Terror of the Shadow

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

The streets of Ura-chan were much more crowded now that the hunters didn't leave the city during the day. You could hardly get anywhere near the markets or the gardens without someone stepping on your toes or you stepping on someone else's in return. But that was good for Laban. Crowded meant that it would be easier for him to get around without being noticed.

He figured that what he was trying to do probably wasn't strictly illegal. That wasn't the reason that his nerves were hot and his palm was sweaty. No, he knew that he was a terrible liar. If anyone asked him what he was up to, he would quickly be found out. So, it was better to just keep his mouth shut.

There was a small structure situated near to the edge of town, situated close to the Library of the Elders on a street that rarely saw any traffic. It was made of stone, and all the windows had been boarded up. Laban had noticed groups of people, mostly the senior hunters and a few elders, occasionally wander in, stay for several hours behind the locked door, and then leave. Whatever it was that they talked about in there, they were obviously trying to keep a secret.

When Laban had asked Kol about it, he just shrugged his shoulders and said:

"Nothing important, brother."
"That's why they keep the windows boarded up and the door locked, then?" Laban replied.

Kol smirked.

"That's right," he said. "It's nothing you need concern yourself with, brother. Mostly we talk about boring things like making maps and navigation."

"Maps? You've made maps of the Outland?"

Kol shrugged again.

"A few. Most of them are not very good, though. But our new flying machine might be able to help with that. That's why we need to finish it soon."

Now it was finished. It had taken months to finally put everything together and several more to take it apart again and fix their mistakes, but now it was finished. Meshach had even taught Laban how to fly it. Or, at least he had taught him everything that he himself could learn from studying the machine's controls. Now it even had weapons, which was something that Aristarchus didn't know. Laban and Kol spent many sleepless nights secretly reinstalling the hypervelocity cannon and filling the bomb bay with explosives. The old man would never have approved, but they knew that it was necessary.

The bullet craft hadn't flown yet, but Aristarchus seemed confident that it would. He had set a date the following week for its maiden voyage. It would be a ceremony of sorts; the entire city was going to gather around to watch the first Malkuth flight in remembered history.

Laban knew that day might be too late. They could all be dead by then. Ithtar could come tomorrow morning. He could come tonight. His army might even be on its way right now. The time to act was now. The last thing he needed was a way to get where he was going: he needed a map.

The lonely street was completely vacant, as usual. The tiny, unassuming hut was nestled in the middle of a row of similar structures. But he knew which one it was.

Laban peered both ways down the street to make sure that no one was watching before casually waltzing across the road. He grabbed the door handle. Locked. He figured it would be. That was okay. There was another way in. There was an open window in the roof.

Laban crept into the alley beside the building, looking around for anything useful. A couple of half-rotted wooden crates would have to do.

He stacked the crates on top of each other, setting them against the wall of the building. He climbed on top. The old wood creaked and wobbled under his feet. He would have to move fast. They felt like they might crumble into dust at any moment. He reached high above his head and laid hold of the eaves of the roof. He steadied himself and jumped, pulling himself up with all the strength he could find. Though he couldn't use his left arm to grip anything, he used its extra strength to stabilize himself until he could pull the rest of his torso and then his legs up onto the roof. It wasn't the most stealthy or graceful maneuver, but it had done the trick. He was up.

Laban looked down into the open skylight cut into the roof; he couldn't see anything inside the building, besides the square of sandy floor illuminated by the sunlight streaming through the window. He lowered his legs through the hole and let himself drop, careful to bend his knees underneath him as he hit the floor.

He stood back up and wandered to the door. He undid the latch. If anyone found him here, he could at least try to cover up his guilt with a little white lie.

Laban's eyes slowly adjusted to the dark. He noticed several oil lanterns hanging from the ceiling, but he had nothing to light them with. There was a table situated at the center of the room. On top of it laid a wide, open scroll, covered in lots of squiggly lines and little symbols.

This must be the map that they had been talking about. A large dot was marked at the center of the page. That would be Ura-chan, Laban thought. It was surrounded by some strange marks made in blue ink. Some of them were connected to arrows that all pointed in different directions. A second large point was marked towards the top right corner, this one done in dark red. There were several other, smaller red dots scattered around the page, some of them very near to the mark that was Ura-chan.

"War'acks," Laban whispered softly to himself. The big one must have been Ithtar's cave. Laban couldn't read the symbols, but he figured the blue markings must represent Malkuth soldiers and the arrows their movements. This wasn't just a map—it was a battle plan.

Laban didn't have much time to memorize the topography surrounding the War'ack territory, but he made a quick mental note of the mountains and valleys immediately around the cave. The really important thing to figure out was the direction he needed to go.

Laban pulled a small compass out of his pocket and placed it on the table. He oriented the tiny needle towards the direction that indicated north on the map. Drawing an invisible line from the city towards the direction of the War'ack fortress, he counted the tiny tick-marks around the edge of the compass.

"Twenty-seven degrees east of north," he whispered, locking away that information in his mind. He slipped the compass back into his pocket.

The door suddenly flew open behind him. Laban's heart jumped into his throat. He spun around.

"What are you doing in here?" a man said, standing in the open doorway.

"The... the door was unlocked," Laban said.

"Okay," the man said. "I'll believe that. But I'm a little concerned that you think an unlocked door is just an invitation to come right on in."

"I'm sorry, sir," Laban said. "I thought it might be food storage... I was hungry."

Laban drooped his head, mostly so the man wouldn't be able to read his face.

"Yeah, well, we're all hungry. You can go get food at the Commissary just like everyone else. If I catch you snooping around again, you'll get reported to the elders. Understand?"

Laban nodded his head. He quickly shuffled past the man through the doorway, head bowed. When he was out, he ran down the street away from the building towards the Commissary. He wasn't lying about being hungry.

When he had made it through the line and slurped down his cup of vegetable stew (meat had been off the menu for about a month), he turned around and began walking back towards his home. He thought he would try to get some extra sleep tonight.

Tomorrow was going to be a long day.