The Skewed Throne

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The Skewed Throne Page 14

by Joshua Palmatier


  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 overex tended 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 shoulder.

  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 knees. 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.

  I leaned forward, possibilities leaping upward in my chest, but forced myself to settle back.

  I couldn’t risk it. Not without the river. I’d learned that the first few days on the wharf. I could still feel the hawker ’s hand latching onto my wrist and jerking me around the first time I’d tried.

  Where do you think you’re going with that? he’d spat, his voice somehow greasy.

  I leaned back against the crates, brought up a hand to wipe at where I could still feel the spit on my face. I’d said nothing, too shocked that I’d been caught to speak.

  I’d never been caught on the Dredge. Not since I’d figured out how to combine the river with what Dove and his street gang had taught me. And especially not after the Fire.

  But here I had to be more careful, had to take fewer risks. All because every time I tried to use the river that spike of pain returned. I couldn’t tell if it was lessening as the days passed; it was still too sharp. So sharp that I hadn’t tried to use the river at all in the last two days.

  I pushed the nagging worry back, continued to watch the last of the crates being unloaded. The strange hairy fruit was being repacked.

  I sighed and turned back to the wharf. I couldn’t risk taking anything directly from the docks, where escape routes were restricted, but the wharf. . . .

  I slid from my place among the crates and netting and merged with the crowd.

  I spent the rest of the day on the wharf, shifting from place to place, watching the hawkers, watching the dockworkers, eyes sharp for the misplaced fishhead, the unwatched crust of bread. The crowds were slightly different here than on the Dredge. The majority of the people were the same—pale skin, darker hair in shades of brown and black, darker eyes as well— but there were more strangers on the wharf. Men with beads braided in their beards; women with feathers in their hair. Others wore cloth draped over them, secured with intricate folds and tucks, rather than being tailored. I saw a few with the blue paint smudge of the Tear of Taniece near the corner of their eye.

  The streets and alleys just beyond the wharf were almost like the Dredge as well. The alleys were lined with bundles of netting and meshed crab traps with dried seaweed stuck to them, rather than heaps of broken stone and crumbling mud-brick. The stench: salt and dead fish, rather than shit and stagnant water. I’d even managed to find a new niche—the end of an alley, where crab traps had been piled high, covered over with a stretch of tanned hide against the rain. I’d forced a hole in the center, pulled traps out from inside, until I could squeeze into the narrow opening and move around beneath the tanned hide. It was much closer to the Dredge than the upper city, where I’d been before, where I’d woken to find Perci staring down at me.

  I glanced away from the wharf, up past the buildings immediately next to the water to the slope of the hill behind. The roofs thinned as my gaze swept higher, the buildings larger, more ornate and isolated. At the top of the hill I could see three circular walls, the white stone of the palace gleaming in the sun in their center.

  In the upper city, there were almost no foreigners, and almost no smells at all. At least nothing that stung the nose or made my eyes water.

  My gaze dropped back to the wharf and I breathed in the stench of fish again.

  A man cursed and the thud of a dropped bundle hitting the wood of the wharf drew me out of
my daze. Night was beginning to settle, and clouds had begun to drift in from the sea.

  It would rain tonight.

  The man squatted down, began gathering up what had spilled from his bundle, the flow of the crowd parting around him. A few items had rolled. A flat package tied with twine slid against a dock support jutting up from the planking and the undulating water below.

  For a moment, I tensed, ready to slip beneath the river, but stopped myself with a shudder, remembering the spiked headache.

  I settled back against the alley wall and watched as the man grunted, reaching for a cylindrical package that had rolled farther away than the rest. Only the flat item that had slid to the support remained.

  But the man stood abruptly, tossed the cylindrical package into the bundle, then swung it up over his shoulder and joined the crowd.

  I stared in shock at the rectangular package he’d left behind.

  Then, with a swift glance left and right, I shoved through the people to the dock support and snatched the package up.

  Without opening it, I headed back to my niche, pushing through the crowd. Once in the back alleys, I slowed, relaxed, my arms tingling.

  All I wanted was my niche.

  I slipped down an empty street, toward an alley. Night had fallen completely now, and the first drizzle of rain began to fall. I’d almost reached the end of the alley, my hands still clutching the package, when someone stepped into my path.

  I froze, water beginning to drip from the hair hanging before my face. Through the tangles, I could see the man’s grin, could see he wore finer clothes than the dockworkers, than the hawkers. Breeches without stains, a leather belt with a dagger tucked into it, a dark shirt, a cloak against the rain.

  “What have we here?” he murmured, and like the hawker that had grabbed my arm days before, his voice sounded greasy.

  I took a step back, one hand dropping from the package to the dagger hidden beneath my shirt.

 

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