Mickey Zucker Reichert - Shadows Realm

by Shadow's Realm (v1. 0)

  The youth stared, as if noticing Taziar for the first time. “Wait! I know you. You’re that filthy Medakan worm. We don’t want your blood-tainted money.”

  Shocked, Taziar searched for a reply.

  Larson spoke first. “Uh, could you repeat that for the benefit of the person holding the sword ready to decapitate you?”

  “I don’t care!” Still hunched, the leader screamed, “I’ll die before I’ll be humiliated by some traitor.”

  Larson hollered back, apparently as confused as Taziar. “What’s this traitor bullshit?”

  The youth refused to elaborate.

  Taziar used a soothing tone. “Speak up, friend. Please. Were I you, I’d want to befriend the man holding the sword.”

  The youth remained stalwartly silent.

  Behind the thief, Larson raised a threatening foot.

  Afraid for the leader’s dignity, Taziar waved Larson off. “Don’t kick him.”

  Larson lowered his foot, but he went on speaking in a voice deep with rage. “What do you mean ‘don’t’? He put a knife to your throat. I ought to cut his goddamned head off. He’s a threat. I can remove a threat in an instant. Want to see?”

  “No.” Taziar winced, his loyalties suddenly shifted. “Look, Allerum, he’s a street orphan. He’s got enough problems without you making things worse. I grew up like that, damn it!”

  A stone bounced from Astryd’s magical shield, unnoticed by anyone but its thrower. Larson relented. “Fine, street scum. Pick up the money and go. Right now!”

  The youth did hot hesitate. He scooped up the coins and ran. Astryd scarcely found time to dismantle her sorceries before the leader and his smaller companion raced deeper into the alleyway.

  Taziar watched the teens’ retreating figures. Bleeding stanched, he flicked his hood back over his head and chastised Larson. “Allerum, you can’t treat these people like that. He’s got enough problems, more than you could ever imagine.”

  Larson sheathed his sword, breaking the tension, but his expression did not soften. He glared after the gang. “Yeah, well. I’ve got problems, too. But you don’t see me inflicting them on the weak and helpless.”

  “Weak and helpless?” Silme mouthed, but it was the Shadow Climber who spoke aloud.

  “They’re just hungry children!” Taziar’s hands balled at his sides in frustration as he tried to stifle the flood of memories welling within him: the pain of a week’s starvation tearing at his gut; the restless, animal-light naps necessary to protect the few rags he owned. “What’s wrong with you? I’ve never seen you like this.” Taziar stared, concerned by Larson’s uncharacteristic callousness and aware that his friend’s manner had grown more cynical and confident in the month since Kensei Gaelinar’s death. It seemed as if Larson felt he needed to fill the void his mentor had left. Yet Larson had never before lost the gentle morality that had driven him to put an elderly stranger’s life before his own and had so impressed Taziar at their first meeting. “You’ve risked your life to protect innocents and children too many times to start hating them now.”

  “Innocents,” Larson repeated forcefully. “And children? Those boys are neither. They get down on their luck, hit a few hard times. Then, instead of trying to better their lives, they take the rest of us down with them.” The elfs eyes narrowed, making his face appear even more angular. “Give a kid like that a knife and a little muscle, and he thinks he has the god-given right to prey on people weaker than himself. Anyone with that kind of attitude deserves what he gets when he tries to intimidate some little man and finds out his victim’s got a big friend with a howitzer.” He slapped a hand to the katana’s hilt.

  Not all of Larson’s speech made sense to Taziar, but the meaning came through despite the strange, English words. The Cullinsbergen pursed his lips, glancing at Silme and Astryd. The women whispered quietly, apparently trying to decide whether to interfere or let the men argue the issue out between themselves. “That’s not right. What you saw here today isn’t normal.”

  Larson snorted. “That gang was the most ‘normal’ thing I’ve seen since Freyr brought me to your world. For a punk, you’re awfully naive.”

  The insult rolled right past Taziar; he knew Cullinsberg and its streets too well to take offense. But something in Larson’s voice made the Climber push aside his anxiety for Shylar and his friends long enough for realization to take its place. Taziar had never heard of or conceived of a city larger than Cullinsberg, yet Larson had once claimed to come from a metropolis called New York, with a population four times that of the entire world. “This is personal, isn’t it?”

  Larson’s frown deepened. “Yeah, you could say that.” He nodded, as if to himself. His gaze met Taziar’s, but his attention seemed internally focused. “A street gang beat up my grandfather for the thirteen dollars and sixty-seven cents he had in his pocket. That’s the rough equivalent of two medium-sized, Northern coppers.”

  Taziar closed his lids, his mind gorged with the image of a white-haired elder with swollen eyes and abraded, purple cheeks. Larson’s distrust and remembrances of his grandfather’s misfortune had become one more obstacle to Taziar’s already difficult task. Though he knew it was folly, he tried to explain. “Allerum, you don’t understand. I probably put that gang together. All Shylar’s people had ways of helping the homeless. Waldmunt paid them handsomely to keep quiet or create alibis. Mandel hired them to know every building and road in Cullinsberg or to study the patterns of changing guards. Shylar just gave freely.” Taziar scanned the rooftops, making certain the gang youths had departed with their leader. “I shared food and money, too. But, I also taught the younger ones how to survive on the street. I organized them. Alone, a few bad days without food might weaken a child enough to drag misfortune into weeks of starvation, perhaps even death. As part of a group, someone always does well enough to share. And there’s companionship. But I never intended them to band together against passersby and threaten lives.”

  “You’re not thinking about that street orphan.” Larson pointed down the alleyway. “You’re thinking about this one.” He tapped Taziar’s scalp to indicate childhood memories.

  “Exactly.” Under ordinary circumstances, Taziar would have smiled at how neatly Larson had fallen into his trap; but now, weighed down by concern and confusion, he continued without expression. “And you’re thinking about New York. Every issue, every action, every motivation has two sides. These children didn’t hurt your grandfather.” He waved in the general direction the gang had taken. “How can you condemn them until you’ve seen the streets from their point of view?”

  Larson did not let up. “I don’t need to know an enemy’s life history. When we’ve got guns pointed at one another, I haven’t got time to ask his name before pulling the trigger. You can tell me Cullinsberg gangs are different until you’re blue in the face, but I know a hood is a hood. Notice how the scum grabbed the smallest guy in the group.”

  Taziar sighed, cursing the time he was wasting bickering with Larson. I have a summons to answer. And how can I hope to defend myself against a charge of betrayal when I don’t even know what I’m accused of doing? “Look, Allerum. Cullinsberg isn’t New York. You’re just going to have to trust me that what you saw here isn’t normal. My friends are in trouble, and I stand by my friends.”

  “I stand by my friends, too,” Larson started. “When punks threaten them in an alley ...”

  Worried about losing time, Taziar talked over Larson. “If you continue down this alley, it’ll bring you to Cullins-berg’s inn. Get some food and take a room on the top floor. That’s the third story. See if you can rent the one on the south side. I’ll meet you there.”

  “Meet us?” Astryd shifted her garnet-tipped staff from hand to hand, finally goaded to speak. “Where are you going?”

  Taziar studied the side of a building. The uneven surface of stone would make an easy climb. “I have to meet with someone who can explain what’s happening.”

  Astryd glanced fr
om Larson to Silme, as if wondering why she seemed to be the only one voicing objections. “You can’t go off alone. You might get killed. Take us with you.”

  Taziar edged toward the wall, amused by Astryd’s concern. “I can’t take you with me. If I brought strangers to the underground’s haven, I really would be a traitor.” The subject of safety turned his thoughts to his companions. “And if anyone asks for any reason, none of you knows me.”

  “Wait.” Astryd grounded her dragonstaff. “Silme and I can handle room renting. At least let Allerum walk you part way. He can fight.”

  Taziar ignored the backhanded insult to his swordsmanship. In his current mood, Larson would prove worse than a hindrance.

  To Taziar’s relief. Larson took his side. “I’ll be more trouble to Shadow than I’m worth. He had that situation under control. The boy had no reason to kill him, and they both knew it. Shadow’s not threatening. I am. If someone robs Shadow, they’ll put a knife to his throat. Someone robs me and Shadow, they’ll have to frag us and go through the pieces.”

  “They’ll what?” Astryd rounded on Larson, and Taziar seized the opening to steal a few steps closer to the wall.

  “I won’t be any protection,” Larson clarified. “My presence will mean people have to kill us from a distance to handle us.”

  Astryd stomped a foot in anger. “You’re going with him!”

  “I am not going with him,” Larson hollered back. “Nobody’s going with him. He’s safer by himself.”

  Taziar studied his companions and discovered that only Silme was actually looking at him. He winked conspiratorially and pressed a finger to his lips in a plea for silence.

  Silme returned a smile.

  “He’s not safer by himself!” Astryd challenged Larson. “You can protect him. You’re bigger and better with a sword. People are afraid of you. Nobody’s afraid of him. He’ll get himself killed.” Without looking, she gestured at the place where Taziar had been standing.

  But Taziar was no longer there. He positioned his fingers and toes in cracks between the wall stones and shinnied to the rooftop. Still, Larson’s voice wafted clearly to him.

  “Look, I’ll settle this. There’s one way he can be perfectly fucking safe ...”

  Taziar crept silently across the tiles pausing to assess a parallel thoroughfare.

  “... He can stay the hell here.” A restless pause followed, then Larson’s voice echoed through the alley. “Where is he?”

  Harriman paced with the deadly patience of a caged lion. Floorboards creaked beneath heavy bootfalls, betraying his rage to the women in the whorehouse rooms below. Light streamed through the warped, purple glass of the window, striping the desk, and twisting Harriman’s shadow into a hulking, animallike shape. “I don’t give a damn what you say! I know those little weasels down on the north side are making more money than that. Either you or they are holding out.” Harriman stopped, gaze boring into Haiti’s lean face. He read fear in the smaller man’s features, and it pleased him. “You had damn well better tell me it’s them. If it’s you, they’re going to be picking the meat off your bones in the street next week!”

  Cowed, Harti avoided Harriman’s dark eyes, glancing nervously at the other two men in the room. On either side of the door, Harriman’s Norse bodyguards, Halden and Skereye, awaited their master’s command.

  Warped and controlled by an angered mage, Harriman knew no mercy. “So who is it? Who’s holding out, you or them?”

  “Well.” Harti licked his lips with tense hesitation. “Of course, they are, lord. I—I wouldn’t hold out on you. I trust ... I wouldn’t. I would never ...”

  “Well, you damn well better never!” Harriman resumed his walk. “Tomorrow, I want double what you brought me here!” He whirled suddenly, jabbing a finger at Harti. “I don’t care whether it comes from them. I don’t care whether it comes out of your pocket. I don’t care if you have to go terrorize some merchant. I don’t care what you have to do. Double!”

  Harti shrank away.

  “... If you can get it from them, good. That’s where it’s supposed to come from because I know they’ve got it. If they’re that much smarter than you and strong enough to hold out on you, you better find somebody else to extort. I’m getting double, or they’ll find your organs scattered through the alleys. Do you understand that?”

  Harti’s skin went pale as bleached linen. “Yes, please, lord. I’ve got a wife and six children ...”

  “Widow and orphans.” Harriman raised a threatening hand to strike Harti. For an instant, a flaw in Bolverkr’s thought-splicing let Harriman’s basic nature free. Thoughts jumbled through his mind, liberally sprinkled with confusion. All notions of violence fled him, replaced by guilt, and he turned the movement into a gesture toward the door. Momentarily, he had no idea where he was; then Bolverkr’s handiwork regained control. Fury flared anew, and Harriman continued as if he had never paused. “If you stop whining and use some force, maybe you can get money out of those children. Go do it now. Right now! If you don’t have that gold in my hands by sundown tomorrow, you’re going to be racing the men I’ll be paying twice as much in bounty to bring me your head.”

  Struck by Harriman’s inconsistent behavior as well as his irrational anger, Harti backed to the door, caught the knob, and twisted. The portal inched open. Immediately, an anxious voice floated through the crack. “Harriman! I have something to tell you.”

  Infuriated by personality lapses he could not explain and which might anger Bolverkr and weaken his command, Harriman responded more aggressively than he intended. “What!”

  Halfway through the entryway, Harti froze.

  Harriman waved Harti away. “You, get the hell out of here and go do what you’re supposed to do.”

  Harriman waited until Harti darted down the hall, then returned to his desk and waited for the speaker to enter the room.

  Almost immediately, a portly thief in clean but rumpled silk burst into Harriman’s office. Unfastened cuffs flapped at his wrists, and mouse brown hair fringed plump cheeks in harried disarray. “Taz is in town.”

  Harriman went suddenly still. A long silence followed.

  The thief waited, pale eyes interested.

  “Who’s in town?” Harriman asked carefully, earlier anger forgotten.

  “Taziar Medakan. The little worm you told us to wait for. He’s in Cullinsberg. Headed this way, too.”

  Harriman suppressed a smile, holding his expression unreadable instead. Bolverkr had carefully severed from Harriman’s mind all memory of the dragon’s attack and the hostilities between them. But the Dragonmage had left Harriman’s diplomatic skills intact. “Are you sure? If you’re wrong, you’re in bigger trouble than the last idiot I was talking to.”

  The thief stood his ground. Apparently more accustomed to Harriman’s brusque manner than Harti was, he remained unintimidated. “I’m certain. Absolutely reliable sources.”

  Harriman needed to be sure. “Would you put your life on it?” You realize you are, don’t you?

  The thief avoided the question. “It’s him. Fits the description. Fits the characteristics. It has to be him. Can’t be anyone else.”

  Harriman knew the time had come to consult Bolverkr directly. “Stand here. Don’t move. I’ll be back.” Rising, Harriman pushed past the thief and his own bodyguards, trotted down the hall to his bedroom, and sat on a hard, wooden chair beside his pallet. Head low, he put mental effort into contacting his master. Bolverkr?

  For some time, Harriman received no answer. Then a presence slid through his shattered defenses and Bolverkr’s thoughts filled the diplomat’s mauled mind. I’m here.

  Taziar’s in Cullinsberg.

  Harriman felt Bolverkr’s vengeance-twisted joy as his own. Good. I’ve got plans for him and his companions. I want him to watch his girlfriend murdered and his friends hanged. Hurt him. But keep him alive, at least until the day past tomorrow. Bolverkr broke contact.

  Fine. Misplaced hatred sparked th
rough the refashioned and tangled tapestry of Harriman’s thoughts, sparking ideas far beyond Bolverkr’s intentions. The sorcerer’s meddling had created more than a simple puppet. Though guided, with motivations bent to Bolverkr’s will, Harriman had not lost the ability to conspire. Awash in bitterness, he shuffled back to the workroom where the thief stood with obedient forbearance. “You’re certain it’s Taziar Medakan?”

  “No question,” the thief replied.

  Taziar’s no amateur. If I tell my people to abuse him, Taziar will play them like children. Besides, I’m not accountable for my lackeys’ mistakes. Harriman met the thief’s questioning gaze with a smile, then tossed a command to Halden and Skereye. “Kill Medakan.”

  * * *

  CHAPTER 3 : Shadows of the Truth

  The treason past, the traitor is no longer needed.

  —Pedro Calderon de la Barca Life Is a Dream

  Sunlight gleamed from the crisp, new hoops of rain barrels, slivering rainbows through a nameless alley off Panogya Street onto which the rear entry to Shylar’s whorehouse opened. Crouched atop a neighboring warehouse, Taziar studied the walkway. Like most of the less well-traveled thoroughfares, it sported a packed earth floor that mired to mud with every rainstorm. The elements had hammered the black door, chipping away paint to reveal oak maintained in excellent repair.

  Despite the closely-packed stonework of the warehouse and an artisan’s attention to mortaring chinks, Taziar descended effortlessly into the vacant alleyway. He ducked into the rift between a barrel and the wall, where the shadows of both converged, and hesitated before the familiar doorway. The back entry was reserved for the underground; even they used it only in dire need and with gravest caution. Summoned from a distant land and uncertain of enemies and alliances, Taziar considered his situation urgent enough; but the attack by his former friends outside the city gates made him cautious. I have to talk to Shylar. I don’t dare trust anyone else. No matter how strong the evidence, Shylar knows me too well to consider me an enemy. At the least, she’ll give me a chance to explain. And, if there are reasons and answers, she’ll know them.