The Wound of the World

by Edward W. Robertson

  Cee gave him a hard look, then relaxed into her pillows. "Isn't fair to be born like this."

  "Like what?"

  "Normal. Trying to compete against people like you. Who can tear me apart with a thought."

  Dante made a thinking noise. "Am I supposed to feel guilt for that? It's the way I was born."

  "I know that." Cee smiled grimly. "Nothing's fair. And that's why I work as hard as I do to keep up."

  "Why was Dosse trying to kill you?" Blays said. "Because she knew you were coming after her for the book? Or did you forget to invite her to the last cotillion?"

  "After the Order robbed the Citadel, I turned one of them traitor. Guy named Gaits. With his help, we set up an attack on the Order. Pinned it on their rivals. The idea was they'd wipe each other out and we'd mop up whatever was left."

  "Nice plan," Dante said.

  "Thought you'd like it. At first, it went great. Thieves, thugs, and killers were cutting each other down every day. Meanwhile, the citizens were safe. So were our troops. But Dosse bit her teeth into investigating the attack and wouldn't let go. When it looked like she was closing in on the truth, Gaits came up with a plan."

  Cee paused, lowering her gaze, then made herself look up at Dante. "It wasn't pretty. Dosse has these kids. Gaits wanted to put them somewhere she couldn't get to them, then use the threat of hurting them to make sure she wouldn't try to hurt him."

  Blays bit his lip. "You helped him to kidnap her children?"

  "If it matters, I don't think they were hers by blood. Gaits made it sound like they were street urchins. She was looking after them or something. I didn't like it, but Gaits thought she was too dangerous to go after unless he had a trump card. He was more right than he knew. He never came back. And she headed straight for the kids. She must have tortured the answer out of him, then killed him."

  "If she hadn't rescued the urchins, would you have hurt them?"

  "What would that have accomplished?"

  Blays shrugged. "People do all sorts of unpleasant things that don't accomplish anything besides satisfying their spite."

  Cee stared him down. "Do you think I'm one of those people?"

  "Oh, we all are. But I'm glad you weren't in this case. Even so, it's no wonder this woman's hot for our blood."

  Dante pressed a knuckle against his temple. "Do you know where we can find her?"

  "That's been tough," Cee said. "A lot of her people went underground during the fighting. Isn't easy to get the people who know about them to talk. They're afraid of getting knifed. Or they just hate us. Most of the info we get turns out to be a wild goose chase."

  "We can't let this woman go. If the streets are too afraid of her, we might have to teach them to be more afraid of us."

  "We do know some of the Order's buildings. I can get you the addresses."

  "One of your people can do that. I want you to rest for another day. We'll have work for you tomorrow."

  "Doubt it. Now that you're here, she'll be dead by dawn."

  Dante and Blays walked out. The bald monk walked in and resumed his argument with Cee right where they'd left off.

  Blays closed the door. "What's our move? Deploy the moths and wait for one of her people to lead us to her?"

  "We'll try that," Dante said. "But if she's at all smart, she'll be insulating herself. I think we need to hit the streets."

  "Just stroll up to the den of villainy, knock on the door, and let them know the high lord of the land would like a chat?"

  "I'm not going to send anyone else out there. Not after what happened to Cee."

  It was the dead of winter and bugs of any kind were in short supply, especially the flying kind best suited for reconnaissance. Fortunately, Somburr had foreseen this eventuality long ago, and had tasked one of the monks with setting up a creche of darkling beetles.

  This was a small wooden structure attached to the stables. The air inside it was warm and smelled a little foul and a little sweet. Dante slew a dozen beetles, reanimated them, and sent them buzzing over the walls toward the addresses in Cee's logs.

  He was still dressed in the formal garb of the High Priest overseeing his Council. He changed into dark trousers and a long wool coat. The coat's hem hung past his knees, but that was the only thing about it that adhered to proper Narashtovik style. Otherwise, it was as plain and shabby as the mugs in a public house in the Sharps.

  Similarly attired, Blays joined him and they struck out for the city's livelier neighborhoods. It was near noon, but the sun was blocked from sight by a thick tarp of clouds. Snowflakes skirled from above. The temperature likely hadn't been above freezing in weeks and the streets were bedeviled with hard-packed patches of ice. An icy wind gusted from the bay on the north end of the city.

  But people still required food and homes and so forth, which meant they required the money to buy them with, which meant they required forms of employment. And so, for all nature's efforts to convince people to stay indoors until the outdoors wasn't actively trying to kill them, the streets bustled with people going on about their business.

  Though the city continued to grow with each year, Dante still knew most of it. He headed for a public house near the inner wall of the Pridegate. Years back, with Narashtovik's coffers growing fat following the surge of trade from their allies following the war, Dante had funded a project to invest in those who wanted to start businesses but lacked the coin for the initial costs.

  With the aid of a pair of monks who'd been trained as interrogators by Samarand, the project's choice of partners had hit the mark often enough to make the program self-funding. For a while, at least; recently, it had been struck with increasingly cunning forms of fraud. During the salad days, though, when Dante had been personally involved in the selections, he'd approved the city's investment in a public house called the Stagger Home, run by one Lanina Ock.

  The Stagger's emblem was a man leaning so heavily that it looked like he was about to tumble off of the sign. Icicles the size of a man's arm hung from the eaves. Inside, the main room was welcomingly warm, dense with the scents of beer, damp wool and leather, and the beef stew that seemed to exist in every land that had a proper winter.

  Several of the patrons stared at the two of them, trailing off mid-sentence. For a moment, the only sounds were the crackle of the fire and the clink of crockery on a serving boy's tray. As Dante headed for the bar, conversation resumed, though more softly than before.

  The man behind the counter hustled to the back, then returned to tell Dante that Lanina would be happy to see them. They walked to her office. Seeing them, Lanina rose from her chair, grinning.

  She ran her eyes up and down Dante's frame. "Where've you been off to this time? The ass end of the world and back? You look ten years older!"

  "You're one to talk," he said. "You're grayer than Blays' face the morning after you tell him drinks are on the house."

  "That's what happens to you when all your customers are drunks. Did you want something? Or did you just come here to insult me?"

  "We're looking for someone. Raxa Dosse of the Order of the Alley. Do you know her?"

  "Do I know about the woman who pulled a heist on the Sealed Citadel itself? They're probably singing songs about her out front as we speak."

  "Know where we can find her?"

  Lanina knitted her brows. "I don't. And I'm glad I don't."

  Blays folded his arms. "Bit of a terror, is she?"

  "I've never heard so many rumors about one person. Some say she's a vampire—turns into a bat and flits into the place she wants to rob. Others say she can fly by flapping her arms. Or that she's got a blade that can cut through solid rock. I believe about one word in a hundred, but what I do believe is that she's got more bodies on her than that carneterium of yours."

  "That's exactly why we need to find her," Dante said. "Do you know anyone who might know more?"

  Lanina rolled her lips together. "There's a person named Thumbs that comes in here most nights. Around his f
ifth cup, he likes to brag about how he used to run with the Order. Normally, I'd say it was no more than drunk talk. A way to puff himself up for his fellow souses. But Thumbs seems to know just enough that I might believe him."

  "Then we'll find out tonight."

  "I'll consider myself warned. But if you plan to beat it out of him, do me a favor and do it outside."

  "Think we'd need to? I thought he was a braggart."

  "A most annoying one." Lanina met his gaze, but there was something guarded in her eyes. "Just don't be surprised if he suddenly acts like he'd rather swallow his own tongue."

  She promised to send a runner to the Citadel if Thumbs arrived that evening. Dante and Blays moved on to their next potential source, a pawnbroker Blays sometimes went out drinking with. While Blays spoke with his man, Dante cycled through the eyes of the beetles that had arrived at the Order's known haunts. With no idea what Raxa looked like, he had to listen to each conversation carefully. Her name cropped up now and then, but always in the context of speculation or gossip, and never as though they were sitting there in the room with her.

  The pawnbroker gave them nothing of note. Neither did their next three sources. Snow continued to fall. The night joined it. Nak looned Dante to let him know that Thumbs had arrived at the Stagger Home, "whatever any of that meant." Dante and Blays beelined for the pub.

  Inside, Lanina commanded the bar. Seeing Dante, she shifted her eyes to the right end of the counter, where a man in a disintegrating fur hat jabbed his index finger in all directions, punctuating his loud speech. Soon enough, the man in the hat stood and walked outside to use the latrine.

  Blays moved behind him, smiling. "Mr. Thumbs?"

  Thumbs spun, jaw tight and head tipped back. Seeing the two armed men across from him, he eased back. "What do you want? To watch a grown man take a piss?"

  "Better take care of that first. Otherwise, when you hear what I have to say, you'll wind up wearing it."

  Thumbs scowled. There was a latrine around the rear of the building, but he turned his back on them and urinated into a snowbank. Dante knew that countless people did it every day—in moments of desperation or over-inebriation, he'd done so himself—but the sight of someone pissing on his city made him want to drag the man off to the dungeons.

  Thumbs finished and walked back toward them, keeping his right hand in the pocket of his long coat. "Get on with it before someone steals my drink."

  "The other night I heard you say you used to belong to the Order." Blays tipped his head to the side. "Is that true?"

  "Damn right. One of their top men. Raked in so much silver I could retire by an age when most men are still learning their trade."

  "Did you ever know…her? The shadow who calls the shots?"

  "'Course I did. A man like me knows everyone." Thumbs smirked. "But if you're angling for an introduction, well, that means you don't got what it takes to deserve one."

  "I think you'll tell me how to get in touch with her. You see, my name is Blays Buckler. I work in the employ of the Citadel. Or maybe it'd be more accurate to say that I've agreed to lend my talents to the Citadel because I'm fond of it and the people in it. In either event, I need to speak with Raxa Dosse. You can help me find her. Or I can give your friends reason to call you The Man with Two Weird Little Nubs Where His Thumbs Used to Be, and then you can help me find her."

  Over the course of Blays' speech, Thumbs' face had frozen as fast as the ice in the streets. His right hand twitched in his pocket. Dante drew on the shadows.

  Thumbs went perfectly still. "It was lies. All of it. I was never in the Order. Damn sure never knew Raxa Dosse."

  "Then why pretend to be part of a vicious gang?" Blays said. "To avoid the horror of ever being hired again?"

  "Why else? Make myself look important. Be the one everybody else looks up to."

  "I think it's time to see about those thumbs."

  The man edged back an inch. "You're mad at me because I don't associate with known criminals?"

  "I've got nothing against criminals. Used to be one myself. Would probably still be considered one, except I became one of the people who gets to decide who the criminals are." Blays took a step forward, gazing down at the shorter man. "I'm getting mad at you because I think you're lying to me."

  Thumbs whipped his hand from his pocket. A knife slashed past the falling snowflakes. Blays stepped to Thumbs' left, grabbing the collar of the man's coat and pulling it over his head. Thumbs yelled out, slashing blindly. Blays turned with him, yanking the coat inside-out over Thumbs' arms, ensnaring him. Blays grabbed his wrist, located an elbow within the fabric, and bore down with his forearm. The knife fell into the snow.

  Blays made a few more maneuvers Dante probably wouldn't have been able to follow even in full daylight. He came to a stop standing over Thumbs, locked onto an arm that was in imminent danger of snapping.

  "Right," Blays said. "Talk."

  "I was in the Order." Thumbs sneered up at Blays, snot smeared across his upper lip. "But I left almost two years ago. I never knew Raxa. Don't know where to find her."

  Blays cranked the man's arm another fraction of an inch. Thumbs gasped, then retched.

  Blays shifted his grip. "You're sure about that?"

  "Then take my arm, you jackbooted priest-lover. Even if I did know, telling you would write my name on a grave."

  Blays looked up at Dante. "What do you think?"

  "Can't hurt to try it." Dante nodded at the man's arm. "Except, obviously, for him."

  "I just have this nasty suspicion he's telling the truth."

  "Your call."

  Blays tipped back his head to the falling flakes, swore, and let go of Thumbs' arm. The man plopped into the snow and sat up, rubbing his arm.

  "Let this be a lesson about the dangers of vanity," Blays said.

  Thumbs got to his feet. Blays picked up the knife from the snow and underhanded it to Thumbs without any spin. Thumbs tracked it and caught it with a cradling motion. He returned it to his pocket and crunched through the snow toward the pub.

  Halfway to the corner of the building, he turned and glared at them, eyes icy-bright. "You call us thugs. Then you beat me. Threaten me. Every day, your soldiers do the same thing to people like me across the whole damn city. That's why we need someone like her. Who else is going to protect us?"

  He turned and stamped around the corner. Empty-handed in a grungy alley that stank of urine, Dante headed back toward the distant lump of the Citadel.

  "This is a bad idea," Blays said.

  "To call it a night? We've been running down sources all day with nothing to show for it. I need a break."

  "That's exactly what I mean. Everyone we've talked to has stonewalled us, lied to us, or passed us off to someone else. If we were anywhere else, we'd be able to make some progress. But we're trying to infiltrate the same underground that we're constantly arresting, imprisoning, and executing. Worst of all, we're trying to find the only one of them who can stand up to us. You really think they're going to turn in Raxa Dosse, their folk hero? You might as well ask the slice of beef on your plate where to find its brother."

  "Then we put our power to use. Raid all of the Order's hangouts. Imprison every one of their people until someone talks."

  "Giving Raxa the motive and opportunity to light out with the book and your sword."

  "What else are we supposed to do? Continue spying on the Order's minions who will probably never step foot in the same neighborhood that she's hiding in?"

  Blays was quiet for a time, the snow squeaking underfoot as he hiked toward the Ingate. "We're overthinking this. Put out a reward."

  "Think that'll be enough?"

  "Even if everyone loves her, there's always someone desperate or selfish enough to betray what they believe in."

  Dante tugged his hood forward to cover his freezing ears. "But that's what we're searching for right now. And you're claiming we won't find it. That they won't turn her in to the same authorities who
rule them."

  "We can't squeeze the answers out of them. That only makes them want to kick back."

  "But we can coax them into doing what we want. Plant the seed of the idea and let them grow it."

  "Precisely." Blays smiled suddenly. "Best if we're not even involved. Have whoever comes in to claim the reward speak to a monk, or someone outside the higher echelons of authority. If the squealer doesn't have to say it right to our faces, they can tell themselves they're not a snitch."

  "You're getting more cynical as you get older."

  "Hardly. I'm just better at understanding what I'm seeing."

  As always, the forging of a new plan bolstered Dante's spirits. Yet something chewed at him. Were they missing a key detail? Some flaw in the plan? He glanced at Blays, about to voice his unease. Blays was staring down the street with a look of such blankness Dante could have believed his soul had departed for the Pastlands.

  With that image in his mind, he knew the source of his own troubled thinking. Blays' plot, while cunning, didn't feel like Blays. At this point in life, Blays had seen too much to be naive, but through it all, he'd always maintained a certain optimism. That by and large, people were good, and worth sparing.

  This felt colder. The careless knife of truth that cuts as deep as the sea. Blays seemed to be expressing the belief that everyone was as cracked and broken as Arawn's Mill. Inherently flawed. And his solution to their problem carried the implied belief that these flaws weren't necessarily a bad thing: because if you accepted the basic meanness of humans, then that granted you the power to exploit them.

  Dante stepped over a long lump in the snow. The lump was covered in fabric; it was the arm of a beggar who'd frozen to death and been buried in the drifts. What had brought this change on Blays? The genocide in Collen? The Keeper betraying their faith in her? Or were they simply getting old?

  Whatever the case, Dante had always suspected these darker truths himself. Lighthearted even when he was being cynical, Blays had always held him back from stepping into that drop of unknown distance.

  A bitter wind howled from the north, driving powdery snow before it. It was snowing harder now, in slanted, irregular gusts that made the buildings look as though they were fading away into another world. Like the turning of a page, or the clicking of a gear, Dante's mind shifted, too.