Where he’d find Bloodmark. Erick would know that I’d killed him.
Guilt stabbed hard into my stomach. And shame as I imagined Erick kneeling over Bloodmark’s body, checking out the wound, scanning the body for marks. But he wouldn’t need confirmation of who had driven the dagger into Bloodmark’s neck. He’d know as soon as he saw the body.
No, I couldn’t go back to the slums. I’d killed so many for Erick, for the Mistress, but Bloodmark had been different. I’d killed him for myself. For the white-dusty man and his wife.
But mostly for myself.
I drew in two long, deep breaths to steady myself, felt the shame fade, replaced with regret. Not regret that I’d killed Bloodmark, but that somehow in the process I’d lost Erick as well.
I suddenly thought of that last vision of Erick at Cobbler’s Fountain, of seeing him for the first time beneath the river, his essence a strange mixture of gray and red. No one had ever appeared both colors before. Those that were harmless or presented no immediate danger were always gray; those that weren’t were red.
So what did the mixture mean? Could Erick somehow be both? Harmless and dangerous at the same time?
Or was it not that simple?
I thought about Erick outside the iron gate, stalking Jobriah, the first mark I’d led him to. He’d been dangerous that day, enough that I’d shied away from him. I’d seen that same black look in his eyes many times since then. And every time I’d shuddered, pulled back and away.
But I could still feel his arms around me as he held me and I told him about the ex-guardsman trying to rape me, of how I’d stolen the dagger and killed the bastard as the White Fire swept through the city. I’d settled closer to Erick then, had been comforted by him.
Was it possible for someone to be both?
I shook myself, thrust the unanswered questions away. Harmless or dangerous, red or gray, it didn’t matter anymore. Erick was gone, lost, stolen from me. Just like the Dredge.
I shifted forward, stared down the length of the alley to the bustle of the street, to the ebb and flow of strangers in fine clothing and clean skin.
Who are you? Perci had asked.
I glanced down at my hands. Bloodmark’s blood had dried into the creases of the palm, had caked between my fingers. I closed my hands into fists and felt flakes fall away, felt the dried blood like grit between my skin.
“I’m gutterscum,” I murmured to myself.
The sensation of having been kicked hard remained, deep inside, the ache like a stone in my gut. I drew in a deep breath through my nose, snorted back snot and phlegm and swallowed it, coughing slightly.
I couldn’t return to the slums, but I couldn’t remain here either. I was too different. I’d be noticed the instant I entered the street. I needed to get cleaned up, wash the slums from my face, from my clothes.
I stood, slowly, with effort, feeling aches throughout my body, but mostly in my chest and stomach from where Bloodmark had kicked me. Back pressed against the stone-brick wall for support, I lifted my dirt-, blood-, and vomit-smeared shirt. A livid bruise in the shape of a foot lay in the center of my chest, black and purplish-blue, edged in a horrid yellow. Another bruise rose along my side.
I saw Bloodmark’s foot stomping down out of the night, winced as I dropped the shirt back into place. I glanced down the alley again in both directions, frowned.
Something else was different here. Something I’d noticed the night I’d followed Erick to the bridge. Something that reinforced the fact that I was no longer on the Dredge with more power than the people on the street, or their clothes, or the strange room on wheels.
The alley had edges, seemed somehow more defined, more there. There were sharp corners at its mouth, clear recesses for windows, for doors, and none of the windows were boarded up. The cobbles that covered the ground were mostly intact; the path for the runnel of water down its center mostly straight.
Beyond the Dredge, the alleys and narrows were worn, rounded, used. The shit and piss and lichen that stained the stone and mud-brick were permanent. The slush of rotten garbage that slicked the niches, collected in the crevices and corners, only shifted. It was never removed.
And on the Dredge, there were no barrels. None completely intact anyway.
I turned to the barrel, leaned down over its opening. It was just over half full of rainwater. I stared down at the ripples on the water, at the face reflected there.
The hair was flat, slicked with mud, matted with splatters of blood. It hung in thin tendrils, like rat tails, shorn short and uneven, nothing reaching farther than the chin. It framed a thin face, mouth pressed tight into a thin line, most of the skin smudged with more dirt, more blood, all dried and flaked like the blood on my hands. What skin wasn’t covered with grit—with the Dredge—was sallow, almost gray. And the eyes . . .
I flinched.
The eyes were hollow, wasted, crusted with dried tears. And in the muddy depths—
I stood a long moment, looked deep into the water, into those eyes.
Then I plunged my hands down into the water and scrubbed the blood away, scrubbed until my skin felt raw, until my ragged fingernails left marks. Then, before the water could settle and the reflection could return, I dipped my head into the barrel.
Water closed over my face and I shut my eyes, remembering Cobbler’s Fountain, feeling again the terror of that six-year-old girl as she tripped, as the water enveloped her, closed up and over her head. . . .
I jerked out of the rain barrel, water streaming from my hair, down my face. I gasped, sputtered, but scrubbed at my skin and pulled at my hair before dipping back down into the barrel again to wash away the grime, resurfacing with another choked gasp.
“Where did you see this woman?”
The voice filtered out of the general noise of the street. I turned, hair still dripping water. I scanned the alley and realized one more thing that made the real Amenkor different from the Dredge.
The alleys had fewer darknesses, fewer hiding places. Windows and doors actually existed, were not simply empty openings leading to deeper darknesses. I had few places to escape to here.
“Down that alley,” a woman said. I glanced back to the street and saw her—the woman who’d dragged Perci away. She stood with Perci, nodding toward the alley. A guardsman, dressed like Erick, but with finer clothing, more armor, and a sword instead of a dagger, followed the direction of her nod.
“And you say she had blood on her hands?” the guard asked. His voice sounded dubious.
“Yes. And on her face and clothes. And I think she had a knife.”
The guard grunted and began moving toward the alley.
I turned and moved into its depths, moved without conscious thought. I didn’t know where I was going, but I knew I couldn’t stay here any longer. I’d have to finish cleaning up somewhere else.
* * *
The first time I tried to use the river after killing Bloodmark, a spike of pain slashed into my head behind my eyes and my stomach clenched so hard I collapsed to the ground at the mouth of the alley where I stood. I lay curled where I’d fallen, drawing in breaths in huge gasps. Panic smothered me as the pain escalated, the spike driving deeper, harder, turning white-hot.
I’d never had pain like this. Not days after my last use of the river. Especially not after the nausea and weakness had receded.
And then a horrifying thought surfaced, stilled my gasping breath with a twinge of pain in my lungs.
What if I couldn’t use the river anymore at all? What if somehow in my push to find Bloodmark I’d overextended myself, burned myself out?
The thought shoved everything away, crushed everything but the spike of pain behind my eyes and a hollow sound in my ears. It left me stunned.
I couldn’t survive without the river.
Someone touched me, a gentle hand on my shoulde
r.
I jerked back with a gasp, struck the wall of the alley.
“Are you all right?”
I could barely see the woman who knelt beside me, her hands lying cupped on her knees. A strange field of yellow, like a film of scum over water, covered my vision, pulsing with the pulse of the spike. Jagged little streaks, like flares of lightning, ran through the field of yellow.
“I’m . . . fine,” I gasped, too frightened of what was happening in my head to really respond, to think.
The woman sat back slightly, her dress rustling, the sound unnaturally loud. “You don’t look fine.” Her voice seemed dull, faded, and seemed to come from much farther away.
I tried to focus through the field of yellow, pushed myself up onto my hands. The pulsing lightning began to recede. “I’m fine,” I said with more force.
The woman frowned doubtfully and glanced back toward the street. Her dress was a plain brown, but still clean. Her long, light-brown hair was tied back with a simple green ribbon, pulled away from her round face. And she wore an earring in one ear—gold with a bluish-green iridescent bead.
It reminded me strangely of water.
Across the street, a man and two older boys were unloading sacks of potatoes from a wagon, tossing a heavy bag over each shoulder before toting them through a wide door into the building beyond. One sack had split while being hefted, spilling a few potatoes to the ground. The sack itself had been set to one side at the back of the wagon.
When she turned back, the woman with the iridescent earring scrutinized me through narrowed eyes. Her frown had deepened. Her gaze flicked to my clothes, to my hair.
Neither was splattered with blood now. After eluding the guardsman in the backstreets, I’d gone down to Amenkor’s River, washed everything as clean as I could make it. On the Dredge, the clothes Erick had given me had seemed clean, almost too nice to be worn. But at the edge of the River, at the bottom of the stone steps that led down to its walled-in banks, I’d seen the stains, the tattered edges, the small tears.
I felt those tears, those stains, now, under the scrutiny of the woman. Tight anger burned in my chest and I pushed myself back onto my heels.
“I said I’m fine,” I repeated, harshly.
Her brow creased. Then she stood and said, “Very well.”
I flinched at the slight coldness in her voice, the remoteness.
She moved away, stepped back into the street, but paused when she saw the wagon again, the potatoes. The last of the sacks had been toted into the building and the older of the two boys was holding the split sack while the younger collected the dropped potatoes from the street. They cinched the sack closed as best they could and hauled it inside the building as well.
The woman turned back. “Perhaps . . .” She hesitated, seemed to reconsider, then added in a rush, “Perhaps you should try the marketplace. Or the wharf. You might have better luck there, on the docks.”
Then she cut across the street, pausing only long enough to let a man on a horse pass.
I watched where she had vanished for a long moment, feeling a dull ache in my chest, for a brief moment smelling yeast, feeling a brush of oven heat against my face.
But I pushed the ache down, smothered the scents. The spiking pain had dropped down to a throbbing stab and my vision had begun to clear. I still felt weak, but even that was fading.
I stood carefully, then scanned the street.
People moved from shop to shop, building to building. They paused to talk, to laugh. Bells jangled as someone entered a narrow door in the building beside me. The smell of tallow drifted out. But not the harsh, oily tallow of the Dredge. This tallow was mixed with strange scents, wild foreign scents that prickled the inside of my nose. Across the street, another door opened and a roar of laughter escaped into the street, the man who had left waving to the others inside.
I’d have no luck hunting here. The closest I’d come in the last two days had been the split sack of potatoes, and even that would have been risky. That’s why I’d tried to use the river. But this wasn’t the Dredge. The people might not be wary, but they had nothing to fear. There were too few of them, nothing like the crowds on the Dredge. There were no places for me to blend into, no niches to hide in.
And then there were the guards.
I stepped deeper into the alley as two appeared on horseback. Like the guard the other day, these two were dressed like Erick, but cleaner. Edged, like the alleys. They held themselves stiff and straight, and their eyes . . .
As they passed, the closest guard’s gaze fell on me. His eyes were like Erick’s as well, but the danger, the darkness that I’d seen hidden in Erick’s gaze was blunt and blatant. And arrogant.
The guard’s eyes narrowed, as if it had finally registered that he’d seen something out of place, something wrong.
The two passed beyond the entrance to the alley.
I didn’t wait for them to return. I moved back into the depths and began to work my way toward Amenkor’s River. I’d stayed near the water the last few nights. Because the riverbank wasn’t as active as the inner streets, it provided a few more places to hide. And because I could see the slums on the far side, the familiar sight was comforting. But the woman was right. I couldn’t continue hunting in this area, especially if I couldn’t use the river.
I halted, bit my lower lip, then tentatively tried to push myself beneath the surface. For a moment, the world grayed, noises receded to wind. But the sense was distorted, watery and indistinct.
And then the spike of pain returned, slicing down through my temple. Weakness shot through my legs.
I shoved the river away before the pain increased, sighed in relief as the searing spike began to recede.
When my legs felt stable again, I continued. I didn’t know where the marketplace was, but the wharf. . . .
I’d seen it from the rooftops, seen it the night the ex-guardsman had caught me and dragged me there to rape me. I remembered the White Fire as it sped through the harbor, so cold and silent, remembered how it had engulfed the ships, the docks, before surging up onto the land. All I had to do was follow the River down to the sea.
I shivered, felt the Fire stir inside me.
I tensed, half expected the spiked headache to return and the nausea, but the cold flame of the Fire drifted away. Apparently, it wasn’t affected by the use of the river.
My stomach growled.
I picked up my pace. I’d have better luck at the docks.
* * *
I knelt between two crates behind a pile of tangled netting on the wharf and watched a ship with three masts bump hard into the long wooden dock. A man shouted, voice hard and vicious against the slap of the waves, and men scurried as ties were thrown over the edge of the boat. The dock groaned as the ship drifted away, and then a plank slapped down and more men began unloading cargo, crate after crate hauled down to the dock. Some of the men unloading crates had dark skin—darker than could be attributed to exposure to the sun—their faces flatter and wider, bodies shorter, more compact. All of the darker-skinned men had straight black hair, cut to the nape of the neck. Most had tattoos on their faces and down their necks.
Zorelli. Men from the far south.
I eased forward, hoping for a better look.
It was chaos, men on the ship, men on the dock, the man barking orders left and right, motioning with an arm toward the wharf, toward the ship, arguing with another man who came down the plank as if he owned it. The man coming down the plank glared at the one shouting orders, then gave a curt command. The other man turned back to the boat, bellowing more fiercely than before, cursing, pissed off, taking it out on the crew.
The captain stepped off the plank, dipped his head toward another man waiting on the pier. Both wore fine breeches, heavy boots, shirts with unnecessary ruffles near the throat, and long jackets that came down to their knee
s. The man on the dock had a dark-red jacket, like blood, with gold threading in strange patterns down the arms and near the cuffs. He was mostly bald, a fringe of dark hair with shots of gray surrounding his head like brown stone around a fountain. He wore rounded wire on his face, with hooks that went around his ears. Every now and then, when he turned, sunlight would glint off his eyes, as if it were reflecting off water, only this reflection appeared flat and rounded.
The captain of the ship wore dark green, with less gold threading, but with more hair and no wires on his face.
As I watched, the captain and the man in the red jacket began arguing. When the argument ended, the captain of the ship stormed back up the plank, the man with the wires on his face watching him go.
Then the man with the wires on his face began moving down the dock toward me, his eyes narrowed in anger. Another man—younger, paler—fell in beside him, dressed similarly but without the horrible jacket.
“What’s the matter, Master Borund? What did the captain say?”
The bald man growled. “He said he didn’t have the entire shipment. Said the cloth from Verano is missing and the Marland spice couldn’t be found. Someone in the city bought it all up before he could get any.” He cursed, then drew in a deep breath to steady himself as the two passed by the crates. I’d sprawled back, head down as if asleep, but I needn’t have bothered. They were too intent on their conversation to notice me. “This city is going to pieces, William. And neither Avrell nor the Mistress is doing anything about it. . . .”
Their voices receded.
I lifted my head to see if they were far enough away, then shifted forward and watched them merge with the crowd on the wharf, vanishing among the hawkers and dockworkers, the stench of seawater and fish. Then I turned back to the ship.
There was nothing on the ship for me, nothing I could steal. I’d already determined that. But I didn’t leave. The ships in the harbor intrigued me. I watched the men unload the crates, watched the ropes and pulleys on the masts sag and dip in the wind. Waves slapped against the ship’s sides, and now and then it bumped up against the dock where it was secured. Men shouted and cursed and spat and laughed. White-gray birds shrieked, dove for the water, for the men, before settling on the dock supports and flapping their wings. Someone dropped a crate and with a wrench and a crack of wood it split, sending some type of brown, hairy, rounded fruit rolling along the dock.
The Throne of Amenkor Page 14