Aethersmith (Book 2) (9 page)

Merciful One, dimples!

Soria let her eyes sweep around the small studio. Every
space along the walls was taken up by paintings, not hung, but rather leaning
against the walls. Most were portraits, but a few landscapes and seascapes were
mixed in. On a whim, and with nothing better to occupy her time, Soria looked
into the aether. The dashing Mr. Harwick seemed ordinary enough as Sources go,
and the artist girl seemed robust and healthy, but nothing special. She noticed
a necklace that the girl wore. It was some cheap jade thing that they sold far
and wide in Khesh and shipped by the crate to foreign lands where they would
fetch better prices. It was the sort of stuff jade-workers gave their
apprentices to practice on. The artist was wearing one that had a bit of aether
in it.

Where did you learn to do
that
little trick,
Brannis?

After an uncomfortable half hour of forcing herself
repeatedly to try to relax, the sitting was finally at an end. Tomas Harwick
was overjoyed at his likeness and promised to send a servant by to collect it
later that day. Soria had muttered some platitudes to keep in character.

“So, Lady Silverweave, thank you for waiting. How may I be
of service?” the artist asked cheerily.

You can tell me where Brannis is and save me the trouble
of beating the information out of you!

“I was hoping you might paint a simple portrait for me,”
Soria said instead. She reached into her handbag and removed a scrap of paper.
It was the bounty notice of Kyrus Hinterdale, with the written part at the bottom
torn off, leaving just the sketched image. “I have made inquiries and I have
come to understand you knew the subject of this crude likeness.”

Soria saw the girl’s smile falter. “Aye, milady. Put it away
please, if you would not mind so much. I could paint Expert Hinterdale from
memory well enough, should I wish to. If you do not mind my asking, what is he
to you?” the artist asked.

Aha! The first sign of jealousy, eh? He was mine before
he knew you existed.

Soria had done her scouting, though, and had everything
prepared. “My father is a dear friend of Expert Davin Chartler, to whom Expert
Hinterdale was once apprenticed. I understand that they were quite close, and
Expert Davin has taken hard the awful news to have come out about Expert Kyrus.
The portrait would be a gift to him.”

Abbiley’s suspicious demeanor melted like chocolate left
under the summer sun. “Oh, that is so kind of you.”

I have a talking duck I can sell you as well,
Soria
thought.
How does this girl run a business being this naive?

“Have you any news of Expert Hinterdale that you could
share? Any word at all might be some comfort,” Soria crooned, hamming up her
performance now that she realized how easily the girl was taken in.

“No, but if you must know, he did admit to me that there was
some truth to what they accused him of,” the girl said sheepishly. “Not that I
believe for a moment that he meant anyone harm, of course.”

“If you believe he is a witch, why would you not believe he
killed two men and escaped with a pirate?” Soria prodded, having heard the same
rumors and tales as most folk about the night Kyrus made off with one of the
navy’s finest ships, reportedly in the company of Denrik Zayne.

“I am sure he had nothing to do with that,” the artist girl
said, raising her voice. “He might have escaped, but he did not do the rest of
that awful stuff.”

“I think it just might be possible that you did not know him
as well as you thought. If you truly ever loved him, he could tell you that all
that happened is true, and it would change nothing. Consider for the moment
that every bit of what people say about him is true. Consider that he killed
men who wished him ill and took the only means of escape at hand, making
allegiance with a pirate. Could you still love him?” Soria pressed, forgetting
to keep the Kheshi out of her Acardian. Abbiley seemed disinclined to notice.

“Kyrus isn’t like that! He told me that he had dreams of
being a knight,” Abbiley said.

“Then he wishes to be like that. That is the sort of thing
knights do.” Soria stabbed the verbal dagger into Abbiley’s heart. Feeling a
twinge of remorse, she made a small alteration to her plan. She took some coins
from her handbag. “Here is a thousand eckles,” she told Abbiley, having no idea
how much portraits cost and guessing that it ought to be enough. “Have the
finished work sent to Davin Chartler, care of the palace in Golis. Paint Kyrus
as you remember him, not as you have discovered him to be.”

Soria was sweating and dizzy when she left the studio. She
had never expected the girl to have any useful information about Kyrus
Hinterdale’s whereabouts, but once she had learned that Kyrus had courted her,
Soria had to meet her.

You obviously learned some things from my Brannis, Mr.
Hinterdale; you are not figuring out magic all on your own, I would wager. You
also obviously have a lot left to learn from him, though, if
that
girl
was the best you could find here.

Chapter 6 - Unfettered

“You sure you oughtta be doing that?” Tod asked, a note of
concern in his voice as he peered over his companion’s shoulder.

“You gotta listen close, I think. He says what he means,
real exact like,” Jodoul replied, twisting a thin metal rod into the end of the
little lock. “He gave us the coffer and said there was thirty lions in it. We
find the goblet, we get it back, he says. ‘I do not care how; just do what you
need to do.’” Jodoul mimicked the warlock’s voice as best he could. “We gotta
get our goal, see, and he won’t care what we did.”

“I don’t think that meant breakin’ his coffer,” Tod said.

“What’s a coffer? Bit o’ wood and iron. He wants that goblet
what got stole from the cupboards where they keep the fancy stuff for them
feasts. I’m getting the idea that Warlock Rashan ain’t the sort to muck about
on small stuff like a broken coffer. Besides, how we gonna spend the thirty
lions finding it if it’s locked up inside? We ain’t even counted it.”

“I’m pretty sure gold goblets is small stuff when you’re
emperor,” Tod said, attempting to bring some perspective to the conversation.
“And how you figure he might short us on just thirty lions? Prob’ly got himself
a whole cellar full o’ little coffers like that, filled with lions.”

“He ain’t emperor, he’s regent,” Jodoul said, breaking out
in a grin as the lock gave way and the coffer popped open. The coffer contained
thirty gold lions, just as promised. “Let’s go buy us some answers.”

The two spent a good portion of the day talking to old
acquaintances of the less savory variety. Few men got conscripted into the army
if they had a stable trade and enough coin to do all their business in the
marketplace. Neither Tod nor Jodoul had been much for apprenticeships or day
labor. Tod was from Naran Port originally, and had earned much of his coin at
dice and reselling “lost” valuables at a small profit. Jodoul was from Kadris,
and used to run errands for the sort of ruffians that thought they had elevated
themselves above the less “sophisticated” class of scum. That was before a
misplaced delivery had run him afoul of his former employers, and he sought
refuge in the spear-and-mail of the Imperial Army as a volunteer; the army
never frowned on willing conscripts.

Most folk who had known either of the two had been
well-enough informed to know that they were working for the warlock, so getting
anyone to talk candidly ate into their supply of the warlock’s lions rapidly.
They spoke of old times and common friends, inquired after the health of
relatives and offered condolences when hearing of former comrades who had not
survived their last job. When the subject turned to practical matters, suddenly
a man who had once known where half the goods in the city were heading would
not so much as admit to seeing the sun yesterday—“The sun? Never seen it. You
got the wrong guy.” It was not that Tod and Jodoul were armed. Their short
swords and daggers would avail them little if anyone really wanted them brought
to harm. It was that they were now playing for the side of the law.

At length, they found someone who did not know who either of
them was, and they were able to at least learn that the goblet had been fenced
through someone named Derrel Three-Finger. Then the three-fingered thief had
sold them the name of his buyer for five lions, leaving them eighteen after
their fruitless efforts chatting with former associates. They were looking for
Foxblade.

“Rotten luck. What say we head north, maybe throw in with
Megrenn?” Tod jested.

Foxblade was head of the Grey Hoods, who ran an unfair share
of Kadris’s less reputable enterprises.

“Naw. Anything goes, right?” Jodoul asked. “I got an idea.”
He beckoned for Tod to follow him.

Tod paused for a moment, brow furrowing in thought. “I got a
better one.”

The two exchanged suspicious glances, daring the other to
divulge his idea first.

In the end, neither told his plan, but they went off
together preparing for them nonetheless. They were already near enough to
markets that Jodoul’s side trip was short. He purchased some smoke vials,
caltrops, and a small jar of mint jelly.

“All right, you got me,” Tod admitted. “I see what ya might
want the smokies and caltrops for, if’n you’re thinkin’ this is gonna be a
snatch ’n’ run. I’ll be sliced six ways if I know what the jelly’s for though.”

Jodoul had them duck into a side alley where there were
fewer eyes about. He drew his dagger and dipped it in the jelly. “Stuff looks
like spider venom stuff the Olaks use, if ya spread it on thin. My old man
showed me once. To most folk, it’d just seem like jelly, but a smart fella like
Foxblade’ll know about spider venom.” Jodoul dipped his finger in the jelly and
put it in his mouth. “Tastes loads better, don’t cost hardly nothin’, and won’t
rot yer finger off if’n you nick yourself.”

Tod glanced down the alley in both directions, gave a little
half smile, and knelt down to pry up a pair of cobblestones from the streets.
Keeping his back to the main thoroughfare, he drew his own blade and scratched
at the surface of one of the stones, then the other. He then drew a small flask
from inside his coat, and upset it over the two stones, washing them clean of
dirt with his fingers. There was a strong smell of alcohol.

“Hey now! That’s a waste o’ good firewine,” Jodoul
protested.

“Aww, cram it,” Tod replied, not looking up from his work.
“I’ll pinch some more when we get back to the palace, leastwise if’n we live.”

Finding Foxblade was not so difficult. He had folk all over
Kadris working for him, from the dockside to the markets and back again. It was
easier bribing one of his underlings to get a meeting than it was to find out
about the goblet in the first place. Tod nabbed a street mouse aged no more
than ten winters, and told him he would get dragged to the warlock himself if
he did not lead the way to the thief’s lair. Folk were scared of the warlock,
seeing as he had executed three members of the Inner Circle as traitors and the
Inner Circle was a bunch that none wanted to cross. Considering Tod and Jodoul
still both wore imperial uniforms, the threat seemed likely enough; the warlock
had his hand in far more of the city’s affairs than previous rulers had ever
seemed to. Reluctantly the boy led them down to the sewer level of the city.

Kadris’s sewers were a thoroughfare in their own right.
Despite magical wards preserving the buildings, the city was over six thousands
summers old, and had been rebuilt in whole or in part a number of times. The
ground beneath the great metropolis was not entirely firm, and over time the
city slowly sank; it was hundreds of summers before anyone would notice a
change, but the city’s forefathers had hundreds to spare. As the city was
pushed down into the soil, buildings were filled in, streets walled off and
turned into new sewers, and new construction would proceed atop. Thus, when Tod
and Jodoul walked down what appeared much like the siding of a main road, it
most certainly once had been exactly that.

Various groups made their homes in the layers underneath
Kadris. The level more immediately below the city’s surface was foul, but
largely habitable. Its streets were wetted with filth, and runoff from storms,
but many buildings of the lower levels had been cleared out and repurposed,
sharing the underworld with the cellars of more respectable establishments on
the topside, and often having passages leading from the world of merchants to
the world of thieves—and only the foolish saw the two as such different creatures.
Brothels, gambling dens, smugglers, mercenaries, assassins, and simple thieves
shared space below, with room enough that territorial disputes were rare.

The largest hazard faced by the subterranean citizens of
Kadris were the wardkeepers. The sewers and sub-structure needed maintenance,
and the Imperial Circle sent sorcerers about to make sure nothing got too badly
out of shape. Folk who lived below got to learn which wardkeepers would share
an ale or friendly conversation and which ones were best not to trifle with. By
unspoken agreement, the wardkeepers were off limits to all manner of
harassment; the last time one had been so much as wounded in the sewers, a
dozen sorcerers and a hundred guardsmen had been dispatched to clear a wide
swath of the tunnels of all inhabitants.

They saw no wardkeepers, though, as the young thief led them
through the meandering underground city. Folk occasionally passed on one dark
errand or another, in both the literal and figurative sense. Torches and
lanterns dotted the streets here and there, along with bits of magic for light,
but mostly they found their way by vague shadow. Tod was surprised the boy had
not tried to bolt and lose himself in the darkness; there would have been
little recourse for the two guardsmen if their little guide managed to get more
than a pace away and quickly change direction. The stone streets echoed with
their footsteps, which would make it nearly impossible to track him by sound.
Combined with the darkness, the boy was only a quick twist free of Tod’s grip
from vanishing on them.

After a time, they came to a building that had once been
part of the tournament grounds some several hundred years earlier. While the
exploits of knights, archers, and gladiators would have taken place in the open
air, all about the grounds themselves were seating for spectators, preparation
areas for competitors, armories, storerooms, kitchens, stables, and offices for
administrators. Foxblade’s Grey Hoods had excavated out most of the old
structure for their own use as a headquarters. While the thieves’ reputation
was dark and sinister, the spot they made for themselves as a home was anything
but. Once they were let inside, Tod and Jodoul were met with a comforting
amount of light and a strong scent of incense that did a fair job masking the
smell of human filth, both from the sewers and from the residents of the Grey
Hoods’ abode.

The monolithic guards within the main hall took over escort
duties from the rather relieved juvenile street-thief. There was a brief mention
of a warlock and a message, and two grumbling Grey Hoods took them within
Foxblade’s sanctum. Mention of the warlock scared folks. No one was sure quite
how far he would go to dispatch petty nuisances; the dark parts of the city
were quieter than in the days before his coming, taking care to remain out of
even his peripheral vision. Tod and Jodoul knew that the mention of who sent
them likely saved them a knife in the gut, and they followed Foxblade’s lackeys
through the complex, grateful for their uniforms that day.

Foxblade’s offices had once been the retreat for the royal
family when they were in attendance at tournaments. Outdoor competitions were
most often held in the warm summer months; such traditions had changed little
since the ancient tournament grounds had been the center of Kadrin festivities.
Another fact that had changed little over the centuries was that as one grew
more powerful and influential, one grew less tolerant of being stranded out in
the summer heat. The suite of rooms was lavish, though aged. Hand-painted
stonework was chipped and flaking, but still showed splashes of the color and
beauty of an older Kadris.

Foxblade himself sat behind a much newer desk of dark,
polished oak. He was a pudgy man, with chipmunk cheeks and eyes twisted into a
permanently annoyed and suspicious expression. He wore a grey square of cloth
tied about his head to obscure his (likely receded) hairline. His fat fingers
sported rings of gold and silver, with many colors of jewels among the stones
they held. He puffed absently at a pipe made from the twisting horn of a ram.
It was hard to picture him as the nimble sell-sword who had earned the nickname
“Foxblade.”

“Spit it. I don’t have all day. What’s this about the
warlock havin’ a message for me?” Foxblade demanded without preamble. If not
his body, at least his voice seemed both quick and sharp.

“He sent us here, yeah,” Jodoul replied, stalling as his
eyes scanned the shelves about the room to see if he could spot the stolen
goblet among the myriad gaudy trophies the thieves had stored all around the
room.

“You boys gonna try my patience?” Foxblade snarled. “I don’t
care if you work for the warlock or not. Nobody wastes my time.”

“Well, there’s two things, ya see,” Tod said. “First off is
a small matter of a pinched goblet from the palace. He’s wantin’ that back.
Sent us with coin, mind ya, fer yer trouble.” Tod was trying very much to sound
like the street-savvy urchin he had grown up as. He felt himself almost forcing
it, having noticed that hanging about first soldiers and then imperial
guardsmen had been elevating his speech a bit.

“You mean to tell me that Rashan Solaran gives a pile of rat
scat about a stolen goblet?” Foxblade sounded incredulous.

“A bit, yeah. Not so’s as he’d send us down fer it, mind ya,
but while we’s here, he made a point o’ mentionin’ it. Naw, real reason we’s
here is he wants to talk to ya,” Tod bluffed, hoping that he did not look as
nervous as he felt. He could feel his stomach twisting and the room felt much
hotter than when they had arrived just a moment earlier.

“Hah. Warlock wants to see
me
?” Foxblade asked, but
looked all around the room where his guards and advisors lurked, eavesdropping
openly. “Catch this load o’ vomit! Thinks I’m gonna march myself up to the
warlock and talk to him. I’d be on the end o’ his blade afore—”

“Naw, you don’t needs t’ go nowheres,” Tod interrupted,
reaching into a pocket and taking in hand the cobblestone he had scratched
false runes upon. He reached up and—

“What’re you—” Jodoul began, but Tod warned him away with an
gesture.

“Naw, fair’s fair an’ all. You done the last three and
more’n paid back yer debt,” Tod said, hoping that Jodoul would take the hint
and shut up. Tod finished raising the stone to his forehead and held it there,
just between his hairline and eyebrows.