The Mortal Tally

by Sam Sykes

“Silf would frown on you going back on a deal,” Slythe chided.

  “You’re a Talanite.”

  “Just saying.” Slythe glanced over the fang marks peppering Denaos’s shirtless body with a practiced eye. “Anyway, if there’s any poison in you, it’s probably mild enough to just piss out. Drink water. Light some incense, it’ll keep the toxins from reaching your brain.”

  “I traveled with a healer for a while. She never said anything about incense.”

  “How much did you pay her?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Well, there you go.” Slythe walked to the table beside the door of the tiny room they lurked in and began to replace jars and vials into a healer’s bag. “Water and incense should do you fine. If you start to feel numb or nauseous come to me.” He paused, looked thoughtful. “But if you’re feeling numb or nauseous, you’ve probably got an hour until death, so maybe you should just go to the nearest whorehouse and go crazy.”

  “Wait, what?” Denaos stood up, rising off the cot rather shakily. But he supposed that might be from the whiskey. “What did I drink that tea for, then?”

  “Well, there’s not a lot of cures for snakebites,” Slythe said, slinging his medicine bag around his shoulder. “So mama made a tea that would react with the poison to give someone a quick death and spare them the indignity of shitting out their own innards.”

  Denaos rubbed his face. Sweat dampened his brow, made his hair stick to him. “Why the fuck do I keep giving you money, Slythe?”

  “Maybe you love me.” Slythe chuckled. “Good to see you again, though, Ramaniel. Wish you’d found me sooner.”

  “Why? You going somewhere?”

  Slythe didn’t answer. Not with his voice, anyway. But the pained expression on his face spoke enough. Denaos slumped with his sigh.

  “Ah, fuck, Slythe.”

  “Everyone with any sense is leaving, Ramaniel,” Slythe said. “The couthi are starting to leave.”

  “You were here through the riots, through the gang wars, through everything.” Denaos cast a perplexed look at the Talanite. “Fuck, I remember we drank wine the night the Jackals hung the Morose Family on the harbor walls. This city’s been in shit so deep it covered the Silken Spire and you never moved.”

  “It’s different this time.” A wince flashed across Slythe’s face. “Rumors are spreading, Ramaniel. Word is that the Jackals can’t fight the Khovura. Word is the Khovura are hunting them in their own dens. The Jackals can’t keep control of the city anymore.”

  “You don’t believe that shit, do you?”

  “I do,” Slythe said. “Because I remember a time when rumors like that wouldn’t have gone further than twenty ears before all of them were hacked off by Jackal knives, along with the tongues that spread them. If the Jackals can’t control rumors, how can they control a city?”

  “We’ve had some bad luck.”

  “Bad luck? The Khovura aren’t bad luck. They’re a curse from an angry god.” Desperation creeped into Slythe’s voice, painted his face with fear. “The Khovura aren’t the Morose Family, or the Isstaacca, or any other gang we’ve ever seen. Some dealers have reached out to them, went down to their part of town to do some business. Never heard from them again until I saw them running around with the other Khovura, screaming… what’s that word they always say?”

  “Kapira,” Denaos muttered, looking down at his feet. “Khoth-Kapira.”

  “What kind of fucked-up gang does shit like that? The Khovura aren’t a gang, not a guild, not anything we know. They don’t bargain, they don’t threaten, they don’t play by the rules. They appear anywhere you think about them, like ghosts.”

  “They aren’t ghosts.” Demons, more like, he thought. He neglected to say this, of course. It certainly wouldn’t do anything to convince Slythe to stay. But then, what would?

  Slythe was too polite to press the issue, but he was dead right: Silence was the first line of defense on any thief’s battleground. A gang that couldn’t keep people from talking was a gang that couldn’t very well keep hold of a city. This was Cier’Djaal, after all, people had expectations. And if even Slythe knew about the Jackals’ weakening position, then so did others.

  And if others knew, then…

  Denaos shook his head. These weren’t thoughts he wanted to have at the best of times, let alone while he was standing in a shitty apartment, half-naked and covered in snakebites with the knowledge that his friends were being hunted by demons in the sewers below. There was a time for thoughts like these.

  But he didn’t have nearly enough whiskey for it.

  “Listen,” Slythe began, “if you need me, I could maybe stick around. We’ve been solid for a few years and—”

  “Don’t bother,” Denaos replied. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a pouch that weighed heavy with coin. “I’ve always thought you an intelligent man, Slythe.” He tossed the pouch to the gutter-priest, who snatched it out of the air with a falcon’s precision. “Don’t go disabusing me of that now.”

  “Yeah, sure.” Slythe pocketed the pouch as he walked to the door. He paused, glancing over his shoulder. “Good to see you again, Ramaniel.”

  He heard the door shut behind Slythe, heard him go down the creaky stairs to the room below, heard him open and shut the door and disappear into the streets. He heard the cot groan under his own weight as he settled down upon it. He heard the sound of an insect buzzing, seeking egress from a windowless wooden box masquerading as a bedroom.

  And he heard the thought echo through his skull.

  My name is Denaos.

  That was his name, wasn’t it? Denaos, a rogue out of Redgate who had hooked up with a silver-haired kid and his band of miscreant adventurers. Denaos, a lech and a liar and a thief. Denaos, by all accounts a selfish man who ought not to be affected by such a thing as a city he no longer called home tearing its own guts out through its seedy underbelly, let alone affected by a man he hadn’t seen in years suddenly up and leaving like it was nothing worth noting.

  Denaos shouldn’t care, shouldn’t give a shit, shouldn’t feel nearly so heavy as he did now.

  These worries that hung over him like a funeral shroud belonged to another man. These belonged to Ramaniel. Ramaniel, the urchin who had grown up on the harbor road and become Ramaniel the Jackal. Ramaniel, the man who had cut the throat of the Houndmistress and plunged Cier’Djaal into riots that had given the city the scars it still picked at today.

  But Ramaniel was dead.

  He had died the day Denaos had walked out of Cier’Djaal and headed north. And he was never supposed to live again. Unfair, Denaos thought, that he should be here, concerned over something like friends leaving. After all, he hadn’t been this concerned when Lenk had left, had he?

  But that’s different, isn’t it? Lenk’s an adventurer. He’s got a sword. He can take care of himself. When the Jackals fall and the Khovura spill out onto the street, this city’s going to drown. Merchants’ daughters and bakers’ boys and little squalling brats ogling toy store windows. They’ll all be fucking dead, just like they died in the riots.

  He blinked. A thought struck his head numb.

  How many people have the distinction of having killed Cier’Djaal twice?

  The thought was an iron weight, settling heavy on his head and carrying him down to the cot. His head hit a straw pillow and just kept going, as though it wanted desperately to detach from his neck and crash through the floor. Maybe the tea Slythe had given him was going to kill him.

  That would be fine. After all, he had died once before, hadn’t he?

  Ramaniel is dead, he thought as he closed his eyes. No reason Denaos has to go on living. He yawned. You can just wake up as someone else tomorrow.

  Denaos awoke suddenly, sweat pouring down skin that felt as if it were on fire. His skull pounded, his guts churned, his breath tasted foul. Agonized, but alive; Slythe’s tea had failed to kill him.

  Maybe it would have been kinder if it hadn’t.

  D
enaos half-stumbled out of the cot, walked across a creaky floor to the chamber pot—or chamber bucket, really; the place had come cheap. He dropped his trousers, turned and squatted, and waited for the music.

  Instead of the sound of bowels evacuating, he heard something crashing downstairs.

  Denaos clenched, froze, stopped breathing as he ran down a list of possibilities between the poundings in his head.

  Had the Khovura found him? No. They’d have made a much louder noise and he’d be dead already.

  The Jackals, then? Come looking for him for answers about what had gone down in the tunnels? No. They wouldn’t come this near the Sumps when Rezca had given the order to stay low.

  Sainites looking for revenge? Karnerians looking for an ally? Venarium? Shicts? Tulwar?

  By the time he had run down several more possibilities of decreasing likelihood, several moments had passed and no one had burst through his door and made him shit himself yet. Yet the sounds of movement from below persisted as someone maneuvered through the tiny box masquerading as the apartment’s dining room.

  Denaos hiked his garments back up, pulled a dagger out from his belt, and crept out of the room.

  The first thing he had done when he rented this shithole was test where the creaks were. And while the answer to that was mostly “Everywhere,” he managed to pick his way around enough to descend the staircase in relative silence. He drew in a breath and held it as he slipped down the last step, blade in hand and ready to gut.

  But when he saw the intruder, he found words came easier than a blade.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?”

  At one wall, standing before an open cupboard, Dreadaeleon glanced up at Denaos with a decidedly bored expression. A shattered plate lay on the floor beside him, the rest of the cupboard’s contents—an empty whiskey bottle, two more plates, and one knife—laid out on the tilted table at the center of the room. The wizard sniffed, then returned to sifting through the cupboard.

  “Was the whiskey for disinfecting those wounds covering you?” he asked. “Or do you reek for reasons a decent mind should not inquire after?”

  “That’s what you’ve got to say to me?” Denaos asked. “You disappeared days ago while the city went to hell and no one had any idea where you were. Should I tell Asper you just strolled in here like you owned it?” At that a thought occurred. “How the fuck did you even find me?”

  “My presence or lack thereof would have made no impact on the city’s current circumstances,” Dreadaeleon replied. “My whereabouts, as it happened, were in a Venarium tower after I was arrested by a Charnel Hound. Our erstwhile female companion already knows that, as she was the one who arranged my release. As for how I found you, given that I can make a man explode with a thought, I should think I could find a barkneck thug easily enough.” He patted the bare cupboard, searching. “Have you got any money?”

  If a man had led a life so exceptionally fraught with ill deeds that the gods could curse him, he might very well hear something quite as insane as what had just come out of Dreadaeleon’s mouth. And as Denaos had committed more than his fair share of sins, he simply stared at the knife in his hand, wondering if it might just be easier to plunge it into his own throat and avoid this whole conversation.

  “I’m sorry, what?” he settled on asking, instead.

  “Gold,” Dreadaeleon said. “Silver, if you’ve got it. Coins. Currency. Something I can buy things with. Have you got any?”

  “No, no, the other part,” Denaos said.

  “Which other part?”

  “The one with Asper. She contacted you?”

  “She did. She persuaded the Venarium to release me in hopes that I would cause enough damage to the occupying Karnerians to convince them to leave.” Dreadaeleon patted down the cupboard, frowning at the hollow sound that followed. “Seriously, is there a hidden panel here? Some kind of secret knock or something?”

  “Why would I have a hidden panel in a cupboard?” He held up a hand to prevent any response. “How is gold going to help you kill Karnerians, anyway?”

  “It won’t. I have no intention of killing Karnerians.”

  “Then why—”

  Dreadaeleon held up a single finger. “Permit me to expedite this: Yes, Asper did a service to me. A service that scarcely makes up for the way she…” He paused, his face grew hard. “I consider us even, at any rate. That being the case, it’s my intent to depart Cier’Djaal as soon as I can, leaving as few carcasses in my wake as possible.”

  “So what, you’re just going to betray Asper?”

  Dreadaeleon shot a sneer at Denaos and the aloofness slid off his face, revealing cold contempt beneath. “Oh, yes, I would so love to hear a murderer lecture me on morality. Perhaps from this unlikely source of compassion, I’ll have a change of heart and you, Asper, and myself will all save Cier’Djaal together? Frolic off into the sunset, hand in hand, as the grateful denizens of the city wave tearstained handkerchiefs at us?”

  “Would you even recognize gratitude if you saw it? She got you out of prison, didn’t she?”

  “Prison?” Dreadaeleon’s laugh was bitter as stale water. “The Venarium is as much like a prison as a grave is like a nice place to rest your head. She did not ‘get me out’ of anything. She merely delayed my execution. The Venarium does not release heretics. She and they merely want to use me until they can quietly dispose of me. I don’t intend to let them.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I…” Dreadaeleon turned away. He breathed a long, cold breath. “They know what I’ve done, Denaos. I wouldn’t release me, either.” He stalked to a nearby bookcase with criminally few books and began to search it. “What’s it matter to you, anyway?”

  “Asper gave me the same deal. It sounded pretty good to me,” Denaos said, following him. “And it would have worked. It still could, if you live up to your end of the bargain. We can hit the Sainites in the tunnels while you hit the Karnerians from above. We can help this city. We can—”

  “No, wait, I think I wasn’t clear. What’s it matter at all?” Dreadaeleon looked over his shoulder. “Suppose we evict the Karnerians and the Sainites. What do we do about the Khovura? Or the shicts? The tulwar? How can you cure a city dying of countless diseases?”

  “How can you not try?” Denaos swept up to the boy. “With everything she’s seen, every problem she’s come back from, how can you think that Cier’Djaal can’t fend this off?”

  “Because I don’t care,” Dreadaeleon sneered, returning to his search. “If you do, then count me as surprised but still not interested. Frankly, I would have thought you’d have left by now.”

  Denaos stared at him, stone-faced for a moment. “Maybe sometimes there are things you can’t run from.” He snorted. “And maybe someday, when you’re an adult, you’ll understand that.”

  And Dreadaeleon went stock-still at that. His arms fell to his sides. He stared blankly at the bookcase. His body went stiff as a corpse and his breath was the last exhalation of the dead.

  “An adult,” he repeated flatly.

  And then he whirled upon Denaos.

  He had only a moment to glimpse the burning crimson filling Dreadaeleon’s eyes before everything around Denaos became a blur. He felt his feet torn out from under him, he felt himself sail through the air, he felt his back collide with the wall in a spray of splinters. A great pressure pinned him against it, a tremendous unseen hand that tore him two feet from the floor and slammed him once more against the wood.

  “Don’t you ever presume to lecture me, asshole.” Dreadaeleon advanced upon him, hand outstretched, the air shimmering around his fingers as the magic blazed within his scowl. “Don’t you ever presume to think that you’re anything more than an insect compared to me.”

  His hand tightened and Denaos felt the pressure increase, choking the air out of his lungs.

  “You, Asper, everyone seems to think they can talk down to me. They all seem to think I’m the one that doesn
’t get it.” Dreadaeleon forced each word through clenched teeth. “Look at me now, you fucking barkneck. Can you comprehend how I’m doing this?”

  Denaos opened his mouth, but only a thick gurgling sound came out.

  “Then under what circumstance would you presume to know more than I do, hm? Answer me.” His eyes burst into tiny infernos. “ANSWER ME.”

  Denaos could do nothing more than kick his legs, slam his fist impotently against the wall, as though that would do anything. Dreadaeleon seemed unmoved by the gesture, advancing upon Denaos, hand slowly tightening into a fist.

  “It’s you that doesn’t understand,” Dreadaeleon said. “None of you do. You, Lenk, Asper, you’re all content to let yourselves be used like tools. They tell you it’s for the good of the city, of people who don’t respect you or care about you at all, as though they’re entitled to your efforts just by their own miserable existence.

  “Do whatever you like. Do it for gratitude or gold or for gods, like Asper, but leave me out of it. I am not a tool that people can use as they wish. I am not a fool they can betray. And I am NOT A BOY!”

  Dreadaeleon snapped his hand over his shoulder. Air returned to Denaos as the invisible grip released him. Air welcomed him as he hurtled across the room and struck the wall. He tumbled to the floor, the pains he had felt earlier forgotten as so many more-pronounced agonies took their place. He coughed, gasping air into burning lungs, and clambered unsteadily to his feet, dagger out and held shakily before him.

  But Dreadaeleon did not seem to notice. He walked to the door and waved his hand, bidding it open by means of an unseen force. He stalked out of the apartment into the night, not bothering to close the door behind him.

  Denaos fell to one knee and collapsed onto the floor.

  “Yeah,” he coughed, “you better run.”

  The only response was the distant barking of a dog as he fell to the floor and went dark.

  Had he the consciousness to do it, Denaos might have reflected on how unfair it was that he dreamed this time.

  He dreamed of fires and houses burning beneath a night sky and of serpents coiling around cold bodies and craning jaws to swallow them whole. He saw women slitting their throats to water gardens of ash and watched snakes grow out of the dust like trees.