Thief: A Fantasy Hardboiled (Ratcatchers Book 2) (16 page)

It was a bee. Heden stared at it. A lone bee here in the starlit atrium. It appeared to look at Heden and wave its tiny antennae.

Concealing his reaction, Heden gently blew on the bee, and it flew away.

“I know why,” Heden said smoothly. “Now if you’ll excuse me,” he said, turning his back to the other man. “I have an appointment.” He walked out of the atrium, left the starlight and darkness and headed to where he knew the sun was. Confident he knew the way. “Good afternoon, your Grace.” His voice echoed against the stone walls.

Unseen to both men, the tiny bee buzzed after Heden.

“We need to talk.”

The abbot looked up from his quill and parchment, looked over the rims of his spectacles.

Heden leaned against the stone archway leading into the study. He looked like someone wrung him out and hung him up to dry.

The abbot replaced his quill and pulled the spectacles off his nose and ears, gestured to the backless, upholstered couch against the wall opposite his desk.

Heden shook his head once, sharply. “No,” he said. “Not here.”

The abbot sat back in his chair. “Your inn?”

“No,” Heden said, pushing himself off the arch. “That’s being watched too. Come on.”

The abbot frowned, but stood up and followed.

The graveyard was older than the citadel, older than the castle, older than the memory of the city. It was huge, covered the entire northern edge of Celkirk, extending out beyond the walls into the rolling hills beyond. In the days of deathless it was a popular destination for cultists when young acolytes were tasked with patrolling it. But that was years ago. Now the only people who came here were people mourning the dead.

“This is ominous,” the abbot said, looking at the name on the headstone.

Stewart Antilles.

Heden looked down at the headstone he leaned on, then looked down at the matted, spotty grass as though noticing it for the first time. “Hm,” he said.

He stood up straight, cleaned the top of the gravestone off with the sleeve of his shirt. Then appeared to give up, and went back to leaning on it.

“He won’t mind,” he said with a shrug.

“I’ll take your word for it,” the abbot said. Then looked deeply at Heden. “How are you?” he asked, frowning.

Heden took a deep breath and shook his head. “You need to know what happened in the forest.”

“You can tell me what happened in the forest,” the abbot said, “but first I want to know how you are.”

Heden shook his head. “I’m not here to tell you how I
am
,” he said, biting the word off. “We’re here because we have to talk about what happened.”

“What’s wrong with you?” the abbot said, scowling. “You look…,”

“What?” Heden barked, looking around the graveyard. He didn’t see anyone, but put his hand on the hilt of his grandfather’s sword just in case. “How do I look? Say it. We don’t have time to play games.”

The abbot nodded as though Heden’s statement confirmed a suspicion. “You look ready for violence. Did you come back to commit murder, because that’s what you look like.”

“Yes,” Heden said. “I did. I almost did. But Gwiddon talked me out of it. For now.”

“Who?” the abbot demanded.

“The bishop,” Heden spat.

“Conmonoc?” the abbot said, taken aback.

“Do you know what happened in the forest?” Heden asked.

His face clouded with worry as he absorbed Heden’s statement, the abbot shook his head. “Only…only what you told me. The last time we spoke.”

Heden pushed himself away from the gravestone and closed the distance between them.

“He did it,” Heden hissed. “He sent me up there. He sent me because he thought I’d fail.”

“You’re confused,” the abbot said, and it looked to Heden as though the abbot were trying to convince himself as much as anyone. “He sent you there to save those people.”

“He damned them,” Heden bristled. “He ordered them to stand down. He lied to us, he said he’d never heard of them, but he needed them to let an army of urq march.”

“You’re wrong,” the abbot said. “None of us had heard of the Green Order. Not for hundreds of years. No one had.”

“
He
had. They receive their power from Halcyon, Halcyon is a saint of Cavall. Conmonoc is his bishop,” Heden spat the word. “That gave him the right. How many times had he tried before? Tried to assemble an army from the Wode? And failed. Because of twelve knights standing between him and who knows what? Years? Decades? Then he finally realizes why nothing happens. The Green. They do their duty, they stop of the urq and his plan fails. Well not anymore. Now there’s an army in the north big enough to take the city and no one left to stop it.”

“No one…,” the abbot couldn’t absorb it all. “They’re dead? All of them?”

“He ordered them to abandon their duty, just this once. But that’s
all they had left!
” Heden’s face was red with rage and other emotions. The abbot could see it. “And he took that away. Leaving them
nothing
.”

The abbot found himself unable to deny Heden. “Why…what does he gain? Why would he do this?”

“You tell me,” Heden asked.

“I have no idea,” the abbot said, eyebrows raised. “I’m not even sure I understand the…I don’t know what….”

“Let me explain it to you!” Heden barked. “Conomonoc is the Bishop of Cavall. But he is Cavall’s enemy.”

This brought the abbot up short. “Heden. That’s impossible.”

“
Is it?
” Heden was going to force the abbot to see the truth. “Tell me something, how is he chosen? Is he chosen by Cavall?”

“Yes!” the abbot said.

“Is he
really
?” Heden took a step forward. The abbot took a pace back, looked alarmed. Would Heden strike him?

“He’s…he’s chosen by the rectors
in camerata
,” the abbot said.

“In
secret
,” Heden said.

“But they’re…Cavall speaks to them. They choose on his word.”

“But in secret! No chance of
politics
is there?”

The abbot’s eyes stared off into the distance, past Heden. Through him. He was breathing rapidly. He put a hand to his chest. Overweight, aging, he felt his heart might burst.

“I went to talk to him,” Heden continued. He paced over Stewart’s grave. “I wanted to give him a chance to…but I could
see it
. The more he talked…I could see it. He’s the most powerful man in the city, Corwell, maybe the whole region. And he doesn’t belong to us. Maybe never did. What in the worlds below was
I
going to do?” He couldn’t save anyone.

Heden found himself staring at his aging hands. He clenched them into fists.

The abbot pressed his hands to his eyes, tried to clear his head. When he took his hands away, opened his eyes, and saw Heden standing there, his whole body clenched for violence, his way was made clear for him.

“Heden,” the abbot said. The arrogate ignored him. “Heden!” the abbot said louder.

Heden looked at him dully.

“Heden, forget the bishop for a moment and listen to me.” When Heden gave no indication he heard or didn’t hear, the abbot continued. “This will consume you. After what happened in Aendrim? The battle at Exeter? This will drive you until there’s nothing left.”

“You going to tell me not to do anything?” Heden asked, his voice flat.

“No,” the abbot said. “You can’t do nothing. But I’m not worried about the bishop, I’m worried about you. I know your heart. That’s what I’m worried about. If you move from your center,” he said, pointing at Heden’s chest, “you’ll be fine. I don’t know what will happen, but it will be the right thing, however it comes out.” The implication was clear.

“Go on like this?” The abbot warned. “From hate and anger and fear? It will destroy you, and you’ll achieve nothing.”

The two men stood in the graveyard, looking at each other. Only one seeing.

“Go back to the inn. Talk to the girl. She needs you.”

Heden gave no indication he heard the abbot.

“Heden, please,” the abbot reached out, grabbed Heden’s arm.

Reflexively, Heden pulled it away, looked at the abbot’s hand, at the abbot, with disgust.

“You need someone,” the abbot said, delicately.

Heden, his mouth twisted into a sneer, looked once at the abbot, then strode off, back to the heart of the city, out of the graveyard.

“You can’t do it alone!” the abbot said, unsure if Heden was listening.

He turned to look at the grave of Stewart Antilles.

“He can’t do it alone,” he said, to the dirt.

The next day, feeling almost hung over from the rage and poison he’d felt the day before, Heden woke to a nearly empty inn. He went downstairs.

Vanora was washing up.

“I haven’t killed anyone yet,” he said.

She smiled at him. “Good,” she said. There was a distance between them. Heden was reminded of the abbot’s advice about children.

Heden pointed to the wall of books on the far side of the common room. A unique feature in an inn.

“Did you do any reading?”

Vanora shrugged.

“A little,” she said. “I…,” she started. “I liked the harlequin,” she admitted. She dried off a plate and held it to her chest like a shield, looking at Heden.

“Good,” Heden said. That worked, at least. “What did you learn?”

“Letters,” Vanora said, and then perked up. “I can write my name!”

“I’d like to see that,” Heden said. Vanora was beaming, violence forgotten.

They talked about nothing for a while. Vanora noticed Heden looking at the door to the basement.

“I had to go down there,” she said. “When the ghoul…happened,” she didn’t know how else to describe it. “I know you told me not to.”

“You did the right thing,” he said, and crossed to the door.

“All the wine was down there anyway,” she said.

Heden nodded. He sighed, not looking forward to doing something, opened the door, and went downstairs.

This time Vanora didn’t press her ear to the door. And this time, Heden didn’t close the door behind him. She took a stack of plates into the kitchen, then came back out to collect the used mugs.

When Heden emerged from the basement, he was carrying something egg-shaped, but as large as a lantern, and wrapped in brown cloth, like hide.

“What is that?” Vanora asked.

“A peace offering,” Heden said.

The dwarf ignored him.

He stood there, feeling like an idiot, with Zaar’s men all trying to work around him

Heden cleared his throat again. Stood there with the thing wrapped up, held out. It was heavy.

“I remembered when we found this and I, ah…,” he looked at the sawdust on the floor. “I took it as my share because I…you know, I thought…I knew how much you wanted it and I thought I could get more than my share by….”

The dwarf turned and stared at Heden, his ember-red eyes glowering from under an earthen brow.

Heden took a deep breath.

“I was a complete shit in other words,” he confessed.

The dwarf glanced at the cloth-wrapped orb. Heden unwrapped it. It looked like a massive fire opal. It glowed from within mimicking the red hot eyes of the Elemental in front of him.

Heden held it out. The dwarf looked from the Flame Speaker gem, to Heden, and back.

“I lost the…ah. The sword. I lost it.
Starkiller
.”

The dwarf’s red stone features grimaced. He started breathing heavily. His eyes flared red. Heat boiled off him. Heden had been sweating from it before, now it was almost unbearable. But he didn’t move away. He was going to stand there and take it. All of it.

“I had to give it up. There was a naiad and someone had been murdered and I….”

The dwarf maintained his silence.

“Doesn’t matter,” Heden finished. “I know it technically belongs to all of us.” Everyone left. “But I thought I should…”

Heden looked away from Zaar, looked at the shop full of people watching him. Turned back to the dwarf and shrunk a little.

“I don’t know what I thought,” he finished lamely. He found himself unable to ask for another weapon. Even though several were his by right.

The dwarf ground his teeth, which Heden could hear. It was like a human pursing his lips in thought.

He turned his back on Heden, and returned to his work. Heden stood there, feeling useless, holding the Flame Speaker gem. Everyone in the smithy tried to go back to work, tried to ignore him.

“I wouldn’t do it again, you know,” Heden said. Louder, and more clearly than he had said anything else up until this point.

The dwarf stopped working and half turned his head, not looking at Heden. Waiting.

“Make a decision like that.” He stared at the dwarf’s back. Everyone had gone back to watching him and listening. “I was young and…humans do foolish things when they’re….” He looked around; almost everyone working for Zaar was a human.

“Don’t judge all of us based on one mistake I made, is all,” Heden concluded. He looked down at the Flame Speaker gem. It was beautiful. “Well,” he muttered, “maybe not just one mistake.”

Staring into the gem, Heden didn’t realize the dwarf had turned back around until he saw Zaar’s four-fingered stone hands reach out and grasp the thing. For a moment, they were both holding the gem. Heden looked at Zaar. The dwarf would not return his gaze. Heden knew something of the provenance of the crystal. Zaar considered it a holy relic, left over from a race of dwarves now long-gone. A race Zaar’s people had considered their elder brothers. Better versions of themselves.

Zaar made a noise, like “angh,” and took the gem from Heden. Turned and looked away. Heden stood there for a moment, his breathing coming easy. A burden lifted. He wondered if this was as good as it would get between the two former comrades. Decided, if it was, it was good enough. More that he deserved.

He walked out of Zaar's shop, empty handed.