The Ways of Khrem

by D. Nathan Hilliard

  Perfect.

  “You’re done,” I said. “The coin is on the sill. Have a good night.”

  And with that, I left the coin and walked away from the window.

  I felt in a strangely good mood. So far, things had gone smoothly. Due to the fortuitous break with the abandoned store, I had leaped ahead of the schedule I set for myself. This helped, not because of any hurry on my part, but because it allowed more time for caution when it really counted.

  I returned to the mouth of the alleyway and started timing the patrols of the market guards.

  The faintest hint of motion caught the corner of my eye and I turned my head, my hand darting to my knife.

  The boy had slithered out of the window and crept up to the corner of the alleyway. He was scouting. He knew something was up and needed to see if it endangered his little tribe. Not bad…if he lived long enough, he might get a couple more of his associates to adulthood. I wished him better luck than I had possessed. Besides, his presence back there reduced the likelihood of me being surprised by dangers coming up from the other end of the alley.

  Once I had found an acceptable gap in the guards’ patrol pattern, I padded over to the column and brought the ladder back to the alleyway.

  Careful to make sure it didn’t alert anybody by banging it against the walls, I turned the corner in the alley and gently laid it against the building. Now that I could no longer be seen from the market, I got down to work.

  I unwrapped the wide sash from around my belt and wrapped it around my head. It would conceal my features, and could quickly be pulled down to appear to be a simple scarf. It had other uses, as well.

  Grasping the leather thong around my neck, I pulled up two small bottles attached to it. I pulled one loose and set it on pavement in front of me. Crouching low, I pulled a flask from my belt pouch and carefully measured two drops into the small bottle. Capping it quickly, I gave it a vigorous shake and it began to give a dim red glow. It gave off just enough light to work by, and it wouldn’t compromise my night vision.

  I noticed the boy crouched by a pile of bricks, watching me with wide eyes.

  I stood and pulled up my tunic to reveal the expensive, custom-made cord I had wrapped around my waist. A narrow-braided hemp rope sheathed in silk, it had tremendous strength and very little stretch. I swiftly unwound the rope from my waist, and tied one end of it to the iron bar.

  Leaving the bar and coiled rope against the wall, I fetched the ladder and laid it down on the cobblestones under the window. Reaching into an inner pocket of my tunic, I pulled out two thick felt drawstring bags and quickly fit them over the upper ends of the ladder.

  A lesson I had learned long ago was that you should always be prepared in case a ladder came available. It’s surprising how often they are. Having muffled the tops of the ladder, I raised it and ever so gently set it against the wall next to the window.

  I picked up the bottle of Alchemist’s Fire and reattached it to the cord around my neck. Then, throwing the coil of cord over my shoulder, I fit the bar it was tied to through my belt and carefully started climbing the ladder.

  Once I reached the small window, I discovered to my satisfaction that I had been correct in regards to its maintenance.

  Since it sat so high and inaccessible from the inside, the owners simply didn’t think about it. I brushed away a web, sending its loathsome occupant scuttling for cover and set to work. Weathered and old, the shutters were easily removed and carried back down the ladder. Also, nobody wastes expensive glass on a window whose only function is to allow airflow from the alleyway.

  My way now stood clear.

  Reaching back under my tunic to my “work” vest, I brought out a tiny leather flask. Pulling the stopper, I squeezed out a small portion of black paste from the bottle and onto the iron bar, near each end. Then I lined the bar up across the window, about an inch above the sill, and pressed it firmly against the frame on both sides. After counting to ten, I released the bar and it held firmly in place. It would hold for about three hours, until the paste dried and became a powder with no remaining adhesive qualities.

  When you have the resources, a good alchemist is a thief’s best friend. They are also often dangerous and crazy, but still useful if you have a good relationship with one.

  I now re-knotted the rope to the bar in a slip knot, and then gently lowered the end of the rope into the darkness of the shop.

  I became as still as I could, blanked my mind, and focused all my attention on my hearing. Soon I heard the gentle snoring of what should probably be the toymaker coming from an area of the darkness that would likely be the top of the stairs. Its muted quality told me it came from behind a closed door.

  Good.

  I had come here to investigate the toymaker, not rob his granddaughter.

  Women tended to keep their important possessions in their bedrooms, whereas a man often keeps his treasures at his work place.

  I looked back out into the alley, gave the boy crouched by the brick pile a salute, and then silently slipped down the rope into the blackness below.

  Once I reached the bottom, a gentle tug on the other end of the rope hanging down undid the slipknot and the rope fell into my arms. It would be too difficult and noisy to exit by the window, and a rope hanging there would instantly alert a wakened sleeper who peered out their bedroom door.

  Going only by the dim glow of my little red bottle, I moved immediately to the nearby rear door.

  A quick check revealed it to be barred by a heavy sliding bolt. A brutish wood-splitting axe also lay propped against the door, as if for further reinforcement.

  Pulling yet another small leather flask from my work vest, I quickly lubricated the bolt and then quietly slid it back, unlocking the door. Moving the axe over next to the stairs, I now had my means of exit ready for me. This has always been my first order of business once I gained entrance to a building. All the gold in the world can’t do you any good without a way to escape.

  Having secured my exit, I turned and surveyed the shop’s workroom…

  …and that’s when my heart caught in my throat.

  On a table across the room, the dead eyes of a child looked back at me.

  Her head faced out into the room, sitting upright on a pale pile of limbs and a split torso lying stacked against the wall. For a second, I simply stopped breathing, fear replacing the focused concentration of being on the job.

  Then I realized that what actually gazed across from me on that table was not a real child at all…but a large disarticulated doll, waiting for assembly.

  And that’s when it all made sense. Whatever doubts I had been harboring were gone.

  I had just dropped into the home of the Cordwood Killer.

  ***

  I spent a brief moment debating the idea of pulling a knife, going upstairs, and finishing off the toymaker on the spot.

  He hadn't just killed those women, he had reduced them to disassembled toys. It must have amused him to see them in a little pile at his feet, like one of his dolls back in his shop. Maybe it made him feel godlike to stand over them in that state. I honestly didn't know, but Camber had been one of those women and the thought of him doing that to her…

  I actually shuddered from the effort it took to stop myself from heading for the stairs.

  Being blinded by rage meant I wasn't seeing around me like I should be. And if you're going to survive in my business, you always have to be right where you are at the given moment. I took a deep breath and reminded myself to be professional. Priorities mattered. I needed to check out my surroundings and investigate the downstairs first.

  The night was still young, and I would have plenty of time to spend on Chappett the Toymaker.

  I moved through his crowded workshop like a ghost, examining tools and equipment.

  Unpainted wooden puppets hung from the ceiling like a forest of wind chimes, and several other dismantled dolls lay stacked on worktables along the wall. A half-carved rocking
horse pranced without motion beside the beaded doorway to the front of the shop. On the other side of the door, away from the stairs, a worktable held more dolls.

  What drew my attention the most were two large cabinets looming against the far wall of the shop.

  They were tall, solid affairs. Made of heavy oak, with ramwood doors and frames, they would take considerable effort to smash through. More interesting still, they had Gershaltz locks. Gershaltz was a locksmith of considerable skill, good for discouraging the riff raff.

  I had several of them at home myself…for practice.

  Slipping my picks out of the front pocket of my work vest, I bent to the task.

  This was a job I did by sound and feel, so I didn't need more than the faint red light of my little bottle. Having taken these locks apart scores of times, I could visualize their mechanisms and what my picks were doing in there with them.

  Once I defeated the first lock, I moved immediately to the other cabinet. It was more practical to examine the contents after both of them were open, instead of having to put up and then pull out my picks again. After disengaging the second lock, I pulled out my little flask of lubricant again and oiled the hinges.

  I gently opened the first one just a crack, to make sure nothing inside had come to rest against the door and would fall with a clatter. Having assured myself that wasn't the case, I opened the first cabinet all the way.

  It appeared to be full of tools.

  Lighting a second bottle of Alchemist’s Fire, I set it on the shelf in the now open cabinet so I could get a better view. Row upon row of different knives, chisels, wedges, rasps and carving tools hung from pegs in the door. Other tools lined the shelves. I forced myself to do a quick survey and closed the door. I find tools fascinating, and there existed the danger I could spend too long doing a thorough inventory of the cabinet.

  Once again, I carefully made sure nothing leaned against the door from the inside when I opened the other cabinet. The door opened to reveal stacks of flat leather cases and leather tubes.

  Setting both bottles of Alchemist’s Fire on a table, I quickly and quietly made a space. Grabbing the first flat leather case, I found canvases within. Removing them, I discovered drawings and diagrams for rocking horses. Interesting, but useless. A quick check of the next two cases showed more of the same. Acting on a hunch, I moved directly to the bottom leather case in the stack, and carefully slid it out.

  It looked like some kind of doll, but appeared to be very intricate. Exploded diagrams showed it to consist of a surprising array of parts and joints. I compromised with curiosity and decided to move this case over by the back door to take with me when I departed. Going from the bottom up, I discovered the next two cases to have illustrations worthy of later perusal, as well.

  Moving to the tubes, I found the first two to contain drawings of at least ten different women. There were about five women per tube. None of them looked familiar. The third tube was a different story.

  It was Telestra.

  The toymaker had obviously been captivated with her face.

  Unlike the other women, the drawings of Telestra included lots of portrait-style drawings from different angles. There were very few full-figure drawings, and even those seemed to have been hastily sketched with little attention to detail. On the other hand, great attention had been paid to her facial features, with one drawing being nothing but a large illustration of her eyes.

  I carefully put those back into the tube, and moved them next to the back door as well. She would join her friends on the wall of my sitting room. I needed to check one more place downstairs, before moving up to the second floor and getting down to business.

  I cautiously eased through the beaded doorway and into the front of the shop. The strongbox turned out to be bolted to the floor under the counter. Retrieving my picks, I set to work again. This needed to look like a robbery, and that required the strongbox to be looted. I found it under the counter, where they usually were. A quick examination proved it to be held by a simple old padlock. I swiftly picked it, and opened the strongbox.

  It had nothing in it.

  Excellent.

  This meant that, like many other merchants, Chappett emptied the strongbox every night and concealed it elsewhere. These places of concealment were often upstairs near the merchant themselves. It would come as a surprise to nobody when the man who robbed Chappett headed upstairs after finding the strongbox empty. I would be sure and leave a coin or two lying about up there when I finished. The time had come for a visit with the toymaker himself.

  I slid back through the beaded curtain and froze.

  I was no longer alone.

  Nocce had appeared at the bottom of the stairs. She stood motionless in the dim red light, looking right at me.

  And she was stark naked.

  I guess "grandfather" couldn't afford a nightshirt.

  Normally, I would have stopped to admire the view (hey, it happens in this job from time to time), but I had come on serious business tonight. Other than being the beneficiary of Telestra's face, I didn't know how Nocce fit into this scenario. I would be sure and ask "grandfather" later. Right now I needed her incapacitated and out of the way.

  The best way to achieve that would be intimidation, followed by tying her up.

  I knew that all I would be to her was a dark figure, illuminated by the red light from the two bottles of Alchemist’s fire. Reaching behind me, I drew the long steel dagger from its sheath on the back of my hip. It gleamed in the red light, and I took a menacing fighting crouch. I twirled the dagger in my hand and assumed the most gravelly voice I could muster…

  "You be a good little girl," I growled. "Do just what I tell you, and I won't have to cut up your pretty face. Understand?"

  Nocce frowned.

  Without saying a word, she grabbed the large wood splitting axe by its head, flipped it around to its handle, and threw it at me in one smooth motion.

  Only instinct saved me, because my brain had frozen up with disbelief. I hit the floor as the axe ripped through the air where my head had just been and buried itself over an inch deep into the heavy doorframe behind me. The loud thwok of the impact shook the entire wall.

  Rolling backwards and scrambling to my feet, I realized I had also instinctually thrown my knife at her in return.

  I whirled to see her calmly pulling it from her shoulder and dropping it to the floor as she walked toward me. She didn’t even wince.

  She also didn’t appear to be terribly intimidated.

  It was now time to for Plan B.

  I desperately wracked my brain for what contingency plans I had for coming under attack by naked, axe-throwing superwomen.

  The list was alarmingly short.

  I quickly discarded my first thought since I didn’t consider “Oh shit!” to actually count as a contingency. On the other hand, the second response, “Run Away!” showed real potential.

  The only problem was she stood directly between me and the unlocked back door.

  A pale wraith of perfect femininity, illuminated by the dim bottles of Alchemist’s Fire, Nocce strode toward me. Having a staggeringly beautiful, naked woman bathed in red light approaching me would never be the same again. It didn’t help that she wore the face of another woman long dead.

  I started to dodge to my right, to go around the central work table and dart for the door.

  She must have anticipated my move because she put her hand on the table and pushed it into the workbench beside the door next to me with a loud slam, thus cutting off my escape route. Then, taking a big step forward, she swung a haymaker at my head with her other hand. I managed to get my arm up and duck, taking only a glancing blow…one that sent me flying back through the beaded curtain with my arm on fire and my head ringing like a bell.

  The taste of blood filled my mouth.

  She was tremendously strong, and she didn’t swing like a girl either. She also didn’t seem to be in a big hurry, but since we were in close
quarters she really didn’t have to be.

  I rolled to my feet and dove for the front window, smashing through the front glass, but coming up short against the locked shutters, made of imported ramwood, beyond.

  I scrabbled at the shutter, searching for a latch on the inside, when my elbow got seized in a vice-like grip. It felt like she was tearing my arm out at the shoulder when she threw me backwards through the beaded curtain again.

  I hit the floor hard, with beads from the strings I had grasped while I was falling scattering everywhere in a loud clatter. I tried scrambling to my feet, only to slip on a rolling bead and fall again. My face cracked painfully on the leg of the worktable and my eye almost immediately began to swell shut.

  Floundering my way toward the back door on my hands and knees, I heard the remains of the beaded curtain part behind me. She still moved at a leisurely pace, without urgency. I gasped for breath while pulling myself to my feet on the back door handle, then turned to face her.

  She wasn’t even breathing hard as she walked toward me.

  “Nocce!” I heard the sleep-dulled voice of the toymaker from upstairs. “What’s going on down there?”

  She stopped and looked at the ceiling.

  “I’m just killing an intruder, Grandfather!” she called in her musical voice. “I’ll be right up!”

  Lovely.

  She must not have realized the back door was unlocked, for she stood there, looking up at the ceiling as if waiting for a response. I don’t know whether she was waiting for permission, or just acknowledgment. I certainly saw no point in hanging around to find out.

  I took advantage of the pause to rip the door open, grab the leather case and tube I had put aside earlier, and flee out into the night.

  Chapter Eight

  “Every reunion carries with it the realization of what has been lost, and the fear of what yet comes. And yet they are to be treasured all the same.” —Ellards’ Quotations

  I sat, hurting, at a small table in a quiet, respectable tavern called The Amber Glass, when the tavern keeper directed Death to the seat across from me.