The mage from nowhere, p.20
The Mage From Nowhere, page 20
“I understand. I will stop them right now after one last question. What is that bulge in your shirt pocket? Is that food?”
“This?” He pulled out a box and opened it. “My keys.”
“Blast.” Tarak hurried off.
“They are dangerous. One makes fire. All have daggers.”
Tarak was already halfway down the street, though it was wise for him to consider the shopkeeper’s warning. Tarak wasn’t going to stop all of them on his own, but he couldn’t let them go, either.
He caught up to them. Each had a water pouch…but based on the speed at which they were taking sips and the swagger to their step, Tarak presumed it was not water in those pouches. He followed them down a few streets until they stopped in a brothel.
Tarak stayed back as they entered. He checked behind him in hopes that whichever sorcerer Rick had fetched would find him soon. Except for a man walking the other way and minding his own business, the street was empty. Tarak had no rope. They could be in the brothel for a while. Would it be best to take them on in there?
Yes, he decided. But as he approached, the three of them were pushed out by what looked to be a hired guard of the brothel given his unofficial attire.
“No analytes,” said the guardsman, then shut the door.
The analytes replied in clear anger in their language, some of them spitting on the door. One of them said something that amused the other two. They all laughed and walked off.
Tarak spotted his bag in the hands of one. Using the callring on his finger, he could tell that the other ring remained in that bag ahead of him. Charlie’s book was probably there as well, but Tarak’s one silver had surely already been spent on whatever was in those drinking pouches.
Arselickers.
He followed them down a few streets until they stopped at another brothel and went inside. He waited, but they were not thrown out of this one.
He had formed a plan in preparation of this. He would arrest them one by one, catch them by surprise. He almost shouted in shock as someone came down from the sky and rolled across the ground in front of him with a few groans.
Michael came to a stop and looked back at Tarak. “It is you. I could tell by your size. You were harder to find than a virgin in a brothel…speaking of…have we given up on the thieves?” Michael sounded almost hopeful as he peered at the brothel while Tarak helped him up.
“No, I saw them enter. They carry the tracker ring and the book of Charlie.”
Michael had rope wrapped around his shoulder and under his arm. He patted it. “Got enough for three of them here. So they robbed you, did they?”
“I would be dead if I had not healed.”
Michael whistled. “Murderers too? This should be fun.” He started toward the brothel.
“One of them can make fire.”
“What?” Michael shot back a look as he stopped short. “How much fire is he capable of?”
“I saw only a small flame used to threaten an analyte shopkeeper who refused to buy their stolen goods.”
“He didn’t use fire on you?”
“Correct.”
“I hate fire, Tarak. I knocked on Arthur’s door in hopes he would come as well, but he wasn’t there. Mysterious bastard, always out. You have a plan yet?”
“We arrest them one by one, and we hurry. They are drunk. They might be quick, can you see?”
“Oh I can see. Best let me do the talking. I’ve got papers, and you don’t.”
Tarak let Michael take the lead as they entered the brothel. They came into a large room with a number of young women reclining on chairs. A man, not an analyte, perused the room before he turned and noticed Michael and Tarak. He appeared alarmed and hurried out.
An older woman approached. “Weapons are not permitted,” she began to explain, but Michael handed her a paper.
“We’re sorcerers of the king. Did three analytes just come in here?”
She took one look at the paper. Tarak had a glance as well, but only long enough to find a wax insignia at the bottom.
“Are they dangerous?” she asked.
“Yes,” Tarak answered. “They possess weapons as well, daggers.”
She seemed to notice his shirt then. “Are you all right?”
“Just wonderful,” he replied. “Are there kitchens in your establishment?”
“Yes…why?”
“Yes, Tarak, why?” Michael asked even more inquisitively.
“Have the chef prepare a meal for me,” Tarak said. “Whatever he has best for hunger back there. You have coin, do you not, good sir?” he asked Michael.
Michael rolled his eyes and ignored Tarak. “We’ve come to arrest the analytes for thievery and attempted murder. Which rooms are they in?”
“Please promise not to damage anything,” she said.
“We will be cautious—”
Tarak stepped in front of Michael. “Your girls are in danger with them! Which rooms, my dame? And hurry!”
“Rooms five, ten, and eleven. The last two rooms are on the second floor.” She started off as if to show them to the rooms. “The doors lock from the inside, but I have the keys.”
“Best you hand over the keys and stay here,” Michael advised. “Safer that way.”
She nodded as she reached into her pocket and picked three of them out of a small pile in her palm. “Five, ten, and eleven,” she said.
Michael and Tarak hurried off, but Tarak looked back. “I request that meal be ready by the time we finish!”
“You are unbelievable,” Michael muttered. “Let’s arrest the first one in room five and then split up to arrest the other two at the same time.”
“Why is that?”
“If we arrest room ten, room eleven will try to escape after he hears what’s going on.”
“How do you know they will hear the arrest?”
“Um, a guess. Look, room five.”
There was a number outside the door. Michael put his fingers over his lips as he slowly unlocked the door. Tarak crept in after him as the sounds of slapping flesh filled the hallway. The analyte stood at the edge of the bed, his pants around his ankles and his skinny rear end thrusting as a woman perched on all fours in front of him on the bed. With his back to them, the analyte didn’t seem to hear them coming.
“Um,” Michael whispered, clearly not wanting to approach the analyte or have him turn around. “Why don’t you arrest this one?”
Tarak didn’t care. This was one of three men who would’ve killed him. He went up behind the analyte and grabbed him. Tarak heaved the man over his head as the analyte squealed like a scared pig. Tarak tossed him hard against the wood floor in front of Michael’s feet. The analyte smacked his head and seemed to be halfway unconscious as he moaned with his eyes closed.
Michael looked down at the naked man, then slowly up at Tarak as the unlucky strumpet screeched in fear and ran out of the room naked.
“Well?” Tarak said, gesturing at Michael. “You have the rope.”
“Good lord, Tarak…” Michael bent down and readied the rope, but the analyte sat up quickly and jabbed Michael in his throat. Michael fell back and gasped as the analyte darted out of the room, still naked. The smack to his head must have done a number, because he tripped over nothing as Tarak chased after him.
Tarak reached down and picked him up over his head again. Michael was crawling out on his knees, holding his throat and gasping, as Tarak threw the analyte back toward Michael.
“Rope him, Michael!”
“Can’t breathe!” he squeezed out of his gasping throat.
The analyte ran back into the room, tripped over nothing again, but soon found his dagger among his pants. He held it up in front of him protectively as Tarak drew his sword.
Tarak recognized this analyte as the one who had initiated the threat against him. “Simple arrest,” Tarak mimicked. “Cooperate and you live. Move and you die.”
“How are you alive?” he responded.
“Cooperate and you live. Move and you die,” Tarak repeated as he walked toward the analyte.
“You should be dead!” said the man as he backed away and looked for a means of escape.
“Cooperate and you live. Move and you die!”
The analyte grabbed his pants off the floor and held them in front of him. Tarak could see in his eyes that he was not going to give up.
“You are under arrest,” Michael wheezed as he came to Tarak’s side.
The analyte spat in Michael’s face and tossed his dagger at Tarak, but Tarak didn’t care. He let it strike his torso as he wound up his sword for his own strike. He had never used a sword of any kind before. There had been no need until now, but it was pretty self-explanatory.
He let out a cry of aggression as he jabbed it through the robber’s chest while the analyte tried to escape around Tarak. The analyte couldn’t utter a scream as he fell back and started to bleed out.
“Hell, Tarak, was that really necessary?” Michael asked.
“There is no time for him. The ring is on the third floor. I can feel it.”
Tarak had not killed a man before, either. That was about to change as the analyte bled out on the floor. Tarak didn’t feel much yet, not with two others to worry about.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The woman who’d greeted them at the door had come to investigate. “Best you not see,” Michael told her as he closed the door to the room. “We’ll deal with the body later.”
“You killed him?” she asked incredulously.
“He did not obey orders,” Tarak said, realizing only then that he had somehow already gotten accustomed to the power to arrest and even slay criminals. Perhaps his father was right. He did have a calling besides drinking and sleeping late. “We will take care of the other two now.”
“Must you kill them, too?” asked the woman.
“Only if they do not allow us to arrest them,” Michael explained gently.
Tarak was already off toward the second floor. He saw the stairs in front of him. Michael caught up.
“This is not a game,” Michael muttered. “One of them can burn this whole place down. Need I remind you we have no water mage?”
“I will retrieve Charlie’s book and Reuben’s other ring. If you are concerned about fire, we must overpower them quickly.”
“I don’t have the lineage of gods behind me, Tarak! I cannot overpower one of them on my own. I can only threaten them with my sword, but fire beats sword. I’m pretty sure it beats everything you have as well.”
They reached door number ten on the second floor.
“I changed my mind,” Michael said. “We’ll arrest this one together and deal with the other escaping, possibly.”
“That is fine. Shall I go first?”
“You shall.”
Tarak unlocked the door as quietly as he could, then pushed it open.
“Oh fuck,” Michael muttered as they met eyes with an analyte pulling up his pants and pushing away the prostitute on her knees in front of him.
“Occupied,” he said angrily.
Tarak showed his bloody sword. “Remember me?”
The analyte said an unfamiliar word as he rushed to close the belt of his pants.
“You are under arrest,” Tarak said. “Do you wish to die fighting or spend the rest of your life in the dungeon?” He found himself thirsting for another fight.
“He wouldn’t spend his whole life there,” Michael muttered. “I mean, he’s not that old. He doesn’t even look thirty.”
“He tried to kill me!” Tarak argued.
“Tried. That’s very different than did.”
Tarak ignored Michael. “Where are my belongings?” he asked the analyte, who seemed to be eyeing his cloak on the dresser, which probably covered his dagger.
Michael appeared willing to take away the option of fighting the analyte as he made a dash toward the man’s cloak, but the analyte got there first. Michael blew him onto the bed with wind. The strumpet gave a scream and huddled in the corner of the room.
“Shush!” Tarak told her. “We cannot alert the other in the room next door.”
Michael tossed the rope onto the lap of the analyte as he sat up in bed. “Tie your ankles together. Do it quietly.” He threatened with his sword.
The analyte took one look at the rope, then shouted at the top of his lungs. “Gin! Gin!”
Tarak jumped onto the man and muffled his mouth. He used his other hand to flip the analyte over. He shoved his face into the bed and pried his arms behind his back.
“Rope him!” he told Michael as he held the man’s face down with his knee.
“You’re suffocating him,” Michael commented.
“So then hurry.”
“The door—Tarak!”
Tarak shot a look toward the door to find a shirtless analyte man with old burns across his chest. He put his hands together and formed a fireball. Tarak rolled and held up the other analyte in front of him as the fireball struck.
The force threw Tarak and his captive off the bed. He landed between the wall and the bedframe and held his head as he waited for the dizziness to pass.
Sound came back to his senses; the analyte wheezing next to him. He rolled the man over to find his chest singed. Tarak stepped over him, onto the bed, and leapt as the fire mage cast a stream of fire at Michael, who hid behind a dresser.
Tarak tackled the mage and raised his fist to strike him, but the analyte blasted him in the chest. The fireball threw Tarak high enough to hit his back against the ceiling.
“No!” the fire mage yelled as Tarak landed. He looked up to see Michael slicing through much of the mage’s neck as he tried but failed to roll out of the way.
It was a gruesome sight as the mage quickly bled out, but it was the fire on the dresser that took Tarak’s focus. Michael was busy taking off his cloak and shirt, which, too, were aflame.
Tarak walked around the bed and roped up the weakened analyte who had been struck by his compatriot’s fireball. This was the last thief standing, and he would remain alive. The man didn’t put up a fight as he watched his comrade die in front of him.
Michael bustled out the door. “We have fire in here!” he announced. “We need water!”
Tarak followed him out with his prisoner as the fire crackled and grew behind him.
“Fire!” Michael announced as he walked down the hall. “Are there any water mages? The king will pay you for your service, and this lovely place won’t burn to the ground!”
Many doors opened and men leaned their heads and shirtless bodies out for a look. Some even came out in their undergarments to check out the room, followed eventually by a few of the strumpets.
“Fire!” one woman screamed.
Soon many of them were shouting that one word, though no one did anything to help.
The woman from the entrance found her way to the scene and nearly pulled her hair out from her scalp as she yelped. She then screamed at Michael, “You said you would be cautious!”
“Fetch water!” Tarak screamed back.
A door quickly opened and shut near Tarak. Arthur, fully clothed, seemed to have come out of the room. He darted across the hall and into the glowing room.
“Water is not necessary anymore!” he announced.
By the time Tarak dragged his prisoner over, the fire was out and the dresser was soaking wet. “God, there is a dead analyte in here,” Arthur muttered in shock.
“Sure is,” Michael said. “So this is where you are most nights, Arthur?”
Arthur looked down and away but kept one eye up on Michael. “Once in a full moon.”
“Which room did you come out of? Thirteen?” Michael asked as he started toward it.
Arthur hurried in front of him and put his hand on the doorknob. “There are some things that should stay private,” he said in warning.
“Perhaps, but I am curious,” Michael replied, as if that was enough of an argument to convince Arthur of anything.
An audience had gathered in the hall. Many came to look at the body, but most made an expression as if wishing they hadn’t.
The woman who seemed to be in charge announced, “Everyone back to your rooms.” She made some hand gestures at some of the strumpets, who took their clients by their hands and lured them away. Other men needed more of a push to stop gawking at the scene.
When the hallway was just about clear, the woman turned to Michael again. “I expect the king will pay for this damage. There is blood everywhere, and my dresser is ruined.”
“Go to the castle tomorrow and make a request, but don’t expect a ruling to go your way. The thieves fought back. There was nothing else we could do.” Although the explanation seemed sincere, he gave Tarak a look as if angry he had to lie.
Tarak didn’t regret anything. He pushed the prisoner against the wall and leaned down in front of his face. “Where are the belongings you took from me?”
“In that room.” The analyte appeared more shaken up by the events than anyone else, his face white as he pointed.
Michael walked down the hall and entered the room where the fire mage must’ve come from. He brought back a bag.
“The ring and book?” Tarak asked.
“Both here,” Michael said, “along with a few other things that I’m assuming did not belong to these thieves.” He pulled out a silver necklace, a couple brass earrings, and then an old pipe.
“The pipe is mine!” the analyte said.
“You’re not going to need it in the dungeons.”
“I will take the necklace and earrings,” the woman said as she snatched them out of Michael’s hand. “To pay for the damage.”
“Hey, no.” He reached back for them, but she twisted away.
“Unless you plan to wrestle them out of my grasp, I am keeping them.”
Michael looked at Tarak as if wondering if he might wish to take them back forcefully. He shook his head.
“I inquire about my food, my dame,” he said.
“You still wish to eat after witnessing that?” She gestured toward the room with the dead analyte lying in a puddle of blood from a gaping wound in his neck.
