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19

There was a time when I loved pistachio ice cream.

It was always my mom’s favorite flavor, so every summer we’d have plenty of it around the house. I grew to favor it over even chocolate.

Sacrilege, I know.

But sitting on the back porch on a warm summer evening, eating pistachio ice cream and finding interesting shapes in the shadows of neighborhood trees, that was one of my favorite childhood memories. I used to sit back there with my friends Sean and Darrel and make up stories about the shapes we saw.

Sometimes we even saw strange lights in the sky. We kids were convinced we’d seen UFOs, though my parents always explained those lights away with the most mundane excuses.

Of course, knowing what I know now, I realize we might well have seen UFOs. Or at least, I might have, and made Sean and Darrel see them once I pointed them out.

All those happy memories, all tied to the taste of pistachio ice cream.

And all of them, ruined by a little alchemical concoction called Bruisebane.

Looked like some kind of nutmeg paste, but it smelled like pistachios. And worse than that, when it was rubbed into cuts and bruises, I got the taste of pistachio ice cream on my tongue.

All of that might have been fine.

But Bruisebane hurt like hell.

Vasco and I stood there on the northern tip of Toe Island. Cool river spray on the breeze. Boats darting here and there along the Willamette, though no one paid us any special attention.

That had to do with something Vasco had done. I didn’t catch just what. But there was enough of a supernatural kick to it that most folks would turn away from us.

I think he did it because there was no way we wouldn’t stand out now. Two men and a beagle, standing on a rock in the river, with no boat to have gotten them there?

Plus, Vasco and I both had to strip down to apply the Bruisebane to ourselves.

Two men in their undies, on that rock in the river? No way anyone would miss it. Especially since we didn’t even have pre-dawn gloom to help us now.

The sun was fully up, but its warmth just made the chill of the river spray more noticeable. Or maybe it was just that I was more aware of my skin. I was covered in cuts and bruises, from getting slammed around the entryway and then the tunnel leading into the dorach community.

My nice twilight blue silk, torn in at least a dozen places, and still covered in a residue of slimy lichen. My blue jeans had fared better, but even they were torn in a couple of spots, and just as covered in lichen residue.

Both my shirt and jeans were dry, at least, but there wasn’t a dry cleaner in the world who could get that much lichen out of silk. Not to mention the numerous tears.

But all of that was only in the back of my mind. In the front of my mind were all the cuts and bruises I’d sustained while my clothes were getting damaged.

Now that I’d had a few minutes of rest on that rock, all those little wounds had started stiffening up.

This was why the Bruisebane was so important. I had to be healed now. I had to be ready to jump back into the river and go after Brikatika, and I mean ASAP.

I kept telling myself that as I applied the horrible stuff.

How to describe it…

Everywhere I applied the Bruisebane, it felt as though the cut or bruise was being pulled slowly out of my body.

Yes, healthy flesh was left behind. But the pulling process was excruciating.

I’d like to think I didn’t make any sounds less manly than a growl through gritted teeth.

In my more honest moments, I’m fully aware that growls can rarely be confused with whimpers.

By the time I was done, my whole body was ringing. Trembling. I felt healthy and strong, but the sudden absence of all that pain jarred me. Left me standing there, shaking my head. Trying to get the taste of pistachio ice cream off my tongue.

And I wasn’t going to have any luck on that score. That taste lingered.

Finally, the shaking diminished. The ringing sensation too.

Finally I could hear something more than the sound of my own rushing blood. Feel more than the pounding of my heart.

Yes, all the hair on my head — and everywhere else on my body — was matted down with sweat. But I was ready to go.

Except for one thing.

“Mind putting your clothes back on?” I tried to ignore the humor in Vasco’s voice as I turned to the…

…pile of clothes? I was pretty sure I’d torn off my jeans and silk shirt at speed, eager to get the Bruisebane experience over with. And yet, they were folded neater than I’d do myself after taking them out of the laundry.

And the tears and rips were gone.

So was the lichen.

Even my shoes and socks looked pristine.

“Okay,” I said, as I stuffed my feet back into my pants. “How did you do that? Because there’s nothing in my arsenal coming to mind. And I’m pretty sure I had cause for any relevant memories to surface.”

“You’re a Locksmith,” Vasco said, sounding thoroughly pleased with himself. “I’m the Lockmaster. My ring has a few more keys on it than yours.”

We both reflexively chuckled at the “keys” reference, while I dressed at record speed. I found a small double-sided container of Serpent’s Kiss and Bruisebane.

Clearly intended to be my emergency stash until I had a chance to make some of my own.

I turned around, and Vasco looked ready to go. Even had his wild gray hair tied back with a leather thong. Made the lines of his face more visible, but it made him look less homeless and more badass. Like he was an original member of the Navy’s WWII Underwater Demolition Team.

Except, of course, he was way too old for that.

He also didn’t look as sweaty and stressed out from the Bruisebane as I did, which was just not fair.

I’d never point it out though. Not after the age discussion we’d just had. And from the twinkle in his eye, he was expecting it. So I looked at Magellan instead.

Magellan, he looked eager to go too. Padding back and forth on the rock, with his nose turned north and an impatient little whine coming out of him.

“So,” I said. “How do we do this?”

“With a speed boost, of course.”

Speed boost. Those two words hit me like a thunderbolt. And just like that, the memory of what that was and how it worked leapt back into my head.

The power word was tachytita. The gesture was a slap to both heels.

And after I did that, I could outrun the wind and outswim damn near anything.

Vasco used a similar technique to include Magellan, but I didn’t recognize it. Either it was a Lockmaster thing, or it was need-to-know, and I didn’t.

I didn’t care though. The chase was what mattered.

I repeated the underwater freedom spell — skill, whatever — and I was good to go.

Just like that, we were off.

Magellan hit the water first, followed by Vasco and myself, just behind him.

Magellan went deep, right down along the floor of the riverbed. Vasco and I flanked him, just behind his tail.

And we tore through that water at speeds that would have made a jet ski jealous.

I’d expected us to kick up tons of river mud into silt behind us, clouding our passage. But we weren’t. Just an aspect of the speed boost, or so it seemed.

Not that I could ask Vasco. After all, I had no more voice now than I did the last two times I’d used the underwater freedom spell.

We outswam fish. We outswam boats. We outswam even the fastest of the lizardfolk sharing the river with us.

Vasco’s duffel bag didn’t seem to slow him in the least.

And Magellan, he seemed to know right where he was going. He swept us back and forth across the riverbed. Up at times, down at times, and every movement likely to mirror exactly the movements that Brikatika had done only a few minutes before.

Exactly how long before? That I wasn’t sure, but I knew a quarter hour hadn’t passed.

At this speed, the river felt less like water than gelatin, except that it was gelatin that responded to us. Every kick of my feet, every sweep of my hands, the gelatinous water just flew behind me.

I found myself wondering just how far Brikatika could have gotten. But just as the question occurred to me, Magellan slowed down. Then he circled in the water.

We were somewhere along the Multnomah Channel by now. I didn’t know the area well enough to know just where, but I did know a full minute hadn’t passed since we went through the ward that would have kept out riskatani.

The river was narrower here, but a little deeper. And by now, the fish, eels, spirits and lizardfolk were giving us a wide berth.

Vasco’s full attention was on Magellan. Magellan wasn’t barking, but I felt sure he was communicating with Vasco through a series of tail lashes and ear flicks.

Finally, Vasco nodded. Turned to me. Pointed at his eyes with two fingers, then pointed down with one.

I nodded. Expanded my awareness, and swept it down along the riverbed.

Didn’t take long. Under the river mud, I could sense a particular rock that had been worked over with energies. No wider than my arm was long, this rock. It was round, and had veins of copper running through it, which meant that it wasn’t part of the usual river rocks.

Far as I knew, no one was mining copper in the Willamette.

The web of energies in that rock were tied into something below it.

No. That’s not right. Something … inside it. There was a sense of depth to that rock, that had fooled me for a moment.

I turned a puzzled expression on Vasco, but he only firmed his mouth and nodded.

I shrugged.

That was where we were going then.

It wasn’t a portal. Not properly speaking. And it wasn’t anything that was supposed to be there. It was…

A smile lit me from the inside.

I grabbed Vasco by the shoulder.

Got a puzzled frown for my trouble. I mimed hefting the rock, then pointed back upwards toward the shoreline. After all, it wasn’t more than a couple of feet across. And we were underwater. That would help make it more mobile. Or would, at least, once we got it going.

Vasco shook his head.

I nodded firmly and repeated the gesture.

Vasco sighed, but nodded. He waved a hand for me to proceed.

I swam down to the rock, Vasco by my side and Magellan circling us.

I grabbed one edge of the rock. Vasco shook his head, but grabbed the other.

We heaved. Our shoes sank into the riverbed until they hit more rock below.

The rock didn’t budge.

Vasco gave me a very clear satisfied? look. I frowned, but nodded.

Together we went over the energies, checking for threats.

I found an explosive trigger. It felt like a hot piece of wire. Disarming it meant unwinding it, slowly, from its anchors into the copper of the rock.

Took a few minutes, but I got it done. While I did, Vasco undid a couple of other traps I didn’t have time to check out.

I ran through all my senses, and realized I could hear a separate trap. A faint electric buzzing, that I had to counter by focusing on the pitch. Digging into the tone of it.

Then I shifted it up a fifth and it dispersed with the current.

Finally, I nodded at Vasco. I didn’t notice anything else, so I figured we were good to go.

Vasco shook his head. Nodded to Magellan.

Magellan swam in close. Sniffed all over.

Pointed with his nose at a spot near the center, and stayed fixed in that position, adjusting his point as necessary against the current of the river.

Me, I was still just as impressed that Vasco could dogpaddle in place under the surface of a river. But then, the underwater freedom spell probably helped with that.

I focused in more intently on the spot Magellan picked out.

Strained my senses.

Sure enough. Something.

I could barely pick out the smell over the pistachio still coating my tongue, but there was a hint of brass polish.

Once I could smell it, I could see it.

The trigger looked like a tiny splinter of energy the color of tarnished copper. Placed right at the spot where I would have to touch it, if I used Locksmith skills to open the passage leading inside.

Unnoticed, it would have hit me with enough explosive power to scatter parts of me all the way to Newport.

Noticed, the splinter required patience and a steady hand to extract. Fortunately, training had given me both.

Then I opened the passage into the rock, and in I went, Vasco and Magellan right behind me.

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