by Julia Knight
“Haban, no offence, but what am I going to want with wedding knives?” Van Gast eyed the awning. Shadows there, not passing by but lingering. “Valuable?”
“Very, because so rare, and easier to get rid of than what you have. At least three hundred. The knives, five hundred gold sharks and I’ll owe you another five hundred. I can have them by tomorrow.”
“I don’t have till tomorrow.” Van Gast stood up. The burn of his little-magics was a flame behind his breastbone. Time to go, right now. “Haban, you owe me, remember it and if you fail you’ll get no business from me or any rack, ever. Deal?”
Haban sat back sharply, as though surprised that Van Gast had agreed without even a lame attempt at bargaining. Van Gast couldn’t help it—he had no time for the niceties of trading in Estovan. It didn’t matter if he’d offended him. He peeled back a corner of the brightly striped awning carefully. Here came the boy with the bodyguard, huge and brown-skinned with a face only a mother could love, bristling with scars and weapons and leather. Too late. The pale beggar and the darker man from Kyr’s mummery had been joined by another. A big blond giant of a Gan, covered in more weapons even than the bodyguard, and that was quite the achievement.
Racketeers? No others mixed with other races so well, but they weren’t dressed like it. The beggar was in rags, the mummer in the robes of a priest of Kyr, and the Gan—well, Gan dressed oddly at the best of times, they could never get used to the heat here compared to the cold of their home. This Gan wore breeches, boots, a bandolier full of sharp blades and a whole lot of sweating, sunburned muscles. Besides, no racks knew he was coming to Haban’s, except Josie. In the end it didn’t matter who they were. Now was the time to go.
Van Gast glanced at the wall to Herjan’s temple hidden behind bright silk hangings. There might be a way. “Priest hole?”
Haban took in the situation with a glance and leaped to his feet with a grace that belied his size. “Of course, what do you think I am?” He shoved the daggers at Van Gast, rummaged quickly in a chest at the back of the awning and brought out a pouch, stuffed and clinking. “Five hundred now, same tomorrow or when I next see you.”
With a nervous glance at the way Van Gast was jigging on the spot, ready to run, Haban drew back a silk hanging to reveal a dark hole in the wall of the temple behind. The door, stuccoed and painted so that when shut it was nearly invisible, lay against the wall.
Van Gast tucked the pouch firmly inside the pocket in his shirt, where it bulged alarmingly. Five hundred and that wasn’t even half of it—the richest haul he’d ever made. “Haban, that diamond—”
“You think they chase it, or you?” Haban laughed again. “No worry, Van Gast, no worry. They’ll not find it on me. It’s not only people I hide today.”
He shut the door and Van Gast was alone in the dark tunnels the priests had once used, to escape persecution or run black market goods. He hoped that whoever was after him wasn’t Estovan born, and if they were, and they knew these tunnels, that he could get far enough ahead. Someone spoke loudly just the other side of the awning, the accent coarse and guttural, demanding Van Gast.
Not just the diamond they wanted, then—they knew who he was and it was him they were after. He ran into twisting darkness.
Chapter Three
Holden stood on the steps of Oku’s temple, having made an offering for swift justice, and watched as his men got into position. A specially picked crew for this, not a one of them Remorian born. The bronze-and-copper skin, black hair cropped close to the scalp, the billowing silk clothes they usually wore would give them away if there were too many. Only Holden was a Remorian from birth. The rest had been bond-ganged, except for Skrymir. Not even Remorians bonded Gan.
The man tailing Van Gast signaled from the alley and pointed out their prey. He wasn’t what Holden had expected. He’d thought the man would be lithe and quick—he was reputed to be the best swordsman in the racketeers, and that was an accomplishment. Van Gast was broader than rumor had made him, though not with the big bulging muscles of Skrymir. Van Gast’s was a taut physique, muscle honed and flat from years of swordplay. He couldn’t have been more than in his mid-twenties but the racks taught them young. He wore his sky-blue shirt in a loose, rakish way, billowing over skin nut-brown from his coloring and the sun. His leather leggings fit snugly but had seen better days. The clothes were a vain affectation no Remorian would ever entertain, but it gave the racketeer a certain air, one he certainly cultivated. The hair, too, was vanity—long and loose, black as pitch, framing a sharp brown face and a ready, knowing grin.
Holden nodded at the men dotted round the square. The diamond hadn’t been sold anywhere that the mages could find, through whisper or magic, but there were few traders with enough coin to buy it, or contacts to sell it without rumor. Three of them were in this port, two in this square. His ship’s mage, Cattan, had scried about and found Van Gast on his way here only an hour ago. Little enough time, but Holden began to hope that this time they had him. Twice before now they’d got close, only for Van Gast to disappear without trace, so quick even Cattan couldn’t tell which way he’d gone. This time Holden was taking no chances.
Van Gast ducked into the tent of Haban, one of the wealthiest and canniest traders on the mainland. Holden allowed himself a smile and trotted down the steps. Now they had him, trapped in a corner between Herjan’s temple and part of the palace. The Master would be pleased, finally. Holden wouldn’t have to report failure again, face the twisting of the bond, the pain again.
He reached his men just as a bodyguard approached the tent from the pen.
“Still in there.” Skrymir the Gan eyed the bodyguard with professional curiosity. “Want to get him now, or wait?”
“Now, no sense waiting.” Holden stepped forward and the bodyguard moved to block his way. “Whatever Haban is paying you, I’ll match it if you let me through. I only want Van Gast.”
The bodyguard stared down impassively and shook his head. “Wouldn’t be in the guild if I took a bribe. Yelen would cut me to ribbons. No guild, no work, no skin. Boy, tell the trader he has customers.”
Holden signaled, and his eight men came to stand beside him from their places in the crowd, swords or bill-hooks drawn and ready. A worried murmur ran through the multitude behind them but Holden ignored it. He was used to the effect of a Remorian among others. Skrymir stepped forward, bigger even than the guard.
The guard didn’t appear surprised or worried. He let out a sharp, trilling whistle and unsheathed his sword. Feet pattered on the stone of the plaza around them. Bodyguards from the pen on the corner—big, nasty, professional-looking men come to protect their own.
“I only wish to talk to the man inside, I’ve no business with any of you.” Holden made sure his voice carried.
“Try bonding anyone, and you’ll get a face full of this.” Haban’s guard hefted his sword, and Skrymir squared up in front of him. “Fucking Remorian pigs not got no business here at all. You’re supposed to keep to the docks instead of filling our temples with your stink.”
The awning swished back and a vast round man stepped through, his white smile splitting his dark face. “Now, that’s no way to treat a customer. Come, come.” He beckoned to Holden to enter the tent. “Haban will sell you what you want.”
Holden stepped through, Skrymir at his back and the rest of his men kept ready. The bodyguards stood with weapons drawn, keen for a fight. Holden hoped they could get Van Gast quick and—
The tent was empty. No one but him, Skrymir and Haban. Holden jerked his head at Skrymir and the Gan flicked at silk hangings with the point of his sword, looking behind them for anywhere a man could hide.
“Where’s Van Gast? He came in, but he didn’t come out.”
Haban stopped smiling, fluttered round Skrymir and complained when the sword ripped silk. “I don’t know any Van Gast.”
Holden grabbed at his arm and stopped the fluttering, pulled the dark face to within an inch of his own. “I don
’t have time for this. Tell me where he is, or Skrymir here guts you. Or I could bond you.”
Haban seemed to shrink inside his skin at that. He licked at dry lips, his eyes darting to and fro as he thought. “And then you will all die. My bodyguard will protect me, kill any man who harms me, bond or sword, and his friends protect him. An impasse, no?”
Holden let Haban’s arm drop and scowled in disgust. “Skrymir, check the wall at the back.”
Haban half closed his eyes, calculating. “How much do you want him, how much is it worth to you?”
Worth more than worlds to Holden. If Van Gast got away again…he couldn’t even begin to imagine the punishment. “How much to tell me?”
“Not much, no. Not much to such a rich Remorian commander. One hundred sharks only. Once you all come in and don’t leave, my secret is gone forever. That’s a very good price for a ruined secret.” Haban beamed again.
A hundred sharks was a huge price—nearly enough to buy a ship. Holden debated haggling, but it was useless and Haban knew it. Every heartbeat here let Van Gast get farther away. Haban hadn’t gained his reputation idly.
Holden dragged out his purse and threw it at the trader. “Here, there’s at least that in there. Now, where is he?”
Haban hefted the pouch and nodded before he lifted the hanging at the back of his tent and did something complicated to the wall. A section of it swung away. “In there, the priest holes. Take you all over the city. Which way he’s gone, only Kyr knows.”
Holden stared at the pitch-black of the opening, trying not to gag at the dry, dusty tickle of unused air. Enclosed spaces, being hemmed in with no escape, filled him with dread. Yet not half as much dread as coming back empty-handed again. “Skrymir, get going.” He beckoned his men through, past the surly bodyguard, and one by one they climbed in.
The door shut with an ominous click behind them. Darkness stretched in every direction, made Holden’s heart pound and his skin grow clammy.
“This way, sir.” Skrymir’s voice in front of him made Holden start, but he took a deep breath and followed it.
“Are you sure?” Only now Holden’s eyes began to adjust he saw there was light, the tiniest glimmer from little holes set in the right-hand wall where it faced the plaza. Footprints in the dust. “Quick then. If he gets away again—”
Every one of the bonded men shuddered in the dark and doubled their pace.
Van Gast staggered to a halt and leaned against a dusty wall. He had to catch his breath, just for a moment. These tunnels went for miles and he’d yet to see any way out. Trouble was still coming, the itch in his chest told him that. Getting closer, too.
How long till Haban had sold him out? Not long, no not long at all. Van Gast could trust him to pay up when he saw him, but not to pass up the opportunity to make money. How could he blame the man for something he’d do himself in an eyeblink?
He pushed away from the wall and started off again. There had to be a way out. Estovan was riddled with priest holes; they honeycombed every major wall within the city. He’d been in some of them before, but not this close to the palace, and he didn’t know the entrances and exits. He passed a place where a low murmur of voices penetrated the brick. Maybe here. He ran a hand over the wall as he went on, hoping to find some clue, some trick to finding an exit. Couldn’t slow too much though. Trouble was gaining. There, a ripple in the brickwork like a wrinkle in cloth. He tried again with both hands and pushed. The wall bent, as brick shouldn’t. He’d found a way out at last.
Three good shoves later, part of the wall swung back and opened out into a cellar. He swung the door back behind him and leaned on it while he took stock. An inn’s cellar, by the looks of it, filled with barrels and bottles and the sour smell of old beer. Excellent. He grabbed at a random bottle on a shelf and found the stairs. At least the door at the top was unlocked—the taproom sounded as though it was in full swing, with raucous shouts and calls for ale and spirits and rend-nut and bad, bad women.
Van Gast insinuated himself through the door, into the crowd and made his snaky way out to the street. He let himself take a deep, relieved breath. They’d have a much harder time finding him in the throngs of people that crowded the streets, a riot of colored silks and cottons and linens he could blend into. He sauntered along at an unhurried pace and mixed with the people who walked along the packed street, let humanity wash over and around him. Time to get his bearings. He looked back over his shoulder. The inn was the Blue Man, one he’d been in once or twice before. Bad, bad women indeed.
Near the docks then. Dillet and his mates had said they’d be down Mucking Lane, a place full of games of bones, much booze and even worse women than the Blue Man. A racketeer paradise, crammed with deals and scams and twists, alive with the sounds of Forn’s bells. Trouble wasn’t too close now, not too close, but not far enough away. Time to round up his crew, get the ship ready to go as soon as they could before trouble found its little hiding place among the hundreds of islands. Before he did just one last thing before getting the fuck out of town. He headed to Mucking Lane at a brisk swagger.
Chapter Four
Holden had come to the conclusion that Skrymir was inhuman. It wasn’t natural a man that big could run so long, so fast, and not get out of breath. Holden got out of breath every time he thought about the walls so close to his shoulders, how they had yet to see one exit. They could be in here forever. Finally he called a halt and propped himself against a wall, the other bonded men taking his lead and resting. Skrymir scouted ahead. Inhuman.
“Commander, over here.”
Holden pushed away from the wall with a groan and went forward, the dim closeness pressing in on him like a suffocating blanket pulled tight across his face, making breathing difficult and conjuring imaginary shapes that burst across his vision in blooms of color. “What?”
“The footprints stop here.”
The light that leaked through the tiny holes on the right illuminated the scuffed dust against the wall to the left, and, farther down the corridor, the blank, undisturbed detritus of years.
“Try the wall.”
Skrymir shoved at a section and it swung back, banged against the wall the other side with a hollow crunch. The stale waft of spirits filled Holden’s nose. An inn was in a lively mood above them. “Let’s go.”
They couldn’t be too far behind. It hadn’t been long between his men’s last sight of Van Gast and them going through the opening. They could still catch him, if they were quick. They had to catch him.
The inn was packed to bursting, full of merchantmen in their heavy finery, racketeers with their ostentatious clothes and gaudy jewelry, whores and jugglers, soothsayers and drunks. When they walked through the door, the innkeep was there in a heartbeat.
“What you doing in my cellar?” he demanded of Skrymir. Then he saw Holden, must have noted the Remorian coloring and clothes, and blanched. “Kyr’s mercy. No bonding here, ’tis the law. You want to trade, then no bond-ganging, not in my inn.”
The rest of Holden’s men piled through the door.
“No bonding,” Holden said into the sudden hush. “If you tell me what I want to know.” He hated saying it, hated doing it, but he had his orders, ones he was powerless to resist, and every man here knew it. They all knew that nothing would stop a Remorian carrying out his orders, nothing but death.
There was the subtle sound of knives being drawn. In these sorts of inns, death was always an option.
“No one is telling you nothing.” The innkeep spat into the sawdust on the floor. “Not to a Remorian. You want someone, find them yourselves.”
Van Gast found Dillet in a drunken stupor behind a gambling house. He picked up his first mate and shook him a few times, slapped him when that didn’t work, and Dillet opened a bleary eye.
“Wha’?”
“Wake up, damn your eyes. Come on.” Van Gast shook him again and Dillet seemed to rouse. “We need to get the fuck out of here. Round up everyone you can find and g
et ready to sail.”
“But, Van, we ain’t sailing till tomorrow. Still got money to spend.”
Kyr’s mercy, Dillet’s breath stank like rotting fish that had died of too much beer. He strove to keep his voice calm and clear. “And now we’re sailing just as soon as you find everyone and get ready.”
Dillet squinted up at him. “Trouble bone itching you, is it?”
“Not just itching, it’s fucking burning. We need to sail. We are in big, big trouble if we don’t.”
Dillet nodded and scratched intensely at the back of his head. “Reckon I can find everyone. Might take a while, and most of them’ll be drunk, but I can get them back. They won’t be happy, mind.”
“Good. Take this.” Van Gast shoved the pouch of money at him. He’d taken out most of it, but enough gold weighted the pouch to tempt most racketeers to sell their granny. “Every man who gets back by sunset gets a share.”
Dillet looked up at the lowering sun then down at the pouch. “Ah, you’re a generous man, Captain. Generous indeed. We’ll be ready and any man not there, he won’t be leaving.”
“Good, I’ll meet you there. I’m on a promise, and I’d not like to let the lady down by not appearing.”
Dillet laughed, a wretched lewd thing that made Van Gast shiver, but they parted ways and Van Gast headed up toward the palace. The itch had gone for now, but he didn’t expect it to hold. Someone was after him. Someone who wanted him bad. Could be anyone, really. The father of the girl on the Sea Witch, the merchantman he’d sold that bad fish to last month, or the noble lady convinced he was investing her money to make a fortune and had maybe just discovered where her money really was—in his pocket. Probably half a dozen others who would happily see him skinned alive, and that was just in Estovan.