“Show you what?”
“That you can write.” The linguist nodded toward the phrases.
“Write what?” said the bureaucrat, his brows knitted.
“Anything you like,” said Heliz. “Recopy this mess.” He tapped his toe against the eighth epithet, which involved unwilling engagement with a barnyard animal. “Or just write ‘I know how to write,’ in the language of your choice. Don’t worry, I can read any language you put down. If your penmanship is up to snuff, that is. I need to know whether this mess on the floor is accurate.”
The gray little bureaucrat glared at Heliz, looked briefly at Lumm, then picked up both the stylus and the challenge. As he scratched the papyrus, the linguist said to the others, “Have you all been in Sanctuary long?”
“Three, four weeks,” said Ravadar, looking at the others. They nodded.
“Just passing through,” said the gray man, not looking up.
“I live here,” said the youth. The kitchen staff nodded in agreement, though it was unclear if the youth was claiming Sanctuary or the Vulgar Unicorn as his home address.
“And you all saw the same thing?”
The Irrune recapped the points, similar to what Lumm had told him before, and the S’danzo put in a few comments, but there was nothing that Heliz has not heard before arriving.
“Here,” said the gray bureaucrat, shoving the bit of reed paper toward him.
“I know how to write,” read Heliz aloud. “Not horribly original, but a good hand. I apologize for my impeachment of your ability, Master … Gobble, it says here?”
“Gothal,” said the gray man frostily.
“Close enough.”
Heliz lifted the piece of paper and spoke a word, an adjective of power that he knew. The word was strange and arcane and those that heard it would not be able to repeat it if they tried, so slippery was it in their mind. He felt the forces of the universe twist around him, and despite himself, he allowed himself a small grin.
The piece of papyrus burst into flames.
Big Minx and the staff leaned away, frightened. Lumm and the gray man both scowled. The dark-haired youth’s eyes brightened.
The Irrune warrior’s hand dropped to his sword, “You are a frogging wizard!”
“Hardly,” lied Heliz. “That’s a street-corner trick, a bit of rough-treated paper that ignites when rubbed against itself. And that’s what I think all this is, a bit of street-corner mummery.”
“Nonsense!” snapped Ravadar. “She spoke cursed words!”
“Evil eye,” said the youth.
“She cursed,” said Heliz, color coming to his face. “So has every man and woman that’s ever come into this nasty little hellhole.” He saw Big Minx bridle at the description, her brows knitting. “There’s nothing here,” he tapped the chalked words with a boot, “that hasn’t been said within these walls at least a thousand times, and probably by the little round-heeled trollop herself.”
The knitted brows of the large tavern wench deepened, but Heliz pressed on. “These words on the floor are harmless, a bit of misdirection. Street-corner stuff. Only a fool would believe them dangerous.”
Heliz would have gone on, but Big Minx interrupted. “If you think they’re harmless, then you speak them.”
Heliz looked up, stunned by the challenge.
“Go on!” The buffalo was in full-charge mode now. “If you think they’re harmless, do it!”
The others around the room nodded, and the red-haired drunk shifted in his chair.
Heliz stammered for a moment, “Well … I … That is …”
“Here!” She shoved him out of the circle and pointed at the top of the list. In a loud, clear voice, she announced, “Pudknocking bastard!”
Half the group leaned back, the other half leaned forward. Lumm took a step forward, but Heliz lifted a hand and the larger man froze. The cooper’s brow was furrowed in concern as well.
Big Minx would not be denied. She rattled off curse after curse, her voice rising. She used the fifth word three times, and the sixth term in a rattle of different tenses. She took a deep breath for the seventh.
And the ground opened up beneath her feet as she opened her mouth. It was a circular hole, limned in flame, that suddenly yawned underneath her heavy feet. With the seventh curse on her lips, she vanished into the hole.
Lumm let out a cry himself and took two steps forward, but Heliz held him back, watching the others. The Irrune, Ravadar, was wide-eyed but nodding, his two comrades rising to their feet and craning their necks to see if they could get a better view. Gothal the Gray shook his head. The curious youth looked suddenly ashen. One of the drunks snorted.
“What did you do?” shouted Lumm, his face now twisted in anger.
“Told you!” said Ravadar. “told you that it was a cursed word. This word! This place! I told you! This place is cursed now, for sure! You should burn the building and let no one build upon the ashes!”
“I trusted you!” said Lumm. “I trusted you, and now Big Minx is gone as well!”
“Hush,” hissed Heliz. “Act like I know what I’m doing. And be ready with your hammer.”
To the others the linguist said, “What did you see?”
“What did we see?” said the Irrune warrior. “We saw that poor woman use the cursed words, and fall into hell!”
“You goaded her,” said the gray man, softly.
“Goaded,” picked up the warrior. “You goaded her into using the cursed words! And now she’s lost as well.”
“She’s not lost,” said Heliz, “merely misplaced.” He turned toward the man in gray. “You can bring her back now.”
Gothal scowled, “What do you mean?”
“Misdirection,” said Heliz. “Street-corner magic. Everyone was watching Big Minx, but I was watching the rest of you. And your lips were moving.”
The others were silent. Lumm hefted his bung-hammer. The warriors’ hands trailed toward their blades. The ashenfaced S’danzo gripped the knife tightly. The gray bureaucrat kept one hand on the table, the other in the pocket of his own robes. The man was too calm, Heliz thought, and with that realization, all the pieces fit into place.
“Words were involved,” said Heliz. “But not hers. Yours. A spell? A trigger word? A mantra? It doesn’t matter. Here’s what happened: I think you made a grab for her, and one or more of her insults struck a little too close to home. So you decided to get vengeance. That was very stupid.”
The gray-robed man gripped something tightly in his pocket and shouted his words this time. His phrases were alien and mystic, but Heliz had heard worse, and he threw himself to one side as the pit to hell opened beneath his feet.
Before he hit the ground, Heliz shouted, “Lumm! Keep the hole open!”
Heliz twisted as he fell, slamming a chair aside as he landed. The linguist’s shin and thigh rang from the impact, but he stood up quickly, and saw that the barrel-maker had been ready. His long-handled bung-hammer reached across the width of the sudden pit and hooked against the far end. Lumm strained to keep the pit from snapping shut on him. Ravadar, the big Irrune warrior, joined him, leaning onto the hammer, which was already starting to bend under the force trying to shut the pit again.
The other two Irrune swordsmen were at the sides of the pit, reaching down into it.
The gray man pulled something golden and roughly spheroid from his pocket, and held it before him. The object had runes carved on it. Only Heliz would notice the runes at a time like this; they displayed fluid curves, intriguingly similar to the ancient Yenizedi alphabet.
Gothal snarled the alien words again, and Heliz danced to one side, almost tangling himself up in another heavy chair. The linguist pushed it aside, and the chair fell into a brimstone-scented pit and disappeared when the hole closed over it a half-second later.