Thief: A Fantasy Hardboiled (Ratcatchers Book 2) (32 page)

Smoke drifted across the board. Three spectators had gathered. Already people sensed something was happening.

Brick moved a piece, stared at Aimsley. Never looked at the board.

Aimsley dragged a nail, and moved a piece. Never took his eyes off the board.

Brick moved a piece. Aimsley exhaled smoke from his nostrils and furrowed his brow as he thought.

The crowd gathered. Someone had said something was up. It was thirty moves into the game.  This was the longest Aimsley had ever held off the Brick.

Aimsley watched the board like a cat waiting for a mouse to exit its hole. He took his time, his emotions played across his face. His eyes darted, he searched for weakness, openings. Sometimes his lips moved.

Brick never hesitated.

Aimsley moved a piece.

Brick moved a piece, the wood making a sharp ‘clack’ on the slate shere board.

“Priest almost dead,” Brick said. “Figure that should suit the count for now. Nice to have you back where you belong.”

Aimsley ignored him. Picked up a soldier, held it for a moment. Tapped it against his teeth, then placed it down.

“Ambush,” he said. A murmur went through the crowd.

Brick smiled a thin, wry smile, and took Aimsley’s soldier with his own.

Aimsley nodded, and moved again. Offering up one of his prelates.

Brick’s eyes narrowed at Aimsley’s gambit, but he couldn’t see it, so he took Aimsley’s prelate with his soldier.

Aimsley took Brick’s soldier.

“Ambush,” he said again.

Now there was no room around the table. A dozen people watched the game. Half were narrating the action to the other half.

Brick moved his king out of position, exposing his prelate for the attack.

Aimsley retreated in response. But he’d forced Brick’s king back. This was a major event in the history of their games. But Aimsley was just getting started. It looked as though he’d stopped blinking, so fiercely was he concentrating on the board.

Three moves later and Aimsley had not managed to lure Brick’s king out.

Brick moved a serf into Aimsley’s second row.

Aimsley captured the serf, picked up the piece with two fingers and tossed it away like a spent nail.

The gesture caused Brick to clench his teeth, the tendons on his neck stood out.

No one in the Mouse Trap made any noise.

Brick gave up his right flank and pushed with his left. Four moves later and he took Aimsley’s Tower.

He picked it up and, never taking his eyes off the polder, he crushed the piece in his fist, until only powder remained. He let the powder run through his fingers onto the floor.

Aimsley had no plans for the captured Tower, but he’d also not planned on Brick’s last soldier being in his rear row. He looked ahead, he saw what the Brick was doing. Three moves from now, there’d be an opening, and Brick would use his tower to force an ambush. Aimsley countered with an attack of his own.

He had to sacrifice two serfs to do it, but there was no opening for Brick’s tower. Aimsley had cut off his line of attack.

Brick took a breath. Then he looked at the board. Some of the spectators knew this was significant.

He brought his queen out. Took two of Aimsley’s serfs. Aimsley countered with his prelate.

“Ambush,” he said, and the piece clacked into place.

“Ambush,” Brick said, and blocked Aimsley’s prelate with his tower, putting the polder’s king in jeopardy.

“Shit,” Aimsley said, and took Brick’s tower.

Brick took Aimsley’s prelate.

Brick snapped his fingers and a tray with drinks appeared. He downed his in one go and placed the other on at Aimsley’s right hand.

Aimsley dashed the glass away with the back of his hand, spilling uske on several spectators. They pulled away, but didn’t complain.

Aimsley smacked a piece down.

“Ambush,” he said.

The Brick blocked the attack with his queen. Several of the spectators gasped.

Aimsley wasted no time. He exposed his king, placing himself in ambush, but ambushing Brick’s king at the same time, forcing Brick to use his queen to defend. “Counter-ambush,” he said.

Brick pursed his lips, he could see where this was going. There were only a few moves left.

He moved his queen. Aimsley took it.

“Ambush,” Aimsley said.

Brick made one last gamble, pushed his last serf one row away from a promotion, forcing Aimsley to choose between losing his queen or granting Brick a new queen.

But Brick hadn’t noticed the manner in which the board had changed since he set up that gambit several moves ago.

Aimsley took the serf, with the same piece that now threatened the Brick’s king. There was nowhere for the king to move.

Brick looked at the board. Took a breath. No one spoke.

He tipped over his king.

“The king is dead,” Aimsley said, and hopped off his chair. The crowd parted for him. Brick was still looking at the board.

“I quit,” the polder said, and left the Mouse Trap.

“What the fuck is a star elf?” Aimsley asked.

They were alone in Heden’s room. A table and chairs and a large meal provided by the girls. The meal cooled between them. The girls were eager to please, but neither of them was hungry. They needed to think.

“Demigods,” Heden said. “Banished to the World Below when they betrayed their brothers, the Sun elves, the Moon elves, and the Sky elves.”

“That’s a lotta elves,” Aimsley said.

“Not as powerful as dragons,” Heden said, “but close enough.”

“And the count has one of them all bound up.”

“Presumably. I have a hard time imagining an astral celestial cooperating with the count.”

“We can assume is that he’s in the city somewhere,” Aimsley had a full glass of cider in front of him, but wasn’t drinking it. It was mostly to have something in his hand.

“Hapax Legomenon said she thought the count’s operation was on water. A boat or a barge. Said that could foil their oracles.”

Aimsley looked at Heden, unaware the priest knew the same wizard he had braced a fortnight ago. “She said that, huh?”

“Yeah but that was a while ago and since then, nothing. If he’s over water, they’ll get to him before we can. So assume he’s not.”

“I think we can rule out the castle,” Aimsley continued. “Probably if he were sleeping with the king we’d know about it. Probably.”

“There was an order of knights,” Heden said, “in capital. Their guildhouse was a floating keep.”

“A what?” Aimsley said flatly.

“An
invisible
floating keep,” Heden elaborated.

“You’re fucking kidding me.”

“Un-uh,” Heden said. “If the count can get his hands on a star elf and make the night dust, maybe he’s floating over the city somewhere.”

“Well that’s no fucking good either,” Aimsley dismissed this. “If he’s got that kind of power we’re fucked. Never find him anyway. Gotta focus on places we can get to. The city proper.”

Heden nodded. “The city,” he said absently. Something bothered him. “Somewhere in the city.”

There was something about the way Aimsley said it that reminded him of something. Not exactly the way he said it. But something close.

“The
city
,” Heden said out loud. That was it. Emphasis on the city. He could hear it in his mind, he could hear the voice, but he couldn’t place it.

“What?” Aimsley said, his voice flat.

“The…,” Heden remembered. “I asked him.”

“You asked who? You asked the count?”

“I said,” Heden was thinking too hard to listen to the thief now, “I said ‘is there a new power in the city,’ and he said, ‘in the
city?’
exactly like that. He was expecting me to ask something else.”

Heden looked at Aimsley.

“He was expecting me to ask something else.”

Aimsley fished in his vest pocket for a slave, produced a nail from somewhere Heden couldn’t see, fired the slave and lit the nail. He took a long drag on it. “Take your time,” he said with a shrug. The priest would get around to explaining himself eventually.

Heden’s face was blank. “I know where the count is,” he explained.

Aimsley looked at him, smoke curled from the polder’s nostrils.

“Good,” Aimsley said, eventually. Then added, when he realized it meant they were going to go and try to kill him. “I guess.”

“Do you know where I was yesterday?” Heden asked.

“I wasn’t following you,” the little man said. And then, because it served to keep up appearances, added, “in that instance.”

“I was at the citadel.”

Aimsley frowned. “Ok,” he said. “Why?”

“We captured…,” Heden began.

“The Sunfuckers,” Aimsley interrupted. “Your old team.”

“Y-yes,” Heden said, not letting Aimsley succeed in goading him. “We stopped a cult of Cyrvis from summoning the Black Brothers. The cult was led by a saint.”

“A…,” Aimsley recovered himself. “Really?”

“Well, sort of. Alithiad is complex.”

“I don’t know that one,” Aimsley said.

“Saint of Worms,” Heden added.

“Him I know,” Aimsley recovered smoothly, nodding his head in long slow loops.  He took another drag on his nail.

“He’s in the citadel.”

“Figures,” Aimsley said. Then he sussed it.

“You went to see him?” Aimsley said, his eyebrows raised. “This undead saint?”

“He knows things. He’s not really deathless, and he was never a human. He can sense…he knows when there are new actors on the stage.”

“Oh shit,” the polder said.

“Yeah.”

“You wanted to know about the night dust. You asked this saint if there’s a star elf in the city. And he said yes.”

“Yeah.”

“And this evil demon-saint friend of yours, he’s
in
the citadel.”

“Yeah.”

“And
you
were in the citadel when you asked him. And he was surprised you asked about what was going on…
outside
the citadel.”

“You’ve got it.”

Aimsley’s eyes went blank. He was looking past and through Heden, at nothing. “Ah hah,” he said without humor.

“’Ah hah?’” Heden asked.

“The citadel,” the polder chuckled. “Right under the ragman’s fucking nose. And every kind of ward, priest wards, wizard wards locking that place down so tight no one can see in,” he said. “Always wondered why he chose Garth. Now I know. Black gods.”

“If we’re right…,” Heden began.

“Oh we’re right. The count is running his operation from inside the citadel. It’s fucking brilliant. No oracle can find him, he’s untraceable. As long as they can keep their operation secret inside that fortress we can’t touch him.”

Heden sighed. “Well now I can relax. We tell the castellan,” he said. “Let him do what he…,”

“Hah!” Aimsley said. “That’s why…you don’t get it?”

Heden sniffed, looked affronted. “I thought I got it.”

“The count’s in the citadel
because
it’s the castellan’s fortress. The castellan is
protecting him
.”

Heden was confused. Happy, though, to have someone who could figure these things. He’d never had a reputation for being the clever one. That was Elzpeth.

“Why would he…,” he flailed. Aimsley put him out of his misery.

“I don’t mean literally! What would the ragman do, if we tell him the count’s operating under his nose?”

Heden saw it. “He’d arrest him.”

“Yep!” Aimsley declared. “I mean, castellan might be able to maneuver the count so he’d have to be put down, but he doesn’t impress me as that kind of Man.”

“He’s not,” Heden agreed.

“Yeah. He plays it straight. Arrests him. Then what happens?” Aimsley didn’t wait for Heden. “He goes from being
secretly
locked up in the citadel to
publicly
locked up in the citadel. And that buys him, what, another three months of protection? Magistrates and solicitors? No way he stays in the hole three months, he’ll be out in three days. And all the while the castellan and his men and his fortress and his whole operation is stopping all the people who
would
kill him from getting in there.”

“Including us?”

“Including…,” Aimsley’s eyes narrowed.

“Garth got in. Set up a whole front in there. Could you do it?”

Aimsley took a long even breath and held the priest’s gaze. He didn’t answer Heden’s question.

“
You
got in,” Aimsley said. “You can get in whenever you want. Brick, the Truncheon, they couldn’t get anyone within a hundred feet of that place, but you’re the ragman’s friend. You can come and go as you please.”

Heden nodded. “And I’m betting you can too,” he said.

Aimsley did not confirm or deny.

“Castellan won’t kill him,” the polder said.

Heden shook his head. “Nope.”

“Guilds can’t get in.”

“Nope.”

“So
we
go in. We go in, and we ace the count, and maybe Garth.”

“And maybe Garth,” Heden nodded.

“You up for that? And you a holy man? Strolling in there, murder a man in cold blood.”

“You remember what you said to me outside the Mouse Trap? You said if I went after the count, if I got him, that whoever took over would come after me. They’d keep coming after me until they got me.”

Aimsley understood. “But you ace him inside the citadel, no one ever knows. Hell they’ll think the castellan did it.”

“Improve his reputation,” Heden grinned.

“But someone still has to
do
it. That you?” Aimsley challenged.

“I’ve done worse,” Heden said without feeling or expression. “I’m the Arrogate. And it won’t be cold blood. Comes down to it, it’s easy to provoke the count. Force his hand. It’ll be self-defense.”

Aimsley swirled the cider around in his glass, a smile growing on his face. He nodded slowly to Heden. “It surely would.”

“So,” Heden said. “Does this mean you can get into the citadel too?”

Aimsley downed the cider. Placed the glass on the table with a little more force, a little more theatricality than normal.

He smiled broadly. “’Course I fucking can,” he said.