CHAPTER THIRTY

Coming Together

 

As much as I usually enjoyed breakfast, the next morning I went without. I didn’t even have coffee, as I felt like boiled shit. On the upside, I wasn’t dead. Turns out, immunity to poison was not something you kept for long. At least not when you became lax at self-administering the stuff. I thought I would die. I probably deserved to. There were, however, some very angry people in the streets below my balcony, now covered in whatever had been in my stomach. I wiped my mouth on my sleeve and sat back down at the table.

Marcus looked at me as he ate, making all kinds of appreciative noises. He was trying to piss me off, and he had succeeded swimmingly. I was tempted to poison the bastard and see how he liked it. Nothing fatal, mind you; just something unpleasant. He was angry at me for threatening to bind him again. When he arrived and I told him I was sick, he decided to wave all manner of food at me. I’d felt ill and pissed off, so I’d threatened to bind him and command him to jump from the balcony. I wasn’t serious of course, but he took it poorly.

I held my sleeve to my mouth as I belched, relieved it was only gas. In retrospect, I should have taken a smaller sample of poisons, staggered over two or more days. Just a week had passed since my last dosage, but that was a lot in the world of an assassin—at least, one who used poison when the opportunity presented itself. Too many would-be assassins had died from their own poisons, and I would not be hoist with my own petard, as the saying went.

 

“I am going to the library today,” Neysa said. “Morwynne’s imperial library has more books than any other.”

“That sounds riveting,” Marcus said. Neysa spat a pea at him. Marcus tried to duck, but she caught him in the ear.

“Gross,” Marcus said.

“I need to devise a way to block the drain in that pond without getting devoured,” I said.

“Which pond?” Neysa asked.

“The one that looks like a lake.”

“Oh,” Neysa said. “If it was smaller I could probably freeze the water.”

“No matter,” I said. “I’ll come up with something. I hope.”

“I have a lot of nothing to do today. Think I’ll just sit around and do as I please. I can do as I will, can’t I, Saul?” Marcus said.

I did not answer to the remark. Instead, I dashed for the balcony and dry retched over the side. Those passing below were fortunate that my stomach was already empty.

 

The autumn morning was as bright as a hooker’s promise and warmer than her heart. I pulled my collar up against the cold wind, which held the promise of rain. I tried very hard not to dwell on my exchange with Marcus and instead took in the sights around me. I paused to watch a gardener prune an apple tree. He went about it with the precision of a surgeon, trimming branches, but in such a way that it was not immediately apparent that it had been trimmed. There were a lot of trees and gardens in the city, and I decided that there must be an army of gardeners.

Part of me was surprised that the task did not fall to slaves, but the gardener had no brands. He saw me looking, so I nodded a greeting which he returned. With a quick snip, an apple fell into his hand, which he tossed my way. I smiled in thanks, put it in my satchel for later, and made my way along. It struck me that it was the first nice thing anyone had done for me in a great long time; odd that it should be in this den of villainy, but perhaps I was too hard on the place.

I was of two minds about Morwynne. It was a beautiful city, true. But beautiful as some merchants were beautiful. Finely dressed, with pleasant words, but always keeping secrets. Like there were pools of tar just below the surface. I walked past just such an example. A lady, perhaps my age, backhanded her slave with a jewel encrusted hand. I did not see what the slave had done to deserve such treatment. Perhaps it had been justified, but I doubted it. She was pretty, finely dressed, and had an impressive amount of gold on display. And yet, it was an ugly thing I saw.

Most of the city folk were bedecked in gold. Gold was a trivial thing in Morwynne, which had some of the biggest gold mines of the empire at its doorstep. It had more jewelers than any other city, too, or so it was told. It was certainly the impression I got as I walked its streets. I looked a naked man among them, with not a ring or chain in sight. I was not one for jewelry. Well, there was one ring I longed for, and I would leave the city with it. But I would not find it for sale.

 

I slowed my pace as I approached the lake at the city center. I was still a block away, but there were a lot of people ahead. They stood in groups, and all faced the same direction. A black man in a colorful robe was trying his best to keep his three children within reach. As I came close, one of his boys—at a guess, I would say he was about five years old—pointed at something around the corner.

I was rounding said corner when I collided with someone. “My apologies,” I said. Then I looked. I stood face to face with an Inquisitor, his skin black with ink. “My apologies,” I said again and turned to walk away.

“Wait,” someone said from farther away. I turned back and saw another Inquisitor standing over a dead body. The body of the foppish painter lay in a recessed doorway in a pool of blood. Red streaks flowed from his nose and mouth, now dry and cracked. Seeing what I had done, I felt a pang of guilt. I was sure of it then—it was guilt.

I could not recall the last time I had felt guilty for anything. For years I had done what needed doing, never looking back. But I did feel guilty. I may not have intended to kill the man, but I had. And it would not have been a pleasant death, or a quick one. I resolved to take more care with my actions; to be slower to act on my impulses.

The second Inquisitor, who stood over the corpse, was not as fully tattooed as the first. His face and one arm were still bare. “Brother,” the man said. “Do you not recall this one? He was questioned at Sagemont when the inn burned. Though not questioned quite as thoroughly as I would have liked.”

“Yeees, I remember now. Good memory, brother. Tell me, worm, what brings you to our fair capital?”

“Ale,” I said.

“Ale? Did we not find you at the tavern last time we spoke? Have you drunk the place dry and now find yourself here to further your debauchery?”

“No, we bought the tavern you found me at last. That tavern, the Bleeding Wolf, won the imperial brewing competition. We came here to deliver the ale for the Harvest Festival.”

“I see,” the first Inquisitor said. “Very well, we will have to check on your story,”

“By all means,” I said.

“Tell me,” the second Inquisitor said. “Have you seen this man before?”

I looked down at the painter and nodded. “Yes, I saw him here yesterday afternoon. He spoke to me and my friend. Complained about the taxes and such, and said that he was thinking about leaving the empire. He spoke of plans to do some frescoes in a temple somewhere. He didn’t say much else, just tried to get us to pay for a painting.”

“I now regret not being able to speak to the heretic myself,” the second Inquisitor said, spitting on the man’s corpse. I had hoped for just such a reaction. “What did you do when you concluded your conversation?”

“We fed those vicious fish,” I said pointing at the lake. “Then we bought treacle apples and went to our rooms.”

“Which rooms?”

“Our rooms at the Eagle’s Perch.”

“Expensive,” the first Inquisitor said. “A waste. Typical of a heathen such as yourself to waste your coins on such frivolities.” The Inquisitor turned to his brother standing over the corpse. “Make a note of this, brother. We should check if this Bleeding Wolf Tavern have been keeping up on their taxes. They clearly have too much money if they are wasting it so.” He turned back to me. “Be gone, worm, we have work to do.”

 

I decided to skip my visit to the lake, but my mind kept puzzling over the drain. The flooded tunnel was our best escape route. Perhaps my friends and I could have escaped by a more conventional means, but while I did not know how many slaves would be joining us, any at all would make things difficult. The tunnel, then—but how to get rid of the water?

The easiest way in my mind was to block the drain, but the how of it was the issue. The painter, now dead… Gods, I’d nearly forgotten. “One for the one who waits,” I said in offering. Anyway, the painter had mentioned that they’d removed the trees because the leaves kept blocking the drain. So my first idea was to just dump a hell of a lot of leaves into the pond. It was a stupid idea of course and was quickly discarded.

The best way would be to block it directly. Easy, right? Except for two issues. Firstly, with the water as clear as it was, it would have been blatantly obvious that the drain was blocked. Secondly… those damned fish would have devoured me. Enough poison would have rid me of them, sure. I had every intent of doing just that, but the sight of the painter lying in the blood he had coughed up… it made me hesitant. With the amount of poison needed, which presented its own problem, the lake would have been deadly for a few days at the very least. Poisoning the capital’s water supply was a bit much, even for me.

 

My thoughts ran in circles as I made my way down the broad avenues. They were far wider than needed, and at no point was it necessary to move out of another’s way. Which was doubly surprising, seeing as I’d decided to walk in what others probably considered to be the wrong direction. You see, long stretches of the avenue had raised flowerbeds down its center, with statues rising from them every dozen steps or so. By some unspoken law, everyone had decided to walk along the left side—or their left, I should say. This of course resulted in everyone on one side of the flowerbed walking in the same direction. Except me.

 

I found the train station abandoned once again. It seemed an awfully large and expensive building to leave unused like that. It had a waterfall, by Svyn’s balls! There were still a few slaves scrubbing floors, trying to look busy. I’d been a slave once; I knew how it worked. I scanned the faces, and each slave bowed as my eyes met theirs. Ferran was on the far side, and I walked to meet him. “Greetings,” I said. “I have a plan coming together, but it still needs some work. Here’s the gist of it. On the night of the Harvest Festival, gather your men and women here, anyone that wants to come. My friends and I should arrive here about an hour after the toasts start at the palace. I assume some of you will be on duty at the palace, but they will know when the time comes to leave. Those outside the palace will need to figure something else out. Work with them, come up with a plan. Meet us here, but if we don’t come, continue with the plan. We will block the drain in the pond in the city center. This will allow you to raise the metal grates over the channel by the waterwheel. Climb down and follow the tunnel. It should lead out into the mountains. Understand that I do not know for certain that it is clear for its entire length, but I believe it is. Once out, make for Ubrain and travel to the Great Oasis. You know of it?”

“I do, my prince,” Ferran said.

“Good, that’s the plan, then. I apologize for the level of uncertainty, but it is the best I can do with the time I have.”

“No apologies necessary, my prince. It is a sound plan.”

It was a plan, but far from sound. At least it gave them a chance. I frowned when I saw a lone wagon sitting on the tracks. It had Malakai’s two oversized rockets strapped to it. The smaller ones were missing. “What is that doing there?” I asked.

Ferran turned around and saw the wagon. “There were instructions to leave those on the wagon. My master forbade us from storing them with the rest of the wagons and carriages. He said he didn’t trust those things.”

“He doesn’t realize how right he is to be suspicious,” I said. “Won’t it get in the way?”

Ferran shook his head. “The train isn’t leaving for another couple of weeks. The tracks only extend to Sagemont. Once they are constructed to more distant towns, there will be more frequent trips. Hopefully I won’t be here to see that.”

“Count on it,” I said.

I said my goodbyes, wished them luck, and made my way back to the Eagle’s Perch. With my stomach somewhat settled, I was starving, and I decided to have a late lunch before we went to have dinner with Hobart.