I walked slowly, and the shop was dark when I finally approached. Though lamps along the street cast a warm orange glow across the cobbles, in the shadow of the stoop I was no more than a whisper of movement as I removed the lockpicks from my pocket and went to work. While not one of my prouder childhood skills, there are some things you never forget, and this lock was easier than I had expected. Before long I felt the satisfying metallic pop as the bolt slid back and the handle turned. Scanning the street to make sure I wasn't seen, I cracked the door and slithered inside, closing it ever so softly behind me.
The storefront was empty, the long counter packed with racks of strange weapons and adornments displayed neatly on thick swaths of exotic fabrics. On the walls, tapestries depicted landscapes the likes of which few in this city will ever see—sailing vessels skirting the Eye of Abendigo, the crowded markets of Vudra, and the golden pagoda temples of distant Qin. Freestanding silver torch-sconces like eight-foot-tall candlesticks, their stems rippled and twisted so the light seemed to extend all the way down their mirror-bright surfaces, stood between them. And from the ceiling hung stranger trophies yet—the head of one of the great jungle beasts they call river gluttons, or a lacquered suit of wooden armor with four arms. All of this I took in at a glance and, relaxing, stood up.
Pain lanced suddenly through my shoulder, and I froze in mid-crouch.
"That's far enough, dirtbag. Keep your hands where I can see them, and move slowly if you hope to use that arm again."
Careful to remain as still as possible, I slowly turned my head. To my right, the slender blade of a short sword extended straight down into the hollow behind my collarbone, pricking my skin and staining my filthy cloak even darker with blood. Following the blade up, I found myself staring into a woman's inverted face, her dark hair falling down around her cheeks and framing a jaw set in quiet determination.
"Sascha. Still agile as ever, I see."
Her eyes twitched slightly in surprise.
She's still got it.
"Eando?"
"The one and only."
Faster than the pain could register, she slid the sword from my shoulder and somersaulted over me, dropping from where she had clung to the lintel like a spider. Landing on her feet, she jammed the sword point between two floorboards and stood looking down at me, balled hands on hips.
"Well, get up, then. Sorry about the shoulder, but you're lucky I didn't have the alarms armed, or you'd be complaining of a lot worse. What're you doing in Korvosa, anyway? And why in the name of the gods are you breaking into my house in the middle of the night?"
I rose and found myself staring up into her eyes. Even now, the years hadn't shortened her any. To those who didn't know better, she might have been a comical sight—a bulky, middle-aged woman swaddled in a thick woolen dressing gown, black hair shot with gray and every inch the scolding matron, save for the well-oiled blade at her side. They might have written her off, and that would have been their mistake—and possibly their last. For even through the robe, I could see that the fat of years overlaid ropy muscle, and her eyes still moved restlessly from place to place with the urgency of a hunter.
"Nice bathrobe," I said.
"Hmph. Can't say you look much better. Come on and sit, I'll get us some drinks and see to that scratch."
I let her lead me through a beaded curtain and back into a cozy apartment even more packed with oddities than her shop. Sitting me down at a battered wooden table, she produced an unlabeled bottle of what smelled like sour rotgut and took a long pull before pouring a liberal amount into my wound, where it stung like a thousand ants. As she carefully stitched my shoulder back together, I told her the story of my escape from the strange gang lair. I finished right as she did, and at my description of the guards I'd narrowly avoided, she suddenly gripped my wounded shoulder hard, making me wince.
"Ow—what?"
She moved around me to seat herself in the only other chair, facing me across the unvarnished surface of the table, and I was surprised to see her expression grim.
"What color did you say they were they wearing?" she asked.
"Crimson... all the same shade, head to foot. Even the hilts of their swords. Seemed kind of foppish, really. Why?"
She reached for the bottle and took another long pull.
"You poor, poor fool," she said. "You really have no idea how lucky you are, do you?"
I said nothing, so she continued.
"You didn't just drop into any old thieves' guild, Eando. There's only one group in Korvosa that would dare wear robes like that, or need a safe house of the size you've described, for that matter. Surely somewhere in your chronicles you've heard of the Red Mantis?"
The name set off a warning bell somewhere in the back of my skull, but she was warming to her topic and kept going.
"Kline, these guys are bad news. The Mantis has its claws in a dozen countries at least, and probably owns politicians in a dozen more. They aren't just thieves—they're assassins, and the best in the business. Totally ruthless. These guys don't care who gets in their way as long as they take out their target, and they always take out their target. You're a fine Pathfinder, but you mess with the Mantis and that diary of yours is going to be awful short."
"Well then," I said, "looks like I'll be needing some help getting back in, doesn't it?"
She stared at me in stunned silence for a moment, then burst out laughing.
"Are you kidding? I haven't run a job in years! I'm retired. I've got my shop, and a nice little nest egg tucked away besides. I won't deny we had some good times—and gods know, I owe you almost as many favors as you owe me—but my adventuring days are done. And to tell you the truth, I don't miss them at all. I'm happy to help you fence whatever relics you come across in your ramblings, but I'm out. Give me a nice warm bed and a pouch full of gold over a dirty bedroll and a pinched breakfast, I say."
"Sure you do," I replied with a sneer. "You never get bored being a merchant, never miss the rush of night air on your skin or the whistle of your knife in the dark. That's why your sword's still polished bright, why you can still hang from the ceiling with ease. I'm sure those skills come in useful when negotiating with the dreamy nobles who buy these knick-knacks won by someone else's blood. You never lie awake at night, listening to the footsteps in the dark and imagining one last run. Not you."
She glared at me. "What you're suggesting is suicide," she said.
I smiled.
"Then they'll never expect it, will they?"
14 Erastus, 4707 ar
Our planning went late into the night, and the next day was spent in bed, waiting and resting as best we could, not knowing when we'd next get the chance. As night fell, I made my preparations, being sure to tie my journal, wayfinder, and ioun stone directly to my body beneath my armor with strips of linen. They'd probably be safe in Sascha's shop, but I wasn't about to take any chances this soon after recovering them. I was debating how much rope to take when I heard a rustle and turned to see Sascha come through the curtain.
The change was absolute. Instead of the gown, she wore a studded leather jerkin over a long-sleeve leather shirt, both of them bearing scars from repeated patching. Straps held thick leather bracers to her arms, with a dagger strapped under the left one, and similar tie-downs held gold-inlaid steel greaves to her shins. An elaborately decorated Losen half-skirt wrapped around her waist beneath a jewel-encrusted belt to complete the ensemble. The sword from last night was back in her hand, but now it glowed with a pale blue fire that she quenched with a flick of her wrist. Only the smattering of gray in her hair and a slight strain on the straps of her armor paid homage to time's passing.
"Good to see you can still fit into the old thing," I said.
"Go to hell, Eando," she responded with a smile.
We left by the b
ack door and moved west, crossing into Ridgefield and then to the northern end of the Avenue of Arms and the intersection where I had cornered the elf previously. We were crossing the square when a scream rang out from behind me, savage and bestial, and I whirled around in a half-crouch, hand on my sword. Sascha's outflung arm hit me across the chest, holding me in place.
"Easy, Eando. It's just the Company. Look."
She pointed upward, and my eyes rose to where a hippogriff perched atop the peak of the Great Tower. From a saddle on its back, a black-clad rider watched the city below, dark cloak fluttering in the breeze. Then the great beast cried again, its eagle-head voicing a fearsome hunting call, and the pair leapt into the air, winging swiftly over the rooftops and out of sight.
"What the hell was that?" I asked.
"The Sable Company," she replied, turning me back in the direction we had been traveling. "The city guard in Korvosa is one of the most honest I've encountered, upholding the law out of love for Abadar as much as for the king, but no power in Korvosa goes unchecked for long. The Sable Company men are the best of the best, and while the guard reports to the king, the Company takes orders only from the Seneschal of Castle Korvosa. Both are used primarily to police the city, but the unspoken understanding is that if either the king or the seneschal ever went bad, the other would still have the means to take him down and cut the head off the snake. You've got to love a military order whose entrance oaths include the promise of regicide, but that's Korvosa for you. Here, even the good guys keep tabs on one another."
"Sounds like your kind of place."
"Oh, it is. It is."
We continued on, and before long we were crossing the bridge into the cesspool that is Old Korvosa. Retracing my steps from a few days before, we moved through Bridgefront and into Garrison Hill, where we turned and followed the hill's curve around to the northeast, ending along the same waterfront lane full of fishermen. We made our way to the little window I had slid through before, and much to my surprise, it was still shattered. Sascha sighed a little, and I knew her thoughts, for they were also mine: if they didn't bother fixing the window, it meant they had abandoned the safe house. Or is that just what they wanted us to think? I had to know for sure. Searching carefully for traps, I knelt down and peeked inside.
Empty. Not even a smear of blood to mark the desperate struggle of a few days ago. Slipping a small crowbar from my belt, I quickly and quietly cleared the rest of the glass shards from around the frame. With Sascha standing guard, I slipped through the window and set down softly on the floor. Behind me, Sascha leapt lightly to the ground.
The key I had recovered from the elf opened the same door in the floor, and we crept quietly down into the sewers, swords drawn and more certain than ever that we were walking into a trap. Why else would the Mantis have left their back door wide open? We made our way to the large open pit, but this time there were no massive otyughs slopping around in the muck. It didn't make me feel any better.
As I slipped around the edge of the arch onto the ledge encircling the cesspit, Sascha suddenly grabbed my arm and pulled me back. Pressing us flat against the wall, she twitched a hand to point past me toward our destination, to where a dark, hulking creature slouched in the shadows of the exit passage: a troll, and armed.
I held my breath, but it was too late—the troll had already seen us. He loped toward us with remarkable speed and, even as we backed farther into the corridor, he roared and swung his massive spiked club with all his might. The swing went wide, but the masonry corner next to my head exploded in a cloud of shrapnel that stung my face. Before the dust settled or the troll could draw back his club for another attempt, Sascha slid in under the troll's grasp and plunged her blade low into its abdomen in a smooth, perfect thrust that squelched out his back between his shoulder blades. But instead of the expected gout of blood, the thing merely shuddered once and straightened, his hands grasping for the blade as he gave a rumbling, imbecilic chuckle.
Don't these things ever die?
"Oh, right," Sascha said, and twisted the sword's hilt.
Blue flames lit up the blade, still sheathed in the troll's flesh, and he roared in pain as he threw himself backward off of the burning sword, foul smoke rising from the seared edges of the wound. Taking his club in both hands, he swung with renewed vigor, just barely missing my shoulder. Despite my lack of flaming blade, I hacked hard at the beast, hoping to at least distract him. To my surprise, my sword cut deep into his hip, and the troll's step faltered, bringing him stumbling into me. Wrenching the sword from my hand, he pulled the blade free and flung it down the hall with a clatter, his flesh knitting together before my eyes. Bringing his sharp-nosed face directly in line with mine, he drew back his lips and bared a row of pointed fangs, his fetid breath hot on my face. Weaponless, I did the only thing I could think of: I smiled back, and patted his warty, filthy cheek.
It was all the distraction Sascha needed. Slipping around behind it, she plunged her sword directly into the point where skull met spine, driving it in almost to the hilt. I have no idea if the creature even felt it—one second he was ready to gnaw off my face, and the next he coughed once and collapsed, bearing me to the ground in an avalanche of stinking flesh. Trying hard not to retch, I eventually managed to kick my way free of the beast. Casually wiping her blade on the troll's corpse, Sascha held out my own sword.
"Try and hold on to this next time," she said, and I snatched it without response.
We waited a few minutes to listen for reinforcements, but at last the stench got to us and we passed down the corridor the troll had guarded until we reached the spot where I had climbed up the first time. There we found a few pine needles and dirty hay, but no raised dais. In quick whispers, I explained the situation to Sascha, and she replied by sheathing her blade and deftly scampering up the wall to push open the trap door. A heartbeat later, she slipped into the room and let the panel fall shut quietly behind her.
A tense moment passed in silence, then the trap door reopened and a crimson form slid through, landing with a crunch at my feet. I kicked his body into the narrow channel of filth next to me and accepted Sascha's hand, scrambling up into the mudroom beyond. Together, we slipped through the wide corridors of the safe house, keeping to the shadows and making barely a sound. Despite the sizeable halls, the place seemed strangely empty, and the slightest movement rang like a gong in the heavy quiet.
Partway down the main thoroughfare, we suddenly heard the sound of approaching footsteps, and I pulled Sascha into a thankfully unoccupied storeroom, leaving the door open the tiniest crack. Through it, we watched as three men moved down the hall we had just vacated, two of them laboring to carry a heavy chest between them. All three were dressed in red, but while the two chest-bearers were bareheaded and wore the robes I was familiar with, the third was another story entirely. Instead of robes, his chest and legs were encased in brilliant, blood-red leather armor that looked as supple as skin, with a flowing cloak cast regally over one shoulder. His arms were wrapped in strips of scarlet cloth, from which protruded wicked barbs like knife-blades. Most impressive, however, was his helmet, a strange affair with a closed facemask that made his head look for all the world like that of a massive insect, two smoky crystal lenses protecting his eyes. They passed us by without notice. Exchanging a glance, Sascha and I slid out into the hall behind them, keeping to the shadows. They entered the mudroom, and from outside we could hear the leader call out a name. Once. Twice.
I looked at Sascha. We couldn't risk an alarm. She nodded.
It seems the Red Mantis has earned its reputation.
We went in fast and hard. With the silence I remembered so fondly, Sascha moved lightly across the room to one of the men with the chest and grabbed him around the throat from behind, sliding her dagger flat between his ribs. He collapsed, dropping the chest with a loud crash and eliciting a cry from the other man. By t
hen, I was already in the air, leaping over the corpse and bringing my blade in line with his eye. At the last moment, he ducked, avoiding my sword but bringing his head within range of my knee. I twisted to bring it up with the full force of my momentum, and his face crumpled like a sack full of eggs. With a bloody gurgle, he dropped.
By this time, the leader was on his feet and had drawn his sword, a strangely barbed weapon like a saw-toothed sabre. Sascha closed the door to the mudroom as the leader and I stared at each other.
"You again," the red-clad man murmured, his voice ringing strangely inside his helmet. "You caused quite a fuss on your last visit. So good of you to stop back by and make things right."
"Really," I said, "it was nothing."
The three of us darted from side to side, too cramped in the room to truly circle, until at last the man saw an opening and lunged at me. Sascha caught his blade high on her own and I moved in for the kill, but the man kicked fast and caught me a numbing blow on the shin that nearly swept my feet out from under me. I turned my recovery into a savage upward thrust, but the Mantis danced out of the way, somehow avoiding Sascha's slash to the throat. He flowed between us like water, seemingly everywhere at once, and despite our concerted efforts he nearly had us. Only the fact that, with the two of us working in concert, he could not afford to counterattack saved our lives and allowed us to slowly back him into a corner.
Eventually the minor nicks and scratches we had managed to inflict seemed to take their toll, and the Mantis's movements began to slow. His blade beats became weaker, his ripostes slower, and Sascha and I knew that, tough as he was, even the greatest fighter will drop from exhaustion if tested long enough. It was only a matter of time.
The Compass Stone: The Collected Journals of Eando Kline Page 6
