Ilbei Spadebreaker and the Harpy's Wild (11 page)

“Get on up there and see what’s in there makin that smell.”

“But I don’t smell anything. And frankly, I think your assessment of the diameter of that opening is rather stingy. Granted, it’s difficult to gauge from down here, but by the volume of water issuing from it, I’d sa—”

Ilbei grabbed Jasper by his arms and turned him physically around, facing him toward the hole. “Ya done heard me already, lad, so up ya go.”

“That’s right, lad,” Meggins echoed, doing a fair impression of Ilbei’s voice. “Up ya go.” Both he and Kaige were snorting and making sounds that bordered on giggling.

Jasper started to protest again, but the firm hand of Sergeant Spadebreaker on his back was enough to set him in motion. He looked up toward the opening and sighed, withering in the heat. “Fine,” he said. “But if I die, let it be on your conscience.”

“I can live with that,” Ilbei said. “Now get to it.”

Chapter 9

J
ust as it had appeared it would be, climbing the slope under his own power was impossible. Though not vertical, the slope was so steep that, try as he might, Jasper could not get more than three or four spans up it before the loose rocks slipped and slid beneath his feet, his balance gave way and down he’d come, sliding amongst a small, sharp-edged avalanche. Needless to say, the first few times quite amused Meggins and Kaige, but on the fourth attempt, Kaige stopped laughing when Jasper slid to the bottom again, this time protesting and showing several cuts on his hands and along his shins where the slate had sliced him. The long red lines of blood that ran freely into the slender wizard’s shoes apparently touched the big man’s sensibilities. Kaige turned to Ilbei at that point and shook his head. “He is sort of scrawny for it, Sarge. Maybe I should go and set him up a rope.”

Ilbei had just been thinking the same thing and nodded, despite Meggins protesting, “Now where’s the fun in that?”

Kaige helped Jasper up, the young magician’s hand vanishing in the great mitt of Kaige’s giant one, and then the burly warrior set himself to the task. If it could be said that Meggins was amused by Jasper’s failed attempts moments before, well, the sight of mighty Kaige rolling back down the slope put him into seizures. Kaige took a second run at it, his long legs speeding him up the slope, and he managed nearly half the distance before his feet slipped out yet again. Down he came, this time tumbling all the way down and bowling into Meggins, the two of them rolling into a tangled heap. Meggins was in tears, he laughed so hard, and even Ilbei was grinning some, but only until Kaige unwound himself, drew the bastard sword off his back and strode up the slope again, this time plunging the weapon into the hillside to use as an anchor. At that point, Ilbei had to call him off.

“That’s enough,” he said. “Don’t do that. We’ll find another way.”

“I’ll get it, Sergeant,” Meggins said. “You can’t send a ninny or an oaf to do a man’s job.” And with that, Meggins launched himself up the hill, scrambling on all fours like an ape in leather armor.

He didn’t fare any better than the others had, and when his feet slid out from under him and he rolled back down, not only was Ilbei laughing, even Jasper was. Meggins lay on his back near Kaige’s feet, looking up at his comrades, the dust of his descent still swirling around him, as Ilbei asked, “So which one are ya, oaf or ninny?”

“Both,” he said, grinning.

Jasper took his satchel off his back and began rummaging through it, until eventually he pulled out a scroll with a ring of orange ribbon binding it. A length of ribbon dangled from the knot, which he stretched out so that he might read what was written there. He nodded, confirming something to himself, then held the scroll up for the rest of them to see. “This will work,” he said, “if one of you wants to attach a rope up there.”

“What is it?” Ilbei asked.

“It’s a levitation spell. I can get myself up there, of course, but once I go inside, I’ll have to cancel it. So I’ll have no way down. I am abundantly familiar with knots, of course, but if there is nothing to tie to inside, my bringing a rope with me will still be meaningless. I don’t believe I am physically qualified to safely drive a piton into the rock.” He inclined his head toward Meggins in an indicative sort of way, then stared at Ilbei patiently.

Meggins narrowed his eyes at that, but there was still laughter lingering in them. “You sneaky bastard,” he said. “I should have known you had it set for me all along.”

“It’s only reasonable to send up the person most suited to the task,” Jasper replied. “A few moments ago, when the only obstacle appeared to be an issue of size, I was that candidate in your minds. But now that there is an element of strength required, you, being the next order of leanness from me, are the obvious choice.”

“Enough,” Ilbei said. “Read yer scroll. Meggins, get yer climbin gear. We need to be on with this and head back. We’re already goin to be pushin our time as it is.”

“I still don’t know why we have to hurry back to sit in on a game of ruffs,” Meggins said. “What’s he think, we came out here for the camping and recreating, like we’re on our leave?”

“I ain’t even tried to figure it,” Ilbei said. “Speculatin on such a thing puts me too close to insubordination if’n I speak it, and there’s been often enough in my time where I couldn’t see the landscape fer the spot a’ land I was standin on. If’n he’s got a bigger idea than I can reckon, so be it. If’n he don’t, well, I don’t expect he’s gonna win anythin from me that will set me back much. He may fancy hisself a fine sport at ruffs, but there ain’t a trick I haven’t seen a thousand times.”

“Well, I’m not too proud to admit I can be beaten—or cheated,” Meggins admitted as he hauled out a length of rope, a hammer and a rolled leather packet of steel spikes. “Been both enough times to know it.” He pulled out one of the spikes and threaded the end of the rope through an eye punched in it near its blunt end.

“Well don’t ya go accusin no nobleman of cheatin tonight. Even if he is. Just come in with whatever ya think ya can turn, and if’n ya can’t turn it, make sure it ain’t more than ya can walk away from without hurtin ya none. I’ll try to get it back fer ya, by cards or by protest, if’n ya do. And if’n I can’t, when we get back to Hast, I’ll put in a request fer reimbursement, bein as ya been ordered to play.”

Meggins looked up from his work, watching Ilbei, who looked him straight back in the eye and nodded that it was true. “You will?”

“I will, if’n ya don’t play the fool about it,” Ilbei said. “I ain’t got no say-so over a major, but I know the system well enough to make it right when we come round.”

Meggins smiled, nodded and went back to work. “Then maybe I’ll enjoy the game.”

“Just keep to what I said. I can’t promise to get yer stake back.”

“I understand,” Meggins said. He slipped the coiled rope over his head, around his neck and shoulder, and tucked a few extra pitons and the hammer into his belt. Turning to Jasper, he said, “You ready there, wizard?”

“I am,” Jasper said. “Just tell me up or down, closer or farther, softer or harder.”

Meggins frowned. “Softer or harder?”

“Yes. I can adjust it so you are standing on solid ground or something that gives like mud or sand, and even lateral movement as if you are standing on ice.”

“Ah, I got you,” Meggins said. “Okay, well, let’s go, then. And don’t drop me.”

“I won’t.”

Jasper stretched the scroll to its full length and began reading in a language none of them understood. Ilbei watched him, waiting, and eventually wondering how many damned words could possibly be written on a single scroll. And then Meggins was floating in the air.

The wiry warrior rose up smoothly, straight up, until he was standing in the air at chest height to the rest of them, at which point he gave out a whoop. “Holy Hestra and her seven-headed son! Kaige, you seeing me?” He turned, as if fearing somehow he might fall off, and grinned down at everyone.

“I see you, Ferster. I see you.” Kaige looked absolutely delighted, and he turned to the chanting wizard, buoyed by giddiness. “Jasper, Jasper, can I go next?”

“Don’t interrupt him, you fool,” Meggins snapped. “He’ll drop me like a burning rat.”

Kaige looked horrified and apologized.

“All right, get me up there, Jasper,” Meggins said. “Easy now.”

Jasper did not acknowledge the request, but up Meggins went, angling toward the hole midway up the unassailable slope. He flew straight for it as if on a line, and when he got to it, Jasper’s cadence as he read slowed and became a mumbling repetition of a singular set of lines.

Meggins leaned toward the hole where the water spat out, and he peered into the darkness. “I think I can get through,” he called down, “but I’m going to need a light. I should have brought a light. Can you bring me back down for one?”

Just like that, he was descending again, a broad grin on his face. Kaige could hardly contain his jealousy, and he ticked and hawed like an eight-year-old in line for a gryphon ride at the Crown City Royal Faire.

Ilbei lit a torch and handed it to him with two extras, just in case. “Ya can toss em in if’n ya need to.”

“Good idea,” he said. “Okay, up again.”

Once more Jasper’s chant altered a little as he read, and a few moments later, Meggins was peering into the hole with his torch. “Not much room in there,” he said. “A crawlspace in the water. I think it opens up a few spans in.”

“Ya smell carrion or shite?” Ilbei called up to him. “Anythin that might be harpy stink?”

“No, Sarge. Don’t smell anything. Not even your vinegar.”

“Can ya get in there far enough to see?”

“Yeah, I think so. Give me a sec.” Meggins shifted the rope on his shoulder and leaned into the hole, bracing against the bottom of the flow with one hand, reaching in deeper with the torch. “Move me up about three hands,” he called back, his voice amplified as it washed out of the hole.

Jasper altered his reading slightly, for the barest few seconds, and Meggins’ feet moved up to where his knees had been.

“That’s good,” Meggins shouted. Then he hunched down and crawled into the hole, his knees as wide apart as the opening would allow, sort of hopping on his one hand while raising the other as high as possible to keep the torch from getting wet. The water splashed all around him, and he spat and swore as the current, disturbed by his blocking it, nearly snuffed the torch anyway.

“Are ya all right in there?” Ilbei shouted up at him.

“Yeah, fine,” Meggins called back. “Just give me a few.”

For a time there was silence as Ilbei and the rest of them craned their necks, watching the hole and waiting for Meggins to reappear. Jasper stopped chanting as soon as Meggins’ boots vanished into the darkness. He blinked a few times, shook his head as if to clear a daze, and began waving the parchment in the air at arm’s length, trying to stay clear of the blue smoke that had begun issuing from it the moment he stopped reading.

Ilbei and Kaige stepped away from the smoke as well, as there was no telling what it might contain, and they watched for a few moments until it finally stopped. Jasper held the parchment taut, and Ilbei saw that it was now blank. All that magic writing was gone. Jasper stretched it and tilted it away from himself, then blew off a dust of purplish ash. Apparently satisfied that it was as he wished, he rolled it back up again, sliding the ring of ribbon around it and adding a small knot at the dangling tip to mark the scroll as spent. Without even glancing to Ilbei or Kaige, he simply resumed watching the hole from which the water came.

Shortly after, they could hear the sound of hammer on steel, suggesting Meggins was pounding a piton into the rock somewhere inside. A few moments later, out came the rope, a black stripe that shot out with the flow of the water and waggled in the current, being carried downstream until the line passed over their heads and its full length was achieved. It went taut, then slack, and it dropped out of the bottom of the gushing spray, most of it anyway, all but a length of half a span, which bounced and fished about in the mild torrent just outside the hole. The rest of it slid out of the stream, and some four spans of its length fell flat against the slope with a wet slap, lying against the warm stone like a fresh-washed serpent that’s hung itself out to dry.

“Ya see there, boys, it’s just waitin fer to be climbed,” Ilbei said. “Let’s have a look. Kaige, you stay down here, watch that nobody comes in after us, what with ya not likely to fit in there anyways.” He wasn’t so sure he was going to fit either, given how tight it had been for Meggins going in, but he was bent on having a look anyway.

Kaige nodded, and with that, Ilbei motioned for Jasper to come along. Ilbei took up the rope and began his ascent, angling himself against the incline and moving slowly, checking each placement of a boot carefully before trusting it.

Shortly after, he was at the opening, studying it dubiously. He didn’t much care for the prospect of stuffing himself into it, not once he was right up to it and could see how narrow it was. It was smaller than it had seemed, and he wasn’t too sure his broad shoulders would fit, even with the aid of lubricant and a flirting potameide. There definitely was no possibility of Kaige getting in there without time spent on the edges with pickaxe or hammer. He turned back to check on Jasper’s progress behind him and saw that the young wizard was clinging to the rope for dear life. He’d managed to slip and had rolled sideways into the stream where it hit the rocks, where he was now caught by the weight of the current. He clung to the rope desperately, his head peeled back and his mouth gasping for air as the water choked his cries and he battled to keep from being swept away. He was losing that battle half a hand’s length at a time.