When Zephirion had gone, Rashaq ordered drinks for the table. “We still have business to discuss, yes?”

Throughout the previous discussion, his hands had not left his women alone, stroking and caressing them gently. Now Amina had to lean forward to pick up her master's drink and hold it to his lips.

Kelsey watched him steadily, her face showing no emotion. “I suppose we might,” she said. “What did you have in mind?”

“You are clearly planning to steal some of the Bey’s valuable property,” Rashaq replied. “You have enough muscle for such a job, I think, but you’ll need more than muscle to succeed.”

“Oh?” Kelsey said, smiling. “How would you go about such a job?”

Rashaq cocked his head as if considering. “Hmm. Bribery and violence, I should think. Someone with knowledge of the guards could tell you who could be bribed to create a hole in their pattern of coverage.”

“If there’s a hole in the net, do we even need violence?” Kelsey asked.

“Of course!” Rashaq exclaimed. “The guards at the door won’t take a bribe. No guard is going to accept a bribe that gets them fired— or executed. You will have to… take care of the actual guards. The bribes just ensure that no one discovers you, until it is too late.”

Kelsey nodded. “The guards will have the keys to the doors and the chains.”

“Most likely. If not, copies can be made, for a price.”

“That would leave us outside of the compound, on the run in a strange city with a bunch of ex-slaves,” Kelsey pointed out. “What then?”

“You’d need a safe house where you can lay low until the hunt dies down. Once things a quiet, you can get them on a boat, perhaps the one you came in on.”

“They may not be inclined to wait around for us,” Kelsey admitted. “We might need to make other arrangements.”

“I’m sure that's achievable, with enough gold to lubricate things,” Rashaq purred. “Shall I start making enquiries?”

“Not yet,” Kelsey said. “I want to focus on our exit route first. The alternative arrangements I have in mind involve getting the slaves out of the city.”

“Out on the island?” Rashaq frowned, considering. “Clever, but I think impractical. There are a few beaches and bays suitable for a quiet pickup, but they are watched.”

“Why don’t you let me worry about all that,” Kelsey said confidently. “What I want to know is if there's a way out of the city that the guards don’t know about.”

“There… is,” Rashaq said slowly. “You’ll have to negotiate passage with them, and I don’t think you’ll like their prices.”

“It can’t hurt to ask,” Kelsey said.

“I suppose so. For one gold, I’ll give you directions and an introduction.”

“Sold!” Kelsey said, putting a coin down on the table. “For now, hold off on that other stuff until I know when we’re ready to do it.”

“They won’t keep those three in there for long,” Rashaq warned.

“I know,” Kesley said. “I’ll get back to you just as quick as I can.”

----------------------------------------

Once back at the inn, Kesley sent Zaphar on his way with some silver and some instructions.

“Nice work there, keeping your mouths shut,” she told her companions.

“I didn’t understand a lot of what was said,” Aris said. “Are we going to have Captain al-Nazari pick us up from offshore? Because it sounded like…”

“His ship is way too big to escape notice,” Kesley agreed. “No, most of what I said in there was a lie.”

“Why? Aren’t we working with him?”

“A guy like that, you’re only working with him until he sees more money in selling you out,” Kelsey explained. “Right now, he thinks he can still get money off us, but once the job is done…”

“We’ll leave and he won’t see us again?” Aris asked, confused.

“No, that's when he turns us in for the reward,” Kesley corrected.

“So we want him to know as little as possible about what we’re actually doing,” Anton finished. “The less he knows, the less he can tell the authorities.”

“Couldn’t you just keep him quiet with a deal?”

“He’d never accept it, and he’d know something was up if I tried,” Kelsey said sourly. “And he’d probably find a way to wiggle out of it. Now get some sleep you two, it’s a big day tomorrow!”

----------------------------------------

“I think this building should be condemned,” Kelsey spoke with a flat even tone. “There's serious metal fatigue in all the load-bearing members, the wiring is substandard, it's completely inadequate for our power needs, and the neighbourhood is like a demilitarized zone.”

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“It’s free, though,” Anton said. Aris started to speak up, no doubt about to ask what Kelsey was talking about, but Anton touched her on the arm and shook his head. It wasn’t worth it.

“Oh, in that case, we’ll take it!” Kelsey said. To whom, Anton wasn’t sure. The reason it was free was because there wasn’t anyone to sell it to them.

The kids had scouted the place through a narrow second-story window, but Kelsey had just pulled the boards off the door.

“If someone comes to ask us what we’re doing, or the guards come and arrest us for breaking in, then it’s not the place we’re looking for,” she’d said. Anton had looked around, once everyone had gone inside, and the street had stayed deserted. If anyone was watching them, they were staying hidden.

“We’re going to have people staying here?” Aris asked, coughing a little at the dust that was being raised.

“Just for a little while,” Kesley said. “It needs cleaning but it seems basically sound. You did good, kids!” she called out to the second story where the kids were stomping around.

“Pay ‘em and then get 'em out of here,” she said to Anton.

Anton nodded. Officially, he was the one who had made the deal with them. He sent them on their way with a few extra coppers. Once they were gone, Kelsey slammed the door closed.

Then she summoned a grinning skeleton. This one had a leather satchel, jammed full of strange tools, hanging off its shoulders.

“Get to work securing that door,” Kelsey said. The skeleton saluted and went to work.

“We’ll need some bedding and supplies, but the curly boys are seeing to that,” Kelsey said absently.

“You haven’t called them that where they can hear, have you?” Anton asked. Kelsey grinned but kept her eyes on her skeleton.

“No,” she said. “I wouldn’t want them to get all catty.”

Anton sighed. “Where did you pick that up from?”

“It’s a fairly easy jump to make,” Kelsey said, raising her eyebrows. “They call you monkeys, you call them cats.”

“I don’t, I was raised better,” Anton said. “And they called you a monkey.”

“I can hardly blame them for a case of mistaken identity. I look human, after all. I’m taking offence on your behalf, though.”

“Just save it,” Anton said. “I’m pretty sure Captain al-Nazari is essential to your plans. I can ignore a bit of name-calling without stooping to his level.”

“Ha! That’s what you forget! As a dungeon, my natural level starts underground.”

Faster than Anton would have thought possible, the skeleton was done with the door. With a bow and a flourish, he presented two keys to Kelsey.

“Nice work, Handy-bone,” she said, dismissing the monster. She tried the key in the newly installed mechanism. With a loud clunk, the bolt slid into place. Grinning, she twisted it again, and the bolt slid free with a slightly different sound.

“Let's go,” she said. “We’ve got at least one more appointment today.”

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“This,” Kelsey said, waving a piece of paper in front of the hole in the door, is either an introduction from Rashaq Nazari or an instruction from him for you to kill us. I don’t know which, I can’t read your language yet.”

“We don’t work for Nazari,” the man behind the door growled.

“Whew! That makes me feel a lot better about handing it over, let me tell you,” Kelsey told him.

It took a moment for the man to think that one through, and then he cursed ruefully. “Just give it here then.”

Kelsey pushed the paper through the hole. There was a pause before the man spoke again. “You’re Kelsey?”

“Yep!”

“Whadda you want?”

“You want me to talk business on the street?”

There was another pause. “No,” the man finally admitted. “You’d better come in.”

“Everyone is so friendly around here,” Kelsey noted as the door opened. “Do you think they’ll serve us lunch?”

“I doubt it,” Anton said wryly. Judging from the glare that the human behind the door gave her, he was right.

Behind the door was a small room with chairs, a table, and two humans. Neither of them looked particularly rich. Or clean.

“So Nazari told you about us,” one of the men said.

“That he did. He told us that you have a way past the wall. Does it get much use? I wouldn’t have thought there’d be much call for smugglers if the bays are being watched.”

The two men looked at each other. “We do all right,” one of them said.

“Not like it used to be, though,” the other admitted.

“Well, I want to use it, and not just the once,” Kelsey said. “I’m prepared to pay, of course.”

The two men looked the group over greedily. Smugglers, Anton thought, probably had a way to identify the value of gear.

“One silver per person that goes through. One way,” one of them said.

Kelsey shrugged. “Anton?”

“One silver for all three of us,” Anton countered. Kelsey shot him a surprised glance, but he didn’t want these two taking advantage of them.

“Done,” was the quick response. Anton winced. It sounded like he’d overpaid.

Kelsey put a silver coin on the table. “There you go, now let’s get moving.”

The two men looked at each other. One of them shrugged. “This way, he said.”

He led them into a room further back. Pushing aside a ratty cabinet revealed a hole in the floor.

Kelsey pulled out her torch. To the two smugglers’ consternation, she shone the light down the hole.

“Nice work,” she complimented them. Disdaining any attempt at climbing, she stepped off and let herself fall.

Stepping up to the hole, Anton looked down. There was a wooden ladder affixed to the side of the hole, and a pool of light, about twelve feet down, from Kelsey’s torch, helpfully pointed back to illuminate the entrance.

“Come on in, the waters fine!” she called back.

Anton shrugged and started climbing down. Aris was next, and one of the smugglers followed after.

“This way?” Kelsey asked facetiously. There was only one way to go. She led the way, the tunnel was too narrow to pass easily.

“Why did you make a tunnel under the wall?” Aris asked the smuggler. “It seems like a lot of work for not much reward.”

The man shrugged and didn’t answer. From the front of the line, Kelsey called back.

“Whenever there's a wall, there’s always a secret way around it. That’s just human nature.”

“I don’t think that’s true…” Aris protested.

“There was one in Kirido, wasn’t there?”

“You mean your tunnel?”

“Kelsey just used the one that was there already,” Anton told her. “It was a secret tunnel from the castle, to the town and to a cave in the cliffs.”

“Suliel’s dad knew about it, but he didn’t write anything down about it,” Kelsey said. “Who made it might stay a mystery.”

“No talking when we’re under the wall,” the smuggler said. They travelled the rest of the way in silence.

After a longer journey than Anton had expected, they emerged into a cave.

“I was wondering why you were willing to do this during the day,” Kelsey said. “I’m impressed.”

“Just make sure there’s no traffic on the road when you come out, and you’ll be fine,” the smuggler muttered. “They can’t see you from the wall.”

“Nice. How do we get back? Just come back through the tunnel and knock on your floor to let us back in?”

“It takes one of us to open the ends,” the man said, glowering at her suspiciously. “I’ll wait here for you to come back.”

“Well, we won’t be back until sunset,” Kelsey said, “So feel free to head back inside and wait in comfort.”

She poked her head outside of the cave and then strode out purposefully. Anton and Aris followed in her wake

“Bye, Mr Smuggler,” Aris said as she left.