2012-12-Thieves Vinegar by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: por
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Four: The Hall of Whispers

You might think that watching cultists devour a corpse would be the most horrible sight one could witness.

You’d be wrong.

The most horrible sight is watching those cultists throwing the corpse back up while a vampire vomits. This latter is particularly bad when you remember who the priestess seated me opposite. If I ever hear a bard say the words “bathed in blood” again, I swear I’ll kick him.

I wanted to kick my brother, but he’d saved us. While the cultists dealt with their unexpected illness, he’d located a secret side door and unlocked it with a mithral chime, then bustled us through. When the door was safely latched behind us again, he began to explain about harmonics and sympathetic vibrations, but I really didn’t care. I was covered with the blood of Zharmides the Godless while Norret didn’t have a speck on him. He’d been standing safely out of range, painting the portrait.

Norret was actually quite pleased with how it had turned out, and I had to admit that it was well done, assuming one likes portraits of cultists slicing up dead naked wizards. I was in the back, holding the unicorn horn spoon in one hand and the vampire’s lavalier in the other. Rhodel was there as well, holding Zharmides’ damned snuffbox with the lions and lilies, like a treasure chest for a pixie pirate queen.

Norret was happy that he’d found such a good use for the canvas, while I was upset because Urgathoa’s pepper mill was still amethyst even though Rhodel wasn’t touching it.

“Hmm, interesting.” Norret took it, holding it by the chain as it went white. He touched it with his bare fingers, watching it change to rose quartz.

He handed it back. While it was pink for a moment, it swiftly purpled. “But I’m not undead!”

“Probably another false positive,” Norret speculated. “It may test for some other property. Perhaps Urgathoa’s approval.”

I was about to protest that I didn’t know why Urgathoa, goddess of sickness and escaping your grave, might approve of me, but I bit my tongue. Plus I’d just had a vampire get sick all over me. “What was in that vial?”

“Syrup of ipecac,” Norret replied, “a powerful emetic. It’s made from the root of the ipecacuanha plant. Didn’t I tell you?”

He hadn’t, nor had he told me we’d be traveling through Korvosa’s sewers.

He was still holding the map he’d purchased before, tracing imaginary lines on it as we made turn after turn through the stinking—but admittedly rather spacious—tunnels beneath the streets. I didn’t like to think about why folks would need to build them so large.

Norret was mumbling to himself, counting his paces. Each time I started to breach the silence, he waved my questions away, lest I interrupt his rapidly expanding total. At last he said, “If we went left there, then we should be under it right about…”

We turned a corner, and found a wall with an unmarked iron door set into it.

“Perfect!” Norret said. He opened his box labeled Hessim, Newby, & Sage Paint Manufactory’s Complete Pigment Panoply.

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