The Alabaster Staff Read online

  The whistles started up again, piping out a rhythm that sent a message to other guards within earshot, followed by the clank and thump of armor and hobnailed boots. The dreadful sound came washing down the alley like a flash flood in a sandstone gully. The guards had come across the sorceress, and with her the guard’s dead body. Kehrsyn feared that the mage might have brutalized the body before the guards arrived, making Kehrsyn seem all the more ghoulish.

  Casting around for any hope as she trotted along, Kehrsyn found an alley branching away, one that had a wide gutter running down the center, a sluice for rain and sewage. It was a time-honored system for large cities in Unther; thus Kehrsyn surmised that the alley, in some distant past, had been a major thoroughfare, even though at present it was as choked with waste as a fat and aging noble. She took it, hoping it would lead to a main avenue. Even if she didn’t recognize the street at the outlet, any major thoroughfare was better than being trapped like a rat in the narrow passages.

  Despite its grandiose heritage, little more was left of the humble alleyway than a twisted, narrow warren. Though still somewhat broad in places, it writhed for most of its length among an indiscriminate collection of construction. The homes, huts, and houses jostled each other for living space, crowding into and sometimes completely over the alleyway. Kehrsyn was forced to slow to a fast walk to navigate it. The sound of coarse voices echoed down the alley, so garbled into a mash of random syllables by the irregular architecture that Kehrsyn couldn’t even tell if they were speaking Untheric or a foreign language. The incomprehensible noise reminded Kehrsyn of those unhappy moments of her childhood that returned in her nightmares to that day, of hiding in the underbrush while adults hunted for her, speaking angry words at times too complex for her uneducated mind, but the intent of which was all too clear.

  The twisting alley, bitter cold, and nightmarish voices threatened to overwhelm Kehrsyn’s self-control, but then she saw, quite literally, a ray of hope. Filtered sunlight splashed the walls of the alley ahead of her—an egress into the main city streets. She turned the corner and stumbled into the open street, smiling in spite of her misgivings and feeling as if she could breathe once again. All she had to do was blend into the crowd, walk calmly near a group of people as if she were one of them, find a place far away from the Jackal’s Courtyard to hole up for a watch or two, and make sure she spent her single coin slowly, while giving the impression she had a far heavier purse to her name.

  No problem. Acting was one of her strong points, and had been since the days she called it “playing pretend.”

  She blinked a few times. Despite the ongoing drizzle, the broad avenue was far brighter than the tight passageway behind her. Several varied groups and solitary people sulked along, hunkered against the weather. Scanning quickly, she saw no constables or soldiers, nor any of the black-tabarded Zhents, but off to her right she saw the green-cloaked man who’d first shadowed her as she’d left the Jackal’s Courtyard. He turned toward her in recognition and stepped in her direction. She noticed that he moved with strength and confidence, as well as a definite clarity of purpose.

  Her mind raced. Was he with the sorceress, a scout for the thieves’ guild? Was he a slaver looking to corral a few coins for her hide? Or were his motives purely selfish and prurient? Though she feared each of these, she found the first to be both the most likely and the most frightening.

  In any event, her choice was clear. Feigning not to have noticed him, she turned to her left and moved away, angling for the far side of the street. A side street branched off to the right up ahead, and if things became urgent she could see an alleyway nearer to her. She hoped she wouldn’t need it … but even as she thought that, she heard someone’s footsteps break into a jog. She drew a wayward strand of hair from her face and pulled it behind her ear, using the motion to conceal a peripheral glance over her shoulder. The grim stranger was closing in, his cloak billowing like the wings of a crow.

  She ran for the alley.

  “You!” the man called after her.

  Just then, a whip of city constables emerged from another alley entrance on the left-hand side of the street. The man’s cry and Kehrsyn’s rapid motion attracted their attention, and the shrill duotone of the whistles pierced the air again.

  Kehrsyn ducked into the alley and ran as fast as the irregular architecture would let her. Behind her she heard the pounding of heavy feet and the staccato cry of the guards’ strident whistles signaling that they had her track. She heard a loud, tumbling crunch and the vehement curses of a half dozen men. She cast a quick glance over her shoulder as she rounded a corner, and saw the unknown guild scout crumpled on the dirt with three guards fallen atop him, a mess of bodies, shields, helmets, and khopesh blades scattered in chaos. As the four men tried to regain their feet, the other guards tried to pick their way over the pile of struggling soldiery, giving Kehrsyn precious moments of time.

  As with the maze she’d just negotiated, the alley twined between a variety of hovels and buildings, built by those willing to sacrifice freedom and space for the heavy security of living within Messemprar’s ancient, massive walls. She came across one intersection, then, a short distance afterward, another. At each of them, she attempted to take the least inviting passage. In that way she hoped to lose her pursuers. Her hope began to grow. With even one more intersection, the guards would have to start leaving branches to go unsearched.

  Her evasive strategy betrayed her when the alley branch she’d chosen slithered around an amateur wooden structure and dead-ended in a tall mud-brick wall. There was a heavy wooden door, but it had neither an external latch nor even a viewing slit by which she might hope to plead admittance.

  She retreated back the way she’d come, hoping she hadn’t lost too much time. She slowed as she reached the place where the branch spurred off the alley. She listened intently, opening her mouth to improve her hearing. Footsteps approached.

  “I think we’ve lost her,” said one voice, a youngster by the sound of it.

  “I don’t care,” replied a second, less cultured voice. “We’re gonna keep looking.”

  “Whatever,” said the first.

  “Hey, Pupface, don’t forget the Zhentarim said they’d match the bounty on her head. We stand to earn mintweight, especially if we find her before Chariq gets back from searching that other spur.”

  “You think she’d be dumb enough to go into a blind alley?” asked the youth.

  “Dumb enough to kill a Zhent,” said the older man with a grim chuckle. “And if dumb buys my grog and wenches, then she’s dumb enough for me.”

  “Absolutely.”

  Kehrsyn realized that fear and curiosity had rooted her to the spot like a hare transfixed by a cobra. The guards drew close, close enough that if she tried to move away quietly, they’d probably see her; but if she moved away quickly, they’d hear her. Either way, they’d pursue … but standing there thinking about it made each option less likely to succeed. Kehrsyn turned and ran hard back toward the dead end, counting on surprise to give her enough of a lead.

  With a foul oath, the two guards gave chase, their armor clanking in the narrow confines of the alley. Kehrsyn ran to the end, and just as she turned the last corner, she started scrambling up the wooden structure. It wasn’t easy. The planks were vertical, not horizontal, and slick with rain, but the few haphazard supporting members that angled across the wall gave enough of a foothold to help her ascend.

  She heard the guards turn the corner beneath her. Her sudden disappearance flustered them for a mere moment, but enough precious time for her to reach up and hook her fingers over a windowsill above her head. She prayed the sill was sturdy enough to support her weight and she pulled herself up as quickly as she could. The sill made a slight cracking sound, and Kehrsyn hoped it was simply the wood settling under her weight. She scrabbled with her feet to get any amount of elevation she could.

  “Up there!” shouted the younger guard.

  “Get ’er, curse you
!” growled the elder.

  The fear of getting her foot cut off by a khopesh renewed her strength, and she pulled herself up farther.

  “Curse it! Jump, Pupface, she’s gettin’ away!”

  Kehrsyn kept her ears tuned as she climbed. When she heard Pupface grunt with exertion, she raised her heels. She heard the silky whisper of a blade slicing the air and felt a tug as the sharpened tip of the khopesh sliced her leather boot midway up her right shin.

  She put the windowsill to good use and scrambled farther up, out of reach of the guards.

  “Get up after her!” shouted the elder guard, striking the younger a cuff across the helmet that resounded in the narrow alley. “Now, or I’ll throw you up there myself!”

  Kehrsyn scrambled up onto a de facto balcony atop the second story of the structure. Pulling her cloak across her face, she peered back down at the two guards. The younger one was beginning a tentative and fearful climb after her. He probed the wall with his hands, trying to discover handholds that were more secure than the ones that Kehrsyn had used. Kehrsyn had to smile. There were no good holds to be offered by rough-hewn, poorly assembled, thinly cut, rain-slicked wood.

  She waited until the guard looked up again, then said, “I have a large rock up here that I could drop on you, and it’s a long fall back to the ground. If you give up now, your head and back will stay in one piece.”

  The guard nodded almost imperceptibly and began scanning the wall for a safe way back down.

  The elder guard thrust the tip of his khopesh under the younger guard’s armored skirt and growled, “It takes more than a few bones to make a man, Pupface.”

  Kehrsyn saw the younger guard grow rigid, his face twitching in a rictus of fear and pain. His breathing grew in speed and volume. He looked back at Kehrsyn and his eyes narrowed in pleading desperation. He began to climb again.

  Kehrsyn wondered if he was deliberately trying to climb slowly enough to give her a chance to escape before she’d have to drop a rock on him. Not that she had one, but bluffs were the most effective when they played right into someone’s fears.

  “Well, then,” she said, “I’ll just wait until you’re almost up to drop it on you. I can wait.” She waved at the elder guard. “Will you be next, or does your protégé have more manliness than you?”

  “You may act brave, you murdering thief,” he spat, “but we’ll see what happens when we catch you.”

  “Yeah, you’re plenty brave to force someone to climb something when you haven’t got the guts to do it yourself. I’ll bet when you were in his position, you just climbed back down and let them cut yours right off, am I right?”

  “You little—arrrggh!” bellowed the elder guard. “Come on, Pupface, she’s only got one rock up there!”

  As Kehrsyn had hoped, the elder guard started to climb also.

  With the two guards climbing after her, Kehrsyn’s confidence grew again. She had feared that they would circumvent her escape if she fled across the rooftops, but she’d managed to coax them into taking the hard route: difficult climbs and long jumps in armor. Kehrsyn saw that there was one more story to both the wooden structure and the much older stone building against which it leaned. She climbed up the wooden wall and clambered onto the roof of the stone building.

  It was one of the huge, ancient structures of Messemprar, one that had, millennia ago, been someone’s palatial home. Since it was in the poorer section of town, Kehrsyn surmised that it had likely been subdivided again and again, and served to house a wide variety of families and businesses. She saw empty clotheslines and rubbish scattered over the large, flat roof, along with a large fire pit and several trapdoors that led into the monolithic building. Not that that was any help. Those who lived in that part of town would be plenty happy to turn in a fugitive for a reward. For that matter, in these dark days, anyone in town would. Rewards meant gold, and gold meant food.

  Kehrsyn moved across the rooftop, scouting out the perimeter of the roof. Two sides fronted on large thoroughfares, ancient streets wide enough for eight chariots to ride abreast. The third side looked dangerous, a long jump reliant on the undependable footing of recent construction. The fourth side looked like it had a reasonable jump, one that was only foolhardy as opposed to downright suicidal. She located a likely landing spot, then stepped back to get a good running jump. Behind her, she heard the cursing of the older guard rising from the alley like a stench, followed by a triumphant cry from the one called Pupface.

  Kehrsyn untied her scabbard from her belt and pulled her bag’s strap from her shoulder. She took a deep breath, steeled her mind to her task, then began to run. Her ears heard Pupface call out for her to stop, but her mind paid no heed. She leaped from the rooftop across the narrow side street, holding her arms out to the side and pinwheeling them once for stability. Time seemed to dilate for her, and she could feel each drop of chill rain brushing her skin as she arced between the buildings. Each ripple of cloth reminded her that she had a long fall beneath her.

  For as slow as time seemed to move, the opposite rooftop closed in quickly. Kehrsyn let go of her bag and scabbard and pulled her hands back close. She tried to tuck her legs in, but her feet hit the edge of the roof just below her ankles, and she sprawled painfully on the uneven split-log roof, flopping once over one shoulder with her momentum. She felt like she couldn’t breathe, felt like she was going to throw up. Mouth hanging open, she looked around and located her sword and bag, both of which appeared to have landed in better shape than she had. As she picked them up, she heard the guards’ telltale whistle again.

  Looking back, she saw Pupface running across the rooftop toward her, frantically blowing a signal. He reached the edge of the rooftop and looked down.

  “You!” he yelled, pointing with his khopesh. “Hey! Zhentilars! She’s up there! Don’t let her get away!”

  Kehrsyn saw a squad of Zhent guards in the street, staring up at her, eight or more in number. One issued a string of orders, and the pack fanned out to seal off the building, moving swiftly like a pack of wolves.

  Several other people stood nearby, also looking up at Kehrsyn, but one woman in particular caught the fugitive’s eye. The woman waved cheerily.

  “Olaré, hon,” she said, fiddling with her ring.

  Kehrsyn turned and fled across the rooftop, heart pounding.

  Kehrsyn knew she couldn’t stay on the rooftop. The longer she did, the more time the Zhentarim and the guards had to seal off the building. Her only hope was to get off the rooftop as soon as possible and lose the pursuit in the streets below. She ran straight across the center of the jumbled collection of rooftops, looking for the telltale gap of an alleyway spur.

  She found one, and, knowing that she had not the leisure to find a better, she looked for the quickest way down. No decent choices offered themselves. She hopped down to a lower roof. Before she could think about it too much, she hopped the rest of the way to the uneven alley floor.

  Kehrsyn hit hard, trying to tumble to ease the impact, but she felt a ripping, popping sensation tear through her right leg and ankle. She felt no pain, but her foot felt loose, almost unhinged. She pushed herself up, keeping her right foot off the ground, and shifted herself to a sitting position. She scrunched up her eyes and brought her ankle around to take a look at it. A limp foot, dangling from her shin like a dead fish, was what she expected to see. Instead, she saw her boot flayed open, laces burst asunder from ankle to knee. A bright scar of cut leather ran from the outside of her ankle upward, then reappeared near the inside of the top.

  It struck Kehrsyn what had happened: Pupface’s khopesh had grazed her leather boot, slicing along the laces, cutting into them, but not quite all the way through. The added stress of her last jump had burst them. The surprise and relief was so great that a giggle bubbled up from her throat.

  She heard a sudden scuffing step up the alley, then silence. Kehrsyn’s cold fear returned. She froze, trapped in the dead end of a narrow alley. She opened her mouth to a
id her hearing—could she hear someone coming closer? It was hard to tell … until she heard the splash of a puddle being disturbed. She quietly picked up her rapier and bag and tried to scoot into an inset doorway to hide. As quiet as her movements were, she heard the footsteps pause.

  For untold pounding heartbeats, she dared not move, dared not even to breathe lest the mist of her breath give her away.

  The footsteps turned and scooted away. Kehrsyn held her breath until she heard them no longer, then let the air out in a heart-pounding, trembling heave. She tried to breathe deeply and quietly in hopes of stilling her heart and frazzled nerves. Whichever guard or bounty hunter that had been, her hunters were still out there, so she couldn’t leave just yet. Instead, she pulled out the longest scrap of leather thong she had left in her boot and used it to tie her boot tight across the ankle and again across the top. It was serviceable, if uncomfortable.

  She hid for a while longer, then began to creep out, wondering if she could make an escape. She found that the alley she’d jumped into was a short branch off a minor paved street. Not good. She inched closer to the mouth of the alley, listening intently.

  She heard boots pacing slowly along and voices quietly speaking a foreign tongue. She quickly moved back down the narrow passage to her scant hiding place, but as she pulled her rapier in beside her, the tip of her scabbard scraped on the stone doorframe.

  She heard the voices pause. They spoke again, some sort of interrogative. She heard the whispering sound of steel being drawn, then the scuff of feet moving into the alley.

  Kehrsyn pulled a tiny mirror from a secret pocket at her waist and used it to peer around the side of the doorway. Two black-tabarded swordsmen moved slowly down the alley, peering into windows, doorways, and barrels, as well as scanning the walls and ledges above them.

  There was no way out. Kehrsyn hadn’t a clue what to do. She fingered her rapier … If I’m going to suffer for killing one of these bullies, she thought, I might as well actually do it. Deep inside, however, she wasn’t certain she could.