by Conrad Mason
“We’re going to talk more about this, mongrel,” said his uncle at last. “Don’t you worry. I never trusted a goblin before, and sure as the sea I’m not starting now. Wait here.”
Grubb stood, shaking, as Mr. Lightly returned to the bar.
He was dead.
He couldn’t hide the package. Mr. Lightly knew every inch of the tavern. He would find it. And when it was discovered …
No, don’t panic. Stay calm. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and counted to ten.
He wasn’t dead. Not yet, anyway.
There was a way out of this.
He turned and scurried on toward the pantry, slipped through the door, and closed it behind him. Casting around in the cramped, gloomy space, he found a large barrel that was almost empty, then heaved at it, pushing it toward the door, the firewater sloshing inside it. His goblin muscles weren’t up to much, and his arms felt as though they might snap at any moment. Finally, though, he managed to get it under the door handle. It wouldn’t keep the door blocked for long, but with luck he wouldn’t need more than a few moments. And Mr. Lightly was busy anyway, talking to the man with the yellow eyes.
Grubb felt like he was in some kind of mad dream. Every action felt unnatural, as if he were a bad actor in a street theater show. But he carried on anyway. He clambered onto a keg of firewater, hopped up on a cask of pickled eels, and hauled himself on top of a large barrel of grog. Above him was a tiny window—too small for a human to squeeze through but big enough for a goblin boy like Grubb.
He paused for a moment. Could he really do this? If he did, he could never come back. That much he knew. His only hope was that he wouldn’t need to. Captain Clagg had said there would be a space for him on his crew. Always room for a smart lad on board. And if Grubb brought him back his package, the captain would be sure to take him on. Wouldn’t he?
“Mongrel?” came Mr. Lightly’s voice. “Hurry up with that firewater.”
You sniveling, sneaking, wretched runt of a grayskin.
His hands shaking, Grubb lifted the catch and pushed the window open. He took a deep breath, spent a moment trying to decide whether to go out forward or backward, and finally squeezed through headfirst. It was the wrong decision. He tumbled out onto the cobbles below, only just managing to throw up his arms in time to protect his head and turn the fall into a roll. He picked himself up, took off his apron, and hurried along the alleyway to the front of the tavern.
Out of nowhere, Grubb was overcome by a surge of emotion. The Legless Mermaid was his home. Or at least, it had been for the last six years, ever since the blackcoats had brought him here and Mr. Lightly had agreed to take him. Ever since he’d left the house with the green front door.
Ever since the night his parents had died.
He paused, panting, at the corner. He took one last look back, through a window into the bar, and …
Grubb found himself staring straight into the eyes of the ginger-haired man. The stranger was watching him, wearing an odd, hungry smile. He didn’t seem surprised to see the tavern boy outside the tavern. It was almost as if he’d been expecting it. A strange thought came into Grubb’s head—he felt like a mouse, looking into the yellow eyes of a cat.
“MONGREL!” came a howl from behind him.
Mr. Lightly had managed to get into the storeroom, and now his head was squeezed through the window, his face blue, his eyes bulging.
“Get back here at ONCE,” he growled. “Don’t you DARE take another step. Don’t you DARE!”
Grubb looked back at the man with the yellow eyes. Somehow, the man’s smile grew even odder, and even hungrier. He winked.
A shiver ran through Grubb’s body, and he turned and raced down the street, faster than he’d ever gone in his life.
Soon the Legless Mermaid was far behind him. But he kept running, his heart pounding, his fingers wrapped tightly around the black velvet package.
In a dusty old workshop on a peaceful street in the Crosstree Quarter, John Boggs holds his breath as he covers the last patch of bare wood with green paint. He sits back to admire his brushwork and sighs happily.
For four years in a row now, Boggs has won the prize for best float in the Pageant of the Sea. The way things are going, he is fully expecting to make it five. Yes, he thinks, allowing himself a little chuckle of pleasure. He can hardly lose.
This year, his centerpiece is a large model of the sea demon, the Maw, as a gigantic green octopus. It’s made out of wood, wire, ropes, and canvas, and is designed so that if you pull on a bit of string, it waves hinged tentacles up and down. Not for nothing is John Boggs known as one of the finest carpenters in Port Fayt.
“She really is a beauty,” sighs his apprentice, an imp called Will. He is standing back, hands on his hips as he admires the sea demon. “I think it’s your best float yet, sir. Folks’ll be terrified. It’ll be just as if the Maw came out of the sea and ran through the streets.”
Boggs grunts. He isn’t good with compliments.
“Town busy today?” he asks, taking bread and cheese from his lunch basket and settling down on a stool.
“Yes, sir. Lot of folks arriving for the festival, I reckon. Mer Way’s looking grand. They’re hanging up them little flags on string. What do you call ’em?”
“Bunting,” supplies Boggs.
“Bunting, that’s right.” Will sits cross-legged among the sawdust on the workshop floor. “No one seems too bothered about that tormenta last night, anyway.”
“Too right, lad,” says Boggs, passing his assistant a hunk of bread and a lump of cheese and biting into his own portion. “And that’s the way it should be. Magical storms … You can’t go getting upset at little things like that. Just superstition, in my book.”
“Is that right, Mr. Boggs?” says someone who isn’t Will.
Boggs is so surprised he drops his cheese and kicks over a flagon of water.
“Blimey,” he says, his voice a croak. “I mean, good day, ma’am.”
He hadn’t heard her come in. He hadn’t the time before either, now that he thinks of it.
“Afternoon, ma’am,” says Will, scrambling to his feet.
The old woman ignores him. She stands motionless in the doorway, draped in the same gray hooded cloak she wore the first time she came to the workshop.
“Is it ready?”
She speaks precisely, sharply. And with a hint of an Old World accent, Boggs realizes. He nods, crosses the workshop floor, and pulls a large dustsheet from the old woman’s commission.
“I followed your instructions, ma’am,” he says. His voice is hoarse. “And I added in the zephyrum rod, like you wanted.”
He doesn’t know what it’s for, this … thing that the old woman wanted him to make. But he knows well enough that zephyrum is a magic metal. And in Port Fayt, the use of magic without a warrant is a serious crime.
The woman approaches the contraption and examines it. She runs her fingers over the gleaming, polished zephyrum, and Boggs almost gasps in shock as he sees how shriveled her hand is. It isn’t the first time that he is glad of the hood she wears so that he doesn’t have to see her face or meet her eyes. He catches sight of Will watching curiously and motions for him to stay quiet.
The old woman stands silently for a moment.
“Good,” she says.
Boggs realizes he has been holding his breath and lets it out in a sigh of relief.
“Excellent,” he says, feeling much calmer already. “We aim to please. Young Will here helped with some of the woodwork. A first-rate apprentice. Run and fetch my account book, eh, Will?”
The imp hurries out through a side door.
“Now, if we may discuss payment … I’m afraid I’ll have to charge a little more than my original estimate. Zephyrum costs an arm and a leg these days, as I’m sure you understand. Because of the League’s sanctions, of course. Old World politics, eh?”
Boggs talks a lot when he is nervous.
“You shall have your
payment,” says the old woman.
She draws out a leather money pouch that looks almost as ancient as she does, takes out a ducat, and holds it out for him. But as he reaches for it, she closes her fingers. Boggs is left, arm half extended, unsure what to do.
“It is strange,” she says dreamily. “Strange how much you care for these useless scraps of metal. Can you eat a ducat?”
It is the most she has ever said to him, and it makes him feel uncomfortable again. He wishes Will would hurry up with the account book.
“Er, no, ma’am,” he says.
“Can you sleep on ducats? Can they keep you warm?”
He says nothing.
“These ducats have sapped your strength, Mr. Boggs. Sucked away your willpower. They have blinded you.”
With a rustle of her robes, she tosses the coin, spinning, into the air. It rises almost to the roof, falls, and stops. Hovering, level with the old woman’s face.
Sweat breaks out on Boggs’s brow. He feels dizzy.
“Oh, Thalin. But you can’t … I mean, do you have a warrant to use magic?”
“But you shall have your ducats,” says the old woman, as if she hasn’t heard him. She is watching the coin rotating lazily in nothingness.
“You shall have them all, Mr. Boggs.”
The last thing Mr. Boggs ever sees is the strange sight of coins rising from the pouch like a shoal of fish through water, some old and dull, some new and shiny, and then speeding toward him, fast, faster, faster …
Faster than musket balls.
Thunk!
The knife slammed into the target, buried halfway to the hilt, just to the right of the bull’s-eye.
Thunk!
Thunk!
Two more, forming a neat triangle with the first.
Tabitha Mandeville tied back her long blue hair, one eye closed, frowning at the target. She tossed her last knife up in the air, watched it turn, glittering like a minnow, and caught it by the blade. She spun like a dancer, once, twice, and let it fly …
THUNK!
Bull’s-eye. Tabitha nodded to herself, still frowning, and went to collect her weapons.
“Nicely done, Tabs,” said Frank.
“Aye,” said Paddy. “Remind me not to nick your sandwiches again.”
The Demon’s Watch were lounging in the shade outside Bootles’ Pie Shop. The street was cozy, cobbled, and quiet except for the occasional whine of a messenger fairy zipping past, the squeak of the pie shop sign swinging in the breeze, and the distant surge of the sea.
It was blissful, and Tabitha was bored out of her mind.
She sighed as she headed back to throw the knives again. The other watchmen seemed to be enjoying themselves all right. Frank and Paddy, the troll twins, were sitting around an old barrel with Hal, playing triominoes. The twins were mostly too busy telling jokes and punching each other to pay much attention to the game. Hal, on the other hand, was silent, studying his tiles so hard he barely blinked.
When Tabitha had first met him—a pale, mousy-haired, bespectacled young man—she hadn’t been able to believe that someone so skinny and nervous-looking could be a watchman. That was before she’d seen his magic.
Old Jon the elf sat a little way apart from the youngsters, leaning against the wall with his long, white hair spread over his bony shoulders like a shawl. He was smoking a pipe and staring into the distance.
“Got your costume sorted out for the pageant, Tabs?” asked Paddy as she passed. He reached over to ruffle her hair with a heavy green hand.
Tabitha squirmed away. The twins knew how much the hair ruffling annoyed her. Which was exactly why they kept doing it.
“Hands off,” she snapped. “And no, I haven’t.”
“Jon?” tried Paddy’s brother, Frank. “What about you?”
Old Jon smiled, shook his head, and went back to his smoking and staring. It took a lot more than that to get a word out of Old Jon.
Tabitha tried to ignore the twins and concentrate on the target. She hefted a knife and sent it whistling through the air.
Thunk!
“How about you, Hal?” asked Paddy. “I bet you’ve got something special up those magical sleeves of yours, eh?”
The magician frowned, took off his round spectacles, and rubbed at them with a handkerchief.
“On the contrary, I doubt I will be dressing up at all. It’s a little … childish, don’t you think? Not to mention, undignified.”
Frank groaned and held his head in his hands.
“Well, aren’t you lot a ray of sunshine? Maw’s teeth! The pageant’s in three days, so you’d better start coming up with some good costume ideas. Maybe you should all go together as a big bunch of sour grapes.”
Tabitha rolled her eyes and threw the second knife.
Thunk!
Mrs. Bootle, the twins’ mother, bustled out of the doorway and set down a huge tray of crab sandwiches on a barrel.
“Don’t want you starving,” she said.
Mrs. Bootle was big, even for a troll, but she looked like an imp compared to her two towering sons.
“Thank you, Mrs. Bootle.”
“Wait till you try these,” said Paddy. “They’ll blow your breeches off.”
“Ma makes the best crab sandwich in Port Fayt.”
“In the Middle Islands!”
“In the Ebony Ocean!”
“Stop it, you two,” chortled Mrs. Bootle, obviously not wanting them to stop at all.
“What about your costumes, then?” Tabitha asked the twins, when Mrs. Bootle had disappeared back inside. “What have you got that’s so great?”
The trolls looked at each other and tapped their bony green noses, mirror images of each other.
“It’s a secret …” said Frank.
“But it’s going to be brilliant.”
“Have a guess.”
Tabitha frowned in mock concentration and threw her last knife.
THUNK!
“A pair of giant clowns?”
She dodged behind the crab sandwich barrel as Frank lunged for her. It was just a playful swipe, and he wasn’t trying to hurt her, of course, but you had to be careful. After all, he was a troll, and at least twice as big as her.
“Ha-ha, very funny,” said Paddy, picking out the largest of the sandwiches as Tabitha slumped down onto a spare stool. “You won’t be laughing when we win the prize for best costumes.”
Hal finished polishing his spectacles and laid down his last triomino.
“Again?” complained Frank. “Are you cheating, Hal? You do know spells aren’t allowed in triominoes?”
“Magicians never cheat.”
“Walrus dung.”
“Charming. Perhaps once you’ve spent five years at the Azurmouth Academy studying how to manipulate natural laws with the power of the mind we could discuss the correct usage of—”
“Why is nothing happening?” said Tabitha.
They all looked at her.
“I mean, you’d think something would be up. This is the Festival of the Sea, for Thalin’s sake. What’s wrong with these criminals? I’m fed up with watching you lot play triominoes. I want to catch some smugglers. Or some thieves, at least.”
She rubbed at the shark tattoo on her arm. It was fresh and blue, newly inked and still a little sore. The mark of the Demon’s Watch. She’d lived with Newton for practically her whole life now, and she’d been at every Demon’s Watch meeting since her fifth birthday. But now she was finally a real member, with a tattoo and a blue coat of her own, it seemed like he was determined to give her the most boring jobs he could think of.
Besides, the most exciting thing they’d done in a month was arresting a toothless, hundred-year-old elf, fresh off a ship from the Old World, with fifty griffin feathers hidden in her knickers. She hadn’t even put up a fight.
Old Jon laid down his pipe.
“You’ll get your chance, Tabitha,” he said, in his calm, deep voice. “Soon enough.”
“You
should be pleased, Tabs,” said Paddy, spraying out morsels of crab. “No smugglers means we’re doing our jobs right.”
“I know, but—”
“Anyway,” said Frank, “Newt will sniff something out. He always does. Tell you what, how about we take a stroll down to the harbor, see if we can pick up any leads ourselves? Maybe there’ll be some pickpockets we can—”
A tiny figure dropped out of the air and slammed into the triominoes, sending them clattering onto the cobblestones. Slik. He sat down on top of the barrel, amid the wreckage of the game, and giggled.
“Hey,” said Paddy. “We hadn’t finished.”
Slik blew a raspberry.
“Well, you shouldn’t be sitting around playing stupid games all day, anyway.”
“Where’s Newton?” asked Tabitha.
“Who knows? He was at Spottington’s Velvethouse when I left him.”
“Is there any news?”
“ ’Course not. I’ve just come for your sparkling conversation.”
Paddy flicked a triomino tile at the fairy, forcing him to dodge out of the way.
“All right, all right! Captain Newton says you’re to get dressed for the Grand Party and meet him outside Spottington’s at dusk. Armed.”
Frank punched Tabitha on the arm, a little harder than she would have liked.
“What did I tell you? Something’s up, I can feel it.”
“Dusk,” said Paddy thoughtfully. “That gives us more than enough time to show Hal how to really play this game.”
“Stupid ugly trolls,” Slik muttered, and took off before the Bootle twins could respond.
For the first time that day, Tabitha grinned. It was happening at last. Her first real adventure as a watchman. She picked up a crab sandwich and bit into it hungrily. Frank and Paddy were right. It was the best she had ever tasted.
Grubb wandered the streets in a daze. He passed Fayters hanging up gold and purple bunting in Mer Way. He stood for a while in Thalin Square, watching the merchants coming and going from the town hall in their white wigs and fancy coats, wondering if one of them might help him but knowing that they wouldn’t. He asked a greengrocer if he could spare an apple, and the greengrocer told him to get lost before he called the blackcoats.
