The butt of his spear slammed into my ribs, forcing me to agree with his analysis. Only a donkey would request a willing antagonist to continue a beating, and Tanris treasured his personal grudge against me. His lengthy dislike for me hinged entirely on flimsy things like circumstantial evidence and professional jealousy. It was an astounding thing, really, for he had no hard evidence that I had ever caused him any harm or affliction. I had never touched his sister; didn’t even know he had one, for that matter. If she looked anything like him, I’d prefer to keep it that way. No, Tarsha filled my dreams, and the temptation to ask after her hovered on my lips, but I dared not let him know how I cared for her, or she might end up in a cage of her own.
“You have no idea of the pleasure it brings me to see you in a cage, and to know that I am responsible for it.”
I cracked one eye open. “On the contrary.” A cough helped to clear my throat, but lanced my side in agony. I stifled a groan with clenched teeth. “You’ve worked very hard for a long time to get me here. Congratulations.”
He snorted. “Congratulations? Is your brain completely addled?”
“It might be.” My arms were stiff and heavy, but I managed to lift one hand enough to gingerly examine my face and head. “How do I look?”
He snorted again, his disbelief quite clear. “You look like you’ve been royally beaten and tossed into gaol.”
“Ah, Tanris, you have such an awe-inspiring sense of imagination.” I turned my head cautiously, trying to make out surroundings mostly shrouded in darkness with one eye swollen almost completely shut. As he had stated, I was indeed in gaol. I shoved down my alarm. One thing at a time, I told myself. “Is there a wall close?”
“No. Only bars.” His voice held an irritating hint of glee.
I hitched myself close to them and, with a tremendous effort, sat myself up. “Got a drink?”
He handed me a flask, then stood back to watch with his arms crossed over his chest. “Aren’t you the least bit curious to know what’s going to become of you?”
I frowned as I caught sight of a cat winding around his ankles. The light was poor and I was not any sort of expert on cats, but was that the same mangy creature that had earlier attacked me? It couldn’t be…
“Not yet.” I raised the flask to my lips and drank deeply of the stale water it held. I would have expected him to carry something with a bit more kick to it, but it was certainly better than nothing, and I took my time about it, pausing to explore a split lip with my tongue before I took another swallow. “Now then, what’s to become of me, oh Clever One?”
He didn’t answer right away, and when I looked up at him his face was creased with an appearance of intense consideration accompanied by an emotion I could not identify. For some reason it made me uneasy. “Well?”
He shrugged and looked away. “You’re to wait.” He made a gesture toward a shadowed doorway outside the cage and two men appeared.
“Wait?”
“That’s right. Not here, though. You’re to be moved to better quarters.”
“What? No bars?”
He smiled with great satisfaction. “Nope. No bars.”
The two men came into the cage and hauled me unceremoniously to my feet. My knees buckled. They caught me before I fell and dragged my arms up across their broad shoulders. They were so tall that my toes barely scraped the ground as they carted me off down a dim corridor. My head swam with pain and my vision blurred. What felt like eternity could have been no more than minutes, and then they deposited my carcass on the floor. While I blinked stupidly up at Tanris, one of them held me down with a foot on my chest while the other removed my boots and my belt.
“Slop bucket in the corner,” he said, pointing. “Meal in the morning. I wouldn’t waste it, as it will be the only one you get for the day. If you get chilly, there’s a blanket at the foot of the bed.” He grinned and bowed extravagantly. “Enjoy your stay.”
The door thudded closed behind him, immediately immersing me in darkness so black that not even my excellent eyesight could penetrate it. Panic grabbed me by the gut and yanked me into motion. “Tanris!” I yelled, scrambling for the door. The thud of a bolt sliding into place answered me. “Tanris! Don’t do this!” Another bolt slammed. I pounded the thick wood with my fist. “Tanris!” The third bolt gave a scream of delight as it locked. Muted laughter came from the corridor, then nothing.
I banged on the door with both fists, then put my sore hands to better use searching for a handle. Again, nothing. The walls and ceiling closed in on me, and I sank to the floor, pressing my back against the door. My breath was loud and harsh in my ears. In and out, in and out. Like a bellows. Stars danced in front of my eyes, and my lips and fingers tingled strangely. Had Tanris poisoned me?
Reason battled with Panic, slowly gaining a small advantage. Tanris had already got what he wanted. Me. In a cell. He had no need of poison. His pleasure depended on putting me in a cage forever, not by killing me quickly. I concentrated on breathing slowly and carefully. I had to think.
How had I fallen into his hands? He was always moving from job to job on the enforcement side of the law—Who was he working for now? How badly did this new employer want to hurt me?
To my relief, the stars and the tingling faded. It still felt like the ceiling was hovering just above my head, but when I stretched out a hand I could feel nothing anywhere around me except the door and the floor, which were right where any reasonable person would expect them.
I had to get out of there. Knowing Tanris, there would be no hidden escape routes, but I had to look. I searched the walls and the floor, running my fingers over every square inch. I pushed and pulled at every protuberance. I knocked, listening for a hollow sound to indicate hope.
My knee knocked over the slop bucket. The clash and clatter of it sent my heart leaping into my throat. With a shout, I scooted backward, smack into the opposite wall, slamming into it so hard that I bounced off it and onto my face. In a flash I was seeing stars and experiencing numb lips again. I struggled to breathe, gasping air desperately. My cheeks tingled, then my forehead. My hands and feet followed suit. Reason fled and Panic stood towering over me, arms akimbo, shouting with laughter. It was the last thing I saw.
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When I regained consciousness, I opened my eyes. For a moment I feared I was blind, and my heart skipped a beat. Then I remembered where I was, and my heart banged so hard against my ribs it nearly escaped. I was trapped. Caught. Imprisoned. Jailed. Worse, I was entombed. The thought of being confined was more than merely loathsome; I couldn’t abide small, dark spaces. Shut away in this crypt, I was going to die. I would soon exhaust what air I had left, and my life would end. Crow would never fly again. Never know the warmth of the sun on his face. Never see the clear blue sky. Never kiss lovely Tarsha…
“Tanris!” I shouted, over and over, until I could hardly even croak. “Let me out of here! Let me out!” I found the door and beat at it until the warmth of blood trickled down my wrists. Then I sank into a useless heap on the cold stone floor and wept hysterically.
My tears eventually subsided and I laid there listening to the weight of the darkness. Only my hitching breaths disturbed the absolute silence. After a time I ventured to explore the space around me again. My outstretched hand found the corner of the blanket. I dragged myself to the pile of straw that made up the bed. It smelled clean, so I crawled onto it, drawing the blanket up over me and covering my head. A ridiculous thing to do, perhaps, childish even, but it worked to hold the enveloping stone away.
I would be all right. I had to believe that. Giving in to hysteria was stupid and useless, neither of which were characteristics I cared to employ.
Tanris had said I was to wait. I could do that. I was good at waiting. I was a waiting professional. What made me nervous was wondering about the amount of time involved in the endeavor. Hours? That was manageable. Days? That was iffy. Weeks? How long did it take for
one to go insane, locked in a small, dark tomb?
I shivered. This line of thought did nothing at all to help. Very well. What was I waiting for? I had a hard time believing anything could be more torturous than my current condition. Anything seemed preferable. If I could be free to enjoy the sunlight again, I wouldn’t even argue with the customary chopping off of a thief’s hand. And if my prosecutor hated me so much as to desire to take my life, why I would go as meekly as a lamb to the block. But I would not—could not—endure the rest of my life shut up in the dark!
And just like that, I was on the verge of panic again.
Was I actively pushing myself toward the brink, or had insanity got its claws into me so soon? I sat up and pulled the blanket around my shoulders tightly, then peered into the darkness in an attempt to discern the slightest shading that might indicate a shadow, and thus some minuscule source of light. I held my hand up in front of my face. I brought it closer and closer, until I touched my nose. I still couldn’t see it.
Laying back down, I yanked the blanket back up over my head. This enclosure I could control. “Get a hold of yourself, Crow,” I muttered. “Now then, who is making you wait?”
I went over a list of possibilities, checking them off one by one. I had made enemies, to be sure, but for all I wracked my memory for a name, I could think of no one whose pride, honor, or livelihood I had damaged to such a drastic point. I gave up, and as soon as I did, an unbidden memory suddenly surfaced: I remembered, as a tot, hiding in an empty box in a warehouse. Through the slats I had witnessed a fight, the blood and brutality of which had both fascinated and horrified me. I had stayed in my hiding place long after the combatants had left or been dragged away. I remembered rocking. I rocked and rocked until I fell asleep.
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Shouts filled the air. A body crashed into the box, crunching the wood and shoving the box backward, hard. More shouting. A man approaching, his face a mask of rage. Suddenly a blade protruded from his throat. Blood gushed in an arc toward me, pulsing. I screamed—
—and sat up. Covered in a cold sweat, my breathing was fast and hard. A scraping sound and a bang made me jump.
“Who’s there?” I asked. My voice quavered. No one answered. I waited, fighting down blind, nauseating fear. Pulling my blanket into a wad and holding it close to my chest, I found a wall and crawled cautiously around my little cell until I came to the door.
“Tanris?” I held my breath, waiting for his mocking voice. After a time, I moved a little farther along, exploring the worn-smooth wood, searching for the opposite edge. My knee bumped something, and I heard the same scraping sound as before. Calming my racing heart, I felt around on the floor. I found the tin plate the same time my nose caught the odor of food. Food!
My belly, ignored and unimportant until now, set up a sudden chorus of growls. The tin was filled with bland-tasting gruel. With no spoon, I had to scrape it into my mouth with my fingers, licking every morsel from its surface, and then licking my fingers clean.
Breakfast was the only thing of note to happen. That day passed frighteningly like the first and then the next. On the fourth day I was diverted by a skittering, scratchy noise, which I chose to ignore in spite of visions of snakes, bugs, and other ne’er-do-well denizens of the dark lurking at the edges of my imagination. I was not going to invite trouble—I hung on by a thin rope, filling the time by reconstructing my life in detail, pretending I was writing an autobiography. I had made it to the year after I turned thirteen. I remember little of my earliest childhood, but life with my adoptive “family” had been anything but dull. They were thieves, and even now I am not entirely certain of their true relationships with each other. They were a colorful, wild lot who lived fast, hard lives. They told half a dozen stories about how they had come to possess me, and each held just enough truth to make it believable until the next tale.
One of the older men in the Family had ensured that I had a rudimentary understanding of reading and writing, simply because it helped him to pass the time, but it didn’t take me very long to decide I wanted more.
My last year with the Family had been spent with my uncle Crush, living from moment to moment in the chaos of the city of Meluna. I have no idea what his true name was, if he even had one. I remember very clearly though, my last sight of him as the City Watch took him away. We had pulled a heist that was meant to be quietly spectacular. Instead, all the Hells broke loose just as we were taking our leave.
Crush and I led the guard on a merry chase all through the entire western quarter. In an alley near the wharves they nearly had us trapped. Crush must have thought so. He shoved his sack full of booty into my hands and shouted, “I have the little devil! Here’s the bloody thief!”
I will never for a moment forget the shock and dismay of his betrayal. It was like acid poured on my heart. But the gods were with me even then: I swung the sack at his head as hard as I could, knocking him right over—a feat that must have astonished him as much as it did me. As he lay on the ground, dazed, I stuffed the sack into his shirtfront, then yanked the grate off the sewage drain running under the boardwalk and slithered inside. Thank the gods, I hadn’t reached my adulthood yet, else I never would have fit. While there was plenty of room to either side, I had not so much as a hair’s width to spare from top to bottom. I fitted the grate back into place just in time, and lay still, watching with my head twisted at a cruel angle as the guard pounded into the alley and found Crush with the stolen goods and no scapegoat in sight. And it is said there is honor among thieves…
Not long after I left good old Uncle Crush to the tender mercies of the City Watch, I took myself north up the coast and hired out to a tavern keeper who owned an establishment in one of Marketh’s better districts. In return for sweeping floors, toting coal and water, and helping out in the devilishly hot (but always well-stocked) kitchens, he refined my reading and writing skills and went on to teach me how to do sums. Yes, I know you’re thinking that a consummate thief such as myself never worked at an honest job in all his life. I will refrain from pointing out that being a good thief takes skill, practice, and actual labor. My continued education included holding down numerous positions of employment not listed as unlawful occupations in the magistrate’s wordy tomes. I learned to adapt to any situation. I learned the habits of certain classes of people in order to take advantage of their patterns of predictability. And to supplement those forms of education—and to attain a higher style of living—I helped myself to books and scrolls and maps and accounts of every kind. I have an extensive library, and it amuses me to envision the astonishment of my suppliers when they discovered those works missing. Some of the pieces are quite valuable as well as educational, and while most of them are kept in my country house where I retreat when things get altogether too warm in Marketh, some of them adorn bookshelves in my apartments in the city.
For all my reminiscing, the scraping noise still didn’t go away. It bit my leg sharply. Shouting in horror and surprise, I took up one of the empty breakfast tins and beat the area all around me. Whatever it was escaped, only to return later. After several such confidence-devouring attacks, I achieved success. My tin didn’t clang raucously as it made contact with the floor, but made a solid thump against something. I whacked it several more times for good measure, then dared a cautious exploration.
It was a rat.
I sat back and rubbed my hands roughly over my head several times. A rat! The filthy rodents were bad enough on their own, but in the dark?
My tenuous grip on reality slipped several notches. I got up to pace. If I held my arm up I could touch the low ceiling, which helped to keep it from closing in on my head. From end to end the cell measured exactly five paces, and I kept my other arm out in front of me to be sure I didn’t run into the wall. Back and forth I went, praying aloud in desperation to gods that had deserted me for the first time in my life.
At last my words no longer made sense, even to
me. I stopped. “You’re ranting, Crow,” I said. “Buck up. Just wait. That’s all, just wait.” I swallowed my anxiety. “The rats? Why, just think of them as sport. It’ll keep you on your toes.”
Six tins and nine rats later the door opened. Light from a torch blinded me, and I covered my eyes with my hands.
“What? Still here, little bird?” Tanris’s voice was unmistakable. “I thought you’d have flown the coop by now!” he laughed at me. I lunged toward the sound of him, but I was weak from abuse and lack of decent nourishment and he held me off easily, laughing the louder for my efforts. “I see you’ve been keeping busy.”
“Of course,” I spat, pulling away from him and reaching for the safety of a wall. “My days are simply filled to overflowing with things to do and places to go.”
“I was talking about the rats, boyo. I’m surprised you aren’t eating them yet. Lots of the customers do, you know.”
“I find them a little under-seasoned.”
“Well, I’ll leave them here for you. Let them ripen a little longer. Maybe then they’ll be more to your liking.”
“Your generosity is overwhelming.”
“So glad you noticed.”
Still blind as a bat, I listened to the thumping of the bucket and the rattle of my tins. “How much longer am I to wait?” I asked, adopting an air of nonchalance.
“Until you’re ready.”
“And who gets to decide that?”
“Me, of course.”
I folded my arms across my chest and leaned against my security wall. “Would you mind leaving one of those tins?”
“’Fraid not,” he chuckled. “You only get one week’s worth before we collect them. Besides, we want to give the rats a sporting chance.”
“In that case, I’ll try to leave the ones you’re related to alone.”
“Always the wit, Crow. Always the wit.”
The door thumped closed behind him and I closed my eyes against the despair of those three bolts sliding into place.
As the Crow Flies: An Epic Fantasy Adventure Page 3
