2012-08-In the Event of My Untimely Demise Read Online Free Page A

said.
    Luma peered into the twilight. There was no immediate sign of Rieslan now. Lamplight issued from an open window facing the debris wall.
    “He’s either gone in,” Ontor whispered, “or gone entirely. But someone must be in there.” He wasn’t so much stating the obvious as asking: do we go in and see?
    In reply, Luma nodded. Hunching, the two of them covered the distance to the wall, and then to the side of the house.
    Luma let in the citysong, hearing the whispers and shushes of the billowing fog. Cozened by her spell, it pooled around them, its protective mantle blending naturally with the mist flowing through the neighborhood. They could see into the house, while anyone looking out would see only swirling vapor.
    Inside Luma saw two familiar individuals, and two unfamiliar.
    Jordyar sat atop a wooden table, picking at his rotting teeth with his fingers. Rieslan slumped in a chair, shoved in a corner. Ropes bound his waist, arms, and ankles. Wet blood reddened his goatee. His divine charm, with its rat and raft motif, swung from a rafter, a good twenty feet away. Without it, Luma knew, he wouldn’t be able to shape his appeals to the realms beyond, and would receive no magic from his god.
    A second, much younger man was also tied to a chair, this one positioned in the center of the room. Muscular and tanned, he would have been handsome, prior to the beating he’d taken. His face swelled and purpled; scorched holes in his tunic revealed burned skin beneath. Still conscious, the man seemed to be willing himself to pass out, and failing at it.
    Over him stood a creased, leathery man dressed in a suede robe dotted with turquoise and agate beads. He wore a vest with no shirt beneath it, showing off the puffy muscles of a fit but elderly man. Greasy black hair hung straight from his scalp down to his shoulders. A long mustache drooped from his upper lip to his protruding clavicles.
    He grunted at Jordyar, who approached him carrying a poker, which he held out at arm’s length with the aid of his thick hide glove. The mustached man spoke arcane syllables, evoking a cone-shape blast of flame, which flew from his fingertips to the poker. The poker’s iron tip glowed red.
    “Please,” the prisoner sobbed. “I’m begging you.”
    Jordyar hefted the red-hot poker. “You’re doing to this yourself, Gaval.”
    Gaval shuddered. “I can’t tell you anything about it. Seriza never mentioned such a thing! And Aruhal—I barely spoke a hundred words to him my entire life. I’m just an apothecary.”
    Jordyar’s partner—who had to be the sorcerer, Naphrax—turned to the terrified young man in the chair. “Tell us,” he said.
    The dwarf advanced with the poker.
    “Tell us,” repeated Naphrax.

Chapter Four: Reckoning
    “Need I remind you?” Naphrax asked his prisoner.
    Tears further wet Gaval’s bloodied cheeks. “Of what?”
    “Of what we know.”
    “You’re wrong.”
    Jordyar jabbed the poker in Gaval’s face. “You’ve replaced Aruhal in his comely wife’s bed, haven’t you?”
    Gaval held his chin up. “I love Seriza, and Seriza loves me. That doesn’t mean I’ve heard of this treasure.”
    “She spoke nothing of it?” Naphrax snorted.
    Outrage stirred Gaval from his agonized stupor. “She and Aruhal had nothing. She’ll be better off with my takings, humble as they are!”
    “Liar,” Naphrax spat.
    Holding the poker out of sight behind him, the dwarf sidled up to Gaval, grimacing out a rotten-toothed smile. “What Aruhal did to us is not your fault, boy. But by standing in our way, feeding us ridiculous untruths, it becomes your fault. Don’t you see that?”
    “How many times do I have to tell you?”
    “If you won’t spill,” Naphrax said, “we’ll take the woman, and do the same to her.”
    Jordyar pressed the glowing poker to the prisoner’s leg. Gaval screamed, the smoke of burning fabric giving way to the steam of blackening flesh.
    At the window, Ontor looked to Luma,