Casket of Souls (49 page)

“Yes!”

Knowing better than to take the man’s word for it, Seregil drew back his knife hand and punched him in the head hard enough to stun him. He fell face-first into the mud with a muffled grunt.

“You should cut the bastard’s throat while you have the chance,” a wretched-looking young woman whispered from inside the man’s shack. Her dress was little more than a rag, and she had a freshly blackened eye and a swollen lip.

Seregil pulled the man’s knife from his belt and tossed it at her feet. “I’d hurry, if I was you, dearie,” he told her, then turned back to his search, leaving the man to the woman’s doubtful mercy.

The old man was long gone by now. Angry at losing his mark, he cast around a little while longer, hoping to find him trading with someone else, but there was no sign of him.

“Bilairy’s hairy codpiece!” he muttered.

Then suddenly he spotted him again, standing talking to someone on the muddy path between two shanties, just visible through the rain.

There you are, old grandfather! Time we had a little chat
.

Holding the mud-caked hem of his patched skirt up with one hand, Seregil slogged along clutching his shawl over his head with the other, as if looking for shelter. He was almost to the old man when suddenly Tall Fellow stepped out from behind a shack, sword drawn. His sodden hood hung around his face, but Seregil could make out the black kerchief masking his nose and mouth.

“Well now, who do we have here?” the tall man asked in an amused, raspy voice.

Seregil pulled the shawl closer around him, hoping his large kerchief hid his face well enough. “No one, sir. I was just—” Now and then the truth was the best tack to take. “I was hopin’ to talk with the old raven man.”

“And what raven man would that be?”

Seregil looked past Tall Fellow’s shoulder but the old man was gone.

“Now you’ve made me lose him!” Seregil whined. “Are you one of ’em, too? Can I make a trade with you?”

The masked man chuckled. “And if I am? What does a scrawny little thing like you have to trade?”

Seregil tightened his hands in the folds of his shawl. “Well, nothin’ really, except maybe a tumble …”

“Like you gave that man back there?” The man laughed darkly. “I can do without that kind of fun.”

Damnation, the bastard had seen him take down his would-be rapist. No wonder he wasn’t falling for the helpless beggar act.

“To the crows with you, then,” Seregil muttered. “I’ll find someone proper to trade with.”

“Now, don’t be hasty, dearie.” The man took a step closer, and Seregil could hear the unseen smile in his voice. “How’s about a lock of hair?” He drew a sword that had seen years of use. “I can cut it for you myself.”

“N-no,” Seregil said, taking a cautious step backward. As he’d feared, Tall Fellow advanced.

“Are you sure, my lovely? Just a few silken strands and I’ll give you something for luck.” But that sword said otherwise.

Seregil brought a hand up to his covered head. “I’m afraid you might cut off too much with that big blade of yours.”

The man raised the sword and Seregil took to his heels, holding up his skirt with one hand again and clutching the shawl with the other. The man caught the end of the latter and nearly pulled him over backward. Seregil let go of it and ran for all he was worth, ducking around a pony cart and leaping over a collection of pots an old woman had displayed on a sodden blanket. Behind him, he could hear the bastard shouting something about having been robbed, as if expecting someone here to give enough of a damn to stop Seregil. He pelted on, dignity a bit dented. The man had been playing with him, and he had the sinking feeling that he’d been sussed.

Once he was sure he’d thrown off pursuit he slowed and
held his skirts in a more womanly manner as he circled back through the cold mud to where he thought the old man might be; he’d managed to lose both shoes in his escape.

The rain was coming down in earnest now, driving people from the street. Splashing through ankle-deep puddles, he finally gave up and went to meet Alec in the Sea Market. Alec was waiting for him at the fountain, and his grin promised better news than Seregil had to share.

“The boy talked to you?” he asked as they set off through the downpour for the inn.

“Better than that.” Alec showed him a yellow rock crystal. “This is what the old man traded him.”

“Well done! How did you get it away from the boy?”

“I bought it off him for a few pennies. What about the old man?”

“I lost him.”

“You lost an old man?”

Seregil gave him a sour look. “There was a distraction. Several, actually.”

“What?”

“A near rape, and a big masked fellow with a sword who offered to cut my hair for me—somewhere below the chin. I think he might have been in league with the old man. A bodyguard, perhaps.”

“Probably a good idea in there. Masked, you say?”

“Yes. Not that I’d expect to find many honest men in that part of the Ring, but I’d bet a sester that the tall bastard was a professional.”

“The old man didn’t look like he could afford much in the way of protection.”

“The professional could be part of this raven tribe, with a different role to play. Considering the areas of the city they’ve been working, they may all go out with partners who stay out of sight until needed. And somehow I got the wind up him. I don’t often get noticed, tracking.”

“Maybe he’s a nightrunner, too.”

Seregil let out what started as a derisive snort but turned into a sneeze.

“What happened to your shawl?” asked Alec.

“Spoil of war.”

Alec untied his own and draped it over Seregil’s shoulders. Seregil didn’t argue; the woolen shawl was soaked, but still held in some warmth. He was chilled to the bone and depressed now that the excitement was over. Walking wasn’t quite enough to keep him warm.

Alec patted the stone in his wallet. “At least we have this to show Valerius and Thero. Maybe they can get something from it.”

“Hopefully.” As they splashed along, Seregil found himself thinking more of the tall man than the old one; something niggled at the back of his mind, but he wasn’t quite sure yet what it meant.

Atre crouched in the shadows inside a derelict shanty, stripping off the fake whiskers, wig, and putty nose. Using a clean corner of his sodden cloak, he rubbed at his face to get off the last of the cosmetics. He was nearly done when Brader stepped inside and pulled the mask from the lower portion of his face.

“What was that all about?” Atre whispered.

“You had an admirer,” Brader replied, looking more dour than usual.

“That old beggar woman?”

“Not so old, and no beggar. I saw her take down a man twice her size in the blink of an eye and nearly cut his throat. I’m not completely certain it was even a woman.” He sat down on a box and kept watch while Atre stripped off his beggar’s clothing to the plain garb underneath and wadded the whole disguise into a sack.

“Oh, don’t glower so. You’ve always liked this part of our arrangement,” Atre wheedled.

After a moment Brader said, “I know you don’t want to hear this, but it’s happening again. You’re taking too many risks and someone is taking notice.”

“Your raggedy lady friend?”

“Listen to me for once, cousin!” Brader growled. “That was no beggar woman.”

“Well, that’s why I have you, isn’t it?” Atre said with a
grin. “The next time you catch someone suspicious, just kill them like you usually do. You haven’t bloodied your blade more than once or twice since we’ve been here.”

Brader let out an exasperated snort. “Because you were being careful, until that night you got yourself stabbed in that rat-hole tavern. It’s going to be just like before—”

“No, it isn’t,” Atre assured him with that dark, hungry smile. “It’s going to be much, much better.”

Back at the Stag and Otter, Seregil sent word to Valerius to meet them at Thero’s tower. Washed and changed into dry, nondescript clothing, they set off for the Orëska House through the relentless downpour.

Their cloaks were soaked through by the time they reached it. The night torches cast wavering lines of ruddy light across the huge puddles that had gathered all over the garden and in the carriage path.

Servants took their horses and cloaks, and they hurried upstairs to Thero’s rooms.

“We have something to show you!” Alec exclaimed as soon as the wizard let them in.

“Something more from Reltheus, I hope?” Thero asked, wiping his hands on his work apron. The room smelled like burnt roots and wine and there was something black and acrid bubbling in a flask on one of the long tables.

“Uh, no. We found something in the Ring that will help Myrhichia.”

Thero raised a questioning eyebrow as he took the stone from Alec.

Alec waited expectantly, hoping the wizard would divine something from it instantly. “A boy got this stone for a hog’s tooth. A little girl currently dying in the Sea Market temple got a sweet for a clay doll.”

“Interesting,” Thero muttered, tilting the stone this way and that to catch the light.

Rain lashed against the glass-paned dome overhead and lightning vied with the lamplight as he tried a few spells, then clutched it in his hand, muttering another under his
breath. After a moment, however, he shook his head. “Ordinary quartz, imbued with nothing. It’s useful in a few spells, but it has no killing power.”

A wave of disappointment rolled over Alec. He’d been certain this would be the key. “But there has to be something!”

“I’ve never seen quartz that color,” Seregil noted.

Thero shrugged. “It’s common in Skala’s northeast territory, near Isil.”

“But not found down here on the peninsula?”

“No, but you can get it easily enough. I’ve bought some from a stone dealer in Farrow Street.”

“And you can’t read
anything
about the old man from this one?” asked Alec.

“No, that’s one of the properties of the stone; it doesn’t take on the essence of those who handle it. That’s about all that makes it valuable, actually.” He held the crystal so it caught the light again. “It’s just the sort of thing a child would like, isn’t it? And sweetmeats.”

“I’d like to know where our strange friends got it from,” Seregil mused. “If they bought it here, then the dealer might be able to tell us something. But if they brought them here themselves, then they may not be from the city after all. Is your man in Farrow Street the only one who sells these?”

“I doubt it,” replied Thero. “I’ll make inquiries around the House to see if anyone gets their stones from somewhere else. As far as you know, is it always a trade?”

“We only know of a few cases for certain, but it was a trade those times,” Alec told him. “I think that must be significant. Otherwise the ravens could just as easily buy or steal what they want, right?”

Thero pondered that for a moment, clearly intrigued in spite of himself. The wizard loved a riddle as much as Seregil did. “Given the nature of the trades, it isn’t like for like,” he mused. “And apart from the quartz, none of the objects had any real value?”

“Is a hog’s tooth used for any magic?” asked Alec.

“None that I know of. And even if it were, you wouldn’t need to trade with a child to get what you could have for free from any butcher’s offal pile.”

“So?” asked Seregil.

“I’m not certain yet. If I had some other type of traded item, one that would hold an impression, I might be able to tell you more.”

A heavy knock sounded at the door and Thero went to let Valerius in.

“You’ve found something?” the drysian asked, tossing his wet cloak over a bench.

“Alec got this from a boy who traded for it with some beggars called the raven folk.” Thero handed him the yellow stone.

Valerius held it up to the light, sniffed it, then licked it. Shaking his head, he handed it back. “What am I supposed to make of this?”

“You don’t sense anything from it?”

“Nothing. It’s not poisoned, if that’s what you were thinking. And I suppose if it were cursed or bespelled, I’d be hearing about it from you, Thero.”

“I sense nothing on it, but this kind of stone doesn’t retain impressions.”

“You mean we went through all that for nothing?” Alec exclaimed in dismay.

“No, Alec,” said Seregil. “We just need to get something else, and now we know how.”

Thero rested a hand on Alec’s shoulder. “This is getting desperate. I know what this means to you, but the two of you have made inroads in both cabals that can’t be taken over by anyone else.”

“What about Micum Cavish?” asked Valerius. “Maybe he could look into this raven business for you. He’s very good with the lower classes.”

Seregil arched a wry eyebrow. “Do
you
want to tell Kari Cavish that we intend to send her husband into the south Ring?”

“You don’t think he can handle himself there?”

“Of course he can. But not alone. Bilairy’s Balls, Valerius,
I
wouldn’t go in there alone, and I doubt you would, either.”

“Micum wouldn’t have to,” said Alec. “We could take turns during the day, helping Micum.”

“What about Malthus and his friends?” asked Thero. “And the reprisals?”

Seregil sighed. “The two sides may do the job for us.”

“Have they tried assassinating you lately?”

“Nothing so far. Perhaps word got back to them somehow that we aren’t so easy to kill. Or it was only Laneus sending them. With two failed attempts, I suspect that if the others come after us again, it won’t be by way of an assassin. Given what we’ve seen of the methods on both sides, it’s more likely to be some form of blackmail.”

Valerius snorted at that. “What could they do to you that way? It’s not like either of you has a pristine character.”

“I expect it would be something along the lines of another incriminating letter, like the one found with Laneus’s body.”

“At least Korathan knows the circumstances of that one,” said Thero.

Seregil frowned. “If too many more of those sorts of things come to light, he might just start to doubt all of us. Now, as for Micum, will you send one of your little messengers out to Watermead? Just tell him we have a job we need help with.”