Impatience made his head throb, and he forced himself to look bored instead of pained. He was wondering just how many more mugs of the noxious stuff he'd have to down before he pretended to stagger out, when the street outside erupted into what sounded like a riot.>
Shouts—screams! His heart rose into his throat, and his pulse hammered in his ears as every nerve in his body reacted to the alarm.>
He—and virtually everyone else in the tavern—jumped to their feet and ran for the door. He wasn't slow to react, but there were still plenty of people who were between him and it. He ran right into a wall of jostling bodies.>
He told himself that this was a good diversion to get out and back to the Collegium, but he couldn't help himself. The noise out there was of panic and fear, and he had to respond. For the rest, of course, any disturbance held a potential for profit…>
Sweat stink mingled with a different kind of smoke—this was coming from the street outside. The noise now was like nothing he'd heard off a battlefield. He shoved his way through the crush at the door ruthlessly, elbowing one man in the ribs and brutally kicking another in the knee to get them out of the way. Both men swore and turned on him; both shrank out of the way when they saw who it was. He had a formidable reputation here; another reason why he was reluctant to sacrifice this persona. He could virtually come and go as he liked unmolested, and it had taken him no few knife fights to build that reputation. He had yet to draw his sword in here, which was a mercy, though his opponents only thought he was showing his contempt for them by meeting their swords with his knives. The poor fools had no idea that he was saving them from almost certain death at his hands if he pulled the longer blade. It wasn't his skill he was worried about, it was theirs; he'd seen drunken brawls end fatally when one idiot slipped and rammed himself onto another's sword. It had happened while he watched far too often to want to see that happen with him holding the blade. And it wasn't because he liked them that he spared their wretched lives, it was because if he killed a man, even by accident, the Watch would come, and there would be questions, and there would go his hard work in establishing Rokassan among the bully-boys.>
That was why it was Alberich here, and not another Herald. He was… practical.>
He delivered another elbow blow to a set of ribs, this time with enough force to it to make the man in his way whuff, curse, and bend over, and Alberich was out into the not-so-open street.>
It should have been dark and relatively empty. It wasn't. It was filled wall-to-wall with a churning mass of spectators and a growing number of those who actually were doing something. A lurid red glow reflected off their filthy, upturned faces as the wretched denizens of this neighborhood organized themselves into lines of hands that passed buckets of water away toward Alberich's right.>
The source of the glow was as hellish as any Sunpriest sacrificial fire Alberich had ever seen in Karse.>
An inferno that had once been a building raged madly against the black of the night sky. It was one of the nearby tenement blocks, and it was a solid sheet of flame from its foundation to its roof. It couldn't have been more fully involved, and Alberich was struck motionless for a moment at the sight, for he couldn't imagine how it had gotten that way so quickly—short of a Red-Robe Priest's demon calling. For one horrible moment he wondered wildly if a Red-Robe had infiltrated the capital of Selenay's Kingdom—>
But then an acrid whiff told him the real reason the building was so thoroughly engulfed.>
Tar>. Someone had been painting the sides of the building with tar. The heavy black smoke roiling over the tips of the highest flames confirmed it. A sudden wind drove it down into the street, and screams turned to coughs and gasps.
Now, that wasn't uncommon in this part of the city. Landlords didn't care to spend more than they had to on maintenance of these old buildings, and when they got word that an inspection was in the offing, they frequently created a new and draftless facade by tarring and papering the exterior with any of a number of cheap substitutes for real wooden siding. The work could be done in a day or less, and when finished, presented a less ramshackle appearance that generally fooled overworked inspectors into thinking that the building was in better shape than it actually was. With so many buildings to inspect and so little time, the inspector could easily convince himself that this one didn't need to be looked at any closer, and move on. The work would hold for a while, but soon the paper would disintegrate, the tar soak into wood left un-painted for so long that it soaked up anything, and the place would revert to its former state. A little darker, perhaps, and for a while the tar would fill in the cracks that let in the winter winds, but nothing more.>
Still… it seemed odd to Alberich that the thing should be blazing with such fiendish enthusiasm. Slum landlords were as stingy with their tar and paper as they were with everything else, and to burn like this, someone must have laid the stuff on with a trowel—>
“Stop him! Stop that boy!”>
Alberich sensed, rather than saw, the swirl in the crowd that marked someone small and nimble bouncing off the legs of those around him. Then a wiry, hard body careened into his hip.>
He was running to the fire. Somehow, Alberich knew that— and his Foresight showed him what would happen if the boy made it through the crowd.>
A small body writhing in the flames, screaming, dying—> An echo of the sacrificial fires of Karse. His gorge rose.
Automatically he reached out and snared the tunic collar of the boy before he could get any farther.>
The boy turned on him, a spinning, swirling fury. “Let me go!” he screamed. “Let me go!”; He spat out a stream of invective that rivaled anything Alberich had ever heard, and flailed at Alberich's arm with hard little fists. “I gotta get in there, ye bastid! I gotta!”>
Screaming and writhing in the flames…>
Alberich didn't bother arguing with the brat, who was red-faced and hysterical, and he didn't have time to calm him. No doubt his family was in there—>
Gods>. He pulled the boy off his feet, and the brat still fought.
Well, if they were, they were all dead, or they were somewhere out in the street, sobbing over the loss of their few possessions. Nothing could survive that inferno, but there was no reasoning that point. Alberich couldn't let the boy go—>
But there was work here; he might not be dressed in Whites, but he knew his duty, which was to help to save the buildings around the doomed one. He couldn't do that if he was playing nursemaid. With a grimace of pity, Alberich pulled his dagger as the boy continued to struggle toward the blaze, and tapped him behind the ear with the pommel nut the first moment the target presented itself.>
The boy went limp. Alberich was still near enough to the door of the tavern to struggle back and drop him just inside, as far out of harm as possible in this neighborhood. Then he joined one of the many bucket brigades coalescing out of the mob. Until the Guard and the pumps and hoses arrived, they had to help convey water to soak down the buildings to either side of the fire to keep it from spreading. Already Kantor was raising the alarm for him, and help could not be more than a few moments away.>
But he felt a moment of pleasure at the way people around him were responding to the emergency. So they weren't all villains, even though that was all he'd met since he began frequenting The Broken Arms. Even in this neighborhood, people could work together.>
With one accord, the water throwers wisely concentrated their efforts on the buildings that were merely in danger and let the blazing tenement burn itself out. Anything and everything that could hold water was being pressed into service, with men and strong women sending the heavy, laden vessels toward the fire and smaller women and children passing the empties back to be filled again. Alberich's concentration narrowed to a few, vital tasks. Breathing. Taking the bucket. Passing it on with a minimum of spillage. Turning back for another.>
Before he lost track of anything but the pain in back, shoulders, and arms and the cold that soon penetrated his soaki
ng wet hands, legs, and feet, Alberich saw buckets, pots, pans, and even a chamberpot making the circuit up and back, up and back, while people shouted incoherent directions, and the flames laughed at their efforts.>
* * * * * * * * * *>
Skif woke stiff and cold, with his head aching so much it hurt to open his eyes. He would just as soon have rolled over and gone back to sleep, but the pounding pain behind one ear and the cold prevented him from doing so—as did the sudden and electrifying realization that he wasn't in his bed.>
He sat up abruptly, despite a stab of agony that made him yelp.>
The cold, gray light of the street coming in at an open door next to where he sat completely disoriented him. Where was he?>
This isn't home>—
Then it all came back, in a rush. The triumph of the successful run.>
The fire.>
The man who'd grabbed him, keeping him from—from—>
With an inarticulate howl of grief, he scrambled to his feet and staggered out into the street.>
He coughed in the miasma of fog and stale smoke that met him like a wall. He fought through it, staggered a few paces— and stared, unbelieving, at the absolute ruin of his home.>
Gone. All gone. A few blackened timbers stuck up out of the wreckage, marking where the staircase had been. The rest— was an unidentifiable pile of charred wood and still-smoldering wreckage.>
The vultures were already hauling away whatever they could claw out, for in this place, even charcoal could serve to help eke out firewood and grant a few more hours of warmth. They had baskets, barrows—their clothing and faces black with soot.>
Somewhere under there was his home—Bazie—and the boys.>
Another howl tore itself out of his throat, and he hurled himself at the burned-out building, scrambling over what was left of the wall to the corner where the secret stair should have opened to Bazie's little den. It was underground—surely it was safe, surely they were safe—>
They have to be safe!>
But he couldn't help thinking… how long it took them to get Bazie out on the rare occasions when he emerged from the room. What a struggle it was to get him to the latrine, much less up the stairs. And that was on a bright spring day, not amid choking smoke and flames—>
He began to dig, frantically, first with his bare hands, then with a piece of board until that broke, then with the blade of a shovel he found, still hot enough to blister. His throat closed, his gut clenched. He welcomed the pain in his hands—he should have been there! If he'd been there—if only—>
He dug, with his eyes streaming tears and his heart breaking, dug and dug and dug until finally he was too exhausted to dig anymore.>
He collapsed among the wreckage, and wept, leaning against a broken beam, until his sides ached and his eyes burned, and still he could not weep himself free of the pain.>
Gone. All gone… I should have been here. All gone… it's my fault. All gone, all gone…>
Around him, people continued to scavenge, oblivious to his grief, or ignoring it. His grief turned to anger, then, and he stood up and tried to scream at them for the plundering ghouls that they were—but his throat was raw and his brain wouldn't work and all he could do was moan.>
In the end, it was Jarmin, unlikely Jarmin, clerkly proprietor of the shop who bought their plundered silks, who found him there, whimpering like a whipped dog. Jarmin, who stepped mincingly into the wreckage, looked him up and down and asked, without any expression at all, “Got swag?”>
Skif, shocked out of his grief for a moment by the sheer callousness of the query, began to shake his head. Then, suddenly remembering that triumph that seemed to have happened a hundred years ago, nodded.>
Jarmin took him by the elbow and hauled him to his feet. Shock sealed his mouth and made him docile, though his aching eyes still streamed tears, his gut ached, and deep inside he wanted to strike out at whatever was nearest.>
To strike out at himself.>
Gone, all gone!>
They picked their way to the street, with Jarmin still holding tightly to Skif's elbow, and once there, Jarmin headed determinedly toward his own shop. Skif just went along, too heartbroken to think, too full of bottomless mourning to care if Jarmin was about to lead him off somewhere to kill him for his loot.>
Let him. I deserve it. I wasn't there.>
They entered the shop, all of its tawdriness only too apparent by day. The girls were nowhere to be seen as Jarmin shoved Skif before him, past the counter, through a flap of hanging cloth, then up a narrow staircase that ended in a room just under the roof. A single dirty window covered with oiled parchment let in enough light to see by. There was a pallet there, and blankets, and some storage boxes; nothing else. Jarmin had to stoop to fit under the rooftree, and he shoved Skif roughly down onto the pallet, and gestured impatiently at his tunic.>
Skif read the gesture for the demand that it was, and slowly undid his clothing to pull out the jewelry he'd taken last night. He laid it out on the pallet. Jarmin squatted down beside him and examined it piece by piece, grunting a little, but otherwise saying nothing.>
Now he's gonna kill me>. Skif could form the thought, but couldn't muster anything beyond the grief to care what happened to him. Care? No, that wasn't true. He cared. He deserved death. If he'd gotten back sooner, if he hadn't been so determined to bring back every damned piece that couldn't be traced—
I'd have been there. I'd have noticed in time. I'd have gotten them out.>
Gone. All gone.>
He just sat where he was, staring at his own hands, while Jarmin turned the jewelry over and over in his hands.>
Finally the fence pulled the kerchief off his own neck and bundled it all up. He shoved the ends under his belt and knotted them, got up slowly and painfully, then descended the staircase. It looked from where Skif sat as if he was sinking into the floor…>
Tears began again, burning his eyes and his raw cheeks, and Skif didn't even bother to wipe them away. His nose closed up, his gut spasmed, and his thoughts ran around and around in a tight little spiral, like a mouse in a trap. Gone. My fault. I should have been there.>
A moment later Jarmin was back again, a bundle of cloth under one arm, a jug in his hand.>
“Here,” he said gruffly. “These ought to fit you.” He dropped the clothing down next to Skif, who stared at it without comprehension. “Even swap; the swag for these, food, and this room for three moons. After that, you get another place or start paying.” As Skif stared at him as if he was speaking in a foreign tongue, he glanced at the jug in his hand as if he was surprised by its presence. “Oh, aye. And you get this.”>
He shoved it at Skif until Skif took it from him perforce.>
“Go on. Pop the cork and drink it,” Jarmin said fiercely.>
Numbly, Skif obeyed. The cork came out with difficulty; the liquid inside tasted of cherries and burned like fire, burned him from his tongue to his gut, all the way down.>
He knew as soon as he tasted it what it was, though he had never done more than sip a bit before this, the dregs left in some rich man's glass; spirits-of-wine, and worth its weight in silver. He gasped at the fire in it, but didn't spill a drop; it would bring blessed oblivion, which now he wanted more than he'd ever wanted anything. It went to the head quickly; in a few swallows, he was dizzy. A few swallows more, and he had trouble holding the jug. Jarmin, his eyes gleaming fiercely in the half light, steadied it for him and helped him lift it to his mouth.>
“Keep drinking, boy,” he heard, as from a far distant land. “ ‘Twon't take the hurt away, but it'll numb it for a while.”>
Numb…> Numb was good. Maybe if he was numb, he wouldn't keep seeing Bazie and the boys… and the flames.
He swallowed again, the stuff burning its way down into his belly. Now he was more than dizzy; the room swam around him and tilted disconcertingly. Jarmin took the jug, corked it, and set it aside as he sagged down onto the pallet.>
The room was definitely moving, b
ut he didn't care. He just didn't want to have to watch it, so he closed his eyes. “Best thing for you, boy,” he heard, then footsteps on the stair.>
He didn't actually pass out; he hadn't drunk quite enough for that. But every time the numbness and the dizziness started to wear off, he heaved himself up onto his elbow and took another long pull at the jug until it came back again. Now and again he tired of simply feeling the room circling him and opened his eyes to watch the ceiling rotate. When the light started to fade, Jarmin appeared again with a lantern and bread and sops, a chamberpot, and a big jug of water. He made Skif eat and drink all of the water before he took the lantern and the plates away. Skif took some more pulls on the jug, then, and as shrill voices and the cajolery of the girls drifted in through the window, he let the liquor take him away to a place where nothing mattered anymore.>
* * * * * * * * * *>
Jarmin told him later that he'd stayed drunk for a week. Sometimes he cried, but only when he was alone. Sometimes he heard someone moaning, and dimly realized that it was himself. All he knew was that the jug was, temporarily, his best friend. Jarmin kept it full, but insisted on his eating and drinking water, an annoyance he put up with because it meant that Jarmin would top off the jug.>
He retained enough of sense and the cleanliness Bazie had drummed into him to make proper use of the chamberpot. It never seemed to stink, so Jarmin must have kept it clean as well.>
Jarmin also came up to talk to him now and again. For a while, he ignored the words and the man because he didn't want to go to the place where words meant something. For a while, that is, until something Jarmin said jarred him back into thinking.>
“Word is,” Jarmin said, into Skif's rosy fog, “That fire was set.”;>
Set>? Skif opened his eyes with an effort. “Wha?” he managed, mouth tasting of old leather and liquor.
Jarmin didn't look at him, and his tone was casual. “Word is that the landlord got a surprise inspection, and was going to have to fix the place. Or get fined. Going to cost him dearly, either way. So he burned it instead, and is calling it a terrible accident.”>
Mercedes Lackey - Vows & Honor 06 Page 13