The lock was a large one. These were often the most dangerous, being large enough to hide a nasty surprise, like a poison needle on a spring. After a close inspection, however, Seregil slid a pair of slender picks from his roll and went to work. A moment later he heard the click of several tumblers. He grinned as he raised the heavy lid, but the casket was empty.
“I don’t see it in the bookcase,” Alec whispered, joining him. “It’s not on any of the tables, either.”
Seregil showed him the empty box. “Would it have fit in here?”
“Yes.”
“Damn!”
They spent some time searching the room, but it was no use. Nothing like the book Alec recalled was to be found.
“Bilairy’s Balls,” Seregil hissed.
“Maybe some other alchemist took it.” Alec looked around. “Then again, everything else is just as I remember it. Nothing appears to have been moved.”
“Except books.” Seregil went back to the cluster of footprints in front of the bookcases. There were no empty spaces between the volumes. “Whoever it was knew what they were looking for, to the exclusion of all else. They paid no attention to anything else here, except books and that tent. You’re certain the book you saw would fit in that casket?”
“Yes.” Alec stared around into the shadows. “Wait. What about the cellar? And that locked room they kept me in down there?”
But once again, there was nothing like a book anywhere; everything was just as Alec remembered.
“Ulan?” whispered Alec.
“We’ll see. Come on.”
Seregil went up the rope first. As his head cleared the roof, however, he heard an outcry in the distance. It was coming from the direction of the gully. From what he could make out, someone had found their horses and raised an alarm.
“There, in the workshop!”
Seregil looked around to find a man balanced on a ladder placed against the garden wall to his left. He must have gone up to see what the fuss was about.
“Guards! The workshop,” the man shouted, disappearing down the ladder. “Fetch the key, someone!”
Seregil quickly climbed down the rope and found Alec already struggling with the heavy anvil. He hurried to help and they heaved the trapdoor up. People were at the door now, and someone was not waiting for the key. The door shook on its hinges as someone tried to break it down.
“Go get the lower door open,” Seregil whispered.
Alec disappeared down the rickety wooden ladder bolted to the side of the narrow shaft.
Seregil took a deep breath and grasped the ring on the underside of the trapdoor. It was tricky, pulling the heavy door in such a way as to not get brained by it. The only way was to throw all his strength into it, then hang on tight to the ring as the whole thing crashed back into place. If the ring came loose, it was a long way down.
But it didn’t, and he found the ladder with one foot and clambered down after Alec.
Alec was at work on the large iron lock with two of his heaviest picks and had it open as Seregil’s feet touched ground. Dashing into the tunnel beyond, they closed the door. Alec jammed one of the picks into the workings of the lock, then bent the long end flush with the door. “That should slow them down a bit!”
They set off down the dank passageway at a run. By the time they reached the ladder at the far end of the tunnel, they were both winded. Seregil climbed, gasping, up the ladder and pushed the trapdoor up just enough to peek out into the stable. He barely noticed the horseshit that fell down around him, though he heard a muffled curse from Alec below.
All was dark and quiet, except for the sound of snoring coming from a stall near the door. They couldn’t count on the stable boy being drunk, but at least he was asleep. Seregil levered himself out of the shaft, heedless of the fresh horseshit covering the floor. At least it deadened sounds well.
There was no time to find saddles. As soon as Alec was up, they closed the trap, kicked some shit over it, then each took a horse and led it out by the bridle. The useless stable boy never stirred as they passed. Once outside, they hurried away on foot, away from the farm and away from the road. They’d just reached the apple orchard behind the barn when they caught the sound of horses in the distance, coming on at a gallop.
There was no time for subtlety. Springing onto their horses’ backs, they gathered the reins and kicked their mounts into a gallop, heading north and hoping the riders wouldn’t hear them over the sound of their own horses.
After several miles, they reined in and listened. There was no sound of pursuit.
“I think we got away,” Alec said, still scanning the starlit landscape behind them.
“Only just.”
They circled back and reached the copse just before dawn. Micum and Rieser were both awake and waiting for them in the cold campsite.
“There you are!” Micum exclaimed, clearly relieved. “I was just about ready to go looking for you.”
“Did you find it?” asked Rieser.
“No,” Seregil told him, sliding off his lathered horse. “Someone’s taken it. We saw plenty of footprints in the dust, so someone’s been in there since Yhakobin’s death.”
“Or maybe the wife knew about it and moved it—or sold it,” said Alec as he dismounted. “Or it was Ulan. I say we start there.”
“Rather than go back and search the house?” Rieser asked.
“It’s going to be a bit tougher to get back in there now,” Alec told him.
“You raised the house, did you?” asked Micum. “Did anyone get a good look at you?”
“No,” said Seregil. “At least I don’t think so. I saw one man, but it was dark enough that I couldn’t make him out, so hopefully he couldn’t see me any better. And it was only for an instant.”
“What does this khirnari have to do with the book?” asked Rieser.
“The alchemist told me himself that he did business of some sort with Ulan,” Alec explained.
“And our wizard friend Thero and I tracked down a slaver in a Virésse port who claimed Ulan ransoms slaves back from Plenimar, presumably with Yhakobin’s help,” Micum explained.
“Not to mention the fact that Ulan knows of Alec’s mixed blood,” Seregil added. “Since he’s involved with the slavers that Micum and Thero spoke with, it’s not a great stretch to think that he knows something of the rhekaro—perhaps was even having Yhakobin make one for him. Add that to the fact that he’s here himself, and as far as I’m concerned that’s a pretty strong set of coincidences pointing to the possibility that he knows about the book, too.”
“Then we must go back to the city?” asked Rieser.
“Looks that way. But at least we have a few new horses to trade.”
“The two you stole aren’t on the bill of sale, though,” Micum pointed out.
“We’ll have to lead them away a bit and let them go,” Alec said, stroking his stolen mare’s sweaty neck. “That should throw off any trackers, if we can get into the city before anyone catches up with us.”
Micum tapped the heel of his boot against the ground. “Still frozen hard. You couldn’t have left much of a trail, and not one easy to follow in the dark. We’d better go now, though, just in case.”
“We’ll use the north gate this time, I think,” Seregil said.
“You don’t want anyone who saw us today wondering why we’re back so soon,” Rieser observed.
Seregil gave him a crooked grin. “You’re catching on.”
“So what are we going to do now?”
“Find Ulan and see if he has the book,” Seregil told him. “That’s most likely going to involve the sort of work we did tonight.”
“How do you break into a ship?”
“The same way you do a house, only wetter.”
CHAPTER 28
Taking in the Sights
NO ONE seemed to take undue notice of Alec and his companions when they entered the city again with their string of horses. From there they made their way through a busy merchants’ quarter toward the waterfront. Micum’s “slaves” were veiled and hooded; if they inadvertently ran into Ulan, he would not recognize them, and he didn’t know Micum.