The stout man instinctively pulled back against the room's rear wall. Close to the prisoner, Leesil smelled old ale, stale sweat, and a hint of urine. The man's unkempt hair was dusty rather than greasy. Brown stubble covered his chin and jowls. His flesh hung slightly loose, as if he'd once eaten too well and then come on hard times. Perhaps he'd been a dockworker in Miiska before the warehouse burned down. Leesil didn't care. This man had tried to kill Magiere.
Leesil flashed a sudden smile. The man flinched.
"So you know who I am," Leesil said, "but you don't know me. I've come to give you a test."
He opened his box of tools, displaying the white metal of the one good stiletto, the garrote, and the curved, shorter blade. Pressing the catch inside the box, he flipped open the lid's interior panel, exposing the array of hooks, wires, and probes in their fabric holding straps. He took out a thin strut of gleaming metal.
"Since you tried to murder Magiere," Leesil continued, "and you were obviously hired, that makes you an assassin." He held up the wire. "Tell me, using this, what's the quickest way to kill a man from behind?"
The portly captive breathed hard. The stench of sweat thickened around him, but no answer came.
"No guess at all?" Leesil asked. "How disappointing." He carefully set the wire down on the box's lid. "But we shouldn't proceed quickly. Anything worth learning takes time."
This time, the man blinked. His stubble-covered maw opened, then closed again. Leesil reached into his box, hesitated with his hand poised above the stiletto, and then he picked up the thicker but smaller curved blade.
"But first, I should cut you free," Leesil said, "My mother gave me this blade… you should feel privileged. I never talk about my mother." He turned the blade slowly in the air until the reflection of the lantern's light from the metal lanced directly into the man's eyes. "Bone is one of the lighter elements this will cut through. You won't have any hands, but you'll certainly be free of those shackles."
The man's breath lost its even rhythm of deep heaves and grew ragged.
"What do you want?" he gasped.
Leesil let out a sigh of resignation, ignoring the question.
"I'd intended to start with your eyes. This isn't an appropriate tool for such work, but it will do in a pinch. Then again, you won't be able to watch me cut off your hands. No, we'll start at the hands and move upward."
"Stop your blather!" the man nearly spit. "What do you want?"
Leesil's expression remained unchanged, giving no acknowledgment that the conversation had somehow shifted directions. His voice remained casual.
"Who hired you?"
The man snorted, and the fear on his face vanished.
"That's what you're after? I shoulda known, you drunken sot. Feeling bad ‘cause you was sipping grog on deck? " He sneered, and almost chuckled. "Well, go ahead and cut me. I saw you try to bluff those sailors at Jack o' Knives. You ain't doing nothing."
For a long moment, Leesil didn't speak, just stared into the man's eyes without blinking. Then he snapped the blade out in a sudden flash at the man's face.
The portly prisoner lurched back, his head banging against the wall. His breathing stopped altogether as he stared wide-eyed. Leesil sat with the blade again turning between his fingers. There was no blood on the metal.
The man settled again with a snicker. "I knew it."
"As I said, you don't know me," Leesil replied.
A thin, dark line appeared on the man's face. It ran in a vertical line down his forehead, through his left eyebrow, skipped over the eye, and continued through his cheek to the corner of his mouth. His smile faded as the first trickle of blood spread into the creases of his eyelid. He blinked and tilted his head, trying to keep the blood out of his eye and not lose sight of Leesil, and then began to shake.
The silence grew lengthy and uncomfortable.
Leesil set the blade down in the box and pulled both flasks from around his neck. He took a candle from his pocket and lit it from the lantern with one hand, while popping the stopper of the oil flask with the other and spattering drops of oil across on the man's dirty trousers.
"Hey!" his captive shouted. "What are you doing?"
"No one saw me come down. No one knows I'm here," Leesil explained, as if to a child. "Those sailors were quite embarrassed that you attacked a passenger and your companion managed to jump overboard before they could catch him. When you're found, the captain won't know who did it-or won't care. And I have a very believable face."
He held the candle near the man's oil-spattered pants.
"You won't burn me," the man said. "You'll set the ship on fire and kill yourself, kill your partner."
"Water," Leesil answered, shaking the second flask. He popped its stopper and set it close by on the floor. "I know how to control fire on flesh. Small flames make only thumb-sized blisters, but they often become infected after a few days. I once saw a man's legs turn green and black. Took him nearly a week to die." He picked up the curved blade, once again flashing its gleam into the man's eyes. "You won't see the blisters, though. I wouldn't do that to you."
This time, open fear washed across the man's features, and he tried to back into the hull wall.
"Who hired you?" Leesil asked.
"I ain't telling you, sot!"
Leesil dipped the candle flame and ignited a spot of oil.
The captive cried out and swung his chained hand to swat out the flame. Leesil jabbed him rapidly in the throat with two fingers. The man fell back, gasping for air while his leg began to burn.
In a flash, Leesil splashed water from the second flask on the flame. It winked out in a hiss, leaving the acrid smell of charred cloth. He knelt on the man's hand, pinned it down, and held the candle close to his captive's face. His expression remained calm, friendly, even as anger and hatred crept into his soft voice.
"This could take all night. No one will check on you until morning… late morning, and the poor soul who finds you will most likely lose his breakfast."
He turned, prepared to set ignite another patch of oil, and beneath him, the man writhed.
"Master Poyesk!" he shouted.
Leesil stopped the candle.
"He owns a warehouse in Miiksa," he replied. "Why would he want to harm Magiere?"
"To stop her," the man rushed on. "He don't want a warehouse run by townsfolk. He'll lose what he's got now. Don't you see? I ain't lying."
Leesil rocked back on his heels.
Of course, Poyesk wouldn't want Magiere to return with a bank note large enough to build a town-owned warehouse. But he couldn't pass this information on to Magiere. Not yet. The only thing keeping her on their current path was the desire to help Miiska. If she knew one of its citizens had hired thugs to kill her, she'd lose what little resolve she had. Then what? Would she quit and go home? Miiska would deteriorate, and he and Magiere would go back to the tense holding pattern they'd suffered for months. No, he couldn't tell her. They had a service to render and payment to receive, or there would be no future for them. He could protect her without telling her anything about the source of these thugs.
Leesil stood and turned the oil flask over the man's head.
"No! What are doing?" the man coughed out.
"Did he hire anyone else?" Leesil asked.
"No! No one but us. I swear."
Leesil stared down until he was satisfied the truth had been spoken, then leaned over. The man recoiled, but the half-elf simply ripped the man's pants leg open to examine the burn. The skin was merely singed.
"If you tell the captain I was here, he won't care. All that will matter to him is what information you told me, not that I was here. And I can find you again." Finished, he carefully repacked his tools, grabbed the lantern, and headed for the door.
"Would you have cut my hands off…" the man whispered, "taken my eyes?"