Duty Bound Read online

  “Spend our days getting tangled up and tripping. It’s the price we have to pay so the world learns to once again see Korvann as welcoming and friendly rather than xenophobic and belligerent.”

  “Do you think that’s truly how the other races see us?”

  Zenia had rarely traveled outside of the city and had never been outside the kingdom. According to the newspapers, Kor’s relationships with neighboring kingdoms along the coast and the desert tribes over the mountains to the south weren’t exactly cozy and comfortable, but there had been peace among the human nations since before she’d been born. But Jev, far more traveled than she, might have a different perspective.

  “The elves and dwarves certainly do right now.” He raised his voice to be heard over a steam wagon clattering across the nearby cobblestones. “We started the war with the Taziir, and dwarves have long been allies to the elves. I doubt my invasion of the elven embassy in town helped anything.” Jev spread his hand in a helpless gesture, then turned it into a point. “There’s the clock shop.”

  They had reached the mouth of the quarry. The street descended into what had been turned into a brick square full of tables, potted trees, and a hulking bronze fountain of the Earth Dragon, its curving tail poised in the air behind it like a whip about to crack. Shoppers strolled around and occupied most of the tables while the scents of spiced lamb and fish drifted from a vendor’s tent.

  The clockmaker’s shop was easy to spot, thanks to a wood and copper tower clock built into the wall beside its front door.

  “It looks like it’s open.” Zenia waved to someone walking out. This was already more promising than Grindmor’s locked and abandoned shop.

  They walked around the fountain and through the front door. Ticks, tocks, and the bings of bells echoed from dozens of clocks in all manner of sizes.

  Jev led the way to a counter along one side where a boy of fifteen or sixteen used tiny tools to repair a pocket watch.

  The owner’s apprentice, Zenia assumed.

  “I’ll talk,” Jev murmured to her before stepping up to the counter and giving the spot where her dragon tear lay a significant look.

  Zenia nodded and stopped behind his shoulder. She didn’t like appearing like anyone’s assistant but reminded herself that this was about Cutter, Jev’s friend. Besides, she believed she could suss out truths easily enough even if she wasn’t the one doing the questioning.

  “Hello, friend. I’m Zyndar Jevlain Dharrow, here on the king’s business.”

  The boy, engrossed in his work, hadn’t noticed them approach, and he dropped his tools with a clatter.

  “Zyndar, sir,” he blurted. “The king?” He bowed clumsily, almost clunking his forehead on the counter.

  “Yes. Is your master or employer around?”

  “Mr. Horinth should be back in an hour, Zyndar.” The boy looked at Zenia. “And, er, Missus Zyndar? Zyndari.”

  “Captain Cham.” Zenia decided to be pleased the kid acknowledged her presence, rather than only talking to Jev, however fumbling his address was.

  “Captain?” The boy’s eyebrows disappeared under his scraggy bangs. “Are you with the watch? I didn’t—I mean, it’s been three years since I took that food. I work for Mr. Horinth now. I don’t thieve. Ever. I swear!”

  “Relax, boy,” Jev said. “What’s your name?”

  “Uhm.” The kid eyed Zenia warily. Thinking she would arrest him for the heinous crimes he’d committed as a twelve-year-old? “Sashan.”

  “We just want to ask a couple of questions, Sashan.” Jev made his tone soothing.

  Zenia wondered what it said about her that she was less good at soothing tones than he.

  “Were you working here four days ago?” Jev added.

  “All week. I’m learning how to repair watches and clocks. And I interact with customers when Mr. Horinth is doing deliveries. Oh! Do you want to hear about our specials? Those clocks near the window are ten percent discounted, and—”

  “No.” Jev lifted a hand. “Thank you. Four days ago, did you have a dwarf customer come in? He would have had a hook instead of a right hand.”

  The boy paused and glanced over his shoulder at what appeared to be a solid stone wall. Zenia didn’t see a door anywhere along it that would have suggested a back room.

  “I think so,” the boy told Jev, “but he didn’t talk to me. He met with another customer over there for a few minutes, and then they left.”

  Sashan had been nervous since they’d introduced themselves, but now, his anxiety grew more noticeable, both visibly, as he repeatedly wiped his hands on his trousers, and through the dragon tear. Zenia sensed his distress and that he was… if not lying, then not telling the whole truth. He was afraid to, she realized.

  “Neither of them purchased anything or spoke to you?” Jev asked.

  “No, they went outside. Left the shop. I wouldn’t have even remembered them, but dwarves don’t come into the shop often. They both left,” the boy repeated.

  Jev looked at Zenia. Even though she hadn’t alerted him of what she sensed, he must have also felt the boy wasn’t telling the whole truth.

  Zenia stepped closer to the counter. A feeling of eagerness emanated from her dragon tear, and it warmed against her skin.

  “Had you seen the person the dwarf met before?” she asked.

  “No,” Sashan blurted. A lie.

  “Was it a man or a woman?”

  “A man.” True.

  “And how often does he come in the shop?”

  “He doesn’t.” The boy shook his head vigorously. “I told you, ma’am—uhm, Captain. He was never here before.”

  Zenia knew the dragon tear wanted to sift through his mind—she felt like a handler with a dog on a leash, fighting to restrain it—but she didn’t want to use so much force on someone so young. She let a bare trickle of its mind-manipulation energy out. Enough, she hoped, to entice the boy to tell the truth.

  “What’s his name?” she asked firmly. “And how often does he come in the shop?”

  “Morash,” Sashan whispered, his eyes growing glazed as they locked onto hers.

  Zenia recognized the name—or nickname. It belonged to a higher-up in one of the city’s criminal guilds. Night Travelers, that was it. She hadn’t dealt with him in her previous investigations for the Water Order, but she knew most of the names of the top troublemakers. She was fairly certain he was second or third in charge after Digger.

  “He pays Mr. Horinth not to say anything,” Sashan said, “and I’m not supposed to say anything either. I’ll get in trouble.” An anguished expression leaked through the glazed look.

  “We won’t tell anyone you told us,” Jev said gently. “But we need to know the truth, especially if my friend Cutter was involved. We’re on a mission for the king.”

  The boy’s expression only grew more anguished.

  “What does Morash pay your master for?” Zenia asked, trying to make her tone as gentle as Jev’s. She had questioned children on occasion but felt more comfortable using her firm tone on adults.

  “Not to see him.”

  “See him doing what?”

  “Passing through. And I think he promised Mr. Horinth protection if he ever needs it.”

  “Passing through?” Jev looked pointedly around the shop carved into a cliff. The front wall, made from wood, was the only one with windows and a door. A visible door.

  Zenia looked at the stone wall behind Sashan, at the spot he’d glanced toward earlier.

  “On his way to and from.” The boy shrugged. “I don’t know where he goes. I was told not to ask.”

  Jev’s brow furrowed.

  Zenia directed her dragon tear to focus on the wall, silently willing it to explore, to let her know if it sensed anything back there.

  Right away, the image of a dark tunnel carved into the cliff came to mind. She envisioned the secret door hiding it opening, and the dragon tear hummed against her skin, a faint blue glow escaping through the front of her
dress.

  The boy noticed, and his eyes bugged out.

  A rumble came from the wall, and a door carved from the stone ground open. The boy yelped and ducked behind the counter.

  A dark tunnel exactly as the gem had shown Zenia stretched into the cliff.

  “Passing through,” Jev said. “Now I see. Where does it go?”

  Sashan shook his head, only his eyes above the counter. Genuine fear seeped into his voice as he whispered, “I don’t know. You can’t open it from this side. I never tried, but that’s what the man said.”

  Another image sprang into Zenia’s mind, this time of a scar-faced man gripping the boy by the collar and nearly yanking him from his feet as he growled a warning. If the boy ever went into the tunnel or told anyone about it, the man would skin him alive, then kill his sister and mother too.

  Indignation flared in Zenia’s chest, and she vowed to arrest Morash if they encountered him. After punching him repeatedly.

  “Did Cutter—the dwarf—go down the tunnel with this Morash?” Jev asked.

  “I don’t know,” Sashan said, but a memory rose to the surface along with the words, of Cutter following the scarred man into the tunnel and the door shutting behind them.

  Zenia nodded once at Jev.

  His jaw firmed in determination, and he moved around the counter and toward the tunnel.

  “I’ll get in trouble if he finds out I told,” the boy whispered.

  Jev paused in the entrance. “You didn’t tell. Captain Cham and her magical rock found out on their own.”

  The boy looked at the front of Zenia’s dress but only shook his head, tears welling in his eyes.

  “If anyone asks,” Jev added, “just say a zyndar made you tell. If anyone threatens you, you come see me at Dharrow Castle. If I’m not there, ask for my cousin Wyleria. She’ll take you in and give you Dharrow protection. You’ve got my word on it, all right?”

  “What about my sister and mum?”

  “They can come too. We’ll take care of them.”

  The boy hesitated, then nodded shakily.

  “Coming, my lady Captain?” Jev offered his arm to Zenia, as if he meant to escort her into a ballroom rather than a dingy tunnel with a damp mildew scent drifting out of it.

  “Of course.” Zenia looked toward the windows to make sure nobody was peering in to witness any of this—and possibly blame the boy—then joined Jev in the tunnel. Since Jev’s arm was still out in offering, she laid her hand on it, though she felt silly doing so.

  Sashan seemed slightly less distraught after Jev’s promise, but he made a point of picking up his tools and turning his back to them. Clearly not wanting anything to do with them.

  Zenia and Jev had only taken three steps into the tunnel when the door rumbled shut again of its own accord. Zenia glanced back uneasily as darkness fell over them. She didn’t think the dragon tear had done that.

  “Hm,” Jev said. “It’s possible I should have asked the kid for a couple of lanterns before striding into a dark tunnel.”

  Before Zenia could form a silent request, her dragon tear flared, its blue illumination shining through her dress. She pulled it out on its thong, letting it lie on top of the fabric. The light was sufficient to brighten the sides of the tunnel and more than ten feet ahead of them.

  “That’s handy.” Jev patted her hand, his calloused palm warm against her skin, and she grew aware of the firm muscles of his arm beneath her fingers. “Maybe I should let Targyon lend me a dragon tear.”

  “So you would never need a lantern again?”

  “Precisely.” He smiled and winked. “Think how useful that would be when going to the latrine in the middle of the night.”

  Zenia snorted. “You say the most romantic things when we’re alone together.”

  His smile grew lopsided, and he lowered his arm. She winced inwardly, realizing she shouldn’t allude to being romantic with him, however much a joke it had been.

  “If latrine talk isn’t to your tastes,” he said, “perhaps we can go back to discussing beard hair.”

  “Or we could see where this tunnel goes.”

  “Wise.”

  Jev stuck his hands in his pockets, and they walked down the passage, side-by-side but no longer with linked arms. Zenia wished she hadn’t made the joke and that her hand was still on his arm.

  She heard water running in the distance and made herself focus on the task at hand. They might run into trouble in here, especially if it turned out to be a back door into the Night Travelers’ lair. She wondered what had led Cutter to that guild. Had he wanted their assistance? Or had he suspected them of having Grindmor’s diamond tools?

  Zenia believed Iridium of the Fifth Dragon guild had originally taken them, but she had either moved them before Grindmor located them, or someone else had taken them. A rival guild?

  It was also possible Cutter had sought out the Night Travelers for information. They were known to be procurers of such as well as deliverers of messages—Zenia well remembered the Night Traveler agent who’d delivered a threat to her and Jev out at Nhole Castle. The guild also fielded assassins, though from what little Zenia knew of Cutter, she couldn’t imagine him hiring an assassin to deal with his problems. Dwarves, in general, were honorable and had independent streaks.

  “Even floor,” Jev said as they continued, the water growing louder. “Definitely carved by man. Or dwarf, I suppose.” He moved to one of the walls. They were as smooth as the floor and ceiling, the whole tunnel having a circular shape. “A dwarf with a giant steam-powered tunnel-boring machine, perhaps?”

  “Such as Master Grindmor used to get us out of Iridium’s lair?”

  “Maybe. I suppose she could have been responsible for this, but why would she be working with the Night Travelers? She seemed coerced into working with Iridium and only because she wanted a lead on her tools.” Jev started walking again but dragged his fingers along the wall, then rubbed them together and held them closer to Zenia’s light. “I’m trying to tell if there’s dust on the walls. It’s hard to gauge if a tunnel is a week old or a hundred years old.”

  “I don’t think dust collects on vertical surfaces.” Zenia waved at the ceiling. “You would expect rock to settle over time, though, and cracks to appear, the occasional bit of rubble to fall. This is still seamless.”

  Jev nodded. “It’s surprising how many tunnels are under the city that I had no idea about. You wouldn’t think you’d find so many, if only because Korvann is right on the ocean. Wouldn’t tunnels below sea level naturally fill with water? If they weren’t pumped out regularly?”

  “I think so, but only the half mile around the docks is truly that low. The Air and Earth quarters are well up the ridge toward the castle. I’m sure we’re a couple hundred feet above the water here. Iridium’s tunnels would have been too. They were…” Zenia paused, attempting to imagine a map of the city in her head. “We may not be far from them, actually. I don’t know where the outer borders were, but I got the impression her hideout was large.”

  “It is.”

  He sounded certain. Zenia looked curiously at him. She didn’t think he had seen more of it than she had. Unless he’d been back since the night they had been kidnapped.

  “Lornysh was helping Cutter fill in a map the other day,” Jev explained. “I didn’t look that closely—now, I wish I had—but the tunnels were extensive. I suppose they didn’t all belong to her guild, but I don’t know.”

  “How did Lornysh know so much about them?”

  As they continued forward, Zenia imagined Iridium adding notches to her bedpost that signified elven lovers.

  “I don’t know exactly, but he mentioned having to find hidden ways to navigate the city,” Jev said. “People find him suspicious for walking around in late spring with a cloak and a raised hood.”

  “What’s keeping him here?”

  The walls grew green with a mildew carpet as the water noise increased. The dragon tear’s blue light didn’t flatter t
he fuzzy growth, and Zenia wrinkled her nose at its pungent scent.

  “I’m not entirely sure,” Jev said. “I’d say it was my charisma and innate appeal, but I’ve been so busy that we haven’t done much together. I barely knew—he was the one to tell me Cutter is missing.”

  “Oh? And is he above suspicion?”

  “Yes,” Jev said firmly and without hesitation.

  Zenia eyed him but didn’t argue. Jev knew the elf a lot better than she did, though she couldn’t help but wonder why Lornysh had sided with the kingdom army against his own people.

  “Is that a pond? Or a river?” Jev pointed ahead, toward the edge of the gem’s influence.

  “Both?”

  The tunnel they followed led straight to a stony bank with a pool blocking their route, water tumbling into it from a fall at one end. It must have exited underwater through some hole on the far side. The area appeared more natural than the drilled tunnel, with limestone walls and jagged boulders jumbled around the pool.

  “This must be the Little Jade River,” Jev said. “It goes underground a couple of miles outside of the city, and I’d heard that it empties into the Jade just before it reaches the sea.”

  “The tunnel doesn’t go on.” Zenia pointed to the lumpy rock wall opposite the pool from them.

  “That’s surprising. If this Morash passes through that clock shop regularly, there must be a through to pass to. This is a lovely spot, but I can’t believe he comes here to meditate.”

  Zenia spotted a brown cylinder on the ground between two rocks and reached for it. It turned out to be the remains of a cigar. “How about to smoke?”

  “You think his wife kicks him out of the house and he has to come here to do that? Do members of criminal organizations have wives and houses?”

  “If he’s like Teitor the Trafficker, whom I helped arrest a year ago, he could have wives and houses in multiple kingdoms.”

  “That sounds like a lot of work.” Jev leaned out of the tunnel to peer to either side of it.

  There wasn’t a path, but he stepped into the pool and headed toward the waterfall. It wasn’t that shallow, even along the stone wall.