Sword of the Gods - Bruce R. Cordell [39]
The pawnbroker’s voice hissed from the exit, “Stay down!”
Three crossbow bolts whizzed over Demascus’s head. Two embedded themselves in Chevesh’s shoulder, and one smashed into glass piping behind the wizard. Burning fluid sprayed into the laboratory.
Demascus jumped to his feet and threw himself through the door. Behind him echoed a scream of rage and a blast of scalding air.
Chant was already bounding down the spiral stairs three at a time, gripping his remarkable crossbow in one hand. The pawnbroker’s green brocade shirt was blackened, but he was obviously still very much alive. Demascus was relieved; if the human had come to serious harm helping him—
Light blossomed overhead, bright as the noonday sun. Demascus didn’t look; he concentrated on overtaking Chant even as his suddenly sharp shadow fluttered ahead of him on the curved steps. His body worked smoothly and efficiently, and even in the face of being burned to a crisp, he exulted in the sense of strength in his limbs.
The azer waited for them at the bottom of the stairs. Its hammer was so hot it glowed white.
Chant yelled, “Don’t engage it!” and hurtled over the side railing while still ten feet above the floor. He did a fair impression of someone skilled at leaping from heights, though his landing lacked something of grace; it was more of a bounce. But then he was up and making for the kitchen even as Demascus vaulted the railing on the opposite side.
“Chant Morven, you’ve made yourself an enemy this night!” thundered Chevesh’s voice from somewhere above.
Demascus dropped, delighted with how easily his body took the impact. His muscles knew what to do; he flexed into the fall with his waist and knees, and vacated his landing spot a heartbeat before the azer’s hammer smashed down.
Then he was through the kitchen and out of the tower, running down the street after the pawnbroker beneath a sky showing the first hints of approaching dawn.
CHAPTER NINE
AIRSPUR
THE YEAR OF THE AGELESS ONE (1479 DR)
CHANT EASED THE DOOR SHUT. HE’D APPLIED A SPOT OF OIL to the hinges before leaving, and the door closed without a sound. Regular soft snores continued to issue from the back of his shop. Demascus still slept.
He was in serious need of some rest himself. But he hadn’t gotten where he was by doing what was easiest. Or by making simple assumptions. Which was why he’d spent the morning putting out feelers on Demascus. He wanted to believe everything the pale man had told him was true. But belief and evidence were two different animals.
Why’d he get involved with the stranger? Now a mad wizard has it out for me, he thought.
Under normal circumstances, Chant wouldn’t have given an amnesiac lost soul the time of day. Too many folks in similar straits showed up at his shop with a tale of woe, clothes a decade out of fashion, and a keepsake to sell off. Usually stinking of ale and missing a tooth or two.
Chant was jaded. He had to be; he’d be a poor pawnbroker if his heart went out to every sob story related to him within the confines of his shop.
And it was precisely because he was jaded that he’d been intrigued by the stranger, he realized. Demascus’s tale was demonstrably more interesting than a drunk who’d been rolled for all his possessions, memory included. The theft of the scarf before his very eyes, a piece of fabric Chant had kept safe for four years, proved that. The stranger was part of something big, even if the man couldn’t remember exactly what it was.
Which meant that helping Demascus find himself again might prove to be Chant’s salvation too. And if not that, at the very least a much-needed diversion. That was, assuming Chevesh didn’t find his shop later that day and burn it to the ground …
Anyhow, providing a few sniffers with a description of a tall man with tattoos the color of a dead hearth was more than a mere precaution. Information channeled through informants, rats, and snitches around the city might eventually provide enough clues to recover all