City of Masks (22 page)

Garet tapped the table in front of him. “That would explain why Marick saw that cart full of Masks leaving the Twelfth Ward to go to the logging station. Do you know why we need this information?”

Barick looked at the Bane through hooded eyes. He put a piece of paper on the table and slid it across to him.

“Yes, and so does the King. He thinks it is a worthy risk. I think it is pure foolishness. You could become an adequate Historian someday, Garet, and it would be a shame to end such promise by a knife thrust in some back alley of the Maze.”

Garet smiled at his concern.

“Don’t worry. We’ll stay out of back alleys if it makes you feel better.”

“Impossible,” Barick replied. “The Maze is all back alleys.”

The two Banes stood back, and then back again to let Barick leave before them. After he was gone, they ordered tea and sipped it while examining the piece of paper he had left them.

“Is this a map or an accident with the ink?” Garet asked. There was no order to the lines traced upon the scrap of paper, save for a broad stroke labeled as the Ward wall and a thinner line marked as the Maze enclosure.

“They call it the Maze for a reason,” Dorict said. He studied the map carefully and pointed to a small “X” inked near the middle. A line of symbols beside it read, “Shinock, uncle of Shirin”.

“How did Barick find this out?” Dorict asked. He slid the map to Garet who folded it and placed it in the pocket of his borrowed coat.

“One of the things I saw when I took those records over was a census—a listing—of all the citizens in Shirath. Barick said such lists were necessary to balance the Wards in the beginning, and the Kings had kept them up to make sure no section was overpopulated or under-taxed.”

They left a coin Tarix had supplied to pay for the tea and left the shop. Outside, the sky was overcast. Garet shouldered the pack he had brought from the Banehall, and they made their way towards the Outer Wall.

“What is in that pack?” Dorict asked. “A rope to tie up Shirin?”

Garet smiled. “Well, yes actually, though I hope we won’t need it! I also have a shield in here and a short, spiked club for you. Let’s hope we won’t need those either.”

The people of this Ward were the least friendly in the city to Garet’s mind. Suspicious glances were cast at them as they passed matrons in their doorways and merchants in their small shops. People hurried past, avoiding their eyes.

Garet shivered. It wasn’t his imagination: there was a nervous tension running under the ordinary life of the Ward.

“Of course everyone’s nervous,” Dorict said when Garet mentioned this. “Think what they’ve been through lately: a giant demon killing the city’s children and trying to tear down a Lord’s House, not to mention the invasion of a pack of Masters and King’s Guard in this Ward last night to take away a wounded idiot.”

Garet laughed, which earned him even more disapproving looks from those they passed.

“I thought you sympathized with Marick. You seemed worried enough in the infirmary.”

He stopped to help an old man pick up some spilled radishes and received no thanks for his efforts.

Dorict shook his head. “When I thought he was dying, I felt a momentary urge to forgive him. Now that I know how reckless he was, I wish he were stuck with more arrows!”

He took the map from Garet and looked at the complex drawing. After turning it several times, he found the right orientation.

“The far gate is nearest to this Shinock’s house. Do you really think her uncle would shield her if she’s hunted by the King’s Guard?”

Garet took the map back and put it in his pocket. “From what I’ve seen, she’s a natural leader. I don’t doubt she can be very persuasive—especially when she’s armed.”

“Don’t lose that pack,” Dorict cautioned.

The Maze was a fossil of the original city of Shirath, built hastily and with little regard for order or beauty. Most of the buildings were small and of one or two stories. They were set here and there, walls jutting against each other, second floors sometimes stretching over lanes to make dark tunnels, and those lanes then twisting out of sight or ending suddenly in a blank wall.

“Another dead end,” Garet said. He stepped out from under a second story overhang and examined the map in the grey light.

“Ah! We went left, left, right, left instead of left, left, left, right. Two corners back then.”

They found themselves in a long, covered gallery where every second door opened on a tavern.

“Give me that club,” Dorict said, after resisting a third attempt by a tout to drag him into a darkened door. Garet shook off his own persistent arm-grabber, ignoring promises of “the best wine in Shirath” and “food fit for Heaven’s tables.”

“Not yet. Just ignore them!”

At the fourth attempt, this time by a large thug who tried to pick the Blue up off the ground to get him into a dirty, one-room drinking hole, Dorict exploded. He kicked his heel back into the man’s belly and, when dropped, swept the man’s legs out from under him in a move straight from his training exercise.

After that, they were left alone.

“Still need the club?” Garet asked.

Dorict shook his head. “No, just some air that doesn’t smell like spoiled wine and vomit.”

At the end of the gallery, they turned left and saw a blocky, one-story house at the end of the alley.

“That’s it, or I give up,” Garet said, and put the map away. He slid the shield out of the bag and fixed it on his arm. Dorict fished out the club and tapped the blunt spikes into the palm of one hand.

“All right, let’s go talk some reason into her.”

THE REASONING HAD
to wait because the door was locked and no one answered their persistent knocking. Dorict searched under his jacket for a moment, reaching this way and that until he produced a remarkable set of tools.

“What under Heaven’s Shield are those?” Garet asked.

Dorict smiled and shook his head. “Marick begged me to carry this thieve’s vest of his until he got better. I think he was afraid Banerict would confiscate it.”

Garet leaned over to look at the small blades and picks in Dorict’s hands.

“He might have, just to use some of those tools on injured Banes! Can they open this door?”

The Blue slipped the thin knife into the gap between the door and the jamb. He wiggled it back and forth until it stopped.

“If this is a simple bar, I might be able to raise it,” he said, and tried to force the blade up. It refused to move. He withdrew it and reached again into his clothes until he pulled out a long key-like tool. It was thin enough to slip through the gap, and its teeth were as long and sharp as a comb’s.

“The bar might be one that slides rather than lifts,” Dorict explained. “So this might move it back.”

“You seem very educated in this,” Garet said. “And yet I always thought you were an honest Bane!”

“I suppose a long friendship with Marick has ruined me,” Dorict said, and twisted the shaft of the tool. There was a grating sound, then another, and the door swung in a bit.

“Corruption be praised,” Garet said. “Here, put those back in your pocket and ready your club.”

He pushed the door wide and jumped in and to the side, but no attack came. Dorict followed. They edged inside, each taking a different direction and waiting for their eyesight to adjust to the dimmer light. Garet swung the door shut behind them and threw the bar across it. When they could see, they found themselves in a storehouse of sorts, with boxes and bales stacked against the walls and in the middle of the floor.

“Nobody here,” Dorict said. He moved further inside the room, checking behind each pile of goods.

“Wait, these carpets are meant for the Third Ward, or so the tag says. And this cask of wine has the Palace symbols on it!”

“There’s a cot here, and a bit of bread,” Garet said. He looked at all the stuff around them and shook his head. A gallery above them, reached by a ladder in the corner, had even more barrels and boxes.

“Perhaps the uncle is a thief.”

“Who says so?”

Garet and Dorict both turned to see a bearded, middle-aged man standing in the doorway, a tool remarkably like the one they had used still in his hand. In his other hand was a skin of wine.

He waved the wine skin at them, and a few droplets sprayed out.

“You two clear out or I’ll call the guard!” he slurred.

“Do you have that rope handy?” Dorict asked.

Shinock, for so he was, turned out to be hard to tie down. He twisted, bit, scratched, cursed, and assaulted them with breath that had been soured by wine for half a century. They finally had him fastened to a large, rolled carpet and could stand far enough away to breathe without retching.

“Where is Shirin?” Garet asked.

“Claws take you!” was the only answer, aside from a prodigious burp.

Dorict tried his luck. “We only want to talk to her. We mean her no harm!”

Shinock gave them a half-toothed smile. “A child lies better than you two. I know what you want. You want to banish her! The talk’s all around the Maze, how the Banehall wants all the Masks banished and the King agreed. You two just want spy’s gold for taking her to them. Well, I won’t turn my niece over to the likes of you! Claw you both, and the beasts take you!”

Dorict bristled. “The King might arrest you for helping her. It would mean a chain gang or worse.”

Garet held up his hand, and Dorict stopped.

“I won’t threaten you, Shinock. We’re Banes, not spies or kidnappers.”

The bound man spat on the floor.

Garet picked up his shield from where he had dropped it to tie the man’s hands and feet.

“I don’t care how you feel about us. It doesn’t matter anyway. You’re not the one we want.”

Dust showered them. Coughing, Garet stood back and looked up. A figure dressed in black and holding a spear crouched on the boxes in the upper gallery.

“No, it’s me you want,” Shirin said, and jumped down to land on bales of wool, roll off, and launch a feinting thrust at Dorict, who leaped away.

Garet jumped between Shirin and his friend, shield held ready.

“Kill these clawed Banes, Niece!” Shinock yelled. “They took away my wine!”

He rolled back and forth until the carpet slid from its stack and fell across Dorict’s back.

“Don’t fret, Uncle. Our guests are going to be leaving, permanently. And as for where they go, well, they say most of the houses in the Maze are built over bones.”

She stabbed at Garet, and he barely blocked the move. A line of bright metal now lay across the duller sheen of his shield.

“We aren’t here to fight!” he shouted.

Dorict wriggled out from under the carpet and searched for his club. Shinock grabbed his trouser cuff in his jaws and pulled him back.

“Dorict, don’t interfere, and don’t hurt her,” Garet said, then ducked as the butt of the spear swished over his head.

Shirin pushed the point forward again and stalked the Bane around a pile of wooden crates.

“I know you’re angry at me,” Garet said, and blocked a thrust before stumbling back.

“I deserve some of that,” he continued, shield raised again to deflect a ringing blow from the side. “But we both know you don’t really want to kill me.”

Three more slapping strikes and a volley of thrusts kept him quiet for a moment as he used all his skill to block her spear.

Shirin grinned. “In just a little bit, you’ll see how wrong you are.” She came forward again, making small circles with the point of her spear while Garet moved to put more obstacles between them.

“It’s you who has been shadowing me in the past days, isn’t it? So why wait until now? You’re a Duelist; you could have killed me at anytime.”

He raised the shield just in time to protect his face. The strength of the blow sent him back a few feet.

“When you followed me, how close did you get? Close enough for a knife in the back?”

He charged forward and struck the spear aside, but didn’t close for a strike with his shield.

Standing to the side and hampered by both Garet’s instructions and the maniac chewing on his pant leg, Dorict could only watch, his heart in his mouth at each near miss.

“Why not an arrow from the rooftop, or was that too far away to satisfy your hatred for me?” Garet asked.

The spear snaked out and cut his cheek, just below his left eye. He fell back, one hand to the fire in his face.

“See!” he yelled at her. “It would have been easy to kill me if that was all you wanted. But it wasn’t. What is it, Shirin? What do you want of me?”

Blood trickled through his fingers.

The woman stared at him, trembling with some strong emotion while the world held its breath. Then she drove the point of her spear into the floor planks, and left it there to wobble between them.