The Floodgate (22 page)

Very well, he would give them opportunity to deliver that message directly, and sooner than expected. With a grim smile, Matteo vowed to make the coming “conversation” as interesting as possible.

Finally he saw the huge bulk of an icehouse up ahead. The cart veered around the small streets that surrounded the vast building and approached the rear. Wide, double doors swung open to admit them, then slammed shut behind. The ice wagon slowed, and the rumble died into silence.

Matteo dropped quietly to the ground and swept the icehouse with a quick measuring gaze. Everything seemed to be in good order. The metal hooks and tools were free of rust. Fresh straw had been strewn on the packed dirt floor, and the high beams were free of cobwebs. The spells that opened and closed the doors for the cart were obviously well maintained. In short, this was no long-deserted building. Yet no one was working, even though highsun had come and gone and the sunsleep hours past. Matteo also noticed that the walls were thick to keep the ice cool and, not coincidentally, to muffle sound.

The momentary silence exploded into a fury of thuds and curses-most of the latter coming from Tzigone, though a few muffled and pained exclamations from her captors suggested that she was making a good accounting for herself. Tzigone’s voice abruptly dwindled to a furious mumbling. The cart’s back gate fell open with a crash, and three men stumbled out from behind the curtain and down the ramp, carrying their uncooperative captive. They’d managed to stuff a rag into her mouth and bind it with a gag. She writhed and kicked and, presumably, swore, but to no avail. The men pinioned her so that her hands were stilled, leaving no chance that she might cast a spell.

Another man followed them-a wizard holding a long wand in one hand. When he saw Matteo, he quickly touched the wand to each of the three men. Matteo noted the soft click as the wand touched the men, as if the wizard were tapping against granite.

Stoneskin, he thought grimly. These men had expected him to follow, and they were well prepared. Quickly he calculated his chances against fighters wearing this magical protection. Four men against one was challenge enough-five men, if he counted the man climbing down from the driver’s seat. Now he would have to strike several solid blows on each man to dispel the stoneskin charm, and figure in the permutations presented by four such opponents.

“Seven hundred and eighty-five to one, give or take,” he murmured. He shrugged, drew his daggers, and charged.

“Get him,” shouted the thug holding Tzigone’s ankles.

The wizard leveled his wand at Matteo and spat out a trigger word.

The jordain dropped and rolled as a golden streak burst from the wand. The bolt missed him, but it did not disappear. The stream of light slowed, broke up, and began to reform. A swarm of bees traced a collective arc and buzzed unerringly toward their intended target.

They swarmed over Matteo in a dark, whirring cloud. He felt a stinging jab at the back of his neck and schooled himself not to slap at the insect. Instead, he veered aside, heading directly toward the smirking wizard-bringing the bees with him.

The wizard’s eyes widened, and he lifted the wand for another attack. Matteo dropped, using the leg sweep move that Andris had taught him just a few moons past to bring the wizard down. He seized a rock-hard ankle and thrust a dagger into the soft leather of the boot sole-the only unprotected place on a wizard wearing a stoneskin spell.

The blade slipped through leather and past bone. Matteo leaned hard on the blade, scraping between the twin bones of the wizard’s lower leg and reaching for the tendon behind. With a quick wrench, he severed the cord.

Ignoring the bees that still swarmed and stung, Matteo rolled to his feet and charged the men holding Tzigone’s hands. One of them trusted the wizard’s magic to hold firm, but the other released the girl and dragged a knife from his belt.

Matteo’s bloodied dagger struck the man’s weapon hand before the blade could clear its sheath. The jolt of steel against stoneskin vibrated through his arm. He struck again and again. Through it all, the bees followed his movements like a treacherous shadow.

The thug defended himself as best he could and managed to parry some of Matteo’s strokes, but with each hit Matteo landed, the efficacy of the stoneskin spell faded away. Within moments the jordain’s dagger struck normal flesh-then, bone.

Matteo’s opponent stumbled back, shrieking in shock and pain as he stared at the gash that opened his arm and at the white bone beneath.

The jordain spun and drove his one foot into the man’s gut. Reversing direction with stunning speed, he whirled and landed a high roundhouse kick to the man’s chin. His head snapped back, and he went over like a felled tree, arms falling wide and limp at his sides.

Matteo spun toward Tzigone, who was down to one captor. She was standing now, her hands firmly pinioned behind her back. The big, bearded man who’d held her feet slumped against the wagon, spitting teeth into his cupped palm. Blood poured from a garishly broken nose. One of his eyes was already swelling shut, and the other was starting to lose focus. Tzigone continued to writhe and kick and stomp, wearing down the stoneskin spell on her final opponent with a barrage of blows and kicks. For a moment Matteo wondered if she had really needed his help at all.

Suddenly Tzigone slumped as if in defeat. Matteo was not fooled, but the thug who held Tzigone let out a relieved sigh. The sound ended in a gasp, and the man’s eyes opened wide and glazed with pain.

Apparently Tzigone had managed to seize something her captor held in great personal regard. She twisted free. Ripping off her gag, she kicked the man in the already offended area, then kicked him once more after he fell. She swatted at a circling bee and began the gestures of a spell.

Fragrant smoke rose from the hard-packed ground, a scent reminiscent of poppies and summer sun. The bees swarming Matteo stopped their stinging attack. Their flight slowed, and they drifted off to settle on the wooden beams.

Free of that hindrance, Matteo looked around for the final thug-the driver, who had not yet entered the battle. The back door flew open, and the man came on in a rush, followed closely by the reinforcements he’d apparently gone to summon. As the men rushed Matteo, they snatched up ice hooks long as swords, with wicked curved tips.

Tzigone began another spell-a simple cantrip to heat metal. Yet the men’s ice picks showed no red glow. Puzzled, Matteo followed Tzigone’s gaze toward the ceiling. There, suspended from ropes as thick as his arm, was an enormous set of iron tongs that lifted ice to the loft above. The metal tongs were red as a sunrise, and mist rose from the block of ice in their grip.

Ice shrieked against metal as the massive chunk slipped loose. Matteo grabbed for Tzigone, but she was quicker than he and was already running toward a sheet of heavy canvas on the far side of the room. She held it up so that Matteo could dive for cover, then rolled in with him and buried her face against his chest.

The impact was thunderous, and the shattering ice splintered off again and again like a brittle echo. Shards rained over the two friends, but no ice penetrated the thick, oiled cloth.

When all was still, Matteo and Tzigone crawled out from under the tarp and somberly regarded the scene around them. The icehouse resembled a battlefield. The wagon lay on its side, one wheel shattered and the other three spinning wildly. The horses, amazingly enough, had escaped serious injury. They had broken free of their traces, and now blew and stomped in the far corner of the room. Chunks of ice were strewn across the floor, some of them tinted with crimson. At least two of the thugs were thoroughly, messily dead. Several more lay still. One pile of ice shimmered with movement as an injured man fought his way free. A faint groan came from under the upturned wagon.

Tzigone stared at the carnage, her face pale and still.

Matteo slipped a steadying arm around her shoulders. “This must be reported to the officials.”

She started to protest, then sighed. “I never thought the day would come when I went looking for the law instead of the other way around.”

“I will see to it,” he promised.

Tzigone’s first response was a quick, grateful smile, quickly chased by a frown as her nimble mind danced ahead. “Someone might have seen them grab me. You’ll have to tell the militia something.”

“These thugs seized a young woman. I followed and fought them. She escaped.”

She snorted. “Is that the best you can do? It’s not very interesting.”

“One of the benefits of telling simple truth,” he said dryly, “is that you don’t have to remember interesting details. That said, I’ve learned one very interesting detail this night: I’m making more progress than I thought.”

Tzigone looked at him incredulously, then her eyes cleared and she nodded. “Someone doesn’t like the questions you’re asking, which means that you’re probably doing something right.”

He walked with her toward the back door. “The next question will be who owns this building. A working icehouse does not lie empty and idle during the afternoon. This attack might not have been instigated by the owner, but he or she would know who had the authority to send the workers away.”

“Why don’t we just get someone to ask him?” She pointed to one of the dead men.

Matteo’s first instinct was to protest. Powerful clerical magic was required to speak with the dead. The jordaini were not to have any magic worked on their behalf.

He never got the chance to remind her of this. Before he could speak, the corpses and the injured changed to rapidly fading mist. In an instant, he and Tzigone were alone in the icehouse.

She let out a long, slow whistle. “You’ve been asking the right questions, all right. I don’t think we’re going to like the people who’ve got the answers.”

“All the more reason for you to go. I will pursue this matter and tell you all I learn when next we meet.”

She nodded and disappeared-not out the door but up a wall. Climbing nimbly on crossbars and ropes, she melted into the shadows that lurked about the high ceiling.

Matteo went into the street to alert the city militia. He was spared the trouble, for the thunderous crash of falling ice had drawn the notice of a nearby fish market. The vendor stood nearby with a long, curving horn held to his lips, winding a raucous but effective alarm. A small crowd of fisherfolk had already gathered around the building. They parted to allow the city militia to pass through.

Matteo quickly explained what had happened, not identifying Tzigone by name but saying only the abducted girl had escaped. The city guards lifted their eyebrows and exchanged incredulous glances when Matteo told them that their assailants had also disappeared. None of them dared to challenge the veracity of the queen’s jordain, but Matteo understood the path their thoughts must be taking. Why would several men flee from a single jordain? If Matteo defined the word “disappeared” in its literal and magical sense, the guards would accept his story with a nod. After all, this was Halruaa, and strange magical occurrences were the norm.

Strange magical occurrences were also closely examined. And as Tzigone had pointed out, it was unlikely that the answers would be reassuring.

An hour later, Matteo strolled into the pink marble palace that housed the city officials. Several of the guards and scribes recognized him, nodding respectfully as he passed. He walked unchallenged into the lord mayor’s suite and made his way down the corridors to the domain of Procopio’s head scribe.

As he expected, he found the man at a writing table. His duties involved summarizing each of the lord mayor’s missives into a single line so that Procopio could scan the day’s news and decide how best to order his time.

“Greetings, Shiphor,” Matteo called softly.

The scribe glanced up, startled. A pleased smile crossed his face. “Matteo! Please tell me you’ve been demoted to our level!”

Matteo acknowledged the jest with a chuckle and glanced around Shiphor’s small, paper-clogged room. “Your level? This is the heart of the city. Its lifeblood flows through your hands.”

“At least one man recognizes my importance,” the scribe said dryly. “Because you show such remarkable intelligence, I will save you the necessity of further flattery and simply tell you whatever you wish to know. Not that I’m not enjoying this, mind you.”

The jordain grinned, noting that Shiphor’s cynical tone was offset by the twinkle in his eyes. “May I see your summary notes for the past several days? As well as today’s missives?”

Shiphor promptly drew several sheaves of papers from various stacks, as unerringly as a mother hen might pick her own chick from a barnyard crowded with yellow peepers. Matteo glanced at the summaries and started in on the new messages. He leafed through until he caught a glimpse of Kiva’s name. As he read, his already dark mood turned a deeper shade of black.

Kiva had already been declared traitor, but apparently Procopio had not deemed that sufficient. She had been excommunicated by the church of Azuth. Matteo repeated one of the oaths he’d recently heard Tzigone employ.

The scribe looked up sharply. “Problems?”

“Halruaa is full of them, it would seem,” Matteo said grimly. “With your permission, I would like to bring a particularly troublesome one directly to Lord Procopio’s attention.”

Shiphor took the page Matteo handed him and scanned it. His grasp of politics was far better than his employer credited, and he caught the implication at once. “The lord mayor is going to be highly displeased with this news and, no doubt, with the person who brings it.” He handed it back with a wry smile. “I won’t fight you for the privilege, but perhaps it would be best if Lord Procopio learned this news along with the rest. There is no shortage of ill tidings with which to pad it.”

“Why pad it?” Matteo demanded. “Procopio has earned a hit or two.”

The scribe sat back and regarded the angry jordain. “You’ll get no argument from this quarter. Go with my blessing-though you’d be better off with Mystra’s.”

Matteo was already gone, too furious to consider either the warning or the possible consequences.