by Paul S. Kemp
Nix couldn’t argue that. He removed his hand but did not step aside.
Trelgin sniffed, made a show of straightening his cloak. “And since when did that priest need looking to by me or anybody else? Ain’t you the two who stormed the guild house over a match job gone wrong? What in the Pits happened to you?”
Nix let the question go unanswered. It wasn’t so much what had happened to them, but what had happened to Rose and Mere. Egil felt like he’d failed them, the same way he’d failed his wife and daughter years before, and he was the same way now as he’d been when he and Nix had first met in that lockup long ago. The priest was over his head in self-pity, with his nose in a tankard and his head in the past more often than not.
As for Nix, he was…restless, unfocused without Egil. He didn’t do well standing still, especially when he disliked the ground he stood on.
“Any guild men in the Masquerade still?” Nix said. “Wouldn’t want to cut one on accident.”
“Nope. We don’t do business inside. Just collect on the protection there.”
“All right, then,” Nix said, and slid slightly to the side to allow Trelgin passage, a small gesture to show respect. “Be seeing you, Trelgin. And…thanks.”
Trelgin’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “ ‘Thanks’ is what he said. Huh. Well, all right, then.”
With that, Trelgin brushed by him—close, to make a final point—and they parted. Nix made for the Masquerade.
The Masquerade was a ramshackle hole of a tavern that leaned against the Poor Wall like a drunk, the kind of place that stayed full until the sun rose and scattered the patrons like insects afraid of the light. A crooked sign hung from rusted chains above a moisture-swollen wooden door that strained against the jambs as if trying to escape the place. Filth covered the writing on the sign, but the faded image of a mask was visible. Shutters hung askew from their hinges, somehow reminding Nix of crooked teeth. Lamplight, smoke, and the murmur of alehouse conversation carried through the windows in the front. Birds roosted on the roof near the single chimney, fluttering at the noises below, and some slubber was pissing against the wall, humming loudly to himself as he went.
Nix stepped across the street, around a few piles of horse dung that awaited the morning’s dungsweepers, hopped over a prone body—who might also be awaiting the dungsweepers, depending upon whether he was drunk or dead—and pulled open the door of the alehouse.
The place stank of some acrid incense intended to hide the reek of urine and sweat. Large, exotic masks of demonic faces hung from the walls, with candles mounted behind them to make the eyes glow. No doubt the proprietor purported them to be from some land abroad, though all of them were likely bought in the Low Bazaar from some second-rate peddler. Smoke fogged the air. Games of cards and dice went on at a few tables, but most faces were turned toward the rickety wooden bar, where Nix spotted Egil, and heard the rising, anticipatory volume of a brewing confrontation.
The priest sat at the bar in a light cloak, his broad back to Nix, his eyes staring at the wall behind the bar, fixed on nothing, his hand around a tankard, his huge form testing the rickety stool upon which he sat. Nix didn’t see the priest’s hammers near to hand.
The barkeep was not in evidence, but a group of five men stood around Egil, their body language and eager nudges announcing an expectation of violence. The largest of them, a towering man with long black hair and a thick beard, stood beside Egil, glaring into his ear. The man wore a leather vest over his tunic, and a low-quality dagger hung from his belt. A neighborhood tough, as Trelgin had said, probably looking to make a rep with his crew.
Nix took stock of the seated patrons—saw none that looked tested, and thus none that concerned him—and started forward. Disbelief stopped him in his boots when the large tough said something sharp to Egil, slapped the priest on the back of his head, and yet remained upright. Egil barely moved and the group around him laughed. The tough hit him again, again, and Egil did nothing.
The priest was further gone than Nix had realized.
“This one’s dumb, yeah?” the tough said, and his fellows guffawed.
“Dumb, right,” said one of the others. “Haw!”
“Nothing!” Nix shouted, to get the attention of the onlookers and the toughs. “And I mean nothing…”
Faces turned toward him, all but Egil’s, and a quiet descended on the room. He spoke more softly, staring straight at the big fakker who’d struck Egil.
“Nothing irritates me more than a pissdrip would-be slat-board king making noise in some shithole like it matters. Like he matters, when, in point of fact, he does not.”
For a moment no one spoke. The toughs looked at one another in puzzlement.
“You’re too dumb to understand that, I’m guessing,” Nix said.
“He call this place a shithole?” one of the men said to another.
“He called us pissdrips, I think,” said the big one.
“Let me clarify for the slow-witted among you, which I’d wager is each and every one,” Nix said. He never took his eyes from the big one. “I called you a pissdrip. You, the tall one with the dumb look and the pig nose. The rest of you girls aren’t worth my calling anything at all.”
“He called us girls now?” said one to the other.
Some of the seated patrons chuckled. Egil didn’t move.
The big one’s face wrinkled in anger and he took a step toward Nix. “That’s a big mouth on such a little man.”
“And that’s a little brain on such a big man,” Nix returned. “Maybe you should come quiet me down?”
“I think you don’t know who you’re sassing, little man.”
Nix took a few steps forward, picking his way through the tables. He put a hand on his sword hilt. “Oh, about that you’re wrong. I know precisely what you are. You’re a type, boy. And you’d do well to stand down lest you get hurt. Priest, you about ready?”
Egil didn’t even turn around. “I don’t need any help here, Nix.”
“You sure?” Nix snapped. “Because it looked like maybe you did, in that you allowed this pig-snouted, poorly dressed, dull-witted fakker to slap you in the head not once but thrice and still remain on his feet. How drunk are you, man?”
The big one looked from Nix to Egil, then nodded knowingly. “I see how it is, then. You two a couple?”
Laughter from the rest. Even a chuckle from the tables.
“Fak’s sake,” the priest said. He slammed the rest of his ale and stood, his stature dwarfing that of the five toughs, even the big one. “Fine, then.”
The big tough turned on Egil, putting a pointed finger in the priest’s face. “You ain’t goin’ nowhere, slubber. Sit down or I’ll—”
Egil loosed a punch into the man’s gut so hard that the wind audibly went out of him as he doubled over. The priest grabbed him by his long hair, pulled his head upright, and head-butted him squarely in the face. Blood sprayed, bone crunched, the man went limp, and Egil let him fall to the floor.
The other four hesitated a moment before going for blades. Nix bounded forward and slammed the pommel of his dagger into the back of the nearest one’s head, felling the man like a brained pig, then drove his heel into the knee of another, tearing gristle and buckling him.
“My knee! My knee!”
“I’ve been hard on legs tonight,” Nix said, by way of apology.
Egil turned and squared off against the other two and they backed off a step, blades only half-drawn. No one at any of the tables stood. Most looked away.
“That’s wise, boys,” Nix said to the two remaining toughs, as he stepped on the unconscious man he’d downed. “You skin that steel and you’ll have to be carried from here, same as them.”
They let their blades fall back into their scabbards and showed their hands.
“My knee is ruined!” cried the wounded one. “Kill those fakkers!”
Nix stared down at the man. “Another word and I’ll quiet you for good. That’s the mood I’m in.
You hear?”
The man opened his mouth, thought better, and slammed it shut, glaring at Nix.
To Egil, Nix said, “Can we go?”
Egil looked at the three downed men, at the bar, at Nix, and shrugged his mountainous shoulders. They exited the alehouse while the toughs collected their fallen and their dignity.
“Two unconscious, one groaning on the ground, and two to tell the tale,” Nix said. “Seems a decent night’s work. Unless you killed that big one?”
Egil ignored the question. “I know what you did there, Nix.”
“I had to wake you up somehow. What the fak are you doing? Sitting there like that?”
“I didn’t ask for help or for waking up. This is my own business.”
“No, it’s not,” Nix said. “You let that little slubber hit you on the head three times and did nothing. That looks bad for you, but also for me. People think of you, they think of me. Wake the fak up, Egil. To preserve my reputation, if nothing else. Pits, I ran into Trelgin coming in here and that droop-eyed arse called your nerve into question. Him.”
Egil looked up at Kulven. “Trelgin. Fak him. I don’t care what he thinks.”
Nix nodded knowingly. “And that right there is the problem.”
“So you say,” Egil said.
“Damned right, so I say.”
They walked together in silence for a time before Nix said thoughtfully, “You know, we’re spending too much time in alehouses. For it we get nothing but hangovers and fights. Two for me tonight alone. I say we get out and do something.”
Egil said nothing, so Nix pressed.
“You open to that or not? No shrug. No grunt. A word or words by way of answer.”
Egil looked at his knuckles and Nix wondered what he was thinking.
“You can’t keep blaming yourself,” Nix said. “You open to something, is what I’m asking.”
Egil gave a slow nod. “I suppose I am. Getting away from…this.” He made a gesture with the shovels of his hands that took in the whole of the city. “Would be welcome.”
“Good,” Nix said. “Otherwise I’d have to recruit Gadd. He’s solid, but an unnerving fakker, what with those teeth and tattoos and all. You’re just the sole priest of a dead god. I’m used to that. Anyway, good, this is good.” He nodded, relieved. “I’ll find something for us. We’ll do it and it’ll be like…before.”
“It’ll never be like before,” Egil said.
Nix didn’t fight the sentiment, though it pained him to hear Egil give it voice. “Fair enough. But maybe it’ll be better than now, yeah?”
“Can’t be worse.”
“You’ve some blood on your head there,” Nix said.
Egil wiped his brow, looked at the red smear on his fingers. “Not mine.”
“I didn’t figure so,” Nix said. “Listen, I have an idea.”
“That I did figure,” Egil said. “You’ve been building up to that ‘I have an idea’ tone of voice. Last time I heard it we ended up sideways of a demon in the tomb of an Afirion wizard-king.”
Nix grinned. “You say that as though it wasn’t fun. Wasn’t it?”
“It was. Seems a long way back now, though.”
“Aye. And as it happens, you have the same tone of voice at times,” Nix said. “Last time was…”
He caught himself before he said it, but Egil said it for him.
“Blackalley.”
“Right,” Nix said, thinking of Rose and Mere and Odrhaal and his dreams. “But anyway I do, in fact, have an idea.”
“And the tone proves a prophet.”
“Right,” Nix said.
During their travels through the Deadmire, they’d found an intriguing set of enspelled metal plates, inscribed in a language Nix had never before seen. When they’d returned to Dur Follin, he’d stowed them away, and in the haze of grief and drink he and Egil had lived in after losing Rose and Mere, he’d mostly forgotten them. But he figured there had to be something to them. Even if it just led to them chasing the wind for a time, it would at least give them something to do. An adventure was what they needed to recover themselves. Like old times.
“Say it,” Egil said.
“I will,” Nix said, nodding. “But I want to let it simmer for a bit. There’s a thing or two I need to do first.”
Ool’s clock started sounding the fifth hour and that gave Nix another idea. “What do you say we go see Mamabird?”
“You heard Ool’s contraption calling the hour, Nix. Wholesome people aren’t awake now.”
“In your case that’s true, but not in mine, nor in Mama’s. She wakes ahead of the fifth hour every day to get breakfast ready for the flock.”
Egil grunted. “That woman’s better than we deserve. You know that, yeah?”
“No argument.”
Mamabird had saved Nix when he was young, plucked him from scavenging the Heap, given him a home, and helped instill a moral code. The man he was today he owed to her. She provided both Egil and Nix something akin to a home, or at least a home base, someplace they could return to that stayed the same even when the world changed. They saw her only rarely, but still…she was home.
Nix said, “Under the present circumstances maybe seeing someone better than we deserve will do us both some good. Besides, Tesha was irritated when I left the Tunnel. I’d just as soon not return there yet.”
Egil nodded. “She’ll be sleeping, though, yeah?”
Nix shrugged. “Who can say? Anger might keep her awake. It’s possible I ejected someone from the Tunnel and shed his blood in the street.”
“Hmm,” Egil said. “That sells it. Mamabird’s it is.”
Nix smiled. They’d faced demons and devils both, but neither of them cared to stand before a wrathful Tesha if they didn’t have to.
“She said I’m inconstant,” Nix said.
“Tesha?” Egil said, his tone serious. “About women, she meant, or more than that?”
“Just women, I think.”
“Well, I guess she’s right about that, yeah?”
“No,” Nix objected, “she’s not right about that. Well, possibly she’s somewhat right. But you’re of little help. And she took it back anyway.”
“Did she?” Egil sounded skeptical.
“She did. You know what? Remind me not to drag you out of bars anymore. Henceforth I’ll just leave you there to wallow in a tankard and get slapped around by slubbers.”
Egil sighed. “Point taken. I’d have beaten those five eventually. Even drunks have limits. I was just…”
“Punishing yourself,” Nix said. “Guilt’s as much your companion as me these days, Egil.”
Egil cleared his throat. “So are we going to see Mama or not?”
“We are,” Nix said. “Inconstant. Bah. That’s nonsense.”
“As between the two of us,” Egil said, “I’m the only one permitted to say ‘bah.’ ”
“Gofti,” said Nix.
The half-asleep guards at the Slum Gate yawned as Nix and Egil approached. Nix knew the Slum Gate was a punishment post for the Guards. The shift ended at dawn and from the bored look of them, the guards were counting down the moments.
“Business in there?” the graying, bearded sergeant asked. He looked them over, his mouth tightening as he took in Nix’s blades.
“I grew up in there,” said Nix.
“Why in the Hells would you want to go back, then?” the sergeant asked, then shrugged. “You know what? Your business and none of mine.” He stepped aside, signaled for the gate to be opened. “Good eve. Or morn. Whatever the fak it is.”
As they walked through the gate, Nix heard another one of the guards say, “That’s Egil and Nix, ain’t it?”
A short, potbellied guard poked his head out of the shack, nodded, and said, “I heard they ain’t as tough as once supposed.”
The gate closed behind them and they stood in the Warrens, the arsehole of the city.
“You hear that slubber?” Nix said to Egil.
&n
bsp; Egil grunted.
“I blame you,” Nix said, and tried to leave it at that but couldn’t. “It reflects on us both, see? Because we’re a team, man. A pair. No one thinks of Nix alone. Or Egil alone. Only Egil and Nix. Or, if they’re smart, Nix and Egil.”
“You already said as much earlier,” Egil answered.
“It bears repeating.”
“We aren’t married, Nix.”
“No,” Nix said. “We’re more than married. We’re brothers. Aren’t we?” Egil’s pause irritated him, so he grabbed the priest by the shoulder and turned him so they were looking each other in the face. “Aren’t we?”
The priest nodded. “We are. I’m just…”
Nix softened his tone. “I know what you are, and I sympathize, but fakkin’ get it together, man. We lost the girls. I don’t like it, either. And we didn’t even lose them, really. They were never ours to lose, and they made the choice to stay with that…thing. What can we do?”
“Nothing,” Egil said, wincing at the memory. “But it still feels wrong. The stink of the Deadmire is in the air here and all I can think is…we were wrong.”
“Wrong things happen all the time. We adapt and move on.”
Egil inhaled deeply, blew it out. “Some things are more wrong than others.”
Nix could tell from the furrows in Egil’s brow and the pain in his eyes that he was thinking not of Rose and Mere, but of his wife and daughter.
“Aye to that,” Nix said and thumped his friend on the shoulder. “Some things are more wrong and then some. Let’s get to Mama’s and get a reminder that there are bright spots in the world yet.”
“Aye,” Egil said, and Nix thought he sounded half-convinced. “We could go back to the swamp. Retrieve them.”
Nix had entertained that idea often enough over the previous months. “No, we can’t. You know what that mindmage can do. We were lucky to get clear the first time. We go back there, we don’t come back. Worse, us going back might put Rose and Mere at risk, too. It was their choice, Egil. Theirs.”
“Bah.”
“Bah, indeed.” They continued on, Nix burping the while. “Maybe they’ll come back to us sometime.”