The Adventures of Benjamin Skyhammer (24 page)

"Where do I find Mute then?"

"He waits near the dragon fountain in the south-east plaza."

Skyhammer threw a few coins on the table. "Many thanks, milady," he shouted as he dashed through the crowd. Would Mute be there now? With only a few hours left to find her, his urgency grew and he ran faster than ever before. He had found Spark.

* * *

Skyhammer skidded to a stop next to the dragon fountain. The plaza flagstones gleamed silver in the moonlight. At each corner was a different fountain. In addition to the dragon stood a unicorn, a mammoth and a bumblebee. Skyhammer had never seen any of these animals. They lived on another continent but he had yet to travel there. There were so many Relics to find on this continent that he'd be an old man before he got to another one. He had dreams however, of riding a dragon, taming a unicorn. He wasn't sure what he'd do with a bumblebee.

The statue of each creature had water spraying out of its mouth and cascading down to a central pool. A few benches were scattered around the plaza. Skyhammer went to sit on one with a good view of the dragon fountain.

Despite his best efforts he soon nodded off, chin on his chest.

Footfalls woke him. He jumped up. How could he have fallen asleep? He didn't have time to waste snoozing! Still dark, so he hadn't slept long. A Byndari sat down on a bench across the pool from him. Skyhammer glanced at the dragon fountain. A boy sat cross-legged on the edge of the pool. Mute? Skyhammer walked over to stand in front of the boy.

"Are you Mute?" he whispered, squinting at the boy in the moonlight. He was barefoot, with light-coloured hair, dressed in dark pants and a short sleeved shirt.

The boy nodded.

"I have questions for The Eye. But I want to see her. Can you take me to her?"

Mute lifted a flat board from the shadow of his chest. A piece of chalk appeared in his left hand. He wrote on the board for Skyhammer to read: "I take your questions but not you. Is forbidden. You stay here until I back or my mistress very displeased. Punish you. Like she punish me." The boy opened his mouth. No tongue, only a ragged hunk of flesh. "You have money?"

"I must see her!" Skyhammer's voice rose.

Mute shoved the board closer to Skyhammer's face and jabbed at it with his finger. He shook his head for emphasis.

That warning was so like Spark, always dire consequences for disobeying her. Skyhammer considered. The boy would have to go back to The Eye's hideout. Skyhammer would just follow.

"I have money and I'll wait here." He told Mute his two questions, then sat on the edge of the fountain. "When will you return?"

"One hour," the boy scribbled. "First show me coin."

Skyhammer opened his money bag and let Mute peer inside. Satisfied, the boy walked away.

As soon as Mute had rounded a corner, Skyhammer ran after him. He flew past the Byndari on the bench, who half-rose up, arm outstretched. Skyhammer noticed the movement but pushed it to the back of his mind. He had to focus on following Mute.

When he came to the corner where Mute had turned, he paused and peeked around it. The kid was a block down the road, walking at an even but not hurried pace. Spark's place couldn't be far. Skyhammer slipped into the shadows of the buildings and crept after the boy.

A couple of times, Mute turned around, as if he could sense he was being followed. Skyhammer stayed hidden.

Doubt began to infiltrate Skyhammer's mind. He had no proof The Eye was Spark. Why was he so fixated? He could be entering the last ten women's houses now, breaking in to see them even though they were asleep. Creepy. He shook his head. The details were too close to the truth if Spark was a second Keeper and had changed the Retrographs. And something, his intuition he supposed, motivated him.

Skyhammer paused at the end of an alley that opened out into a residential neighbourhood quite close to the university. Mute had darted across the road and up to the front door of an apartment building. He glanced around, then slipped inside. Skyhammer raced across the road and up to the entrance. He set his ear to the door. Footsteps on a staircase, going up. He waited until the footsteps were gone. As he turned the handle and opened the door, he thanked his lucky stars that HriHriKari had such a low crime rate that Aridizans rarely locked their doors. The door closed with a soft snick. He paused in the dark. Moon beams came through the windows, lighting the stairs in front of him and a door to his right.

Anticipation of seeing Spark and finding out Higgins' condition lifted his heart. A floorboard creaked above him, and he started climbing.

Crouching at the top of the sixth flight of stairs, Skyhammer tried to slow his heartbeat down and catch his breath. There was only one room on this top floor. Light flickered from under the door and as his breathing slowed, he thought he heard the sound of a scuffle. Shadows danced under the doorway. Yes, there was fighting in there. He thought of the young boy and then of Spark. He couldn't lose her, not when he was so close to seeing her again.

Loosening his sword in its sheath, he crept up beside the door. He put his hand on the handle, turned it and shoved the door open, sheltering his body with the wall. A strange sight greeted him through the doorway.

Three still forms. Two were Byndari and one was the boy. The boy was stock-still, a book in hand, on the opposite side of the room. As the Byndari half-turned to the open door, the boy unfroze and hurled the book he was holding at one of the Byndari, who exploded on contact into sand, shells and millions of tiny amoebas. The second Byndari turned around lightning quick and threw a dagger at the boy. At the last second, the boy moved to the left, but the dagger cut through his baggy clothes and pinned him by his shirt to the wall.

Skyhammer's jaw dropped in amazement. He had never seen a Byndari be violent or move as fast as that one. The Byndari turned to face Skyhammer.

"What are you doing?" he shouted at the Byndari. "Where's Spark?"

The Byndari said nothing, just watched Skyhammer while producing another dagger from somewhere behind him. A Byndari wearing clothes? Skyhammer's mind was having a hard time grasping this. He did realize that the Byndari was out to kill him and he'd better do something before both he and the boy were dead.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Mute struggling to slip out of his shirt. Skyhammer would have to keep the Byndari's attention on himself if he wanted to save the boy. He pulled out his sword as the Byndari raised his arm to throw the knife. Skyhammer threw himself to the left behind a pillow-laden chair and heard a clatter in the hall as the dagger flew through the open doorway. Squatting, he pushed the chair across the floor towards the Byndari and stood up. The Byndari had another dagger in hand already.

Skyhammer hurled his sword at the Byndari and flung himself over the chair. The creature dodged the sword but it distracted him just long enough for Skyhammer to plough right through him splattering sand, amoebas and shells everywhere. Skyhammer jumped up, brushing all the Byndari remnants off his body.

Mute was gone. Skyhammer sighed, picking up his sword. Who were these Byndari? Specially trained fighters but Skyhammer had never heard of the Byndari having a fighting force. They were a peaceful knowledge-loving nation as far as he knew. It seemed he knew nothing.

Spark. He'd worry about the boy later. The room was a mess. Bookshelves on the ground, tables and chairs overturned, oil lamps broken all over the floor. Light spread from one lone candle flickering on the window sill and moonlight streamed through the glass as well. There was an open door on his left leading to another room, a cooking fire, smashed cups and plates. A kitchen. A crack of darkness led to a room on his right.

He drifted towards the dark room. She would be in there. Hiding probably, she was good at that.

"Spark?"

Chapter 24

Countdown to ceremony: 3 days

He poked his head through the crack. No sound, no light. His nose wrinkled. The reek of sewage. "Spark? It's Skyhammer." Another odour, less familiar. Blood. No breath. Maybe Spark had run away and a stranger's body lay bleeding in the room. No. It was she. He knew as he went back to the window to fetch the candle and he knew as he opened the door wider and held the candle out in front of him.

An enormous bed took up most of the room. Mounds of books plugged the small gaps behind and at the foot of the bed. In the center, a pile of blankets. Wood covered the large window on the far side so that no speck of light from the outside world came in.

Skyhammer sucked in a deep breath through his mouth. There was no sign of a struggle. He walked forward and lifted the candle above the bed, desperately wanting to close his eyes, to avoid what he knew in his heart to be there.

What he thought was a mound of blankets was the body of Spark. Obesity had replaced the lithe slenderness. Lifeless holes caged by flesh had replaced flashing black eyes. A girl who used to wander the forest for hours now looked like an old woman who hadn't left the bed in years. She was only nineteen! His heart was a fist in his chest. Spark's head was thrown back, her throat slit. Blood, still sticky, stained the sheets beneath her neck.

He closed her eyelids and cupped her cheek with his palm. In death, she looked peaceful, but her face still held lines of bitterness. She had created some sort of life for herself here but it was not enough to make her happy.

"Spark, I'm so sorry I didn't get here in time to save you," he said aloud. Darkness and silence filled the space around his words. He found it a struggle to speak again. "I'll do my best to discover what you were warning me about." His voice broke. This was not the reunion he had imagined. In his secret heart, he'd been planning to talk her into joining him and Higgins in Relic hunting. Maybe she would have been happy with them. It didn't matter now. He still didn't know what she had been trying to communicate to him. How had she gotten magic powers? Why had the Byndari gone so far as to kill her? For the black box from the Retrograph Vault maybe.

His breath caught in his throat. He glanced back through the door behind him. Stillness. A pile of books next to the bed served as a shelf for the candle holder. He ran his fingers down her right side, reaching under the blankets. "Sorry," he whispered as he knelt on the edge of the bed and leaned over her. "I need the black box." It had to be on this side then. Propping himself up with his left hand, he ran his right over the bed. No black box. He groaned with frustration.

A foot stamped on the floor behind him. Skyhammer spun around, sword at the ready. Mute stood in the doorway to Spark's room gesturing at his board.

Skyhammer moved closer. "Where did you go?"

The boy pointed at his board. "More Byndari come. They killed her. Leave now," Skyhammer read.

He looked at the boy. "We can't leave yet, I have to find the part of the Vault she stole. And I have to find out if she left anything, any information that would tell me why the Byndari killed her."

The boy stamped on the floor again, then wrote on his board: "No time. They in alley now. I have letter to Skyhammer. Go go now!"

A letter? Skyhammer's brow furrowed. Maybe he should stay here and talk to the Byndari, find out what was going on. But if they were just intent on killing him and not interested talking then he was in trouble. One or two dagger fighters he could handle but a whole squad could wipe him out. He took a last look around the room then bent and kissed Spark's cold cheek.

"Goodbye, my love." He probed the bed in a last desperate attempt to find the piece of the Retrograph Vault.

The boy stamped his foot again.

"Okay, okay, I'm coming." Skyhammer followed Mute out of the apartment and down the hall to the top of the stairs. They both froze as a door opened below them. The Byndari!

The boy tugged Skyhammer's hand and ran lightly back along the hall to a window at the end. He pushed open the window and climbed out.

Skyhammer stuck his head through. The back of the building. A small ledge connected to a ladder going down the wall. Mute was halfway down the ladder already. Skyhammer gulped and closed his eyes in prayer. A tread sounded on the stair.

Eyes flying open, he swung his leg over the sill, onto the ledge. Five or six Byndari were climbing the stairs now. He pulled the window shut then lay flat on the ledge. He poked his head up a little so he could just see through the window.

Two Byndari reached the top of the stairs. They walked around the banister toward Spark's door.

He ducked down. He'd have to swing his body off the ledge and onto the ladder. He slithered a little further along. The ladder seemed none too sturdy. He looked down. Mute was at the bottom, waving frantically. It was now or never. He grabbed a rung of the ladder with both hands then let his body fall off the ledge and swing below him. Then he climbed down the ladder. When he reached the bottom, he looked up. The window was open. Two dark heads leaned out.

He grabbed Mute's hand and they dashed down the alley. They had been seen. He realized the Byndari had probably been following him since he left the Academy. That must have been whom the Nasuchu were escorting. He recalled the Byndari sitting on the plaza's bench.

The boy tugged his hand as he went around a corner. He stopped. The boy pointed the opposite way.

"I have to get my bag from the university," he explained. "We have to hide until . . . until the city gates open in the morning." Damn! How were they going to get past the gates? Unless Guzzle could help them. But the Byndari would be watching them of course.

The boy shook his head.

"Do you know another way out?" Skyhammer grasped Mute's shoulder.

The boy nodded and tugged his hand again.

"But, my bag! Oh, forget it. Let's go. I'll follow you."

Mute took off, glancing over his shoulder every so often to make sure Skyhammer kept up.

It didn't matter that the boy knew another way out of the city, Skyhammer thought as he raced to keep up with Mute. They still had to cross Flyer country, a 1-day journey, and the Deadlands, a 1-day hike, not to mention the journey from the Deadlands to the Kingmaker Tower, another day at least. If they could buy horses. Ample opportunities for the Byndari to catch them. If they could elude the Byndari, they might just arrive in time for the ceremony, if they didn't stop moving for three days straight.