Songreaver (8 page)

Garrett laughed. "Did Uncle ever catch
you?"

"Once," Cenick said, "I was terrified at what
he might do to me, but he just gave me the key to the front door
and told me to swallow it just before I was killed by the Watch to
prevent any burglars finding it on my mangled corpse... Took all
the fun out of sneaking out."

Garrett grinned.

Cenick squeezed through the narrow window and
Garrett saw no more of him until he wrenched open the front door
from within and invited Garrett inside.

"Welcome home," he said, a trace of sadness
in his voice.

"Thanks," Garrett said, his stomach sinking
at the sight of the place. Dirty boot prints lay beneath a pale
layer of dust on the floor. The rugs were gone, as were all the
cabinets and bookcases that once lined the entry hall. The chipped
onyx skull that once capped the carved pillar at the foot of the
stairs looked up at him with empty eyes from the corner of the
landing.

"Caleb?" Garrett called out, "Lampwicke?"

"They took everything," Cenick said.

"What do we do?" Garrett asked, his voice
sounding very small.

"We take it back," Cenick said.

****

The two of them camped out in Uncle's dining
room after Cenick saw to their animals' needs in the now-empty
carriage house. They shared a bit of cold rations and said little
before bedding down in the same musty blankets they had carried
with them from the swamp.

Cenick rose, shortly after dawn and told
Garrett to stay home and bar the door against strangers while he
went out to investigate what headway Max might have made with the
church.

Garrett locked the door behind Cenick after
he left, and gathered his courage to explore the drafty old house.
Upstairs proved as empty as he had feared. At least the Templars
had left the witchfire sconces on the walls that provided light on
command. Garrett lit them all, feeling slightly better for it as he
wandered the empty rooms, bundled against the cold in two layers of
robe and a torn blanket.

He felt better still when he discovered a
stack of wood and kindling piled beside the hearth in Uncle's
bedroom. Someone had been using the room to catalogue Uncle's
belongings, judging by the scattered inventory tags he found swept
into the corner. He picked up one of the little scraps of paper and
saw the blurry sigil of an auction house stamped in one corner. His
lips began to tremble and his eyes burned at the thought of someone
selling Uncle's books in the street like some dead man's
belongings.

A sudden mad determination seized hold of
Garrett, and he stormed back to the dining room to rummage through
his pack. He picked out the cleanest purple robe that he could
find, one of Jitlowe's hand-me-downs, and dressed himself in it. He
pounded as much dirt from his Chadiri boots as he could, restoring
them at least to a semblance of their former crimson glory. He
belted on his Chadiri sword as well, and around his neck he hung
the polished skull talisman that Max had given him after the
victory at Taelish. He slung his satchel over his shoulder, and it
hung, heavy with the weight of a half canister of essence. It was
the last of Cenick's personal supply, and he had insisted that
Garrett carry it upon their arrival at the city, in case things
went badly.

Garrett stood up to his full height and took
a deep breath. He wished for a moment that he had a mirror, but
then again, he was afraid he could not possibly look as imposing as
he felt. If only he had a staff like Uncle's, but that would
probably make it a little hard to ride a wolf.

The thought of Ghausse brought a vicious grin
to Garrett's face. Who needed a sorcerer's staff when you had a
full-grown dire wolf?

****

Much of the celebratory mood of the city had
rolled over into a sort of headachy good humor. The people went
about their daily business with a bleary-eyed, yawning detachment.
Few people even took much notice of Garrett as he rode his wolf
through the winding streets of the Lower City. Of those that did
notice, a surprising number of them reacted with cheerful greetings
rather than dismay or alarm.

"Good mornin', Deathlord," a thick-bodied
teamster with short, gray hair called out as Garrett approached,
"You ghosted any redjacks today?"

"None today, I'm afraid," Garrett laughed, "I
think we chased all the rest of 'em off though."

The teamster spat, slowing his team of horses
and the wagon they pulled to a halt. "I wish you'd killed 'em
all... but thank you for what you done. I had family at
Marcushal."

Garrett nodded. "That's not too far from
Brenhaven, is it?" he asked.

The teamster narrowed his eyes. "You know the
place?"

"My dad's bakery was in Brenhaven," Garrett
said.

The teamster's face split into a broad grin.
He stepped forward and gave Garrett a crushing handshake. "Always
good to meet another Freelander!" he said, "We gotta stick together
these days."

Garrett smiled and nodded, a bit overwhelmed
by his sudden popularity.

"What brings you down here this mornin'?" the
teamster asked, "If you're lookin' for some new recruits, I've got
a few layabouts on my crew that could be mistaken for dead men most
times there's any work needs doin'."

A dozen or so drivers and porters nearby
laughed in response.

Garrett pulled the paper tag from his satchel
and handed it to the man. "I'm looking for this auction house," he
said, "Do you know where it is?"

The teamster squinted at the paper and
nodded. "That’s the Pikestat, just up the lane there," he said,
pointing, "You lookin' to spend some o' your spoils o' war?"

"No," Garrett answered, "These guys took all
our stuff while we were off fighting, and I'm going to get it
back."

The teamster's face went suddenly cold.
"You're serious?" he demanded.

Garrett nodded. "They said the army had
gotten killed, and they took all our houses and stuff to sell at
auction."

"Those filthy..." the teamster looked to his
men, his voice trailing off in a stream of curses. He jabbed a
thick finger at the youngest member of his crew. "Watch the
horses," he said, "We'll be back in a few."

He motioned for the rest to follow him, and,
looking to Garrett, said, "Don't worry, friend, we'll take care of
this."

The other men fell in behind their boss, some
of them pulling axe handles and chains from the wagons. Garrett was
shaking a little at the sight of the group of men suddenly ready to
do violence on his behalf.

Ghausse fell into step beside the crew boss
as people scattered out of the street before them. Garrett looked
down at the fuming, hulking man who looked like he could wrestle
the wolf if he had to.

"My name's Garrett," he said, "Thanks for
helping me."

The teamster looked up at him with a smirk.
"Dannen," he said, "and don't worry about it. Everybody here owes
you a debt. Most of us started lookin' for a new place to run when
we heard that lie about you folks bein' killed. Let me tell you,
there ain't many places
left
to run. We're just glad you
stopped the redjacks. It's good to know they
can
be
beat!"

They burst through the great double doors of
the Pikestat Auction House, startling the few men inside who were
busy dividing goods into various lots on the open floor of the
large, dimly lit warehouse. Dust swirled in the light of the open
doors as a thin man in a brown suit coat jumped up from his desk to
exclaim, "We're closed!"

"Well you're open now!" Dannen yelled. His
men fanned out inside the warehouse, backing the auction house
employees into corners and against the huge wooden pillars that
supported the rafters above. Dannen walked straight toward the man
in the brown suit as Garrett rode his wolf through the warehouse
doors.

"I'll call the guard!" the man in the suit
shouted, his eyes wide with fear.

Dannen rolled his thick fingers into a fist
the size of a small ham, and the auctioneer fell silent.

"Whatta they got that's yours, Deathlord?"
Dannen called back to Garrett.

"Where did you put all the stuff that you
stole from the necromancers?" Garrett asked, trying to make his
voice sound like Max's did when he made a speech.

The man in the suit blinked. "Wait," he said,
"we didn't steal anything! All those items were seized by the
church. We only facilitated the sale."

Garrett's heart sunk. "You sold them
already?" he asked.

Dannen stepped in close, taking the
auctioneer's lapel in his free hand, his raised fist
tightening.

"No!" the auctioneer sputtered, "Not
everything! We... we sold mostly chattel in the first auction. The
bulk of the remainder is still here."

"You sold what?" Garrett asked.

"The servants... pets, whatever they were,"
the man said, "We couldn't store those here, so they were sold
outright... most of the rest is still being catalogued and sorted
for inspection by the authorities before they will clear it for
sale."

Garrett's skin flushed hot, imagining
Lampwicke and Caleb sold off to the highest bidder like so much
furniture. His hand slipped inside his satchel, tightening around
the cold metal of his essence flask.

"Where is it?" Dannen asked.

"In the back," the auctioneer said, "but I
can't let you take it." he flinched as Dannen raised his fist
again. "The Templars..."

"I
am
a Templar!" Garrett shouted,
"Ordained by the priestess Serepheni. I am also an officer in the
army of the Deathlord Zarathul. I have faced the black dragon and I
have faced the High Inquisitor of the Chadirian Empire." He raised
his left hand, now wreathed in rainbow flame and closed his fist,
snuffing it out. "Who are you to tell me anything?"

Every eye in the room stared back at him in
amazement.

Ghausse snarled, and the auctioneer let out a
little yelp of fear.

****

"You sure you don't want us to have them put
everything back where they found it?" Dannen asked as he and
Garrett sat together on the loading dock in the gray light of
day.

"Nah," Garrett said, still feeling a bit
lightheaded from his earlier outburst, "If they just take
everything to my uncle's house, we can make sure everybody gets
what belongs to them and there aren't any mix-ups."

Dannen shrugged. "You need any help with
gettin' the zombies back?" he asked.

"No, but thanks," Garrett said, looking down
at the pages of the heavy leather-bound ledger in his lap, "I think
my friends will be able to figure out who bought what, and we can
go get everything back then." He tried to make sense of the spidery
handwriting scrawled across the yellow pages, desperately searching
for any mention of a fairy. There were a great many entries for
animate remains
. One of them had to be Caleb.

Dannen got to his feet. He offered his hand
to Garrett and shook it, a bit more gently this time. "Good luck,
Garrett," he said.

"Thanks again," Garrett said, "If you ever
need anything from me..."

Dannen laughed. "Don't worry about it. I just
hate seein' somebody get robbed when they're down... especially if
they go down fightin' for somebody else."

Garrett nodded and closed the ledger,
standing up to wave goodbye as Dannen and his crew supervised the
loading of the auction house wagons. Crates full of furniture,
books, and what appeared to be a collection of birdhouses, were all
carefully bundled on to the wagons and sent trundling slowly off to
Uncle Tinjin's house in the Arcane Quarter.

He shook Ghausse awake from where the wolf
had been napping in the crawlspace beneath the wooden loading dock.
Ghausse scooted out from beneath the dock and shook the dust and
cobwebs from his fur. Garrett patted him on the back and then
climbed up. He turned to see the auctioneer in the brown suit
glaring at him from the shadows of the auction house door. Compared
to Johann Prex, the man really wasn’t all that intimidating.
Garrett gave him a level stare and then rode out of the auction
yard and back toward the lifts to the Upper City.

He arrived back at Uncle’s house to find Mrs.
Nash, Uncle Tinjin's favorite local cook, knocking at the door. Her
younger son Kent stood beside her, holding a large basket. The
wonderful smell of fresh-baked bread was drifting from beneath the
basket's blue striped cloth covering. Kent and his mother turned,
their eyes going wide at the sight of the big black wolf padding up
the street behind them.

“Garrett?” Kent asked, cocking his head to
one side. Kent had grown a bit since Garrett had last seen him.
Perhaps Garrett had as well.

“Hi, Kent. Hi, Mrs. Nash,” Garrett said.

Mrs. Nash looked a bit flustered at the sight
of Ghausse as well, but she smiled and bid Garrett good
afternoon.

“How’s Pierce doing?” Garrett asked.

Mrs. Nash smiled. “He’s well,” she said,
“Away with his uncle for a few months.”

“He’s learning to sail,” Kent said. Then his
expression turned from pride to disappointment. “Ma says I can’t go
to sea yet.”

“Oh, sorry,” Garrett said, “Were you looking
for me?”

Mrs. Nash nodded. “You and Mister Tinjin. I
was hoping you’d both come back from the war.”

“Oh, Uncle’s not back yet, but he should be
pretty soon,” Garrett said.

“Well… I suppose this is all for you then,”
Mrs. Nash said, taking the basket from Kent and holding it up.

Garrett grinned, then his face fell. “I’m
afraid I don’t have any money right now,” he said.

Mrs. Nash shushed him. “No need for that,
boy. We’re just glad you’re back safe.”

Garrett smiled and climbed down from
Ghausse’s back to let them in the front door with the key he had
found in an envelope in the kitchen. He then lead Ghausse around to
the carriage house to feed him the last of the dried meat they had
left over from the campaign. He left the side door open so that
Ghausse would have access to the garden fountain when he got
thirsty. Garrett didn’t like the thought of saying goodbye to the
wolf now, but he would have to give him back to Marla soon, if only
to ensure that he was properly cared for.