Legends and Liars

by Julia Knight

  “Ah, but then the third one would escape your grasp. What honour in that? If you had a knife you’d lose many rings from it for that, yes?”

  “I have no knife, no rings or honour to lose. I have only duty.”

  God’s bloody cogs, he was hard work. She’d not had much to do with life-warriors before now, but she was coming to appreciate how single-minded they were. And how annoyingly, stupidly stubborn. But every man has his price. It was just a matter of offering the right thing. Riches and glory wouldn’t do any good with this one. More earthly pleasures weren’t likely to work either, given the life-warriors’ famously ascetic nature. Denying themselves was an art form to them. There was only one thing he’d want–his old partner back, the left hand to his right. One was nothing without the other. It was merely a matter of making him think she could provide that.

  For now she didn’t have time, but having someone whose loyalty was utterly unquestionable was always useful. She’d work on him later, use a little blood, some persuasion. For now a little misinformation would do.

  “Gerlar, what is your current sworn duty?”

  “To protect the magicians from any threat, at all costs,” he said promptly.

  “Well, now, what if I were to tell you that I suspect these people to be involved in a plot to assassinate Sabates. More than suspect, in fact. They’re two of the duellists’ guild, sent by Reyes to destabilise Ikaras ahead of the negotiations. I can’t follow them because they know me. But you can, and find out who else is working with them–one of the magicians, I know that. I just don’t know where she is. Of course, if you were to foil a plot to assassinate Sabates, maybe even Orgull, and expose a traitorous magician, then perhaps your honour would be somewhat restored? Or maybe I would be grateful enough to give you what you most want–your partner back, alive and well. Oh yes, I can do that, a simple matter even. If I want to.”

  Yes, that dart hit home. He hid it well, but his shoulders straightened and his eyes warmed, although a curt nod was all she got before he took up his position hidden in a doorway opposite Kacha and Vocho’s lodgings.

  Minutes later they clattered down the steps and hurried up the narrow street, with Gerlar trailing at a safe distance.

  Chapter Nine

  Petri savoured his brief taste of free air after weeks cooped up in the palace and let his mind roam. One of his escorts shoved him down the steps and out across the clanking clockwork garden. Illuminated stars and midnight planets slid past on rails, always going the same way, to the same end. Like his life, only he hadn’t expected his personal rail to end in the Shrive. There had to be a way out of this. There always was a way out, he had to believe that. He couldn’t escape the Shrive the way Kacha had–Bakar had plugged that particular hole. His only chance lay in escaping before he was taken through the vast doors into the twisting maze of corridors and cells.

  Escape now didn’t look likely either–Bakar’s men met with four masked escorts, all with sword and gun, and handed him over. When they reached the end of the clockwork garden, they didn’t turn him towards the Shrive. Instead he was yanked through a dark gate where a watchman lay unconscious–sleeping or knocked out, Petri couldn’t tell–and out into the city. He opened his mouth to say something, but a gruff voice growled, “Shut up and keep moving.” A gun pressed into his kidneys, so he did as he was told. Wherever he was going, it had to be better than the Shrive, surely.

  The looming bulk of the guild ahead changed his mind on that. He was pushed, struggling, over the bridge that separated the duellists from the city, thrust through the open gates into the courtyard, where the clockwork duellist watched him with passionless bronze eyes. He knew where he was being taken as soon as they entered the cloister, and clamped his mouth shut on the words that wanted to come out, clamped his fingers over the sweat on his palms. Reyes seemed to be nothing but prisons and the threat of execution.

  Down stairs, round corners, up stairs in a pattern Petri knew by heart, and then he was shoved through an open door to stagger in front of Eneko. The guild master sat behind his desk and regarded Petri solemnly. He’d aged in the weeks since Petri had last seen him, his once firm stomach now straining at his tunic, the skin around his eyes looser. Yet he still had all the arrogance that Petri recalled.

  “Good of you to join me,” he said and nodded at a chair. Petri took it, wondering whether this was any better than a cell in the Shrive.

  “I thought you’d be in Ikaras,” Petri said.

  “So did I. A small matter of a price on the head of all guildsmen found in Ikaras. King Orgull doesn’t like our involvement on the border. For me to take part in the negotiations would be… indelicate.”

  Whatever Petri did, wherever he went, he was a dead man. The inescapable finality of it gave him a curious sense of freedom and loosened his usual laconic tongue. “So instead you save me from execution? I’d have thought you’d be more likely to help them pull the lever.”

  A shrug from Eneko. He picked up a trifle on his desk and passed it from hand to hand as he spoke. “Not my first choice, obviously. But I see which way things are going. Licio will be king again before the end of the year; Bakar will be dead and good riddance. Licio is much more easily manipulated. I find it politic to side with him, at least secretly. And he and Sabates want you alive. For now. Besides it’ll piss Bakar off no end, and I live for that.”

  “Playing both sides?”

  “Just like you. And I’ll play my part. I’ll keep you alive, for now. Just as long as you tell me all I need to know about inside the palace. Of course, I only said I’d keep you alive, not intact. I’m sure you can imagine how a lifetime’s work with a blade has given me much experience in non-fatal wounds. Have a little time to mull it over.”

  He rang a small bell on his desk, and Petri’s escorts yanked him from the chair before he had the chance to stand by himself. Petri had moved from one prison to another, via the threat of a third, and counted himself lucky.

  Vocho hurried along behind Kacha, her back illuminated blue and green by the dimly glowing glass. That they needed to leave their lodgings was beyond question. Where they were going was open to argument as far as Vocho was concerned, so that’s what he did.

  “I am not sharing a bloody house with a magician. It’s bad enough you offered to help the woman, worse that we need her help. Now you want to play all cosy with her! I’d rather keep as far away as possible for as long as possible. Let her get the tattoo off, soon as she can, then get going. Somewhere, anywhere, I don’t care as long as no magicians.” He’d even stopped caring about rejoining the guild and getting his good name back. It’d be nice, but for now he wanted any life back, his old one or otherwise, just as long as he was alive to enjoy it, which was looking increasingly unlikely.

  “That’s exactly what we’re going to do, Voch.” Kass stopped under the light of a late-night café that still had a few dozy-looking patrons. “But where else are we going to go? We’ve tied up just about all our money with her, or had you forgotten?”

  “Fine, so we get the tattoo off. And then what? Because I get the feeling you’ve got something in mind, and I’m pretty sure I’m not going to like it. Does it involve us relaxing somewhere warm with a raft of money and no pressing need to run away?”

  She laughed at that. “Probably not.” But for once Vocho wasn’t trying to be funny.

  “No, I didn’t think so. You forget, I know you. I know how you think–you get all these bloody ideas about being noble and honourable and whatnot into your head, and then look out everyone else.”

  “That is how the guild trained us, Voch. ‘What seems good to you’–right? I seem to recall a few thousand classes on that and how to decide what’s good and what isn’t.”

  “I slept through those.”

  “No, you didn’t; you’re just choosing to ignore them. And you may be able to live with that–with the thought we could have done something about Licio and Sabates and all the lives that are going to be snuffed out w
hen they try to take Reyes–but I can’t.”

  “Don’t give me that shit. It’s Petri, isn’t it? What was in that letter? Just when I thought we’d got rid of him, oh no, he pops up like a fucking jack-in-the-box.”

  The light was dim, but he could have sworn she blushed. Which was unnerving all by itself because Kass wasn’t the blushing sort.

  “It’s nothing to do with Petri, not really.”

  “Bollocks it isn’t. You’re going to help me get the tattoo off, and then you’re going to run back to Reyes and play the heroine for Petri and get your old job at the guild back, get all the fun and glory, because you can of course; you haven’t been found guilty of murder. I however have, and I’ll be stuck fighting illegal duels or robbing people until I die penniless in a gutter somewhere. Or maybe I’ll be stuck with this bloody thing on my back, and I’ll end up a gibbering wreck, and then at least you won’t have to feel guilty about anything.”

  “The more you talk like that, Voch, the more tempting it sounds, because then I won’t have to listen to you talking like that. Maybe I could have some peace and quiet for a change.”

  “Kass—”

  “This isn’t the place to talk about it, not in Reyen anyway, because in case you’d forgotten all Reyens are to be handed over as spies, and if you look behind you, we’re getting some very interested looks from people who appear to be in dire need of the reward money.”

  Vocho snatched a glance behind them and, sure enough, some passers-by were looking at them with interest. He gave them a cheery and entirely fake smile, waved an airy hand and then turned back, grabbed Kass’s arm and hustled her along the street until no one was behind them.

  “Look, Voch, I know it’s not ideal. The thought of dealing with magicians doesn’t fill me with joy either. But where else have we got to go? Anyone hears our accents, we’re handed over. Anyone recognises us–and with the delegation turning up any time, who knows who might–we’d be dead before we were handed over. It’s Esti’s or nowhere.”

  He really hated it when she was right.

  “Fine. But when the tattoo’s off, what then?”

  Kass didn’t say anything for a while as they hurried on down the quiet streets. Vocho kept a lookout behind, but all he saw was some old duffer shuffling along with a scarf over his face. Finally, when they reached the street where Esti’s house sat, and the old duffer had dropped out of sight, Kass said, “I don’t know, Voch.”

  The swamp houses and Esti’s vine-covered home were dark compared to the glowing city behind them. They stared at the thicket of vines for a while, and Vocho wondered what was going through Kass’s head. He couldn’t even be sure what was going through his. What did he want to do next? Apart from stay alive, obviously.

  What seems good to you.

  The motto of the guild that had ruled him almost his whole life, until they’d thrown him out. He’d lived and almost died by that damn motto, though what seemed good to him and what seemed good to others weren’t always the same. What seemed good now? The Clockwork God only knew, because Vocho didn’t. He shook his head and started into the vines to Esti’s. He’d probably do what he’d always done–wait and see, react to events more on instinct that anything else. It had only rarely steered him wrong. Of course when it had, it had been pretty spectacularly wrong.

  But the tattoo, that was first. Esti said it was going to hurt, but he’d live with that if it meant the thing off his back. Then maybe he could do something to get his life back on track.

  Kacha stopped at edge of the thicket and looked around. No one in sight to see them go in. Good. She followed Vocho in. He was acting very strangely, even given the circumstances. Thing was, she knew what she needed to do after the tattoo. What seemed good to her. There was revolution coming, war whether she wanted it or not. It was time to pick a side, and she didn’t think Vocho was going to like which way she went.

  Esti limped out from the back when they knocked and went straight in. “I didn’t think you were—”

  “Slight change of plan,” Vocho said, looking out of the door before he shut it firmly behind him. “Alicia found us, so we thought it prudent to move.”

  Esti sat down hard. “What do you mean, she found you?”

  “I mean she found us–what else would I mean?”

  Esti’s fingers twined around each other, and the markings there grew darker, more violent.

  “How might she have done that?” Kacha asked, because just stumbling across them seemed unlikely in a city the size of Ikaras.

  “Blood–if she had any of yours or Vocho’s. Doesn’t even need to be fresh. More likely she’s taken over the tattoo and found you that way. If she found you once, she can do it again as long as you have that thing on. She could find you here.” Esti got up and limped jerkily around the room before she glanced at a chest in the corner and seemed to come to a decision. “If I take the tattoo off now, will you leave?”

  “Well, yes,” Vocho said. “But I thought you said—”

  “Never mind what I said,” she snapped. “Now I’m saying let’s get the damned thing off and you out of here before Alicia walks through the door and kills us all. Now don’t just stand there like dummies. Help me with this chest.”

  Esti began dragging things out of the chest, throwing some behind her, putting some on the table, all with a haste that bordered on desperation. “Alicia! That name’s a byword for torture around here. Looks like you’ve heard of it too. Well, respect what you’ve heard. Here, Vocho, take this.” She handed him a mangled leather strap.

  “What’s that for?”

  “For you to bite on so your screams don’t wake up the entire neighbourhood. Kacha, hold him down.”

  Chapter Ten

  Vocho greeted the dawn sweating and quivering, with a throat red raw, a back that felt like someone had whipped it with razors and no guarantee that anything had actually worked.

  Just as the sun hit the first of the glass atop the tallest spire of the university on the other side of the city, spearing his eyes with light, he heard someone bustling about in the next room, which he vaguely recalled was the kitchen. He got himself up from his position, lying prone on his stomach, on the third try and had to hold on to the bed until his head stopped swimming. A lot had happened to him over the last weeks, and night, enough to strip away almost every dignity, but he was buggered if he was going to let Esti, Kacha or Cospel see that. He was Vocho the bloody Great and he was going to go on being him.

  A sentiment which faded a little as he tried putting his shirt on. Just raising his arms made spots swim in front of his eyes, but in the end he was dressed and looking as dandy as ever. He took a deep breath, remembered not to square his shoulders at the last moment and headed out.

  Kacha looked up from a steaming cup of tea, relief as plain as the nose on her face. Cospel waggled his eyebrows in what Vocho thought might be an approving manner, and Esti stopped stirring a pot on the stove. The scent of melting sugar and vanilla filled the room, and Vocho thought he might actually kill for something sweet.

  “I told you he’d wake up eventually,” Esti said, but she smiled at him as she said it and poured the liquid in the pot into a big bowl. “Here, try this. It should help.”

  Vocho breathed in the aroma and felt something settle inside. “What do you mean by ‘eventually’?”

  Kacha’s hand twitched, which made Vocho want to twitch too. He took a sip of Esti’s concoction, burned his mouth and tried again after blowing on it.

  “She means you’ve been out for three days.”

  “Three days? But… but Alicia… everything…”

  “The delegation has arrived in high style, Sabates among them. Alicia has been conspicuous by her absence, but there’s some old fart hanging around with a scarf covering his face so I think it’s safe to say we’re being watched, which is making Esti very twitchy. Three days. I was starting to get worried, Voch.”

  He was quite touched by this. His prickly sister usually
told anyone within hearing what an annoying arse he was. “Only starting?”

  “You’re tough enough, normally. Remember that sword thrust from Ballan? Through the ribs and out the other side, never seen so much blood. And you were in an inn starting, and finishing, a brawl twelve hours later.”

  “It’s a hell of a scar.”

  “And you’ll have another to match it on your back. Esti had to take the skin off, and we still don’t know if it’s entirely gone–she says it might never be all gone, some sort of built-in failsafe or something, though no one should be able to track you any more. But I’m glad you didn’t die.”

  From Kacha this was an admission akin to professing undying love, which made Vocho wonder just how bad it had been.

  “Me too, funnily enough. Now come on, spill it all. Three days. If I know you, you know a lot more now than you did then.”

  “Oh, I do indeed. Come on. You need to get up and about, work the kinks out, and I’ll tell you all about it.”

  There was something sly about her manner, but he didn’t push it. He got up without wincing and managed a small swagger out of the back door after her. Taken the skin off? God’s cogs!

  Outside Voch couldn’t see a damned thing that wasn’t some shade of green, and there must have been a hundred shades. Nothing not green except the flowers draped over every available surface, delicate ones, big thick fleshy ones, one the size of his leg that smelt worse than Cospel after a week without a bath. A clearing in the centre was the only open space. It was quiet this early in the day, though the far-off sounds of the city waking up drifted over them.

  “Our little watcher isn’t here right now,” Kacha said, “but I know who he is, or at least where he usually lurks.”

  “The watcher, watched?”

  She laughed under her breath. “Oh yes. All that training came in handy. What do you know about Ikaran life-warriors, Voch?”

  “Not much.”

  “Neither did I, but I do now. Professional soldiers, a bit like the guild, I suppose. Only they don’t hire themselves out. They serve one man or woman only, the king or queen, and give not a shit about anyone else. They come in pairs–linked together when they first join, or rather are made to join, at about age eight. They’re cuffed together, and they stay cuffed for years until they earn the right to call themselves warriors.”