A Thief in the Night

chapter Fifty-three

Cythera clutched her hands together, beseeching the dwarf one last time. “You have no antidote. I see. Very well. Then at least take us out of here. Please, I beg of you. Take us back to the surface. If you don’t, he’ll die.”

“If you don’t you’ll be Slag’s murderer,” Malden added.

“Who? Little me?” Balint laughed. “I didn’t shoot him with that dart.”

“What difference does that make?” Malden said.

“All the difference in the world. At least as far as the law is concerned. A dwarf can’t use a weapon, not anywhere in Skrae. So I didn’t. I just built one. Oh, true. I left the thing where he was bound to stumble on it, clumsy f*ck that he is. But he could have avoided it if he was a little more careful.”

“You have a funny idea of guilt and culpability,” Malden said. Though he knew she was correct. The law said that a human who killed a dwarf, even by accident, would forfeit his life. Dwarves, on the other hand, were held to a more lenient standard. They could not wield traditional weapons, and they were forbidden from attacking anyone directly. Yet if they caused a death indirectly—through, say, laying a poison dart trap—they were held free of guilt. That loophole in the treaty was why they’d become so good at building cunning and insidious traps—and why humans always watched their step around angry dwarves.

“Ignore him,” Cythera insisted. She implored Malden with her eyes to hold his tongue. He just looked away. “He’s just upset because his friend is dying,” Cythera went on. “Listen to me, Balint. Slag still has a chance to survive if I can reach the surface. I can save him. But down here, he’ll perish, surely.”

Balint shrugged. “As far as the king of the dwarves is concerned, this motherless snot-drip died a long time ago. When we exile somebody, they stop being a dwarf, for all practical intents.”

Balint kept throwing out references to Slag’s past that Malden caught, but time was too short to follow up on them. Still, he filed them away for later. Slag had been exiled? He was a debaser? Whatever that was. His real name was . . . Urin? Malden had so many questions.

“You,” he said, fuming with anger, “could stop being a dwarf right now.” He began to lift the sword.

A hand grabbed his forearm and he spun around to find Cythera behind him, stopping him from killing the little monster. She slapped him across the face, very hard.

The rage inside him threatened to boil over. His vision went red and he growled, literally growled, in the desire to attack, to kill.

“Malden,” Cythera said, “I understand.”

His rage hit a brick wall. He was so surprised he couldn’t move.

“I understand how you’re feeling right now. Believe me, I do. But if you harm her, then you’ll be throwing your life away. And you won’t help Slag at all.”

“But—she’s so . . . she’s—”

“She is within her rights, as far as the law is concerned. And you aren’t. I know you break laws all the time. But only because you expect something out of it. This won’t achieve anything.”

“No, please, don’t listen to her,” Balint laughed. “Come on, boy. Try to hit me with that great big whanger of yours. I dare you!”

Malden stared at her. The fury was still inside of him, but instead of howling for blood now it was like a torrent of water penned up like a dam. He would not give Balint what she wanted. “I won’t forget this,” he said.

“No man forgets meeting me,” Balint assured him.

“I assure you, that—” Malden began, but he stopped in mid-sentence. Outside the door of the Hall of Masterpieces, he could hear the sound of hammers striking metal. That, and a lot of cursing. Something was up. “What are they doing out there?” he demanded.

“My men? They’re simply buying some time. I’m going to walk out that door in a minute. I’m not exactly wet in the trousers to have you follow me.”

She yanked on her blueling’s leash again and it climbed up her arm. Dancing along like a monkey, it wrapped itself around her shoulders and closed its eyes. In a moment it was asleep. “You know, Urin, I should drag your dog-hearted arse right out of here, right now, and let you die in the foundry out there. You’ve got no right to sully this place—this hall—with your debasing presence. But in a way, I suppose it’s appropriate you’ll die right here. Aye, it’s got some f*cking poetry to it, don’t it? Surrounded by all the emblems of what you betrayed. In the place you nearly betrayed again.”

She turned to go.

“Balint,” Slag moaned. “Tell me . . . one thing.”

She sighed dramatically, then turned to look at him.

“What will you—ugh—do. With the bloody barrels?”

Balint frowned. “I’ve got my orders. I’ll set them ablaze. Watch them burn, every little bit.”

“But . . . why? They’re priceless!”

“They’re worth about as much as a whore’s hand-rag to me. They’re history.” She made this last word sound like a profanity far worse than anything she’d used so far. “It’s taken a long time for our people to forget, Urin. To forget what we once were. The king doesn’t want anyone reminded of what we can never be again. Now—you tell me one thing.”

Slag looked up at her.

“What the f*ck were you going to do with them?”

Slag managed to chuckle, a little, before his chest seized up and he lost himself in a wheezing cough that made tears squirt from his eyes.

“My plan was to sell them to our king. In exchange for . . . for . . . letting me . . .” Another half chuckle. “ . . . letting me come home.”

Balint nodded in understanding. Then she shrugged. “It’d take more than that to earn his forgiveness. As far as he’s concerned, you stink worse than a goblin’s codpiece.” She strode toward the door. Just before she stepped out of the room, she turned to look back at the three of them one last time. “Farewell, cock-sniffers,” she said, and then she was gone.

Malden stood there holding Acidtongue for a while, trying not to shout in frustration. Finally, careful not to drip any acid on himself, he sheathed the blade and went to Slag’s side.

“Your countrywoman’s got a nasty streak,” he said.

“Not to mention an uncivil tongue,” Cythera agreed.

“Yes,” Slag whispered. A wistful smile crossed his face, despite the pain. “Wasn’t she magnificent?” His eyes fluttered closed and his breathing grew shallow, if ragged. He had fallen asleep.

Cythera stood up and walked to the door. She placed a hand against it and held up one finger for silence. “I can’t hear them out there. They must be gone.”

“And good riddance,” Malden said.

“No—hark, Malden. I’m relatively sure Balint was bluffing.”

“About what would happen to me if I struck her down? Believe me, I considered that it might be worth it.”

“Not about that. About not having an antidote. Did she strike you as a fool?”

“What? No—not that. Not a fool, at least.”

Cythera nodded. He could see in her eyes that she was thinking hard. “She laid the trap. Coated that dart with poison. The first thing Mother taught me about working with venoms and toxins was that you should never even consider it unless you had an antidote at hand. What if she had accidentally pricked herself while loading the dart into the trap? She must have something that can help Slag.”

“And you want me to steal it from her.”

“Exactly.”

Malden laughed. It would be a pleasure.

“Follow her closely. Even if you can’t get it—or if I’m wrong, and she doesn’t have the antidote—you’ll at least learn where the escape shaft is. But be careful! We’ve already seen she’s a mistress of traps. Whatever her people just installed beyond this door is sure to be deadly.”

“Ah. So you want me to go alone.”

Cythera blushed. “I need to stay here to look after Slag. I know this is dangerous. But it may be Slag’s only chance.”

Malden looked down at the sleeping dwarf. “How could I refuse? But give me a kiss for luck, before I go out there into certain peril.”

She sighed and tried to peck his cheek. He swung his head around in time to steal a kiss, a real kiss, from her lips. She looked slightly shocked.

“I’ll be back before you have a chance to miss me,” he told her, and slipped out of the Hall of Masterpieces before she had time for a clever retort.