City of Jade: A Novel of Mithgar
Page 27
It was Binkton who finally spotted Queeker, the small, skinny man just entering a leather-goods store.
“Come on, Pip,” snarled Binkton, fumbling in his pocket for his sling, “let’s get that son of a Spawn.”
“No, Bink, no!”
Binkton whirled on Pipper. “What?”
“We need to follow him so that he’ll lead us to our chest.”
Binkton stood glowering at Pipper, but then took a deep breath and slowly let it out and nodded. “You’re right, Pip. We’ll deal out swift and sure justice in good time, then.”
“Right,” said Pipper. “And surely he will lead us to Tark, too.”
Again Binkton nodded, and then scowled. “Speaking of Tark, there he is.”
Outside but looking in the window of the leather-goods store stood the burly man.
“Come on, Bink. Let’s see what they’re up to.”
Like a couple of disinterested street children, the buccen meandered down the opposite side of the crooked lane. Inside the store they could see Queeker talking to a young woman, who had a look of distress upon her face. Queeker pointed over his shoulder at Tark. Moments later she handed the skinny man a small pouch, and Queeker stepped out into the street. Laughing, the two went on down the way and across the street to the very next establishment, where once again Tark hulked at the window, while Queeker went inside.
Opposite the leather-goods store, the buccen could see the woman inside weeping.
“You watch them, Bink,” said Pipper. “I’m going to talk to her.”
“Right, Pip, but you and I both know what they’re doing.”
Moments later, Pipper was back at Binkton’s side. “As we suspected, they’re collecting protection money.”
They followed the pair the rest of the afternoon, always keeping to doorways and alley openings and other such concealment. Finally, Tark and Queeker seemed finished for the day, for they headed down a twisting street and entered no more establishments. At last they came to a small yellow house and unlocked the door and went inside.
“That’s where our chest will be,” gritted Binkton.
“Perhaps,” replied Pipper. “But we need to wait and see.”
They took station where they could watch the front of the dwelling.
A candlemark later, as evening fell, Tark and Queeker emerged. Queeker locked the door, and then he and his burly companion went back toward town, Tark whistling a tuneless air.
“Now what?” whispered Binkton. “Follow them some more? Me, I’d rather get our chest if it’s in there.”
“So would I, Bink. But if we can, I’d also like to find their stash of ill-gotten gains and give it all back to the merchants.”
“Good idea,” whispered Binkton, and he pulled the long piece of wire out from his belt.
As soon as they were certain Tark and Queeker were well out of earshot and sight, the two buccen slipped through the shadows and across the street. Binkton peered in the dim light at the lock. It was a new one, made of brass hanging through the hasp shackle. Moments later—snick!—the lock sprang open.
Quickly, they were inside, and they softly closed the door after. Pipper found a candle and a striker, and he lit the taper, its soft light barely illuminating the parlor. There were three other rooms within: one a little-used kitchen, as evidenced by the dust on everything but a table and chairs, on which sat a deck of cards; and two bedrooms, one larger than the other, but none held their flame-painted chest.
“Barn rats!” spat Binkton.
Pipper sighed. “I couldn’t have said it better. Even so, if they hide the money they took from the merchants, well . . .”
“Say no more, Pip.”
They went into the largest bedroom. Clothes fit for a burly man hung in the freestanding wardrobe against one wall.
“This has to be Tark’s room,” said Binkton.
“Then it’s more likely to have the coin,” said Pipper.
But a thorough search turned up nothing.
The same was true of Queeker’s room.
And they found nought in the parlor.
Finally, in desperation, they went to the kitchen.
As they searched this chamber, Pipper frowned and glanced at the hooked rug under the table. “I say, Bink, what with the dust over everything but this—”
“Right!” said Binkton.
The two Warrows moved the table, and under the circular rug they found a loose floorboard, and under that—“Aha!” Binkton exclaimed—were sixteen pouches altogether, each holding five silvers.
“How many stores did they rob today?” asked Pipper.
“I would say sixteen,” replied Binkton, grinning in the wavering light of the candle.
“Let’s hie out of here,” said Pipper, taking up half the pouches, while Binkton took up the other half.
They carefully replaced the floorboard, and then the rug, and finally the table. Pipper blew out the candle and put it back where he had found it. Moments later they were outside in the darkness, with the front door relocked, and off toward their own room they went.
On that night they had become burglars, though they made no profit from their deed, all monies being anonymously returned by urchins to the merchants who had been robbed.
32
Ashore
ELVENSHIP
MID SPRING, 6E7,
TO MID SPRING, 6E8
Over the next year, as was Aravan’s wont, the Eroean made several stops along isolated shores, where, again, Aravan and Aylis and Lissa and the warband, as well as various members of the crew, went exploring, or made forays inland for water and fruit and other comestibles. Yet little else did they find.
But nigh the far edge of the Weston Ocean, as they passed a small atoll lying in tropical waters, they espied on one of the islands a tattered flag of Gelen tied to a tree and flying upside down.
“ ’Tis a distress flag,” said Aravan, and then he called, “Heave to.” As soon as the ship came to a gentle drifting, Aravan and Dokan and four of the crew rowed a skiff to the isle, where they found an old campsite and what appeared to be the remains of seven men. Weathered water casks sat at hand. Dokan tapped each of them and said, “All empty. Likely the crew died of thirst.” On the lagoon-side shore, a heavily damaged pair of dinghies lay abandoned.
“Kapitan,” asked Nikolai, “flag from Gelen; be Gray Petrel crew?”
“I know not, Nikolai,” said Aravan. He turned to Noddy, now second bosun of the Eroean. “Fetch Aylis.”
Noddy and two others rowed back to the ship, and within moments Aylis and Lissa and Vex boarded the skiff. The sailors turned the craft and began rowing back, with Vex in the prow and peering down into the crystalline waters as they approached the isle.
Aylis and the others disembarked, even as Aravan picked a lengthy bone out from the long-cold ashes of the fire.
Vex whined and postured, and Lissa said, “All right. All right.” She looked up at Aravan, even as he squatted and examined the bone. “Captain, Vex says the atoll itself is lifeless: no birds whatsoever; and even the reef fish so plentiful in these waters were absent as we rowed over. And look at the plant life. It is nought but scrub and stunted trees. Vex thinks we’d better get back on the ship and leave.”
At these words, Aravan realized his blue stone amulet dangled outside his jerkin. He pressed his palms against the token and said, “ ’Tis slightly chill to my touch.” He stood and looked about, adding, “Somewhere a distant peril lies.”
Dokan unslung his war axe from his back and eyed the surround, even as others of the crew laid hands on the hilts of their falchions.
Aylis yet peered askance at the bone. “Let me do a
“What is it? What is it?” asked Lissa.
“They turned to cannibalism, drawing lots to see who would be the next ‘p
rovider,’ ” said Aylis.
Now Lissa’s face blanched, and she turned to Vex and buried her face in the vixen’s fur.
“Be it Petrel ?” asked Nikolai.
Aylis shook her head.
Aravan glanced at Aylis and Lissa and Vex. He touched the stone once more. “The amulet grows more chill. Noddy, return Aylis and Lissa to the Eroean.”
Even as Noddy moved to comply, “No, Captain Aravan,” protested Lissa, “you will need my arrows.”
“And my
Aravan sighed. “Then we shall all return to the ship.”
They stepped to the skiff and rowed back to the Eroean. Even as they clambered aboard, the mainmast lookout called down, “Cap’n, you ought to come up and see this.”
“What is it, Finn?”
“I don’t rightly know, Cap’n. A darkness is all I can say.”
Aravan scrambled up the ratlines to the crow’s nest. “Where away, Finn?”
“Yon,” said the lookout, pointing to waters central to the atoll.
In the center of the lagoon the sea changed from a pale crystalline green to a wide circle of deep blue.
“Make ready to get under way!” called Aravan down to Long Tom. “All sails! We might need to run as fast as the Eroean will fly!”
Even as James piped the orders, Long Tom cried up, “What be it, Cap’n?”
“A blue hole,” Aravan replied.
“Oh, lor,” breathed Long Tom, and he began barking commands as the ship heeled about and took up the wind and slowly gained speed.
“What is it? What is it?” asked Lissa. “What’s a blue hole?”
“No one knows exactly,” said Tarley, standing by the helm in case Fat Jim needed help with the wheel. “Though seldom sighted, ’tis said there be many. Each be a great hole, circular round as if driven by a giant auger. And deep, oh, deep . . . bottomless, some say, and almost always in a ring of islands. And there be things said to live down in—things dire deadly.”
“Well, why didn’t Finn know to call out a warning earlier?” asked the Pysk.
“This be Finn’s first voyage, taking him on as we did earlier this year when Bri left. He bain’t likely to know about the blue holes yet, I reckon.”
Even as the Eroean gained headway, Aravan’s gaze swept the circular extent of the blue hole in the lagoon bounded by the ring of isles. And with his keen Elven sight, he espied a broken ship’s mast jutting just above the surface at the near edge of the rim of dark water, its splinters clutching at the sky as would a maimed hand.
Straight away from the atoll the Eroean sailed.
“What be there, Cap’n?” asked Finn.
“Mayhap a dreadful thing occupies the deep of that hole,” said Aravan. “Dost thou see the ship’s masts just this side of the dark blue?”
Finn stared long, but at last said, “Cap’n, my sight be sharp, but yours be e’en keener.”
“Keep watch, Finn, for I fear our journey to the isle might have disturbed what lives therein, and I would not have it grasp the Eroean.”
And after a while, as the atoll slipped over the horizon aft, Aravan clambered down from the crow’s nest and to the main deck. And neither he nor the lookout above saw the welling of water as a monstrous green thing come heaving up from the depths of the blue hole, only to sink back down and out of sight once more.
Three months later, as the Elvenship sailed into Arbalin Isle at the end of her fruitless voyage, a message awaited Aylis . . . a message from Queen Dresha. Aylis had once paid her respects to the Queen during a time the Eroean had been in Caer Pendwyr.
33
Chicken Thieves
BURGLARS
EARLY SUMMER 6E9
Ah, then, so that’s how we ended up in this unseemly business of burglary , thought Pipper as he and Binkton stealthily slipped down the alleyway.
“Where are these chickens you spoke of?” hissed Binkton, interrupting Pipper’s thoughts.
“Just ahead,” said Pipper. “I noticed them when I was watching Rackburn’s manor. I saw that now and then they escape their yard, so chickens being on the loose shouldn’t seem unusual.”
Binkton snorted. “Don’t you think that chickens on the loose in the night might be a bit strange?”
“You have a point, Bink, but even so, we aren’t very far from the edge of the city, and who’s to say a fox didn’t somehow get in the henhouse and roust them out?”
“Ha! So we are foxes, now?”
“More like ferrets, I would think,” said Pipper.
A few more paces down the lane and, “Ah, here we are,” whispered Pipper, and he stopped at a wooden alley gate on the left. “We have to keep the chickens quiet, else the owner is like to fly a few arrows our way.”
“Shall we wrap them in our cloaks?” asked Binkton, unclasping his. “—The chickens, I mean, not the arrows.”
“Good idea,” murmured Pipper, and he slipped out of his own cloak and lifted the latch on the back entry.
Moments later they were again in the alley, two hens each bundled in their wraps.
As they stealthily started down the way, Pipper fell into reflection again, recalling the past two years. . . .
34
Criminals
BURGLARS
EARLY SPRING, 6E7,
TO EARLY SUMMER, 6E9
With the help of Weasel and Tope and Cricket and a few of their urchin friends, throughout the next two years they managed to follow a goodly number of “protection” collectors. And so, a wave of burglaries struck Rivers End, and even the corrupt city watch became involved in trying to discover just who the thieves were. And some of the places burglarized had the latest of locks and the best of strongboxes, but still they were opened and all monies taken. And other of the places had befanged walls and guards for protection, yet they were burglarized as well. The merchants simply shrugged and said they knew nought, for the only thing they understood was that they paid their protection monies, and what happened after that was a complete mystery to them. But on the sly, the storekeepers began donating five coppers to each of the urchins who brought back their silver coin.
And in one of the crowded marketplaces, as Tark and Queeker made their way among the stalls, a group of eight urchins or so, playing some game, went running and squealing past the pair, jostling and bumping as they ran. It wasn’t until later that Tark noted all that was left of his money pouch were the ends of the thong that held it to his belt. He and Queeker rousted every known marketplace pickpocket and cutpurse in the city, but all claimed innocence, even after fingers were broken.
Meanwhile, Binkton, chortling and laughing, shared out the coin among the urchins and sent them to return the silvers to the merchants from whom they had been taken.
With their copper rewards, the urchins ate well that night.
Some of the merchants feared that the protection collectors would simply demand more, yet it seemed that whoever was behind the scheme realized that he could not get blood from stone, and so he left them alone. In desperation, though, the protection collectors began hitting up the very smallest of stores, ones they had never bothered before, and that was how Lady Jane had come to lose five silvers to the brutes.