The Justice in Revenge

by Ryan Van Loan

  “Just the lightning then.”

  “Aye,” I said, running a hand over the shaved side of my head. There was no stubble, so I’d known I was going to meet with the Sin Eaters this morning and had prepared to look my best. Where were those memories? “And the possibility they shoot us dead when we knock on their door,” I said, “or lock us up.”

  “Bloody perfect,” Eld said, getting up. In his dark-blue, almost black coat and trousers, he looked passably like one of the Constabulary, save he wore a sword in place of a club.

  “What else are you carrying?” I asked him, reaching out to tap the basket hilt of his long, slightly curved blade.

  “Two rotating pistoles,” he said, touching his belt, “a stiletto in my boot and another tucked behind my belt. Oh, and that crossbow.” He shrugged in his coat. “I’ve got it hanging beneath my armpit, tied to my shoulder. Why?”

  “Just wondering if we were going to let them lock us up if it came to it,” I said.

  “And?”

  “With you carrying a miniature armory and me with … myself?” I snorted. “Fuck no. C’mon now, let me flash my sigil and let’s see what comes.” Eld’s reply was lost to the rain when I stepped out onto the deck just as Joffers was preparing to cast a rope over one of the dock’s cleats. “If you hear shooting,” I told the old man, “best slip that line and be ready to pole for your life.”

  “How will I know if it’s shooting or thunder?” he shouted back, one hand on the rope, the other on his floppy hat, braced against a gust of wind.

  “You’ll know,” I assured him. I hope. I hopped out onto the dock and began fighting the wind as I headed toward where the dock disappeared beneath the nearby tower. The archway was a yawning black hole ahead that howled with the wind ripping through it.

  “If we don’t come running shortly thereafter, Joffers, don’t wait around,” Eld said, following after.

  We half ran, half walked, bent double. In the protection of the archway, the wind cut off and we could stand up, gasping for air that wasn’t half water. I dug my elbow into Eld.

  “Ow, what was that for?”

  “Why are you telling Joffers to leave without us?”

  “Because if it comes to shooting and we’re not gone before the next thunderclap, we’re as good as dead,” Eld said. “No need for him to die, too.”

  “If we manage to escape and he’s not waiting, I’m going to be pissed,” I said.

  “You can ride me, then,” Eld said.

  “Excuse me?”

  Eld’s brow furrowed; a few locks were stuck to his cheek while the rest were pulled back in his usual ponytail. I made a show of eyeing up him up and down; his trousers clung to his legs in ways that showed off his calves and made my mouth go dry.

  “What?” Eld asked. “Oh,” he said, his eyes widening. “Oh!”

  “That’s the sound you’ll be making,” I agreed.

  “Gods’ blood, Buc,” Eld growled, stomping past me, his formerly pale cheeks suffused with color. “We’re here risking life and limb and you want to pull my leg?”

  “That’s not all you want to pull,” Sin said.

  “Shut it,” I growled mentally.

  “Oh, so you make a crude sexual jest and it’s harmless flirting, but I do it and—” Sin began, but I ignored him.

  “What’s life without a little fun?” I asked out loud, catching up to Eld. “Besides, was you that started it, not me.”

  We walked the rest of the way in silence, Eld’s embarrassment—and perhaps some annoyance, as well—radiating off him in waves.

  “Let me do the talking,” I said, when we reached the end of the dock.

  Torches flickered fitfully in sconces, barely illuminating the opening in the iron gate. I ducked in, Eld on my heels, and was brought up short by another gate with a small door cut in the center. I knocked firmly and dug in my jacket for the Doga’s sigil.

  A woman’s dark face appeared in the slit that opened in the door. “Who the bloody fuck is knocking in this weather?”

  “The Secreto, you whore,” I growled back, shoving my sigil toward her face. “And we’re soaked through, so open up, Godsdamn it, or the Doga will know why.”

  * * *

  “What? I didn’t lie,” I shouted across to Eld, rain peppering my face so hard it felt like I was caught in the eye of a storm.

  “No, but you didn’t have to be a complete arsehole, either!” he shouted back.

  We were only a few paces apart, clinging desperately to a thick iron railing that ran along the top of the wall that bridged the gap between the towers. My performance had gotten us in out of the rain, but it’d also pissed off the gatekeep. She’d made it sharply clear that the only way to access the prison proper was by going across the top of the wall to the central entrance. So back into the storm we went. We were pulling ourselves along the top of the wall, open sea to our right, the lights of Servenza to our left, rain in our faces and the wind ripping at our legs, threatening to catapult us over the edge to our deaths.

  “Being an arsehole is all I’ve got!”

  “Don’t I know it,” he muttered, his words just reaching my Sin-enhanced ears.

  There was nothing to do but keep going, so we pulled ourselves along, growing more soaked by the second. From atop the wall, all of Servenza was laid bare before us, giving a bird’s-eye view of the city. The only buildings taller than the Castello both lurked in the distance, even harder to see than usual because of the storm. I could make out the Great Lighthouse, built on the far side of Servenza and only a few spans taller than the Castello, but the only reason I could locate the Empress’s Tower on the horizon was because of the nearly ceaseless lightning strikes hitting the top. The Tower was said to be the tallest building in the world, and on certain days, it nearly disappeared into the clouds. Its height made it a magnet for lightning storms, and I’d a feeling the steel rod and chain of the Imperial Crest at the tip didn’t help matters any there. Glad we were safe and sound at the Castello—where the only danger was being blown away—instead of the Tower. I hurried toward the hole in the center of the wall before me.

  At the entry point, a dozen steps led down to a cage that hung from a number of intricate gears, bright and shiny with oil despite the rain that fell on them. Water sluiced off into a dozen channels cut into the bottom of the cage, presumably carried away to the gutters that lined either side of the wall. I touched the cage door and it swung in. I hesitated for a moment, but Eld marched past me and inside, glancing over his shoulder when I didn’t follow.

  “She said the evelator? Elevator,” he corrected himself, “wouldn’t work unless the door was latched firm.”

  “And you trust her?” I asked. “Just like that?”

  “It’s more a matter of odds, aye? What are the odds she went to these lengths to set us up to be locked away?”

  “It’d be pretty brilliant,” I said. “Have us march to our own cell.”

  “But low odds.” He tugged at his tricorne. “C’mon, this rain has soaked through my hat and I’m not going to catch my death from a cold. If it’s a trap, we’ll blast the door open,” Eld said.

  “Oh, all right,” I said, throwing my hands up and following him in.

  “You remember this was your idea?”

  “Of course I remember,” I snapped. “Nothing wrong with my memory.”

  “It can be selective,” he said.

  “Eld, my mind is as sharp as ever,” I said, unable to keep the anger from my voice. Nothing is wrong with me. I’m fine. “My tongue, too.”

  “Obviously.”

  “Just close the damned door.”

  Eld kicked it shut with a heavy boot and a moment later one of the thick bars across the bottom of the cage sprang up from the center of the floor just like the woman had said it would. Her explanation hadn’t made sense to me at the time, but so far, each step had happened just as she’d said. Eld grasped the upper end, paused, and then gave it a tug. For a moment, nothing happened
. Then the gears begin to turn and whirl, with a faint buzzing sound like a dozen beehives, and the floor folded in on itself, revealing darkness below the bars we stood upon. The cage dropped a pace, caught itself, and then continued falling and someone yelped as we both lunged to grab hold of the bars that made up the walls of the cursed contraption the gatekeep had called an elevator.

  “You’ve a high voice, Eld,” I muttered, my words echoing around us.

  “I thought that was you,” Eld said. He chuckled nervously. “Happens to the best of us, Buc.”

  “This Mosquito better be worth it,” I said, ignoring his jab. “Or I’m going to squish him flat.” The elevator picked up speed, sending my bladder up into my chest and making me feel as if I were going to wet myself. Eld giggled like a schoolboy at the sensation. “If we don’t get squished flat first,” I added. That just made him laugh harder.

  Men. Do they ever grow up?

  27

  “They wouldn’t need a fight to keep us here,” Eld whispered.

  I glanced at him and followed his gaze to the guard disappearing back down the corridor. The whole guardroom had gotten a laugh out of us emerging from the elevator soaked through when there were perfectly dry passageways running from the two keeps to this central point. The gatekeep had gotten the final laugh there. Surprisingly, there weren’t any questions when I flashed the sigil the Doga had given me, but either Secreto visits weren’t out of the ordinary or no one gave a fuck about a beggar locked up in solitary. The captain sent us off with one of her guards, who escorted us along hallways and through a dozen ironclad doors. At last he showed us where the Mosquitoes’ maestro was, then left. No eavesdropping on the Secreto.…

  “Lock any of the doors and you’re good as captured already,” Eld continued. “Just a bigger cage.”

  “Aye,” I agreed. “Ask him if size matters, though,” I suggested, pointing at the cramped cell before us. It was a narrow affair, just wide enough to take three natural steps across, and the mat and man sleeping on it nearly filled the space, with a waste bucket occupying much of the rest. The wall, just beyond the bars, was tantalizingly close and offered up what must have seemed like paces of extra space, all of it unavailable to the man in solitary. The old jailer had led us past scores of cells like this one, honeycombed throughout the bottom level. Most had been empty.

  “About time we wake him, aye?”

  “Aye,” Eld muttered, licking his lips. He’d never been a fan of jails or imprisonment in general, an opinion that had only hardened after we’d been locked up in a ship’s hold and nearly fed to sharks during the summer. Run Eld through in a fight, shoot him in a duel, even hang him, and he’d probably take it, but the man had no love of torture or confinement. Something I could appreciate, though they all sounded pretty terrible to me.

  “Let’s see what he knows.” He took a step forward and shook the door gently. “Excuse me—”

  “Hey! You!” I kicked the door hard with my boot, and the clanging of the iron bars echoed and reverberated through the hall. Farther down someone began shouting and even farther away, almost out of earshot, a wail rose up briefly. The man in the faded, grey smock didn’t shift on his torn, yellowed mat. “Wake up!”

  “Gods, Buc,” Eld said, shaking his head. “Recall how your attitude earned us a soaking across the top of the wall?”

  “Vaguely,” I admitted. The guardrooms were connected to a massive heating apparatus that fed the heat from the flames through a series of pipes that ran through the massive structure. Close to the furnace, it’d been hot enough to partially dry us off; this far removed, the heat had faded enough that there was a chill in the air. “But we’re dry now and he’s awake.”

  “He is,” the man agreed, sitting up, his voice hoarse and hollow. After scratching at his arms with hands sooty from dust and grime, he hugged his knees to his thin chin, staring at us as he rocked slowly back and forth on his haunches. Scraggly grey locks framed his sunken cheeks. “He wonders what a pair like you would be doing down here? Has the trial come? He remembers no date being set.”

  “We’re not the Constab—”

  “We’ve come to hear your side of the story,” I said over Eld. “Honestly?” I mouthed the word at him and he shrugged sheepishly. “We didn’t expect to see you in solitary.”

  He shrugged bony shoulders beneath his off-white smock, thin enough that it might have been see-through had it been cleaner. “Wasn’t at first. R-roomate turned up hung one morning. Not my doing, but they didn’t listen.”

  “Who didn’t?” I asked.

  “Guards, course,” he said, spitting into the bucket beside him. He glanced past us.

  “We’re alone,” Eld assured him.

  The prisoner nodded slowly. “Guards didn’t believe I didn’t know, didn’t play a part. Aye, an’ maybe I did know?” He looked up hopefully, as if we’d tell him which was true. “The walls have mouths.”

  I nodded in either direction. “None of the cells nearby are occupied.”

  “I was afraid to listen to the walls,” the prisoner continued as if he hadn’t heard me. “Maybe they told me.” He glanced over his shoulder at the smooth rock face behind him. “Maybe I did know.”

  He took a long, shuddering breath and let it out, squeezing his knees tighter. “When the walls talk, I listen. Now, but too late.” He scratched at his arms, and dust or powder flew up from his fingernails, revealing red welts and scars crisscrossing his faded, tanned forearms. “Too late.”

  Eld and I exchanged looks and I twirled a finger slowly by my ear where the prisoner couldn’t see. “You were the maestro of the Mosquitoes, once, aye?” Eld asked, turning back to him.

  “Once. Still.” The other man’s voice firmed. “So long as I live, the Mosquitoes live.”

  “But you lost out to the Gnats,” I said.

  “Did we?” He shrugged, ran a gnarled hand through his greasy locks. “That’s what the guards said, but they lie. The walls don’t lie. They didn’t say.” He sniffed. “Doesn’t matter. As I said, so long as I live, the Mosquitoes live.”

  “Maestro, I’m going to ask you something,” Eld said, squatting in front of the other man. He put a hand gently between the bars and let it hang there. “Because I don’t think you’re in the Castello for tossing the wrong constable.”

  “You don’t look like the type that would hang another man either,” I lied. He didn’t, but he did look like the kind who might throttle you from behind and if you wanted to hide that, why not hang the corpse?

  “If he was as emaciated then as he is now, he wouldn’t have had the strength,” Sin said, speaking in my mind. “So far, he hasn’t been lying. Of course, when their mind breaks, they’ll believe almost anything is true,” he added.

  “I didn’t shake down any constable,” the other man protested. “No need to, the constables don’t care about beggars, at least not enough to go searching them out in the Tip.”

  “I think,” Eld said slowly, maintaining eye contact with the other man, “that you refused an offer from someone who wasn’t used to being refused.”

  “We’re free,” the maestro whispered, rocking back and forth again. A tear leaked down his cheek. “Don’t take orders from others, offers neither.”

  “So you told them no?”

  The man glanced up at me, his eyes haunted. “Aye. Thrice. After the third time, they kicked my door in and hauled me off in chains, just afore our meeting of the Patched Council.”

  “Your leftenants?” I guessed. He nodded. “Would be good timing for a coup,” I commented to Eld.

  “What did you refuse to do?” Eld asked, rocking on his heels, mirroring the maestro’s movements. “What couldn’t you agree to?”

  “K-k-kill … her,” the other man whispered in a hiss that just barely reached my ears.

  “Her—the Doga?” I asked.

  He squeezed his eyes shut, blinking back more tears. “The Doga thinks we’re all rats, you see. And most think that we”—he
pounded his thin chest with a fist that made a hollow thump—“the beggars, actually are.” He opened his eyes. “But we’re not. We’ve honor, loyalty. Assassination isn’t part of the code.”

  “Who asked you? To murder the Doga?” I asked.

  “The code,” he whispered.

  “Fuck your code, man,” I growled.

  “What she means,” Eld said, shooting me a look, “is that the Gnats took over your gang, maestro, and they didn’t believe in your code. They tried to assassinate the Doga. Twice. And now she wants their blood.”

  “If you tell us who it was that asked this of you,” I added, “we can put that name in her ear. As it is now, your Mosquitoes won’t be sent to the Castello, maestro, once the Doga lays hand to them. They’ll all be swinging from bridges over the Grand Canal by dusk on the day they’re caught. Unless—”

  “Who did you refuse?” Eld asked gently.

  “Not who,” the other man said. He licked his chapped lips and sighed, spittle spraying his chin. “What.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Aye.” He pushed himself to his feet, stumbled, then caught himself against the bars. Surprisingly, he didn’t reek like I thought he might, though the strange, spicy smell that clung to him wasn’t exactly pleasant. Scratching at the rash on his arm with one hand, more dust sloughing off in tiny puffs, he held on to the bars with the other. “I shouldn’t have refused, even with the code. I’d forgotten.”

  “What did you forget?” Eld asked.

  “S-something we heard a bit back. At the edge of the Tip, when the troubles came.”

  “Troubles?” I frowned. We’re missing something. “When was this?”

  “What did you forget?” Eld asked again.

  “That—” He cleared his throat and coughed. “That the drowned rise,” he said hoarsely.

  “What?”

  Eld glanced back at me, his brow furrowed. “What’s wrong, Buc? What’s that mean?”