Calvin "Chappy" Chapman's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

The forbidden wing burned with quiet light. Chappy worked the shelves with Vix and Slade while bells rang somewhere above them. Monolith — Rune-Eye to his crew — stood at the door and watched for sentinels with his stone eyes. One of the carved sockets cracked when a hex pulse rolled through the wall. He grunted and pressed a palm over the ruined eye. Pink dust ran between his fingers. He kept the door shut anyway. Chappy found what he came for inside a barnacled metal case at the back of the annex. He flipped the lid. A glowing card named the maker of the spyglass and pointed past the River Styx. Beside it sat a small green eye-compass and a tarnished monocle in a nest of fossilized shells. Chappy palmed the card and dropped the case into Slade's pack. Vix grabbed two stitched books off the shelf. Slade ripped a third from its chain. They had what they needed. They would never walk these halls again. The back hatch they'd scouted led down through a cold stair and out into the alley behind the building's stone guardhouse — the rune-faced arch with its DO NOT DISTURB warning still humming above them. Hatchet had the carriage waiting, axle scarred, one beetle limping. He didn't ask about Rune-Eye's face. Slade swung the loot case into the coach floor and kicked a blanket over it. Hatchet climbed up beside Chappy, calm as a butler. "These fellows seem to have a quarrel with us, Mr. Chapman." Chappy looked up. Seven of them stood across the lane — country elves and orc gypsies, a small girl among them holding a fistful of charms. A staff. A spiked club. The whole crew turned to watch Chappy answer. He smiled the smile he kept for collectors and jilted lovers. "Friends. There's been a misunderstanding." The staff cracked into the carriage door. The misunderstanding was over. It got ugly fast and stayed short. Slade put the club-bearer on his back. Vix hexed the staff into splinters. Hatchet broke a nose and a wrist in the same motion. The small girl screamed something about a brother and a debt. Chappy pulled a folded writ from his coat — the bounty paper that named his ex-fiancee, sealed by Mudslide authority — waved it like a passport, and shouted that he was a lawful agent on lawful business. The brawl ended with three of them limping off and four of them deciding the bounty office was the better destination. Let them ride. Let them claim whatever scrap they thought was theirs at the green tower where bounties paid out. The carriage rolled. Chappy unfolded the writ on his knee and read his ex-fiancee's name. Eight days ago, in a cell. The ink was sure. He did not know the tunnel had already been dug. He did not know she was already walking toward him. He folded the writ and smiled, because the smile was the only thing he had ready.