Nips, through with his polishing and again watching from his perch in her bag, said, “It’s probably sealed with a key ward. The only thing that can enter the keyhole is the key with the matching rune.”
Lanie's shoulders slumped, and she sighed, “And Dalgo probably has that on him. Judging by the sounds of carnage from downstairs, now is probably not a good time to ask him for it.” She drummed her fingers on the lid of the chest while she thought her way around the problem. “How do you get past a lock you don’t understand?” she asked aloud, drawing out the rhetorical question as her mind worked. Her eyebrows shot up as she realized the answer. “You find another way in, is what you do.”
A lopsided grin quirked up one side of her mouth as she slid the trunk away from the wall and turned it to examine the hinges.
“What are you going to do?” Nips asked as he watched her run her fingers across the hinges.
“It’s a funny thing, how people’s minds work. I told you that I mostly broke into warehouses, right? Well, most criminals, at least, the low-level type I usually deal with, don’t hire professional security companies to install their security. Legit companies come with monitoring services that call the police if an alarm gets tripped. So…” Gently lifting Nips to her shoulder, she rummaged through her bag. “…they usually install their own cameras and alarms and crap. Thing is… ah, there it is!” She pulled out her toiletry bag and found the little eyeglass repair kit. She went back to explaining as she fished out the tiny screwdriver. “People have blind spots. Amateurs will put a thousand dollars' worth of security gear around a people door, but never think about the great big dock doors where the trucks back up, or the skylight, or the vents. They focus on the places where people would normally enter the building and completely forget that there are other openings in the walls.”
As she was finishing her explanation, she used the diminutive screwdriver to pry the pins out of the simple hinges on the back of the travel trunk. With the pins removed, the hinges split, allowing the lid to be lifted and turning the hasp on the front into a single, inadequate hinge.
“Now, that’s clever,” Nips praised.
Lanie shook her head, “No, it’s luggage. I’m just taking advantage of a blind spot.”
The trunk was neatly stacked with small boxes and velvet bags. Picking up a shoe box, Lanie peeked inside. Nestled in crumpled tissue paper was a glass bottle half full of fine ash. The ash lifted and swirled inside the bottle as though stirred by a light breeze. A chill ran down Lanie’s spine as she quickly closed the box and replaced it. She checked a blue velvet bag next and found a crystal doorknob that made her fingers tingle and her stomach churn. A green velvet jewelry box held a mummified rodent paw on a silver chain. She quickly put it back with a shudder. The fourth box, a small cardboard gift box, held a tarnished and dented brass compass. “I hope this is it,” Lanie said, “Because I really don’t want to open any more of those. Why keep stuff like that?”
“Charms, spell anchors, keepsakes,” Nips shrugged. “Magic comes in strange packages, sometimes.”
Another question died on Lanie’s lips as a strangled cry of pain came from downstairs, and the crashing havoc came to an abrupt end. She froze for a count of ten, but the sounds didn’t resume. “I think that’s our cue to get gone.” She slipped the box with the compass into her bag and helped Nips back into its safety. Working quickly, she closed the lid of the trunk and pressed the pins back into the hinges. She didn’t think it was likely that Dalgo had survived Gidul’s rampage, but just in case he did, it would be best if he didn’t realize anything was missing for a while.
Moving with cautious haste, she crept back to the stairs and paused to listen before hurrying down them. As she crossed the room between the shelves, she had a thought and made a slight detour to grab the battle-axe. It was almost too heavy for her to lift, even with the magical improvements to her strength. It also tingled with magic, but it didn’t feel wrong the way the sword had, nor right the way the daggers did. Gripping it just below the head, she crossed the room to the hallway and peered out.
Across the hall, the hushed sounds of frightened feminine voices drifted up from the basement, and the undisguised clomp of hooves on stone told Lanie that Gidul had gone back for the girls as he’d promised. She propped the axe against the wall where Gidul would be sure to see it when he topped the stairs.
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The back door was still unbarred as she’d left it. She hesitated for a moment, wondering if she should check the front to learn Dalgo’s fate, or talk to Gidul one last time to… no, this would play out as it would play out. She had her own problems to solve. Best not to complicate things. She slipped out the door and closed it behind her.
The alley was empty, but she could hear the commotion of a crowd from the street in front of the shop. The scent of food drifted from some other part of town, making her stomach rumble. She realized that she hadn’t eaten in over a day, and that had only been a handful of berries. Stress and adrenaline had muted her appetite, but now, with the delectable scents on the breeze, it came roaring back. Her stomach clenched into a knot of hunger.
Without consciously deciding to, she followed her nose. She walked behind a couple of buildings before slipping down a side alley back to the main street. In front of a half-timbered building that looked like it came straight from a medieval town, a baker was loading up a table with buns and meat pies, trying to tempt the crowd gathered around the front of Dalgo’s shop into spending their coins.
The baker was a portly fellow. He had coarse, cinnamon-colored fur, and his face and high-set, round ears made him look like a humanoid teddy bear. Lanie started to reach for her bag only to find that Nips was already holding out a trio of copper coins for her. “Get one for me, as well. They smell amazing.”
She’d thought that Nips would have to translate for her, but she was pleasantly surprised to find that she could understand most of what the teddy-baker said. Kyma’s language was the basis for the Trade tongue. There were a few words that she didn’t understand, and Nips helped with those. Handing over the three coins, she accepted two meat pies, a cheese and herb bun, and a cup of fruit juice.
There was a low stone wall around the cottage next to the bakery, and she leaned against it as she tore into one of the meat pies. Nips gratefully took the second one, though it was nearly as large as he was. She watched the commotion at Dalgo’s shop as she ate. It didn’t surprise her to see Gidul saunter out of the front door, the battle axe over one shoulder, and the three young women trailing after him looking shell-shocked, but healthy enough. Gidul addressed the crowd, answering shouted questions, but Lanie couldn’t make out was was said from her vantage. She smiled to see the girls free, and a new message appeared in her sight:
You have balanced a karmic debt while staying true to your Dharma. You have gained 4 sakti.
That was interesting, and it had all kinds of implications she was going to have to puzzle out. Later. She dismissed the message and finished off the pie as she watched, barely tasting the rich gravy, mutton, and potatoes in her hunger. The juice was from an unfamiliar fruit, but it was sweet and tangy, and she couldn’t help but chug it back in one long pull. As she was starting in on the cheese bun, the drama at Dalgo’s shifted. Gidul finished with the crowd, and it parted to let him pass. As the people milled and shifted, Lanie’s blood ran cold. Cole, Dieter, and the quiet one were in the crowd, and Dieter was staring right at her.
Dropping the rest of the bun, she scooped up Nips and ran. Nips let out a surprised squeak. “My pie!”
“Sorry, Nips. We’ve got trouble.” Lanie rounded a corner and slowed long enough to tuck Nips into her bag. “I didn’t mean to manhandle you like that, but the guys who’ve been chasing me were back there. Hold on. This might be a bumpy ride.”
“Alright. You run. I’ll watch our back.” His British accent was more crisp than usual as Lanie could almost hear his stiff upper lip snapping into place.
“Keep calm and carry on,” she whispered under her breath as she scanned the lane ahead of her. Looking for options to vanish, her eyes bounced from the muddy lane that would show clear tracks for her pursuers to follow, to a stack of barrels, a garden wall, and a low-hanging eave on one of the buildings.
With a deep breath, she pulled up Kyma’s memories and started to pull a strand of prana from her center, just as Akayma had taught her. Akayma had call the power the breath of life, but Nips had explained to her that it had many different names. Whatever it was called, it felt like nothing she had ever experienced before. It was hard to put the sensation into words. The power was hot and cold at the same time, and it brought with it an electric feeling of vibrant life. There was a well of it sitting somewhere inside her, she could feel it, but she couldn’t pinpoint where it was, which was a disorienting sensation in itself.
The prana answered her will and flowed through her chest and down her arms to her fingertips. It nearly slipped away from her there, but she let Kyma’s memories guide her as she twisted and shaped the power, recalling the feeling of the wind as it came to aid her. With the feel of a silent sigh, the power slipped into the correct shape, and a wind that hadn’t been there before was suddenly pushing at her, urging her forward.
With two sprinting steps, Lanie leapt for the barrels, covering a distance she could never have imagined jumping across before. From the barrels, she jumped to the wall, the wind lifting her. Then to the eaves of the next roof. She pulled herself up as Nips said, “They’re coming.”
Lanie rolled onto the roof, careful not to roll across her bag and crush it. She stayed low and slipped over the peak, trying to keep out of sight. “Do you think they saw us?”
“No,” Nips shook his head. His knuckles were white as he gripped the strap of her bag. “They didn’t look up. I think we got clear.”
“Let’s not hang around and give them a chance to find us again, then.” She scurried down the back slope of the roof. The wind pushed her along, adding speed to her steps and lift to her jumps. She crossed the rooftops of the village, feeling like a comic book superhero, and she had to stop herself from whooping with the sheer joy of it. This spell was amazing. Magic was starting to grow on her.