Among Thieves

by Hulick, Douglas

  “The thought occurs,” I said. “Even you have to admit this isn’t the kind of thing you find in any old history book.”

  “I have fragments of another journal,” said Solitude. “Mainly bits and pieces, but enough to get a basic picture of what happened. The rest I’ve pieced together from ancient histories I guarantee you’ve never heard of, heretical theologies, and other sources. As you can imagine, information on this . . . aspect . . . of imperial history isn’t thick on the ground. But it’s there, if you know where to look.”

  “And you know where to look,” I said, somewhat snidely.

  “As do you.”

  I fidgeted slightly. She was right—it was easy enough for me to find out if she was telling the truth. I had Ioclaudia’s journal; I could look it up. That alone made me more inclined to believe her, at least for the moment. The only problem was, if I started believing her, I would be buying into something far bigger than I had ever imagined.

  That made me nervous. And suspicious. I was getting answers, but not the one at the core of everything—not the Why.

  “What about Shadow?” I said. “How does he fit into all of this?”

  Solitude’s expression turned dark. “He doesn’t,” she said. “Or, at least, he didn’t until recently.”

  “When he found out about the journal?”

  Solitude didn’t answer.

  “You said you’d tell me all of it,” I reminded her.

  “When one of my people turned out to be a Long Nose,” she snarled. I raised an eyebrow. “If you say anything ,” said Solitude sharply, “I’ll have Iron bend you into interesting, complicated shapes.”

  I held up my hands. “Professional appreciation only,” I said. Long Nosing against Solitude must have been a hell of a dodge. “How much does Shadow know?”

  “Shadow knows the journal exists, but I don’t think he’s aware of its full implications. For him, it’s a source of power, a potential guide to potent magic. I don’t think he knows the imperial connection, but even so, the journal is too tempting a prize to ignore, and a bad enough threat on its own. Shadow with imperial glimmer is something I’d rather not contemplate. But if he gets his hands on Ioclaudia’s notes and recognizes their true value . . .”

  “He’ll use them,” I said. I didn’t know Shadow well, but I’d seen enough in the meeting with Kells. He wouldn’t pass up an opportunity to put himself on par with the emperor. “He’d tear Ten Ways apart to get the rest of the journals, and then he’d do it—he’d start another Endless Cycle, only for himself.”

  “Giving us two undying emperors instead of one,” said Solitude. “One for the Lighters, and one for the Kin.”

  “Unlike you,” I said.

  Solitude’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

  “What the hell do you think I mean?” I said. “You tell me you want an ancient Paragon’s journal, you tell me it holds secrets untold about reincarnation, and then you tell me you want to dig up Ten Ways to find whatever else you can about the process? Even if you don’t want to become the next Dark King, you sure seem damn interested in finding out about not dying.”

  Solitude came out of her chair so fast, the tinkling of the charms on her dress formed a single multitonal note.

  “Is that what you think?” she demanded. “That I want to shatter my soul so I can keep coming back to life? That I want to live as a fraction of myself for the rest of eternity?”

  “Why else?” I said, prodding on purpose. “What’s the point in finding the journal and taking over Ten Ways if you aren’t going to use them? If you aren’t going to reincarnate yourself?”

  “Because knowing about something doesn’t mean you have to use it in the same way!” she shouted. “Because magic can work both ways!”

  I sat, staring at her, absorbing what she had said and what she had let slip.

  “Shit! ” said Solitude, kicking the table. It teetered and fell over with a crash. The marble top shattered, scattering itself across the floor. Iron immediately opened the door and stuck his head in. Solitude shooed him away with a gesture.

  “This isn’t how I wanted to broach the subject with you,” she said. “Not until I knew where you stood.”

  “It’s the emperor, isn’t it?” I said, ignoring her complaint. “It’s not about you or Shadow or the Kin—it’s about him. You want to throw down the fucking emperor!”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head ruefully. “Rebellion is easy. It’s been done more times than I can count. I want to kill him. Permanently. Forever. I want to figure out how the first Paragons made him immortal, and I want to undo it.”

  “You’re insane,” I said.

  “You have it backward,” said Solitude. “It’s the emperor who’s insane. All three incarnations of Stephen Dorminikos—Markino, Theodoi, and Lucien—are slowly going crazy.”

  “That’s not exactly a revelation,” I said. “Everyone knows each of them gets loose in the head as they get older. It’s always been that way. That’s why the next incarnation, or a Regent, is ready to step in and take over when the sitting incarnation passes fifty.”

  “But it’s not harmless,” said Solitude, “and it hasn’t always been this way. The emperors have only begun to slip in the last two hundred and fifty years. Before Theodoi the Sixth, there weren’t regular Regency courts, nor was the heir required to stay within a day’s ride of Ildrecca. But after Theodoi went mad at the end of that reign, things began to change. The insanity has been creeping forward over time, coming on faster and running deeper every cycle.”

  I thought about what Solitude was saying, what I had read in the histories, what Lyconnis had told me about the Fourth Regency. If you looked at the history of the empire, as Solitude said, there was a pattern. The Regencies had become more common over time, and the various incarnations were less willing to leave the city than they used to be, both before and during their reigns. Hell, stories were that Markino, Theodoi, and Lucien had even spent time together, back in the early days. That never happened now, though, not in public, and likely never in private, either.

  “Before long,” continued Solitude, “we won’t be talking about paranoid or obsessive old men on the throne who drool when they talk. We’ll be talking about three active, alert, clever men, each of whom has convinced himself that the other two are out to destroy him. I’m talking about paranoia, dementia, and God complexes, with an entire imperial structure in place to back the whole thing up. Each incarnation is at his predecessor’s, or successor’s, throat now more than they ever were during the first five centuries of the empire. It’s only a matter of time before they begin to fight one another openly.”

  “Imperial civil war?” I said incredulously.

  Solitude nodded. “A civil war with three emperors, each one returning from the dead, each one hungry for vengeance, each one able to raise and lead an army, again and again and again.”

  “But the empire has survived crises in the past,” I said, though not with as much conviction as I would have liked. “The Reign of the Pretenders, the Bastards’ Revolt, the betrayal of the White Sashes under Silverhawk—the Imperial Court kept going through all of it, without any version of Stephen on the throne. Who says they won’t be able to handle a bent-headed emperor?”

  Solitude crossed her arms. “Think about it,” she said. “Even a ‘bent-headed’ emperor is still the emperor.”

  And people obeyed the emperor. Or, at least, they obeyed one version of him. But with three imperial camps to choose from, it would be chaos—unending chaos.

  The world that had been shifting beneath me until now began to crumble. I could sense a tidal wave of events building beyond the horizon. When it hit, it would overrun everything and everyone in its path. Only a fool would be standing there, trying to build a dike when the wave broke.

  “This isn’t my concern,” I said, standing up a bit too quickly. My vision flickered for half a heartbeat, then stabilized. I had my sister, Kells, and myself to worry abou
t, not the empire. “I’m a member of the Kin—I’m in no position to oppose the emperor, let alone save the entire fucking thing. Let it fend for itself.”

  “Is that so?” said Solitude archly. She sat down and settled back into her chair. “I don’t think so. You didn’t sit on that journal just to save your ass, Drothe. If all you wanted was that, you could have given it to Kells or Nicco or Shadow or even me before this. It would have been easy, especially for you. But you didn’t.”

  “We all make mistakes,” I said.

  “Yes, but it wasn’t a mistake for you. Do you know why? Because, at some level, I think you want to be a player. You knew the journal was important, and you knew you could use it to make yourself important, too. Well, guess what, Drothe—it worked. You’re in it, whether you like the final stakes or not. And I’m here to tell you it’s too late to wash your hands and walk away.”

  “Watch me.” I headed for the door, expecting Solitude to call out for Iron. Instead, I heard her sigh.

  Then she said it. “Hypocrite.”

  That stopped me, although I didn’t turn around. “What?”

  “I’ve heard a lot of things about you, Drothe,” said Solitude. “A lot of words used to describe you: tough, dangerous, relentless, clever. I’ve heard some less than pleasant ones, too. But there’s one word I keep coming across that I almost never hear in relation to other Kin.”

  “You’d better not be getting ready to say ‘honest,’ ” I said. “Even I won’t buy that one.”

  “Not honest,” she said. “Honorable.” Solitude chuckled. “People actually call you honorable, Drothe.”

  Now I did turn around.

  Solitude had her radiant smile on. “Imagine someone using that word to describe one of us, the ‘gutter crawlers.’ I’ve heard nobles, soldiers, priests—even merchants, Angels help me—called honorable, but rarely a Darker, and never a Nose.”

  She stood. I watched her as she came across the floor, bits of marble crunching softly beneath her shoes.

  “When someone chooses a word like that for a man like you,” she said softly, “I have to wonder whether it’s smoke or whether it’s true. Are you honorable, Drothe? Are you loyal, not just to your boss, not just to your friends, but to the Kin? Because that’s what it’s about now. If you want to survive, if you want to hold on to the chips you have in the journal and make us take you seriously, then you have to admit that it’s about more than what’s in it for you. It’s about all the Kin, be it keeping them alive, taking control of them, or even keeping the empire from wiping them out. The picture is bigger than you now; bigger than a single organization. I don’t think you’d be here if you weren’t interested in that. If it were just about you, the journal would have been sold or bartered a long time ago.”

  Solitude took a final step, bringing herself so close, we almost touched. She smelled of vanilla and cedarwood and summer wine. “What do you think?” she said.

  I stared down into those green eyes and understood the stories about how she supposedly recruited all of her operatives on her own. She was good—damn good. And she was right.

  I’d been—hell, still was—willing to go to the emperor to save the Kin. Even if it meant betraying Kells, being cast out, being hunted. It was what needed to be done.

  But that didn’t mean I had to give the journal to her, pretty speeches and green eyes aside.

  “Even if you’re right,” I said, “and I’m willing to take one for the Kin, I don’t see how giving you the journal accomplishes anything. If I want to keep the empire from wiping us out, I’m better off going directly to them. If the journal has everything in it you say it has, I ought to be able to cut a nice deal for both me and the Kin with the emperor. Giving it to you doesn’t get either of those things.”

  Solitude nodded slowly. “Good,” she said. “You see it.”

  “See what?” I said.

  “The threat the empire poses.”

  “It’s hard to miss when they surround an entire cordon and try to kill every Kin in it.”

  Solitude shook her head. “I’m not talking about Ten Ways, Drothe, nor even about what they did to Isidore. I’m talking about the emperor going mad—about the three incarnations going to war and dragging every aspect of the empire down with them. Including the Kin. You don’t think we’ll choose sides? You don’t think that Gray Princes and Upright Men won’t make deals with one emperor or another to benefit themselves? In a war that will be fought not just in the fields and forests, but in the streets of the empire, you don’t think the various incarnations of Stephen Dorminikos will be able to overlook their distaste of us long enough to see the excellent tools we would make? Tools he could use and then discard, because after all, we’re only Kin?

  “No. This isn’t about any threat to the Kin right now, Drothe—this is about what will happen to the Kin down the road. Fifty, one hundred, two hundred years from now. It’s about the Kin surviving as an organization, as a way of life. If the empire falls, it will take the Kin with it. You can’t have darkness without light, and you can’t have the Kin without the empire. The great irony is, if we want to keep the empire, and therefore the Kin, alive, we have to kill the emperor to do it.”

  I was right; I hadn’t liked where this was going. I swallowed and took another step back. Solitude followed me.

  “Why should I care about what happens to the Kin in a hundred years?” I said.

  “Why should you care about what happens to them now?” she replied. “You could have walked away anytime if you wanted to. But you didn’t. Because you’re Kin. Because you’re honorable. Because you care enough to see the bigger picture. That’s why.”

  I stood there, not saying anything, my mind racing and blank at the same instant. There were so many things going through my head, I couldn’t grasp any single thought on its own—except for one.

  Solitude was right. Damn her, but she was right.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  I looked Solitude in the eye. She was smiling. It made her eyes sparkle. Solitude was right. Maybe about the cause, maybe about the emperor—or maybe not. I needed to weigh that some more.

  But she was definitely right about me.

  I couldn’t walk away, because there was too much at stake—too much that might, just might, fit together like she had said. History, I knew, was full of unlikely crap like that.

  Dammit.

  But just because she was right, and just because I knew I was going to help her, didn’t mean I had to like it—or that I was going to make it easy for her.

  “Being honorable’s one thing,” I said, “but bright and shiny feelings don’t give me pull on the street or keep Blades off my blinds. If I give you that journal, I’ll end up betraying Kells, snubbing Shadow, and risk pissing off the emperor. I’m going to need something besides a happy ending for the Kin to make it worth my while.”

  Solitude’s shoulders drooped. “Money, Drothe? I had hoped for more than that from you. But if you—”

  “I never said anything about hawks.”

  A small spark in her eyes. “A job, then?”

  “I’m done working for other people,” I said. “Too many compromises. And I don’t want to be an Upright Man, either.” After working for Kells and Nicco, I knew I didn’t want those kinds of problems.

  “Then what?” said Solitude. “You can’t tell me you want to go back to being a Wide Nose.”

  I walked over to the wall of curtains. I pushed them open slightly. As I’d thought, there was a wall of glass panes and doors on the other side.

  The sunlight burned my eyes, but I looked out on the garden beyond the glass, anyhow. No one had been in to tend it, leaving it to become a bed of vivid green, cut through with a chaos of yellows, reds, blues, whites, and oranges. I suddenly wanted to punch out one of the windows, to banish the dust and closeness of the room with the smells of earth and growth and moisture.

  I let the curtain fall back instead.

  “I want you to cover
my back,” I said, not turning toward her. “I want the same protection you give your people, but without the strings. I want to know I have an organization behind me if I need it, but I don’t want to be beholden to it. I want people to know that if they cross me, they cross you, but that when I talk, it comes solely from me.”

  I heard a gasp. “Do you hear what you’re saying?” said Solitude. “No one has that kind of arrangement with me. Or anyone else, for that matter. No one!”

  “If it makes it easier, I’ll still work for you sometimes,” I said. “I just won’t belong to you. Every dodge will be its own thing, a separate arrangement between you and me. Outside that, I’ll be able to work with your people, but only if you agree, and they won’t use me unless I give the nod.”

  I turned to face her. “I’m also going to need backing. Nicco’s closed down or taken over my sources of money in his territory, and I haven’t had my hands in any action on Kells’s side of town for years. I have a few outside interests here and there, but not enough to let me operate on my own. I need more. We can work out the details after Ten Ways is settled, but know I’m going to need a cut of something down the line.”

  “You . . . ” began Solitude.

  “Have Ioclaudia’s journal,” I said. “The one thing you need to save the empire.” The sparkle was gone from Solitude’s eyes now, replaced by a much harder and colder light.

  “What’s the matter?” I said. “Is the cost of being honorable getting too high for you?”

  Every line of her body went taught with indignation. How dare you speak to me like that? it said. But she stayed silent. And I knew that, at least for the moment, I had her.

  I gestured at the empty chair amid the shards of broken marble. “Have a seat,” I said. “There’s more.”

  “How’s the fit?” said Iron Degan.

  “Not bad,” I said, adjusting the hang of the doublet for the third time in as many blocks. “I think the last owner had narrower shoulders, though.”

  “Be glad we found you anything at all,” he said. “Yours isn’t the most common cut in the city, lad.”