Chapter 34
Thirty-Four
It felt great to have my achievement recognized, but there was no time to celebrate. After Pivorotto left to file his papers, I called for Trax so we could get back to figuring out how to locate Gerzog the Marauder. Then I went to resupply and rearm from the supplies I’d left stashed here.
“Congratulations on your promotion today.”
“Thanks, Trax.”
“Condolences on Carcalla having you killed tomorrow.”
“If they take it that far, they’ll probably hunt you down too.”
“Unlikely. I doubt any of them can swim that well.”
“We’ve still got a chance. All we need to do is track down Gerzog, Dathka, or the lamp before the Latrocinium can.
If the Latros get them without our help, then we’re useless and they’ll still be mad at us.
If Gerzog gets away with the treasure or Dathka dies, Carcalla will be furious, and we’ll be convenient to blame. ”
“The Latrocinium are the apex predators here. We are relative newcomers. I am a superb hunter in my own realm, but as you might have noticed, I sometimes struggle here.”
I tried to decide if what Trax said was sarcasm, before it struck me that he was being serious. He actually thought I might not have seen that the gigantic, terrifying, aquatic carnivore who didn’t at all understand the confusing customs of the land creatures stuck out just a bit in the big city.
“No… You?”
“It is true. Things are simpler in the ocean. How can we find them before the predators do?”
“I’m not sure yet.” I went to the room that served as our kitchen and grabbed a chunk of crusty, dried out bread.
I was starving. One nice thing about talking to Trax was that I could think at him while chewing.
Gerzog’s a brute, but he struck me as a cunning one.
He ripped off the Latros and the Latros’ power is in the Slumps.
He won’t be in either of those districts.
“Why stay in the Core at all?”
This is where potential buyers for the lamp will be.
It was a good thing I’d gotten so much practice at Squalo thought language that I could send complicated ideas and Trax could follow along.
He ran off on a Fireday. There’s nobody in my realm with the money or inclination to buy an object filled with Permanence that I know of.
Then, as soon as I thought that, I realized there might be one.
The image burned into my memory was so strong, Trax saw it immediately. “That is the pirate who attacked your family’s barge?”
It was. I still remembered him, standing there atop the legendary black barge we knew as the Inferno, haughty as could be, as they swooped in to steal everything we’d worked for, and when we wouldn’t let them have it, they’d taken our lives instead.
The symbol he’d put on all his enchantments was Aarhobad, the elven name for their lost homeland in the Realm of Time, and Gaul Haddar reckoned this unknown pirate was at a shockingly high level of magical mastery, like a rank fifteen or higher, equivalent in power to a member of the Nexus Council.
We didn’t even know his name, let alone his motives, but he’d been stealing tons of Red for years.
It made sense that he’d be interested in some of the rare and potent element from his home plane as well.
Except that was an absurd leap on my part.
There was no evidence Gerzog even knew this pirate existed, let alone that he might be a potential customer for his treasure.
No. It was far more likely that he’d try to sell Korthican’s enchantment to someone here who was already known to him.
Gerzog mentioned the Council or the Cult, as those were both obvious, as one would use the Permanence to maintain the Great Machine, while the other would try to break it.
But there had to be others. A resource that scarce had to be in high demand for any wizard with enough skill to use it.
There’d been an entire subclass of magic—chronomancy—based on that element once.
There had to be hundreds of spells on the books, just waiting for a bit of Permanence to fuel them.
Permanence used to be so common, that Korthican used it make what was basically a gigantic light charm, and light charms were probably the single most common enchantment there was.
They were so cheap and plentiful, even us poor folks took them for granted, yet here we were, fighting to the death over his, just because it wouldn’t ever go out.
Still chewing my bread that was so stale it had likely been one of the reasons Danny betrayed us, I walked to the fire room.
That was where I’d hidden the ammunition I’d been trying to enchant.
While we puzzled out what to do, I could at least replace the cartridges in my belt loops that had been ruined by seawater.
I didn’t know how to find Gerzog yet, but when we did, I assumed he’d still be in need of a proper shooting.
I shoved aside the scorched log I’d been using for a target, and pulled out the box I’d hidden in a hole in the floor. Inside was supposed to be all my valuable components, but something was missing. “What the hell?”
“What is wrong?”
“One of my molten bullets is gone. I had one left that was loaded in a case, ready to go.”
Trax padded over, put his nostrils next to the box, and sniffed. “The female deadlander’s scent is on this.”
“That thieving bitch.” I’d shown her what I’d been experimenting on, and when she’d returned to find us already gone, she must have come in here and stolen my work.
She’d expressed interest in buying some of these from me, but why purchase what you can just steal and reverse-engineer yourself? “I’ve been robbed!”
“That is most troubling. If she was present, I would bite her for this rudeness.”
“I should’ve known. My dad always warned me to never consort with crooks.”
“When I was a pup, the bull who spawned me warned us to avoid entanglements with octars and valenos, because they are very dangerous. I believe this to be a similar lesson.”
I knew Trax was trying to relate, sending me pictures of a tiny tentacled creature burrowing into a Squalo’s skull to eat its brain, and another black and white creature who was built like a Squalo, only far bigger and stronger looking, but that really wasn’t helpful right now.
I was trying to find Dathka, so her stealing from me was a slap in the face.
It was insult atop of injury! We’d been nothing but polite and professional the entire time since Cutter shoved her off on us, and this was how she paid back our hospitality?
“To hell with her. Gerzog can feed Dathka to the ratlets for all I care. She got her snobby ass kidnapped with my enchanted bullet on her, so she can…” I trailed off as I realized the implications implicit in my tirade. “She’s got my enchanted item on her.”
“Correct. I believe that is why we are upset.”
When Haddar had come through the gate, I’d been a few miles away in the Under Slump, and he’d still been able to track me down because I’d had one of his enchantments on my person.
If she still had that single round in a cartridge loop or in a pocket, I should—theoretically at least—be able to do the same thing to her that Haddar had to me.
Because I’d been thinking hard, Trax caught most of that. “So wizards can follow their own magic the way I can follow a trail of blood. Splendid. Where is she?”
“I don’t really know how that works yet. I’ll have to figure that part out.”
“Excellent. Then we shall go to wherever she is and bite her for her thievery.”
“No, Trax. We’ve got to rescue her from Gerzog.”
“We shall rescue her and then bite her.”
I’d get Trax straightened out on that later, because right now, I needed to learn how to sense my own enchantments at long range, and I needed to do it fast.