Page 73 of The Book That Held Her Heart

Chapter 32

Evar

Evar had been surprised by the suddenness with which the need to urinate came over him. He’d been somewhat alarmed when realising that for the first time in his life there was no library corner to visit, not even a private spot in the loneliness of the Dust. The city people must obviously have a solution to the problem, but it wasn’t one he remembered reading about in any of the vast number of books he’d consumed. If the fog was still thick enough outside, then maybe…

His alarm grew dramatically when he pushed his chair back and stood from the table. “I’ve been poisoned!” The world spun around him.

“Relax.” Starval’s hand clamped around Evar’s wrist as he staggered back. “You’re just drunk.”

“Oh.” Evar steadied himself against the wall.

“I mean, technically itisa form of poisoning.”

“But it won’t make me sick?”

“I wouldn’t go that far, brother…”

Evar gazed out across the crowded tavern. “Where do I…”

“There’ll be somewhere out the back. Little huts, or just a trench. You’ll know,” Starval said.

Evar nodded, gathered himself, and started to forge a path.

“Don’t fall in!” Starval called after him.

Evar didn’t dignify that with an answer. He resolved instead to drinkno more ale. It was foul stuff. Or at least the first tankard had tasted pretty awful. The second had been all right. By the time he found the back door he decided that perhaps a third tankard would decide the matter.

Outside, the mists had thinned a little, but the sun was setting, dying a crimson death in a valley to the west, and overall the visibility had hardly improved. Someone stumbled out of the gloom, headed for the door Evar had just come out of.

“Excuse me…”

But the human male just grunted into his beard and bundled past.

“…where do I…”

Evar followed the building’s wall rather than forge out into the mist blind. Starval had mentioned the possibility of a trench, and with his balance knocked askew by the local poison of choice, Evar could see himself ending up in said trench, unless he exercised caution.

He came to a corner and continued his slow advance. The wall now had a top, low enough for Evar to stretch and grab, but studded with broken glass. He reached a door, paint peeling from greying wood as if diseased, pushed, and found it locked. “Privy.” He finally remembered one of the names for the places where nature’s call was answered. Was this the privy?

Evar knocked on the door. He could hear something on the other side, a kind of clattering, clomping noise, some heavy snorting. Not the sort of sounds he would have imagined issuing from a privy if he’d ever given the matter any thought. He looked up at the wall. Its poorly set blocks made it something Starval could scale in the blink of an eye, but Evar had never had the luxury of the Mechanism to teach him climbing skills. He spotted a missing block and dug his toes into the gap. Even with the stones wet and two ales in his belly he should be able to get far enough up the wall to check what was on the other side.

“Did you findit?” Starval raised a refilled tankard at Evar as he wove his way back through the crowded room to the table.

“I did.” Evar wrinkled his nose and slid in beside his brother. “You go straight out across the yard, and there are four huts. Don’t follow the wall. There’s a door but it’s locked. Don’t climb up—”

“Climb?” Starval took the ale back. “I think you’ve had enough, Evar.”

Evar lowered his voice to a whisper. “There’s something strange going on here…”

“I know,” Starval said.

“You know?”

“Secrets are my business. And that Oldo has at least one big one. You didn’t notice how he looked at us? He thinks we’re here for him. Spies. I’d put money on it. That, brother, is a guilty man. But it’s hardly our concern.”

“Does beer sneeze?” Evar hissed, scanning the tavern to see if anyone was trying to listen in.

“Only when you’ve had way way too much of it.”

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