undying legion 01 - unbound man (14 page)

Dallin whimpered. “There’s a loose stone in the old wall, near the north gatehouse.”

“When?”

“Next drop… four days from now. Evening…”

Eilwen let her arm fall. “Thank you,” she said brightly, and Dallin rushed to the door, shoving it open and scurrying inside.

She turned, leaning against the wall and exhaling in a rush.
That wasn’t put on for our benefit. The boy was genuinely scared.
Unease stirred within her, and she hugged her arms to her chest. Ufeus was right, and Brielle too. Something was going on.

“You probably just burned him, you know,” Brielle said. “I doubt he’ll be giving us anything after that.”

“Would you trust anything he told us now?”

“Perhaps.” There was a long pause, then Brielle shrugged. “He didn’t ask for more money. That’s unusual.”

The slow grin spread across her face, and Eilwen gave an abrupt laugh. “Right. Seems suspicious to me.”

But her amusement soon faded, lost beneath her growing disquiet. She made her way back to the Guild in silence, Brielle padding alongside like a cat; and though they exchanged neither word nor glance, Eilwen found herself oddly glad of the company.

•

Arandras was last to arrive at Rhothe’s Bar. The work he’d ignored the previous day to go chasing information about the urn had caught up with him today, and it had taken him all day and part of the evening to complete the most urgent tasks. By the time he joined the group at their booth in the crowded back room and ordered a meal, Mara and the others had finished theirs and had a
dilarj
set out, each of them picking through their pieces and placing their selections on the board. A fourth pile lay untouched before the vacant seat, the coloured band on each piece a matching shade of faded red.

Druce glanced up at Arandras’s approach and gave a theatrical sigh. “Damn,” he said. “Thought Jen or I might have a chance tonight.”

“If you two were going to gang up on Mara, don’t change your plans on my account,” Arandras said, sitting. “Sorry I’m late.”

“Hey, I think he’s getting soft,” Druce said to Jensine. Three mugs already populated his corner of the table, two of them empty. “Wants us to do the hard work for him. How about we take him out instead?”

“Sounds good to me,” Mara interjected, her grin as sharp as one of her cutlasses. “Busy day?”

Arandras nodded. “Busy day.” Frowning, he began sorting through his heap, standing the pieces in rows. An outer shell on each piece concealed its identity from other players, with a small gap on one side to allow the piece’s owner to see within. As he found pieces he was sure to include — spire, dragon, both sorcerers, several fortresses — he set them aside, gradually accumulating his opening set.

“Have you sold the urn yet?” Jensine asked. Her starting pieces were already in position on the board, with the remainder — her reserves — arranged on the table in concentric circles.

“Yeah, don’t keep us in suspense,” Druce said. “How much did you get for it?”

“What’s the rush?” Arandras said, adding two archers and an assassin to his selections. “You got a bunch of coin just the other day.”

“Which went straight to the moneylender, didn’t it, Druce?” Jensine said, her light tone undercut by a streak of genuine irritation.

“Oh, shut up already,” Druce said, turning away from her to focus on Arandras. “How much?”

“Nothing yet.”

“But you’ve started shopping it around, right?”

“What? Yes, I spoke to a couple of people about it yesterday.”

“And?” Druce twiddled a piece between his thin fingers. “Didn’t you say it would only take you a day or two?”

So I did. Damn.
His meal arrived and he perched the plate on the table’s edge, dipping his flatbread into the hot tagine and taking a bite. Mara and Jensine looked at him expectantly, waiting for his reply, and beside him Druce set the piece down and folded his arms.

“It’s turned out a little more complicated than I thought,” Arandras said, swallowing. “I need to do more research before I can sell it.”

Druce’s eyebrows drew together. “Meaning what?”

“Meaning,” Mara said, “that Arandras needs a better idea of what it’s worth before he starts negotiating prices. Maybe it’s worth no more than tonight’s drinks — or maybe it’s worth a great deal more.”

“Really?” Jensine’s tone was cautious, but she looked at him hopefully.

Arandras scratched his beard. Thoughts of the urn’s monetary value had all but evaporated after his conversation with Narvi the previous day. But the artefact was not his alone. Sooner or later, he’d have to sell it. “I don’t know,” he said, resisting the urge to shift in his seat. “I wouldn’t get my hopes up just yet. Give me a few more days and I might have a better idea.”

“So, best case,” Druce said. “How much are we looking at?”

“I really couldn’t say. I’m not being coy, I just don’t know.”

Druce whistled. “That much, huh?”

“What did I just say about getting your hopes up?”

Jensine leaned forward. “I could take a closer look at it. See if there’s any sign of sorcery —”

“No,” Arandras snapped, and Jensine blinked in surprise. “No,” he said again, struggling to remove the edge from his voice. “Thank you. I’ve got it covered.”

An uneasy quiet descended around the table. Arandras bent his head to the game pieces before him, completing his opening set and beginning to position the pieces on the board.

“What about that puzzle box, then?” Druce said, turning to Mara.

Mara shrugged. “Nothing local. Seems there might be some interest in Anstice, if I can get there in the next week or two.”

Druce slumped into the seat with a frustrated sigh. “Damn it.”

The game proceeded in awkward silence. Druce lost his sorcerers early, one in a reckless foray against what turned out to be Jensine’s golem, the other to a clever trap set by Mara, and failed to recover from the setback. A raid by Mara’s dragon exposed his spire and eliminated him from the game. Jensine played more cautiously, but was undone when she left her defences exposed to Arandras’s sappers. They destroyed most of her fortresses before she could drive them off, after which it was only a matter of time before the rest of his army finished the job, her spire eventually falling to his captain.

“Might as well not bother,” Jensine grumbled as Arandras cleared the board of her remaining pieces, leaving only her surviving fortress in place. “It’s always these two in the end.”

“Always?” Druce sounded offended. “You’re forgetting my famous —”

“Yeah, I know. Always, except the time Arandras ate some bad shellfish, and even then, Mara still beat you.” She drained her mug and stood. “I’m done here. Coming?”

Druce looked mournfully at his own empty cup. “Not much point staying, is there?”

“Hold up.” Arandras dug into his pouch and slapped some coppers down in front of Druce, who blinked at the assortment of coins and lengths. “Don’t drink it all,” Arandras said. “Just sit tight until I sell the damn thing. All right?”

Druce’s expression darkened. “Hey, I’m not going to take charity from you —”

“It’s an advance on your portion of the proceeds. I’ll be sure to deduct it from the total.”

Druce considered. “Well,” he said, and began gathering up the coppers. “In that case.”

Once they were gone, Mara leaned back from the game, brows raised. “So. What’s up?”

“What’s up what?”

“Don’t give me that.” Mara folded her arms. “What aren’t you telling us? Did you translate something after all? Hells, if you’re just trying to protect Druce from his own superstitions, I’m with you all the way. But whatever it is, I want to know.”

Arandras dropped his gaze, suddenly afraid that Mara might see his thoughts in his face. “It’s nothing important,” he said, frowning at the board as if contemplating his position. “Nothing you need to worry about.”

“You said that the other day, too,” Mara said. “Is it the Library again?”

He shook his head. “Nothing like that.”

“Maybe I can help —”

“You can’t.” Arandras forced himself to meet her eyes. “Trust me. You can’t.”

Mara said nothing for a long moment. He endured her regard, refusing to look away. Abruptly, she gave a crisp nod. “All right, Arandras. I trust you. Let me know when you’re ready to trust me.”

He winced, unable to prevent it, and he thought he spotted a fleeting look of satisfaction on her face as she turned her attention back to the game board.
Damn it, Mara, it’s not like that. You don’t want any part of this.
But the thoughts rang hollow in his mind, and he didn’t give them voice.

They completed the game in silence, Arandras unable to think of anything more to say, Mara apparently unwilling to give him another opening. Arandras was vaguely aware that his play was loose, but Mara seemed unusually slow to take advantage. Gradually, however, she began to get the upper hand, reducing his army and destroying his fortresses by slow attrition, finally capturing his spire with a lowly scout.

She wished him a curt goodnight, leaving him to pack away the game alone. He sat there for a while, staring at the board and the jumble of pieces lying across the table — the aftermath of the evening’s mock battle.
It’s not you I can’t trust with this, Mara. It’s the whole damn world.
After all, it wasn’t like he’d never tried. He’d trusted the Quill, once, with Tereisa’s life in the balance. And here he was.

Eventually he stirred, clearing away the discarded pieces, leaving the board clean and unmarked: fresh ground for someone else to contest tomorrow.

•

The morning dawned grey and overcast, the sky a vast, flat ceiling of pale marble. The air hung heavy with the kind of moisture only a storm could lift. Arandras threw the door and window of his shop wide open, hungry for whatever faint breath of wind might happen to stir along the street.

The events of the previous evening weighed on his thoughts as he busied himself with the numerous small tasks of opening the shop.
I trust you,
Mara had said to him, and though the words had been barbed, they hadn’t rung false. But she’d spoken in ignorance, unaware of the need that now drove him. Would she have said it if she’d known? He doubted it.

But then, he didn’t need her trust. He just needed a reason to keep the urn a while longer.

He unlocked the lid of his desk and retrieved the sample correspondence for display beneath the window, then glanced up to see Wil trotting in, tablet and stylus in hand, climbing onto the corner table and seating himself there without a word. The boy caught Arandras’s gaze and immediately lowered his eyes, biting his lip and beginning to sketch letters with his stylus.

“Not today, Wil,” Arandras said, laying the samples in their place and putting a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Run along —”

A cough at the door interrupted him. A large man with skin almost as dark as Mara’s stood there, his rough-spun shirt already stained with sweat despite the early hour. “A foul morning,” he said in halting, heavily-accented Yaran. “In Menefir, air is air and liquid is liquid. None of this… uh…” He waved his hand.

“Humidity,” Arandras said, then repeated the word in Kharjik.

“Yes. Humidity.” The guardsman scratched his armpit. “So. My messages.”

Arandras moistened his lips. “About that,” he said, sitting behind his desk and folding his hands, his knee brushing the outer drawer where the letters still lay. “I’m afraid I won’t be able to help you after all.”

Confused, the guardsman cocked his ear. “What say?”

“I said, I can’t help you retrieve your daughter,” Arandras said, struggling not to raise his voice. The man wasn’t hard of hearing, just Kharjik. “In the Free Cities, a young woman may do as she likes. A young man, too. I can’t help you round her up like cattle.”

“Cattle?” The guardsman scowled. “No. Is girl! Daughter!”

“Yes, I know that,” Arandras said. “Daughter, but not girl. Woman. Old enough to decide for herself.”

“No! Girl!” The man slammed a thick fist on Arandras’s desk, and in the corner of the shop Wil flinched. “Twelve summers. Twelve!”

Arandras blinked.
Twelve?
“Are you sure —”

“Twelve!” The guardsman gestured angrily. “I give money. You give messages!”

“Yes, of course. A moment, please.”
Dear Weeper. Only twelve.
He fetched the letters from their drawer, placed them on the desk. “Almost done,” he said, holding up the final, unfinished letter. “A moment.”

Arandras hastily completed the final letter, sprinkling it with sand to absorb the excess ink. The guardsman accepted the stack of letters with an air of injured dignity. “I will find,” he said, the papers rustling as he closed his fist around them. “I will.”

“Weeper’s blessing,” Arandras said as the man left, and sagged into his chair.

Wil shifted on the table, eyes wide, his tablet and stylus forgotten in his lap. “Did something happen to that man’s girl?”

“She got lost,” Arandras said. “But he’s off to find her now, so don’t worry about it.”
Weeper grant she’s still alive.
“And you need to run along. Come back another day.”

Wil pouted, but Arandras was in no mood to humour him. Grudgingly, the boy climbed down from the table, feet dragging as he trailed out the door.

Gods. Where was I?
The guardsman’s visit had utterly disrupted the course of his thoughts.
The urn, that was it.
The sooner he worked out what it signified, the sooner he could find a reason to keep it a while longer.

A fresh shadow fell just inside the door, and Arandras gave a silent groan.
For the Weeper’s sake, what now?

“Hello, Arandras.” Narvi stood at the threshold, picking uncomfortably at his low collar, his sleeves rolled back to his elbows. His cheer of the other day was gone, replaced with an uncharacteristic guardedness. He gave Arandras a long, searching gaze. “May I come in?”

“Of course,” Arandras said, indicating the vacant chair. “Please.” The moment stretched, and Arandras cleared his throat. “Guess I’m not so hard to find after all.”

Narvi’s faint smile did nothing to lift his countenance. “Apparently not.”