Shadowmage: Book Nine Of The Spellmonger Series (29 page)

“Why?” Tyndal asked, confused.

“Because she’s probably catering to the Rats, being the closest tavern to them,” supplied Rondal.  “And from what we know, they are poor customers.”

“Oh, there’s more to it than that,” Lorcus nodded, sagely.  “She hears things.  And she’s been threatened a lot.  It’s quite abusive, what they’ve done to that poor woman.  She was the wife of one of the weavers, before the hall closed.  Plump little thing . . .”

“So what did she tell you?” Rondal stressed, impatiently.

“Oh, that she knows that there will be a meeting here, two nights from now . . . perhaps what your friend Gareth referred to in his notes as ‘Q2CR’, a code referencing . . .
something
.”

“Well, it
sounds
like a something we should interfere with,” declared Tyndal.

“With our luck it will be their summer holiday pilgrimage refreshment planning committee meeting,” grumbled Rondal.  “For our part,
we
have constructed a proper map,” he said, calling the work into being.  Lorcus used magesight to view the result.

“Well done, lads” he murmured.  “Five entrances, like we thought.  The principals meet in the upper chamber, you think?”

“While the lower chambers are for their men and such,” nodded Tyndal.  “The storerooms are full of junk, we think.  Old looms, spools, shuttles, that sort of thing.  But perhaps more,” he shrugged.  “There’s some interference, Ron thinks, from the lowest section.”

“Interesting,” nodded Lorcus.  “Well, I tried the Long Ears, but the hook wouldn’t let me get but so far within the old crypt.  Some basic wards – I suppose the rodents aren’t entirely stupid.  I tried to wander. Didn’t you say you had a shadowmage friend who could get in there and find out what’s going on?”

“Yes, and I’ve sent word for him to meet us, but it could be a few days,” admitted Tyndal. 

“I’ve got something that might get us past the guards,” Rondal said, after a moment’s pause.  “Something I worked on with Rudi, before we left.  We had a couple of ideas . . .”

“Well don’t sit there waiting for my beard to grow,” Lorcus encouraged, “what is it?”

“It” proved to be a small, spindly-looking device of slender weirwood rods joined together by cleverly-crafted leather joints, that Rondal produced from a hoxter pocket.  It looked extremely fragile to Tyndal’s critical eye.  More like a broken marionette than a magical device.

But when Rondal produced a small wand and spoke a word, the leather joints stiffened and the legs began sorting themselves out until the thing stood on its own in the middle of the table.  The center of its “body” was a small wooden block no larger than a turkey’s egg, with six slender legs suspending it like a spider’s thorax.

“What . . . is that little pretty?” Lorcus asked, entranced by the thing.

“I call it a
dahman
, after those spinning bugs next to the ponds back home,” his friend said proudly, as the little construct marched from one side of the table to the other.  The legs each ended in a soft pad of leather that made the tiniest noise as it pranced.  “It should be able to get in that place.”

“Sure, a wooden spider the size of my hand won’t arouse any suspicions,” Tyndal said, rolling his eyes.

“It wouldn’t . . . if it was on the ceiling,” Rondal chuckled, as the
dahman
reached the plaster wall and mounted it as easily as it walked across the wood.  In seconds it was overhead, amongst the shadows and beams above.

“So once we get it inside, what do we do?” Tyndal asked, skeptically.  “Drop it down their shirts and eliminate the entire crew with the willies?”

“Not at all,” Rondal said, ignoring the jest.  “Gorach – I call him Gorach – is imbued with the enneagram of a creature who liked to hide and stalk the way Haystack likes to brag.  When I tell it to hunt, it will creep its way across the roof, into the gable, and sneak its way into this upper chamber,” he said, nodding toward the magemap.  “There it will wait and lurk until we recall it.”

“Bringing me to my earlier point about the utility of the willies,” Tyndal observed, thoughtfully.  “Once we get it there, what does it
do
?”

“Oh, I had another sympathy stone inlaid inside, with the appropriate spells.  We can hear or see anything that it does,” he said, nodding at the
dahman
.  “Just like we were there.  And if they sweep the place for concealment spells, there won’t be any.  Once Gorach is in place he goes dormant.  No active spells.  Just the sympathy stone.”

“That’s brilliant,” Lorcus nodded, looking at the insect-like creation.  “Does it do anything else?”

Rondal shrugged.  “What did you have in mind?”

“Oh, I have a few amusing ideas,” assured the mage.  “But how are we going to get it up on the roof?  You prepared a pigeon, as well?”

Instead of answering, Gorach’s legs suddenly pulled in on themselves, though the tiny body continued to hold its position in space.

“Knot coral,” Rondal shrugged.  “It’s easier than a pigeon.”

Tyndal had to admit, he was impressed at the elegant little enchantment.  He started to grin.  “This is going to be spectacular!”

“No, my boy,” Lorcus said, with a wicked chuckle, “we’re just leading up to spectacular.  But this shows uncommon promise.”

The effort to get the
dahman
to the roof after the three magi completed its enchantments was simple: Tyndal went to the roof of a building nearby and lobbed it through the air, within twenty feet of the sentry.  But Rondal deftly activated the knot coral before it landed, keeping it from making noise as he directed it to the edge of the gable window. 

Tyndal watched, increasingly impressed, as the arcane construct slipped into the window and disappeared.  When he returned to the inn Rondal was sitting on the bed, his legs folded, and his tiny sphere of irionite in one palm while he used the control wand in the other.  There was a small black earthenware bowl in his lap into which he stared with especial concentration.

“Smart lad, that one,” Lorcus grunted, quietly, as he poured the last of the wine into his cup.

“He does pretty well,” Tyndal agreed.  “Getting anything, Ron?”

“A fine appreciation for a good chambermaid – there are
years’
worth of old cobwebs up there!  But we’re getting close to their . . . conference room?  Den of iniquity? Dark chamber of murderous secrets?” he asked, rhetorically. 

“Got a flair for the dramatic, too,” Lorcus mentioned, under his breath.

“Noticed that?”

“All right, I’m right over the conference table, or whatever it is, clinging to the chandelier.  Three men, a pile of parchments, a stack of books – ledgers, like at Solashaven.”

“Any coin?” Tyndal asked, curious.

“Forget the coin,” Lorcus dismissed, “they wouldn’t haul the heavy stuff upstairs, anyway.  Criminals are lazy,” he said, with the assurance of man with personal experience.  “This is more important.  Those ledgers are likely copies of each of the crews’ ledgers who report to this place.  And this is likely where they compile all of those lovely numbers into much larger numbers, to send to someone yet more important,” he reasoned.

“That makes sense,” Tyndal agreed.  “Like a unit commander, reporting to a general officer,” he suggested.

“Close enough,” Lorcus agreed.  “The central location of this place makes it an ideal point at which to accumulate coin – and numbers – for the entire coastlands and Enultramar.  And the Great Vale, coming downriver.”

“If you two will shut it a few moments, they’re actually saying things,” Rondal pointed out, patiently.

“They often do,” quipped Lorcus.  “But pay them no mind, they’re criminals!”

“Not gossip,” Rondal continued, ignoring the jests, “intelligence.”

Tyndal spent the evening jotting down notes on parchment as Rondal recited the conversation of the three men, and observed their plots.  To Tyndal, it was a seemingly endless series of coded phrases and mysterious ciphers of numbers.  Rondal’s droning voice sent his pen scratching every time he mentioned what the three were saying, and he drifted beyond the point of even casual attention after a while.

“That’s it!” Lorcus exclaimed, excitedly, as Rondal seemed to be drawing to a close.  “We’ve
got
them!”

“We do?” Tyndal asked, dully.

“What do you mean?” demanded Rondal.

“Just keep listening!” insisted Lorcus.  “Every detail!”

Rondal sighed, and paused a moment.  “They’re bitching about their wives, now,” he reported.  “Now, what do you mean, ‘we’ve got them’?”

Lorcus took a deep breath, and dug his pipe out of his belt.  “You remember that bit toward the end, the part about the ‘final business’?”

“Yes,” Tyndal said, a little guiltily.  “I was hoping they were finishing for the evening.”

“They were, but like most organizations, they save the important stuff for last, if it isn’t a crisis.  They mentioned the mudfort, right?”

Tyndal glanced back at the previous page of parchment.  “Yeah, they said that word had come from the mudfort that the deal was on, despite the problems, and that the noose was bringing Lord Zulduk – Zulduk? – to the gallows to meet the nurse.  Then Rat Three asked if the take was set or not, and Rat Two told him not to ask stupid questions.  Rat One then said that he’d heard that it depended on the fishing this year, and whether or not the grocer could keep the frogs in the pond, and if both went well then it would rain maiden’s piss and the goat would be holding the axe behind the chair.”  He blinked.  “Do you have the
slightest
idea what any of that means?”

“Yes!” Lorcus and Rondal said at the same time.

  “Most of these gangsters use code names, like we use war names,” explained Rondal.  “Gareth put together a list of the ones he figured out, and a much longer list of the ones he didn’t.”

“Some of those were more obvious than others,” Lorcus agreed.  “Like the Mudfort: that’s one of the Brotherhood’s headquarters, away to the southeast, in Caramas.  So anything from there has authority.  If they say the deal is on, the deal is on,” he declared.

“What deal, though?” Tyndal asked, confused.

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” urged Rondal.  “The noose has to be Igzily the Noose,” he agreed, looking through the stack of parchment on the table until he found the right one.  “He’s a kind of mid-level administrator for the eastern Great Vale counties.  Not a lot of business up there, but he’s respected in the records as one of the major players.”

“And I would reason that anyplace The Noose called home would soon be known as The Gallows,” Tyndal suggested. 

“Hey!” Lorcus said, snapping.  “That does make sense!  But who is the nurse?”

“No idea,” confessed Rondal, after scanning the list for a moment.  “But whoever it is, they’re important.  They were mentioned earlier, as being at the ‘regular meeting’, tomorrow night.”

“The nurse and a few others,” agreed Lorcus.  “That sounds like a perfect place to begin our inquiry.  By liberating those records, and slaying all who stand against us.  Now, how exactly did you want to dash the place to tinder?”

Chapter Thirteen

A Raid On Rats