Temple Hill - Drew Karpyshyn [49]
She cast a quick glance over her shoulder at Corin, clinging to the beams like a drowning man to a piece of jetsam in a storming sea. Lhasha allowed herself a quick smile. She had seen him in action, she knew he wasn't clumsy or awkward. Put a sword in his hand and Corin moved with the grace of a dancer, but get him more than ten feet off the ground…
Lhasha turned her attention to the floor below. Men were scurrying about, loading and unloading caravan wagons, moving boxes and crates from one side of the warehouse to the other. In a corner she noticed a group of men gathered together, standing idle. She scampered across the rafters until she was directly over them, then put on the earring Fendel had given her.
"… think I'm going to go ask the foreman about it? Not for all the gold on the Dragon Coast," one of the workers said.
"You don't need to ask," another replied. "I'm telling you what I heard. There's someone in the stone room. That's why all the secrecy. Someone nobody's supposed to know about is hiding out in there."
"Some thing, you mean. I get a chill anytime I go near the place. It ain't natural," a third voice added.
The first voice laughed nervously.
"True enough. The supervisor didn't need to tell me the stone room is off limits. I won't go within ten yards of that corner of the warehouse anymore. No one will."
"Berg did."
The nervous laugh again.
"Yeah, Berg was always the stupid one. Had to go check it out for himself."
"And look what happened," the second voice said. "Berg hasn't been seen in a tenday. Whatever he found scared him so bad he ran off without even collecting his back wages."
"That's the official story, but we all know it's crap. If Berg was still alive, he'd have come back by now." There was a long second of silence.
"I wish to Lathander that they had never delivered that package, whatever it is."
Lhasha took the enchanted jewelry from her ear. From her vantage point, she could scan the entire layout of the warehouse. In a far corner she noticed that an area had been sectioned off from the main floor by a wall of stacked crates. Inside this area were several piles of barrels and boxes, and a small building built right inside the larger warehouse.
The tiny building couldn't have been more than ten feet on a side, and less than ten feet tall. From the color of the roof and walls, Lhasha knew this had to be the stone room the men were talking about.
She crawled back to where Corin was still firmly anchored among the rafters. His good hand was holding on so tight, the knuckles were white.
"There's a small area cordoned off in the back. There's a tiny building in there made all of stone. I'll bet my career earnings that our package is inside that building. Since the area's blocked off, I can use Fendel's ladder to climb down from the rafters on the far side of the barricade. Nobody will even know I'm here."
"Sounds simple," Corin said, keeping his eyes locked on Lhasha, and safely averted from the floor below.
"Maybe, but whateyer's in that room, the workers want no part of it. I heard them talking about one of them who went to investigate and never came back. The foreman probably caught him snooping around and took care of it," she surmised. "I bet there's more than a few bodies buried beneath the crates in this place."
Corin nodded.
Lhasha continued, "Still, it might be a good idea to have you watching my back when I check this room out. That is, if you think you can handle crawling through the rafters to get there."
Corin gave her a sour glare.
"I can handle it. You just lead the way."
Til go nice and slow," Lhasha said with a smile.
Much to Corin's relief, Lhasha set a very languid pace. It took them nearly ten minutes to reach the back of the warehouse. Once beyond the wall of crates separating the area surrounding the small stone building, Lhasha quickly snapped Fendel's ladder together piece by piece until it reached the floor.
Til go first," Corin said.