City of Lies

by Sam Hawke

Anything can happen, I repeated to myself. And in the moment he stepped again toward Tain, I sprang off the far side of the bed, throwing myself into an awkward roll on the floor. I came to my feet by the ornamental daggers and had both in my hands by the time Marco caught up. I knocked his sword aside with one dagger—pitifully short by comparison to his blade—and lashed out with the other one.

  Marco shifted his torso back and out of the way easily, bobbing forward again with the same cold smile. “You’re brave, Credo. But you forget I taught you all those years ago. I’ve seen you fight. Or try to, anyway.” He whipped his sword through my guard, easily parting my daggers, and only a last-minute dive to my side saved my throat from his blade. Unconcerned, the big man strolled after me as I backed away.

  “You betrayed the city,” Tain said, stepping between us. He carried his sword. Bile rose, bitter, in my throat. I’d tried to give him a moment to get out the door, and he’d chosen instead to go for his weapon. Why didn’t you run, you fool?

  Marco tapped at Tain’s blade and laughed at the immediate wobble in the Chancellor’s grip. “You can barely hold that up. The two of you drop those weapons and I will give you nice, clean deaths. Warriors’ deaths.”

  Tain sprang forward, slashing down at the top of Macro’s head. Marco blocked it easily. “We’re not warriors,” Tain said through gritted teeth. He pivoted and struck again, but Marco met his sword with lazy ease. I circled around, trying to get a clean angle at the Guilder, but he moved his feet and positioned his body effortlessly to keep me out of range. This time he sliced at Tain, and though my friend blocked it, I could see the strain it caused him, and knew he couldn’t defend himself for long.

  Marco knew it, too. His posture and expression were so relaxed he might have been eating lunch. We had to get out of here, or he’d cut us down without breaking a sweat. I looked at the doorway and circled again. Between the two of us we should be able to at least force him into moving out of the way of the door. If we could just get out of this space.…

  “The door is locked, in case you are thinking about running,” Marco said. He lunged forward suddenly, almost skewering Tain, who staggered back and hit the bed. Just as Marco struck down, I leaped in with a flurry of strikes, and though none made it through Marco’s guard, it gave Tain time to right himself. Marco smirked. “I had to borrow the key off that old fool, Argo. He did not want to let me in.”

  Tain let out a hoarse cry and slashed out at the Warrior-Guilder. I lunged in, too, trying to time a gap, but Marco’s agile body dodged and feinted to keep us at bay. After two steps back himself, he shifted to the attack and drove us back toward the window side of the room. A barely parried downward strike at Tain skidded down the outside of his shoulder, drawing blood, and I collected several long cuts down my arms that burned and drained my energy. Marco wielded his sword as if it were a toy, weightless, and drove us backward without effort. He seemed content to wear us out. Two of us, and it didn’t matter. He was going to kill us both, just like he’d killed so many before. Fear drenched me, making me clumsy.

  I weaved my way away from Tain and Marco, then made a run for the side of the bed.

  “Not so brave now, then?” Marco called out.

  I spun one of my daggers around and smashed the lamp with the hilt.

  The room went black.

  I heard Marco’s grunt of surprise and smiled in the darkness. I crossed the room silently. We couldn’t defeat Marco, not even two to one, especially with Tain stripped of his strength. But we could tip the odds.

  I heard a thud as Marco’s sword hit the wall, and my smile widened as I realized Tain had moved away the moment I’d killed the light. Marco had incomparable advantage in sword work. But I had paced this room in the darkness, counting steps, so many times in my life, and so many more times in this last week, that I didn’t need light to know its length and breadth. I knew where to step, how far, how many times, to avoid every bit of furniture. This was my world.

  One, two, three steps, to the end of the bed. I let one of my daggers trail against the edge of the bedpost, creating a tiny slicing sound, then darted to the side as Marco followed the bait and lunged for the spot. I kicked out and knocked the stool by the side of the bed into his path. As he stumbled I leaped in, lungs too tight to breathe, and stabbed.

  He roared with shock as much as pain as my dagger hit something hard, and luck more than skill saved me from his retaliatory swipe. My heart picked up the pace as I skidded backward to the wall near the door. I cursed in my head, my brief elation fading. That had been my chance, and I’d wasted it.

  Swords clashed, and this time I almost swore aloud. Either Marco had found Tain or Tain had tried what I just had. I counted my steps forward and to the side, padding silently, moving around and around. Another clash, and footsteps, and the brush of warm air as someone rushed past me. Retreating. Tain?

  I stepped back and to my right, counting in my head, picturing the layout of the room. The other person—this time I was sure it was Marco—followed the first, steps confident. Then a cry and a thump, and someone staggering up against the back wall. I swallowed my fear and tiptoed forward. Don’t panic now.

  “Come on, lads,” the Warrior-Guilder said, his voice edged with irritation, as though offended that we had made his game unsportsmanlike. “Skulking around in the darkness? Come out and face me.”

  I heard the whoosh of his sword this time, but Tain must have moved again, because it hit the wall and Marco swore in a language I didn’t recognize. Now I was close enough to hear Tain’s ragged breathing; either he was too tired to keep quiet or too hurt from that last blow. Marco could hear it, too; his voice moved as he did, and I knew then he’d done a pretty good job of picturing the room layout himself. He was trapping Tain in the corner.

  “Where is the honor in this?” he taunted. “Honored Chancellor, hiding in the darkness instead of facing his opponent? Credo Jovan, lurking about instead of defending your friend and Chancellor? Where is your honor?”

  I crept close behind him. My groping foot on the base of the curtain exposed the tiniest breath of faint silver light into the room, so I could see the rough shape of the Guilder as he raised his sword to strike Tain down.

  “You know what?” I said, as I plunged my dagger into the back of his neck. “Fuck honor.”

  * * *

  Neither of us seemed to know what to say. We stood in the dark for a time, Marco’s body between us. The only sound to punctuate the darkness was Tain’s heavy breathing.

  Then, “Is he dead?”

  “I think so.” I bent down and checked the pulse in his neck with hands shaking like a seizure. His skin was warm. No heartbeat. I stepped around the prone figure and fumbled in the dark to find my friend. He was slumped in the corner, and when I tried to help him stand, his side was slick with warm blood. “How badly are you hurt?”

  “Not sure.” Tain laughed, a bark devoid of humor.

  I helped him to the bed then found and lit the main lamps in the room. I tried not to look at the knife protruding from the back of Marco’s neck. There wasn’t much blood; he’d died instantly. Should have tried to knock him out. Now we’ll never know why he did it. But there was nothing to be done now. I’d killed him. I’d killed other people, but this was something I had done to someone I knew … and had liked and respected. And I didn’t feel sorry about it: I felt nothing. No satisfaction, no regret. Just emptiness.

  I checked Tain over. The main wound was a deep, clean slice to his side, just below his ribs. “Put pressure on that,” I told him, and he obeyed, eyes dull. I didn’t know how much blood he’d lost, or whether his stunned silence was due to emotional shock or physical injuries. I sliced up a sheet with the spare knife and bound the main wound, then the smaller ones on his arms and shoulders. “We need to get you to the hospital.”

  He nodded, eyes already shutting as he sat back. Or maybe I should get a physic here first, I thought. I could send Argo.… And then I remembered Marco’s t
aunt, and my throat clenched. “Argo,” I said. A surge of hatred toward the dead man on the floor made my knees wobble. “Tain, can you stay here? I’ve got to go see if Argo … I have to check.”

  His eyes snapped open and he lurched to his feet. “I’m coming,” he said, waving away my protests. “I have to get to the hospital anyway. If there’s a chance Argo’s still…” Neither of us wanted to say it aloud. “I’ll follow. Go.”

  I ran. The route to the front entrance took me past Salvea’s room and I thumped on the door. “Salvea! Tain needs help!” I didn’t wait for a response, but hurried on. Come on, I thought, my steps feeling heavy.

  I skidded to a stop in the main entrance hall. Argo lay slumped over the desk, his wrinkled brown head bare as a nut, his body motionless. My chest tightened. How many more innocent people had to die for Marco’s insane war? Argo had never harmed anyone in his life. I reached for his neck, testing for a pulse.

  And then caught my breath as I felt one. Weak but steady. “Argo? Honor-down, Argo, can you hear me?”

  His eyes fluttered open. “Fortunes-damned upstart Guilder,” he muttered, trying to focus on me as he raised his head feebly. “Tried to kill me. The Chancellor! Credo, the Warrior-Guilder’s going for the Chancellor!”

  “He’s all right,” I said, helping the doorkeep sit up. “Marco’s dead, and Tain’s all right.” I touched his neck gently and the old man winced. “He choked you?”

  Argo nodded. “Brash as could be,” he said. “Said … said—” He broke off with a cough. “Said everyone would just think I keeled over,” he wheezed. “Like I’m some kind of decrepit old thing, about to expire!”

  I patted his back as he coughed again. “Thank the fortunes he underestimated you.”

  By the time Argo had found his feet, Tain hobbled into the entrance hall with Salvea’s help. Davi followed behind, sucking his thumb, eyes wide. “Argo!” Tain staggered over and embraced the old man. “Honor-down, I’m glad to see you breathing.”

  “And I you, Honored Chancellor,” he croaked, looking embarrassed.

  “I want the physics to check you over, too,” I told Argo. I tried to scoop Davi up to pass to Salvea, but the boy backed away, shaking his head, and I realized what a sight I must be, bleeding from small cuts and strewn with Tain’s blood and my own. “Salvea, can you run ahead to the hospital and warn Thendra that we’re bringing them in to check them over?”

  “And you,” Tain said. “You’re hurt, too.”

  I tried to rub the blood away with a corner of my tunic. “I’ve got something else to do,” I said.

  * * *

  Loaded with a good lamp and basic medical supplies from the hospital, where I’d made sure Tain and Argo were in safe hands, I went back to Red Fern Avenue and through the sewers into Eliska’s tunnels. I tried not to think about what was going on at the lake. No further alarm bells had sounded, so I had to assume we still held the bridge. But I dared not wait any longer to find out if some harm had befallen Hadrea in the labyrinth below the city.

  The caves lay silent and menacing as I descended. Calling out, I heard only my own voice, echoing back from the darkness. I tried not to think the worst. The system was huge; chances were she could be fine and still not hear me. She had moved confidently underground when she had followed me.

  I found signs of her passage past Eliska and Dara’s secret room, footprints in the dust and dirt visible with my lamp. They led deeper and lower, east toward the lake. This time I was prepared for any eventualities; my pouches were refilled and I had my supply of moonstone paste in hand to mark each doorway I moved through with a smear. Even if something happened to my lamp or I had to run back, the faint white glow from the moonstone would guide my way home. Sometimes Hadrea’s tracks were heavier and deeper lines than normal footprints, and I wondered if she had been using a crude version of the same system, marking her way home. The air grew heavier, and the walls seeped liquid. When the ceiling started dripping heavy ice-cold splotches, I suspected I was under the lake itself. It didn’t improve my feelings about the prospect of cave-ins. I called out again. Nothing.

  The darkness seemed to thicken as I went lower and lower, as though my lamp’s light couldn’t match it. My breathing sounded louder and each footstep echoed, eerie. “Hadrea?” I tried again.

  Was that something? I raced ahead, the lamp swinging wildly. “Hadrea?”

  A sound, there was definitely a sound then. A cry? It sounded faint, weak. Was she hurt?

  I rounded the corner, thrusting my lamp into each of the tunnel entrances I passed. In the third I thought I glimpsed something.

  The light from my lamp spilled into the tunnel, showing a floor littered with rocks and dirt. The roof was bracketed and looked sound; no sign of a collapse. The rocks were spread out and, strangely, many were caked with dirt on one side and smooth on the other, with no discernible pattern. I had no time to puzzle that out, because moments later the edge of my light caught a brown sheen, and I leaped over the rocks to where Hadrea lay, her hair concealing her face, unmoving.

  As I dropped down beside her, she propped herself on her forearms, easily tossing her hair back with a puff of breath. “You took a long time, Jovan,” she said, and relief rendered me speechless.

  She jerked her head behind her, gesturing to the pile of rocks covering her feet. “I was caught,” she said. “It was clumsy, but I had been moving rocks for a long time. I was not quick enough.”

  “Are they pinned?” I asked, afraid of the answer. The lantern illuminated a pile of rocks at least knee height. If they had crushed her legs, they could have shattered her ankle bones. Not even the most talented physics could repair all the little bones in the feet or recreate a proper working ankle.

  But she shook her head. “Just trapped,” she said. “If only I had delicate little feet like your city women, perhaps I could pull them out.”

  I laughed, relief making the moment funnier. “Hold still.” I moved rocks from the pile, taking care not to cause any falls. “What happened down here? I’ve been worried about you.”

  “There is a room here,” she said.

  “The Os-Woorin room. I know.”

  “Do you know what it is?”

  “No,” I admitted. “Is it a shrine, do you think? Did you come here to make an offering?”

  She twisted over her shoulder to look at me. “You thought Os-Woorin speaking to us was just a story,” she said. “But our ancestors were not such unbelievers. Perhaps they found some way to communicate with the spirit. We are under the lake, I think.”

  “I don’t know what to think anymore.” I looked past the piles of rocks. “Did you get caught by a cave-in before you found it?”

  “It is not a cave-in,” she said. “The room has been deliberately blocked off. The supports were destroyed and the tunnel brought down. Someone did not want that room to be entered.”

  Caslav had told Eliska the caves were unsafe. Had he known more, or had he simply heard that lie from his aunt before him? Was it a lie passed down through their line? I shifted another stone with a grunt. “So you tried to clear the rocks, by yourself? And you call me foolish?”

  One more rock, and she let out a gasp of relief and wiggled free. I helped her to her feet and she stamped up and down across the corridor, stretching and shaking. It was strange seeing her in masculine farm clothing: long trousers and a vest over a shirt. She stopped and looked me over. She touched my arm. “Is that blood?”

  “Oh. Yes.” I told her what had happened, leaving out the detail of how Marco had died. Perhaps I didn’t want to catapult it from the hazy, dream-like state in my memory to something real. The empty feeling inside made the retelling easier than it should have been. “The physics are with Tain,” I finished. “And we don’t have much longer to hold the bridge.”

  “You think we should go back up there and help.”

  I opened my mouth to agree, but instead fell silent, staring at the rocks spread out over the floor. The map lay be
side my lantern. “No,” I said, surprising myself. “I think we should keep moving those rocks. Whatever is in there, it might have helped the Chancellor hundreds of years ago. Maybe it can help again.”

  She smiled, and some part of me hoped I had made the choice for the right reasons. But that part shut up as she stepped closer. Blood pounded in my ears. “Hadrea,” I said. It came out as a whisper. Honor-down, even sweaty and covered in dirt, she was so beautiful.

  “I like the way you say it,” she said to me, as she had once before.

  For long moments I couldn’t think, only feel, as her hands dug into my back and her breasts hardened against my chest. The salty taste of her made me dizzy. She backed against the wall, pulling me with her, one leg riding up to hook around my thigh. I wanted her so badly it scared me.

  My hands shook as I broke the kiss and pulled back, putting some space between us. “What happened before…” I said, guilt at the memories breaking through my desire.

  She scowled. “You could have died tonight, Jovan. And above us, the city might be falling. We might both be dead tomorrow in any case. So, what is that phrase you city people use?” With a jerk, she pulled me back in so close I could feel her lips moving against my cheek as she whispered, “Shut the fuck up.”

  And I did.

  We lay panting together afterward, silent, until the steady dripping of ice water from above drove us from the spot. I didn’t feel hollow anymore, but full, too full, of emotions I didn’t recognize. That had been something more than passion, something more than physical and emotional bonding. Something almost spiritual.

  “Did you feel that?” she asked, as if reading my mind. She sounded tentative and her dark gaze searched my face as I considered my reply. I didn’t know how to describe what I had felt.

  “That was an offering,” she said. “What you are feeling. That was you—us—opening to Os-Woorin, giving to it. It is here, do you sense it?”

  I shifted, uncomfortable, but her words triggered a memory I couldn’t suppress: the strange, echoey feeling of pressure in my head, of delayed response and blurred vision, almost like that sensation I had felt climbing the ladder back to safety when the Speaker woman followed me. I didn’t know how to process the strangeness. Reason, logic fought against it. I cared about Hadrea, and I had never desired anyone, man or woman, in the way I wanted her. Perhaps this was just the heady sensation of infatuation.