having been dragged out of bed.”
“It comes with the cal ing, dear.” He did not look up from cleansing a wrist abrasion.
Inger went to a smal room no longer in use. She looked for eavesdroppers, checking the passageway behind one wal .
“There must be more to this than you said.” Babeltausque responded, “They knew we were coming.
They knew who was coming. That should be instructive.
They know what we’re going to do as soon as we decide to do it.”
“Nathan?”
“I’m impressed with the wizard now that he’s out of the shadow of your cousin. There’s a lot more to him than I imagined.”
Babeltausque puffed up a little. “Thank you, Mr. Wolf. Your Majesty, I left those people with messages of my own. I’m hoping they’re stupid. If you wil indulge me, then, I need to get back to work.”
“Doing?”
“Fol owing up. This isn’t over because we recovered Colonel Gales. Unless you want those people free to go on about their mischief.”
“No! Get on with it. And I’l pray that your luck continues.”
...
Chames Marks dipped a cup into the pail of beer. The girl fol owed suit. He said, “You’re too young for that, Haida.”
“I need it. The way that man looked at me! Wearing that sweet smile…” “There might be a monster behind the merry eyes?”
“I real y wanted to bring him here so Arnulf could work on him.” They were in the back of a butcher shop. Arnulf Black was the proprietor. Haida was under the mistaken notion that Black disposed of people Chames did not like.
“I’l see to it that you don’t run into him again.”
“I don’t think he was looking at me. I think he saw a fantasy girl.” “Probably true. Get the chessboard. We’l play while we wait for Brom.” Chames smiled. It was not hard to distract Haida if he engaged her intel ect.
She played him tough. He could not shut his mind down.
The back door rattled suddenly, frantical y. Chames rose.
“Something’s gone wrong. Slide out the other way. Go to the shop. Wait there. No lights.”
Rattle again, accompanied by hoarse, worried whispers.
Marks opened the door. Three men tumbled in, one bleeding from wounds on his face and hands. “Shut that, Edam. Al of you, take a deep breath. Calm down. Then somebody tel me where Madden is and what went wrong.” Edam locked the door. “It went just like you said til we went inside the Wrench. We never got a chance to ask questions. The barkeep saw us and said, ‘You would be the ones.’ He started fil ing mugs. ‘On the gents that just left,’ he says.”
“I see. Wel . I didn’t expect them to taunt me back. Go on.
Then what?”
“So we drinks our beers. Minter says how Hartaway was gonna be browned off on account of he was fol owing them others and gonna miss out. So then the barkeep asks do we want to top up, the guy from the castle paid for plenty.
We says, yes sir, thank you very much, sir, since it’s on somebody else. The barkeep tops us up, then he hands Madden this big-ass bronze medal with some kind of blue stones set in it. Then he gives Minter a folded piece of paper. Madden goes, ‘What’s al this, then?’ The bartender goes, ‘I don’t know. The guy running that bunch said give it to the guy running your bunch. He said give the note to the guy that looked the stupidest.’”
“And?”
“So Madden is looking at that medal and we’re looking over each other’s shoulders. The barkeep is on the other side of the bar, trying to see, too. Madden touches one of them blue stones. And, Bang! The medal ion explodes.”
“It tore him al up,” said the man who was bleeding. “Took both of his eyes, blew off the hand he was holding it in, and ripped out the side of his throat. He had it in his left hand, like this, maybe a foot from his face. I had to pick pieces of his fingers off’n me.”
Edam said, “The blast got the barkeep, too. His face was messed up.” “I get the picture.” Better than did they. The barkeep was not part of the plot. “You stil have that note, Minter?”
“I sure do, boss. I never even looked at it.” Where would be the point? The man could not read. “Lucky you.” Minter went pale behind his shrapnel wounds. “You think…?” “Unless that note is just a bit of mockery we may have only minutes to live. Give it here. And hope some
‘Neener neener!’ is al it is.” Marks took the note. “Al right.
Everybody out. Find Hartaway, then get out of town. Right now if they didn’t shut the gates tonight.” The gates did get left open more often than not, depending on how far the guards’ pay was in arrears.
“What about my face and hands?” Minter asked.
“The wounds aren’t dangerous. Clean them up once you’re twenty miles out of town.”
“Oh. Yeah. Shit. Let’s get the flock out of here, troops.” Marks shut the door behind the three. It was a shame about Madden.
But he could do nothing about that, now.
Madden being the victim might actual y have been good luck. The others were good men, but stupid. Madden would have carried nothing to connect him with anyone else.
He pushed the folded paper over beside the chess set, stared at it. He felt no obvious danger but had little feel for sorcery. He used his belt knife to prod the paper.
Nothing happened.
He sniffed.
Nothing.
He used two butcher knives to unfold the sheet. How long did he have? A while, probably. With Gales in hand those men would report to the Queen first. After that they would try to track the tracer spel sure to be attached to the note.
Clever, evil bastards. Kil the only man smart enough to be in charge and the stupid ones would run straight to their control carrying a tracker spel .
Never touching the paper with his fingers, Chames spread the note.
Which was blank. Presumably the tracer was inscribed in invisible ink. He held the sheet with one knife and smoothed it out with the back of the other. The note convulsed suddenly and said, “Boo!” Time to go.
...
“I doubt that we’l catch anyone,” said Babeltausque, watching soldiers load the dead man into a cart. Poor old Wachtel would have to get out of bed again.
“We need to try,” Wolf replied.
“Of course we do. For our own sakes as wel as the Queen’s. If we fail her we fail ourselves.” Wolf grunted, unhappy with that truth.
Rumor had an angry Kristen ready to come out of hiding, hel -bent on revenge for the murders of her best- loved companions.
The sorcerer told the soldiers managing the corpse,
“Take him to my workroom after Wachtel says he’s real y dead. I’l see what he can tel me.”
The soldiers looked uncomfortable.
Let them think he could conjure the shades of the dead. Let that notion gain currency. There were spies in Castle Krief.
Fear might make them reveal themselves.
Wolf asked, “Can you stil detect that charm?”
“I can. It’s down that way, probably less than three blocks.”
“Think they figured out what it is?”
“I hope so.”
Wolf said, “You puzzle me, man. Maybe even scare me a little.”
