Chapter 25: Chapter twenty-four

For the majority of shapers, Siphoning too much at once can mean the end of their abilities. While the energy they take in is converted to vis, it must pass through their Siphon first. This can have detrimental effects on the hand in question and, by extension, the Siphon. Stories of broken and ‘cooked’ hands are not uncommon amongst overly ambitious shapers. Only lightshapers are largely exempt from this. Some scholars have suggested that painshapers are technically immune to this problem as well. However, while no amount of pain taken in at once can damage the hand of the shaper, it can have some serious consequences for their mind.

All of which is to say: be careful. There is no substitute for patience when Siphoning energy.

• The Fundamentals of Shaping.

 

Sal rode back to the Snake Pit with Carrus, Eve, the bouncers, and several prostitutes, all of whom had come to rescue him. He was touched, and a little impressed. He had known, obviously, that he was an amazing lover. But for the whores to band together and convince Carrus and the others to rescue him, as had so clearly happened, he must have been more amazing than even he had realized.

As they returned to the Pit and dismounted, Sal reflected that if he had one flaw, it was that he underestimated just how sensational he really was.

“Seriously,” Carrus said. “Where are the lumographs? I’ve been asking for them for the last fifteen minutes.”

Oh right, Sal thought, that might have also contributed to the rescue mission.

Sal almost fell off the horse getting down, and Eve had to practically catch him. His whole body was shaking. Now that the action was over, he felt like he could sleep for a week. He produced the pictures from his robes and handed them over to Carrus.

“There you go,” Sal said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me. I’m going to need one of your beds. No girl this time.”

Sal shuffled away to find a room. He should be out of there soon, before Bracken got back and came looking for who robbed him. But Sal was in no condition to ride off into the night. His leg injury seemed to be feeling better, so it probably wasn’t anything serious, but he had all the energy of a dozing tortoise. And besides, he hadn’t gotten paid yet. He found an empty room and was asleep roughly a heartbeat after his head hit the pillow.

 

Sal woke after what felt like a really short time. Sarina was standing over him.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. “Are those Yarrls back?”

“No. I think they are dead,” Sarina said. “This is about Kalissa.”

“The blackmail girl? Can it wait till later?”

“It cannot. Bracken took her. If she is still alive, she will soon not be.”

“That’s a shame,” Sal muttered, turning over and closing his eyes again.

Sarina grabbed him by the robes, which he had fallen asleep in, and hauled him off the bed onto the floor. “I am going to save her. You are going to help.”

Sal’s mind eventually got working as he got to his feet. “Of course. If she dies, the Tower finds out I’m the one who robbed them. Sorry, long night.”

“Actually, that was a lie. She never had any plans to tell your monks anything.”

“Then why are we helping her?”

“Because she’s my friend, and you are mine, and friends don’t leave friends with men who buy babies.”

“You’re friends?”

“Yes.”

“With the girl who threatened our lives yesterday?”

“Yes. We bonded over what a poor mate you would make.”

“What?”

“She believed you are old, or possibly her father. It wasn’t clear. But there will be time to discuss your shortcomings later, now we must go.”

“Look, I’m not going to be that much help. I used all my force last night stealing the lumographs. It’ll take me some time to store up more.”

“I don’t need your magic. I need your brain.”

“I might have used that up too,” Sal muttered, but he gathered his things and followed her out the door.

It didn’t take them long to reach Bracken’s compound. It was only about half an hour’s ride out of town. Sal wished it was a bit longer as this was all the time he had to absorb more force using his Siphon. He felt naked with that little force stored. And not the kind of naked he had spent much of his time at the Snake Pit being. Naked in a bad way.

After Sarina strung her bow, they picked a spot with some tree cover and scaled the wall. Sarina did so elegantly, Sal less so, but they both reached the top. From there, they surveyed the grounds.

“Well that’s not good,” Sal said. Bracken had doubled his guard since Sal’s break-in the night before. “The blind spots in the patrols won’t be there anymore. I don’t think you’re going to be able to sneak in. We are going to need a distraction.”

Sarina drew an arrow from her quiver. “An arrow to the head can be very distracting.” She paused for a moment and then asked, “If I shoot enough of them, will you go in and save my friend?”

She was asking for more than tactical assessment, she was asking for Sal to put his life on the line for someone he barely knew and who had been blackmailing him less than a day earlier. Despite his earlier nonchalance at the extortion, being forced into something really grated on Sal. He lived the life he did because he wished to live on his own terms, not be shackled to the will of another. This girl, though she had done it with charm and a nice smile, had forced him to do as she wished. He didn’t entirely blame her, he didn’t even wish her any particular ill, but he wasn’t excited about risking his neck for her either.

But then, it wasn’t really for her. It was for Sarina. Sarina, one of Sal’s only friends in the world, who wasn’t forcing him to act, but was asking him for a favour. And not a pass-the-salt kind of favour. This was the kind that made or broke friendships. In the end, it came down to whether Sal was willing to sneak in and break out Kalissa in order to have Sarina as a friend.

He had faced worse odds for less.

“Fine,” Sal said grudgingly. “But I don’t know how I’m going to get through the doors. They can only be opened from the inside and you need a password for that.”

“Do the men outside know this word?” Sarina asked.

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“Of course, otherwise they couldn’t get in.”

“Then it won’t be a problem. Give me two minutes to get into position. When you hear the signal, go for the door.”

Sal nodded and Sarina crept off down the wall.

Sal clambered down from the wall onto the grounds. He hid behind a large tree and tried to think bland thoughts. He counted out the seconds until Sarina would be in position, feeling like any moment he was going to be spotted and shot full of quarrels. Two minutes elapsed. Nothing happened. It occurred to Sal that he didn’t know what the signal was, and that this whole thing was probably a bad idea.

Then somebody screamed and men started shouting.

That would be the signal then.

Sal slipped from behind the tree and dashed across the grounds, keeping behind cover as best he could. He needn’t have bothered. The guards had been thoroughly distracted by the tall, green woman running around the grounds putting arrows into their buddies.

Sal reached the north-side door of the house. The guards had left to take down Sarina, but Sal still had no way of getting in. Sarina had said the password wouldn’t be a problem, but hadn’t actually done anything about it yet. Sal was acutely reminded why he didn’t like following other people’s plans, and why he rarely did favours for friends.

An arrow hit the ground about two feet in front of him and Sal suppressed a yelp. He was about to run for cover when he noticed the bloody scrap of cloth stuck on it. He retrieved it and saw a word, written in blood with somebody’s finger:

Papaya

Sal supposed that was one way to get a password. He pounded on the heavy stone door.

“Let me in! I’m hit!” He roared, trying to conceal his Lhintish accent with sheer volume.

“Password?” a voice replied from behind the door.

“Papaya!”

The door swung inwards, and Sal was faced with a man holding a crossbow.

“Hi,” Sal said, his right arm already raised. He used force to shove the guard’s head into a stone wall. There was a crack and the man collapsed in a heap, bleeding from the head.

Sal liberated the crossbow from the man, he was almost out of force again and could use a real weapon, and slunk into the building. No one seemed to have noticed the sound of the guard’s head hitting the wall over the commotion outside, and he made it down the corridor without anyone showing up to investigate.

Sal checked each room as he moved through the building. He found a storeroom full of food, an armoury with more crossbows and ammo (which he took some of as the guard had only been carrying two quarrels), and a small dining hall.

Then he heard someone scream.

He ran for the scream, figuring it must be Kalissa. He burst into a mid-sized room to find Kalissa with a knife to one guard’s throat, and pointing a crossbow at another two guards. These two also had crossbows, but they didn’t look like they wanted to risk shooting their buddy, or getting shot themselves, to take out Kalissa.

“Sal?” Kalissa said as he burst in.

The other two guards seemed to decide that, since he wasn’t holding any of their friends at knifepoint, he was fair game to shoot, and turned their crossbows towards him.

Sal shot one of them and used the last of his force to push on the other’s hands, fouling his shot. Kalissa shot him a moment later.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“I’m rescuing you.”

“Okay,” she said. “Why?”

“Sarina is making me. Shall we?”

“Cool.” She slit the guard’s throat from ear to ear and dropped his bleeding body on the floor. “Let’s go.”

Sal looked at the dying guard and back at Kalissa. “I see why you and Sarina get on.”

They reloaded their crossbows and went back the way Sal had come. They heard more guards coming down from upstairs, but they were at the door before anyone caught up with them.

“Be quick, stay quiet, stick to cover where you can,” Sal said as he checked outside for more guards.

Kalissa gave him a look that said he was showing his warts to a warthog. Her skin had turned the ash-grey of the compound’s trees.

When had that happened? How had that happened?

Sal shook his head. No time for that now. The path was clear, and from the sounds of things Sarina was still causing havoc outside.

“Okay,” he said. “Now.”

They ran for it, dashing between cover and trying not to shoot themselves in the foot with a crossbow by accident.

“There!” someone shouted behind them. Sal looked back to see more guards pouring out of the door they had come from. He fired his crossbow back at them, then dropped it and kept running. Kalissa followed suit and the guards briefly scrambled for cover. It wasn’t much, but it gave them enough of a lead to get to the wall and scramble over before anyone could get in range to take a decent shot at them.

They both got on the same horse just as Sarina leapt off the wall and landed beside them. She mounted her own horse and they took off back to town.

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