by Paul S. Kemp
“Listen, now—” Jyme began.
Nix put a hand on Jyme’s shoulder, a kindly gesture. “We don’t doubt you. But Kerfallen is looking for us, not you. You want to help? We need someone here with Gadd to watch over the Tunnel while we’re away. Wizard could take another run at the place.”
Jyme shook his head. “I don’t want fakkin’ guard duty. I didn’t come back for that. And he’s not going to hit this place without you two in it.”
“Maybe,” Nix said. “Or maybe not. If he does, you and Gadd will be here to stop him.”
Egil put one of his huge hands on Jyme’s other shoulder. “Place means a lot to us, as do the people in it. This isn’t a small ask, Jyme.”
“It ain’t a big one, either,” Jyme protested, but from his softened expression, Nix could already see he was won over.
Nix gave him another moment, then said, “We need to get clear of here, Jyme. More or less right now. Can we count on you?”
Jyme sighed, nodded, and sat. “You can. But once this wizard shite gets cleared up, I want in on whatever’s next, yeah? In in, I mean, not guard duty.”
“Done,” Nix said, and clapped him on the back. He was vaguely surprised to find that he liked Jyme.
“Done and done,” Egil echoed, then to Nix said, “If the Watch does come, we’ll want to be gone. Let’s get Gadd and Tesha down here, get the room cleaned up. You have the plates with you, yeah?”
Nix nodded. The plates would stay with him, in his satchel, until matters were settled.
“Let me get a look at them,” Egil said. “So I’m reminded of what in the Hells we’re talking about.”
Nix went upstairs and brought only Tesha and Gadd out from the rooms, deflecting questions from everyone else and instructing them to stay put for the time. The less they saw and knew, the better.
Gadd fell in behind him and Tesha.
“You’re all right?” she asked, eyeing him for wounds. “Egil, too?” Wisps of her dark hair fell in curly lines across her face.
Nix was touched by the sincerity of her concern. “Of course we are. It’s us.”
“Stop saying it like you can’t get hurt, Nix. You can. Both of you. Don’t be stupid.”
“Well enough,” Nix said, chastened.
“Now,” she said as they walked for the stairs, “tell me what just happened. I heard the ruckus.”
Nix had rehearsed an answer in his head so he offered it. “We’re in a hurry, so I’ll have to be short. We didn’t expect this. Not in the day, and not here or I wouldn’t have come back. I hope you know that. We have something a wizard wants—”
“A wizard?” she asked.
“Gofti,” Gadd swore.
Tesha stopped when they reached the top of the stairs. She looked down on the common room.
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Nix hurriedly explained, his words put to the lie by the torn curtains, shattered windows, and the broken tables and chairs. She looked at Nix as if he were the stupidest man in Dur Follin, then looked back down on the room, her eyes tallying the damages, her mouth a fixed line.
Egil had already moved the two humanoid constructs and the insectoid creatures to the rear yard of the Tunnel. They’d burn them in a bonfire there, protected from watchful eyes by the tall fence that secured the Tunnel’s expansive green space. Now the priest was straightening chairs, setting overturned tables back up. The priest pointedly did not look up. Jyme sat at the bar, looking uncomfortable, staring at his hands as if they were interesting.
Tesha licked her lips. “We need to get this cleaned up quickly so we can reopen. Will the Watch come?”
“Likely,” Nix admitted. “And probably soon. But the story is that miscreants threw rocks through the window and that started a brawl that cleaned the place out. We kicked out the brawlers and the rock throwers are all long gone. The Watch won’t work too hard to poke holes in that.”
She ran a hand through her hair. “There were patrons inside. They saw those things come through the windows.”
“What did they see, Tesha? Metal spheres cast through the window and then what? Most of them were out before anything happened and whatever the rest saw is nothing anyone will believe. They were mostly all gone before those things took form and flew at us.”
Tesha looked at him, her dark eyes wide. “What things?”
He forgot that she hadn’t seen the creatures, either. “Wizard shite,” he explained. “They were constructs, mechanical creations animated by magical energy; it’s hard to explain.”
She frowned. “They can also be animated by bound spirits, and”—she put a finger on his chest—“I probably know as much about spellcraft as you.”
Nix could not keep the surprise from his face. “Oh. So you…?” He shook his head. “How do you know that?”
Behind them, Gadd chuckled, a rumble like thunder.
For the hundredth time, Nix reminded himself to figure out Gadd and Tesha’s story.
“That’s none of your business,” Tesha said. She nodded down at Jyme. “Who is that?”
“That shifty-looking hiresword? That’s Jyme. He’s with us now.” Nix called down to Jyme. “Jyme, this is Tesha. She runs the Tunnel. You know Gadd already. He runs the ale and cups.”
Jyme stood from his stool and offered an awkward bow. “Milady. Gadd.”
Tesha snorted at being called “milady.” “Why is there a petrified man in the center of the room?” she asked Nix.
Nix cleared his throat. “Well, that was one of our patrons who moved too slowly. One of the constructs got him.”
“The flying constructs?” she asked, and started down the stairs. Nix and Gadd fell in behind her.
“Yes,” Nix said.
Tesha went to the petrified patron and Gadd went to his bar, frowning when he saw the tankards Nix, Egil, and Jyme had left atop it.
“Did you tap one of my kegs?” Gadd asked, incredulous.
“It was Jyme,” Nix said, pointing.
“It was not!” Jyme protested.
“You’d think we committed a sacrilege,” Nix said to Egil.
“He is particular about his cups,” the priest said. “Let’s stick with blaming Jyme.”
“He’s still got that tulwar to hand,” Nix called over to Jyme. “I’d maybe give him some space. And think more about it next time before you violate a man’s bar. You’d do well to apologize.”
Jyme laughed. When Gadd did not, Jyme cleared his throat, rose, and came over to Egil and Nix. Gadd grabbed Jyme’s tankard, muttering.
Tesha walked a circle around the petrified patron. “I don’t know him. Is he dead?”
Nix reminded himself to take his eyes off the curve of her hips. It took effort. “Sometimes the effect is permanent. Sometimes not. Depends on the whim of the wizard.”
“How much did this one hate you?” she asked.
Egil guffawed.
“Now, who can really hate me?” Nix asked innocently.
The look she shot him was pointed enough to lance a boil.
“I think I’d rather be sideways of a wizard than her,” Jyme said softly. “That alekeep and his pointed teeth, too.”
“You’re a wise man,” Egil said to him, then to Tesha, “That statue is the only problem we’ll have with the Watch. Someone comes looking for him, we may have to own up. But in the meanwhile, Gadd and I will move him out back. If the magic wears off, he’ll wake up all right there. I’ve already taken care of the other…creatures. Which reminds me.” He stuck a hand in his pocket and pulled out several gems, the main part of the bodies of the destroyed constructs. “Bribe the guards with those, if necessary.”
Tesha placed them in the breast of her dress. She nodded at the petrified man. “And if he doesn’t come back?” she asked.
Nix had no intention of leaving the man forever turned to stone. “Then Egil and I will fix him somehow. But we can’t do it now.”
“Because of the wizard,” Tesha said.
“Because of the wizard,” Nix affirmed
. “And because of the Watch. And because we’re leaving and we won’t be back until this business is done.”
She crossed her arms under her breasts. “And the business is what precisely?”
“Figure out what we have,” Nix said, realizing how ridiculous the words sounded.
“And squaring accounts,” Egil added.
“And that,” Nix said. “Jyme will stay here and help you and Gadd keep the house in order. It’s just business as usual after we leave, yeah?”
“Yes,” Tesha said, but looked at Jyme skeptically. “I guess you know how to use that sword?”
Jyme stood up straight. “Not as well as those two, I’ll own. But well enough, milady.”
Egil shook his head. “See, Tesha, Jyme went away for a while and came back honest and polite. It’s strange, yeah?”
“Nice change of pace, I’d say,” Tesha said, looking at Nix meaningfully.
Nix made as though she’d stabbed him in the stomach.
“Don’t be dramatic,” she said. “Just make sure the two of you stay whole. I suggested you do something to get out of your doldrums, but this is not what I had in mind. And you,” she said to Jyme, “stop calling me ‘milady.’ ”
“Yes, of course,” Jyme said.
“As for us,” Egil said, “we’re good at staying whole if little else.”
Nix winked at her and she half-smiled, but the smile vanished when her eyes fell on the petrified patron.
“This feels a bit different,” she said.
“I’ll own it does,” Egil agreed.
“Enough,” Nix said. “Let’s get to moving.”
Egil and Gadd and Nix maneuvered the petrified patron out to the gated yard behind the Tunnel.
“Birds will shit all over him,” Egil said afterward.
“Better to wake up covered in shit than not at all,” Gadd said, and smiled a mouthful of pointed teeth. “And no, Nix, that is not a saying from my homeland.”
“Wisdom in it anyway,” Nix said, grinning.
They returned to the inside of the Tunnel, checked gear—Nix had put the quiescent talking key in his satchel with the plates and his other gewgaws and equipment—and started to head out. Before they did, Jyme pulled them aside.
“I’ll keep things square here, but what if we need to find you?”
“Just follow the wizardly shite,” Egil said, adjusting the hammers at his belt. “We’re usually near to that.”
Jyme smiled. “No, really.”
Nix considered, then reached into his satchel. He sifted through the dozens of things he kept in it and withdrew a small cloth pouch. Inside was a single piece of enchanted parchment, a small vial of enspelled ink, and a stylus.
“You lettered? Be truthful, Jyme.”
Jyme looked offended. “I’m no fakkin’ poet, but I can string a few words.”
Nix nodded. He spoke a word in the Language of Creation to activate the magic of the kit, then tore off two tiny pieces of the parchment. He handed one to Egil.
“Eat it,” he said to the priest, and swallowed down the other piece.
Egil looked at the torn bit of paper, then handed it back to Nix without a word. Nix sighed.
“It’s just you and me then, Jyme. You saw me eat a piece of that parchment, yeah? That linked me and it. Whatever you write on that larger piece, I’ll hear it aloud in my ears. It only works for a sentence or two and then not again, so don’t get wordy.”
“Well, ‘fak off’ is only one sentence, so that’ll leave me some room to say more.”
Tesha, walking by, laughed aloud at that.
Nix chuckled, too. “Came back from Afirion funny and no doubt. Glad you’re here, Jyme.”
“Same,” Jyme said.
Nix and Egil said their farewells to Gadd, and Tesha, and Jyme, then walked out of the Tunnel through the back exit. From behind, they heard Tesha call for everyone to come down. The Tunnel would be back in business within the hour.
Out back, Nix and Egil halted within the shelter of the Tunnel’s high wooden fence. Chickens scrabbled in the grass and dirt. The Tunnel’s dairy cow lowed within its pen. A bird had already shit on the petrified patron. Egil saw Nix eyeing the man.
“He’s a problem for another day,” the priest said.
“Aye. We’ll fix you eventually,” Nix said to the patron.
“Kerfallen will have eyes on the place if he can,” Egil said.
Nix nodded. “He would, but I’m hoping he spent what he had on that attack and will need some time to get something else in place.”
Egil ran a hand over his pate. “We shouldn’t count on that, though. He could always divine our location. Should I assume you have a plan?”
“You may so assume.”
“Would the assumption be correct?”
Nix smiled and thumped Egil on the shoulder. “Well, that’s a different matter now. I’ll add that I find you very suspicious for a priest.”
“It’s the company I keep,” Egil said. “Breeds a suspicious nature.”
Egil dug his ivory dice out of a pouch on his belt. He shook them in his fist, his habit when they faced uncertainty. “How far along are we in thinking this through?”
“Not that far,” Nix said. “But then this all just started, so I say we’re doing all right. We’ll make the rest of it up as we go, same as always. That’s the fun, yeah? At this point I’m thinking we sneak into the Conclave, get to the library, make the book sprites find information on the plates, sneak out, and then act on whatever information we have.”
“The sneaking in and out part strikes me as problematic,” Egil said doubtfully.
“Problematic, you say?” Nix said. “That word’s as big as your hammers. You should read less, priest.”
Egil went on as if Nix hadn’t spoken. “A job like that normally would take planning. And for that we haven’t time. Needs darkness at least, and that means we need a place to hole up, clear of Kerfallen’s agents and spells. So that maybe leaves only one option.”
Nix sighed. “Right. I was thinking the same.”
“Not sure how that’s going to work out, though,” Egil said.
“I guess we might as well go find out.”
“I guess.”
Nix felt exposed the moment they got out of the lee of the fence. Out of habit, they checked rooftops and alleys as they melted into the street traffic of wagons, horses, donkeys, and pedestrians.
“What do you make of Jyme?” Nix asked Egil.
They cut down a narrow alley, positioned themselves in the shadows to either side of the wall, and waited. Nothing.
“I think he means exactly what he says,” Egil said, double-checking a passerby who must have struck him as suspicious. “The man is not exactly opaque.”
Nix nodded and they hustled through the alley out onto Butchers Way. Egil looked right and Nix left.
“All clear,” Egil said.
“Good here,” Nix said, and they stepped out into the street. “Anyway, I think likewise. So what in the Hells is wrong with him then?”
They eyed the street traffic with a wary eye as they moved briskly west—a man leading an old cow, a few wagons, half a dozen pedestrians. The air stank of butcher’s offal.
Egil said, “A man leaves a little bit of himself behind with every act of cowardice he commits. I think he’s just trying to pick up a piece or two he dropped back in the desert.”
Nix stopped and faced his friend. “Listen to you, with the profound priestly observations.”
A tall figure came around a corner ahead. Nix and Egil instinctively used nearby pedestrians as cover, put hands to hilts and hafts, but they relaxed when it hailed someone with a raised hand and called out.
They cut down another alley, repeated the process of waiting. Again, nothing.
“One of us needs to be profound, Nix,” Egil said. “Else what’s the point?”
“And he does it again!” Nix said, as they headed down the alley. “And even makes a sharp point in the
process! I think all that drinking did you some good. Expanded your mind some. Or at least loosed your tongue so it gives voice to your thoughts. Anyway, looks like we don’t have a tail.”
“Aye. At least for now. Best hurry, then. Rusk may just say no and if he does we’ll need to come up with something else. Maybe just stay on the move until nightfall.”
“We can’t let him say no. We need that safe house. Kerfallen will find us with a divination if we just stay on the street.”
They headed west through the city while Ool’s clock announced the hour, heading toward the Meander and the Squid, the guild house of Dur Follin’s Thieves’ Guild. They kept an especially sharp eye as they moved, as each block brought them closer to not only the Squid but also Kerfallen’s abode. The wizard’s manse was a walled fortress just this side of the Archbridge. Nix toyed with the idea of taking a run at Kerfallen then and there.
“I see you looking in the direction of the bridge,” Egil said. “And I know what you’re thinking. We go hard at Kerfallen right now. Figure out the plates afterward at our leisure.”
“You’re a mindmage now? Reading thoughts?”
“Well?” Egil pressed.
“That is what I was thinking. Ill-conceived?”
Egil nodded. “You said it was when I suggested doing just that. And you’re right. He’ll be prepared. In fact, concern for that is probably why we haven’t encountered any of his minions on the street yet. He’s got them watching home for the moment in case we do what both our natures incline us to do.”
Nix knew Egil was right. The last time, they cut with ease through Kerfallen’s guards, but then the wizard had wanted them to get through the guards quickly. Nix knew it wouldn’t be that way this time.
Egil went on: “I say we determine what the plates are and then figure things out. Too soon to go at a wizard in his own place. Might come to that, but not yet.”
Nix thought of Tesha’s admonition that he and Egil make it whole back to the Tunnel. “I’ll agree for now, but observe that it galls, skulking around in our own town.”
“Aye, that,” Egil said with a nod.
In time they came to Mandin’s Way, the wide, winding road that ran along the Meander and tracked the river’s course. The ancient white, unmarred stone of the Archbridge rose to their left, reaching across the river to the west bank, where the rich of Dur Follin lived in their walled and gilded manses. To Nix the Archbridge and Ool’s clock were of a piece, enormous architectural relics of some previous, more accomplished civilization, leftovers from another time.
