Blades Of Magic: Crown Service #1 (8 page)

She was concentrating on her task. This was the hard part.

She gritted her teeth, realizing her mistake. She couldn’t hold two flames and the piece of wood at once. Ezekiel shifted nervously behind her.

“When the spark rises, I need you to catch the flame,” she said.

Putting down the fabric and grabbing some flint from her boot, she struck it once, then twice, then a third time against the metal.

The spark was enough for the flame to rise and she quickly hissed instructions to Ezekiel. “Now!”

He moved the wood up and it caught the natural flame that she needed. She put the flint on the floor and reached back toward him to grab the flaming piece of wood from him. It was slow burning, which was good.

Caution in her voice, she spoke to Ezekiel. “Now step back.”

She didn’t have to tell him twice.

Hand steady, she moved the natural fire closer to the mage fire. It was a trick her father had taught her and one he had used in the arena against his magical opponents. A mage’s fire could be created in such a way that it mimicked everlasting fire with one key difference: It was extremely combustible. What she was about to do was dangerous enough that she knew of battle mages who had blown off their own limbs trying to mimic her father’s trick.

Nervous sweat began to bead on her brow as she imagined her hand ending in a stump. She hadn’t actually done this herself before. Just watched him do it numerous times with ease.

His voice came back to her then,
Remember, Kitling. Steady and sure. Don’t flinch and you’ll control the flame.

She gave a deep breath and lit the mage fire in her left hand with the natural fire in her right. The bright blue ball of mage fire became encased in the flickering flames of red. It was gorgeous to watch as they melded together to become the purple fire known as a battle inferno. It was the size of a child’s ball in her hand, but she knew they could made large enough to take out an entire wagon if needed. This time she just needed it to do one simple trick: burn hot enough to solder the thin metal sheeting to the roof.

“Here,” she said to Ezekiel, breathing slowly.

“Here, what?” he said, “You don’t want me to take that ball, because if I do we’re likely to die, and, well, you know that’s a very pretty fire, but I’m not so good with fire. Are you sure that’s—”

“Stop!” she snapped. He was rambling and sounded like he was about to faint.

“I just need you to take the burning wood from my right hand,” she said tensely.

“Oh.”

She saw him reach over hesitantly out of the corner of her eye and take the burning wood that was starting to make her eyes tear from the proximity to the smoke.

“I’m just going to put this in some water,” he said.

She wasn’t paying him any mind. As he ran off, she carefully picked up the fabric with the rope tied to it with a free and steady right hand. Then she moved the ball of battle inferno to the edge of the knotted fabric. As she let the fabric drift through her fingers, she heard Ezekiel come panting back.

Concentrating on her task, Sara let the purple ball of flames in her hand drift into the center of the fabric as the corners of the shirt rose from the magical heated air next to it. She was careful to keep the temperature of the battle inferno low, timing it to blast just like she would if she was targeting it to hit a city wall. Not a moment sooner. Her heart beat fast. Hoping it would work. Praying to the gods that she had done it right. Then the fabric rose above the ball like an inflated circle and she smiled.

“Perfect,” she said, pleased.

Moving away, she watched as the fabric, inflated by the heat of the battle inferno in its center, floated all on its own. Slowly the contraption rose until the metal sheet tied to the end of the rope rose as well. When it was a few inches off the floor, Ezekiel asked, “What is it?”

She said, “A hot air balloon.”

He adjusted his glasses to get a better look at the balloon floating to the top of the ceiling.

“Are you directing it?”

“Slightly. It’s natural for it float high in the air like that. As it rises it will continue to do so vertically unless a sharp wind changes its course. I’m just making sure the battle inferno keeps rising up toward where I want it to go.”

“Hmm,” was Ezekiel’s answer. 

They watched as the balloon floated through the man-sized hole and then the metal sheet clattered against the roof itself, unable to fit through the hole.

“And I assume this was also part of your plan?”

“Of course,” she said. “Now’s the fun part.”

“Fun part?” Ezekiel said suspiciously as she exploded the ball of battle inferno with no warning.

The sound of the explosion however was not a part of the plan. It boomed louder than anticipated and only grew louder as the building they were inside acted like a resonator and the thin metal sheeting all around them echoed the blast.

Sara saw a glass mirror two benches over shatter before she crouched down in agony alongside Ezekiel with her hands clasped to her ears.

As they rose minutes later, Ezekiel said, “Was
that
part of the plan?”

She grimaced in pain. “No.”

He grumbled and then looked up. “Well, at least it worked.” 

She stared up at the ceiling were the heat of the blast had fused the metal sheet to the roof itself. It was ugly, but it would do.

A
s the ringing in her ears stopped, Sara heard their captured thief’s cries. He sounded worse off than before. She sighed. “I think he needs attention.”

“Don’t we all,” muttered Ezekiel.

He adjusted his spectacles. “I’m going to take care of that mess of glass towards the back. You take care of him?”

His words were cautious, even tentative. Sara realized he didn’t know where he stood with her. Which was fine, because
she
didn’t know where he stood with her. Ezekiel was interesting but not her problem. Not right now.

She nodded. “Sounds good.”

Turning, they went in opposite directions. When she got to the fat thief she cut the rope from his mouth none too gently. She stared at the red blood running from his eardrums, but there wasn’t much she could do about it. She wasn’t a healer.

When his mouth was free, he began shouting. Louder and louder. The problem was that his words were incomprehensible.

“What’s wrong with him?” shouted Ezekiel from the back.

“I think his eardrums busted from the sound,” she yelled back. She watched as the man in front of her babbled. He was reading her lips though she could tell. And he understood. Which meant he wasn’t crazy. She cut the rope binding his arms to the chair. He didn’t move at first. After a moment he raised his shaking hands to his ears. When they came back to his face, shining with blood, he wept.

She sighed in irritation. She wasn’t heartless. He was deaf because of her. Well, her and being tied up right next to the metal wall where the acoustics had blasted into his ear.

But she wasn’t necessarily sorry about it. When you entered into someone else’s domain of your own volition and did so in direct contradiction to their wishes, you put your life in their hands. In other words, what he had done was wrong and now he suffered the consequences. But she
was
getting heartily tired of his sobbing.

She snapped his fingers directly in front of his face. She was trying to break his attention away from his morbid fascination with the glistening red blood on his fingertips. It worked.

He looked up at her with snot running down his lips and tears dripping down his cheeks.

“What have you done to me?” he shouted in a voice three times louder than necessary.

She took out a knife and held it in front of his face as a warning.

“Shout again,” she mouthed slowly, “and I’ll knife you.”

He trembled and hate sparked on his face. But he was silent.

Ezekiel said, “I’ve got an idea.”

She didn’t turn from her prisoner. Even deaf and bleeding, she didn’t trust him.

“What?”

He reached into his red satchel and brought up some parchment, a quill, and some ink. “Let him write it out.”

“Not a bad idea.”

“Here,” he said, hastily putting the materials down and grabbing a loose piece of wood that rested on the wall. Carefully he placed the makeshift table in the fat man’s lap and put the paper, quill, and ink within reach of his hands.

“Start talking,” mouthed Sara at the glaring man.

He didn’t have much of a choice. He did what she said.

He began to write out why he was there.

“
We came for the Tirsaman statue.
”

“Why?” said Sara.

“Who
are
you?” wondered Ezekiel.

The man flickered indignant eyes up at Ezekiel as he wrote, “
Who am I? The great Ezekiel Crane notices no one else.
”

Sara looked over at Ezekiel quizzically. “Sounds like you have a fan.”

Flustered, Ezekiel opened and closed his mouth like a fish while he watched the fat man scribble faster.

“
I am Ras Stold, purveyor of fine goods.
”

“Thief and charlatan,” murmured Sara.

He glared at her. “
Rare items acquirer for the wealthy.
”

“Let’s add black market racketeer to that description,” she said in amusement.

He began to scribble again. “
Your employer is no better than me.
”

“I don’t contest that, but I doubt Cormar is stupid enough to break into an opponent’s warehouse and get caught doing it.”

He had nothing to say to that.

“Let’s get back to the point,” Ezekiel said hastily before they could continue their word war. “You know me
how
?”

“
You are the premier treasure hunter on this side of the empire
,” scribbled the man. “
I have heard of your exploits.
”

“Treasure hunter?” scoffed Sara as she looked at a blushing Ezekiel.

“That was a long time ago,” said Ezekiel, pleased. “But do go on.”

Sara rolled her eyes.

“
I was here to acquire the statue and give it to a buyer
,” he wrote.

“Which buyer?” Sara demanded.

Before he could write out the details, the door opened and in walked a stranger. She didn’t recognize the man. He was big and brawny, with a shaven head and tattoos of the islands on his cheeks.

Sara turned and glared before Wainwright walked in right behind the bigger man.

“We’re here for him,” he said with a sniff.

“We were just getting somewhere with him,” complained Ezekiel.

Too late Sara elbowed him sharply in the ribs.

“Really?” said Wainwright. “I don’t believe that’s part of your job description. Your
job
is to catalog the artifacts and keep them safe. Was that not clear?”

Ezekiel paled.

“Crystal clear,” replied Sara.

Wainwright gave her a sharp look but refrained from comment. To the muscle man behind him, he snapped, “Get the thief and let’s go.”

His companion began walking forward and Ras began screeching and scribbling.

When the man reached him he gave up trying to get words on the parchment, thrust the makeshift desk off of his lap, and tried to run. “Tried” being the operative word. Sara hadn’t cut the ropes binding his legs to the chair, just the ones along his upper body. He fell to the floor with a nasty
thump
and began to crawl away like a slug. Screeching all the while. It took no time before the thug Wainwright had brought with him grew tired of the sound and clubbed him sharply about the head.

Sara watched silently, unmoved, as the thug carried the unconscious man from their warehouse. Wainwright followed behind him with one last snide remark. “The new benches need to be done. Tonight. Shipment comes in less than three hours. Get to work.”

When he left the warehouse was silent for the first time in quite a while.

Sara rubbed the back of her neck. “Remind me again why I agreed to stay for two days?” 

“Because you want to know why Ras, the thief, lied as much as I do,” said Ezekiel absentmindedly.

Sara turned to see he was crouched on the floor. “Excuse me? What in the demon’s breath are you talking about?”

Ezekiel stood slowly and turned around. In his hands, he held the parchment the thief had been scribbling on. It was wrinkled and had blood smears on it.

Ezekiel looked up from the words on the page to her. “He wasn’t after the statue of tirsaman for himself.” 

“Well, yeah. He told us that.”

He held out the parchment to her and said, “Read it.”

“Why don’t you tell me what it is says?” she said coldly.

He raised an eyebrow but didn’t question her. “It says: ‘
All right, all right, I’ll tell you. We came for the statue but only to trade it for something else. Something more valuable that the mercenaries have.
’”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“So he and his partner came to Cormar’s warehouse to steal a statue in order to trade it with the ‘mercenaries’ for something else?” 

He nodded eagerly.

“Nope, I didn’t agree to stay for that,” she said flatly. “A wild goose chase is not worth my time.”

Ezekiel’s shoulders drooped so fast you would have thought she’d insulted his most prized possession.

“But it’s a mystery! What object is worth death, torture, and giving up a priceless artifact in the first place to get it?” he said, almost pleading for her to understand the significance of his find.

“A mystery that isn’t worth my time. You have forty hours before I’m out of here. In the meantime this warehouse needs to be spotless, the shipment needs to be received, we might to have thwart more thieves, and we have to get a replacement to agree to take this daft job. That’s more than enough, wouldn’t you agree?”

He spluttered. “Well, yes, I guess so.”

“Good. Case closed.”

Ezekiel’s mouth was stuck in a pout but he didn’t bring it up again that night. They got to work putting together the two benches needed to house ten more objects before the dawn rose on a new day. By the time they had finished, the sky had started to darken.