by Nick Martell
“The patient is High Noble Charles Domet.”
I blinked a few times. “No.”
I knew the stories about Charles Domet. Some said he was richer than every church, Gold Coast clan, and High Noble family combined. That he wielded more power with a suggestion than my ancestors had with an army behind them. Domet could slap the king in front of all his Ravens and get an apology in reply. And all that was just what everyone talked about in public. The quieter rumors, the ones told behind locked doors with blinds shut, spoke of what he had done to merchants who tried to con him. Eradication was putting it nicely.
“It’s five suns a day.”
That made me reconsider, exactly as she knew it would. It was a fortune. “How long for?”
“A month. And there’s only so much he could do to you in forty-eight days. You’d walk away with two hundred and forty suns.”
I could do a lot with that much money. Stop conning nobles for a while. Try a raft of cures with my mother, instead of leaving her a slave to her brief moments of clarity. But it was Charles Domet. There was a reason the job was available, and a reason they were offering so much for doing it. Only a fool kept putting their hand in the fire to check if it was hot.
“Still no.”
“Domet’s a Fabricator. He might be able to teach you to use Fabrications. Or at least the basics. Maybe then you’d have the knowledge to find a real cure for her. We both know those natural cures won’t do a damn thing.”
“Gwen, you’re talking about Domet the Deranged. He once threw a servant out of a window for stealing a spoon. Do you really think it’s wise for me, of all people, to interact with someone like that?”
“You’re the only person I know who could,” she said softly. “Like the king, he rules with fear. But Domet likes to be entertained—challenged, even. That’s what you do. Con him into giving you what you want.”
I wondered how long she had known about the job, if she had waited for another of my natural cures to fail before bringing it up. It was likely. Gwen was patient, and she always knew what to say, and when, to get the outcome she wanted.
This was the first time she’d ever suggested I could find a cure… not that it would change my opinion on using magic.
“No.”
“What other option is there? Only magic can cure magic.”
“And risk ending up like our mother? Do you want to care for me, too? Because last time I checked, having one patient in the family was hard enough.”
I waited for Gwen to retaliate, but, astonishingly, she left it at that. Instead, she held the ends of our mother’s scarf to steady her trembling. We were both looking for a way to make lives better, and every day we seemed to crack more and more under the pressure.
How long would it be before we shattered?
When she was calmer, she reached into her pocket and handed me a piece of cloth. “For later. I know you’re going to go looking for a fight, and that’s been sterilized. You might as well be prepared. Or you could not fight. Just a thought.”
I took it from her, kissed her cheek in thanks, and waved goodbye.
* * *
It was a long walk from the asylum to the Narrows where we lived, and I took the path through the Hanging Gardens. More out of habit than a conscious decision. There were great redwood trees in the park, tall as towers, with branches as thick as my torso. The trees were so grand, their leaves mostly blocked out the sun in the daylight, leaving the park in a perpetual state of gloom. There were newly blooming flowers in the trees, blue and purple, some fat and some skinny, all swaying gently in the wind, hung by some rope around limbs.
I almost walked into three Advocators, the most common members of the private military—Scales—that ruled the city, adding more flowers to the already populated trees. One of them was fitting a noose around a boy almost ten years younger than me, his dead eyes vacant and glazed over. His parents were already in the trees above us, waiting for their family to be reunited.
The boy was already dead—nothing would change that—but I was still a Kingman and always tried to do as much good as I could in this city. My family had helped King Adrian the Liberator unite Hollow against the Wolven Kings, and I would not let our illustrious family legacy be forgotten because of one rotten Kingman.
“What are you three doing?”
The one with the noose met my gaze as his accomplices continued their work. “Official Scales business, boy. Get out of here, unless you want to join these rebels.”
“That child was a rebel?”
The Advocator sounded exasperated. “His parents were. They sold bread to the Rebel Emperor.”
“So you killed a baker, a baker’s wife, and a baker’s boy for doing their job? How were they supposed to know who the Rebel Emperor is? It’s not as if you’ve put out Wanted posters showing his likeness. Could that be because you don’t know what he looks like either? That couldn’t be the case, could it?”
Another Advocator spoke up. “I think you should leave, boy. Before we string you up with them.”
I scratched the back of my head. “I wish I could.”
And I punched the closest one in the jaw, sending him sprawling to the ground.
One Advocator tackled me, punching me in the face as I did my best to block his blows. As I fought to throw him off, the third came up from behind and slipped the noose around my throat. A moment later I was in the air, hung by my neck as I clawed at the rope. Every constricted breath was like swallowing molten metal, and my eyes began to water, blurring everything below me.
The Advocators howled with laughter and hoisted me higher and higher into the trees until one shouted, “He’s Michael Kingman! Look at his brand! Cut him down! Cut him down! The king will hang us if we kill him!”
I hit the ground with a thunderous slam, in a tangle of rope, and wrenched away the noose. I couldn’t tell if my first breath hurt more than it brought relief or if more pain came from the scratches my nails made clawing at the rope. By the time I could focus again, the Advocators were long gone, leaving the unhung boy slumped against the tree.
I crawled my way over and leaned next to him, panting. It was a small comfort, in a way, that no matter what I did, I couldn’t be killed quite so easily as everyone else. As a High Noble, however disgraced, I could only be sentenced to death by a public execution, after a trial.
Unless one day the Advocators didn’t notice the brand until it was too late and let me hang in the trees like anyone else. I doubted it, but the thought lingered in my mind as I rested in the Hanging Gardens, glad to feel something other than shame or regret, even if that was a searing, burning pain.
THE VISIONARY ON THE WALL
It was almost first light by the time I slipped through the window into my room after burying the boy in the garden. I didn’t need to be quiet, since Gwen had the late shift at the asylum and Lyon was on night patrol for the Executioner Division of Scales, but it was habit. I cleaned my wounds as best I could with Gwen’s cloth but could barely sleep, my battered body unable to find a comfortable position that avoided getting blood all over my bedding. I had to settle for a restless doze, my mind unfocused to the world around me… until my foster father and probation officer, Angelo Shade, stormed into my room and dumped a bucket of water over me, then said, “Downstairs. Bring my guns, Michael.”
I groaned and sat up as he slammed the door behind him. Slowly, with every movement bringing fresh pain, I began to take note of my injuries. I took the swollen eye, a nasty seeping cut over my eyebrow, a raised red welt from where I had been hung, scratches all over my neck, and bruises all over my chest as a victory and headed downstairs. I left the blood-soaked cloth and clothes from last night in a pile outside my room, making a mental note to do the household laundry before Gwen ran out of clean uniforms.
Angelo was waiting for me in the kitchen in his Scales regalia, an old silver-button coat and dark trousers. There was a golden eye sigil on his shoulders to denote he was a part of the Watcher Division.
As always, he looked too perfect and too Hollow-esque for an immigrant, all traces of his former culture gone. His short black hair was tidy, his skin slightly tanned, and his trim build showed how little he indulged in rich food.
Only his rings were non-regulation Scales uniform: a glass ring around his left ring finger, a large, bulky golden band around his left thumb, and, on his middle finger, an iron ring with a crown crest. A gift from his wife before her death.
“Guns,” he said, pointing to the table.
I put the guns, stolen from his office yesterday, down.
“You realize they could execute you just for carrying those, right?”
I nodded. We had done this enough to know nothing he could say would change anything.
“What was it this time, Michael? Protecting a fair maiden? Standing up against injustice? Or did you provoke another fight with Advocators as they did their duty?”
“Advocators. In the Hanging Gardens.”
“What will you do if they report you? Or, worse, if you run into Lyon one night?”
“I’d probably punch him first,” I said. Seeing his grey eyes narrow at me, I took advantage of the lull and said, “Can you help me stitch the cut above my eye?”
Angelo knocked his ring against the table. “Yes, but I can’t be late. You’ll have to come to work with me. Unless you’re willing to wait for Gwen to stitch you up. She’s working a double shift.”
I cursed: I’d have to go with him, rather than waste my day indoors, waiting for Gwen, or wandering the city with an open wound. I followed my foster father through the trapdoor and onto the rooftops.
* * *
We walked single file across the planks of wood that spanned the small gaps between the buildings of the Narrows toward Angelo’s outpost on the city’s battlements. The planks creaked and bent with every step we took but never broke, and for that I was grateful. I could only imagine the stories if a Kingman fell from the sky. The old ladies who lived in the district would be the angriest. If I fell from up here, I’d take out most of their clotheslines and get blood on their freshly laundered clothes when I hit the stone.
It would be an ironic way to go, after everything I’d survived.
Closer to the wall, the planks were more secure and led to a ladder that would take us to the top of the battlements. I wasn’t looking forward to the climb: the wall was twice the size of the nearby buildings. But at least I wasn’t free-climbing it, as I’d done years ago on a stupid whim. I had no desire to repeat the feat; my muscles had ached for weeks.
When we reached the edge of the wall, Angelo turned back with one hand on the ladder and said, “Do you remember the only rule we have on the battlements?”
“I don’t think I could forget if I turned into a Forgotten, since you come home angry every night because some imbecile private didn’t remember.”
“Humor me.”
As a drop of blood trickled down the side of my face, I said, “No need to be mute, just don’t salute.”
Tragically, Angelo climbed the ladder without praising my response. Once he reached the battlements, I followed him up, and for the third time in my life I saw the world beyond Hollow.
There was patchwork farmland, with long lines of wheat and corn alternating with pastures for cows and horses and enclosures for goats and chickens. At the edge of my vision I could see that the rebel army encampment had doubled in size since I had last been up here. They had even begun to dig ditches to make their position more defensible. More worryingly, dozens of Low Nobles’ banners now flew beside the rebels’ closed red fist. I wondered how long it would be before a High Noble joined forces with the rebels, and how the king would respond.
As for what was beyond, I could only rely on the stories my parents had told me to imagine what was out there. In my mind I could see the Sea of Statues off the Gold Coast and the frozen desert to the north, where pieces of Celona never fell. My nose could smell the spicy lamb dishes served on the streets of Goldono, and my feet could feel the black sand beaches of Eham. But after Angelo tapped me on the shoulder, my daydream disappeared, and all that remained was the rebel army and a few Watchers playing cards at a table on the battlements.
Angelo prodded the nearest soldier, “Private Thornwood, get me a medical box, a glass, and alcohol from the barracks.”
The private glanced at me. “Should I get a medic too, sir?”
“No, they have enough to deal with. I’ll do this myself.”
“Yes, Commander Shade.” The private ran off, forgetting to button his coat before he did.
The other four Watchers knocked their knuckles against the table to acknowledge his arrival. It was the only subtle sign of respect members of Scales could do without making Angelo a target.
“Sergeant Calder,” Angelo said, before sitting down at the table. “Night report.”
“No advance by rebels to the west, sir. Farmlands are still secure. Our spies remain in place, but the rebels didn’t send out a scouting party last night. Low Noble Bartos may have joined the rebellion; his banner was seen flying over their encampment.”
“I’ll inform the Commander. She won’t be pleased. More Low Nobles from the other cities seem to be joining the rebellion every day.” A pause. “When does our next supply caravan arrive, and who’s escorting it in?”
“Midday, sir. Orbis Company, and a few local Low Nobles are accompanying them.”
“Do we know which ones?”
“Unclear, sir.”
“When did Scales resort to hiring Mercenary companies to protect the caravans?” I asked.
One of the soldiers chuckled to himself, and Angelo answered, “The rebels won’t attack Mercenaries. No one wants to provoke them after Regal Company sacked the city of Vurano. There’s a reason that massacre ended the Gunpowder War.”
“And why companies are hired to storm cities and kill kings and emperors,” one soldier added. “Just last year Orbis Company was credited with sinking a half dozen of the Palmer’s battleships.”
“Didn’t even need a full company to do that,” another said. “No offense, Commander, but I’m running with my tail between my legs if I ever see one of them charging me.”
There was laughter around the table. My foster father even smiled.
If Hollow was desperate enough to work with Mercenaries, those fucking leeches, this rebellion must have been more serious than the public knew. Maybe that explained why they were hanging more people every day. It was easier to crush every trace of rebellion than fix the problems that had started it.
“Are the rebels expected to besiege Hollow soon?” I asked.
This time none of the soldiers would look in my direction. Thankfully for them, their colleague returned with the supplies Angelo needed, and he dismissed them with an order to do one last lap around the area before getting breakfast. None of them argued.
Angelo took the bottle of vodka in his hands and poured a sizable amount into the glass. “Drink. This will hurt.”
I downed it in a single gulp, coughed, and blinked the tears out of my eyes. “Ready.”
Angelo dabbed my cut clean with alcohol, chastised me for wincing, and began to stitch it. “You shouldn’t mention open war in front of my soldiers, they’re nervous enough as it is. Do you know how long it’s taken me to get them to laugh up here?”
“It was just a question.” I groaned as the needle went through my skin.
“A stupid question. Those on the front lines don’t like to be reminded they could die soon.”
I grabbed the bottle of vodka and took another drink from it. It did little to ease the pain. “That sounds like you’re expecting the rebels to attack soon.”
Angelo leaned back in his seat, leaving a piece of thread hanging down over my eye. “Of course I am. Good commanders worry about everything. Just like good foster fathers. Have you figured out what you’re going to do with the rest of your life yet? Or are you set on this imbecilic path to martyrdom?” He eyed the welt aroun
d my neck.
After all my years living in Hollow, I had no idea what or who I wanted to become. The only thing I was truly good at was taking a beating and ignoring the pain that followed.
While I wanted to blame my father for my indecision, it’s not like I had spent my childhood learning a trade like Gwen had. No, I had spent it whining about my family’s legacy and how my father had ruined our lives, reducing us to beggars and criminals.
I had always assumed I would inherit the family business and become as legendary a Kingman as my ancestors. It had taken me ten years to admit that wouldn’t happen, and now I had nothing to show for my hope but empty pockets, useless skills, and the enduring desire to redeem my family.
But, looking back, I couldn’t say I would have done anything differently. I had spent much of my childhood searching for a cure for my mother. It hadn’t made a difference yet, but at least I hadn’t given up, as most did when their loved ones became Forgotten. Family looked after family, and I wouldn’t stop until she was cured.
But another swig of vodka was the only answer I gave to his question.
He finished a stitch. “Take an apprenticeship on the Gold Coast. I have a few friends who would take you on. Especially if Granen was flooded by a moon-wave last night, after that piece of Celona hit the ocean. You’d be worked hard, and the conditions are rough with the unpredictable tides, but in a few years you could be a journeyman. Or even a knight. They still have them down there.”
As sensible as that was, I couldn’t do it. Even if Gwen and Lyon could pay for my mother’s medical expenses alone, I wouldn’t abandon her until I found a cure. Maybe then I could seek out a life without feeling indebted to my family’s name.
“Any other ideas?”
“You could be a city messenger,” he said, less delicate with the needle than before. “Post always has to be delivered. Or join one of the guilds… Wouldn’t make you a noble, but you’d be close.”
“My goal is to be farther away from the nobility, not closer.”