by James Shade
“Stole something from ol’ Henri. I saw it -”
“Don’t think old man deAlto was home, do ya?”
The damage to the building was extensive. The old tenement would likely have to be torn down. Not depreciating the value of the neighborhood. The Ninth was a haven for the unskilled and unemployed – thieves, tramps, beggars. The cheap and crowded apartment buildings did not help the situation, and Holger briefly wondered if the city would not be better off if the entire ward burned.
deLocke got the impression that possible perpetrators had fled the scene. Holger sent his trainees to settle and disperse the crowd while he moved to take control of the fire brigade. He took the easier job.
Holger deLocke hated his life. He seemed to have hated his circumstances ever since returning to this hell-blasted city. But what choice did he have? What choice have I ever had?
It had been four years since his discharge from the Bormeeran Army. That had been a recommendation from his sergeant to their unit commander. Like no one else in my platoon took a nip of gindi now and then? We were in Rosunland fighting a war, by all the gods. What harm had it been garnering a few collectibles from the houses they occupied?
DeLocke bristled. His current superior, Captain Rusway, was not treating him much better. Rusway had taken an immediate dislike to Holger from the moment he had been inducted into the Islar City Guard. The captain had served in the Guard his entire career and apparently viewed discharged military as unsuitable guard material.
Rusway’s attitude portrayed itself by the assignment of one onerous, miserable duty after another: patrols of the Fishmonger’s Ward where the stench of the remains of the day’s catch combated with the odor of the nearby tanneries, evicting the underground leper colonies from the city sewers, breaking up bar fights along the docks where the merchant marines threw too many insults at the Bormeeran Army Cavalry.
His home life was no better. Within a few weeks of his return from the front, he had met Natya and got her pregnant. Neither his family nor hers were willing to acknowledge a bastard child, and Holger was married within the next month. By the end of the pregnancy, he and Natya realized that they could not stand each other. The only thing they had together had been a physical attraction. Natya was demanding, had expensive tastes, and was apparently born to make babies. It was now just over three years later and Holger had a fourth child on the way.
He just wished he were sure that the latest child was his. He thought he had decided not to have any more children and had sworn off touching the woman since the conception of their last. But many nights of gindi and the local mash whiskey of had passed since that oath.
Holger looked forward to three things. Leaving his house in the morning, his three-hour nap in the City Guard tower, and his evening watch assignments in the Dockside that afforded him visits to the illegal gambling halls. It had taken Holger two years to establish a rapport with the right underlings, a couple of well-placed bribes, and the promise to look the other way. Now he had a choice of entertainment almost every night.
Occasionally, however, it meant he had to do some real work. Unfortunately, tonight was one of those nights. Earlier this week, the governor had approved a trainee program and Holger had drawn an assignment of new recruits. Holger managed to keep his lot in control and unharmed despite being assigned to the Ninth Ward. They just broke up a brawl behind the Kingsley Market. Now they had to deal with this fire.
Time to have some of the riff-raff pay for the show.
“Baris!” he yelled, getting his trainee’s attention.
“Pick a dozen of the men ogling there and send ‘em into the brigade line! If they don’t cooperate, slap ‘em in chains and bring ‘em to the stocks.”
Holger understood the chance he was taking with that command. The so-called citizens in the Ninth Ward looked after only one thing – themselves. If the crowd turned into a mob, his green troops were going to be hurt or worse, and there would be hell to pay tomorrow. Nevertheless, he needed the fire put out and it was obvious from the shaky arms and slacking pace the current brigade volunteers had been at this a while.
DeLocke gripped his sword hilt and slid the weapon in and out of its sheath a few inches. Then he turned and swung back across the street. He would let Baris take point on this, but he was ready to back him up if the rabble turned violent.
Eight
Avrilla waited until she could almost no longer see her older brother, then she skirted into the dark ways between the buildings to follow him. Trying to put thoughts of Father out of her mind, she focused on how to go about getting supplies. Jaeron had not mentioned it, so Avrilla suspected that their father had not given him any money before their mission tonight. She had a few coins of her own, but hardly enough to buy them a decent breakfast in the morning.
She had a way around that. Her secret, the one she had even kept from Father. But after Jaeron’s reaction tonight, Avrilla trembled at the thought of using it. Her thoughts drifted back to his demanding question. What did you do?
She gripped her arms. Why had she not told her father, especially after all he had done for her? It had been nearly two years since Avrilla discovered her unnatural powers of persuasion.
Autumn had passed its zenith and Avrilla misjudged the timing of the setting sun. On her way back home, she was accosted by a pair of street toughs. They were non-guilded ruffians, perhaps a year or two older than her. The kind of boys that made a habit of pickpocketing a quick coin or indulging in some mild violence. Like wolves, they were quick to track in on her. Catcalls escalated to lewd innuendoes that Avrilla did her best to ignore. She tried to continue on her way, but even an initial threat to call for the guard did not dissuade them.
The encounter finally became physical when one of them moved behind her, grasping and twisting her arm in a firm lock. Surprised, Avrilla found herself in an effective hold and no way to get out.
Had she been carrying her kukri she may never have discovered her hidden talent. Avrilla’s initial fear flared into anger and the words just came to her. She saw them flash in her mind, in colors like spring flowers, but brighter and filled with energy. She lifted her hand in a placating gesture, as if presented for a kiss. For an instant, her tongue felt strange, alien. She could not control it. Then she was just talking to the boy in front of her, explaining to him that she was his to cherish and protect, and that it was not right that this other youth be handling her so.
He reacted so quickly that she did not really have time to understand what she had done. The boy reached passed her and grabbed the other by the throat. He came around beside her and threw an off-hand punch to the other boy’s gut. Avrilla did not stay to see what happened afterward. As soon as the ruffian had released his grip on her arm, she fled.
Avrilla never told anyone what had happened. For a few weeks she had not been able to believe it, almost convincing herself that it had not happened at all. Something about it was so alluring. The way the power of it had made her feel. A volume of breath in her chest, a warm current in her throat, her words flowing in the air around her. It was more physical than any sound she had made her entire life.
Since then, Avrilla experimented with the sorcerous magic only a few times. She had pushed bargains for food when deAlto funds ran short, but she did not take the chance often. It was one thing being arrested for stealing, but being caught using magic for stealing meant church involvement. That brought on a satchel full of problems that even the more powerful guilds could not escape.
What did you do? The answer to Jaeron’s question was still not forthcoming. She had a unique ability and as desperate as she was to understand it, she was alone. She could never talk to Jaeron about it. And tonight she had lost all opportunity to share it with her father.
Avrilla took a shuddering breath and considered the time of night. Money might not be the issue. Gods, I am tired. Even the taverns along the docks might not be open now, and even if they were, she was not going to make it all the way
across three wards and back in a single bell.
That left two options – steal or borrow. Both held risk, especially if they were really targets of whoever had killed their father. The thought caught her and she stopped in the shadows of the alley long enough to let her tears flow. Silent sobs shook her lithe frame. She thought she might be sick, but the nausea passed and she took a couple of deep breaths. She wiped her face.
Enough. There will be time for tears later.
She looked around to assess where her flight through the city had brought her. She and her brothers had taken a meandering path away from the Islar wharfs before splitting up. Avrilla was now in the Market Ward, near Lady deChel’s.
In his usual manner of trading favors, her father had obtained a partial apprenticeship for Avrilla with the seamstress on Weaver’s Row. From deChel she learned to knit, sew and tailor, spinning and weaving. In all things but this, Father had seemed indifferent to her gender. The only girl in an all-male household, Avrilla played, trained, fought, and dressed in the same manner as her brothers. Looking at the familiar building, she realized Henri had noticed. And her father had provided a beginning in some aspects of being a goodwife and lady.
Even as she thought to ask her for help, Avrilla reconsidered. It would be best not to involve the deChel. Safer for her.
Down to one option, the question that remained was from whom to steal when she had no time to plan. Further separating herself from her brothers, Avrilla turned left onto Hollow Avenue and headed toward Old Town, the border area between the Market and Pineal Ward, which was literally the oldest section of Islar. Avrilla thought that Chazd would have been a better choice for this despite the incident with the trap door at the warehouse. She was not a skilled lockpick and disliked heights. But if her hunch was right, she may not have to worry about picks, pry bars, or second floor climbs to get into the Mean Goat pub.
She recalled the Goat from a gossip session she had overheard among Lady deChel’s sewing circle. They were discussing the owner’s tendency to overindulge in the evening’s drink. Several patrons had laughed about taking advantage of Sorbo Black for weeks, paying with less coin than they should when Black’s vision started to blur. Avrilla thought it mean-spirited in light of the fact that she had also heard that Black’s drinking was due to some bad news the man had received from the war front. No one knew whether the man’s son had been killed or was just amongst the missing, but whatever the news, the old pub keeper had taken it hard.
Her thoughts turned bitter with guilt about taking advantage of the man’s hard times. Mara knows there’s a lot of it going around. She entertained the notion of paying Sorbo back someday, but realized that was not likely.
Avrilla approached the Goat from the break between a street of townhouses and the mill and bakery behind the pub. She slipped through the broken gate and made her way down the narrow walkway into the pub’s tiny backyard. Trying to stay in the deepest shadows between the outhouse and the stable, Avrilla wished she were still dressed in the street grays she had worn earlier that night.
The pub was quiet. Avrilla made her way along the stable wall without disturbing the animals sleeping inside. She crossed to the back door with a couple of light steps. Her eyes swept the tiny yard and the back of the building. Sorbo kept the place too clean. She did not spot anything that she could use as a tool to force the door. Her right hand drifted down, resting on the handle of her kukri as her left hand tested the door handle.
I could force it. But she hated the thought of using her blade for such rough work.
On chance, she tried the handle and found that the door was open. Black really was as careless as she had heard. She inched the door open to minimize creaking and slipped inside.
Only thin wisps of seaborne clouds had interposed between the city and the two moons overhead. In her flight through the city streets, Avrilla’s vision had become accustomed to their soft, grey-white light. Now she was in a confined, shuttered room and she felt blind. She waited, allowing her eyes to adjust to the change in lighting.
Embers from the evening’s cooking fire gave faint illumination to the pub’s small kitchen. Avrilla groped until she found the poker there and used it to knock the ash off the coals and brighten the room just a bit more. Finding a box of tapers on the hearth, Avrilla lit one of the kitchen’s wooden candle lanterns. She chose the one that included a beaten copper shield which projected the light forward rather than all around. Lantern in hand, she began a thorough search of the room, pausing often to listen for any activity from the bar room or the living quarters upstairs.
Within a half bell Avrilla had filled a rough sack with a loaf of bread, three-quarters of a wheel of smoked cheddar, half a roasted duck, a couple of clay bowls, eating utensils, and a good kitchen knife she had wrapped in a cleaning cloth. Making a judgment call on the weight and possible noise, Avrilla also took a small iron pot and a large, wooden spoon. Feeling that she and her brothers could survive on that for the next day or two, she tied off the sack and lifted it over her shoulder. She crept back to the rear door of the pub, prepared to leave.
I can carry a little more.
Avrilla set the bag down on the step outside and then crossed the kitchen into the bar and common room beyond. From behind the bar she retrieved a bottle of wine. She pulled it from a higher shelf, where the more expensive stock was normally stored. The wax seal was still intact over the cork. She also took a pottery bottle, three-quarters full of a stronger drink. The liquor would be useful if any of them were to get hurt. The wine… If it did not keep their spirits up, it would allow them to say a proper ‘goodbye’ to Father.
Back at the doorway, she put the bottles in the sack with the rest of her stolen goods, stepped outside and closed the door behind her. She opened the lantern’s glass case, extinguished the candle, and decided to take that with her as well. Avrilla looked out across Islar. The towering statues of the Talica Bridge projected high over the rooftops of the nearby buildings. They shone against the dark sky, bright orange against the clouds that were partially obscuring Theela, the larger of two moons.
By the gods, what’s happened to us? With their flight from the fire, from their father, they had lost everything. She did not know if Jaeron or Chazd had put that together yet, but it came crashing through the guilt she had been feeling about stealing from Black’s Mean Goat tavern. Under other circumstances, they could have approached friends, neighbors, perhaps their teachers. But if Jaeron were right, there may not be anyone the three siblings could trust.
No, that’s wrong. Avrilla felt a surge of determination. We can trust each other.
Nine
Chazd climbed over the wooden fence and jogged down the alley. He hoped that Jaeron stuck with their plan and did not feel the overprotective need to check up on him. Unbidden, the same old comparisons with his older brother sprung to his mind. He makes everything look easy. He was angry with himself for the botched attempt at picking the lock on the trap door, his poor reaction time when the dogs attacked, and the fact that his sister had to come to his rescue. But most of all he was angry he had not followed his brother into the burning building.
His brother had picked up his skill with the sword as if he had been born with one in his hand. His sister was a sorceress. The only thing he had learned easily was how to play music and there was not much use for that tonight. What use was any of it tonight?
Despite what Jaeron said, despite what he claimed their father had said, he needed to see it for himself. Chazd could not help himself. He just could not believe that Father was dead.
Stopping short of where the side street met Walnut, Chazd checked around the corner of the building. The blazing light from the fire was gone, though most of the gathered crowd was still outside. The town guards had arrived and were questioning the onlookers. He knew the Ninth Ward and its people. No one knew anything or saw anything. That was just the way it worked here.
Chazd recognized the lead guard but did not kno
w his name. The man had a reputation for shirking his duties when the night got late, but at this moment, he seemed to be taking his job seriously. A fit of cursing emerged from the other direction. He pulled back further into the darkness. It was Tonas Valche, their landlord. Valche propelled his bulk directly to the guards and began an exchange that escalated into raised voices. Chazd was too far away to make out the details of what they were saying, but he could tell that the guards took the worst of it, their leader watching red-faced as Valche spun away and stomped back up the street in the direction from which he had come.
The youngest deAlto continued to watch as a second group of Islar guards arrived and stirred the fire brigade into better efficiency. The second floor of the building was extinguished now, but it was clear he was not getting an opportunity to slip inside the apartment.
Containing a cry of frustration, Chazd spun away from Walnut Street and forced himself to return to the alley. He had hoped to disprove his brother’s story. To find things not as bad as he imagined. He reached behind his back, expecting to take comfort in the familiar touch of wood and strings. But his lute was not there. It was with his father. The loss struck him after only a few paces.
Father, don’t be gone. You can’t be gone.
Chazd squeezed his eyes shut and turned his head to wipe his face into his shoulder, swallowing the sudden sorrow that welled up within. How long had it been since working up the nerve to ask his father for that favor?
~
He had waited for a period of good humor, when he had done well enough that Henri grunted in satisfaction on his progress with his lock picks.
“More, Father?” he asked.
“Nay, Chazd. That’s ‘nough for tonight. Put up all your tools.”
“Father, Avrilla’s quite good at forgery, isn’t she?”
Henri grunted again, uncommitted. Chazd waited. His father had recognized the tactic at once, of course.