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An hour later, I moved through the tunnel, holding the faintly glowing eye of Thumos in one hand and the kitchen knife I had used to half blind him in the other. I’ll tell you, as watchdogs go, Magmas isn’t worth a patty of sun-warmed shyte, because I dug around in his grim-faced beardy old master’s face with a butterknife until I had his eye out, and Magmas gave not a whimper. He even suffered me to stand on his back to do it, the lazy cur. It didn’t give much light, that priceless eye, but more than enough for a former Prank of the Guild going about the work the gods had made him for. I learned to feel the wall to my left—where the corridor was—until I came to another door. A quick tug from the inside and it would open out. I had found six such doors before I realized it was getting late and I’d better scurry home for a bit of sleep. But now I had a safe path to corridors outside the throne room, the great hall, the kitchens, the ascender room, the guests’ quarters, and the water room.
The water room is, as you’d think, where fresh water comes in to be gathered for the needs of the household. I didn’t think much of the small puddle I saw outside this room, but when I saw a bit of water near the ascender room, I had a hunch and bent to taste it.
Salt again.
What were bits of saltwater doing inside a palace in a climate as dry as Sath’s wife’s cunny?
This question would have to wait for another night’s adventures, if I was to get enough sleep to withstand the handling I was like to receive from Her Highness the Princess Renata the next day. Back I went to replace the eye of Thumos, though I kept the knife.
But I was to have no mishandling the next day, not for my nocturnal wanderings nor for the borrowing of a god’s holy peeper.
The next day would be for tears.
For when I stole back into my room, it was quiet and cold.
I went to Hasp and found him still, and smaller somehow, as the dead are when that spark has gone.
I held my hand to his nose and felt nothing.
I tried not to cry, but I’ve a talent for crying, so I had to.
“You selfish ganny bastard,” I told him in our shared tongue. “You went home without me.”
And when the tears had run enough, I sat and breathed long breaths, my hand on his strangely still and cooling chest, on its way to becoming a what and no longer a who. Many in the presence of the newly dead will go to tell someone right off, but there was no helping him with quick steps away. I would never feel his flesh again in this world, and I was in no hurry to have done with his nearness. For all that he was a fool, he was the gentlest friend I knew, and how sweet would the world be if more men thought laughter better coin than gold.
It will come as no surprise to you that a city in thrall to a fire god favors funeral pyres rather than sending its dead a-worming, so Hasp of the village of Mainann Dorann of Galtia was burned on a hot fire. Many were present, and most wept, not the least of which myself. The Princess Renata was asked to say some words, but she kept her head in her folded arms and shook it no, as if not seeing or accepting this new Haspless world might cause it to be sent back and Hasp returned to her. Of course, willing the dead back to life works only for the darkest of necromancers, and from what I’ve heard, the risen dead can’t juggle.
I watched the poor little Galt’s smoke and fire lick up against the sky over the royal garden at dusk, bright sparks going up, reflected going down in the calm salt pools, and I determined I would not end up so; just so much ash and bone half a world from home, and one little bell sewn into the royal brat’s braid. Renata wore that bell from Hasp’s hat from then on, and her plodding way of jingling it when she walked was so different from Hasp’s light tinkles it scarcely sounded like the same bell. It was, though, and it was a boon to know where the monster was. Thanks, Hasp. Truly, thanks for everything. I’ll fart a sad song for you back home on the shores of the Tattered Sea, even if I wreck a ship or kark a pair of pants.
32A Bastard by Day
Soon after Hasp’s pyre—the next day? Two later? Days in bondage run together so—I found a moment to get away from my mistress and stole back down to the forge to look for Zherit. At first, I wasn’t sure the creature I was looking at now was the same one I had agreed to find a book for; he had the same shape and markings, and the same leather apron with clay squares on it; but the way he moved and spoke and grunted was so different to Zherit-Nassk—as different as Renata’s bell-jingling from Hasp’s—that it took a moment’s observation to convince me I had the right cyclops. I had hidden in my doublet one of the books Hasp had used to cushion the blows of the princess’s bitch-stick, and it was a Holtish barber-surgeon’s text on the making and use of medical tools. The other two books Hasp thought little enough of to make armor out of were, first, a Beltian book of odes to the male form, with illustrations; and, second, a book of mathematical problems with notes in Ekésh. The one with the wee knives, bone saws, and skull-drills seemed the best fit for a smith. He had a few other books, did Hasp, and I wasn’t parting with those just yet; not the Galtish poems, not the two Holtish plays, and certainly not the wee book of cantrips Hasp probably didn’t know how to use, but which I did.
“What do I want with that? What is it anyway?” the huge red kark with the little green eye said, gesturing at the tome with his head, never missing a rhythmic stroke as he banged spark-swarms up from some ungodsly axe that would need a true giant to lift, let alone swing.
“S’a book,” I said.
“A book? My pizzle needs no wiping now, and anyway that is too small.”
“They have other uses, I’m told,” I said. “Can I have the, er, item?”
I didn’t want to speak too loudly nor directly, there being a dozen others both kynd and giant moving about. One twelve-footer was running the bellows with such authority you’d think a dragon out of storybooks had nested here.
“Ah yes. It seems I dreamed of some mousling creeping underfoot and squeaking would-you-please and might-you-sir at that dayblind oxcunt. Well, I don’t want your bookscratchings. Bring it to Zherit-Nassk, Zherit Dayborn has no use for it. Perhaps he’ll give you”—and here he put a hand to the side of his black-toothed maw and pretend-whispered loud enough to be heard by some even over the sparky whoosh of the bellows—“the ITEM.”
Yes, I would much rather have dealt with Zherit-Nassk, but as they say in the Guild, waiting steals as often as it gives. I would rather that key in my hand now, whatever I had to promise for it. Anything could happen between now and evening, and my own liberty was the last thing I could take for granted here.
“Well,” I said, more discreetly, meaning I half shouted. “Surely there’s something in this palace you want for? I was a Guild man back east, if that means something to you. And if it doesn’t, I’ll just say I’ve a talent for procurement.”
“What in Geryat’s whistling squinny is a procurement?”
I looked at his face now—it was redder, somehow, as if hotter. And his eye was as mean and practical and pinched as the other eye was luminous and dreamy. This was an eye that saw you coming, and didn’t trust you, and wanted to use you for advantage. It was a very kynd-like eye.
I said, “Procurement is the getting of something hard to get. Procurement is the trade-blood of any gaol or prison, and what is this palace for us but that? Tell me your need and I’ll study how to get it for you. But the book was a small boon, no trouble to me at all, as I’ll wager the key was no real work for Zherit-Nassk. If you give me the key in good faith, I’ll pay you the book for your other … self. And mayhap I’ll bring him whatever it is you desire, but by night, when shadows better hide my footfalls here.”
“Boy,” he said, leaning close enough for me to smell oniony meat on his breath. “Fuck you, and go away.”
“Really?” I said, a bit surprised. I had thought I had him. But what did I know of these creatures? They were not kynd, and not even half-kynd like the Erydon.
