Where Imala was leading us, we saw more rats than goblins. In fact, we didn’t see anyone—but that didn’t mean no one was seeing us. Since it was the middle of the day, empty streets and shuttered shops shouldn’t be all that unusual. But too many of the shops I’d caught glimpses of through the alleys we’d passed weren’t just shuttered; they were closed, and looked like they had been that way for a while.
Imala noticed me noticing.
“The people are afraid,” she said. “My agents have told me that Sathrik no longer limits his arrests to magic users.”
I frowned. “I imagine the Saghred will take plain old souls when it can’t get the magic-flavored kind.”
Imala nodded. “Sathrik knows that the people of this city are more than capable of rising up against him. Those who are able and willing are helping us.”
“With the rest hiding behind locked doors until this is all over with.”
“The majority of goblins are peace loving. All we want is to live our lives and raise our families.”
“So where does the goblin national pastime of spying and intrigue fit into that?”
Imala smiled. “Between the living and raising parts.”
It didn’t look like this had always been the bad part of town. Though with Sarad Nukpana in charge, the entire city now shared that distinction. The town houses along the length of street we were on now looked for the most part as if they’d been abandoned, discarded for something new and trendy.
Kind of like what Tam had done to Kesyn Badru all those years ago.
And Tam felt responsible, at least to a point. Like many mage-wannabe teenagers, Tam had thought he wasn’t being taught fast enough. Pretty much without fail, teenagers were confident that they knew everything; they underestimated their limitations and overestimated their abilities. Magic wasn’t only about casting spells and building wards; it was knowing when to do it—or, most important, when not to do it and why. That meant acknowledging your shortcomings, your weaknesses, and taking responsibility for the consequences of your actions—things a lot of egocentric, magically talented teenagers weren’t keen on doing.
Sarad Nukpana and Tam had both been Kesyn Badru’s students. Nukpana had chosen the dark path; Tam had rejected it—eventually. Now we were going to find Kesyn Badru and ask the guy to save civilization as we knew it by helping us.
By helping Tam.
Tam had reasoned that his former teacher would be hiding where no one would come looking for him—and he meant no one, not even Sarad Nukpana.
There was a house that was considered cursed, possessed, haunted, you name it; this place had it. And since the people doing the considering were goblins; that said a lot in my opinion. Before we’d left his house, Tam had given us the quick and dirty details on this place. People either went in and were never seen again, or they felt the sudden need to kill the friend who’d gone in with them. Down through the years, a few families had been stupid or suicidal enough to actually buy the place and move in. They ultimately came out in either coffins or straitjackets—and others had never come out at all. But the icing on the cake was when Tam told us that as a boy even Sarad Nukpana had been scared of the place. What scared you as a kid tended to stick. So if Kesyn Badru wanted to be left alone—and he did—there was no place he’d rather be.
Yeah, I saw this ending well. Kind of like Carnades being responsible for getting us safely home. Look how that had turned out.
We approached the house from the back, using a narrow side street that was little more than an alley running between the dark granite wall surrounding the house and separating it from the one next door. Roots had grown up underneath the walls and street cobbles, making walking a challenge; and the dead leaves crunching underfoot made doing it quietly impossible.
I’d noticed that more than a few of the more affluent goblin homes had sharpened iron spikes along the tops of their walls. They might have been meant as a deterrent to thieves; or, heck, considering that these were goblin homes, they may have been meant to be decorative for all I knew.
This house’s wall didn’t have spikes. It had vines. Vines whose sole purpose appeared to be growing thorns the length of my fingers with the sharpness of my favorite stiletto. They weren’t decorative, at least not to me, but they were most definitely a deterrent. It told me one thing loud and clear—this house and Kesyn Badru did not want visitors. I wondered if he’d take into consideration that we didn’t want to be visitors. If we’d had any choice at all, we wouldn’t be lurking outside of the gates of his newly adopted home.
Above the wall and the thorns loomed a hedge. Beyond that I could just make out the house’s roofline with the rain gutters ending at the eaves of the house in honest-to-God gargoyles that looked like some sort of goat demons. The place had “evil villain hideout” written all over it. It made me wonder what Sarad Nukpana’s house looked like.
Unlike some of the other formerly fine homes we’d passed, there were no broken windows. Though with the overgrown bushes, I couldn’t see the downstairs windows, so neither could any wandering pack of Sathrik’s Khrynsani youth looking for some twisted fun. There wasn’t any shattered glass on the second and third floors, either. One of the king’s punks could have easily chucked a rock or ten that high. Either no one had the guts to try, or the house tossed rocks back at their throwers. Judging by the creepy-crawlies presently working their way up to my neck, either one was possible.
“So, based on your hunch, we’re going into a house that makes people kill their friends.”
Tam gave me a smile that looked more than a tad nervous. “Told you Regor was exciting.” The smile vanished. “Kesyn doesn’t consider me his friend; and I don’t want to find out what this place would make him do to a brat who helped ruin his life. So be glad you’re not me.”
I glanced at one of the goat demons again. “I’ve been glad I’m not you for quite some time.”
A rusted iron fence surrounded the grounds. By “grounds” I meant property. The place was so overgrown that I had no clue what the actual grounds looked like. A broken stone pathway led to what I assumed was the front door. I assumed because I couldn’t see it for all the under- and overgrowth. Once we got close enough, I saw that one of the front doors sported the same sign as Tam’s house—no trespassing by order of the king, resulting in death, dismemberment, etcetera. I wondered if the house had eaten the poor sot who had to nail the sign to the door.
The other door was opening slowly, complete with creepy creaking.
Normally, an open door would be a welcoming thing, but the knot in my gut found it even less welcoming than Sathrik’s death and dismemberment sign.
Tam started forward. Imala got a hand on his arm, stopping him.
“We’re dealing with a pissed-off mage who has who knows what lurking in those bushes. Plus, he hates you. And you propose to walk right up to a conveniently open door—”
“Which I don’t think the wind opened,” Mychael added. “Mainly because there isn’t any wind.”
“Psycho houses don’t need wind,” I muttered.
Mychael held a loaded crossbow pistol by his side, the tip of the small but lethal bolt bright with magic. I hadn’t even seen him draw it.
“Think it’s an invitation from a Khrynsani patrol?” he asked.
Tam’s gaze grew distant. “I don’t sense any.”
“And I don’t smell any,” Imala added. “Would Kesyn Badru know if you were here?”
Tam tensed. “He always did.”
My body decided to have itself a good shiver. “Well, that leaves either psycho house and/or psycho goblin.”
Mychael’s sharp eyes were fixed somewhere beyond that open door. “Okay, Tam. He was your teacher. How do you want to play it?”
“I’m going in. Alone.”
“No one goes anywhere without backup.”
“Then I go first.”
Imala drew a curved short sword. “No one’s going to deny you that.”
I indicated the sword. “What are you—”
“In case we’re not Kesyn’s only guests today.”
I kept my eye on the street. If a Khrynsani patrol appeared at the gate, we’d have three possible exits and none of them were appealing: charge into a pissed-off mage’s hideout, hack our way through the undergrowth to hopefully escape, or hack our way through the Khrynsani patrol and hopefully survive.
Something scuttled and rustled its way through the undergrowth to our left, and I caught a glimpse of a pair of eyes that were way too yellow to belong to anything with friendly intentions. The rustling quickly scurried around behind us.
Imala’s eyes suddenly went huge. I looked where she was looking.
Uh-oh.
I couldn’t see the gate. It was probably still there, but I couldn’t see it through the hedge that had moved—yes, moved—across the path. Our exit had just been completely blocked by plants, plants with roots that should’ve kept them from doing things like that.
Imala tapped Tam on the shoulder. He turned and saw.
“Kesyn ever do that before?” she asked.
“Son of a bitch.”
“I’ll take that as a maybe.”
Mychael cautiously started toward the door. “Looks like we’re being encouraged to come in.”
We went inside.
The only light was from the open door, spilling a single beam of sunlight onto the black-and-white-tiled marble floor. Though neglect had turned that into black and dingy yellow. Above our heads was a massive wrought-iron chandelier, beyond that only featureless murk. Tam and Imala could see in the dark just fine. Neither of them went for additional weapons, so I assumed nothing carnivorous or merely homicidal was charging out of the dark at us.
In response, the door slammed shut behind us.
And locked.
Instantly my hand was on my sword hilt. I didn’t draw it, but I wanted to. I really, really wanted to. But before the lights had gone out, the only people close enough to stab were friends. Hopefully they still thought I was a friend, not someone they suddenly decided needed murdering.