It was Kadee’s influence, it had to be, because the moment Shadrak arrived at Magwitch’s place and the sorcerous mouth on the front door asked if Mister Mills Farting would be joining him later, guilt struck him like a fist in the face. A very large fist with knuckle-dusters.
Inside, the mad mage wasted no time using his viewing crystal to track the movements of the Senatorial Cohort who’d captured Nils, while Shadrak took out every single blade from his baldrics, belt, and boots and proceeded to give them a quick spit and polish.
“They usually take prisoners to that deleterious new-fondle jailhouse outside the basilica,” Magwitch said.
He meant the Senate Building, which had been appropriated from the Wayist priesthood during the years of persecution. Oddly, no one had thought to give it back once the persecution ended, and the Wayists were too meek and mild to mention it.
“Won’t be the first time I’ve broke in there,” Shadrak said.
“Broken,” Magwitch said, popping a truffle in his mouth.
Shadrak looked up from the stiletto blade he was giving a shine to. “Like your nose will be if you correct me again. Oh, wait, I already did that.”
Magwitch chewed slowly then gulped the truffle down. “Well, if you ask me, you’ve far bigger problems than rescuing Nils Fargin. While you were off gallivanting, I did a little research.” He patted an enormous book that lay open on the workbench in front of him. “Those tattoos on Bekra Cy’s scalp: I knew I’d seen the like before. Oh,” he said, peering into the viewing crystal, “they’ve gone the wrong way. The Cohort are dragging Nils into the Merchants’ Quarter.”
Shadrak set the stiletto down and rose to look over Magwitch’s shoulder. “That’s the Brenitch and Cawdor Bank,” he said, pointing to the vast building they were taking Nils toward. It boasted a marble facade and was flanked by fluted pillars. The windows were tall and narrow, covered with iron bars. “And that’s the tradesman’s entrance,” he said as the soldiers bundled Nils through an iron-banded side door.
“You think he owes them money?” Magwitch said.
“Doubt it. They wouldn’t be stupid enough to lend him any in the first place. No, there’s something dodgy going on. The Cohort were after me. Nils is just collateral. But why bring him to the bank? If they’re planning on using him to get to me, why…”
“The Senate is supposed to have amended its ways,” Magwitch said with a shrug. “Maybe they don’t want to be irrigated in whatever is about to happen to poor Nils.”
“Torture, most likely,” Shadrak said. “Amended how?”
“After the Technocrat was defecated, there was a move to clean things up. The Wayists were legalized, senators agreed to curb their expenses, and they pledged to be transmogrificant in all their dealings.”
“Save the shady kind,” Shadrak said, frowning at the image of the bank within the viewing crystal.
“Well, you know what they say,” Magwitch said. “Behind every politician there’s a plutocratic puppetmaster. Either the Senate have special privileges at the bank, which grant them access—”
“Or I pissed off someone very rich and powerful when I took out Mal Vatès,” Shadrak finished.
“Well, there were rumors,” Magwitch said. “And not just about Vatès being somewhat different to the savior of the plebeians that he made himself out to be. Years ago, the Senate opened an inquisitation into the practices of Brenitch and Cawdor. Snippets of information were… leaked.” He gave a little cough. “Vatès was apparently the one who shut the inquisitation down. The owners of the bank are slobbered in mystery. Foreigners, they say. Maybe even from Urddynoor.”
That didn’t seem likely. Shadrak had traveled from Urddynoor in one of the Technocrat’s discarded planeships, possibly the last of its kind. It had later been destroyed outside the dwarf city of Arnoch.
“Well, it don’t matter who’s behind it or why. I’ll rescue Fargin then get my ring back. I ain’t getting into nothing deeper.”
“I don’t think you could,” Magwitch said. “You’re already in up to your cranium.” He hefted the book and jabbed a dirty finger at a page aswirl with complex sigils and patterns. “These designs are similar to the tattoos on Bekra’s head; they are sorcerous links and buffers. She’s a minion, Shadrak, the creation of a very puissant sorcerer.”
“The Witch Queen?” Shadrak wondered out loud. But that made no sense; if the ring was a lure for sorcerers, why would a minion of Hekata N’Gat take it back?
“I think not,” Magwitch said. “Look at the text. You can read Ancient Urddynoorian, can’t you?”
Shadrak scowled but looked at the letters on the page anyway.
“It’s a description of how to prepare the subject, ink the designs, and an expositation of each sigil’s meaning,” Magwitch said.
“What’s this?” Shadrak pointed at a block of cuneiform writing in the margins that was anything but Ancient Urddynoorian.
“An invocation.” Magwitch peered over the top of his spectacles. “In the old tongue of Verusia.”
Shadrak swallowed thickly. “Blightey?”
A slow nod. “She’s a creature of the Lich Lord’s.”
Shadrak pulled his never-full bag from a belt pouch, unfolded it and drew out a weedstick laced with somnificus. He was too late, though: the memories had already begun to surface, but maybe he could take the edge off.
Magwitch shook his head and got up from the workbench. “All that’s going to do is put you in touch with your true nature.”
“So?” Shadrak said, lighting the weedstick with a single strike of a match. He seated himself in the chair Magwitch had just vacated and put his feet on the workbench. As he stared into the crystal, wishing the wizard eye could show him what was going on inside the bank, he took a long drag on the weedstick and let the horrors he’d witnessed in Verusia play out as if they were someone else’s memories.
He was vaguely aware of Magwitch leaving the room, muttering something about having better things to do. Slowly, the import of what the mad mage had just said seeped into Shadrak’s awareness. Better things to do… Same as he had. He stubbed out the weedstick and returned it to the never-full bag, then stood. He was going to rescue Nils and then go after Bekra Cy. No boogey man from the past was going to deter him from completing his mission.
He was about to leave when his eyes fell upon the open book with the sigils and the Verusian writing. Something told him it might come in handy. Something else told him Magwitch wouldn’t miss it, and even if he did, what was he going to do about it? He shut the book and stuffed it inside the never-full bag, then folded the bag and returned it to his belt pouch.
As he pulled the sequence of levers in the entrance hall and slipped outside the front door, the sorcerous mouth called after him, “Do you have permission to take that book with you?”
Shadrak gave the door the finger and proceeded down the steps to the street.
Two figures stepped from an alleyway, and it took his somnificus-dazed mind a whole second to react—a second that could have cost him his life.
“Ilesa?” he said, shaking his head to clear it. “Jeb?”
“Thought we’d find you here,” Ilesa said.
“Let me guess,” Shadrak said. “You need my help taking down Bekra Cy?”
“You can keep the ring,” Ilesa said. “For me, it’s just personal now.”
Shadrak nodded. “All right, but first I’m going after Fargin.”
Jeb drew a pistol and twirled it on his finger before slamming it back in the holster. “Then you’ve got yourself a posse.”