“I hope this is acceptable,” I told the statue as I placed a single blue and green kwetzel feather on the ground before it. The statue remained unanimated, but the saint seemed to have a happy expression on her rotund face. “Good. Then I shall carry on. Please, give my regards to Saint Persistence should you see him in the heavens.”
After I’d wandered for a half an hour, I found myself in the very back corner of the Habitation. For whatever reason, this part was far less crowded than the rest. The bushes were overgrown. If they’d been carved into animals before, they were now animal-shaped blobs. Everywhere else, the grass was carefully cropped to an even length, while in this one part, it was wild and had patches of dirt where nothing grew. The trees drooped with moss. No birds sang here. And somehow, it even seemed just a bit colder.
I heard a familiar voice coming from the other side of the bushes.
It was Dathka Walker, and she was talking to somebody.
Crossing the grass, I crept up closer. Strangely enough, she didn’t sound angry or defiant, nor was she begging for mercy. She didn’t sound like a prisoner at all. Her tone was the same as when I’d been talking to Saint Prudence. Dathka was praying to a saint.
I snuck around the corner, one hand on my pistol, the other on my bag of Red, to find her all by herself, sitting at the foot of a statue, alone, unbound, and totally free, with her captor nowhere in sight.
“Well, some fucking rescue this is turning out to be!”
Forty
Dathka was clearly surprised by my sudden arrival. “Carnavon?”
“Where’s Gerzog?”
“Obviously not here. I escaped him hours ago.” She saw that I was ready to draw my weapons. “So you can relax.”
“You relax.” Was this some kind of trick? Had she escaped, or had he let her free? Was this a double cross? Or, since we’d already been double-crossed, a triple cross? I didn’t know. This was exactly why I should never have consorted with crooks to begin with. “As of this morning, Carcalla’s got the entire Latrocinium tearing the city apart looking for you. What the hell’s going on?”
“I told you, I escaped.” She remained seated but slowly lifted her hands to show me they were empty. She was wearing the same black clothing she’d been wearing on the island. Other than a split lip and some cuts and scratches, which were alarmingly red against her eerily white skin, she didn’t appear to be too damaged. “The minute I could escape my bounds, I did.”
“What’re you doing here? Hiding?”
“No,” she snapped, offended at the suggestion. “I’m no coward.” Then she nodded toward the statue behind her. “I’m seeking inspiration.”
“For what?”
“How to best kill Gerzog, slaughter all his men, and reclaim the treasure so I can present it to my father to regain his trust and respect.”
It was then I noticed what name was on the plaque for this particular statue.
Brotbeck. Saint of Murder.
Well, shit…No wonder this section of the Habitation of Phradumius was so abandoned and unloved.
Brotbeck was represented as a thin, gangly man, with protruding eyes and a receding hairline. In his bony hands, he held the symbols of his office, a garrot and a knife. I was really glad this statue didn’t come to life and tell us his story as, frankly, I didn’t want to hear it. The illusionists who’d gifted their enchantments to this place had probably refrained from animating this unsavory one, because hearing the story behind his ascension would likely scare the children.
“He grant you any wisdom yet?”
“If the gods had granted me wisdom, I wouldn’t still be here, sitting uselessly upon my ass now, would I?”
As fine of an ass as that may be, I trusted her about as much as an expanding lava bubble that was about to burst. “I don’t even know how this guy rates sainthood. Murdering seems more life fiend behavior to me.”
“Maybe the gods think some pricks just need killing… How’d you find me anyway?”
“You’re a no good, dishonest, thief.” I held out one hand. “Give me my enchanted bullet back.”
She scowled, then touched her pockets until she found it and pulled it out. “I forgot I even had that on me.” She tossed it over. “Here.”
I caught it, then held the round of ammunition up to the light to inspect it. The wax paper case seemed intact, and the enchantment felt just as I’d left it. I hurried and stuck it through one of the empty loops on my belt.
“Gerzog seized both my pistols, so I’ve got nothing to shoot it out of anyway. The bastard stole all my charms too. I’ve got nothing left but my wits.”
“And your oh so charming personality.”
