Blood of the Underworld(96)

“That’s better, but still not cheap, nor easy. Do you have anything of hers?”

In answer, Thren tossed the silver and gold he’d taken from Alan’s body, then put the strand of hair atop it.

“That’s for the cost, and that’s for the spell,” Thren explained. “Just a location.”

Cregon pocketed the coins, then grabbed the hair. He frowned at it as he wrapped it twice around his beefy hand.

“Not a lot to go on,” he said. “But I think I can manage. This person important to you in some way?”

Thren chuckled.

“You might say that. I want her dead, but to do that, I need to find her.”

Cregon nodded, the movement shaking his fat jowls.

“Of course, of course. Just wait a moment. I’ll see what I can do.”

He put his hands over the hair, closed his eyes, and began murmuring the spidery words of magic. Thren waited, wise enough to not interrupt such an incantation. A soft light surrounded Cregon’s fingers, and then it plunged into the hair. It shimmered yellow, then faded. Cregon frowned.

“What is it?” Thren asked.

“I found her,” he said. “But it’s somewhere dark. Not a building...I don’t know. It’s outside the city, though, not far from the wall.”

“Not good enough, Cregon. I need to know where to look.”

“I’m telling you! It’s just beyond the west wall, little bit off the road into the city. I can’t tell you how to get there when there is nothing. Maybe it’s a camp...”

Thren stood, and his hand fell to the hilt of a shortsword.

“Can you find the way?” he asked. Cregon’s eyes widened, and he nodded. “Good. Then close up shop. You’re leading me there.”

Cregon locked the door to the shop, pocketed the key, and then hurried off. Thren followed, lurking a few feet behind him.

“Pick up the pace,” Thren told him, rolling his eyes. The man looked like a pregnant sow trying to waddle on two legs. “I don’t want this Widow to move before we get there.”

“The Widow?” Cregon asked, glancing behind him. “That’s who we’re looking for?”

“It is. Now move.”

Cregon hurried faster, huffing and puffing as they made for the west gate. A few passing by recognized him and said hello, and the wizard tipped his hat in return. At the gate, the guards waved him on by without a word. Thren followed, looking much like the poor commoner and hardly earning a second glance.

“How far?” Thren asked as they traveled the road.

“Not far,” Cregon said, very much out of breath. “Not...” He swallowed. “Not far.”

Quarter mile from the city Cregon turned sharply off the path. Realizing where they traveled, Thren quietly drew his shortswords, thinking the wizard leading him into a trap. Cregon stopped just short, and he gestured before him.

“In there,” he said. “I’m sure of it.”

He’d taken them to a pauper’s graveyard, where the city guards buried the nameless dead without a single copper in their possession to earn them a gravestone or marker.

“This Widow is still alive,” Thren said. “You’ve made a mistake. You must have.”

“No mistake,” Cregon said. “I assure you, she must be here.”

Thren pointed a shortsword toward the graveyard.

“Then find her.”

Cregon held the fist with the hair to his lips, and he closed his eyes. After a few whispers, he opened them.

“Follow me.”

Near the far corner he stopped, and with his heel he made a small x.

“Right here,” he said.

Thren wanted to believe the wizard was lying to him, but he’d always been a coward, and the fear in his eyes was genuine. Surely he’d made a mistake, but Cregon appeared convinced otherwise.

“Go on back to your shop,” he said. “Leave me be.”

Cregon was more than happy to obey. When he trundled off, Thren remained, staring at the mark in the dirt. At last he returned to the city and swiped a trowel small enough to hide underneath his thin coat. Once more he walked to the graveyard, and without a care for time, began to dig. The day passed by, hour by hour, as he unearthed the grave. At last he hit bone, and then started digging around it. By the time the woman’s skull was revealed, the sun had begun to set. Exhausted, he sat back and viewed the results of his work.

The body was far from fresh, at least several years buried to his untrained eye. The dead woman still had her teeth, and her fingernails. As for her hair, though...

He broke the skull free and lifted it up to the waning light. All across the bare skull he saw tiny marks, scratches as if from a small blade.