The Fork-Tongue Charmers (10 page)

“M
y father and the Luck Uglies are here in the Shambles,” Rye said quickly, stepping as far away from Slinister as the small space would allow. “They're at the Dead Fish Inn right now. Surely you know there's little they don't see. If you harm me”—she glared at the boy and Thorn Quill, too—“you'll have more than a girl and an old man in the woods to reckon with this time.”

“I know very well who is in Drowning, Rye O'Chanter,” Slinister said from deep behind his mask,
an edge of amusement in his voice. “But the Luck Uglies aren't watching the streets of the Shambles. They've gathered below it, in a place called the Spoke, and right now they're engaged in critical discussions that cannot be disturbed. So, at the moment, there's nobody here to reckon with me at all. Except for you.”

Rye knew all about the Spoke, the secret tunnel system that lay beneath the village streets. In fact, not so long ago Rye herself had unlocked a thick, shackled door housed deep within its bowels. It had allowed the Luck Uglies access to the Spoke once again from the forest Beyond the Shale. Harmless had warned her that there might be unintended consequences. Rye suspected she was staring at one of those consequences right now.

“Thorn Quill,” Slinister said, “why don't you step in back while I speak with the girl.”

Thorn Quill's eyes darted to the darkened doorway. “With that . . . ?” His voice trailed off. “Think I'll take a stroll outside instead.” He threw a cloak over his shoulders, took a briar pipe from the mantle, and stepped out onto Little Water Street, easing the door shut behind him.

Rye considered rushing after him, but Slinister, and now the boy, watched her carefully. The boy struck Rye as familiar, but she couldn't recall where she had seen him.

“You were in my room,” Rye said to Slinister. “Why did you steal my coat?” She shook it at him in her fist.

“That was Hyde, my young friend here,” Slinister replied. “Although I
did
send him. And he wasn't trying to steal your coat. If he was, you would have never heard him at all.”

Hyde grinned proudly, revealing the tips of his teeth.

“Please . . . put it on,” Slinister said. “Unless you prefer thrashing about the Shambles in your nightdress.”

Rye carefully slipped her arms into the sleeves of her coat, adjusting her cudgel back in place over her shoulder. “You lured me here,” she said. “Why? To hurt me? To hurt Harmless?”

“If I meant to hurt you, Hyde would have smothered you with a pillow. And you'd still be dreaming now and forevermore.”

Rye's skin crawled under her coat.

“I know you're a Fork-Tongue Charmer,” she said, doing her best to ignore the sensation. “Harmless's enemy. An enemy of the Luck Uglies themselves.”

“And yet, how much do you
really
know?” Slinister asked, stepping closer. Rye inched away but her back found the wall. “What has the High Chieftain—the man you call Harmless—told you about the Fork-Tongue Charmers? That we are malicious? Evil?” Close to her now, he seemed to sense her discomfort. He paused for
a moment, then stepped away.

“For that matter, what has he actually told you about the Luck Uglies? Do you really know any more now than when he first returned to Drowning?”

“I know the Luck Uglies honored their bargain with Longchance to save the village from the Bog Noblins. That Longchance broke that bargain and lied to the villagers to be sure they turned against them. And I know there are codes you all live by—”

“How little you know of him—your own father,” Slinister interrupted, and Rye thought she heard pity laced in his voice.

“I know him well enough,” Rye said, her ears reddening. “He said you were friends once. But you have differences. Clearly you can't let go of them.”

“Differences?” Slinister picked up Thorn Quill's nasty little tool. “Let me share something he surely did not. Your father took something I cherished long ago and hid it away.” He paused and fingered the sharpened animal teeth. “No matter how much I begged and pleaded, he refused to tell me where it was. Even with the Luck Uglies scattered in the wind for ten long years, he's kept it secret from me.”

Rye furrowed her brow. Harmless had hinted at many of the things he'd done. It certainly wasn't impossible that he'd taken something that belonged to
someone else. In fact, she had the sense he'd made a habit out of it at one time.

“What was it?” she asked.

Slinister looked down at the tool, pressing it hard into his thumb. “Something I have never seen nor touched but that made me who I am. Something that remains mine and only mine, whether I live or die, and that even the High Chieftain cannot deny.”

Rye shook her head. “I'm not very good at riddles.”

Slinister put the rake of teeth down on the table with a hard bang.

Rye jumped. “I'm not trying to be cheeky! I'm really bad at them.”

“There's a tempest coming to Drowning, Rye O'Chanter. I brought you here to speak with you before it swallows you, your father, and the entire village whole. Before that happens, you will help me find what the High Chieftain has taken.”

“I think we can bear one more storm,” Rye said. “Winter won't last forever.” She didn't mention that she had no idea what sorts of things Harmless had taken over the years, nor any idea where he'd put them.

There was a chittering in the corner. The rats in the cage scuttled about fearfully. Hyde poked a finger at them. Rye's chest tightened with a sudden realization.

“You,” she said accusingly. She now recognized
him as the boy who had watched her and her friends flee down Mutineer's Alley. “You're the Constable's squire!”

“Hyde is very cunning,” Slinister explained. “He doesn't speak much, but he's proven to be a capable chameleon. He is my extra eyes and ears, and helps me keep abreast of Longchance's actions.”

Rye's temper flared. Had Slinister known the Constable intended to burn the Willow's Wares? If so, that made him as guilty as Valant and Longchance themselves.

There was a scuffling somewhere in the darkness behind the storeroom's entryway. Rye heard what sounded like the jangling of chains. Both Slinister and Hyde looked toward the noise. Had they imprisoned someone?

“Hyde, feed him before he gets too restless,” Slinister said. Hyde picked up the rats' cage with both hands and Slinister took his place between Rye and the front door.

“Who's back there?” Rye asked.

Slinister turned to Rye. “Never mind that. The night is short and you need not share his fate. I'll ask you one question and, depending on how you answer, I'll allow you to leave this place.”

Rye just stared into the chasm of Slinister's masked
mouth. Did her fate really hang on the answer to another riddle?

“Just one,” he repeated and raised his index finger. “Are you ready?”

Rye shook her head, but Slinister asked anyway. “Where does your father hide his darkest secrets?”

Rye opened her mouth but had nothing to say. The truth was, she knew very little about her father or his secrets. She had hoped that would change after he'd returned to Village Drowning, but the tapestry of Harmless's past had proven to be difficult to unravel.

She felt Slinister's eyes studying her carefully. “You were right,” she said quietly. “I know little of him.”

“I'll share a secret,” Slinister offered. “I told you I've seen you before. But not in the way you might expect. I have dreamed of a place I've long sought. And in that dream, I saw you there. Why, I do not know.” Slinister leaned in, his voice more menacing. Rye recoiled. “But I
do
know there is more you're not telling me.”

Rye's skin turned cold despite the oppressive heat of the shop. Surely she couldn't help what Slinister dreamed about. She summoned her courage and stepped forward to leave just as Hyde approached, balancing the cage of rats in his arms.

“Not yet,” Slinister scolded, signaling for her to stop.

Rye forced herself to find Slinister's eyes behind the red-ringed slits of his mask. “My father keeps his
darkest secrets to himself,” she said, and remembered Harmless's words at Grabstone. “He says little . . . and reveals less.”

Slinister cocked his head and, without seeing his face, Rye couldn't tell if he was angry or impressed by her reference to one of the Luck Uglies' own codes.

But Rye didn't waste a moment to find out. With all of her strength she gave Hyde a hard shove, knocking him into a shelf and sending the cage tumbling to the floor. Slinister wasn't so easily surprised and made his broad frame wide, blocking the shop's front door. Rye turned and ran the only place she could—through the doorway to the storeroom.

The dimly lit room was even more cluttered than the shop itself, but she saw no sign of Slinister's prisoner. She looked desperately for a door or window to exit, and when one didn't present itself, she scanned the overflowing shelves for something she might hurl at her pursuers. Rye spotted the sharp tools of Thorn Quill's trade just as Slinister appeared in the doorway. She moved to grab them, but the floor disappeared beneath her and she felt herself plummet briefly into darkness before hard, unforgiving earth greeted her backside.

Rye blinked rapidly, trying to force her eyes to adjust to the gloom. Faint candlelight from the storeroom above illuminated the square hole through which she'd
fallen. The dirt around her smelled earthy and organic. Fumbling with her fingers, she grasped one of the many orb-shaped objects that surrounded her and lifted it to her nose. It smelled like an onion. She sniffed another. A beet. She had fallen into a root cellar. But there was another, more pungent smell, stronger than it was in the shop—the bogs.

She scrambled to her feet. Slinister and Hyde would surely be down here in an instant. Their silhouettes hovered over the hole and blocked out the candlelight above. But to Rye's surprise she could still see, her surroundings dimly illuminated by a bluish glow. A rattle of chains stopped her in her tracks. She spotted something stirring in the shadows in front of her.

Rye craned her neck downward.

“It can't be . . .” Rye gasped out loud.

A dull blue glow emanated from the runestone choker around her neck.

Rye's runestones were a warning. They glowed blue to alert their wearer whenever a Bog Noblin was near. More important, they were a warning to the Bog Noblins themselves. Long ago, Harmless and the Luck Uglies had declared that the greatest of harm would come to any Bog Noblin who trifled with the bearer of the runes. Rye had seen firsthand how effective those stones could be. They had saved her more than once.

A shape shifted in the shadows. In the pale glow of her choker, she saw a vaguely human form crouched with its back to her. Its skin, waterlogged and gray, hung in folds from its sinewy frame. She could count the bony ridges of its spine. The musty cellar air was thick with the bogs. The sickly looking thing was no bigger than Rye.

A Bog Noblin could never fit down here
, she told herself. The beasts were enormous, taller than a full-grown man and twice as thick.

But when it turned to face her, there was no room for doubt. Like all of its kind, the weight of the mire had flattened the Bog Noblin's head and elongated its toothy jaws, and the acidic waters had tanned its coarse hair and beard into rust-orange ropes.

A terrible, inhuman wail pierced Rye's ears as it lurched for her. Rye flung herself backward just in time, barely avoiding the creature as it snapped its jaws behind what appeared to be an iron muzzle. It snorted at the air desperately with its piglike nose, straining at the thick collar around its neck and pulling the attached chain to its full length.

“Hyde! Climb down there and unchain Spidercreep!” she heard Slinister call out from above.

Rye scuttled away on her hands and knees. Regaining her feet, she ran to what looked to be the farthest
end of the root cellar, desperate to put as much distance as she could between herself and the Bog Noblin. But when she reached out to brace herself for impact against the earthen wall, she was surprised to find that she just kept going, disappearing into an even blacker tunnel. Rye didn't stop to make sense of it; she just kept running as fast as she could. She felt the patter of earth and pebbles on her shoulders like hail. Her boots slapped the loose soil and shallow puddles splashed her bare legs. Rye lost all sense of direction as she ran, bouncing off walls and crashing into what she thought were dead ends only to turn herself around and run some more. Just as the blue glow of her choker began to subside, a hidden root sent her tumbling. She felt the sting of reopened scars as her knees hit the ground.

Rye sat up and pressed her back against the tunnel wall. Now, in absolute darkness, she realized she must be in the Spoke. Its tunnels had been carved out long ago by the Luck Uglies themselves, and Drowning's hidden underbelly still remained a little-known secret. Rye knew there were other entrances and exits throughout the village: abandoned wells, forgotten cemeteries; even the now smoldering basement of the Willow's Wares concealed entryways into the Spoke's catacombs. Thorn Quill's root cellar must have been another.