The Sorcerer of Wands: Azabar's Icicle Part 2

by Jem I Kelley

  Aden felt his feet touch the ground again; the hand lifted from his mouth and he found himself looking into five angry sets of eyes. Grimus Spalding’s expression turned to one of recognition, and his expression of hostility faded.

  “Aden Green! What are you doing here, Aden?”

  Aden felt terrified, and he could only think of the truth.

  “Plumbert took us on the raid of Saib’s warehouse.”

  “Why?”

  Suspicious expressions bore down on him, watched him with cold eyes. His throat felt dry. He spoke quickly.

  “Bliss and I heard of a 'Threat to Haverland' whilst in the prison. Then we found some yellow powder on the Grey Hind when we sailed back from Dazarian. We thought it was a drug called Yeccozin, and that the great threat to Haverland was this drug – it's very strong you see – it could make half the people of Haverland trip-out. We told Plumbert, and he told Inspector Thomas. We all thought Saib was smuggling the drug, because he was listed on the ship manifest as the owner of the yellow powder.”

  Grimus seemed puzzled, “But how do you know about the drug Yeccozin? You’re only a boy?”

  “The governor of the Dazarian prison, Tanest, kept the birds which laid the eggs which made the drug.”

  “So Saib’s smuggling for Tanest and Kesskran?”

  “No! Well… I don’t think so anyway, not now. This is all getting confusing. The powder on the Grey Hind turned out to be something called ‘turmeric’, not yecozzin. I think Saib’s innocent, which is more than I can say for you!”

  Aden rushed the last few words out, in a spout of indignation, and only realised the danger as the gang members glowered at him for speaking to their leader in such a way.

  Grimus sighed and told the gang to sit down and relax. They did so, taking up pewter flagons and sipping from them, staring at Aden as their leader spoke.

  “Yes… I smuggle drugs into the Haverland. But, this threat you speak of, this threat to the city, that’s not me. My operation isn’t large enough. If something threatens the city as a whole, and it ain't this Yeccozin, well it ain’t my doing either.”

  Aden was barely listening; he had always thought Grimus a kindly old man and the truth had left a growing horror in him.

  “How can you deal in drugs, and work for Kesskran? The man’s evil. This is your home city for Gabriel’s sake”

  Grimus’s eyebrows furrowed and he exchanged meaningful looks with his gang: “I have to make a living, Aden, and this is the way I’ve chosen. When you’ve spent years earning a copper as a porter, or perhaps a stall holder on the market, then perhaps you’ll understand.”

  Aden felt anger surge through him.

  “It’s evil.”

  “I don’t force anyone to buy the drugs,” replied Grimus in a level tone and he pointed a finger at Aden. “I don’t work for Kesskran, either. Don’t start making assumptions.”

  Aden’s head spun. “You do get your drugs from Dazarian, though. You smuggle it into Haverland in Daz-Ale barrels don't you, and I saw those barrels in the Grey Hind's hold.”

  Grimus laughed bitterly.

  “You’ve learned a lot, haven’t you, maybe too much.”

  Aden looked sharply at Grimus; but, he couldn’t read the expression in the man’s eyes.

  “Let me complete your understanding. I don’t buy the drugs from Kesskran, but they do come from Dazarian. Eight years ago, I suspected someone was trying to muscle in on my patch. The drug yecozzin appeared in Haverland, but only in tiny quantities. I wasn’t too bothered. Then, two years ago a spate of attacks led to four of my men’s deaths. I had sent each to Dazarian to pay for heroin shipments, and each was murdered. Suddenly I had no-one with which to pay my factor there. I needed to get payment to him quickly, he was threatening to stop business with me. Do you know what I did?”

  Aden shrugged; no obvious answer came to mind.

  Grimus took a sip from the flagon before him, then placed it back on the table and wiped his lips with a handkerchief from his pocket.

  “I used unknowns because my own men were being watched.”

  Comprehension hit Aden like a sledgehammer.

  “The fire jewels, they were the payment! And you asked Bliss and I to take them to Dazarian!”

  Grimus’s eyes were dark; he nodded.

  “The jewellery trade was a front, a front which served me well. At least, it did until what happened to you in Dazarian. That one event almost destroyed my business. My drug factor hadn’t been paid and so refused further deals with me. More of my men were murdered and I only narrowly escaped such attacks. I realised that to survive I had to persuade my mysterious rival I’d gone out of business. I found new suppliers, took out dangerous loans, changed my 'front' company from jewellery to ale, brought in new smuggling methods – and it worked. My enemy no longer considered me a threat. You know, I never learned who that enemy was, until you told me about the birds bred in the Dazarian prison. Lord Kesskran sounds particularly unpleasant a name to me now. Thank you, Aden.”

  A man put down his flagon and burped.

  “Kesskran! We’d better be careful.”

  “I’m always careful, which is why we’re all still here and in business.”

  “But Kesskran’s so powerful,” said another, boyish hair framing gaunt cheeks.

  “And I’m so clever, Spud, and I have the advantage that I now know who my rival is.”

  The man looked at Aden.

  “What do we do about the kid?”

  Grimus regarded Aden with his kindly old eyes; but, now Aden could see them for what they really were, a façade: a pleasant physical feature which Grimus had used to advantage in all his dealings.

  “If we let him go, he’ll talk.”

  The arms, which gripped Aden, gripped him tighter. There would be no escaping them. Aden felt panic well up inside of him.

  “I won’t talk. I promise.”

  Grimus’s eyes continued to smile down on him.

  “You promise now, but the fear will go and you will tell one person, in absolute secrecy. In time, that person will tell one more person. In a year the Wall will be writing about my smuggling activities.”

  Aden’s heart hammered in his chest as he became aware of the murderous looks the other members of the gang gave him.

  “No I won’t, honest.”

  Grimus’s pleasant eyes looked right through him.

  “I’m sorry it’s come to this…”

  A knock rapped the door, the door that opened onto the lane where Bliss hid.

  “Hello, anyone there! This is the Police, open up!”

  Grimus jolted. He glanced at the door, and when his eyes returned to stare at Aden, they were wide with genuine fear.

  “That’s Plumbert’s voice!”

  Aden leapt at his chance, “I saw you in here and told Bliss I was going to investigate. Bliss would have told him.”

  “What!”

  Grimus rubbed his chin and bit his lip as he appeared to wrestle with the decision that had to be made.

  The arms which gripped Aden, tightened, and he found it hard to breath.

  “What do we do, Boss?” Knuckles voice came from beside Aden’s ear.

  A fist rapped the door again: “This is the Police, let me in.”

  Grimus Spalding dragged his hand down his face as indecision kept the charm from his eyes; he spoke half to himself and half to the others around him.

  “We’ve got half a dozen Daz-Ale barrels here, the drug scam is up. What do we do? What do we do? Let me think… If they find the boy dead, there’d be murder hanging over us too...”

  Aden saw Grimus’s jaw firm, and then watched as the gang master’s eyes flickered at him, calculating, before returning to their normal pleasant aspect.

  “Only one thing for it, we leave the city. I can’t move fast enough; Knuckles carry me and you, Spud, take the drugs on the table. The rest of you leave now. Go the back way, split up and meet at our place in the country.”

&
nbsp; Grimus then winked at the men and made a strange sign with his fingers. The men noticed the sign and shot Aden an odd look as they rose from their seats.

  “Right boss,” said knuckles as the gang began to disperse: “what about the kid?”

  Grimus dimmed the lamp on the table, as Plumbert banged on the door, and shouted once more.

  “Give him a clip, so he don’t talk until we’re well gone.”

  “No problem, boss.”

  A fist smashed into Aden’s jaw and everything went dark.

  Chapter 40: Recovery

  Aden’s inner nose hurt. With the pain came a funny smell. He realized he was alive and moved his head in an attempt to avoid whatever hurt him. Finding himself on soft material, he stretched his legs.

  “He’s awake.”

  Aden opened his eyes and saw a vial of smelling salts, held by Bliss’s mum. The strong smell was obviously the cause of the pain inside his nose. His jaw ached too though, and that had come from a punch, he recalled. Squeezed around him, with worried expressions were Bliss’s mum, dad, grandparents, and Bliss; beside them stood Plumbert, looking grim. Aden realized he was in the Todd house, and the tiny bedroom he shared with Bliss.

  Candles cast a wan light and gave the air a stale waxy smell. He guessed a few hours had passed since his encounter with the gang.

  “How do you feel?”

  “They knocked me out.”

  He winced as he spoke; the movement caused the ache in his jaw to flare.

  Martha Todd put a handkerchief to her nose and blew. Her eyes were full of tears and she glared at Plumbert.

  “All this is no thanks to you, Sergeant. Mrs. Green left her son in my care some seven years ago. Since then he’s been in prison for two of them and now he’s been knocked out by a thug because you took the friends on a Police raid! I hate to think what will happen next. All the neighbours will talk, they do you know. They already say I’ve been a terrible carer to him, and a rotten mother to Bliss. It was on the Wall for weeks after they got arrested two years ago and it’ll be on the Wall again now.”

  Aden noticed Bliss give her mum a worried look. This was the first they’d heard the Wall had said such things about Mrs Todd.

  Plumbert’s expression became rueful.

  “I’m sorry, Martha.”

  Aden leapt to the defence.

  “We made him stick to his promise to take us on the Police raid, Mrs Todd. Anyway, if it weren’t for tonight, no one would know Grimus Spalding was a criminal.”

  Martha’s eyes flashed dangerously, “be that as it may. You’re not paid to snoop about and get hit, young man, that’s Plumbert’s job and I don’t want him to put you in that sort of position again.”

  In one hand, Plumbert gripped his helmet. He raised the other in a gesture of surrender.

  “I won’t. I’ll be lucky to get out of this alive anyway when Doris finds out.”

  Martha sniffed.

  “Your wife has more sense in her little finger than you’ve got in your whole body.”

  Plumbert nodded absently. “She’ll have me paint the walls of our house twice over, in punishment.”

  “I won’t hold you up then,” said Martha nodding to the door.

  He paused. “Now Aden’s awake, could I speak with him?”

  “Be brief.”

  “In private?”

  Martha looked daggers at the Sergeant, but shooed the rest of the family out of the tiny room, except Bliss, who Plumbert said was a key part of what’d happened.

  When the door shut Aden said:

  “If I’d known Saib's powder was this turmeric stuff, I’d have told you. I’ve never heard of it before tonight.”

  “It looks just like what we thought Yeccozin would be like,” said Bliss sitting on the end of the bed, her eyes like saucers as she spoke. “How would we know there’s a spice which looks just like Yeccozin? You’d have thought Saib would have labelled the caskets so no-one got suspicious.

  Plumbert frowned.

  “I don’t think we can blame Saib for our mistakes.”

  “I’m not saying that,” said Bliss. “Not exactly. It’s just I don’t think you should get too angry with us. It was an honest mistake on our part.”

  Plumbert placed his helmet on the sideboard and took a step to the window where he pulled open the shutters. Flames on the candles danced as the night breeze wafted into the room.

  “That’s better, a touch of fresh air.”

  He took a breath, sighed, and faced the friends.

  “I’m angry with myself, not you. I were too quick to suspect Saib. Could have had the contents of one of them tubs checked without him ever knowing, and there’d have been no need for a raid. To be honest, it if weren’t for you uncovering Spalding’s little game, there’d have been hell to play over tonight’s raid. As it is, we now have information about a criminal gang that's been lurking under our noses all the time. So… well done.”

  “Oh,” said Bliss, clearly not expecting the praise.

  “You saved the police’s reputation tonight,” added Plumbert.

  Aden exchanged surprised glances with Bliss before turning to the Sergeant.

  “Saib hasn’t made a complaint then?”

  “No. Couldn’t have blamed him if he did. But, he just chuckled and said mistakes happen.”

  “Did you find Spalding's heroin?”

  “Yep.”

  “To think everyone thought him a friendly old man,” said Bliss sourly.

  A far away look came into Plumbert’s eyes.

  “At one time he was. You know, when I was your age my first job was a porter; on the Haverland central market, just like you twos. Of course, it was smaller then, there weren’t any Disc-Artefact merchandise. Grimus had a stall selling costume jewellery, nothing special, just knick-knacks. He must have been in his early twenties; it was probably his first stall. Whenever I ported anything for him, he always gave me a penny; grand chap he was. How people change, eh?”

  The friends nodded, and Plumbert asked Aden to tell him everything else he’d learnt about Grimus’s gang whilst in the warehouse and Aden struggled to recollect what he’d seen and heard.

  He remembered that Grimus didn’t work for Lord Kesskran; rather, had been a rival. That Grimus would be heading for a country hideaway now his secret identity had been uncovered. Aden told Plumbert that Grimus had been a drug smuggler for years and dealt only in heroin, not Yeccozin. He explained how the other businesses had been a front.

  Plumbert shook his head in disbelief.

  “I can’t take it all in.”

  Aden snorted in disgust.

  “There’s more. He used his jewellery business to pay his drug suppliers. Why else do you think he wanted Bliss and me to take those jewels to Dazarian two years ago.”

  Bliss froze and stared at Aden in shock. For a moment the light from the candles flickered in silence as she and Plumbert were left speechless. Bliss whistled softly.

  “Grokkin eck. The old git!”

  Aden nodded.

  Plumbert’s brow furrowed.

  “He might want revenge on you for uncovering his plans.”

  Aden thought about it, and shook his head.

  “I think his grudge is with Lord Kesskran and Sardohan now, after all it's likely they murdered a lot of Spalding's men.”

  Plumbert placed a hand on Aden’s shoulder.

  “Be careful, anyway.”

  He then reached into his pocket and pulled forth coins. “Me and the friends at the station had a whip-round. Take these now before I change my mind.”

  Aden stared at the pile in Plumbert’s palm.

  Ten silver florins.

  “We can’t accept all that!”

  “Go on. You’ve earned it. The Mayor’ll probably give me and the boys at the Station a gold coin apiece for tonight’s work. I can’t see you go without.”

  Bliss’s mum had a word with Plumbert before he left the house; and Aden later learnt Plumbert went aroun
d to Hacknor’s office the next morning and told the market foreman the barest bones of what’d happened. He said Aden wouldn’t be helping the setting up of the Ambassador’s garden party on Saturday, because he was still recovering from events of the previous night. However, he would try to help Sunday. Plumbert explained to Hacknor he didn’t expect Aden to be punished for having the day off.

  Saturday went quietly for Aden; Martha Todd banned anyone but her from seeing him because she said he needed the rest and visitors would want to talk about worrying things like smuggling and gangs.

  Aden sat looking at the wooden walls of the bedroom and the shelf opposite which held the wooden puppet with strings he’d had since he was eight; the wooden ball he, Bliss and Grandfather Eavis used to kick around; and shells he’d found on the beach once.

  He felt quite well in himself, his jaw ache was faint and he saw no reason why he couldn’t at least go and watch the others as they prepared the marquees; but, Mrs Todd had made her mind up he’d stay in bed, which meant short of an order from the King there was little anyone could do about it.

  With nothing to occupy his mind, his thoughts kept returning to the previous night’s events. Emotions swirled around inside of him. There was guilt for causing the police raid on Saib’s warehouse and for making Plumbert think the man was a drug trader. It wasn’t as if Saib hadn’t enough on his plate, what with his wife having died recently: Bliss’s Grandfather Eavis’s death brought home to Aden how painful Saib’s bereavement would be.

  Then he felt annoyance with the Dazarian’s for making him think Saib’s caskets of yellow powder were drugs. It was in the Dazarian jail he’d learnt of a plot to ruin Haverland and it was in the jail he’d learnt about Yeccozin. It’d seemed obvious to connect the two when he saw the yellow powder leak out of the caskets on the Grey Hind. Aden prayed that when he next saw Saib and explained everything to him, the man would accept an apology.

  On top of the guilt and annoyance, Aden felt further mixed emotions about the previous night’s events. Elation he’d brought about the downfall of a real drug ring; sorrow because his impression of Grimus Spalding of a pleasant old man, lay shattered; fear, because the gang might yet decide to get revenge on him, despite what he’d told Plumbert.