Commandment (2 page)

“What the devil?” she fumed in a deep voice—a half-baked attempt to disguise her voice.

“Wake up!” A voice bounced back. Thankfully, it was familiar.

She peeked out to find her armed companion waiting with crossed arms. The Half-man announced abruptly that they must leave.

“Weren’t we to hold out for a few days?” Lakif asked. Although the cell was a grimy hole, she had fully planned on sleeping off her injury between its etched walls.

“Come out of there,” he ordered.

Lakif grumbled and shuffled out of the cell. Vertigo overpowered her equilibrium, and she leaned against the wall.

“How long have we been here?”

“We last spoke yesterday.”

“Only a day? Shouldn’t we stay…”

“This place is compromised. Up in the House of the Ogre there are whisperings of an Acaanan hiding out in the Cauldrons. In no time at all we’ll be found here.”

“
If
the cenobytes are still searching for us,” she replied dully. Cryptide’s lingering sedation attenuated the severity of Torkoth’s warning.

“They are. Yesterday I noted several trolling the plaza and local byways. And the whole Circle is abuzz with speculation about the pealing bells the night before last.” Torkoth began rummaging through a backpack. Lakif still hugged the wall in fatigue, for her legs barely supported her weight. She cursed the sudden call to leave. Her comfortable buzz was rapidly dissipating, only to be replaced by a pang in her foot.

“Torkoth, I can’t walk for hours on end.”

“We only need to reach the Seventh Circle Station.”

“You want to take the
train
?”

Torkoth nodded and produced two bundled ashen garments from his backpack.

“I’ll be spotted at once!” she groaned.

“Then we must hide—in plain sight.” Torkoth handed her a tunic. When he noticed her eyelids sag, he gave her a jolt. “Wake up and put this on!”

She donned the garment, one identical to thousands of others customarily worn by the citizenry. As she fidgeted, a disturbance in a neighboring cell piqued her curiosity. The hatch was open. Within knelt a naked old man. The wretched codger was groping through a sack. By his fruitless movements, Lakif knew he was blind. The Cauldrons were a magnet for the wretched.

“What’s taking so long?” Torkoth asked disapprovingly. He prodded her through a rushed donning of the accouterments.

Before they left, she checked and double-checked her cell, ensuring that she didn’t leave her new-found treasure behind.

Torkoth led the numbed Acaanan through a minute wedge of the Old City and back up to the plaza proper. Lakif wasn’t astute enough to identify it as the same route as before.

A fine peppering of snow blanketed the plaza. By all objective standards, it was a perfectly ordinary dawn. The pale sun peeked over the spires on the plaza’s eastern shore. Once again, it was beginning its creeping clamber up into the lime sky. Pedestrians were filing toward the station.

Lakif shrank back before the sunlight. Her eyes, weakened from the gloomy Cauldrons, were stunned by its power. Furthermore, the dawn glinted off the snow, magnifying the morning glare many times. The clinquant frost overpowered her tender eyes. Although she had been in the Cauldron only a single day, she felt like she was genuinely being released from a longstanding incarceration.

“But my face!” Lakif panicked. She felt that the glare amplified her features ten-fold. She dreaded that at any moment everyone in the plaza would stop and point in her direction.

“Just keep your head buried in this.” Torkoth handed her an umbrella. Lakif had been so discombobulated that she hadn’t even noted that her guard was carrying two umbrellas.

The two hustled through the plaza as it swelled with pedestrians. Lakif hoisted the umbrella so low that its peak basically rested on her crown. The slanted sides worked wonders in shielding her face from casual view. Although it wasn’t raining, the ruse wouldn’t necessarily betray them as suspicious. Many other pedestrians adopted the same strategy, as umbrellas were regularly deployed to protect from the erinyes’ raining excrement.

The two blended in seamlessly with the mass rush toward the station. From what she could discern from the corners of her eyes, all the commuters were identically garbed. En route, she noticed that Torkoth dropped the Cauldron keys down a snowy grating.

“We just lost our security deposit!” She hissed. Residual cryptide still frosted her senses.

“We couldn’t very well deliver them to the bailey warden,” Torkoth whispered. “He must be the one with loose lips!”

The short trip was bittersweet for the Acaanan. With each step the threat of Ebon Myre receded, and the promise of the sorely missed Goblin Knight loomed that much closer. But the price of that comfort was levied with each painful pace that wracked her ailing ankle. The swelling hadn’t diminished at all with the day’s reprieve.

The two reached the Seventh Circle inconspicuously. They were but two grains on a beach of gray sand. Torkoth led the Acaanan through the front entrance. She kept her eyes firmly planted on his boots as he led her directly across the main hall and up the grand stairs. Evidently he had bought two tickets in advance, a wise foresight. She took in nothing of the edifice’s exquisite architecture including the giant statue. But she now felt extremely uncomfortable. To maintain her umbrella within the station was a glaring red flag. She bit her lip and slithered through the ticket counter behind her companion.

They loitered at the distant end of the boarding platform while waiting for the next train to safety. Their position was intentionally chosen as it was the only place on the platform exposed to the wind. Anyone observing them would assume she kept the umbrella hoisted to keep the bitter wind off her cheeks.

As they waited, the mist clouding her mind steadily thinned. For the first time, she noticed that the Half-man was actually alone.

“What happened to the girl?” she asked.

“Sarah? I know where to find her when I return.”

Lakif blinked with surprise. She wanted to glean her partner’s expression but kept her head buried in the umbrella’s corrugated cone. As Torkoth had shed his umbrella, he was apparently keeping a watchful eye peeled—for trouble.

“You’re coming back?”

“I have unfinished business here,” he added curtly.

Lakif chewed on the revelation. It was obvious that the Half-man had bonded with the gamine. But how far was he willing to take this? Would he adopt the girl when he returned?

A nerve-tearing screech jolted her back from supposition. The Leviathan was chugging to a stop. The construct’s caterwaul had never sounded so welcome.

As was always the case, the return voyage to the Third Circle Station sped by faster than the first trip. While every minute was as asphyxiating and insufferable, the Acaanan wasn’t nearly as perturbed as before. Her mind dwelled not on stank breath or crammed bodies, but on the miraculous treasure hidden in her inner pocket. The city speeding past wasn’t merely whirring scenery but fleeting images of a grand future that was hers to conquer.

But at present, the Rare Earth Stone was as useful to her as it was to the abbot. Now she must launch into the second leg of her goal. A trip to the Vulcan was finally in order.

Lakif was mildly surprised when her partner coaxed her from the train. As she hadn’t been praying for each stop, she failed to recognize the appointed station. Of course they could have disembarked at any station they chose, but returning to the Third Station was the tacit choice. Both were familiar with the local environment, and for crooks on the run, that was of paramount importance.

On entering the inn, Lakif teetered precariously as her companion booked two rooms for the day. The chief warden’s reaction to the two was telltale; he rolled his eyes in remembrance.

No sooner had Lakif commandeered the quarters than she scampered for the bed. The sheets zoomed up toward her face, and all was thrown into blackness.

Later in the morning, she was once again aroused by a rain of thumping on the door. With a surly manner she answered it, primed to criticize her guard.

Instead, she was startled to find that an herb wife was calling. The lady barreled into the chamber, nearly bowling the sleepy Acaanan over. The distaff was armed with bandages, a pot of hot water, and a satchel of medicinal plants and herbs. She had, of course, come in response to Lakif’s injury. The Acaanan didn’t bother to ask how she came by such information. That Lakif had briefly spotted Ceric Dumont on entering put an end to the mystery. Few details escaped the eagle-eyed proprietor of the Goblin Knight.

Under a barrage of orders, Lakif flopped down on the bed and produced her tumescent ankle. The misshapen limb looked like a black serpent that had just swallowed a rat. The nurse thoroughly cleansed the spot with steaming water, which surprised the Acaanan, as she had always bought into the belief that swelling was reduced by cold. But as it was soothing she didn’t raise a fuss. The nurse spread an ointment around the turgid site. It resembled anchovy paste and reeked with a disagreeable odor. Curiously, she even applied a dab of the material at a certain spot near Lakif’s groin, well removed from the site of injury. Then she placed a twig of fennel alongside the swollen joint and secured it flush to Lakif’s ankle using a tourniquet. When the Acaanan dared to ask about the fennel’s purpose she received a cursory account of its herbal powers of renewal, along with firm instructions not to tamper with the dressing until the nurse returned in the morning. If need be, Lakif could use a crutch to alleviate pressure from the foot. Lakif assured her absolute compliance.

L
AKIF SPENT THE BALANCE OF THAT DAY AND THE FOLLOWING ONE SHELTERED
in her quarters. Although she twittered with nervous energy, she knew there was no real reason to amble about the inn, and leaving it was out of the question. She was anchored by her foot, and aggravating the wound by unnecessary jaunts only delayed her forthcoming journey to the Vulcan. The nurse returned each morning on cue, and arranged meals to be delivered to Lakif’s quarters, an accommodating amenity.

On the second day, Lakif’s conviction toward recuperation was severely tested. Even from her remote location, she could hear a great hubbub down in the common room. A great jamboree was underway, although she had no idea why. She longed to go and celebrate with all the guests, but resisted the urge.

No sooner had the herb wife left than Lakif scrambled out of bed and hastily groomed herself. It had been the nurse’s third visit, and she had announced that she was pleased with Lakif’s convalescence and that the Acaanan would require no more treatment. Lakif was overjoyed at the promising prognosis.

The Acaanan hardly winced as she hobbled down the stairs to the common room. She was resolute that her joy would not be celebrated with another day of isolation, but among the gentile patrons of the Goblin Knight. Thus, after the herb wife bid her adieu, she decided to hike forth. The fennel had worked its herbal magic. Not only was her wound nearly healed; her whole body felt rejuvenated.

The ambler collapsed on a bench with a sigh of relief, her staff unceremoniously clanging to the floor. It wasn’t, however, her rowan staff. That object was lost to Ebon Myre in a skirmish with two monks. What a pity, for it had been an expensive form of protection. She wasn’t precisely sure where this particular crutch came from. She seemed to recall buying the item from a vendor near the Third Circle Station, although the details were sketchy. Since then it had been indispensable, an inseparable fifth limb.

She hoisted her leg level and sank back against the wall. It was almost as if she wanted others to take note of the vestige wound. It was her cachet, her mark of distinction at having braved the dangers of Ebon Myre. She wore the lingering wound like a badge of honor.

The Acaanan took a full drink from a bottle of whiskey. She had been milking it throughout the morning, ostensibly as an anesthetic. The nepenthe was a poor substitute for cryptide, however. As she twirled the bottle, she admitted to herself that she had been drinking a lot lately. But she happily concluded that it was justified. Her quest for a Rare Earth Stone had forced her into many an inn, and heavy drinking was a natural sequel. She pledged that now that she possessed the treasure, she would cut down on the spirits—but only when the remnant throbbing in her foot fully abated.

She smiled, cupping the Stone in her lap as if it were her own child. Their venture into the monastery had been fraught with flaws. But in the most important aspect, it was a coup. The Rare Earth Stone was hers for the keeping. Its touch was tangible vindication of endless months of toil. She burnished its surface with her sleeve, lest trace oil from her fingertips attenuate its inner glow. It was dazzlingly beautiful! She secretly begged it to speak to her.

As she sat transfixed, two patrons shuffled by. Neither paid the Acaanan, or her fulgent Stone, the slightest regard. Lakif had already concluded that others were blind to the light radiating from the Stone. She wondered if even the abbot had been privy to its fluorescence. She doubted it. Its luminescence seemed to reach out and touch her alone. In spite of this, however, she still generally kept the Stone in a belt pouch, lest it disappear somewhere to vex her as only a Rare Earth Stone could. Only this one time did she relent to behold its mystical glare in open public.

Her eyes alighted on the webbed facade of Pomona. Although the Stone liberated its own eldritch glow, no light had been shed on the mysterious mural that had been the source of the entire venture.

Lakif turned her attention from her treasure to Torkoth. The Half-man was sitting on the floor near the central hearth, chatting with a fellow patron. Lakif noted that the guard preferred to amble around the inn barefooted, a quirk that aroused not a little attention. The green scales thinned out around his right ankle, only occasionally dotting his foot. She could see that the Half-man still wore the rope anklet. Why hadn’t he cut it off?