Chapter 107: Chapter 40

“I don’t know,” Carina said, sounding unsure as she eyed Khumdar, “that sounds dangerous.”

The cleric raised an eyebrow.

“Khumdar did it,” Tibs said. He’d finished explaining his plan for the Dark Night to the rest of the team. “And I…” Tibs hesitated. Had he gone seven days without eating anything? He knew he’d gone hungry. Most of the time on his Street was spent feeling hunger, but he was too busy to count the days between scraps.

“He’s a cleric,” she countered. “They go through training to—” She stopped and looked annoyed.

Khumdar smiled.

“Except he didn’t train to be a cleric,” Mez said. “He just did the same things they do.” He frowned. “How did you find out how they get their audience? I didn’t think they talked about that.”

“They do not,” the cleric answered.

“I don’t question that Tibs can get an audience,” Carina said, letting out an exasperated breath. “My problem is that clerics spend the year leading up to their audience practicing going without food. You only have twenty-three days. That’s not enough time. Not to say how that’s going to affect everything else you need to do until then. It’s one thing to not eat while you aren’t doing anything, but you still have your teacher, our training, both as a team and figuring out how you can use your other essences to etch and weave.”

“Why the training?” Jackal asked before Tibs could point out he had years of training in going hungry. He didn’t look forward to it, but he could endure it. “The point is for Tibs to feel like he’s dying. Getting used to that isn’t going to help.”

“He isn’t going to feel like he’s dying,” Carina stated angrily. “He is going to be dying. Have you ever gone more than a day without eating?” she demanded. “Do you know what’s it’s like to go hungry?”

“Do you?” the fighter replied, smirking.

She opened her mouth, then closed it. “I’ve heard from some who have,” she said, as if she was weighing each word. “The first times are painful. They have trouble thinking, their coordination suffers. Tibs isn’t going to have the time to get used to it. And it doesn’t stop there,” she added to stop Jackal from replying. “Do you have any idea how many of those who go for their audience to become a cleric don’t come back? Those who do, don’t suddenly feel better because they survived it. Many die on the way back.”

“You’re just forgetting one thing,” Jackal said.

“And what am I forgetting?” he asked sarcastically.

“Tibs is used to going hungry.”

“Don’t be silly. I’ve seen him eat.”

“And you never wondered why he eats like it’s his last meal?”

“I don’t—” Tibs closed his mouth. Did he eat so much? He had at first, but he had slowed down, even before the inn had trouble with its supplies.

Hadn’t he?

“You asked me if I’d gone even a day without eating,” Jackal said. “I’ve gone a few days, but no one wants their favorite fighters to be weakened by hunger when they go in the pit, so even when I wasn’t winning, I got food. Tibs had no one to bring him food. If he didn’t find it himself, he didn’t eat. I’ve seen kids on the street that have to scratch for every crumb. They know what hunger is. Tibs knows.”

Carina looked at Tibs, her expression going from surprise to horror, then sadness. “I’m so sorry.”

“What for?” Tibs asked, surprised at her reaction.

“You should never have had to suffer like that. Someone should…” She trailed off.

“Be that as it may,” Khumdar said. “He has known that suffering. It makes him well suited for this method.”

“But he isn’t a cleric!” she insisted. “The meditation, the hunger. They’re about preparing him for a life of devotion. It isn’t about hurting themselves. They are giving themselves over to Purity. That isn’t what he’s trying to do.”

“Indeed,” the cleric said, with a smile. “His audience will be with Darkness.”

She glared at him. “That isn’t what I mean, and you know it.”

“Does that mean Tibs can use this method to get an audience with the other elements?” Mez asked.

“After Light and Darkness,” Carina said, “there’s only purity that he needs to get. That is what Water told you, right?”

Tibs hesitated. It was, but he wasn’t sure if—

“But what if he wants the other elements?” the archer asked. “He’s doing what he’s told now, but what’s to keep him from going for the other essences afterward?”

“Will they have this shadow Tibs must acquire?” Khumdar asked.

“He can find out once he has the audience,” Mez replied.

“But that could kill him,” Carina stated. “We know Light, Darkness, Corruption, and Purity want him to have an audience, because Water told him and because of that, and aren’t going to kill him just for arriving while already having an element. You heard the warnings about trying to get more than one audience.”

“From the guild,” Jackal said. “For all we know, they know we can have more than one element, and they don’t want us to be more powerful than they are.”

“Then why do they just have one element?” Mez asked. “If they knew how to get more, I’d think those in power would have more.”

Jackal couldn’t come up with a response, and Carina smiled in victory.

She and Mez were right, Tibs realized. He might have a way to get an audience with any element he wanted, but he’d need to find out if he could get them before trying.

“But regardless,” she said, “first we need to deal with this situation. Setting aside that I don’t think it’s a good idea for Tibs to starve himself. We only know how to have him get an audience with Darkness and Purity. What about Light? Is there something like the opposite of the Dark Night? A Bright Day?”

“Knuckles would know,” Jackal said, after seeming to reconsider his first choice in answer.

“Harry’s going to ask why I want to know,” Tibs said. “I won’t be able to lie to him.”

Jackal nodded. “And you can’t trust him not to tell that to the rest of the guild.”

“It is possible that once you have Darkness,” Khumdar said, “you will be more resistant to his Light.”

Tibs shrugged.

“Can the dungeon help?” Mez asked. “He did with Fire.”

“I do not believe we have seen it do anything with Light,” the cleric said. “It is possible that it does not have that element.”

“He had all of them,” Tibs said absentmindedly.

“The light stones in the walls use it,” Carina said.

Tibs was thinking back on what Corruption had said, as well as what Khumdar had about having an element granting some resistance to being hurt by them. Just getting his hand close to a flame hurt. Fire said he’d broken a rule in how he got his audience. When you broke rules, you were punished… when you were caught breaking rules. Tibs had been caught. Was this the punishment?

He wished Water had explained how all of this worked.

“Why don’t Tibs just prepare for the dungeon to do the Light next time we go in?” Mez asked. “If he can’t then we do the run as normal.”

“No. That is a bad idea,” Carina said. “We need Tibs at his best to survive the run, not already dying from hunger.”

“Okay, then this coming run he tells dungeon what he needs,” Jackal said. “I’m sure it’s going to be happy to accommodate him again.”

Tibs stared at the fighter.

Again.

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Why did that make him uneasy? A lot of what he’d heard since their last run left him feeling like that, and he wished he knew why.”

“Tibs?” Carina called. “I asked how you want to do this?” she said once he looked at her. “I don’t like the risks, but it’s your decision.”

He nodded. “I think it’s worth it for Darkness. I can’t think of another way to get that audience. As for Light…” the audience in the dungeon with Fire had nearly killed him. That had clearly been one of the punishments for breaking the rules since he’d walked out of his audience with Corruption losing only the clothes he’d worn.

“I think…” What did light do? How would he be punished if he broke a rule with it? Would he not be able to see lies? Only there was more it did. Harry used it to be unseen by others. He’d moved that noble, and closed the door to his office.

He tried to remember if any of the Runners still alive had light as their element, but he couldn’t. Considering how few were left, that meant no one had it.

“I think it’s worth asking the dungeon,” he finally said. If Light hurt him as the fire had, Sto could keep a Brute by him so Tibs could heal, and he’d deal with whatever the other punishments were when they happened.

* * * * *

Tibs forced his hand to stop shaking and told his stomach to stop complaining. It had only been three days since his last meal. He’d gone much longer without eating, and it hardly affected his work.

With his hand steadied, he peered over the edge of the roof at the window. Closed, but no magic protecting it. Only Sebastian had that, but it made Tibs check every time now.

He lowered himself, let go of the roof, and caught the windowsill. He pulled himself up and propped himself on his elbows, and planted a foot on the wall. Like the other houses in this neighborhood, the walls were stone, and he used earth to lock his foot in place.

The room on the other side was dark, so Tibs used air to find the latch. Top of the window. Water essence through the window allowed him to make ice and unlatch it.

He pulled himself in and sat, panting.

This had been harder than it should be. His hunger kept distracting him. Not that he’d believed Carina when she said working while hungry would be hard. He had been hungry before, but he hadn’t expected it he would salivate at any smell of cooking meat and want a steak from the inn with that sweet sauce Russ put on it, along with roasted potatoes and greens. Grendel’s pie. Abyss could he go for his berry pie.

His stomach grumbled painfully.

Shut up, he told it. He was getting soft from having food any time he wanted it.

He studied the room and made out the form of a bed, a dresser, and a wardrobe. He heard no one, but checked by sensing the essence. The noble who owned this house had a few servants, but he didn’t let them sleep in his home.

It was just like a noble to take a house large enough for a full family and live in it alone.

He headed for the door. Taking from an unoccupied room was like taking from an abandoned house, meaningless.

He cracked the door open and listened. He could use essence again, but he didn’t want to grow too reliant on them, as he had with food. If there was a way to hide essence, he wanted to have other ways to find what he wanted.

A conversation further down the hall, where the noble had his office. Tibs had expected him to be sleeping at this hour. More than one person was there, so it could be too long for him to wait. The bedroom, then. The man would have coins there too. Nobles always kept coins within reach. It was as if, for as much as they had, they couldn’t bear the idea they might not touch them.

He stepped to the next door, softening his steps using air essence, but he forgot the door, and it creaked as he opened it; the conversation continued without pause. He softened its sound to close it.

This bedroom had a larger bed, with a table next to it, along with the dresser and wardrobe. Clothing was strewn everywhere. Tibs felt the clothes for pockets, for coins in them. Not finding any there, he searched through the garments in the dresser. There was a knife at the bottom, but that would be missed even if it wasn’t in a silver sheath engraved with designs and gems added to it. Searching the bed, he found another knife under the pillow; this one in a polished bronze sheath with fewer decorations.

Someone worried for his life.

He had a hand on the pouch between the mattress and the bed frame when he caught motion at the edge of the window. He paused and waited.

A click of the latch, and the window slid open.

Tibs cursed. There were so few rogues left, how had another one picked this house to practice with too? Should he let them be? It wasn’t like Tibs owned the houses. Others were free to practice where they wanted, so long as they didn’t cause problems.

The shadow slipped in, and Tibs made out enough to frown. Much too tall to be one of the Runners. Great, one of the thieves had picked the same house he had. Those would definitely not care if their robbery angered the owner.

Tibs straightened and pocketed the coin he’d taken. The thief stood before the window, making himself visible now, as if they, she? The body was lithe. Didn’t know he was there, didn’t care or, Tibs realized, wanted him to know.

In the little of Claria’s light coming through, Tibs made out some green among the black of her clothing. He looked at the door and she shook her head. He needed to stop looking where he sensed. The two in the office hadn’t moved.

What did she want? If it was to rob the house, she should be whispering suggestions, like how they could divide the rooms. He hadn’t had this happen before, but if he had, back when he stole to survive, it would be what he did.

Only she stood there before the window.

Blocking the only quick exit?

She moved quickly and Tibs readied himself for an attack and was almost too slow in reacting to what she did because of it. The vase she grabbed from the dresser was heading for the wall closest to the office, and Tibs jumped to catch it. The noise he made colliding with the wall was more than the vase would have caused, and he was further from the window, which the thief was closing behind her.

Tibs ran for it as he saw her put something in the jam above and heard steps coming from the hall. He didn’t have the time to deal with whatever that was and hide if she’d jammed the window shut.

He jumped behind the door as it opened and made steps with water to climb until he was in the corner of the wall and ceiling. He let the water turn to essence as the man in a pale shirt and dark pants pulled the door and shone the small lamp where Tibs had stood. Then ran to the window.

It wouldn’t open when he tried it, and when he reached for the latch, it was undone. He locked it, and hurried to the dresser, taking out the knife hidden under the clothing and relaxing.

Tibs wondered what the reaction was about. It was just a knife. A man like him had to have enough coins to buy all the knives in the town, no matter how pretty or expensive.

Tibs cursed his shaking arms and pushed earth essence there to steady them. This couldn’t be caused by his hunger. He willed the man to leave since his precious knife was fine, but the man instead went to the wardrobe, looking inside before moving to the bedside table and opening a drawer, then noticing the vase Tibs had left on the floor in his hurry to leave.

He raised the lamp and looked around the room. Tibs pushed himself as tightly against the ceiling as he could, but the man didn’t look up; instead, checking under the bed. Only now he was going over everything again, and even with the essence, Tibs’s arms were hurting.

What was wrong with him? Only three days without food couldn’t be doing this.

He had to make the man leave.

The lamp was fancy, a decorated oil reservoir with fine glass surrounding the flame to protect it from errand breezes, but the top was open. The wick was wide, so it would take more than a breeze to snuff it, and the man might feel that, but Tibs needed to do something.

He was shaping the air essence when he cursed himself, again. Why did he keep forgetting he had more than earth, water, and air? He had fire, and snuffing a small flame was the simplest thing to do.

He willed it, and the room was bathed in comfortable darkness again.

Instead of leaving, the man placed the lamp on the dresser and removed the glass. He pulled something from a pocket and Tibs cursed as sparks flew from it to the wick. Of course, a noble would carry a fire starter.

Tibs ground his teeth and kept the fire from catching as the man used the starter again and again. When was he going to give up and get another lamp? Tibs’s vision swam from the strain. Clearly, the starter was defective. Even a noble couldn’t believe repeating the same act over and over would change the result.

What else could he do to escape unseen? Tibs hadn’t covered his face, since he was adept at not being found while moving through a house. But he’d have to leave by the door, and in that light, the noble would see enough for Harry to recognize; if he went to Harry.

Tibs could handle the thugs the nobles had, but Harry would throw him in a cell, regardless of Tibs’s status as Savior of the Dungeon, and he would miss the run.

The man put the starter on the dressed and headed for the door.

Finally.

The man stopped as he reached for the handle and Tibs nearly groaned out loud. The man looked back, then exited, closing the door behind him.

Tibs ground his teeth to keep from voicing the pain as he climbed down. Then headed for the window. He couldn’t have long before the man returned. He sensed the shim the thief had jammed the window with and considered burning it away; but fire was hungrier than Tibs felt. He used water to move it, then he was out the window, carefully closing it and climbing down.

Once on the ground, he headed for the inn and the largest platter of food he could convince whichever of Kroseph’s brothers worked the kitchen tonight to give him.

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