The Gossamer Plain (29 page)

The man swallowed hard.

Aliisza picked up a needle from the work table. “The girl that works for you,” she said casually, examining the tiny shaft of metal. “The one who’s late?”

Master Velsin nodded vigorously. “Yes. Lizel,” he said.

“Well, if you ever touch her again, or let any of your customers touch her, I’m going to come back here and tie you to this table and find all sorts of interesting places to put your needles. Are we clear?”

The man’s eyes widened. “Y-yes!” he said. “C-clear!”

“You’re going to pay her better, too,” the alu said. “How much do you give her to work here?”

“Um,” the man began, scrunching up his face in fear. “Three coppers a day.”

Aliisza fumed. “She could make more than that selling

her body on the Silk Way!” she growled. “You are a wretch. I should make you pay her what you earn! No,” she said, inspired. “I should drag you to the district and let you service the dandies. I hear some of them secretly worship Loviatar. They pay well for the privilege of using you in their worship rituals, but we’d let Lizel have the coin. Wouldn’t that be fun? Yes, I like that,” she finished, smiling.

The man whimpered. “I’ll give her five silvers a day,” he yammered, wringing his hands. “And no more of the other. I promise!”

“Good boy,” Aliisza purred, walking around the work table to stroke his chest with her hand. Master Velsin quaked at the alu’s touch. “And you’re going to excuse her for being late, because she’s with child, and she has to take care of her little brother and sister. And you’re never going to dock her pay because of it, right?”

“Right,” the man whispered. His eyes were nearly rolling back in his head from fright.

“Because, after all, I know where to find you, don’t I?”

“Yes,” he gasped. “I swear, it will be as you say. Now please, leave me be.”

Aliisza chuckled and headed toward the door. She paused and turned back. She gave the trembling man one last baleful stare and said, “Yrudis Gregan had better be out of this shop before Lizel gets here.” And with that, the alu walked out into the daylight.

It took her several moments to notice that the ghost of Lizel’s father was no longer around.

Vhok sighed as he yanked Burnblood free. “You disappoint me,” he said to Hafiz. “I thought you’d be much wiser and more reasonable than those silly azer.”

On the cambion’s left, Zasian went through the complex motions of a spell, and Vhok felt a surge of preternatural power course through his body. The priest then dived to the floor and rolled, disappearing beneath one of the wagons. Two efreet dashed after him.

The half-fiend tensed his muscles and felt strength surge into his limbs. He twirled and shifted his blade experimentally, and waited as the horde of efreet surrounding him closed the circle.

“You were the unwise one,” Hafiz growled, stepping back and watching his minions work. “Did you really think we’d welcome strangers here? Spies from our enemies sent to learn our defenses before attacking us?”

The closest efreeti lunged at Vhok. The genie towered twice as tall as the cambion and the creature’s slice arced down toward Vhok’s head. The half-fiend parried the blow, throwing all of his newfound strength into the counterstrike. The clang of it rang through the great chamber. He felt

satisfaction as his opponent’s blade whipped back from his driving force.

Startled, the efreeti nearly lost his grip on his weapon, and spun to recover it. The reaction put him in a vulnerable position.

Vhok saw the opening and jumped inside his foe’s reach. He raked his long sword across the efreeti’s abdomen. The genie roared in pain, but Vhok didn’t stay near to see the severity of the injury. He let his momentum carry him forward. He leaped high on the follow-through and landed atop the nearest wagon. He bounded across the large molds with their glass castings to the opposite side. There, the half-fiend paused and spun in place.

Two of the onrushing efreet closed the distance, and Vhok saw that their oversized blades were long enough to teach him despite the width of the wagon. Three others began to skirt the conveyance, determined to surround and capture him. Two of them vanished suddenly, disappearing from his sight.

“We told you we held no loyalty to the azer,” Vhok said as he parried the first of several falchion strikes from his two opponents. “You didn’t even wait long enough to see our goods to bargain with,” he added, giving Hafiz a disparaging shake of his head as he knocked a second falchion away and jumped down on the far side of the wagon. He had no intention of letting invisible efreet sneak up on him and catch him unaware.

The hulking efreeti overseer sneered. “Whatever you think you have to offer, I can merely take from you anyway, once I have captured you,” he tailed. “Unless you fight too long and hard and my warriors are forced to slay you instead,” he added.

Vhok ignored the words of the great efreeti and ducked

beneath the wagon. He scrambled forward, toward Hafiz. When he reached the end of the transport, he darted between the beasts hitched to it. The creatures paid him no mind, but the licking, crackling flames radiating from their bodies scorched his skin and made him flinch.

Just as the cambion was about to run past the pairs of fiery rothe\ a wall of searing flame burst across his path. The towering barrier rose from the floor directly in front of the creatures, causing them to rear up in alarm. Vhok skidded to a halt just before he plunged into the crackling curtain. He cringed from the heat, feeling his skin blistering in spite of the magical ring upon his finger.

Vhok spun around to dash back the way he had come. Two efreet waited for him there, one on each side of the wagon, between the back pair of rothé and the front of the vehicle. They thought him trapped, and they grinned malevolently as they leveled their falchions at him.

Rolling his eyes at their simple ploy, Vhok mentally thrust himself upward. He rose into the air, levitating beyond the reach of the licking, consuming flames and the gleaming curved blades the efreet wielded. He smiled as his foes’ grins turned to expressions of consternation. They leaped at him, slashing at his feet as he ascended, but Vhok managed to block their strikes with his own blade.

The cambion turned in place as he rose, looking for Zasian. The priest had disappeared when the fight began, right after he had cast the strength magic upon Vhok. The half-fiend spied the pair of efreet who had gone off in pursuit of the Banite, moving slowly among the wagons as though searching.

He slipped away, Vhok thought. But did he leave altogether?

The cambion knew they had no reason to stay. Hafiz had

no interest in negotiating, and Vhok doubted anything he said or did was going to change the overseer’s mind. Zasian must have come to that conclusion, too, and if the priest was smart, he’d already cleared out.

That’s what I’d do, Vhok thought. So I will. He can take care of himself.

Vhok prepared to invoke the spell that would transform him into a gaseous cloud once more, but as he began the incantation, a sizzling beam of fire struck him in the back. The cambion cried out from searing pain and his spell was ruined. He nearly lost his balance and toppled over, but he righted himself and whirled around to see what had caused his injuries.

Below him, an efreeti pointed a finger at him, precisely in the direction of the blast that struck him. Nearby, the overseer had enlarged himself and stood more than twenty feet high. He strode forward, his massive falchion swishing through the air in great swaths. With such a huge blade, the gargantuan efreeti could reach Vhok where he hovered in the air.

Even as Vhok took note of the new threat, a second genie aimed a digit in the cambion’s direction and let loose a scorching ray of fiery energy. Seeing it coming, Vhok was able to spin out of the way, and the beam shot harmlessly past him. But it crackled as it passed, and the half-fiend could smell his tunic smoldering.

Bastards, the cambion fumed. Have to find another way out, now.

The half-fiend fished in one of his inner pockets and yanked a wad of something sticky from it. He chanted arcane words and concentrated on rising into the air at the same time. When the spell took effect, Vhok vanished from sight. Immediately, he reversed his direction and began to descend. The mess of fiery beasts and barriers still burned below him.

I hope that confuses them, he thought.

The cambion watched Hafiz come closer, still peering toward the ceiling. The overseer paused, frowning, then Vhok saw him grin and stare right where the half-fiend dropped toward the floor. Hafiz swung his massive falchion at Vhok’s body. The huge blade whooshed through the air in a tremendous arc, coming right toward him.

So much for stealth, Vhok lamented.

The half-fiend swung Burnblood around and used the long sword to try to deflect the impact of the great falchion. The force of the blow drove him sideways several feet. It knocked him off balance and sent a cold pain shooting up his arm. Vhok grunted involuntarily.

Hafiz reversed his swing and brought the blade around for another swipe at Vhok. The cambion didn’t think he could take another strike like the previous one. In desperation, he looked below and saw that Hafiz’s crushing cut had knocked him away from the licking flames. The cambion released his levitating magic and let himself fall, hoping he would drop enough to evade the overseer’s attack.

The ploy worked.

Vhok tumbled to the floor in a heap, just a few feet to one side of the infernal barrier, as the falchion whistled over his head. The landing hurt and knocked the breath from him, but he struggled to his hands and knees and sought a safe haven. The next wagon in the long caravan had not yet been hooked to a team of rothe’. Vhok scrambled toward it.

Another sizzling blast of heat, no thicker than a stiletto, slammed into the stone beside the half-fiend. Vhok jerked back and rolled sideways. He kept rolling as another scorching beam hit him in the shoulder. He clamped his teeth together to keep from grunting in pain. Another spin of his torso, and he was finally under the wagon, away from the magical attacks.

The cambion didn’t waste time. He climbed to his knees and looked around, desperate for a way to exit the chaotic battle. The great doors, where the caravan would depart, remained shut. Vhok had no idea how difficult they would be to open, so he discounted that option.

Vhok remembered the door high atop the platform, where he and Zasian had entered. He shifted to the far side of the wagon and stole a glance that way.

A single efreeti stood upon the shelf of rock, blocking the exit. The door had been pulled shut, but it could be locked only from the near side, so Vhok guessed that he could incapacitate the guard and slip through. The only question was whether he could reach the platform unhindered. Hafiz was able to track him despite his invisibility.

Nothing left but to try, the half-fiend decided. Can’t stay here and get slow-roasted.

Just as Vhok was readying himself for the dash to freedom, Hafiz’s giant feet settled to the floor on either side of the wagon. Other efreet also began to gather, surrounding the wagon. The huge genie’s fingers closed around the conveyance and it began to rise.

Vhok realized Hafiz’s plan at once. Remove the cambion’s cover, and the other efreet would swarm him. He considered slicing at the oversized digits in an effort to thwart the trick, but he knew that would sacrifice his magical invisibility. Though Hafiz had figured out how to spot him, the others had not, and Vhok felt compelled to maintain any advantage he could.

Instead, Vhok reached up and grasped the rear axle of the vehicle with his hands, then stretched his feet forward and hooked his booted toes over the other axle. As the wagon rose into the air, Vhok went with it, clinging to the underside. The efreet closed ranks around the spot where Vhok had

been, their blades drawn. They sliced, jabbed, and poked at the empty space before them. It was clear to the cambion they attacked blindly, with no true idea if he was there or not.

Thank the abyssal ones for small favors, Vhok thought.

Hafiz hoisted the wagon waist-high and pivoted with a grunt of exertion. Vhok realized the size of the vehicle blocked the overseer’s view of the place the other efreet attacked, and he had no way of knowing that Vhok was no longer there. The massive genie shifted his weight and tossed the wagon to one side with a thud. Vhok clung desperately to the axles with his magically enhanced strength as he bounced hard with the impact. The vehicle rolled a few paces from the gathered efreet, and Vhok traveled with it.

When the wagon glided to a stop, the half-fiend rolled out from beneath it on the far side. Vhok crouched behind the vehicle. Using it for cover, he turned toward the commotion. If the opportunity came, he would make a run for the stairs to the platform.

But by that point, Hafiz, as well as his minions, had realized their quarry was not where they thought. The others looked around uncertainly, but the overseer seemed to realize how the cambion had escaped his trap. The giant genie slowly turned his glare toward the wagon.

Vhok surveyed his escape route, wondering if he could slip past his large but ponderously slow foe. He was about to sprint across the open floor when the disembodied voice of Zasian suddenly echoed in his ears.

Vhok, I’m near the front of the caravan, by the azer slaves. Lead Hafiz to me and we’ll finish him. Answer to confirm you understand.

The cambion stole a glance toward the front of the caravan line and spotted a handful of chained and manacled azer. The flame-covered dwarves loitered near a wall, unattended. Vhok could not see the priest, but he trusted that the man was there, hiding. It was the opposite direction from the high door and freedom, but if they could slay the overseer and turn the tide of battle, he was willing to take a chance.

In the time it took Zasian to deliver his message, Hafiz had taken two steps and was nearly at the wagon. He held his falchion high in one hand and reached for the vehicle with the other.

“I’m on my way,” Vhok muttered softly. “You’d better be ready, because Hafiz is almost on me.” Vhok did not wait for the Banite to respond. He leaped out of his hiding place and lunged forward, swinging Burnblood.