by Alex Lang
“I thought only the watch were allowed swords inside the walls?” Kyris asked. “How is it the bodyguards of an artificer accountant are allowed to be armed as such?”
Adar gave a small shrug. “Exceptions are sometimes granted, and with Lord Governor Velledon’s involvement, I’m sure it wasn’t difficult.”
“Lord Governor Velledon?”
“Yes.” At Kyris’ blank stare, Adar continued. “The most powerful man in Vigil, well… outside of the Path. Velledon of House Thyaran, as in the son of the archon. One of them, in any case. You didn’t know?”
Kyris furrowed his brows. “Caldir simply said an important figure within the artificers.”
Adar shook his head and smirked. “Well, that is true. It’s said he practically runs the organization. That doesn’t change anything for you, does it?”
“No, not at all.”
“Good. Don’t worry. You’re not robbing the second most powerful man in Vigil, you’re robbing his manservant.” Adar slapped him on the shoulder. “Let’s go before they get too far ahead.”
Gilvys and his escorts were making their way past some twenty paces behind the pair.
It was mid-morning and streams of people traveled through the gate, entering and leaving the Old City.
Kyris and Adar followed the trio onto Hawker’s Bridge, a nine-arched, wide, stone behemoth set low in the river. Hawker’s was not the official name, but it was obvious as to why it was called that. Covering the length of the bridge, except for a section in the center that drew apart for ships, were merchant stalls, set along both stone parapets and down the center. Even with this arrangement, there was still plenty of room allowing for two lanes of traffic across. Whereas markets at Forger’s Gate had sprouted upon the riverbanks on either side of the Forger’s Bridge, there was no such cleared space here, and the market had been established on the bridge itself.
Adar informed Kyris of the history of the bridge, along with where to purchase the best ostrich skewers and which watered-down wine seller to avoid. In the short amount of time he’d spent with Adar, the man had never stopped talking for long, but to Kyris’ surprise, he didn’t mind. It felt good to listen and even talk about this and that, and things of no great consequence.
They entered onto Gibbet Way; like the bridge, not its original name but one equally apt, as the street was lined with hanging cages, all occupied with the dead or dying. The crowded hurried along, everyone quickening their step and giving the area below the cages plenty of space. Even so, the smell could not be so easily avoided, nor the sound of those begging for water and others who simply moaned. There were no storefronts along the street; instead, it was walled on both sides, and the buildings beyond all appeared to be warehouses or factories.
“What offense earns you a stay in one of those?” Kyris asked, looking at a hanging, desiccated corpse of a man or woman, he could not tell.
“Oh, I imagine whatever the arbiter decides, but the usual murder, theft, dissension, vagrancy, and other foul deeds of villainy,” Adar said off-handedly.
Kyris noted that the two bodyguards trailing behind Gilvys had a casual demeanor, chatting with each other. “Are they any good?” he asked, tilting his head at them.
Adar considered this for a while before replying. “In all the time I've followed them, they’ve never encountered any problems, so I couldn’t rightly say. Most of the artificer holdings are scattered within the factory and forging districts. So, it isn’t that bad. I would imagine things would be different if they ventured into the Warrens.”
“What of Gilvys himself? He appears to be a scribe, but is he more?”
“He’s no godblood. From a highborn family of little note. No siblings, no children, no surviving parents. Attended the Path’s seminary like all good little highborn, but never served on the Frontier. No experience with arms, as far as I can tell. He doesn’t even wear a small blade as a proper man should.”
Kyris gave Adar a sideways glance. Any doubt about the importance and seriousness in which Caldir desired this ledger was put to rest.
“He very well might be as he appears, a simple scribe,” Adar offered.
The day progressed with them trailing the trio as they went about their business, visiting a warehouse in one district, a gated compound in another, and then a smithy’s.
Kyris didn’t learn much of Gilvys crisscrossing through the districts, but he had heard Adar’s entire life story, he felt.
By dusk, they’d returned to Hawker’s Bridge, then the Old City. Once through Strider’s Gate, Gilvys and his bodyguards got on a waiting carriage. When the carriage disappeared from sight, further up the hill, Kyris asked, “So, that’s it? This is what he does every day?”
“More or less. He doesn’t always go to the same places, and sometimes he travels with the governor. There are more guards then. Many more.”
“What is a constant in his day? What is routine and never changes?” Kyris asked, then walked up the hill.
Adar followed, giving the question some thought. “He always takes a carriage to this gate. He always crosses Hawker’s Bridge. That’s it. Everything else changes from day to day. Sometimes, he’ll have a carriage waiting on Gibbet Way. Other days, such as today, he walks.”
Kyris didn’t comment but kept moving up the street until they were high enough above the walls that they could gaze down upon the River Ryles. He could see Forger’s Bridge farther north, in the distance.
“What is that thing?” Kyris asked, pointing to a flat, wide platform floating upon the water.
“What? You’ve never seen a barge before?”
“I’ve seen plenty, but those specifically. What do you know about them?”
Adar looked closely to where Kyris was pointing. “The fishing barges? What is there to know? They’re slow and ponderous, secured in one place most of the day and pulled along the river by draft horses on the riverbank.”
“How deep is the water in this part of the river?” Kyris asked.
Adar shrugged. “I can’t swim. It could be the deep fathoms of the Shorn Sea, as far as I know. Why?”
Kyris smiled. “Come, I need to speak with Caldir.”
“This is not exactly what I had envisioned,” Caldir said.
“Does it matter, as long as the goal is achieved? Surely obtaining the prize is what’s important and not the method,” Kyris countered.
Caldir chuckled. “Baanash philosophers believe how one achieves their goal is just as important as the goal itself.”
“What?”
“Nothing. You cannot accomplish the task as I had hoped?”
Kyris took a deep breath, then sighed. “No, I’m not able to perform the task as you had hoped, not without much more time. This serves, and it can be done fast.”
“Yes, there is something to be said for speed. However, even if you are successful with your plan, the artificers might still decide to alter their operations because of this.”
“Would they truly? I don’t know the details of what you are after, but given what little I’ve witnessed of artificer facilities, it does not seem like an easy task to pack up and move.”
“Perhaps you are right.” Caldir walked to the parlor window that looked out on the street below. He stood there in silent contemplation for so long that Kyris began to wonder if the man was purposely testing his patience. Finally, he spoke. “Very well. I believe it is worth the risk.”
Kyris almost jumped out of his chair. “Good,” he said, managing to keep the smile from his face. He hadn’t realized how eager he was to put his scheme to the test. “And what of the assistance I requested?”
“This will be quite the production. Costly, and with more involved than I would like.”
“If I’m not mistaken, you have experience in such… productions.”
Caldir frowned, but the lines smoothed out a moment later. “You are fine with having help?”
“Yes. I cannot do it otherwise, and my refusal has always been about kee
ping my ability a secret. If this is done properly, no one will witness me. My question to you is, will you be able to trust all the people involved?”
“They will be paid well, and they will only be part players. They will not know the whole, nor the true goal. I will make the arrangements, and you will have everything you need within a day.”
“A day?” Kyris exclaimed, impressed that Caldir could provide all that was needed so soon. “Umm, very good.”
Caldir looked at him and raised his kef cup. “I wish you Shar’s blessing and a successful outcome to this, the first of our agreed tasks.”
Kyris left Caldir’s tailor shop and headed back to his lodgings, wondering if he should tell Jahna and Tasi the good news or wait until the task was complete. He was excited at the prospect. What he had planned was like nothing he had ever done before. It involved both the participation of and reliance on others.
He crossed the Ryles on the Forger’s bridge. It was early evening, and there were still many people out, especially near the riverfront, but a face caught his attention. It was a look. A glance from a stranger, a woman he didn’t recognize, and yet he’d read recognition in her eyes. She dropped her gaze; too quickly, Kyris felt. He was probably imagining things. Nevertheless, he turned down a street in the opposite direction of his lodgings. It didn’t hurt to be cautious.
Kyris walked down the narrow street for a bit, then feigned interest in a storefront, glancing back from the corner of his eye.
He spotted the woman, now with three male companions.
Who were they? Caldir had ensured him that the leashers could not track him any longer.
Kyris resumed down the street, keeping his pace at a casual stroll. When four armed men ran into the intersection ahead and all looked his way, he knew the time for subtlety was over.
The street was too cramped and crowded. He dashed across the way to an alley, but two steps in, he stopped. There was a laborer moving crates and the alley didn’t go far, ending abruptly at a high wall.
The nearest door was slightly ajar, and Kyris ducked in. Finding himself alone, he immediately entered the Gloom.
He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, steeling himself against the familiar assault of dread. Once he was composed, he opened his eyes and prepared to run. He would have to find a place far enough away from his pursuers and out of sight of witnesses.
It was then that he noted his surroundings and laughed.
A bakery, of all places.
Kyris hadn’t thought of that day in some time. The day he’d discovered that the Gloom had its uses outside of just hiding. He liked to think he was much different from that twelve year old boy now.
The earnings from begging were light that day, as it had been for the entire week. The weather had turned cold and hard, and with it, the mood of the people. Everyone rushed about their business and barely spared the beggar children of Yond a glance.
Lured by the aroma and desperate with hunger, Kyris had sneaked through the rear door of a bread maker’s shop, left open while the baker swept out the kitchen floor. He’d hid behind sacks of flour, waiting for his moment. It was late in the day, just before the store was due to be closed. The baker, a squat man with strong arms, was moving the unsold stock from the front of the shop to a back storage room, a bread closet. Kyris watched the baker going back and forth, and when the man went to the front again for another basket, he worked up the courage and darted into the storage room. He’d hastily grabbed three loaves, one in each hand and another under the arm, but as he turned to make his escape, someone called out in the kitchen.
“Ebs, you here?” The man sounded as though he had just entered the kitchen from the same opened back door Kyris has used.
“Ah, Cam. You have my wood?”
“That I do.”
“Let me put this away and we’ll settle up.”
Kyris had heard the heavy, shuffling footsteps approaching. He was trapped. Could he run past both the baker and the wood-seller? If he were caught, at best he would get a thrashing; at worst, they would hand him to the town’s watch. Then it was to the orphanage or, more likely given his age, the work camps. Jahna would be left on the streets, alone.
He’d had no other choice.
Kyris reached out towards the presence, and even though he hadn’t gone through since that day two years ago, it had never left or faded.
The baker’s arm came into view as he disappeared. The man startled and nearly dropped the large basket of bread he was holding.
Kyris gave a startled cry. The memory of the Gloom didn’t compare to experiencing it again. It stunned him. He felt both an overwhelming urge to run and the sense that a single step would mean his doom.
The blurry, shifting form of the baker stood in the doorway of the storage room. The man was obviously unnerved as he looked behind him, around the kitchen, then within the storage room, searching for some danger that was surely lurking. He spoke something, then placed the basket down in the bread closet and quickly closed the door.
It had already been dark in the little room, then even more so with the effect of the Gloom, but with the door closed the darkness was absolute.
Kyris panicked. He could not be trapped here, leaving Jahna by herself all night. He rushed forward to bang on the door to call the baker back, forgetting in his distress that he was within the darkened realm. His small fist hammered down and then through where the door should have been, causing him to stumble forward onto the ground. Looking around, he realized he was on the kitchen floor, and when he saw that his legs were cut off at the thighs against the blurred door of the bread closet, he cried out and scrambled backwards. The relief he felt at seeing his legs whole nearly made him weep with joy.
Curious, he had slowly pressed his hand against the door, and it passed through. There was something there, a pressure, like water but much, much less so. He waved his arm around, swishing it through the door experimentally. Even as a child, the significance and the possibilities were dawning on him. Movement caused him to startle. A dark shape appeared, only for an instant to his left, before blinking away, but that was enough to send a shiver through him and for a whimper to escape his lips.
Kyris had grabbed the loaves of bread he’d dropped and ran past the forms of the baker and woodmonger, then out the back of the shop, escaping the Gloom. He didn’t look back and kept running as if the monsters were on his heels, chasing him all the way.
After all these years, much of the Gloom was still a mystery to him, but he had learned to use and exploit it.
Armed men stormed into the bakery, creating enough of a commotion to draw those at the front of the store to investigate. Kyris didn’t stay around to see what would result. He ran back out into the alley, passing the six men and the one woman.
Kyris ran, searching for a safe place to shift, but this time he wasn’t a terrified boy anymore, he told himself.
Chapter Eighteen
Kyris loitered at the end of Hawker’s Bridge by Gibbet Way, gazing out onto the water. He had a stick of skewered ostrich meat in his hand, but his nerves had killed any appetite. He hadn’t felt this anxious in a long while, not since his first job thieving or perhaps his first real fight in the pits. It was the others, he decided. That he had to rely on so many others to do their part. It wasn’t something he was used to.
Caldir, good to his word, had arranged everything needed within the allotted time. Now, a mere two days later, all was set. It was near fifth bell, and everything was taking on a rosy hue as the true sun dipped behind the bluff, leaving only the Silver Sun’s light to shine. A day like any other day. Gilvys had emerged from Strider’s gate and gone about his business, and Adar had followed. If anything out of the ordinary occurred, he would have gotten word by now that the plan was postponed. But Kyris received no such word, so he waited.
Kyris hadn’t told Caldir about the pursuers the other day for fear the man might reconsider their agreement. This only added to his anxiety as he scanned t
he crowd. An appearance from them now would be disastrous.
He took a bite from the skewer, surprised that the meat was cold. He chewed without tasting it.
Kyris was dressed in an embroidered red long-coat, but it was frayed, threadbare, and faded in color. His pants and shoes were in similar distress. All finely constructed but well past their prime. A few well-attired passersby, denizens of the upper districts, no doubt, eyed him with unconcealed contempt. He drew many such looks while standing about, and he wondered if perhaps he had gone too far with his guise. The goal was to appear as someone who had seen better times but had run afoul of Shar of late. It was important not to be too disheveled or seemed displaced; otherwise, he might draw the attention of the watch, who had little patience for beggars and vagrants so close to the Old City.
He thought back to the streets of Yond, before meeting Tasi and Baaz. Those were hard years, and he had long vowed that he and Jahna would never return to such a life, no matter the circumstances.
During another nonchalant survey down Gibbet’s Way, Kyris spotted his target but was careful to display no outward signs, continuing his motion before leaning his body against the bridge’s parapet to gaze out on the water once again. Gilvys and his personal guardsmen strolled his way, and all appeared the same just as two days prior.
Kyris looked down the bridge, locked eyes with his accomplice, and gave the signal. This part was a bit risky. He didn’t know which of the two lanes Gilvys would travel down or if he would stop at a stall. The timing was crucial. His pulse raced in anticipation.
Gilvys, deep in thought over the day, marched onto Hawker’s Bridge, eager to get to the carriage that would take him up the bluff and back to the citadel. The new facility in Dawnlanding was coming along on schedule and should be ready for Velledon’s inspection shortly. His mind wandered to the relics they had recently acquired. One in particular was truly fascinating, for he was certain that it was intended for the Skaveel.