The tyrant hurled the bookshelf over. Volumes thumped and skittered on tables and the filthy floor. Shells and sponges and skate purses were smashed and scattered. Johan shoved over a table with his bare foot and wrenched strings of starfish from the ceiling.
"You… you barbarian!" Horrified, Hebe shrilled curses as she grabbed a gaff studded with a rusty shark hook. Johan scooped a heavy book from a table and slung it backhanded. The volume smacked Hebe in the face and bowled her against yet another table. Johan picked up a shark's jaw and slashed the woman across the forehead. As blood ran in her eyes, he hooked a foot to dump her on the floor.
Stamping one foot on Hebe's flabby neck, Johan pressed hard enough to strangle her, then let up a bit. "I ask you, where is the library?"
Wedged amid debris, suffocating, Hebe gasped, "You'll- never-"
"I always," corrected Johan.
Sticking two fingers in his mouth, he flicked them at the ceiling. Instantly there whispered down a fine mist all about the room. Droplets hissed louder as they settled on spilled books and seawrack. As the mild rain touched Hebe's face, she screamed as if burned and struggled valiantly. The evil mage only shifted his stance and mashed her throat harder. Smoke began to fizzle from tables and parchment. The old librarian struggled and writhed.
"It bums savagely, does it not, Hebe?" Johan's gleaming pate sported glistening raindrops at a half-inch removed, for his invisible aura shielded him. "Don't open your eyes, else you'll be blinded. Tell me, quickly, and I'll release you. Where lies the fabled library?"
"You'll s-suffer!" Shuddering, the tough old woman tried to protect her face with her elbows. "The t-townsfolk will f-find you-"
"You waste breath." Exasperated, Johan picked up the gaff with the rusty shark hook. He snagged the point through Hebe's scalp and began to pull, twisting. Blood flowed. "The library is where?"
"Ar-Arboria! Aghh!" Helplessly Hebe flailed her arms as iron tore and acid ate her flesh. Squirming in pain, she babbled, "D-deep in the forest! Fol-follow the coast south to Fulmar's Fort! Wh-where the river spills to the sea, follow its b-banks into the depths! But you'll never survive Shauku! Oh, p-please, release m-me! I'm dying!"
"True, but too slowly." Still pinning the sage, Johan picked up a thick book no bigger than his hand. Stooping, he struck the sages nose, making her yelp, then shoved the book in her mouth and stamped with his free foot. Choking, the sage bucked and shuddered but couldn't squirm free. Johan added, "I'll release you dead, I'm afraid. I couldn't bear you babbling my destination to others."
Patiently Johan pressed on the old woman's face until finally, with a chest-breaking sigh, she fell limp. Climbing off his murder victim, Johan uttered a single word to dispel the rain of death. Puddled with poison, parchments were curled and browned, shells had turned dark, seaweed and oddments had shriveled.
Johan stepped to the hearth fire. He planned to strew live coals to fire the room and cover his tracks but halted. Just as he'd left cripples behind in the pine forest to spread tales of terror, here too the sage's body might rattle his pursuers.
"Even better," murmured the murderous mage, "her death might aid my cause immeasurably."
Nodding grimly, Johan left clutter and corpse lying, then passed out the door and pulled it shut. Tracing a line around the doorframe, he sealed the portal with a simple binding spell. The spell would remain until magically dispelled, which he doubted any in Buzzard's Bay could do. Mortals would need to batter down the door.
Descending the narrow stairs, Johan passed through the echoing fish house on the ground floor and outside into the narrow twisted street. As always, the sky was overcast, the buildings drear, and the streets a welter of mud and rushed seashells.
Buzzard's Bay was a huge bite in the eternally battered Storm Coast, one of very few safe harbors, and hardly safe at that. The bay was riddled with jagged rocks, many lurking just below the churning surface. Seamounts of scoured granite thrust from the water to encircle this southern arm of the bay,. called the Witch's Weir, where squatted this port. Hunkered on a long ragged spit, the town was lashed steadily by the western wind as it swirled around the weir. Even the landward retreat climbed a fierce slope of stone before meeting a green plateau that verged on Arboria, the endless pine forest to the south.
Curious, thought Johan. He'd held pinefolk in his grasp yet had neglected to question them about the location of Shauku's fabled library-an unfortunate oversight. Yet he consoled himself while striding the mucky streets.
"No matter. Destiny led me here. It will lead me to win over Shauku."
Built to withstand wind and shed snow, the town's dwellings consisted mostly of first stories of rough stone and second stories of pine boards or slabs, all roofed with cedar shakes green with moss and white from salt spray. In places the town elders had strewn clam and oyster shells tamped into hardpack, but most streets were mires of black mud studded with ankle-twisting stones. Behind every shop and house ran rickety drying racks hung with fillets of split cod, herring, and hake that jittered and fluttered in the wind and gave the town a distinct odor. Johan's party had taken refuge from the wind in a tavern called the Dandysprat, and to this hostel the mage plodded, sinking in muck at every step.
As the day waned, the tavern grew rowdy with fishermen and loggers celebrating the day's end with ale. Johan had no use for frivolity but stuck to business. Luckily, as ordered, Johan's huntsman waited at an alley, then slunk into it. Johan joined him.
Funneled by nearby buildings, the wind whistled furiously behind the tavern but not enough to carry away the stink of privies and fish. Johan's huntsman pointed out two men lurking under a drying rack in sunset shadows.
No names were exchanged. The men might have been brothers but were not. Everyone in Buzzard's Bay was descended from the same stock: tall, blond, thick-limbed, slow of speech but keen of mind, for the sea didn't forgive fools. Careless clods sank beneath the brine, leaving the clever alive and cautious. These two wore thick quilted jackets and fur hats and vests. The only difference showed in their footwear-the one covered with silver mackerel scales wore sea boots, while the other wore knee-high riding boots. Both their mustaches blew in the breeze.
Muzzy from ale, the huntsman said, "These are the blokes you want, milord. One is feared on land and one on sea."
Johan studied the men as if buying cattle. The locals stared back.
Johan asked, "You shan't shrink from an odious task? I can reward smart agents who do a good job but make it look like another's work."
The two coasters nodded. The scale-speckled corsair said, "If you can pay, milord, we can deliver. We're not men to shirk or question. The Drumfish is ready to sail at your whim."
"And my gang's armed and awaiting orders," added the highwayman.
Nodding, the bony mage fished in his pockets and doled out a handful of gold and electrum that made eyes bulge. Immeasurably wealthy, Johan seldom dealt with money, so he never knew its value. He'd only asked his scribe for "enough coin to buy two crews." Hurriedly the assassins split the haul.
Johan also gave a puffy leather pouch to the highwayman. Light as thistledown, it was stoppered with a wooden peg sealed with beeswax.
The mage warned, "It's full, so don't peek until it's needed. Let the contents float downwind into a crowd to rile them."
To the pirate, Johan gave a small nautilus shell lacquered black. The mouth was also stoppered with wax. "If you engage in a sea battle, break the seal and pitch it overside. T'will help you win."