Gods, what a miserable town, Jameson Lewes thought to himself as he guided his horse through the half-ruined streets. He hated Hanport on sight the moment they rode into it—hated the way the rubble was pushed to the sides, hated the people who so carefully made their way down the uneven sidewalks, hated the tent city he had seen outside the ruined village walls. The League’s fist had landed heavily in this seaside village, punishment for harboring smugglers and tax-evaders, and new construction was not yet underway.
After only barely half an hour in Hanport, he had decided that every day he had to spend here would cause him to increase the price he had quoted for the job five silver halara at the very least.
From the expression on Rawn Markey’s thin scarred face, Lewes thought perhaps his second-hand was thinking much the same, though she might insist on a seven halara hike, if not ten. “Lovely,” she almost snarled as her bay side-stepped a gaping hole, “almost as pleasant as Helve after a hurricane, but without the charm.” Given that Rawn counted her weeks in Helve following the previous autumn’s hurricane as among the most uncomfortable of her life, that was a fairly thorough condemnation.
Lewes grinned widely, all white teeth against a tanned face, but Rawn’s dark eyes merely flashed in displeasure in response. “Admit it, it’s the endless opportunities for travel that keep you with me.” That bought him a curl of her lip, and a choked sound that might have been almost a laugh from the third member of their party; Safford sat hunched in his saddle, scanning the street before them, with no indication of how he felt about Hanport. Not that it mattered, much, how any of them felt – the job had brought them here.
It did not keep them long, though. The meeting went quickly enough, the other Vind eager himself to get out of Hanport, the package exchanged for a Vind Hall bond that could be converted to coin (less the Vind percentage fee) almost anywhere. By the time the transaction was done, dusk was approaching. They probably could have found rooms somewhere – businesses in town found themselves seriously short of customers these days – but Rawn made it clear she would much prefer simply sleeping on the trail.
And so it was Lewes did not get around to handing the leather-wrapped package to Safford until the next morning, before they climbed back into their saddles to ride further east. Safford weighed the package on one hand, pushing long, graying black hair back behind one ear. After a moment, he lifted it to one ear, cocking his head to listen intently. Rawn hid her impatience behind her cold breakfast, while Lewes merely watched, smoking one thin cigarette that he had hand-rolled the day before. He let Safford listen as long as the other man needed, and made no protest when Safford next lifted it to his nose to sniff.
Finally, Safford nodded, held the package out again with both hands, and Lewes took it with murmured thanks. He had already memorized how the ties were wrapped around the package, and how the knots had been formed. The wrapping was off in seconds, revealing the contents – three books, bound in worn leather, seals and titles stamped on the front. “Leith Thellin’s History of the Stamm Wars,” Lewes read on the first. “And Atlas of the Ancient Lands.” He carefully turned the first few pages of each of them , knowing but not caring that Rawn Markey was growing even more impatient. Safford was utterly unconcerned, and sat on the ground to alternately eat his breakfast rations and clean wax from his ears with his fingernails.
The third book, however, he did not open. Locks bound it on three sides, with no visible key hole. Lewes brushed the fingertips of his hand over the top lock, then raised his eyebrows at Safford. The madman shrugged. “It won’t kill you as long as you don’t try to open it,” he answered the unspoken question. “So if you’re in the mood for readin’, make it the other two.”
“I’m not saying that we should take the books back for the League reward,” Rawn Markey protested. “Not that I wouldn’t appreciate the humor in being paid for your theft. I’m just saying that maybe we shouldn’t be riding through land the League seems to be heavily patrolling right now – searching for thieves – while carrying something stolen from the League libraries. That’s all. And maybe,” she added in a lower voice, “we shouldn’t be carrying something that apparently can kill us if we jostle it the wrong way.”
“You’re turnin’ yellow,” Safford muttered. Rawn’s dark eyes flashed with irritation, but she did not acknowledge the statement – she knew better than to take the challenge. Safford would welcome a fight, and she knew she didn’t stand a chance against the madman.
“We’re Vind, on a job,” Lewes answered calmly. “What reason do they have to stop us, much less search us?” There was no note of concern in his voice or his face … but all three knew there was a reason they were traveling overland rather than by ship. Most ships would stop somewhere in the League, and anyone disembarking at League-controlled docks could be searched, just to make sure they were not trying to slip goods into port without the proper tax stamps. On land, away from the coast, it was easier to stay away from the taxman. “Remember, we’re on our way to Brindenford to help with … What exactly was it?”
“Six missing farmers,” Safford nearly growled, before subsiding back to muttering under his breath.
“Ah, yes, six missing farmers,” Lewes echoed, as if he really had not known.
“Like anyone would believe you care about farmers,” Rawn retorted.
“Are you saying it would be more believable if I were to portray ourselves as dedicated to recovering the body of a missing priest? Or perhaps signing up for a suicide mission to the A’nari Keep?” They rode on, rattling off the different listings that had been posted at the Vind Hall in Soloff, debating the relative risks and rewards.
In the end, Rawn Markey would tell Lewes perhaps they should have taken up Hugh Vernon’s offer to lead the fourth expedition to the A’nari Keep . Even though they knew – as many did not – that the first three had never come back at all, much less laden down with riches.
They arrived in Hinderlet, thirty miles inland, northwest of Tarrish, in early evening, tired from the long days on the road. This town, well fed by the farm lands and plump from trade with the horse clans of the Middle Redding, was a huge step up from Hanport. That meant it was harder to find rooms for a cheap price, but it was worth the extra silver simply to have a place to bathe and a bed that was more than a bedroll off the road. By the time they arrived, Lewes had placed all three books back into the leather wrapping and redid the ties, exactly to match the knots that had been there before.
So when Lewes met with the bard, to pass off the package, the other man simply glanced at it and put it away into his own bag without closer scrutiny. “I’m looking forward to some reading tonight, once I get the locks open,” he said, lifting his mug in a mock toast to Lewes, before pushing over a bag. Lewes weighed it with one hand before glancing inside. He didn’t bother counting it – he had dealt with this customer before, and knew the amount would be right. “Someday, you’ll have to tell me how you do it.”
Lewes lifted his own mug, not answering the statement; it wasn’t the first time he had heard it, and they both knew there was no way Lewes would share the information – just as they both knew that the bard would never identify for Lewes the ultimate customer for the history book and the atlas.
When he stood, Lewes left copper on the table for the serving girl.
He had been dealing with the customer for too long, and too often, he had become lax. Not so lax that he had ever let the man see Rawn Markey, with the distinctive scars on her cheeks, or Safford with his mad eyes … But lax enough to drink, to take the mug that the girl brought and draw from it. He had been too thirsty from the ride to push it away.
“Stupid,” Lewes murmured to himself as he staggered on the sidewalk, feeling the drug take hold. As he fumbled for the sword at his side, he could feel the tingling in his fingertips. He wouldn’t be able to pull it from the scabbard in time … How far away were they? Was the blade already aimed for his back? He thought he could hear the footsteps in the dark, on the walkway in this farming town. Too close …
He braced himself with one hand on the wall of the building next to him, turning to put his back against it. His vision was already too blurry to see more than a few feet away. He raised the other hand to his neck, to touch the cool metal of the necklace there, and slid to the ground.
Later, he would think, it was almost like a dream, the hard-faced thugs coming towards him. One knelt, reaching for him as if to check if he still breathed. Stupid, Lewes thought. The mercenary shouldn’t have taken time to check, should have just taken the killing blow. Because in that moment, a vertical line of silver opened up behind them both, six feet tall. It twisted and shimmered, and then gaped open, to allow Safford’s tall, lean frame to unfold its way out. Something writhed in his hand, something not a blade, more an extension of the freezing line of grey, closing again upon itself. A flick of his wrist, and the thing curled forward –
The hot spray of blood on his face was the last thing Lewes remembered before he passed out.
So he was unconscious when the town guard – all three of them – came running. Safford could have taken them all, carved and sliced them just as he did the hired blades. If Rawn hadn’t come running, both blades drawn, he might have – without Lewes awake, she was the one who had to talk him down, convince him that the wisest course of action was to lower his hands. For her trouble, she found herself arrested, too, by three part-time jailers.
“The town rotates the job,” she told him very early the next morning, when he awoke in the locked cellar of a dry goods store, his head pounding. “Three proud town sons on for a week, and then they trade off.” She watched as Lewes bent over a bucket to puke; Safford sat on the floor in one corner, with his knees pulled up. “They’re quite confused, trying to figure out what happened.”
They would be, Lewes understood. What explanation for the damage to the two bodies, when Safford’s sword was undrawn and unblooded.
“It’ll be worse for them,” Safford. For a moment, both Lewes and Rawn just stared at him. “He shouldn’t have unlocked it,” he continued. He turned his eyes up, to the transom window at ground level that showed the first glimmering of the morning sun. “Better for us to be in here now.”
When the screaming started outside, two hours later, Safford began to chuckle, and then to laugh, the laughter of a madman.
DM’s Note: Photo of books is detail, under Creative Commons license, from this photograph
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