King Pinch n-1

by David Cook

  It soared upward in the great arched hall. Darting into a gleam from the transom windows, the translucent stone shattered the ray of light into emerald-hued brands that blazed the walls, statues, even the trio that stood watching below.

  It was beautiful, and the secret of its beauty was both in its grace and in the power that had created it. This Iron-Biter was no mere thug, as Pinch had first presumed. There were few who could bring movement to cold substance; it was a feat given only to priests of power.

  "Enough," Vargo sighed in utter boredom.

  The dwarf-priest plucked the stone flower from its stand. Holding it out, he gently chirped, drawing the jade sprite down. It hovered uncertainly before finally allowing itself to be coaxed onto the crystal leaf. With his thick hand, Iron-Biter stroked its back and the sprite responded with a clattering purr.

  "Iron-Biter, I have other things to do," Vargo snapped with impatience.

  The dwarf nodded and in midstroke squeezed the stone fairy between his palms. The stone wings crackled, the slender arms shattered. Shards and dust fell through his fingers. The hall filled with the shriek of it all, though Pinch wasn't sure if it was just grinding stone or if the animate little sprite had found its voice in the last moments of death.

  The pair left without further word, leaving only a pile of jade rubble for the servants to clean.

  When Pinch returned to his apartment, he was displeased to see two new guards posted outside his door. Unlike the fellow he'd left behind, these two looked alert and attentive.

  They were polite and gracious, stepping aside so that he could enter. The corporal of the pair bowed and said, "Lord Cleedis is concerned for your safety, Master Janol. Thus he asks that we stand ready to protect you from dangerous visitors."

  Pinch poked his tongue into his cheek. "And whom might those be."

  The corporal was unfazed. "Within these walls, it could be anyone. Our orders are to let no one in without our lord's approval."

  "And if I want to leave."

  There was an answer for that too. "Lord Cleedis feels it would be best if you did not risk your safety beyond these chambers. We are instructed to see that you remain safe and unharmed."

  "In other words, I'm a prisoner."

  The corporal frowned. "If that would make Master Janol more comfortable-yes."

  "My comforts are not Lord Cleedis's concern," the rogue snapped as he closed the door.

  So this was it; the ring was closing in. Cleedis wanted him, but only on the old man's terms. Is he truly afraid for my safety, or is he afraid I'll make alliances with the others? It didn't matter really. Whatever Cleedis's motives, the regulator refused to be bound by them, but to do that he needed a way out.

  The prospect from his windows was dim. The portholes were no larger than before and, even if he could wriggle through one, climbing was not his strong suit. He'd only managed to reach Therin's balcony because the way had been ridiculously easy.

  If he wanted an escape, he had to find another way, and he was convinced there must be one. It was a combination of several things that made him certain. First there was the voice. Whoever had uttered those words had seen what was happening. It could have been done by magic, but he didn't think so. There was a hollow-ness in the echo that suggested someone there and close to the scene.

  There was also the reality of family history. Pinch knew Ankhapur's past, the intrigues, assassinations, and plots that defined the character of the city. He could not accept the idea that the queen who'd built these rooms would leave herself trapped by only one door. There had to be another way out.

  Methodically, the rogue started an inspection of every inch of the fine wood paneling on the walls, even so far as to stand on a chair for extra height. He ran his fingers down every tongue and groove of the walls, poked and turned every baroque ornament, pulled wainscoting, and kicked baseboards. Given his thoroughness, it was hardly surprising when a section of the wall, just inside the bedroom door, responded with the faint click of a hidden spring. A small piece of the woodwork slid away to reveal a small handle.

  This was it then, what he had been looking for.

  With a swollen wax candle to light the way, Pinch pushed against the door. The wooden wall budged a fraction of an inch and then stuck. Clearly, this old passage was long forgotten and never used anymore. Pinch shoved harder, cursing Mask, god of deceptions, with each straining breath. The panel yielded an inch with each shove, the old wood grinding across a hidden stone threshold.

  Dead air and the odor of cobwebs breathed through the gap, exhaling the soft dust of centuries. With one more shove, the doorway popped open, swirling a fog of powder from the floor. Inside was a stygian passage, all the more gloomy for the feeble glimmer of the candle. Without the taper, the way would have been merely dark, but in its light the walls quivered away into blackness.

  Fastidiously slicing the cobwebs away, Pinch rounded a corner and almost tripped down a flight of steps. "No soul's been here recent," he muttered to himself. The gray blanket on the floor was undisturbed. It was all the more a puzzle. Pinch was sure in his heart that someone had spied from this passage, but there was no trail of anything or anyone. The descending stairs ruled out the possibility of another path that led to a different section of his rooms.

  Pinch pressed on. A passage like this led somewhere, and he wanted to know just where that was. One end was grounded in his apartments. The other could be- well, anywhere.

  The staircase was long and kinked around several times until the rogue was completely separated from the surface world. He could no longer say this was north and that south, or that he had progressed any sure number of rods in a given direction. Was he under the courtyard or the west wing, or perhaps neither. Dwarves, he was told, could innately tell you these things at the snap of a finger, and he'd heard a few of the grim little potbellies cite with fondness that they were once this-and-such leagues beneath the surface as if it were the most natural understanding of things. He didn't like it. Plunging into the depths was too much like being sealed in one's crypt. It was a stifling feeling that he choked down even as he pressed forward. He needed the moon and the open night over him.

  Somewhere underground, probably at the depths where bodies were interred in catacombs, the stairs splashed into a narrow hallway. Left and right, the choices were twofold. As Pinch leaned forward to look, a wind racing through guttered his lone flame and splashed hot wax on his hand. The thief pulled back at this reminder of how tenuous was his connection to the daylit world.

  Over the hiss of the wind, or commingled with it, the regulator heard a clear note that rose and fell in jerky beats. Was it another voice snatched up by the wind and carried to his ears, or just the handiwork of nature in the air's headlong rush? It was beyond Pinch to say. The cry, if it could be called such, had the sad quality of a lamentation, the type sung at wakes by drunken kin almost in time and harmony.

  As he paused to listen, the rogue spotted a new element. All down the length of the passage, from left to east, west to right, were tracks. Not just rat trails or the squirms of snakes, but real footprints.

  They were human, or at least as much as Pinch could tell, and there were at least two sets, but beyond that he couldn't say. The rogue was no huntsman. The overlapping jumble of tracks before him was beyond his ability to decipher.

  Shielding his candle, Pinch guessed on a direction and followed the trail. Who did each track belong to? The princes? Cleedis? Or someone else? One set seemed too small and dainty for prince or chamberlain, the other quite possible. Still, Pinch ruled out the princes.

  He couldn't imagine any of them traipsing through cob-webbed corridors, not when they had flunkies to do the job. Cleedis, he knew, would do his own dirty work. Perhaps the old man had been spying on him.

  A flickering light immediately ahead ended all speculation. It had emerged without a preceding glimmer, perhaps the shutter raised on a lantern. Pinch immediately hid his light, tucking the candle into a sleeve
. The flame scorched his arm. There was nothing to do but bite back the pain and endure in silence. Without a stick of Kossuth's sulfur, there was no way to relight the candle should he need it later.

  The distant light darted back around its corner, frighted by his own gleams. The rogue lightfooted after, determined not to lose this other interloper. He moved with quick puffing steps, years of stealth aided by a thick carpet of dust.

  He peered around the corner, candle still cloaked and dagger ready, barely in time to see the rays disappear around another bend. The rogue's breath thrilled at the challenge of the chase.

  His prey was as quick as he was stealthy, darting through the labyrinth of passages. Pinch guessed they were in some old catacombs beneath the palace. Left, right, right, left-he struggled to remember the turns. It would do no good if he could not get back.

  As he rounded one more turn, the floor vanished, replaced by empty space. Unable to recover, he plunged forward, hit a step, lurched, and then the candle slipped from his hand. As the rogue frantically batted at the flame in his sleeve, he lost all hope of balance and tumbled into the darkness.

  The fall was mercifully short, but not short enough. Pinch managed to crack what seemed like every bone against the jagged stone steps. His hose snagged ripping edges, his hands tore along the rasping walls. And then it ended with a hard crash as the man spilled onto a floor of cold, greasy stone.

  Slowly and with a great deal of pain he could easily have lived without, Pinch tottered back to his feet, supporting himself on a wall he could not see. It was black, without even the little twinkling lights they say a man gets from a sound whack to the head. His head throbbed enough, but no whirling colors appeared.

  What if I've knocked myself blind? The thought triggered panic.

  A gleam of light dispelled that fear. Whomever he pursued was still up ahead. They had certainly heard his fall, there was no more point in secrecy.

  "Whose light? You've lured me this far. Show yourself and let's have done with it." Pinch tried bravado since surprise was out.

  There was no response. The light wavered and then began to fade.

  "Damn you," the rogue muttered to no one but himself. "You're not slipping me." His only choices were to follow or grope his way back, and he couldn't remember the turns to his room. The fall had knocked the order loose and they drifted around, right-left, left-right, he didn't know for sure. There really was no choice but to hobble forward.

  The lantern bearer continued their game and moved away just as Pinch reached the corner. The rogue broke into an off-stepped run.

  Around the next corner, it happened again. Even in the instant his foot stepped into the void, Pinch cursed himself for blindly running into the trap. He lurched forward and this time he could sense there was no jagged stairs, only emptiness and death below.

  The light knew it too and hurtled back into sight. It wasn't a lantern bearer but a glowing diffusion of the air that throbbed eagerly in time with the man's waves of pain and despair.

  Pinch hung on the rim of the precipice forever, one second of time subdivided by his senses into eternity. The feeding light, the bottomless hole, the crumbling stone of the walls, the ever-steady plunge forward-so this is how I die. The thought came coolly to him.

  In that infinite moment, Fate intervened-or something at least. It could have been blind chance, cosmic design, or the whim of some god Pinch had inadvertently forgotten to blaspheme. Two things occurred almost simultaneously, and were the rogue to examine them later, he would not be able to say what they both were. Out of his torn doublet swung the amulet he'd stolen from the Morninglord's temple. As it hung free, the artifact flared with the brilliant hues of dawn washing out all sight with a roseate haze. The luring light dwindled against it as if in pain.

  Ironic that I should die in a blaze of glory.

  As the thought formed, something seized him. A strong hand or maybe a claw clenched around his arm and heaved him back.

  And then the moment ended. The flare subsided, his plunge stopped, and he stood blinking in the darkness on the edge of nonexistence. A hand took his and pulled him away, and the rogue stumbled after, too stupefied to resist.

  When his wits recovered, all was completely black. A hand, slender and feminine, led him through the darkness, around several corners, and up a flight of stairs. His guide moved with confidence through the ebon world.

  "Who are you?" Pinch demanded as he stumbled in tow.

  There was no answer.

  Pinch tried to pull up, but the hand tugged him insistently forward.

  "Trust."

  The words were the whisper of dried husks, papery brittle and filled with the music of tears. It was a voice

  Pinch had never heard, but still it seemed to wrap him in comfort.

  "Trust me, little one."

  The hand pulled forward again.

  Perhaps because his senses were dulled by all that had passed, the rogue let himself be led on.

  Right, left, left, and more they went until at last they stopped. The invisible guide placed Pinch's hand to the wall and whispered, "Up." His foot blindly touched the bottom of a step.

  "Up to safety. Go." The guide gently pushed him forward and yet wanted to hold him back.

  "Who are you?" The question finally formulated itself for him.

  "A… friend. Go." The voice struggled against a choking sob and then the hands left him.

  He was alone in the darkness once more. Faintly through the air drifted the sound of weeping.

  Pinch climbed, carefully groping out each step lest there were any more traps. No lights came to torment him, lead him astray, and the way climbed and twisted until he was sure he was back on the stairs to his room.

  Along the way, the regulator fingered the amulet and wondered. What have I gotten into? Murderous dwarves, strange passages, mysterious saviors-it was all much more than he had bargained for. Did Cleedis know the mysteries that filled this palace? Would he even tell me if he did?

  The stairs came to a platform and wall and Pinch felt out a handle. Pulling firmly, he dragged the stiff panel ajar, flooding his eyes with the blinding candlelight of his room.

  9

  Beyond the Grave

  "Open the door, Janol. It's time."

  From the other room came the relentless thump of a staff pounded against the door.

  "This is your last chance before I have them break it down." The muffled voice belonged to Cleedis, and he did not sound pleased.

  Pinch hurried to the apartment door, but instead of opening it, he pulled a heavy chair over and wedged it under the door handle. If they went so far as to break the door, it would take them time and, looking in a mirror, he needed time.

  First he pulled the wall shut. There was a chance that no one had magically scried his discovery of the passage, so there was no point in advertising it.

  "Open it."

  Pinch worked quickly. Off came the torn and dusty clothes, replaced by a sleeping robe. Shoving the clothes out of sight, he brushed the cobwebs out of his curly gray hair and splashed cold water over his face. His raw hand stung, and clearing away the dirt only made the bruises and scratches on his face more vivid.

  The door lock rasped and the guard's key ratcheted in the lock. When they went to open the door, though, the chair slid for a few inches before wedging itself firmly into place.

  "Dammit, Janol, do I have to break this door down?"

  The door rattled on its hinges, and the chair creaked as someone bounced off the other side. Pinch could see an apoplectic Cleedis ordering his men to throw themselves at the barrier until it was shattered.

  Pinch let them hit it a few more times so he could get a sense of their timing. The last thing he wanted to do was open up to face a flying wedge of guardsmen.

  "Let your hounds off, Cleedis. I'm coming."

  Saying that, the regulator waited just to be sure. When no more thuds resounded through his suite, he unwedged the chair and sat in it.
<
br />   "It's open, Lord Chamberlain."

  A furious squall entered the room, beet red and thundering. The old soldier showed more fury and emotion than Pinch had seen in him since their first meeting. "And what was the purpose of that little game?"

  "Privacy. I was sleeping."

  The hard sergeant in Cleedis growled disapproval. "It's midday."

  Pinch shrugged.

  "What happened to you?" the nobleman demanded, noticing Pinch's battered face.

  The rogue refrained from a smile, though the chamberlain had given him the opening for the tale he'd planned. "I had more visitors-Prince Vargo's thugs. That's another reason for the chair."

  "Vargo's? Will it stand to the proof?"

  "Does the prince make gifts of his livery?"

  "My men were outside." Cleedis's voice was full of wishful loyalty.

  "Indeed." Though it hurt, Pinch raised an eyebrow in skepticism.

  To that the old man could only stomp about the room, rapping the floor with frustration. Now Pinch allowed himself a smile, unable to restrain the malicious joy of his own handiwork any longer. There was no way to confirm his story, nor would any denial be trusted. Cleedis had no choice but to doubt his own men. There was even a chance the old soldier might set his men on Vargo's. In any case, it was a weakness in the strength of his hosts and captors. Any weakness of theirs might give him an edge.

  "Get dressed," Cleedis ordered in his gruff sergeant's voice. "We're to meet your employer."

  "Finally." As he rose to get dressed, Pinch kept his words sparse and light, although inside he was seething with curiosity and eagerness. At last there was a real chance of getting some answers.

  He came back quickly, dressed and clean, and limping only slightly from his fall. Cleedis hadn't expected such haste, but Pinch brushed that away as the desire to get on with his duties, though in truth he'd been partially dressed beneath his robe.

  As they left the room, Cleedis dismissed the guards on the pretense they should rest their aching shoulders. Only the chamberlain's personal bodyguard was to accompany them on this trip.