7. Hull - A Bad Idea (Patreon)

Chapter 7

A Bad Idea

Life on the streets had not made me good at complex planning. My usual way of solving things was to hit them and take their money, but barging back into the tailor’s card shop would just get me beaten and thrown in jail. I’d heard bad stories about street boys going into the cells under the palace and never coming back, and besides, the big doorman could break me like a dry twig. I sat in the dark and stared at the shop for hours, doing my damnedest to rub two thoughts together for a spark of inspiration. Occasionally a furtive man would come along and slip into the rear toward the illicit card shop. Every last one of them was well-dressed, and not a one got hustled out the door in ten minutes as I’d been.

The summoned Souls belonging to the City Watch came by every twenty minutes, not every thirty as I’d first thought, and while they were obviously Commons, marching blankly along their preset route, they were still large, professional-looking, well armored, and would snatch up an urchin like me in a heartbeat if they saw me.

They didn’t disappear, and I didn’t see anyone with them, which meant that their Summoner was probably patrolling the adjacent street. I thanked Fate that this was a quiet enough neighborhood the Watch overseers believed they could pad out their patrols with simple Common cards. If any of the more intelligent Uncommons had been patrolling, they might’ve thought to check the shadows, and I didn’t need that trouble alongside everything else.

Fate wasn’t normally on my side, and it made me uncomfortable. Who I really needed tonight was Fortune. The street preachers always said the Twins were eternally linked and eternally opposed, and what I was doing was definitely a gamble. That’d draw the god’s eye, and who knew? Maybe he’d look on me with favor.

What I couldn’t do was kick the door in and start laying about with my Hateful Hammer and Nether source. That wasn’t a gamble; that was suicide. Even if I could overpower the doorman, no doubt the tailor had his own defenses. I hadn’t seen any active guard Souls; some folks preferred live employees like the hefty bouncer for vital tasks. Still, a place like that, with its illegal fortune in cards like a dragon’s hoard, was certain to have Artisan-crafted defenses: traps that could immobilize or kill intruders, alarms that could shatter the eardrums and bring the Watch summons running, or even slow poisons that would make a fellow sluggish enough to catch and then make his dick drop off as he was moldering in the Palace cells. None of those options appealed to me.

I needed a distraction to pull the tailor and his muscle-bound goon away – preferably one that kept the City Watch busy as well – and then I needed a way to disable whatever defenses the card shop possessed. I thought about going back to the Lows to recruit Tomarken and his friends. He ran with a gang of some twenty young thieves that worked the wharf, and if I could convince them to rush the shop, they’d keep the occupants busy while I snatched my card.

My card. It still vibrated in my mind, hours after seeing it. Epic cards had a sense of motion and depth to them that nobody had ever told me about: the swirling whirlpool of blackness at the card’s center had been hypnotic in its motion, and if I could have reached out to touch it, I almost thought I’d have felt the fiery bite of the Demon Realm. And the card’s ability! The thought that I could be completely impervious to everything, even for a short period of time, was intoxicating. I couldn’t believe my luck that its covering had slipped and I’d seen it, or even that the tailor had it in the first place. I’d never even heard of one of the muckety-muck noble folk using Nether, nor any human at all, for that matter. The capitol had its fair share of elves, dwarves, and other creatures traveling through as ambassadors and merchants, but none of them were likely to use it either. Coming across a Nether card – an Epic Nether card – was like seeing a shooting star streak across the sky on another shooting star’s back.

Tomarken’s urchins would never go for my plan, was the problem. For starters, the festivities preceding the Rising Stars tournament were in full swing, so they’d all be cutting purses and waylaying drunks in the Palace District until sunrise. The promise of a shop full of cards might entice them, but the risks were sky-high, and whoever came to grips with the tailor’s doorman wouldn’t be walking away on both feet. Even if I’d been able to find them and muster them all here before morning, they’d all take one look at the quiet, secure, expensive-looking shop and decide to be elsewhere. It was a bad bet, and street kids don’t take bad bets if they want to keep breathing.

The sky was turning purple in the east and I was still banging my head against the problem when I saw the dim moonlight illumination from under the back door wink out. A few minutes later, the big doorman lumbered out of the alley, a cap pulled low over his eyes and hands stuffed in his pockets. Looked like the black-market shop had closed for the night and the bouncer was headed home. He looked neither right nor left as he passed. Nobody was going to bother a fellow of that size no matter what time of night it was.

It was now or never. In an hour it would be dawn and Ticosi’s troops would be out in force looking for me. They might not think to patrol the streets here in the Merchant District, but I couldn’t stay for sure. Once someone saw me I’d either have to run or face the City Watch. My time was up, and if Ticosi got his hands on me, I’d be tortured publicly as an example and then killed very, very slowly. No fighting pits for me, not now. I’d crossed the line. I just needed an idea, just a spark!

A spark. Ohhh, that was a terrible idea. Yes, there was a gas streetlamp not two doors down from the tailor’s, and it would be child’s play to set fire to the wooden walls of his expensive home, but I knew better than to think I could control a fire. The whole street could go up in flames.

So? These are people who’d rather call for the Watch than toss you a spare coin. Let their pretty shops and houses burn. They’ve never known a moment’s fear their whole lives. It’d be justice.

It was a mean thought born out of the cruel part of my heart, but it wasn’t a lie. The cards wouldn’t burn. They were made of a sterner kind of magical stuff than mere fire could touch. The Artifact protections on the shop, on the other hand…when I was younger I’d liked to sit outside the one low-grade Artificer forge in the Lows on Baker Way and watch the old man heat his brass contraptions and infuse the little magics of the world into them. They were made of metal, always. Apply enough heat and they’d melt and stop working. Once the shop caught fire I could stroll in and take whatever cards my heart desired. You could take them all. You could be rich. Become the noble that could walk up to the King undetected all in one fell swoop. It could work.

I rapped my own forehead with a knuckle. The place would be burning down around your ears, fool. You’d be lucky to get out with your life, much less a stack of cards.

But my beloved Nether card would make me safe, wouldn’t it? All I’d need was to snatch it, absorb it into myself, and cast its spell, and I’d have three turns of safety; that was a good minute’s worth of time. It wasn’t enough for the stealing spree I’d just been imagining, but it could get me out alive if I was lucky.

Once the tailor sees the house on fire, he’ll take the cards and run. He wouldn’t want to be caught red-handed. He’d gather up his greatest treasures and bolt before the watch could arrive. That’s all well and good. I catch him on the way out, give him a tap like I gave Skop, and pick through his choicest wares. If he has the Nether card, I grab it. If not, I duck into the shop and pick up what he left behind.

The pieces fell into place in my head like a rich kid’s puzzle toy. It would work. Well, no: it might work. But if I was being honest with myself, I’d rather die in a fire reaching for a taste of glory than get peeled an inch at a time by Harker and her friends. That ended the same as the fire, just with more pain and pissing myself in front of strangers first. Fortune save me, I was going to do this.

Before I could second-guess myself, I darted out of my hiding place toward the tailor’s shop. The Watch wouldn’t be along for another ten minutes, and I had the street to myself. As quietly as I could, I gathered the dry leaves and twigs beneath the two ornamental bushes that flanked the front porch and made a little pile in the spot where the porch timbers jutted out over the yard. Then I pulled off one of my ragged cloth foot-coverings and held it in my teeth while I shimmied up the lamppost like the little flame elementals that lit them every evening. It was the work of half a second to hold the cloth to the blue flame, and then I slid down the post, a burning rag in hand. I hurried over and pitched it into my pile of kindling.

I held my breath for a long moment as the dry greenery smoked and smoldered. Finally a nest of little flames appeared, and I grinned like a maniac. Thinking fast, I fetched a stick and lit one end before retreating to the alleyway where the card shop sat. I didn’t want to be on the street when someone noticed the blaze, and if I set fire to the back too, it would speed the process up that much more. The bark shingles hanging over the roof in back caught the fire nicely, and I backed up against the opposing brick wall to wait for my prey. I pulled my first source into my left hand and threw it over my head. I’d had six Nether source for as long as I could remember, and I’d want as many as possible ready to go once things got toasty. A second Nether followed the first a few seconds later, and that gave me enough to summon my Hateful Hammer Relic without having to overdraw my source. I had time; no need to rush it.

I’d never cast any kind of summons before, and though I’d heard the fellows in the taverns talk about it endlessly, I was doing this all for the first time. Sure, it was just a neutral Relic, the cheapest and least impressive of card types, but it was mine, and I was going to appreciate it. Holding out my right hand, I willed the card into existence. I felt a tug inside my head, and the Uncommon card dropped into my hand with satisfying heft. Its silver border glimmered in the growing firelight, and I admired the artistry of the square-headed, bejeweled hammer.

I’d been pulling source from my soul into my left hand since I was old enough to remember anything, but this was the first real, true summons card I’d ever called into my right hand from my Mind Home. It felt different. Meaningful. If I’d had more cards within me, one of them might have appeared first; I’d been told that Souls, Spells, and Relics all vied to come out first, and Fortune was the one that decided which dropped first into your hand. I’d never paid the god all that much attention, but in this moment I marveled at his involvement in even the smallest of human actions.

Focusing on the Relic card, I pulled gently on my two Nether sources, pouring their energy into the card instead of into my own body as I was accustomed to doing. The card glowed brightly and shimmered into stardust, and a moment later the light coalesced into a heavy iron hammer in my right hand. It had a glittering red jewel in its center, and it hummed with energy. I knew instantly it would obey my will like no broken bottle ever could. I pulled a third source into my left and threw it aloft. The shingles were blazing merrily and spreading fast, and I saw a thin streamer of smoke rising against the lightening sky out front. Any time now.

It was an agonizing five minutes before I heard the first shouts. I was on the verge of breaking into the shop already, protections be damned, when some poor goodman ‘round the front screamed, “Fire! Fire! Call the watch - fire!” In moments other voices joined, and a light went on in the upper floor of the tailor’s house.

I heard someone pound on the front door. “Porren! The shop’s caught fire! Wake up, man!”

A swish and a thunk amid the crackles of flame spoke of a window thrown open. “I know,” called the tailor. “Fetch a bucket and help!”

“They’ve called the watch and the fire brigade already, just get out of the house,” the unseen neighbor cried.

The tailor cursed and said nothing more, but from within the house I heard thumps, crashes, and swearing as he careened about trying to save his valuables. That’s right. Grab your things and run, you miserly bastard. You don’t want to be here when the Watch arrives. My own life had fallen apart in the last day, and I felt a savage pleasure in seeing it happen to someone else, too. Especially someone who had just robbed me blind when I tried to make a deal.

I heard noises from within the card shop and backed up against the wall right next to the door so he wouldn’t see me when he came out. My heart was hammering and my palms were sweaty on the hammer. This is it!

The door burst open, and the tailor stumbled into the alley, coughing and spitting. He had a thick roll of cloth in his hands. Black smoke poured out after him until he kicked the door shut behind him. I didn’t wait for him to get his bearings. I jumped out, swinging the hammer right at the base of his skull. By this time I had all six of my Nether twirling overhead, but I didn’t infuse any of it into the blow. It seemed like a bad idea to kill the man when the Watch was on its way. I just wanted to ring his bells and take that fat blanket full of cards.

The sweat on my hands betrayed me. My hammer turned just a bit in my grip as I swung, and the flat of the head hit him on the stringy band of muscle connecting head to shoulder next to the spine. A single card shredded into confetti from the spot of contact, and he cried out, falling to one knee and clutching at the spot with his free hand. Four pearled spheres and two swirling, watery ones circled his head. I swung again, wildly, and he dove out of the way with a grunt. My hammer passed harmlessly through his source spheres without touching them. Source was ethereal; things like iron couldn’t touch it.

With an incoherent yell of rage, the tailor instantly plucked a card from the air and threw it out his right hand at me. One of his water sources dimmed, and the card broke into shimmers of light that turned to water as they streaked toward me.

Suddenly my hands and feet were encased in an inch of ice, and I slipped and fell to the cobbles. The weight of the hammer in my right hand cracked the solid casing of cold when it hit the ground, but all my extremities had gone numb, and I couldn’t find any purchase on the fire-heated cobblestones as my hands and feet skittered around on all sides, the ice leaving everything slick with melt. I looked like an overturned crab, and the cook that was going to throw me in the pot was standing up, rubbing his neck and looking at me with murder in his eyes.

Then more shouts rang out from the front, and he remembered that he was one conversation away from being an enemy of the crown for running an illegal card shop. That, apparently, was more important than taking revenge on the street rat that had just gotten the drop on him. Clutching his roll of treasures to his chest, he vanished through the smoke gathering at the mouth of the alley and was gone.

Wait! I cried silently after him. My card! Sitting up, I bashed my hands and feet against the oven-warm wall of the card shop until the ice fell away and I could stand. My one uncovered foot was numbed all the way through, but if I was careful it would support me.

Nothing to do but hope he left the Nether card behind, I realized grimly. From the sound of things, there was a goodly crowd out front, and while he might have been able to slip past them, if they saw a street boy like me, I’d be collared immediately for arson. That irked me until I remembered that I had, in fact, set this fire. Men were calling stridently for bucket lines to soak the adjacent houses. It wouldn’t be long before somebody thought to come around to the alley to wet things down from this side, too.

The card shop door had locked when he kicked it shut, damn the luck, but I had a hammer and plenty of motivation. A quick infusion of Nether into my arms let me smash the door to kindling with one blow.

The second the portal flew open a roaring wall of flame leapt out, searing my face and crisping my hair. I cried out, falling back and covering my eyes. Sitting on my butt on the cobbles once more, I took stock of myself. My hands and arms were red like I’d fallen asleep in the sun on a summer’s day, nothing worse. Everything about me smarted, and a distinct burnt-hair smell told me I’d need a haircut when all was said and done. But I could stand, so I did, and my heart sank. In the two minutes since the tailor had come out, the card shop beyond the door had gone from a smoking danger zone to an inferno. All I could see was the shadows of glass cases wrapped in pillars of orange. Even if I held my breath, going in there was insanity. I’d be horribly burned.

But only for a second! Once I get the card I can cast its spell and protect myself. It’ll be like putting out a match with your fingers, no worse. Just…with your whole body, that’s all. The one upside was that any magical defenses on the room had certainly burned away by now.

That was good…except that I didn’t know if the card was still in there.

“Come around the side!” someone yelled from nearby. “There’s an alley!”

I was seconds away from discovery. My choices were the Palace cells, torture and death in the Lows, or a quick death in the fire.

“Fortune favor me!” I yelled, and I ran into the shop.