by John Daulton
“Yes, in here. That contraption, as you called it, is for electroplating. And unless I miss my guess, that first jar contains gold salts.”
“Gold salts? I ain’t never heard of such a thing. What kinda fool would eat somethin like that, and what’s it got to do with fakin coins?”
“Well, you say you can smell metal with that finely tuned nose of yours, why don’t you come verify it?” Jasper turned back to the chest and uncorked the first jar again. Ilbei moved beside him and leaned down, peering inside. It was filled half-full with a dark fluid, almost black but with a touch of color like cognac or red wine. He sniffed the air tentatively.
“Hard to say if’n I’m smellin what’s in the jar or the gold all around.”
“Get closer, then. I really would like to know.”
“I would too,” came a voice from across the room. It was Cavendis, who was sitting up despite looking very pale.
Ilbei bent lower and sniffed close to the top of the jar. Sure enough, there was gold in the liquid somehow. “Well, that’s the strangest thing I ever heard of. Gold water?”
Jasper’s was the face of smugness. “In a manner of speaking, yes. I told you. It’s a technique called electroplating. The Conjurers Guild wrote a piece about it in their almanac several years back. A few of them were trying to figure out how to bond one metal to another, and they wanted it to be permanent, as if it were meant to be that way. It’s yet another idea taken from those poor, long-lost dwarves, although they say the dwarves somehow did it with fruit juice, as I recall. That was what had the conjurers confused. They ultimately gave the process up as lost—or rumor—as they simply couldn’t find the right combinations of fruit juice, and they couldn’t get powerful enough lightning bolts to work. They even had a Z-ranked conjurer blasting at it for a time, but nothing ever came of it, even with power of that magnitude working on it.”
“What happened to him, the Z?” Ilbei couldn’t help but ask. “That thing kill him?”
“Her. And no, she died of old age. She was four hundred and seven years old. Her passing was why they wrote the article.”
Ilbei rumbled some in his throat, regretting having been sucked into a worthless bit of history from his long-winded wizard. And besides, he didn’t understand much of what Jasper was telling him anyway. He couldn’t see the sense in talking about fruit juice and conjuring experiments just then. The one thing he did recognize, however, was that there was no need for counterfeiting in a place such as the one they were in.
“There weren’t no reason fer makin fake gold what with all this real gold lyin about like sand on a beach,” he said. “A man would do better to just pocket some of it if’n he were inclined to thievin. A thief don’t get half the penalty a counterfeiter does, so there weren’t no reason to risk it.” He noticed that Cavendis was glaring at the unconscious wizard lying bound and gagged at his side. It didn’t take the wily old veteran long to figure out what the look was for. “What’s the matter, Cavendis, yer man there somehow cheatin ya? Skimmin off the top? Has yer counterfeiter been right there under yer noble nose all along?”
“Spadebreaker, you have no idea what kind of trouble you’ve dug up down here. If there’s anyone you love out there in the whole wide world, you’ll never hide them well enough to protect them from what you’ve done.”
“Horrible as all that sounds, Milord, I reckon you’re in it deeper’n I am. I only run aground of ya. Fer yer part, you’re gonna have to take it up with Her Majesty herself, or with yer high Lady Mum back in South Mark if’n it turns out it’s her ya been crossin. Maybe you’ll get both of em havin at ya, you and that piece of villainy lyin there next to ya. None of them splinters is under my nails.”
“You better kill me, Sergeant. You won’t get better from the Queen. You’re in way over your station now.” The steadiness of his gaze, the certitude, made Ilbei think there might be more to the threat than he wanted to believe.
“I’m just a grunt doin my job. I was to come dig out what’s been plaguin these folks around here, find the Skewer and make things right. But turns out the plague is less about the Skewer than it is about you. I reckon I’ll trust my luck on Her Majesty’s justice landin fair when it all shakes out. If the gods is watchin, there ain’t no way a cheat like yerself comes out when it’s done, noble or no.”
“That depends upon which gods are watching, doesn’t it? But the truth is you won’t even get me out of here, Sergeant. Much less brought before the Queen.”
Ilbei ignored him. “Let’s get these lot ready to haul out of here,” Ilbei said, turning to his men. “Meggins, get His Lordship on his feet. Watch him, though. He’ll kick sideways like a mule. Kaige, you get that other one up and goin too. I didn’t kick him that hard; he’ll wake up.” Seeing them in motion, Ilbei went back into the small room where Mags lingered with the harpy.
“Mags,” he said as he entered, but silenced himself, seeing that she was trying to speak to the creature still strapped to Gangue’s grill. He smiled and let go some tension with his next breath. It was that kind of goodness that made facing the danger he’d been through worthwhile. People like Mags. Talking to a harpy. Sweet, silly, hopeful girl.
The harpy recoiled at his approach. The chains that bound her clanked against the ironwork grill as her body stiffened.
“Her name is Miasma,” Mags said.
“Whose? Hers?” One eyebrow lifted as he indicated the harpy with a thrust of his tatty beard. “Ya went and named her, a mean and nasty critter as that? That’s like namin an animal ya might have to eat one day.”
“No, I didn’t name her. It’s her name. She told me. She’s been here for seventeen hundred years. She’s their queen, and this was the first harpy wild on Kurr—well, not here but the steppes above Fall Pools, obviously.”
“She told ya all that, did she?” His eyes glimmered with the indulgence. He was polite enough not to laugh.
“Sergeant, I’m serious. That’s what she said.”
Ilbei saw the solemn look upon Mags’ face, so he continued to indulge her, scanning the harpy with a long, careful gaze. Nothing in the harpy’s countenance softened, no part of it shifting toward civility or an inclination for a chat. Ilbei turned skeptical eyes back to Mags. “I expect she’s pullin yer chain with that. She can’t be a lick over thirty-five, fer one, unless them human parts of hers don’t respond to the pull of time. Even a highborn sorcerer shows more years than that by eighty-five, and noble ladies, even bird ones, don’t spend no time in slaver caves, much less gettin tortured on lightnin racks.”
“Well, she’s telling the truth.”
“Oh, she is, is she? And how can ya tell?”
“I could see it in her eyes.”
“Mags, she’s spinnin stories what will get ya to cut her loose. Like as much, she’ll claw yer throat open the moment ya do. She’s even got reason to, if’n ya think on it.”
Mags shook her head. “No. She won’t. She just wants to go home.”
“Home? Ya mean down there where all them sawed-off harpies are? That home?”
“Yes, that one. It’s all the home she has now. And they’re her children.”
“By Hestra, now there’s a story fer ya.”
“It is, and it’s a terrible one. She told me some of it. Oh, Sergeant, it’s awful. We have to do something. We can’t leave them all like this.”
“Well, I’m inclined to agree with ya on that. Them sorry creatures down there is gonna be top of my report when we get back. No tellin what they’ll do about it, but I’ll wager some of them feel-good city folks will put up a preserve or somethin fer em somewhere, stuff em in and then all paw theirselves, cluckin and botherin to each other how kind and wonderful they are fer bein benefactors.”
“We can’t leave them and wait for that. Not now. Not if we’re taking … Ivan and your major out.”
“Why not? They been here this long. They’ll make it till I put in my report.”
Mags glanced to the harpy, Miasma as she claimed her name
to be, and smiled, a patient thing, as if trying to convince the harpy not to give up on her. “If they, if Ivan is the keeper of order around here, what will happen in his absence? There are many other men here, and it’s at least four days back to Hast from here. Even healed, she can’t protect them all.”
A low hum issued from Ilbei’s throat as he considered that. He reckoned if the men did figure out Gangue was gone, and Cavendis—assuming they even knew the young lord was there, given that Ilbei didn’t get the impression he came around much—most of them would go straight to grabbing as much gold as they could carry and get out. The way piss-soaked Sett had told it, fear was the only thing holding them there, fear and the promise of a stone’s weight in gold. Near as Ilbei could figure, if the enforcement broke down, the miners would get off with well more than a stone’s weight each, making their contracts worth about as much as all the gold blowing in the wind. Which he remarked on.
“They most likely would run off with the gold,” he said.
“Most would,” Mags allowed. “But not all. Some of them do terrible things to her children, simply because they can. The gold has drawn only the worst kinds of men out here.” Her eyes seemed to glaze, but Ilbei saw that she was looking past him to where Gangue was being slapped awake by Kaige.
Ilbei grew irritated then. He couldn’t solve everything. He was only one man. “Listen up, Mags. Best we can do is get on out of here quick, before them others figure out Gangue is gone. Sooner we do, sooner we’ll get help back here to clear the rest of these fellers out. There ain’t no other way, and there ain’t no perfect solutions. The more we dawdle talkin, the worse off it might get. We get caught, nothin gets fixed at all.”
“We have to get them out,” she insisted.
“Mags, we ain’t gettin nobody out but us and them two villains. That’s the end of it.”
Mags clearly wanted to argue, but she saw in Ilbei’s eyes that that was the end of it. He was a man long used to having final authority, unpopular authority, and he was perfectly comfortable having people mad at him. She acquiesced quietly on the point. “Well, I am going to let her go,” she said. “We can’t leave her here like this.”
Ilbei grimaced, but agreed. He’d known it too. He called out loudly into the other room. “On yer guard out there. We’re lettin this here harpy loose. Don’t fuss with her if’n she goes out quiet like.”
When they’d all answered back affirmatively, he stepped to the left side of the iron grating and regarded the harpy with a sigh. “Listen here, you,” he began, but Mags’ expression made him stop.
“Her name is Miasma,” Mags told him again.
“I heard what ya said.” He tried to read the harpy’s expression, but she was staring up at the ceiling. He could tell by the rapidity of her breathing she was anxious. He hoped it wasn’t in preparation of ripping his face apart again. “Let’s go on and cut her free.”
They worked together to undo the bindings, starting at her ankles, then her wings, then her wrists. Her whole body tensed as her limbs were freed, her powerful legs bending, her talons gripping the grill.
“All right, ya harp—Miasma, I’m gonna take this last collar off of ya, and I expect ya to play nice just like Mags says ya will. I’d sure hate to regret this here action all the rest of my days.”
The familiar low, rasping growl issued from her throat. He shook his head, sending a resigned look Mags’ way. “See?” But he unlatched the neck clamp anyway.
The harpy leapt away, then spun back and crouched low, just as she had when Ilbei first fought with her. He knew right then that she was going to jump on him again. But she did not. She glared at him, her rattling hiss low and menacing, before she whirled and pinned her wings back. In one great leap, she sprang through the door and down into the hole.
Ilbei, not in position to see that she’d gone down the hole, rushed out after her, intending to help his men fend her off. But she was gone. He went to the edge of the opening and looked down, seeing her in silhouette as she hurtled toward the light of the cavern far below. “Hope she’s got enough room to pull out of that dive,” he said, as Mags joined him. Together, they watched as Miasma neared the bottom of the long shaft, her wings opening like the spring-loaded blades of an assassin’s folding knife. She spiraled the last fifty spans or so, then shot out the bottom, though they could hardly see her for how small she’d become. The long, screeching cry of her triumphant return was the evidence she’d survived.
Ilbei turned back to his men, and his captives. “All right, folks, let’s get these two sorry bastards to Hast and the justice of the War Queen.”
Chapter 33
With torches made from broken table legs and aided by Jasper’s oil spell, they headed back out into the tunnels beyond the gold-filled room. Ilbei led the procession with Mags behind, followed by Meggins, who pulled the two prisoners along. In breaking apart the table, Ilbei had also pulled up one of its long planks and fashioned a crude yoke for the captives. He’d carved shallow arcs into each end of the plank and widened the nail holes with his pick, wide enough to accommodate loops of rope, which were put around his prisoners’ necks. Cavendis was lashed into the lead end of the yoke and Gangue to the back. Jasper followed behind them, having been instructed to keep an eye on Gangue for “anything magical,” and Kaige was tasked with rear guard.
They moved quickly, but carefully, up the passage and soon found themselves at the intersection where so many of the extra baskets were stacked. Ilbei peeked around the corners, dreading to see scores of men sneaking toward them with weapons drawn. The crossing was clear.
“Quick, let’s go,” he said. He ran across, with Mags right on his heels. Meggins hauled on the lead rope that was bound to Cavendis’ wrists. The noble prisoner tried to resist, but Kaige saw it and put one big hand in Gangue’s back and the other against the back of the magician’s head. Then he gave a mighty shove. Gangue gagged as he stumbled forward, his throat driven against the board, which then clunked into the back of Cavendis’ neck, causing a whiplash effect that got the young lord moving again.
Meggins tugged him along, and soon they found themselves nearing the top of the steep passageway where the rush of the river grew loud. Ilbei motioned for them to stop, still several paces from the top. He handed Meggins the torch, then finished the distance. He stooped low and looked out, again dreading to discover the approach of many men. This time, there were torches and lanterns moving his way, coming from both sides. Whoever carried them was in a hurry, if the wild movements of the lights in the blackness were any indication. They weren’t sneaking, that was sure. The nearer they got, the clearer came the sound of their voices, even over the river’s noise.
Ilbei ran down again. “Back, back, back,” he said, as loud as he dared. “They’re comin fast.”
The passage was too narrow to turn the prisoners around, so they had to run backward down the steep passage as Meggins pushed and Kaige pulled. Cavendis was fit and agile enough to manage it, if more by reflex than choice, but Gangue tripped and fell, dragging Cavendis down with him.
Kaige and Meggins tried to get them up, but Cavendis lay there laughing through his gag, his legs limp like a child throwing a tantrum and refusing to get up.
“Kaige” was all Ilbei had to say as he stepped around Meggins and just past Cavendis lying there. Kaige saw Ilbei’s intent and nodded back. The two of them took up the weight of the prisoners between them, Ilbei gripping the plank just behind Cavendis, and Kaige grabbing Gangue by the hair. Together, they dragged the prisoners easily enough as they resumed their hasty descent. Downhill made the going easy enough, even so encumbered, and Jasper had sense enough to get out ahead and stop at the intersection to look and see if the way was clear. He came back with frightened eyes and carping mouth. “Someone’s coming,” he said. “Voices. I heard voices.”
“Which way?”
“Both.”
Ilbei looked behind and saw light moving down from where they’d just come. Again. I
t seemed they were never destined to get out that way.
“Gaze of the gorgon, we’ve got to move,” Ilbei said. “Back in where we were. Go, go. Get in and lock that damned door.”
“Then what?” Jasper had the nerve to ask.
“Go, boy. Go!”
Kaige gave him a shove as hard as the one he’d given Gangue, not out of malice but out of urgency. It had the same effect, however, and Jasper went sprawling forward and slid down into the intersection. Nobody was laughing at him this time.
He was up quickly and down the passage past the baskets. He held the door open as the rest of them rushed back into the room, careful not to dash right into the hole in their haste. Jasper slammed it shut and dropped the lock. He turned back, panting, looking to Ilbei. “Now what?”
Kaige pointed to the tables. “We can block the door with them. Weight them down with gold and crates of coins.”
“Good thinking, big man!” Meggins said. Ilbei agreed.
“Get it done quick,” Ilbei said. “Jasper, keep an eye on these two criminals.” He ignored Jasper’s “what am I supposed to do with them?” expression and moved with Kaige to the table nearest the door. Heaving together, they tried to move it. Nothing. Mags ran over to add her weight and strength to the effort as well. It was still too much.
“Scrape off the gold,” she said, pushing off chunks as fast as she could. Soon after, they were pushing hunks of gold onto the floor, the dense masses thudding dully to the stone in a rich and heavy rain.
“Try again,” Ilbei said when the table was half-cleared. This time they were able to move it, if barely, and got it pressed up against the door, lengthwise. They began loading it up with gold again, the sound of their breathing heavy as they worked.
Soon the table was piled high with gold again, a great mound stacked up and sloped against the door as high as they could get it. Ilbei and Kaige then pushed over the table with the scales to get at the crates below. They threw off the top two crates on one stack. Both broke open and more golden coins spilled out, rolling everywhere. The bottom crate, still intact, they dragged away from the wall. They grunted and groaned, heaving at it as they pulled it toward the door. When it was far enough from the wall, Meggins got in behind and gave a shove. Finally they had it pushed against the bottom of the door. They ran for another one, once again pushing the top two crates over and letting them smash. Black coins spilled out everywhere this time, slugs made of lead. It was as obvious to Ilbei’s trained eye as it was to his sense of smell. Once again they dragged the bottommost crate, unbroken, against the door.
