67. Who put me into a flour sack?

I did not scream. That didn’t mean I had much hope that they would let me live. I could not see their faces behind their scarves and folded hoods, but something told me that these fellows knew me, and were expressly after me. Could it have been the Albino who had seen me talking to Lowen Frashluc and had come to enforce his threat? No, it looked more like the… I gasped:

“Braggart?”

The one who threatened me with the knife confirmed:

“Very round. And, you, you’re the damned Black Dagger mage who sabotaged our explosive.”

I did not deny it. They disarmed me, took away my bread and cheese, and searched my pockets. I was desperately looking for Little Wolf, but they had dragged me into the alley, and my captors and the shadows of the night prevented me from seeing. Well, it was better that nobody noticed the little one…

They pushed me along an uneven path between the blind wall of a house and the rocky face of the mountain. We did not get out of there. That afternoon, I had used up quite a bit of my energy stem to repair Manras’ head; nevertheless, I accumulated mortic energy, gathered it with all my might… but blasthell, what was the point? I would only have confirmed that I was a damned mage, I would have stunned one, alarmed the others, and they would have cut my throat without further ado. Because, even though I had told Korther that I didn’t know if I could kill with a mortic discharge, well… deep down, I was almost certain that I couldn’t. Warok had died of an overdose, not because of my shock.

They pushed me against the wall, and the one with the knife—probably Braggart—immediately grabbed me again.

“We know where Swift gets his mysterious wealth from,” he whispered, blowing his breath in my face. “Apparently, you’ve been given a nice sum of money. If you want to live, you’ll have to tell us where you’re hiding the loot.”

He stepped back and kneed me in the stomach. I bent over and let out a muffled scream.

“Silence,” he ordered.

I gritted my teeth. Okay, so this was all about the money. About stealing it from the gang and getting back at us maybe, but also just about the money. The problem was, if I told them the truth, they could just pop me off afterwards. One of his companions pulled me up, and I stammered:

“Swift has it. To get it, you’ll have to…”

I received a slap. I spat out a tooth. A milk tooth, fortunately. One of the few I had left. Then the Braggart said:

“Take off his boots.”

One of them took them off me, shook them, and gave a little laugh.

“Hey! Aren’t those goldies?”

There were six in total. The others were in my cap. They found them, of course, and they slashed my cap to pieces. And, perhaps hoping to get more, they took off my coat and slashed it too. Finding no more siatos, the Braggart turned his attention to me.

“Well, then, where’s the rest? And no tricks,” he warned me.

And with one stroke of his knife, he tore off all my necklaces. This tied my throat in grief more than seeing my coat in tatters, and I was unable to answer.

“Decorate him,” the Braggart said then.

I didn’t know what he meant until one of them started to give me shallow cuts on the arms. Braggart began to whistle softly.

“Where is it, brat, where is it,” he reminded me with a calmness that made me shudder.

Finally, I recovered my voice and moaned:

“I’ll say it, I’ll say it, but don’t pop me off! I didn’t kill anyone from your clan. It… hurts,” I sobbed.

Braggart pushed the dagger aside and grabbed me by the chin to pull it up. His hand was gloved. How I would have loved to bite it with all my teeth. How I would have loved to stab that greedy assassin who had tried to lynch Swift last moon… His fingers clutched my cheeks as he whispered:

“I won’t kill you if you tell me where the treasure is and you quit Swift’s gang.”

I swallowed, closed my eyes, opened them again, and whispered:

“It’s in the Crypt.”

There was a brief silence.

“What crypt?” the Braggart replied.

“The Crypt,” I repeated.

There was another silence, followed by an incredulous gasp.

“The forest? You mean you went all the way to the Crypt to hide the money? Good mother. How much is there?” he questioned.

I saw no reason to lie to him.

“Twenty whitewheels.”

Braggart gave a grunt.

“That little?”

This time it was I who gasped in disbelief.

“What do you mean, that little? That’s four hundred gol—”

My head hit the stone. Oh dear. Braggart whistled:

“I can do my own calculations, you dimwit. The Crypt is huge. Where did you put the money? Around the edge?”

I shook my head.

“Further,” I lied. “I’m not afraid of the woods. You’ll never find it.”

“Well, natural,” the Braggart laughed. “Bekel. Go ahead, tame him.”

I was alarmed. What did he mean, tame me? I understood only when a guy held a rag to my nose. Should I breathe or not breathe? In the end, natural, I had to breathe. My eyes, my throat, my lungs burned. Panicked, I protested:

“You said you weren’t going to kill me.”

“And I didn’t kill you, you dimwit,” the Braggart replied.

As a terrible dizziness came over me, I collapsed. Before plunging into unconsciousness, I heard him mockingly add a:

“Not yet.”

* * *

I awoke to a metallic bong like that of the mine and felt as if I had suddenly popped my head out of the vampiric foam, drowsy and drained of energy. Little Wolf was asleep on top of me, there were sounds of voices, and my head was spinning. Dizzy, woozy, I sat up, gently pushing the little one, and tried to find my bearings.

I found myself in a room full of desks and people walking by, looking busy. Flies. They were flies!

I blinked, stunned. I couldn’t remember how I got here. I couldn’t remember anything. No, I did, I thought. I remembered buying an orange from Little Wolf, and he didn’t have it anymore. But that didn’t matter. Not after we had landed in a police station.

The most incredible thing was that I wasn’t behind bars: they had just left me lying there by a wall, as if they didn’t know what to do with me.

I was so disconcerted that, to clear my mind, I tried to wake up Little Wolf’s morjas. He didn’t need it anymore, normally, because with the morjas he sucked from the Master and his collar, he had no shortage of awake morjas, but… Suddenly, I frowned and looked down for my… necklaces! They were not there. Had the flies stolen them from me? I could not remember. My mind was not working properly. I decided not to get upset, I calmed myself and looked up at the people in uniform. They passed by without seeing me, some just glanced at me. No one was paying any attention to me. Well, maybe I could just leave, then.

I took the sleeping Little Wolf and took a few steps towards the open door. I was barefoot. I used to have boots on. Where were my boots? And my coat, I remembered. I had a coat too. But now I had bandages on my arms. Why had I been bandaged? There was blood on the shirts. I must have fallen somewhere or…

The more I tried to remember, the more I realized that my efforts were useless, and I stopped trying. Then I noticed two flies watching me. I kept going, but with the gait of a cautious crab who is not sure how far he is allowed to move.

Then one of the flies, a redheaded caitian, came up and blocked my way.

“Kid, I’d like to ask you some questions. If you don’t mind,” he said, pointing to a chair.

Dazed as I was, I did not react immediately, and he gently pushed me to the seat. I sat down without letting go of Little Wolf, and the fly sat on the edge of the desk that was right in front of me. He looked at me with a friendly face.

“We got you out of a jam, boy. Some scoundrels were carrying you in a flour sack. I don’t know what they wanted to do with you, but nothing good, I’m afraid. Unfortunately, they got away before we could get our hands on them.”

He paused. I was trying to remember… A flour sack? I couldn’t remember ever being put in a flour sack. The fly resumed:

“Those who attacked you, do you know who they were? Did you talk to them?”

I frowned and shook my head.

“You haven’t spoken with them?”

I shrugged and looked down at Little Wolf. My head was heavy as a rock… The fly huffed.

“You haven’t become as mute as the little boy, by any chance?”

I swallowed and finally muttered a:

“No, sir.”

“Good, then,” the caitian rejoiced. “So, tell me, what happened?”

I blinked. Why was that fly asking me precisely what I didn’t know?

“I don’t know, sir, I don’t know what happened,” I replied.

I knew that in principle I should have been tense and afraid of being questioned by a fly. However, curiously, I felt relaxed. Perhaps because I was not being accused of anything? Unless it was because this fly had a really nice face. Or maybe it was because I had been hit on the head and had become a dimwit. “Dimwit”, I repeated to myself, startled. Someone had called me that not long ago, hadn’t they? And the blow on the head, yes, that sounded familiar too… Manras had received a blow on the head when he was acting like an isturbag.

“So, you tell me you don’t know who attacked you,” the red-haired caitian concluded.

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I shook my head again and asked:

“Can I go now?”

The fly’s pout did not inspire me with confidence, and this time, I tensed a little. I sighed.

“You busted me?”

“Not that I know of. Should I?” the fly replied.

I frowned, and again I shook my head, as if to say, “No, officer, I’m as innocent as a newborn baby”. The caitian exhaled, looking tired.

“You don’t recognize me, but I know who you are, kid. You’re Kakz’s little brother. Look, my shift ends in half an hour, and after that, you’re coming with me. In the meantime, you stay here and try to remember those guys who attacked you. If you know who they are, there’s no point in covering for them.”

With a bewildered expression, I looked at the fly as he walked away. But who the blasthell was that guy? It was true that, now that he said it, his face looked familiar. But I could not put my finger on it. I felt so lost!

Fortunately, I had Little Wolf. It’s not that the little one helped me much to find my bearings, but at least with him I wasn’t alone. Comforted by this thought, I fell asleep there, sitting on the chair, overcome by a deep torpor.

When I woke up again, I knew at once that I was no longer at the police station. What a damn habit people had of shuffling me from place to place. I yawned and… I met Dakis’ big green eyes. Holy…! I jerked upright, startled, and was about to back away when I remembered that I had decided that the hellhound was a friend. I swallowed and muttered:

“Ayo.”

The hellhound smiled at me. I looked up at the living room, the sofas and the table loaded with instruments. There were people there. Yabir and Shokinori, as well as the Blue One, the Blonde One, the Alchemist, Kakzail, the giant with the tattoos, and… the redheaded caitian. Of course. That fly was one of my older brother’s two fellow gladiators.

Eight people in all. That was a lot of people, but I could not find the one I was looking for. I stood up, looked around the room, and without even listening to a word of the adults’ conversation, I began to fidget, looking under a cupboard, under a sofa, and throughout my explorations, Dakis followed me curiously. Finally, perhaps seeing my growing concern, Kakzail asked me with a snort:

“What’s up with you now?”

I turned to my brother in dismay.

“Little Wolf,” I stammered. “Where is he?”

“Who?” Kakzail inquired, puzzled.

Then I looked at him, horrified.

“Little Wolf!” I repeated, hitting the back of the sofa. “You took Little Wolf from me! You abandoned him!”

I couldn’t believe it. They had taken Little Wolf from me! Panic paralysed me. It was the redheaded caitian who intervened:

“I think he’s talking about the kid who came after, when those scoundrels abandoned him and ran off. Don’t worry, kid. Nobody abandoned your little friend. He’s gonna be put in an orphanage, and they’re gonna look for his family if he has one. There’s no reason to panic,” he assured.

That there was no reason to panic? Hell, of course there was! I rushed to the door. It was not Dakis who prevented me from reaching it, but Kakzail. My brother took me by the arm and hissed:

“You better not attack me with your dark magic shock.”

I widened my eyes and obeyed him: I did not send him any shock. But I struggled like hell. I used several techniques taught to me by my cousin and others taught to me by my companions and other Cats. I soon found myself with my wrists tied behind my back.

“At least, there’s no need to ask him if he feels well,” the alchemist chuckled from a sofa, “What would it be like if he drank an energy potion!”

“Better not to try,” Yabir breathed out.

I looked at both of them, my eyebrows furrowed. Wait a second… how did the hobbits know about the alchemist? Kakzail grabbed me by the neck with one hand and said:

“Will you be quiet?”

I nodded. It’s not like I had a choice. The bearded man let go of me and added harshly:

“Think, if Dalto hadn’t been there last night to save you, by now you’d probably be dead.”

I frowned and glanced at the red-haired caitian. Then I noticed the light coming in through the windows. It was daylight. So I had been sleeping all night. And who knew where Little Wolf was now!

I looked defiantly at my brother. However, as I met his severe expression, I remembered the mortic shock and the bad trick Le Bor had played on him half a moon earlier, and I thought it prudent to change my attitude. And as I was in no mood to say, “Ayo, brother, good to see you!”, much less to say, “I am sorry”, I fell silent and set about examining the bandages on my arms. Some of them had come off while I was struggling, and when I saw the cuts, I was troubled. I knew who had done it, didn’t I? It wasn’t the flies. Those insulted you, beat you up, put you behind bars, but they didn’t decorate you. They didn’t decorate you, I repeated to myself, dazed. A feeling of anguish came over me. “Decorate him”, one had said. And they had decorated me with the knife. Yes, but who? I didn’t know, and that was what disturbed me the most.

“Hey… Are you feeling alright?” Kakzail asked as he watched me, his brow furrowed.

The others were talking, but their voices came to my ears like disjointed syllables. I stretched, calmed myself, and nodded silently. Kakzail huffed at my lack of communication, and without a word, he moved away into the room. I glanced at the door, sighed, and as I looked around at the people there, I saw the Blue One’s eyes sparkling. I tensed, and realizing that my brother wanted something from me before he set me free, I walked around the sofas while Dessari Wayam talked about some wonderful plant he had bought years ago in the Underground. Kakzail had gone to pour himself a glass of wine. I stopped beside him and bit my lip, nervous. I didn’t know what to say to him. I opened my mouth several times, closed it again, bit my tongue, scratched my head furiously…

“Mr. Malaxalra,” Yabir said suddenly, rising to his feet. “Will you allow me to ask your younger brother a question?”

He was addressing Kakzail. My older brother was obviously not expecting such a strange request.

“Uh… naturally. Of course,” he replied. “He’s all yours.”

The Undergrounder smiled, bowed slightly, and turned to me.

“Good morning, Draen. Look, the day before yesterday you showed me a blue stone you were wearing, and at the time, I was so focused on the White Opal that I didn’t take the time to think about it, but… if you don’t mind, could I see it again?”

The request drew a pout of surprise from me. I shook my head, and seeing that Yabir was looking disappointed, I explained:

“I don’t have it anymore, that’s why.” And, uncomfortably, I switched to Caeldric to ask him in a hesitant voice, “Say, you didn’t tell them about the robbery, did you?”

Yabir was speechless. From his chair, Shokinori laughed quietly and said in Caeldric:

“Do you know, my boy, that Mr. Wayam and the Misses Zoria and Zalen can speak Caeldric as well as you?”

This killed me. I did not know where to put myself. So I stood still, watching the reaction of the alchemist and the twins. The former seemed to find the situation amusing. The Blonde One coughed softly. The Blue One remained unmoved.

“So you’re telling me,” Yabir resumed in Drionsan, “you don’t have it anymore. Did you sell it, perhaps?”

I swallowed and said:

“No. I lost it last night. I had it yesterday, I’m sure of it. But, when I woke up at the police station, goodbye necklaces. The five of them.”

Just thinking about it made my mood darken. Yabir’s eyebrows were furrowed.

“Did the people who attacked you steal them?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted.

Yabir rubbed his neck thoughtfully.

“Where did you get it from?”

“The blue stone?” I asked, and as he nodded, I was about to reply: “Little Wolf”. But for some reason I held back. I looked at the hobbit, my eyes crinkled, and replied, “And what does it matter where I got it from?”

Kakzail clicked his tongue.

“Ashig, you don’t talk to people in that tone.”

I rolled my eyes, unable to believe that he was giving me a lesson in education, for I was the most civilized gwak on the Rock after the Priest, according to this one. However, I corrected myself and opted to lie:

“I found it in a tree.”

Shokinori laughed.

“In a tree?” Yabir repeated in disbelief.

I nodded, smiling, and, inspired, I said:

“A very big tree. It had feathers on it, instead of flowers, and they were falling off, because I found it in autumn, so I picked one up before it got damaged, you know? And I said to it: ‘Princess, my treasure, pretty flower of my liiife, I came here to help you! ’ So I sang to her. Or so I sung, as Lin says. And she turned into a gem. But last night!” I cried, “those trolls took her from me, and they took my bones too. But don’t worry, because I’ll crush their heads when I hold them in my dragon claws!”

As soon as I fell silent, I realized that by listening to the stories of Breaky-Hand in Wool Square, the storyteller’s verve had taken hold of me. And, to tell the truth, I had done quite well, except that… perhaps it was not the most appropriate time. That sort of thing was done with the comrades, not the adults. So, under my brother’s stunned gaze, I hastened to add:

“Actually, I found it on the ground. In a street.”

And, agitated, I struck my forehead, turned to the little table where the bottle of wine with which Kakzail had helped himself lay, and took the bottle, saying:

“I can, right?”

I was about to drink straight from the bottle, but Kakzail snatched it out of my hand and growled:

“No, you can’t, you scamp. You’re unbelievable! In the end, Father and Mother may be right. The youth center is a great idea. It’s better that they send you there than that you end up being stabbed in the Labyrinth or sentenced to hard labor.”

I looked at him, appalled, hurt, and confused. A youth center? And what was that? After a silence, Yabir cleared his throat politely.

“One last question, if it’s not too much to ask. Why did you decide to call yourself Hilemplert when you didn’t yet know you were a Malaxalra?”

I was still processing the story about the youth center my family wanted to send me to, and I answered with a dark pout:

“I dunno. They wanted a name, so I gave them one.”

“But why Hilemplert?” the Baïra insisted.

I shook my head in confusion.

“I dunno.”

Yabir’s intense gaze made me nervous. And the Blue One even more so. And you could tell that Kakzail was in over his head with me, and what was worse, angry with me. Spirits, how I wanted to get out of here! I wanted to leave. I wanted to go and find Little Wolf. I wanted to return with my companions. I almost burst out and shouted at them: I want to go! But Kakzail would not have listened to me. So I had an idea.

“Why are you looking for the gem?” I said, and without giving Yabir time to answer, I added, “I give it to you. We’ll get my necklaces with the Orb. And if we find my bones, I’ll give you the gem. I swear it. It’s all yours. But you must take me with you.”

Yabir blinked.

“Take you with us? To Yadibia?”

I laughed, regaining my good humor.

“No, not to Yadibia. To search for the necklaces. You have the Orb, I know the ways. Shall we go?”

“No way,” Kakzail hissed.

My enthusiasm waned, and I sighed in annoyance. I had just had a great idea—not so much to find my bone necklace as to find Little Wolf’s—and my brother had just ruined it. He was a fly, of course! Yabir gave me an apologetic pout. Getting up from one of the sofas, Zoria, the Blue One, intervened:

“The idea is not bad, Kakz. Yabir wants to find that gem and I think he’s quite willing to hire us as mercenaries to get it, right?” The young hobbit’s face reflected surprise, but he nodded vigorously, looking as if to say, well, why not? Zoria added with satisfaction, “It will benefit everyone. Besides, this way we’ll manage to find those bandits who attacked your brother.”

Kakzail looked at her in disbelief.

“Are you serious? But… you were the one who asked me to quit my job because there was too much risk for what I was being paid. And now you want me to go and beat the shit out of this scum?”

The Blue woman smiled thinly.

“You’re dying for it. And Yabir will pay better, won’t he?”

The young hobbit opened his mouth, glanced apologetically at a dark-faced Shokinori, and assured:

“Of course! It will be a pleasure to hire you all to find this gem. Including the boy. I think he knows more about this town than all of us combined,” he opined.

This filled me with pride. Kakzail pouted, huffed, turned to the tattooed northern man and the caitian and asked:

“Sarpas, Dalto… what do you think, friends? It’s just madness, isn’t it?”

The giant smiled and nodded.

“About the same madness, I think, as running away from Tassia, my friend. Capturing child thieves is a very good thing. I like the idea,” he admitted in his horrible northern accent.

The redheaded caitian smiled in turn and assured:

“If you’d seen the way those freaks threw your brother into that flour sack, you wouldn’t hesitate for a second, Kakz. You know you can count on us.”

Kakzail rolled his eyes, smiled, finally convinced, and facing my wide eyes, put his hands on his hips and said fiercely:

“Let’s go kick the shit out of these scoundrels.”

“Let’s go!” his two companions asserted enthusiastically.

I stared at the three gladiators in amazement and fully understood what the decision to go get the gem entailed. Was I dreaming or were the gladiators and the twins really going to beat…? “Beat who?” I thought, confused. Who the blasthell had attacked me the night before?

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t remember. Maybe I was starting to have memory lapses like my nakrus master and… Something in Yabir’s hands caught my attention and scattered my thoughts. It was the Purple Orb. Yabir had activated it and was searching for a powerful source of morjas. I approached, hopeful.

“Can you find it?”

The hobbit frowned in concentration.

“I don’t know. I think I have something not too far away.”

“Then let’s go!” I urged them, overexcited. “Let’s go!”

Kakzail held me back by the arm.

“Not so fast, Ashig. First you’re going to listen to me. If you part with any of us, if you go back with that gang of yours, you’ll regret it. You’ll regret it, and a lot. The ‘sorry’ and tears won’t work anymore. If you act like a fool this time, I’ll stop treating you like a brother and start treating you like a treacherous little thief. If you walk away, goodbye family. Got it?”

I stood looking at him in awe. His voice was so serious! I did not hesitate, however, for there was now only one possible answer, so I said:

“It runs.”

Kakzail continued to scrutinize me as if looking for a trace of mischief in my face. Perhaps he found it, or perhaps he did not; in any case, he sighed and said:

“Well! I propose, my queens, that you begin searching for the location of that bone necklace with our guests, and in the meantime, the rest of us get ready and take care of your foster father. Tonight, if you haven’t found it, we’ll meet in Moon Square and switch roles.”

The alchemist huffed.

“Feh, take care of me! You young people are always taking care of me. You know what? I’m going to go to Yadibia with these good Baïras to see if you can leave me in peace for a while…”

“Leave you in peace? In your dreams!” the Blonde One exclaimed in a mocking tone. “You’re not going to get rid of your two bodyguards like that. That’s the downside of being Hareka’s top alchemist.”

As everyone began to talk in a haphazard fashion, some talking about weapons, some about bones, and some about potions, I took advantage of Kakzail’s inattention to take a swig from the wine bottle. Just one, to give me courage, to warm me up, and to remember. I sat down on the floor, and seeing that Dakis had come to lie beside me, I stroked him and whispered to myself in Caeldric:

“Remember, remember. Remember, Survivor.”

But as I racked my brains, my mind kept returning to Kakzail’s threat. He had asked me to get away from my companions, and I had said “it runs”? How could I have told him “it runs”? How could I have intended to keep such a ridiculous promise? But if I didn’t keep it, then I would be without family. Kakzail would reject me for being a traitor, my parents would repudiate me for being a thief, a rogue, an irresponsible person, a dimwit… Dimwit, dimwit, I thought suddenly. I opened my eyes wide and massaged my head, suddenly feeling a strange pain.

“I can do my own calculations, you dimwit.” I muttered. “The Crypt is huge. The Crypt is huge,” I repeated.

That’s what the one with the knife had said. The Crypt is huge. And he didn’t know where my treasure was hidden. But who was he? I took a deep breath. And then I remembered.