Reckless (Free Preview) (12 page)

He turned his
back to her.
 
"Go away," he
said.
 
"Just leave already."

And he
listened to the rock again, let it paint pictures and turn to stone what was
soft in him.

19

Valiant

Terpevas was
the largest city of the Dwarfs.
 
It was
more than twelve hundred years old, if their records were to be believed.
 
And yet the large hoardings on the city
walls, advertising anything from beer and eyeglasses to patented gas lamps,
made it clear to any visitor that no one took the modern times more seriously
than the Dwarfs.
 
They were restless,
traditional, grouchy, and inventive, and their trading posts could be found in
every corner of this world, though the Dwarfs themselves barely reached the
hips of most of their customers.
 
In
addition, their reputation as spies was unrivaled.

The traffic in
front of the gates of Terpevas was nearly as congested as it was on the other
side of the mirror, though here the noise came from carts, carriages, and
horses vying for space on the gray cobblestones.
 
The Dwarfs' customers came from everywhere,
and the war had only increased business.
 
They had been trading with the Goyl for a long time, and the Stone King
had made many of them his chief purveyors.
 
Evenaugh Valiant, the Dwarf whom Jacob had come to see, had also been
trading with the Goyl for years, staying true to his motto of always getting on
the winning side in time.

Let's just hope the devious little bastard
is still alive
!
Jacob
thought to himself as he steered his mare past coaches and chaises and toward
the city's southern gate.
 
After all, it
was perfectly possible that by now some cheated customer had bludgeoned Valiant
to death.

It would have
taken three Dwarfs standing on top of one another to look into the eyes of one
of the sentries by the gate.
 
Only those
men who could prove their direct descent from the extinct race of Giants were hired
to guard Terpevas's gates.
 
The
Giantlings, as they were referred to, were highly sought after as guards and
mercenaries, even though they were generally not thought to be very bright.
 
The Dwarfs paid them so well that they even
squeezed themselves into the old-fashioned uniforms used by their employers'
army.
 
Not even the imperial cavalry wore
helmets plumed with swan feathers anymore, but the Dwarfs liked to decorate the
modern era with the reassuring uniforms of more traditional times.

As Jacob rode
past the Giantlings, he fell in behind two Goyl.
 
One of them had a skin of moonstone; the
other's was onyx.
 
Their attire was not
any different from that of the human factory owners whose carriage the
Giantlings waved through behind them — though their tailcoats revealed distinct
bulges of pistol handles.
 
Their wide
lapels were embroidered with jade and moonstone, and the dark glasses with
which they shielded their sensitive eyes were made of onyx, cut thinner than
any human stonecutter could have ever achieved.

The two Goyl
ignored the fear and disgust their presence clearly elicited in all the human
visitors to the Dwarf city.
 
Their faces
said it quite clearly:
 
This world
belonged to them now.
 
Their King had
plucked it like a ripe fruit, and all those who, until a few years ago, had
hunted them like animals were now burying their soldiers in mass graves and
begging for peace.

The
onyx-skinned Goyl removed his glasses, and his gold-drenched glance so
resembled Will's that Jacob reined in his horse and stared after them until the
angry shouts of a Dwarf woman with two tiny children whose path he was blocking
brought him back to his senses.

Dwarf
city.
 
Shrunken world.

Jacob left the
mare in one of the stables by the city wall.
 
Terpevas's main roads were as wide as the streets of the humans, but
beyond those there was no denying that the city's inhabitants were barely
larger than a six-year-old child, and some of the alleyways were so narrow that
Jacob could barely pass through them even on foot.
 
All the cities of Mirrorworld were spreading
like fungi, and Terpevas was no exception.
 
Smoke from countless coal furnaces blackened the windows and the walls,
and the cold autumn air certainly did not smell of damp leaves, even though the
Dwarf's sewer system was vastly superior to that of the Empress.
 
With every year Jacob spent in it, the world
behind the mirror seemed more desperate to catch up with its sister on the
other side.

Jacob could
barely decipher the street signs, for he had acquired only a very scant
knowledge of the Dwarf alphabet, and soon enough he was hopelessly lost.
 
After the third time Jacob hit his head on
the same barber's sign, he finally stopped a messenger boy and asked him for
directions to the house of Evenaugh Valiant, Importer and Exporter of Rare
Objects of Any Kind.
 
The boy barely
reached his knee, but his demeanor immediately became
more
friendly
as Jacob counted two copper coins into his tiny hand.
 
His diminutive guide darted through the
crowded alleys so quickly that Jacob had trouble keeping up with him, but
finally they stopped in front of the same entrance Jacob had squeezed himself
through three years earlier.

Valiant's name
was etched in golden letters on the frosted glass, and just as before Jacob had
to duck his head to fit through the doorframe.
 
Valiant's reception room was just tall enough for his human clients to
be able to stand upright in it.
 
The
walls were decorated with photographs of his most influential customers.
 
Even in the Mirrorworld people no longer had
themselves painted but photographed, and nothing attested to Valiant's business
acumen better than the fact that the portrait of the Empress was hanging right
next to that of a Goyl officer.
 
The
frames were made of moon-silver, and the chandelier hanging from the ceiling
was inlaid with the glass hairs
of a Djinn
, which must
have cost the Dwarf a fortune.
 
Everything indicated that business was good.
 
There were two secretaries instead of the one
grumpy Dwarf woman who had greeted Jacob on his first visit.

The smaller of
the two didn't even lift his head as Jacob stood in front of his barely
knee-high desk.
 
The other one eyed him
with the customary disdain Dwarfs displayed toward all humans, including those
they were doing business with.

Jacob gave him
his friendliest smile.

"I take
it Mr. Valiant still does business with the Fairies?"

"Indeed.
 
But we don't have any moth cocoons in stock
at the moment."
 
The secretary's
voice, like that of most Dwarfs, was surprisingly deep.
 
"Try us again in three months."

With that, he
turned his attention back to his papers, but his head shot up again as Jacob
cocked his pistol with a soft click.

"I'm not
here for moth cocoons.
 
Would you both be
kind enough to step into that wardrobe over there?"

The strength
of Dwarfs was legendary, but those two were rather scrawny specimens, and
Valiant obviously didn't pay them enough to risk being shot by some passing
human.
 
They let themselves be locked up
in the wardrobe without any resistance.
 
It looked solid enough to ensure that they couldn't call Dwarf police
while Jacob had a chat with their employer.

The crest that
was proudly displayed on Valiant's office door showed, above the Fairy lily,
the heraldic animal of the Valiants, the badger, sitting on a mound of gold
coins.

The door on
which it hung was made of rosewood, a material known not only for its high
price but also for its superior soundproofing qualities, which meant that
Valiant hadn't noticed any of what had been going on in his front office.

He was sitting
behind a human-sized desk, the legs of which had been shortened.
 
His eyes were closed, and he was puffing on a
cigar that would have looked huge even in the mouth of a Giantling.
 
Evenaugh Valiant had shaved his beard, as was
now the fashion among Dwarfs.
 
The
eyebrows, usually as bushy as those of
all his
race,
had been carefully trimmed, and his bespoke suit was made of velvet, a material
rich Dwarfs coveted more than any other.
 
Jacob would have loved to pluck him out of his wolf-leather chair and
toss him through the window behind him, but the memory of Will's petrified face
held him back.

"I asked
not to be disturbed, Banster."
 
The
Dwarf sighed without opening his eyes.
 
"Don't tell me it's about that stuffed Waterman again."

He'd grown
fat.
 
And older.
 
The curly red hair was already turning gray,
early for a Dwarf.
 
Most of them lived to
be at least a hundred, and Valiant
was
barely sixty,
unless he'd also lied about his age.

"No, a
stuffed Waterman isn't quite what I'm after," Jacob said, pointing his pistol
at the curly head.
 
"But three years
ago, I paid for services I never received."

Valiant nearly
choked on his cigar.
 
He looked at Jacob
as dumbfoundedly as one would at a visitor one had left to the mercy of a
stampeding herd of Unicorns.

"Jacob
Reckless!" he said, panting.

"Well, I never!
 
You actually remember my name."

The Dwarf
dropped his cigar, and his hand reached under the desk, but he quickly pulled
his stubby fingers back as Jacob slit his tailored sleeve with the saber.

"Careful,
now!
'
Jacob said.
 
"You don't need both your arms to take me to the Fairies.
 
And you don't need your ears and your nose,
either.
 
Hands behind you head.
 
Now!"

Valiant
obeyed.
 
As he raised his hands, his
mouth twisted into far too broad a smile.

"Jacob!"
he purred.
 
"What is this?
 
Of course I knew you weren't dead.
 
After all, everybody's heard your story.
 
Jacob Reckless, the fortunate mortal who was
kept by the Red Fairy for a year.
 
Every
male creature in the
land,
be he Dwarf, human, or
Goyl, is green with envy at the mere thought of it.
 
Go on:
 
Admit it!
 
Whom do you have to
thank for that?
 
Evenaugh Valiant.
 
Had I warned you about the Unicorns, you
would've been turned into a thistle or a fish, like any other uninvited
visitor.
 
But not even the Red Fairy can
resist a man who's lying, helpless, in his own blood."

Jacob had to
admire the Dwarf's brazen logic.

"Tell me!
"
Valiant whispered across his oversize desk without
even a hint of remorse.
 
"How was
she?
 
And how did you manage to get
away?"

Jacob grabbed
the Dwarf by his bespoke lapels and pulled him out from behind his desk.
 
"This is my onetime offer:
 
I won't shoot you, and in return you'll take
me to their valley once again, but this time you show me how to get past the
Unicorns."

"What?"
 
Valiant tried to wriggle free, but Jacob's
pistol quickly changed his mind.
 
"It's a two-day ride, at least!" he whined.
 
"I can't just leave the business!"

Jacob simply
shoved him toward the door.

The two
secretaries were whispering in the wardrobe.
 
Valiant glared in their direction as he plucked his hat from the
coatrack by the door.

"My
prices have increased considerably in the past three years," he said.

"I'll let
you live," Jacob replied.
 
"That's more of a raise than you deserve."

Valiant gave
him a pitying smile as he adjusted his hat in the glass of his front door.
 
Like most Dwarfs, he was partial to black top
hats, which added a fair number of inches to his stature.

"You seem
to be desperate to get back to your old flame," he purred, "and the
price always rises with the desperation of the customer."

In reply,
Jacob tapped the muzzle of his gun against the Dwarf's hat.
 
"Trust me," he said, "this
customer is desperate enough to shoot you at a moment's notice."

20

Too Much

Fox smelled
golden revulsion, petrified loathing, frozen love.
 
The entrance of the cave exhaled it all, and
her fur bristled when she found Clara's tracks not the grass in front of
it.
 
She had stumbled more than walked,
and her tracks led toward the trees growing behind the cave.
 
Fox had heard Jacob warn Clara about those
trees, but she'd rushed toward them as if their ominous shadows were exactly
what she was looking for.