The Howling Delve

Johnson Jaleigh

"I don't remember you." Balram held the back of his hand to his nose as he spoke to Talal, but the boy only grinned innocuously.

"I was smaller when you were here last, sir," he said. His voice was chipper and polite, as if he were trying to sell Balram goods on a street corner. "Cleaner too, I'll warrant."

Balram didn't answer but looked back to where Aazen leaned against a wall. "You're sure she was a Harper?"

Aazen shrugged. "She wore the pin. I left her body beneath the portal. Only the bloodstain remains."

"I see." Balram grasped a fistful of Talal's dirty hair. He didn't pull or shake the boy; he simply held the tender strands straight out behind his left ear, sifting them through his fingers. Talal stiffened, and the vacant smile on his lips slid away, replaced by a taut line as fear battled with anger.

Aazen waited. He'd been on the receiving end of this punishment when he was younger than Talal. He knew what would happen if the boy displeased his father.

"What did you do with the Harper's body?" Balram asked. "These people—your friends—say you're a scavenger. Did you scavenge her corpse? You don't look like a vulture, though you're filthy enough to be one." He leaned closer, still holding Talal's hair. He sniffed, wrinkling his nose in disgust. "Your breath stinks of refuse. You'd eat your own droppings, wouldn't you, if you thought they'd nourish you. Did you eat the Harper too?" His eyes gleamed wickedly. "Are you so very hungry? But that's ungrateful. Don't we feed you well enough down here—provide for your every need? Only an animal eats its own leavings."

"I didn't eat her," Talal said. His voice trembled with suppressed rage. "I took her boots." He pointed to his feet.

A pair of brown leather boots bunched up awkwardly around his knees, straps and buckles dangling. Scorch marks from old fires bruised the leather.

"They're hers," Aazen said. "I remember sitting on them."

"Oh-ho." Balram chuckled. "Straddled her like a two-taran whore, did you?" He clucked his tongue. "Isslun will be disappointed in you. Or is it Aliyea?"

Talal stirred. Balram snapped his hand straight out from the boy's head without looking away from Aazen's face.

Talal screamed out in pain and fell to his knees. He clutched at the patch of bare, bloodied skin behind his ear. Tears streamed from his eyes.

Haroun started forward, but Aazen caught the woman's arm, roughly drawing her back. "You will only worsen the pain," he hissed in her ear.

She glanced up at him, surprised, but kept her silence.

Balram calmly sprinkled bits of loose hair over Talal's whimpering form. "It certainly sheds like an animal. What a mess you are." He crouched down, snagging Talal's chin. "If you're truly the heartless vulture, why should you care what insult I give the Harper?"

"I don't care," Talal said through gritted teeth.

"Oh, but it seemed like you did, just then. The look on your face was terribly affronted. I'm warning you, boy, if you value these people's lives, you will give me truth. Where is the Harper?"

"We brought her here!" Talal shouted. Jerking away from Balram, he climbed back to his feet and stood defiantly before the gathered Shadow Thieves. Behind him, the refugees, though far greater in number, stood in stunned, terrified silence while Balram regarded the boy.

"Why?" he asked.

"We tried to heal her," Talal said, calmer now. He wiped his running nose as blood dripped down his neck. "So she could help us escape."

A collective tremor went through the crowd, but still no one spoke.

"Did you expect we wouldn't try?" Talal asked mockingly, his eyes daring Balram to come at him again.

Balram smiled. "I wouldn't have expected an animal to speak so boldly. Yes, I knew you'd try. Were your efforts rewarded?"

Talal shook his head. "She died during the first night. We didn't want to waste our last healing draught on a lost cause."

"Really?" Balram sounded impressed. "What little mercenaries you've become . . . that is, if you're not little liars. Where is the body?" He raised his hand again, tracing the air alongside Talal's head.

The boy refused to flinch. "Follow me," he said. "I'll take you to her."

* * * * *

She awoke to a hand softly brushing her cheek. Meisha opened her eyes and saw Varan staring down at her.

Her hands were numb from being pressed against the cold floor. She clenched them into painful fists to keep from throwing herself away from Varan, but he merely sat before her, one hand endlessly shuffling his papers, the other resting on her skin, as if he had forgotten he'd laid it there.

Slowly, Meisha uncurled her body and slid out from under his hand. She came to an unsteady sitting position against the wall, still too close to the unstable wizard for comfort.

How long had she been meditating? No, that wasn't true, she thought, berating herself savagely. Meditation had turned to sleep, and a deep one. That had never happened to her before, not unless she willed it. Had Varan used some magic to make her sleep? The thought was more than unsettling. Meisha knew what he could do to her when she was awake and aware. It was frightening to contemplate what he might have done to her while she was helpless in sleep.

Helpless in sleep.

Meisha stood up so quickly that Varan looked up from his reading. His smile struck her with a profound chill. "You're dreaming, m'dear. Back to sleep now, child. There's a good girl." He resumed his shuffling.

Meisha slid back to the floor quietly, but her thoughts raced. Even in his current state, even asleep, Varan had sensed her presence in the chamber. He may have been confused about who she was or how old, but he knew someone was there with him. Of course—it should have dawned on her long before now.

Varan had known all along when the refugees were in his chamber. They shouldn't have been able to take his discarded magics from him without his consent, not while he could still cast spells—and she'd had painful proof that he could capably defend himself. But according to Talal, he'd never attacked any of them, until Shirva Tarlarin and Meisha herself, after she'd picked up the banded sphere. Meisha looked around the room for the item, but it was gone, taken in the last delivery to the Shadow Thieves. Varan didn't seem bothered by its absence.