Hope and Red

by Jon Skovron

  “Who?”

  “Old Yammy. The wag who’s going to get us on the right path again.”

  * * *

  The differences between Paradise Circle and Hammer Point had been one of degree. If Paradise Circle was poor, Hammer Point was destitute. If Paradise Circle was dirty, Hammer Point was a festering sinkhole. If the people of Paradise Circle were hard, the people of Hammer Point were stone and steel.

  Hope had expected Silverback to fall somewhere on that spectrum, probably on the nicer side, since it was the neighborhood that stretched long and thin across the city, acting as a buffer between the downtown poor and the wealthy uptown communities. But as Red led her through the early-evening streets of Silverback, she saw that it was nowhere on that spectrum. Instead it seemed to exist purely in its own world. The streets were crammed with theaters, art galleries, craftsmen of all kinds. Brightly colored wares spilled out onto the streets, with people calling out sales and bargains.

  “Silverback is an artistic community,” said Red. “Some of the finest painters, musicians, poets, and performers in the empire call it home.”

  “They certainly like dressing colorfully,” said Hope. It seemed everyone around her was a riot of colors, sometimes matching, sometimes conflicting, but always bright and vivid. Performers were on nearly every corner. Musicians, acrobats, and jugglers for the most part. Crowds gathered to watch, sometimes cheering, sometimes mocking.

  “There’s more street lamps in Silverback,” said Red. “And there’s street cleaners who take your garbage away for you.”

  “Why?”

  “The lacies like it pat when they come down here for a gallery showing or a play. And there’s at least twice as many imps on patrol here. They don’t bother protecting the artists, of course. Just here to make the lacies feel safe.”

  “It must be a terrible thing for those lacies,” said Hope. “To be so afraid of other people.”

  Red gave her a funny look. “That’s an interesting way of looking at it. I suppose you’re right.”

  Hope and Red walked down the boisterous streets of Silverback for a while, a small island of quiet.

  “Here we are!” said Red at last. “Madame Destiny’s House of All!”

  “I thought you said we were looking for someone named Old Yammy.”

  “Sure, but you don’t bring in the customers with a name like that. Come on, I bet she’ll do that thing where she looks at us like she knew we were coming. I can never tell if she’s bluffing.”

  He opened the door just as a woman came out. Hope had never seen anyone like her. Her long brown hair was tied up in a highly intricate series of braids. Her face was painted an unnatural shade of orange, and small flecks of gold had been somehow adhered to her eyelids, making them so heavy that her eyes were only half-open. Her lips were painted a bright blue. She wore a long blue silk gown that seemed to be interwoven with gold thread. She had gold jewelry around her slim wrists and long neck. Hope could only gape at this strange, impractical creature, dimly aware that the woman was staring back at her with unease.

  Red yanked Hope to one side.

  “Sorry, your ladyship,” he said, turning on a smile that gave off more light than the nearby street lamp.

  The woman did not respond, but hurried past.

  “What was that?” asked Hope.

  “That was a proper lacy from uptown.”

  “Do they all dress like that?”

  “They do when they’re down here,” said Red. “I doubt they go in for that much bother if they’re at home, just putting their feet up. But I can’t say for sure.”

  “Why was she painted orange?”

  “How should I know? Just because I have some lacy blood doesn’t mean I understand their fashion. Now let’s go inside. We don’t want to keep Old Yammy waiting.”

  Hope wasn’t sure what she expected to find in the House of All. Perhaps crystal balls, exotic tapestries, luridly colored rugs, and bits of bone hanging from the doorway. So she was a little disappointed when he led her into what appeared to be a normal kitchen, similar to the one back on Galemoor. Wooden cabinets with a thick butcher block on top, a basin, and an iron potbellied stove. The only obvious difference was the rows of glass jars, unlabeled, that were filled with leaves, powders, and other things she couldn’t quite determine.

  A woman stood in the middle of the kitchen. Hope had been expecting Old Yammy to be old, but this woman couldn’t have been more than forty. Hope wondered if this was an assistant. But then Red smiled and walked over to her, arms outstretched.

  “Old Yammy!” He wrapped his arms around her.

  She gave him a level gaze, not so much hugging as allowing herself to be hugged. “It’s Madame Destiny while I’m working, Rixidenteron.”

  “Right, and it’s Red when I’m with my friends, keen?”

  “Rixidenteron?” asked Hope.

  “It’s the name he was born with,” said Old Yammy. “It no longer suits him, but I call him that out of habit, and perhaps nostalgia for happier times.” She squinted at Hope, brushing a lock of her black hair back behind her ear. “But you would know something of that, wouldn’t you?”

  “Why do you think that?” asked Hope, her expression guarded. There was something about the way Old Yammy looked at her that made her feel oddly exposed.

  “I am Madame Destiny. I know many things.”

  “Yeah, yeah, enough with the japery,” said Red. “We’ve got a serious thing to talk to you about.”

  Old Yammy gave him a tolerant smile. “You always do.”

  “We need to find someone. We’ve got his hair, his blood, and his name. That’ll work for a dowsing, right?”

  “It will.” Old Yammy walked over to one counter, motioning for them to follow. “Show me.”

  Red held out the strands of hair. Hope had wrapped her sword loosely in the white robe instead of sheathing it. The sheath was a perfect fit for the sword and would have wiped the blood off. Now she carefully unrolled the robe, never letting it touch the end of the blade where the blood still darkened the edge.

  Old Yammy sucked in a breath when she saw the Song of Sorrows. “This sword! I have never seen its like.” She reached out hesitantly and touched the flat of the blade with her fingertips. “It has a power all its own. Enmeshed into the steel itself.”

  “It was forged with the help of a biomancer,” said Hope.

  Old Yammy touched her finger to the blood, then brought it to her mouth, licked it, then spat. “And you seek a biomancer as well.”

  “Is that a problem?” asked Red.

  “In finding him? Normally. But if we use this sword as the dowsing wand, it will magnify the bloodwork.”

  “Will that harm the sword?” asked Hope.

  Old Yammy laughed. “There is no power you or I could conjure that would hurt this blade. It is safe. But know that the moment someone else’s blood touches it, the bloodwork will be dispelled and you will no longer be able to use it to search for this man.”

  “So you won’t be able to use your sword to fight,” said Red.

  “I can use it sheathed. Or I can use other weapons. If the need arises.”

  “Likely it will.” Red turned to Old Yammy. “Trouble seems to follow us.”

  Old Yammy rolled her eyes. “Can’t imagine why.” She patted the counter. “Lay the sword here.”

  Hope felt uneasy as she set the sword down, as if she were a protective parent, despite Old Yammy’s claim that they couldn’t harm it.

  Old Yammy laid the hairs on top of the blood, muttering something quietly under her breath. She took a bottle with a yellow liquid and sprinkled a few drops on the blood and hair. Then she took a jar of white powder and covered the blade liberally with a thick coating of it. “When the flames appear,” said Old Yammy, “call out his name.”

  “The flames?” asked Hope, alarmed. But before she could act, Old Yammy struck flint, and a spark leapt onto the tip of the sword. The entire blade from point to hilt was e
ngulfed in fire.

  “Teltho Kan!” Hope called out, louder than she’d intended.

  The fire went out as if snuffed, leaving the blade completely clean of powder, blood, and hair.

  Red cleared his throat. “Did it—”

  “Shh!” said Old Yammy.

  They stared at the blade for a moment. Then slowly, it began to move, as if being rotated by an invisible hand. It stopped once it was pointing in a northwesterly direction.

  “That is your way,” said Old Yammy with absolute confidence.

  “It will always point to him?” asked Hope. “Even if he moves?”

  “Until you dispel the bloodwork.”

  Hope had been skeptical. But seeing the sword move of its own accord kindled a warm gratitude within her. “How can I repay you for this?”

  “Rixidenteron knows my payment.”

  Hope looked quizzically at Red.

  He rolled his eyes. “A painting.”

  “By who?”

  “Me.”

  “I didn’t know you were an artist.” Yet another facet of him that she had uncovered.

  He glared at Old Yammy as he said, “I’m not.”

  “Nonsense,” said Old Yammy. “An artist is anyone who makes art. And that, you do.”

  “Only when you ask me to.”

  “It’s a good thing I do, then. It’s what your mother would want.”

  Red flinched when Old Yammy mentioned his mother. “Fine, okay, I’ll do it.”

  “Did you know Red’s mother?” asked Hope.

  Old Yammy smiled. “I did. And it was a pleasure. The art the two of them made together…to this day, it has no equal.”

  “Yammy, please don’t,” said Red.

  “There’s a new exhibition of her work over at Bayview Gallery. Did you know that?” asked Old Yammy.

  “Bayview?” asked Red. “Seems a little lacy for her stuff.”

  “Not at all. You should go see it, since you’re in the neighborhood.”

  “We don’t have time,” he said curtly. “Let’s get this painting done with so we can start our search. What do you want this time?”

  Old Yammy frowned thoughtfully. “A portrait, I think.”

  “Of who?”

  Old Yammy pointed at Hope. “Her.”

  “Me?” asked Hope.

  “Her?” asked Red.

  Old Yammy nodded. “That’s my price.”

  Red looked at Hope. “Sorry. Do you mind?”

  The idea of having someone stare at her in complete concentration like that for so long made her skin crawl. But any excuse she could think of sounded like childish vanity. If this was the price to pay for tracking down Teltho Kan, she would just have to endure it. Surely she had suffered worse. “No, I don’t mind,” she lied.

  “Wonderful.” Old Yammy smiled. “I’d like it with natural light, not lamplight. So you can get started first thing in the morning.”

  * * *

  Old Yammy lived above her shop in a small bedroom that afforded no room for Hope and Red. Instead, she laid thick quilts on the kitchen floor by the potbellied stove. The kitchen was dark except for the flickering orange of the stove. Hope could hear laughter and music from a nearby building. She wondered if the music in this neighborhood ever stopped. Oddly, she hoped not.

  “This kind of reminds me of that first night, you and me sleeping in Missing Finn’s shack,” said Red.

  “It was actually during the day,” said Hope.

  “Right. Then we headed to Hammer Point that night. And all hells came rolling in.”

  They were silent a moment, lying side by side.

  “Thank you for killing Drem,” Hope said quietly. His death still hadn’t lessened the loss she felt for Carmichael. But she was grateful he was avenged, nonetheless.

  “The pleasure was all mine. Although I wish you would have been there to see the astonishing bank shot I made. One for the storybooks.”

  “I think Carmichael would have liked you. Despite your insistence on presenting yourself as a rogue and a thief.”

  “I am a rogue and a thief.”

  “You never spoke about Old Yammy before,” said Hope suddenly. It was a small detail, but it seemed significant to her somehow. Yammy seemed like the sort of person who might appreciate his more refined qualities like reading and math.

  “I don’t talk about her a lot. People from my past in general.”

  “But you still visit her.”

  “Well, sure. She’s one of the most quality people I’ve ever known.”

  “Do you talk to Filler and Nettles about her?”

  “Not much,” he admitted.

  “Have they ever met her?”

  “Filler did the once. When she came down to Paradise Circle and found me.”

  “You see, this is what I mean,” said Hope. “You may be a rogue and a thief. But you’re also a lot more than that. A scholar, a storyteller, and now I discover you are a painter as well? Why do you keep these parts of yourself separate?”

  Red was silent for a long time. Hope began to wonder if he would even answer. If he even knew the answer.

  “I guess because,” he said finally, “I never met someone who could really see all the parts of me before.”

  Hope thought back to when she’d first learned that Red became an orphan at the same age as her. Their lives had been so disparate, but this one similarity was like a spike driven into the center of their being, on which their dreams, fears, and desires all pivoted. She had never known she could be so different from someone, yet understand them so well.

  “Hope?” asked Red.

  “Yes?”

  “Back in that alley earlier today. You wouldn’t really have killed yourself. Would you?”

  Hope sighed and closed her eyes. “The Vinchen code says that the only true vengeance is the death of the offender. If the warrior fails in this, better that he die than live in such dishonor. I thought I had failed.”

  “And your honor is worth that much to you?” he asked.

  “No,” she said. “My vengeance is.”

  * * *

  Teltho Kan awoke naked and shivering in a dark alley near the western coast of New Laven. His skin felt raw, as if he’d been scraped all over with a dull razor. The cold wind raked painfully at him as he got slowly and unsteadily to his feet.

  That had been a bad jump. So little time to prepare. No buffers, no safeguards. And he wasn’t getting any younger. Another one like that and he might leave his skin behind along with his clothes.

  Still, it had been necessary. He’d never have expected a rule follower like Hurlo to do something as heretical as train a female in the Vinchen Way. Perhaps he’d gotten eccentric in his old age. Or senile. The reason didn’t really matter. He’d trained her well. She would have to be dealt with.

  Teltho Kan looked down at his naked, shivering body, rail thin and taut with stringy muscle. First things first. He needed some clothes.

  He walked unselfconsciously out to the main thoroughfare. There weren’t any street lamps in this part of town and there weren’t many people about. It was somewhat amusing to watch the few people who walked past him pretend not to see the nude old man lurking in the shadows.

  Finally he saw a man around his height and build. The man was wearing a white peasant shirt, breeches, and boots with barely a sole intact. It wasn’t ideal, but he didn’t have time to be picky. When the man walked past, he stepped out of the shadows and touched the man’s neck.

  “Hells to you,” growled the man, and stepped away.

  Teltho Kan watched him take three more steps. When he brought his foot down on the fourth step, his leg broke with a loud crack. The man screamed and swayed on one leg. Then that leg broke. As he fell, the man put out both arms to catch his fall. Those both broke on impact. The man lay there, all four limbs bent in unnatural directions. Teltho Kan continued to watch as the man wailed in agony, thrashing around, each movement breaking more bones in his body. Finally the man was on
ly a quivering, whimpering mass of odd angles. Teltho Kan knelt down and tapped the man’s forehead. His skull caved in, and he grew still.

  Teltho Kan pulled the clothes off the body, which continued to make little pops and cracks at each movement. At last he was dressed and warm.

  This girl of Hurlo’s had sworn vengeance on him. If there was one thing Hurlo was likely to have burned into her brain above all else, it was fulfilling oaths. He’d always been implacable that way. If she was anything like her grandteacher, she would find his trail again, sooner rather than later. He needed to prepare. Next time, he would be ready for her.

  24

  It would have been difficult for Red to explain to someone who wasn’t an artist the strange intimacy he felt when painting a portrait. He didn’t know if it was just him who felt it, or if all artists felt it to some degree. Not that he was an artist…

  They got started on the portrait at first light. Hope sat on a tall stool over by the window. Her blond hair, usually tied back tight, had been loosened for the portrait at Old Yammy’s request. The morning sun streamed through it, making her hair look truly angelic. Yet even so, while seemingly serene and completely still, she still looked dangerous. And that, he had to admit, was part of her attraction.

  But as he painted in Old Yammy’s kitchen, it became more than the impulses of a leaky tom. He found himself drawn to tiny details about her. Things he wouldn’t ordinarily have noticed. The slight upturn of her nose. The curved bow of her lips. The faint line of her eyebrows, as pale as her hair. The light dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose. The hard, clean line of her jaw. The graceful curve of her neck. And those eyes. So deep and blue, he felt dizzy if he looked at them too long. But he had to look. He had to do them justice on the canvas. If he got nothing else right, he wanted the eyes.

  She shifted slightly and asked, “How long will this take?”

  “The more you move, the longer it’ll take,” he said tersely.

  “But how—”

  “Talking counts as moving.” He was being unfair. He’d never painted a portrait where the subject was as still as she was. There were moments he wasn’t even sure she was breathing. And later, when he asked if she needed a break, she said no. He’d never known anyone who could sit that still for that long. It was like she’d put herself into some kind of Vinchen trance.