“Get down,” I told Lysa, tugging her wrist toward the floor.
We crept low to the ground the rest of the way, concealing ourselves behind the moving wall of fancily dressed guys and gals. Once outside in the violet hue of Devous, I took a knee and copped a quick look around.
Smoke curled against the windows of Gravendeer Tavern, gray wisps somersaulting back into the eatery. The cover provided wasn’t perfect, but unless gems-in-the-eyes woman knew our precise location and which window we’d be passing in front of, she wouldn’t be able to identify us quickly enough.
Lysa and I scampered away, sprinting past the windows until we reached… well, whatever it was that we reached. Perhaps the commons? Everything here looked the same. The city was hemmed in with a colorful weed bed of tall, unruly buildings, so thick and clomped together they choked off the sky in some places.
Workers filed past with buckets, water sloshing against the rims, aiming their faces stapled with gems toward Gravendeer Tavern.
No one seemed very alarmed that flames were pushing against the blue agate windows of the eatery. In fact, most passersby seemed rather oblivious. Or perhaps apathetic. They talked to one another, fingered their hair, smiled their huge, fake smiles.
I snapped my fingers. “I finally realize what this place reminds me of,” I told Lysa.
Intrigued, she lifted her brow.
“Imagine a city where court politics suffuse the daily life of all its inhabitants. You put on your best fabricated smile, make sweet talk to those you’re trying to one-up, live like appearances are everything — because here they are — and walk the stiff walk of one who has a crab stuck up their ass and is afraid those red claws are going to shred his little hole to pieces if he relaxes one bit.”
“I think it’s just a really fancy city.”
“Maybe. Let’s find this District Four.”
A woman with eight-inch heels click-clacked against the peridot walking paths.
“Pardon me,” I said, trying my hand at this manners business, “can you direct us to District Four, by chance?”
“We’re from Quarm,” Lysa put in.
The woman straightened her shoulders, and her purple-painted lips cracked, revealing a set of teeth as white as ivory.
“Quarm?” she asked, smacking her lips. “What a wonderful little village. It must be quite the treat to dine in the beauty of Devous.”
I felt sick.
“We’re honored to be here,” Lysa said.
“I’m sure. I assume this is your first time?”
First and last, I thought.
“It is,” Lysa answered.
The woman nodded her chin down the street. “You will see there are signs posted throughout Devous, for newcomers such as yourselves. Follow them and you will be certain to reach your destination. A good day to you, Lady…?”
Lysa had her mouth slightly ajar, then it widened into the modest smile of someone who has completely forgotten what she wanted to say. After a lengthy pause, she answered, “Tolous. Lady Tolous. And this is—”
“Her love,” I said, not one to forget my lines. “Lord Tolous.”
The woman nodded sagely. Or for a more accurate adjective given the situation, skeptically. She considered me for a few rather uncomfortable moments, as if I was wearing a mask and she was hoping that a hard, unrelenting stare would cause me to remove it.
“A pleasure,” she said, flashing us one last smile as she walked away.
“She didn’t tell us her name,” Lysa noted. “Should we have asked?”
I shrugged. “If you see a bookstore, take a gander inside for an instruction pamphlet on proper Devous manners.”
“I wonder what that book would be called.”
“Probably A Manual for the Masochist.”
Lysa laughed. She pointed ahead. “That sign says District Four is straight ahead.”
Straight ahead we went, down a narrow path edged with ruby windows and pillars encrusted with crushed sapphires and diamonds.
A gradient washed over the streets, stripping the green from the inlaid peridots and replacing it with brown-reddish jasper. The tops of the buildings began falling away, each subsequent one stepping down from the other. Street performers swallowed fire and juggled knives. Their faces were painted with skulls and whiskers and bared teeth.
A wooden sign staked into the ground said District One was behind us, Two was to the right, Three to the left, and Four straight ahead.
I glanced back, making sure gems-in-the-eyes-woman wasn’t shadowing us.
“That woman’s eyes,” Lysa said as we walked past a hammer juggler. “The one in the tavern. Her eyes were beautiful.”
“I think the word you’re looking for is wacky. Or kooky. Maybe even crazed.”
“No,” she said, “beautiful. That doesn’t mean they’re not scary.” She stopped abruptly. “Do you think this is a trap?”
“If it is, it’s a damn convincing one.”
Lysa suddenly seemed seized by apprehension, which was not an emotion she often let overtake her. Or at least not one that she visibly wore.
“Steel your nerves.” I stuffed a hand into my pocket and grasped the tiny figurine given to me by the server. “Here, look.”
Lysa pinched the thumb-sized carving of a lion, turning it over in her palm. “What’s this?”
“Uh, the rebellion’s—”
“I know that. I mean, why are you showing it to me?”
“The tavern pyromaniac and apparent savior of our lives gave it to me.”
Lysa’s nostrils flared. “The rebellion’s here. But Ellie said the scouts weren’t this deep. They were at the edge.”
“For all we know, this could be the edge. Let’s not forget about the so-called Fringe, huh? And if this isn’t the edge, it wouldn’t be the first time someone tried to be a hero and get information at the risk of their lives.”
Lysa ran her tongue along her teeth. She was always far too quick to lend her trust and equally quick to reel it back in. Ellie had acquired her faith through the telling of stories involving conjurers and past rebellions and the future of Amortis. Lysa had eaten it up, and why wouldn’t she? She was privy to the secrets of the world, had been told that not only could she make a difference in this war for her homeland, she would make a difference.
And then she learns Fragment Zero isn’t quite as derelict a place as it was made out to be, that a kingdom of stunning gems and breathtaking vistas awaited her. More importantly, she came to learn that perhaps there are good people in Amortis — different, for sure, but good nonetheless. And they would likely be sundered if the rebellion was to claim victory.
If there was one thing Lysa Rabthorn hated above all else, it was the sacrifice of the good in the name of the better.
“Come on,” I said, closing her hand around the figurine. She’d have time to think and brood and let her thoughts beat the hell out of her later. Right now, we had a blond octopus to rendezvous with.
A candied haze drenched District Four. The violet tone here was a tincture, the hues trapped behind a gloomy film. The streets were emblazoned with flattened gems of blacks mottled with droplets of crimson. Dreary was one description of District Four; depressing was a better one.
The blond octopus appeared to be a shop of sorts. It was dark inside, but putting your face up to the windows revealed bits and pieces of the interior: workbenches, saws, hammers, wood scraps.
“Not much to behold,” said a dry voice.
“And that,” I said, “is exactly the point of it, yeah?”
From the syrupy miasma emerged a tall figure. He wore a scarf over his shoulder, and his tunic was untucked and half unbuttoned.
“You might not be aware,” he said, unlocking the door, “but you were about ten minutes away from an encounter with a Custodian. Come on in. Keep straight, till you come to a door. Open it and go down the steps.”
The woody scent of sawdust went straight to my lungs as I stepped inside. Things cr
ackled and creaked beneath my feet, and the toe of my boot sent a metal tool skittering across the floor.
I waded into the darkness, hands in front of me so I wouldn’t batter a kneecap off a workbench. Upon feeling the broadness of a door, I searched for a handle, found it, and proceeded down the steps and into the flickering light below.
“Got some friends,” the man behind us hollered.
There was the sound of steel being guided back inside leather sheaths.
The landing at the bottom of the stairs twisted into a candlelit room with holey walls, a rotting ceiling, and several benches upon which sat a couple of ragtag bandits. Scabbards hung from belts, and unruly beards from chins.
One of the men with a gut flowing over his trousers stuck a finger in his ear, swabbed it around and looked at the yellow gunk he pulled out. “Ellie finally wise up to the idea of sendin’ scouts this far in?”
“We’re not scouts,” I said.
“Clearly,” noted the man who led us here. “Scouts keep a low profile. They don’t ask questions about a girl whose name raises a lot of eyebrows around here. Who sent you?”
Lysa lifted her chin. “One piece of information for another. Who are you?”
I smiled. She’d learned from the best.
The man stuck a thumb into his chest. “Orell. That’s Mamus and Lavery. Now your piece of information.”
“No one sent us,” I said.
“I don’t believe you,” Orell said. “You come here asking for a woman no one outside of Devous and the rebellion has ever heard of.” Studying my stone cold face, he sighed. “Be at ease; we’re with you. Ellie sent us here eight years ago to sway Lady Marbal to our side. If we didn’t return, she’d presume us dead. I assume you were sent to pick up our pieces.”
I crossed my arms, kicked fallen ceiling debris across the floor. “Well, you’re not dead. But I’m guessing you didn’t sway her, either. I didn’t come here to seek out her allegiance. I came here to free conjurers. Just so happened that a little birdie told me Lady Marbal might be able to point me in the right direction.”
Orell walked over to a tin shelf. He reached for a small clay amphora. “Mead?”
“I’ll pass,” I said. There aren’t many occasions when I’ll turn down free mead, but this was one of them. With a gems-in-the-eyes woman, Wardens, and a city that seethed with suspicion, it seemed like a poor idea to take my mind out for a swim.
With regret turning down the corners of her mouth, Lysa declined as well.
Orell poured himself a mug of mead. “She won’t be pointing you anywhere anytime soon. We buggered that opportunity up for you eight years ago.” He savored his drink with a deep breath in through his nostrils.
With grief layering his voice, Orell explained just what had gone wrong those eight years ago. It took a lot of words, but the misstep was a simple one and all too common when you’re dealing with deceit.
With the knowledge that Corvin’s sister would help the rebellion in any way she could, Ellie had sent Orell and his merry band of grunts to Devous in an attempt to acquire information on Arken’s dealings, the mobilization of his army, and other tidbits that the wife of a lord might be privy to.
Lady Marbal, however, got caught with her hand too deep in the cookie jar. She was convicted of treason, and Arken himself condemned her to the Fringe.
“She’s either sundered,” Lavery said, “or she’s slavin’ away in the gem fields. Either way, she won’t be helping you.”
“But we can,” Orell said.
Lysa wrinkled her face. “Why haven’t you gone back to the rebellion?”
“Because, miss, I do not fail. I will succeed in getting Elimori what she desires. Before, that was intelligence. Now…?”
“A conjurer army,” I said bluntly. “I intend to free the conjurers in this fragment.”
Mamus scratched the back of his chunky neck. “Oh, fookin’ gods.”
“Ellie’s going for the killing blow, is she?” Orell said. “All right. We can get you to the Fringe. It’s where the condemned are taken, includin’ conjurers. We’ve gotten in with a few of the families in Devous. Smaller names, but they have their useful knowledge. We know two things: Arken visits the Fringe several times a week, except when he doesn’t, which coincides with the second piece of information we know. He meditates for days, even weeks, without any apparent pattern.”
I crossed my arms and leaned against a rickety table. “Back it up a step. What’s with the families? And the lords and ladies. Sounds like Arken’s running this place like a proper kingdom.”
“Promises ’em pretty li’l things,” Mamus said.
“Land, titles and so forth,” Lavery explained. “Theory is he’s going to revolutionize Amortis, turn it into something more than a slave’s world.”
He’s going to revolutionize something, I thought, but it ain’t Amortis.
“And this meditation,” I said. “Is it anything special?”
Orell shrugged. “Nothin’ real solid. Just hearsay, but rumor has it he… er, I feel like a proper ass for putting it like this. Rumor has it he travels during his meditations. Takes another form. A shadowy fella, an apparition, if you will.”
Huh. If Arken’s personification of black wisps was an apparition, not his true being, then what did he look like? Furthermore, did this explain why Lysa had gotten out of the Prim safely? An apparition would exist as Arken’s eyes and ears, but as a weapon, it’d be about as effective as a mirage. These were all assumptions, of course, but they seemed fairly accurate.
Lysa stepped forward, fingers grasping her chin. “Okay. So, we need to make a break for the Fringe during his meditation hours. How far away is it?”
Orell poured himself another mugful of mead. “Carts that haul supplies and the condemned out there return in about three hours, so a little more than an hour each way is what we figure.”
Her head turned in surprise. “You’ve never been there?”
“Not a place I fancy going.”
“Never heard of anyone returning,” Mamus put in.
I swung myself forward, pushing off the table and sidling up to the amphora of mead. “Well, I intend on returning, and” — I nodded at Lysa — “so does she. So… about this help you’re offering.”
With the wave of a hand, I wafted up a lemony scent from the amphora.
“Lemon mead?” I asked.
One of the men on the benches nodded.
“Oh, what the hell. I could use a drink, I suppose.” I snatched a tin cup from the cupboard nailed crookedly into the wall. There was only enough mead left to fill it halfway, which probably was a good thing.
“Twice a week carts pass through,” Orell said. “Supplies for the Fringe. Preen, mostly. They often travel in bands, but if we could isolate one of them on its way there…”
“Still got Custodians to take care of,” Lavery said.
“Ellie don’t bring weak links into the rebellion,” Mamus said. “Figure we got some good fight in these two. Add in us roughnecks and we’ll give a couple Custodians more than they can handle.”
Custodian was a foreign term to me, but I assumed two things were true about them. Firstly, they had gems for eyes. Secondly, one-on-one combat against one would not work out in your favor.
Before those assumptions were confirmed every pair of eyes in that dingy basement went to the ceiling. Flecks of sawdust filtered down from the joists, and the boards bounced down and up.
Something moved urgently upstairs, tramping across the floor. The thuds of approaching footsteps grew louder.
Ebon broke the plane of its sheath, and with the arrival of that black blade in my hand came its friends made of steel. Orell and his small company of roughnecks were on their feet, swords drawn.
The door to the basement was ripped open, slamming against a wall. Thunder crashed down the steps, followed by the heavy breaths of a young man who gripped the banister for support.
“Wardens,” he said, licking his lips. “
Got a conjurer.” He swallowed, caught his breath. “They’re comin’ through now.”
“Ah, shit,” Mamus said, sheathing his sword.
The rest of the crew got up, gathering a few knickknacks, and headed off toward the stairs.
“Problem?” I asked Orell.
“Need to protect the shop from looters. People get rowdy ’round here when they bring a conjurer through. Can’t have someone discovering the basement here.”
He gestured for Lysa and me to follow him up the stairs. Then he paused. And he turned. And he had a smile on his face.
“Hmm. You know, this could be your invite to the Fringe.”
Chapter 17
Rowdy was not an apt description of what happens to the inhabitants of Devous when a conjurer is set to be condemned to the Fringe. Rowdy infers unusual excitement, maybe some raucous laughter at things that aren’t usually very funny, or perhaps the throwing of fists into the air, followed by cheers and hoots and hollers.
The scene in District Four was not rowdy. It was bloody riotous.
Whoop! Whoop! shrieked the crowd that avalanched through the streets, pouring over the bloodstone pathways like a colony of ants emerging from their flooded tunnel.
Orell had opened his shop door, giving us a view of the insanity outside. Stores whose doors weren’t open had a bad time, he explained. Their windows were smashed with hammers and chairs, looters diving inside and scooping up as many free prizes as they could carry.
Several people stopped at Orell’s shop, but upon noticing the casual scraping of whetstones against blades, they moved on.
Whoop! Whoop!
“How strange,” Lysa said, sitting beside me in a rocking chair. “Everyone here seemed so polite and prim. Now look at them. They’re like animals.”
“Worse than animals,” said Krik — the man who’d alerted us to all the commotion. He stood in the doorway, peering out. What looked like a gemstone brick soared through the air and shattered a window a few buildings down.
Whoop!
Orell sighed. “Some say Arken bred these people — or altered them somehow — to be filled with the same hatred he holds. When they see a conjurer, something’s triggered inside of ’em. Something primal.”
An Assassin's Blade: The Complete Trilogy Page 83