The Liar's key

THIRTY

“Keep running!” I grabbed Hennan’s hand and dragged him across the street that ran behind the prison. We took the first alleyway that presented itself. Dark alleys might be dangerous places but when you’re on the run from a debtors’ prison in a banking town, with dead inmates anxious to eat the soft parts of you, even the worst alley in Christendom is the frying pan not the fire.

The narrow passages shadowed the moon as effectively as the sun, and save for the odd chink of lamplight escaping from the buildings we ran near blind. At each corner I imagined some beggar’s corpse might be standing there in the darkness, with arms wide-stretched and a hungry grin. Turn after turn proved me wrong: it was Hennan who stopped me, not some dead man hunting the key.

The boy’s strength gave out within just a few minutes, at first he only needed a moment here and there to catch his breath, but the stops got longer and soon it was a choice of carry, drag, abandon, or stop. I felt pretty tired myself, so we stopped, hunkering down in a gated archway leading into somebody’s walled garden. I could only hope that the dead saw no better without light than the living, and that the gate at our backs would at least stop attack from that direction.

“We just have to get past the city gates and head north. They might send riders up the Roma Road so we’ll need to take another route. The border could be a problem. . but that’s days away.” I paused to haul in some much-needed air. “It’d be a damn sight easier if we had some money.” I allowed myself a moment’s silence to remember my lovely gold, variously thrown, scattered, and stolen in that blasted prison. My eyes prickled with the injustice of it all. I’d had a king’s ransom in that case and even when they took that I had enough tied about my person to ransom his favourite dog. . I may even have shed a manly tear in the privacy of that darkness.

“We need to get Snorri and the others first,” Hennan said.

“Kara will be fine: she probably got out in the rioting. Besides, she’s a witch, I’m surprised she hasn’t used her magic and escaped already. In fact. .” In fact I was suddenly hit by the realization that her being in the debtors’ prison at all was pretty odd. Wouldn’t they be keen to put her to the question as well?

“We’ve got to get them out.” Hennan’s voice came insistent through the dark. “We can’t leave them in there to die!”

“Well, yes, of course I want to rescue Snorri and Tuttugu, Hennan, it’s just. .” It’s just I don’t want to at all because we’ll be captured or killed. “There’s no way of doing it. Not with only one man. Not even if that man’s a prince. No, what we need to do is get back to Vermillion as fast as possible and then send help.”

“Send. . help?” He might be just a kid but he wasn’t buying it.

“Yes. I’ll tell the Red Queen and-”

“They can’t wait that long! They need us to get them out now!”

“They’ll have to wait. I don’t even know where they are for Christ’s sake!” I did, though. They’d be in the Frauds’ Tower. The grimmest of all Umbertide’s prisons, a squat grey tower wherein all the plots and ploys used outside bank-law to steal money were unravelled and undone, using a variety of variously sharp or hot or crushing implements to ensure a thorough solution. Those who stole money inside bank-law of course were very well rewarded, and known as bankers. In Umbertide the fraudster got a rawer deal than the murderer, and murderers were laid beneath a wide plank called “the door” upon which rocks were piled one at a time until the criminal was judged to be dead.

I’d been lucky not to go straight to the Tower myself, and probably it would have been just a matter of time before I was transferred there once the full scope of my tax and tariff evasions became clear. Or perhaps my family connections had kept me out. Either way heading there now seemed like the worst idea ever.

“I’m not going without them.” Hennan, his voice steely with determination.

“The world doesn’t work like that, Hennan.” I tried for a fatherly tone, firm but fair. Not that I really had much to go on by way of experience. “You can’t always do something just because it’s the right thing to do. You’ve got to be sensible about these matters. Think them through.”

“You’ve got the key. It got us out of one prison. It could get us into another.”

He had a point. A point I needed to counter. I mean, I could have just cuffed him to the floor and set off for the hills on my own. Lord knows a prince of Red March doesn’t have to answer to a child, a common-born child at that. . a common-born, foreign child! But the fact was that somewhere along the line something had changed, perhaps it was some lingering damage that Baraqel had inflicted on me. . but, damn it, I knew if I just left him behind it would start to niggle at me and leave me no peace, or at least not enough peace to properly enjoy myself. So, it seemed in my best interest to convince the little bastard to come with me.

“It’s not only a matter of keys, Hennan,” I began in a consoling tone. “There are other considerations. It’s not safe for a boy of your age. For a start the Dead King wants the key. We can’t hang around here, there are too many corpses, there’s too much for him to work with. . cities are built on layer upon layer of dead people. . it’s all that holds them up. And even if we made it to the right jail-”

“There are guards. A key won’t get you past the jailers.” The speaker unhooded her lantern close by, dazzling me. I scrambled back, blocked by the gate. My hands found Hennan and held him in front of me as some kind of small and ineffectual shield.

“Uh. . ah. . you have me at a disadvantage, madam.” I blinked and averted my gaze, trying to clear my eyes.

“You need to run, Jalan. Give me the key and the Dead King will follow it instead of you.” The voice seemed familiar.

“Kara?” I squinted through screwed up eyes. But the figure in front of me was small, a girl no older than Hennan, blond and pale, holding the lantern before her, her dress a simple thing of white linen, a servant’s garb.

“Give me the key and run. They’re out to get you, Jalan. You need to be safe in Vermillion.” The little girl held her hand out, palm up and open.

I blinked away tears, my eyes adjusting to the light. “What?” It didn’t make sense.

“Hennan can come with me.” She seemed frayed around the edges now, as if the shadows were nibbling at her. Frayed and. . taller.

“No.” I gripped his shoulders tighter and he gasped, trying to twist loose. Something kept me unwilling to relinquish the boy.

“Come on, Jalan, this isn’t your place. You need to get away. You need to run.” The words had a cadence to them, a rhythm that got under my skin. I did need to get away-I did need to run. No argument there.

The girl seemed more of a memory now-I could still imagine her there, see the blueness of her eyes, but if I blinked I saw Kara holding the lantern, ragged and dirt-smeared.

“It’s just a glamour, a spell to fool the eye, shake it off, and look clear,” she said, and there she was, Kara, as if she’d never been anything else. “A casting to keep me from the Frauds’ Tower. Quick. We won’t have long, the dead are moving.” And still she kept her hand out.

Hennan wrenched free of my grip. I thought he would run into her arms. Hell, I would if I knew I’d get a nice protective hug. But he ran off into the night instead-the ungrateful bastard.

Kara glanced after him and shook her head in annoyance. “He’ll have to catch us up. We need to go now! Give me the key.”

“Can’t you just hide it again?” I didn’t want to give it up-it was the only thing of value I had left. Just maybe it might earn me enough credit with Grandmother to forgive the loss of Garyus’s ships to my creditors. Besides, Kara wanted it too much. A poker player learns the signs-whatever else she said the only thing that mattered to her was that I hand her the key. “Turn it back into a rune again so the dead can’t sense it.”

Kara shook her head. “I’d been working on that enchantment for a long time and it doesn’t last long if you keep moving. It’s a static charm. Besides, the glamour that’s been hiding me has exhausted the best of my strength.”

I blinked at her. “How do I even know you are Kara? You looked like a child a moment ago. .” What might she look like in an hour? A sudden cold thought seized me. “You could be Skilfar! Maybe there never was a Kara.”

She laughed at that, not a particularly pleasant laugh it must be said. “Skilfar would have throttled you in your sleep a month back. The ability to suffer fools is a rare trait in our line.”

“Your line?”

“You’re not the only person to be a disappointment to their grandmother, Jalan.”

My eyes widened at that. The thought of that icy witch having spawned didn’t fit easily into my imagination. “I-”

“Enough. No more games.” She glanced over her shoulder as if worried about pursuit. “The key, Jalan, or I’ll take it.”

I hit her. I’m not one for hitting women. . or anyone else for that matter. In fact I’m not one for hitting anything liable to hit back, but given the choice between a hefty man and a slightly built woman I’ll punch out the woman every time. I’m not entirely clear why I hit her. Certainly I wanted to keep the key but I also didn’t want the Dead King dogging my trail all the way home along with half of Umbertide’s troops. So in many ways her offer was entirely reasonable. What was neither reasonable nor expected was the way she rolled with the blow and hit me back hard enough to break my nose and set me on my arse, my head clanging against the gate behind. She didn’t even drop her lantern.

“Last chance to do this nicely, Jalan.” She wiped blood from her split lip across the back of her hand. I wondered if prison time hadn’t addled her mind-there seemed little resemblance to the Kara I knew from the boat. . except the constant threat of violent retribution if her personal space was invaded of course. . In any event I couldn’t believe all those months of the old Jalan charm hadn’t lit a spark in her somewhere.

“Come now, Kara dear.” I said it nasally, wincing as I touched my nose.

Somehow that long thin knife of hers appeared in her hand. “It would have been better if you just-” And she slumped to the ground, folding up with a graceful economy and coming to rest in a swirl of skirts, somehow contriving to set the lantern gently beside her, the knife landing with a thump on the dusty road. Hennan stood revealed behind her, his expression hard to read, a sock that looked to be full of sand swinging from his fingers.

“Would you rescue Snorri for twenty double florins?” He glanced down at Kara but she showed no signs of rising.

“You don’t have twenty double florins.” I’d say I would do anything for twenty double florins right now.

“But would you?” he insisted.

“Hell yes.”

Hennan took a step back, knelt down, and turned the neck of the sock my way. A heavy gold coin slid out onto the dirt, another gleaming behind it. The sock looked to be full of them!

“How the hell?” I remembered the coins I’d dropped on the floor when the dead man grabbed my neck in the cell.

“Always take the money,” Hennan offered with a small grin.