Lisa Shearin: Magic Lost, Trouble Found

“Wait,” I told Quentin and my cousin.

Phaelan stopped. Quentin clearly didn’t want to.

“I need to deliver this to Stocken,” he objected.

“A few more minutes isn’t going to make any difference,” I told him. “And I’m not convinced you should give that thing to Simon Stocken. Phaelan and I are in this, whether we want to be or not—”

“And we don’t,” Phaelan said.

“So I think we deserve to know what’s going on.”

Quentin made no move to enlighten us.

I crossed my arms. “Now would be nice.”

Quentin’s blue eyes darted to the warehouse behind us like he expected goblins to leap out of the walls. I had never seen him this nervous, and we had been in plenty of situations where he’d had ample opportunity. This wasn’t like Quentin at all, and I didn’t like it. His mystery employer just earned a top spot on my list of least-liked people.

“About a week ago, Simon contacted me about a job,” Quentin said, talking fast. “I meet with him, he tells me what the client wants, and how much he’s willing to pay to get it. It was good money. Real good. Then Simon tells me whose house I’d be breaking into. I tell him to forget it, no deal. That’s when he hands me the letter. Tells me the man looking to hire me said to give me the letter if I refuse the job. So I read it.” Quentin paused for air, and his jaw tightened. “Let’s just say the letter changed my mind.”

“What was in it?” Phaelan asked.

“I’m not saying. But it’s got nothing to do with what happened back there.”

I knew that probably wasn’t true, but I wasn’t going to force the issue, at least not now. “Did Stocken tell you who the client was?”

“A man by the name of Dinten Ronk,” Quentin said. “Claimed to be a silversmith from Laerin. Simon had heard of a silversmith by that name. Parts of him were found last month stuffed in a barrel on the Laerin docks. The man who showed up at Simon’s may have been a fake, but his gold was real enough, so Simon didn’t ask too many questions.” He grinned. “Didn’t want to scare away a paying customer.”

“Was the impostor Dinten Ronk also human?” I asked.

Quentin shrugged. “As far as I know. Simon didn’t say otherwise, and he would have at least mentioned it. Not that he has anything against nonhumans. Simon does business with everyone.”

“Including goblins?” Phaelan asked.

Quentin threw a nervous glance back in the direction we came from. “Not those goblins.”

“Any idea why the Khrynsani want the amulet?” I asked.

“I didn’t even know there was an amulet. My job was to get the box. Simon didn’t tell me what was inside. I asked. He said the client either didn’t know himself, or just wouldn’t tell him.”

“So why didn’t you bring the box?” Phaelan asked.

“I dropped it, all right?” Quentin’s voice went up about two octaves. “Seeing goblins appear out of nowhere can make you drop things. I had the amulet in my hand, and I figured that’s what they wanted anyway. If I’m dead, the client doesn’t get his goods, and I don’t get the rest of my money, so I jumped out the window. Seeing goblins can make you do that, too.”

I didn’t doubt that, but I did doubt the part about goblins appearing out of nowhere. They had to have come from somewhere, and since they were Khrynsani, they didn’t need a door to make an entrance. I knew that. Quentin didn’t need to. No use scaring him any more than he already was.

“Did the goblins see that you had the amulet?” I asked.

“I don’t know.” He looked a little embarrassed. “It got kind of chaotic.”

Quentin screaming and running and jumping out of windows certainly qualified as chaotic.

“Well, if neither Stocken nor the client is expecting an amulet,” I said, carefully assuming my best rational tone, “then they won’t be disappointed when they don’t get one.”

“What are you saying?” Quentin knew very well, and from the way his eyes narrowed, he didn’t like it one bit.

“Nigel Nicabar had it,” I told him. “The Khrynsani want it. I don’t know what this amulet is or what it does, but if the Khrynsani want it, it would probably be bad if they got it.”

Quentin started to speak, and I held up a hand. “Hear me out. Just tell Stocken about the goblins. Tell him you dropped the box, and you don’t know what happened to it after that. That’s not a lie.”

“What about my money?”

“What about it?”

Quentin and Phaelan looked at me like I’d just uttered the most condemnable blasphemy imaginable.

“I got twenty gold tenari,” Quentin informed me. “Up front.”

Phaelan whistled. “I’d stroll around Nigel’s house at night for that.”

“I’m going to get five more when I deliver the goods, and another five if I deliver it before dawn.” Quentin took two steps in the direction of Stocken’s warehouse. “So I’m in a bit of a hurry. If we can move along, I can get my money, and we can all go home.”

I didn’t move. “Don’t you mean when you deliver the box ?”

Realization began to dawn on Quentin, and the thought that he might not get paid for delivering an amulet rather than a box was the final blow to an already bad night. I felt equally bad about breaking the news to him, but I would have felt even worse if the amulet was sold out from underneath us before I knew what the Khrynsani wanted with it—or more to the point, what Sarad Nukpana wanted with it.

Sarad Nukpana was the Khrynsani grand shaman. He was also a sadistic psychopath. I’d done work for Duke Markus Sevelien long enough to have that confirmed on numerous occasions.

Markus was the head of elven intelligence in Mermeia. I’d like to think he’d retained me as a consultant because of my superior seeking skills, but I know differently. Markus thought my being related to criminals helped me know the criminal mind. This wasn’t always true, but I wasn’t one to turn down a regular, well-paying client just because he wounded my delicate sensibilities. Truth be told, if it can be picked up, pried off, or in any way pilfered, my family’s made off with it at one time or another. Unfortunately those pilfered goods have occasionally included people. It’s not something I’m proud of, but it’s not something I can deny.

Most of my work for Markus involved finding pilfered elves—diplomats, intelligence agents, assorted nobles. The kind of people the less savory members of my family would love to get their ransom-grubbing hands on. Though most of the missing elves Markus wanted me to find had been taken by the kind of people who had no interest in ransom. I guess the more money you had, the cheaper life was.

And I had it on the best authority that no one held life in lower regard than Sarad Nukpana.

I’d heard stories from some of Markus’s agents who had seen the rotten fruits of Nukpana’s labors up close and personal. A few of Markus’s agents were goblins. They knew the Khrynsani grand shaman as soft voiced, cultured and courteous with a formidable intellect. Elven agents told a different story. One of them had been held across from another cell where Nukpana was interrogating a human prisoner. Nukpana chatted as if hosting a cocktail party—while he did a little exploratory surgery. His prisoner/patient was awake. The elven agent said the screams went on longer than he thought possible. The pleasant conversation continued, even after the screams had stopped. That story alone kept me waking up in a cold sweat for weeks.

“But it was the amulet they really wanted.” Quentin was looking in growing desperation from one of us to the other. “Right?”

“Probably.” I answered. “But Stocken might take some convincing. Then he’d have to get back to the client for confirmation. All of which is going to delay your payment. In the meantime, you can’t turn over the amulet without proper payment. As a businessman, Stocken would understand that. It’s just not good business.”