Crusader

by Andrew Smith

  “I don’t know where else he might be,” said Mme. Rumella despairingly.

  “Back to the shop?” Benny suggested.

  “Barring a more useful idea,” said Mme. Rumella and they all turned to leave.

  * * * *

  As they entered the shop, Leila voiced a question that had been bothering her. “I know we’re watching the Mulhoy- and it makes sense- but are we doing anything to find the other evil types?”

  “Pet, we’ve returned from doing that,” said Mme. Rumella, frankly a bit puzzled.

  “I know, but watching the Mulhoy and breaking into the mansion and stuff, they were both for Lionel. What about Delilah Runestone or that other dark sorcerer guy?”

  “The thing about dark sorcerers,” said Mary from a chair where no-one had noticed her, “is that they know how to disappear.”

  “Oh. Hi.”

  “Hello. Since none of us know where Delilah lives, it’s nearly impossible to track her,” Mary continued.

  “Sounds like a challenge,” said Hunter.

  “Good luck,” said Mary.

  “Luckily for us,” Mme. Rumella added, “Wyyla the sprite knows where Damon McLenen lives, and in fact is watching him for us.”

  “As for Ruin,” Mary concluded; “he would be the most likely to kill a person if he so much as suspected that he was being followed.”

  “Oh,” said Leila, defeated, and crashed into the nearest comfortable chair.

  “By the way,” Mary said, “Van is taking another shift at the Mulhoy, but he would ask that another one of us watch it tomorrow, since I was there all day, and he and Grace have split two night shifts.”

  “I fear I’ve been neglecting the shop,” said Mme. Rumella. “Benny?”

  Benny, who knew instantly that he was going to do it, groaned.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll come hang out, keep you company,” said Leila. “I would do it myself, but I’m next to useless.”

  “Leila!” Mme. Rumella cried in protest

  “Unless you need a reasonably accurate guess on the date of something old and don’t have time to wait for a carbon dating test,” she added

  Mme. Rumella sighed resignedly and offered to make tea.

  * * * *

  Benny and Leila rose early the next morning and headed center and round to the Mulhoy Institute. There, they were greeted by bleary-eyed Grace Owen. Benny summoned up a second chair for Leila to sit upon and the settled in for a long day of watching. Around midday, Mme. Rumella ducked quickly over with a steaming soup of winter vegetables and a coffee for each of them.

  “Perfect thing for a fall day out,” she said. “I’m sorry I can’t stay, but it’s frightfully busy back at the shop.”

  “We understand,” said Leila. “Thanks for the food.”

  “Anytime, pet, anytime,” said Mme. Rumella as she wandered away.

  “Check it out,” said Leila as they ate. “There, in the third floor hallway.” She pointed and Benny saw there a man and woman, berating each other and gesticulating wildly with hands full of what were hopefully not important papers. “Lovers’ tiff?”

  “Professional disagreement,” Benny proclaimed.

  “Care to wager one of those little silver cube things on it?” Leila asked as the argument continued.

  “You’re on.”

  The woman slapped the man with her paper-free hand.

  “I think you’ve just won,” he said.

  “Unless he broke her favorite coffee mug. We academic-types are very attached to our mugs,” she added.

  They chatted idly for the rest of the day. Nothing so eventful as the fight happened down in the Mulhoy, at least nothing that the pair could see from their vantage point. The autumn air grew steadily chillier as the sun over their building lowered itself steadily down. The Mulhoy was maybe an hour or so earlier in the day, and it was barely sunset there when the building which Benny and Leila sat atop was completely dark. “Great for skulking,” Leila remarked, and Benny agreed with her. There was a strange scraping, rustling sort of noise as Grace Owen struggled up the fire escape in a heavy coat.

  She pulled herself onto the ceiling and collapsed for a moment, breathing hard.

  “Someone really needs to teach you how to fly,” Benny told her.

  “Don’t I know,” Grace gasped.

  “There’s a little left over soup here, if you want it,” he offered.

  “That’d be great,” she said, not moving. “So how’ve you all been? Good, I hope.”

  “We’re fine,” said Leila. “Why are you back? Shouldn’t Van be taking a shift?”

  “He told me he had a headache,” Grace answered, finally picking herself off the ceiling. “Personally I think he has a date, but he never tells me.”

  “Why not?”

  “My guess is because I tease him mercilessly every time,” said Grace.

  “That would explain it,” said Leila. “Anyway, we’re going to jet if you don’t mind.”

  “No problem,” Grace replied.

  Leila smiled. “I’m so happy that I’ve finally found someone who knows what I mean by that.”

  “This place does take some getting used to,” said Grace.

  Leila and Benny set off back to the tea shop. Mary, Hunter, and Voz were all there. Voz lost another chess match to Mary while Hunter habitually polished his gun.

  “Nothing?” Mme. Rumella asked from her place behind the bar

  “Nothing,” Leila sighed. “Maybe Grace will have better luck than we did,” she said with false hope.

  * * * *

  Clement Jones set down his notes and gave the Standard of Uruk an appraising look. The man, the strange, Count Dracula-looking fellow who never bothered to introduce himself, definitely seemed convinced of its importance. Clement had asked for information: where the man had gotten it, why he wanted it translated. Clement told him that most of the time, when someone found an ancient letter or tablet, or in this case cylinder, inscribed with ancient words, usually it was something mundane. Letters to friends, sales records, some interesting dynastic history if you were lucky. But his kidnapper, when he would appear, kept mumbling mostly-incoherent phrases like ‘will change everything’ and ‘life and death’. That, and threatening Clement with bodily harm.

  Clement was by all accounts a low-key sort of person, but he was beginning to get irritated. He hadn’t had a shower or a decent meal in days, he was in the middle of examining some very unusual inscriptions on some Etruscan statuary, and he was getting absolutely nowhere with this stupid, duress-full project.

  He took off his glasses to give his eyes a rest and leaned back in his chair. It made a precarious squeaking noise. From outside, Clement suddenly heard voices. He slipped over and pressed his ear to the crack in the door (which despite its fair width he had found impossible to pry). His captor was speaking with someone. And he sounded very distressed. Clement was ambivalent. He enjoyed his captor’s discomfort, but worried it would roll down onto him.

  “He says he can’t do it without going back to the institute,” his captor said.

  “It’s dangerous. They’re bound to be watching the place. What if they catch you?” The other voice sounded darker, more dangerous, and a touch angry.

  His captor replied with a bit more backbone than before. “I can handle them.”

  “I doubt it,” came the other voice.

  “We’ll be careful,” his captor hissed. “But if you want this thing done, we must go,” he pronounced.

  “Fine,” the other voice replied. “Do it. I’ll provide...a little distraction,” said the other, euphemistically.

  Clement frowned as he pondered that last announcement. He pondered the identity of the ‘they’ to whom the unknown other had referred, and what he meant by ‘distraction’. It didn’t sound pleasant. At the sound of footsteps, Clement retreated to his chair.

  “Come on,” his captor ordered. “We’re going.”

  * * * *

  Wyyla, in her normal,
barely macroscopic size, perched on Damon McLenen’s windowsill, wishing she needed to sleep more hours of the day just so that she could have an excuse not to be here. Keeping watch was unendingly boring. She raised one tiny hand and considered going to a manicurist.

  Below, at a wrought iron garden table, with matching chair, Delilah Runestone sat, thinking similar thoughts, with the exception of the part about the manicure. Nobody had bothered filling her in on how much of intrigue was waiting.

  At the same time, she felt the increasing pressure that often accompanied a decrease in options. She hadn’t returned to Suerte’s place since her encounter with his private security force. She didn’t dare return to the city Hall of Records, since it was obvious that the place was monitored by his people. If anymore communiqués had come in from his people in the field, Delilah had failed to find and intercept them.

  So she came here, and looked on from somewhere outside the range of sudden bursts of blue flame, or so she hoped. She had been wondering what Damon was doing out by St. Vrain Manor. The sinking feeling in her stomach whenever she thought about it suggested to her that it wasn’t a coincidence. He certainly did his best to be conspicuous. But did he think any harm would come to me by drawing attention, or was he just being a jerk? That certainly wouldn’t be out of character.

  Above, the bluish light came forth once more from the window. Delilah noticed it was not a direct ray, but a more diffuse glow. Slowly, she rose from the ground to peer in through the window. She cursed the cabinet doors that obscured the object from view, and then gasped at the sight within. Wyyla perked up and glanced around for the source of the sound. Delilah made herself very still and the sprite turned back to the window.

  Damon McLenen, in true dark sorcerer fashion, was laughing maniacally as comets of white light with blue tails swirled around the room, apparently under his control. He held out his hand, and one leapt into it. He laughed a little louder, the and Delilah was suddenly very ashamed of being a dark sorceress, and especially of knowing Damon. She hoped she never looked like that, even when she was messing around with Alta-Oscuras, the little-known, highest dark forces.

  She narrowed her eyes at the sorcery moving itself around the room within. Something about didn’t feel right. It was unfamiliar. It was certainly no Alta-Oscura she had experienced before. Perhaps it was an Alta-Signa from another order... Or the unknown power contained within the Standard. She cursed despite herself. Wyyla looked around again, then fluttered away, centerwise. Delilah steeled herself and sank back down to the ground.

  Wyyla flew like mad. There was something new about that sorcery, something different, but still it was dark, and Wyyla was frightened. She reached Mme. Rumella’s in record time and tapped on the glass. No-one noticed her. She grew to two feet tall and pulled the door open.

  “Wyyla, what news?” Mme. Rumella asked as the sprite failed to pull herself onto one of the bar stools.

  Wyyla shrank back to her natural size and fluttered up, explaining what she had seen.

  “That sure makes it sound like he has the Standard,” said Leila, once Wyyla was finished explaining. “But I thought Lionel had it.”

  “So did I, pet. And he may. This could be something else entirely.”

  “Or they’re in it together,” Voz suggested.

  “I doubt it,” said Mary

  “Maybe the woman at the Mulhoy just gave you a bad description?” Leila suggested uncertainly.

  “Entirely possible. Either way, we should keep an eye on it. A dark sorcerer with an unfamiliar power is... Unfortunate,” she decided to say.

  “Amazing how this new information fails to solve anything,” Leila said acidly. “We need to know more if we’re going to figure out what the hell is going on. Maybe I could go to the museum and, oh, who am I kidding? There’s nothing there.”

  The others didn’t comment. Hunter and Voz began to whisper back and forth.

  “Do you think?” she asked. Hunter nodded. “We’ll be back in a little while,” Voz announced, and they exited.

  “What do you think they’re up to?” Mary asked.

  “I don’t know,” said Mme. Rumella, “but it’s bound not to be constructive.”

  “Alright, what about this,” said Benny suddenly. “Lionel, the has-been, and Damon McLenen, the relatively minor sorcerer, go in together on their bid for power. They hear about the Standard: Lionel knows about this ancient stuff, right? They find it, and abduct the Mulhoy linguist to help them use it. They break back into the Mulhoy while we’re watching it, with the cunning use of disguise, get what they need, and now they’ve accessed the Standard.”

  “I didn’t see Lionel at the house,” came Wyyla’s alto voice

  “Maybe Damon disposed of him now that he has the Standard and doesn’t need his help any more.”

  “It would explain why Lionel’s places are both abandoned,” Leila chimed in

  “I don’t know,” said Mme. Rumella. “It doesn’t sound right.”

  “I like it,” said Benny. “It’s all intrigue and betrayal. Which is fun.”

  “Right,” said Mme. Rumella absently. “Fun.”

  “Did anyone hear that?” Wyyla asked.

  * * * *

  The night was chilly. Grace hugged her coat to her body and for once was thankful for her thick head of curls, which in the humidity could often prevent her from walking through narrower doorways. She wondered what the air was like by the Mulhoy. She had heard it was from Africa. It was bound to be warmer there, but then she might not be able to see the approach of suspect persons.

  The girl Van had been chasing exited, looking all around her. It was hard to see in this light at this distance, but Grace believed that she was clutching her Focus, sweeping it this way and that. The few people still there after dark had all done the same thing.

  Within, the janitor swept through the place, whisking away dust and debris with the tip of his wand. The fact that cleaning took so little time here was one of the things that endeared the Woven City to Grace the most. A swarm of crumpled papers from waste baskets hovered on the air behind him. In a few minutes he was done, and exited the building, as watchful as anyone else.

  It was only a few minutes later that she heard the sound of footsteps. She cleared the woolen cap and hair away from ears, the better to listen. One pair of footsteps was uneven, as though the person were being pushed along. There was a sudden pressure in Grace’s chest as she fought to keep her breath even. And quiet.

  In the alleyway between the Mulhoy and the building Grace was currently atop, a man in a cape, Lionel the Necromancer, from Mary’s description, and the missing linguist appeared. The necromancer was giving the usual warnings about not trying anything. Grace always considered that a bit too broad of an order.

  The building was locked, but Clement was allowed the momentary use of his Focus to open it. Grace scrambled down the fire escape, trying to make as little noise as possible. She moved quickly through the shadows as Clement and Lionel entered the building. As they entered, she rushed forward to grab the door and launched the red Peeler flare. She hoped that her compatriots at the tea shop would notice it as well.

  In the normal world, some of the lights would probably be off, but the everlasting flames that Grace so enjoyed in her own office afforded her little cover. Lionel and his hostage were ahead of her, heading to the right-hand wing of the building. Grace ducked to the left and to the nearest short hallway, deftly removing her thick coat and cap. She saw Lionel turn and look in her direction and pressed herself to the wall. If he noticed her, he was letting her go, for the moment.

  Grace listened carefully. Unless she missed her guess, they were heading down the nearest stairwell. She peered, cautious, round the corner to find the lobby abandoned. “Time to creep,” she whispered to herself, and proceeded to creep across the room. She passed behind the receptionist’s desk towards the imaginary languages wing. A quick look revealed an empty stairwell. Grace slipped down as quietly as she cou
ld. Paying more attention to the doorway than the stair in front of her, her boot slipped and formed a loud click that echoed up and down the stairwell. She mouthed a dirty word to herself and dove through the stairwell door into the office across the hall, which had thankfully been left unlocked.

  Apparently, she had garnered the attention she had hoped to avoid. A distant voice said demanded something indistinguishable, and an accompanying set of footsteps started towards her. She clutched her wand close and crouched below the desk, which had been set so the occupant would be facing the door.

  The doorknob turned. As quietly as possible, Grace pictured an office down the hall and whispered the Mandarin word ‘fireworks’. An explosion of light and color lit the hallway. She could see the boots in the doorway. They weren’t leaving.

  “A distraction. Obviously someone nearby thinks I’m an idiot. I do wonder where they might be hiding...”

  Grace aimed her wand at Lionel’s shins and whispered the words for the force-of-light spell. A sphere of lava-like redness fired from her wand and struck. Grace fervently wished she could do the more powerful versions of the spell, and fired twice more as the necromancer cried out in pain. She jostled herself out from under the desk, avoiding minor head injury by virtue of her cushion of curls, and fired another bolt. She had hoped to hit him in the wrist, but instead hit on the upper arm. Luckily, it had a similar effect. Lionel cried out as the strike knocked the feeling from his arm and it, and his Focus, dropped. Grace barreled out of the room knocking him back. She didn’t think to pick up his Focus, just charged away down the hall. Her fireworks were trailing off, having set fire to the carpet and picture frames. The fire suppression system, in the form of randomly-appearing globes of water, burst into action. The flames fizzled out and smoke and steam filled the hallway.

  Grace ran through the cloud and emerged to find a bespectacled man peering intently into it, trying to see what was happening. “Clement?”

  “Yes...”

  “I’m Grace Owen. Let’s run away together,” she said, grabbing his arm and pulling him away. “Are those sorcerous ropes?” Grace asked, indicating the articles that bound his wrists.