Thieves' World: Enemies of Fortune (38 page)

“And that Talulahs Thunder swill you quaff is gratis, I’ll bet,” said the linguist with a grin. “Part of the deal. You wouldn’t drink that swill if you had to pay for it.”

The cooper shrugged.

“So,” said Heliz, “bad things at the ‘Unicorn equals no money at the ’Unicorn equals no money for us equals me sitting here for an even
longer
period of time writing other people’s letters. Have I finally got that clear?”

“Clear enough,” said Lumm the staver.

“And should I make this
my
problem,” said Heliz, “you will forgive my remaining debt to you?”

The cooper was quiet, then said, “Half—”

“Two-thirds.”

“Done.”

“Done.” Heliz rose. “Then we should go.”

“To the ’Unicorn?” said Lumm.

“To our temporary digs first,” said Heliz. “If you want me to play a professional investigator, you should let me look the part. And you should bring something that looks like a weapon. You salvaged something sufficiently wicked from the wreckage of your old shop, am I correct?”

“A hand adze has a good, tempered blade.”

“Too small to impress,” said Heliz. “Didn’t I see a big mallet in your collection?”

“The long-handled bung hammer?” said Lumm. “It’s hardly a real weapon, heavy headed and all. It has no balance.”

“I didn’t say you should
bring
a weapon,” said Heliz, “I said you should bring something that looks like a weapon. Let’s go.”

As they left the market, Heliz’s brow furrowed. “So why is ’Unicorn hiring you to make barrels? They serve ale and wine. And those horrible little dry fish. They should be codpiece-deep in barrels!”

“You see!” said Lumm the staver, smiling. “That’s why I came to you. You ask questions that no one else thinks of!”

“N
ice robes, by the way,” said Lumm as they paused at the main door to the Vulgar Unicorn, as though he hadn’t noticed that Heliz had changed his garments until they were lit by light from the tavern’s reeking interior.

“A payment,” said Heliz, already preoccupied. “Possibly a bribe. From a lone youth who confuses literacy with power. I hope that there are a few others like that in the common room tonight. I don’t know what’s going to happen, if anything, but if I tell you to do something, do it No questions. Pretend that you believe I know what I’m doing.”

Lumm nodded grimly, as if the cooper had been summoned to some higher calling. Heliz touched the bronze tablet in his breast pocket for luck, and they entered.

The common room was mostly empty, a testament to the barrel-maker’s concerns. Usually at this time of day there would be a brace of bravos whooping it up in one corner, and at least three plots unspooling in the back booths, not to mention a regular clientele of sailors, fishermen, pickpockets, snatch-purses, grafters, grifters, bilkers, smugglers, con-artists, tin changers, coin biters, ladies of easy virtue, and lords of no virtue at all. Now the majority of the previously listed had decamped to less-auspicious climes, leaving a double-handful of individuals gathered around a clear spot where the tables had been pushed back and a large chalk circle scribed. Along one side of the circle a list of foul words and phrases had been chalked and crossed out.

The air smelled of stale beer, wood smoke, pine dust, and vomit. And just a touch of brimstone.

Someone shouted Lumm’s name as they entered, and Heliz was almost knocked over by a charging water buffalo. In this case the buffalo wore a low-cut gown, copious bracelets, and enough perfume to gag a minor devil. Other than that, the comparison was accurate. The water buffalo embraced Lumm tightly, and the big man peeled her off as delicately as he could.

“I said I would bring help,” said Lumm, his face blushing furiously. He held out a large hand to steady the teetering linguist. “This is Heliz Yunz, of Lirt. He knows about these things.”

The buffalo wheeled on Heliz, and for a moment the linguist feared that she would embrace him as well. Instead she said, “Oh yes, your little friend.” She smiled and Heliz noted that her heavily kohled eyes were red from crying and lack of sleep.

The towering bar wench had stressed the word “little,” and despite himself Heliz stiffened his spine, which did him no good—his chin barely cleared the tattered lace decking of her bodice. Irritated, he turned toward the circle and the motley collection gathered around it.

He pretended to examine the chalk circle, but cast glances as well at the surrounding group. There were other employees—two of the kitchen servers and one of the cooks. Everyone else apparently had been sent home. No sign of anyone who looked like an owner. A gray-robed man sat calmly to one side; his very demeanor screamed bureaucrat. To the left of the bureaucrat was the Irrune warrior Lumm had mentioned, Ravadar, flanked by two bored-looking mates of similar tribal origins. (Heliz wondered why he never saw such a warrior alone—did they travel in flocks?) Across from them perched a dark-haired young person of indeterminate gender, playing with a long, delicate knife.

S‘danzo, or at least S’danzo blood,
Heliz thought
A people known for their curses.

Two drunks were splayed forward on tables, who might have been sober when the incident first happened but now were no longer conscious. One drunk was blond, while the other one had brilliant red hair. Big Minx, Heliz, and Lumm finished out the numbers of those in the not-quite-empty common room.

“Who’s the ‘little friend’?” said the warrior Ravadar with a challenging chuckle. “Not a frogging spell-caster, I hope.”

“Hardly,” said Heliz, trying not to rise to the bait. “I just know a lot about words. Someone told me that words were involved here.”

“Aye, cursed words,” snarled the Irrune, punctuating his comment with a hawking spit that missed the spittoon by a good foot and a half. “She stumbled into a spell and damned herself.”

“Evil eye,” muttered the S’danzo, apparently re-engaging a conversation their entrance had interrupted.

“Cursed words,” the warrior huffed. “She damned herself.”

“She had the evil eye put upon her,” said the dark-haired youth. “My mother’s brother, he had the evil eye put upon him, and he fell down a well. A well that had not been there the night before.”

“Your uncle got drunk and lost his way,” said Ravadar, and his allies laughed. The S’danzo-blooded youth gripped the knife more tightly but said nothing.

“What’s this?” said Heliz, toeing the list of phrases.

One of the kitchen staff, a blond girl with blackened streaks in her hair, said, “Those are the curses Little Minx used, best as we can remember them. One of them may have done this.”

“So you spoke the words?” said Heliz.

“Do we look like fools?” thundered Ravadar. “We described them and wrote them down so we could all agree with them. Words have power. Curse words most of all.”

“Who told you that?” asked Heliz, trying to keep his voice as neutral as he could for the moment.

The big warrior’s eyes flickered. “I always heard it was so.” Heliz remained silent. “It’s common knowledge,” the Irrune warrior added after a moment.

“Evil eye,” repeated the dark-haired youth.

“And you are?” said Heliz to the youth.

“I am …” Feminine features twisted beneath hard, masculine brows. “Merely curious.”

Ravadar let out a chuckle, “S’danzo won’t tell you it’s raining out even if they come in soaking wet.” His companions laughed in agreement.

Heliz ignored the comment, and instead looked at the scrawled list. “The first one reads …” He tried to sound it out. “Puh-ed-knawk … ?”

The Irrune leaped back as if burned, along with his two companions and the kitchen staff as well. Big Minx let out a squeal. It was the S’danzo’s turn to let out a laugh, harsh as a northern winter and sharp as a knife blade.

“Don’t say it!” bellowed the Irrune. “You would call down ruin on us all!”

“So what do you refer to it as?” said Heliz dryly. “This first epithet?”

The gray bureaucrat said, “We’re calling it Engaging with a Ilsigi Woman.” His voice was whisper-quiet. “An ill-kempt Ilsigi woman.”

“And the second?” Heliz looked around.

“A S’danzo not of her father’s issue,” said the youth in a flat voice.

“And the third?” said the linguist. He looked hard at the Irrune.

“Eating one’s dinner a second time,” said the big warrior. When Heliz said nothing, he added, “It’s a common curse in the north.”

“I do not doubt that it is,” said the linguist. He scowled at the writing, and said, “They’re not very readable.”

“Best that could be done,” said the gray man, “under the circumstances”

“So you are the scrivener of this list?” said Heliz.

“I am.”

Heliz squinted at the list. “You’re not very good at it.”

The gray man’s tone grew sharper. “A workman is only as good as his tools.”

“A poor workman blames his tools,” said Heliz, pulling his tablet and writing kit from one of the new robe’s deep pockets. He opened it on the table and produced a quartersheet of papyrus and a charcoal stylus. “Show me.”

“Show you what?”

“That you can write.” The linguist nodded toward the phrases.

“Write what?” said the bureaucrat, his brows knitted.

“Anything you like,” said Heliz. “Recopy this mess.” He tapped his toe against the eighth epithet, which involved unwilling engagement with a barnyard animal. “Or just write ‘I know how to write,’ in the language of your choice. Don’t worry, I can read any language you put down. If your penmanship is up to snuff, that is. I need to know whether this mess on the floor is accurate.”

The gray little bureaucrat glared at Heliz, looked briefly at Lumm, then picked up both the stylus and the challenge. As he scratched the papyrus, the linguist said to the others, “Have you all been in Sanctuary long?”

“Three, four weeks,” said Ravadar, looking at the others. They nodded.

“Just passing through,” said the gray man, not looking up.

“I live here,” said the youth. The kitchen staff nodded in agreement, though it was unclear if the youth was claiming Sanctuary or the Vulgar Unicorn as his home address.

“And you all saw the same thing?”

The Irrune recapped the points, similar to what Lumm had told him before, and the S’danzo put in a few comments, but there was nothing that Heliz has not heard before arriving.

“Here,” said the gray bureaucrat, shoving the bit of reed paper toward him.

“I know how to write,”
read Heliz aloud. “Not horribly original, but a good hand. I apologize for my impeachment of your ability, Master … Gobble, it says here?”

“Gothal,” said the gray man frostily.

“Close enough.”

Heliz lifted the piece of paper and spoke a word, an adjective of power that he knew. The word was strange and arcane and those that heard it would not be able to repeat it if they tried, so slippery was it in their mind. He felt the forces of the universe twist around him, and despite himself, he allowed himself a small grin.

The piece of papyrus burst into flames.

Big Minx and the staff leaned away, frightened. Lumm and the gray man both scowled. The dark-haired youth’s eyes brightened.

The Irrune warrior’s hand dropped to his sword, “You
are
a frogging wizard!”

“Hardly,” lied Heliz. “That’s a street-corner trick, a bit of rough-treated paper that ignites when rubbed against itself. And that’s what I think all this is, a bit of street-corner mummery.”

“Nonsense!” snapped Ravadar. “She spoke cursed words!”

“Evil eye,” said the youth.

“She cursed,” said Heliz, color coming to his face. “So has every man and woman that’s ever come into this nasty little hellhole.” He saw Big Minx bridle at the description, her brows knitting. “There’s nothing here,” he tapped the chalked words with a boot, “that hasn’t been said within these walls at least a thousand times, and probably by the little round-heeled trollop herself.”

The knitted brows of the large tavern wench deepened, but Heliz pressed on. “These words on the floor are harmless, a bit of misdirection. Street-corner stuff. Only a fool would believe them dangerous.”

Heliz would have gone on, but Big Minx interrupted. “If you think they’re harmless, then you speak them.”

Heliz looked up, stunned by the challenge.

“Go on!” The buffalo was in full-charge mode now. “If you think they’re harmless, do it!”

The others around the room nodded, and the red-haired drunk shifted in his chair.

Heliz stammered for a moment, “Well … I … That is …”

“Here!” She shoved him out of the circle and pointed at the top of the list. In a loud, clear voice, she announced, “Pudknocking bastard!”

Half the group leaned back, the other half leaned forward. Lumm took a step forward, but Heliz lifted a hand and the larger man froze. The cooper’s brow was furrowed in concern as well.

Big Minx would not be denied. She rattled off curse after curse, her voice rising. She used the fifth word three times, and the sixth term in a rattle of different tenses. She took a deep breath for the seventh.

And the ground opened up beneath her feet as she opened her mouth. It was a circular hole, limned in flame, that suddenly yawned underneath her heavy feet. With the seventh curse on her lips, she vanished into the hole.

Lumm let out a cry himself and took two steps forward, but Heliz held him back, watching the others. The Irrune, Ravadar, was wide-eyed but nodding, his two comrades rising to their feet and craning their necks to see if they could get a better view. Gothal the Gray shook his head. The curious youth looked suddenly ashen. One of the drunks snorted.

“What did you do?” shouted Lumm, his face now twisted in anger.

“Told you!” said Ravadar. “told you that it was a cursed word. This word! This place! I told you! This place is cursed now, for sure! You should burn the building and let no one build upon the ashes!”

“I trusted you!” said Lumm. “I trusted you, and now Big Minx is gone as well!”

“Hush,” hissed Heliz. “Act like I know what I’m doing. And be ready with your hammer.”

To the others the linguist said, “What did you see?”