City of Jade (38 page)

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Authors: Dennis McKiernan

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“I know not, Nikolai,” said Aravan. He turned to Noddy, now second bosun of the
Eroean
. “Fetch Aylis.”
 
 
Noddy and two others rowed back to the ship, and within moments Aylis and Lissa and Vex boarded the skiff. The sailors turned the craft and began rowing back, with Vex in the prow and peering down into the crystalline waters as they approached the isle.
 
 
Aylis and the others disembarked, even as Aravan picked a lengthy bone out from the long-cold ashes of the fire.
 
 
Vex whined and postured, and Lissa said, “All right. All right.” She looked up at Aravan, even as he squatted and examined the bone. “Captain, Vex says the atoll itself is lifeless: no birds whatsoever; and even the reef fish so plentiful in these waters were absent as we rowed over. And look at the plant life. It is nought but scrub and stunted trees. Vex thinks we’d better get back on the ship and leave.”
 
 
At these words, Aravan realized his blue stone amulet dangled outside his jerkin. He pressed his palms against the token and said, “ ’Tis slightly chill to my touch.” He stood and looked about, adding, “Somewhere a distant peril lies.”
 
 
Dokan unslung his war axe from his back and eyed the surround, even as others of the crew laid hands on the hilts of their falchions.
 
 
Aylis yet peered askance at the bone. “Let me do a .” She murmured an arcane word and looked upon the bone and then the remains of the castaways. Tears sprang into her eyes, even as a horrified gasp escaped her lips. “Oh, my.”
 
 
“What is it? What is it?” asked Lissa.
 
 
“They turned to cannibalism, drawing lots to see who would be the next ‘provider,’ ” said Aylis.
 
 
Now Lissa’s face blanched, and she turned to Vex and buried her face in the vixen’s fur.
 
 
“Be it
Petrel
?” asked Nikolai.
 
 
Aylis shook her head.
 
 
Aravan glanced at Aylis and Lissa and Vex. He touched the stone once more. “The amulet grows more chill. Noddy, return Aylis and Lissa to the
Eroean
.”
 
 
Even as Noddy moved to comply, “No, Captain Aravan,” protested Lissa, “you will need my arrows.”
 
 
“And my ,” said Aylis.
 
 
Aravan sighed. “Then we shall all return to the ship.”
 
 
They stepped to the skiff and rowed back to the
Eroean
. Even as they clambered aboard, the mainmast lookout called down, “Cap’n, you ought to come up and see this.”
 
 
“What is it, Finn?”
 
 
“I don’t rightly know, Cap’n. A darkness is all I can say.”
 
 
Aravan scrambled up the ratlines to the crow’s nest. “Where away, Finn?”
 
 
“Yon,” said the lookout, pointing to waters central to the atoll.
 
 
In the center of the lagoon the sea changed from a pale crystalline green to a wide circle of deep blue.
 
 
“Make ready to get under way!” called Aravan down to Long Tom. “All sails! We might need to run as fast as the
Eroean
will fly!”
 
 
Even as James piped the orders, Long Tom cried up, “What be it, Cap’n?”
 
 
“A blue hole,” Aravan replied.
 
 
“Oh, lor,” breathed Long Tom, and he began barking commands as the ship heeled about and took up the wind and slowly gained speed.
 
 
“What is it? What is it?” asked Lissa. “What’s a blue hole?”
 
 
“No one knows exactly,” said Tarley, standing by the helm in case Fat Jim needed help with the wheel. “Though seldom sighted, ’tis said there be many. Each be a great hole, circular round as if driven by a giant auger. And deep, oh, deep . . . bottomless, some say, and almost always in a ring of islands. And there be things said to live down in—things dire deadly.”
 
 
“Well, why didn’t Finn know to call out a warning earlier?” asked the Pysk.
 
 
“This be Finn’s first voyage, taking him on as we did earlier this year when Bri left. He bain’t likely to know about the blue holes yet, I reckon.”
 
 
Even as the
Eroean
gained headway, Aravan’s gaze swept the circular extent of the blue hole in the lagoon bounded by the ring of isles. And with his keen Elven sight, he espied a broken ship’s mast jutting just above the surface at the near edge of the rim of dark water, its splinters clutching at the sky as would a maimed hand.
 
 
Straight away from the atoll the
Eroean
sailed.
 
 
“What be there, Cap’n?” asked Finn.
 
 
“Mayhap a dreadful thing occupies the deep of that hole,” said Aravan. “Dost thou see the ship’s masts just this side of the dark blue?”
 
 
Finn stared long, but at last said, “Cap’n, my sight be sharp, but yours be e’en keener.”
 
 
“Keep watch, Finn, for I fear our journey to the isle might have disturbed what lives therein, and I would not have it grasp the
Eroean
.”
 
 
And after a while, as the atoll slipped over the horizon aft, Aravan clambered down from the crow’s nest and to the main deck. And neither he nor the lookout above saw the welling of water as a monstrous green thing come heaving up from the depths of the blue hole, only to sink back down and out of sight once more.
 
 
 
Three months later, as the Elvenship sailed into Arbalin Isle at the end of her fruitless voyage, a message awaited Aylis . . . a message from Queen Dresha. Aylis had once paid her respects to the Queen during a time the
Eroean
had been in Caer Pendwyr.
 
 
33
 
 
Chicken Thieves
 
 
BURGLARS
EARLY SUMMER 6E9
 
 
 
 
 
Ah, then, so that’s how we ended up in this unseemly business of burglary
, thought Pipper as he and Binkton stealthily slipped down the alleyway.
 
 
“Where are these chickens you spoke of?” hissed Binkton, interrupting Pipper’s thoughts.
 
 
“Just ahead,” said Pipper. “I noticed them when I was watching Rackburn’s manor. I saw that now and then they escape their yard, so chickens being on the loose shouldn’t seem unusual.”
 
 
Binkton snorted. “Don’t you think that chickens on the loose in the
night
might be a bit strange?”
 
 
“You have a point, Bink, but even so, we aren’t very far from the edge of the city, and who’s to say a fox didn’t somehow get in the henhouse and roust them out?”
 
 
“Ha! So we are foxes, now?”
 
 
“More like ferrets, I would think,” said Pipper.
 
 
A few more paces down the lane and, “Ah, here we are,” whispered Pipper, and he stopped at a wooden alley gate on the left. “We have to keep the chickens quiet, else the owner is like to fly a few arrows our way.”
 
 
“Shall we wrap them in our cloaks?” asked Binkton, unclasping his. “—The chickens, I mean, not the arrows.”
 
 
“Good idea,” murmured Pipper, and he slipped out of his own cloak and lifted the latch on the back entry.
 
 
Moments later they were again in the alley, two hens each bundled in their wraps.
 
 
As they stealthily started down the way, Pipper fell into reflection again, recalling the past two years. . . .
 
 
34
 
 
Criminals
 
 
BURGLARS
EARLY SPRING, 6E7,
TO EARLY SUMMER, 6E9
 
 
 
 
With the help of Weasel and Tope and Cricket and a few of their urchin friends, throughout the next two years they managed to follow a goodly number of “protection” collectors. And so, a wave of burglaries struck Rivers End, and even the corrupt city watch became involved in trying to discover just who the thieves were. And some of the places burglarized had the latest of locks and the best of strongboxes, but still they were opened and all monies taken. And other of the places had befanged walls and guards for protection, yet they were burglarized as well. The merchants simply shrugged and said they knew nought, for the only thing they understood was that they paid their protection monies, and what happened after that was a complete mystery to them. But on the sly, the storekeepers began donating five coppers to each of the urchins who brought back their silver coin.
 
 
And in one of the crowded marketplaces, as Tark and Queeker made their way among the stalls, a group of eight urchins or so, playing some game, went running and squealing past the pair, jostling and bumping as they ran. It wasn’t until later that Tark noted all that was left of his money pouch were the ends of the thong that held it to his belt. He and Queeker rousted every known marketplace pickpocket and cutpurse in the city, but all claimed innocence, even after fingers were broken.
 
 
Meanwhile, Binkton, chortling and laughing, shared out the coin among the urchins and sent them to return the silvers to the merchants from whom they had been taken.
 
 
With their copper rewards, the urchins ate well that night.
 
 
Some of the merchants feared that the protection collectors would simply demand more, yet it seemed that whoever was behind the scheme realized that he could not get blood from stone, and so he left them alone. In desperation, though, the protection collectors began hitting up the very smallest of stores, ones they had never bothered before, and that was how Lady Jane had come to lose five silvers to the brutes.
 
 
The buccen were incensed, and over the next few days they set their small gang out to follow the trail of that particular collector, and it led to a manor occupied by one of the leading lights of Rivers End: Largo Rackburn, a man of means, though no one seemed to know how he had come about his wealth.
 
 
Pipper and Binkton and their urchins set watch on the Rackburn house, and they noted as collector after collector brought their loot to the place, Tark and Queeker among them.
 
 
It came to the attention of one of the lads that Lily Francine, an actress at the Rivers End Theater, was a favorite of Largo’s, and he went without fail to every opening performance when Lily had the leading role.
 
 
“I thin’ it be his child, Pip,” said Tope, wiping his nose against his sleeve. “That’r she be his sweetie.”
 
 
“And when will she be opening?” asked Binkton.
 
 
“In a sennight,” said Tope.
 
 
“Then we’ve a sevenday to make our plans,” said Pipper.
 
 
“Well, you’re the acrobat,” said Binkton, “so it’s up to you to spot a way in.”
 
 
“Right,” said Pipper. Then he turned to Cricket, who had grown somewhat during the half year the buccen had known him. “Cricket, you and Weasel make certain of the date of the performance. Not that I don’t trust you, Tope, but we’ve got to be sure, and since you’ve been there before, I wouldn’t want anyone to think you’ve been snooping about.”
 
 
Tope nodded and again wiped his nose against his sleeve and said, “ ’At’s all ri’, Cap’n. I ain’t ’ffended.”
 
 
And so it was that Pipper began in earnest watching and recording the comings and goings at the Rackburn house, and of the back wall and the balcony at the rear of the manor, and of the guards within. And by spying from a wall where he could see through the back windows, he noted what looked to be Rackburn’s office. It was the most likely place for a strongbox, and it could be reached from the balcony. The spikes atop the back wall would pose little or no hindrance to the buccen. And the window to the room would prove to be no bar to Binkton’s skills.

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