by K. T. Davies
“This a last drop before you do me in?” I asked, only half-joking.
Cobb knocked back his whiskey with a satisfied grimace. “That’s better.” The baritone resonance of his voice was temporarily bleached to a husky rasp by the booze. “You’ve seen things you ain’t aught see, young ‘un.”
“I assure you, I’m much older than I look and commensurate with my great age, I am possessed of the poorest eyesight and an even worse memory.” I smiled in what I hoped was a conciliatory manner.
His eyes blinked in slow concert, as he tugged upon a plaited braid. “I’d love to believe you, but it ain’t that simple.”
It never is. “It really is.” Having relied on sorcery, I was out of practice when it came to the brutal arts, but I was relaxed, secure in the knowledge that you never forget how to glass someone. I could handle Cobb even if it meant smashing a perfectly good bottle of whiskey over his pate.
He sank into himself like a deflated souffle. “I’ll tell you straight, I’ve had a rum do these past few days, and no mistake.” Weariness shaded his countenance.
“I think I have an inkling.”
“Oh, aye. Sorry for your loss.”
“Don’t mention it.” I caught a whiff of old shoe leather marinating in lemon juice, and I could hear the sound of sniffling coming from behind a curtained doorway. The captain cleared his throat. Underneath his almost clownish attire, I could tell that he was a shrewd cove, and he had to be. Like so many born neither one thing nor the other, he walked the thinnest of lines between the courts of day and night. It was far from an easy path. I sat back, sipped the whiskey, and watched expressions flit across his fretful mug as he weighed up what he should or could divulge to a stranger. He needn’t have given it a moment’s consideration. I gave no shits for him or his troubles. I had my own problems, foremost of which was that I had a Mage Lord to slay and currently no ability to do so.
After a moment’s hard contemplation, he shook his head and muttered an inaudible conclusion to a private discourse. “It’s like this,” he began hesitantly. “I had business with Mr. Jing, except it wasn’t the business I was expecting. Long story short, all hell broke loose, and I found myself in the middle of a bloody war.”
“So, you’ve been delivering drugs for Jing and were unlucky enough to get caught in a takeover. Now Jing’s dead, and the lice are crawling out of the woodwork eager to grab what they can of his turf before the traitor who slotted him can consolidate. Stop me if I’m wrong. One of the aforesaid lice— Evard was it? — thinks you’ve got some of Jing’s goodies and sent his crew round for a chat. That you are here and alive means they didn’t find anything, but that ain’t to say there’s nothing to find.” I finished my whiskey feeling a little too pleased with myself, which Cobb picked up on.
He narrowed most of his eyes. “You’ve never heard of the subtle art of diplomacy then, eh?”
“Life’s short.” I heard another sob and looked to the door. “Just what baggage did you take from Jing’s?”
He put his head in his hands like his face was about to fall off. Never one to miss an opportunity, I poured myself another shot of whiskey. When he’d composed himself, he stood up. Looking ten years older than when he’d sat down, he hobbled over to the curtained door and gestured for me to join him. He swept the curtain aside and opened the door. Within, curled up on a huge bed was an arrachid child. She was a pale thing with white hair and milky skin. Her legs were drawn up defensively, and her abdomen was deflated beneath her blood-splattered and scorched gowns. The smell of smoke and death clung to her.
I turned to Cobb. “You didn’t think this through did you?”
“I was too busy trying not to get killed. I’m not a sorcerer; I’m a writer, a maker of plays...”
“…A smuggler of drugs?”
“I’ve a lot of mouths to feed. Artists are not duly compensated for their work.”
“Work? Scribbling and mucking around on a stage is hardly in the same league as collecting night soil or fishing bodies out of the river.”
“Great art is the mark of civilization.”
“I thought that was a working sewerage system and clean drinking water but have it your way. Who is she?”
He straightened, regained his composure as the whiskey re-ignited the fire in his belly. “Jing’s granddaughter.”
“You know, you’re proper fucked if Jing’s assassin realizes there’s one less dead spider than there should be, not to mention the rest of the Midnight lice of Appleton who’ll pay for her dead or alive.”
“Saints’ Sake! Mind what you say!” Cobb hissed. “I’ll be back,” he smiled at the girl before closing the door.
“Word is that the sellspell has already left Appleton. Not that anyone outside of this room needs to know that.”
“How do you know?”
“I’m not telling you the color of my shit until I get a few assurances, sorcerer.” He returned to his desk. “Sit.”
I sat. “Like what?”
“That what I tell you stays between us.”
“Sure, you have my word.” For what it’s worth.
He braced himself, elbows upon the table, gut braced against it like he needed it for support. “The odds are that the killer of your mother and Jing are the same cove.”
“Go on.”
“If ’tis so then we have an enemy in common. Give me your word you’ll keep your mouth shut about the girl, and I’ll tell you what I know about the assassin.”
“Yes, I swear, now tell me what you know about Jing’s killer.”
“He called himself ‘Ludorius’, which must be a lengthening of your ‘Ludo’ eh?”
“Go on.”
“I saw him tell that mangy cur Jarill that he was going directly to Valen after he’d killed Shu Lo.”
“That’s it?”
“Don’t you see? Everyone else is double-checking their shadows in case he’s still around. You and I know he’s gone. There’s value in that, and you know it.”
“And you’re sharing this with me because…?”
“You want your mother’s killer, and he’s probably this Ludorius, and he’s gone to Valen.” His eyestalks danced.
“And …?”
“We’re going to Valen!” he slapped the table. “You could come with us, help us protect the girl while giving yourself time to heal before you go looking for your man. Call it a mutually beneficial arrangement.”
He might have something. I had gold enough to pay my way to Valen but then what? Find Ludo and die in a fiery conflagration because I couldn’t cast so much as a light spell without fainting. Cobb was right. I needed a safe place to heal. But there was something he wasn’t telling me.
“Supposing you’re right, and I’m not saying you are, but if your patron’s killer is going to Valen, why the fuck are you going there?”
“Because I made a promise to an old friend. I’m going to take Sakura to the Midnight Court and they’ll take care of her.”
“What makes you think that? They’re not exactly known for their charity work.”
He leaned in, lowered his voice even though we were in a wizard cloaked cellar. “There’s a covenant, Jing gave it to me, told me to present it to the Dukes of Valen should anything like this happen. He says they have to abide by it.”
“They’re treacherous bastards. Take it from one who knows.”
He reared back, slammed his fists on the table, making the bottle jump. “Well. I gave him my word. I ain’t got much in this world, but I try to keep my damn word.”
I had to admire the old fool. He was going to die before his time, but he had heart. “Tell me again about this Ludorius.”
“I’ve never seen anything like him, and I’ve seen some things. He was formidable, deadly. He brushed Jing’s best people aside like they were children. But then…” He leaned in again until his eyestalks were inches from my face. “I saw him,” he whispered.
“Aye, you said,” I whispered back.
/> “No, I mean I saw the real him. That’s how I put two and two together. Just for a second, just after he… after he killed poor old Shu. He changed. Whatever glamour he’s gone and cast upon himself, it failed for a second, but I saw him. I saw the two-faced, claw-handed monster he truly is.”
My respect for Cobb inched up a notch for not blabbing it the first instant we met. The more I thought about it, the more sense his proposition made. Where better to lay low and recover than amongst the Company of the White Star, one freak amid many? The Midnight Court would laugh in his face before they cut his throat should he try to press his claim of sanctuary for the girl, but I would at least be where I wanted to be. What happened to him and his crew was not my concern.
“So, there you have it. I saved a child and lost a friend. What say you, Breed? Will you come with us; help protect her until we reach Valen?”
As I didn’t want to seem too eager, I made a pretense of thinking about it before answering. “Very well.” I said at last. He breathed a heavy sigh of relief. “When are you leaving, Captain?”
“Two days hence. As soon as we fix the wagons that Thero and Ziphen wrecked.”
“Good. I’ve got to do something before I go anywhere.”
He eyed me suspiciously. “What’s that then?”
My mouth was as dry as ashes, but I forced the words out, hating the sound of them as they fell upon the air. “I want to bury my mother.”
He shook his head. “The courts of day and night are at each other good and proper. Greenshanks are hunting gangs, and gangs are hunting each other. It’s dangerous for anyone to be abroad right now, especially as you’re hurt.”
“Nevertheless.”
I could see that he knew he was onto a loser. “I don’t know…”
“No one’s looking for me. I’m a ghost, and I intend to keep it that way.”
His eyestalks bobbed thoughtfully. He could have saved himself the bother of thinking on it because I was going to bury Mother no matter what he said. “I’ll send Hammerhand with you, to give you a hand.”
And keep an eye on me. “You’re too kind, Captain.”
“Aye, well, I do my best.”
After a restless night, me and the oaf set off early the next morning and made our way across town to Blookmann’s Grindery. The air was hot and bitter, hard cured by heat, and thick with swarms of dying embers. Ash fell like rain, masked the sky and turned people into shadows. “Is Hammerhand your given name?”
“Eh?”
I glanced over my shoulder, noted the gigantic hand curl around the hilt of a knife and his bushy brows knit above tiny, blue eyes.
“Is Hammerhand your first, or your family name?”
“Mind yer own.”
“Suit yourself. Ah, we’re here. Try to look less conspicuous. You stand out like a dick in a nunnery.”
“You’re really starting to annoy me.”
“Only starting? I must be losing my touch. It’s down here. Watch your noggin.” The grindery had long since ceased to trade, and the cellar had been given over to rats, spiders, and dust. I paused in the doorway. Sweat stung my face, my guts clenched, and the stitches pulled and puckered.
“Are we going in?” Hammerhand asked.
“No, I thought we’d just stand here and admire the view.” I led the way into Blookmann’s cellar although I couldn’t shake the feeling that by returning to this world, I’d doomed Mother. I felt faint.
Hammerhand grabbed my arm as I stumbled. “You drunk?”
“I’m warspawn. We don’t get drunk.”
He laughed. “You ain’t warspawn. You’re just another tert.”
“Yes, well. Where, I mean, when I come from before… Nevermind. Trying to explain angle gates to you would be like explaining mathematics to a cheese rind.”
“Eh?”
“Exactly.”
We continued in stony silence. The knot in my stomach grew tighter the closer we came to the Nest. By the time we reached the door to my old home, I felt like I was going to throw up. I took a moment to catch my breath beneath the skull hanging over the door. It was just how I remembered it. The same cracks in the yellow bone, the same shreds of cloth and straw the mouse had used to make it’s nest. I knew this thing and this place so well and yet not at all. My thoughts flew between the distant past —when the Nest had seemed as unassailable and permanent as the moon— to the not so distant past when I’d come back here to die. In between those two points, I revisited a host of memories of people whose lives had ofttimes ended abruptly because of me. “Why doesn’t anything ever go to plan?”
“Is it because your plans are shit?”
“Aye, like the company I keep.”
Much like kicking a dog, goading Hammerhand wasn’t big or clever, but I needed a distraction, a fight— anything to stop the endless cycle of depressing thoughts that were running through my head. He muttered curses under his breath but did not oblige.
A trail of blood and footsteps in the dust marked the path between the door of the common room and the stairs leading down to Mother’s chamber. It was bitterly cold down here, which I assumed accounted for why I couldn’t smell corpse rot. I opened the door to her chamber. Hammerhand’s torch flared revealing an unexpected scene.
“She’s gone.” Aside of dried blood, the only sign of Mother was a shred of yellow silk had snagged on the open grill before her throne. Nothing moved in the pit, but I could feel the rats’ eyes upon me. I sat back on my haunches. A few raven hairs clung tenaciously to her throne. “They’ve taken her.” It was apt and almost funny. Almost. I stood up, slammed the grill on the dog rats’ den. The resounding toll sounded a death knell and hammered the ghost of lingering sorrow from my heart.
“Are we done?” asked Hammerhand.
“Aye. We’re done.”
5
Upon returning to the inn, Hammerhand went off to report to Cobb. I was disappointed that I hadn’t done right by Mother, but also pleased that I had resisted the urge to murder Cobb’s man and dump his body in the sewers. Exhausted, and with a heavy heart, I made my slow, painful way to my lodgings in the attic whereupon I threw myself onto the cot and fell into a dreamless sleep.
The next morning I was roused by an offensively cheerful Johann. “Come on, Breed! Time to get up. We’re moving out.”
“Wait; what?” Hobnail rain bounced off the roof tiles.
“We’re hitting the road…going on tour.” He took up a dancer’s stance and spread his wings and arms. “The greasepaint, the limelight, the adoration of the crowds. Exciting, isn’t it?”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but no, it isn’t.” Unsurprisingly my gut was still sore, but when I stood up, I felt more clear-headed than I had for a long time. As I was already dressed, I wandered into the kitchen, drawn by the smell of milk porridge that was cooling on the stove. The sewing room was thronged with seamstresses, stagehands, and performers all rushing around in a panic, turning the simple task of packing into a drama.
I followed Johann downstairs, dodging swinging winches as crates were lowered through windows. More than once I was almost legged-up by packs of rambunctious, over-excited kinching coves all charging around shouting and generally getting underfoot.
Hammerhand waved me over. “Your chariot.” He swung open the door of a tin-sided wagon shaped like a giant pumpkin. A copper-capped chimney poked through the wall beside the door. The smell of woodsmoke, incense, and arrachid seeped from the velvet darkness.
“I hope Cobb doesn’t expect me to read fortunes.”
“He expects you to keep your side of the bargain, tert. Oh, sorry. It’s warspawn, isn’t it?” Hammerhand was showing off in front of his friends, attempting to appear smug and superior— a hard ask for someone with a face like a half-shaved bollock.
“I was wondering,” I shot him a toothsome grin. “Can you knock one out with them fat hands of yours? I mean, it must feel like you’re wanking a maggot.” He turned scarlet and balled the aforementi
oned paws into prodigious fists. “Are you sure you want to do that?” I wiggled my fingers. “I will cheat.”
“I’m not scared of you.”
“Do I need to say it? All right, go on then.” I cleared my throat. “You should be.”
He stomped towards me, head down like a bull about to charge. I wasn’t impressed. He stopped about a foot away. “If you ask me, the wrong Blake got turned into rat shit.”
“Is it Ask an Idiot Day already? My, that comes around quickly.”
I could see him running the calculations, deciding if it was worth having a proper go at me. I was backed up with impotent fury and wished he would. I wanted to hurt someone.
He spat in the dirt. “You’re not worth the ear-bashing I’d get from Emma if I broke your scrawny neck, snake.”
“Lizard, please. Get it right.”
He stalked off. I’d won this battle of badinage but took no joy from it because his barb had hit the mark. I too wished that Mother had lived and that I had died. I was alone here amid the bustle. Although I wouldn’t admit it to anyone, I was envious of their small dramas, the petty squabbles, the tears, the laughter, the fond farewells. All of these people were living their lives as they were meant to be lived; good, bad, and indifferent. I was a creature out of time and place, and the only person in this world who understood what that was like, was the one I was fixing to kill.
The wagon was dark, save for a diffuse pool of light that spilled through the coloured glass window in the door. I closed it behind me and stood a while where I was to give my, as yet unseen, traveling companion time to give me the once over. There was a stove, and a pile of blankets neatly folded on a rollout mattress beside a table that was bolted to the floor. The smell of incense overlaid the stink of mothballs and the unmistakable odor of arrachid. Opposite the door, a silken nest had been spun and attached to the curve between wall and roof. Four amber peepers framed by hair as pale as smoke peered from within the pod.