Chapter 7
Kaelun
There’s something off about Grinning Ellys.
I can tell as soon as I meet him next to the stall at the market selling tiny glass vials.
He watches me from the shadows in the alley around the corner as I approach, his beady eyes running over me and every passerby in a manner that makes me think he’s sizing us up, coldly calculating how much each of us might be worth alive or dead.
I’m certain he doesn’t know I see him. I’ve learned most people don’t see in the dark as well as I can.
The shadows have a way of sliding apart to reveal whatever lingers in them when I look.
But I’ve learned from experience that other people cannot see through them so clearly. As usual, this comes in handy.
Putting aside my distrust, I stride up to him confidently. “Ellys?” What kind of name is Grinning Ellys anyway? “Zerth said I would find you here. I’m Kaelun.”
He looks me up and down, chewing bitterleaf and then turning his head to spit on the ground. “That’s me. You sure you’re up for this job? I thought Zerth said you was skinny.”
I choose to take that as a compliment. I guess I’ve filled out a bit recently.
“Don’t worry. I can fit into lots of tight spaces.
I’m your man.” The reward for this job is too good to turn down, and things in Vathira have been slim pickings lately.
Purse strings are tied tight with the late inundation.
He grunts. “My associate is just picking up a few things, and then we’ll be off. Have you got a donkey?”
I narrow my eyes. “Zerth told me travel costs were covered.”
He sniffs. “I s’pose we can get you one. Meet me at the north gate at sunset.”
I frown. “How far out of the city is it?”
“You don’t need specifics, boy. You’re either in, or you’re out.”
I have to think hard about that. This must be a shit of a job or they’d never risk hiring someone and revealing the location of their stash. Something tells me I should probably ask for danger pay on top of my fee. “I dunno. You sure this is worth my while?”
He glares at me. “Do you want it or not? You look like you could use a few extra meat skewers, so I wouldn’t be complaining too loudly if I were you, kid.”
I refrain from telling him my true age. I have a young face. Better for me if he underestimates me. “I think I’ll need twenty percent. Not fifteen.”
The guy folds his arms across his broad chest. “You’ll get ten if you wanna try that one.”
On the surface, he shows nothing, but the fact that they’ve hired a stranger tells me more than his body language. I match his stance. “Twenty-five, or I walk.”
He swears in disgust, and I make a show of turning around. “Fine! Twenty. Not a gold piece more.”
I spin quickly and shake his hand again before he can change his mind. “Twenty. Now we’re talking. See you at sunset.”
Ignoring his scowls, I dart between customers in the market and hurry to gather a few things together for this trip.
I hope it doesn’t take too long. I don’t trust these guys as far as I could throw them—which isn’t very far.
So the quicker we get it done and I take my cash and make my getaway, the better.
I take the long way, skirting around the markets and lingering to look up at the top of the palace walls as if Yalina will somehow pop her head over the top at any second.
Of course she won’t.
I’ll never see her again. She said as much.
Doesn’t stop me wishing.
I give the donkey a wary look as my new associates sling their legs over their own mounts and turn them toward the gate. I know about as much about riding as I know about Drasha Theater, but I’m not about to mention that.
He jumps forward just as I’m about to mount, and I end up hopping a few steps on one foot with the other stuck over his back while I try to get myself into position.
It doesn’t help that there’s no saddle, just a rough blanket thrown over the beast’s back.
He seems about as impressed with me as I am with him.
As soon as I’m on his back he twists his head to nip at my leg, and I let out a shout and push him away.
Ellys looks back with a frown. “Keep up or you’ll be left behind.”
“I’m trying,” I mutter. I dig my heels into the donkey’s side, and he finally twists his head forward and starts plodding along the road toward the gate, following behind the others.
I wish we didn’t need to ride at all, but my companions seemed to think it necessary.
They still haven’t shown me a map or told me anything at all about our destination.
I pat the ten gold pieces I made them hand over before we set off as a down payment.
At least they were good for that. It gives me hope I may not come out of this with nothing.
We travel for hours. My ass grows sore, and I shift uncomfortably in place.
Every time I do, the donkey turns to nip me or darts forward as if he hopes he might jolt me off his back.
I cling tight, clamping around his belly with my thighs and winding a hand into his spiked mane just for insurance.
We travel like this all night, only breaking once for a meal.
The others pass snacks backward and forward and chat in lowered voices, but for the most part they ignore me.
When we stop to make camp, I follow their lead and tie up the donkey beneath a sparse-leafed palm tree and unroll the pathetic excuse for a bedroll I brought with me.
It’s a little chilly, and the wind whips over the dunes and blows sand into my clothing, so in minutes I’m itchy and wishing for my tower room.
I find a place beside a large rock, partly sheltered from the sand, and tuck my gold under my arm and try to get some rest.
I wake to blaring sunlight and chapped lips. My small flask of water has long since run dry, and I’m parched. Ellys waters the beasts, and when he’s not looking, I scoop some of the water from my donkey’s trough into my hands and drink gratefully.
My stomach rumbles as my companions munch on dried fruit and nuts without offering me any, but I’ve skipped a meal or two before in my life. I’ll live.
We take shelter the rest of the day as we can.
Which mostly consists of pressing our backs against the baking stone and praying the sun doesn’t scorch us.
I shut my eyes and will the shadows to grow.
Finally the small patch of dark creeps forward and covers me from the worst of the sun. Not a moment too soon.
I must drift off like that. I wake with a jolt when a donkey brays. It’s dusk, and the sun is dipping low over the horizon. “Come, thief, we have another night’s ride ahead.”
With a sigh, I gather my things and mount my donkey. Muscles I didn’t know I owned ache, and my ass is tender, but I don’t let it show on my face.
I’m so glad to get off the damned donkey when we arrive, I barely look at our destination. My legs are shaky, and I know I’ll be sore for days.
Then I stop to really take it in. I might have gone right past this place if my companions hadn’t stopped here. It doesn’t look like much. Sand covers most of the ruins, piled up in large drifts against crumbling blocks of stone. But when I look closer, I start to notice promising details.
Inscriptions in a script I do not recognize signify the site’s age. And beneath the sand, indented pockets where gemstones were once embedded in the stone. The site has been raided, probably more than once. Does anything remain of the riches which were once here?
I guess we’ll find out.
He leads me to a place where the sand has been brushed or blown away to reveal a tiny cavity. It is barely the width of my forearm and only about as high. I crouch to get a better look.
“Can you fit through?” He eyes me speculatively.
Leaning closer, I brush at the sand with my fingertips and the stone crumbles away as well. Getting in won’t be a problem. Getting out, however…
I brush that off like the sand. Today won’t be the day that ends my lifelong lucky streak. I’ve been in tight scrapes before, and I always manage to get out somehow.
“Yeah, I’ll fit.”
He grunts and goes back to the donkeys, which his friend is tethering to a nearby column.
“What am I looking for exactly?” I call back to them.
Curious, I stretch out on my belly and wriggle close to the hole to get a better look.
It wasn’t made as an entrance. I see that much straightaway.
The darkness twists and coils around a large cavern, parting before my eyes to reveal a straight, flat shape which looks like the side of a building.
It drops down about five feet to another flat surface which must have been a roof once upon a time, and opposite is another tower stretching up until it disappears into the sand.
From behind me, Gada speaks. “Someone told us this used to be the temple of a wind spirit. And you know what you find in temples?”
I shuffle backward and look up at him. “Offerings. And you want me to plunder the temple offerings, huh?”
He shrugs. “Didn’t pick you for the religious type.”
“I’m not.”
“Then what are you waiting for?”
I look across at Ellys standing with the donkeys. “And neither of you is coming with me?”
“Can’t fit.”
He’s not wrong. His belly juts out over his belt, and his companion is equally as rotund. I guess it’s me on my own, then. “You got a torch?”
They light one and hand it to me, and I stick my feet through the hole, wriggling until my hips are through.
It’s a tight fit, but it’s my shoulders that give me the most trouble.
By putting one arm through first, I slide in further until my toes touch sandstone and only my head and my right arm stick out through the hole.
Gada passes me the torch, and I pull myself into the cavern where it smokes and gutters wildly for a moment, making me cough.
Blinking, I look around.
Just as I thought. I’m standing on the roof of the buried temple.
At my feet is a small window, barely bigger than the hole I just crawled through.
There’s no indication how far the drop might be on the other side if I squeeze through.
I try to look, but the torchlight flickers so badly I can’t get more than a glimpse.
I think I see the ground not too far below.
With a whispered prayer to whatever god has protected me so far in life, I turn and shimmy through the gap.