BELOW EXCERPT PULLED FROM BOOK 4 OF THE LOST GODS BY J.M. ROBISON:

Talon stretched. They’d been discussing with their heads down for an hour.

Rubbing both eyes and smacking his lips still greasy from the hot meal, he stood. “Gotta empty the bowels,” he said, patting his stomach, and weaved among the patrons in the room who filled up every chair and table, several of them hooded, keeping their heads down.

Sciath scrapped a fingernail into the wood. Clothes finally dried, his eyes drooped in half-sleep. They’d spent the rest of their money on dinner. There was no telling where they would sleep tonight.

Radak was currently in the company of Andrast’s Lord. According to the inn host, Radak had rented a room in this very inn for tonight and would be returning to it before the gas lamps dimmed.

Talon would follow Radak invisible to his room, sneak inside with him, discover what he’d done to their friends somehow, and leave without anyone ever knowing the how, why, or who.

That was the easy part. The hard part would be then getting to Malandore to rescue–

Talon ran back to their table, breathless.

“Alamarr, you have to come see this!”

“See what?”

“This inn has a toilet.”

“A what?”

“A porcelain seat you sit on to empty your bowels. It flushes. Inn host called it a toilet.”

“Flushes? What does that even mean?”

“Come look.” Talon tugged on Alamarr’s sleeve until Alamarr relented and followed him.

Sciath turned in his seat, watching the pair disappear around a corner. A full minute lapsed and Alamarr dashed around the corner, waving frantically at Sciath for him to join them.

Sciath looked at Calthania. Her back lifted up and down. She hadn’t said a word in the passed hour. He stood up to join Alamarr.

Sciath followed Alamarr to a tiny closet, almost not wide enough to fit Sciath’s broad shoulders. He looked down at a white porcelain seat with a massive bowel filled with water in the center, the bowel narrowing at the bottom into a narrow funnel which disappeared.

“Watch this.” Talon shouldered passed Sciath and yanked on a chain hanging from the ceiling. Water gushed around in a circle inside the bowl, flushing all down the narrow funnel with a gurgle. They all stood silent, watching the bowel fill back up.

“Inn host said there’s only two in all of Eloshonna,” Talon said. “Radak caught wind of some engineer playing around with the idea of one, and hired him to put one in Malandore Castle and this inn, since Radak stays here so much.”

“Wouldn’t that be grand,” Alamarr said, “Radak comes in to use this toilet, Talon kills him, and we drain his blood and cut up his body into little pieces and flush them all down the toilet to hide the evidence. Everyone will then be like, ‘How did Radak die’? and the response? ‘Drowned’.”

Talon snorted, covering his nose. Sciath looked skeptically at his grinning friend. “You’re gruesome.”

“It would work, wouldn’t it?”

“We’re not here to kill…do you hear that?”

All three of them, crammed in the toilet closet, listened as heavy boots tromped into the crowded room.

“Is there a man in here who is part barbarian, elf, and human?” an authoritative voice called.

Everyone in the inn held their breath. Even the three men in the toilet closet. The inn host new. But he wasn’t saying anything. So did Calthania. She didn’t respond, either.

“Inn keeper,” said the same voice, “have you seen–”

“Yes, yes,” the inn host said in a frantic hustle, clearly unwilling in his tone but without choice. “He went back to the toilet not a moment ago.”