Paul Collins - Swords Of Quentaris

An undertaker dressed in black screamed abuse at him. All along Coffin Alley figures wearing voluminous dark robes left their parlours to join in the pursuit.

Rad scurried up a drainpipe, clawed his way across the shingled roof of an inn's stables, and dropped down onto a haystack. Fleeing across the dark, half-mucked stables he blindly stood on a fallen pitchfork. Snapping up like a sprung trap, it knocked Rad clean off his feet.

He woke moments later when a bucket of water was thrown over his face. The world spun in lazy circles and he closed his eyes immediately. The spinning stopped, but the next bucket of water didn't.

'Call the City Watch,' a gruff voice commanded.

'I'll explain,' Rad spluttered. 'My head!' Then instinctively he clutched at his chest to ensure the map was still beneath his tunic. It wasn't. He collapsed back and groaned.

'Enough of the theatrics,' growled the voice.

'Explain yourself, and fast.'

Rad forced his eyes open. He tried to blend five images into one. Finally, he settled on two of the images and spoke to both of them. 'I fell from the roof,' he explained, waving in the general direction of the guttering.

'Running from the Undertakers' Guild,' the double-image said. 'I saw them looking this way and that. Was it your mother who crossed to the afterlife? Your father?'

Rad took a big breath. 'I couldn't just let them put poor mama in an unmarked grave,' he whispered. 'She deserved better.'

'Bloodsuckers,' the voice said.

'That they are,' Rad said, rubbing his eyes. He pushed his fingers against his pupils and forced the two images into one. As he had thought, it was the lean stables' manager, old Stanas, himself.

Craggy, stooped, and somewhat addled, he hadn't

recognised Rad. Unfortunately, his new stablehand, the leather-aproned Tulcia, had. She stood there, fiery red hair all ablaze and her freckled face looking pinched and wary.

'I'll take the poor boy out front and let him go,' Tulcia said, 'shall I?'

Old Stanas nodded distractedly. The two white tufts of hair on his otherwise bald pate flapped like wings. 'Be off with you boy, and mind, next time you'll be handed over to the Watch. Bloodsuckers or not, all manner of merchants deserve to be paid for their toil.'

'Thank you, Stanas,' Rad said. He quickly realised his mistake and allowed Tulcia to steer him through the stables.

'My luck must be changing,' Rad mumbled, realising how close he had come to joining his friend Hulk Duelph in Lord Chalm's dungeons.

I don't think so,' Tulcia said. She waved the rolled map regally.

'You give that back!' Rad demanded.

Not only was Tulcia built like a brick outhouse, but once her mind was made up, nothing and no-one, changed it. Rad's futile attempts at

wrestling it from her were met with ill-contained merriment. 'Try snatching it one more time Rad de La'rel and I'll swat you as I would a dung fly.'

'It's mine,' Rad said miserably.

'You probably filched it.'

'Didn't.'

'Did.'

'Even if I did, it still means it's mine. Possession is nine-tenths of the law.'

'It's mine,' Tulcia said. 'If possession is nine-tenths of the law.'

Rad frowned. He couldn't argue with that reasoning, since it was his, after all.

Tulcia waved the map like a wand. It's a strange piece of magicked parchment, all faint and flickering.' She regarded him evenly. 'Yet you care for it like it was valuable.'

'It was my dear mother's,' Rad said. 'It's the only thing I have left of her.'

'You're a motherless street urchin, Rad de La'rel.

Tell me one more lie and I'll knock you on the head.' She ran a critical eye over the map. 'By the look of it, it's a map of the mountains. Perhaps even the caves themselves. But much of it is

missing. Make all the lights shine.' She handed the map to him. 'And if you run you'll be sorry you did.'

Crestfallen, Rad admitted that he was as dumbfounded as she. Tulcia snatched back the faintly glowing map. She frowned at its milky interior. 'It's probably a fake, anyway.' She looked up at the mountain, and could barely see the Scar — a pencil-fine fissure in the cliff face above Quentaris. 'Everyone knows that the Scar is so narrow that no-one could fit into it.

Besides, no-one can get to it. Save birds and the like.'

'Land moves,' Rad said with little authority.

'Over centuries, what might seem small now could have been large once. Oceans get smaller and continents come closer—sometimes joining and becoming one.'

Tulcia rolled her eyes then inspected Rad's head. 'Nasty bump.'

'If it's a fake,' Rad said impatiently, 'then why would someone bother to make it? That writing is one of the old languages, and the strange parchment

—it's a rare and skilled piece of work, make no

mistake of it. No-one but a master magician could have made that thing.'

'You'd get life in Lord Chalm's dungeons for even talking about this,' Tulcia said. 'But that aside, why do you think anyone would want to go to the Scar? To gain what!'

This had Rad stumped. When in doubt, let your tongue loose. 'Perhaps there's a creature up there that needs to be fed. Perhaps human sacrifices were made to it by the Hamil. When they left, there were no more sacrifices so they circulated the scroll to ensure a steady flow of humans to its lair.'

'Teh!' Tulcia sighed. 'Don't you suppose that there's treasure to be found?'

'There must be a treasure otherwise the creature wouldn't be guarding anything.' Rad gingerly touched his head in search of wet blood.

Lucidly it had congealed and his wound was now simply a throbbing headache. 'If there was nothing to guard, then it would be free to come down into Quentaris and get its fill of sacrificial virgins.'

'You're either as stupid as they say or you're a

genius,' Tulcia said. And please, forget the sacrificial virgin bit. You sound really childish.'

'Just give it back to me,' Rad said. 'I don't need your help.'

'Oh yes you do.'

Rad followed Tulcia's gaze and groaned.

Vindon Nibhelline spat into his plate-sized hands. His head was bandaged and he didn't look happy about it. 'I'm coming for you, Raddy.'

'This isn't right,' Rad said. I don't even have the artifact and I'm still having bad luck!'

'It just changed,' Tulcia said, shoving him behind her and wrenching a pitchfork from a silage pit.

'I have no quarrel with you, Tulcia,' Vindon cajoled. He stood in combat mode, feet shoulder-width apart and his hands just wider. He was armed, but had to fight for his confidence—he knew Tulcia's reputation only too well.

Tulcia looked at the tiny blade in Vindon's hand and smiled. 'Come and get it, Vindon.' Her red-hued eyes went wild. She stalked forward.

'Let's play, Vinny. Just you and me!' She waved the pitchfork like a scythe.

That was enough for Vindon. He fled the court-yard. Tulcia hefted the pitchfork like a javelin but the gesture was wasted on Vindon's scurrying back. I'll be back, Horseface!' he yelled from a safe distance.

Tulcia prodded the air with two fingers. 'Dung beetle!' she screamed after him. She turned to Rad, who was still cowering behind her, his face chalk-white. 'Now where were we?' Her face lightened.

'That's right. The Scar. How do you think we'll get in there?'

4. Rad's New

Accomplice

E?

Rad queried, holding out his hand

for the map clenched firmly in Tulcia's W

hand. If I needed partners I'd call on my own.'

Aiyee!' Tulcia said through clenched teeth.

She stared thoughtfully at the pitchfork that until just recently had been pointed at Vindon Nibhelline. 'You would rather have street rats snapping at your heels, would you?' She stuffed the map inside her leather jerkin.