by Scott Lynch
“No. I killed him for you.” With that, she quickly moved back to her fire, leaving the water skin slumped beside him.
Verity lifted it up to drink again while Rabbit took up a bag the size and shape of a whiskey bottle. He longed for a pull of alcohol. But instead of a bottle, she took out a skull.
It’s gaping black eye sockets looked right at Verity.
The water froze in his stomach.
Rabbit reverently set the skull down, facing the fire. Against the curve of bone were painted characters Verity could only just read: brother and wolf and life and sorrow.
She unfolded a leather envelope and pulled out a thin sheet of yellow paper. Her fingers moved quickly as she folded the paper into a delicate flower. Verity’s heart pounded hard, filling his head with a roar, as Rabbit lifted up the paper flower to her mouth. She breathed onto it, and then gently tucked it into the fire.
He passed out before he could ask for liquor.
The dawn painted pink shadows across their small camp, and Rabbit woke to the cry of a vulture. Overhead, a trio of them circled, heads cast down over the side of the precipice where she’d dragged and thrown the four dead men.
She was alone but for the man Verity, whose snores were the harsh, wet sounds of death. Even her horse had gone: before sunset last night she’d removed the saddle and ropes, knowing this, here, was where her quest ended. Only a single slip of paper remained.
A hollow in her stomach reminded her she should have been afraid in so isolated a place: but nothing had frightened her since her brother’s death. Where there had been fear, now there was nothing.
Kneeling beside Verity, she took a deep breath. The bandage wrapping his middle was soaked through again. This morning he still smelled like blood, but there hidden under it was the sweetness she’d waited all night for. The fragrance of death.
Satisfied, Rabbit made the last of her grandmother’s tea. She sat again to wait, with her legs crossed and the tea cupped in her palms. The steam cleared her head, bringing with it the memory of kneeling across the hearth from grandmother for her brother’s death tea ceremony, when grandmother had reached a gnarled hand to Rabbit. You’ll have twenty-nine nights to send your message, little rabbit. The number of nights her brother’s spirit would wait to gather the prayers and riches his family would send before moving into his next life. The number of paper lotuses she had to burn in her fire.
If she’d had any fear, Rabbit would have been afraid yesterday that she’d never succeed. After twenty-eight days wandering, eyes and heart hunting, with her brother’s skull tucked against her thigh.
Rabbit leaned over Verity to skim her dirty fingers against the tattoo curling up his wrist.
She’d found the messenger she needed.
The girl’s face leaned too near when Verity dragged open his eyes. He felt as though his flesh was melting slowly off his bones and into the desert rock. Evening sunlight burned his lips, and he finally asked for the gods’ own nectar.
But she only had water. After helping him angle up against the discarded saddle, she gave him a sip. He worked his throat and heavy tongue, then said, “Why are you still here?”
“I need you to carry a message for me.”
Verity laughed. It choked up from his stomach, wracking him with pain. Sweat streaked down his temples and he gasped as the mesa spun beneath him.
The girl put her cool hand to his forehead, smoothing hair back. She picked up his hat and fanned his face with it. But nothing helped. The fire in his side reached out spider-legs and clutched around him, forcing his breath to be shallow. “I’m no good… for… that anymore,” he managed.
“You’re perfect,” she murmured, pressing close to him. She smelled like fire and smoke, and he glanced at the gentle smile on her lips. Her eyes were dark. Peaceful. Verity thought, Maiden’s blessings, again, and wondered if he was more dead than he felt. And why it still hurt so much.
“Where… would you have me… go?” he said, more out of habit than anything else.
“Farther than ever before, Verity,” she breathed.
He curled his fingers into a loose fist, making his tattoos fly. “You found me… too late.”
“Just in time!” Putting both hands on his face, she leaned near enough so he could only see her face, filling his vision. “My brother died without me, Verity. We were supposed to die as we did all things: together. He’s waiting, I know. Waiting for one more night, and he cannot go without me.”
“You want… me to find him and ask… ask your brother to wait for you?” Verity wanted to laugh again, but she was serious. She was mad. “It doesn’t work… like that.” He could only whisper.
“I know where he’ll be. At the gates between the Horse and Ox, waiting for his sister and his sword.” The girl bent away to grasp the hilt of that curved sword, scraping the tip against the red dirt.
Verity didn’t know much, but he did know the Ecclesiarchy wouldn’t approve of this girl’s plan to circumvent the order of the heavens. He grimaced, but Rabbit put her lips to his ear and whispered, “Die as you have lived, wanderer.”
Rabbit took her time folding the last slip of her grandmother’s paper. Each edge she flattened until it was crisp, each point she ran against her nails until they were sharp. When finished, the lotus perched in the enter of her palm as delicately as a hummingbird.
She knew Verity watched her, knew he struggled to breath. Blood flecked the corner of his mouth, and he wiped it on the back of his hand. Red streaked across his tattoos, caught and turned to fire in the setting sunlight. Rabbit stood with the lotus and her brother’s sword. Its song tingled against the pads of her fingers, slipping through her palm and up around her wrist like a gauntlet. She remembered her brother at her back, their energy wrapping around and around them. His sword striking like a serpent, her sword flying to protect.
As the first stars unveiled themselves behind her, Rabbit removed her brother’s coat. She unbuttoned her shirt, and she straddled Verity’s lap. She held up the paper lotus. “Will you take my message to heaven, Verity of Restless City?”
He put one hand on her face, leaving a smear of blood behind. “You’re mad. But… that’s… never stopped me… before.”
“Open your mouth,” she said with a smile. When he obeyed, Rabbit placed the lotus onto his tongue.
She kissed him then. His lips were soft, but she tasted sour old breath and sweat, all the red dirt of the desert, and sharp, copper blood. It was like kissing death itself.
And Rabbit was not afraid.
Verity coughed, shaking as pain wracked at him. As he calmed himself, Rabbit put the flared tip of her brother’s sword against her belly. She took Verity’s hand and held it against the warm leather grip. “We’ll angle it up to my heart,” she whispered, leaning in against the point. It slipped into her skin and she gasped.
“Rabbit,” Verity said, shock giving him energy. He tried to tug the sword away, but her small hand was strong, and he was dying. Her smile was beatific as she rolled her narrow dark eyes up to the stars.
“Take my message with you,” she whispered again, and pushed forward against him with a cry of pain and delight. She hugged him and her blood poured onto his lap, overwhelming the sticky smell of his own death. Her arms circled his neck and she whispered again, “Verity, take me to my brother.”
One thing Verity Longleg of Restless City never expected was to meet his death with a strange, lifeless girl pressed against him.
For starting, he’d never imagined dying without a good handle of liquor. Sometimes it was a fine, filtered whiskey, sometimes beer. Usually in his dreams, a milky rice wine.
At least the stars were gorgeous and flickering up there, lighting all the paths one could wander. At least Casen was dead, too. At least he wasn’t in a bed someplace. This, here, the flat mesas, the red dirt, the firelight and diamond-tossed sky; this was –
This was –
Wind came up through the precipice, sounding like a song
. Like a great low lament.
The last thing he did before he died was swallow the flower grown wet and heavy on his tongue.
_________________________________________________
Tessa Gratton wanted to be a dinosaur wrangler or a wizard when she was a kid. These days, she writes about magic and monsters instead. The author of BLOOD MAGIC and THE BLOOD KEEPER from Random House Children’s Books, and the forthcoming series “Songs of New Asgard,” Tessa is also strangely addicted to posting free short stories online. Visit her at http://tessagratton.com
IN THE NAME OF THE EMPIRE
by Eddy Webb
Detective Salia Madweather looked at the man sitting in the cell and shook her head. “I have to admit, it isn’t often that I’m asked to clear the sheriff of a murder charge.”
The sheriff’s office was cramped, only big enough to hold a few cells and a couple of scarred desks with mismatched chairs. The whole place stank of old sweat and booze. In one of the cells sat Sheriff Alaric Norna, a tall man with the kind of thick muscle that comes from hard work instead of vanity. His long black hair fell into his eyes as he stared at the ground in front of him. His deputy, Charda Freeder, was much thinner, his hands fidgeting over the straps of his gun belt as he stared at Salia with wide eyes.
She waited for a moment. When she didn’t get a comment from either of the lawmen, she opened a heavy leather bag with the Twin Eagle emblem on the side and pulled out a chunky pair of goggles with a large light affixed to the top, like a miner’s helmet. “Well, if I’m going to take your case, I’ll need to start collecting evidence,” she said as she settled the goggles over her eyes.
“What’s that?” Freeder said, his hands still dancing. Salia sincerely hoped he didn’t end up shooting himself before the interview was over. “Some kind of fancy device from back East to detect lies or somethin’?”
Salia turned to face the deputy, her eyes hidden by the dark lenses. “Don’t be daft. There isn’t some kind of magical device that allows you to tell if someone’s lying just by looking at them.”
“Oh,” he said. Salia could tell that he was somehow disappointed.
She turned back to the sheriff. “It’s a device to take photographs of people just by looking at them. Smile, Sheriff.”
The man in the cell didn’t move as the flash powder fell to the floor with a brief whiff of sweetness, like burning sugar.
“So how’d you get put in jail?” she asked as she took the goggles back off.
For the first time, Norna looked up at her. “The Magistrate was murdered. His agent claims I did it.” He went back to looking at the floor.
Salia turned to the deputy and stuck her thumb at the sheriff. “He’s a real talker, isn’t he?”
Freeder finally stopped fidgeting. “Beggin’ your pardon, ma’am, but he ain’t exactly hired for his speakin’ skills.”
“True enough. However, I would appreciate an explanation for how an agent to the Magistrate has the authority to put the sheriff of a town outside the Periphery in prison as a murder suspect.”
“Oh, Agent Jarl didn’t put him in that cell, ma’am. The sheriff did that himself.”
She stared at Freeder for a moment. “Now why would he do something like that?”
Norna spoke up. “Honor,” he said.
“That’s not an answer. What in the Many Hells does honor have to do with it?”
Freeder stepped between her and the cell, his voice low. “Sheriff Norno feels that he is all of the justice left here in Pardifall. If the Magistrate’s dead and he’s accused of murder, it ain’t right for him to ignore that charge and go walkin’ around. It looks bad on the town, you see.”
Salia sighed and opened her bag again, this time pulling out a small notebook and a pencil that had seen better days. “Perhaps you gentlemen had best start at the beginning.”
The deputy looked to Norna, who simply nodded. Freeder then cleared his throat and looked back at the detective. “It happened last night, ma’am....”
“‘Detective,’ please. Or ‘Salia,’ if you don’t feel the need to follow the customs.”
“What? Oh, right. Sorry, Detective. Anyhow, last night Sheriff Norna went to the Imperial Magistrate’s office. Seems Magistrate Taliwar had something important to tell the sheriff. But when he got in, he found the Magistrate dead at his desk.”
“Dead how, exactly? Be precise, please.”
“Shot in the head,” Norna said.
She glanced at the sheriff. “That would do it. You gave up your guns, of course.”
Norna nodded. Freeder reached over to his desk, picking up the two gun belts lying on top of a well-maintained sword and scabbard. “All the bullets present and accounted for, ma’a… Detective.”
She pulled a pair of thin silk gloves out of her pocket and slid them onto her hands. She then carefully took the belts and put them into her bag before returning to her notebook. “If you obviously didn’t fire the bullet, why do you need to be here?”
Freeder started pacing back and forth, answering for the sheriff. “Once Alaric found the body and called for folks to come get me, the Magistrate’s agent came in and started yellin’ and screamin’.”
“And this is Agent Jarl?”
“Yes, Detective. Sorsen Jarl. He works for the Magistrate, doin’ leg work, research, askin’ questions, and what have you.” He stopped pacing, and went back to fidgeting. “Anyhow, Jarl came in and said that the Magistrate told him that if anythin’ were to happen to him, Jarl was to make sure that no one covered up the deed. Jarl said the sheriff was the only one that evenin’ with an appointment with the Magistrate, so he must of shot the man himself. Sheriff Norna said he didn’t do nothin’ of the kind, but Jarl called for a Marshal to investigate regardless.”
Salia tapped her notebook with the pencil, thinking. “And so in order that the Empire didn’t end up holding the whole town responsible for the Magistrate’s death, the Sheriff here agrees to put himself in custody for the immediate future.”
“That’s right.”
“And you called Twin Eagle Security to clear the good sheriff’s name before the Marshal gets here.”
“Exactly.”
“Any idea how long that will be, Deputy Freeder?”
“Tomorrow. Maybe the day after.”
“Maiden’s Tits.” Salia snapped the notebook shut. “Well, that doesn’t give me much time, then, does it? The rate’s thirty dollars a day, plus expenses. Where’s the corpse?”
“Doc has him. I’ll take you there.” Freeder walked over to the door and started to open it for her, but caught her gaze. He seemed to change his mind, and walked ahead of her through the door.
The main street of Pardifall was just hard-packed dirt littered with horse droppings and wheel tracks. The buildings on either side were low and sturdy, but only the occasional sign or splash of paint made it possible to distinguish between them. As Salia walked out of the door, a light wind kicked up a cloud of dust, and it took a moment before she saw the crowd of men standing menacingly around the Sheriff’s office.
“There she is!” A strong voice bellowed from the back of the crowd, coming from a tall, stout man. Salia glanced over the quality of his hat, the fashionable cut of his jacket, and the crisp look of his tie. A rich man, she thought.
Freeder put his hands up towards the crowd. “That’s enough of that, Tobas. This lady’s just here to help.”
“That’s a damned lie! She’s here to help the Empire take our town away from us!” The crowd murmured, sympathetic to the man’s arguments.
Salia put her hat on her head, and spoke to Freeder as she casually changed her stance to a defensive one. “Who’s this Tobas?”
Freeder kept his eyes on the crowd, talking out of the side of his mouth to Salia. “Tobas Laers.”
“Laers? As in Osten Laers, the grocer baron?”
“Tobas ain’t no grocer, Detective. But he’s influential in this town, that’s for…”
A bottle
exploded as it hit the wall behind Salia’s head. Freeder suddenly had his pistol in his hand and waved it at the crowd. “The man who threw that better step up, or there’ll be trouble.”
Another bottle flew. Salia heard a sickening crack, and Freeder slumped to the ground. She took a step towards him, but by then three men from the crowd were walking up to her, menacingly.
“Three against one. Not quite fair odds, gentlemen. Maybe I should tie one hand behind my back to make you feel better.”
A thick-necked, bald man chuckled and swung a heavy fist at her head. Salia ducked the blow and kicked out at his knee. She felt a satisfying crunch and he went down screaming. She turned to the second man, who had a thick moustache and a pistol in his hand. A civilian model, of a small caliber, she noticed. Salia kicked high in the air before pushing off the ground to launch herself at Moustache. She knocked him to the ground as the heel of her boot smashed into his shoulder hard enough to snap his collarbone. Moustache whimpered as she rolled to her feet behind him.
As she was standing up, a third man with a long scar on his face lunged at her. She just caught the gleam of his heavy knife in the corner of her eye as he stabbed at her back. She leaned back and grabbed the knife-wielder’s arm, twisting his wrist. He swore and dropped the weapon, just as the bald man with the big fists swung them down on her head. She just managed to pull back further, dragging Scar with her, but the heavy fists landed on her arms, forcing her to break the hold on Scar. She whipped around and slammed her open palm into Baldy’s face, shattering his nose and dropping him to the ground.
Scar used the distraction to scramble forward and scoop up his blade. Once Baldy fell, he lunged forward and knocked Salia to the ground, putting the knife to her throat. She barely had time to put her arms up, holding the blade to where the edge barely touched her skin. Scar leaned hard on her, and she felt the muscles in her arm strain against his weight.