by Sam Sykes
“His ‘theory,’ yes.” Yerk sneered. “We’ve all heard it. Accountancy and some errant addition do not make for a reason to go trying to upset the order of things.”
“Where did he get the money, then?” Anielle snapped. “He was rich, but he wasn’t magic. He couldn’t have pulled the money out of thin air. He must have been getting it from some—”
“Spiders.”
Rezca finally spoke. His voice was soft, lips pressed against his hands as he studied the idol of Silf carefully. His sigh was long and weary as he leaned back and adjusted his spectacles.
“His spiders were producing a very strong silk. The silk was made strong by a change in diet. The diet was people.” Finding them too uncomfortable still, he removed his spectacles and rubbed his eyes. “We found the carcasses in the Sumps and pumped a few gutter runners for information. He’s been feeding his spiders human flesh for years now. The Khovura had nothing to do with it.”
“How did we not know about that?” Denaos asked. “When I left, a rat didn’t shit in this city without us knowing about it.”
“Things change,” Rezca said, replacing his glasses. “Standards become lax. Recruitment goes up. We have enough eyes to watch the city and not enough to watch ourselves.”
“Traitors?” Yerk tapped the ash from his cigarillo. “Impossible. This city knows who we are. They know what we do to those with swaying loyalties.”
“How else do you explain it?” Rezca shot him a sidelong look. “I sent word out to both of you to get to the house of Ghoukha. Did either of you receive my messages?” When no answer was forthcoming, he nodded. “And I didn’t receive word about Ghoukha’s deals, either.”
“Deals?” Denaos asked. “What deals?”
“The deals that are the reason Silf is at our table, Ramaniel,” Rezca replied. “This is a meeting and a funeral.”
A hush fell over the table and persisted for a long moment. Rezca seemed content to let it sit for a while, at least, in no great hurry to continue. His hesitation was plain on his face, a sharp wince and long frown preceding his words.
“Ghoukha was growing an army, it’s true,” he said, “an army to oust the foreigners. He aspired to be a hero to the city. But he was still a businessman. He had no desire to go against the rules. He wanted the Jackals’ support, reached out to a few of our heads, detailed every interaction, and kept the records in his house.”
He leaned forward again and ran a finger along Silf’s frowning face.
“And those details, along with you, were the only things to survive that fire. The Khovura found them, used them to ferret out our cells, our dens, and our hideouts, and killed every last player inside.”
“How many?” Denaos asked.
“Of the rank and file? I don’t know. At least one hundred fifty. Of the heads, though? Ten.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because we received their bodies this morning. Most of them, anyway. Their heads and hands had been cut off, jackal heads and paws sewn in their place. Their bellies had been cut open and stuffed with dead rats.”
“With no heads, how can you be sure it was them?”
“Because those arrived two hours before you got here.” Rezca sighed, rubbed his temples. “Jon-Jon, Radical Teshke, Afre, Kuromar…”
“Fenshi?” Denaos almost croaked the name.
Rezca nodded. “Ghoukha reached out to them. Any word they might have sent to me, I never received.” He stared thoughtfully at Silf. “Someone was intercepting their runners, keeping them quiet.”
“Who would do it?” Anielle asked. “Who could do it?”
“Difficult to say. I didn’t catch on even when most of my heads weren’t dead. With Fenshi and the others gone, it’s impossible to track down who was doing what while this was going on.”
“My men won’t like that,” Yerk hissed. “The Jackals are the masters of this city. We do not sit idly by while the Khovura tear apart everything we’ve worked for and our leader speaks of difficulties and impossibilities. I want a name; I want a head; I want revenge.”
“All of which I fully intend to give to you,” Rezca replied calmly. “This game is best played in harsh conditions, after all.” He cracked a smile, something that was too warm to belong at this table. “Anielle, do you remember the riots? Remember when you swore that would be the end of us? The end of the city?”
She nodded, hesitantly. “Yeah.”
“And remember how we formed up, bigger and badder than ever? It was those riots, the death of the Houndmistress, all those people…” His words trailed off. His smile faded. “We made our mark then and there. We emerged from the ashes. We built this game, we built this city, and we ran it. Priests work well in silence. Scholars work best in solitude.” He looked meaningfully at Denaos. “Thugs like us? We need a bit of noise to distract people. I’ve taken care of that.”
Denaos did not look away. “What did you do?”
“The mediation is going to occur at sunset,” Rezca said. “In about an hour. Get word to your people. Tell them to stay off the streets.”
“What did you do, Rezca?” Denaos repeated.
“We’ll meet up again in a week. I’ll have a plan for us by then. Until then, anyone caught in the open is as good as dead, understand?”
“Understood,” Yerk said.
“Understood,” Anielle echoed.
“Rezca. Please.” Only Denaos’s voice defected from the air of professionalism in the room. His words were edged with desperation. “Tell me what you did.”
Rezca adjusted his spectacles. He laid his hands flat on the table and spoke simply and flatly.
“What any of us would have.”
THIRTY-EIGHT
TRUE NAMES
Try as he might, Gariath found he could not expel the scent of ashes from his nostrils.
Which seemed odd to him, not least because he was currently surrounded by a throbbing, burbling throng of humans, whose collective sweat, fear, breath, and desire should be overpowering.
He found it easy enough to block out their chatter behind the thick black hood covering his face and head. He found it easy enough to avoid touching them behind the accompanying black cloak. He supposed it ought to be easy enough to ignore their stink as well.
And why wouldn’t it be? Human words, human touch, human stench: a lot to do little. He cared little for humans, as a whole, much less dead ones.
Which is why he found it so puzzling that he couldn’t ignore them: the odor of ash, the sweet reek of burned, melting gold, the mouthy stench of charred flesh an instant before it became cooked meat.
Still, he tried. He held his breath. He closed his eyes. He ignored the babble of the surrounding human throngs until everything was silent.
“You heard, then?”
Except for the two humans standing right beside where he was sitting.
“Everyone’s heard. How many dead was it, anyway?”
“Thirty? Fifty? Of the nobles alone, even. Who knows how many other servants and house guards. You know what this means, don’t you? If the Khovura can kill Ghoukha in his own home, what hope do the rest of us have? How bad can it get?”
Gariath exhaled. His breath felt stale beneath his hood.
“It can always get worse. The Karnerians and Sainites are on edge. The Ancaarans had to beg them to come down here. Have you seen the square where they’re setting it up? Guards everywhere. Crossbows on every roof. They aren’t going to let it turn into another massacre.”
“You think it’ll work? Ghoukha bought his own army and it didn’t save him from the Khovura. You know, I even heard there was some kind of monstrosity, some manner of demon—”
“Don’t tell me you believe that oxshit. The fashas want you to think that it took a demon to kill them rather than admit that they’re as vulnerable as the rest of us.”
“Maybe you’re right. He had enough money to hire one of those huge dragonmen, after all, and where the hell was it? Seems like a t
wo-ton scaly son of a bitch would have been pretty handy in that situation.”
Gariath inhaled. He tasted smoke on his tongue.
“Guzzling ale by the gallon, probably. Fucking oids. Only good for one thing and they’re not even around to do it.”
“This is what happens when you trust them. The one time they might be useful coming into our city and they aren’t around. Fucking oids.”
The scent finally changed when he caught a whiff of his own blood. He felt, suddenly, his hands trembling under his cloak, his claws dug deep into his palms. He hadn’t noticed exactly when that had happened.
That, too, was puzzling.
“Hey, how long have you been sitting there?”
It took him a moment to recognize Lenk’s voice. Longer, even, to recognize Lenk’s scent. He looked up halfway, careful not to let his hood slip. The young man and the tall, brown-haired woman both stood before him, looking at him curiously.
“Hours,” Gariath replied with a grunt. “You said to be here by noon.”
“Right, I did,” Lenk said. He glanced from Gariath to Asper. “I told everyone to be here by noon, didn’t I? How come it’s just us three?”
“Denaos said he had something to take care of,” Asper said. “Though he specifically assured me he’d be here on time.” She paused. “I suppose my first hint should have been that he used the words ‘specifically assure,’ so that’s on me.”
“Kataria said the same,” Lenk replied with a sigh. “And I don’t think Dreadaeleon’s going to show up.” He cast a sidelong glance at Asper. “Considering…”
She met his stare flatly, unflinching. “I’m not sorry.”
He said nothing and looked out over the heads of the crowd. The tide of humanity had grown too vast for the Meat Market to contain and had spilled out into the streets of the Souk.
They called it the Meat Market, a tiny square surrounded by tall buildings between the Souk and the Sumps, because it was where many illicit deals and dead bodies were dropped as the Jackals did their business.
It was the site of the mediation because the Ancaarans had argued, successfully, that it was where the poor people and the wealthy people—but not the people so wealthy that they should be forced to endure the presence of the poor—were at their closest connection.
Gariath knew this because he had spent the past few hours sitting patiently, listening to humans.
And because he had spent the past few hours sitting patiently, listening to humans, Gariath had an overwhelming urge to start hitting things.
At that moment, a murmur of excitement swept through the crowd. Word from the front of the line had passed to the back. The Karnerian and Sainite delegations had just arrived. The mediations were about to get under way.
“No choice, then,” Lenk muttered. “We go on without them.” He glanced at Asper. “You still think you can get us in?”
She nodded. “If Aturach is here, then probably. Wait here. I’ll go find out.”
She turned on her heel and pushed her way into the crowd.
“Go where?” Gariath asked.
“In there,” Lenk said, pointing toward the Meat Market. “I saw Miron walking with the Khovura in Ghoukha’s house. I saw him. And I think the Khovura were going to try to kill the Ancaaran envoy. So, if they strike here, chances are—”
“Why?”
“Now, that part I’m not sure about. The Khovura want an unstable city, though. They want to sow chaos. But if we want to save these people—”
“No, why are we going in there?”
At this question, Lenk looked at Gariath as though he had just asked why they couldn’t be sure the moon wasn’t really the sun in disguise.
“Who do you think you can save?” Gariath continued. “The Khovura killed a lot of humans, but so did Dreadaeleon. These people are all going to kill each other one day, anyway. They’ll knife each other in alleys or steal each other’s money or leave each other to die in filth. Nothing can save them. Not you, not her, not Kharga.”
“It’s not just about them,” Lenk said. “If we want to get paid—”
“You’re not going to get paid. Miron isn’t who he says he is. You saw him last night?”
“I did.”
“And he saw you?”
“He did.”
“And he left you to die?”
Lenk’s face screwed up with rage. “Fuck, I have to try, Gariath,” he snarled. “I have to find some way to end it all, to stop killing and try to live a normal life.”
Gariath looked at him intently from beneath his cowl. “If you go in there,” he said, “do you think you’ll find less killing… or more?”
“What am I supposed to do, then? Go out into the wilds and starve to death with Kataria? With you? We’ll only find more blood there. It’s what we do.”
“Then why are we trying to fight it?”
“Will you stop asking fucking questions?” Lenk all but roared. A few curious heads turned his way and he lowered his voice. “Don’t you ever get tired of it? Don’t you ever wish you could stop hurting people?”
Gariath inhaled deeply. His nostrils caught a new scent: of fear and fallen bricks and a great, heaving body buried beneath them that exuded a scent not so unlike his own.
“I do,” he replied coarsely.
“Wouldn’t you try to end it some way, if you could? Any way? With this gold, we can. Think of what we could do with it.”
“Where? Here?” He stomped the earth. “In this city? In any city?” He looked long to the direction of the waning sun. “Out there, I am Rhega, the last. Here, I am an oid, one of many. Out there, I am strong. Here, I hide behind a cloak. Out there, all I had need for was food, rain, and…”
He paused and looked back to Lenk.
“What can I do with gold? What makes you think I care about it?”
Lenk met his gaze evenly. “Then tell me,” he said, “if you don’t care about gold or humans, why are you even here?”
Gariath stared intently into the young man’s eyes. He was strong, as humans went: scars to boast a long life of battle, wiry muscles tense and ready to back up those boasts, the keen, thoughtful look of someone used to seeking weakness and finding opportunity in his eyes.
Yet, for all that, he was still human. It would not be a large matter to simply reach down and break him where he stood.
As he had broken Kharga. And Kudj. And so many others and been left with nothing but empty earth and the scent of ashes.
It was Gariath who looked away first. He saw the tall female’s brown head bobbing through the crowd. She waved at them and beckoned them into the crowd to follow her. Lenk turned to go and paused at the edge of the mass of people. He looked over his shoulder at Gariath.
And after a time, with heavy footsteps and bent shoulders, Gariath followed.
Nothing was ever destroyed in Cier’Djaal. Things broke, things crumbled, things were forgotten: homes, buildings, people. But they were always built over; always did the new crush the old, always did the old support the new.
Not quite the drowned disaster of the Sumps, nor quite the modern splendor of the Souk, the Meat Market was a small square about three hundred paces in any direction from the center. Walls, haphazardly placed from a time before architecture had become an art, snaked across the sandy streets just as cracks and crumbles snaked through their stonework. Buildings, erected before treacherous foundations had rendered such heights unsustainable, rose up on shaky foundations to scrape the setting sun.
Between the worlds of the wealthy and the poor stood the Meat Market.
And between the worlds of the poor and the Meat Market stood a line of steel and flesh.
The crowds thinned dramatically the closer Asper led Lenk and Gariath to the square. While the mediations held the fate of Cier’Djaal and the attention of the city, very few looked actually invested enough in that fate to challenge the human barricade of Karnerian soldiers that had blocked the tiny gap between snaking walls that mar
ked the entrance to the Meat Market.
Their spears were held rigid. Their tower shields were locked together. Truly, though, only the dead iron glares from beneath their helms appeared necessary to keeping the crowd at bay.
Most of the crowd, anyway.
“The hell do you mean ‘forbidden’?” Asper snapped. “I was just here!” She gestured over the Karnerians’ heads. “Did you not see the Talanite who spoke with me? How could you not? We were talking through you.”
“My orders come from Speaker Careus,” the Karnerian replied, voice like cold metal. “His orders come from Daeon. None may disturb the mediation.”
Unless they can afford it, anyway, Lenk thought.
Between the helms of the Karnerians, he could see people assembled in the Meat Market: finely dressed merchants, minor fashas with servants in tow, a few of the wealthier priests. Lenk was used to worlds where things were solved by harder metals than gold.
So, too, it seemed, were the Karnerians.
“You impudent piece of—” Asper trailed off as she caught sight of something over the Karnerian’s head. “Aturach!” She waved a hand and hopped up and down. “Aturach! Over here!”
A thin Djaalic man wearing an expression that lay somewhere between worry and a concussion peered out between two helmets. He exchanged some words with Asper—his timid, hers decidedly not—before he bit his lower lip and looked to the Karnerians.
“She’s with the temple of Talanas,” the man named Aturach said. He spared a quick glance for Lenk and Gariath. “Her friends, as well. Please let them pass.”
“I have my orders,” the guard replied.
“Given the possibility that things may turn very, very ugly here,” Aturach said threateningly, “whether or not we have an extra healer on hand could very much be what decides if you or one of your brothers lives or dies. Now please, let her pass.”
The Karnerian stood stock-still for a moment. “The big one in the cloak”—he nodded to Gariath—“stays here. The other two may pass.” He cast a glance at Lenk’s sword. “Unarmed.”
Lenk turned and looked at Gariath. Slowly, he unbuckled his sword belt and shrugged the weapon off his shoulders. He stepped close to sling it around Gariath’s shoulder, so as not to let a trace of red flesh be accidentally shown. And close as he was, he could feel Gariath’s growl in his bones.