Nightblade: A Book of Underrealm (The Nightblade Epic 1) (23 page)

Loren’s hands clenched at her sides. “You do not understand. That dagger . . . I need it. I must learn what it means.”

Xain looked mystified. “A dagger rarely has meaning. What do you speak of?”

“Corin. You remember him. The shorter constable.”
 

Xain nodded.
 

“When they caught me, Corin searched me. He seemed a different man upon finding the dagger. He took me off alone, and out of sight he let me go. He told me . . . he said to tell my masters he had helped me.”

Xain’s mouth fell open. “Masters? What masters?”

“I know not. Only that somehow, that dagger may stay even the King’s law.”

Xain’s eyes darkened as though remembering some unwanted memory. Again, he bowed and shook his head. “A matter of great interest, to be sure, but hardly a cause to squander your life. The dagger could breathe flame and raise the dead, and yet in the therianthrope’s grasp you will never see it again.”

Loren gave an exasperated growl. “Speak like a common man—the
weremage.
And if I must die fighting her, so be it. At least that is my choice.”

Xain turned and ran his hands down the smooth wooden door frame. “You would risk everything for this?”

“And more,” said Loren. “When a part of you is in danger, you must be willing to risk the rest of yourself to save it.”

Xain rolled his eyes. “If you would convince me, do not speak with such childish words.”

Markus accepted the change easily enough. Then it came time to decide who would stay and who would go. Gem insisted on remaining by Loren’s side, and she felt glad for his choice; he knew more about Cabrus and Auntie than Loren could ever hope to. Annis, too, wanted to stay, but Loren would not hear it.

“You must away,” she said. “Your mother hunts you most eagerly. You stand to lose much if she catches you.”

“You stand to lose much more,” said Annis, pouting.

“Indeed.” Loren smiled. “But she will not catch me. She gave me the means for her defeat.” Loren swept the cloak dramatically up and across her face until only her eyes gleamed through a gap in the cloth.

“Do not be ridiculous.” Annis slapped her arm. “You must promise me—
promise,
you understand—that you will be careful.”

“I promise, and willingly.”

As Markus summoned the carriage driver, Annis changed to a fresh dress of muted grey. She and Xain wrapped themselves in rags stained with shoe polish, gifts from Markus’s refuse heap. They would pose as lepers one last time, hoping for constables to give them a wide berth as they left the city.

“We will ride south until sundown and find a place to wait,” said Xain. “On the third night from this, we shall depart. I hope against chance that you will be leaving with us.”

“I will be there if I can,” said Loren. “If I am not, see Annis safely to the next city. Beyond that, I will not burden you with her.”

“I will do as you ask.” Xain turned and boarded the carriage.

Annis approached next. The girl’s usual bluster had fled. Her lip quivered as she looked up at Loren.

“Will you not think upon it one last time, and come with us?” said Annis. “I promise, I will buy you a finer dagger than you have ever seen if you will swear to leave this stupid city.”

“I will see you two days hence. Spare no worries on my account.”
 

Annis nodded, but looked miserable. “Here, take this.” She reached into her cloak and pulled forth her bulging purse. “In case you need it. I hope I shall not require it upon the road.”

“Thank you.” Loren only hoped that the coin would not find its way into Auntie’s hands, pulled from her own cooling corpse. She stepped forward, speaking low. “Do you still bear a certain package? One of brown cloth?”

Annis’s eyes flashed. “I do. It has not left my side since our escape from my mother.”

“Take care. It may prove most useful. But do
not
tell Xain, whatever you do.”

Annis looked curiously at Loren. “Why? What is it to him?”

She thought of the constables, and what they had said when they caught her.
Magestones,
they had called the black rocks.
 

“I do not yet know. Only that he should not be wise to your possession. Please, be safe.”

Loren helped Annis board the carriage. The driver, an obese man with only one eye, snapped the reins, and the carriage rolled off down the street.

“Now there goes your best chance of escaping this city,” said Gem. “I say
your
best chance, of course, for it’s well known that nothing can kill me.”

“Well known indeed,” said Loren. “Come, let us eat. We have a robbery to plan.”

twenty-seven

Markus fed them small bowls of gruel, served in his cellar. He did not speak overmuch, nor did he linger after offering their bowls. “If you remain in the city by nightfall, you may sleep here if you wish. Come here, to the cellar. I will have my granddaughter fetch you blankets, and open the door if you knock.”

Then he vanished before Loren could thank him.

“I find that one most strange,” said Gem. “Why should a cobbler be in the smuggling business?”

“Will you keep your voice down?” said Loren, keeping hers to a murmur. “One should always respect one’s host. And why should you expect a cobbler any less than any other? What profession
should
a smuggler find herself, to your mind?”

“Something . . . natural. Like a carpet maker. Or a brewer. Someone who makes big things, the kinds of things you can stuff a body in.”

Loren shuddered. “A body living, or a corpse?”

“Either.” Gem spooned the last of his gruel, slurping noisily as it slid down his throat. The boy ate like three men twice his size. A symptom, Loren supposed, of rarely having enough.
 

He leaned back in his chair and fixed Loren with a hard stare. “What’s this all about to you, then?”

Loren swallowed her spoonful, wincing at the slimy way it sat in her mouth. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, I heard what you said to Xain. But anyone in your case with a pound of sense would flee this place with half a chance. You had more than that, and yet you’re here. I cannot see it.”

Loren scowled at the table. “A great thief cannot let others rob her and simply accept it. Who would respect her?”

“And that’s the other thing. Look at you. Tall. Strong. Not ugly, I suppose, though I’ve seen much prettier.”

Loren glared at him.

Gem cleared his throat. “You don’t look like you’ve gone hungry more than a day in your life. So what brings you to Cabrus, seeking Auntie and a pickpocket’s life? Who goes about searching for a way outside the King’s law?”

Loren scoffed. “You are one to talk. You have lived without it your whole life.”

“No other opportunity presents itself to one such as me,” said Gem. “If I have to lift a coin or slice the occasional purse strings, well that’s what I must do. But you could build yourself a little house in the forest, next to a river. I’ll bet you could live there fine, find yourself someone to live with and all. Yet you come here with half the nine lands breathing down your neck, looking to lift purses you do not need.”

“I would never take from those with none to spare.” Loren felt her temper rising, blood rushing to her face.

“Oh? What of the girl in the pink dress Auntie sent you after?”

“That was Auntie herself!”
 

“Aye, and you did not know until you had your hands on her purse.”

“She looked rich,” Loren insisted. “Anyone who can afford a dress like that can lose a purse of coins and retrieve another.”

“Some might say the same about your cloak.”

Loren’s hand went to the black, velvety fabric. Stroking it gently, she softly said, “This was a gift.”

“Mayhap that pink dress was, too. Or mayhap she only bought that dress from coin what she earned. Earned doing things you would never do, that you would consider beneath you. I know many pretty girls with fine dresses what pay for those dresses with rich men’s failings.”

Loren pushed her bowl away and stood from the table. “It is time to go.”

“I have an idea I like better,” said Gem, rising as well. “You can take those coins that Annis gave you and buy us a horse so we can leave this city forever. Find Annis and Xain upon the road, and together we’ll ride off to the outland kingdoms where they have never heard of Cabrus and we have never heard of them.”

“I will not leave this be!” Loren slammed her hand on the table. “No one steals from me, especially not that simpering witch!”

Gem paused, letting Loren’s angry words hang with all the heavy meaning beneath them. She came to herself and withdrew her hand.

“Where do we start?”

“What are we looking for?”

“My dagger. Or Auntie, though not if I had my wish.”

“She will have put it in the hidey hole.”

They fetched more rags from Markus’s workshop and wrapped themselves tight—neither Auntie nor her children had seen that trick the day before, and mayhap it would see them through again. Loren left her cloak in the cellar, folded neatly beneath the table.
 

She led the way up from the cellar and out the back door, but Loren let Gem walk in front once out on the street. Sometimes, he led her across the avenues, occasionally for a brief stint up a rain gutter and across rooftops that burned hot even through her boots. She could not imagine how he stood it, but then the urchin had probably walked barefoot through his life. Other times, their course dipped through the sewers, but never too long. When they had to enter that dark place, Loren could feel her pulse like thunder, every echoing noise like a slap at her ears to send her jumping in fright.

The wandering course let her appreciate the city’s three levels. Most of those who lived in Cabrus only ever knew the one: streets and alleys, which probably held enough darkness and danger for the average man or woman. Above stretched the roofs, Loren’s favorite. There she was like a bird, looking down upon and scoffing at the petty lives of those underfoot. The sewers she liked least, and yet Loren saw their advantage. No one wanted to go there. Only those willing to brave the darkness and wretched scent would venture into the sewers, and such people were few.

After a time, Gem led her back under the streets, on a winding course through the drainage and waste. Oftentimes, the tunnel branched in three or more directions, but Gem always chose his course without fear.
 

Loren saw that not all the tunnels channeled the city’s waste and refuse. Some ran with water instead. She would not have drunk it, but it certainly smelled better than the other tunnels. Twice they came to long, sloping slides that descended farther into the city’s underbelly. These always ran with water, and after Gem led the way, Loren flung herself down with wild cries of delight. Wind rushed past her ears as she slid down, down, down into the darkness.

After the second slide, Gem paused at every intersection. He would sidle carefully up to the corner, poking an ear around it, followed by an eye. Once satisfied, he would lead the way forward, but Loren took from his manner that speech was forbidden.

Here the daylight no longer came from holes in the street above. Instead, torches sat in wall mountings, casting a dim orange glow every thirty feet or so. Darkness stretched between them, and twice Loren stumbled over something in the dark—what it was, she could not have said and did not wish to know.

“Let us take a torch,” she whispered to Gem. “I cannot see a thing.”

“Neither can they. Take fire, and you’re a target. Light bounces in all directions.” He shook his head and kept walking. Loren pointed her tongue at his back.
 

Ever onward they pressed, and ever slower Gem’s footsteps became. Finally, he stopped where two tunnels collided and then split in four directions. He waited for Loren to draw close and motioned for her to lean down so he could whisper into her ear.

“The hidey hole awaits round the next corner. It will be guarded. We cannot go too close.”

“Just let me see it,” said Loren. “Then we may determine our course.”

Gem nodded and stepped around the corner. Loren crept behind him, keeping close to the curved wall.

Another torch sat in the wall thirty feet away. Gem crept forward until his feet neared the light’s edge. He pointed to the tunnel’s end, but Loren had already seen them. Two guards, fifty yards away, mayhap more, at a joint where the tunnel split both left and right. A small hallway lay opposite the divide, no more than twenty feet long. At the end of that corridor stood a tall wooden door.

“There,” said Gem, “is the hidey hole.”

Loren looked it over. The wood seemed thick and strong. She could see the gleam of a metal lock at the handle. The walls bore many torches, and their burning light made it hard to see details from so far away.
 

“What does she keep in there?”
 

“Anything special to her. Clothes. Souvenirs. Sometimes, the big boys—those are two of them there—will steal something beyond the norm, and she will stow it in the hole. None of us are allowed down here, except the big boys she sends to guard it. I have only been here before because I am . . . well, I was . . . ”