Meek

Chapter 31: More Than a Trace

Eli slept for a few hours then woke in the night, feeling fresh and sharp. He slipped from the house and prowled the neighborhood around the manor, taking note of the three 'towers,' which rose three or four stories above the main roof.

He liked the cool night air and the silence, and the furtive shadows that his sparks occasionally caught slipping from alleys and doorways. Or maybe what he liked was not being afraid. He knew he shouldn't call attention to himself, but part of him wanted someone to test him.

Maybe not the wisest part.

He returned to the two paths he considered most likely for the marquis's approach. One veered around the side of the manor, hugging the fence beneath a row of trees. It offered an unobtrusive approach, following a sewage trench that probably kept most casual traffic away.

Eli considered the trees. Easy to climb. Easy to fall on the Marquis from above: and he could survive a drop from higher than most. Hm. He followed that path until it dipped inside a gap in the fence where once a small gate had stood.

Looked possible. Maybe.

The other was a short, straight, cobbled alley that backed onto a donkey stables. Bits of hay drifted on a breeze that smelled of manure. In front of Eli, that path turned into a tunnel: the buildings on either side joined overhead.

He stepped forward then looked upward, at the 'ceiling' made of the undersides of the floors above. Which reminded him of a cave tunnel. If he managed to collapse that onto the marquis and his guards, nobody would survive.

Another possibility ... if he could arrange the collapse.

He returned to the first path and climbed a tree. Something told him that that was the likelier approach, and he didn't want to lurk suspiciously for too long. Also, he appreciated the vantage point. So he chewed on twigs and surveyed the area while dawn broke and the manor roused.

Then he spent another few hours watching and eavesdropping, alert for any a sign of Chivat Lo. Except he didn't know what that would look like. So he mostly scanned for anyone theatrical or writerly, anyone who had the air of actor, or--or a man with a quill reciting the lines of a play.

Yeah, that didn't work. So he checked he was alone, then picked a point on the path below him and swung down hard from the tree.

He hit the spot accurately. And hard. Too hard. He sprained his ankle, which bothered him for ten paces before the numbness kicked in. He considered a disguise--or an excuse to wander through the towers. Maybe he should buy a ... a chair or something, and pretend he was delivering it? Or he could pay the chestnut vendor for his tray and hat and apron and roam around calling 'chestnuts for sale.'

Or he could stop daydreaming.

He spent another hour scouting, then entered the 'big house' through one of the largest sets of doors. Inside, he found a once-grand foyer that was now being used as a sort of indoor courtyard, where adults were chatting and plucking chickens while children squealed and toddled. Through the open doorways, he caught glimpses of elegant drawing rooms or parlors that had been divided into cramped, gloomy apartments.

They had nice high ceilings, though.

He followed his sparks upstairs, past another two flights of apartments, then along a hallway toward a smaller staircase. The one that must've led four stories higher, straight up inside the tower. There were three towers in total, so he didn't expect much from his first choice. Still, he snuck one spark under the crack of every door he approached while the other scouted ahead.

The tower stairway creaked as he climbed, a chorus of squeaks and groans that ruined any chance of stealth. Didn't matter. He was just a regular guy, innocently wandering the manor ...

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The tower stairs didn't open into floors, unlike the lower, inhabited stories of the building. It was just one long stairway leading upward. Tiny feathers lay in the windblown dust, and the walls were scarred in the places where fancy sconces had been torn away--decades ago, judging by the filth accumulated in the divots.

The stairway ended in a square landing with three doors and a couple of high windows. The top of the 'tower.' Peanut shells scattered the floor and a cloud of tiny flies rose when Eli stepped onto the landing and--

And his forward spark detected the faint scent of durinberries.

Whoa. Apparently first time's the charm.

So ... what should he do now? Well, now he should leave. Then return later, after he hadn't announced himself with a thousand squeaking stairs. Plus, all the cracks and insects holes in the walls suddenly looked like peepholes.

Eli frowned in confusion, in case anyone was watching, like he'd found himself in the wrong place. He grumbled and squinted, then turned to descend the stairs--but all the while, the sparks flew.

He couldn't pinpoint the source of the smell, so he checked two of the doors at once, each spark squirming beneath a different one. The first was a storage room, with planks and crates and broken furniture. The second was a tiny, tidy bedroom with a--

With a woman opening the door.

Then the door opened and the woman said, "Rodrigo?"

She was wearing a billowy yellow dress. A knit bag hung on a strap across her shoulder, and she was holding a sack like she was heading to the market. More of a girl than a women: still in her teenaged years. She had light eyes and dark skin and long plaited hair that a spark showed him swaying down her back to her narrow waist, tied at the end with a comb and a ribbon. Her shoulders were slender but her arms were strong and her hands calloused--the hands of a servant--and braided cords looped the ankle of one of her bare feet.

Eli turned. "Uh."

"Oh!" She wrinkled her nose. "You're not Rodrigo."

"No, sorry."

"Are you looking for Chivat?"

"What's that?" he managed to ask.

"The most-talented and least-appreciated playwright in the province, or perhaps the entire valley--according to him." She flashed a smile. "Also, my employer."

"Are you an, um, actor?" he asked, as the scent of duriberry strengthened in the landing.

"Just a maid-of-all-work. Well, and a housekeeper and errand girl and general dogsbody. Although to be honest, I don't like the word 'dogsbody,' it's a little ... "

"Canine?"

She wrinkled her nose again. "Exactly. So are you looking for someone?"

"Uh, yeah. Yes. Do you know a kid, calls himself Fleck?"

"Fleck?"

"Because of his freckles. I don't know." Eli also didn't know how to extricate himself from this conversation, with the girl gazing at him with engaged interest in her bright eyes. He was relieved that he'd found Chivat Lo, but he didn't want to meet him. Not yet. "His, uh, mom asked me to find him, so here I am, um. Short kid. Talks a lot. Anyway, I'll stop botherin--"

A scrape sounded from behind the storage room door. From behind the empty storage room door. So Eli sent the sparks flicking in that direction, swooping under the door and--

An insect stung the back of his neck.

Eli slapped at the bug and the sparks didn't detect anything in the storage room. No person, no bird or mouse, not even a curtain billowing in a sudden breeze.

"Aii!" the girl yelped, flapping one hand.

He spun back toward her. "Did you--"

"Ow!" She smacked her upper arm. "Ow!"

"What the--"

"Wasps!" she said, opening her hand. "Look!"

He looked. And there, cupped inside her palm, he saw a mound of powder. Another wasp stung him--in the neck again--and she blew the powder in his face.

Everything slowed down.

His heart beat once.

And then again.

His mind grasped for a thought but couldn't quite reach one.

Even his fear felt dull and distant--but it was enough to draw the sparks back toward himself, from the storage room into the landing.

Where he saw himself standing there stupefied, while the girl lowered her cupped palm.

A dart no bigger than a--a wasp--was embedded in the skin of his neck.

The third door opened and a man stepped through, a tall, dissipated-looking man in his forties, wearing a colorful robe that fluttered around him. He held a riding crop in one hand--no, a blowgun.

And in the other, he slashes at the air with a rapier.

"You found me," he said.

Eli turned with terrible sluggishness. "You ..."

"I am Chivat Lo," the man said, and stabbed Eli with the rapier. Not a killing blow, not in the heart or the eye. Instead, he stabbed Eli in the stomach and the blade sunk in six inches and he said, "Now, Mulch."

The sparks showed Eli as the girl pulled her sack over his head. The inside smelled of wax, and blocked the light completely, but Eli still watched blearily, his mind reeling, through the sparks.

"What--what if he really is just looking for a child?" the girl asked.

"You spotted him yourself. He walked in circles around the manor then made a beeline here."

"But, master--"

"And the fumes didn't bother him. Not a sniffle, not a tremor. Hell, he didn't even respond to the covering stink of durinberry."

"Some people like the smell."

"There's a trace of magic in this one, Mulch. My first dart should've dropped an ox. Took two darts plus your dust? More than a trace. Put him down, we're not taking chances with this one, not so soon after his lordship's ... problem."

"But--"

"Are you questioning me?" he asked, suddenly vicious.

"No, master," she said, and swung her knit bag at the back of Eli's head.

The bag must've contained a five-pounds of gravel, because the impact rocked him. He fell to his knees, then noticed a flicker of concern on Chivat Lo's face. Like the man didn't understand why he wasn't in worse shape.

So he dropped onto his side and stayed limp as Chivat Lo dragged him through the door.