Bad Times in Dragon City (6 page)

For a while I’d thought that she was just ashamed of me, of having an affair with someone so far below her station. Elves did that sort of thing all the time though. They called it “stepping out for a smoke.” Something that you did for a short break, that wasn’t good for you in any way, but that you enjoyed enough to indulge in anyway. 

I’d always wanted to ask her about that, if I was just a smoke break for her. I never did though. I don’t think I wanted to know the answer. 

“I’m sorry, Belle.” I knew it wasn’t enough, but it was all that I had. If someone had to pay the price for losing Fiera, I wasn’t going to mourn the loss of either her father or her mother, but I could sympathize with Belle at least. 

“That’s it?” Her jaw dropped. “That’s all you can say?” 

“I’m sure your parents will work out which one of them has to deal with the Dragon —”

Her mouth opened even wider. “You don’t get it, do you?” 

And then I did. I’d been thinking like a human. If something like this had happened to my family, we’d have picked the oldest member of it to put forth, I like to think. Someone who’d had a full life and was closer to death already in any case. 

But elves never grew closer to death, did they? To them, longevity was to be prized over youth. The loss of an elder would mean a terrible blow to the family’s continuity, to its position within the city, and ultimately to its power. Forced to make a choice, they’d sacrifice the youngest member of the family instead. 

Back before her death, that person would have been Fiera. Now, though, it was Belle, the elf standing right before me and glaring up at me. 

“If I don’t find Fiera’s body soon, the Guard will come knocking on our door, looking for a replacement. If I can’t produce my dear sister’s corpse before that happens, I’m dead!” 

C
HAPTER
E
IGHT

Someone started pounding on the Quill’s front door way too early the next morning, and whoever it was just wouldn’t quit. I lay there in the spare room on the second floor for a good five minutes, awakened by the rude and persistent knocking, hoping that the person would get frustrated, give up, and go away. It didn’t happen. 

My first instinct was to look for the dragonet, who had taken to perching on the headboard of my bed at night. I wasn’t sure if he meant to keep watch over me or just wanted to make sure I didn’t try to sneak off without him, but since he spent most of his time there asleep, it wasn’t all that effective either way. I had a moment of panic when I saw he was missing, but then I remembered that he’d gone to spend the night with the Dragon Emperor instead. 

As my head cleared, I realized I didn’t have time to deal with whoever had woken me up. I needed to get cleaned up and hustle over to the Academy as soon as I could, or Yabair would break down the Quill’s door to haul me off to that mysterious appointment. 

It struck me that it might be Yabair or another guard banging on my front door. I threw on a shirt and stumbled over to the room’s lone window and pushed its shutters wide. Blinking in the bright morning sun, I shaded my eyes and stared down toward the street to spy a well-dressed dwarf standing on the Quill’s front stoop. 

“We’re closed!” I said to the dwarf. 

As I reached out to grab the shutters and pull them back in to blot out the annoying sun, the dwarf shouted back at me. “Max? That you?” 

I recognized the voice and froze. I squinted down at the dwarf squinting up at me in his fine clothes and braided beard. 

“Johan?” 

He took off his hat and nodded up at me. “Let me in, Max? I’d like to talk.” 

I’d known Johan for a few years. He’d married Dorthë Gütmann, the eldest daughter of my old adventuring pal Anders Gütmann. And when Belle’s sister Fiera had hired an assassin to slaughter the entire Gütmann clan, Johan had not only lost Dorthë but also been the prime suspect for the crime. 

I hadn’t seen him since I’d helped clear his name. That had only been a week ago, but he looked like he’d mostly healed from the bruises the Guard had given him during his interrogation. They weren’t all that gentle with suspected murderers, I knew. 

I didn’t have time to deal with Johan right now. “Can it wait?” 

He frowned an apology at me and wrung the brim of his hat in his thick hands. “I’m afraid not.” 

I masked my eyes with my hand so I could shut out the sun for a moment and think. Belle needed me. If I didn’t find her sister’s corpse soon — or at least figure out what happened to it — she’d be dead. 

And if I didn’t make my way up to the Academy soon and check in with the Wizards Council, Yabair would find me and throw me in jail. That would put a real crimp in my attempts to save Belle. 

But I couldn’t just blow off Johan. In a very real way, he was the last member of Gütmann’s family, and I owed that dwarf more than I could ever repay. The fact that he’d died incurring that debt didn’t let me off the hook for it. It only meant that I’d never get out from under it until the same happened to me. 

“Hold on.” I staggered back into the room and reached under my pillow to where I kept my wand while I slept. You never knew when you might need it in the middle of the night, right? 

Wand in hand, I went back to the window, leaned out of it, and aimed it at the Quill’s front door. A quick unbinding of the spell on the door later, and the lock there opened with a loud click. 

I waved Johan in with the wand. “Give me a few minutes to get cleaned up. Make yourself at home.” 

I ducked back into the room without waiting for a response, closing the shutters behind me. I tapped myself with my wand next and cast a freshening-up spell that left me smelling as clean as the upper reaches of the Crystal River. I wouldn’t normally waste some of my mojo on something so simple as that, but I didn’t have time for a proper bath. 

I finished getting dressed and stumbled down the stairs into the bar’s main room. Johan had already helped himself to a large stein of beer. I would have ribbed him about it, but he’d poured one for me too. 

I slid onto the stool next to him and raised my stein to him. We clanked them together in a wordless toast to friends unforgotten, then drank. 

That was one of the things I loved about sitting at a bar. The high stools lessened the differences in height. It made it a lot easer to see eye to eye. 

“I have to get running to the Academy soon,” I said. “What’s the trouble?” 

Johan grimaced and ran a thick-fingered hand along his beard’s braids. “I came here to ask you for a favor, but believe me, it’ll do you a world of good too.” 

“You don’t need to sell me on it,” I said. Johan had worked his way up to a prominent position in the sales division of the Bricht Stone Company, the oldest and largest quarriers of rock in the city and he had a hard time turning that part of his personality off sometimes. “Just spit it out.” 

“The Brichts want to meet with you. Now.” 

I blinked. “I don’t want to come work for them as a stonecutter. No offense.” 

Johan smiled. “Not the company. The family. They want to see you. They say it’s urgent.” 

I winced. The Brichts were one of the oldest families in the city, and the most powerful clan of dwarves around. They had cut the stone from the mountain to build the Great Circle, along with half the city, and they still made a mint supplying such things to the Dragon Empire and anyone else who could afford them. 

The Brichts were also, it was rumored, connected to just about every kind of dirty operation in the entire town. Nothing happened in the Stronghold without their say so, and they had their fingers stuck deep into the bedrock in other parts of the city as well. The Dragon tolerated them because of their usefulness, and because of that so did the Guard. 

I hated the idea of them, but most of the time that didn’t matter. Other than visiting the Gütmanns — which I couldn’t do any more — I didn’t spend a whole lot of time in the Stronghold. Most of the time, I just steered clear of them.

It seemed they’d decided that our relationship needed to change, and I wasn’t so sure I agreed with them.

“Who wants to see me?” 

If it was Henrik Bricht, one of clan’s favored sons, a flock of flying carpets couldn’t have dragged me there. Henrik had killed one of my old adventuring pals — Ames — a while back, and worse yet he’d pinned the blame for it on Kai’s cousin Sig. The only thing I wanted from Henrik was his head on a pike and the rest of him tossed over the Wall as a treat for the zombies out there. 

“The Brichts,” he said. “All of them.” 

I almost choked on my beer. Dwarves didn’t breed all that fast, but there were still dozens of them who laid claim to the name Bricht. “What, they want me as a guest at their family reunion?” 

Johan chuckled. “All right, not every last one of them. Just the ones who count. The Bricht Warband.” 

I slapped my hand on the bar between us. “I’d like to help you, Johan. I really would. But I have more pressing business to take care of this morning.” 

Johan’s face fell. “All right, Max. I’ll let them know.” 

He didn’t get up to leave. Instead he took another long pull from his stein. Then he let out a long sigh, the kind of rumbling, echoing expression of stony angst only a dwarf can properly pull off. 

“Is this going to be a problem for you?” 

He seesawed his shoulders back and forth. “I’m sure I’ll be able to find another job.” 

“They’d fire you over the fact that you can’t produce me right away.” 

Johan’s weak smile never made it all the way to his eyes. “If I’m lucky, sure.” 

“And if you’re not?” 

“The Brichts weren’t happy about me being hauled in by the Guard.” 

“That wasn’t your fault. And I cleared your name.” 

Johan patted my elbow. “And for that, you have my undying thanks. You gave me back my life. I cannot ask you for anything more.” 

“So what are the Brichts worried about?” 

He grimaced, then opened his mouth and gestured at his tongue. Then he filled it with beer again. 

Then I got it. “They’re afraid you ratted them out over something.” 

He nodded. 

“Did you?” 

He snorted. “Of course not. The Guard might have beaten me within an inch of my life, but they never made me wish I was dead. The Brichts? They’re good at that. The best.” 

He reached over across the bar and poured himself another drink from the tap. 

“You know, it’s a big mountain we live on. And in. Lots of places for a dwarf to get lost down there in the depths of the mines.” He sipped at his beer, then wiped the foam from his beard. “Of course, I don’t know any of that personally. That’s just what Henrik told me just before I left.” 

I knew I was being manipulated. I didn’t know for sure if it was Johan pulling my strings or Henrik doing it through him. Either way, I didn’t suppose it made a difference. 

I glanced at the clock over the bar, then reached over and clapped Johan on the back. “It’s earlier than I thought. I should be able to squeeze in a quick visit to the Stronghold.” 

Johan gasped in surprise, then did a poor job of stifling a relieved grin. “Thank you, Max,” he said as I finished off the last of my beer. “I don’t know how I could ever repay you for everything you’ve done for me.” 

I put my stein back down on the bar. Thumper, my bartender, would clean it up later. I got up to leave, and Johan followed right after me.

“Just give me five minutes with Henrik, alone,” I said with a grim viciousness as we left the Quill and I locked the door with my wand. “Then I think we can call it even.” 

C
HAPTER
N
INE

I have to hand it to the Brichts. They might push people around, using them as little more than disposable pawns in their intricate, long-term power games, but at least they do it with style. Johan led me out of the Quill to a long, veiled palanquin fashioned from black cloth and ebon wood. The veils stood taut as if wired down, but they magically moved aside at Johan’s touch.  

We climbed inside and sat down on the large, round cushions scattered throughout the place, which was upholstered with black leather. The interior had been sectioned off into two areas by another veil. As we made ourselves comfortable for the ride, a dwarf in a black uniform and skullcap pulled back the veil that separated us from the front of the ride and gave Johan an approving nod. 

“To the Clan Hall, sirs?” 

Johan confirmed this with a nod. The driver let the veil drop behind him as he turned his attention forward once more. A moment later, we were climbing into the morning sky. 

“Why would he ask about the Clan Hall?” I said. “Isn’t he just going to have to drop us off at the Stronghold gate anyhow?” 

“Why would he do that?” 

“Flyers aren’t allowed in the Stronghold. Right?” 

Johan smiled. “Technically you’re correct. The Brichts have a special, ah, dispensation for that.” 

“You mean nobody’s going to stop them, but aren’t most of the tunnels just too damn small for a flyer this size to fit through?” 

He relaxed a bit, happy to chat on a subject something he knew something about — and that didn’t involve him being threatened into dealing with it. “Not in the hands of a driver like Ingo there. He could thread the Dragon’s Spire itself and come out the other end without scorching this thing’s fabric. But the Brichts also have their own private route to the Clan Hall.” 

“Are you serious?” The idea of someone cutting their own secret route through the heart of the mountain and then keeping it for their own private use rather than opening it up to the rest of Dragon City boggled my mind. That kind of thing just didn’t happen, did it?

“I know, it seems crazy, but the Brichts have been cutting stone out of the mountain for hundreds of years. The place is so riddled with shafts and tunnels that it’s amazing it doesn’t all just come tumbling down.” 

I didn’t find that reassuring. 

I don’t know how we made it inside the mountain. The black veils kept me from seeing too much outside the palanquin. I reached out to pull one to the side once and peek out, but it refused to budge, as if it were made of rock rather than fabric.