Eventually they came to an agreement and I handed Charra my coin pouch. When she passed it back it felt distressingly light.
We followed her along a winding alley past streets deserted due to a collection of tanneries reeking of a heady mix of salt, ammonia and dung. As we approached a row of derelict mossy-stoned workhouses I sensed her tension growing and eased open my Gift, tasting the ether for stray thoughts and emotion. Aconia lit up like a Sumarfuin bonfire, radiating anger. It was not, I thought, directed at us. We stopped before a thick iron-bound door with a grilled peephole slat that would take a battering ram to open. Somebody had glued broken glass to the windowsills to deter climbers.
“This is the place,” Aconia said. Her muscles tensed, heart beating quicker, breathing faster, fists clenching.
I was about to say something but Charra beat me to it. “So what do they have on you? Perhaps we can help each other.”
Aconia’s hand caressed the hilt of her knife, but didn’t draw it. I didn’t want to see her dead but I’d not bat an eyelid putting her down if she forced my hand.
I stiffened and scanned the rooftops. For a second there I thought I’d sensed a presence, a hint of movement and a whisper of thought…
Aconia shrugged and lifted her hand free. “My business is my own.”
I locked gazes with her. “Fair enough. If things get heated in there, will you stab us in the back?”
“If I stand to gain from it,” she said with total honesty.
At least we all knew where we stood. I cracked my knuckles and held out a hand. “No hard feelings. I appreciate that you’ve been straight with us.”
Aconia pursed her lips, stared at my hand for a moment, then her calloused palm slapped against my own. A jolt of my magic stabbed through into her mind. She stared at me with horrified eyes as I cracked open her mind and set my compulsions in place.
I sighed and leaned in close. “I like you, Aconia, and if I’d time left when all of this is done and dusted then I would happily toss a few ales back with you. Sadly, that’s never going to happen.” I didn’t give a rat’s arse about meddling in the minds of scum, or in self-defence, but she’d been honest with me and my actions left a sour taste. It was a violation to enter her mind and subvert her will. I hated myself for doing it, but didn’t see any safe alternative.
“Stop flirting, Walker,” Charra said.
There would be no flirting with her after this, unless I chose to wipe her mind clean afterwards. “Aconia has decided to help us out in there if things go wrong,” I said.
For a moment Charra looked confused, then her eyes narrowed. “What did you do to her?”
“Hey, I can be charming when I want to be.”
She stared in silence for a few seconds. “We’ll have words about this later.”
I cursed under my breath. Charra was no fool and I fully understood how uneasy I’d made her: she was only just realising how unprotected she actually was around me, and being vulnerable was something that Charra couldn’t abide; she had shaped her entire life around that fear. I didn’t think she had ever truly thought of me as a real magus before now, not like those rich pricks up in the Old Town. To her I was a friend first and a magus second, and I’d always been very, very careful not to let her see the worst of what I could. Now she suspected I was more than I claimed.
“If we have to,” I said, sighing. “After you, Aconia. Give us a real nice introduction.” Her mind screamed at me, but her face smiled.
We followed Aconia to the door and she rapped three times, paused, then four more.
“Who’s there?” a gruff voice said from the other side.
“Aconia of the Fortuna Esban. Open up, you dogs.”
A slat in the door slid open and a pair of suspicious eyes peered out. “What do you want?”
“Have some people needing to talk to your boss, Clay.”
“That so? Well, he doesn’t need to talk to them.”
“Call your master, dog,” Aconia growled. “Have I ever steered you onto rocks? I am trying to pay off my debts, and if you get in my way I will gut you like swine.”
The slat clacked shut. Almost a minute passed before they unbarred the door. It swung open and Aconia sauntered straight through, seeming entirely unconcerned. Which was a damn good act considering half a dozen burly men were aiming crossbows at us.
For a supposedly derelict building the insides were in good repair, if a little bare, with only seven chairs and a table complete with dice and piles of coin. At the back of the room a set of stairs led up to the second floor.
A portly balding man with dropping grey moustache and bushy eyebrows stood watching us from behind his wall of muscle. They all wore hard-wearing brown leathers for ease of disguising blood stains. “This better be good, Aconia,” he said. One of his men slammed the door shut behind Charra and dropped the bar back into place.
“It always is, Clay,” Aconia replied. “These two need a word with Raston.”
“The Harbourmaster ain’t seeing nobody,” Clay said. He drew a knife from his belt and fixed a glare on me.
Charra stepped forward, slowly, her hands kept in clear sight. “He’ll want to see us. Tell him that Charra will owe him a favour in exchange for some information.”
Clay laughed. “You could be a bloody magus for all I care. I got my orders. You’ll bleed out the same as any other ugly bastard. The alchemic syndicates will thank me for it.”
Charra’s lips tightened. “Raston is neck-deep in shit. Do you really want to be the one to dunk his head under and tell him to get swallowing? You let him know that Charra wants to talk to him. Right fucking now. Otherwise he’ll have more than my boot on his head pushing him under.”
Aconia started, staring at Charra. My hastily implanted commands were already starting to break up and she was regaining a measure of control over her body. She was strong-willed alright. But my commands would last until we were done here.
Clay’s eyes flicked to his henchmen and their crossbows. “And what’s to stop me just killing you and that chewed-face mongrel next to you?” I winked at him in reply. He found that off-putting.
Charra sneered. “You think we didn’t plan for that? We’d be fucking stupid to come in here without any backup waiting outside.” She shook her head. “Every one of you will die in excruciating agony if you so much as lay a finger on us.” Her bluffing was superb, totally calm and very reasonable. I couldn’t have done better myself. “All we need is a few answers from Raston, nothing more. And a favour from me is worth more to him than your lives.”
Clay ground his teeth and put away his knife. “Fine.” He scowled at his men. “They move, you shoot.” He stomped up the creaking stairs.
I relaxed, glad that blood didn’t need to be shed. For a second there it seemed a civilized meeting with the Harbourmaster would be too much to ask for. Sadly we still needed to suffer the tedious back and forth of bargaining and threats in order to get the actual truth out of him.
Clay screamed. His cry cut off to a gurgle.
Four of Clay’s men dropped their bulky crossbows, drew knives, and charged upstairs, leaving behind a pair of nervous guards with itchy trigger-fingers.
The men upstairs roared in challenge, briefly. A few seconds later they flopped back down the stairs in a crimson mist of arterial spray, each dying of a single lethal cut to the throat.