Rob Scott - Lessek_s Key

‘How did Sallax survive in the mountains? The wraith attack?’ Jacrys’ voice was soothing.

‘River.’

‘He was in the river? Was it cold?’

‘Cold.’ Sallax tilted his head towards his injured shoulder. ‘Cold.’

‘He must have fallen, broken his back, maybe,’ Carpello said softly. ‘He was in the river when Prince Malagon sent a wraith or a spirit or something up there after them. Maybe he was trying to treat himself with the cold water.’

‘Or hiding in the most unlikely place,’ Jacrys said.

‘I wonder how they survived the wraith,’ Carpello said, ‘especially if they didn’t have Sallax to fight for them – could they all have hidden in the water? That must have been deadly cold.’ The fat man shivered sympathetically.

Jacrys shrugged. ‘We’ll not know anything for certain until we get him back on his feet.’ He was confident that it would have been Steven and the staff that had ensured their safe passage, and wondered again if the stone somehow loaned its power to the deadly branch, for no one had defeated an almor in thousands of Twinmoons. Jacrys shook his head, and started again, calmly, quietly, insistently. ‘Why was Sallax in the river?’

The big man gestured towards his bound shoulder. ‘River – cold.’

Carpello joined the questioning. ‘Does Sallax know if Steven has the stone key?’

Sallax opened his eyes and laughed, almost a bark, making both Jacrys and Carpello jump. The laugh was a punctuation mark that said, absolutely not.

‘We don’t understand.’ Carpello tried to make his voice sound as gentle and as soothing as the spy’s. ‘Does Steven Taylor have the stone key?’

‘No key – no key,’ Sallax smiled an unlikely grin and said, ‘no stone key.’

Carpello was frustrated; this was the wrong answer and he was bored of playing question and answer games with an addled enemy of Malakasia. Emboldened by his sudden anger, he stepped up close to the partisan leader and launched into a barrage of threats, culminating in the ultimatum, ‘I want you to understand, Sallax of Estrad, that I don’t care in the slightest that you feel oh-so-bad for your precious Gilmour.’

Sallax strained against his bonds and growled something unintelligible at the mention of the old man.

‘I’ll say it again: Gilmour, Gilmour, Gilmour. Does that make you feel sad or guilty? I don’t care. I want to know about the key!’ Carpello’s jowls jounced in time with the finger he wagged in Sallax’s face.

Jacrys, fully expecting Sallax to scream again, moved to shove Carpello bodily away from his patient – he needed the merchant, but he’d send him home that evening minus a finger or perhaps even an eye if Carpello insisted on badgering Sallax further.

‘Ren.’

Jacrys turned back to the trussed-up figure and Carpello said, ‘What’s that? Have you come to your senses? Lucky for you.’

Carpello mopped again at his brow; this was working. He had already got further in one evening than Jacrys had managed in all the time he had been sequestered in this hole. ‘Now, say it again.’

Sallax stared up at the merchant, his eyes ablaze. He drew a rattling breath and repeated, ‘Ren.’

Jacrys suddenly realised that if the big Ronan had been free, he would have torn the fat man’s throat out with his bare hands.

‘Ren?’ Carpello looked to Jacrys. ‘What’s Ren?’

Before Jacrys could reply, Sallax spoke again, his voice gravelly with disuse, but still recognisable. ‘You cut off the mole.’

Carpello blanched. His throat closed and his limbs felt as though they were molten rock. ‘I’ll kill you,’ he whispered down at the helpless man. ‘Do you understand, Sallax? I’ll kill you.’

‘Ren,’ said Sallax, his gaze fixed on the merchant. ‘Sallax killed Ren and you cut off your mole.’

As Carpello’s terror welled up, he screamed a string of curses that echoed through the great warehouse like the long-ago cries of the young women and girls he had beaten and raped. ‘I’ll kill you, you whoreson rutter!’ Carpello screamed, towering over the Ronan with his fists clenched.

Sallax glared at him, daring him to strike, as if the surfacing memory was of a hatred so powerful that it had cleared his mind, even if just for a moment.

Finally Jacrys intervened, grasping Carpello by the collar and dragging him away from the cot. ‘What’s wrong with you, you stupid, stupid man?’ he whispered furiously. ‘Did you not hear a word I said?’ He stood over Carpello, nearly incandescent with rage – but also interested in the merchant’s response: Sallax had clearly touched a nerve. ‘What’s a ren?’ he asked, more calmly.

Carpello was too agitated to answer. Shaking, he lifted himself off the floor of his own warehouse, a business he had built with his own superior intellect and crafty economic sense, and looked back at Sallax. The patient appeared to be grinning at him, daring him to come forward for another bedside visit.

Carpello ran a finger across the open sore where his mole had been.

She will make it last for Twinmoons.

There was no way to change his appearance; he would never be free. This broken man had recognised him even with the beard, much thinner and without the mole. He turned and, without a word to Jacrys, ran through the warehouse and out onto the pier. He shouted something as he left the building, but Jacrys couldn’t understand what Versen! meant.

Brexan waited her turn at the bakery window, almost salivating as she eyed a plump loaf on the third shelf. A short woman with a kerchief on her head and a battered basket over one arm pushed in front of her – either she thought she was old enough to ignore social graces, or she had come to Orindale from some part of Falkan where queuing was not common practice. Brexan shoved her hands inside her tunic and bit down hard on her tongue; she had too much to do this morning to draw attention to herself thrashing some old bird. When the rude woman indicated Brexan’s loaf with a bony finger, though, Brexan lost it.

‘That one is mine.’ She leaned over the woman to illustrate that she was both younger and taller.

‘Nonsense. You’re behind me.’ The woman didn’t give Brexan more than a glance.

‘Only because you ignored the queue,’ Brexan said. ‘I don’t care that you broke in here. And you can take as much time as you like, buy whatever you need, but that loaf on the third shelf, that one is mine.’ She cursed herself for skipping breakfast; she’d intended an early start locating Jacrys, Sallax or one of the Ronan partisans. So far all she had discovered was that it had grown significantly colder in the port city and the chance of finding a decent mug of tecan was remote.

‘You are a rude young woman-’ The old woman cut off each syllable, ‘-and you will learn to wait your turn.’

Brexan smiled, and as unobtrusively as possible, grasped the woman’s wrist and bent it back enough to generate a mind-numbing pain. Unable to speak, the rude customer glared in horror at Brexan.

‘Please listen,’ Brexan whispered. ‘If you buy that loaf of bread, I will ram it so far up that fat backside of yours that you will be shitting crust for the next Moon. You broke into the line, a line I have been standing in since before you awakened this morning. I am not in the mood for rudeness today. So choose another loaf, pay the gentleman and be on your way.’ Brexan released the woman’s wrist but continued to hold her hand, as if the two were friends.

The old woman shivered and without speaking, she pointed to another loaf, paid with a copper Marek and hurried away along the pier, careful not to look back.

‘Enjoy your breakfast,’ Brexan called after her; ‘see you tomorrow!’ She waved before turning back to the bakery window. ‘Miserable old hen. Don’t you hate it when someone does that?’