by Cory Herndon
“I was never fun,” Jarad said. “And you try my patience, sister.”
Savra smiled, and pinched his chin between her thumb and forefinger. He didn’t flinch or pull away as she leaned in close to whisper in his ear. Her warm breath made the skin on his neck crawl. “I have a job for you,” she whispered. “I think you’ll like it. Even more than killing giant slugs, I’d wager.”
When the matka explained what she had in mind, he had to admit she was right.
The worst-kept secret in Ravnica? Since the Rakdos rebellion, there aren’t enough wojeks to police the entire city. They’ve already abandoned Old Rav. How long before the so-called ‘Watchful Eye’ has only enough eyes to patrol the center? If the League does not engage in a spectacular recruitment drive, we fear Ravnica may not survive her own Decamillennial celebration.
—Editorial, the Ravnican Guildpact-Journal
(9 Prahz 9995 Z.C.)
24 ZUUN 9999 Z.C., NOON
Wenvel was lost, drunk, and rapidly losing the ability to care about either condition. He leaned against the wall in the dank and smelly alley behind a noisy tavern, the first one he’d come to after leaving the Wojek Leaguehall. He was fairly certain he’d been struck in the head at some point, or maybe his head had struck something first. He felt dizzy and depressed. He couldn’t believe his Yertrude was really gone, yet the relief at seeing her spectral form destroyed had driven him almost insane with guilt. His coin purse was almost empty. His robes were torn and spattered with spilled alcohol of many mingling varieties. Wenvel Kolkin had, in a little less than two hours, consumed more bumbat in one sitting than he’d drunk in his entire life. Wenvel was brooding, and brooding hard.
He hated himself for bringing his wife here. He hated himself for being cheap. He hated himself because if he’d just paid for the treatments, they never would have come to the city, and Yertrude would be alive. He hated himself because he was relieved, and not just because Yertrude’s ghost had been poised to kill him. The last few years of Yertrude’s illness had been difficult, to say the least.
“Damn,” Wenvel cursed. He turned unsteadily, leaned his back against the stone wall and slid down until he was sitting propped up against it. “This place stinks. Really, really, really stinks.” He drained the rest of the bumbat bottle down his throat and threw it against the stone wall, where it shattered. It didn’t make him feel any better, so he complained about that too.
Wenvel was still complaining to the empty night about the health hazards of Ravnica’s alleyways and the murder hazards of Ravnica’s theaters when something he couldn’t see tore his throat out.
* * * * *
The peculiarities of Ravnica’s murder statutes, such as they were, had made Kos an expert when it came to stopping attempted homicides before they turned into murders. At the moment, he was trying to do the same thing but on a much smaller and far less lethal scale.
“I never should have let you try first,” Kos whispered.
“If you knew the kid, why didn’t you say so?” Borca replied in kind.
“I didn’t know you were going to scare her,” Kos said. “Borca, unless the League throws some kind of recruitment drive, you’ll be working this stretch alone. You need to figure out how to deal with things like this yourself. Here’s a hint. Don’t try to make the little children cry.”
“I didn’t try to—Look, go ahead, friend of children and protector of kittens,” Borca said. “Child or not, she stole someone’s property.”
“Just watch and learn, all right? Training, Borca. Training.”
“Sir, yes sir,” Borca muttered.
The girl before them bravely protected the small piece of fruit she’d swiped with both arms. Her name was Luda, and she was one of Mrs. Molliya’s orphans—Kos recognized her from his occasional visits back there to make a small donation to the box. Sometimes he was able to deliver “gifts” from guilty trade violators that he couldn’t rightly accept, like crate loads of fruit kept permanently fresh with a stasis hex, herbal and magical medicines, and in one strange instance, twenty-eight silk nightgowns, each one large enough to house a half-dozen orphans. Those he’d had to clear through the necro lab to make sure the fabric was safe for Mrs. Molliya to use for new clothing, since that particular bribe attempt had come from a loxodon tailor under investigation for putting poison on the tips of his competition’s sewing needles.
“Luda,” Kos said, “You remember me? It’s Kos. I’m a friend of Mrs. Molliya’s.”
“Guess so,” the child said quietly, tentatively. She didn’t look up.
“Can I ask you something? Where’d you get that dindin?”
Luda didn’t respond verbally, but kept her head tucked over the fruit and pointed where Kos figured she would—the large storefront that loomed behind him, its exterior lined with crates of produce. There was a gap in a carefully stacked pyramid of melons that matched the one Luda clutched.
The girl froze when Kos crouched to meet her eye to eye. With a little coaxing, he got Luda to raise her tear-stained face, but she still held the piece of fruit like a mother protecting an infant. The girl, like so many of the people that lived on the lower rungs of Ravnica’s social ladder, had no guild to protect her. She was chaff. She only had people like Mrs. Molliya, Kos, and her own survival skills. If Kos could get a little compassion to sink into Borca’s demeanor, the kid might get one more avenue of help.
Molliya didn’t treat her charges like prisoners, so it wasn’t odd to see the girl this far from the orphanage. Still, the old matron hardly ever let kids younger than twelve take off alone. Luda, at age five, had most likely sneaked out under the matron’s nose. Kos made a mental note to warn Molliya about the girl’s roving ways for Luda’s own safety.
Borca was right in one respect—Kos couldn’t ignore the violation, even if the “criminal” was a child and the only theft had been a half-zib morsel of food she needed to survive. The Orzhov was the Guild of Deals, and the storefront bore the Orzhov sigil. In addition to the Syndicate’s vast business, banking, and shipping interests, the guild was filled with lawyers. In fact, almost any practitioner of law who wasn’t with the Azorius Senate was part of the Syndicate, and they were famous for pursuing even the slightest threat to the most insignificant those interests. So long as you paid your protection dues to the Orzhov, they made sure you were protected, especially in court.
The guildless could get sustenance from the Golgari food banks if they needed it, and most of the thousands who lived in Kos’s stretch alone lived off the stuff. But he didn’t blame the kid for wanting something a little better than the bland, hardy food the reclamation guild provided according to Guildpact Statutes. Fortunately for the girl, Kos has long ago figured out a simple loophole that he personally applied often in such situations.
“Luda, no one’s going to hurt you,” he said. “But you know, you’re not the only one who’s sad.”
The girl remained silent except for the steady sniffling. She took a cautious step back from Kos and Borca, ringlets of raven hair falling over her dirt-smudged face but unable to hide bright, intelligent eyes that looked much older than her five years. When it became obvious Luda wasn’t going to say anything, he kept going.
“Mr. Tupine’s sad, too,” Kos said. “Mr. Tupine has a big family.” He grinned and added, with a wink, “Not a tall family, you understand. But a big one.”
The girl continued to stare into Kos’s eyes, her green irises sparkling. Finally, in a small, high voice that wavered on the edge of a full-blown simper, she spoke. “Toopine’s short!” she said, and her pout finally cracked into a tiny grin.
Kos smiled bigger, “That’s right!”
“You’re funny, Kozz,” she said. She didn’t laugh, but continued to grin.
If you think this is funny, you should see an Orzhov lawyer bring a five-year-old up on a trade violation for stealing a melon, kid, Kos thought. But he said, “Yeah, he’s kind of funny, huh? But Mr. Tupine’s not laughing.”
“Where are your parents, Luda?” Borca broke in. Kos stared daggers at him. “What?” the fat ’jek said. “I’m trying to help—oh, orphanage. Right.”
Luda had pulled back into a ball and retreated into her pout. “Let me handle this, Borca, all right?” Kos continued to smile for the girl’s benefit. “Now you listen to me, Luda. I’m going to help you get that fruit fair and square. Then we’ll go back to Mrs. Molliya’s. All right?” He gently placed a hand on the girl’s shoulder, and she nodded. “But you have to do something for me first. You have to come with me. We’re going to go back to Mr. Tupine’s shop.”
“No,” the girl said. She pulled back from Kos, clutching the green fruit. “This is mine.”
“Yes, it will be,” Kos said. “But we have to go buy it. You can’t steal things in Ravnica, Luda. But if you have friends, sometimes they can help you buy things. And other friends will give you things. There are people called Golgari, and they’ll give you food if you just ask. And they have lots of it.”
“Garglies ain’t nobody’s friend,” the girl said, pouting fiercely. “I got no friends.”
“You have me and Borca, here, for starters,” Kos said. “You’re pretty smart, Luda. The Golgari aren’t your friends. You’re right there. And you should never, ever, ever go down where they live because down there the Golgari can be pretty scary. But that’s how the world works, Luda. Even if they aren’t nice people, they do their part. Someday, you’ll grow up, and you’ll do your part, too.”
“Not me,” she said. “I ain’t never gonna be no Garglie.”
“You don’t have to be,” Kos said, grinning as the girl stopped sniffling. “You can be anything you want. You’re lucky. For now, you don’t have any guilds telling you what to do. But someday, maybe, you’ll join one, and you’ll do your part that way.”
She raised a hand, shifting the fruit into her other hand, still cradling it defensively. But her guard was breaking down. Luda put her palm on the star on Kos’s chest. “I’m gonna be a ’jek,” she said with the certainty only a child can muster.
“I’ll bet you are,” Kos said, and meant it. Many orphans finally lost guildless status when they’d signed up at a ’jek recruitment center. Kos himself had done it. “That’s why you have to come with me to see Mr. Tupine, Luda. It’s your first assignment.”
“That’s stupid, Kozz,” Luda said. “I’m not a ’jek now.”
Kos patted his pockets and belt. There had to be something …
His hand brushed the hilt of his pendrek, and Kos remembered he still hadn’t reloaded the small, olive-sized mana battery after he discharged the last of its energy into the ’seeker earlier that day. He twisted the burned-out chunk of crystallized, spent magical energy and pulled it out of the weapon’s hilt. He turned his palm upward and offered it to Luda. “Never too soon to start. I’m going to make you my deputy, for now.”
The girl extended her free hand and snatched the gem out of Kos’s palm like a striking viper. She turned the stone over and over in her small fingers in the morning sunlight. Finally, her large eyes rose, and she gave a small nod. “Yes, sir, Tennant Kos,” she whispered. Then the gem was gone, hidden away in one of Luda’s many pockets. Kos heard Borca mutter a few words the girl hopefully didn’t understand, and jabbed an elbow into the fat ’jek’s shin. Borca yelped but shut up. Without standing, Kos held his palm out to Borca.
“Sergeant, loan me a few zibs, would you? I emptied my change pocket this morning.”
Borca grumbled but produced a small silver coin worth one hundredth of a zido and pressed it into Kos’s palm.
“I said, ‘a few zibs,’ Borca.”
Borca dropped another couple of coins into Kos’s hand. Kos coughed. Borca dropped another, and another, until the lieutenant closed his fingers around a dozen of them. Kos offered them to Luda, and she snapped them up even faster than she’d nabbed the crystallized battery. She stared at the zibs, then placed each one in a different pocket.
“Save one for Mr. Tupine,” Kos told her. “With one of these, you can buy two pieces of fruit. Or you can buy that one piece you already have there and save the rest for something else. What do you say?”
The little girl considered, then closed a fist around the last coin but did not pocket it. She produced the unripe dindin. “All right,” she said.
“Good job, Deputy,” Kos said. “Now let’s go pay for that melon, and we’ll take you back to Mrs. Molliya. We don’t want her to get worried. What do you say?”
“Yes, sir,” Luda said, standing as tall as a five-year-old could.
“Yes, sir,” Borca said, bringing up the rear as the trio headed through the crowd toward Tupine’s Fruit Emporium. “Right away, sir.”
* * * * *
The first incident of the day that Kos had Borca record for the log scrolls was similar in motive to the petty melon caper but had a more satisfying conclusion, at least as far as Borca was concerned.
They’d just left the orphanage and stopped into Tupine’s on the way back to make sure there were no hard feelings over the melon. There weren’t, but just as Tupine promised Kos that, for him, he’d make sure the little girl had fruit whenever she needed it, a pair of burly-looking men in torn, ragged clothes with black hoods over their faces burst through Tupine’s front door. One held a rusty blacksmith’s hammer in his hand and an empty canvas bag. The other intruder raised a small crossbow that had been inexpertly repaired more than once, from the look of it. Still, the bolt nocked in the cradle looked sharp enough to maim or kill, if the man could manage to fire it close enough to his intended target.
“Right!” shouted Crossbow. “This is a robbery! You, behind the counter, I want you to empty all the coin in the safe into this—”
“Uh, Vyrn?” Rusty Hammer interrupted. “Are those ’jeks?”
“Aw, hell,” Crossbow said.
Borca got in the first blow, a solid pendrek strike that sounded like it cracked bone. The hooded robber dropped his hammer, howling in pain and clutching at his bent wrist. The strike took the fight out of the man immediately, and Borca had silver, lockrings on Rusty’s forearms in less than a minute. Glowing softly, they clicked together with a loud snap. They would not separate again unless a ’jek ordered the spell nullified.
Kos took Crossbow but couldn’t risk Borca’s maneuver without most likely triggering the weapon and sending a wild crossbow bolt flying through Tupine’s shop. Out of the corner of his eye Kos saw a stack of burlap sacks packed with baker’s flour. That ought to do the trick. While he kept his eyes locked on the nervous robber, Kos casually reached down and scooped up one of the bags. He hurled it at the man’s weapon arm, but before it reached the crossbow the robber fired, sending the bolt into the bag and a small, fine cloud of white flour into the air. The bolt wasn’t enough to stop the burlap sack. The heavy bag knocked the robber clean off his feet and onto his back, and with perfect timing burst just as the man hit the floor, covering him from head to toe in fine powder.
“Not bad, Lieutenant,” Borca said when the guards arrived to take the criminals—desperate gamblers in debt to an Orzhov casino owner in the Seventh—down to holding. “Did you have to use flour, thought?”
“It’ll come off,” Kos said. “Stop whining. We just caught the bad guys.”
“Looking like a clown I can handle, it’s the—the—achoo!”
“Yeah, sorry about that.”
* * * * *
The quarry was an open pit at the end of Gozerul Boulevard that had once been a gladiator stadium in the days when the Rakdos and Gruul still staged awesome battles between hundreds of combatants for the enjoyment of a bloodthirsty people. In the final battle in the pit, one side or the other had purchased one of the first portable mana bombs developed by the Izzet in the 7100s. The result had obliterated both the Gruul and Rakdos forces, along with every last spectator and the towers for several blocks around.
The cave-in created a bizarre anomaly in the City of Guilds—an almost
natural open stone pit resembling a valley in a rocky wasteland. The place stirred the ancestral memories and savage hearts of the ogre tribes, and they had declared it a holy site their gods had created for them in this urbanized plane. Within a hundred years the community outnumbered any other single ogre village on Ravnica. The chunks of stone and concrete had been used to build their own ramshackle towers and cave-halls, much as they had in the days before the city spread across the world.
Kos stood on the edge of the quarry and looked down to the point at which tunnels in the floor of the ogre territory led to the Golgari undercity. The walkways were one thing, but he’d grown up three blocks from the quarry and its depths were incapable of triggering his acrophobia.
“Why ’jek look like clown?” the ogre asked. “Look like powder sugar. Roundcake blow up in ’jek’s face?”
“That not—I mean, that’s not an answer. Don’t worry about what I look like,” Borca said. “We just want to know what you saw, mister. …”
“Nyausz,” the ogre said. “Why me have to tell ’jek anythink?”
“Because we’re asking?” Borca said.
“Yeah, and you could also do it because my partner here, well, it’s his first day,” Kos added and smirked at Borca’s powder-faced scowl. The flour had proven incredibly clingy. “He’s a recent transfer from the transmogrification program.”
“What?” Nyausz said.
“What?” Borca added.
“Yes, Nyausz, my friend Borca, here? Just a couple of months ago he was getting ready to hang for stealing dromads. Dromads for his family. They lived in …” Think, Kos, think. He didn’t actually go down into the Quarry often if he could help it. “Garsh block.”
“Kos—”
“Nyausz have friends on Garsh block,” the ogre said. “You know Poitchak?” he asked Borca.