Smuggler's Gold Read online

  "Hoop-wan," he called softly, and was rewarded with a ker-whick almost directly below. He eased himself over the edge of the roof, dangled blindly for a little until he got his legs around the pipe, then shin-nied silently down the drainpipe to the narrow ledge that ran around the edge of the island.

  "Ker-whick-ick," he chirped, struggling to hold his balance on the cold, slippery, slimy ledge, as he positioned himself with his back to the wall. Come high tide, this would be underwater, and it tended to collect unsavory stuff. He was having to hold to the drainpipe behind him with both hands; the ledge wasn't even wide enough to get his whole foot on it here.

  Ker-whick-a, came the answer, and the soft bump of a boat-nose against the ledge beside him, black blot against the reflective water. Denny squirmed about like a cat, grabbed the skip's nose with both hands and leapfrogged aboard her before Jones had a chance to say a word.

  He felt his way down off the nose, worked his way past the barrels occupying the slats of the bottom, and sat down on the worn boards of the half deck, knowing she knew he'd gotten aboard safely by the skip's movement. He heard and felt her heave with the pole, moving the skip into the current of Tidewater; there was a tense moment as they passed the bulk of Megary, but it stayed quiet, with hardly a light showing anywhere in the building. Then they were on past, down to Hafiz, where Jones had legitimate—well, sort of— business. A barrel delivery from Moghi, and not all of the barrels were empty. And, as per Denny's plans, this wasn't the first night she'd had him along on the skip to help, nor would it be the last.

  Make it look like business as usual, and that's what everybody is gonna figure, was another of Rat's maxims.

  When they finished this delivery, they'd head home by way of Hoh's. Denny would pass Rat her little tool under cover of buying her a drink, and that would be her signal to spread the word tonight along certain channels (that only she and Rif knew how to contact) that Megary was no longer as impregnable as Megary—or the Sword, who'd arranged for the new grillework and bars—thought....

  Denny grinned yet again as he picked the splinters from his climb out of his palms with his teeth. Figure as many as ten a' Rat's buddies hit 'em—Lord an' Ancestors—I damnsure wouldn't wanta be th' feller responsible fer them grilles! he thought, smugly.

  He heard Jones start to whistle through her teeth, and guessed she was thinking the same thing.

  Well, that was a little more off the tote board for what he and Raj owed to Jones and Tom. A good night's work, profitable for everybody—except Megary.

  "M'ser?" Raj whispered into the dark cavern under Nayab, a cavern accessible only by a hole in the foundations that faced Petrescu. He hadn't brought a light; he didn't intend to go crawling around down in the tumbled remains of what had been Nayab's bottom story before time and the tide and the settling of the building into the mud made the lowest level uninhabitable and the occupants had all moved one floor up.

  There was, thank the Angel, plenty of light from the windows and walkways above to let him see where he was going, and to show him the footing on the ledge that led to the hole.

  The fact was he really didn't want to be here at all.

  But for some reason that maybe only God knew, that strange, scarred man had followed him out of the swamp after saving himself and Denny from the Razorfin gang. And presumably for that same reason he had decided to set himself up as a kind of watchdog or bodyguard for the two of them. Raj felt a certain guilty responsibility for the man's well-being.

  So here he was, clinging to the ledge above the waterline, with a bundle and a message to deliver and only the maziest notion if the man was still in there.

  If he hadn't been so paranoid, he might never have noticed the stranger at all. But he was desperately afraid that his last escapade had drawn unwelcome attention to the entire Mondragon menage, attention that would have to include the Sword. And if anyone who ever knew Angela Takahashi got a good look at Raj—well, there'd be no doubt whose kid he was.

  So he'd been watching every shadow, and thinking out every footstep ever since—and he'd seen the man ghosting along, fifty feet behind and one level below as he went to work one morning. And no matter how he'd changed his course, there the man was. Then he'd watched from the dirty window of the Gallandry offices as the man shadowed Denny on his first run of the morning. At that point he was ready to rush out to attack the man himself out of sheer terror when he moved into and out of a patch of sunlight—

  It was at that point, when he got a brief but very good look at the man's scarred face, that he'd recognized him as the mysterious stranger who'd saved them.

  It was that very night that he saw the man slipping into the foundation-hole across the canal.

  And now when he watched carefully he could catch the stranger at his comings and goings—and very rarely, at trailing them. He thought that after a few days the man would get tired and go away—swampies weren't known for long attention spans. But he hadn't, and Raj realized that he was going to have to do some few things about the fact that he was there, and not about to give up on his self-appointed task.

  First—tell Tom, so that Mondragon didn't kill the stranger, thinking he was a threat. That was easiest done in the morning, before Mondragon was completely awake and thinking.

  Raj planned his approach carefully, waiting until Mondragon had gotten his first cup of tea and was starting his second before accosting him.

  "M'ser Tom," he said hesitantly, "there's something you should know."

  Before Tom could do more than look apprehensive, Raj had plowed onward. "That man I told you about? The one in the swamp? The one that helped me and Denny?"

  Mondragon nodded, slowly putting the mug down on the table and absently running a hand through his tangled golden mane.

  "He's here." Raj said shortly. "Hiding out at Nayab. I've seen him."

  Mondragon didn't move, much, but he went from sleepy and a little bored to startled awake, wary and alert. Raj continued before he had a chance to interrupt.

  "He's right across the canal, holed up in the foundation under Nayab," Raj said, words tumbling over each other as he tried to get them all out. "Please, m'ser Tom, I don't think he means any harm. I think he's guarding us, me and Denny; he's been following me to work, and I saw him following Denny on his runs. I think maybe he's trying to keep us safe. He's saved us once—I don't know why he did, I don't know why he's watching us, only—only please, m'ser Tom, —please don't kill him."

  Mondragon regarded Raj dubiously for a moment before replying. "You have strange choices in friends, boy," he said, his words falling like stones into the silence. He picked up his mug, and studied Raj over the rim of it.

  Raj hadn't the faintest notion how to reply to that, so, in keeping with his recent decision to keep his mouth shut when he didn't know what to say, he'd remained silent.

  "How sure are you of this—friend?" Mondragon had asked, when even he seemed to find the silence had gone on too long.

  Raj had to shake his head. "I'm not, m'ser. I told you, I don't know why he helped us in the first place, I don't know why he's here now. I thought maybe—he's a crazy, sort of, I thought he'd get tired and go away, but he hasn't. I don't know what to tell you, m'ser, —but I just don't think he means us anything but good."

  Tom relaxed back into his chair, a thought-crease between his brows. Raj remained patiently standing by the table, wishing with all his heart that he hadn't been such a great fool this winter as to destroy any trust Mondragon had in him.

  "I didn't know this watchdog of yours was even there, boy," Tom said at last, cradling his tea mug in both hands, as if taking warmth from it. "That argues for a—certain level of expertise. That is a very bad sign."

  "If he wanted us, he could'a had us a dozen times by now," Raj whispered humbly. "He could'a.had us in the swamp, and nobody the wiser."

  "True." Tom continued to brood over the tea. "There would be no point in his waiting that I can see. If he wanted to take you to use ag
ainst me he should have made his move by now. Which makes me think you might be right about him."

  Raj heaved a completely internal sigh of relief.

  "Now I can't for a moment imagine why this man should have decided to attach himself to you and your brother, but since he has, and since he seems to have some useful skills—" He paused, and raised one golden eyebrow significantly. "—and since he seems to have appointed himself as your bodyguard grans—"

  Raj flushed, and hung his head. He knew Mondragon was still desperately short of money, and he knew that the reason was that Tom had spent vast sums of money trying to find Raj when Mondragon and Jones had thought he was in trouble. Money that hadn't been his to spend. Kalugin money. Or Boregy, which amounted to the same thing.

  "—well, I am not inclined to look this particular gift horse in the mouth," Mondragon concluded. "But I hope he has the sense to realize that I am inclined to strike first and ask questions like 'friend or foe' afterward. And I want you to stay out of his reach after this."

  "Yes, m'ser Tom," Raj had stuttered, backing out of the kitchen hastily. "Thank you, m'ser Tom—"

  But here he was. Because he felt a responsibility to warn the man—and because he had come with something besides a warning.

  The canalers, ignoring Raj's vehement protests that he did not want to be paid for doctoring their kids, had taken to leaving things at Jones' skip or with Del. Things Raj had no earthly use for—a sweater, five sizes too big, laboriously knitted out of the tag ends of five different lots and colors of yarn, half a blanket, candle ends, a homemade oil stove of the kind used on skips, and more.

  Raj couldn't use it, and Jones couldn't sell or trade the stuff without going to a world of time and effort that she couldn't spare—but if the stranger had come out of the swamp, he was even poorer than the poorest canaler. These odds and ends could mean a great deal to him. So that was the thing Raj meant to do—see that the man was in some sort of comfort. He'd gotten a few pennybits doing some odd jobs on his day off—and those had gone for a bit of food for the man, flour and salt and oil, and a bit of dried salt fish, ad bundled in with the rest.

  "M'ser?" Raj called again into the darkness beneath Nayab, wondering if the man could hear him—or if he was even there. He turned away for a moment to look out uneasily over the canal behind him—

  "I'm no m'ser, boy," came a harsh whisper from beside him.

  Raj jumped and nearly fell in the canal. A long arm snaked out of the darkness and steadied him.

  "M-M-M'ser, I—" Raj stuttered.

  "I told you, boy," the ragged, battered stranger said, a little less harshly, as he emerged from the darkness of the foundation-cavern, "I'm no m'ser. Call me—Woffling."

  He waded back into the blackness under Nayab, knowing his way even in the pitch-dark, the stale water slimy around his ankles. His name had been Ruin, once—Ruin al-Banna, in a time he would rather have forgotten, a time when he was an agent of the Sword of God.

  That had been before Chance Magruder had sent him out onto the foul water of Dead Harbor on what Magruder surely had known was a suicide mission, a mission to frighten the citizens of Merovingen into apoplexy with a phony sharrh visitation. That "visitation" was to have been faked with crude, hastily-rigged fireworks set off from a rowboat—manned and managed by Ruin.

  Wolfling—once Ruin—felt his scarred Hp curling into a stiff and soundless snarl. Magruder had known those fireworks were faulty; he had to. He'd seen the opportunity to get rid of the last Romanov adherent in the Sword contingent sent to Merovingen in the guise of a trade mission, and he'd taken it.

  Then Jane, Lady Jane had intervened. Blessed Be.

  The Hand of Jane called Raven had found him, burned and drowning; he had rescued Ruin and nursed him back to health, and then showed him Her Light. Ruin al-Banna was reborn as Wolfling, Hand of Jane—

  And in a vision-quest Jane had shown him how to expiate all the sins he'd committed in the name of the Sword. All he had to do was guard the two sons of Angela Takahashi from Sword-spawned harm. And She had brought those two boys to him under circumstances that enabled him to begin that task. Circumstances that made them trust him.

  Dry gravel crunched under his feet. Wolfling took one of the precious matches the boy had given him, and lit the candle stub he'd taken out of the bundle. By the flickering light he surveyed the place that was now his home.

  He'd lived in worse. By some freak or other, the back end of the ruined bottom story was still above water and relatively dry, a kind of rubble-floored cave. You had to get at the dry part by wading through ankle-deep, stagnant water, but it wasn't bad, certainly not as bad as the swamp.

  Though it was no palace, either. Water condensed on the walls and ceiling above the sunken area, dripping down constantly, so that the air always smelled damp. And with stale canal water coming in with every tide, it often smelled of more than damp. But there were feral cats down here, which kept the place free of vermin. Ruin had always admired cats—Wolfling held them almost sacred, for cats, black cats in particular, were the special darlings of the Goddess Althea Jane Morgoth. There was a mama cat with a young litter laired up down here that Wolfling had begun luring in with patience and bits of food; he had hopes he could tame the young ones enough to stay with him.

  For the rest, he had a bed of sorts, made up of a couple of blankets and armfuls of dry weeds brought in from the swamp; certainly no one ventured down here, so anything he managed to acquire was safe.

  He didn't have much, although he'd augmented that little with the things he'd brought from the boy's hidey in the swamp. What young Rigel had given him tonight was very welcome. After pulling the new sweater over his chilled body, and examining each little prize with care, he began stowing it all away within reach of his pallet so that he'd be able to find the stuff if he needed it in the dark.

  He remade his bed to add the new coverings to the top and the rags the boy had brought as padding underneath; then Wolfling blew out the candle stub and lay back on the pallet, staring into the darkness, thinking.

  Thinking mostly about young Rigel. The boy's thoughtfulness and generosity had impressed him yet again. The kid was so unlike anyone Wolfling had ever known before; he was—kind, that was it. Compassionate in a way that Wolfling really didn't understand, and could only admire from a distance. The younger boy—that one he understood, but the older—never.

  Rigel's type was the sort he could appreciate, but never emulate.

  Well, I can't be like that, he thought somberly, but I can do what Jane put on me; I can help that boy survive to do some good. That ought to count for something.

  He settled himself a bit more comfortably, and thought about the warning the boy had delivered. That was something he hadn't thought of; he hadn't considered Tom Mondragon except as a fellow guardian.

  Better make sure not to ever let him get a look at me, he decided thoughtfully. Even as scarred up as 1 am, he might recognize me. And he won't be seein' Wolfling—he'll be seeing Ruin al-Banna. A threat. And I know damned well how Thomas Mondragon responds to threats.

  Then he grinned in the dark, his lips curling like stiff, old leather. No threats from me, Tommy Mondragon, we're on the same side this time. But Chance, —you bastard, you,—his grin turned into a feral snarl. Let's just see you try and get past Tom and me together, M'ser Chance Magruder. Let's just see you get at that boy through me. I might leave enough for Thomas Mondragon to play with, after.

  Raj had another mission tonight, besides that of dealing with the man who called himself "Wolfling." He'd had a suspicion for some time that there was something not quite right in the Gallandry books; today that suspicion had become a certainty. And it was something that might well be very valuable to one Thomas Mondragon. Maybe valuable enough to repay what Mondragon had spent for his sake.

  When he unlocked the front door and listened for signs of life in the apartment beyond, he heard footsteps in the kitchen; shod footsteps with certain lightness to them.
Only one of the four living in this apartment wore shoes on a regular basis; so Tom was home, and puttering about in the kitchen again. Well enough, Raj always preferred to accost him back there, it was a friendlier place (small, tiled in a cheerful yellow, and always warm) than the sitting room.

  He padded down the hall to the rear of the apartment and stood, quiet as you please, in the door of the kitchen, waiting for Tom to notice him. He'd been trying to imitate the wallpaper ever since the disaster of this winter, doing his level best to become invisible whenever he was in the apartment. He'd evidently gotten quite successful at it, for Mondragon got halfway through his bowl of soup before he noticed Raj standing there, twisting his cap nervously in his hands.

  "Raj, I almost didn't see you! Are you hungry? There's enough for you if—" He looked, then looked again, and frowned. "Have you got something on your mind?"

  "It's—something I think you ought to know, m'ser Tom," Raj replied quietly, edging into the cone of light cast by the oil-lamp above the table.

  "Lord, boy, don't tell me you've been writing poetry again," Mondragon groaned, putting bread and spoon down. "It's been a long day; I don't think I could handle another romantic crisis."

  "M'ser Tom," Raj blushed, but took heart at the ghost of good humor in Mondragon's eye. "No, m'ser, it's—there's something funny going on at Gallandrys."