cultist backed away, realization dawning. “Who are you?”
“I’d like to ask the same to you, but honestly I’m glad,” said Scraggly, relaxing, though he kept his arms raised. “I thought you were the debt collectors again. Can you believe them? We’re only a few weeks late and they keep—”
“What? Shut up!” snapped the cultist as he turned away and put a hand to his ear.
Scraggly kept going anyway. “I know what you mean, friend. Can we drop our hands? There seems to have been a misunderstanding. Honest mistake, I don’t hold it against you. I’m just glad we—”
“Shut up,” said the Professor softly. He knew Scraggly was playing his part, but he could read the mood better than his friend, and he didn’t want to anger the cultists any more than necessary. Not when there were nearly a dozen of them, and more nearby. A quick execution wasn’t out of the question.
The cultist who had been speaking was still hunched over, listening to a voice in his head. A look of increasing anger and frustration grew on his face.
“They say there’s another group. These three must be decoys,” he concluded finally. He raised his weapon and—
Maroon mana swirled around Mis Ahai’s forearms, and the Professor’s eyes flashed silver. Scraggly stood his ground and grinned.
The talkative cultist stared at them for a handful of seconds, and then sheathed his knife. “Let’s get out of here before we attract more attention,” he mumbled, glancing behind him at the onlookers watching the standoff from a safe distance. There was a chorus of acknowledgements from the other cultists, and then they pushed past the trio into the alley and disappeared.
Scraggly, the Professor, and Mis Ahai waited a full minute, the Professor scanning with his enhanced eyesight while Scraggly and Mis Ahai assured their audience that the show was over. When the Professor was satisfied they were alone, they all relaxed.
“I guess we better get outta here before they catch up with one of the other groups,” said Scraggly as he peeled off the brown cloak. “You want ta hit another bar while we wait for The Joker ta calm down?”
“You just paid off your tab in one bar, and now you want to rack up one in another?” asked the Professor.
“Yup. Running is thirsty work,” said Scraggly.
The three looked at each other. Mis Ahai shrugged. “Can’t argue with that. Lead the way.”
*
“Confidence is the key,” Mazik said out of the corner of his mouth as he sauntered down the street, the wide brim of his floppy hat dipping into his vision with every step. “As long as you act like you should be doing whatever it is you’re doing, most people won’t call you on it.”
“I’ll leave that up to you,” said Gavi, her voice muffled by Mazik’s arm. “I’m just going to focus on holding on and not tripping. And giggling occasionally.”
“Not too loudly though,” said Mazik with a grin he didn’t have to fake. “We don’t want to shrink away from attention, but we don’t want to draw it to ourselves either.”
Gavi giggled45.
Mazik and Gavi were walking down the street, linked arm in arm. They looked like a happy couple, like a pair of young lovers out on a date without a care in the world. This was a misconception they were doing everything they could to encourage.
Gavi wrapped her arm around Mazik’s and fought back a blush. “So where are we going, honey?” she asked as she squinted at the ground, her head pounding.
“You’ll see soon, daaaarling!” said Mazik with a happy chirp. Gavi was too busy trying not to fall to respond.
This was Mazik’s addition to Tielyr’s plan: instead of waiting for the decoy groups to lead the cultists away and then running as fast as they could, they would simply walk away. Mazik was sure some cultists would remain in the area, so running would have gotten them spotted quickly. But if they blended in with the omnipresent Houkian crowds, they would be able to walk away without anyone being the wiser. All they needed was to look like someone else, and that meant disguises.
“Were the glasses really necessary?” asked Gavi, adjusting the lenses so they rode lower on her nose. “They’re giving me a headache.”
“Glasses plus letting your hair down changes the shape of your face,” said Mazik as his eyes flashed blue for a split second. He watched as an invisible cultist jogged past them. At one point the cultist was only a few meters away from them, but if he noticed Mazik and Gavi at all he didn’t give them a second thought. “They also give people something to focus on instead of your face. They’ve only seen us once or twice, so any change will confuse them. Trust me.”
Gavi peered over the top of the glasses and sighed. In addition to Raedren’s glasses and undoing her hair, Gavi only had to add a coat over her work uniform and hold onto Mazik’s arm to complete the transformation into lovestruck girlfriend.
Mazik’s disguise was more extensive. Gone were his cloak and robes, and in their place were dark blue riding pants, pointed boots, and a leather vest replete with decorative stitching, polished buckles, and a fringe of tassels down each breast. Combined with a wide-brimmed hat and his own devil-may-care grin, Mazik looked like a nouveau riche cattle rancher showing his girlfriend around the big city for the first time. He still had his robes though, bunched up and shoved under his free arm, with the cultist knife safely tucked away in its sheath inside.
“How’s Raedren doing?” asked Gavi as they waited at an intersection for the cart traffic to slow.
“I don’t know,�
�� said Mazik. He reached up and scratched the side of his face with his pinky and ring fingers, while his pointer and middle brushed against his ear. “I wonder how he’s doing.”
“I hate you,” said Raedren in Mazik’s head.
Mazik smiled. “He’s doing fine.”
The three of them had decided that splitting up would be the wisest course of action since the cultists would be looking for a group of three, and Raedren automatically drew the short straw by virtue of being the most powerful caster among them. That wasn’t why he was annoyed, though.
Mazik adjusted his hat. “It was either that or lose the beard.”
“…be that as it may, I still hate you,” said Raedren. Mazik laughed, and then masked it by making a boyfriend-like comment to Gavi. Gavi pretended like it was funny.
Raedren silently groused as he continued to pace Mazik and Gavi from the other side of the street, at least when he wasn’t weaving into the gutter or stumbling into passersby. Raedren wasn’t disgruntled because they split up; he was disgruntled because of his disguise, which worked out well because most vagrants weren’t the happiest of people.
As by far the most physically distinctive of the three, Mazik had decided that the best way to disguise Raedren was with as much clothing as possible and a pronounced stoop, and that meant a homeless bum. Now Raedren was covered with old coats, dirty scarves, and even a few dish rags taken from The Joker’s kitchen, and was stumbling down the sidewalk with a nearly empty bottle of liquor in his hand. That Raedren hadn’t had a single drop of liquor from the bottle didn’t matter—it was nearly empty when they took it from The Joker—because without his glasses he had an even more believable drunk walk than he would have had if he were actually drunk.
“So darling, what do you want to do tomorrow?” asked Mazik.
“Whatever you want to do, honey,” said Gavi, and she once again had to fight back a sour look at actually using such a clichéd pet name. They were three streets away from The Joker now.
“Maybe we should see a show,” said Mazik as they turned the corner, his eyes flashing blue.
Firesign 1 - Wage Slave Rebellion Page 20
