The Box (3 page)

“She followed me,” Aeventius added.

“You aren’t hard to track—and a city isn’t so much different than the wilderness, especially the city where I grew up.”

Just then Gyrd reappeared like some vast berg of steel and flesh.

Aeventius let out an audible sigh. “Of course, where the imp goes, the ogre follows. You smell like an alehouse latrine.”

“That’s where we found him!” Shess piped up, bouncing to Aeventius’s side. The wizard flinched away.

Gyrd, bearded face impassive behind a tangle of red and gray hair, took a long pull from a leather drinking skin. The raw, almost chemical odor of potent spirits rolled out from him like an aura.

“None of this!” Kostin said, snatching the bag from Gyrd before the giant could react. “You can have it back when we’re done.”

“What did you think of my casting, Aevy?” Shess gazed up at the wizard through a shock of emerald green hair.

Kostin interrupted, clearing his throat. “Enough talking. Come.” He moved back down the alley toward the old rum house.

“Too beautiful,” Aeventius said to the gnome as he turned to follow Kostin. “And do not ever call me that.”

“Of course!” Shess said, skipping in stride with the wizard. “I always knew you liked your women short and green!”

“It seems Taldara picked up a number of new skills in her years away from home.”

Taldara moved to Kostin’s side. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your, um, ‘gang?’”

“Certainly. Forgive my manners,” Irritation creeping into his voice, Kostin turned back around. The group halted.

“This here is Shess, the best little sneak thief in Magnimar.”

The gnome, beaming, gave a mock curtsey. She was dressed in a patchwork of styles and colors, resembling something like a collision between a Chelish noble, a Tian merchant, a Sczarni blade, and an Ulfen minstrel.

“And Gyrd here is, um…”

“Blacksmith,” the giant answered, no expression on his ruddy, heavily scarred face. His chainmail hauberk gleamed dully in the light, and he held a battle-dinted round shield in his left hand. Gyrd looked as if he had just stepped out from a shieldwall—and was aching to get back.

“Really?” Kostin asked, surprised. “Well, ah, everyone, this is my oldest friend, Taldara, who is some sort of big deal Pathfinder now.”

“Ooh,” said Shess, eyes round with interest as she studied Taldara. “But I thought Aevy was your oldest friend.”

“I thought I was his only friend,” Aeventius said blandly.

Taldara smiled and opened her mouth to reply, but Kostin grabbed her arm and tugged her along behind him. “Plenty of time for all of this later!” he said over his shoulder. The rest followed.

Aeventius was correct in that there were no signs of observation from the rum house. It was as Kapteo Giuleppeschi had said—the place was boarded up and abandoned. The Sczarni boss had come through for him that afternoon, granting him not only his silver, but valuable information about the Shoanti hideout. Kostin had modified his original plan to storm their front door in favor of this one—to come in undetected through the secret back entrance the Shoanti used to slip in and out along the shore side of the Point. Further west of here was the Wyrmwatch lighthouse, marking the spot where the great Indros had battled the sea dragon. South and east, and you had a tumble of smugglers’ wharfs along the mouth of the Yondabakari leading down into the slums of Rag’s End. It was a good location for a pack of robbers and thugs.

“Door is clear,” Aeventius said behind him, and Kostin turned to see the wizard’s eyes glowing with an eldritch blue light.

The guards had not had any keys on them. “Alright. Shess, you’re better at this than me. Get us in there.”

“Yes, sir!” Shess, saluting Kostin ridiculously, leaped onto Gyrd’s back. Drawing her sword, the gnome leveled it at the door like a cavalry officer ordering a charge. “Smash it, Gyrd!”

Before Kostin could react the Northman—Shess still clinging to his back—raised his shield and launched himself shoulder-first at the door. It crashed inward with a splintering boom.

“‘Best little sneak thief in Magnimar,’” said Taldara, covering the door with her crossbow. Aeventius snorted in amused agreement.

Kostin, sword drawn and teeth clenched in annoyed disbelief, entered after the mad gnome and the half-drunk warrior.

Inside it was dark and empty. A few sprung and moldering casks rested against the walls, and the odd sliver of wood or twist of ship’s rope littered the ground. On the far wall a doorless portal yawned blackly.

“So far it’s as the kapteo claimed,” Kostin said. “The old cellar of this place abuts the sunken warehouse. From there we’re right at the shaman’s quarters. Most of the Shoanti should be on the other side, in the warehouse proper. We nip in, take down Azahg, get the box, set some fires, and get the hell out again. Questions?”

Shess raised her hand and Kostin pushed it back down. The others shook their heads.

“Alright, then. Let’s go.”

The way ahead was easy to see—years of wear had left a path of dirt and scraped stone for them to follow. The blocks of the cellar wall had been pried out to form a crude doorway into the domain of the warehouse—a shoddily built structure that had sunk and partially collapsed at its south end and had long been abandoned by any legitimate concerns. Scrabbling through the wall and into the building, they followed a sloping and precarious floor upward. Kostin wiped sweat from his eyes; the air in the warehouse was close and redolent with the stench of mold and decay.

A flickering light ahead caused Aeventius to clamp a hand tightly over his radiant ring.

There were two of them, talking animatedly in the guttural cadences of the Shoanti. Gyrd tensed as if to spring forward, but Taldara clapped a hand on his shoulder and bade him be still. With her other hand she held a finger to her lips, urging them all to stay quiet.

After a brief exchange, both Shoanti moved off down the corridor.

Taldara turned to the group. “They say Azahg and his wives have been a night and a day in his sanctum, and they worry. They wish to know what powerful treasure he has discovered in the box, but also do not know if they should counter his orders and try to enter his rooms.” Taldara shrugged. “At least that’s the most I could get out of it.”

“You speak Shoanti,” Kostin said, impressed.

“They aren’t all bad, you know. I think they may have had to come to the city to turn into this.” Taldara scratched her badger behind the ear. Lifting it gently from her shoulder, she nuzzled it before placing it on the ground.

“Mordimor will scout they way for us,” she continued as the badger zipped off down the corridor. Taldara closed her eyes and drew a shape in the air.

“Tal, are you—” Kostin stopped at a sudden smack on the arm from Aeventius, who gestured for silence.

The badger returned as swiftly as he had left, and Taldara muttered a few words in a language Kostin had never heard, one different from the ancient tongue of magic he had listened to Aeventius utter on so many occasions.

Mordimor leaped into Taldara’s arms, and the two commenced to have the strangest conversation Kostin had ever witnessed.

“He says it’s clear, but he gets a bad feeling about the shaman’s door. Or, maybe, what’s on the other side of it.” Taldara plopped the badger back up on her shoulder. It still muttered at her ear and Taldara cocked a playful smile. “He also says the wizard should go first.”

“A woodland wit,” Aeventius said, scowling.

Kostin led the way, stalking ahead with barely a sound. Shess followed, moving silently with little effort. Taldara and Aeventius came next, creeping forward with careful steps. Gyrd shuffled in the rear, heavy one-handed sword drawn, armor tinkling despite his apparent caution.

They paused at the door for a time while Aeventius and Shess examined it—the wizard scanning for magical emanations and the thief checking for traps.

Shess, now wearing a ridiculous pair of spectacles devoid of their lenses, gave a thumbs-up, while Aeventius murmured something incomprehensible under his breath. Finally, he turned to Kostin. “I can open it, whenever we’re ready.”

Kostin surveyed his team. Gyrd, wicked smile on his face and skin flushed with battle lust and booze, had positioned himself at the door, ready to storm in. Taldara was beside him, eyebrows knit in concentration, crossbow leveled to cover Gyrd’s flank. Shess bounced on her heels, eager as a child at the fair, her blade gleaming silver and naked in her tiny fist. Aeventius waited patiently, back straight as any aristocrat, a slender black wand in his hand.

Kostin moved into position next to Gyrd, and took a deep breath in an attempt to strike a mental deal with his heart to stop thundering in his chest. He loosened his grip on his sword and bent his knees slightly. A cold serpent of sweat trickled down his spine.

“Do it,” he said, left hand poised above the door’s handle.

A word from Aeventius and the door lock opened with an audible clack.

Kostin flung open the door to the shaman’s sanctum—and a horde of creatures burst forth.

“Move back!” Kostin shouted, barely parrying a spear thrust to the gut. There were more than a score of the things, each scarcely taller than Shess but like no humanoid Kostin had ever seen. Green-skinned, bedecked with shaggy ropes of dark moss, and armed with crude spears and clubs of human bone, the naked savages fought silently, almost impassively. The sheer weight and surprise of them had pushed Kostin back until he collided with Aeventius.

“Go forward!” Aeventius snarled. A flash of light behind him attracted Kostin’s attention, and he spared a quick look. Shoanti, howling for blood, were blocking the hallway that was their only exit. In the instant that Kostin turned he saw white darts of energy burst from Aeventius’s wand to sear down the corridor and drop the lead thug dead, leaving black burn holes smoking in the man’s chest.

Beside Kostin, Gyrd sung a low, rumbling war-ballad in the skaldic language of his people. His thick Ulfen blade rose and fell grimly, black-green liquid clinging to the steel. He dropped his shield hard down upon the skull of one of the monsters with a sickening crunch, and bulled forward with a roar, scattering the creatures with his charge and clearing a path into the shaman’s sanctum.

Kostin parried another wicked jab from his opponent, and sliced his blade down along the spear shaft, lopping the creature’s hands off with a snick. The thing made no sound, nor did its expression change as he pushed past it.

“They’re fungus!” Taldara shouted behind him, the twang of her crossbow punctuating her statement. “Cover your nose and mouth!”

But Kostin now had his dagger in his other hand, and was fighting in the style of the Sczarni street duelists he had so loved to emulate as a kid. His blades whistled in a tight arc around him, alternately parrying and striking, the difficulty of landing mortal blows on such diminutive opponents compensated for by their lesser reach. With a wild howl he leaped and spun among them, all fear forgotten now, or else subsumed in his desire to strike.

To his right, Gyrd fought like a juggernaut, hacking fungus-men down and ignoring any blows that landed upon his armored form. Kostin took note of their surroundings for the first time, the floor strewn with carpets and hides in a score of styles and colors, the walls bedecked with a strange intaglio of scrawled symbols, the black altar in one corner of the room shedding a weak radiance from guttering candle-stubs.

It was only then that he noticed the bodies.

They were Shoanti, clearly, or what was left of Shoanti. Each body was sticky with a mass of glistening mold, and each horribly ruptured as if it had burst from the inside. Suddenly Taldara’s warning to cover their faces made sense, and Kostin dropped his dagger and riffled one-handed through his pouch for some kind of cloth. Smashing aside an attack from one of the creatures, he turned to shout a warning at Gyrd—and was just in time to see the big man disappear behind a wall of darkness in the room’s far corner.

“Light!” Kostin shouted, running toward the place where he had last seen the Ulfen. A lance of pain sent him crashing to the floor, a bone-tipped spear lodged in his thigh. His sword spilled from his hand, landing with a thump on the carpet, just out of reach.

He rolled, hands held up to ward off the blow of a femur club. He could see everything in excruciating detail; the bone club brown with dried blood, poised to strike; the horrible, vacant face of the monster, a thing more plant than animal; and his own hands, held up uselessly, themselves green with the blood of these creatures.

Kostin saw too the silver blade emerge from the thing’s chest just as it was about to strike, and the unholy light go out of its eyes as Shess appeared behind it, her invisibility spell nullified by her attack.

“Stop sitting around, boss!” She tipped him a wink as the monster dropped dead at her feet. He had seen the same little girl enthusiasm in her once before, when picking flowers in a cemetery. She whirled away, blade flashing through the pack of monsters, babbling a cheerful sing-song in the strange language of gnomes.

As Kostin regained his feet and removed the miniature spear—the wound was not deep, but it bled profusely—Aeventius and Taldara were there beside him, fending off the encroaching creatures. There were around a dozen of the things left, surrounding them in a deadly noose.

“I have held the door,” Aeventius said, “but it will not last forever. I think we may have a larger problem, however.” The wizard gestured to the corner where Gyrd had disappeared. The unnatural darkness emanating from it had rolled back, and the object of Kostin’s quest was revealed.

The box.

It stood open atop a seaman’s chest, seemingly innocuous, but a dissipating cloud of particles surrounded it in a halo of death. Gyrd lay unconscious at its base among a group of ruined corpses.

“Spores,” Taldara said. She had discarded her crossbow in favor of a fighting hatchet, and was laying into a pair of creatures to Kostin’s left. “We have to get to him soon!”

Suddenly it all clicked into place for Kostin. The box—not just bait for a thief, but a trap for a shaman. The Scales had set it up. Dangling a treat the Azahg could not resist, and filling it with a trap he would never be able to counter. Dispel the locks and you still had the darkness spell—and the lethal spores within. Simple; diabolical; and if it weren’t for the stupid greed of Donal Carent feeding Kostin information about such a tempting prize, he would have never been involved in this business.