Parasite Soul (11 page)

Here and there, Niu paused to make discreet inquiries of merchants
and craftsmen. None of them seemed inclined to offer their services or
advice; sensing legal entanglement, even Niu’s coin did not persuade
them. One scowling weaponsmith even threatened to turn them over to the
guard. Eventually, a disreputable looking jeweler pointed them toward an
inn which went by the moniker
The Nameless Nymph
.

“A fellow there occasionally runs folk in trouble out o’ town,” he
said. “Name o’ Jock.”

“What price does this Jock ask?” Niu wondered.

“Can’t say. Bunch o’ cutthroats runnin’ that joint, though,”
he warned, flashing gold teeth. “Keep yer mouths shut an’ yer hands on
yer purses.”

During Simon’s recent visit to Vanyon’s Parade, the town had been
considerably less active. An air of jubilance radiated throughout the
great square now, despite Vanyon’s severe stone glare. Merry laughter
rang out across the cobbles. Puppet shows and jugglers amused the
children while adults gathered to discuss current events, trade amongst one
another, or lob rotten projectiles at a pair of unfortunate women who were
locked into a pillory outside the three-story
Nameless Nymph.
The
merriment might have been infectious, once. Simon wondered if they’d
heard, or at least suspected, that the curse of the dragon had been lifted.

Looking grim, Niu approached the battered door of the ‘
Nymph
.
She clearly anticipated trouble. Even without the jeweler’s warning,
Simon would have had serious misgivings about trusting his fate to anyone who
might base their operation out of such a dump. The inn was run-down and
seedy. Dead vines failed to conceal rotten boards and flaking
paint. Several windows were boarded up, which hardly inspired confidence.
The cobbles leading to the door were stained with what was either blood
or red wine, and Simon had to tread carefully to avoid broken glass. As
the jeweler had suggested, this was the type of establishment where one might
find thieves, murderers and women of, as his father called them,
ill-repute. Still, Simon had learned to trust Niu’s judgement, even if
she often made him feel inadequate, so he made no protest as she ducked under a
hanging sign depicting a crudely etched, bare-breasted mermaid and pushed her
way into the inn.

The ‘
Nymph
was ill-lit and the atmosphere was toxic. Simon
might have been able to stomach the sour mustiness, if not for the thick coils
of smoke poisoning the air, causing him to splutter and cough. Niu shot
him a warning look, and he was able to control his rebellious lungs, though not
before every eye in the establishment had marked him as an outsider. Eyes
tearing, he followed her as she led him across a creaking, sagging floor,
between tables which tottered unsteadily on legs which had been splinted or
substituted with replacement parts - in one case a stack of bricks.

The clientele worried Simon; perhaps not so much as they might have
prior to the events of the last few days, but he knew it would pay to be
wary. All manner of rogues seemed to populate the inn’s shadowy common
room. Many were of Cannevish stock, but he saw more foreigners than he
might have expected. A pair of huge, platinum-maned barbarians from the
frozen Northlands squatted in one corner, eschewing chairs and tables to play
some manner of game involving tossed bones on the floor; one of these
barrel-chested titans was spattered with dried blood. Slumped in one dark
corner, dead drunk, lay a snoring man who wore the demonic Eye of Phthalam on a
chain around his neck in a shocking public display of blasphemy. A
short, slight woman clad entirely in black sat alone, her broad-brimmed hat
tilted down over a face which, he realized with a shock, was largely concealed
behind a silver mask. He wasn’t sure where she might have originated; her
attire suggested Lemmereq in the distant west. Wherever her homeland, the
mere sight of her raised Simon’s hackles. Life, he had no doubt, was
cheap within these walls. Maintaining an illusion of confidence was
profoundly difficult in the face of the calculating stares and blatant
hostility which he seemed to be absorbing from all directions.

A morose serving girl padded between the tables, enduring lewd
propositions and groping hands with shadowed eyes and wilting lips. She
barely seemed alive. Her eyelids hardly flickered when a jolly old fellow
in a battered overcoat thwacked her backside with his cane, much to the
amusement of his mates; nor did she react or respond to his indelicate
suggestion that she service him with her mouth. She just kept walking,
her expression less neutral than nonexistent. Simon pitied her. She
seemed so colorless, so defeated by the world that the desire to help her in
some way, an instinct he knew Niu would tell him was painfully naïve, bubbled
up inside him.

Repressing his impulses, he joined Niu at the bar, which apparently
doubled as the front desk. The woman in charge, improbably skeletal and
cursed with an unpleasantly narrow, horsey face, ignored the two of them
completely. She sat and smoked with three rough looking local customers,
all visibly armed. Isolated strands of hair sprouted from her chin, while
her lower eyelids sagged grotesquely in an effort to escape her bloodshot
eyeballs. Faded tattoos were visible on the shriveled skin of her arms.
Clad in what appeared to be a moth-eaten black housecoat, she clearly
held very little concern for her appearance. Simon was about to clear his
throat and introduce himself politely when Niu snapped her fingers and jerked
her head. Sighing, the gaunt woman made a show of heaving herself off her
stool and wandered unhurriedly across to them.

“We are looking for transport into northern Cannevish,” Niu said.
“Incognito.”

Her voice was oddly raspy, as though she were trying to disguise
it. Or perhaps the smoke was getting to her. Either way, her
precise manner of speech marked her as a foreigner, and the innkeeper
scrutinized the depths of her hood mistrustfully. Her bleary eyes
wandered across to Simon, without recognition or interest, then back to
Niu. Neither woman spoke for a long moment. Simon was unable to
determine whether each was attempting to stare the other down, whether they
were just sizing one another up, or they were communicating in some silent
fashion. He stood by uncomfortably and drummed his fingers on the bar.

“Good for you,” the gaunt woman said curtly, turning away.

“I hoped that
Jock
might be willing to take us.”

The skeleton heaved a withering sigh and scratched her nose
resentfully.

“Could be done,” she said eventually. “For the right price.”

Niu reached beneath her cloak and jingled her drawstring bag.
It seemed a lot less bulky than when Simon had seen it last; no doubt Niu had
secreted some of it away.
At least she shows the kind of foresight I
don’t have,
Simon thought regretfully.

The innkeeper squinted slightly. A second round of silent
negotiation left Simon bemused and worried. He was well aware that
several other parties had taken an interest in the interchange.

“Sasha!” the innkeeper shouted at length.

The somber serving girl wandered over, tray in hand. She
glanced at Niu and Simon without curiosity, her eyes listless and dull.

“Mother,” she said. Her tone was as hollow as her gaze.

“Take these two back to see Jock,” the woman said. “They’re
interested in passage north, quiet-like.”

“Yes, mother.”

“And hurry back. No dawdling. There are guests to think
of. You hear me? Straight back.”

“Yes, mother.” Had the girl even blinked during the
interchange? Simon didn’t think so. Her eyes were black, glassy,
and a little uncanny. Simon felt his pity for her shriveling away,
replaced by mild aversion.

The skeletal woman’s eyes drifted back to Niu as she tossed her
spent cigarette to the floor, ground it under her heel, and lit a fresh
one. “Jock will name his price.”

“If it is reasonable,” Niu said firmly.

“That’s your affair.” The innkeeper shuffled off, rejoining her
circle of cronies.

Sasha didn’t spare her charges a glance as she slipped around the
counter, set her tray down, and disappeared through a shadowed door. With
some trepidation, Niu and Simon followed her. Somewhat ominously, the
innkeeper kicked the door shut behind them.

The dour serving girl was difficult to see in the gloomy
passage. Her raven hair, black skirt and leggings melted into the
semi-darkness. Niu shadowed her closely, one hand dancing across the haft
of a concealed knife. Simon hung back, relieved that Niu clearly also
suspected a trap. His nerves were jangling violently; he barely
remembered what it felt like to be able to let down his guard. It seemed
so long since he’d been able to relax. Every shadow in the hallway might
as well have been a lurking cutthroat. He longed for a torch, wondering
what manner of dungeon Sasha was leading them to.

“Up here,” Sasha said, indicating an alcove, the darkness of which
must have concealed a stairwell.

“What’s up there?” Simon asked instantly.

The girl cocked her head. “Jock’s room, of course.”

“Of course,” Simon muttered.

“Could we have some light?” Niu’s request was reasonable, but the
serving girl shot it down.

“No. Mother doesn’t like her clients to… see.”

“See what?” Simon asked blankly.

“Are all your questions so stupid?” A tinge of scorn touched
the girl’s monotone voice. Simon shuffled and cleared his throat.

“We will remain here while you fetch this Jock.” Niu said firmly.

“As you wish.” Stairs creaked.

“I don’t like this,” Simon whispered to Niu as the girl’s footsteps
faded above.

“Nor do I,” the handmaiden admitted. “Keep your wits about
you.”

Thoroughly intimidated by the darkness, Simon put his back against
what he thought was a wall. He cried out in shock as he discovered a
curtain instead, and went tumbling through the rough, grasping cloth to land
hard on the floorboards. Niu made a hissing sound of alarm.

“Simon! Where are you?”

Simon scrambled to his feet, clutching at the curtain for
support. “A room!” he rasped. “I… I can’t really see much.”
The chamber was as dark as the corridor, with the exception of one faint sliver
of light which had clawed its way inside through a crack in the ceiling.
By its meager light, Simon could discern lines of blocky shapes along the walls
– bookcases, probably, or cupboards. At the center of the room lay a slab
with something on it. Something roughly the size of a human being,
shapeless in the blackness. Curiosity overcoming him, Simon moved
carefully toward the slab, almost immediately bumping into an unseen
table. Staggering sideways, he then tripped over a stool and hit the
ground cursing.

“What are you
doing
?” Niu hissed.

Drawing every cutthroat in the joint down on me,
Simon thought angrily, but he did not answer. Righting the
stool, he stood and brushed himself off.

“Come out of there.”

“Just a minute.” Simon had reached the slab now. He reached
out gingerly to touch it, or more precisely what lay on it, but the dark
unknown overcame him. A thrill of dread shot through him just as his
fingers were about to make contact; he retracted his hand as though he’d thrust
his fingers into a forge. An unbidden recollection came to him of the
butchered man in the cabin outside Saber Bend and his sightless green stare.
Whatever it was that lay there, stiff and silent in this oppressively
lightless, forbidden chamber, he discovered he
didn’t
want to know after
all.

“She’s coming!” Niu breathed urgently. The stairs were
creaking again.

Simon hurried urgently across the chamber, careful to avoid the
furniture, and fought his way through the curtain just as the shape of the
serving girl reappeared in the hallway.

“What were you doing?” she asked with obvious suspicion.

“I tripped,” Simon said, truthfully enough.

The shadow regarded them quietly for a moment or two, then turned
and padded down the hall.

“Jock must be outside,” she said over her shoulder.

Outside,
Simon thought, fighting the
crawling dread which slithered up his spine.
Outside
sounds
truly wonderful at present
. Whatever went on in the dark recesses
behind the
Nameless Nymph’s
bar were secrets the serving girl and her
mother were most welcome to keep.

Relief flooded him as daylight spilled into the corridor. Niu
was holding one hand to her heart as though she feared its imminent
failure. The serving girl had opened a door onto a small, gated
stableyard behind the inn. Now this, at least, was familiar; the smell of
horses and hay – even of manure - set him at ease, and he began to pine, once
more, for his father’s farm. Several beasts were stabled here; five
horses and an enormous ox. A large wooden cart stood just inside a metal
gate which opened onto a narrow, cobbled lane.

Curled in a pile of hay, his straw hat pulled low over his face, lay
an exceptionally tall and equally thin man. A red-and-white checkered
shirt, hanging open, was tucked sloppily into a pair of incongruous black
leather pants which were much newer than the rest of his wardrobe. His
boots were badly scuffed but might once have also been black.