The Blacktongue Thief

12 The Downward Tower

Ashers month or no, it seemed snow was possible as the road we had been following clove into the forest known as the Snowless Wood. It sat ten miles west of the town of Maeth, a dingy little place known for hangings. It was said the first man ever hanged was hanged there. Boasting, as far as I’m concerned—hanging’s as old as rope and necks, and I doubt these twats invented either of those—but that they’re proud of dropping noosefruit tells you all you need to know about Maethmen. Also, the Guild has no presence there, more from lack of interest than fear. There’s little enough to steal anyhow. Another thing—they had more than their share of war-aged men in Maeth. Clearly, slipping the muster hadn’t been a hanging offense.

“I’ve already seen that tree,” I said.

“What tree? What do you mean?”

I looked again to make sure, but yes, we were passing a tree we already passed. I recognized its top fork with the very new shoots like it had been pruned and the one nearly horizontal branch that would be good for hanging if it were higher but might yet hang a child. Not that that’s done much, even in Maeth.

I pointed to the tree I meant.

“You think we’re walking circles?” she said.

“No. When last I saw it, it was near a newly mown barley field, half in sun. But here it is again in thick woods.”

“Maybe it’s following us,” she said.

“Huh,” I said, torn between doubt in my ability to tell trees apart and jealousy at the strength of magic it would take to set a tree following someone. I felt my pack jostle and knew Bully Boy was poking his head up to have a listen. I thought that seemed like a good idea, so I strained my ears, too. Several times, I thought I heard singing, but then it became a near brook, then birds. Later, I saw another odd tree, a stone tree for no good reason, like some magicker got offended by an elm and decided to make a statue of it, every leaf and vein faithfully petrified. It was as terrible as it was beautiful. Shortly thereafter, the path ended against a hedge of thorns that looked set to rip us to bits.

“Left or right?” I said. She had told me, during one of our firelit almost-conversations, that she was following directions she had memorized with the help of a witch.

“Always left now,” she said.

“But won’t that risk to take us in a circle?”

“Not here.”

After an hour of fumbling through close-stacked birch trees and rocky ground, we found a path. Gods knew where it came from, but we went left on it. We hadn’t been on it the length of a good poo when we saw that we were coming up behind a sort of hunched little fellow pulling a cart, its wheels crunching loose stones, its basket full of tools. All manner of tools, all with the same flaw; a bend or break near where the iron met the wood. Here was a bent saw, there a hoe split near the hoe part, at least two pitchforks thusly awry. The agent pulling the cart, a panting little man with a head that put one in mind of a squash, never deigned to look at us as we overtook him, but his huffing was so fierce you couldn’t take insult from it. He was simply trying not to die.

“You’ll want to pull over and sit on that hand wagon, man. Have a rest,” I said as we skirted him. He ignored us and trudged on, mouth open in that saggy-bag way people who’ve lost most of their teeth have. “In good faith, man, nobody’s waiting for these cocked-up tools. Have a sit-down. You look close to getting piped off, and I’m not being funny.”

He didn’t even blink at me.

“Well, at least they’ll have something to haul you back in.”

He might have smiled a bit at that, or he might not have.

In any event, we were soon well past him, and the road gave into a clearing around a hill, at the top of which sat a tower, and an odd tower it was, the stones of it barely visible through the vines that seemed to want to pull it down. Indeed, it seemed ready to fall at a harsh word. It looked well and deeply haunted.

Perfectly fitting a witch called Deadlegs.

That’s when I noticed the door. As in there was none, not where a person could reach, anyway. The tower had only one visible entrance, a strong wooden door, oak by the look of it, though it was hard to tell because it sat at the top of the tower, a dozen tall men high.

And not a stair in sight.

It was at that moment Bully Boy slipped the backpack and ran. He ran into a tree, bonked his head with a hearable bonk, put his paw to his nutshell like an old man with a headache, and raoed in a way that sounded very like Owww. Then he seemed to remember he was running off somewhere and took back to his little feet.

Galva watched the cat dart and bump his way into the farther trees and out of sight, then shot me a look.

“Will he come back?” she said.

“I’m strung if I know.”

“That cat is magicked,” she said.

“Do you think?”

“This is sarcasm, yes?”

“Noooo,” I said sarcastically.

“I do not enjoy sarcasm.”

“Then I tell you, without sarcasm, that tower looks like a very tall grave.”

“You are more right than you know.”

“I don’t think we’re wanted here. Are you sure we’re wanted here?”

“Towers are not supposed to look inviting.”

Fair play.

A raven called then, its harsh voice scratching paint off my soul.

“We have been invited,” Galva said, moving forward.

I walked at her heels until we stood beneath the witch’s keep. If I had hoped to find cleverly hidden rung-holes carved into the tower’s face, I was disappointed.

“What now?” I said.

The raven hawed again.

“Now we climb it,” she said.

“I didn’t know you had a talent for climbing.”

“It was improper for me to say we.”

“Ah,” I said. I couldn’t help stealing another glance at the tree line where Bully Boy made his exit. Was he gone? I hoped he wasn’t gone. I was suddenly very sad, standing in the cold, foggy air with an irritable Spanth, getting ready to climb, uninvited and unpaid, the tower of a witch known for biting folks to death. Only the ridiculous non sequitur of a blind cat in my pack could have made things seem balanced and proper.

“Never mind the chodadu cat, get up there.”

I walked to the tree line, hid my pack and fiddle under a bush, then took the hard pattens off my soft leather boots so I could feel with the soles of my feet and get my big toe into it—the boot was split, with a separate sheath for the toe. I could climb simple things with the boiled-leather pattens on, but this would be far from simple. I came back to the tower and tested one of the vines to see if it would hold my weight. It seemed ready to serve, so I pulled myself up, grabbed another vine, started in with my feet, and was halfway up the tower before I could have sung the refrain of a Gallardian trugging song. There was mischief in those vines, though, and I was ready for them to do something unfriendly. Which they did. Every vine on the tower face suddenly went slack. I fell, clutching my length of vine, hoping it would hold, but of course it detached and let me plummet. I skinned my feet and hands raw paddling the wall to brake myself—don’t expect to figure that out on your own, the technique is carefully guarded—and I rolled when I hit the ground and came up on my burning feet, hurting where my hard-leather quiver of arrows had pressed itself into my arse.

“Damn those bitch vines, anyway.”

“Do you need the vines?”

“If I want to go fast.”

“So go slow.”

I gave her the world-weary eyes, and she gave me the sleepy-killer eyes, so I took to the wall and made myself flat, light, and hard-handed. I avoided the vines as best as possible, knifing my toes and fingertips between them. The cold stones allowed just enough grip that I didn’t have to use any magic to ascend, but I wouldn’t be winning a race to the top against a determined ant.

I stopped for a moment.

“What are you doing?” Galva said.

“Just taking a moment to remember why I’m doing this,” I said, and it was no lie. I should have been climbing up the side of a rich woman’s house to steal her gold and goblin silver and fill my pouches with her hoarded beads of Keshite ivory, but then I’d just have to shovel it over to the Guild, wouldn’t I? If not, they’d go tattooing a fist on my cheek instead of an open hand. Or, gods help me, a rose. I’d sooner a noose for my neck than a rose for my cheek.

I spared a look down at the Spanth, who flicked her hand up in a perfectly Ispanthian gesture of impatience and command, and this angered me enough so I climbed angry, thus faster, which was probably her plan.

I was nearly to the top when the vines decided to interfere.

“Oh, bitch, bitch vines!” I said as the damned things now flailed at me. One punched me very much like a sappy fist, and I started to fall, then the same vine snaked around my ankle—I thought to save me at first—but instead it chucked me out a bit so I couldn’t use the wall to back-paddle my way to a softer landing this time. I fell from such a height that I was forced to say one of only two break-fall charms I had left, “Kanst-ma na’haap!” but it was a big enough drop that even after I landed in a deep frog-squat, I tumbled painfully onto my tailbone and rolled head-bumpingly backward to fall on my stomach in a heap.

The Spanth said the Ispanthian word for hello just then, said it like a Holtish man would have said hell-oooo at a pretty girl.

“Saaaaa-la.”

I looked up and saw a truly lovely girleen standing on the sill of the door and looking down at us. White moon face, brownish hair, but what got me was her long, pale arm against the door’s dark wood. Funny, the thing that hooks you. It’s not always the eyes or the wifely parts; sometimes it’s just the curve of a well-made arm against dark oak.

“She says you can come up now,” the girl said, her words riding the wet air down to hit my ears in a clear, sweet familiar brogue. A Galtish lass, so far west and north? I was suddenly taken with homesick.

“Are you the witch?” I called up.

She winked and smiled, disappeared back into the darkness, but left the door ajar. At just that moment, the wicked vines wove themselves into the nicest stair-ladder you could want. I had gotten to my feet, wiping dirt off my tailbone.

The Spanth looked at me and smirked. Made a cordial gesture to the vine-stairs, and I thought about telling her into which southern port of entry she could cram that and to go up first herself, but then I smiled shytefully and went up before her; though of course I waited on the eighth rung or so to make sure she was following close. The only reason I didn’t insist she precede me was because I had every intention of falling on her should the need arise. At the Low School, they actually teach you how to use someone else to cushion your fall. Sometimes I miss those bastards.

Sometimes I do.