One-hour writing challenge - "Digging Ain’t Uncovering"

Never accept a job offer at a funeral. That’s my advice to you, young rogues. Not even when it sounds like your profiting won’t harm a soul in the world. Especially not then!

We’ve all attended a stranger’s burial in the hope of scoring a free feed. Shammers and thugs alike, we’ve all done that when our bellies was aching empty. But don’t make the mistake of assuming everyone hanging at the back, avoiding eye contact with the deceased’s family and friends, is the same as you. There are crooks and then there are…

Well, let’s just say there are folks like Mr Pentalikent.

I was at a graveyard in the Fifth Quarter when I met him. Standing behind a trio of weeping crones, watching some fella being laid to rest, desperate to hear the magic words: “Everyone is welcome to join us for food and refreshments.” He put a hand on me shoulder and I almost jumped into the grave meself.

“There isn’t going to be a meal,” said Mr Pentalikent, in a kind of loud whisper, his hand slipping away like a snake. “No meal and no toasting of the dearly departed. He drank himself to death, so the widow doesn’t believe it’s appropriate.”

“Guess I’ll be going hungry tonight,” I admitted, sizing him up. He was tall and thin, but wide with it. Big head. Like a scarecrow. Except scarecrows don’t wear shiny purple suits. Not around any villages I’ve been chased out of for marked cards or painted coins.

“Hmmmm…” replied Mr Pentalikent, squeezing his eyes shut as if he were thinking extra hard. I couldn’t decide which was the impostor – his too-black hair or his too-tanned skin. One of you cuckoos mighta been able to tell, but I couldn’t.

He opened his eyes, which were a nice enough blue but ruined by them being so bloodshot.

“There may be another way we can have someone else pay for our supper. A way that may even leave us with the funds for dessert.” He paused, then pretend-slapped the side of his face. “Where are my manners? My name is Mr Pentalikent.”

He bowed. By this point, funeral-goers were dispersing from the gravesite as a pair of burly women with the neck tattoos of Revolution Veterans finished shovelling dirt on top of the coffin. A couple of the mourners eyed Mr Pentalikent disapprovingly, though they remained silent.

I gave him my name. You’ll pardon me if I don’t repeat it here, in case there’s a lie-write among you.

“What’s this other way, then?” I asked, belly already gurgling at the prospect of being served more for dinner than fountain water.

Fast as a stripecoat skinner’s blade, Mr Pentalikent’s hand was on me shoulder again. It was no less startling the second time. “It involves a burial of a different sort…”

***

An hour past nightfall, we was in the rich district. Gem Traders’ Row. In the backyard of a mansion that appeared to be unoccupied. At any rate, the lone light source was a small torch Mr Pentalikent had stuck into the ground to illuminate our work. It’d come out of a sack he’d collected on our journey across the city. A sack he’d hidden in a spearleaf tree that he’d climbed like it was merely a set of stairs.

Also in the sack had been an old spade – which I was now using to dig a hole in a gem merchant’s trimmed lawn. As Mr Pentalikent kept a lookout for guard dogmen or nosey neighbours, I tried to ignore the weariness in me arms and focus on the prize we sought.

“During the Revolution, many wealthy people hid their valuables in the earth lest they be confiscated to pay troops,” Mr Pentalikent had explained as we’d walked up the wildflower-dotted hill beside the graveyard, me taking two hurried steps to his one easy stride. “For various reasons, they didn’t always return for those valuables later.”

Mr Pentalikent claimed he had information there was a mansion in the city with a lost fortune buried in the back garden. He further claimed to know that the present owners were not only ignorant of the fortune (and therefore wouldn’t miss it), they were to be absent on this particular evening.

We agreed that I’d dig up the stuff, while he’d deal with any interference. Although he wasn’t carrying an obvious weapon, I had no doubt he could handle himself. He radiated that scary confidence you feel from pit fighters who’ve survived an entire season. Am I right, Kadolphus?

“Dig faster,” instructed Mr Pentalikent.

“Are you sure it’s…” My spade struck wood. I dug furiously until I’d unearthed a chest about the size of a counter cask. Suddenly, Mr Pentalikent was next to me in the hole, lifting the container up onto the grass like it was weightless. I prayed to Goddess it wasn’t.

“Shall we take it elsewhere to do the opening?” I asked.

“No,” said Mr Pentalikent, in that loud whisper with which he'd gotten my attention at the funeral.

From his sack, he produced a ring of strangely shaped keys and began systematically trying them in the lock. There was a heavy clunk. He took hold of both sides of the lid, then stopped, turning to meet my gaze. In the torchlight, his bloody blue eyes looked reptilian, his grin demonic.

He opened the chest.

***

The thing about gem traders is they’re often also gem cutters. And the thing about cutting gems is it’s best done with magic. Follow that logic home from the tavern in the dark and you’ll realise that no-one makes a better gem trader than a wizard.

Wizards don’t leave treasure chests unguarded.

They build in traps that go off if a false key is used. Magic explosions so forceful they destroy the legs of a poor thief who just wanted a free feed, and that incinerate the fancy clothes of a creature revealed to be as much clockwork as man. Explosions so deafening me ears still ring. So deafening they brought the City Watch down on us within minutes. No, not on us.

The last sight I beheld between those mansion grounds and this wretch-filled prison was Mr Pentalikent scooping the few gems that had survived the blast into his sack, then bounding towards and effortlessly over the rear wall. Shiny purple suit ruined, flesh shredded, mechanicals exposed and motivations forever a mystery.