Cinnabar Shadows (Dark Sun: Chronicles of Athas 4)

"I'll be a gith's

thumb fool," Nunk grinned, baring the two rows of rotten broken teeth that spoiled his chances with the ladies, as Pavek's twisted scar spoiled his. "The rumors must be true." He held out his hand.

"What rumors?" Pavek asked, taking Nunk's hand as if it bad been offered in friendship rather than in hope of a bribe. Although, in fairness to Nunk, if five bureau ranks weren't layered between regulators and instigators, they might have been as friendly as templars got with one another. Neither one of them had ever been tied to the numerous corrupt cadres that dominated the civil bureau's lower ranks. They both kept to themselves, which, given the hidden structure of the bureau, meant their paths had crossed before. The biggest obstacle between them would always be rank. It ran the other way now, with far more than five levels separating an instigator from Hamanu's favorites. Pavek couldn't blame Nunk for currying a bit of favor when he had a chance.

"Rumors that you're the one who brought down a high bureau interrogator. Rumors that you're the one who made Laq disappear. Rumors that you've got yourself a medallion made of beaten gold."

Pavek stopped pumping the instigator's hand and fished out his regulators' ceramic with the gouged reverse. "Rumors lie."

"Right," Nunk replied with a fading smile. He led the way to the small, dusty room that served as his command chamber. He closed the door before asking: "What brings you and yours to this cesspit, Great One? Remember, I helped you before."

Pavek didn't remember any help, just another templar prudently deciding to mind his own business at a moment when Pavek impulsively decided to get involved. Still, he'd have no trouble putting in a good word or two on Nunk's behalf, if the opportunity arose, as it probably would. "I remember," he agreed, and Nunk's jagged grin returned, full strength. "I want to go inside and look around, maybe ask a few questions."

"No gold, not yet. Got things to finish first."

"Laq?"

"Seen any around?"

"Not since the deadheart disappeared and everyone connected to him went to the obsidian pits. Lord, you should have seen it—the Lion Himself marching through the quarter calling out the names. I'll tell you something: the city's cleaner than it's been since my grandfather got whelped. Rumor is we'll be at war with Nibenay this time next year, and the lion always cleans house before a war, but this time it's different. The scum he sent to the pits wasn't just Escrissar's cadre. He cast a wide net and the ones that got away left Urik."

"Not all of them. I'm looking for a halfling, Escrissar's slave—"

Nunk's eyebrows rose. It was common knowledge halfling slaves withered fast.

"When I saw him, he had Escrissar's scars on his cheeks. He's the one who cooked up the Laq poison, but he didn't go down with his master. I think he's gone to ground in Codesh. You keeping watch on any halfling troublemakers? Name's Kakzim. Even if the scars were just a mask, like Escrissar's, you'd know him if you'd seen him. You'd never forget his eyes."

"Don't know the name, but we've got a halfling lune living in rented rooms along the abattoir gallery—he'd have to be a lune to live there. He's a regular doomsayer—there seem to be more of them all the time, what with all the changes now that the Dragon's gone. He gets up on his box a couple times a day, preaching the great conflagration, but this is Codesh, and they've been preaching the downfall of Urik since Hamanu arrived a thousand years ago. A faker's got to deliver a miracle or two if he wants to keep drawing a crowd in Codesh. Can't speak about this halfling's eyes, but from what I hear, he's got a face more like yours than a slave's—no offense, Great One."

"No offense," Pavek agreed. "I'd like to get a look at him. Which way to this abattoir?"

Nunk shrugged. "Don't go inside, that's what regulators are for—or have you forgotten that?" He stuck two fingers between his teeth and whistled. An elf with very familiar patterns woven into her sleeve answered the summons. "These folk want to take a look-see through the village and abattoir."

She looked them over with narrowed, lethargic eyes, Pavek had stuffed his medallion back inside his shirt when the door opened. He left it there, letting her draw her own conclusions, letting her make her own mistakes.

"Four bits," she said. "And the ghost wears a cloak."

It was a fair price, a fair request: Kakzim might spot Mahtra long before they spotted him. Pavek dug the money out of his belt-pouch.

Her name was Giola, not a tribal name, but elves who wound up wearing yellow had little in common with their nomadic cousins. She armed herself with an obsidian mace from a rack beside the watchtower door before leading them to the village gate, which, unlike the gates of the Lion-King's city, was never wide open.

"You know how to use that sticker?" she asked and pointed at Pavek's sword.

"I won't cut off my hand."

"That's a lot of metal for a badlands boy to carry around on his hip. There're folk inside who'd slit your throat for it. Sure you wouldn't rather I carried it for you? Push comes to shove, the best weapon should be in the best hands."

"In your dreams, Great One," Pavek replied, using a phrase only templars used. Between friends, it was commiseration; between enemies, an insult. When Pavek smiled, it became a challenge Giola wisely declined.

"Have it your way," she said with a shrug. "But don't expect me to risk my neck for four lousy bits. Anything goes wrong, you're on your own."

"Fair enough," Pavek agreed. "Anything goes wrong, you're on your own." He'd never been skilled in the subtle art of extortion, which was probably why he was always skirting poverty. He didn't begrudge Giola for shaking him down, but he didn't intend to give her any more money, either. "Let's go. We're looking for a way underground, a cave, a stream, something big enough for a human—"

"A halfling," Ruari corrected, speaking up for the first time since they entered the watchtower and earning one of Pavek's sourest sneers for his unwelcome words.

"Halflings, humans, dwarves, the whole gamut," Pavek continued, barely acknowledging the half-elf's interruption. "Maybe a warehouse or catacombs—if Codesh has any."

"Not a chance, not even a public cesspit," Giola replied. "The place is built on rock. They burn what they can—" she wrinkled her nose and gestured toward the several smoky plumes that fouled Codesh's air. "The rest they either sell to the farmers or cart clear around to Modekan."