Fanuilh by Daniel Hood (ebook reader with highlight function TXT) 📗

WAKE. WAKE.

The stones were in better shape than he remembered, as though they had just been carved, and the message k on an urgency the old ruins had not possessed.

WAKE. WAKE. WAKE.

He snapped away from the desolate city of his dreams, and knew he was in his library.

Tarquin's library, he reminded himself.

You are fully awake?

"Yes." he muttered, then raised his voice. "Yes, Fanuilh, I'm fully awake."

. He got up quickly from the couch to forestall any further questions, and scrubbed at his eyes. Then he went to the kitchen and pictured warm water and spiced buns. Mists of steam rose from the jug after a moment, and he found hot rolls in the oven like those he had eaten the first day. He slicked back his unruly hair and washed his face, fingering the stubble. Then he had the stove conjure up another platter of uncooked meat and went to the workroom to present it to Fanuilh.

"In case you get hungry while I'm gone," he said. "At least it won't get cold." He laughed at his joke, but the little dragon just cocked its head. Liam rolled his eyes, and the empty decanter on the second table caught his attention.

"Why did Tarquin leave that out?"

I don't know.

The lack of expression in Fanuilh's thoughts maddened him; he felt as if the creature was hiding something from him, using a sort of mental poker-face. "I don't know," when spoken, could mean a hundred different things, or a thousand. It could carry any significance, different by shades, determined by tone and pitch, the speed with which the words were spoken. A wealth of information could hide in the quavering of a syllable, the length of a vowel.

I am not hiding anything. I simply do not know why he left it out.

"I know, I know. It's just ... frustrating." It was not fair to blame. the dragon.

It is strange, though. Master Tanaquil was very neat. He did not usually leave things lying about unless he intended to use them.

"Time to go," Liam said abruptly after a moment. "I'll be back later." He walked quickly outside to his horse, munching on a bun as he went.

Yesterday's rain had stopped, but the skies were still overcast, and everything was wet. The trees along the road back to · Southwark were a sodden, lifeless black, stripped of their leaves by the winds of the past two weeks. Rich, musty smells rose off the muddy fields. The fields and the sky, and Southwark when he finally came in view of it, looked colorless and leeched out, a painting composed only in varying shades of gray.

Nonetheless, he had slept well in the magic house, and the sweet taste of the buns lingered in his mouth like a pleasant memory. He felt good, and he smiled at his landlady's worried chattering over his being away the whole night. He did not even tease her, stopping only to reassure her and pick up his writing case before stabling his horse.

Marcius's offices were in a warehouse a few streets back from the waterfront. They were not difficult to find, but Liam walked back and forth on the cobbles for a few minutes before going in, thinking of how to handle the interview. His hand dropped to the writing case at his belt, where his maps were securely settled. Then he slumped his shoulders meekly and knocked.

The warehouse fronted directly on the wide street, built of salt-stained gray boards, blank and featureless except for the huge wooden doors. His knocking sounded feeble; and he raised his knuckles again when a smaller door, cleverly set into its larger brothers. opened, and a ratlike head was thrust out and snarled lazily.

"What would you?"

"Please, I have an appointment with Master Marcius. My name is Liam Rhenford."

The ratty man looked him up and down disdainfully and then withdrew. A few seconds later the inan from the waterfront the day before appeared and gave Liam a mean smile constricted by his puckered scar.

"The scholar comes to serve his time! Enter, good scholar!" He stood aside, motioning for Liam to enter, but when Liam stepped forward he suddenly put himself in the way, so that Liam had to stop short. The rat squealed a laugh, and Scar's eyes gleamed.

"Well, come in, scholar! Why hem? Why haw? Do you wish to see Master Marcius or no?"

"Please, I have an appointment," the Rat mocked in falsetto.

Liam studied Scar, noting the cudgel at his belt and his heavy build. · A regular thug, though the scar was from a sword and not a knife. A soldier, maybe? Liam was taller, with a longer reach, and thought he could probably have taken the guard; but he had more important business.

"I swear, sir, I have business with Master Marcius;" he whined. "You were there when the appointment was made."

Scar dropped his restricted smile and heaved a bored sigh, letting Liam pass. "Aye, I was there. Come in, you womanly scholar. Marcius cannot see you yet; you'll have to wait his leisure."

Nodding gratefully, Liam eased past him and into the warehouse. It was long and lofty, empty space rising uninterrupted to the raftered ceilings. Crates, boxes, bales, barrels and jugs filled little more than a third of the floor space, clearly the result of a poor year's trading. The cargo of one big carrack might have filled the rest of the room. But that carrack, Liam thought, was just then rotting sixty feet below the sea at the base of the Teeth.

The two guards took seats around a barrel on which a stub of candle flickered. Scar ignored him, settling himself comfortably with his treelike legs stretched out. He ran a dirty-nailed finger along the trench that bisected his face. The Rat kept glancing in Liam's direction and chuckling. Liam chose a barrel several feet away from them and took a seat, focusing his attention on the stairway that ran along one wall of the warehouse.

It was exposed, made of