All Chapters of The laughing God's Gambit : Chapter 11
- Chapter 20
20 chapters
Chapter 11: we are well disguised.
Silas “The Shade” looked like he’d just been woken up for the end of the world, and he wasn't happy. He gazed at them with sad grey eyes from the messy back room of his shop, The Mourning Veil. It sold everything from funeral stuff to old theater props. A ghost raven named Phil sat on a stuffed bear, fixing his feathers.“Silas, listen,” Ferris begged. “This is going to be huge! ‘The Star-Crossed Lovers, Cursed by the Gods!’ It’s got space crime, magic, and sad looks!”“You don’t give sad looks,” Lyria said. “You freak out.”“I can give sad looks if the light is right! Silas, think about it! Songs will be written! We give you the story first. You sell it to the gossips. We get a cut. You get a new, tragic romance line for your stuff.” Ferris pointed to some depressing black cloaks.Silas rubbed his face. “Ferris. My friend. You give me headaches. You two are wanted all over the Spirelands. Selling your sad story isn’t smart. It’s like a sign that says, ‘ARREST US.’”“But we’ll be in d
CHAPTER 12: what do we do now.
The fake princely face cracked, and Ferris heard it. He felt his borrowed look twist and buzz, like a bad magic trick. Lyria’s tough act slipped too, her purple eyes turning gold for a scary second.The Adept smiled, all cold and pleased. “A soul-bind and fake faces. How dramatic. The Spymaster will want to hear about this.”She didn’t yell for help or attack. She just stepped closer, her truth-telling disc spinning, its light trapping them. “Come quietly. The bind makes you easy to read. If one of you does anything…” she looked at Lyria, all tense, “…the other will give it away. Interesting.”She was right. Ferris could feel Lyria wanting to fight, clear as day. His own fear was like a flashing light.“There’s a misunderstanding,” Ferris said, his fake voice shaky. “We, uh, like art.”“You’re fugitives. You have an aura that’s been hidden illegally. And you’re standing next to a forbidden thing.” Adept Mira looked at them, not mean, just like she was doing her job. “That’s three stri
CHAPTER 13: So it's done.
The Rusty Quill was anything but fancy. It was a crooked, salty shack on some old docks. It stank of fish, cheap booze, and bad choices. The “quiet table” was in the back, hidden by a net full of clams that looked a little suspect. A woman sat there, drinking something that smelled like mint tea. She looked pretty and totally out of place.Maevis the Misplaced wore a cardigan that looked like it had been burned a little, and a blouse that had never been anywhere near the Spirelands. Her big glasses reflected the flickering candle. She had a pile of papers held down by a smooth rock, and she was writing with a clicky metal pen.She looked up as they walked over. Oh, hey. The inter-dimensional thingy. And the rule-breaking. She pointed to the empty seats. Sit. You're late. And you brought the sound thing. Let me see.Ferris sat down, putting the bent brass piece on the table. Lyria stayed standing, like a quiet guard, looking around at the few people in the place mostly drunk fishermen
CHAPTER 14: The bounty Hunter.
The connection is gone, yes! Mavis said, looking at the kettle. But you need to stay near those things for a while, or the connection might come back. Like magical crutches. You can't just leave them here.Ferris picked up the horn piece. It was warm. He felt a little bit of his own magic in it. Lyria picked up the kettle.They stood there, holding a broken horn and a crazy kettle. They were free. They also looked silly.Thank you, Lyria said to Mavis.Yeah, thank you, Ferris said. We'll… go then.Mavis waved her hand, already writing. Yeah, yeah. Close the door. Send pencils if you find any.They walked back through the tunnel, past the sad waterfall, and came out into the grey morning.They stood there, a few feet apart.I guess, Lyria started, we go our own way now.Right, Ferris said. Your duty. My… debt.Yeah.They didn't move.The silence was empty.Well, Ferris said, good luck with the knight thing.And you with the dragon.They started to walk away. Ferris took two steps towar
Chapter 15: The hole.
Lyria looked at the new hole, then at Ferris. They didn't talk. They just knew what to do from being on the battlefield and from trying to stay alive.She grabbed the whistling kettle.He picked up the horn piece.Together, they jumped headfirst through the hole into the dark.They landed in a pile on a soft, dusty floor. Behind them, Kaelan's angry face appeared in the opening. He was too big to fit through easily.Lyria didn't wait. She swung the still-whistling kettle like a club and smashed it against the edge of the hole. More stone broke, and the opening fell apart with a cloud of dust and a last, sad splash of hot water from the broken kettle.Darkness. Quiet. Faint cursing from the other side of the collapsed wall.They lay there, breathing hard in the dark. The only light was the soft, silver glow from the ropes on their wrists, which were connected to the broken kettle and the horn piece between them.Is your thing supposed to leak? Ferris whispered, feeling warm water on hi
CHAPTER 16: The map.
The orange peel map vanished into golden specks that danced in the morning breeze. Alder was gone, leaving behind a citrus smell and a sense of serious cosmic tampering.Ferris and Lyria stood on the windy rooftop. Below, the Spymaster’s fortified palace glittered like a nasty tooth. The party Alder mentioned was the Grand Accord Gala, which was happening tonight. It was a boring get-together where powerful people pretended they weren’t plotting against each other. The “missing heirloom” was rumored to be the Spymaster’s personal seal, a ring with a blood-ruby on it that supposedly controlled the city’s magic watchers. Nobody had a clue what the “unhappy hydra” was.“This is crazy,” Lyria said, staring at the palace in the distance. The cut on her side had stopped bleeding, but it still hurt. The dented kettle hung from her hand, useless and tied to her.“Crazy is normal for us,” Ferris said, squatting to look over the roof’s edge. The piece of horn dangled from his wrist, clinking ag
Chapter 17: The red ward.
He saw the problem right away. Someone had put crushed glow-berries in the champagne. Simple chemistry. He also saw his chance. The fountain was right under a big, fancy vent that led to the upper floors.While he pretended to adjust the valves, he took out the Social Key, pointed it at the closest noble (a guy staring sadly at the purple fountain), and pushed the button.The device buzzed. A word popped into his head: Mushrooms.Ferris leaned in. “Bad luck about the fountain, sir. It reminds me of the glow-mushroom problem back in ’87. It destroyed the vineyards up north.”The noble’s eyes lit up. “You know about the Great Blight?!” He grabbed Ferris’s arm. “My family lost our entire mushroom sculpture garden! Nobody understands!”For ten minutes, Ferris was stuck listening to a long story about mushroom art and tragedy. It was the perfect cover. While the noble cried over missing mushrooms, Ferris used a butter knife from a nearby tray to loosen the screws on the vent.Lyria's path
CHAPTER 18: At the hall.
The blood-ruby ring felt like a frozen spider in Ferris’s hand. A low power buzzed against his skin. He put it in the only safe place he could think of a pocket he’d sewn into the seam of his stolen servant’s pants and walked away from the empty box.The other rooms were full of noise, but the study was silent, like a trap about to go off. They would have come here first.He had two ways out: the door (crazy) and the air vent (which they knew about now). He went with choice number three: the bookshelf.Every important person had a secret way out. It was a given. This one would be behind the bookshelf with the boring, matching books the ones nobody ever read. He ran his fingers across them, trying to find a button, a switch, anything different.Nothing.The shouting got closer. People were yelling orders. “Lock down the floors!” “Find the hydra!” “The Adept is done for!”Done for? Did that mean Lyria got out? Or that the hydra was eating office workers?He touched a book called Treatis
Chapter 19: The library.
The Spymaster froze, caught doing exactly what he shouldn’t be.Ferris didn’t wait. He ran back up the stairs, leaving the Spymaster unprotected and embarrassed.Lyria’s escape wasn't quiet. Letting the hydra out had seemed like a smart move. But it turned out, the hydra really liked Lyria, which was a problem.The creature had decided the Adept wasn't as fun as the woman who gave it magic water. It now followed Lyria around, all five heads hissing happily.“Go away!” she whispered, hiding behind a statue. The hydra wrapped around the statue, peeking at her with each head.She had the keys to the animal rooms. She needed a way out. The windows were locked. The main door was full of guards because of the chandelier thing.Then she saw it a small door low on the wall. A cleaning chute for old straw and garbage. It led outside, probably to a pile of trash. It wasn’t fancy. It was perfect.She opened it. It smelled awful. She looked back. The hydra was watching.“Stay,” she said, trying t
CHAPTER 20: The memories.
Ferris froze. He kept walking, head down.The dump's that way, idiot! the guard yelled. He pointed to a gross alley. Not the main gate!Ferris grunted, changed directions, and walked toward the alley, the pipes heavy on his shoulder.He was out.He dumped the bag and slipped into the city's shadows before dawn. The adrenaline faded, leaving him tired and empty. He missed the feeling of the link to Lyria in his head.He needed a place to hide and information. Only one person could give him both and not rat him out.He went to The Mourning Veil. The shop was dark, the sign gone. He knocked on the back door with the code Silas used for bad, but not deadly, problems.After a minute, the door opened a crack. Silas's tired eye looked out. You're supposed to be dead or getting executed.Can I come in? I think a god's messing with me.Silas sighed and opened the door. Ferris went into the back room. The raven, Phil, slept on the bear, his head tucked under his wing.Silas looked Ferris up and