2012-08-In the Event of My Untimely Demise Read Free Page A

test your spells against my axe then, you’re welcome to try.” He stamped for the door, reclaiming the sharpened ring from the lintel on the way out.
    Luma rushed to the window. Jordyar had turned westward, toward a main thoroughfare, the Avenue of Honors. He proceeded with the attentive uncertainty of a visitor. Consulting her mental map of the city, Luma plotted a route of alleyways. If she got going right away, she might well beat him to the high street, and trail him unseen from there. She plunged into Seriza’s kitchen and out the back exit. The widow called after her, either asking why she was following the dwarf, or asking who would pay for the door. Luma didn’t attempt a reply.
    On the second question, it was not up to the Derexhi family to pay Jordyar’s reparations. As to the first, the old adventurer knew more than he was saying. Were there anything here to investigate, the path to it could well lead through him. Missing treasure certainly sounded like a motive for murder.
    There was more to hear from the widow, too, but that would have to wait. Luma knew where to find her.
    Reaching the Avenue, she spotted Jordyar’s head bobbing between a pair of laggardly porters carrying wine crates for a doddering master. Luma wished she had her brother Ontor with her—shadowing was both safer and easier with two. Still, her street-honed instincts kept the dwarf in sight, and he showed little propensity for looking back. The fat-purses and liveried servants who populated the street at this hour gave wide berth to her battle-ready, fuming subject. Picking up speed as he stomped along, he passed hawkers, criers, and store guards, merchants, traders, and grandees. He traversed the length of the avenue, turning at the Pediment Building and continuing down the long stone slope that served as the bypass for the Seacleft, the great cliff dividing the city into high and low, the Summit and the Shore.
    From its base, the dwarf wended through the clamorous Bazaar of Sails, bypassing stalls and skirting around tents. A trio of urchins, in the sparkling glad-rags of the Varisian minority, chased a fist-sized jewel bug into his path. Jordyar roared at them, sending them scattering. Luma halted; his swivel to shout curses at the children placed her in his line of sight. But he seemed not to notice her, and continued on. Heedless of Luma’s pursuit, he plunged into Dockway’s narrow streets, lined by salt-crusted depots and sturdy taverns.
    Abruptly abandoning her chase, Luma darted into an alleyway between an alehouse and a whorehouse and drew her sickle. As soon as she was past its threshold, she pressed her back against the crumbling brick of the tavern wall. A rake-thin man clad all in black, from boots to leggings to tunic to skullcap, hustled in after her. She thrust out the sickle, wrapping its curving edge around his ankle. As she pulled it up, she twisted the blade, so that it would trip him without cutting into his leg. He fell into the wall, bashing his snowy-bearded chin against the brick, and tumbled to the ground. Luma leapt onto his back, pinning him with her knee, and pressed her blade around his throat, positioned for a slaughtering cut.
    “Who are you?” she asked, “and why are you following me?”

Chapter Three: Old Comrades
    The trim, white-haired man responded with seasoned stillness to Luma’s knee and sickle. His foreign-accented voice purred soothingly, with a hint of disarming irony. “Who am I and why I am I following you? I might equally ask whose blade caresses my jugular.”
    “Depending on your answer,” Luma replied, “I might tell you.” She glanced at the alleyway’s mouth. The street it jutted onto was not such a quiet one. This was in Dockway, where most folk would note a waylaying in an alley and keep going, unblinking. But trouble only took one busybody.
    Prominent veins ran like engorged streams across the man’s papery, spotted hands. Around his wrist coiled a silver chain bearing