Songreaver

by Andrew Hunter

  Garrett climbed down from Ghausse's back and walked to the front door, hoping to get a better view.

  Cenick gave a little laugh of triumph, and the stained glass window swung open on its hinges. He clutched the knife between his teeth and reached one hand inside to hold himself steady as he worked the iron bars loose from their sockets with his free hand.

  "You're really strong!" Garrett gasped.

  "Na 'eally," Cenick said through his clenched teeth. He dropped the loose bars inside the room with a dull clunk and then pulled the knife from his mouth. "I spent a month dissolving the mortar with acid when I was twelve. This used to be my room."

  Garrett laughed. "Did Uncle ever catch you?"

  "Once," Cenick said, "I was terrified at what he might do to me, but he just gave me the key to the front door and told me to swallow it just before I was killed by the Watch to prevent any burglars finding it on my mangled corpse... Took all the fun out of sneaking out."

  Garrett grinned.

  Cenick squeezed through the narrow window and Garrett saw no more of him until he wrenched open the front door from within and invited Garrett inside.

  "Welcome home," he said, a trace of sadness in his voice.

  "Thanks," Garrett said, his stomach sinking at the sight of the place. Dirty boot prints lay beneath a pale layer of dust on the floor. The rugs were gone, as were all the cabinets and bookcases that once lined the entry hall. The chipped onyx skull that once capped the carved pillar at the foot of the stairs looked up at him with empty eyes from the corner of the landing.

  "Caleb?" Garrett called out, "Lampwicke?"

  "They took everything," Cenick said.

  "What do we do?" Garrett asked, his voice sounding very small.

  "We take it back," Cenick said.

  ****

  The two of them camped out in Uncle's dining room after Cenick saw to their animals' needs in the now-empty carriage house. They shared a bit of cold rations and said little before bedding down in the same musty blankets they had carried with them from the swamp.

  Cenick rose, shortly after dawn and told Garrett to stay home and bar the door against strangers while he went out to investigate what headway Max might have made with the church.

  Garrett locked the door behind Cenick after he left, and gathered his courage to explore the drafty old house. Upstairs proved as empty as he had feared. At least the Templars had left the witchfire sconces on the walls that provided light on command. Garrett lit them all, feeling slightly better for it as he wandered the empty rooms, bundled against the cold in two layers of robe and a torn blanket.

  He felt better still when he discovered a stack of wood and kindling piled beside the hearth in Uncle's bedroom. Someone had been using the room to catalogue Uncle's belongings, judging by the scattered inventory tags he found swept into the corner. He picked up one of the little scraps of paper and saw the blurry sigil of an auction house stamped in one corner. His lips began to tremble and his eyes burned at the thought of someone selling Uncle's books in the street like some dead man's belongings.

  A sudden mad determination seized hold of Garrett, and he stormed back to the dining room to rummage through his pack. He picked out the cleanest purple robe that he could find, one of Jitlowe's hand-me-downs, and dressed himself in it. He pounded as much dirt from his Chadiri boots as he could, restoring them at least to a semblance of their former crimson glory. He belted on his Chadiri sword as well, and around his neck he hung the polished skull talisman that Max had given him after the victory at Taelish. He slung his satchel over his shoulder, and it hung, heavy with the weight of a half canister of essence. It was the last of Cenick's personal supply, and he had insisted that Garrett carry it upon their arrival at the city, in case things went badly.

  Garrett stood up to his full height and took a deep breath. He wished for a moment that he had a mirror, but then again, he was afraid he could not possibly look as imposing as he felt. If only he had a staff like Uncle's, but that would probably make it a little hard to ride a wolf.

  The thought of Ghausse brought a vicious grin to Garrett's face. Who needed a sorcerer's staff when you had a full-grown dire wolf?

  ****

  Much of the celebratory mood of the city had rolled over into a sort of headachy good humor. The people went about their daily business with a bleary-eyed, yawning detachment. Few people even took much notice of Garrett as he rode his wolf through the winding streets of the Lower City. Of those that did notice, a surprising number of them reacted with cheerful greetings rather than dismay or alarm.

  "Good mornin', Deathlord," a thick-bodied teamster with short, gray hair called out as Garrett approached, "You ghosted any redjacks today?"

  "None today, I'm afraid," Garrett laughed, "I think we chased all the rest of 'em off though."

  The teamster spat, slowing his team of horses and the wagon they pulled to a halt. "I wish you'd killed 'em all... but thank you for what you done. I had family at Marcushal."

  Garrett nodded. "That's not too far from Brenhaven, is it?" he asked.

  The teamster narrowed his eyes. "You know the place?"

  "My dad's bakery was in Brenhaven," Garrett said.

  The teamster's face split into a broad grin. He stepped forward and gave Garrett a crushing handshake. "Always good to meet another Freelander!" he said, "We gotta stick together these days."

  Garrett smiled and nodded, a bit overwhelmed by his sudden popularity.

  "What brings you down here this mornin'?" the teamster asked, "If you're lookin' for some new recruits, I've got a few layabouts on my crew that could be mistaken for dead men most times there's any work needs doin'."

  A dozen or so drivers and porters nearby laughed in response.

  Garrett pulled the paper tag from his satchel and handed it to the man. "I'm looking for this auction house," he said, "Do you know where it is?"

  The teamster squinted at the paper and nodded. "That’s the Pikestat, just up the lane there," he said, pointing, "You lookin' to spend some o' your spoils o' war?"

  "No," Garrett answered, "These guys took all our stuff while we were off fighting, and I'm going to get it back."

  The teamster's face went suddenly cold. "You're serious?" he demanded.

  Garrett nodded. "They said the army had gotten killed, and they took all our houses and stuff to sell at auction."

  "Those filthy..." the teamster looked to his men, his voice trailing off in a stream of curses. He jabbed a thick finger at the youngest member of his crew. "Watch the horses," he said, "We'll be back in a few."

  He motioned for the rest to follow him, and, looking to Garrett, said, "Don't worry, friend, we'll take care of this."

  The other men fell in behind their boss, some of them pulling axe handles and chains from the wagons. Garrett was shaking a little at the sight of the group of men suddenly ready to do violence on his behalf.

  Ghausse fell into step beside the crew boss as people scattered out of the street before them. Garrett looked down at the fuming, hulking man who looked like he could wrestle the wolf if he had to.

  "My name's Garrett," he said, "Thanks for helping me."

  The teamster looked up at him with a smirk. "Dannen," he said, "and don't worry about it. Everybody here owes you a debt. Most of us started lookin' for a new place to run when we heard that lie about you folks bein' killed. Let me tell you, there ain't many places left to run. We're just glad you stopped the redjacks. It's good to know they can be beat!"

  They burst through the great double doors of the Pikestat Auction House, startling the few men inside who were busy dividing goods into various lots on the open floor of the large, dimly lit warehouse. Dust swirled in the light of the open doors as a thin man in a brown suit coat jumped up from his desk to exclaim, "We're closed!"

  "Well you're open now!" Dannen yelled. His men fanned out inside the warehouse, backing the auction house employees into corners and against the huge wooden pillars that supported the rafter
s above. Dannen walked straight toward the man in the brown suit as Garrett rode his wolf through the warehouse doors.

  "I'll call the guard!" the man in the suit shouted, his eyes wide with fear.

  Dannen rolled his thick fingers into a fist the size of a small ham, and the auctioneer fell silent.

  "Whatta they got that's yours, Deathlord?" Dannen called back to Garrett.

  "Where did you put all the stuff that you stole from the necromancers?" Garrett asked, trying to make his voice sound like Max's did when he made a speech.

  The man in the suit blinked. "Wait," he said, "we didn't steal anything! All those items were seized by the church. We only facilitated the sale."

  Garrett's heart sunk. "You sold them already?" he asked.

  Dannen stepped in close, taking the auctioneer's lapel in his free hand, his raised fist tightening.

  "No!" the auctioneer sputtered, "Not everything! We... we sold mostly chattel in the first auction. The bulk of the remainder is still here."

  "You sold what?" Garrett asked.

  "The servants... pets, whatever they were," the man said, "We couldn't store those here, so they were sold outright... most of the rest is still being catalogued and sorted for inspection by the authorities before they will clear it for sale."

  Garrett's skin flushed hot, imagining Lampwicke and Caleb sold off to the highest bidder like so much furniture. His hand slipped inside his satchel, tightening around the cold metal of his essence flask.

  "Where is it?" Dannen asked.

  "In the back," the auctioneer said, "but I can't let you take it." he flinched as Dannen raised his fist again. "The Templars..."

  "I am a Templar!" Garrett shouted, "Ordained by the priestess Serepheni. I am also an officer in the army of the Deathlord Zarathul. I have faced the black dragon and I have faced the High Inquisitor of the Chadirian Empire." He raised his left hand, now wreathed in rainbow flame and closed his fist, snuffing it out. "Who are you to tell me anything?"

  Every eye in the room stared back at him in amazement.

  Ghausse snarled, and the auctioneer let out a little yelp of fear.

  ****

  "You sure you don't want us to have them put everything back where they found it?" Dannen asked as he and Garrett sat together on the loading dock in the gray light of day.

  "Nah," Garrett said, still feeling a bit lightheaded from his earlier outburst, "If they just take everything to my uncle's house, we can make sure everybody gets what belongs to them and there aren't any mix-ups."

  Dannen shrugged. "You need any help with gettin' the zombies back?" he asked.

  "No, but thanks," Garrett said, looking down at the pages of the heavy leather-bound ledger in his lap, "I think my friends will be able to figure out who bought what, and we can go get everything back then." He tried to make sense of the spidery handwriting scrawled across the yellow pages, desperately searching for any mention of a fairy. There were a great many entries for animate remains. One of them had to be Caleb.

  Dannen got to his feet. He offered his hand to Garrett and shook it, a bit more gently this time. "Good luck, Garrett," he said.

  "Thanks again," Garrett said, "If you ever need anything from me..."

  Dannen laughed. "Don't worry about it. I just hate seein' somebody get robbed when they're down... especially if they go down fightin' for somebody else."

  Garrett nodded and closed the ledger, standing up to wave goodbye as Dannen and his crew supervised the loading of the auction house wagons. Crates full of furniture, books, and what appeared to be a collection of birdhouses, were all carefully bundled on to the wagons and sent trundling slowly off to Uncle Tinjin's house in the Arcane Quarter.

  He shook Ghausse awake from where the wolf had been napping in the crawlspace beneath the wooden loading dock. Ghausse scooted out from beneath the dock and shook the dust and cobwebs from his fur. Garrett patted him on the back and then climbed up. He turned to see the auctioneer in the brown suit glaring at him from the shadows of the auction house door. Compared to Johann Prex, the man really wasn’t all that intimidating. Garrett gave him a level stare and then rode out of the auction yard and back toward the lifts to the Upper City.

  He arrived back at Uncle’s house to find Mrs. Nash, Uncle Tinjin's favorite local cook, knocking at the door. Her younger son Kent stood beside her, holding a large basket. The wonderful smell of fresh-baked bread was drifting from beneath the basket's blue striped cloth covering. Kent and his mother turned, their eyes going wide at the sight of the big black wolf padding up the street behind them.

  “Garrett?” Kent asked, cocking his head to one side. Kent had grown a bit since Garrett had last seen him. Perhaps Garrett had as well.

  “Hi, Kent. Hi, Mrs. Nash,” Garrett said.

  Mrs. Nash looked a bit flustered at the sight of Ghausse as well, but she smiled and bid Garrett good afternoon.

  “How’s Pierce doing?” Garrett asked.

  Mrs. Nash smiled. “He’s well,” she said, “Away with his uncle for a few months.”

  “He’s learning to sail,” Kent said. Then his expression turned from pride to disappointment. “Ma says I can’t go to sea yet.”

  “Oh, sorry,” Garrett said, “Were you looking for me?”

  Mrs. Nash nodded. “You and Mister Tinjin. I was hoping you’d both come back from the war.”

  “Oh, Uncle’s not back yet, but he should be pretty soon,” Garrett said.

  “Well… I suppose this is all for you then,” Mrs. Nash said, taking the basket from Kent and holding it up.

  Garrett grinned, then his face fell. “I’m afraid I don’t have any money right now,” he said.

  Mrs. Nash shushed him. “No need for that, boy. We’re just glad you’re back safe.”

  Garrett smiled and climbed down from Ghausse’s back to let them in the front door with the key he had found in an envelope in the kitchen. He then lead Ghausse around to the carriage house to feed him the last of the dried meat they had left over from the campaign. He left the side door open so that Ghausse would have access to the garden fountain when he got thirsty. Garrett didn’t like the thought of saying goodbye to the wolf now, but he would have to give him back to Marla soon, if only to ensure that he was properly cared for.

  Garrett came back inside to find Mrs. Nash trying to make the best of the empty kitchen. She had found a couple of cracked plates in a cupboard and had sent Kent out to find a pail of water to prime the kitchen pump. She laid out a selection of breads and cheeses on the counter, along with a half-length of sweet sausage and fresh baked apple pie.

  “I wish I’d thought to bring a few forks,” she said, holding up a carving knife and a pairing knife.

  “Doesn’t matter to me,” Garrett said, his stomach grumbling at the sight of the food.

  She passed him the paring knife and he thanked her before carving off a hunk of sausage and biting into it. He grabbed more food and stuffed it in, only pausing when he realized Mrs. Nash was watching him with a satisfied smile on her face.

  “Sorry,” he said, “You want some?”

  “No, dear,” she said, “I just like seeing a hungry boy eat. It makes me happy, you know.”

  Garrett nodded and took another bite of bread, making a point to chew with his mouth closed this time.

  “Got it,” Kent said, entering the room with a sideways shuffle. Drops of water spattered on the dusty floor beneath when the water bucket that he carried bumped against his knees. Mrs. Nash thanked her son and turned her attention to priming the kitchen pump with the water he had brought.

  “Is that a real redbuck sword?” Kent said, his eyes locked on the scabbard at Garrett’s waist.

  “Huh? Oh, yeah,” Garrett said. He pushed a piece of sausage into his mouth to free up his hand and then drew out the blade. Kent’s eyes widened at the sight of the dull gray blade.

  “Did you kill the guy that had it?” Kent asked.

  “Kent!” Mrs. Nash hissed, “None o’ that now!”r />
  Garrett shook his head. “No,” he said, “my friend gave it to me. I don’t know where he got it.”

  “Can I hold it?” Kent asked.

  “Kent,” Mrs. Nash chided, “You let Master Garrett enjoy his supper now.”

  “But, ma!”

  “It’s all right,” Garrett said. He held the blade out and let the younger boy take it.

  Kent held the sword at arm’s length and stared, reverently at the blade. “This is great!” he whispered.

  “You can have it,” Garrett said, without really thinking about it. He immediately regretted saying it, not so much because of Mrs. Nash’s tense reaction, but because this was the second blade that Cenick had given him that he had now lost.

  “Thank you!” Kent said, waving the blade around in front of him.

  “Yes… thank you,” Mrs. Nash said, forcing a quivery little smile as her eyes flicked back to where her youngest child was wildly cutting at imaginary foes with a sharpened blade.

  “I’ll teach him the basics after dinner,” Cenick’s voice called out from the hallway door.

  Garrett jumped in surprise and blushed as he turned to face his friend. “I… hope it was all right,” he said, “I just thought that…”

  Cenick raised his hand and smiled. “You honor the gift by passing it on,” he said, “and the giver as well.”

  Garrett let out a little sigh of relief and unbuckled the sword belt from his waist to pass it to Kent. “You’ll need this to carry it,” he said.

  Kent was overjoyed with the additional gift of the scabbard, until he realized that it gave his mother the perfect opportunity to collect both the blade and the belt, for safekeeping.

  “Anything happen while I was gone?” Cenick asked, “Did anyone try to bother you?”

  Garrett’s mouth hung open as his mind raced to find a proper explanation for his trip to the auction house.

  Just then, a loud knock sounded at the door.

  Cenick’s hands went to the pommels of his knives. “Wait here,” he whispered.

  Mrs. Nash and Kent eyed Garrett nervously as Cenick disappeared back into the hallway. Garrett offered them a reassuring smile.