I guess this means there’s no risk of creaking treads betraying us.
A sparsely furnished room appeared as they neared the floor of the basement. Dazzling light filled the space as a glowing ball appeared above Sonea’s head. Cery looked for the bed, found it, then felt a surge of disappointment. It was unoccupied.
A door opened and they both spun about, then sighed as they saw Regin and Gol enter the room. Both frowned as they saw the rogue was nowhere in sight.
“Search,” Sonea said. “But carefully.”
They each chose a wall, examining the furniture, looking under the bed, opening cupboards.
“This room isn’t being used,” Regin observed. “The clothes in this cupboard are dusty.”
Cery nodded and nudged a basin with soiled cups, bowls and cutlery in it. “And these dishes have been dirty for so long they’re mouldy.”
“Aha!” Gol exclaimed quietly. All turned to see him gesturing at the wall. A section of bricks sat at an angle to the rest, swivelling aside as he pressed on one end. Behind was a dark space. Cery crossed to it and sniffed at the air inside.
“The Thieves’ Road,” he said. “Or a passage to it.”
Sonea chuckled. “Not two entrances after all. I’m surprised you didn’t check for subterranean ones.”
Cery shrugged. “It’s a new street. When the king demolishes the old ones, he makes sure the Road goes too.”
“He wasn’t thorough enough this time,” she said. Coming closer, she ran a hand over the brickwork. “Or perhaps he was. This is new – hardly any dust or cobwebs on it. Should we see where it leads?”
“If you want to explore, go ahead,” Cery told her. “But this isn’t my territory. I can’t enter without permission. If I trespass,” he shrugged, “the Thief Hunter will have one less Thief to do in.”
“Does this passage suggest our rogue is working with the local Thief?” Regin asked.
Sonea looked at Cery. “If she is the Thief Hunter, then I doubt it. But if she’s not, then she’d have skills a Thief would find very useful.”
In other words, she thinks this proves that the rogue isn’t the Thief Hunter, Cery thought.
Regin peered into the tunnel, his expression intent. He looked as if he might move inside, but then he stepped back and straightened.
“I suspect she’s long gone. What do you recommend we do next, Cery?” he asked.
Cery glanced at the magician in surprise. A magician asking him his opinion was not something that happened often. “I agree that you’re unlikely to find her in the tunnels.” He reached out and turned the bricks back into place. “If she doesn’t notice that we invaded her room she might continue using it to access the tunnels. We should make sure everything is exactly how we found it. I’ll put a watch on this place and let you know if she returns.”
“And if she does notice?” Regin asked.
“Then we’ll have to hope another bit of luck leads us to her again.”
Regin nodded, then looked at Sonea. She shrugged. “Not much else we can do for now. If anyone can find her again, Cery will.”
Cery felt a flush of pleasure, followed by a niggling anxiety that she might be wrong. He had spotted the rogue by chance. It might not be so easy to find her again. The four of them moved around the room quickly, making sure everything was in order, then left the way they had come. Sonea relocked the front door with magic. They slipped out the back way. Once in the main street again, they exchanged glances but remained silent. The two magicians raised hands in farewell before they walked away. Cery and Gol returned to the empty shopkeeper’s house.
“Well, that was disappointing,” Gol said.
“Yes,” Cery agreed.
“Do you think the rogue will come back?”
“No. She’ll have had something set up to tell her if anyone came visiting.”
“So what do we do next?”
“Watch and hope I’m wrong.” He looked around the room. “And find out when the owner of this place is due back. We don’t want to scare him and his family half to death at finding a Thief in his house.”
The slave master looked surprised to see Dannyl and Ashaki Achati, before he threw himself to the ground at their feet. His surprise was not because a powerful Sachakan and Kyralian magician had come visiting. The estate had been expecting them, or someone, to arrive.
“You came faster than we hoped,” the big man said when Achati explained that they were looking for an escaped female slave and a Kyralian man dressed as a slave.
“You have seen the pair I described?” Achati asked.
“Yes. Two nights ago. One of the slaves thought they were people we’d been warned about, and when we came to question them they had run away.”
“Did you search for them?”
“No.” The man bowed his head. “We were warned they were magicians, and that only magicians could catch them.”
“Who gave you this warning?”
“The master, in a message.”
“When did the message arrive?”
“A day before the pair arrived here.”
Achati glanced at Dannyl, his eyebrows raised in disbelief. So if Ashaki Tikako didn’t send the message, who did? Dannyl felt his heart skip a beat. The Traitors. They must be very organised to get messages like this out to the country estates so quickly.
“How long ago did you send your message warning your master of their appearance here?”
“Two nights ago – straight after they disappeared.”
Achati turned to Dannyl. “If he is on his way he won’t arrive for another day, even if he rides rather than taking a carriage. I’m afraid we’ll have to wait. I don’t have the authority to read the minds of another man’s slaves.”
“Do you have the authority to question them?” Dannyl asked.
The magician frowned. “There is no custom or law preventing me. Or you.”
“Then let’s question them.”
Achati smiled. “We’ll do it your way? Why not?” He chuckled. “If you do not mind, I would like to watch and learn from you. I would not know what questions to ask that might trick a slave into revealing more than he or she wanted to.”
“There really isn’t any trickery involved,” Dannyl assured him.
“Which do you want to question first?”
“This man, and anyone who saw Lorkin and Tyvara. And most of all, the slave who saw them and thought they might be the people they’d been warned about.” Dannyl drew out his notebook and looked at the slave master. “And I need a room – nothing fancy – where I can question them alone without others overhearing.”
The man looked from Dannyl to Achati uncertainly.
“Arrange it,” Achati ordered. As the man hurried away, the Sachakan magician turned to smile crookedly at Dannyl. “You really must learn to phrase your requests as orders, Ambassador Dannyl.”
“You have the greater authority here,” Dannyl replied. “And I am a foreigner. It would be rude of me to assume I could take control.”
Achati looked at him thoughtfully, then shrugged. “I suppose you are right.”
The slave master returned and then led them into the building to a small room that smelled of grain. The floor was covered in a fine dust patterned with the sweeping grooves of a broom. Particles hung in the beams of sunlight streaming in from a high window. Two chairs had been placed under the window.
“Well, it’s definitely not fancy,” Achati said, not hiding his amusement.
“Where would you suggest we question them?” Dannyl asked.
Achati sighed. “I guess it would be presumptuous if we’d questioned them in the Master’s Room, and guest rooms would have made it obvious we aren’t in charge here. No, I suppose this is an appropriate setting.” He moved to one of the chairs and sat down.