Sourcethief (Book 3) (41 page)

The cloaks hid swords and most of the bandolier of
pistol shots that Tanner wore, though a metallic glint peered out from between
the edges. The cloaks hid skin as well, and blended two foreigners among the
local throng, many of whom were dressed much the same.

"Can't believe how short the coin was to get
these fellas around here to talk," Tanner said quietly, his brim rubbing
against Stalyart's. "A street sneak could starve trying to sell secrets
around here."

"They feel safe, and well they should. Our kind
don't survive long. Once we have the boy we must take him farther west. Back
the way we came there will be men expecting us—men with shackles and
chains."

"No argument there. Let's just do this,"
Tanner replied.

They came upon a gathered crowd clogging one of the
city's major intersections. A voice somewhere within the throng was shouting
above the murmur of the city noise, some sort of street performer. Stalyart
moved to join the fringes of the crowd but Tanner took him by the arm and held
him back.

"Don't get close. They might spot us. Come
on," Tanner said. He led Stalyart down a side alley, looping around the
performance. "That's got to be Wendell. That means Zell's probably around
too, I'd wager."

"They must be fools to carry on in such public
fashion. Surely they must know they will be hunted," Stalyart said.

"Yeah, Wendell mostly, I guess. Varnus—Zell's
twin—thinks the whiskers in his ears connect. He's set on performing, gutted if
I get why," Tanner said.

They caught glimpses of the crowd as they passed
each side road from the alley, continuing until they got to the far side of the
gathering. There had to have been hundreds of people watching.

"They must be new in town, if a traveling magic
act can round up these kinda numbers," Tanner said.

"I would very much like to see the show,"
Stalyart said. "Word must have spread ahead of them. I imagine he must be
quite skilled." The two of them were in an alley, pressed near the wall of
some building, skulking around waiting to stalk someone from a crowd.

We're figments out of a fairy
story: two men in dark cloaks, looking to run off with a boy. Those stories
never end up workin' out for the fellas in dark.

"Stow it. Remember, we might have to kill that
beloved entertainer over there to get away with this. Don't go sending him
locks of your hair or nothin’, " Tanner chided. "We just wait for the
show to end, and then we follow them."

Stalyart heaved an exaggerated sigh. "If we
must, we must. While we wait, you might answer a question which has burrowed
itself under my skin. Why did you offer to bring both boys? Captain Zayne would
have released you gladly after returning just Anzik."

"We talked a bit once ... I agreed he was
actin' the thievin' preacher about the boy gettin' kidnapped. Not like it was
worse than anything he'd done himself, or worse than stuff I'd done,"
Tanner said. He kept his voice low, and leaned close to Stalyart. "Well,
see I got thinkin': maybe it
is
worse. Kyrus ain't a bad sort at heart,
but he lets a lot of things slip his mind when it suits him. He didn't care a
spit about the boy until I came up with a plan to trade him for the staff
Jinzan's got. Kyrus knew it was a long coin bet, but he let me take it anyway.
Probably figured I was a dead man ... another thing to let slip, I guess."

"So you wish to prove you are a better man than
Captain Zayne, or Mr. Hinterdale? Is that it?" Stalyart asked. A hint of a
smile curled his lip. Stalyart always found a way to slip into a good mood if
you did not keep him from it, Tanner noticed.

Tanner spit on the cobbles—or tried—making a little
wet hole in the fresh fallen snow. "Naw, gut both of 'em for all I care.
Sorry if you're friends with Zayne, but I'm not. No, just sits wrong in my
belly, being mixed up keeping a kid from his family. I got coin, I don't need
more that bad."

Birds filled the air, surprising neither man as they
each checked the aether and found not a living bird among the flock. It was to
be the last of the magician's tricks, and calls for donations followed. The
edges of the crowd began to fray at once and drift away about their business.

"That one there, the big one. That's
Zell," Tanner said, and pointed to the hulking Acardian where he stood
among the onlookers. He took Stalyart by the arm. "I don't want him
spotting us, let's move."

They moved parallel to the main road, slipping
between buildings, heading in the direction they knew would take them to the
rooming house where their quarry was staying. Progressively fewer people were
seen walking along their way, as the spectators filtered out into the city.
They waited until they caught sight of their three marks: Wendell, Zellisan,
and the boy. Tanner got a look at him, and knew Anzik's twin at once. Once the
trio has been lost from view, Tanner and Stalyart hustled to the next
crossroad, and waited again.

"Good, there they are again. They're heading
back to their room," Tanner said. When they next lost sight of their
quarry, they ran ahead, having made their guess about how much time they had
before Anzik's twin was brought back safely to his room.

* * * * * * *
*

The interior of the rooming house was all shades of
graying, aged wood, the sort that splits gently apart over time, but rarely
seems to crack on its own. A pudgy innkeeper with a stubble-gone-wild beard
looked up from his napping chair. His eyes asked a question of them that his
voice was too lazy to bother with.

"A couple rooms for me and my friend
here," Tanner said. He looked to a row of pegs on the wall; keys dangled
from most, but not all. "Looks like 3A and 3C would do nicely."

"You, no rooms together?" the innkeeper
asked, rising from his chair with a squirming stretch to loosen his shoulders.
Tanner was grateful the man spoke a bit of Acardian, since he had forgotten to
even try his Takalish.

Tanner shook his head in reply. "He
snores," he answered, and gave a demonstration that drew a nod and a
knowing chuckle from the innkeeper.

"So who gets which room?" Stalyart asked
on the stairs as they made their way up to the third floor.

"Don't matter. We're going to 3C for now,"
Tanner replied. The stairs creaked at each step. Tanner varied his footing,
center, left edge, right edge; the building was just too old to keep to itself.
No sneak-jobs on these. Nice pick, Zell.

Stalyart followed Tanner into room 3C, and pulled
the door closed behind them. "You seemed quite certain of your actions, so
I said nothing in front of the innkeeper. Now though, I must ask: what is this
plan you have not shared?"

"I didn't share it cuz I didn't know it til
just then. Zell's gotta be makin' their arrangements, so I know how he'd pick a
room. Nothin' on the first floor—too easy to break in. Nothin' above the second
floor if you can help it—too high to jump if you need to get away quick. There
were only three keys missing for the second floor, 2A, 2C, and 2F. I picked the
two that were closest together, to avoid tippin' the innkeep off."

"Your deductions seem reasonable, and I would
trust you to know your associate's habits. What do we gain by trying to guess
at rooms above theirs?" Stalyart asked. He sat down on the bed, set his
hat on the bedside table, and unclasped his cloak, giving the impression that
he had chosen his room.

"Building's nice and regular; all the windows
line up, one floor to the next. Saw so from outside. Zell picks the second
floor so he can't get backed into a corner. Might be he even puts his bed in
front of the door to block it," Tanner said. He pointed to the hinges on
the door of their own room. "See? These open in. We're going to drop in
from a rope. If we're lucky, we get the kid out without waking either of the
two of them. Since I'm never lucky, I'm guessing we either have to knock 'em
out or make a run for it."

"How do we find their room without them
spotting us? Surely their vision in the aether must be keener than either of
ours," Stalyart asked.

"Well, Zell can't see the aether at all, so no
worries about him. Wendell, who knows? Neither of us stands out in the aether
anyway. We could be anyone," said Tanner. He took off his hat and tossed
it onto the bed beside Stalyart, and let his cloak drop to the floor. Tanner
then parted the window shutters a fingersbreadth and looked out.

"Your sword bears runes. That might separate us
from the common stock about Takalia."

Tanner looked down to the blade at his side. He
pulled it halfway free of the scabbard, and gave it a glance. "This thing?
Without Soria around to refill it, it went dry of aether days ago. Just you and
me here, no swords to see. This thing might be dead steel a good long while if
I can't find Soria or another twinborn with a strong enough Source."

"What about the boy?" Stalyart asked.

"Well now, look who's countin' his coins before
the hand's dealt," Tanner teased.

"No, I mean what if the boy sees us coming. If
he is Anzik Fehr's twin, he can likely see the aether, I would think."

"Hey, if Zayne's boy sees us coming, hopefully
he has the sense to shut up if he recognizes me," Tanner said. "He
oughtta trust me after gettin' him home on the other side."

"Now who counts his winnings early, Mr.
Tanner?"

* * * * * * *
*

It turned out that it was room 3C that lay above the
room where Wendell, Zell, and Anzik's twin were boarding. Tanner had spotted
them coming, and the two men had retreated to their separate rooms until
nightfall, under guise of an early slumber.

Cloaks and hats were too cumbersome for rope work,
and stayed behind in room 3C, except for one cloak that Stalyart carried in
lieu of wearing. Their window opened out over an alley, and the building across
the way had no window at all on the wall facing them. The ground below was
unmarred snow, which made the dingy little back alley look innocent and fresh,
and not at all like the scene of a kidnapping.

Tanner climbed down first, and Stalyart followed
soon after. They crept along the clapboards, Tanner angling his descent wide
right of room 2C's window, and Stalyart taking the left approach. Tanner winced
as his scabbard thumped against the building, pausing to listen for signs that
he had been heard by the occupants.

Nothing.

When he brought himself level with the window, he
wrapped the rope thrice around one wrist and freed up his other hand. He slid a
knife between the shutter and caught the latch. Half an hour's practice on the
one in his own room had seemed a child's game compared to doing it from the
outside without seeing the device. With some finagling, he popped the little
metal hook loose, and used the knife blade to pull the shutters open. Stalyart
draped his cloak over the opening to keep the moonlight from preceding them
into the room.

Tanner set one foot on the sill, testing his weight
upon the aged wood, and seeing if it would bear his intrusion in silence—it passed
both tests. He took care to guide his scabbard through the window without
further collision, and found that the floor near the window did not groan when
he set himself down.
So far, so good
.

Stalyart set his foot on the sill and looked inside,
but he did not enter. He stayed with his cloak up, maintaining the shroud of
darkness.

A soft snoring from Tanner's left had to have been
Wendell. The familiar, guttural growls from the far side of the room were
almost as familiar as Zell's voice. Tanner gritted his teeth, and checked the
aether briefly. He saw the aether-seeing helm of Zell's up against the door,
and the healthy Source of Anzik's twin amid the blur, as well as the indistinct
forms of Zell and Wendell. Tanner blinked back to normal vision, even though he
could hardly see his own hands.

He felt along the bed that held Anzik's twin, until
he found the sleeping form. He leaned close, until his face must have been a
blade's thickness from the boy's ear.

"Anzik. Anzik, if you can hear me, it's Tanner.
I'm here to take your friend to his father. He has a ship you can live on. It's
a water boat, but maybe someday you can teach it to fly," Tanner spoke in
a whisper's whisper, barely audible even to his own ears. Tanner waited,
preparing himself to repeat the message again, a bit louder.

Anzik's twin sat bolt upright, sending Tanner
scrambling to get out of his way. There was a creak of a floorboard, the
rustling of bedclothes—and a sudden stop in the snoring.

"Jadon, what are you ... WENDELL, GET UP!"
Zell shouted. The big man scrabbled about for his swords, lying at his bedside.
Light streamed into the room from the window, as steel rang free from
Stalyart's scabbard, followed closely by Zell freeing his own blade.

Tanner threw himself atop Jadon to escape the clash
of swords in the middle of the room, pinning the boy to the bed under his
weight. "It's all right, it's all right. We're here to rescue you,"
he babbled, in a frantic effort to comfort the startled boy.

"What's going on?" Wendell demanded.

"Zayne's thugs!" Zell yelled back.
"Get the boy!"