by Daryl Banner
“What is it?” Wick hisses back.
“Guardian.” She comes up to them, her eyes wet with fear. “Victra spotted them. Rone’s clearing out the loft. Tide’s being taken care of. We need to get Athan as far away from here as—”
“Through the cellar passage,” says Athan quickly, turning to Wick. “The one Gandra led us through. No one knows about it.”
He blinks. “But where do we go after that?”
It’s Cintha who responds. “Go home. They don’t know your involvement, Wick, they’ll never search for him there.” She tosses a musty hooded robe at Athan. “Hide your face. Go.”
“Cintha—”
“Go.” She pushes out of the kitchen as the pouring of boots against tile are heard. They’re already inside.
Quickly, Athan whips on the robe, draws the hood and grabs Wick with an anxious, sweaty hand, pulling him toward the cellar stairs. They descend so clumsily and fast, Wick almost loses his footing twice, but Athan keeps him right.
As they pass the cold metal door, Wick says, “But what about Kendil? He’s still in there!”
“We don’t have time. They have a plan. Cintha, you heard her, right? They haven’t forgotten.” Athan moves to the wall where the passage was, but doesn’t find any sort of latch with which to open the way. “Where is it? Wick, where is it?”
Wick joins the desperate search for a lever, a switch, a handle, anything, but all that meets their fingers are bricks and metal pipes and cobwebs. They’d only ever opened it from the other side.
Footsteps are heard. Athan doesn’t think; he abandons the task, shoves Wick behind the wine rack by the door, and squeezes himself beside him, hiding. The wine rack is cluttered enough to mask them almost entirely. Holding breath, a pair of feet come down the stairs.
The Guardian, brown-haired and slender, gazes around for a moment, squinting. Then he says, “Nothing here.”
A second, lanky Guardian with short curly hair and a burning red button for a nose comes down the steps. “What about in there?” he asks, pointing with a knife.
“Where?”
“There, dummy.”
The slender one investigates the ugly door, his boots shuffling along the ground. “Locked … but feels cold. Freezer, maybe.”
“Y’know what? I think your brother and Ennebal are the ones having all the fun right now.” He chortles. “I said it from the start. The rebels are in the warehouse. There’s ample room there, it’s got underground storage … perfect place to design mega plans, man.”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Think about it. You need space to organize something big, like taking down that Garden. These folk just got spice racks. C’mon.” He laughs, slaps the back of the other Guardian. “You’ve contributed a lot of good ideas, but this place wasn’t one.”
“Yeah.” The slender one is examining the door, gives the handle a tug or two. “Still …”
“It’s a freezer, Lesser. There’s nothing here.”
Lesser…? The slender one, Lesser, persists in making a few shoves at the door until, finally, it opens. Athan watches anxiously between two wine bottles as the Guardian pokes his head inside.
“Anything?” asks the curly-haired one.
He takes a moment to answer. Too long. Athan’s heart’s run up into his eyes. Then the Guardian says: “A cage. Meat locker, looks like … but no meat. Definitely not a freezer, though it’s cold as hell.” He steps out with a shiver, lets the heavy door shut. “Nothing hiding in there, that’s for sure.”
Wick and Athan make a look at each other, likely sharing the thought. Someone took care of Kendil already. How?
Another voice—a Guardian from up the stairs—calls down to them. “Quick, guys. Come. We got something.”
The two Guardian head out, but not before the slender one takes a long, curious look at the wine rack. Finally, deciding he sees nothing, he goes. Athan doesn’t so much as flinch until the Guardian have left and the door at the top of the stairs slams shut.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.” Wick slips out from behind the rack, leans against a wall, inhaling, exhaling, and muttering breathy, unintelligible words. Athan tries to console him when Wick shakes his head. “No, no, you don’t understand. That … That was my brother. My older brother, H-Halvesand.”
His thoughts are confirmed. “Lesser, yes! … I didn’t know you had a brother in Guardian. Wow, Wick, that’s—”
“No one knows.” Wick makes a grab at his own neck, as though he’s choking. “No one can know. It’s problematic, that’s what it is. And it’s two brothers I got in Guardian … two of them.” Wick moves back to the wall, desperately feeling it for the lever.
Athan stares after Wick for a while, stunned. He runs with an underground rebel organization, with two brothers in Guardian? No wonder he’s so stressed. Athan’s about to give Wick another hug from behind when suddenly he’s found the hidden switch—a strange sort of knob at foot-level—and the wall swings open. Without a regard, Wick leaps into the dark and Athan follows, pulling closed the wall behind them.
It was one thing making their way through the black passages with a guide; it’s entirely another making it alone. Wick keeps insisting he remembers how his professor had led them, but after a while, they seem lost in the endless web of passages. Figuring it best to make distance no matter, they just keep walking.
“I miss him,” says Wick finally.
Athan puts an arm over Wick as they walk. “Strange to say, I miss my brother too. He gets a lot of praise from Cloud Keep. I’ve always looked up to him.” Athan gives a smile, remembering when his brother Radley threw him a party for his thirteenth birthday. It was, arguably, the only house party he’d ever actually enjoyed, despite not having any friends to invite to it. Radley and Janna were enough. Even his parents seemed more relaxed than usual, or at least that’s how he remembers it. “Radley might be a Marshal someday.” Sharing this with Wick makes him beam proudly, despite also bringing up thoughts of his cold sister Janna, or his stern mother who doesn’t like hugging, who doesn’t like wrinkles in dresses or tablecloths … or disturbed bodies of water.
He thinks of Lady Oalia’s hat floating in the pool. He hears the laughter of boys and girls. He sees the girl that didn’t laugh, Lady Kael Mirand-Thrin’s odd niece and her endless white-blonde hair and her scar. He made the effort to save a hat, and his effort wasn’t appreciated; it was mocked.
Here, his efforts are always appreciated. He’s never felt more at home. Even now, running away excitedly from Guardian. His smile is beaming within, as he doesn’t dare show it on the outside. Wouldn’t want Wick to know how dreadfully he’s enjoying this.
“How do you think they handled the Weapon?” Athan asks.
Wick considers it for a moment, then says, “Rone. It had to have been Rone. Who else can get into a room without opening a door?” The two of them chuckle, then silence takes them again.
Finally, they reach a set of steps that lead up to a door, which opens onto a street. It’s dark, as nighttime’s stolen away the sun, so Wick and Athan, careful not to draw any attention, make patient progress toward the nearest train station. By Wick’s lead, Athan boards the train. Seated next to him in the foul-smelling car that’s strangely and thankfully low in occupancy, Athan’s reminded of the aboveground train ride they’d taken together to the Weapon Show. He smiles, thinking fondly on the excitement of that night. It feels like it was just yesterday, he thinks, watching the side of Wick’s sleepy face, and it also feels like an eternity ago.
Nothing troubles them further, and the ride is quiet.
When Wick gets to his feet, Athan follows him, and before long, they’re strolling down a quiet street in the far-reaching slums. So this is what an honest slum looks like. Athan looks around in wonderment, drinking in the authentic sights he’s yet to see. True slum houses that aren’t the tall buildings he’d been getting used to. Houses that seem too small to fit a proper family. Houses that look more like sh
acks, like toolsheds, like a bunch of little rooms sewn together by wood slats and wavy metal sheets and pipes. Houses interconnected with lengths of cables and wires hanging between them. Some houses look like two of them sitting on top of one another, the second story threatening to slide off at any sudden wind. Some of them are spaced apart with pathways between them, others pressed tightly together like friends. The pavement is shattered in many places, the road not always easy to walk.
“Close your mouth,” teases Wick, “or you’ll catch the smog.”
“How’s this for a mouth,” retorts Athan, shoving his lips into Wick’s cheek and inspiring a breathy chuckle from him. I love his little laughs. I wish I could make him do those all day long.
“I … I can’t promise how well my homecoming will be,” Wick admits, seeming to tug on his jacket self-consciously. “My mom and dad probably think I’m dead. And my brothers—”
“It’s okay.” Athan grins. “I just can’t wait to meet them.” I can’t believe this. I’m going to meet Wick’s family … The Lessers.
They round a bend in the street and slow down in front of a house. It’s two stories and seems sturdier than its neighbors, except for the nearly missing porch, which looked like it once existed, but has since been eaten and destroyed by bugs and weather. A small piece of roof covers it, above which there is a misshapen window, which Athan assumes was added to the house. Wooden slats line most of its sides, save a patch near the front door where metal sheets have been nailed in. The lawn is a short length of dying grass where, remarkably, a weighty tree somehow lives.
“My home,” presents Wick with a spreading of his hands. He seems so self-conscious about it. How cute. “Mind the interior. It’s even smaller and, if you can believe it, more cramped than it looks.”
Athan gives Wick a little squeeze. He’s about to remark on the tree in the yard when suddenly the front door swings open and a pretty-faced woman with dirty clothes and shocked eyes appears.
“Anwick!” she cries out.
The two race toward each other and collide into a crushing, silent hug. She has mud stains along her arm and spatters of dirt across her otherwise youthful face.
“Anwick, Anwick, Anwick.” She squeezes him so tight, he nearly breaks in half. “My Anwick. I knew it. I just knew it. Had a feeling, oh, Sisters, thank you. Today was the day, I knew it.” Tears are squeezing out of her eyes.
Athan can’t even bring himself to smile, so touched with this reunion. Though, it does cut him deep; he’s never seen, in all his life in the Lifted City, a mother embrace her child so passionately.
She opens her eyes, and her gaze falls on Athan for the first time. With a small lift of her brow, she says, “Anwick … Who’s your friend?”
Wick brings him to her, his posture bent as if embarrassed somehow. “This … This is my friend—”
“Athan,” he hears himself saying, putting on the smile his own mother taught him a hundred-thousand times his whole life. He even shows teeth. “I’m Athan. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Lady Lesser.” The two of them stare at Athan a hard while before he realizes what he’s said. “Sorry, um … sorry. Formalities. I—”
“I know you,” she says suddenly, lifting a finger to her chin and studying him suspiciously. “I know you. I so know you. I never forget a face.”
Wick gives his mother a guilty look. “He’s Athan Broadmore. You saw him on the broadcast.”
“Broadcast.” She considers it, thinking, thinking.
Then her eyes grow double.
She remembers.
“You’ve …? And you’ve brought …?” She covers her mouth, peers both ways down the street, then brings her astonished gaze back to Athan.
“And he knows,” Wick adds quietly.
The mother lifts a questioning brow. “Knows? Knows what?” Her eyes flick between the two of them. Athan suspects she knows exactly what he’s talking about. “What does he know, Anwick?”
“Everything.”
“Oh,” she says simply, her already anxious hand moving lower, as if to make a grip at her neck. “Oh. Oh.” She covers her mouth again, studying Athan and … clearly worried.
“Mom, it’s okay. Please, he needs to stay with us. Mom?” Wick’s voice is trembling slightly, doubts making an obvious and wicked play of his throat. “Can he please stay with us for a bit?”
For a while she can’t speak, still stunned by what he’d said. Then she comes to. “What? Oh.” The mother turns a guilty look of her own back to her son. “Of course,” she responds quietly, turning sweet. “He can stay here. Yes, of course. And we have the room. Turns out … the house is short a couple occupants.”
Wick frowns. “What do you mean?”
“Your father. He … He hasn’t been home, sweetie.”
“Where is he?”
“Out looking … for Link,” she adds, her voice beginning to quiver, seeming to fight back tears. “Your, your, your little brother Link … he’s gone off into the city, no one knows where and, and, and it’s quite possible that we …” And then she can’t make any more words, as the tears take them from her.
“Oh,” says Wick, taken aback.
“What am I doing.” The mother wipes her face quickly, the tears flicking off her fingers like tiny diamonds. “I’ve forgotten myself.” She sniffles loud, flicks open her eyes. “Athan, sweetie. Come inside. Our home’s yours as long as you need it.”
She puts a soft hand on his shoulder and wraps her other arm around Wick, drawing them inside. This is it. This is Wick’s home. It is quite cozy, in truth. The family room is divided in thirds by a laundry-littered couch on one end that faces a markedly rundown broadcast screen, and an island counter on the other with three uneven stools set before it. A mess of cups and plates are stacked in the kitchen sink and a pair of flies are making a fuss at the sliding glass door in the back, which appears to open to a tight backyard of bushy grass, a pair of trees, and a giant hunk of metal Athan can’t identify from here. A dim bulb hangs from a rafter, their only light. At the closer end of the kitchen, a very narrow set of steps leads upstairs. Just beneath the steps is a door left wide-open, revealing a squatty room that’s otherwise dark.
His first impression, Athan can’t believe this little dwelling could’ve, at any point in its life, housed five boys and two parents. Seven, under this same roof. Seven! Now reduced to less than half of that, by the sound of it …
“So let me hear the story,” says the mother, rounding about on them as soon as the front door closes. “Athan. Everyone in the city is looking for you, including Guardian. I’m sure by now you’ve learned that two of my sons—two of my sons—work for said Guardian. And somehow Wick has happened upon you and, and, and obviously you are not wanting to go back home in a haste, otherwise you would’ve already—yes, I know I just asked to hear the story, but here I go anyway—and now you seek a proper hideout, for whatever reason, and I’m to keep quiet about the fact that I’m, in truth, harboring a Son of Sanctum. Do I have it right?”
Athan swallows once.
Wick answers for him. “Yes, mom.”
Her face—bent forward, strained, and spotted with mud—takes precisely seven seconds before it eases. “Alright then. You can call me Ellena. I’m much too muddy to be a Lady.”
“Thank you, Ellena.” Athan smiles at the words, beaming.
“Now that’s a smile if I’ve ever seen one.” She gives half a sigh, then winks knowingly at Wick; Athan suspects Ellena has already deduced the nature of their relationship, too. “Don’t mind at all about your brother, Anwick; I’ll be the one to tell him of your friend here. Lionis ought to hear it from me, the importance in keeping Athan hidden. Oh, you boys look starved.” She grimaces, moving into the kitchen. “Y’know, I used to cook before Lionis took over the chore, back when all of you were boys. Not too well, but I did.” She pulls out a stool, pats it briskly with a mud-spotted hand. “Sit down, Athan. Let me make you something, provided I don’t burn down the house try
ing.”
When she pulls out a pair of dishes and starts humming herself a melody, Wick turns to give Athan a tired smirk of relief. That’s when Athan knows he’s found home.
0059 Link
Every day, the priest brings more dark news.
“They say the fall of the Lord’s Garden was all your doing,” Baron murmurs.
Another sun rises, another sun falls, and the bald priest returns to say, “You’re a wanted man. The display at the Crossing is being blamed on you. There is a bounty on your head, little one.”
Link can almost move without hurting, but the man in robes brings him hurts of a different kind: “You are the only remaining member of The Wrath. Poor child … They will hunt you until the end of your days.”
“That’s not true,” Link tries to argue from the floor, his back leaned up against the cold hard wall. “Dran’s to-be-wife is still out there. I met her in a junkyard once. Her name is …” But Link can’t remember. She’d only said it once.
“The Wrath is no more, child. After years of evils and torturing the streets and inflicting fear in good people’s hearts … they are disassembled.” The man leans forward, breath reeking of mint and lime and something sour. “Link, child, you must repent. You must repent and become something new. Fill the void and be the force we need …”
Link licks his dry lips and says, “I repent.”
The priest only softly chuckles. A sheen of sweat across his brow makes the whole of his hairless head shine like a light bulb, and he replies, “Poor boy. You know nothing of repentance.”
“I repent,” Link repeats, thinking of home, thinking of Lionis’s spiced mash and browned stew. “I repent,” he insists, craving mom’s hug, craving the clutter of his room and the soft embrace of the couch that seems to swallow him when he sits in it. “I’m repented.”
Another man comes to the doorway of Link’s dark little chamber, the light from the sanctuary eclipsed. The man has an awkward walk, something between a limp and a hop, his left leg a dragging burden, deadweight. His left eye is blackened and doesn’t move when his right one fixes on Link. The effect is sickening.