Jimmy the Hand (10 page)

The hair on the
back of Jimmy’s neck rose. What he called his ‘bump of
trouble’ let him know that Asher was indeed using magic. Since
he could remember, Jimmy possessed a near supernatural ability to
sense approaching danger or the presence of magic being used.

Asher finished,
and said, ‘Now it’s stronger.’ He pushed the pouch
toward Jimmy. ‘Take a pinch and blow it into the face o’
the one ye’re tryin’ to knock down and down he’ll
go!’

‘And the
wall?’

The magician
grunted. Turning, he grabbed a sack behind his chair and hoisted it
onto the filthy table. He opened it and began to rummage around
inside, digging deeper and deeper until he was halfway into the bag.
Things rattled and clinked as Asher sorted through them, occasionally
chuckling, as though being reminded of some nasty trick he intended
to play as soon as he got the time. ‘Ah!’ he said at last
and withdrew his head; he slung the sack back behind his chair and
put a tiny bottle sealed with lead on the table between them. ‘There
ye are,’ he said proudly.

Jimmy peered at
it. It was only as big as the first joint of his little finger and as
far as he could tell in the dim light it was completely empty. He
reached out to take a closer look at it but the magician’s hand
came down over it before he could touch the bottle.

‘Ah!’
Asher said in warning. ‘We an’t discussed price yet.’

‘There’s
nothing in that bottle,’ Jimmy pointed out.

‘Ah, but
there is,’ the magician whispered. ‘One tiny drop. ‘Tis
all ye need to start the mortar turnin’ to sand. Don’t
get it on yersel’ whatever ye do,’ he warned. ‘Put
it on yer wall and the job is done! Doesn’t matter where—top,
bottom, middle—because as long as stone and mortar are
connected, it’ll do the job.’ He sat back. Judging from
the position of his whiskers, he was smiling.

‘How
much?’ Jimmy wasn’t absolutely certain about any of this,
but it was still the best idea he’d had.

Really the only
idea beside a hammer and chisel and a lot of prayers to Ruthia that
the guards go deaf. Still, he wasn’t about to take the
magician’s first price.

‘What’s
it worth to ye?’ Asher demanded.

With a cheerful
smile Jimmy suggested, ‘Let’s have another drop to ease
our bargaining. Innkeeper!’ he shouted, waking the man. ‘Two
more of the same!’

It was closing
in on dawn when Jimmy left the tavern with his prizes. He held the
bottle up and squinted at it against the light of a flickering
lantern; the air was chilly and damp, and smelled the way it usually
did in the blighted gap between night and morning, as discouraged as
the young thief felt.

Still looks
like nothing. But, the old man doesn’t have that sort of
reputation.
Asher was a lot of things, but in the years he had
been plying his trade in Krondor, no one had accused him of cheating
on a deal, which in the Poor Quarter was the next best thing to a
Royal Death Warrant.

He hadn’t
got a bargain by any means. Though even making painful inroads into
Prince Arutha’s gold, he would never have been able to afford
this much magic if the man hadn’t been a complete sot.
Not
my problem, not my fault.
But the price was fair, so he shouldn’t
have to worry about waking up covered in boils anytime soon. At
least, the price was fair if there was actually something inside the
bottle.

Something I
mustn’t get on myself,
he thought. A worrying idea if you
thought it through. How did you pour out something that didn’t
appear to exist? Very carefully, he supposed.

Think
positively,
he told himself.
I’ve got the means to save
Larry’s brother and Flora and the rest of them. Probably. Which
means we’re all better off than we were before.

Now all they had
to do was do it.

Larry’s
eyes grew wide.

‘Alban
Asher is a drunk!’ His small face showed more panic than
disapproval and his tone was more surprised than angry.

Just think
how you’d react if Larry had come to you with this stuff,
Jimmy reminded himself.
He’s not trying to hit you, and not
even walking away.

‘You can’t
be serious!’ the younger boy went on.

‘We’re
desperate,’ Jimmy pointed out, making a shushing gesture; the
Rest wasn’t as crowded as it had been after the new laws were
announced, but it was still busier than usual: a lot of people,
normally on the streets, were sleeping. ‘Desperate times call
for desperate measures,’ he went on. Jimmy had heard that
saying somewhere and liked the sound of it: he usually did, when
something made for a good excuse.

‘Desperate,
not stupid!’ Larry insisted.

‘Desperate
measures often look stupid before they’re carried out,’
Jimmy said. ‘It’s a historical fact, you can look it up
in the royal archives.’

‘I can’t
get into the royal archives, and besides I can’t read!’
the younger boy shouted. His face was bright red and tears of
frustration brightened his eyes. ‘But if I could I bet I could
prove you wrong!’ He thumped his back against a wall and slid
down to sit in a heap on the floor. ‘What are we gonna do?’
he wailed.

‘First,’
Jimmy said, leaning over him, ‘you can stop shouting, people
are starting to stare.’

Actually, no one
was looking. But then Mockers, being thieves and scoundrels, rarely
stared; but they always eavesdropped and he couldn’t afford to
be overheard. Nevertheless, saying so seemed to stiffen Larry’s
spine. Jimmy had often noticed that nonsense at the right moment
could do wonders, if it was the right nonsense.

‘Sorry,’
the boy said gruffly. ‘It’s just . . .’

‘Larry,’
Jimmy said, leaning close, ‘if you’ve got a better idea
tell it to me. I want to hear it.’

His friend hung
his head and slowly shook it.

‘All
right. Look, if we get no further by using this we’re no
further behind either. And even if Asher is a drunk he’s got
the reputation for knowing his craft.’ He gave the boy a pat on
the shoulder and a crooked grin. ‘If he didn’t someone
from the Guild would have cut his throat by now. Which means he
wouldn’t be working for me.’

Larry gave him a
weak smile.

‘Have you
got the rope?’ Jimmy asked.

The boy nodded.
‘Stowed it in the tunnel just behind the collapse and piled
some rocks over it.’

‘Good.’
It must be well hidden,
Jimmy thought. He had left a bunch of
rags and a bottle of vinegar there before coming to Mocker’s
Rest and he hadn’t seen it. ‘Well, let’s do it
then,’ he said and started off.

Larry’s
eyes nearly bulged out of his head and he caught up with the other
thief quickly. ‘Now?’ he whispered.

‘The
sooner the better,’ Jimmy said wisely. ‘And why not?’

Larry shook his
head. ‘It’s daytime!’ he protested.

‘So, they
won’t be expecting us,’ Jimmy replied, with a wink.

‘But
there’ll be more guards, won’t there?’

‘Why
should there be? Are the iron bars less sturdy during the day?’

‘No, I
mean, they’re awake, in the keep walking around and acting like
guards.’

Jimmy stopped
abruptly and glared down at the younger boy. ‘You want to do
this or not?’

‘Do!’
Larry said, nodding vigorously.

Looking him in
the eye Jimmy said, ‘Then let’s do it!’

He strode off
without looking back. After a brief silence, Jimmy smiled to hear
Larry’s footsteps following. This would work and then he’d
be a legend among the Mockers forever after. He carefully kept
himself from thinking of the alternative—most of them involved
ropes, sharp things or red-hot things, or things that were sharp and
red-hot and applied to the tender parts of his body.

Jimmy the Hand
was still less than fourteen years, more or less, and like most
youngsters he felt as if he’d live forever. But like most
Mockers he’d seen a great deal of death during those years; not
enough to grant him a sense of his own mortality, but enough to teach
him caution.

It was all Jimmy
could do to force himself back into the half-collapsed tunnel and up
the shaft that led into the main cell of Krondor’s dungeon.
He’d spent most of his young life wandering reeking sewers and
stinking alleyways so he was used to the stench and the velvet-deep
darkness. But if a smell could be terrifying, this was. The stink
seemed to creep up on him. It had hair and teeth and mean little
eyes, it had a personality all of its own, a very bad personality
that bore down on his spirit with an almost physical weight. But by
telling himself that he’d never have to do this again Jimmy was
able to meet the challenge. Tying the vinegar-soaked rag over his
face, he put the bundle of rags and bottle of vinegar into his shirt
for the others. He knew a fit of retching on the way down might land
someone at the bottom of the shaft a lot faster and in much worse
shape than they needed to be. Not that the vinegar smell helped a
lot, but anything was better than a bare face here.

He pulled on
some gloves, slung the knotted rope across his chest and began
climbing.

It went faster
this time because he knew what to expect, but his prayers to Ruthia
were no less fervent. Once he reached the blockage he braced his feet
and shoulders against the walls of the shaft, pulled off one glove,
worked the tiny bottle from the pouch tied to his belt and broke the
lead seal with his fingernail. Then he looked for a place to spill
out the invisible drop.

The mortar just
above him was quite smooth and Jimmy remembered Asher’s warning
not to get the stuff on himself. Higher up, as though the mason was
getting bored with the job or finding it harder to reach with his
trowel, the work was messier, with little shelves and projections of
cement making a good spot for the spell to be poured. But that meant
pushing his arm and shoulder up close against that slimy hole. The
very idea sent a surge of nausea through him, so he took a few slow,
deep breaths, forcing himself to ignore the smell and focused his
mind on the goal.

Free the
Mockers. Become famous. All the girls will admire you . . . once
you’ve taken a bath.

Gradually his
stomach calmed itself.

Part of the
problem was that he still hadn’t been able to see anything in
the bottle and his faith in the drunken magician wasn’t all
that strong, in spite of what he’d said to Larry. He was more
afraid they might fail than that they’d be caught and hanged.

‘Do it,’
he grumbled, gritting his teeth. As he’d said himself, it
wasn’t as if there was anything better available.

Jimmy bit his
lips and thrust his arm into the hole, aiming for a large projection
he thought he could reach, but aiming blind since his arm cut off
what little light filtered down from the cell above.

Dear Ruthia,
he prayed,
please don’t let me get this on myself.
He
braced his shoulders hard against the wall, quickly pulled the tiny
stopper from the small vial, and tilted it away from his left hand,
pressing the open mouth of the container against the mortar. He held
it motionless for a long count of seconds, wondering how he was
supposed to tell when the vial was empty. Finally, he assumed it had
to be.

It was done,
except for the waiting to see if the spell would work. He held his
breath, pressed himself against the sides of the shaft walls,
wondering what to expect.

He missed the
first few grains of falling mortar but then a stone fell, hitting him
on the thigh. It hadn’t occurred to him that there would be
falling stones; then he remembered the iron grate above and hurriedly
climbed back down again, some little part of him wailing in
discontent. He’d have to go up again after all.

In less than a
minute the heavy iron grate that had covered the shaft fell down with
a crash on top of the dislodged stones and the heap of sand that had
once been sturdy mortar.

Jimmy noted a
cracked stone beneath it and blew out a relieved breath. Then he
re-wet the rag he pulled over his mouth and nose with vinegar, rolled
his shoulders to loosen the muscles and began climbing again. He
found a ring of faces waiting for him when he got to the top and
hands reached out to pull him up. He blinked for a moment; even the
twilight dimness of the big cell seemed bright, after the passageways
below. Feet rustled in the damp straw that covered the floor, and he
could feel more than see the inmates gathering around him.

‘Jimmy!’

That was Flora’s
voice; she elbowed her way through the crush and embraced him,
recoiling instantly, her eyes wide, her pretty mouth contorted into a
rictus of disgust. Considering the condition of the dungeon and its
inhabitants, that said a great deal.

‘I know,’
he apologized quietly. ‘Quiet, unless you want the guards here!
The smell can’t be helped.’ He pulled out the bundle of
rags and the vinegar. ‘This will cut the smell, but it’s
the only way out we could find.’

‘I can’t
get down there,’ a legless beggar said.

‘Get down
where?’ asked one of the blind ones.

‘Anyone
who needs help getting down we can lower them with this rope,’
Jimmy said.

He slung it off
and looked around for something to anchor it to, settling on the bars
of the cell. He glanced anxiously out into the dim corridor but saw
no one.

Good.
If
the excitement caused by his arrival hadn’t brought the guards
running they were probably safe. At least for now. But then, why pay
attention to a dungeon with no exit?

‘Why are
you doing this?’ Flora asked him in a whisper. She smiled and
shook her head, clearly embarrassed for him. ‘They aren’t
going to keep us in here forever, you know.’

‘No
they’re not,’ Jimmy said grimly. ‘Tomorrow or the
next day they’re planning to hang the lot of you girls, and the
beggars get fifty lashes apiece.’