Chapter 58: Chapter 57

“Your aim’s improving,” Tandy said, as they walked away from the archery field. It was the only place with targets, and she’d convinced one teacher to let them use one for knife throwing practice.

Tibs shrugged. “I’m not hitting close to the center.” Even his new air knives didn’t help him throw accurately. He didn’t have enough essence to adjust their course once they left his hand.

“But you’re hitting the target every time now.” She indicated a tavern with a sign over the door of a hog with his nose in a tipped-over tankard. “I’m meeting Mez there, do you want to wait with me?”

Tibs shook his head. “It’s your time, I don’t want to get in the way.”

She chuckled. “It’s just a drink, there’s nothing special planned.”

“I have other things to do.” He had to get back to the slate with the letters on it, and then it was his training in sensing and manipulating. There had been so many new things since returning from MountainSea, he’d hardly practiced that. It didn’t matter what he could do with his essence, the guild expected him to do the test with the water essence and he wouldn’t pass that without being able to add to his reserve as he manipulated what he’d need to form the attack.

“All right, Tibs, but remember that you need to enjoy yourself too. Don’t focus only on your training.” She stepped inside the tavern.

Tibs would enjoy himself. He’d walk the roofs once the sun set, get into one of the noble’s houses, and look for a copper to take. Or since they were nobles, some other thing they wouldn’t miss. That always made him feel better.

But that was for later. Right now he needed to go to the room and his letters before Carina came looking for him. But before that, he needed candy. As Tandy said, he had to enjoy himself, and he had plenty of copper now, from the houses he visited.

* * * * *

He was on Merchant’s row when the loud crack echoed over the street. While people froze, Tibs ran in the direction the sound came from, having to push people aside and only once losing the fight against temptation and his fingers extracting a coin from the noble’s purse. Silver. It was hidden on him by the time another crack sounded, almost like thunder, but it stretched on, and in the distance, Tibs noticed a roof tipping over. For it to fall to the side like take, it had to be the last building on the row, which meant—he cursed and ran faster against the crowd moving away.

The wind shifted and the smell of rot and putrefaction washed over him and he almost fell as he fought the urge to throw up. He forced himself forward and made out the facade of the Caravan Garden as wood screeched and snapped. Somehow, half the building seemed to sink into a dark liquid.

Guards, in green and black, were pushing people away. A scream came from inside the building as Tibs got close enough to see the door had vanished under the purplish liquid. The sight of it as much as the smell made him want to throw up. There was a sense of utter wrongness about it.

“Everybody move back!” a woman yelled as other guards joined her to form a barricade between the people and that pool, which, Tibs realized, had spread partially into the street.

A man appeared on the top window and Tibs gasped with the people still there as the man stepped out of it.

“Don’t jump!” the guard yelled at the man, just as he leaped out.

Instead of landing on the ground with a light coating of whatever that foul liquid was, he splashed as it if was deep, and when he resurfaced, he was rotting away, his skin turning the same color as the liquid he was in as it sloshed off to expose melting muscles and darkening bones. With the man’s scream dying off, other people screaming were heard, guards that had been splashed on by the liquid.

Tibs saw Khumdar with one of them, and he rushed to help. The woman in charge didn’t even try to stop him.

“Everyone move away from that!” she yelled, panic barely contained. “Someone evacuate the other buildings! We don’t know how far it’s going to spread!”

Tibs took the man Khumdar was with by the shoulders and pulled him away from the pool. He looked at the leg that had been splashed. The clothing and leather armor had just melted away, turning dark. He sensed the essence permeating it, permeating the ground, slowly eating away at the building.

Tibs sensed the man, the essence flowing through him. He had little; he wasn’t an adventurer. But from the injury, the tainted essence seeped into the man’s.

“Khumdar,” Tibs whispered, “it’s spreading, you have to stop it.”

“I’m trying,” the cleric said through clenched teeth, “but there’s too much of it. It’s eating him almost faster than I can take the strength from it.”

Almost, that meant he was winning. Tibs comforted himself with that, even if the guard’s pained scream made it sound like he was dying. Jackal had been in pain after Khumdar drained the corruption Don had infected the fighter with, and it had only been on his hand. This was now into this man’s essence. What would that do? Could Khumdar do anything to help that?

“Remove that man!” a deep voice ordered, and Tibs looked up to see a cleric in white robes pointing at Khumdar, who was too focused to notice.

“He’s helping.” Tibs interposed himself before the guard.

“That man,” the cleric spat, “is a charlatan. Don’t believe anything he tells you. He is probably the one he brought this corruption here as a ploy to make himself seem important and like all who look for the easy path did something wrong and now everyone but him will pay for it.”

“Do I look like Corruption is my essence?” Khumdar demanded, and Tibs caught the man before he tipped over. His black robe clung to him from sweat. Tibs glanced at the man on the ground. The taint was still in his essence, but that on his leg was gone. Maybe there was nothing the cleric could do once it was in that deep.

“You don’t have essence,” the man in the white robe sneered. “Your kind only pretends. As for this, everyone knows there are people out there who will bottle essence. You simply brought some here and lost control. Arrest him.”

“Will you waste time,” Khumdar growled, “spouting rhetoric to prove yourself the better man Hightower? Or will you be a better man and focus on healing those who have been infected?”

The other cleric’s shock was replaced by anger. “How does one of your kind know my family? Did you come here to destroy my work?”

Khumdar snorted. “I care nothing for your work.” He looked at the woman who led this group of guards. “Will you prevent me from helping as many as I can?”

“You need to go rest,” Tibs told the man.

“I can not rest Tibs. Darkness demands I feed it the corruption that has infected the people here.”

“You will not let him touch another person,” the other cleric ordered the guard. “Or I will see to it personally that you are punished for helping him.”

“I’m sorry,” she told Khumdar, “but he’s—”

“Harry!” Tibs yelled at the approaching light, then closed his sight to essence so the fighter wouldn’t blind him. The guard turned to look in her leader’s direction and was visibly relieved. The other cleric’s scowl didn’t change.

“What’s going on?” Harry demanded, then looked at the pool of liquid corruption and the people writhing on the ground.

“He did this,” the cleric stated.

“He didn’t,” Tibs countered. “He’s helping.”

“I think he did something to that man,” the guard said.

Harry fixed his glowing eyes on Khumdar. “Did you have any part in destroying that building, bringing the corruption to this town, injuring this man?”

“No,” Khumdar said.

“He removed the corruption from him,” Tibs said.

“Don’t lie to me, Tibs,” Harry snapped.

Tibs bit his lower lip. “He mostly removed it. It’s almost all gone.”

Harry rubbed the bridge of his nose. “If you can do something for the others, do it.”

“No,” the man in the white robe said. “You will not believe that liar. He’s only here to sow chaos and destruction.”

“Lord Cleric Hightower,” Harry growled. “You’re either going to help or leave. If you try to give me one more order, I’m going to throw you in that corruption myself.”

“You can’t do that! I’m the enlightened one’s representative to this town, I am as holy and as untouchable as he is.”

“You,” Harry addressed Khumdar, “you’re the one claiming to be a cleric, right? Can you heal them?”

“No.”

“I told you!” Hightower exclaimed.

“Sir, with all due respect,” the guard said cautiously. “But if the cleric says he’s corrupt, shouldn’t—”

“The eyes,” Harry snarled. “How many times do I have to tell each and every one of you? Look at the eyes. I don’t care if you’ve never seen someone whose essence is corruption, you’ll know it when you see one. His eyes are black. That’s darkness.”

“He isn’t a cleric,” Hightower growled.

“I don’t care if he’s your mother’s secret lover,” Harry replied. “What did you do to him if you didn’t heal him?”

“I weakened the corruption that infected him until it was hardly anything. I have not healed the damage it did. That is beyond me, but I have given him a chance to heal on his own.”

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Harry nodded. “Then keep doing it.”

“No!” Hightower yelled.

Khumdar turned and started for the closest person, a woman whose side had been splashed.

“If you’re not going to help,” Harry said, “like you, vaunted clerics keep claiming you’re here for, then get back to your chambers and let the people who are going to make a difference work.”

Tibs had to stop paying attention to them as Khumdar nearly fell trying to crouch next to the woman.

“What if you can’t help her?” Tibs asked.

The cleric looked up toward Harry and the other cleric and spoke in a low voice as he placed a hand over the corruption. “This is not about helping her, Tibs. Darkness isn’t altruistic. None of the elements are. Altruistic is something we bring in how we use them. I could plunge my hand in that pool and weaken as much as I could, and Darkness would be as satisfied with my actions. I choose to try and help her, and I may fail.” He was silent for a few seconds. “I have failed before.”

“When are you going to stop?”

“When Darkness has enough.”

“What if he never has enough?”

Khumdar gave him a sad smile. “Then, it will need to find itself a new cleric, for there will be nothing left of me.”

Tibs looked away as the woman screamed. The other cleric was walking off as a group of younger ones hurried to help. He yelled something that slowed them and left them confused, but while two followed him, the rest joined in the efforts to help.

At least, some clerics seemed to be serious about being here to heal.

* * * * *

Tibs ran along the roof.

After the afternoon and evening, he needed to get away from as much as he could, and roofs gave him that. It was as free as one could be while still being a prisoner of the guild.

Khumdar was in bed, alive, if utterly drained. Jackal had joined them, having heard about the destruction, and had carried the cleric when he’d finally been released from whatever control Darkness had over him. Carina took over looking after him, leaving Tibs free to run and climb. To try to get away from the memory of the destruction, even if his feet seemed intent on taking him back there, as he jumped to a roof leading to a series of connected houses that eventually ended behind Merchant’s row.

In the dark, from his height, the damage wasn’t as extensive as it had seemed while dealing with everything. The pool of corruption had spread to half the length of the building Caravan Garden had occupied on the side that hadn’t been built yet, and only a small portion of the street facing it, while it hadn’t gotten close to the other shop, a clothier.

A barrier had been hurriedly erected, using posts planted in the ground and ropes to keep people away. But Tibs figured the smell of putrefaction would be enough to ensure no one came close. It would probably put the neighboring shops out of business if they couldn’t move.

A man approaching the barrier proved Tibs wrong. In spite of the darkness, Tibs recognized him by the way he moved and hurried to climb down the building. When Tibs was in the street, the man stood before the destruction.

He cursed loudly, then kicked at the closest post as if it was at fault. After a few minutes, he slumped and Tibs decided it was safe to approach. The man whispered something Tibs barely heard. Something about it being such a waste.

“Did you know them?” Tibs asked and Bardic startled, turning and holding a knife.

“What are you doing here?”

Tibs shrugged. “I was running the roofs, I saw you. I thought you could use the company.”

“What are you doing running roofs?”

“Training, mostly. That is how you found me that one time.”

Bardik relaxed slightly, and Tibs kept watching, looking for where he’d put the knife, but he still missed it. It was in his hand, then it wasn’t. Maybe it was something the other Rogue could do with his essence.

“I knew Carolina,” Bardik said.

“A friend?”

The man shook his head, and Tibs had to remind himself Bardik had no friends. He couldn’t trust people who had secrets, and everyone had them.

“I liked their candies.”

Bardik chuckled. “Did me sending you here a time or two cause that sweet tooth?”

Tibs shrugged. “The Seadrop is where it started.”

“They are good, aren’t they?”

“I’m going to go back to MountainSea the next time the dungeon graduates and get more.”

“There—” Bardik began, then shook his head.

“Who do you think did this?” Tibs asked.

The other rogue shrugged. “Unless Hard Knuckles find the person behind it, there’s no way to know.”

“I wonder why they did it. It was just a shop. The owner was nice.”

“He died in there. The entire family did.” He cursed quietly. “It shouldn’t have happened.”

“Bad stuff happens,” Tibs said. Surprised he had to be the one to remind Bardik. “Do you think it’s a rival that did it?”

Bardik shook his head. “It’s too risky. Also, based on how wide the corruption spread, there was a lot of it in there.”

“In the shop?” Tibs looked at what was left of the building. Only part of a wall with broken floors. A chair hung precariously. “Why would they have that? To sell it?”

“I doubt it. That much would be something meant to be used.”

“Why did it stop spreading? While I was here, it looked like it would eat everything.”

Bardik was quiet, still looking at the pool. “It’s in balance. Everything has a point where it balances.” He snorted. “Unless we start messing with it. If we weren’t around, things like this wouldn’t happen. No one would have a need to pile up essence until an accident unleashed all of it on the people around them. There wouldn’t be a guild to bring in and force people into silence.” He rubbed his left wrist. “Everything would have been fine, no one would have had to die.”

That was where Bardik had disobeyed his orders. Gotten his brand. As curious as Tibs was about it, he decided not to ask.

“Will the clerics be able to purify this?”

Bardik snorted. “I doubt it. I doubt they’re even going to care enough to respond to Hard Knuckles’ request for more of them. They have more important things to do than help a small town like this. You’ll see.” He looked at Tibs. “I’m going to head out, Mister Light-Fingers. You should too, before one of the guards comes by and thinks you have nefarious plans for all this.”

He groaned. “I hate that name.”

Bardik smiled. “But you deserve it.”

“Do you need me to drop any stones?”

The rogue looked into the darkness over the pool. “I don’t think so.” He smiled at Tibs. “But I’ll be sure to find you if I do.” The rogue took a step away from Tibs and immediately vanished into the darkness.

Tibs leaned on a post and looked at the pool, feeling sick even if he couldn’t actually see the wrongness of the color.

Why, he wondered again. Why would someone need all that corruption? Why would it do what it did here? How? How had it been brought here? How was corruption carried if it could eat anything it touched? He turned away from the pool. It wasn’t his mystery to solve. Harry would figure it out. He was the one guard Tibs found he wanted to have around.

Harry would solve this and keep his town safe.

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