Part 17 (1/2)
I didn't like this. Maybe Morlock was wrong: maybe Charis himself had lured Morlock into town, hoping to kill him off and cancel his debts that way.
I waited until he had crept a little closer to Morlock and I had crept a little closer to him. Then, when he was crossing from one hiding place to another in the shadow-st.i.tched street, I took him out, or tried to.
My brothers played this game called vinch-ball, and it is so stupid I could burst. I knew more about it than I wanted to, because I'd watched them play it so much, and because when they weren't playing it they were usually talking about it. Like most boys' games, it involved hitting people and knocking them over for no clearly defined reason. Well, I had a reason and, thanks to vinch-ball (I wish I'd never said that, but it's true), I knew how to tackle someone bigger than me and bring him down.
I hit Charis from behind, about the level of his knees. He gave a thin scream and fell backward. I scrambled out of the way and pounced on him. All that went according to plan.
Unfortunately I'd underestimated Charis. He was even thinner and weedier than his golem-figure, and his muscles were as soft as mud. But he was a grown man and he fought with the strength of desperation. I was starting to lose the fight when someone else joined the mix.
It was Thend. Between us, we managed to pin Charis's arms behind him as he wriggled, facedown on the street beneath us. He was still struggling and gasping, and I didn't know how long we could hold him, when suddenly he went limp.
I looked up. Morlock was standing over us.
”Charis,” he said.
”Master Morlock,” Charis replied, his voice m.u.f.fled. ”Would you please get your servants off me?”
”I am not your master,” Morlock replied coldly, ”nor theirs.”
We let him go anyway and even helped him to his feet.
”How did you get here?” I demanded from Thend.
”Good thing I did get here,” he sniffed.
”That's not an answer! Who's on guard back at”-I realized I shouldn't say too much in front of Charis-”back there?”
”Roble,” Thend said. ”He saw you go and sent me after you.”
”He's asleep-”
”Roble's awake, or ought to be,” Morlock said. ”We agreed that I would go scout for Charis and he would wait for a message, in case I got into trouble.”
”How are you going to send him a message?” Thend asked.
”If you need to know, I'll tell you,” Morlock said, not like he was mad. He turned to Charis. ”You don't look well,” he observed.
”Thanks to you!” Charis snapped. ”When I acquired your information, the Khroi became ... interested in me. They ordered their man in the city to hunt me down.”
”Who is he?” Morlock asked. ”Perhaps I can defend you from him.”
”No!” Charis seemed genuinely frightened. ”Please don't ... don't help. I wish no more obligations to you. No more to anyone. I'll find a way to destroy ... the agent, or escape him ... somehow. If I can pay you what I already owe, I will gladly close our account.”
”Then?”
”If you're asking me where your information is-”
”I am.”
”-it is under lock and key, safe in my house.”
”Then we will go to your house.”
”No!” Charis shouted. ”I can't! They're watching for me there!”
”We will trust to your walls and your golems for the few moments we'll be there.”
”I don't have any golems,” Charis sobbed. ”They won't obey me anymore. The Khroi's agent got to them somehow. I haven't set foot inside my house for three months. The last time I did the golems tried to kill me. Kill me!”
”Hm,” said Morlock. ”Didn't you write a stop-word into your golems' lifescrolls? Something that would bring them to a halt if they started to go astray?”
”Of course. What do you take me for?”
Morlock looked like he was about to tell him, then said, ”Never mind that.”
”Well, it didn't work anymore, that's all.”
”I wrote stop-words into the golems I made for you a few months ago.”
”Oh, I know all about that. I took the scrolls out and changed their safewords to my own. And now that won't work. You look like you don't believe me, but it's perfectly true.”
Morlock didn't answer this; he was silent for a moment, obviously thinking. ”You obtained the information and secured it in your house?” he asked.
”Yes. I-”
”Was the place well hidden?”
”Yes. The-”
”Did you tell anyone the location? Did your golems see you hide it?”
”No. Whenever I-”
”Is it in a room with a window?”
”What?”
”You heard me.”
Charis stared at Morlock for a moment and said, ”Yes, there's a window. But it was shuttered when I hid the information; no one could see in, if that's what you're-”
”Then we will go to your house.”
”But I can't-”
Morlock stopped him with a single glance. Oh, how I've tried to do that, but it never works, even with my daughters.
We went to Charis's house: a fortresslike palace of native blue-stone, not far from the western wall of the city. It was surrounded by a dry moat. There was no obvious way to cross the moat, but at one point in the wall there was a great bronze door; maybe that could be lowered like a bridge. Bow slits lined the walls above the moat; every now and then I caught the gleam of watching eyes.
We lurked in the shadows of a half-ruined building across the way from the bronze door while Charis pointed out to Morlock the window of the room where the information was hidden. ”But we'll never reach it,” Charis said despairingly, and I had to agree: the window was halfway up a smooth featureless wall. Even if we could get across the moat without being spotted we could never climb up. And, even if we could get in the front door (which we couldn't), I didn't like the thought of trying to sneak through a house of killer golems.