Inside was a strongbox and papers—lots of papers.
“Get the box out of my way,” I said. My arms were functional enough for paper, but not a box of gold, even if it was probably the lightweight goblin variety.
Phaelan reached over my shoulder. “With pleasure.”
I’d also had experience doing a fast scan of paperwork, but the thing we needed to do faster than that was to leave. I didn’t want to risk leaving anything behind that might put Taltek Balmorlan away for the rest of his life.
I started snatching the papers out of the safe. “See anything to put these in?”
Phaelan was incredulous. “You’re taking them all?”
I just looked at him. “You’re taking all the gold?”
“Good point. Stupid question.” He looked under the desk and held up a leather satchel, a nice one. “This do the trick?”
“Yeah.”
Phaelan tossed it; I caught it and started stuffing. A ledger slipped out of my hand and fell on my foot. I bent over to get it, and nausea reared its ugly head.
“Damn,” I muttered, slowly lifting my head up and forcing the contents of my stomach down.
“Easy,” Phaelan cautioned.
“Later.” I got the ledger and stood up. It’d fallen open.
To Carnades Silvanus’s signature.
I felt dizzy again and it had nothing to do with the Saghred and everything to do with taking down everyone who’d supported the bastards who wanted me and everyone I loved imprisoned or dead. I scanned the document, flipped the page, and did the same, again and again.
They were pledges, signed pledges of support, monetary and otherwise. I recognized enough of the names to know that Taltek Balmorlan had secured as allies some of the most powerful men and women in the elven government, military, and aristocracy.
Signed, sealed, and witnessed.
At least half of them had been witnessed by Carnades Silvanus.
I held all of it in my hands.
If I’d had the strength, I’d have jumped for joy. For now, I’d settle for not throwing up again.
“I can see risking your life for money, but you’re taking a book for booty.” Phaelan shook his head as he emptied the last of the gold in what had to have been his last pocket. “Where did we go wrong with you?”
“It’s not a book. It’s a leather-bound payback.”
No one was going to stop me from getting out of here and getting these papers into the hands of the right people, people who knew how to use them to inflict maximum damage on Balmorlan and his generous new friends.
I fastened the satchel’s buckle, slung its long strap over my shoulder and across my chest, and peered out into the hall. Still empty. “We need weapons.”
Phaelan stepped around me and out into the hall. I followed. “Blueprints say there’s a guard station at the next right turn.”
We heard it before we saw it, but not before it’d seen us. It was waiting, between us and a guard station we weren’t going to live long enough to reach.
It scuttled out in front of us, stopping less than ten feet away, massive eyestalks locked on us. I knew now why there were no guards down here. They could just turn this thing loose and know that the prisoners would either stay put or get eaten.
Phaelan recovered his voice before I did, though it was higher than normal. “What the fuck is that?”
It was a crab, an enormous crab. Pinchers the size of my head and a shell that came way past my knees. Unblinking black eyes glittered on the ends of eyestalks as thick as my forearms. Black eyes that were fixed on us.
Phaelan froze. “This wasn’t on the blueprints. Tanik, you bastard, I want my money back!”
Chapter 20
Where were a claw cracker and hot butter when you needed them?
I’d eaten crab. I loved crab. Now I faced the very real and immediate irony of a crab eating me—or at least pinching off my leg. I thought crab legs were delicious. I wondered in a moment of giddy panic if giant crabs felt the same way about people legs.
Years ago, I’d run into a werehound in a goblin prison. I was there as an unwanted visitor helping a valued guest leave. There was an explosion two cell blocks over, and the guards had run to put out the resulting fire. The explosion had been my doing; releasing a werehound to patrol in their absence had been the guards’.
I’d been expecting a werehound. One drugged treat and two minutes later, it’d been dozing like a puppy.
Right now, I didn’t think we had minutes, and I had no idea what the hell a giant crab ate. Though from the way its claws were clicking and clacking, I think it knew exactly what it wanted.
I’d be willing to bet those pincers weren’t its only weapon. Its shell had a dull metallic sheen, more like armor than anything else, and the shell’s edges looked razor sharp and were actually dripping with strands of green slime. Poisonous? Probably. I couldn’t imagine green slime being a good thing.
“Do crabs have ears?” Phaelan whispered.
“How the hell am I supposed to know?”
The eyestalks swiveled toward us. Apparently werecrabs did.
Yeah, I know, but at least werecrab sounded remotely dangerous, because being snipped into big-sized chunks by a mere crab, even a giant one, would be beyond embarrassing. I didn’t know if the thing was something else between sunup and sundown, and right now it didn’t matter.
Werecrab, it was.
Run away was my impulse, but it wasn’t an option, at least not with a hungry crustacean standing between us and what Phaelan’s blueprints said was freedom. One of us could distract the thing while the other darted around it. Problem was the crab’s shell with its dripping slime almost extended from one side of the corridor to the other. There was no room to get around it, and the only way we could distract it would result in one of us losing an arm or leg. I wasn’t eager to try either one, but the crab didn’t look inclined to go back where it came from, and as to us going back to where we came—
“Is there a way out behind us?” I asked.
“Would I still be here if there was?” Phaelan was bouncing on the balls of his feet, ready to move in any direction, including up. “What are you waiting for? Do your thing.”
“My thing?”
Phaelan wiggled his fingers in the air. “Magic. You can move things. Move that.”
“Don’t know if I can.”
“What do you mean you don’t—”
“Magic doesn’t always work on magic.”
“It ain’t magic; it’s a crab.”
“If it’s a construct, anything I do won’t dest—”
“What the hell’s a—”
“It means it doesn’t really exist. Looks real, feels real, but ain’t real.” My voice was edging toward panic, and the rest of me wasn’t far behind.
“Well, that construct wants to take a bite out of my leg. That real enough for you?”
My borderline anxiety attack wasn’t just because my only way out of this hellhole was blocked by a werecrab. My magic could tell me if the werecrab was real or not. The real problem was that I couldn’t tell.
My heart pounded absurdly loud in my ears.
My magic wasn’t working.
Nothing, not even a spark. I never believed that blood could actually run cold, but mine did.
The few times that I’d actually used the Saghred, I’d been winded afterward, sometimes knocked on my ass, but I’d never lost my magic. Could it have been the manacles? Were there aftereffects from being locked in them after a certain length of time? Or could the Saghred have been pissed off at not getting Phaelan’s soul and decided to suck out my magic instead? I didn’t know, had no way of knowing, and it didn’t matter.
A werecrab was here and my magic was not.