They were already at the end of the block before he had gotten to the edge of the roof. He gazed after them in disbelief and crushing disappointment; he couldn’t hope to catch them or even keep up—already the mind-traces were fading with distance, and in a moment—
While he tried desperately to keep hold, the faint traces slipped from him and were gone.
::Nikolas—:: he said with despair.
::I was following,:: came the reply. ::Dallen let me “ride” his link with you. It can’t be helped. See what they were doing in that house, if you can.::
Well, one thing for sure, he was absolutely not going in the front door. If he’d been in the shoes of these men, he would have left a trap on the door. But they might not be aware that most of the buildings in this part of town had rooftop hatches; that was what he would look for first.
It was easier to find than he had thought. The owner must have had reason to be up here more frequently than most, for he had installed a real hatch with a solid door, the kind that was in Nikolas’ shop, rather than a makeshift thing you had to move tiles to find. It was locked, but only by a sliding bolt; working by feel, Mags got it open and felt around the edges for any sort of triggering mechanism for a possible trap. It was risky, brushing his fingers around the edges like that, but he kept his body out of direct range of anything that might shoot him as best he could.
There was nothing. He gave the frame of the hatch a more thorough examination and still saw nothing.
All right, he was safe so far; holding onto the edge as long as he could, he lowered himself down as far as his arms would reach, then dropped the remaining distance onto the attic floor. There he crouched, listening.
Nothing. The house was absolutely silent. He couldn’t even hear any vermin.
. . . light would have been nice.
Then again, he was used to working in the dark.
On hands and knees, he felt his way along the attic floor, searching for the hatch that would lead down into the house itself, using the dim patch of sky and stars where the roof hatch was open as his guide in the search, crawling in an ever-widening circle until his hands encountered something raised off the surface of the floor. A hatch identical to the first, also locked.
He listened with mind and ears, then pressed his ear to the hatch. Still nothing.
Odd. No rats. No mice. Wunner why?
It could be that they were extraordinarily vigilant about vermin. It could be that they’d actually had a ratcatcher in recently; once a ratcatcher had gone over a place with his ferrets, it usually took the surviving rats and mice a fortnight or two to work up the courage to come back.
He worked the second latch open as he had the first. This hatch opened downward, and he peered into the darkness—and this time, he saw a glimmer, a faint shimmer, of light, at the farther end of the house. He thought it would be coming the ground floor, at the back of the house.
He dropped down onto the floor and made his way toward that faint glow, confident now that the house was empty. He thought these might be bedrooms; there were large, bulky objects on the floor, and a musty, bitter smell. It was nothing he could identify. Not exactly a perfume, but not exactly a stink, either. The closest he could come was some sort of bitter herb.
The light was coming up a staircase at the back of the house.
Damn. I hate this.
There was no good way to get up or down a staircase when you didn’t know what was waiting for you on the next floor. All he could do was lie down flat on his belly and scoot himself awkwardly down the stairs a little at a time, hoping that if there was someone there after all, and his Gift had gone completely unreliable, he would see them before they saw him.
But he saw the source of the light first.
It was a candle, left burning atop what looked like a heap of clothing and bedding. This was where the smell was coming from. It looked as if the cloth had been drenched in some sort of oil, it was stained and dark, and there was a sort of dull sheen on it.
Once the candle burned down—which would not even take a candlemark—the clothing would catch fire. With all that oil the place would be ablaze in no time. Was this what the assassin had come into the house to set up?
::Probably,:: Nikolas confirmed. ::It’s a good way to ensure that you are long gone when the fire starts.::
And that candle was awfully slim and short—
Mags didn’t bother with getting to his feet; tumbling down the stairs was faster. At the bottom he bounced up and ran over to the pile of clothing and snatched the candle out of it.
This looked like the kitchen: fireplace with some pots, the table on which all the clothing had been heaped, some chairs, implements on the counters. He wrinkled his nose; the smell of the oil had covered up the stink of spoiled food. But it was old; he went to look at the pots, and they were half full of mold and spoiled food, all of it dried and cracking.
No one had been here in a while. Why bother to burn it down?
Then he recognized another smell.
He knew that smell . . .
Absolute dread rolled over him, and he shuddered. He remembered that smell from the mines, when Col Pieters and his boys had hidden things they didn’t want anyone to ever find, knocked out the supports of the tunnels their secrets had been left in, and buried them in the waste rock that held no gems. But the rock never stopped the rot, and the smell would permeate through the mine and get into everything, and all you could do was tie rags around your mouth and nose and try to breathe through them until time and vermin took care of the problem. And try not to think too hard about what was making the smell, because if you did . . .
He didn’t want to go into the next room. He didn’t want to see what was there.
He didn’t have a choice.
::Wait—Mags—:: Nikolas’ mind-voice interrupted him.
This room had a door between it and the next; Mags propped the candle in a little wax, pulled off his shirt and jerkin, took the shirt and wrapped it around his face, making sure to cover his mouth and nose, before putting the jerkin back on. Then he tried the door.
::Am I yer partner, or not?:: he asked fiercely, telling himself not to be sick.
::You are. But you don’t have to do this.::
::I’ll haveta do’t sometime. Ye knows thet. Fust time might’s well be now.::
He sensed Nikolas’ resignation. ::I’ll send the Guard. When they take over from you, get out the same way you got in.::
The door wasn’t locked, but it had been jammed shut. Not caring now about noise, he rammed it repeatedly with his shoulder, hearing something crack every time he did, as if he was breaking some sort of seal. Each time he did it, more of the stench puffed out around the frame. Finally the door gave, and he stumbled into the room.
The candlelight flickered over a scene of grotesque, even macabre, horror.
Even through his shirt the stench was appalling.
The stench of four bloated bodies sprawled across the furniture in bizarre poses of ease, as if they were all relaxing. Their clothing wasn’t disarranged, there was no sign of a fight, no sign even that they had been carried in here. They looked exactly as if they had come here together to pass some time before bed.