A weight like a thousand-pound anchor yanked him up short. It tried to drag him down into the darkness from which there was no escape. Soul-draining cold sucked at his determination to retain his grip. His mind and body ached to let go of the weight and escape. But he didn’t let go, because the burden was Riltana, and to abandon her here would be the death of her. Or worse.
He screamed into the void of gloom, straining his entire spirit. He shuffled, bent-backed and head down, pulling on the stretching fabric of his scarf …
And stepped back into the warehouse office, only three paces from his origin, with Riltana in tow. Sans spiders. They’d made half the trip, though, but he’d shed them in the Shadowfell, where he’d nearly lost the windsoul, too.
“Shank me with a dull spoon,” she murmured. “Don’t ever do that again.” She sat down hard.
Demascus tugged the Veil from Riltana as he wheeled to face the wounded oni.
Pashra was gone. He’d left behind only a slick of spilled blood.
“The bastard got out while the getting was good,” muttered Riltana.
“What happened?” he asked. “Even for someone with your talent for angering the natives, I’d expect you would have thought better of mouthing off to an oni.” He helped Riltana to her feet.
The windsoul shook her head. “As if I know what the Hells an oni is. When Pashra caught me going through his desk, he looked like a watersoul. Then when I saw his shadow didn’t match his guise, I called him on it.”
“So he had no choice but to attack you?”
“Um … yeah. I know, I know. Sometimes I can be a little too, um … impulsive.” She rubbed at her eyes.
“That, or maybe you just have special needs. You know, like some nobles’ children?”
“Which nobles’ children?”
“The inbred ones they ship off to those special manors in the country …” He took a step back so when Riltana tried to swat him he was out of range. Or he tried to; he actually caught his foot on a dead spider and only just managed not to fall on his face.
It was Riltana’s turn to steady him. “You all right?”
“A spider bit me. One with a … a woman’s head.”
“Yeah, I saw that one. Pashra was talking to it earlier. It said something about, um, demonwebs? You know about those, too?”
“Demonwebs …” The phrase was familiar, but its meaning danced just out of reach. He shook his head and continued, “The spider’s bite was poison. I neutralized it, but a little venom is still in my blood. I probably wouldn’t have noticed, except that dragging you clear of those spiders really taxed me. I’m not sure I could do it again.”
Riltana said, her tone suddenly serious, “Thank you for that. I nearly lost my head when those things started crawling on me. If you hadn’t … anyhow, thanks.”
He nodded. “Happy to help. Let’s see what kinds of secrets Pashra and his little woman-headed spider were so desperate to keep.” Demascus retrieved his sword, then remembered he’d dropped Exorcessum’s scabbard just outside in the rain. He sighed, and leaned the blade against the desk.
“I was trying to be circumspect last time,” the windsoul said. “Trying to make it look like no one had been here. I guess we don’t have to worry about that anymore.” She opened a drawer and pulled out sheafs of parchment. She scanned each one, then tossed them, one at a time, over her shoulder.
He joined her. Each parchment, tracking grain density, pay, and the fluctuating rates of exchange rates in Cormyr versus Impiltur, and so on, went fluttering behind him to land in a growing drift. Lone spiders occasionally crawled aimlessly across the desk, but they were squashed nicely with a swat. He’d developed a real hatred of crawling, many-legged things during his time in Akanul.
“Look,” Riltana said. She pointed down into an open drawer.
“What?” He leaned over.
“False bottom.”
Then he saw it-faint seams outlined the shape of a rectangle.
The windsoul reached into the cavity and pressed along one side. The panel popped out. Inside the narrow space rested a thin leather ledger and a tiny chest.
“Pashra, Pashra, Pashra,” said the windsoul as she retrieved the curio chest. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to hide your valuables in false-bottom drawers? It’s the first place any good thief looks!”
Demascus grabbed the ledger. It was a record of cargo originating from an island just off the coast referred to as “the burial site.” He was disappointed to find no mention of the name of the ship responsible for providing transport. Odd. He doubted the cargo was just floating down from the sky into the warehouse. He paged forward. The cargo started appearing only a tenday ago. Which was about how long ago communication with the mine had ceased. According to the ledger, the cargo had been routed through this warehouse, a stopover on its way to “the new nexus.” No address for the nexus, either. But it was someplace in Akanul, if not Airspur itself.
“I bet this is the real deal,” Riltana said, interrupting his perusal. She held the palm-sized chest in her hand, and the lid gaped open. It was mostly empty, except for a sprinkle of iron-hued grains.
“Arambarium?” he said.
“Gotta be.” She removed a glove, wet a finger, and carefully pressed down on a grain.
“Careful,” he said.
“Yeah, yeah.” She retracted her hand and held out her finger so they could both inspect the silvery grain adhered there.
“Doesn’t look particularly special,” he said.
“It … I can’t tell what temperature it is. One moment it’s warm, the next it’s cool as ice.” Her eyes were wide as she stared with rapt attention at the arambarium chip.
“Maybe you should research the effects of raw arambarium contamination before you hold that too much longer.”
She said, “This is research, Demascus. Why don’t you get back to the ledger?”
He snorted, but did as she suggested.
Paging forward, he discovered that the arambarium routing through the warehouse had stopped the day before. Apparently, new arrangements were going to be made for “the final excavation.” No clues were forthcoming on what that might mean. The document disgorged two final pieces of information. A name, penned into the margin of the first page, read “Master Raneger.” With the name was the note, “May prove amenable.” Another note, written in a different hand, said, “The Gatekeeper has been enticed to guard the new nexus.”
He didn’t know who the Gatekeeper was. But Raneger … he was the criminal who Chant had once described as the most successful malefactor in all of Airspur and owner of the infamous Den of Games. His power lay in the fact that the peacemakers had never traced anything back to him. And perhaps he’d made an ally of one of the Stewards, though which one was debatable. Chant once owed a debt to Raneger so steep that the pawnbroker’s life had been forfeit. But that was water under the bridge. Despite at least one serious attempt on his life by Raneger, Chant had paid off his debt. Then, in what seemed like a feat of idiocy, Chant had taken a position with his former enemy at the Den of Games. Working for Raneger. Demascus still couldn’t figure out how that had come about. Chant’s shop was only open now by special appointment, which was why Fable, the finicky cat, was Demascus’s house guest.
The deva snapped the ledger shut. Riltana flicked the arambarium grain from her finger into the chest, closed it, and replaced her glove. She closed her hand over the chest, and it vanished from her palm. “A down payment for services rendered,” she decreed.
Demascus doubted there was anything the woman wouldn’t steal. Part of her appeal, he supposed, was that brashness. Besides, it might be handy to have some arambarium of their own. He’d ask her not to dispose of the material in the chest to the highest bidder-maybe they could find a use for it. A discussion for later, though.
“Let’s get out here,” he said. “We’ve got an appointment.”