The Burning Isle
Page 20
In the front room, ten men sat at the long table near the door, the table set with earthenware plates and mugs, dishes of salad and bread, fresh fish, dates, sliced oranges, cheese. There were pitchers of wine and water.
Hoka, the large man who had spat on Cassius earlier, sat at the head of the table. There was an empty chair opposite him, and Cassius sat in this chair, the men at the table watching him warily as though he were some creature loosed from a cage.
Hoka forked two fish fillets onto his plate and began to eat, and he was the only man eating, and no one spoke.
“I can leave if you want,” Cassius said after a while.
“No one asked you to do a goddamn thing,” Hoka said.
“I make people here uncomfortable.”
“You’re a murderer,” some man announced.
“I killed Junius in a fair fight. That doesn’t make me a murderer.”
“Doesn’t make you our friend neither,” Hoka said. “If boss says you bunk with us, that’s fine. If boss says no one touches you, that’s fine, too. I’ll make sure you’re safe. But boss never said we had to listen to you. So shut your mouth and let us eat.”
When the meal was finished, the men rose and cleared the plates and left the house, and Cassius was alone.
That night, Cassius listened to the men sleeping around him. His heart was racing from Garza root, his nose running. He heard a series of faint cracks, then an explosion. He walked to the window and looked east, where, halfway across Lowtown, a stream of salmon-colored flares rose and arced and burst in a bright display, then fell sputtering.
He made his way downstairs. Few people loitered in the dark square. He stood gazing over the low rooftops to the east, and when next he saw a column of fire spiral upward, he recognized the spell by sight alone.
He heard the approach of footsteps as a young boy, about ten, sidled up beside him. The boy was shaved bald, probably to save him from lice.
“What’s that?” The boy pointed to the sky.
“Cone of fire.”
There was the sharp cry of a beast. He listened but could not place the sound.
Wisps of green phosphorescent smoke drifted over the distant rooftops, then slowed and began to settle like dust. Moonlight glinted in the haze.
The boy cursed softly.
A gust of wind swept back the smoke, curling it.
Darts of purple light arced skyward through the retreating smoke. They halted in midair and hung motionless, each the size of a broomstick. One at a time, they flared bright and shot downward with the speed of falling arrows.
The boy gasped.
Cassius recalled the way spells had excited him as a child, their bright displays and loud reports, the explosions that shook his bones. It was great fun to watch from a distance, and that far from the action, he never heard the cries of the wounded and dying. He had thought spellcasters dashing and brave then, but he knew the truth of them now. Butchers with better tools than most.
More people had gathered in the plaza now. Men stood staring out doorways, some gape-mouthed and pointing to the eastern sky, others already geared for battle. A few raced off toward the sight of the skirmish.
Cassius was sitting on the stoop of his bunkhouse when Hoka returned the next morning. His face and neck were bloodstained, his tunic streaked with grime. In his hand he held what looked a slice of burned ham but was instead a human scalp. Thin and ragged, coated on one side with sparse, greasy hair.
“Recognize that?” Hoka shook the scalp at Cassius. “Maybe was a friend of yours.”
9
The dining hall was filled with thirty men, most gathered at the long table in the middle of the room. It was early morning, but many were already drinking, some even drunk.
Cassius was not hungry, an aftereffect of the Garza root he had snorted to keep himself awake last night. He could not allow himself to sleep beside these men. Better to rest in a viper’s pit. Snakes, at least, did not pretend to be an ally before they bit.
He sat at an empty corner table, smoking a thin cigar. All around him, men whispered his name. He heard spellcasters debating the worth of his victory over Junius, heard them swear they would never have stumbled into a trap as he had. Cassius ignored them. Talk was worthless. Truth lies in the ring, as the old gladiator maxim held.
“Can I sit?”
Cassius turned to find Servilius at his side. He nodded to the empty section of table across from him, and Servilius dragged a chair to the table and sat. He set down his mug and placed his hands on the tabletop, palms flat. Almost unconsciously, Cassius did the same.
“I came to thank you for what you done for me,” Servilius said.
Cassius shook his head. “No need for that.”
“You saved my life. You have my gratitude. If you’d like me to repay you by leaving you in peace, I wouldn’t be offended.”
“I don’t mind company.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“That depends on the question.”
“Where did you find me?”
“One of Cinna’s warehouses,” Cassius said. “Do you remember any of that?”
“No. Last thing I remember was heading to the baths. I go to a place in Ashkani Row. It’s cheap. I was looking to get a blowjob from this tart I see sometimes, and the next thing I remember was waking up at Piso’s, all the boys standing over me.”
Tart. The word turned Cassius’s stomach. It took an act of will not to sneer. He wondered if Servilius was talking of Tadua, but then quickly put the thought from his mind. On all sides, men plotted his death. He had to remain focused.
“Cinna probably had you waylaid. After that, you were drugged.”
“No recollection of that either,” Servilius said. “Just strange dreams.”
“It wasn’t me that did it.”
Servilius considered this.
“How’d you know where I was?” He adjusted his patch and set his hands back on the table.
“I was one of the guards at the warehouse.”
“Guarding me?”
“Guarding everything in there.”
“Did they do anything to me?”
“What do you mean anything?” Cassius asked.
“I don’t know. Anything.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Well, that’s a small blessing. An untouched asshole, and I’m still breathing.” Servilius patted his chest. “What more could you ask for? And the spells, too. Most people would’ve kept those. Especially another killer.”
“They weren’t mine to keep,” Cassius said.
Servilius surveyed the room. He looked back to Cassius. “You know what everyone’s thinking, don’t you?”
“I’m not sure I do,” Cassius said.
“Maybe Cinna’s men work differently, but around here, we’re brothers. That’s how you know you can trust the man next to you, the man fighting at your back and sleeping in the bunk across from yours. Because he’s your brother. And you know what makes a man your brother, don’t you?”
“Blood.”
“That’s right. Blood. The only way to make a man your kin.”
“I see,” Cassius said.
“Do you? Because when I say it’s the only way, I mean it. A man can claim to be your brother, but that doesn’t mean people see him that way. Not even when someone important tells them they should. Understand?”
Cassius nodded.
“And if people don’t love a man like kin,” Servilius said, “they’re liable to do terrible things to him. You understand me, stranger? You seem a smart man, but I want to make sure you’re hearing what I’m saying.”
Cassius rolled his cigar between his thumb and forefinger. “I do.”
“Good. Now take a sip of my mug. Do it and make sure everyone can see you do it.”
“That’s so everyone knows we’re having a cordial discussion over here.”
“I appreciate that,” Cassius said.
“I’m a person who believes one act of kindness deserves another, stranger. But there aren’t many like me around here.”
• • •
The streets of Lowtown smelled of smoke. Ash floated through the air, remnants of the previous night’s fires. The sky was clear and the sun overhead small and very bright. Cassius squinted against the glare.
He moved through a lane of hovels. Women stood cooking just outside their doors, Khimir women and Antiochi. They called to each other from all directions, their grilles hissing and sputtering. Someone spotted a rat. Another yelled for some flour.
He purchased two salted sausages and received them wrapped in flat bread. The cook was large and old. She smiled as she took his money and told him there were ways for a man to earn a discount when haggling with her. She grinned lewdly. Cassius blushed, and the other women laughed.
At the end of the lane, he turned north, and now he was moving through the site of last night’s spellfight. The ground was powdered with soot so thick, he left footprints as he walked. Two dozen houses were charred and nearly as many had collapsed into rubble. Here and there, the street was stained with dried blood, and he saw limbs protruding from under ruins and even whole bodies stripped naked, lying faceup in the sun.
He came to a section of paved road spiderwebbed with thin cracks. He leapt across the chopped earth and continued up the street, walking through shallow craters.
At the end of the street, he came upon a hound rooting in the wreck of a tenement. The hound was gaunt and had a patch of raw mange on its left hind leg. It stiffened at the sound of his approach, then circled to face him and hung its head as though embarrassed. Its muzzle was filthy with gore and Cassius did not look to see what it had been eating but instead moved more quickly through that place, and although he was sweating, he pulled his cloak tight around him.
• • •
In the Grand Market, he found the blind man asleep at the statue of Isvara. He was sleeping with his eyes open or else was feigning sleep. Cassius took a seat next to him and called to the blind man, and the blind man stirred.
“Did I startle you, grandfather? Were you sleeping?”
The blind man flashed a faraway smile. “You have heard the old saying, have you not? Never tire in your duties. For Sleep is the sister of Death.”
“I have heard this.”
“Then know that I never tire in my duties. Now why have you come, boy?”
“I have food, grandfather,” Cassius said. “Will you eat with me?”
“I do not have money for food.”
“I did not ask you for money.”
“And I did not ask you for food. I am not a beggar.” The blind man sat up straight, fixed his blanket.
“You will share your company, and I will share my food.”
“What is your name?”
“What do you care?”
“When I eat with a man so often, I would like to know his name.”
Cassius leaned close to the blind man and whispered.
“That is a good name,” the blind man said. “A very traditional surname as well. Your father must have come from one of the oldest tribes.”
“It is my mother’s name.”
“That is not how the people name their children. Boys carry their father’s name. That is the way.”
“I do not have my father’s name. I was named for my mother’s father.”
“Are you sure of this?”
“As sure as one can be.”
The blind man was sitting cross-legged, with his blanket on his thighs and his chest exposed. Cassius passed a sausage into his hand. The blind man broke a piece and deposited it in his mouth. He worked the meat with his gums and swallowed.
“What do you wish to discuss?” he asked.
“The Uprising.”
“I was old even during the Uprising. I have no great war stories for you.”
“Tell me what you remember.”
“Fighting in the streets. Every day, you would hear the fights. No one could sleep.”
“Did you have a family then?” Cassius asked.
“They were slaughtered when Quintus sacked the town.”
“I am sorry.”
“It was not your fault.”
“What do you know of him?”
“Of Quintus? I know what everyone knows. He was an accomplished spellcaster in his youth. As was his father before him and his father before him. Rune magic is strong in their people. So is madness.”
“I see,” Cassius said.
“You were hoping I would say something else.”
“I am just glad to hear you talk.”
“Do not lie,” the blind man said. “If you want something from me, only tell me what it is.”
“I was hoping for stories about him. Something to illuminate his character.”
“You want to hear horror stories? There are plenty of those. Ask in any bar, and they will tell you of Quintus’s brutality during the Uprising. You do not need me to recount it.”
“You must know something,” Cassius said.
“I will tell you the only thing you need to know about our general. When his father died, Quintus took control of the legion. His father was a tremendous man, yet Quintus did what his father could not. He broke the Khimir.”
“Are the people broken now?”
“Either they live in the jungle and pay him tribute, worship him as a vengeful god come to walk the earth. Or else they live in his city and pay tribute to those who pay tribute to him. I call that broken. You can call it what you like.”
“He will pay for what he has done.”
“The gods do not punish every man according to his crimes,” the blind man said.
“Maybe it will be a man who holds him accountable.”
“It would take a terrible man to overcome Quintus.”
“Why would he have to be terrible?”
“Because Quintus is terrible. And how could one less than him overcome him?”
“But this man would not need to be terrible to do so.”
“What would he need to be?”
“A hero.”
The blind man wiped his greasy hand on the blanket. “Ah I see,” he said. “I see now.”
“You do not agree?”
“I did not say that.”
“Then tell me how you feel about it,” Cassius said.
“You will be offended.”
“I will not.”
“This is an Antiochi thought,” the blind man said.
“How can you say that?”
“Because it is the truth. The Antiochi respect those who can do what normal men cannot. To hear the stories of their heroes, you would think they talked of gods, so great are their exploits. Tales of men who sack entire cities, men whose wealth is equal to that of small kingdoms. But do you know what a man must sacrifice to become so great? His humanity. The very thing that makes him a mortal man.”
“That is foolish.”
“Do not call me a fool, boy,” the blind man shouted, a fleck of spit arcing from his lips. “I do not insult you, and I expect the same treatment.”
“Forgive me.”
“You think because I am a pauper you can talk to me like I am a beggar. This is the Antiochi in you.”
“Let us not say things we will regret.”
“I know these people. I have known them longer than you have been alive. And this is the truth of them. They think themselves gods. Who but a god, or an Antiochi nobleman, can turn every whim into reality? Who
but a god, or an Antiochi general, can kill whole races with no feeling of remorse?”
“You oversimplify things,” Cassius said.
“I do not. I have seen them at their worst. Have seen the unimaginable.”
“I believe you.”
“Do you, boy? You would think me a madman if I told you the truth of what I have seen.”
“I would not.”
“I have seen their Death,” the blind man said. “You know him, this Death? His skin is pale, white as bone, his mouth black as a pit.”
“He is an ancient figure. The Antiochi paint him on murals and vases. They raise temples to him. They make offerings so he will spare their loved ones.”
“I am not talking of paintings and temples. I have seen him in the flesh. As a younger man, when I still had my sight. I was out hunting boar, and he passed through the jungle of a night. You will think me a liar, but it is the truth.”
“I do not think you a liar.”
“His eyes were black as a starless sky. His gaze was fixed ahead as he walked, and I was grateful for that. If he had turned to stare at me, I would not be sitting here with you. Of that I am certain. He takes all that he sees.”
“That is what they say.”
“He is like all Antiochi in that way,” the blind man said.
“I suppose.”
“You think me a foolish old man.”
“Of course not.”
“You do. Why else come today to talk of the Uprising. About Quintus and the horrors he has wrought. To justify the terrible things you dream of doing to him? To kill your guilt for having those feelings? I would not do it even if I could. I would rather you stay a man forever. I would see you saved even from yourself.”
• • •
He watched the Market for most of the afternoon. He sat by the dried fountain and drank lemon water from an oversized pitcher, the water floating with thin slices of strawberry. He dozed in fits and dreamed himself in faraway places. Sometimes when he woke, his eyes stayed unfocused for whole minutes, and he thought he heard whispers spoken in a familiar voice.