Children of Zero

by Andrew Calhoun

  Brenna wasn’t going to be of any use tonight. It would take a bonfire under the woman’s chair to get her up and moving. The qarlden looked around for any other sailors from the Epoch that she might be able to trust with what she had in mind. She saw Lofi, the tall, skinny ship’s surgeon, trying to clean what looked to be turtle stew off her glasses. Poor Lofi was so drunk however that she was only succeeding in smearing the stew around her forehead. The Sisters forbid anyone actually need medical assistance tonight.

  Mohdheri, the perpetually angry Kalleshi woman, was berating a farmer over the poor quality of the local grog, while at the same time shoving a half empty bottle of the stuff into her mouth. Fat Rat, by far the biggest person in the entire drinking house (and quite possibly the town), was asleep under a table.

  It needn’t have mattered. She didn’t trust Fat Rat with doing his regular tasks properly, let alone following her on a revenge job and then keeping quiet about it. Nor did she want to put any faith in Mohdheri. Lofi, maybe, but it was never a good idea to put the surgeon in a position where she might get maimed or even killed.

  She shoved her way back out of the building and onto the street. She noticed Ollan sitting at a table that had been set up across the street from the Crooked Pig. Across from him sat a pale-skinned man. Another Lavic. On the table between them, a wooden board had been set up with game pieces littered across the top. She recognized it as a Lavic game. She couldn’t remember its proper name for it, but it translated to something like chasing the shark. It revolved around trying to infiltrate your pieces through the opponent’s defenses. Next to the board sat two mugs of ale, but both Ollan and his counterpart looked sober enough. He was also wearing his crossbow strapped to his back. Good.

  Ollan had been plucked out of the ocean a year past, a survivor from a downed merchant galley floating on a wooden piece of debris barely big enough to keep his weight above water. Put to work on the Epoch, he fit in almost immediately, not because he was overly friendly but because he knew his way around a ship, worked hard, kept his nose down and generally didn’t cause problems. At the time, Mael had been at war with Laventhene, so captured Lavic sailors were often dropped off at the nearest Maelian town with a jail, or in many cases had simply had their throats cut after being interrogated for useful information. Janx was of the less nationalistic sort, however, and knew the value of a good crewmember when she saw one. As such, the only limitation that had been placed on Ollan was that he had to remain below decks when they were in port or when they rendezvoused with Maelian ships at sea.

  His worth as a sailor turned out to be equaled by his worth as a fighter. What he lacked in adroitness and dexterity, he made up for as a brawler. Plus, he was a bloody good shot with a crossbow.

  Saeliko hesitated. She liked the man well enough but wasn’t sure of his loyalties. Plus, he was a man. Saeliko didn’t like working with men; they too often lacked the fortitude to see hard things through to the end. For a moment, she contemplated going it alone tonight. In the end, she decided it worth the risk to bring Ollan along. Even if the job went bad, she’d be able to figure out whether or not she could rely on him down the road. And that knowledge might just come in very handy.

  “Ollan,” she called out after walking up to his table.

  Both Lavics looked up at her. Ollan’s counterpart looked suddenly startled. That was the tattoo effect. Ollan himself looked only analytical, gazing at her as if trying to read her intentions. He apparently succeeded, for he turned back to his fellow Lavic and said, “Game’s over, Jovish.” He then stood up to leave.

  “I was winning that,” Jovish moaned.

  “Eat turtle shit,” was the only gruff reply he got. Ollan fell into step with Saeliko and didn’t give Jovish a second look. They walked away from the drinking house, stepping over a puddle of vomit and three unconscious bodies as they went. He didn’t ask any questions, nor did he look the least bit off-put by the interruption of his evening plans. Saeliko liked a man who knew his place and didn’t talk too much.

  They broke off the main road and headed toward the hill that led up to the governess’ house. While they walked, Saeliko wondered if there was a deeper reason that Ollan left with her so easily. It was possible that he fancied her. Though if that were true, he had never given any sign of it.

  “This way.” She took a left. Together the two of them paced around the landward side of the hill, keeping low enough to remain out of sight of the governess’ house but high enough to keep the snake fence within a few paces. They moved slowly. Saeliko eased into the night like water over ice, lithely moving around stunted trees without making a sound. As before, she was impressed with Ollan, who exhibited a surprising level of stealth.

  They rounded the back of the house on the north side and gained elevation. Saeliko stopped and squatted next to a pair of narrow tree trunks cut off at the base. She looked down at the seven cannons pointed out to sea. Five torches had been lit at intervals along the low stone wall, illuminating the full battery and the racks of cannonballs. There were currently five guards gathered in the torchlight. Two of them sat in worn down rickety chairs, while the other three sat on the ground. Two bottles of wine were being passed around.

  “Not the most disciplined outfit,” Ollan whispered.

  “Well, this is Meshaltown,” she conceded. “They were probably sent out here as punishment.” She looked up at him. Ollan was still standing. “Make yourself comfortable,” she told him. “This might take a while.” He shrugged and sat on a rock, careful not to make too much noise.

  “That can’t be all of ‘em.”

  “Gaemmil has at least ten down in the town keeping an eye on our crew. Plus, I’ve a mind to guess that after last night, she has a few of ‘em in her house.”

  Ollan grunted. She wasn’t sure if that meant he agreed.

  “You want to know why we’re here?” she asked.

  “Figured you’d tell me when you’re ready.”

  “I’m ready.”

  “So tell me.”

  “Her.” The Saffisheen pointed to a soldier.

  “Which one?”

  “Chair closest to the southernmost cannon.”

  Ollan put a wedged hand up to his forehead to protect his eyes from the torchlight. “That the captain of the guard from last night?”

  “One and the same. Her name is Tlell.”

  “How do you want to do it?”

  Saeliko’s outstretched hand moved about seventy degrees to the north to a spot in the bushes well away from both the battery and the house. Ollan scanned the area, but his eyes were still affected by the torchlight.

  “What am I looking at?”

  “A path leading up the coast about three hundred paces.”

  The Lavic put two and two together and then grinned. “That where they drop anchor?” Saeliko couldn’t stop a smile from escaping her lips at the euphemism.

  “Uh huh.”

  “And what does Janx want us to do with this Tlell woman?” he asked.

  Saeliko didn’t respond. When he looked at her, she locked her green eyes on his blue. Ollan squinted for a moment, uncertain of exactly what the Saffisheen was trying to communicate to him.

  “Janx doesn’t know,” he finally grunted and then tilted his head to the side, thinking about this new twist. “And Janx wouldn’t want us to be doing whatever it is we’re doing.” It was obvious that Ollan was rolling through the dilemma in his head.

  Saeliko nodded. “You okay with that?”

  Another long silence. She didn’t rush him. In fact, she respected him more for thinking it over carefully. What she was asking of him wasn’t insignificant. If he continued on with her, he would knowingly be acting against his harker’s interests. And while that wasn’t as villainous as disobeying a direct order or violating the code he had signed onto as a member of the crew, the punishment would still be considerable.

  On the other hand, he had to know that his safety at this very instant was in jeopardy. A
cting against the harker’s interests was dangerous, but angering a qarlden – particularly a Saffisheen qarlden – wasn’t conducive to a long and healthy life either. Ollan had to know that if Saeliko suspected that he might run back to Janx and fess up, it was likely that she would slit his throat and leave his body to rot where it was. She had intentionally put him into a difficult position.

  “What are the chances this will come back on me?” he asked.

  “I think the question you should be asking,” Saeliko started, maintaining her gaze, “is what are the chances this will help you secure yourself a more profitable future?” She let that sink in.

  After a while, Ollan asked, “Does that mean what I think it means?”

  Again, Saeliko said nothing. Instead, she brought her attention back to Tlell and her group of soldiers sitting next to the bulky black cannons. They were all chortling and hee-hawing in the night air, probably at some bawdy joke.

  Time slipped by. The moon gradually arced its way overhead, intercepted now and again by wispy clouds. One of the soldiers got up and plodded up the path to relieve herself. When she came back, another soldier followed suit. Tlell remained in her chair, drinking and talking with the others.

  “I’ll follow you,” Ollan stated.

  “Pardon?”

  “You asked if I was okay with this,” he reminded her. “I’m telling you, I’m okay with whatever this is.”

  “You mean tonight?”

  “And beyond.”

  She considered his reply. It wasn’t in her nature to trust people. Most of the individuals she came into contact with on a daily basis – sailors, soldiers, harbor masters, merchants, traders and so on – were the fickle sort. Their concept of loyalty was so hollow that it was roughly equivalent to mere convenience.

  In the year that she had known Ollan and tried to gauge his character, she had sensed greater sincerity. He was a man of few words, and in her experience, this usually meant that the words themselves were of greater import and greater candor. He meant what he said. And so when she listened to him say and beyond, she was keenly aware that there was no false romanticism or disingenuous trickery behind his coarse voice. Instead, there was commitment. He had made his decision.

  “Good,” she said, and nothing more.

  1.7 SAELIKO

  They waited and watched together. The night air was still and humid. Another hour passed until their opportunity presented itself. The tall, slender captain of the guard stood up on wobbly legs and began the short trek up the path. She carried a torch in her hand.

  Saeliko and Ollan moved to follow. They trod their way cautiously, though they probably needn’t have gone to all the trouble. With the state that Tlell and her comrades were in, an army of Qomeri honor guards in full plate could have marched past without raising the alarm. They waited until Tlell was well on her way before cutting onto the trail and following in her footsteps.

  They hadn’t been able to see it earlier from where they had been waiting, but now that they were on the path, the outhouse was easily visible. A decrepit ramble of planks and beams, the structure was actually in a beautiful location overlooking the sea.

  Tlell stumbled in and they lost sight of her. Saeliko didn’t hear a door close, which either meant there wasn’t one or the captain simply wanted to take in the view and have some fresh air while she did her business over the hole.

  The Saffisheen qarlden motioned for her Lavic partner to duck into the shrubbery about twenty paces before the outhouse and wait. Then she slid into her own position just behind the outhouse. A few moments later, while she stood in wait, Tlell broke into a drunken tune, punctuated from time to time by rambunctious flatulence. Saeliko shook her head and quietly wondered how her life had come to this: tucked away behind an outhouse on a swampy rock in the sea at the far end of the world listening to farts.

  Mercifully, the session came to an end. They could hear the woman clumsily pulling her pants back up and buckling the belt on her uniform. Tlell gave a loud hiccup and began happily moseying back up the trail.

  With startling speed, Saeliko pawed right up to Tlell’s backside, planted her right foot behind her victim’s ankles, and in one smooth motion brought her left arm around the captain’s neck and wrenched her backwards. Without warning, the poor woman’s body had absolutely no reaction other than to flail her arms upward. The torch flew through the air and landed in a patch of dirt.

  The captain landed hard on her back, forcing all of the air out of her lungs in a painful sounding whoomf! By the time she tried to breathe again, she found herself hindered by the Saffisheen qarlden sitting on her ribcage, knees pinning her arms, knife blade held up to her throat. Saeliko’s free hand covered Tlell’s mouth.

  “Quiet or you’re dead,” she whispered matter-of-factly. “Blink twice if you understand.” The captain complied. Saeliko lifted her hand from the woman’s mouth and let the woman suck in some much needed air. Behind her, she could hear Ollan approach. His footsteps were unhurried. “This is my friend,” she told Tlell.

  “I remember you,” Tlell said to Ollan. “Hi.” Ollan didn’t reply; he just looked at her. Tlell directed her words back at Saeliko. “He’s not very talkative.”

  “His knife does the talking.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’m going to make this very simple,” the Saffisheen started. “I’m going to ask you some very easy questions. You’re going to answer those questions truthfully. Do you understand?”

  An affirmative nod and a wine-fueled hiccup.

  “Now, if I think you’re lying, I put my friend to work. Do you know what that means?”

  “It means his knife does the talking.”

  “Very good.” Saeliko was impressed; the captain was sobering up quickly. “Are you ready to begin?”

  “Yes.”

  “First question. Did Governess Gaemmil send you to find the quickspice from the Lavic wreck?”

  “Aye. Me and some others.”

  “And how many chests did the Lavics have on the shore when you found them.”

  “Fifteen,” she reported without hesitation.

  “Ollan, slice her cheek.” Before the captain could cry out, Saeliko clamped a hand down over her mouth. Ollan moved in quickly. He put his knee against the side of her jaw, pushing the right side of her face into the dirt and exposing the left. The captain kicked her legs and struggled to break free, but with the weight of both of her captors on top of her, there was nothing she could do. Ollan pulled his knife slowly in a line from the base of her nose over the cheek bone and toward the ear. “That’s enough,” Saeliko told him when his knife was about three quarters of the way to the lobe. Ollan retracted the knife and took his knee away.

  “Let’s try this again, shall we?” She lifted her hand away from Tlell’s mouth. The captain made a half-groaning, half-sobbing noise. Saeliko went on anyway. “The next time you lie to me, you lose an ear. Do you understand?”

  “Aye,” came the choked response.

  “How many chests did you find?”

  “Eighteen.”

  “There. That was easy, wasn’t it?” The woman just whimpered. “Second question. How did you kill the Lavic survivors?” As soon as Saeliko asked the question, Tlell’s eyes flitted over to Ollan. Saeliko saw this and smiled. “Ah! I understand your hesitance,” she told the captain. “You think that my friend here might be Lavic, and that he also might want revenge for any atrocity you might have inflicted on his kin. Well, it turns out you are right and you are wrong. Indeed, my friend is Lavic. However, his loyalties no longer lie with Laventhene or its people, including the women of the Sarleff. He won’t be needing any revenge.

  “Normally I would punish you for not answering in good haste. But you are drunk and I’m feeling gracious.” The mirth faded from Saeliko’s face. “Yet, it would be extremely foolish of you to test my patience. I’ll ask you one more time. How did you kill them?”

  “We slit their throats,” the captain admitted wi
thout hesitation.

  “Really?”

  “Aye. After they helped us load the chests onto our sloops, we took the Lavics on board to take them back up to Meshaltown. When they went to sleep at night, we knifed ‘em.” Through the entirety of her story, Tlell’s eyes remained fixated on Ollan.

  “Look at me, not him.”

  “Apologies.”

  “Third question. Where are the three chests that didn’t make it onto the Mynndah?”

  “About an hour’s walk from here.”

  “Buried, or above ground?”

  “They’re in an abandoned house up the coast. I can take you there if you want.”

  Saeliko stood up and straddled the prone captain, her feet planted on either side of the woman’s ribcage. Tlell, her arms finally free, reached up to examine the damage to her face. There was a lot of blood; it would need some serious stitch work. She groaned again.

  “Any tricks and I send you to Mysha.” Saeliko put her knife in her left hand and then offered her right hand to Tlell to help her get back on her feet. The captain took it and hauled herself up awkwardly. “You try to run, you die. You lead us into a trap, you die.”

  “I understand.”

  “Pick up the torch.” She did as she was told and then began stumbling into the brushes moving away from the coast, Saeliko and Ollan in tow. Before long, they were surrounded by large trees, the first real jungle they had come across on Dyssal Main. The top end of the island seemed to obey different climate and terrain rules than the isthmus region. Instead of soft, swampy contours, they found themselves on grassy knolls with increasingly dense vegetation. Just as it looked to be getting to thick to navigate without a machete, they popped out on a double-track path leading north.

  “There are guards at the house,” Tlell stated. “Four of them. Gaemmil ordered them to stay there until she finds a buyer for the spice.”