Soul Weaver: A Fantasy Novel (2 page)

“You're so right,” Shel agreed, sidling up closer to the fat man as he preached. “It’s beyond me, good sir, how any citizen of the empire could let themselves fall so low.”

“Indeed, indeed,” said the fat man, smiling down at her. The suspicion was gone from his eyes now, replaced by an oily calculation that made Shel’s skin want to crawl. He looked her up and down and even went so far as to lick his lips as though he were hungry. “Why, any citizen able to stand on his own two feet has no excuse for such laziness. It’s hardly up to the rest of us to keep them fed and clothed, now is it? Not when our glorious emperor has done so much to ensure our perpetual good fortune and continued happiness.”

“So true.” Shel nodded her head in vigorous agreement, sidling ever closer to the fat man’s side. He snaked out one arm suddenly, slipping it over her shoulders. Shel wanted to get a little closer yet, but she was startled when he pulled her in close against him. “Sir?”

“You're a fine little lass,” he said, looking down at her. His hand slid down off her shoulder, trailing over her back and sliding around her waist. She wanted to squirm and pull away but she forced herself to endure his unwelcome attention. His breath stank of stale wine. “And an honest one, to boot. I think a reward is in order, so I do.”

Shel pretended not to understand, though in fact it was the fat man who was confused. “A reward, kind sir?”

“For your good deed!” He laughed heartily, tightening his grip around Shel’s narrow waist and pulling her closer. “My house isn’t far, not far at all. Return with me, and we'll raise a glass of wine to his majesty’s health!” The fat man’s dancing eyebrows promised more than wine awaited her at the merchant’s house.

“Oh,” said Shel, feigning surprise. It was difficult not to show the disgust she felt. She caught his beady eyes and held them with her own. He never even noticed the hand slipping beneath his coat to relieve him of his purse.

“A tempting offer, kind sir, but I'm afraid my father will be looking for me. He sent me to the market to buy two loaves and a dozen pies from the baker, but when I saw you drop your treasure I forgot all about it. Truth, sir, I dallied at the Square of the Swans and daydreamed beside the pool there. I'm late enough as it is.” It was all a lie, of course. Shel hadn’t seen or heard from her father in years, and wasn’t the least bit sorry for it.

“Such a shame,” said the fat man, still leering at her. His voice had fallen to a hoarse whisper, and his arm was tighter than ever about her waist. His gold had already disappeared, unnoticed, beneath her cloak – now Shel just had to get away from him. He wasn’t letting go. “But surely, one glass of wine…”

“My father doesn’t want me drinking wine, kind sir,” Shel said, making a face. “He says I'm too young for it yet.”

“Ah,” began the fat merchant, but before he could continue there was a loud clatter just behind them. The fat man jumped back, his beady eyes going wide as they fell on his heavily laden cart, which had begun rolling back down the hill. “Oh no!” he cried.

Shel jumped back in the opposite direction, and for an instant the cart was between her and the fat man. Then, picking up speed, it plummeted down the hill. The cart swayed ponderously from side to side as the rickety wooden wheels clacked over the uneven cobblestones. The fat man threw up his hands and raced after his cart, momentarily forgetting all about the pretty girl. Shel turned and ran in the other direction without thinking.

It was a stupid thing to do. Every good thief knew better than to run from a mark; if you had to run, you were caught already. Shel didn’t know why she ran, and she forced herself to slow down almost at once. There was a thundering crash from behind her as the fat man’s cart reached the bottom of the hill, crashed over a curb and overturned in the middle of the street. He’d be far too busy to come looking for her…

“You there, halt!”

Shel cursed under breath. Suncloaks! There was no way they’d seen her take the purse, but they must have seen her run as soon as the cart went careening down the hill. At best, they’d assume she’d set the cart loose for some reason. Shel broke into a run again, catching sight of the two men in their bright, golden cloaks coming toward her from a side-street. She cast her eyes frantically about, looking for Rickon or West or any of the others. They were nowhere to be seen!

Shel was starting to panic. Racing, she turned onto the next side-street and then cut down an alley way. She took every turning she found, but she could hear the pounding of boots on her heels. The Suncloaks shouted for her to stop, and then they stopped shouting and just chased after her. How could she have been so stupid?

Shel turned another corner and collided with a broad-chested man. Bouncing back from the impact, she fell painfully on her backside and sprawled in the street. Looking up, Shel felt her pounding heart skip a terrified beat. Of course, the man she’d run into was another Suncloak. Even before the two guardsmen pursuing her rounded the corner, he’d lifted his cudgel in warning and grabbed the scrambling girl by one wrist.

“Why the hurry, little girl?” he demanded with a sneer.

“Let me go!” Shel struggled against his grip, but it was hopeless. “Let me go, let me go!”

“Shut up,” said the Suncloak. He lifted his cudgel and the last thing Shel saw was the heavy wooden club coming at her face. Then there was pain and blackness.

The darkness receded a bit but didn’t go away. The air was stuffy and dank, but cool. Blinking, Shel pushed herself up to a sitting position on the damp, straw-covered floor. She thought it was straw, anyway. She could barely see. She squinted and blinked against the oppressive darkness, trying to figure out where she was. Then she remembered.

The fat man, the purse – it was gone now – and the Suncloaks. Shel rubbed at her head, feeling the painful lump near the hairline. There was little doubt where she was. The Solstice dungeons.

It wasn’t a place most people ever saw. Shel didn’t even know where the dungeons were located in the city. Most people never thought about them. Of course everyone knew the dungeons existed; they were hardly some dark, hidden secret. Even the Great and Glorious Empire of the Long Summer hadn’t succeeded in completely erasing crime. Shel knew that first hand, and not simply by virtue of her life as a thief.

Shel didn’t want to follow that line of thought, but in these dismal surroundings it was impossible for her not to think of her father. A violent and hateful drunk, he had never been satisfied with their life in the small village of Vallen in the northern foothills. Where most all the citizens of the empire were content to work and contribute to the greatest society the world had ever known, Shel’s father was a malcontent and a troublemaker. He had also beaten Shel and her mother in his drunken rages, and the day he was carted off in chains by a company of Suncloaks had been one of the happiest days of Shel’s life.

Until she had learned to steal, that is. The Great and Glorious Empire of the Long Summer might offer plenty of opportunities for even the lowest of its citizens, but Shel had long since discovered that nothing truly compared to the life of a thief. She was no fool, and she saw the heavy burden of taxes on her fellow citizens. She was no beggar, not some layabout who thought the rest of the world should just hand her a decent living. But there was work, and there was work. Shel had learned a trade, but it was one she enjoyed and was even proud of – it just happened to be one that most of the empire frowned upon.

Most of the people of the Great and Glorious Empire were farmers. Agriculture fed the people, but Shel had seen how hard that life could be and rejected it in unconscious imitation of her disreputable father. Farmers struggled under the weight of taxation, but they also waged a constant battle against small animals and natural poachers. But no one ever suggested sticking the rabbits and groundhogs in the city dungeon. That was how Shel had come to think of herself: like the rabbit, who nibbled away at the gardens of the empire.

But it had landed her here just the same. She was a long way from Vallen, but it seemed she would share her father’s ignoble fate anyway. The dungeon was chill and dank, its atmosphere thick with a cloying despair that crept under her skin. Shivering in the darkness, Shel shook off these dark thoughts. She had to do something about her situation.

Her eyes had adjusted as much as they were going to. Shel could now make out some of the details of her cell. Solid stone walls surrounded her on three sides. Thick iron bars blocked the doorway. She tugged at one of them, making a face in the dark as her fingers slipped over the slimy, corroded iron. She wiped her hand on her breeches and sat back down on the floor, fighting a rising tide of despair.

“Okay,” she said to herself. “Okay. Oh, Dunmir. Oh, no.”

The Suncloaks had taken the gold and tossed her in the dungeon. She didn’t know what would happen next. Maybe they simply threw prisoners in a cell and forgot about them. Or perhaps they’d return for her any moment to lead her off to a summary execution. Neither possibility – nor any of the others that flitted through her mind – were appealing.

A blood curdling scream drifted into her cell from some distance. The terrible sound froze the blood in Shel’s veins. Her mouth fell open in shock and then the man screamed again. It was a long, drawn out scream of unbearable agony. Somewhere nearby, a man was being tortured.

Shel’s hands clenched in white-knuckled fright at her sides. She was trembling all over. She didn’t even notice when she began mumbling to herself, whispering the same words over and over. “No, oh no, oh please, oh please no, oh no, oh please…”

“Shh!”

Startled, Shel jumped to her feet and spun around in the center of her cell searching for the source of the hissed warning.

“Who’s there?”

“I said hush,” whispered the voice. It was directly outside her cell. Cautiously approaching the iron bars, Shel peered through them into the hallway. An indistinct, man-shaped shadow moved against the darkness beyond her cell. “Well, well,” he said, looking her over. “What have we here?”

“Who are you?”

“Name’s Rez,” was the whispered reply. “Enjoying your stay?”

“You're joking.” Shel stared at the shadowy figure, straining to make out details. She didn’t think he was a guardsman. But who was he?

“Not at all,” Rez said with a quiet chuckle. “At least we're out of the heat, yeah? The intolerable, endlessly sweltering heat of the Great and Glorious Golden Empire of the Long Summer. Faugh! I, for one, could do with a bit of winter. What about you?”

“What are you talking about?” Shel demanded. “Who are you?”

“I told you, I'm called Rez.” The shadow moved, crossing arms over its chest. Shel heard a faint tapping, and realized the man was tapping one foot as he studied her.

“You're no Suncloak,” she said. None of the guards would speak that way about the empire. She didn’t think she’d ever heard
anyone
say something bad about the Long Summer. “Who
are
you?”

“You keep asking me the same question,” said Rez, sounding curious. “Are you broken?”

“Do I look like some mechanical contraption?” snapped Shel, irritated by the man’s curious manner of speaking. He chuckled again, and Shel’s irritation rose another notch. “I am not
broken,
” she insisted.

“Trouble with your memory?” She heard him snap his fingers. “Of course! They hit you over the head, didn’t they?”

“Maybe,” said Shel irritably. “Is that what happened to you? I've never met someone so addle-brained as you, Rez.”

Rez chuckled again. “So you do remember. That’s good, but what about manners? You've forgotten those, I think.”

“What?”

“I told you my name,” said the man, shrugging. “It’s only fair and proper to tell me yours.”

“Shel,” she said, some of her irritation ebbing. Not by much, but a little. “Can you get me out of here? You're no Suncloak, that’s for sure.”

“You want to get out?”

“Of course I want to get out!”

“Hmm.” Rez tapped his foot some more. “I suppose I could get you out. But it’s going to make a bit of noise. What if the guards hear it, and come to investigate?”

Shel didn’t know what to say to that. She stepped closer to the bars, barely stopping herself from reaching through them desperately. “Can you get me out, or not?”

“That all depends.”

“Depends? On what?”

“What are you in for?”

“Excuse me?” Shel was confused. The strange man’s odd manner of speaking made no sense. Who was he, that he was wandering around down here in the city dungeons? If he wasn’t a Suncloak…

“What did you do?” Rez clarified.

“Oh, that.” Shel shrugged, not sure if he would be able to see the motion or not. “I robbed a fat merchant of his purse. But that’s not the problem, I've done that a hundred times. I made a mistake, though. I ran. They always know you're guilty if you run.”

Rez’s chuckle almost became a full fledged laugh. “That they do,” he agreed. “All right. Stand back.”

“You'll get me out?”

“Stand back,” he repeated. Shel moved hastily away from the bars. As she backed away, she saw an unearthly light begin to glow in mid-air beyond the bars. Gasping, Shel realized the ghostly glowing was emanating from the stranger’s eyes.

“Soulweaver,” she muttered under her breath as she hastily scooted away from the iron bars. A creaking sound came from those bars now, and even in the darkness she could see them beginning to bend and stretch outward. The glow from Rez’s eyes grew in intensity until it was nearly blinding in the otherwise dark pit of the dungeon. The iron bars grated against their stone housings. Then, with a terrific, wrenching sound they were torn free and fell with a clatter to the stone floor outside the cell. Rez’s fiercely glowing eyes faded, leaving stark afterimages floating in Shel’s eyes.

“Come on out,” he called softly. “And be quick about it. The dungeon guards are lazy and inattentive, but that sound will draw them out for sure and I still have business to see to before we take our leave of this foul place.”