Draka

We let Simdal go. We blindfolded him and then I flew him out in the middle of a starless night. It was mostly theatrics for his benefit, though, to keep him scared. He knew who’d held him, and he could have gone straight to Tarkarran or some other lieutenant of the Blossom’s to rat us out, but Mak and I were in agreement that his survival instinct was stronger than that. Besides, he didn’t know anything they could use that they wouldn’t know soon anyway. Better to have him out there, potentially telling other flunkies that if they just cooperated, the big bad dragon would let them live.

Once he was gone and I was back it was almost morning, and the humans had missed a full night’s sleep. They went to bed, but I wasn’t about to leave them unattended. Just in case Simdal did do something as monumentally stupid as bringing people back to the inn for some revenge, or to try to capture the sisters like the Blossom wanted, I went with them to their room. I took the outside way in, and slept on the floor in front of the door, preventing anyone from getting in without going through me. I’d worry about getting out once everyone was rested.

Simdal, as it turned out, was not an idiot. No gang of thugs stormed the inn, and no one tried to break down the door or climb in the window. Someone did knock in the middle of the day, though. Rib and Pot had been gone all night but returned at some point, and after a nap they were very curious about what we’d been up to. The fact that I was there, and not hidden away somewhere, excited them to no end. We had probably had a good six or seven hours of sleep by then, and the sisters decided that they may as well kick Ardek out, get dressed, and let the cousins in. It wasn’t like Rib and Pot were likely to leave them alone at that point.

Rib and Pot were not only there to satisfy their own curiosity, though. They also brought welcome news. The Laughing Gull, the ship we were expecting Tam and Val on, had been passed by a mail ship and was expected sometime late that night or the next morning.

“What kind of a name for a ship is that, anyway?” Pot said. “Sounds like a cheap sailors’ tavern. Anyway, they’re sailing into the wind, so the mail ship overtook them easily. Oars and all that. No new messages from Tam or Val though, at least nothing they’d give us.”

On our part we told them about grabbing Simdal. I’d become much less eager to embarrass Mak after my talk with Herald and Mak’s own efforts to show how reliable she was, so I left out the part where Mak had frozen. Herald and Mak didn’t bring it up either, for obvious reasons. With any luck the cousins would never need to know.

Once Rib and Pot left, the conversation pretty naturally turned to how and how much to tell the boys about what had happened while they were away. Personally I was all for just telling them everything except what I’d done to Mak. They both knew the sisters well, and it would only be a matter of time before they started asking questions. If nothing else they’d want to know why there was a young man sleeping in their sisters’ room. It wasn’t as though I was ashamed of my actions, even if I did regret some of them, but I wanted to give them some time to settle until we gave them the whole story.

Herald and Mak, to my surprise, were a little less sanguine about telling them quite everything, at least at first.

“If we could leave out just how I was taken…” Mak said, turning her face to the wall in embarrassment.

“We will have to tell them about the Blossom and what happened,” Herald said, “but I think that we should leave out the details for now. Is it not enough that they know that Draka rescued us? Telling them about… what happened between you, and how things are, will only confuse things. Let them think that you are merely grateful for the rescue, Mak, and we can let them know the full truth of it in time.”

“That may or may not work, depending on how much the mercs know and if they can keep their mouths shut. Garal and them are good friends. Wouldn’t he tell them everything if they asked?”

“He might,” Herald said slowly. “But he does not know the details, only what he has seen. If we ask him, I think he would be willing to… not lie, but to let us handle any questions. As long as we let him know that we consider this to be a delicate subject, I am sure that he would understand.”

“And Lalia? The cousins?”

“They’re impulsive,” Mak said. “They may blurt something out, even if they don’t mean to.”

Herald sighed. “They are, are they not? In that case…” She trailed off thoughtfully.

“We’ll just tell them that I’ve sworn myself to you, Draka. Out of gratitude for rescuing us, and guilt for my part in you getting captured. It’s not even a lie, it just leaves out one, admittedly large and important, detail.”

“The dragon magic?” Ardek asked.

Mak looked at him, a highly unimpressed look on her face, and said, “Yes, Ardek. The dragon magic.”

“Do they… what do they know about you, boss?” Ardek continued, undeterred. “Do they know you have any magic at all? The whole turning to shadow and that?”

“Not really,” I told him. “Only you three and the cousins know about that. But they’ve sworn on their lives not to say anything.”

“What about the village? The refugees, I mean? Should we tell Mister Tamor and Mister Valmik about them? ‘Cause Jekrie is pretty sure that you did something magic when you scared the crap out of him.”

“Huh.” I hadn’t thought about that. I’d bring them there soon enough, I was sure of it. They’d talk to Jekrie, who I hadn’t really thought about what he’d taken away from our meeting in the forest. And him being a respectful guy, he’d probably tell them anything they wanted to know. Not that it was anything compromising, but better they hear it from me first.

“Good point,” I told him, and he straightened just a bit. “We’ll just have to tell them before they find out.”

Mak shook her head. “If they’re going to be helping us with the Blossom – and we’ll have to lock them up to stop them if we tell them what she did to us – they’ll need to know what you can do almost before anything else. How are you going to get anywhere with them around if you’re trying to hide something like that?”

Herald nodded in agreement as her sister spoke, and added, “Besides… this is not for me to decide, obviously, but do they not deserve to know? They are our family, and they have fought and bled with you. We found the book together, and we are sharing the proceeds. I do not know if we will continue adventuring,” she said with a sigh. “Not with the amount of money that we hope they’ll bring. But whether we do or not we all will still be a group, will we not? It will surely not be the boys doing their thing, and we girls doing ours.”

There was still the concern of betrayal. I had thought that I could trust Mak, and that hadn’t turned out great. If she’d known about my magic we might all still be prisoners, or dead, or worse.

I must have glanced at Mak, or shown something on my face. Or perhaps Herald just knew me, because she said, softly, “You can trust them, Draka. On my life, I promise that you can.”

I couldn’t really say anything about that. If I couldn’t trust Herald’s judgement, I was pretty much lost.

“Alright,” I said. “I’ll show them. Not right away, but soon.”

With the boys’ arrival almost literally on the horizon, there was no point in planning anything else for the day. I would have liked to check out the secret rooms in the tunnels, to see where the trap doors went, but that would have to wait. Nor was this the time to go after that little shit Tarkarran, as tempted as I was. No, we needed to be patient, bide our time, and make sure to be there when Tam and Val stepped off the Laughing Gull, whenever that might be.

To that end, the humans kitted up as much as they reasonably could in the city without arousing suspicion. Rib and Pot would be going with them. They’d be heading down to the harbour immediately. Hopefully Garal, Lalia or both would join them before anything happened, but that depended on them returning from their respective patrols in time. The Wolves may have been restricted to patrolling the areas closest to the city, but that didn’t mean that they spent any less time on patrol.

“There’s a seafront tavern at the eastern end of the northern docks, called The Turtle,” Mak said. “It’s got a big sign, though the sign is a tortoise. Don’t ask me why. That’s where we’ll be most of the day. It’s popular with adventurers and merchants, so we won’t look out of place there with our gear.”

“A tavern?” I asked her pointedly.

“I’ll behave,” she said seriously, “and I’ll have the others there to keep me honest.”

“Besides,” Herald said, “we are working. She never drinks when we are working.”

I looked at them both and thought about it. It wasn’t like Mak had been a raging alcoholic or anything. She drank to handle anxiety and stress, from what I knew, and she did seem a lot more stable now than she had a few weeks earlier. And, like she said, she’d have others there.

“Alright,” I said. “I trust you.”

Mak looked like she might cry for a moment, before schooling herself. “Thanks,” was all she said.

I continued. “I’ll make my own way down to the harbour, somehow. I’ll try to find some place close to the tavern. Mak, how close do I need to be for you to feel me?”

“I’m not sure,” she said. “Fifty feet? A hundred? A mile? It’s still very new to me.”

They left the room to grab the cousins and head out. As for me, going out in the middle of the day was a big risk. The harbour wasn’t far, but the streets were no less lively than any other day. While it wasn’t quite the sea of humanity that I’d seen in major cities back on Earth, there were still lots of eyes to catch a shadow moving where there was nothing to move it. But it was a risk I’d have to take. If the Blossom or Tarkarran or anyone else was going to try to hit Tam and Val, to capture, kill or rob them, fresh off the boat would be the time. And their lives, and the treasure they carried, was worth more to me than my slowly deteriorating secrecy. Besides, if someone saw me like that they would only know that they’d seen “something”. Even if they had heard Relki’s crazy story about a dragon stalking the alleys, they were unlikely to connect the two. If anything they’d probably think that they’d seen a particularly large rat or a cat.

It would still be dumb to take undue risks. The solution, I decided, was to try the drains. The tunnels were laid out regularly and I was sure that I could make my way to the right area without any trouble, and that way I’d only have to make a sprint for my entrance. Even then I’d have to be careful. The sky was cloudy, but it was still plenty bright enough to pose a problem.

From the partially open window I scoped out a good shadow on the ground, where I’d be able to cross the wall enclosing the inn’s courtyard to the alley beyond, and when there was a lull in the foot traffic I went for it. Then it was a matter of staying on the shady side of buildings, moving between patches of shadow and trying to stay behind boxes, stalls, walls and fences. In the inverted light of my shadow vision, people walking the streets were visible mostly by their shadows, patches of light in a sea of black. I generally couldn’t see where they were looking, and had to rely on waiting for an opportunity and moving as quickly as I could, stretching my darkness to connect to whichever new island of light I wanted to get to.

It was fun. Sneaking around, staying hidden in the middle of the day, was a real challenge. And since I didn’t care too much if someone saw me in shadow form, the stakes were not very high, making the whole thing something of a game. An exhausting game that threatened to give me a headache, sure, but a game nonetheless. Ducking behind things, flitting around corners, sneaking right behind someone along a street or just crossing behind them as they passed… it was oddly exciting! I was sure that if I’d been corporeal I would have had a giant grin on my face by the end.

And nothing beat the moment where someone did a double take, staring right at the place where I’d just passed, and even going so far as to go over to take a look. I had to scramble to get into a different cover before they – male, female, young, old, I couldn’t tell – actually got a good look at me. I had been in several literal fights for my life, yet that moment made me feel incredibly alive. Clearly, I told myself, I’d been missing out!

But, as fun as it had been, soon it was over. I made it to my goal without any screaming, tired in a way that had nothing to do with my body, and with the beginning of a headache. I checked both ends of the alley, shifted back, drew the grate to the side and–

“What the hell was that?”

The voice, high but male, came from just outside the alley. In a rush I dove into the well, and as I was pulling the grate back into place I heard quick steps, and the voice again, saying, “Did you see that? I swear I saw a tail go in that–”

I shifted as fast as I could, sped through the pipe connecting the well to the tunnels, and shifted back. And I was grinning like a gods-damned fool.

While I was exploring the drains previously I’d only gone far enough towards the harbour to be reasonably sure of where it was. Instead I’d focused on the north, where the gate to the forest was, and the east, where I knew that there were sea caves and the sewers emptied.

This time, then, I went into fairly unknown territory. As I went I became aware that the tunnels had begun to slope ever so slightly, which made sense. They had to empty into the sea somewhere, so naturally they should slope in that direction, if at all.

The tunnels in that direction had fewer of the larger right-angled connections, but that was hardly a problem. My first order of business was to reach the sea, and then I could worry about other things. And reach the sea, I did.

It began with a gradual brightening and then, seemingly out of nowhere, a spot of bright light in the distance. When I stopped and listened carefully I could hear the soft sounds of the surf echoing towards me, and there was the faintest scent of the sea. The bad kind of scent, of rotting seaweed, but the scent of the sea nonetheless. I kept going until I was met with the first deep water I’d seen down there, the slope of the tunnel taking it under the level of the sea at high tide.

Putting my feet in salt water brought back some unpleasant memories, and I stepped back uncertainly as I thought of thrashing through the water, fishermen trying to harpoon me, and waking with water in my nose. I hesitated for a moment then, angry with myself, forced myself to press on.

By the time I reached the end of the line I was shoulder deep in water, but getting along pretty well. I’d found that I could use my tail to help my legs along, whipping it side to side like a crocodile. It wasn’t bad, really, and I thought that I should probably get comfortable with swimming. I’d found two places in the city that exited into the sea already, and if I could swim comfortably, instead of madly scrabbling to keep myself from drowning, I would be much better able to make use of those.

That was particularly relevant where I was. There were marks in the stone where a grate or grille had once been anchored, but it was long gone. I wondered if the whole system was a relic of the old Mallinean city on whose ruins the current city of Karakan was built, with no one maintaining it. If it was, whoever had originally built it had done a hell of a job. I hadn’t seen any signs of repair, but neither had I seen any damage that hadn’t been caused intentionally, and I wondered if there was some kind of magic in play, or just a ridiculous level of skill. Perhaps there was some kind of major advancement that let your work last forever. It sounded ridiculous, but Ardek had a minor advancement that made people like him, and Mak could literally heal people with a touch, so why not? Someone had build the stormwater and sewer systems. Someone had carved miles and miles of smooth, uniform tunnels in the mountains, with entire complexes of rooms and gates that were so well hidden that they might never have been found if I couldn’t see the magic in them. Merely making your work extremely durable seemed reasonable by comparison.

I stood half submerged in the sea. Carefully sticking my head out, I could hear gulls and human voices nearby, and see the main docks perhaps a quarter mile away to my right. To my left were some simpler fishing jetties, and beyond those the city wall extended into the water. I was facing south-east, so I didn’t have the sun directly on me. Getting out that way unseen would be tricky, but it was, at least, an option.

Feeling quite satisfied with that, I turned back and returned to the darkness. I continued back up the tunnel until I was back on comparatively dry stone, then turned left, towards the north-east, the first chance I got.

It took a while, but I found what I was looking for. From my earlier finds I’d been pretty sure that I would. A few hundred feet up the tunnel crossed with another one, forming a T, and when I looked up the connecting tunnel I could see stones on the ground. The wall had been cracked open, and beyond that opening was a two-foot tunnel leading to a small room with a ladder and a simple trap door.

I looked at the trap door, smug as could be, and whispered, “Jackpot.”

Climbing was a little awkward, but I managed. I listened carefully at the trap door, and heard nothing. There was something on top of it, but nothing too heavy, and I pushed it open just a crack, listening and sniffing the air. There were a lot of scents there, but nothing that I heard or smelled warned me of nearby people.

With a heave I opened the hatch the rest of the way, whatever had been on top thumping on the floor as it fell. I stopped and listened. Again I heard nothing, so I crawled up into the small room above.

The thing that had blocked the hatch was a barrel. By the feel of it as I put it back it was empty, probably just there to cover the secret entrance to the tunnels. The small room I was in held dozens of barrels just like it, on the floor and on two tiered shelves along the walls. They were all covered in thick dust. An empty doorway led into some kind of unused storehouse, filled only with empty shelves, dust, and broken crates.

Though, not completely unused. There were too many different smells in the air, besides dust, smells of spices and woods and even animals. And the floor was almost clean, the broken boxes shoved to the sides of the place as if to get them out of the way. The large double door on one side of the building, where sunlight leaked in through weathered wood, was chained shut from the inside. But there was another door, four feet wide, at the back. Listening there I heard the sounds of a distant crowd and otherwise nothing.

I tried the door. A chain rattled on the outside, and no one reacted. I slammed against it once, twice, three times, and something gave. With the sound of splintering wood and the chain clinking to the ground, the door opened a foot. I peered outside into a dark alley or side passage, covered by a leaky roof, and smelled spices and the sea. And just like that, I had a secret route to the harbour.