by Will Panzo
“Stop that,” Cassius said.
“Please,” the shopkeeper said. “Please. Anything. Just don’t kill me.”
“I won’t hurt you.”
“Anything,” the shopkeeper said. “I’ll give you anything.”
“Shut up.”
The shopkeeper gasped.
The sight of the man disturbed Cassius. He did not like to see a man suffer, certainly not a man so defenseless. And the man was right to attack. Cassius had broken into his store after all. But Cassius had a mission, and sympathy was a luxury he could not afford.
“I don’t want to kill you,” Cassius said. “I’m only here to get the money you owe Cinna.”
“I pay to Piso already,” the shopkeeper screamed, spit flying from his mouth. “I shouldn’t have to pay both.”
“I was sent here to collect for Cinna.” Cassius spoke firmly, in the voice you would use to heel a well-trained dog. “I can’t leave until I have that money.”
“I don’t have any money.”
Cassius walked to the door and opened it and peered outside. The Grand Market was humming with commerce. On the far side of the square, a troupe of performers held the attention of a small crowd. There were two jugglers and a sword swallower. A fire breather and a tumbler. There was a man walking on a pair of stilts, and as he moved, children threw stones at him.
Cassius closed the door and walked back to the shopkeeper. He searched the pockets of the man’s tunic and found his coin purse. Inside were two silver coins and four coppers. One of the silvers was an obvious fake, and all four coppers were shaved.
“How much do you owe Cinna?” Cassius asked.
“I don’t owe Cinna anything.”
Cassius slapped the man. He did not feel the blow for the gauntlet he wore.
“How much?” he asked again.
“Damn it,” the shopkeeper shouted. “Four silver. Four silver a month.”
“And how many months do you owe for?”
“Six.”
Cassius exhaled sharply, as though struck a blow. He sat on the floor and stared off into the distance.
“Where am I going to get twenty-four silver pieces?” he asked, speaking to himself more than the shopkeeper.
This was no test, he decided. Cinna had set him an impossible task and would level a heavy fine when he failed to deliver. He’d be Cinna’s man for sure after today, not by his own choosing but because he was indebted to him. And if he displeased his new master, it was no great scandal to kill a man who owed you money.
It was a harsh lesson, the only kind Cassius seemed to heed. Cinna might look the part of a clown, but the man was no fool.
“I don’t know,” the shopkeeper said. “Please.”
“What’s in the chests?” Cassius asked.
“Nothing.”
The man’s key ring had only two keys on it. Cassius tried them in each of the locks without success. He thought about asking the shopkeeper for the true key, but the man was not likely to give it willingly, and Cassius did not want to hurt him.
He gripped the first of the locks in his palm and drew in his mind the rune for the Cold Touch spell. Frost spread over the lock, and a wisp of mist rose from the chilled metal. Cassius tugged, and the lock shattered in his hand.
The first two chests were empty. The third chest contained an oilskin pouch filled with a half pound of powdered opium.
“That’s not mine,” the shopkeeper said. “I’m just holding it.”
“That’s why the keys didn’t work,” Cassius said. “So who does this belong to?”
“Piso. If you take it, he’s going to kill me.”
“Give me twenty-four silver pieces, and I’ll leave it. Seems a simple trade to me. Your life for some silver. Either you find a way to get me my money, or I take this pouch, and Piso slits—”
“I don’t have any money.” The shopkeeper started forward, straining against his ties. His face was red, the veins in his neck fat and blue beneath his mottled skin. “You’re killing me.” He hung his head. “Do it with a spell at least. Make it quick. Piso’s men will do much worse.”
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” Cassius said. “I know you don’t have my money. I believe what you say. So tell me who does.”
“What?”
“You’re a man who knows things, right? The way I figure, a man who runs a shop like this has to have information.”
“I know some things,” the shopkeeper said.
“I don’t want this pouch. It’s going to take me weeks to sell what’s inside, and I don’t have that kind of time. But if you told me where I could find some money, I’d leave this pouch and move along.”
The man sighed.
“Maybe you know another place like this,” Cassius said. “Or a safe house. A high-stakes dice game. Any place of Piso’s that will have money lying around.”
“Piso’s?” the shopkeeper asked.
“Piso’s.”
The man leaned his head back. “I know a place,” he said, speaking to the ceiling.
• • •
The statue was twelve feet tall and carved from marble. It was a statue of a nude Native woman with blank eyes that, to Cassius, seemed to survey all corners of the Market. Behind it loomed the council hall.
Small offering bowls were set before the statue, filled with bread or fruit, fresh-picked flowers, scraps of silk, incense, candles.
An old Native man sat with his back pressed against the granite block that served as the statue’s base. He was blind, his dark eyes rheumy and unfocused. As Cassius approached, the old man stirred.
“Come for make offering?” He was wrapped in a gray blanket. His arms thin and wiry, roped with fat veins. His skin was warm and earthy, a shade darker than corn.
“How did you hear me?” Cassius asked.
“She take not offerings,” the blind man said, speaking Antiochi. “You people give bread, and she eat not. She want it not. You leave, and the bird, he eat.”
“Is that right?”
“You call, and she answer not,” the blind man continued.
“What good is she then?” Cassius asked.
“For you? She not good.”
“Surely, she watches us, one and all, grandfather.” Cassius was whispering now. “And although she remains unmoving, she witnesses every act, even the most futile.”
“That is an unkind trick to play. To force me to use the tongue of the Outsiders when it was not necessary.”
“Forgive me, it was habit.” Cassius sat beside the old man. The Market was overflowing with traffic, but if anyone near the statue took notice of him, they showed no sign of it. He pulled his cloak tight about his shoulders and lifted his hood.
“You speak their tongue well,” the blind man said.
“I have studied.”
“They taught you when you were a child,” the blind man said. “That is the only way. One cannot study a tongue enough to speak and fool a blind man the way you did. I thought you were one of them.”
“I learned when I was young.”
The blind man nodded. “That is their way. They teach a child their language, and as the child grows, their language is the language of its thoughts. That is how they take a child without taking it.”
“And what of me?”
“What of you?”
“One who speaks both languages?” Cassius said.
“In which language do you think?”
“Both.”
“No.” The blind man shook his finger, the way one might signal displeasure to a small child or to a house pet. “How is it possible to think in two languages?”
“I do not know how it is possible. But I know that I do.”
“Which did you learn first?”
Cassius considered this. He rea
ched back into his memory for something he could not quite recall, a half-formed image, the sound of a voice, a feeling of warmth and safety. He tried to revive these things, to breathe them to life as one would breathe a spark into a hearth fire. But they vanished and he was left with only a memory of the memory, a false copy.
“I cannot recall,” he said.
“Strange.” The blind man scratched at his scalp. He was bald on the top of his head, and on the sides, he had long, thin, hair that hung over sagging ears. His hair was white, except at the tips, where it was the yellow of old candle wax. “There must be conflict in your life.”
“There is.”
“It comes from this,” the blind man said. “From thinking in two languages. You war with yourself.”
Cassius heard the beat of heavy boots on concrete as two legionnaires passed. They eyed him, then the blind man.
“Your mind never rests.” The blind man either did not hear the soldiers or did not fear their presence. He continued speaking as though he and Cassius were alone together for a warm chat. “Am I right? I sense this in you. Sometimes, you cannot sleep for all the thoughts.”
“Yes,” Cassius said.
“Two languages. That is the trouble. Do you believe me?”
“I suppose you are right,” Cassius said. “Although not in the way you think.”
“You see? Conflict. Every sentence a contradiction.” The blind man adjusted his blanket. “I would not want to live inside your head.”
“Maybe not. Although to live under a statue is difficult as well.”
“I do not find it difficult,” the blind man said. “Mostly I am left alone. Except when the Outsiders come to make offerings.”
“Do they come often?”
“More than you would think.” The blind man swatted at a mosquito. “Is that why you are here? To make an offering.”
“No, I was drawn by her.” Cassius looked up at the marble figure. “She reminds me of something. I cannot place it, though.”
Since leaving the bookstore, Cassius had wandered the Market for hours. Thinking, anticipating, trying to build a framework for battle in his head as the Masters had taught him hundreds of times. While walking, he had caught sight of this statue again and found himself overcome by a singular urge to sit in the shadow of the goddess. It made him feel safe, like the compartment under the floor in Lucian’s bar, although he was not sure why.
“Well, sometimes the Outsiders will leave gifts. They have many gods, as do the Khimir. And yet they take more. They take gods, they take land, they take children, they take magic. But this is futile when the offerings are made to Isvara, the watcher. She will accept offers from no one. She will favor none. She will only stand and watch, as she has done for all time.”
“And yet the Outsiders fear her?” Cassius asked.
“Some. And maybe that is how you make good people of them. Let them think they are being judged. Then they are decent. Not because it is good in itself. But because they are afraid of what will come.”
“I see,” Cassius said.
“Do you agree?”
“I do not know.”
“Because you think like them,” the blind man said.
“Maybe.”
“I say it not to insult you but to make you aware,” the blind man said. “You use their language, and you think like them. Even your voice betrays you. You speak with an accent.”
“I do not.”
“You do. You do not hear it because your ears have grown accustomed to their words. But to one such as me, who remembers a time before their words, the accent is clear. You have been amongst them for too long.”
“I was away for some time,” Cassius said.
“For how long?”
“Long enough, I hope.”
• • •
The house was gray and rotted and stood leaning to one side, its foundation sunk into the Lowtown mud. Greasy roaches crawled in the wood of the outside walls. Cassius knocked at the door, the sound muffled by the damp wood. He was alone on the dark street, but he felt as though he was being watched.
“Who is it?” a voice called from behind the door.
“Marcus Tullus sent me,” Cassius said.
The door was silent for a second, then, “Who are you?”
“I’m here to drop off a package.”
Cassius scratched at his scalp. It was a deliberate gesture, but he did not want it to appear deliberate, only to show that his hand was empty if someone was looking.
“What did he tell you?” the voice behind the door asked.
“He told me to tell you that it is warm under the wing of a dragon.”
The door eased open. The man inside was tall and wiry. He had a long, thin face and a scar that twisted from his lip to a half inch below his eye. The knife in his belt was long-handled, with a curved blade nearly a foot long, the kind preferred by knife fighters.
“Who are you?” the scarred man asked.
“A friend of Marcus’s,” Cassius said. “My name is Jacomo.”
“Let me see the package.”
Cassius reached for a fold in his cloak but checked himself. He held his hands up, palms outward.
“May I?” he asked.
The scarred man nodded.
Cassius withdrew a pouch.
“Give it here.” The man reached for the pouch. Cassius pulled away.
“Marcus told me not to give it to you,” Cassius said. “I have a key to a safe inside. He told me to place the package in the safe.”
The scarred man nodded. He stepped aside, and Cassius entered the house.
“Safe’s upstairs,” the scarred man said.
Cassius motioned for the man to precede him.
They climbed the stairs to the second floor, where three men sat rolling dice, with stacks of coins and banknotes at hand.
Two of the men wore daggers tucked into their belts. Cassius could see the long handles of their knives above the lip of the table. The third man sat close to the table, and Cassius could not see his waist nor what he might have tucked there.
“Over there.” The scarred man pointed to the corner of the room, where sat a large chest similar to the ones at the safe house. It had an iron lock and was chained to a bolt in the floor.
The scarred man moved to the empty seat at the table. He called for the men to hold the next roll, then pitched a handful of coins into the middle.
“Five or better,” one of the gamblers called.
“Hundred I do?” said the man holding the dice.
“Aces,” the scarred man shouted. “Aces.”
Cassius walked to the safe and kneeled, his back to the table. He set the pouch on the floor and grabbed the lock. He slipped his free hand under the edge of his cloak and into his gauntlet.
Dice clattered on the table.
He began to draw the rune in his mind’s eye. A dozen lines, curved like worms and spiraling out from a central circle. The spell was a picture in his mind now, but when he finished, it would be a geyser of unquenchable flame.
He had cast it a hundred times before today. Two hundred times probably. But now he halted.
Four men would be on the other end of the fire. Four defenseless men.
He began to slide his hand from his gauntlet. It trembled.
He balled his hand into a fist.
Four bad men, he told himself. These were no honest citizens. They were thieves, extortionists. Murderers, probably. They would slit his throat for a handful of coppers and not lose a night’s sleep over it.
He breathed heavily. He closed his eyes.
“Hey, boy,” one of the men called. “What are you doing over there?”
“I’m about my business,” Cassius replied. “You should be, too.”
He heard a chair scrape floo
rboards. He glanced over his shoulder and saw one of the knife fighters rise from the table. He was a Widsith, a wild man of the Black Forest beyond the borders of the Republic. A large man, with a wide, angry face and shoulders broad as a bull’s. He had braided brown hair that hung to his waist, threaded with beads and rings of bronze, and had also a thick beard, a face decorated with tattoos of black ink that stood in striking contrast to his pale skin.
“This house is my business, boy,” the Widsith said. “Master Piso pays me to keep nosy urchins like you out.”
“I’m here to deliver a package.”
“Is that what you’re doing? ’Cause it looked to me like you were playing with yourself under your cloak.”
The other men at the table laughed.
“Just leave your package,” the scarred man said. “And then get out before we lose our patience.”
“I have instructions. I’m not to leave this package with anyone.”
“We weren’t asking.” The Widsith drew his massive knife, its long handle carved in the shape of a wolf’s head.
“Nice piece of steel,” Cassius said. Under his cloak, he lowered his hands to his gauntlets. “Wonder if you’ve ever used it? Or if it’s just a nice conversation piece.”
“I’ve got twenty-three notches on its sheath.”
“Didn’t think a Widsith could count that high.”
The man loosed a roar. Cassius could not tell if he flipped the table and leapt over it or if he had charged forward, knocking it over in his mad rush. Either way, his intentions were clear.
The Widsith’s footfalls shook the rickety house. Cassius watched his approach, standing with calm poise. The Widsith dropped the blade low for an underhand stab that would drive steel through Cassius’s bowels.
Cassius’s cloak fluttered. A sudden blast of heat shook the air.
He heard a scream, and he closed his eyes.
• • •
Afterward, Cassius sat with his back to the wall, bleeding. His hands were shaking. He tried to still them by force of will, but he could not. A smell like overcooked bacon filled the room, a smell so strong he could taste it. The air was smoky and burned his lungs.
He removed one of his gauntlets and probed the wound in his belly with the tip of his finger, his flesh like the flesh of an orange, slick and wet. The wound was not deep although it had bled enough to soak his tunic and his cloak. His groin was wet with blood, and blood ran along his inner thighs and pooled on the floor.