by CM Raymond
Ezekiel spoke another word, and the well-dressed man released the girl and turned his attention back toward the juggler on the wooden crate.
The girl slipped away but made sure to grab a ring from the man’s hand first. Why waste a good opportunity? She disappeared into the crowd without a glance back.
She’s determined, the old man thought. A little rough around the edges maybe, but perhaps you need some grit if you are going to succeed.
****
Parker stretched out his long legs with his back against a large oak tree at the edge of Capitol Park. He leaned forward and turned to find the damned bark that was stabbing him in the back. He found it, ripped it off with his fingers and tossed it off to the side before turning back and resting against the tree once again.
“Ahh, much better,” he agreed.
An expanse of green grass spread out before him terminating at the steps of the Capitol building. The sandstone building itself was a large stately looking structure sitting on a rise, its pinnacle just a little lower than the Academy tower.
He had heard that it took a hundred magicians a month to build the place, and two died in the process. But lies and exaggerations flowed through Arcadia like water in the River Wren.
Capitol Park was a gem in their city. Precious resources—magical and mundane—had gone into its creation. It was the most beautiful area within the walls.
Public works like this were done every few years. Nothing like a show of magnanimity to keep the common folk satisfied. It allowed the Governor and Chancellor to focus the rest of the time for the projects that advanced their own purposes.
The lawn had become a primary gathering point for people of all classes and from all neighborhoods. It was patrolled by the Governor's Guard, a group of soldiers in pristine uniform, who were more of an accessory to the Governor than anything.
Parker watched a group of mothers from the noble class sit and talk as their kids played in the grass. Several students from the Academy—with their fancy clothes and stacks of books—took up a stone table not far off.
He noticed a crowd was beginning to gather around Old Jedidiah, the town's prophet.
Jedidiah had become a popular figure in Arcadia a few years previous. He came into the town from outside. The man wore rags and lived on a diet that even the poorest would turn their noses up at. It was said that he spent decades wandering in the wilderness.
Some claimed he was raised by animals.
The Prophet—Jedidiah’s title—had no home, as far as anyone knew. Rather, he took up dwelling with his followers, moving from place to place. But during the days, he spent his time in Capitol Park. The inner circle, standing closest to Jedidiah, was made up of his followers.
A multitude always gathered on the outside—many who just wanted to hear the Prophet's words of the day, and others who had come to heckle, tossing insults at him and his disciples. But ridicule only fueled the flame of his preaching.
From the opposite end of the lawn, Hannah limped toward Parker. He had known that she was hurt, but seeing her walk from a distance made him realize just how badly the Hunters had abused her.
His lips pressed together as he cursed them, the Governor, and his city. Parker wanted the Prophet’s words to be true, to be real. The hope that someday there could be a different way of living in Arcadia, ushered in by the one that the people referred to as The Founder, was the dream that inspired thousands.
The man who had laid the foundation for the city would come again and bring justice on his shoulders. But it was hard for Parker to keep the dream alive when the world around him was shit. Well, mostly shit. He got to spend his days with Hannah after all.
But seeing her in pain made believing in a better world even harder.
"How’d it go?" Parker asked, being sure not to show his concern. Hannah was strong. She wanted none of his pity or anyone else's.
She dropped onto the grass and spread her cloak out between them. She emptied the contents of her pockets.
There was a pile of coins and a few bills, a small magitech lantern that had a little juice left, and a bunch of other trinkets that might be of some value. Maybe they could hawk it back in the Boulevard. The thing about being a pickpocket is that you never really know what you're going to find, you just take what you can grab, and never get caught.
That's rule number one. Probably rules two, three and five if he were being honest.
"Went all right," Hannah said. "Your little trick with the bread cart worked well. The crowd ate it up. Something strange happened, though. Just as I was breaking out of the crowd, I was going for a bulge in some guy's pocket."
"Whoa, we're there to steal stuff. Reach for bulges on your own time," Parker said with a wink.
"Screw you," Hannah returned the smile.
She never minded his jokes, so he was always sure to dish them out.
Hannah continued with her story, "I reached into his pocket, and he grabbed me. Based on how he was dressed, I bet he’s been picked clean before. Should have just skipped him. Anyway, I freaked. I mean, I thought he was gonna call for the guards. And with this still stuck on tight...”
She pointed to her forehead. Even though Parker couldn’t see the Hunter’s tag, he knew it was there. He shuddered to think of what would happen if the guards saw it.
Parker furrowed his brow. “What’d you do?”
"I… I… didn't do anything. This guy was big. My hand was in his pocket, he had me by the forearm, and then… just out of the blue… he let me go and turned back to your show."
Parker smiled. “I am a pretty good juggler.” Parker pulled a stick out of the grass and rolled it between his fingers. "Or he must've seen how much of a badass you are."
Hannah laid back on the grass and stretched her arms out to the sides. "Yeah. I'm pretty much a badass." She looked over at his left eye, which was swollen over from his fifteen minutes of fame in the Pit. “How’s your face?”
“Beautiful. Yours?”
“The same,” she said.
“Who knows, maybe the Matriarch and the Patriarch were smiling down on you,” he said, hoping to get a rise.
It worked.
She punched him hard in the shoulder. “If the Bitch and the Bastard exist, they don’t give a shit about folks like us. I gave up on fairy tales after my mom died.”
Parker rubbed his arm and looked over at Old Jed. “Yeah, you’re probably right. We don’t need them. And besides, with my stunning good looks and charm in front of a crowd and your spindly little pickpocket fingers, we make our own magic.”
She leaned back over and punched his arm again. He made an effort to exaggerate how he was rubbing the pain away.
“They aren’t spindly, they’re dainty. And I wouldn’t bet on your looks. Maybe the crowds come to see the douche nugget from the Bitch’s Boulevard make a fool of himself.”
He smiled. “You know me. I’ll gladly play the fool if it means we can eat.”
The two lounged in the sun, their heads nearly touching. It was one of the rituals, to divide the wealth and then just spend some time watching the world go by. Other than his mother, she was all Parker had, and when they were together on the lawn, it was a little taste of what the Founder, if he were real, would bring back to Arcadia.
****
Ezekiel sat on the steps of the Capitol. A sandwich from Morrissey’s wrapped in brown paper was clenched in his fist. Much had changed since he had left Arcadia. Many things that once were part of his native city were now gone, and strange things took their place. But Morrissey’s, the first restaurant in the newborn city remained. It was almost exactly like it was four decades earlier. A mix of nostalgia and longing washed over the old man as he ate, but he pushed it down. Now was not the time for pity.
He was back in Arcadia to get shit done.
A smile spread across his face as he watched the groups on the Capitol’s lawn. This was certainly a difference. This monstrosity sat in the place that was once dense woo
ds. A little piece of the wild that he and his friends had chosen to maintain inside the walls of Arcadia. A reminder of the wilderness they had emerged from. But the wild spaces within the city walls had all been tamed.
Ezekiel watched as the man in the tattered robe rose up before his congregation, his arms lifted high to grab their attention.
“Good people,” the Prophet started. “I greet you in the name of the Matriarch and the Patriarch.” He paused dramatically, waving an outstretched arm over the crowd in a welcoming benediction.
“You mean the Bitch and the Bastard,” a mocker shouted from the crowd. “They’ve left us, old man, if you didn’t get the message!”
Ignoring him, the Prophet bent slightly at the waist toward the few sitting close. “Ah, my beloved. Your presence brings me peace in a tumultuous time and a glimmer of a future which will appear with his most certain coming.”
Ezekiel sat up, wondering where in fact the Prophet's speech was headed. It was always interesting to hear people talk about you.
A bit like being at your own funeral, without all of the messy dying first part.
“Yes, faithful ones, a day is coming when The Founder, the one who gave us magic and taught us to use it, will return. It is The Founder, the one who brought us out of greatest darkness, the Age of Madness, who will come back to the city and revive it, restore it again with the Matriarch and the Patriarch’s blessing. Do you look forward to this beloved?”
Murmurs came from the crowd gathered at his feet, but those on the outside continued to mock and hurl insults.
“Keep waiting, ya old sonofabitch,” his heckler called back, then bit into a sausage.
The Prophet lifted his chin and smiled. “I will wait. Wait for as long as I must. The Founder will return in due time. It is said that he awaits the day when magic is once again used in its proper ways.
“When the Unlawfuls have been wiped away and a purity of magic returns to Arcadia. Never forget my children, unlawful magic is a scourge upon our city. These criminals and heathens do dark deeds by night. Only the pure will know the Patriarch and the Matriarch’s blessing.”
Ezekiel shook his head, angry at the preacher’s words. To hear his life work become so distorted was a shock he had not expected.
There’s something wrong with this world, he thought, but it’s not the Unlawfuls’ fault. And if the Matriarch were here, it wouldn’t be the poor from the Queen’s Boulevard begging for mercy. She would have her fair share of dark deeds to do by night, hell probably during the day, too.
If this fool only knew.
****
“I’ve gotta get back to QBB,” Hannah said, finally sitting up nodding toward the small crowd. “Not to mention, I can’t listen to this idiot anymore.”
“The Prophet? We always get a kick out of him,” Parker looked from the crowd to Hannah and back.
“Until yesterday,” Hannah agreed, thinking of the Hunters that assaulted her in the alley. She pulled on the edge of the wool hat to make sure the tag was still covered. She was now the exact kind of person Old Jed was preaching against.
“Right. I forgot you’re a heathen devil worshiper now.” Parker said it with a smile, but part of her thought he was right.
The Prophet and his ministry only served to distract people from their real problems, have them blame the Unlawfuls rather than the nobles. The Governor's decrees and the Academy’s restrictions—the things that really hurt people—were only supported by the Prophet’s perverted message.
The Chancellor, the Governor, and Old Jed preached the same ideas, only they divided and conquered, each of them finding a place in the hearts of a different part of Arcadia. The Prophet drew the lower-class people, and the institutions had sway over the upper class.
Hannah expected Old Jed’s disciples to take “justice” into their own hands and become vigilante hunters with pitchforks and torches instead of magic and magitech. The Prophet was radicalizing the people against Unlawfuls.
Soon, if the witch hunts began, no one would be safe.
“It’s all horseshit anyway,” Hannah said, getting to her feet and knocking off some grass. “Gods? The Founder? Purity of magic? All horseshit. Magic just is. Don’t need to create a freaking religion around it. Some people are born with it, just like some people are born rich, and others are born ugly like you. Just luck, not the blessings of the gods.”
“Sure,” Parker said. He could be blind and still see she was upset.
Hannah stuffed her share of the spoils into her pockets. “Nice job today. I gotta run. Need to see if I can score something for William in case he gets sick again.”
“Be safe,” Parker said. She knew exactly what he meant. As far as she knew, the Hunters were still on the prowl, and she didn’t want to see what a dose of anger added to their violence.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Half your take in the box, Hannah.” Jack was as big as a cart and as fit as a milk cow. He wasn’t half-bad, except for his breath and the fact that he worked for Horace, the manager over Queen’s Boulevard.
Horace extorted the people under his care as much as he was able, and the Governor didn’t give a shit about the evil he worked on the streets of the slums. The people who lived there had neither voice nor power, so it really didn’t matter what they thought of Arcadia’s governing authorities.
Most of Horace’s men were terrible. It was common knowledge they did their own skimming out of the toll box—the place that every street kid had to drop half their earnings to make it back into the quarter. At least Jack wasn’t a big douche over the whole thing. He did his job, sometimes with a smile, and never gave her much trouble.
Hannah dug into her pockets and dropped almost half of the cash in. She figured Jack wouldn’t check, so keeping some out was worth the risk. “A small price to pay for a safe neighborhood, right?”
Her sarcasm was lost on Jack, whose straight face looked as dumb as it did ugly. Everyone knew that Queen’s Boulevard was the most dangerous within the walls. Most Arcadians wouldn’t dare come into her part of town out of fear of muggings, murders, rapes, or all three at once. But it was different when you lived there. QBB residents left their own alone, at least during daylight.
“Good girl,” Jack said. “And tell your old man that it’s time for his drunk ass to get back to work. Time to contribute, that’s what Horace says.”
Hannah nodded and passed by. Fat chance that would happen. As far as Hannah saw it, her dad’s working days were over. If Horace expected more money from her family, it would have to come from her.
The tension in her neck eased a little as she crossed onto her home turf. All day she had been nervous about the Hunters, waiting for them to jump her around every turn. But back on the Boulevard, she knew she was safe.
She couldn’t help but feel at home in QBB. She’d never lived anywhere else and probably never would. Many in the ward felt a sense of hopelessness with their lot in life; Hannah had a sort of resignation. She’d been dealt a shit hand, with a shit dad, and, for the most part, a shit life.
She smiled, with shit to look forward to, up was probably her only direction.
Or death, she rolled her eyes.
Screw Death, that bastard could go find someone else to keep his ass company.
Hannah’s mind shifted to William, and she realized between him and Parker, all wasn’t lost. At least they would always have her back, and she would have theirs. As she walked down the dirty cobblestone, she saw people—neighbors—she would consider good, fine people.