Viscera

by Gabriel Squailia

  The Puppeteer was a criminal Eth’s guards couldn’t find, much less prosecute.

  Rafe didn’t know him by name or by face, and he’d never expected to.

  But he’d have promised them anything at all.

  Dawn was deafening, both the birdsong and the light itself. The very air he breathed felt thin, intoxicatingly so, and sobriety only fed the feeling. It was as if he’d woken in the mountains, or like a quake had subtly tilted the ground below and no one else had noticed. His muscles were tight, his heart hammered, and yet something thicker and richer than blood seemed to flow through his veins. He could feel everything—every nerve, every twitch, every thought—and the glory was excruciating.

  The freaks had given him his own chamber, with windows carved into the wooden walls and more hand-carved furniture than the space warranted. The bear had brought him a tray of food, though there was no meat, and he’d eaten, with a gratitude that ashamed him, before lying down on the bed.

  What he’d done there couldn’t be called sleeping. It was more like a ceaseless line of thought that dipped a little from time to time, any rest it might contain constantly threatened by the sheer drop of panic.

  The sources were many. He counted them on his fingers. Withdrawal, the loss of sweetness, the memories his dream had stirred. Jassa’s betrayal, the sight of his clan, the slaughter of his clan. Ashlan Ley, Hollis Runt, Tanka Equinox.

  And then, older and more insistent than the rest, there was his unbound body.

  The slightest change in his physical position could tip his heart over the edge. Another wave hit whenever motion caused his breasts to shift. Looking down at their curves, even clothed and buried under sheets, was intolerable. He wished the freaks hadn’t taken his bandages, filthy though they’d been. He thought of ripping up the witch’s sheets and winding them around his chest, tying them tight enough to break his ribs if he sat down too quickly—just like the first time he’d bound himself, hiding in his uncle’s empty tent.

  Cringing, he reached beneath the soft leather shirt he’d woken in and felt his skin. There was no sign of the doorway on his back, nor the sores and scabs the bandages had left. They’d healed him—at least they’d call it that, though it felt to Rafe like another violation.

  Fighting against the tightness of his muscles, he drew in a great breath and pushed it out.

  Not a twinge of pain remained in his lungs.

  He pressed a hand against his chest, feeling the gallop of his heart. The only thing that kept him from seeking out death as quickly as he could was the promise Tanka had made.

  If he helped her, there would be sweetness.

  The thought plunged him into desperate excitement. How malleable he felt, how raw. The last time he’d felt this way, watching the blue light stream through the windows for minutes that felt like hours, knowing that nothing would ever be the same, it had been the morning after the Second Masque. Someone had come before sunrise to tell him they’d found Gingerbeard. Rafe, high and numb, had nodded as if it was expected news, then lain back down and tried to sleep, as if that might let him forget. But sleep never came, and by noon his shock had hardened into sweaty decision: he would lock himself up in one of Mrs. Dallow’s windowless pansy-pantries until the fist-sized brick of tlak was gone.

  They hadn’t even bought the stuff. They’d tried it only once before. It had been a party favor, given to Gingerbeard when they won some ludicrous game of chance at a party on Lank Street. Already drunk, the two of them had taken too much, then lost hold of each other in the crowd.

  Lying on that tiny, plank-like bed, he bit into it.

  The darkness filled with its slight, nutty sweetness, and everything became irrelevant.

  He needed nothing, neither food nor light. He drank nothing, and scurried to the bathroom only twice, when everything was quiet. He ignored every knock, every voice at the door. He’d paid through the end of the week, though he had nothing left over—Gingerbeard had kept their collective wealth in a leather purse strapped to one thigh, since Rafe was always losing things. And the job Mrs. Dallow had found him, working as a courier to the maintenance crews in the upper levels of the catacombs, would be long gone by now.

  He heard a great commotion once, when they found Little Gem’s body in the bathtub—shaken loose, Rafe imagined, by the sudden loss of Gingerbeard, her closest confidante. Rafe heard the sounds of grief, and understood that they pertained to someone else he should have mourned, but he still had enough of the brick left to make that irrelevant, too.

  It wasn’t quite forgetting, but he felt sure it would lead there, in time.

  But the tlak ran out before he could manage it. He stayed in the dark long after it was gone, centering on the sickness, feeling it grow until it pushed him out the door, so late at night that no good-byes were necessary.

  He hurried back to the bar on Lank Street, where they needed no Masque to continue the party. Sliding through the crowded room, he found them in the corner, the ones who’d given Gingerbeard the brick, still throwing dice as if the fate of the world depended on it. Their teeth were ruined and their necks were marked, and the one they called Jassa Lowroller, that night’s champion, took stock of Rafe and saw nothing but need.

  Like knows like.

  Going with her hadn’t felt like a decision, and neither did what followed.

  Neither did this—this sudden arrangement with the bent witch, to assassinate the city’s sole supplier of tlak. From what Rafe knew, the man was hidden deep in the catacombs, and was connected enough to avoid the guards, or wealthy enough to own them.

  Now that his body had recovered, Rafe wondered what he’d been thinking. When he’d left the Assemblage, he’d been an initiate, as ignorant about the structure of his church as the rules of the games they played. It wasn’t as if he could stroll back into their next gathering and be welcomed as a leader without explanation—it would require a careful, informed performance, one he felt ill-equipped to script, and wasn’t sure he could pull off. So far, the freaks had been content with his vague assurances, but sooner or later they’d want a plan.

  Jassa knew enough to get them in, he was sure of it. But her mind was gone.

  With or without her help, it would fall to him to concoct a plan and smuggle them in.

  He heard footsteps coming down the hall. Rafe struggled up, his panic doubling, his arms squeezed tight around his chest.

  It was Tanka, wearing a leather skirt and corset, with tall boots. Without a word, she shoved a bundle at him.

  He forced himself to take it. “What’s this?”

  “Equipment,” she said, turning her back. “Put it on.”

  He opened his mouth, then closed it, his hands shaking.

  He’d expect this callousness from the rest of them, but not from her. She ought to know what it meant to be naked in front of a stranger.

  He’d had enough trouble taking his clothes of in front of—

  Enough. Tanka wasn’t offering him a choice, and he wouldn’t show weakness by begging.

  He stood, feeling light-headed, and gripped the bottom of his shirt.

  Tanka strode out into the hall, slamming the door behind her.

  Alone, confused, Rafe unfolded the bundle.

  It was a sturdy, sleeveless garment of black leather. The front was flat and stiff, the inside lined with soft cotton. At the back, two slim runners of hard, black wood fit together with a sturdy series of hooks and eyes, to be cinched tighter by the laces that zig-zagged up the sides.

  A binder.

  Rafe stared at it for a long time, then pulled off his shirt and slipped into it. It took work to snap the back together alone, and more to cinch the sides tight enough, but he was far too stubborn to ask for assistance. He worked it out eventually, though he’d broken a sweat. There was a glass in the corner, and with the binder on—fitting snugly, pressing hard, but a damn sight more comfortable than the bandages he’d been a fool to wear so long—he stared at himself a long while, then sli
pped the shirt on over it.

  Flat-chested, he looked like himself again. His heartbeat gradually steadied.

  It was better-built than any he’d seen. This pressure was different than what he’d grown accustomed to—a comforting tightness, so evenly distributed that he knew there would be no chafing, no cutting into his flesh.

  He pulled the door open. Tanka stood in the hall, arms crossed, back turned.

  “Why did you do this?” he said.

  She pushed past him, shutting the door behind her, and stood for a long while, composing herself before she glanced at him.

  “That’ll do.”

  “Why,” he said slowly, “did you do this? It’s not like you just had this lying around.”

  She did a funny thing with her lips, as if it cost her great effort to speak to him. “We need you to be as—inconspicuous as you were.”

  “Inconspicuous?” A bitter laugh came unbidden from his throat. “Is that what you call it? The rest of us call it passing, you see, and it’s a matter of life and death—for us, at least, who have to scrabble just to survive. That’s what most of us are doing, you know? Stuck in Eth, with no way to escape the trap we’re in. While you’re safe out here, aren’t you? With your dead pets and your buried stashes of coin. And now you’ve outed me to a bunch of strangers, and you’ll march me right back into the city with nothing but a scrap of leather to protect me. And why not? This is what you need. For me to put my faith in people who know nothing of our ways, and hope that they don’t let the wrong word slip and get me hacked open on the street. Let me get on with your errands, then, so you can get back to finding yourself—while they’re killing the rest of us just for walking free.”

  When the words had stopped, he turned and started making the bed, just to give his hands something to do.

  No response came. He wondered what he’d expected. Some chip in her mask, he supposed. Some sign that she felt as awful as he did.

  Instead she drew breath, and sighed.

  “When I—stepped out, in public, for the first time, as I am—”

  You’re bent, he wanted to scream as he tugged the blankets into place, you’re crosswise, just call it what it is!

  “—I lived in Tunica with my family, all sixteen of them.”

  Tunica Media. That was Northmost Eth. Not the best neighborhood, but far from the worst.

  “Back then,” she said, “a woman called Jaena was in power. Jaena the Joiner, they called her. She hailed from the High Andrils, where every child, when they come of age, is asked if they are a boy or a girl. For a brief time, it was—fashionable to do the same in Eth.”

  Rafe stopped fussing with the sheets.

  No wonder she didn’t call herself bent, or crosswise, or anything at all. According to Gingerbeard, these words had been slurs in the old days.

  Poisoned blades, before we hammered them into armor.

  “Have you heard of Jaena?” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “And what came after?”

  Rafe nodded, feeling sick.

  His grasp on Ethian history was shaky, but everyone at Mrs. Dallow’s knew of Jaena the Joiner. Gingerbeard had spoken of her reign as a golden age. She’d chosen a cabinet of advisors and functionaries who were native-born, and a crosswise woman had served on her High Council.

  We breathed easy, then. For a few years, anyhow.

  Then Radmun came, with his army of addicts—paid in lassia, to ensure their loyalty.

  And Radmun had slaughtered so many citizens on his way in that the catacombs boiled over. The calcified organs of the Gone-Away gods, dormant for decades, were awakened by blood, reordering the streets in a seizure of dark enchantment.

  After, Radmun had ruled in peace—or so he’d called it. He’d punished urban murderers with enchantments considerably worse than death.

  But there had been a notable exception. He blamed the catastrophe on Jaena’s excess—on the sins of the bent. It became legal to remove them, and their kin, from the streets of Eth.

  Tanka’s family, Rafe guessed, had been cleansed.

  How she’d escaped was a question he had no intention of asking.

  They stewed in silence for a long while.

  He sat heavily on the bed, sliding a finger into his collar now and then to touch the top of the binder, just to make sure it was still there. Tanka stared through the slatted window, her face blank for a very long while.

  Finally, he tried to guess how much his binder would have cost at Mr. Rue’s. “You made this in one night?” he said, a hand on his chest.

  “Umber did,” she said, looking down at him. “It’s still not meant to be worn while sleeping.”

  “I know that,” he said. “I know what’s right. Not that I do it, much.” His face was burning. “But you—you ought to know better than to let others know what I am.”

  She jerked her head. “I will not justify my decision, Mister Davin. But nor am I ignorant of its impact. We must be as safe as we can, both of us. As safe as anything can be, there.”

  “You’ll be safe enough. Unless your powers only work in the wood.”

  “No, I’ll be just as strong in Eth. Lady Ley and her doll, as you know, have business with the Puppeteer. I’ll do what I can to aid them, but I’d make a poor spy—and I have matters of my own to attend to. So I will promise to aid you, if things go poorly. Up until you’ve settled into your plan, at least. But keeping your secret safe from the Assemblage, as you’ve done well enough so far, will be up to you. Construct your plan carefully, Mister Davin, and everyone will profit.”

  Rafe bit his lip. The careful construction of plans was a talent that had so far eluded him.

  He’d better pick it up quickly.

  “I have faith in you—or, rather, in the depth of your desire.” She walked to the door, and Rafe stood, wondering if he ought to follow.

  “But understand this, Mister Davin.” She stopped, one hand on the doorway. “If, whether by accident or by design, you render it impossible for Lady Ley to achieve her goal, there will be no restoration of your altered pathways. I will keep you alive if I can, but unless the doll has its satisfaction from the Puppeteer, you will live, and die, as you are.”

  “Understood,” he muttered.

  “You’ll find your things in the common room,” said Tanka, taking her leave. “Meet me down below.”

  He did as she said, though he was uneasy in the hollowed-out body of the treehouse. Even in daylight, it was hard to say what was shadow and what was a doorway, and that bear of hers might be lurking anywhere. Rafe packed his things, as anxious about the fact that someone had tossed them all over the floor as any of the rest of it.

  The sound of the drash scuttling in its box hardly soothed him. “But there’s sweetness at the end of this road,” he whispered to himself, though it was only true if he could manage to get them all to the end of this winding, uncertain path.

  Sliding on his pack, then wrapping his filthy old cloak around his shoulders, he saw the blur of a body pacing on the porch, through a doorway with white curtains tied off to the sides. It was Jassa, he realized as she returned to lean over the railing. The sight of her was startling, not least because she’d pinned one overlong sleeve over the ruin of her right arm.

  Until this moment, it hadn’t occurred to him that it was the right hand she’d lost. No wonder she was so out of sorts, he thought, walking slowly toward her. After a lifetime of rolling dice and stabbing folks in the back with it, she was bound to miss it more than she would’ve the left.

  Then, too, she looked strangely pious, staring silently into the sunshine like some leather-clad nun. Leaning on the porch’s railing—built, like the rest of it, out of living wood the witch must have coaxed into shape—Jassa was scribbling in her notebook, even more furiously, even less legibly than usual.

  She’d rifled through his pack to get it. He suppressed the urge to shove her over.

  Instead he joined her at the railing. He’d expected he
r to look haggard, but she looked a good deal more rested than he did, and as calm as he was nervous.

  You’re the Ace here, he thought.

  “Deuce.”

  “My Ace,” she cooed, without looking up from her sprawl of incomprehensible symbols.

  “What nonsense are you scribbling now?”

  “Plans.” She bobbed her head, finishing a long line and tucking the pencil between the pages. “Oh, new plans, my Ace. Full of Fortune’s blessings! Things are looking up—sky-high!”

  He stared at her.

  She was waving her book above her head.

  Overjoyed.

  “Focus, Jassa. Jassa. Look at me.”

  She seemed to notice him for the first time. “My Ace!”

  “That’s right.” Bend her to your will, he thought, or it’s over before it begins. Use her faith. “Your Ace. And I’m telling you—Fortune is telling you, through me—”

  “You’re Fortune’s favorite,” she said, beaming.

  “Of course I am,” he said. “And Fortune says only one plan matters, Deuce.”

  “To win all the games,” she said, suddenly serious, turning to open her book again.

  He slapped it from her hand, gripping her by the shoulders. “No.”

  Her face went white. “No? No! No, my Ace.”

  “All that matters,” he hissed, “is that we get the sweetness back. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes,” she breathed, eyes wide. “Yes, my Ace.”

  He let her go before he lost control.

  He wanted so badly to push her over that he could almost feel the thud.

  It took him a moment to master his breath.

  “You need it,” she said, bathed by understanding. “You need the sweetness, don’t you?”

  He sighed, grateful that she’d gotten that much. “Yes, Deuce. We both do.”

  “Because—they’re gone. All of them.”

  He turned, frowning. “Because who are—”

  “Your family,” she said sadly. “Gobbled right up. Yum!”

  He was on her in a moment.

  The air whooshed out of her as she struck the floor of the porch. She held her arms before her face, and he grasped them, one in each hand, wrestling them away so he could beat her face into pulp—with his forehead, if he had to.