Lallslatt greeted them just as it had the first time, with many, many prying eyes and just as many itchy fingers, like a nosy spider with eczema (and also fingers). They kept their attention on their bags and belts and their hands on their pockets. They listened to the music played by lone fiddlers and flutists or small bands on the streets, all set to the remarkably even beat of people here and there in the distance crying out as they begged for their money or life or pie or all three.
The four of them made it to Scrum Street only a collective and unaware three whorls, ten radulas, and eighteen shells poorer, which was pretty well above average considering they still knew where all their fingers and toes were, too—or at least mostly, in Root’s case.
“Four buildings down…” said Azriah. “Yep, this was the one.” They turned right and stepped into the alleyway. “No need for those roundabout directions this time,” he said, pocketing the paper. “Let’s see, the patched section of wall is right…”
He scanned up and down the wall. It looked like the right alley, but the panel of wood patching the crumbling wall was nowhere to be seen.
“That’s odd,” said Vit. “Are you sure this is the right alley?”
“Yes, I think so. Four buildings down.” Azriah checked the paper again, then went back out into the street to count the buildings since the corner. It cost him another eight radulas.
He reentered the alley scratching his head. “This is definitely four buildings down.”
“Were we wrong last time?” asked Root. “Maybe we counted wrong before.”
“But the directions say—”
“Maybe Syrus was wrong too?”
“Sounds unlikely.”
“Maybe the building got patched up,” suggested Vit.
“Do you think…?” started Beel. He put his face close to the corner where they swore the panel had been previously and listened. “What if he’s trapped in there?”
“Then I hope he’s finished with the renovations on his back door,” said Root.
“This is the same courtyard, right?” asked Vit. They’d made their way to the other end of the alley. The others went to join them.
“Looks the same,” said Azriah.
“And this is where we entered from,” agreed Root.
“It’s even got the same lizard,” said Beel, indicating the little critter who seemed to live atop the dying fountain like it was some sort of nest. The lizard eyed them as it had before, blinked asynchronously, then licked its eyeball.
“So then we went down the alley with the lumber,” continued Vit. “Which turned out to be this same one. What do the directions say after that?”
“The directions were redundant,” said Azriah. “They had us come all the way down to the courtyard when we’d been in the right alleyway already.”
“But what do they say?”
Azriah sighed. “Two doors down, do a one-eighty, walk three paces, then knock where the wall is patched, but—”
Vit followed along, going through the motions. “Got it,” they said. They leaned down and knocked on the wall.
“What?” Azriah hurried over, Root and Beel behind him. The wall looked as it had on their first visit, with the lower corner of one section replaced with plywood. Following Vit’s patterned knock, a startled scrape-thump came from the other side, and then a voice.
“Who goes there?”
“It’s us,” said Vit.
“Those words indicate very little!”
“Oh, sorry. It’s Vit.”
A pause. “I don’t know a Vit!”
“Oh. Did we introduce ourselves last time? I don’t think we did. Uh, it’s… the us who went to get you a potion.”
“We’re with the Allegiant,” said Azriah.
There was scuffling and the sound of locks moving on the other side of the panel, and then it swung open. Betrum poked his snout out of the shadows. “Why didn’t you just say so? Come in.”
Back in the crawl space that Betrum called home, they crammed in around his small table as before. Betrum took up his spot perched on one chair and eyed them greedily.
“So. You got the quostress potion I asked for?”
“We did,” said Azriah, pulling it out and holding it between thumb and forefinger.
“And it was a hell of a process, too,” said Root. “You could’ve told us what we were getting into at least.”
“But then you might not have gone to all the trouble. Let me have it.” Betrum reached for the potion, but Azriah pulled it back out of reach.
“And your end of the bargain?” he said. “Our delivery for the Allegiant. Information, you said it was?”
Betrum retracted his little arm, but he kept his beady eyes on the potion. “Yes, it’s information he’s after. I have it all neatly compiled and locked away. Allow me to fetch it for you.” Betrum hopped down from the chair and opened one of the drawers in his load-bearing dresser. He fished around until he produced a key, which he stuck between his teeth. He scampered away out of the tiny cellar and up out of sight into the narrow ravine that ran within the building’s walls.
“Syrus didn’t tell us much,” said Root in a hushed tone. “How will we know that Betrum is giving us what he wants?”
Azriah shrugged. “Not our problem. Like you said, Syrus didn’t tell us much, just that Betrum would know what he’s after. If what he gives us isn’t up to Syrus’s standards, that’s between the two of them. I’ll hold him to his end of the deal, especially after all of this.”
Betrum dropped back down out of the wall, looking much dustier than before and now clutching a thick folder of documents in his mouth alongside the key. He tossed the folder onto the table as he climbed up beside it.
“There you are, then. That’s my side of this arrangement. Now, my potion?”
Azriah handed it over. Betrum peered into the bottle with wide eyes. He gave it a shake and watched the shimmering liquid swirl. Azriah stowed the folder of documents in his pack.
“What’s a quostress potion do, anyway?” asked Root.
“None of your business!”
“I’m not trying to steal it, I just want to know what we went to all that trouble for.”
Betrum eyed her sheepishly. “Well, fine then. If you must know, it’s a cure for… hair loss.”
Root balked. “Hair loss?”
“Well, yes. You might’ve noticed that my coat is looking a bit patchy…”
“You made us do all that for your fucking bald spots?”
“Hey! A deal’s a deal.”
“Yeah, well, why couldn’t you go do that yourself?”
Betrum shifted his feet. “I could’ve, I suppose, it just would have been sort of… embarrassing, you know?”
“Well, enjoy your potion,” said Vit. “And your lustrous new hair, too.”
Having Syrus’s information in hand should’ve made them feel relieved, but all Root felt was concern. A stack of documents that some weasel spirit had fished out a crawl space, and that was worth a lead on a mote periapt? Running around looking for obscure flora, fauna, and junk—and convincing spirits and humans alike to part with that junk—had occupied her mind enough to keep her from worrying too much about the end of the road. Now the road was ending, and they’d soon find out whether or not it had all been worth it.
They walked south through the woods back towards Midden. Root had spent some time dwelling on her thoughts before she gave them a voice.
“So, do you think we should look through those documents for Syrus?” she asked.
“Eh,” said Azriah. “Probably not anything relevant to us.”
“Seriously? You don’t think they could have anything to do with the periapts?”
“No, I highly doubt it. Syrus and Betrum aren’t working together—not really. They’re reluctant participants on either side of a business exchange—that much is clear, at least, in the way they regard one another, not to mention Syrus’s alias. And if they’re not working together, I can’t imagine they would be exchanging information about periapts. At best, it could be that Syrus is after information about the periapts that fits into his puzzle—alongside whatever else he already knows—but means nothing to Betrum. That would mean that it more than likely means nothing to us, too, at least not without Syrus filling in the gaps.”
“I think we can trust Syrus,” said Vit.
“You do?” asked Root.
“Yeah. Uh, I mean, I guess I’m just not that suspicious of him.” Root gave them a puzzled look.
“I wouldn’t go that far,” said Azriah. “Suspicion is useful.”
“I agree,” said Beel.
“In healthy doses, that is.”
“You can’t overdose on suspicion.”
“Anyway, as I was saying. I think it’s unlikely to be about the periapts at all. He was volunteering with that political rally—could have something to do with that.”
“I just want to make sure we know what we’re getting into, y’know?” said Root.
“Believe me, at the first sign of danger, we’re out of there.”
“You know,” said Beel, “to me, I think the first sign of danger is making plans like that. So…?”
Azriah shook his head. “We can’t let this all be for nothing. At the very least, Syrus owes us some coin. Hopefully his information is good, too. But no, we have to at least show up for this ‘remdezuous.’”
They arrived back in Midden after only six days in the woods, which was five more than they’d told Syrus they’d be gone, five more than they would have liked, and short ten days of what it had felt like. Root looked around at the city streets expecting to see entire new blocks that had been constructed or demolished in their time away, but it looked much the same as it had, and regarded them with equal indifference as before.
It took hardly more than ten minutes to find Syrus’s meeting spot, and with nothing else to do, they sat down against one wall to wait.
His address pointed them to the intersection of a main street and smaller, squigglier side street, just at the mouth of an alley. The streets in this section of the city ran narrower like tight canyons between tall, old buildings—something of a historic district, if the layer of grime and signs alerting city-goers that cleaning grime came with felony charges for “destruction of atmosphere and historical charm” gave any indicator.
They ate a late lunch as they sat and waited.
Root caught herself looking up and down the street, out onto the main road, down the alley, and up at the windows and rooftops above in an endless cycle. Each time she called out the paranoia and made an effort to shrug it off, her rounds resumed just as soon as she let her mind start to wander again. Why did she feel so anxious?
“What if this is come kind of setup?” she asked after several minutes of stewing in silence.
“What do you mean?” asked Vit.
“Well, Syrus knows about the—you knows—right? Do you think he suspects we have one? What if this is some kind of trap?”
Azriah scratched his chin. “I hadn’t considered that.”
Root groaned. “Ugh, are you kidding me? I was actually looking for reassurance this time.”
Azriah scanned their surroundings in a pattern that Root found immediately familiar.
“Do you really think that’s an option, though?” Vit asked Azriah. “He’s just one guy, and you said yourself you could take him.”
“One guy that we know of.”
“I think we should go,” said Beel.
“Not all of us,” said Azriah. “It’s unlikely to be a trap. But I suppose… I mean, I guess it might be prudent to split up and have one or two watch from somewhere hidden.”
“Splitting up, though?” said Root. “That might just make us more vulnerable.”
“Uh, you guys?” said Beel.
“It’s fine, Beel, I’m sure we’re just paranoid.”
“No, look.”
Root followed his stubby finger as he pointed up the street. It took her a moment of studying the crowds moving this way and that before she saw what he pointed at. Who he pointed at.
She’d only met him once, but she was better with names and faces than his boss. It was Golvy, Ajis’s henchman, moving down the street towards them.
“Fuck, okay—hide or run?”
“You forgot ‘kill,’” said Azriah, spotting Golvy and moving a hand to his sword.
“We’re in the middle of a city!”
“I seem to remember you were lacking that sentiment when we first met.”
“Doesn’t matter,” said Vit. “He’s a spirit—he’ll come right back and tell Ajis where we are.”
“He sees us,” moaned Beel. Root looked back up. Sure enough—Golvy had his eyes locked on hers and his teeth bared as he shouldered his way slowly towards them, moving against the flow of the street.
“We can try this way…?” Root took a couple steps and looked down the alley. She couldn’t tell, but it looked like a dead end. “Never mind.”
Azriah grabbed his things. “Come on, this way, then.” He pointed back out towards the main street.
A door creaked closed somewhere behind them. Root turned and found herself face-to-face with Syrus standing hardly two paces away.
“Glad to see you’ve all made it back, finally,” he said. He sized up their startled faces, then glanced past them out into the street. Golvy was still advancing, now in plain view.
“Ah,” said Syrus with a grin. “So you’ve met Golvy?”
The four of them crossed back over the border of the woods in an unceremonoius moment entirely unnoticed by all of them but certainly not unnoticed by the woods. It watched them go, treading off over other ground and amongst other trees with a twinge of jealousy and more than a little bit of disgruntled hunger. Those four—they’d been quite fascinating. They’d gone right up to the heart undaunted, right past the cave unswayed—and not just the cave, but the gulch, too; things were a bit more roundabout out there, and it took longer to get underground and then through all the proper tunnels to connect to the cave proper, but it got there in the end. Sort of like going in through the nose to get to the stomach; it wasn’t ideal, and took some extra work. Sort of exactly like that, in fact. The gulch would’ve done just fine—plenty of things had been finding their way through the gulch of late. They tickled dreadfully.
Even the river gully—yes, they could’ve fallen into the current and even that would’ve swept them off through the right channels to send them underground right to where they belonged.
Impressively, they’d come within tantalizing proximity and still, somehow, evaded all efforts. It was almost as if they were touched by something—something more deep and powerful than the woods itself, something older and more steadfast. Few powers had such sway.
That, or none of them had a sweet tooth. Bummer.