Among Thieves totk-1

by Douglas Hulick

  I pretended not to understand what they were saying and instead watched Jelem. Of all the men at the table, only he had remained seated during the display. He quietly regarded the smoking rope, then reached out to gingerly pick it up between the knots.

  “I’ll be sitting out the next few hands,” said Jelem in Djanese as he pushed out his chair and stood up.

  The other men grumbled and glared at me as they returned to the table, dark eyes simmering with anger. I gave them a sneering smile in return and turned away.

  Jelem and I settled in at a small table against the outside wall of the cafe. A boy stuck his head out of the front door to see what all the commotion was about, and I waved him over. I ordered in Djanese: a pot of coffee for myself, another for Jelem, and whatever light fare they had in the kitchen. The boy ducked back out of sight, and I let myself relax into the thin cushions of the chair.

  I remained silent as Jelem examined the rope. He ran it lightly through his fingers, over and over, always avoiding the knots, whole or charred. Now and then, he mumbled something to himself, or to the rope-I wasn’t sure which.

  Through the wall, I could hear soft, rhythmic music and the low hum of voices coming from inside the cafe.

  “I see some of the spells have been used,” said Jelem at last.

  “I can vouch for that firsthand.”

  Jelem glanced up at me, raising an eyebrow in appreciation. “Not Nicco’s, I assume?”

  “Not his style.” I frowned. “Why?”

  Jelem shrugged. “He’s one of the few people I can see affording this. But yes, if he were after you, you’d either be dead or two days away from the city by now.”

  “The Blade’s name was Tamas,” I said.

  “Any idea who hired him?”

  Our coffee arrived then. Jelem and I regarded each other as the boy filled our cups and left.

  “That’s why I’m here,” I said.

  “Ah,” said Jelem. He looked back down at the rope, tsked, and set it aside. Then he took a long sip of coffee. “This isn’t good.”

  I knew he wasn’t talking about the coffee.

  I’m told there are a lot of different ways to categorize magic, but, when it comes to the Kin, we have only three labels that matter: legal, illegal, and imperial.

  Legal glimmer is something we ignore. There’s no money in it. Between the Imperial Cult, which has things like blessings, the comforting of souls, and “miraculous” salves sewn up, and the Sodality of Street Mouths, which has a lock on mending spells, wart removal, luck charms, and other day-work glimmer, there’s no room to maneuver.

  Illegal glimmer, though, is another story. It’s been one of the monetary cornerstones of the Kin for ages. Need someone hurt without leaving a mark? A stone building fired? A rival’s shipment to rot on the docks? There are people who can speak that kind of spell-for a price. A high price.

  And for an even higher price, a piece of portable glimmer can be made-magic that anyone can use; magic that can hurt or break or kill with hardly any effort on the user’s part; magic that was banned three centuries ago after the Golem Riots of Nimenia. Magic that will, in short, get you hanged if you’re found with it on your person.

  As for imperial glimmer, well, even we know better than that. Tweaking the imperial nose with a bit of rope like Tamas’s is one thing, but playing with magic that was gifted to the emperor and his court by the Angels, magic that could level buildings or burn a forest to the ground in a matter of minutes? Let’s put it this way: People who make or use portable glimmer die; people who play with imperial glimmer become examples-lasting examples, for decades or longer.

  Tamas’s rope was the portable kind of glimmer.

  “I need to find out who sent the Blade after me,” I said. “Finding the person who made that rope might help. You know portable glimmer, so…” I let the sentence trail off meaningfully.

  “Not possible,” said Jelem, his eyes focused on the coffee in the cup before him. “Yazani, or Mouths as you like to call them, don’t leave their names on the things they make. At least, the smart ones don’t, and I suspect whoever made this rope is smart.”

  “Then how do the Paragons track them down?”

  Jelem shrugged. “I’m not an imperial magician: I don’t know.”

  I poured myself another cup of coffee.

  “However…” Jelem said.

  I grinned. I had suspected there was more to it than a simple “no.”

  “That doesn’t mean I can’t take a look at the rope itself.”

  “For a price?” I said.

  “Even so.”

  “How much?” I asked.

  Jelem spread his hands in a single, elegant motion. “Hard to say. It will depend on how complex the magic is. Once I have a better idea of who glimmered the rope, I can better-”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “I thought you said you couldn’t tell who made it.”

  “I did.”

  “But-”

  Jelem held up a hand. “Bide.”

  I leaned forward in my chair. “Don’t you tell me to bide. If you’re playing me-”

  “No,” said Jelem, pointing past me. “Bide. Your food is here.”

  I looked up and almost put my face into the plate coming past my shoulder. It veered away at the last moment, and the boy smiled apologetically as he adjusted his arm to place my dinner before me.

  It was a salad of nuts, leafy greens, and sliced fruit, all tossed with a spiced oil. He set down a stack of flat bread beside it, along with a bowl of chopped peppers and softened beans marinated in red vinegar. Typical Djanese fare.

  As the boy bowed and walked away, I suddenly realized just how hungry I was. I tore into the repast with relish. Jelem laughed indulgently, commenting on the superiority of Djanese food compared to imperial fare. I shrugged noncommittally, as my mouth was too full to answer.

  After a few minutes, I slowed my pace somewhat. A new pot of coffee arrived, and I used its sharp flavor to cut the sweet heat of the salad oil. Now that I was bothering to taste it, the food was excellent. I said as much to Jelem.

  “Of course,” he said, smiling broadly. “You think I would frequent just any cafe?” He leaned in closer. “Besides, the owner is my wife’s second cousin-their whole family are excellent cooks. Ahnya would never forgive me if ate anywhere else.”

  I smiled in turn. The image of Jelem’s small, delicate, yet fiery wife, Ahnya, berating the Mouth for snubbing her family was a picture I could easily imagine.

  I leaned back in my own seat, tore off a small strip of flat bread, and decided to take advantage of Jelem’s relaxed frame of mind.

  “You were saying,” I said as I dipped the bread into the beans and peppers, “something about Tamas’s rope?”

  Jelem sighed and closed his eyes. “I had said I could not find out who made the item, which is true. What I can do, however, is try to find out how they made it. There are only so many ways to gather magic and weave it into something like this.”

  “And how does knowing how it was made help us?” I said.

  Jelem opened his eyes and regarded me with the same expression he might use for a pheasant that had asked why it was being eaten. “ ‘How’ tells us which style of magic the maker used,” he explained. “ ‘How’ tells us what degree of ability the maker had. ‘How’ tells us how much, roughly, someone is willing to spend on killing you. And ‘how’ tells me-maybe-how to make more of these charming little baubles.” He tapped the rope. “The magic is keyed to the runes. That ought to make it easier to unravel.”

  I looked at the pieces of paper-scraps, really-sticking out of the knots. On a hunch, I reached into my pouch and pulled out the strip of parchment I had taken off Athel the Grinner’s body.

  “What can you make of this?” I said.

  Jelem took the battered slip of paper in his long fingers and held it up to the light of a lamp hanging above us.

  “It means nothing to me,” he said after a moment. “Why?”
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br />   I took back the paper. “I haven’t been able to figure out what’s written on it. It just occurred to me it may be some sort of notation or script used in glimmering.”

  “If it is, I’ve never seen its like before.”

  “I’ve been getting a lot of that lately,” I said. I looked at the paper again in the dim light. It looked the same as before-dots, dashes, squiggles, and angles, with the hint of something legible here and there. Except for “imperial” and “relic,” though, nothing on it made sense.

  “Is it important?” said Jelem.

  “It had better be,” said a familiar voice off to my right. “Otherwise, he’s been doing a lot of chasing for nothing.”

  I looked up to see Degan stepping onto the porch of the cafe. He brushed the brim of his hat in Jelem’s direction; the Mouth smiled lazily in return.

  “Sometimes, nothing is the best thing to chase,” said Jelem.

  “Drothe’s ‘nothings’ usually carry swords,” said Degan, “and come with several well-armed friends.”

  “Ah,” said Jelem. “That kind of nothing.” He sat up in his chair. “In that case, I think we have ‘nothing’ further to discuss.” Jelem laid his hand on the rope. “We are agreed?” he said.

  “We’re agreed.” I didn’t have much of a choice. “Just don’t screw me too bad on the price. And make it quick.”

  Jelem stood, sketching a graceful bow while tracing a complex spiral pattern in the air. “As the Scions of the Great Family allow,” he said. He took the rope, coiled it, and walked back over to his game.

  I turned to Degan as he took Jelem’s vacated seat. “I’ve been hoping to catch up with you,” I said.

  “Must be your lucky night,” he said, tearing off a piece of flat bread and running it through the beans. “Or mine.”

  “I have a name to run by you.”

  “Oh?”

  “ ‘Ironius,’ ” I said, letting the name of the man we had heard in the sewers of Ten Ways and I had seen at Rambles’s drop into the space between us.

  Degan froze, the bread poised before his mouth. Without looking at me, he set it back down and stood up.

  “We’re leaving,” he said. Before I could answer, he had turned away and begun walking. I hurried to my feet and followed.

  Degan led me through Raffa Na’Ir cordon and out, then into the Hounds, all in silence. I was nearly running at points to keep up with his long, quick stride. Finally, I stopped in a small piazza and leaned a hand against the fountain in the center. I was breathing hard.

  “Enough,” I said. “Here is good enough.”

  Degan stopped and looked around, as if not realizing where he had brought me. Perhaps he hadn’t. He came over and scooped up a handful of water from the basin in the fountain, sipped, then spit it out onto the bricks of the piazza.

  “How’d you come by that name?” he said.

  I hesitated for half a second, debating about pushing him to talk first. The hard look in his eyes persuaded me otherwise.

  “He was with Rambles,” I said.

  “Nicco’s Rambles?”

  “Do you know any other Rambles?” I said. “They were in Ten Ways.”

  “Doing?”

  I told him about the conversation I’d overheard, about Rambles’s apparent arrangement with Ironius, about my brief meeting with the latter on the roof. “Ironius and the woman are working Ten Ways,” I finished. “Have been for a while. It sounds as if they’re trying to unify the local gangs for some reason.”

  Degan scowled. “Why?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “To take over the cordon? No one runs the place right now. But if they’re that organized, why waste time on Ten Ways? There are better cordons out there that would be easier to take over.”

  “Why indeed?” said Degan. He ran his hand over a carved faun’s head on the fountain, letting his thumb brush the stream of water coming from it. “What makes the cordon worth going after? Is there something about Ten Ways itself, a reason they need to control the cordon?”

  “You mean besides the charming atmosphere?” I said. I’d been asking myself the same question: why try to control a hellhole like Ten Ways, given how hard it would be to bring it together? If they could bring it together. “I suppose it would be a nice feather in someone’s cap. No one’s been able to unite Ten Ways since Isidore, and he went on to become the Dark King. If someone managed to do the same, it would go a long way toward making him look like…” I trailed off and looked over at Degan. He was staring back at me.

  “That can’t be it,” I said, almost in a whisper. “Follow in the Dark King’s footsteps? Take control of all the Kin in Ildrecca again? That can’t be it.” The first time had been a work of genius, a miracle, a fluke-no one could repeat that. Could they?

  “It doesn’t mean someone can’t try,” said Degan.

  I nodded as I connected the dots in my head. “And a war between a couple of Upright Men-like, say Nicco and Kells-would only help. Hell, if done right, it could draw in most of the bosses and Uprights within three cordons of the place.”

  “That would put almost half of the Kin in Ildrecca at one another’s throats,” said Degan.

  “And get the local element in Ten Ways up in arms, too,” I said. “Having the neighbors come in to fight their war wouldn’t go over too well.”

  “It might even be enough to get the Kin in Ten Ways to unite behind someone,” said Degan.

  “Someone who jingles when she walks and has Ironius in her back pocket,” I said sourly. “And all they’d have to do is sit back and wait for everyone else to weaken themselves by fighting one another. Then, when things are at their worst, they step in at the head of the Kin in Ten Ways and take over.”

  “How very imperial,” said Degan.

  He was right. It had been working for the empire for centuries-get local kings or chiefs to fight one another, then step in and shore up whoever looks to make the best puppet.

  And now someone wanted to do it to the Kin.

  “Tell me about Ironius,” I said.

  “I-” Degan sighed and ran a hand over his face.

  “Don’t say it,” I said.

  “I can’t.”

  “Damn it, Degan! How can you not?” My voice echoed off the buildings around us. Somewhere, a dog started barking. “This is me, for Angels’ sake!”

  “Yes, it is,” he said, stepping closer, his voice dropping lower. I could barely hear him over the splashing of the fountain. “Which is why I’m telling you to let this go. Back off. Report to Nicco and be done with it.”

  “What?” I forced my voice down to near-normal levels. “If we’re right, we’re talking about someone orchestrating a Kin war in Ten Ways-maybe even throughout the whole city. And if that happens, you know what comes next.”

  “We don’t know that the empire will step in,” he said, not sounding wholly convinced.

  “If it even looks like someone is trying to repeat Isidore’s climb, it won’t just be the Rags hassling us in the streets,” I said. “It’ll be the legions. The White Sashes. And I’m not going to let someone screw with my life and my livelihood just because he wants a midnight crown on his head.”

  “You don’t know it will come to that,” said Degan. “This could just be about Ten Ways. You said yourself it was a fluke with Isidore-that no one can unite the Kin again. Let them set up Nicco. Let him go to war. Let him die. You’ve never liked the bastard, anyhow. Get out now.”

  I looked up at my friend, seeing him, seeing his face in my night vision. I took a step back. “You’re scared,” I said, barely believing it. “Angels help me, you’re scared.”

  Degan grimaced. “Not scared,” he said. “Worried.”

  “About what?”

  “About where it will take you. Take us.”

  “‘Where it will take me’?” I said. I nearly laughed, only it wasn’t funny. “In case you haven’t noticed, things around me have been going from bad to worse over the last couple of days. I
don’t want your worry right now; I want your help.”

  Degan’s head lunged forward so fast, I nearly fell back. “I can’t help you in this!” he yelled. “Don’t you understand? I can’t! Not while…”

  “While what?” I said. “What?”

  Degan glared at me and turned away. I saw his shoulders rise and fall as he took a breath. “Just let it be,” he said. “Please.”

  And then it hit me, and I got truly angry.

  “This is about the Order of the Degans, isn’t it?” I said. “You won’t tell me anything unless I take your damn Oath!” I reached out and grabbed Degan’s arm, spinning him around. He didn’t resist. “Fine,” I said. “I’ll take the damn thing. If that’s what you want me to do, I’ll do it.”

  Degan jerked his arm out of my grasp. “It’s not what I want you to do,” he snapped. “And even if I did, that wouldn’t be all of it. There are other things at play here besides my being a degan.”

  “Like friendship?” I said. I threw the words out, using them like a lash. “Like bleeding for each other so many times I’ve lost count? We’ve never needed an Oath for any of that!”

  Degan winced. I pressed on.

  “What the hell is it with you degans and your Oaths?” I said. “Secrets and silence and promises-you’re a bunch of fucking Arms, Degan! You lug steel around and dust other people’s enemies. If anyone ought to be demanding promises of silence, it’s me. I’m the Nose here. What’s so damn important about Ironius that you can’t… can’t.. .”

  And I stopped and stared up at Degan. At Bronze Degan. Of course-I was too used to thinking of him as just Degan.

  “It isn’t ‘Ironius,’ is it?” I said softly. “It’s ‘Iron.’ He’s a degan. He’s Iron Degan.”

  Degan didn’t answer, but the look on his face made anything he might have said redundant. Whoever we were working against had a degan on their side. And if Bronze Degan wasn’t willing to talk about it, my guess was that Iron Degan and the woman had already exchanged the Oath.