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“If you take no other wine from the ewer of my mouth, Kinch,” he said in such eloquent Galtish it made my heart ache for home, “I hope you learn to treasure a good book.”
Then, for his efforts had cost him much, he lay down in bed and slept for nearly a day.
I took the pretty brass pin I stole from the princess’s hair and hid it under the bed, along with a nail I’d worked loose from the frame. I then took a wee knife I’d pinched from the kitchen and set about carving up a candle.
I had something important to make.
31A Kitten by Night
It was while Hasp slept that night that I made my first foray in the palace alone. I decided not to take the key from around his neck, but rather I picked the door lock using the pin and the nail. That done, I scooted free from the room and relocked the door behind me.
With my Low School training, I was easily able to make my way around the huge, shadow-rich halls unseen and unheard. They had no guard dogs here to pick up scent, and, while a great advantage to my nocturnal scurryings, this struck me as immeasurably sad. The only canine I’d seen here was Merkin, so he must have been an exotic, however old and slobbery he was.
At least they had a few cats about.
It was that first night that I met a sweet-natured black one, who I called Butter because she was soft and friendly and slid on her back for belly-rubs as smooth as butter on a hot skillet. And you know, it’s rare to find a catkin who’ll suffer her belly to be touched, particularly by a stranger; but Butter knew how adorable she was, at least to me, and never feared my hand. I was only a turn away from my own corridor when I saw her padding up in my direction, and she circled me twice, then dove belly-up. Whoever’d not pet such a creature isn’t living life right. So I knelt down, my ears sharp for footsteps, and scritched her chest proper. I ventured a quick rub on the tummy and got no claws for it, so I petted her full chest and belly while she purred so loud I wondered if it could be heard through the door across the way.
“Aren’t you a dear sprumlet?” I whispered. When I went to pull my hand away, she hooked her paw around my arm and gave it a prickly tug as if to say, “Silly monkey, we’re not done here yet.” So I carried on for another moment.
Her coat was so smooth.
“Like butter,” I said, and there was her name sorted until I heard her called something else. I never did.
When I went to pull away again, she mewed just a little,
“Shhht!” I said and gave her a look.
She gave me a look back, meaning one of those dreamy slow blinks, then made a sound like a chirp. I had the impression she was going to rao if I didn’t do as she wished.
“It’s blackmail, is it?” I said. And now I scooped her up, which she permitted, and put her on my neck and shoulders as I had more than once done with Bully Boy, when he wasn’t sleeping in his tattoo on my arm. Butter purred roundly as we snuck down the halls. Coming to one corner, I heard voices. My instinct was to kick off the wall and leap up to the ceiling to grab the beam above me, and then to slither into the space between the beam and the ceiling—but even if I could pull myself up thusly, the cat might stay below and rao right up at me. I didn’t know what they would do to a slave who wasn’t where he should be and might even be trying to escape, but I was bugger-all sure I wouldn’t like it.
I looked around for a direction to go besides up, and finding none, I readied myself for the jump. This wasn’t pure fantasy; I’m a light, skinny, arseless kark, and artful climbing—or walltouchery, as the Guild calls it—was always my strongest skill.
I jumped.
My eyes proved keen even in the dim light, and I ran two steps up the wall—quietly, for my feet were bare—caught the handhold and swung my legs up, clutching the beam with my heels and twisting myself to lie flat atop it, in shadow.
Of course, at the violent movement, the cat let go of my neck and shoulders and pissed off. Luckily, she pissed off proper, and didn’t linger to rao at the maniac who’d tried to take her flying.
The voices came clearer, speaking in Erydon.
One said, Nai, Ponira.
Yes, Mistress.
When the other replied in a string of clipped, decisive Erydon, the familiar voice confirmed my suspicion that I was about to be passed under by the very person of Sylvae Mar Mexes, the slavemistress.
Now the beams on this floor are lower, being that mostly kynd like me are housed here. So there wouldn’t be much room between my beam and her head. Or there wouldn’t have been, except that Sylvae Mar Mexes was, as I’ve mentioned, a short cunny of a half-giant at not quite seven feet, and even her pillar of hair didn’t quite brush my beam. She had with her two loyal kynd slaves, and I dearly hoped they weren’t headed for any business with Hasp or with myself.
They weren’t.
I don’t know what they were about, but they troubled me no more that night. I include the incident only as exemplary of the way I managed to make myself useful at last to our declared cause—to wit, getting the fuck out of here and back home. So, you see, while Galva distinguished herself in the arena by day thanks to her gifts and sciences, so would I use my skills to get the run of this palace by night.
But we’re hardly done with my first night of shenanigans.
We still have a cyclops to meet.
I’d never seen one of these karkers before, nor had I heard them spoken of except in Beltian myths. Cyclopes were supposed to be great metalworkers, and this one was—in fact, he should have been the chief blacksmith of the royal palace, commanding all the kynd, Erydoni, and true giants who made weapons and tools not only for the household and the king’s guards but also for the army generally. Not to mention fashioning parts for the cloud-ships. I say that he should have been in charge, because nobody knew more about metallurgy than he did. But nobody’s putting him in charge of fuck-all, because he’s mad.
