Chasers of the Wind (50 page)

Slowly, without taking my eyes off the crossbow, I returned the utak to my belt.

“Don’t be nervous. I don’t care who’s looking for you or how much money you have on your head,” he said, lowering his crossbow, and he once again turned his back to me.

“Are you so rich?” I hadn’t been able to make out his face—it remained hidden in the shadows of his hood.

He laughed.

“I’m not as greedy as you might think.”

“But you’re rude. You know my name, but I don’t know yours.”

A pause.

“Call me Harold.”

“A strange name. I’ve never heard one like it.”

“It is what it is.”

“Do you know why I need your help?”

“Yes. Stump mentioned it.”

“What do you think?”

“It’s going to get too hot, Giiyan.”

“Is that a no, thief?” I spat in irritation, suspecting that I’d wasted time coming here for nothing.

“Far from it.” He turned around and threw back his hood. Finally, I could get a good look at him.

He was perhaps five years older than me. He had a lean, tanned face with extremely sharp cheekbones. A high forehead. A straight, slightly bony nose, bushy eyebrows, and two days’ worth of stubble on his chin. Short black hair that was surprisingly gray at the temples. The man had obviously been worn down by life. I would have said that the man standing before me was the dark and dangerous type, if not for his eyes. They were completely out of place in his face—lively and full of laughter. It seemed like the thief was having a wonderful time, though at the moment I didn’t see cause for celebration.

“Far from it,” he repeated. “It will be intriguing.”

“I’m afraid that first and foremost, it will be dangerous,” I said coldly.

“Sometimes danger and intrigue go hand in hand. When are you planning to send Joch into the Darkness?”

“Tomorrow night.”

He nodded.

“Well, then. That works for me.”

“I hope you can help.”

“When it comes to locks, you can count on me.”

“How much?” I wanted to finish this deal as soon as possible.

He thought for a moment and then grinned, his eyes glinting mischievously. “Like I already said, I’m not greedy. Five sorens should do it.”

I lost the power of speech. It seemed that fate had brought me a lunatic. Layen and I expected that the bargaining would begin at three hundred minimum, and we were prepared to pay good money for his services. And he says five measly coins!

“What’s the catch?” I had to ask.

Harold raised an eyebrow. “Seems to me you should be jumping for joy that I didn’t rip you off for five hundred.”

“Five hundred?”

“I place a very high value on my skills,” he said cheerfully. “But consider yourself lucky today. I’ve decided to play for charity.”

I didn’t really understand his last words, but I said, “All the same, I’d like to know why you’re so generous.”

He chuckled and began walking along the pier back to the shore. I had to walk next to him.

“I’m interested in this matter,” he said cautiously. “That’s all. It’s a challenge to my skills. And a chance to shake things up. You can’t imagine, man, how boring it is to live sometimes.” He paused and then suddenly added, “Especially if you live for a very long time.”

It’s not a problem for me if a person doesn’t need money and is tired of living when he’s barely thirty. I wasn’t about to insist that he raise his price.

“That’s your right. I have nothing against it. Especially if it entertains you.”

“Entertains?” The thief laughed wholeheartedly. “Yes. I suppose you chose the right word.”

He sniffed the air and remarked randomly, “I can just smell that the coming Game will be impossibly interesting.”

“When would you prefer to receive the deposit?”

“Tomorrow. Before the job. And not the deposit, but the whole sum.”

“Okay.”

“I have some conditions. First. I work with locks and I don’t hurt anyone. You’ll have to deal with Joch’s people yourself. When I’m handling my business, I’m the boss. You will not interfere. I’ll let you in, but I won’t go into the house. I’m not interested in that. Second. I’ve heard about your woman. Be so kind as to keep her on a short leash. We will carry out the commission and then disband. All the rest doesn’t interest me. Third. If it gets too hot, it’s every man for himself.”

“It’s a deal.”

“I’ll be waiting for you tomorrow. At the same time. At the entrance to the cellar.”

I nodded and hurried away without saying good-bye.

*   *   *

Tia snuck into Haven by hiring a fisherman. He was snoring away in his tub when the Damned woke him, and he doused Pork in the choicest language. Typhoid ignored this completely and asked him to carry her to the port of Al’sgara. The drunkard laughed in her face and called her crazy, but Typhoid thrust some gold under his nose. This sobered him up right away, and he plopped down at his oars hastily.

All her fears proved unfounded. No one stopped them or even hailed them. As Leprosy had implied, this way of getting into the city wasn’t guarded very vigilantly. For now, at any rate. So less than an hour later the faint lights of the port appeared. When the boat came alongside a wooden pier, Tia stabbed the man with her dagger and walked away, leaving the body in the boat.

Now she had to find the blond archer who would lead her to the Healer. She’d been wandering around the city since early morning. Typhoid walked at random, hoping she would be lucky and her spark would bring her to the archer. She didn’t dare go to Hightown or Second City—the chance that she would run into one of the Walkers, Embers, or Scarlets there was too great. And it wouldn’t do to forgo caution in the other neighborhoods either. A second encounter with a wizard might not end as well as the first.

Tia started with the lowest districts, the ones right by the sea. Of course, not an hour passed before she was lost—Al’sgara was completely different than it had been five hundred years ago. Many of the streets and alleys hadn’t existed in her time. As a result, the Damned was not an inch closer to her goal and, angry at herself and Pork, returned to the port, deciding to look for lodging in an old warehouse.

The next day also came to nothing. All that Tia knew was that the blond was in the city. Al’sgara was too big, and her inability to use her Gift openly was oppressive. Without her abilities she couldn’t do anything. Every minute she was tempted to call upon her power. And time after time she restrained herself, whispering that it was not yet time. She still had a few days left to her, and for the time being she just needed to search and not despair.

She should be lucky. All her life, Typhoid had walked hand in hand with luck. Suffice it to recall the day when Retar died saving her from Sorita’s jackals—it was a miracle she escaped. And she had left Ginora’s side the day before the woman was brought to bay in the Marshes of Erlika. Or … she didn’t want to recall how she had survived but lost her body.

Despite these internal arguments, the Damned fell into deeper despair with each passing hour. She was afraid that she wouldn’t succeed before Rovan arrived.

But she was lucky again. And as always, when she least expected it. That night something caused her to wake up and crawl from the warehouse toward the sea. Pork was whining quietly somewhere on the edge of her consciousness, begging her to leave him alone and to let him go home. She ordered him to shut up, and just at that moment she saw two people standing on the pier. Tia didn’t need any light to recognize the blond archer, whom she’d been vainly searching for these past few days. The mark hanging over his head spoke for itself.

Her first impulse was to grab the bastard and shake the information out of him. But Typhoid never made the same mistakes twice. She remembered what happened the last time she allowed her fury to prevail over her reason. There was no rush. He would not escape retribution. She just had to take her time.

The Damned began to scrutinize the archer’s companion. His back was toward her, but he didn’t seem to be the wizard who had dealt with her so deftly. Just in case, she inspected him using a small shred of her Gift.

Her breath caught in her throat.

Multicolored spots danced before her eyes. Her temples began aching with a throbbing pain. The stranger had the Gift. And what a Gift it was; it made Tia want to hide away and pray to the gods in whom she did not believe. The man was bursting with power inside; Tia had never seen anything like it. It wasn’t light, and it wasn’t dark. It was primal, incomprehensible, and so powerful that the magic of the Damned was like a raindrop in the ocean in comparison. He could casually crush them all with one finger as if without a care in the world. The thing that the mages of this world since time immemorial had called the spark, hot and bright, should in him be called a “tangle”—it was constantly changing shape, pulsating as if it were alive. It seemed to be woven from a multitude of dancing shadows. Typhoid watched this breathtaking dance, and the pain she was feeling intensified. It was like looking into the Abyss itself, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away.

Tia was torn in two. She wanted to wail and run away, if only not to see, not to feel this impossible, mighty, ancient, primordial force. But she couldn’t force herself to move. She was drawn to the majesty of the shadows, like a moth to a flame.

Then it all ended, as if someone had blown out a candle. The pain disappeared. The member of the Sextet could no longer see the tangle. She had stopped sensing the Gift that was as old as the world; it was as if someone had slammed the door leading to the Abyss in her face. The blond was walking away, in the opposite direction from where the Damned was hiding. She watched his retreating back in despair but remained where she was. The stranger stood between her and the archer. He blocked Typhoid’s path, and she didn’t dare walk past him.

A few more seconds and the man she’d so tenaciously pursued vanished into the night. A wave of hopeless despair swept over her. And then the terrifying man with the tangle of shadows in his chest turned his head in her direction.

She couldn’t see his face, hidden as it was by his hood, but she felt his gaze. It was burning, tormenting, painful and … mocking? The stranger looked at her, and Tia forgot how to breathe, terrified of what he would do next. He took a step toward her and Typhoid couldn’t stand it anymore. She ran away.

21

The last night of our stay in Al’sgara we changed hideouts. Layen was hoarding her strength for the job, and every time she opened the secret door to the Sculptor’s sanctuary her scanty reserves were devoured. That was unwise so we moved to an inn, despite the considerable risk. It was located not far from Second City on quiet, sleepy Chestnut Street.

We got a clean, comfortable room on the third floor. From the window there was a wonderful view of the hill that was bounded by the wall of Second City. There were virtually no guests; people preferred the much cheaper establishments located by the outer walls and the sea. But good food, regular sleep, and a reliable door—that was what we needed, and so we weren’t bothered by the price.

My sun was studying the plans of Joch’s compound. Stump had been kind enough to share them with us. I don’t know how Mols managed to get hold of something so valuable (no doubt someone was slaughtered), but the papers were very helpful to us. Early in the evening I had to leave Layen to her occupation and go to a last meeting with Stump before the job. We needed to discuss a few details.

I took a roundabout route. I had to make a big circle and lose a certain amount of time, but I knew what I was doing. It was far better to lose an hour than to draw trouble down on my ass. A few times I checked if anyone was shadowing me, but it was all clear.

They came at me just when I was walking through a vegetable market. A tall, gray-haired man lost interest in a tray of cucumbers and turnips and appeared next to me. He had a kind face, a thick, fluffy beard, and bushy eyebrows, which made him look even more good-natured, as well as laughing blue eyes and a very steady hand with a short Groganian knife, which he held to my liver.

“Hi there.” Greybeard grinned at me.

Nothing good could come of this. He was not at all worried by the crowd. He held his knife well. From the outside, it gave the impression of two old friends meeting. Yet this “friend” could drive a few inches of excellent steel into my liver at any second. This was the first time I’d seen the man. Judging by his accent, he was from the north, probably from the capital, and that meant he was just passing through and was not under Mols’s command.

A small blond man with a mass of freckles on his cunning face slipped out of the crowd. I noticed that his left wrist was held tight to his body, and there was a small bulge in the sleeve of his loose shirt. Probably a throwing knife. He came up close to me and put his arm around my shoulder.

“You have a chance to live a little bit longer. Where’s your woman?”

“What reason do I have to answer?” I looked into the crowd, trying to figure out if they were just working in a pair or if there was someone else.

“You don’t have a wealth of options. If you don’t agree to help us, you’ll be writhing in pain for a long time. Believe me, my friend here will make sure of it. Then we’ll find your woman ourselves and think of a way to do her in good. Or, if you’re accommodating, you can die with her. But quickly and without pain. I give you my word that you’ll both be sent to the Blessed Gardens without feeling anything.”

Some doubt obviously showed on my face, so Greybeard explained, “We try to do our work cleanly and not to drag it out. Believe me, we don’t take any pleasure in causing our targets pain. We’re professionals.”

He wasn’t lying. It really was the case. They were very calm, they didn’t flinch, they weren’t nervous and they were completely unafraid of me. They worked skillfully and harmoniously. These two were Giiyans. Masters. Much better than me. Much better than most that ever worked for Mols.

I had no choice. If I refused now, I’d die right away. If they had managed to catch me, then sooner or later they’d find Layen. It was far better to take the risk. Perhaps I’d get lucky. Al’sgara is large, and anything could happen along the way.