I emerged from the Grotto some few minutes later to find Williamson waiting for me. “So she didn’t kill you.”

“No. Try not to sound too disappointed.”

“Did you get what you wanted?”

“Kind of.”

He eyed me curiously, but didn’t inquire further.

“Well, thanks for showing me the Grotto. I’ll let you get to it.”

“Oh no,” he said, wrapping his bony fingers tightly around my arm. “You made a promise.”

“What promise?”

“What promise?” he hissed. “A promise to do me a favor, that’s what promise.”

“Well, yeah. But I didn’t say I was just going to hang around until you thought of one. I’ve got shit to do.”

He yelped as the electric shock from the scepter passed through me to him. “What the hell was that?”

I grinned. “I don’t know. Static?”

He looked more suspicious than ever.

“Well, I’m going to hit the road. You think of something, look me up.”

“I’ve already thought of something,” he said.

It was my turn to frown. “You have?”

He nodded vigorously. “You’re getting out of here, aren’t you? You’ve got a way back to the Realm.”

“What?” I tried to laugh the comment off. “Of course not. What would even give you that idea?”

He tapped his nose knowingly. “Something you said. ‘As long as I live here.’ Which means, you weren’t thinking of living here forever. That and…” He flashed the same scary grin. “I eavesdropped on you and the lady.”

“You what?” I demanded. “Eavesdropped on a man’s private prayers? On a goddess?”

He snorted contemptuously. “You – a miserable thief – are going to get bent out of shape at a little eavesdropping?”

“I’m a damned good thief,” I corrected, oblivious to the shock my language earned me.

“You’re a sneak,” he said. “All this time, promising to do me a favor, and you’re planning on getting out? Thought you’d slip one over on me. Well, I ain’t so easy to double cross. Not me. You’re getting out? Well, bully for you. Only I’m coming with you. Oh yes. Don’t bother to argue. You made a promise.”

“Within reason, I said. Sneaking you across the border isn’t within reason.”

He crossed his bony arms. “That’s my favor. It’s all I’m asking. And don’t think you’ll be able to weasel your way out of it. You gave your word, and by Salvidora’s toes, I mean to keep you to it.”

<<<<>>>>

* Help Williamson escape the Realm of the Dead

* Quest giver: Williamson, test subject and wayward soul

* <<<<>>>>

An hour later, I stumbled into Garrett’s hovel and threw myself into the nearest chair. He was there, and had a million questions for me. I did my best to answer them, despite the exhaustion wracking my body and brain.

Finally, when I’d explained everything that had happened since we parted company, I asked, “What about you?”

He held up a yellowed piece of paper. “I found a map to the grotto. But, I guess we won’t be needing that.”

“No,” I said. “We won’t. The curse is gone.”

“As long as you don’t double-cross Salvidora, anyway.”

I nodded miserably. I had no intention of crossing her. The woman had a fierce temper. Fierce, and vengeful. No one knew that better than me.

“So what exactly do you have to do again?”

<<<<>>>>

* Get the override code from King Leopold

* Find King Leopold

* Convince him to give you the override code

* Give the code to Salvidora

* Quest giver: Salvidora, minor goddess

<<<<>>>>

“Override,” Garrett mused. “A peculiar term, that.”

“Not really. It’s a security code.”

“You mean, some manner of written language? Like a secret code?”

“Kind of, but – no, not exactly. It’s – well, like a byword or a password. But instead of saying the word to gain admittance to somewhere, you enter this string of characters into the control box.”

“Control box? What’s that?”

“I’m not exactly sure,” I admitted. “Salvidora explained it, but, to be honest, it sounded kind of like a computer from my world. Which you guys don’t have here. So I have no idea what it is. All I know is, they fused it with the Sorcerer’s magic, and that’s how they got control of this place.”

“A very strange world, yours.”

“Like this is any better?” I asked with a snort.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“No,” he admitted. “But this isn’t normal.”

“No. And speaking of not normal…we’ve got a problem. Williamson.”

“The old man who showed you the grotto?”

“Yeah. He’s called in his favor.”

I explained this too, and Garrett groaned. “You told him no, I hope.”

“I did. But he wasn’t taking no for an answer.”

“He asked for a reasonable favor. Rising from the dead is not exactly reasonable.”

“That’s what I told him.”

“You’re not thinking of doing it?”

I shrugged. “I mean, what would it hurt, really? One more old guy wandering the streets isn’t going to throw the universe out of balance.”

Garrett positively sputtered at me. “Are you out of your mind? How do you think we’re going to get not one, not two, but three people through the gates without drawing attention?”

Yawning into the back of my hand, I said, “We’ll think of something. But not tonight. Tonight, I need to sleep.”

“What about the cloak?”

“It’ll have to wait until tomorrow. I’m too tired now.”

“Oh no. I’m not staying around this place any longer than I have to. You can catch a few winks now. It’ll be better to start later anyway, once most of the city has gone to sleep. But we’re not putting this off another day.”

Despite my protests, Garrett would not be dissuaded. I’d be fine with a few hours of sleep, he said. And we’d both be that much better off out of the Realm of the Dead.

I was still arguing with him when I drifted off to sleep, and once or twice in my dreams, the dispute carried on. So I slept with a sense of foreboding, ever aware of the looming threat of being woken at any moment.

And true to his word, Garrett did rouse me in the deepest dark of the night. “Time to go. Come on. Move.”

The city was bathed in the Realm of the Dead’s signature gray-black, and no one seemed to be stirring as we emerged. No one except the pair of us, him light on his feet and eager, and me yawning and grumbling.

We retraced our steps to the Hall of Holy Relics, and up the leaning hovel.

“Quietly,” Garrett warned as he crouched on the rooftop. “There’ll be people sleeping inside.”

Then, running on the balls of his feet, he crossed the roof and leaped to the ledge across the way.

I cast a glance heavenward. Remember: no more curse, I reminded Salvidora. Not that she’d be able to hear me. Not until I got Leopold’s code.

How on God’s green Earth – or this hellish gray realm, for that matter – I was supposed to track a king, compel him to tell me his secrets, and get away alive again, I had no idea.

But that would be a problem for once we crossed into the Sector of the Ascended, where, doubtlessly, the king luxuriated in all the splendor he’d arranged for himself.

For right now, I needed to get this stupid cloak so we could cross over at all, never mind track the ruler of the realm and wrestle information from his clutches.

So, brushing aside future problems, I concentrated on present problems: crossing the roof and getting into the Hall without dying, or severely hurting myself. I drew a deep breath and darted across the roof. Not quite as lightly on my feet as Garrett, but I got the job done anyway, building up enough momentum for the final step.

The leap. Propelling myself forward with every bit of strength I had, I … completely overdid it.

Instead of an easy, graceful landing, I slammed chest first into the concrete building. The force clean knocked the wind out of me, and I staggered backwards.

“Oh for Odin’s sake,” Garrett muttered beside me, grabbing my cloak before I fell backwards and hoisting me, none too gently, back onto my feet. “What in all that’s holy was that?”

I shook myself, and tried to ignore the way my head swam. “I overshot.”

“You think?”

“I was trying to avoid what happened last time.”

“By killing yourself?”

I decided to stop answering his questions, as that only seemed to provoke him further. “Come on. Let’s get a move on.”

He eyed me dubiously, but turned back to the window anyway. For a moment, he fiddled with it. Then, he reached into his bag and produced what looked like a hairpin. He spent the next several minutes still fiddling, still without results.

I tried not to let my impatience show. Finally, I could resist no longer. I opted for humor rather than annoyance, figuring it would land a little better. “A little rusty, are we?”

He scowled at me. “Not everyone crossed over with all their gadgets in tow. Some of us have to make do with what we can find.”

“Want me to try?”

He opened his mouth, the no right there, visible on the tip of his tongue. Then, he clamped it shut again and took a deep breath before scooting to the side. “Have at it.”

I got the window open inside of two seconds. Just a bit of jimmying, and she was done. I had the good grace not to gloat, at least.

Garrett, for his part, just grunted and slid the window up. Carefully, he lowered himself down onto a pale white and black-flecked marble floor.

I remained on the ledge just long enough to ascertain that the window wouldn’t slam down and lock him in, and no alarm would blare out summoning a troop of paladins.

Or killer robots.

Then, I followed. The walls consisted of dark wood paneling and bright, contrasting paint. White, I thought, though I couldn’t be entirely sure in the dim light. The floors were, as I’d already noted, marble, polished to a high shine – and consequently, slippery and loud. Even though I landed lightly, I made enough noise to wince.

But no one rushed us. Because there was no one here to notice. We’d entered an empty office, the sort of thing that would have been converted into a large studio apartment and rented at twelve hundred a month back in my world. Between the marble flooring, a colossal, stained wood door at the end of the room, and the tall windows, this was very much an ordinary or even smallish room by the standards of the building.

“Lower the window,” Garrett whispered. “But prop something small under it, so it can’t shut and lock again.”

“Like what?”

He didn’t answer, though. He’d already started to move on. Apparently, in his mind I was still the acolyte learning the ropes. Grumbling to myself, I rooted around my bag of holding until I found a silver flea trap.

One of the lesser delights of living in an age without indoor plumbing, fleas were in the Realm as much of a pestilence as they had been until fairly recently on Earth. A popular method of divesting one’s body of the little varmints, the flea trap consisted of a cylinder into which fresh blood would be placed, along with something sticky – usually, some kind of resin or fat. The flea would enter, drawn by the blood, and stick fast.

None of which had anything to do with my mission to get the cloak, but it was why I happened to have a flea trap on my person. Not for myself – I bathed rather more regularly than my fellow inhabitants of the Realm, so had fewer problems with vermin. But, as infestation affects both upper and lower classes, the gadgets proved popular with the rich as well as the poor.

The poor tended to make them out of whatever they could. Only silver and fine gems would work for the rich, though. One couldn’t trap one’s fleas in pewter, like a common peasant.

I’d nicked this particular bauble along with several other silver pieces from a pretty young noblewoman a few days before the coronation, and it had sat in my bag waiting to be fenced since.

Now, I put it to an altogether different use. Somewhere, a world away, she was probably scratching madly, wondering where she’d put her trap – while it propped open a window for a couple of dead thieves.

Smiling to myself at the imagery, I followed after Garrett. He’d paused to press his ear to the door. It towered over us, maybe twice my height, and so looked even larger with him crouched before it.

I waited motionlessly as he listened. In a moment, he moved his eye to the keyhole, and in another, he glanced back at me. “All clear.”

Quietly, he turned the handle. The door swung inward on well oiled hinges, revealing a marble hallway beyond. This one was all marble, from floor to ceiling, with a crimson rug lining the floor.

Garrett moved at once to the rug, which dampened his footfalls so that he could proceed with a bit more speed. I hesitated, not intentionally waiting for a trap to be sprung, but holding back until I was sure there wouldn’t be one all the same.

He must have noticed the delay, because he shot me a disapproving look. “If only you’d been this cautious back in the Realm. I might not be here now.”

“Then I’d have to do this on my own,” I reminded him.

Which did nothing to relax his scowl. Still, he stayed on track, gesturing to the end of the hall. “This way. Staircase should be right in the corner.”