Chapter 24.3: Unintended Cargo

The woman showed surprising strength as she lugged an unconscious asura through the backstreets of Rurikton and into the deep shade of the Kormir Low Road. Minkus ran along behind her, glancing repeatedly in all directions. For all his nervousness, though, what should have been a noteworthy sight drew only the attention of a few passersby, some of whom frowned at the situation and carried on their ways. The majority simply walked on.

When they reached the Kormir Road, Penny rounded one of the massive buttresses that held the upper road above them and quickly lowered Wepp’s floppy form into a darkened corner. Minkus slid to a stop close on her heels.

“Penny, did you see that?” Minkus asked, catching his breath in a few quick inhales.

Penny wasn’t as quick to recover. “What?” she asked through subsiding pants. “See what?”

“All those people,” he mused, peering around the thick wall at the citizens of Divinity's Reach still weaving this way and that through the streets. “They just— passed by. You carried an unconscious person on your shoulder, and they just passed by. Most of them— most didn't even notice.”

Penny's gaze remained on Wepp, folded over in the shadow of the upper road. “Yeah, Biggie, welcome to the world. That's how people are. They’ve got crap to deal with; we’ve got crap to deal with. Now, how do we deal with ours? He's bound to wake up eventually.”

“I hope so,” Minkus replied, refocusing on their current situation.

With no stalls, shops, or vendors beneath the Kormir High Road, the long and hollow low road lacked the clamor of some of the others around the city, as well as the sound absorption provided by wood and cloth and wares. What noise did come from footfalls, passing chatter, and the occasional screaming child echoed up and down the stone corridor, filling the long, hollow space.

Minkus tuned out the noise and quietly knelt beside the slumbering asura, pressing a hand against his chest. There was a sense of fear there. It was heavily subdued by sleep, but little else was amiss. He slid his hand up to Wepp’s head and then back down to his belly.

“Nothing is wrong with him,” Minkus diagnosed, looking up at Penny with a shrug. “I guess he just thinks you're very scary.”

“Good,” Penny grunted. “I am.” She crossed her arms, looking around them once more. “So, is he going to wake up soon?”

Minkus shrugged. “I— don’t know. I hope so.”

Scowling, Penny bent down closer to the face of the sleeping asura. “Hey!” she nearly yelled. “Get up!” Nothing happened. “Hey, jerk!” she tried again. Still nothing. Penny turned and shrugged at Minkus.

The clatter of armored plates interrupted them, and both looked up to see a seraph guardsman pass into the low road two arches farther up into the city. Penny gripped Minkus’ shoulders, nearly flinging him as she spun, and dropped him on his rear beside Wepp. Gesticulating for emphasis, she began to tell the two asura all about an invention she'd been toying with an idea for, but Minkus couldn't really follow the specifics. The city guard glanced their way, nodded a greeting, and passed on through into Rurikton.

It was once again just the three of them. With a deep exhale, Penny shook her head. “Damn crows. They're the last thing we want. What we really need is to get Baldy here somewhere quieter.”

“Somewhere quieter?” Minkus asked, crawling to his feet and brushing himself off. He looked back down at Wepp, whose head still lay limply to the side. “Are we— what are we—?”

Before he could finish, she continued her thoughts aloud, fidgeting with a lock of hair and pacing. “We still haven't gotten our answers. If he wakes up here, there’s no way in hell he's going to tell us what we want.” Her eyes darted around the dark corridor, from one sunlit archway to the next. All at once, she snapped a finger, nodded up the road toward the city's center, and spun around to hoist Wepp’s body back up to her shoulder. “The inn, Biggie. We have to get him to that gods-ugly inn. You said they let you drag me in drunk off my ass, right? No questions, no problems?”

Minkus nodded uncertainly.

“Good,” she said. Despite the weight, Penny wore an expression of unearned confidence. “We can get all our information there.”

“And then?” Minkus asked, unable to hide the awkwardness in his voice.

“And then we let him go with a threat to keep quiet, we leave the inn, and we find Eddie,” Penny huffed, wiping her forehead. She suddenly looked down at her coat. “Gods, this thing is hot. Why in Torment am I carrying that lump all over town still wearing—”

Minkus watched the light come on behind her eyes. She lowered Wepp back to the ground, rapidly stripped off her coat, and took to wrapping it around her captive. Inch by inch, the asura disappeared inside the long, leather garment now folded around his body, under his feet, and over his head.

Penny hoisted the load back up to her shoulder. “See?” she said too proudly. “As good as gone.”

Minkus looked at the body in a coat, which seemed to him to look just like a body in a coat, and he shrugged. “This feels like a bad idea, Penny.”

She grimaced at him. “Do you have a better one? You wanted to find Eddie, right?”

“Yes,” Minkus nodded. “But he said he didn’t know where Eddie was.”

“Of course he said that,” she huffed. “He was lying.”

“I don’t think—”

She cut him off. “Unless you have a better plan, we’re stuck with this one.” Hearing no objection, she nodded and turned to leave out the archway opposite the one they’d entered. “Good. Now we just— oh, gods.”

“What?” Minkus asked, darting around her to see what was on the other side. He scanned the plaza: a circle of two-story storefronts and residences ringed a large event tent and some enormous contraption covered in brass horns. People scurried around the thing, preparing it for whatever it was meant to do.

“They’re setting up that damn circus again.”

Minkus scratched his head. “Is that bad?”

“It’s not good,” she replied, scanning the path ahead with a frown. “Circus people stop you for everything. ‘Try the shooting gallery.’ ‘Do you like good music?’ ‘We have caramel apples here!’ Gods, they’re the worst. It’ll be a nightmare getting through that maze of crazies selling their shit.”

“We could go through the middle city,” Minkus offered, pointing up the ramped corridor that ran steeply toward the elevated walkway running between the districts and the upper city. He grinned. “It might even be a shorter walk.”

“I’m not climbing that hill with this chunk on my shoulder,” Penny said flatly.

“I can do it,” Minkus said with a shrug. He gestured for Penny to slide Wepp off her shoulder and onto his.

She took another look at the path before them through the circus and sighed. Shaking her head, she obliged, lowering the sleeping asura onto Minkus’ awaiting shoulders. “And how exactly do you anticipate—“

“Magic, Penny,” he interrupted.

Penny groaned, rolling her eyes. “Right. Magic. I better not find an invisible wall keeping me out at the top.”

“You won’t,” Minkus replied, with a grin slowly parting his lips. “Probably.”

Penny blinked at him. “Was that a joke?”

Minkus nodded excitedly.

Penny shook her head. “OK, funny man, let’s just get on with this before someone comes looking for this guy.”

Just like the city’s high roads, the low roads were big, in both width and length. It took Penny and Minkus the better part of an hour to tote Wepp’s unconscious, coated form up the corridor to the walkway that ringed the base of the inner city. Opening himself to healing mercy, Minkus let the flow of guardian magic run through him from his core to his extremities. It strengthened his legs for each step up the incline, sturdied his back under the weight, and bolstered his arms to support the person unwittingly dependent on him.

When they reached the top, they were more than halfway back to the Shining Inn. Minkus wasn’t entirely spent yet, but he handed Wepp up to Penny, who hoisted him to her shoulder once more and quickly reached into the coat to check his wrist for a pulse.

“Well,” she said, loud enough for anyone around them to hear. “Still not dead.” Strangely to Minkus, either no one else heard her, or no one cared.

“Penny,” Minkus asked, resting hands on his knees and catching a breath. “Are you sure you didn’t—”

“For the last time, Biggie, no, I didn’t actually hit him. I didn’t even swing. The little freak just fell over at the sight of my hand.”

Minkus squished his face. It seemed odd that it could take so little to knock someone out for so long. Not that he knew much about being unconscious. He’d been knocked out once, but it had taken a hammer-blow to the head to do it. He shrugged again and gave his neck a quick pop. Instead of looking ahead and continuing on, though, he was drawn by something he saw from the corner of his eye. A door.

Rather, it was two doors: two large, wooden doors beautifully carved and set deep into the stonework at the very end of the Kormir Low Road. They gave him a slight pause before he recognized them. “Penny,” he burst, “it’s the Durmand Hall!”

“The what?” she asked, already stepping away.

Minkus repeated himself. “The Durmand Hall, Penny. The place where we did all that golemancy research, for— for your pack.”

“Oh, right. The tome club. That’s great, Biggie, real great. Now come on,” she huffed, still moving away. “Can I get some of that magic power? I can’t keep this load on my shoulders forever.”

Minkus stumbled on behind her, still looking back over his shoulder at the hall. He thought for a moment about the librarian who’d greeted and chatted with him each day, while he’d opened Zinn’s lost tome and copied pages and whole chapters of text. My ears, Minkus thought, remembering what seemed so long past, I read the work of Zinn. It really was amazing, even now, and he’d completely forgotten to tell Jinkke about it.

Almost a season ago he’d found it, a tome most asura believed was burned and gone—it should have been, just like the rest of Zinn’s work. But the Durmand Priory had kept this one, sitting right there in a hall in Divinity’s Reach. He’d felt so fortunate to find it and to remember his glyphs well enough to be able to read and copy at least most of it for Penny as she worked on her pet smartpack project. Amid all that had happened on their subsequent journey, though, he really hadn’t thought about it.

Now that he was thinking about it, though, something started to nag at him: a hazy thought, undefined and unimpressive but pestering, itching at the back of his mind. Minkus pursed his lips, thinking harder, or at least trying to. There were thoughts in his head trying desperately to connect, and were he anyone else, he was sure they would have. He wished Jinkke were there.

“Biggie!” Penny called back at him.

He snapped his head around in her direction, quickly realizing he was still plodding a slow course to the Western Commons behind her, but he was getting farther and farther away with each slow step. He looked back at the Durmand Hall one last time and scratched his head.

“Biggie,” the woman repeated, many yards ahead now, “come on already! This guy is heavy.”

“Yes, I— I’m coming,” he called, and he ran to catch up.