Ordren rushed along the road on the north foot of Crag Hill to the dragonworks, where the night watchman let him in. Holding his nose against the stink, he rumbled down the stairs to the cellar, entered the hated catacombs, and hurried toward Alra’s Acre. Eventually he came to a crypt lit by a lone wisplight in the domed ceiling. Gaul stood on the far side of the room, near the door to the Hissing Man’s sepulcher.
“Don’t you have a bloody home to go to?” he asked the tall guard.
Gaul rubbed his bulbous nose and sniffed.
“I need to speak to him.”
Gaul shook his head. Made the hand sign for gone.
“This is important, you bloody oak. When will he be back?”
Gaul shrugged.
Ordren walked toward the door. “I’ll wait for him inside.”
Gaul stopped him with a raised hand.
“You’re joking, right? I’m not going to steal anything.”
Gaul shook his head.
Ordren backed away and sat down on the stone floor with his back to the wall. “Where do you go, anyway, when you’re not trapped down here? Kiln? Fiddlehead? A bloody apartment in the temple?”
Gaul snorted and spat on the floor.
“Or maybe the grove where your tree of a mother and father live . . . ? Surprised you don’t have roots.”
The operation had gone more or less according to plan. The Hissing Man had told him Tomas would find Lorelei and Creed at The Bent Tulip and give them a tip that Aarik would be meeting with the Hissing Man in the abandoned mine. Ordren had made sure to be there, too.
The Hissing Man had told him to make sure Aarik was caught and Llorn and Brother Mayhew escaped, but plans never went perfectly. Fortunately, Illustra Azariah managed to take Aarik to the temple, and Praefectus Damika had given Ordren the interrogation of Brother Mayhew, which made dealing with the druin simpler, but Ordren needed to find out what to do with him.
When sitting too long hurt his piles, Ordren stood. But then his trick knee started to ache, so he sat again. When his arse started to ache more than his knee, he stood and headed toward the door again. “I’m waiting inside.”
Gaul put his hand on Ordren’s throat and shoved him backward against the wall. Ordren’s head crashed so hard his ears rang. He felt a piercing pain on the left side of his chest and looked down. Gaul was pressing the tip of a slim stiletto into his ribs.
“All right, all right!” Ordren choked. “I’ll wait over there!”
But the pressure on his neck tightened. Gaul’s face was red and his lips were peeled back from his filthy clenched teeth. Mighty Alra, please don’t let my final view of the world be the drool on this goon’s lips.
“That’s enough, Gaul,” the Hissing Man rasped from an archway. “The inquisitor and I have much to discuss.”
Gaul’s breath sprayed from his nostrils, but he let Ordren go and backed away. The Hissing Man headed inside his sepulcher. Ordren stumbled away from Gaul, tugged his shirt down, and scurried after him. The Hissing Man was already sitting behind his desk when Ordren entered.
“Do you consider it wise to test a man who kills for a living?”
Ordren closed the door, sat across from him, and stretched his neck. “You think it’s wise to a have a lunatic with no stones standing guard outside your door?”
“I would choose Gaul over a hundred other men. Now, who did the Praefectus assign to interrogate Brother Mayhew?”
“Me.”
The Hissing Man nodded. “Good, but it shouldn’t have been necessary. Why didn’t you let him go?”
“I couldn’t! Vashtok flattened him. He was almost unconscious. He couldn’t have escaped if I’d untied him and given him a map to the exit. And by the time we’d caught Aarik and met up with the others, it was too late.”
The Hissing Man worked his jaw but said nothing.
“Perhaps he finds a bit of poison in his food,” Ordren continued. He’d done it before and would again for the right coin.
The Hissing Man considered. “Brother Mayhew is valuable to Llorn.”
“Who cares?”
“I do. You receive postings on the night watch now and again, correct?”
“Yes, but I’m not supposed to open his bloody cell door and walk away, am I?”
“No, that wouldn’t do. Brother Mayhew is a resourceful man, from what I hear. Talk to him. Give him whatever he needs to get out.”
“How about a bit of powder to help things along?”
“No. Brother Mayhew will have been searched. If he got caught with umbris now, it could lead to the Church.”
“Very well.”
“Don’t sound so enthused, Inquisitor.”
“It’s just more than I bargained for.”
“What of it? We do this in Her name, do we not?” He held two fingers up and made a circle. “May her memory abide.”
For a moment, Ordren was too surprised to do anything but nod. The Hissing Man had just made the same sign and spoken the same words as Illustra Azariah in the Crag. They’d come as no surprise from the leader of the Church in Ancris, but Ordren had never seen or heard the Hissing Man do it. It made him wonder whether the Hissing Man had spoken to Azariah before he returned to the crypts.
“Is there anything else?” the Hissing man hissed.
Ordren shook his head and stood. As he passed through the door, Gaul casually held out a coin purse—Ordren’s payment—as if he’d already forgotten he’d nearly choked the life out of Ordren.
Ordren snatched the purse and headed down the tunnel. This ain’t bloody worth it.