by Brian Keller
They turned east and walked along the channel to the South Bridge. The Watchman paid them no attention as they passed. Cooper led her through the Trade Quarter to the abandoned Potter’s shop that concealed a hidden entrance connected to the Guild through a bricked, underground passage. Loryn gasped slightly as he activated the counter-weights, revealing the passage. The floor of the passage was covered with a thin film of frozen condensation. Cooper paused, “Watch your step. The other end of this passage ends near the old newcomer’s room. One of the reasons that Guild members were forbidden to enter rooms without authority or permission, I suppose. To keep this entrance, and other things, secret.” Loryn asked, “Kept as a secret from our own members?” Cooper chuckled, “Absolutely. The Guild kept a great many secrets. Many of those we might never know. As we rebuild, we’ll accumulate secrets of our own.” Loryn shrugged in the darkness, “And the Library? I never even knew we had a Library. Another secret?” They were nearing the end of the passage. Cooper paused and spoke quietly, “I knew we had a Library for months, maybe even a year, before I knew where it was or how to get in. But it was smart to keep it a secret. Hopefully, it’s still a secret. That would mean it’s untouched.” He turned to release the latch and push the door open, just a crack. He whispered, “Beyond this door is a standard sleeping bay. Past that, the hall shared with the newcomer’s bay. Soldiers could be anywhere.” Loryn pulled her bow from her back and nocked an arrow as Cooper opened the door.
They crept through the room, stepping carefully so as to minimize any disturbance of the layer of dust on the floor. He opened the door to the hall only slightly and listened for more than a minute. All was silent. They stayed close to the wall as they moved toward the dining hall. This was one of the few spots in the Guild were several passages converged. It was worth pausing long enough to listen for anyone walking in the adjoining halls, but only for a few seconds; remaining longer would only increase their own risk of discovery. He signaled down one of the halls and Loryn answered with a nod, indicating that she agreed. There were marching footsteps echoing softly from far down the hall leading toward the former Scribe’s Storefront. Cooper pointed down the hall that led past Miss Camilla’s and Master Darius’ classrooms. Loryn nodded in reply, never taking her eyes from the hall where the footsteps could still be heard. Crossing the intersection, Cooper could see that the dust on the floor had been disturbed by the passing of a multitude of patrols. They could move without fear of their passing being discovered. They quickly passed Miss Camilla’s classrooms and paused only for a moment as they passed Master Darius’ room.
Cooper stepped into the alcove that concealed the entrance to the Library and pulled Loryn in behind him, “Keep an eye down the halls. I’ll need a moment to find the latch in the dark.” Loryn leaned out to observe, pulling a little tension on her bowstring. Cooper stepped along the edge of the alcove, pressing on the tile that he knew would activate the counterweight and reveal the staircase leading down to the Library. There was no answering click, and no movement in the wall. He cursed, almost silently, and added in a voice just loud enough to be heard, “It isn’t working. It’s broken, or deliberately disabled.” Loryn pulled her head back to look at him, “I’ll assume there’s no other way in? Or if there is, it’s a secret even from you?” Cooper nodded, a gesture almost lost in the near pitch darkness, “I don’t think there’s anoth-” He paused and Loryn asked, “What is it? Have you thought of something?” Cooper shifted his weight from one foot to the other, “Maybe. We need to retrace our steps slightly. We need to get into Miss Camilla’s herbarium.” As he stepped to listen down the hall, Loryn couldn’t resist asking, “Did you say herbarium? What are you talking about?” Cooper answered, “Yes. Just follow me. I’ll explain more once we’re there. I’d rather not spend any more time in the hallways.”
The door to Miss Camilla’s classroom wasn’t even locked. Stepping through it revealed that several shelves of glassware had been shattered, though the tables were empty. They looked around the room, neither knowing what exactly to say. Loryn was the first to break the silence, “It looks like they broke everything that had contents, and took away all the empty glassware.” Cooper didn’t reply, he simply stepped carefully through the room, avoiding shards of broken glass and entered the herbarium. Once inside, Cooper spoke, “During the day, light coming through this room gets directed through some kind of windows that end as skylights in the Library below us. We need to find those windows and see if they’re big enough for us to fit through.” Loryn looked a little apprehensive, “And if they’re not?” Cooper shrugged, “Then we’ll just have to think of something else.”
Though the plants had wilted, it still took several minutes to locate the first of the skylights. It was no bigger around than a coffee pot. Loryn joked, “Unless you’ve got some special Talent that lets you change your size…” Cooper smiled grimly and replied in a chiding tone, “There's more than one. Keep looking.” A few minutes later they located another. This one was larger, but not exactly the opening he’d been hoping for. He turned and looked at Loryn, estimating her size. She noted his attention, “You’ve got to be joking.” He shrugged, “With one arm extended, and one arm lowered, you can shift your shoulders. Then the greatest limiting factor will be your hips.” He raised an eyebrow, “And face it, you’ve not got hips that would be described as ‘voluptuous’.” She eyed the opening, “And if I get stuck?” Cooper replied, “We’ll tie a rope to your ankle. You’ll want a rope anyway, to lower yourself to the floor once you get through.” Loryn was still gauging the opening, “IF I get through, you mean.” Cooper shrugged, “If you feel like you truly can’t squeeze any further, stop, and I’ll help pull you back.” She appeared both uncertain and apprehensive, he added, “I’m not going to leave you trapped in there!” She still looked a little uncertain as she uncoiled the rope she had wrapped around her waist. She handed the end to him, “Tie it off to one of those garden bed supports or something.” He did, as she tied the other end around her ankle. They removed the glass cover from the opening. It revealed what looked like a small tunnel that dropped a few feet then went sideways. There was a mirror angled in the corner to catch light and direct it further along the channel. Loryn observed, “It doesn’t look like there’ll be any easy way to bend around that corner. Are you certain all this is that important?” Cooper nodded in a very definitive way, “The Library is the most valuable asset the Guild possessed, aside from its members. The knowledge of who owned what, and who-owed-what-to-whom?… priceless. Not to mention entire dossiers of political officials and noble families. It might never be possible to recreate that collected information.” Loryn was still looking down the narrow hole, “And would that be such a terrible thing?” Cooper let his shoulders sag, “It c ould completely throw off our timeline, and we have friends in the prison and work camps. If I thought I could smuggle one of the tiny beggar kids in here, I would. But I think we both know how that would play out.” The thought brought a slight smile to Loryn’s face, “At least it’s good to know that you’ve considered other options.” She took a deep breath, “Alright, just pay out rope as I go. If I stop needing rope for more than twenty seconds, I’m stuck. Pull me out.” She slid her cloak off her shoulders and slipped into the hole, head and right hand first. She quickly disappeared around the corner, cursing as she went. He paid out rope, marking her progress. It took only a few seconds and her progress stopped. He began to count. He reached twelve when he heard her voice, a series of muffled echoes, come from below, “There’s another glass plate here. I don’t want to break it and then drag myself across shards of glass. Give me a few minutes, I’ll see if I can force it out of the frame.” She paused and then added, “I’m not stuck, but I wouldn’t try following me if I were you.” It was a few minutes and then he felt the rope being pulled again, slowly at first and then suddenly several feet all at once. A second later he heard her voice again, more clearly this time, “I’m through! But I can’t see a thing.
Tie your lantern to the rope and I’ll pull it to me.” He doused the lantern and wrapped a loop of rope through the handle and tied it, then called down, “Ready!” He felt the rope being pulled through his hands for several feet. He worried that they might run out of rope, then he felt the rope go still. A few long minutes later he heard Loryn’s voice through the channel, “I’m not sure how you’re going to take this but… except for some tables, chairs and shelves, this place is empty.” Cooper almost shouted, in fact, if it hadn’t been for the ever-present worry that soldiers might walk in at any moment, he would’ve shouted, “Empty!?!” Loryn replied, “Yes, empty. That is to say, there’s not a single roll of parchment or book in the entire room.” Cooper was stunned. He barely managed to reply, and when he did, he needed to repeat himself in order to be heard, “Well then, come back up. There’s no reason to stay any longer.” His mind was still reeling as he helped Loryn from the hole. He untied the lantern as she untied the rope from its mooring and then began to coil it back around her waist. Loryn risked a question, “What does this mean for us now?” Cooper took a second to reply, “I’m not sure. I’ll need some time to think.” They left the way they came and shared barely a word all the way back.
Cooper was unable to sleep and took the last two watch shifts. At dawn, once everyone was awake, he informed the rest of them, “The Library has been emptied.” The replies were immediate and mixed. Cooper held his hands out for quiet and he continued, “We can only hope that someone from the Guild had the ability and presence of mind to secure the Library and then empty it out sometime later… but hope is not something we can use to form a plan. We have to assume that someone from the Watch or Army discovered it. With that thought in mind, who would have it now?” Cooper looked to Birt for the answer. Birt looked uncomfortable. The fact that everything from the Library was gone, along with him being scrutinized for an answer likely shared equal roles in his discomfort. He considered for a minute while everyone patiently waited, “Well, the most likely ones to have it would be either the Spymaster or the Prince himself, but that might also depend on unknown allegiances of the one that made the discovery. For all we know, some noble or the Lord General has gained possession of it.” Loryn interjected, “I don’t know if anyone else here, besides Cooper, has been in there. I only saw a room filled with empty shelves and tables, but that room is almost half as big as the dining hall, and has almost as many tables.” Before anyone else could speak she added, “And there were huge book cases between the tables, and shelves along every wall as well. If those were all full of documents, well, it’s almost more than I could imagine.” Everyone turned to Cooper. He replied, “The tables were heaped and the shelves were overflowing. It would take a few minutes just to clear a space every time I needed to work.” Loryn’s eyes grew big. The description even seemed to impress those that hadn’t seen it for themselves. Spen recovered quickly, “What now?” Cooper shrugged, “Good question. The rest of you keep doing what you were doing. We need to know more about that foreign-owned house in the Dregs. We need to know if those foreigners are Lukasi.” His head dropped and his shoulders sagged, “I’ll have to figure out what I need to do.” He turned to Birt, “Either you or Dailen go with the masons to the quarry. They’ll all need stone, but we can probably get a better price if we contract for everything as a single buyer, then the masons make their purchases at that contracted price. The same goes for lumber if we can manage it, though I can’t imagine that it would all come from just a single lumber mill.” Dailen had heard his name and joined the conversation, “Maybe we see about making some kind of arrangement with a couple of mills? We buy ourselves a partnership…?” Cooper shrugged, “It might be better to buy up a few sections of wooded land, sell the trees to the mill, then we buy it back from them as lumber. It might draw less attention than buying up businesses all over town all at once.” A note of irritation had crept into Cooper’s voice and Birt steered Dailen away, assuring Cooper, “Dailen and I will look into it. We might just accept paying full price for lumber at first, and see what develops.”
Cooper spent the next few days at the Waterfront, watching addicts and Lukasi vendors, or locals in their employ. If the Journeymen watching the house in the Dregs didn’t have anything worthwhile to report, he’d consider taking over that part of their efforts. The Journeymen needed to have a chance to demonstrate their value. His thoughts never really strayed far from the fact that the Library had been emptied. So many of his plans would now have to be placed on hold as he collected information on his targets. The Lord General might already have Guild members employed within his household staff but without access to the Library, Cooper would be risking exposure just trying to discover that for himself.
A few days later, while eating breakfast, Cooper asked Birt, “Have you decided which work crew to hire?” Birt made an effort to swallow a mouthful of food as he nodded. He started to speak, “Yea-“, then forcefully cleared his throat and started again, “I have. I’m hiring them all.” Cooper stopped chewing and his eyebrows pulled tightly together. Birt set down his plate, “Now before you get upset, listen.” Cooper set down his plate but said nothing. Birt continued, “I’ve hired on four masons and three carpenters, along with their crews. I’ve offered them each a location here in the Ruins, well distanced from one another, as a place to build their own businesses. In exchange, we’ll own a percentage of these business and they’ll offer their services to us at a discounted rate. This will also provide places to stockpile the construction materials without having to watch over them ourselves. The materials will be theirs, not ours.” Birt paused, “Well? What do you think?” Cooper smiled, “I think it’s brilliant. Why didn’t I think of that?” Birt snorted, “Probably because you haven’t slept more than two or three hours at one time in a week. You can’t go on like this.” Cooper shook his head, “I can. For a while longer, at least.” He paused, deep in thought, “All this new construction… moving work crews in…material transports… that won’t go unnoticed. City Watch, Lukasi agents, hell, just the folk from the Waterfront and Batter’s Field! Haunted Ruins or not, they’re going to get curious.” He paused to chuckle, “Word gets out and we’ll be covered up with Tax Collectors before we know it.” His smile faded and he grew serious again, “We’re not strong enough yet to hold off an organized foe. We need a plan.” Birt nodded, “True, but in the case of Lukasi agents, the plan is simple.” Cooper quickly followed Birt’s train of thought, “Yes. We kill them.”
He picked up his plate and continued his breakfast. After taking a few bites he looked at Rukle, “What news from the Dregs?” Rukle wrinkled his nose and Balat chimed in, “It stinks.” Spen gave Balat a nudge to the ribs with his elbow, nearly causing Balat to spill his tray. Balat replied with an indignant, “Whaaat?” Spen grumbled, “He wasn’t asking you. And I daresay” he tilted his head towards Cooper, “he already knows that it stinks there.” Cooper smiled at the exchange. He was liking Spen more and more. He seemed to be both smart and aware. Cooper didn’t say anything further. He merely waited for Rukle’s reply. Rukle had been glaring at the two boys, willing them to silence before he turned to Cooper, “I told Birt already. That’s what you told me to do.” Cooper opened his mouth to reply but Rukle continued quickly, “I know, I’ll tell you, too. I only said that ‘cuz I want you to know that we’re not just sitting on the information.” Cooper closed his mouth and simply nodded. Rukle reported, “The locals were right, three to five guys, the same three men plus one or two others each time, made that trip three times during the day yesterday. There didn’t seem to be any schedule. Three trips might be enough to show a trend, but it isn’t really enough to establish a pattern.” Cooper accepted all the information eagerly and replied, “Good. All of you. No one noticed you, I assume?” Spen shrugged, “Noticed? Maybe. But I’d wager none of us left a lasting impression. The men were nervous… wary even; like they expected to be attacked or arrested at any moment. If we’re there every day, at some point at le
ast one of them is going to remember one of us.” Cooper nodded, “That’s a fair point, but who’s to say that you don’t live there? Wouldn’t it be normal for you to be in the same place over a period of days, if that’s where you live?” The boys nodded but Spen offered a tentative reply, “I don’t disagree, but we shouldn’t be in the habit of becoming memorable, should we?” Rukle’s head turned to Spen and he took a breath to speak. Cooper spoke first, “You’re right, of course.” Rukle’s head snapped up as he looked at Cooper in surprise. Cooper smiled as he finished his thought, “So, choose your vantage points carefully. To avoid being noticed.” He turned back to Rukle, “What can you tell me about these men?” Rukle shrugged, “They came in quickly, glancing down alleys and side streets as they went, and entered the house. They stayed inside fifteen, maybe twenty minutes, then came back out. At least two, sometimes three of them, came back out with a bulging leather satchel at their waist, strapped over their shoulder.” Spen added, “There was always one guy that never carried a satchel. Thing is, it was always the same guy.” A simple plan was forming in Cooper’s mind, but he needed to see the scene for himself before discussing it further. Attacking this crew would be a necessary step, but more information was needed. If these men were picking up quantities of Apex and taking it somewhere else for distribution, why store it so far away? And was it even Apex that these men were carrying out? These questions and others would need answers before deciding whether to attack. He spoke again, “All of you know what you’re doing today.” He turned to Rukle, “The locals said that these crews come and go at all hours. We need to keep a watch at night, as well. It doesn’t have to be us watching. If you feel confident in our Dregs kids, have them keep an eye on the place. Tell one of the Houses that we’ll bring them a wheelbarrow of bread, meat and cheese if they keep the place under surveillance for the next two days and nights.” Rukle nodded and stood to leave. Cooper added, “Light surveillance. We don’t want kids out there hanging off the house’s rafters and sitting on their doorstep.” An expression of irritation crossed Rukle’s face, but it disappeared immediately, “Understood.” was his only reply.
