Gunpowder (6 page)

Iskandriel,
happy with an impeccably carried out operation, swept the trade
shop with one last look and gave the signal to move out. Breiig
slung the luggage packed in a sailor’s fashion over his shoulder
and muttering something under his breath about wasting public
assets, which will fall into the hands of the enemy, came out to
the street. The girl took his travel bag nearly immediately after
setting foot on the street, saying that a stranger with luggage is
much less conspicuous, and a local, respected merchant with luggage
heading to the port can cause unhealthy sensation. They walked
close to each other, but not together, so as not to arouse
suspicion. All of these precautions proved to be futile, because
not even two hundred yards further their way was barred by a
swarthy man with a close-cropped beard.

- Miss
Iskandriel, I presume?

The girl
startled, but before she could take any action, two nasty young men
smiling nastily turned from the nearest stand ready to shoot their
crossbows, and she felt a blade of a dagger stabbing her gently in
the back. In the corner of her eye she saw a sturdy man, dressed as
a docker, putting two nasty-looking guns to Breiig’s spine. A man
with the goatee approached slowly to the agent and grabbed her chin
with a lazy motion.

- You will
come with me, birdie. And do not try any tricks, because Larsen is
just waiting to tickle you, and besides him there are still half a
dozen shooters no less eager to plant something in you.

A murmur of
laughter from Larsen and his stalwart companion summed up the
sleazy ambiguity. Iskandriel wondered whether the attackers were
actually so determined to start a shooting in the centre of the
city, but if they were, any attempt to escape would cost her life,
and she did not want to find out about a possible decision making
error in a way so final. Resigned, she gave in and let them quietly
bring her to the guardhouse, where she was separated from Breiig,
who was immediately taken to the interrogation room.

Guards were
not overly violent, though it was hard to call their behaviour
courtly. They treated her harshly, but did not beat her
pointlessly, limiting themselves only to routine jabs and kicks.
Besides, they did not rape her right there at the guardhouse, which
could even be considered a unique sign of respect. On the other
hand, perhaps they felt that they will have their chances later,
because it looked like she would have to spend some time in
custody. For a start, she was to soften overnight in an extraction
cell. After a brief conversation with the clerk she was escorted to
an oubliette, stinking horribly, but dry, in which with
considerable astonishment she met the captain of the ship, aboard
which she sailed in. Kristoff sat against the wall and bluntly
gaped at a small barred window placed level to a side street, or
rather in fact an alley, where all the impurities from the
headquarters of the municipal guard landed. Seeing the compost heap
by the window, the agent ceased to be surprised about the pervasive
stink.

They were both
chained to the wall by the ankles and wrists, but the chains were
long enough to allow each of them a few steps. The first few
attempts of accosting the smuggler failed. The captain was sitting
against the wall, his hands covered his knees and completely
ignored any communication attempts made by Iskandriel. Finally,
when she knelt beside him and began to shake his arm, he sprang up
and looked at her hatefully and croaked out with constrained
fury

- Can you,
young lady, explain to me why a lamebrained copper took over my own
ship and enforced an arrest on me?

- Um... I was
also taken in custody, was I not? Besides, why are you so sure that
it was my fault that you were brought here? Was I the one smuggling
illicit goods?

- I have done
my share of dark deeds, but I have never stuck my nose in political
affairs. And my ship was interned for anti-state activity, and not
for smuggling. Had the young lady said plainly that we sail with a
secret mission, I'd probably be able to give the young lady some
advice.

- I can handle
myself. - She stood over still chained Kristoff rubbing her sore
wrists. The captain looked dumbfounded at the empty shackles lying
beside her. The girl impressed him, but he did not lose his cold
blood, knowing in the face of new evidence, that the conversation
evolved into negotiations that are likely to have a key
significance for his future existence.

- Then save
yourself on your own and while you’re on it find another fool for a
captain, because you will not sail out of Smiteverden on my
ship.

- Okay, I give
you that. What do you want in return?

- The
truth.

- Sorry but
that I can not offer.

- Beautiful,
beautiful... I wonder how the lady plans to escape from the city.
The northern path is probably not really an option for the young
lady, otherwise you would try to get in here this way as well.

- Let’s make a
deal: I will answer those questions which I can, and the rest I
will pay off together with your silence.

- Pay off?
With what?

- A
privateer’s patent.

- Really? Of
which state?

- The Free
City Daelwynn.

- It is indeed
free to joke. Daelwynn is located in the hinterland. It doesn’t
even have any allied ports now, since even in Haaven you are not
welcome.

- It’s always
better to be tried as a soldier than as a smuggler.

- To be shot
instead of hanged? Please explain to me, young lady, how is one
superior to the other?

- Firstly, I
think it's time to start calling each other directly by name, as
all prisoners and criminals are equals everywhere... and you sir
put enough venom in calling me a “lady” it will be easier for me to
listen to you without it. Besides, I think we both know that the
names we have previously presented to each other are false.

- What a
sudden and unexpected change of topic... but let your will be done.
So what is your real name?

- Iskandriel.
Iskandriel of Daelwynn.

-
Iskandriel... - he weighed her name on his tongue and tasted it in
his mouth. - Somehow strange. But... suitable for a witch.
Especially the one with a need to shine everywhere. Isn’t this so,
Sparkles?

- If you just
have to twist it, I prefer Sparks, if you will. I am much more
likely to set you on fire than to flash you. And if you wanted to
insult me this “witch” of yours, your shot couldn’t have been
further off target. I had heard worse things and more than once
too. In my line of work it is my daily bread, so to speak.

The captain
looked at her intently, and his eyes appeared to glow with a sudden
glare of enlightenment, then he pointed an accusing finger at
her.

- You are not
a simple spy. You are a special forces agent...

- There is no
way to deny such a splendid deduction.

- This father
of yours, is he one too? - Iskandriel silently nodded in
confirmation. The smuggler smiled sadly and shook his head as if
incredulous of his own naivety. He looked at her, and his smile
took on a mysterious and somewhat sinister expression - Nice to
meet then, Sparks, spy from Daelwynn. - The captain stepped back
and bowed in front of her in a slightly mocking, but quite correct
courtly fashion, jingling his chains. - I am Kristoff von Truanpago
the captain of the “Thunder Led”, the best and most wanted smuggler
of the East Sea and the Inner Ocean.

- I know. -
The girl grinned a cheeky smile, and Kristoff was simply rendered
speechless with astonishment. - I was very lucky that you just
sailed to port. Otherwise, I would have to hire some dilettante.
Did it not surprise you that in just a few hours you got rid of the
whole load of zemnas and at a good price too? Who do you think put
up the money for it?

- What did you
need my ship for? - The sailor sat down on the stone floor quite
impressed. For the next few moments he listened carefully to the
girl’s story adding from time to time his own observations.

- I had to
discreetly get into Smiteverden, cut off by sea blockade, reach
Breiig, who was for many years the head of the Daelwynnian
intelligence network, here in the far, cold north, and then safely
extract him and all his most distinguished, and above all, most
useful people...

- I guess
Breiig and his men were involved over the last few years in
destabilizing the situation, and hence it is them one should be
thanking for the secession of Smiteverden from the Trade Guild
Union and the subsequent blockade of its harbour by the Eastern
Company. I think I should thank him personally for his deeds,
because he single-handedly tied the majority of this organization's
military potential for more than half a year. I will not deny that
the last half a year was extremely lucrative for me thanks to all
this.

- ...and when
push came to shove, I was to take back with me anyone I could,
before the local authorities catch on to the fact that the current
dispute with Eastern Company had been likely their work.

- Actually,
I'm not interested in politics. Tell me what happened next.

- My mission
began triumphantly. I came to Haaven as a travelling herbalist,
from there I got on a scheduled schooner to Trogar. It’s the
informal capital of the pirates and smugglers of the Karahamian
Islands.

- I know.
That’s where I'm from.

- After
getting off the ship, in the back of a dingy pub away from the city
centre, I kicked off the women's clothing and turned into a young
Karahamian tradesman on a trip to the Northern Kaesary, looking for
a quick ship sailing across the Inner Sea. When the vessel I found
sailed back to Haaven, I could proceed with the main part of my
plan, having gained confidence that through my elaborate evasions
all agents, tracking me in that merchant city when I first arrived
there, were confounded and lost. Still in the harbour, I changed
into a distraught daughter of a Kaesarian merchant begging the
captains for help to gain passage to Smiteverden and to take her
poor father out of there, and the young tradesman disappeared in
the morning mist hovering over the harbour docks.

- And then you
met Hans.

- No, not yet.
I’ve been in Haaven for three days already, when I met him, but the
delay in my travels paid off doubly. I was able to recruit a
contact in the person of an aspiring merchant in serious need of a
quick and substantial cash influx, whom you’ve met already, as he
was the one buying your goods, but above all... Above all, I
managed to get to captain Kristoff Truanpago, the most reliable and
most cunning smuggler of the Thousand Isles Ocean.

- Don’t be
cheeky.

- Now, how
could I? Thus, after brief negotiations, I teamed up with the
famous islander, having an infamous reputation as a smuggler and a
knockabout, but also, and most importantly, an excellent sailor.
And his ship...

- Stop it.
There is no time for foolery now. Think about what we can do
next.

- We will do
as follows: We will open the cell door...

- Nice... And
how are you going to do that?

- You see,
there is still one more thing you need to know about me. I am an
aurician.

Kristoff
became silent with shock. Knowing Sparks so far, taught him a
far-reaching caution towards her statements, but if the girl was
telling the truth, he had to deal with a much more serious person
than he had expected. He has never met a real aurician, and yet he
was a man of the world, who used to call many places home.

Aura was
obviously omnipresent. Not once, and not twice he has met
aura-sensitive people, who were able to seal wounds with the force
of their will or increase the power of liquors and healing potions,
but he has never known a person having the ability to freely shape
the aura. Auric talent manifested itself in only a few of whom only
a few again had enough of it to let themselves be educated in the
art of controlling the Aura. Most of them lived in the north-east
of the Northern Kaesary, Arokania or the edge of The Woods, where
Aura was the strongest, but a few auricians resided in every major
city of the Herbion continent.

Anyway, the
girl’s skills mattered greatly. Instead of being mere prisoners
awaiting the sentence, they became a ticking time bomb
inadvertently brought into the enemy headquarters under false
pretences. An intelligence agent, even only freshly out of
training, was dangerous, an aurician with combat training was
deadly. He was not just any hobbledehoy himself. He shot on target,
fenced better than decently, and if it was needed of him he could
plant a few blows on any snout of men larger and stronger than
himself. Before he shook himself out of his reverie, Iskandriel
freed herself completely from the shackles and chains and folded
her hands on smuggler’s restraints. The manacles heated slightly,
but not enough to burn his skin. Moments later bolts dropped out of
the holes and the chains fell to the ground.

- Well, so
much for first things first. Now, the door...

She knelt by
the door’s lock, and laid her hands on it. Her face paled, and her
forehead shed small beads of sweat. Heavy bolts moved laboriously.
Sparks paid almost as much attention to the stealth of her
operation, as she did to its effectiveness. The lock opened
soundlessly. After a few moments the agent sat down heavily on the
stone floor and wiped a drop of thick dark blood hanging from her
nose with the back of her hand. She nodded to Kristoff to make him
try opening the cell. The door gave way slightly and as silently as
the lock. The captain looked surprised at the aurician, his eyes
expressing his highest respect. The girl grinned at him, pleased
with the impression she made.

The smuggler
opened the cell door and having noticed no reaction from the
outside, poked his head into the jail’s corridor. He looked around
assessing the situation. They were detained in the cell farthest
from the exit, the doors of which were on the wall opposite the
guard-post, abandoned at the moment. The captain opened the door
wide and took a few steps. The aurician stood up, dusted off and
joining him put her hand on his shoulder, to make him understand
that she would like to go first. Kristoff did not argue. After what
we saw in the last few minutes he was completely convinced that she
would cope with possible opponents as well as himself, or probably
better.