The Thief Who Pulled on Trouble's Braids (12 page)

Chapter Twenty-One

After a quick meal of bread and cheese and small beer in Temple Market, I walked back to the Promenade and the Thracen manse. I was tired. I couldn’t remember the last time I slept. Was it in prison? Surely not.

This time I was let in like–well, not an honored guest, but at least not like I’d just stepped in something rotting. A servant in Thracen livery showed me to a small study, outfitted me with some wine, tried not to look like he wanted to warn me not to steal anything, and told me Osskil would see me soon. And he did.

Such a heavy man should have lumbered, but Corbin’s brother entered the room like a coiled spring waiting to be released.

“Amra Thetys, you do me honor.”

“I don’t know about that, but I hope to do right by you today. I appreciate your help in Havelock.”

He waved that away and sat down in a chair opposite mine. “Lord Morno wasn’t pleased with me about that, but then Lord Morno is rarely pleased with anything. Tell me why you are here today,” he said. And I did. About Bosch, the Elamner, and the villa. About the suppositions Holgren and I had come up with regarding the ‘corpse’ in the villa, and the golden toad.

“We should move soon,” he said when I was done. “They might flee.”

I liked him even better for automatically using
we
instead of
I
.

“Holgren and I hoped you’d feel that way. Do you think you could send someone to fetch him? He should be done working on the location spell for Bosch, and I guarantee you’ll want him along when you call on the Elamner. Holgren’s magic is very, uh, thorough,” I said, thinking of the red ruin he’d made of Bosch’s body.

“Certainly. I’ll send a carriage round for him at once.” He rang a bell and a servant appeared. I gave him directions for Holgren’s hovel.

I was less pleased when Osskil also gave instructions to have Inspector Kluge invited over.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” I said. “Kluge? He’ll screw this up just so he can pin it on me and give me a hempen necklace.”

“A necessary formality. Lord Morno can’t be seen to countenance private justice among the nobles, as he made plain to me this morning. Kluge’s inclusion gives our action the stamp of his authority. Don’t worry, Amra. I’ll impress upon the inspector just how dim a view the Thracens will take of it, should you be made to pay for assisting us.”

“That’s all well and good, but Courune is a long way from Lucernis, and you spanking Kluge will be cold comfort to me if I’m executed.”

He smiled. “Have a little faith. Both Corbin and I learned early how to be persuasive. Now explain to me again the locations of the guards.”

We went over the layout again in detail, making maps. Servants came and went. Things were whispered in Osskil’s ear, and Osskil wrote notes and stamped them with the Thracen seal. The notes got carried off throughout the city by liveried servants.

By the time Holgren and Kluge arrived in the late afternoon, a small army had been assembled in Osskil’s courtyard. Swordsmen, halberdiers and crossbowmen milled around, talking shop. There was even a pair of Westmarch arquebusiers off in a corner, polishing their big, bell-mouthed boom sticks. They must have been for show, because their weapons, while loud as Kerf’s farts, weren’t all that deadly unless you stuck your head in one.

Holgren exited the carriage, followed by Kluge. Holgren looked amused. Kluge looked like someone had pissed down his back and told him it was raining.

“How was your ride?” I asked Holgren, ignoring Kluge. He just smiled.

“Were you able to work up a locator spell for Bosch?”

“Yes, though I’m sorry to say it’s not terribly accurate.” He showed me an old brass compass, currently pointing west-southwest. Towards the villa. “I might have done better with more time, but not enough to make a real difference.”

“I think it will be fine. It’s more insurance than necessity anyway. Let me introduce you to Baron Thracen.”

“Osskil, please,” said the baron, shaking Holgren’s hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Magister.”

“Holgren, please,” said Holgren, smiling. Looking around the courtyard, he said “I take it this will not be a stealthy operation? A platoon of warriors marching up the Jacos Road is a noticeable thing. I can attempt a glamour—”

“Oh, that won’t be necessary. Amra has come up with a means for us to arrive at the villa’s gates without drawing undue attention.”

“Oh really?” said Holgren, raising an eyebrow at me.

“I’m not as much of an imbecile as Lagna’s priest likes to make out,” I replied. “You’ll see.”

“Holgren, Inspector Kluge, would you care to join me, Amra and Captain Ecini, my guard captain, in the study? Time flies, and we still have one stop to make in the Spindles before we call on this Elamner. I’d like to brief you on our plan of action and receive your comments.”

They did, and the baron did. Holgren made a few remarks. Kluge stood there like a post.

Twenty minutes later we were on our way to Alain’s.

~ ~ ~

The look on Alain’s face when I showed up at his yard at the head of a small army was priceless.

“We’ve had some complaints about the quality of your work,” I said.

“Huh?”

I punched him in the arm. “Actually we’re here to borrow your optibus.”

“Omnibus,” he corrected automatically, taking in all the people with deadly things in their hands standing in the street outside his yard.

“Whatever. Can we borrow it?”

“Huh?”

Osskil stepped forward. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, master Alain. I’d like to hire your omnibus for the evening, if that would be all right.”

“It’s not really mine, ser–”

“Baron Osskil det Thracen-Courune, at your service.”

“My lord,” said Alain, giving his forehead a knuckle. “But the omnibus isn’t mine to lend.”

“I assure you we will take care, and I will indemnify you and your client should anything happen to it. In addition to the rental fee, of course,” Osskil reached into a belt pouch and brought out a fistful of gold.

“Of course,” said Alain, taking the money in a sort of daze. He just sort of held it, as though he wasn’t sure what to do with it. Myra came out from the shadows where she’d been observing the circus and took charge of the money, her husband and the situation. She gave me a questioning look and I shrugged and smiled.

She rounded up Alain’s laborers, got the omnibus hitched and pointed towards the gate. Osskil had his personal coachman mount the box. The man looked half thrilled, half terrified. Our little private army climbed inside.

“Are we going to regret this?” Myra whispered to me.

“I really don’t see how,” I told her honestly, “but the night is still young.” She
tssked
and got out of the way.

A crowd had gathered outside Alain’s gate. Kluge walked out and said “Go home.” The small hairs on the back of my neck stirred when he said it. It wasn’t a suggestion, or even a command; it was a Compulsion. The crowd broke up.

We were on our way.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Half the men exited the omnibus at the same clearing where I’d stashed Kram on my first visit to the villa. They would work their way through the woods as quietly as they could and assault the house next to Heirus’s, where many of the guards were stationed, when they heard the signal. Which was one of the arquebuses going off, preferably in somebody’s face. They moved quickly and quietly out of sight, faster than the omnibus travelled.

By the time we arrived at Heirus’s gate, they were to already be in position. If anything went wrong, they had a signaller as well—the other arquebusier.

The giant wagon rolled up to the gate, and kept going. I could see the curious looks of the gate guard through the small warped windows that punctuated the omnibus’s side. It was only when the back end of the omnibus was roughly even with the gate that men with pointy things started boiling out, and the guard’s expression changed from mild curiosity to fear. Once everybody else was out, I jumped off and followed. I didn’t see what they did to turn the gate into twisted wreckage, but it wasn’t the arquebus, because I saw—and heard—that one go off in clouds of foul smelling smoke. I didn’t see if it injured anyone, but I rather doubted it.

The gate guard was sprawled on the ground in a spreading puddle of blood. Two other guards were running—not towards the villa, but to the abandoned estate next door, Osskil’s troops in hot pursuit.

The two guards met several of their comrades, who were running the other way, with the other half of Osskil’s private army on their heels. That’s when weapons started getting thrown to the ground and hands started grabbing sky. All told, it was over in little more than a minute.

“Now the dangerous part begins,” I told Osskil, while Heirus’s sell-swords were bound and stuffed into the omnibus.

We left four men to guard the prisoners. Holgren and Kluge approached the front door the way you’d approach a tiger. The rest of us, Osskil, me and a dozen armsmen, waited behind them. There was a lot of muttering between the two, and some waving of hands, and then Holgren put his hand on the door and turned to us.

“When we go in, follow closely.”

He pushed on the door, hand glowing, and it fell to the floor with a massive boom. A stench like rotting corpses billowed out of the unnaturally dark interior. He and Kluge walked over it and into the gloom, and the rest of us followed behind.

The walls were sort of melting; sagging and peeling away from the structure underneath, like decaying flesh sloughing off bones. I felt myself very much wanting to be somewhere else.

“Daemon taint,” muttered Kluge, and Holgren nodded grimly. “I’ve never seen it as bad as this.”

“Stupid,” replied Holgren. “Mad and dangerous and stupid.”

“Can we just make our way to the room the Elamner is in and get out of here?” I asked. “Then we can torch the place. From the outside.” I heard a muttered agreement from some of the men behind me.

“We can try, Holgren replied, “but don’t be surprised if our map is useless. This place is well on the way to becoming a hell gate. Time and space only loosely apply here now.”

“Let’s go,” said Osskil. “Enough talk.” The place was getting on even his iron nerves.

Holgren nodded assent, called up a ball of light that floated ahead of us, and set off down the corridor, Kluge and the rest of us in his wake.

The corridor was too long.

We kept walking, and walking, and by my calculations should have been off the edge of the cliff and into the Dragonsea before we came to a branching passageway on the left.

Which wasn’t on the map. But was filled with blood and body parts.

There were limbs and guts and feet and fingers that had been arranged in starburst patterns on the tiled floor. There was a pile of heads. Some were still blinking. One of them was wearing my face.

“Right then,” I said. “Let’s go back out and try to enter the Elamner’s room through the window. Dealing with Bosch can wait.”

More strenuous agreement from behind me. I was becoming popular with the mercenaries.

Holgren smiled, which, considering what we were surrounded with, made me like him more, oddly. “We can try,” he said. “Lord Osskil?”

Osskil was staring at a rotting arm that dragged itself toward his boot, a look of sick fascination on his heavy face. Very deliberately he raised his foot and stomped down on the black, split-nailed fingers that inched it forward. He kept stomping until the bones were shattered and the thing just lay there, quivering.

“Yes,” he finally said. “Let’s.”

~ ~ ~

The corridor didn’t lead back to the entryway anymore, we discovered after at least fifteen minutes of walking. There were no branches or turnings, but we ended up in what I suppose could be called a kitchen. Assuming hells have kitchens. There was a massive hearth, and hooks dangling from the ceiling, piercing lumps of dripping flesh, swaying in an unfelt breeze. The hearth was cold, but a vaguely human form turned on the spear-like spit, charred and blackened. It didn’t have a head.

The vast floor was covered in shit and offal and bile. It was utterly silent in that space, except for the faint squeaking of the rusty chains the hooks dangled from. The ceiling was lost in gloom.

A door stood at the far side of the room. Holgren marched toward it, magelight above his head. We were forced to follow or be left in the dark, though nobody, I’m sure, was keen to kick through the awful muck that covered the floor.

We were about halfway across the room when flames exploded in the hearth, roaring and glowing a hellish green-blue.

Then things began bursting out of the floor.

They were all different as far as I could tell, but each was vaguely insectile in appearance; chitinous bodies and soulless, jet-black faceted eyes, and lots and lots of stingers and pincers and barbed, multi-jointed legs. The biggest was about the size of a lapdog. But there were a lot of them.

“Back!” shouted Holgren, reversing his course toward the corridor. One of the creatures sprang for his face and he slapped it down, earning a bloody gash on his palm.

It was chaotic. Our group fell back in fairly good order, considering, but the floor was slick with filth and the creatures just kept coming. A little one, scorpion-like, stabbed its stinger down into my boot, but didn’t manage to pierce down into flesh and got itself stuck. I stomped on it awkwardly with my other foot, nearly lost my balance. One of the armsmen gave me a steadying hand. The halberdiers, competent at their trade, had moved to deal with the creatures as they came at us in waves. They looked like hells' grass cutters, their halberds mowing down the vile things, scythe-like.

“Move, now, let’s go,” I heard Osskil say. And then I heard rattling in the chains above.

It looked like a giant crab, more or less, but moved with the speed and grace of a spider. It was bigger than me. And it was not alone.

“Keep moving!” Holgren yelled, just before a strand of what looked like vile yellow mucus shot down from above and hit him in the chest. He made a disgusted face and cut it with a terse gesture and a harsh magical syllable. Then another came down, and another, and suddenly it was raining the stuff. Men were being hit left and right—and it was sticking, and they were being pulled upward.

Demon crabs spin mucus webs
, I thought.
This is knowledge I could live my whole life without
.

The first of our group to die that day was one of the arquebusiers. A strand shot down into his face and yanked him upwards into darkness. I could hear his muffled screaming. Then I could hear the crunch of a demon taking a bite out of him, followed immediately by the thunderous roar of his weapon. They both fell to the floor, unmoving, with considerable portions of their anatomy missing.

Our group had split into two during the initial attack, I realized. Holgren, Kluge, Osskil and two swordsmen were in the group closest to the hearth, while I and the rest of the mercenaries were more than a half-dozen strides away, closer to the corridor we’d entered the room from. I didn’t like not being with the mages.

But Holgren and Kluge seemed to have it in hand. Holgren was blasting everything with fire, causing charred crab-bits to rain down, and Kluge had manifested some sort of whip made of light and was slicing through the strands and keeping our people from being yanked up into the darkness above. We were all still moving toward the exit.

As we got closer to the edge of the room, the less we were affected by the disgusting onslaught from above, which was intensifying around Holgren’s group. The gap between us widened, and by the time we made it to the corridor, Holgren and the others were more than a dozen strides away.

Holgren caught my eye. “Go! We’ll follow!” he said.

The second of our little army to die was a halberdier.

We were all so busy watching what was going on with Holgren and the others that no one had thought to keep an eye on the corridor. So Bosch, or what Bosch had become, just walked up and speared the man in the back. I only knew we were still in danger when I heard the man scream. I whipped around, ready to throw a knife.

Bosch was both less and more than he had been before Holgren had turned his body into a large red dampness. His head was the only thing organic about him. The rest of him was some mad melding of metal and magic.

He stood perhaps seven feet tall, now. His head, smiling and eyes fever-bright, was encased in what looked like a large block of amber. It rested on a large, spider-like body made of brass and iron and steel. Small lightnings played about its frame, and actinic bursts of light coruscated across it randomly, shedding sparks.

He had run the halberdier through with one of his forelegs. The man was dangling from it, feet not quite touching the floor. He was in agony.

The mercenaries were brave, I’ll give them that. They rushed towards Bosch, but he interposed the halberdier between himself and their weapons, using the dying man as a shield.

“Let him go, Bosch,” I said. But he ignored me.

“How do you like my sanctum, Amra?” His voice was a series of piping notes originating from somewhere in his thorax.

“I’ve seen nicer slaughterhouses. Let the man go, and we might let you go.”

“Is that the dead thief’s fat brother I see back there? Do tell him for me how his brother screamed when I chopped his fingers off, would you? If he somehow survives. If you somehow survive.”

I had nothing to say to that. I just wanted to smash the abomination that Bosch had become. I wanted to throw my knife, but doubted it could pierce the amber shell his head was encased in.

The mercenary was fading fast. He was clawing at the spike in his chest, but his movement was growing feebler by the moment.

“What to do, what to do? Will you deal with me, thief? Or will you deal with
that
?” He pointed with another blood-spattered brass leg back toward the room where Holgren and the others were trapped.

“Oh come on. Do you think I was born last night?” As if I was going to turn my back on him. Then I heard it.

A rumbling, grinding sound.

Then a voice that was not a voice, but a presence in my head.

The Gate opens. But it is a tight fit, as yet.

I risked a quick glance back.

The demon webs were falling furiously, now. Kluge was keeping the area around their group relatively clear, his light-whip in constant, lashing motion, but it seemed almost impossible that those of us in the corridor could re-join them without becoming trapped. Still, I could see them, and the hellfire of the hearth. And the thing that was slowly tearing its way through it. Like some giant, bloated caterpillar with corpse-colored flesh. Holgren stood before it.

I felt it coming and darted to the side. Bosch’s needle-sharp leg speared the air where my chest had just been.

“Worth a try,” said Bosch in his calliope voice, and then he flung the now-dead halberdier at us and started loping down the corridor away from us, a horrid, drunken spider.

Holgren Angrado. You meet us half-way. This is… pleasant.
Like a deep, cracked bell ringing in my head, I heard the voice of the demon Holgren faced. I turned around again, torn.

Holgren glanced back at us.

“Go, get Bosch!” he shouted, and then he turned to face the thing that was making its way out of the hearth. He rolled his head, stretched his shoulders, like a brawler about to enter the ring. Then he spoke a harsh syllable, and there was a sound like thunder, and the demon roared in pain and rage.

Reluctantly, I went, feeling relieved I did not have to face that thing, and feeling as though I were a coward, and determined to take it out on Bosch.

“Let’s go,” I said to the men with me. And we went, pounding down the hall after him. He may not have been steady on his many legs, but he was swift. We didn’t lose sight of him in that long, straight corridor, but we couldn’t seem to gain on him, either.

Then suddenly there was a door ahead, plain blonde wood and horribly out of place. He lost time opening it, and even more time trying to fit through it. He just had time to slam it shut before we got there.