The dance had ended shortly after and a portly man in outlandish silk garb stood and began speaking over the crowd. The lute player had simply folded his hands, tugging his purple velvet hat shyly down in front of his face.
He made to leave but the kid was gripping his cloak, that tense look on their face again.
“The Rain Maidens once guarded the Gates of Endless Tears …” the man started.
“Nope,” he interrupted and dragged the kid away, Brat
kicking and scratching at him.
“The hell, mister! You were watching too!” Brat protested,
offended by the mistreatment.
If the kid didn’t know the story, this wasn’t the way he
wanted them to find out.
He’d already had his suspicions about the kid’s connection
to the Flame, hadn’t been sure that connection existed until the
Flame had turned blue. When he had tried to leave the city with
the key, it had started to fade. When he left it with the kid and went
to read about it at the Archives, there was only mention that the
Keys of the Maidens were supposed to return to the Gates of
Endless Tears when the Maidens were slain. There was never any
supposition for why one would not. Whatever instinct had made
him leave it behind in the first place was one that he was grateful
for.
He didn’t believe that the kid was one of the Rain Maidens.
It wasn’t quite that simple (and he would have stopped wondering
if the kid was a boy or a girl), but there had to be a damn good
reason why a Rain Maiden’s key thought it belonged to the kid.
Until he knew why, it didn’t do the kid much good to know either. The Rain Maidens are not immortal, but they are born
knowing their duty. They are vessels of a greater power, existing on
many planes at once, separated to keep the balance of power
passive, beacons that lead the ships, not physical guardians… He thought all of it sounded ridiculous, but then so much
was since he had insisted Brat draw the Flame. There were absurd
vagaries about the pieces of information he dug up, fanciful bits of
fluff that made for good bard’s tales but didn’t make for any sort of
logic, magical or not. Without knowing why, he’d been driven by the compulsion to return the Key. He did nothing without a client
and the promise of pay, so why now?
Lost in thought, he barely heard people rushing around
behind him with the repetition of the word ‘fire’ in the commotion. He shot a glance at the kid and saw that Brat was sulking.
He flipped another coin at a fruit vendor along the way and
grabbed an apple. He handed it to the kid, knowing the chances of
the kid actually catching it were slim. Brat sniffed and bit into the
apple.
“You never let me have any fun,” Brat complained. “When your idea of fun leads to creepy bathhouses and
basement cults, I’m justified in limiting just how much ‘fun’ we
should be having,” he reminded.
“It was just a stage show…” Brat sulked.
He didn’t argue. The kid was reckless, but not stupid. He
had already told the kid that the Flame was a key. If that acting
troupe had done their research and linked that bit to the Rain
Maidens, there was no way the kid would miss it and would start
supposing all of the wrong things. That was the problem with
these damn legends. Too much room for creative fuckery. They had been able to reach the edge of the Central District
by dark. The distribution of wealth had not been so abrupt
between these districts, with the richer homes and businesses
naturally gravitating towards the Palace over time.
It was much harder finding a building to squat in for the
night here, but they had managed to climb onto a roof. In a rainy city, roofs tended to be the last place anyone
wanted to catch a nap, but there were newer buildings in this area,
ones that had more sophisticated drainage and even partial
awnings. He had picked this one in particular due to all of the
above and a handy access ladder to boot. There were plenty of
buildings still standing roofless in the Lower District where the flat roofs had caved in when the rains first started swallowing the city. The ones that had survived had already been built with sloped roofs of corrugated tin or had some ingenious resident with
enough sense to rig some scraps into drainage pipes and gutters. He wedged a piece of wood in the access door, just in case
someone intended to go up there and they needed time to escape.
There had been a misting of rain that day, but the sky was cloudless
now. He set his stuff under the awning just in case.
Brat had barely laid back onto their pack before a loud crack
and a flash lit the sky, shrill whistles and more pops to follow. The
kid opened their eyes to see the brilliant colors of fireworks and
looked over to where he laid watching them too.
“Do they do this every night here?” Brat asked, the odd
flashes flickering over the kid’s excited features.
“No, it’s King’s Day today,” he said, bored with the whole
vain holiday. Never much cared for the King or that uptight
daughter of his… “Here…”
He tossed the kid a bag of the dried fruit, figuring they
weren’t getting much sleep until the celebration died down. He
watched the fireworks flashing in the kid’s big round eyes, barely
registering the noises that came with them, feeling his own eyes
grow heavy as exhaustion finally claimed him.
When he woke up, the kid was snuggled against him. He shoved the kid aside, but Brat didn’t wake as he stood and packed away what little he had gotten out the night before. He didn’t clean out of any sense of morality. He had learned not to leave any pieces of himself behind to be traced back to him later.
The Palace seemed much nearer from here, but he knew damned well that just seeing the whole of it didn’t make it close. ‘Close’ meant it was filling your vision, not fitting neatly between the peripherals. A palace was always its own miniature town— granaries, mills, live-in servants and barracks among other things.
He didn’t realize he had been so deep in his schemes until he heard the kid yawning beside him, scratching that unfortunate mass of hair. Brat looked up at him, one eye squinted nearly shut and the other struggling to stay open.
“We should be there in no time, right?” Brat asked. “Wellll….” he drawled out, hating that the stupid pun emerging from that one word was tickling him.
There was indeed a ‘well’ in their future as it led into the cellars of the Palace. It had run dry (as dry as anything could be in this city) many years ago and had been boarded over. It had not been a public well; in the rich part of town, water for drinking and bathing always came from the deeper aquifer and up through the impressive system of aqueducts. Even when this one had been in use, it had mostly been tapped for irrigation for the many gardens. Not only did not a damn thing run the risk of drought here, but many gardens that had been drowning on the ground had been elevated into hanging gardens. Nothing impractically beautiful would grow on the ground, but it spelled great news for the farmers that had once labored to maintain water crops.
The well had been fenced in a wedge between the illustrious dressmaker’s shop and some overpriced trinket and bauble set-up. Neither shop was high traffic outside of one of the nobility’s ritualistic mating seasons (they could leave out the ‘mating’ part in polite conversation, but he didn’t mince w
ords) and the ‘season’ had died down weeks before.
The kid had pulled out binoculars to get a better look and he heard a ‘hey!’ as he snatched them away to beat Brat to it.
Exasperation escaped his lips to see there were people gathering in the supposedly low-traffic area where they were headed, some blowhard aristocrat clearly going on some longwinded tirade from his makeshift pulpit. Had to be today. He tossed them back to the kid and heard a sharp intake of breath but no scuffling or clanking from another missed catch.
“Lucky catch,” he mumbled.
“You were standing right next to me, dick!” the kid complained. He cracked a smile the kid couldn’t see as he headed over to the ladder that had brought them up there.
He probably should have removed the wedge from the door, but he was feeling particularly dickish that morning.
He slid down the ladder in a practiced sweep and caught the kid attempting the same. It started out well enough but the kid missed the part where you’re supposed to use your hands to slow the descent and he ended up having to catch Brat.
Brat thrashed about so he dropped the kid on their ass, a much less devastating distance but a painful reminder on the virtues of gratefulness.
He started back towards the open market, hearing Brat’s familiar scuffle with catching up, and preened a little hearing Brat’s gasp as they took in the sight.
He couldn’t blame the kid.
The richest markets anywhere you went were otherworldly in exotic surreality. Fabrics defied physics and form, paints were applied with exquisite care and every shuffle of people or sunlight made little prismatic winks out of every flawless jewel. Even the paving stones on the ground managed to look pristine despite the endless traffic. If the Central District was well-kept, the Nouveau Quarter was immaculate.
He was tempted to tie the kid’s hands back, knowing Brat’s fingers were itching to lift a few things now more than ever. Brat’s mother might have shopped the Central markets on splurges, but a trip to Bazaar Nouveau was a few days of no income and more thrown away besides. He highly doubted her clients ever skulked as far as her brothel bearing any gifts from there either. To Brat, this place might as well have been another world altogether.
“Whoa, mister, can you believe this place?” the kid gushed, not even noticing the looks of distaste they were drawing.
He wasn’t the type to really fit in anywhere, but the kid was starting to stink to high heaven and screamed peasant with those simple rags on that skinny body. Some of the snootier ones scrambled out of the way as if the kid were a sewer bug. Admittedly, the kid was a few legs short of being close.
He pulled the kid off of the main road in annoyance, amid more ineffectual protests, and forced the kid to sit down on the ledge of a fountain there. He shot a dirty look at the couple hiding back there and they took the hint and skittered off. Brat shot him a defiant look, arms crossed, but he silenced whatever the kid was about to say with his own words.
“Stay put. I’ll be back in a few minutes. Did you bring soap?” he asked.
The kid’s jaw dropped and their face flushed pink.
“I’m not bathing here!” Brat protested.
“At least get your face and arms. I won’t be long so it’s the least you can do,” he grumbled.
He headed into the back of a shop and the woman there beamed at him. Weren’t many people that were actually glad to see him, but this one didn’t mind keeping her door open for him or seeing him back out of it when he got what he wanted.
“Got any clothes for skinny little brats in here?” he asked her and she laughed flirtily.
“Boy or girl?” she asked, humoring him, but he rolled his eyes up in serious thought.
“Can you tell by looking at it?” he asked gesturing out of the window. For being so grumpy about bathing, the kid sure seemed happy to splash around there now.
She shrugged, curiosity clearly tugging at her but left unsaid, and grabbed a few things from the shelves. She started to wrap them but he shook his head and smacked more than enough coin there.
“No need, doll. Can the kid use your back room to change?” he asked and she nodded, sticking out her breasts to strain against the bulging bodice.
“Nothing else I can do for you?” she asked with a mocking pout.
He winked, but ignored her as he whistled around the doorframe at the kid. He jerked his head towards the shop when the kid startled and Brat hurried over.
The kid was unhappy again until they entered the room and saw the woman. Brat shot a look between the two of them and blushed. No idea why, but he was ready to cut through whatever it was the two of them were already assuming.
“Here,” he said, snatching the clothes off of the counter and tossing them to the kid. “Get dressed back there. I’ll wait.”
Brat seemed touched that he had bought them anything and that only made him squirm uncomfortably and shoot the kid a look that said ‘now.’
The kid complied and he didn’t even wait for the kid to completely reemerge before he was headed back out into the street again. The woman had ‘quickie’ written all over her and his mind was far too full of the problems in the square to be up to the task. The only drought in this city was his lack of a sex life these days.
Brat almost tripped trying to catch up and he could feel the kid boring holes in him for leaving them behind, but purposely ignored it. The blowhard’s words were finally reaching his ears before another problem arose.
Brat, fiddling with their new clothes, managed to smack right into one of the self-important aristocrats and one of his attendants had shoved the kid to the ground, drawing his sword.
“Do you even know who you’re dealing with?” the aristocrat said, looking far too proudly down that ugly nose of his.
Oh, he knew. Any other day it would have been his dream to catch this asshole out here.
“It doesn’t matter what your name is. Get up, kid, we’re going,” he said, not waiting for the kid to comply, just dragging him up by the back of the new tunic.
“You’ll pay for that slight, bastard,” the man hissed in unison with his other attendant’s sword being drawn.
He sighed with boredom and his eyes met the man’s unafraid.
“Keep your blood price. The kid meant no harm,” he shot back.
The arrogant asshole meant to speak again, but he let his hood fall and the man’s mouth began to flap in a noiseless mimicry of protest.
Yeah, recognize me, don’t you? Don’t suppose you’d be so eager to touch me now…
“Go… GO!” he told his attendants and fled with sudden urgency.
Yeah, you’ve seen a ghost from the past, all right. One that will come back to haunt you…
“What was that about? I was sure he wouldn’t back down,” Brat said in awe. Already drawing too many eyes. Fat chance of getting there easily now.
“That one only likes to overpower kids and he sure as hell doesn’t want anyone knowing how,” was all he said as he got back to walking, flicking the hood back up.
For a moment there, he had felt small again, but that fear was old and irrational. He’d fight another Gardell to keep that asshole from having his way. He’d fight ten to have the chance to run him through, but not now. Not with the kid and not with the Flame.
His eyes flicked to the belt Brat wore, satisfied to see a flash of it sheathed there.
There was no point attempting to get through the fence near the front of the shop. No one was leaning in that recess, but there were people a few feet away. He might be able to jump it on his own, but the kid was about as quiet as a can of nails tied to a horse’s ass.
He rounded the block of buildings only to find a guard station along the back fence. Definitely a no-go.
“Fuck…” he cursed, heading back around to the front and squatting down with the kid on a far curb, pretending to listen to the braying ass prattle on about tax laws.
The kid sat down next to him, somehow impatient despite hav
ing just done it.
He chewed at the side of his lip deciding there was nothing for it but to wait it out. If they drew any eyes, he could keep patrolling but there was no way in hell he was getting in the palace any other way. He’d scoured every inch of the town months ago and he’d been lucky to find that at all.
It was still short of midday, but the kid was fidgeting too much so he reached into his pack and tossed Brat some jerky to gnaw on. Thought it might shut the kid up but they talked around it.
“Thought you said there was a w—” Brat started before he jammed the little wad the kid had been holding into their mouth to plug it up.
“Are those eyes just for show? You saw it’s too crowded…” he reminded the kid.
Brat nodded, glaring at him as they struggled to grind up the massive wad the jerky had become. The kid continued to glare and chew for a solid minute before swallowing noisily and wiping at their mouth.
The kid opened their mouth in protest, but a flicker of dark eyes silenced the attempt. Instead the kid looked up at the sky and frowned.
“Be nice if it rained,” Brat mused. For once, he agreed.
A fat cold drop of rain splashed on his nose, startling him. He could hear the thick raps, slow at first, slapping awnings with harsh erratic taps before the sky seemed to swirl with thick grey clouds and open up in a downpour. There were cries of protest as the people scattered and he did not miss a beat. He grabbed the kid and foisted them over the fence before kicking his legs up, vaulting himself up over them.
The rain battered all around them, so he took advantage of the distraction to dig out the handy little steel bar and pry up the planks as fast as he could. He reached into his pack, pulling out a length of rope, gesturing for the kid to tie the rope to the windlass while he did.
Brat nodded with a look of importance and he noted that the kid was at least useful with knots.
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