Rogues

A CARGO OF IVORIES

Garth Nix

“We should have purchased the monkey,” whispered Sir Hereward, as he balanced precariously on the ridge of the tiled roof, which was shining bright under the moon and had become extremely slippery, the result of the squall of needle-sharp rain that had just blown through and over the erstwhile knight and his puppet-sorcerer companion, Mister Fitz.

Neither looked the part of knight or sorcerer this night. Sir Hereward was garbed in the soot-stained leather vest and breeches of a chimney sweep, the latter cut short at the knee, with a coil of rope over his shoulder and a dagger at his belt rather than a sword; and Mister Fitz had assumed the disguise of a sweep’s boy by putting a ragged and filthy hood over his pumpkin-shaped papier-mâché head and child-sized leather gauntlets on his wooden hands.

“The monkey was insufficiently trained, and its mind not well formed enough for the impressing of sorcerous commands,” Fitz whispered back.

“It stole my purse easily enough,” countered Sir Hereward. “If we had bought it, then it would be here, and I wouldn’t be wet and cold and—”

“The matter is moot, as we did not purchase the monkey, and furthermore we have arrived at our point of ingress.”

Sir Hereward glanced ahead at the huge brick chimney stack that protruded six or seven feet from the roof. Halfway up the stack, a thin ribbon of gold had been affixed to the brickwork, the metal etched with many malevolent-looking runes and sorcerous writings.

“The monkey could have jumped straight to the top of the stack and avoided those curses,” said Sir Hereward. He shuffled forward a pace or two, wincing as his bare feet found a sharp edge to the copper that sheathed the ridge.

“Jumping to the top would not avoid them,” said Mister Fitz. His piercing blue eyes reflected brightly in the moonlight as he studied the gold ribbon. “The architect-sorcerer who made this place was well versed in her art.”

“I trust you can counter the spells?” asked Sir Hereward.

“It were best to leave them in place but render them less efficacious,” replied the puppet sorcerer. He rummaged in the pouch at his belt as he spoke, withdrawing a number of long pieces of onionskin paper that were heavily inscribed with runes, written in an ink the color of dried blood, in close lines.

“Less efficacious?” asked Sir Hereward. “In exactly what proportion? Those are death curses, are they not?”

“Indeed,” said Fitz. He licked the roof with his long, blue, fabriclike tongue, picking up the moisture he would need in lieu of the saliva his mouth did not make, moistened one of the pieces of paper, and carefully pasted it over the gold ribbon, pressing it hard against the brickwork of the chimney. The runes in the gold began to glow hotly, before being soothed and quietened by the counterspells on the paper. “They will now merely cause a pang, an ache, or something of that order.”

“There are many degrees and varieties of ache,” said Sir Hereward gloomily. But he took the coil of rope off his shoulder and pressed the catch on the grapnel that extended its three barbed arms. “Shall I fix this in place now?”

“Not yet,” said the puppet, who was peering closely at the lip of the chimney. He took another paper, wet it in the same manner, and stuck it over the cornice. “A clever mage. There were hidden spells upon the top bricks. But I believe it is now safe enough to proceed. Are you confident of the plan?”

“If everything is as we have been told, and as you have scried,” said Sir Hereward. “Which, of course, is almost certainly not the case. But I do not think Montaul suspects our coming, which is something.”

The house whose ensorcelled roof they were perched upon belonged to the aforementioned Montaul, commonly known as “Flatpurse”—not because of his poverty but because of his vast riches, which he denied existed and did not easily spend. He had drawn the attention of Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz, who were only house-robbers upon occasion, because two days previously he had secretly taken delivery of a cargo of ivory figurines, seventy-four finger-high carvings that represented the godlets of the far kingdom of Asantra-Lurre. Possibly unbeknownst to Montaul, fourteen of the figurines were not merely representations of godlets but energistic anchors that secured the actual deities to this mortal plane and could be used to summon them into renewed existence. As the said godlets were all proscribed for various reasons, usually their inimical nature, the destruction of the ivories had long been sought by the Council of the Treaty for the Safety of the World, the possibly mythical, often thought defunct, and generally surprising sisterhood that Sir Hereward had been born into, his male gender a surprise that had not been allowed to interfere with his usefulness. Mister Fitz, on the other hand, was both male and female, or neither, or whichever he wished to be, and had served the Council in various roles almost since its establishment by a number of now mostly vanished polities several millennia gone.

In other places, or perhaps other times, it would not have been necessary for Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz to climb over the rooftops and make entry into Montaul’s house through a death-charm-warded chimney. But the city of Kwakrosh was far from any of the Council’s traditional allies who might exert some influence or force. Here, Montaul was not only a councillor and a colonel of the city’s trained bands, he also reluctantly but wisely paid good, fine-minted money to a great number of judges, advocates, watchmen, and thief-takers to ensure that if any criminal activity was going on, it would be done by him rather than to him or to his exceedingly valuable property.

Hence the rooftop in the rain and the descent down the chimney.

Sir Hereward gritted his teeth as he lifted one leg over the papered charms to straddle the chimney stack, expecting something like a dagger strike to the groin, this being the kind of thing Mister Fitz might call an ache. But there was only a faint tingle, reminiscent of the sensation usually called pins and needles, that came from sitting too long in one spot.

Fastening the grapple to the lip of the chimney, he let the rope down as slowly and quietly as he could, till it hung slack. If the plans they had bribed the chimney-tax inspector to provide were accurate, the rope should now be hanging a foot or so above the top of the open hearth. Close enough to drop easily but hidden from view.

“Considering the quantity of Alastran wine you drank last night, I think we should take a moment to recapitulate the plan,” said Mister Fitz quietly. “I go first, to take care of any additional sorcerous defenses. You follow on the count of eight …”

“Ten. I thought we agreed ten,” whispered Sir Hereward. “What if there is something that takes you more than a moment to dispel? I don’t want to blunder into a death spell or skin separator or the like.”

“Very well. You follow upon the count of ten. We emerge in the Great Hall, likely deserted—”

“Hmmpf,” said Hereward, which was not exactly disagreement but a certain hedging of bets.

“Likely deserted due to Montaul’s parsimony, apart from the hounds who have free range of the interior,” continued Mister Fitz. “If they are present, we throw the soporific bone I prepared earlier … I trust you have that somewhere easy to reach?”

Sir Hereward indicated the left leg of his breeches, where there was an unusually large bulge that extended almost to his knee, marking the position of the segmented bone that Mister Fitz had imbued with a sleeping spell for dogs. The bone itself was jointed in quarters, to allow each of the four lurchers, grippers, alaunts, or whatever breed of guard dog there was inside to tear off and secure its own portion. The merest lick would then send them to sleep. Fortunately, the soporific bone only worked on dogs, so it was safe to handle. Mister Fitz knew many variations for other species, though when he prepared it for humans, the spell was normally emplaced in confectionary or sweetmeats, unless intended for cannibals such as the terrible inhabitants of the ruined city of Coradon.

“We turn right, along the hall, up the steps, and through the inner door to the countinghouse,” said Mister Fitz. “Scrying suggests that this inner way is not locked when Montaul is in residence, he likes to come and go, but in any case I have two remaining curiosities, which should suffice to pick the lock if it proves necessary.”

“We grab the ivories, open the main door of the countinghouse from the inside, go across the courtyard, fight the gate guards who won’t be expecting us, go out the night postern, and run away,” picked up Hereward. “Simple, elegant, straightforward.”

“I would not describe it as elegant,” said Mister Fitz. “However, it should serve the purpose. Shall we proceed?”

“Please do,” said Sir Hereward, inclining his head as if acknowledging someone of importance at a ball or court levee.

Mister Fitz gripped the rope with both gauntleted hands and began to climb down the rope headfirst, his blue-pupiled eyes staring down into the sooty darkness.

Hereward counted to twelve before he followed. His movements were not as fluid as the puppet’s, but he climbed with a spare efficiency, the technique learned years before as a supernumerary aboard the pirate chaser Termagant Biter returning to him without conscious thought.

The chimney, though rarely used, in accordance with Montaul’s cheeseparing ways that begrudged the purchase of any fuel, was still caked with soot. Though Hereward tried to keep to the rope and only touch the side with his feet, he swung a few times on the way down, and his back and elbows dislodged a considerable quantity of choking, black dust. Much of it blew up as well as sinking down, so that by the time he gently lowered himself down next to Mister Fitz, they were both entirely blackened, their chimney-sweep disguises much enhanced.

The Hall was not only empty, but very dark. Montaul did not approve of candles or lanterns in rooms where he was not present. Mister Fitz could see perfectly well, but Sir Hereward had to depend upon his ears alone, and he didn’t like what he was hearing. A wet, slobbery snuffling that sounded likely to precede the crunch of large teeth, and it was much closer than he deemed secure. It also did not sound particularly like a dog. It was louder and just … different.

“Hand me the bone,” said Mister Fitz, who seemed calm enough, though this was little indication of the seriousness of the situation. Mister Fitz was always calm.

“What is it?” whispered Sir Hereward, moving very slowly to pull the soporific bone out of his trousers. He moved slowly because he was deeply concerned that a sudden movement might hasten the transition from slobbering noises to crunching ones, with his hand or arm featuring as the source of the crunching.

“A basilisk,” said Mister Fitz. “It’s licking my glove right now.”

“A basilisk!” hissed Sir Hereward, instinctively screwing his eyes tight at the very mention of the petrifying beast. “Will the bone work on a basilisk?”

“We shall see,” replied Mister Fitz. Hereward felt the puppet take the bone and a second later the slobbering noise increased, followed by the hideous crunching sounds he had feared. Almost immediately they then ceased and were punctuated by a very loud thud, a strong vibration through the floor, and the cessation of the munching and crunching.

“Remind me to amend my treatise on soporific bones,” said Mister Fitz. “I thought there was a slim chance it would prove efficacious, as Plontarl’s Index states there was dog in the original hybrid made by Kexil-Ungard when it created the first basilisks. A gaze-hound, perhaps, though there is clearly a preponderance of reptile in the creature—”

“Is there?” asked Sir Hereward, with no small degree of sarcasm apparent in his voice. “Given I can’t see a thing, I must trust to your opinion. Could we perhaps continue? With a little light?”

“Indeed,” replied Mister Fitz.

The puppet did not resort to an esoteric needle for something as simple as shedding a little light. Instead Sir Hereward noticed two faint blue sparks appear, as if a copperized wick had been lit. Slowly they grew brighter as Fitz increased the luminosity of his eyes, an old trick of his that had more than once proven to be of great value, most famously when the hasty reading of a map at midnight had resulted in Hereward’s leading a rear guard to safety, rather than certain defeat and a lingering death, since the enemy in question were devotees of Pozalk-Nimphenes, a god whose concept of prisoners of war was indistinguishable from that of food, so anyone captured was invariably fed into its insatiable but toothless maw, expiring days later in the god’s otherworldly stomach or whatever organ processed things so devoured.

Fitz did not make his eyes shine very brightly, so Hereward squinted as he poked his head out of the hearth and looked around the hall. The basilisk was a dark shape on the floor just beyond the bronze firedogs. As far as he could tell from its silhouette, it looked entirely like an ugly lizard, which is what he had always thought they were, albeit ones with the power to mesmerize their prey into statuelike stillness.

“Why would there be a basilisk here?” asked Sir Hereward as he slowly looked around the room. “Unless there is some trap to set lights going, it would be entirely wasted in the dark.”

“I do not think it is an intentional inhabitant of the house,” said Mister Fitz.

“There is something else near the door to the countinghouse,” said Hereward. He could make out a silhouette that at first he had thought some very large piece of furniture, but it was moving slightly, suggesting breathing. “The door behind it is ajar. Can you see what it is?”

The puppet edged out next to him, holding Hereward’s knee for a moment as he leaned around the marmorealized foot of a moklek, the shorn and domesticated cousins of the wild mammoth. This hollowed-out foot served to hold several pokers and other useful fireplace implements, including a six-tined toasting fork.

“Yes … I can,” said Mister Fitz. “Curious.”

“What is it, if you don’t mind?”

“A pygmy moklek. An albino, I should think. Which is surprising, but also presents us with an opportunity.”

“A basilisk and an albino pygmy moklek were most definitely not part of the plan,” said Sir Hereward. “Nor do I consider the presence of said creatures to be an ‘opportunity.’ That moklek is lying in front of the door. Does it have tusks?”

“Short tusks jeweled at the tips,” confirmed Mister Fitz. “It is asleep.”

“Even a moklek can lose its temper, and even short tusks can disembowel,” said Sir Hereward. “The jewels might even help. The question is, how did it get here?”

“The ‘why’ may also be relevant,” suggested Mister Fitz, his tone educational. He had never really given up his early role as Sir Hereward’s nurse and tutor.

“Lord Arveg, whose house lies adjacent to the perimeter wall here, has a private menagerie …” mused Sir Hereward, after a moment’s thought. “If breaches were made in the west wall of his house, and then the eastern wall of this … but there has been no explosion, no petard blast …”

“Stone may be dissolved by sorcery,” said Mister Fitz. “Animals transported energistically through solid matter. Sound may be dulled, or sent elsewhere, via a number of magical instruments.”

“Someone else is after the ivories,” concluded Sir Hereward. He drew his dagger, turning it so the light from Fitz’s eyes did not reflect from the bright steel blade. “Presumably a sorcerer.”

“Or someone equipped with sorcerous apparatus,” agreed Mister Fitz. He reached inside his sooty robe and withdrew an energistic needle from some hidden interior pocket, holding it tightly inside his gloved fist so that its shocking light could not escape, nor the energies within curdle Sir Hereward’s mind or vision. “They might also have a different aim in mind, apart from the ivories. Montaul has many riches, and many enemies. In any case, it is doubly unfortunate, for use of sorcery may … wake something in one of the ivories. They tremble on the verge of immanence at the best of times. We had best hurry.”

Sir Hereward nodded, stepped out of the fireplace, and began to walk cautiously towards the door out to the countinghouse, his bare feet silent on the flagstones. Mister Fitz rustled at his side, the light of his eyes like a hooded lantern in a mine, illuminating the way just enough for safe movement while creating shadows at every side that hinted at terrible things.

“Are you sure the moklek is asleep?” whispered Hereward as they drew closer.

“No, I think it is merely resting,” said Mister Fitz. “Don’t tread on its tail.”

As they ascended the four steps to the door to the countinghouse, skirting the pygmy moklek, it suddenly stood up, turned about very daintily on the spot, and made a plaintive whuffling noise with its trunk.

Sir Hereward stopped in midstep and tightened his grip on his dagger. It was fine Trevizond steel, and very sharp, but whether he could punch it through the weak spot in a moklek’s head above and between its eyes was very much a moot question. Particularly if it had to be done while trying not to be disemboweled.

“There, there,” said Mister Fitz, reaching out to stroke the trunk that came questing out to them. “All will be well.”

“Are you talking to me or the moklek?” whispered Sir Hereward.

“Both,” said Mister Fitz. “It is a youngster, and scared. There, there. All will be well. Say hello to the moklek, Hereward.”

“Hello,” said Sir Hereward. He reached out gingerly with his left hand and joined Mister Fitz in gently stroking the moklek’s trunk.

“You had better come with us,” said Mister Fitz. “Follow along.”

The moklek made a soft trumpeting noise and took a step forward. Sir Hereward hastily jumped up a step and bent down to whisper in Mister Fitz’s ear.

“Why are we bringing the moklek? You didn’t want a monkey. Surely a moklek is no better?”

“It is a very smart moklek,” said Mister Fitz. “As opposed to a particularly stupid monkey. And it may prove useful. As I said, its presence provides an opportunity. One that may be lost if we don’t procure the ivories quickly.”

Sir Hereward sighed, hefted his dagger, and sidled through the open doorway and along a short corridor into the countinghouse proper. He had expected this large chamber to also be dark, but it was filled with moonlight, courtesy of a large, ragged round hole in the eastern wall where something sorcerous or immensely acidic had melted through a three-foot thickness of good red brick.

The person presumably responsible for this absence of wall was in the middle of the room, opening drawers in Montaul’s trading desk, a massive piece of powerful but ugly furniture that had dozens of drawers in great columns of polished mahogany on the left and right of the actual writing surface, a slab of Perridel marble characteristically veined with gold.

She whirled around as Hereward took another step though he thought he’d been extremely stealthy, and, in the next instant, he had to parry away not one but two thrown daggers, which flew clattering to the wall and the floor. She followed that up by jumping to the desk and then to the ceiling, running along it upside down by virtue of Ikithan spider-slippers, dropping on Hereward from above in a move that he fortunately recognized as the vertical shearing scissor-leg attack of the long-defunct but still influential warrior nuns of the Red Morn Convent, and so was able to adopt the countermove of swaying aside and delivering two quick punches to the head as she descended. One of the punches was with the pommel of his dagger, and so particularly efficacious. The thief, as she must be, dropped to the floor long enough for Sir Hereward to press a knee on her back and place the point of his dagger in the nape of her neck, angled so that it would strike through to the brain with little effort.

“Move and you die,” he rasped. “Also, we are not guards, but visitors like yourself, so there is no profit in employing any unusual stratagem or sorcery you may be considering.”

“You are trespassers, then,” said the woman coolly. She was dressed in thieves’ garb, entirely in dark grey, a single suit of it like a cold-weather undergarment, complete with a padded hood. Even prone, she was clearly tall and lightly built, but as evident from her jumping, made of corded muscle and sinew.

“As are you,” said Sir Hereward. “What are you looking for?”

“Trespassing against the guild, I mean,” said the woman impatiently. “I have bought the license to steal here. But if you release me and go now, I will not take you to the Thief-Mother’s court for the doubtless inevitable separation of thumbs from hands.”

“Ah, a professional thief,” said Mister Fitz. “We are not, however, here to rob Montaul. We are reclaiming stolen property.”

“Oh,” said the woman. “You are agents, then?”

Sir Hereward grew still and his grip on his dagger tightened, ready to drive it home. A human’s brain was so less well protected than a moklek’s as he knew well. It would be an easy and quick death. Not that his and Mister Fitz’s occupation was necessarily secret, it was simply that only their enemies tended to know who they were.

“Agents?” asked Sir Hereward, his voice flat and dull.

“Of the Barcan Insurance? Or the Association of Wealth Protection?”

“Insurance agents,” said Mister Fitz. “Yes … but from far away. We have been tracking a stolen cargo for some considerable time. Now we believe it has arrived here.”

“Then we can come to an agreement,” said the thief. “My name is Tira, Thief of the Seventh Circle of the Guild of Thieves in Kwakrosh, Lesemb, and Navilanaganishom. Who might you be?”

“I am Sir Hereward,” said Hereward, though he did not ease off with his knee or remove his dagger. “My companion is known as Mister Fitz. Where are the guards from the courtyard outside, before we get to talking about agreements?”

“Asleep,” said Tira. “I sprinkled Nighty Dust down on them from my shadow-stilts, as they gathered to gossip about tomorrow’s battlemount races.”

“And the wall here, was it dissolved with a spray of Argill’s Discontinuance of Stone, or something else?” asked Mister Fitz.

“Argill’s,” confirmed Tira. “And the wall of Arveg’s menagerie across the courtyard, though I must confess that was an error. The mixture was stronger than I thought and the wind came up. But the creatures are docile, I presume made to be that way. There is nothing to fear from them.”

“You have invested considerable coin to enter here, on stilts and dust and dissolving,” said Mister Fitz. “You seek some particular treasure?”

“Montaul is known as a very warm man,” said Tira.

“Please answer the question,” said Sir Hereward.

“The new ivories,” she said, after a moment’s pause. “The guild has a buyer for them. But I guess that’s what you are after, too, is it not, arriving so soon on their heels?”

“Yes,” said Sir Hereward. “But not all of them. Only fourteen are … covered by our contract. You can have the others. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” said Tira.

Hereward removed his dagger, leaned back, and stood up. Tira rolled over and looked up at him. Her hood was drawn close about her face, and though her skin was dark, her nose and cheekbones had also been painted with a grey stuff almost the same color as her curious garment, to dull any shine. As far as Hereward could tell, she seemed fair, or as fair as could be without facial scars, and she looked younger than he had expected. Her eyes were hidden behind a strip of a dark red gauzy cloth loose-woven with hundreds of tiny holes, allowing her to see while offering some protection against such things as a basilisk’s gaze, unless it got nose to nose, by which time its petrifying properties would be of the least concern. The fact she was wearing it suggested that she had not spoken the truth about dissolving the wall to the menagerie by accident.

“I could have got free, you know,” she said.

“Doubtless,” agreed Sir Hereward politely, though he thought quite the opposite. “Where are the ivories?”

“Not here,” said Tira. “Or so I had just discovered when you came.”

Sir Hereward looked around the room. Apart from Montaul’s trading desk with its drawers askew, there were three lesser perching desks for his clerks, a cabinet whose doors were open to show the papers and parchments piled within, and a great chest with its padlock awry and its lid back. Mister Fitz was already inside the chest, rummaging around.

“Nothing of consequence,” said the puppet. “A fallen coin or two in the corners. I should say it was emptied in some hurry. Hereward, go and see if Montaul is in his rooms upstairs.”

Hereward nodded and ran up the circular stair in the corner, returning a scant minute later with a shake of his head.

“Chamber’s empty. Like a monk’s cell up there, thin blanket and all. But our watchers … they were supposed to blow their screech-whistles if anyone left, damn them!”

“Oh,” said Tira. She made a motion with her fingers, indicating the sprinkling of dust. “They were your watchers …”

Mister Fitz jumped out of the chest and went to the door that led out to the gatehouse, his back bent from the waist, his round head close to the ground. At the door itself, he sniffed the ground, dust swirling around his papier-mâché nose, though its carefully molded nostrils did not inflate.

“One of the godlets has begun to manifest,” he said shortly. “Some hours ago, I judge. We must presume it now controls Montaul’s actions and follow before it can fully emerge upon this plane and ease the way of its fellows from the pantheon of ivories.”

“Godlet?” asked Tira. “What godlet?”

“The ivories are not simply treasure,” said Hereward, as he went to the door and unbarred it, using only his left hand, the dagger ready in his right. “At least the fourteen we seek. Did you make the gate guards sleep as well as those in the western court?”

“No,” said Tira. She retrieved her thrown knives and went to stand by the knight, Mister Fitz bringing up the rear, his sorcerous needle still hidden in his gauntleted hand.

“You would think they would enter,” said Sir Hereward, “given the noise within. Moklek and basilisk, and all your rummaging about. Ready?”

“They are not valiant, nor young,” said Tira, readying her knives to throw. “Go!”

Sir Hereward pulled the door back. Tira stood with knives poised, then slowly lowered them. Sir Hereward moved past her, and looked down at the two desiccated bodies that lay on the steps. They were more vaguely human-shaped parcels of dust wrapped in mail than bodies, their swords lying next to withered hand-and-arm bones that would have not disgraced some revenant a thousand years dead.

“It needed life to stabilize its presence,” said Mister Fitz, bending down to sniff again at the bodies of the guards. “They were convenient.”

“Do you know which one it is?” asked Sir Hereward. There were fourteen ivories, and fourteen godlets, but of that number, one was far more to be feared than any of the rest.

“No,” answered Mister Fitz. “It has left no obvious signs or declarations, and we cannot spare the time to take a sample of whatever essence it may have excreted.”

“I like not this talk,” said Tira. “If I had not seen these two, I might think you sought to scare me from my rightful theft.”

“You need not come with us, lady,” said Sir Hereward over his shoulder as he ran to the gate, ignoring the small night postern they had planned to use, for it would not be broad enough to permit the moklek’s passage. Mister Fitz ran after him but jumped to one of the torch brackets above, and peered through an arrow slit, taking care not to draw too close to another ensorcelled band of gold set there to slay any child, monkey, or ensorcelled rat that might otherwise be able to creep inside.

Behind them, the pygmy moklek gingerly investigated the wizened bodies with its trunk, gave a snort of disgust, and trotted after the knight, thief, and puppet.

“I am no lady,” said Tira, as she helped Sir Hereward lift the bar of the gate. “I am a Thief of the Sixth Circle of the Guild of Thieves in Kwakrosh, Lesemb, and Navilanaganishom!”

“I thought you said the Seventh Circle,” said Sir Hereward.

“When I return with the ivories,” said Tira. “I merely anticipated my elevation. In truth, I did not expect any complications with godlets.”

Mister Fitz dropped down as they opened the postern.

“There is some commotion by the harborside,” he said. “It will be the godlet. Quickly!”

Montaul’s house lay on a low hill directly above the harbor, so that he could watch the arrival and departure of his ships, the foundation of his riches. A cobbled road ran down to the long, semicircular quay where four ships were tied up at the jetties that thrust out from the quay like fingers from a hand. A few other vessels were some distance away, bulky trading cogs lying at anchor under the shelter of the mole, a long breakwater of great stones that protected the harbor from wind and wave, with a hexagonal fort at its seaward end, built to protect the port against pirates and naval foes. The fort could fire forge-heated red-hot shot from the cannons on its walls, and explosive bombs the size of a puncheon from the great mortar that squatted in the center of the fort like a fat spider in a hole. Except that, as with many other civic buildings in Kwakrosh, it was somewhat neglected, and only fully manned in time of obvious threat, the good worthies of the town council not wanting to recognize that by that point it would be too late.

Sir Hereward, Mister Fitz, Tira, and the pygmy moklek ran down the harbor road, fleet shadows in the night. The moon lit the street in stark relief, casting silver shadows and reflecting off the puddles left by the earlier rainstorm, illuminating the drunks asleep in the doorways of the warehouses closer to the quay—drunks who upon inspection in the morning would be found to be no more than husks within their layers of rags.

“It must be after a ship,” called out Sir Hereward. “But the wind is against the mole and the tide on the flood, no ship can leave harbor tonight.”

“Not under sail,” answered Mister Fitz. He pointed ahead to the most distant jetty, where there was the sound of screaming, suddenly cut short, and a yellow lantern winked out. Behind it, the dim outline of a long but relatively low ship with only a single stubby mast could be seen.

“The hexareme?” asked Sir Hereward, sidestepping a particularly deep-looking puddle in an area of missing cobbles. He referred to the state ship of Kwakrosh, a relic of the past, that was rowed out once a year for the Grand Mayor to perform the ritual throwing of the flotsam, a floating basket of spices, wine, cloth, smoked herring, and a very small amount of silver currency. This was then fought over by all the bum-boaters, fisherfolk, and semiaquatic layabouts of the harbor in joyous anarchy, a mark of respect for the ancient days when the town had been no more than a village of wreckers.

“But it has no rowers, no crew,” said Tira, who ran easily at Sir Hereward’s side.

“If the godlet is strong enough, it will bend the oars by energistic means,” said Mister Fitz. “I am heartened by this.”

“You are heartened?” asked Sir Hereward. “If it is strong enough to row a hexareme of sixty benches against this wind and tide, it is too strong by my measure!”

“It indicates a certain stupidity, a singleness of purpose,” said Mister Fitz. “It wants to return to Asantra-Lurre, not knowing or caring that the kingdom is no more, and a thousand leagues distant besides.”

“What is it?” asked Tira. “Do you mean Montaul?”

“Montaul lives no more, save as a vessel for the godlet,” said Mister Fitz.

They reached the quay as he spoke, cobbles giving way to the smooth planks of the boardwalk. Two watchmen in the livery of the town guard stared at them nervously, their lantern-adorned halberds held high over the starched and dehydrated body of one of their companions, her arms frozen in the act of trying to fend off some horror that had come upon her.

“Who … who goes there?” stuttered one of them.

“Friends,” called out Sir Hereward easily as he ran past, momentarily forgetting he was covered from head to toe in soot, was barefoot, had a dagger bare in his hand, and was accompanied by a sorcerous puppet, an obvious thief, and an albino pygmy moklek.

“Oh good,” said the watchman nervously to their backs. He raised his voice to add, “Uh, pass, friends.”

Up ahead, there was a great squeal of long-unused timber moving against bronze, and the splash of water as the hexareme’s starboard oars all came out at once, the port side being up against the jetty.

“We must board before it shoves off,” said Sir Hereward, increasing his pace, bare feet pounding across quayside to jetty. The hexareme’s oars were tumbled together for the moment, but were already lifting and shifting, energistic tendrils of bright violet visible through the oar ports as the godlet sought to properly organize the rowing benches, like a team of octopi sorting toothpicks.

“Do we want to be on board with whatever is doing that?” asked Tira.

“The godlet’s mind and power is bent upon moving the ship,” said Mister Fitz, who had jumped to Sir Hereward’s shoulder as the sprint became too fast for his short legs. “While it is focused upon that task, we have a better chance of dispatching it to whence it came.”

“Almost there!” panted Sir Hereward. He jumped to the gangway and ran up it even as the starboard oars dug deep and the hexareme groaned and moved diagonally away from the jetty, mooring ropes at stern and bow singing as they stretched taut. There was a great crash as the gangway fell, the pygmy moklek jumping the last few feet, the deck resounding like an enormous drum as it landed.

“Why is that moklek still following us?” asked Sir Hereward, who had narrowly avoided being crushed by the pachyderm’s leap.

“I asked her to,” said Mister Fitz. “As I said, she could be very useful. Time for the declaration. We have a few minutes now, I doubt the godlet is aware of our presence, it being fixated on a swift exit from the harbor.”

The starboard oars sank in and pushed again. The mooring ropes snapped with cracks like gunshots, and the hexareme wallowed far enough away from the jetty for the portside oars to come out, again propelled by energistic tendrils.

Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz reached into pocket and pouch and brought out silk armbands, which they slipped over their arms, above the elbow. Sorcerous symbols began to shine upon the cloth, brighter than the moon. Then man and puppet spoke together:

“In the name of the Council of the Treaty for the Safety of the World, acting under the authority granted by the Three Empires, the Seven Kingdoms, the Palatine Regency, the Jessar Republic, and the Forty Lesser Realms, we declare ourselves agents of the Council. We identify the godlet manifested … uh …”

Sir Hereward paused and looked at Mister Fitz, who carried on, the man echoing the puppet’s words a moment later.

“Aboard this vessel as an unknown, but listed entity under the Treaty, as proven by its dire actions upon innocents. Consequently, the said godlet and all those who assist it are deemed to be enemies of the World and the Council authorizes us to pursue any and all actions necessary to banish, repel, or exterminate the said godlet.”

“You’re not insurance agents,” said Tira. Her hood had come slightly unstuck in the race to the ship and slipped backwards, showing more of her face. She looked even younger than she had previously.

“You could say we are,” replied Mister Fitz. “After a fashion.”

“In any case, you’ll get your share of the ivories,” said Hereward, thinking he correctly judged the fleeting expression that crossed Tira’s eyes and flattened her mouth. “Presuming we survive.”

The ship lurched sternwards as the oars on both sides moved in unison, a clumsy, lurching progress that made the deck tilt one way and then the other, with every part of the old ship groaning and screeching in turn.

“We won’t get far like this,” said Sir Hereward. “I doubt this tub has been out in anything but a dead calm for years, and going in the right direction at that. Where is the godlet? And what’s to stop its sucking the life out of us as we approach?”

“It is underneath us,” said Mister Fitz. “In the center of the ship, on the middle deck. As long as it keeps rowing, it will have no energy to spare for dehydrative assaults.”

“And if it stops rowing?” asked Tira.

“The ship will probably sink,” said Sir Hereward, who didn’t like the feel of the deck under his feet. The planks were shifting sideways, the hull clearly lacked rigidity, and it was already down a foot or more at the stern, not so much piercing the small harbor waves as plowing into them. “It is moot whether it will turn turtle as soon as we pass the mole, or be driven under stern first.”

“We must get the ivories before then,” said Mister Fitz. “If the ship does sink, the godlet will realize that it can simply walk on the floor of the sea. For the moment, it is still imprinted with Montaul’s view of the world and his human limitations.”

“Is it weak enough for you to banish it with your needle?” asked Sir Hereward. “We distract it, while you get close enough?”

“I fear not,” said Mister Fitz. “Rather we must secure the ivory figurine that anchors it, bring it up here, and have Moonray Pallidskin Helterskelter III step on it.”

Sir Hereward followed the flick of the puppet’s eyeballs to the left, indicating their animal companion.

“You mean the moklek?”

“It is one sure means of destruction for such things,” said Mister Fitz. “To be trodden on by an albino moklek. That is why I said it was an opportunity. Considerably more convenient than our original plan to take the ivories to the fire pools of Shundalar, and cheaper than committing them to the priests of the Infallible Index to be stored without hope of retrieval. Though it would be even better if our friend here had silver shoes, that speeds the process—”

“How you do know her name?” interrupted Sir Hereward.

“It is carved on her right tusk,” said the puppet. “That is her pedigree name. But there is a name on her left tusk, which I suspect she prefers. Rosie.”

The moklek raised her trunk and gave a short, soft trumpet. Almost as if in answer, a red rocket suddenly shot up from the fort on the mole, followed by two cannon blasts.

“Not so swift on the alarm,” said Sir Hereward, eyeing the rocket’s trajectory with professional interest. When not engaged directly in the elimination of inimical godlets, he was a mercenary officer of artillery. “And their powder is damp. That rocket should have gone twice as high.”

“Even with damp powder, the idiots in the fort might hit us if they decide to shoot,” said Tira. “It is close enough.”

“So how do we get to the ivories?” asked Sir Hereward, grabbing at a rail and wincing as the oars sank again to drive the ship backwards, and a particularly nasty groan came from the timbers below, the vessel shivering down its whole length as it was propelled too fast into the swell. They were already a good hundred yards out from the quay and heading into brisker waters away from the protection of the mole. “I presume it keeps them close, and even if the thing is rowing for dear life, I don’t fancy just strolling in on a desiccating inimical godlet.”

“I suggest you and Tira climb over the sides and go in through the oar ports on the deck above it—”

“There are huge oars going up and down in those ports,” interrupted Tira. “We would be crushed.”

“It has already broken a number of oars, or they were broken before, so there are empty ports,” said Mister Fitz. “Choose carefully, climb down, swing in. I will cast a nimbus on your weapons that will allow them to engage the energistic tendrils of the godlet. As you hack and slash them away from the oars, it will disrupt the rowing, and the entity will have to fight back. While it is distracted fighting you on the upper deck, I will sneak in on the middle deck where it lies, gather the ivories, and bring them up here, where Rosie will stomp on them.”

“The fourteen ivories you mentioned,” said Tira. “Not the others.”

“Indeed,” said Mister Fitz, who did not lie but did not always tell the truth.

“So there will be a few inches of rotten worm-eaten oak between us and the main presence of the godlet?” mused Sir Hereward. “That is better than I feared. Do you wish to take the port or starboard side, Tira?”

“Neither,” said the thief. “But having come this far, and waiting a year already for my Fifth Circle testing—”

“Fifth Circle?” asked Sir Hereward. “At this rate we will discover you were only apprenticed yesterday.”

“Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, a haul such as these ivories will grant me rapid advancement,” said Tira nonchalantly. “I will take the port side.”

“Hold out your weapons and look away,” said Mister Fitz.

They did so. The sorcerous needle flared, a flash of light illuminating the deck as if lightning had struck the stumpy mast above them. When they looked back, the needle was once again closed in Fitz’s hand, and the blades of dagger and knives glowed with shimmering blue light, like a Wintertide pudding in burning brandy, only somewhat more impressive.

“A word of advice,” said Sir Hereward to Tira. “Ikithan spider silk does not stick when subjected to seawater.”

Tira looked surprised, but quickly schooled her face, and stripped the slippers from her feet. The nails of her big toes were clad in bronze, darkened at the tips with some kind of poison.

“Watch the oars through at least two strokes before you choose your port,” added Sir Hereward. “Make sure you won’t be caught by those forr’ard or behind.”

Tira nodded. She looked scared, and Hereward thought he heard her suppress a whimper.

“You’re really just an apprentice, aren’t you?” asked Sir Hereward suddenly. “How old are you?”

Tira shrugged, then nodded her head again.

“Fifteen,” she whispered. “And a half.”

“Gods help us,” muttered Sir Hereward, from the lofty height of his twenty-five years. “Stay here with the moklek. Please.”

Hereward turned away from her and so did not see the smile that so briefly flickered across her face. He looked over the side, his head jerking back in momentary startlement at how low the hexareme was in the water, so low that the bottom tier of oar ports was only a handsbreadth above the sea, with the taller waves slopping in. If there had been any hope the ship would weather a turn past the protective mole, it was now extinguished.

It was the matter of only a few seconds to find a suitable gap, where no oars extended. He briefly considered holding the dagger with its energistic flames in his teeth but instead put it through his belt, climbed swiftly over the side, and, wasting no time, went feetfirst through the port below.

It was brighter belowdecks than above, the moonbeams through the ports faint beside the bright violet light of the energistic tendrils that worked the oars, tendrils that came up like a great trunk from below, through the gridded hatch in the lane between the empty benches, and then broke into branches extending to every oar.

Sir Hereward slashed at the closest tendril, severing it from the oar, and had to duck and dodge as the iron-shod shaft kicked up. He stayed low, crawling forward to hack at the next tendril, with similar results, and this time that oar crossed with the one in front, with a rending and splintering that spread along the deck as the oars in motion tangled with those suddenly stopped. The hexareme yawed broadside to the wind, and almost immediately listed to port, the lowest oar ports two decks below now fully submerged, water cascading in with unstoppable force.

Sir Hereward felt the list and heard the fateful gurgling. Leaping back from a tendril that came questing for him, not for an oar, he cut it in two and retreated to the port where he’d come in.

“Fitz!” he roared, in full sea captain’s shout. “Do you have them?”

More tendrils came towards him, from both sides and in the front, and many more were giving up their useless, broken oars and reorienting themselves to attack. Hereward cut and slashed at them while he hung half-out of the port. His bare foot touched the crest of a wave, and he felt the hexareme shudder with every wave. It was sinking, and sinking fast.

“Fitz! Do you have them?”

“Yes! Come up!”

The puppet’s thin, reedy voice came clear and high through the bass groans of breaking timber and the drowning gurgles of the ship. Sir Hereward hacked at a tendril that was trying to grasp him by the throat, threw the dagger at another that almost had his ankle, and exited through the port faster than the monkey he had almost bought earlier had disappeared with his purse when demonstrating its abilities.

He was none too soon. The sea poured in under him as he climbed, and there was already water washing halfway up the main deck, which was inclined at an angle of some twenty degrees, perhaps halfway to turning over. Rosie the albino pygmy moklek was leaning against the mainmast, one foot raised, and Mister Fitz was placing a wooden case with a bronze handle and reinforced edges under that foot. The case containing the ivories.

Then the puppet was suddenly caught up in a glowing net of bright blue energistic spiracules and dragged away from the case, which was snatched up by Tira. Letting the netted puppet roll down the deck, she sprang to the port gunwale, the case in her right hand.

Sir Hereward swarmed up the slanted deck on all fours. Tira held up the case, smiled at him, and shouted, “Asantra-Lurre may no longer be, but we Asantrans live on!”

She turned to dive into the sea, just as Hereward drew his short, three-barreled pepperbox pistol from the secret pocket under his vest, cocked it, and shot her in one swift motion. Only two barrels fired, but at least one ball struck the thief, low on her right arm above the wrist. Blood and fragments of bone sprayed out. Tira dropped the case and fell over the side, her scream of anguish cut short by the green wave that caught her.

The case slid down toward Hereward. He bent and grabbed it, swinging it over to the moklek even as lurid violet tendrils broke out through the deck in a dozen places and shot towards him, and a hulking, vaguely man-shaped mass of sickening energies erupted from the aft companionway, its inhuman voice shrieking in some incomprehensible language that hurt Hereward’s ears. The godlet staggered along the deck, and its furthermost tendrils reached with snakelike speed to grip Hereward around the bare ankles, his skin sizzling from the touch till he let himself slide down the deck to plunge into the great wash of sea that was roiling about above the already-submerged gunwales.

As he fell, Sir Hereward cried out: “Crush the case, Rosie! Crush the case!”

The pygmy moklek trumpeted in response and brought her foot down on the case. It splintered, but did not break. A wave crashed in, sending Hereward, struggling amidst tendrils, back up towards the mast. The wash caught the case and threatened to push it away, till Rosie gripped the handle with her trunk. The godlet, or that portion of it within the remnant body of Montaul, staggered towards the ivories, reaching out, only to be seized by an energistic lash, white as lightning, that emanated from a needle in the hand of Mister Fitz, who had escaped the blue net and was now some ten feet up the mainmast backstay.

“Crush—” Sir Hereward called again, but a tendril closed around his throat, and his shout was curtailed, the breath stopped from his lungs. He tried to prize the noose open, but his fingers burned and could get no purchase, and more and more tendrils were wrapping themselves around every part of his body, squeezing and tugging, so that he was as like to be torn apart as strangled, or even drowned, as in their viciousness the tendrils kept shoving him underwater.

Rosie the moklek, her broad rear wedged against the mainmast, did not need to be told again. She raised her foot and brought it down with all her strength, smashing the lid of the case. Treading down, she ground the case and all the ivories within to dust, continuing to stomp and crush till there was nothing left larger than a tiny splinter.

The energistic tendrils grew flaccid and shrank back from Hereward, who crawled coughing and spluttering up the slanted deck, emerging from the froth of broken water just in time to see the tendrils withdraw into the corpse of Montaul. There, they dimmed to become small lights that flickered within the cadaver’s eyes, mouth, and open ribs. Then there was a dull pop, a sudden rush of air against the wind, and the lights went out. The remnants of Montaul fell to the deck and were whisked away by the roiling sea, for the hexareme had now settled so far that only a small part of its deck was above the surface.

“Abandon ship!” called out Hereward weakly. “She’s foundering!”

Mister Fitz nodded, but instead of jumping to the sea from the backstay, he climbed up it, and then swung down on a rope to Rosie’s back, where he perched easily atop her head. The moklek raised her trunk, ready for use as a breathing tube, shifted away from the mast, and plunged into the sea.

Hereward swam to them. Seeing that Rosie was at home even in the sea, and her broad back, though smaller than a regular moklek’s, offered considerable room, he pulled himself aboard with a little help from Mister Fitz. Though the moklek’s back offered only inches of freeboard, Rosie floated with the waves, and wind and tide were already carrying them back to the quay, aided by her four strong legs paddling vigorously below.

“Well shot,” said Mister Fitz. “Somewhat making up for your misjudgment of the woman, though I should have come to expect that.”

“She fooled you too,” said Sir Hereward, grimacing as he felt his burned throat. “You, to be caught like a novice in an Ikithan net.”

“True,” mused the puppet. “It was fortunate she did not have one resistant to seawater. But I suspected her from the first, for she had too much sorcerous gear for any thief of Kwakrosh, even she be the Thief-Mother herself.”

“Then why did you not—” said Sir Hereward hotly before a great crack sounded behind them, and man and puppet turned to see a gout of flame leap up from the fortress on the mole.

“Mortar bomb,” said Sir Hereward, watching fuse sparks trail across the sky. “They are poor aimers … if you have a needle left, Fitz …”

“None to hand,” said the puppet. “My sewing desk is back at the inn.”

“Or perhaps their aim is good,” said Sir Hereward, as the spark trail plummeted towards the almost-completely-submerged hulk of the hexareme, only its stumpy mast now visible above the white tops of the waves, a hundred yards behind them. “But if the fuse is too long, the bomb will be drowned …”

A yellow-red flash lit the sky, followed a moment later by the shock of force through the water, and a moment later still by a great boom. As Hereward blinked to clear the flash from his eyes, he saw that there was no longer a mast or any other indication of the hexareme.

“I thought they were shooting at us,” he said.

“Perhaps they were,” said Mister Fitz.

“In any case, it will take them some time to load another bomb,” said Sir Hereward, looking back again. “We will be ashore before then. It is a sad end for a famous vessel. One of the last surviving hexaremes of Ashagah, I believe. It will be difficult to explain to the worthies of the town, who I perceive are amongst the notable force gathering on the quay as our reception.”

“Perhaps not so difficult, should we provide a suitable scapegoat,” said Mister Fitz. He stood up on Rosie’s head, held on to Hereward’s shoulder, and pointed ahead.

Tira the thief, or priestess, or whatever she was, was floating on her back ahead of them, feebly kicking her legs. As the moklek drew closer, Hereward reached out and half slid her, half dragged her onto Rosie’s back.

“Curse you,” she whispered. “May Pixalten-Qockril send—”

Mister Fitz leaned across and pressed one wooden finger against the middle of her forehead, his gauntlets being long since swept away. Tira stopped talking, her eyes rolled back, and Hereward had to turn her head so her mouth and nose weren’t in the water.

“And we have money for bribes,” continued Mister Fitz. He reached to his arm and pulled off the brassard, the letters fading. “All will be well.”

“So I suppose,” said Sir Hereward. He took off his own armband, slapped his hand lightly on the moklek’s back, and added, “We have much to thank you for, Rosie.”

“Indeed, she is a princess amongst mokleks,” said Mister Fitz. “Quite literally, albinism is a mark of the royal line.”

“Hexareme of Ashagah and mokleks,” said Hereward thoughtfully. “It reminds me of a poem. Let me see …

Hexareme of Ashagah

From far-off Panas

Drumming down the sea-lanes

In search of easy prey

Seeking a cargo of ivories, gold and mokleks …

“Bah!” protested Mister Fitz. “That is doggerel, a murder of the original poem. If you must recite, Hereward, you should do honor to the poet, not commit a crime!”

“It is a later translation, true, but nonetheless I stand by it!” protested Sir Hereward. “You and your heart of cypress have no feeling for verse!”

The moklek trumpeted, spraying them with a little seawater. A wave lifted her, and the east wind blew against Hereward’s back, taking them shorewards, knight and puppet bickering all the way.