Chapter 60: Chapter 59

“Okay,” Tibs cornered Jackal. “How did you know to have the guards there?” Tibs had waited a day, mainly to let himself cool down, but he wanted to know how the fighter had pulled it off.

“How about we go—”

“No, we’re not going to the inn or a tavern.” He indicated that there was no one around. “You don’t have to worry about anyone hearing whatever secret you have that lets you know everything that goes on in the town.”

“I don’t know everything,” Jackal said. He leaned against the wall. “And I know you, Tibs. I know that look you get when you think it’s your job to fix a problem. The look you got as you finished explaining why that asshole was innocent.”

“Did you know where he was hiding?”

“No, he did a good job of vanishing.”

“Then how did you know where I was?”

“Tibs, I wasn’t keeping tabs on you. You’re too good at using the roofs to go places, I’d need another rogue and I don’t trust any of them.”

“You can trust Tandy.”

The fighter sighed. “I don’t want to bring anyone else into our problems. It’s just someone else who can talk.”

“Okay. If you didn’t know where I was. How did you get there with the guards?”

“Arruh. He’s who I’ve been keeping track of. He started getting his team together, so I knew something was about to happen, and considering Don was all he could talk about. It wasn’t tough to figure it involved everyone’s favorite sorcerer, and the odds were good that by now, you’d found him, so you’d get caught in the middle.”

“And the guards? Harry isn’t happy you got them to help you with it.”

“Well, Knuckles’ a hard-ass even to his own people. I’ve gotten to know a few of them since they got here. Accumulated favors. So I called some in and you were there for the rest.”

Tibs watched the fighter and waited.

“I don’t know what else you want, Tibs.”

Tibs sighed. “I thought you were ready to tell me the truth.”

“I have,” Jackal replied. “There’s nothing more to it than that.”

Tibs doubted that, but he’d promised himself he’d let his friends open up in their own times. “Alright. I’ll get you a tankard for forcing you to explain yourself.”

Jackal smiled. “You know you don’t have to do that Tibs, I’m happy to answer your questions.”

“Okay,” Tibs said smiling, “then I won’t—”

“Now, Tibs, I didn’t say I wouldn’t take your tankard.”

“I thought so.”

* * * * *

That end of Merchant’s Row had been closed off. The stench of the corruption had settled on an area three-building wide around the pool, and only the people with the strongest stomach ventured there anymore. Which made the cleric kneeling by the pool an anomaly Tibs couldn’t ignore.

He’d decided the clerics weren’t particularly brave. They were dedicated, he gave them that. They healed everyone as they entered and then exited the dungeon, regardless of how they felt about them, but anytime there was violence, if the clerics were close by, they moved away, instead of closer. A reasonable reaction in most people, but since it was their job to heal, Tibs found it interesting they never stuck around to help afterward. They had a house by the guild building where they retired to.

He climbed down from the building and covered his mouth with a cloth before stepping into the zone of stink. Carina had bought it for them, and the essence woven through it made the stench more bearable.

The cleric had a hand over the edge of the pool, and under it, the corruption seemed to bubble away. She was purifying it, Tibs realized. She looked in his direction and she was young, no older than Carina.

“Hello,” she greeted him. “Do you require my assistance?”

Tibs shook his head, her question surprising him. None of the other clerics ever asked if their help was needed. They just continued onto wherever they went. Tibs tried not to think of them as nobles, but they were making it difficult.

“What are you doing?” He crouched next to her and the stench was strong even through the cloth. How did she endure it with nothing to help?

She looked over the pool. “I am doing what I can to cleanse this mistake.” Her voice remained even as she spoke.

“Is that what Purity tells you to do?” he asked.

She smiled at him. “Do you know of the element’s demand on us?”

“I know one of the clerics,” Tibs answered. “He said something about how it’s different for you than it is for me.”

She searched his face, his eyes, then nodded. “Yes, Purity wants this removed. It is a stain on the world.”

“Are you one of the clerics the guild asked to help?”

She shook her head. “I am here to heal the Runners, but when Purity calls, one is required to act.”

Unless that cleric was called Hightower, Tibs thought. There was a noble, even if he wore a cleric’s robes.

“A friend of mine said that it’s in balance, which is why it’s not spreading anymore.”

“Corruption can never be in balance,” she replied, smiling at him. “It can only ever want to devour more of this world Purity made for us.”

“Purity made the world?”

“Of course. Before there was the world, there was Purity, and it sacrificed part of itself to give us a place to exist. It is why it is our duty to look after the world. To ensure all the creatures on it thrive so that once Purity is satisfied we can all go back to it.”

Tibs opened his mouth, then closed it. There was something in the way she spoke that sounded off. Like she’d said the words so often, they just came out of her without needing to think about it. He’d known people on his street who spoke that way, and they all had a mind that had broken in some way.

“How old are you?” she asked. “Shouldn’t you go back to your parents? I doubt they would want you here, so close to something this foul.”

“I’m a Runner,” he answered. He was sufficiently well known that even out of his armor, no one confused him with one of the children the shop owners had brought with them.

“You seem young to be such,” she said in a flat tone that kept Tibs from snapping at her.

“I’m old enough I would have lost a hand if I hadn’t been sent here.”

“You should not steal,” she stated.

“It was that or die of hunger,” he said, bitterness creeping in his voice. He didn’t care about what might be wrong with her mind, he wouldn’t be told what he’d done to survive was wrong.

“Do your parents not provide for you?”

He snorted. “I’m street. No one’s ever provided for me.” Mama had, he reminded himself, but that had been so long ago. He knew he wouldn’t have been alive without her, but she had left him alone. Had been taken from him.

“Is Street your name?” she asked, sounding confused, and Tibs stared at her. Didn’t she know what he’d meant? Khumdar had mentioned that in his travels he’d concluded the Purity Clerics lived apart from the world, but how far apart did someone have to be to not know what a Street was?

He stood. He didn’t think any explanation would mean anything to her. “Thank you for answering my question.” He left before she could respond.

Once he was far enough the smell ended, the crowd closed in around him.

* * * * *

“I am before the lot of you,” Don said with pride.

The next board had just come out, and everyone had rushed to find out what order they were going in.

“It’s your coins to give to the guild,” someone said.

Not that the sorcerer had had to give much of his take from the last run, Tibs thought. Don had made sure to come tell him he'd failed in keeping him from doing his run, as if Tibs was some master planner Don had out maneuvered. Since no Runner team gave any coins, a copper is all it would take for the sorcerer to be ahead of them.

Don’s team was going ahead of each of the original Runner teams. Before that were the nobles, twenty teams of them. They’d only lost five teams, although Tibs had been witness to arguments among them regarding how they would be rearranged. They didn’t like not being able to bring in people they trusted to replace those they had lost.

Of the teams Tibs thought of as the Omegas—even if half the nobles were also Omegas—only two were left. Few enough Tibs had heard Tirania say they would allow more in ahead of schedule.

Tibs’s team was sixth behind Don, which meant they had a week before it was their turn. Tibs was getting better at counting the way the year was divided, although why there were nine days in a week instead of ten; since they had ten fingers and five weeks was half of ten, made no sense to him. Carina had explained it had something to do with the growing season and the phases of Claria, but it hadn’t helped.

He left Don to his priming and was immediately walked into.

A hand grabbed his shoulder as he fell back, and then the man nearly fell with him, having to step closer to maintain their balance.

“Man,” Bardik whispered, “short blond hair, fresh scar from the hairline down the left side of his jaw. At the transportation platform. Now.”

Then they were untangled and with a rushed apology the man was gone.

Tibs was dazed only long enough to remember the ‘now’ and then hurried toward the platform. Searching his pockets as he walked. He hadn’t felt the man do anything, but it was Bardik, who could produce knives out of nowhere.

Instead of the usual blue stone, Tibs found a small vial in the secret pocket of his jacket. He sensed the essence that was part of the vial, and there was a structure to it. Imbued, if not outright enchanted.

He saw the man, fourth in line to step onto the platform, and Tibs stepped between him and the woman, not slowing and only throwing a hurried “sorry” over his shoulder before stepping around the platform and heading for the training fields, where his team and Pyan’s were going head to head for the privilege of not having to pay for tonight’s dinner.

* * * * *

“Welcome back, Tibs,” the dungeon greeted him as he stepped through the door.

Tibs held his response until he was deep enough he wouldn’t be overheard by the guards. “Can you see outside?”

Carina gave him a worried side look.

Sto chuckled. “The outside starts at the bottom of the hill.”

“So you could make changes there?”

“Not with everyone there, but I can see and hear the people. It’s how I learn a lot about your town. Also, Don really doesn’t like you. The entire time he was in me, he couldn’t stop about how you were the worse ever and how clever he was for beating you. He almost made me want to send BB to shut him up, but Ganny wouldn’t let me.”

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Tibs coated the floor of the trap room with water, nearly emptying the amulet in the process, and rippled the surface before icing it to limit the chances of someone slipping.

“Don’s an asshole,” Tibs grumbled, heading for the cache.

“Also, Robert—”

“Please stop,” Tibs said, unlocking it. “I don’t want to know.”

“How about Pyan then?”

Tibs shook his head. Pants. No shoes. And the normal kind, which meant they could keep them. The guild didn’t care about normal clothing. Armor and weapons they wanted, but shirts and pants? Not unless they were enchanted.

“Is it that you don’t want me to talk to you?” Sto asked, sounding uncertain.

“I don’t mind it when I’m not busy fighting, but I don’t want to know what the other Runners get up to.” On the other side of the room, he placed his hand on the ice and melted it, reabsorbing the essence. It returned to the amulet slower than his reserve, both because there was so much more, and because he needed to put effort into pushing it in.

“I’m sorry. Other than Ganny, you’re the only person I can talk with, and only when you’re inside.”

“You can’t talk with me when I’m outside?” the boulder room was already cleared, with the key taken.

“Ganny says I can yell far, but you wouldn’t be able to talk to me. I can’t hear past the bottom of the hill and there would be people around you. I’ve noticed how the others on your team look at you when you talk to me.”

“It’s strange, I expect, that I can do it when no one even knew dungeons can talk. It is just you, or can every dungeon talk?”

“We all can. Ganny says every dungeon has an assistant like her, so talking is a thing.”

The Warren room was cleared, with some of the flip stones still up. “Where is she? I expected her to comment on us talking.”

“She’s working on the third floor. I really shouldn’t have given it to her. She is going to make your life so difficult there.”

The golem was rubble, with the stairwell open and chest empty. “What’s it going to be?”

Sto chuckled. “Sorry, you’ll have to wait until I’ve graduated to find out.”

At the bottom of the stairs, his team waited before the path.

“There you are,” Jackal said. “I was about to send Mez to go look for you.”

“No you weren’t,” the archer replied.

“Just go along with it,” Tibs said. “It keeps our leader happy. You didn’t have to clear everything without me.”

“Well,” Jackal said, then trailed off.

“We could hear you converse,” Khumdar said. “We decided you should be able to do so without us staring at you.”

“And that floor’s easy,” Mez said. “Each of us could probably do it alone now.”

“That’s an interesting proposition,” Sto said.

“I think you just gave the dungeon an idea,” Tibs said, and the archer looked horrified.

“How about we start this floor?” Carina said, indicating the path.

“How about we cheat?” Tibs said, smiling.

“Tibs,” Sto warned.

“Not that kind of cheating,” he replied, stepping to the edge of the pool, “there’s none of your creatures here, anyway. Jackal, I need you to lower me down.” Tibs laid on the floor and pushed himself over the pool.

“Slow down,” the fighter said, grabbing his ankles. “What are you going to do?”

“Do you have enough essence?” Carina asked, looking at the length of the pool.

“I have the amulet, and it’s all water, so there should be plenty of essence for me to work with.”

“But you haven’t figured out how to manipulate and sense yet.”

Tibs smiled. “Then this is going to be good practice.” He looked at Jackal. “If you drop me, I will make sure you never have dry clothes again.”

The fighter smiled. “Well, Kro does like me walking around in nothing but my boots.”

Carina groaned and Tibs rolled his eyes as Jackal lowered him.

When his hand touched the water, he felt along it. There was a lot of essence there. He tried to manipulate it, only to lose track of all of it except the little his attention was on. So he’d taken hold of a little essence that wasn’t his. That was new, but he couldn’t do anything with it.

He let go and reached for his reserve, then pulled what was in the amulet. Something nagged at him as he did so, but he didn’t pay attention, focusing on spreading it as wide as it would go.

Quickly, his essence was throughout the pool, and with a thought, he iced it. The ice spread from there until the pool cracked and crackled with expanding and breaking ice. Tibs wondered if he could pull his essence back in while leaving the pool frozen.

Once he was on the other side.

“That’s interesting,” Sto said in a tone that told Tibs the next time he did it, there would be consequences.

Tibs yelled as Jackal let go of him. He glared at the grinning fighter from where he lay on the ice. “I’m going to fill your boots with water,” he threatened.

Jackal lowered Carina, then Mez and Khumdar, before jumping down himself. The trek to the other side was slower than using the path, if Sto hadn’t changed how the essence triggers were set up, because of some patches of ice being unpredictably slick.

“How are we getting up?” Mez asked.

“I can throw everyone up,” Jackal answered.

“I’ll get there under my own ability,” Carina replied as air began whipping around her.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Jackal told her as the wind lifted her.

“Seems to me it’s a great idea,” Mez said, watching her rise. Then he turned red as the wind whipped Carina’s robe up and he looked away.

“I figured that was going to happen," Jackal said, chuckling.

“Don’t look!” Carina yelled, fighting to get her robe down, then she was tumbling over and onto the platform.

“I really wish I hadn’t,” Mez whispered.

“You have seen a woman’s undergarments, haven’t you?” Jackal asked, causing Mez to turn redder.

“A man shouldn’t—”

“You’re not a man,” Jackal said, “you’re a Runner, enjoy life. I looked.”

“But you have someone!” Mez replied, horrified.

Jackal chuckled. “My man knows all I’d ever do with Carina is look. Or any woman, for that matter. What about you, Khumdar?”

“I respect our teammate enough to have looked away the moment I realized what would happen.”

“Tibs?” the fighter asked.

“What? I’ve seen women with a lot less on them than Carina.” At the surprised look he received, Tibs sighed. “Do you need me to explain how quickly a dead body is stripped until there’s nothing on it? I’m beginning to question if you’re really Street, Jackal.”

“No one’s as street as you, Tibs,” the fighter replied. “Never forget that.” Jackal jumped, caught the edge, and pulled himself up. Only to fall back from a gust of wind.

“I can’t believe you looked!” Carina yelled.

Jackal laughed.

“Still worth it?” Tibs asked him.

“I won’t be doing it again.” The fighter got to his feet and bowed. “I offer my lady my deepest apologies.”

Carina snorted. “Just get up here, we have a floor to clear.”

Jackal climbed back up, then pulled Mez and Khumdar. “Tibs?”

“I’m going to try something.” He pressed his hand on the ice and felt for his essence. It was still there. He called it to him, but instead of absorbing it, he used it to reshape the ice under him. It cracked and snapped, and Tibs rose until he was even with the platform.

“Next time,” Jackal said, “you take care of getting us out of there.”

Next time, Tibs thought, Sto would make sure it wasn’t this simple. He called his essence back to him, refilling his reserve, then the amulet, and was left with enough to coat his arm with water.

How did he have more after doing this than before?

“Tibs?” Jackal called from further in. “You’re going to want to see this.”

He tested how much focus was required to keep the water on his arm as he walked and found it took little.

“What is it?” he asked as he reached the others, and looked into the room with the five golems, and now the two dozen scurrying rats at their feet.

The water on his arm splashed on the ground.

“This is so not fair.”

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