The boy looked around the small dusty room some more while Auntie unlocked the door, and so did I. There wasn’t much there. A fireplace that doubled as a stove, with a metal plate on it, and some racks for pots and pans around it. A table with two chairs. Some empty shelves. Besides the small bedroom there was a tiny toilet, the door hanging open, and another door which was closed, and which I couldn't open without shifting back. The main room had a single, empty window, shuttered and barred from the inside.
“Come now, come,” Auntie said, having opened the door, and the boy walked past her out the door. She quickly followed, closing the door behind her and leaving me alone, but I wasn’t done with them. I intended to see where they went. I had no reason pressing to; I wanted to know where in the city I was, sure, now that I knew that this particular entrance to the tunnels was in a mostly abandoned house, but the two Barleans were nothing to me. But I was curious, so I decided to follow.
I shifted back into my body only long enough to lift the bar on the window and let the window swing open. I looked around, then slipped out and quickly closed the window best I could, then shifted back into the shadows and out into the street. It wasn’t completely dark yet, but it was getting there, and there were few people out. I looked up and down the street, catching sight of the two just before they turned a bend and disappeared.
I set after them, keeping to the low roofs of what must have been the western part of the city, and caught up to them before they turned onto a larger street running north towards the main boulevard. They walked casually, probably trying to not draw any more attention than they already would as two Barleans this far from the harbor.
Before they reached the boulevard, Auntie stopped the boy, taking the bag and pointing across the way. “There, in the tavern, is where you will find our buyer, you will,” she said. “Torem. He is a tall, fat man with a large, braided beard, he is. He has a notch in one ear, he does, and he is Karakani, but he speaks Barlean well enough, he does. Go inside, and bring him here. He is a good and honest man, so far as one in his line of work can be, he is, but I have not met him for many years, and the people he surrounds himself with have fighting advancements, they do. Do not be ashamed to run if you feel threatened. Understand, do you? Return to the ship, and do not worry about me, do not!”
“But, Auntie—”
She silenced him with a gesture. “I will be in no danger, I will not, but I am already ashamed to bring you into this, I am. Do not risk yourself for this. Do not! Run if you must! Run!”
The boy hung his head. “Yes, Auntie,” he said, though I, personally, did not feel at all convinced.
Watching from a roof as the boy set out across the boulevard, and Auntie waited in an alley and watched his progress around the corner, I was very pleased with my decision to follow the two Barleans. Smugglers, meeting with their contact for a drop off? A woman, perhaps recently bereaved, with a scandalous past? I may not have movies anymore, but this would do!
The boy vanished through the door that Auntie had pointed out as a tavern, and after many long, tense minutes he came back out, followed by a large — a very large — man. The guy must have been closing in on seven feet tall, and was built like a well-fed bear. He towered over the boy, following him with long, easy strides across the boulevard, and Auntie stiffened when she saw him.
As she was focused on the two men approaching her, I saw another few men stepping out of the tavern. They looked after the two, then all but one took off down a side street. They looked like trouble, and I settled in to see what might happen, staying wrapped in my shadows with only minimal effort.
“Haalemetellee! It is so good to see you, it is!” the large man — Torem, I thought she’d called him — said in heavily accented Barlean. “How many years it has been, how many!”
Faster than she could react he swept the woman up in a hug, her feet leaving the ground and kicking feebly as she gave off a little squeak of surprise. Her voice pretty choked, she answered, “It is good to see you too, Torem, it is!”
“Can I still call you Tellee, can I? Oh, it was good to get your letter, so good. We never saw enough of you and Varen. You made your mark on him in just a few years, you did!”
He put her down, letting her catch her breath, and she gestured to the boy, saying, “You’ve met Semteellaa, you have. My son-in-law to be.”
If I hadn’t been Shifted I might have laughed at how the boy shied back when Torem whirled to face him, his long, braided beard whipping around and almost catching the boy on the cheek. “Marrying little Ganny, are you, boy? Gonna be my nephew, are you?” Torem said in Karakani. “Let me get a look at you!”
“I… marry. Yes,” the boy stuttered back in the same language as the large man grabbed him by the shoulders, turning him around, then lifting his arms and poking him seemingly at random, every movement quick and precise.
“You’ll do, you will, I think.” Torem said with a grin. “Depths take me if I know, so may they! But Tellee would have stabbed you and fed you to the fishes if not, she would have, so I’m sure that you’ll do, hah!”
“Thank you, Uncle?” the boy said uncertainly, looking to Tellee, his Auntie, who nodded with an amused smile.
“You haven’t changed at all, you have not,” she said to Torem. “Do you want to come to the ship, do you, when we have finished this? Ganny would love—”
As I listened to this little reunion take place, I’d been watching half a dozen people converge on them from two directions. Now, as they got close, one of them spoke up, interrupting Tellee. “Torem!” he drawled with mock friendliness, and all three turned to look at him. “I was wondering where you’d gone! Didn’t think I’d find you in a gutter with some Barlean snipe, but here we are. And what a bulging bag she has! Is that the silver you owe me, Torem?”
“Stub,” Torem said, with the kind of tone that most people would save for if they found a dead mouse under the sink or something equally pleasant. “I know the best part of you dribbled down your mother’s leg, but I thought even you’d understand that you’ll never collect on this imagined debt of yours. Go choke!”
This just kept getting better, I thought from my perch. It’s not just a mugging. There’s history here!
“You fucking scrum-cudgler,” ‘Stub’ hissed. “I’m out thirty-five Eagles because of you, and I’m here to collect, with interest. I don’t care if I take it out of you, the boy, or the snipe. Whatever you have on you, and what’s in that bag, that’ll be a start. Boys!”
Three men stepped up from the street, blocking off the entrance to the alley. As they took out small blades and cudgels, Tellee somehow produced something between a bowie knife and a short sword from inside her skirt, while Torem pushed the boy behind himself, putting himself back to back with Tellee and the boy between them. The boy himself had grabbed the sack from Tellee, holding on to it like his life depended on it and looking ready to bite. But he was just a kid, and there was no telling if he had any advancements to help him fight. This looked like a six-on-two, to me. Hardly fair.
The thugs began to close in. They looked almost professional. There was no stupid banter, no overconfident smiles, just the calculating looks of people who intended to hurt someone because that was their job. And with that, I decided, the fun was over.
I was kind of invested in Tellee and the kid. They weren’t mine, but I certainly didn’t want to see them hurt, robbed, or anything else. So I decided to even the odds a little.
The shadow I was in snaked down into the alley, and I went with it. As Stub and the two thugs with him moved in they were suddenly swaddled in near absolute darkness, as I wrapped them in shadow and then, for lack of a better description, squeezed. I made the shadows around them deeper than deep, darker than dark, and it worked wonderfully. My head began to pound, sure, but I was rewarded by shouts of surprise from both inside and outside of my shadows, and then a groan, a moan, and a strangled wail of terror from the three who stood rooted in the darkness I’d called up.
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I could have simply killed them, of course. I’d considered it. They didn’t seem like even half-way decent people. It would have been quicker and more effective than putting some nameless terror in them and, considering what had happened with Jekrie and Barro, using my magic on them might end up with a couple of mind-whammied thugs down the line. I’d prefer to avoid that. I really should be trying to choose who I affected, if at all possible. But I didn’t see much choice if I wanted to help the Barleans, since killing the thugs would reflect badly on my humans. The Justice lady that they’d met with would probably put two and two together pretty quickly if she heard about six people being torn to shreds in an alley. While she couldn’t blame my humans directly for anything I did, she had apparently made it clear that she didn’t want me to be seen in the city, and there was no way to guarantee that she wouldn’t make their lives difficult if I was. Or if fairly obvious evidence of me was, anyway.
So, good old terror it was. “Fear is a tool,” and all that.
I turned from them to see how the Barleans and their friend were faring, and saw that Torem, at least, had not been idle. One thug lay limp in the dirt, and Torem, with a nasty cut on one arm, was holding the remaining two at bay with wide swings of the cudgel he must have taken off him. Tellee, meanwhile, was holding her blade like she knew how to use it. She looked fearful but determined, mostly staring my way but throwing frequent looks Torem’s way. The two remaining thugs both had smaller knives, and if it were two on two the Tellee and Torem would probably win, but she couldn’t very well turn her back on my three and the mysterious darkness that had swallowed them. Torem, meanwhile, was already bleeding badly, and while he was holding the two back they both gave me the impression of fighters. And there were two of them. Sooner or later Torem would tire or slip up, and then he’d get another cut. Maybe that would be the end of it, maybe it would take another two or three rounds, but I didn’t see him winning, not against the two he was facing. So, I shifted my attention.
I withdrew my shadows from Stub and his two wingmen. Stub was on his knees, weeping, and one of the two thugs he had with him turned tail and ran, screaming, the moment her legs started responding. The other was made of sterner stuff, gritting his teeth and reaching down with one hand to haul Stub to his feet while still menacing Tellee with his cudgel. Meanwhile I had moved up and wrapped up one of the two knife-wielders, his knife thumping softly to the ground and his breath catching as I made sure that he’d never again sleep without a lamp lit.
Tellee proved herself to be nothing if not adaptable. She gestured to the man that my shadows had just swallowed, her face twisting in a sneer. Then she said, in Karakani with a clear Barlean accent, “Run away, or I give you another dose. I do this!”
She raised her free hand towards Stub and his remaining thug, and that was it. The thug broke, yanking on Stub’s arm as he turned and ran down the alley. Stub took a stumbling step backwards. “Sea witch,” he moaned. “A fucking sea witch!” Then he, too, turned and fled.
The one thug still kind of fighting looked wide-eyed at his downed partner, the inexplicable darkness where another should be, and finally at Tellee, who turned and regarded him coldly, quirking an eyebrow. I withdrew from the man that I’d taken, sliding back up to the roof, and I could have sworn that Tellee watched me go. The thug I’d just released stood, arms wrapped around himself and shivering as he looked around wildly.
“I’ll take my guys and go, yeah?” The remaining thug said.
I was impressed. I’d expected him to just run.
Tellee looked at him silently, then rolled her eyes. “Fine.”
His eyes locked on Tellee and Torem, the thug sidled over to his conscious companion. “Bord,” he said cooly, “Help me with Roven.”
“W-what?” Bord stuttered, looking at his partner with a complete lack of comprehension.
“Help me with Roven,“ the thug said carefully, kneeling down and putting his arms under the unconscious man’s shoulders, barely taking his eyes of Tellee.
“R-right. Right. Yeah. Right,” Bord said, grabbing Roven’s ankles.
Neither of the thugs turned their backs to Tellee as they first shuffled, then walked, and finally jogged off down the street, taking their limp friend with them.
As soon as the three were alone in the alley Tellee dropped her knife and slumped against a stone wall. There she sat, breathing heavily, until the boy spoke up.
“Auntie!” the boy said, looking around quickly with his eyes full of fear and worry. He put down the bag and grabbed Tellee’s hands, not quite pulling her to her feet. “Get up, Auntie! We can’t stay here!”
She looked at him, and blinked once, slowly. “Yes. Right. You are right, you are,” she said, letting him help her up and collecting her blade, making it disappear into her skirt again. “Torem, we must— Your arm! You’re bleeding, you are!”
“This is nothing, it is not,” the big man answered, though he was grimacing against the pain. “A quarter potion, and I will be fine, I will. But what by the stars and the waves was that? What did you do?”
“Nothing. I did nothing,” Tellee said, searching the alley. “The darkness, we… We felt something in the drains, we did. Something in the dark. I just… I used it. Played along. But I don’t know, I don’t. We should finish our business and go, we should, and pray it is satisfied!”
“I understand. Quick, then, quick! I have the gold. Show me the goods, boy, show me!”
The boy obediently took out a round, simple, wooden box from the bag, opening it towards Torem.
“Beautiful,” Torem said, reaching out and gently touching the… whatever. I couldn’t see. “Just as you said. But Tellee, are you sure you would not have me broker it instead, are you? I can get you more in a month than I can pay myself tonight, I can.”
Tellee shook her head hurriedly. “We need the money now, we do. Take it and sell it, and enjoy the profit with our blessing. Enjoy it!”
“Well, here.” Torem handed over a pouch, though he didn’t seem happy about it. “All I could get, it is, more than we agreed on and do not argue, do not!” He raised his voice over Tellee’s protests, closing her hands around the bag. “You are family, you are. The wife of the man who could have been my brother shall not be short-changed, she shall not!”
There was a little more arguing back and forth until Tellee finally took the money, and at the boulevard they hugged and went their own ways. Torem had to hide whatever it was he’d bought somewhere, but Tellee insisted that he was welcome to their ship if he had time before they left.
Telle and the boy, Sem… something, looked anxiously over their shoulders as they set off in the direction of the harbor, staying in the best lit areas. I followed them, of course. I wanted to see this through, see where they ended up. There was also the fact that they had a small pouch of gold, and I toyed with the idea of stopping them and demanding a reward. But in the end I decided against it. I was not a thug, and my conscience would not allow it. Tellee had sounded serious when she said that they needed the money now, for whatever purpose.
At the harbor I watched them get into a small boat with a single set of oars, manned by one man, and row out to a middling ship anchored in the harbor. I wished them well.
I saw that The Laughing Gull was gone, and I wondered if they’d ever come back to Karakan. I’d probably scared the piss out of the poor crew on the launch, and thinking of it made me… Well, not grin, because I was Shifted and didn’t have a mouth, but the equivalent feeling.
I hung around, watching the harbor for a while. It was much calmer than it had been two days earlier, though whether that had anything to do with me, who could tell? It was still nice. I shifted back for a while just to smell the sea, and sat there, watching the ships and the sea with my regular eyes until I’d had my fill and the sun was well and truly set. It was a dark, cloudy night, and rather than making my way back to the inn the hard way I took to the skies, trusting my Stealth to keep me hidden from watchful eyes. I took a lap around the city, marveling at how it sprawled, miles wide in any direction, then headed for my humans. I’d been good, and I’d kept my promise to Herald. I hadn’t hovered over them. Now I deserved to quiet that nagging little worry at the back of my head and make sure that they were all safe and where they were supposed to be,
I passed over the inn, which was right where I’d left it, thank the Mercies. I hadn’t been entirely sure that no one would try to burn it down the moment the deed was transferred, or however property ownership worked here. I didn’t land on the roof, both because I didn’t want to be spotted and associated with them, and because I didn’t want to accidentally break any of the roof tiles. Instead I set down in the small, overgrown garden that Garal had showed me. Being both secluded and apparently forgotten made it an excellent place for take-offs and landings, and from there I made my way, Shifted, to the inn.
There was a lively celebration going on in there, the sounds of cheer and music — a brassy wind instrument and some kind of plucked strings — spilling out through the open windows, and it both relaxed me and warmed my heart. Nothing bad could have happened in my absence if there was a party going!
Once I set up on the roof it didn’t take long for the cellar door to open. Ardek stepped out, turning around a little unsteadily and looking around the small yard there. It apparently didn’t occur to him to look up, but he was having trouble staying on his feet, so I wasn’t surprised.
I dropped behind him, making my way inside the cellar and making sure that it was clear before shifting back. “Hey, Ardek,” I said, repeating myself when he didn’t immediately react.
He turned around, looking at me with that relaxed contentment on his face that you can get when you’re just the right side of passing out. “Oh, hey, boss. You jus’ come outta nowhere, don’t you?” he said, stumbling to the side and steadying himself against the slanted frame of the door. “Sorry, I’m s’pose to let… oh, yeah, yeah, right!”
He grabbed the door, closing it behind him as he stepped in and nearly tumbled when it fell closed the last bit on its own. He was saved by his grip on the handle and looked at the door angrily for a moment, then, with exaggerated care, put the bar in place and picked up the lantern he’d left on the floor.
“Wann… wanna come upstairs, boss?” he asked. “Lots of guests, bunch of musicians, real good night!”
“I’d love to,” I told him drily as I lay down on the floor, “but I’ll stay here. Send Herald and Mak and anyone else who wants to join down, though.”
“Yes, boss!” he said, and moments later I heard him stumbling up the stairs. He took the lantern with him, leaving me comfortable in the dark.