To be fair, Rassa still had its fair share of criminals. He was technically one of them, after all. But the less-than-law-abiding had to be smarter and more secretive than your average smash-and-grab back-alley thug if they wished to escape the Brotherhood and the forced piety of the rest of Rassa’s upright citizens. Safer or not, it wasn’t a bargain Daks would ever be willing to make. Better the demon you know? Not hardly.
After grabbing his cloak, he crept out of his room and locked the door behind him. Shura could get an extra key from Faret if she returned before him, but he highly doubted she would. He’d just get some fresh air, use up a little nervous energy, and work out the tightness in his muscles. He’d return before she was any the wiser.
From the back stairs, he could still hear the quiet hum of conversation rising up from the common room. Most of the crowd had probably gone home or found other lodgings for the night, but there were usually a few poor souls who’d stay until Faret either kicked them out or forced them to pay for a spot by the fire.
Faret’s wife, Jana, and Ilia were still in the kitchen cleaning up as he stepped into the room, and he nodded to them on his way through. Jana’s scowl in return wasn’t particularly friendly, but it wasn’t new either. Faret wanted a better Rassa for everyone, including his wife and daughters, so he gave safe haven to anyone he thought furthered that hope. But Jana didn’t have to be happy about it. Daks couldn’t blame her for that. He only had to worry about himself and Shura, and that was more than he could handle most of the time.
Outside, he took a deep breath of slightly fresher and significantly cooler air. Like its twin capital in Samebar, Rassat had been built at the mouth of the great Matna River, where fresh water met the sea. The air was damp and tinged with cook fires, fish, and the usual unpleasant smells of too many people crammed into too small a space, but at least the salty winds off the ocean helped break up some of the worst of it. Right now anything was better than inside the inn, where the walls and memories closed in on him.
He didn’t consciously choose a direction to walk. It might have been safer for him to head uphill toward the inner wall that marked the old city and served as a divider between the wealthy and the rest of Rassat, but the wind took him in the opposite direction—at least that’s what he told himself.
He’d been walking for some time, trying not to think about much of anything, when his surroundings became significantly more familiar in the moonlight. At that point he couldn’t exactly lie to himself anymore and say he was surprised at where he’d ended up. If Shura found out, she wouldn’t believe him, but this hadn’t been his goal; really it hadn’t.
After checking to make sure the shadows were uninhabited by man and rodent alike, he stepped off the tan-brick-lined street and slipped into an alley between two large warehouses before scanning the buildings around him for any signs of life.
The warehouse district began just inside the gates to the docks and ran along the southwestern wall of the city until it hit Arcadia—an ironic nickname given to the slums where the Unnamed and other unfortunates were allowed to scrape out a meager existence. The location was perfect for the temporary storage of goods going out and coming in from the ships, but it also had the added benefit of blocking the view to Arcadia—and some of the smell—from the sensitive eyes and noses of Rassa’s elite making their way up from the docks.
As usual, the place was deserted after dark. King’s Guards manned the towers along the wall and patrolled the main streets but largely stayed out of the district’s side streets at night. Anyone with goods of any value hired their own guards to watch the buildings after dark, and everyone else just took their chances. Isolated and sparsely populated, it was the perfect location for more illegal pursuits, including the uglier side to Rassat’s labor market—aptly nicknamed the Slavers’ Market by the common folk.
It could be argued that there was no such thing as a pretty side to a slavers’ market, but there was, at least, a more presentable one. During the day, the people who ran them were merely recruiters for outgoing vessels. The contracts they offered were simple. A man or woman agreed to a certain length of indentured servitude in exchange for transport out of Rassa and the promise of paid work after their debts had been discharged at their new home. What they didn’t tell their recruits was the jobs promised were rarely what they got or where they expected to go, and their treatment once they arrived hinged entirely on the whims of their new masters. Some got lucky, most didn’t. And anyone who left on such vessels was rarely heard from again. Still, to some, it remained preferable to what awaited them back home, and more and more might be seeking this way out as the unrest in Rassa grew. But the night markets were another, even uglier story.
On an ordinary mission, Daks would have sent out notes to his various contacts before he and Shura even left the docks, and he would have received word back within a few hours on where the next night market would be held. His money was always good, and his purchases never returned to tell the tale, so the lowlifes he dealt with thought him an excellent, if picky, client, as trustworthy as any of the other scoundrels who frequented such places.
With the coin they were typically given, he couldn’t afford more than one or two “contracts” each mission, and his instructions were clear: find only the gifted and send them on to the Scholomagi before the Brotherhood got to them. If no one appeared who had a gift, he had to walk away empty-handed, with the haunted, desperate, frightened faces of the rest following him out the door and into his nightmares.
Shura wasn’t wrong. He did lose a little more of his soul every time he went, and the people he saved only brought a little of that soul back. So why did he do it? Because he couldn’t live with himself if he didn’t at least try, for his own sake and for Josel’s.
He grimaced. He shouldn’t be here. He had no money to help anyone. Even if he happened on a market, he’d only be torturing himself with what he couldn’t do. And yet here he stood, searching the shadowed buildings and opening his Sensitivity as wide as possible, hunting for even the slightest tingle of magic from a gifted desperate enough to take the risk.
One advantage Rassa had over anywhere else was the distinct lack of magical “noise” he needed to filter out. At the Scholomagi, the hum of magic was almost overwhelming. Between the raw talent centralized in one city, the bespelled objects and magical amulets, the ancient relics in the vaults below the school, and even the very wall surrounding Scholoveld, a Sensitive was bombarded day and night with it and had to keep his shields up or he’d go insane. The rest of Samebar was better, but still noisy. Any Sambaran who could afford it bought and relied on magical items in their daily lives, and the hum was quieter but nearly as constant along his skin and at the back of his mind even in the remotest villages.
In Rassa, however, the Brotherhood had outlawed any magic beyond that which the sacred Thirty-Six wielded long ago. They’d also spent the intervening centuries culling those with talent out of the population, whether for their own ranks or to simply make them disappear. His trips to Rassat should actually be a relief, if it weren’t for the toll it took on his soul and the very real possibility of being discovered and imprisoned. Luckily, Sensitivity was only a receptive magic. Not even another Sensitive could sense him using it.
Knowing it was probably a mistake, he pushed his gift to its limits but still encountered nothing beyond the usual gentle, almost imperceptible hum of the earth beneath his feet. If there were any magic users nearby, they weren’t active right now.
A wave of guilt immediately followed his surge of relief. Apparently he’d only come out here to soothe his conscience. No gifted meant he wasn’t missing out on saving anyone… but he was. There were still plenty of nonmagical souls who would be shipped off to parts unknown this night, as they were every night, and he wouldn’t be helping any of them.
“You can’t save them all.”
He clenched his jaw and closed his eyes. He shouldn’t have left the inn. He could almost hear Shura
’s “duh” in his mind, and it brought a grim smile to his lips. He should go back now, like a good boy, and hopefully Shura would never know he’d left.
As he forced himself away from the rough plank wall he’d been leaning against to head back the way he’d come, the sounds of booted footsteps and hushed voices echoing off nearby buildings made him freeze in his tracks. His rueful smile vanished, and he withdrew into the shadows again, straining to listen past his quickening heartbeat. He recognized one of those voices. And as the two men passed his hiding place and continued down the street, his feet took off to follow before his brain had a chance to catch up—not that his brain was going to be of much use. Its urgent whispers of caution and safety were being shouted down by a decent amount of ale, painful memories, old guilt, and that anger and helplessness that had been boiling inside him since he’d left Scholoveld.
Politics. Infighting. Budget cuts. Bunch of stuffed robes in their safe little towers, playing with their potions, tomes, relics, and people’s lives, never really doing anything to make the world a better place. No care for the lives they could save if they just tightened their belts a little.
His fists clenched and unclenched at his sides as he strode silently but purposefully after the two men in the dark. The voice he’d recognized belonged to Tarek, a slaver of the worst kind. The bastard didn’t care where the desperate people who came to him went. He dealt with buyers most of the others wouldn’t touch, and he wasn’t above snatching the unwilling if the opportunity presented itself—women, children, what they’d be used for didn’t matter to Tarek. Daks had been itching to take a piece out of the man for years, but he’d never found an excuse that wouldn’t jeopardize his cover and future missions.
Guess what, Tarek? We have no future missions.
Nothing he did tonight would change much, of course. He could put Tarek out of commission for a while, but someone would always come along to take his place. Still, using his fists on a piece of garbage like Tarek might slow the man’s operation for a few days at least, and help Daks sleep better tonight. He had to take his victories where he could find them.
Tensing his body in anticipation, he followed the two men around a corner into a small square and was just about to pounce when movement off to his right caught his eye. Acting solely on instinct, he spun on his heel and dove into the shadows between two buildings, crouching low. A second later, he blew out a breath and whispered a fervent thanks to gods he didn’t even believe in as a new man stepped into the square wearing a very distinctive set of robes. Moonlight might mask the bloody color, but no one would ever mistake the cut for anything else.
Tarek and his companion continued on, oblivious to the newcomer, and Daks gritted his teeth at the lost opportunity even as he broke out in a sweat. What was a member of the Brotherhood doing slinking around the warehouse district at this time of night? And why didn’t he announce himself to Tarek?
Daks closed his eyes to calm his heartbeat and focus his gift. He let his senses expand outward to touch the brother, but nothing more than an odd little tingle of something dormant played along his nerves, and he relaxed slightly. At least it wasn’t a member of the Thirty-Six. Their holy relics put off enough energy he probably could have felt it at that distance without even trying. The gods were being kind to him tonight despite his stupidity. He could just keep quiet. As soon as the brother moved along, he could scurry back to the Dog and Duck and forget he’d ever been dumb enough to venture out in the first place.
That would be the smart thing to do.
But no one had ever accused him of being particularly smart—except Shura, and she was biased. The mystery of a brother wandering around the warehouse district alone in the dark seemed too much of a temptation to walk away from.
Shahul, Protector of Fools, smile on me, he thought, sending up a plea to one of Shura’s gods just in case.
When the brother headed in the direction Tarek and his companion had gone, Daks followed at what he hoped was a discreet enough distance. He couldn’t hear Tarek or his friend anymore, but the brother continued his journey without any hesitation, making Daks wonder if the man had incredibly good night vision or wasn’t following the slavers at all.
This is a bad idea. This is a very bad idea.
His nerves started getting the better of his curiosity the longer their trip progressed and the more of Faret’s ale he sweated out. Instead of relying on his other senses, he dropped a little farther back and sent his gift out. Being a Sensitive wasn’t exactly every child’s dream as far as magical power went, and it certainly wasn’t prized and coveted at the Scholomagi. But at least Daks’s gift wasn’t weak. If he really worked at it, he could sense more than just magic. He could sense groups of nonmagical people too, provided enough of them crowded together. If the brother was going to a meeting somewhere or there was an ambush waiting, Daks would hopefully be able to sense it in time. Anything smaller than a large group and he should be able to fight his way out either way, but at least he wouldn’t be blindly walking into a mob.
At first he sensed nothing. Then he nearly tripped over his own feet as something latched on to his gift and dragged his focus off to the left somewhere.
Magic.
Not the magic of the Thirty-Six, though. Something different.
He shook his head, trying to get a read on what he’d sensed, but the sound of running footsteps jarred his consciousness back to his body. The brother had taken off at a run in the direction the magical energy had come from. That couldn’t be a coincidence.
Fuck me to the Seven Hells!
Daks started running too.
The brother had to be another Sensitive what the Rassans called Finders. Daks couldn’t think of any other explanation for why the man had taken off just when Daks felt the magic. He threw his senses outward again as he ran, but the strong pulse of magical energy had vanished. He slowed and clamped his eyes shut, straining, searching. The sound of the brother’s pounding feet had disappeared too, but Daks wasn’t sure if the man had stopped or just gotten too far ahead of him. His hands shook and his temples pounded with the effort, but he finally caught the merest ghost of residual energy a few streets away.
Praying the brother had gone in the opposite direction, Daks took off, clinging to that tingle of energy like a lifeline.
Are you really racing a brother toward a gifted? Are you insane?
These questions rang through his head in Shura’s voice, but he didn’t slow his pace. Sometimes he just had to lead with his gut, and his gut told him to run toward the problem, not away from it. In that moment, he felt more alive and less defeated than he had in weeks.
He fixed things when they were broken. He freed people when they were chained. He bashed heads when they needed bashing. That was his nature. That was the only thing keeping him going on dark nights when pain and regret closed in. All that other crap he’d had to deal with at the Scholomagi and back on his family’s holding was complicated bullshit he couldn’t change anyway. Here he could make a difference.
He ducked through alleys and skirted darkened buildings in as straight a line toward the source of the magic as he could manage. At last he skidded to a halt, his eyes riveted on a shadowy figure in an alley across another open square. Whoever it was, they weren’t using any magic now, but the last tendrils of it clung to them like smoke; otherwise he never would have spotted them. Breathing heavily, he propped a hand against the rough wood of the building next to him and took a moment to get some air and decide how to approach. The brother could still be out there. Daks didn’t have much time for social niceties, even if that had been his forte.
He could just sneak up and give the stranger a little tap on the temple or the back of the head and apologize later. That would probably be more effective than relying on his charm in the limited time he had… but that might make establishing a rapport later a bit challenging.
A sudden sliver of light where there shouldn’t be any caught his eye, and he froze. A
door had opened across the square, spilling enough light to illuminate Tarek’s ugly face as he and his companion stepped hurriedly inside a warehouse. He’d been so distracted, he hadn’t heard them approach. The door closed, and all became dark and quiet again as Daks ground his teeth in frustration.
He’d apparently found the market he wasn’t supposed to be looking for. Now that he wasn’t straining to follow the last wisps of magical energy, he could sense the press of bodies in the building. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the gifted take a few paces out of the shadows toward that door, then stop. From that distance and with the layers of clothing and bulky bag swung across his or her chest, Daks couldn’t discern any features, but whoever it was hugged themselves before they took another, more determined stride forward, forcing Daks into action. He couldn’t let them go through that door. Nothing good would happen to them there.
“Hey!” he hissed as loudly as he dared, rushing out of his hiding place. “Don’t do it. Come with me and I’ll find you a safer way out.”
The figure’s hood fell back as he whirled in Daks’s direction, and Daks caught a glimpse of a fine-featured young man, probably only a couple inches shorter than his own six feet, in the moonlight. But instead of Daks’s urgently hissed offer stalling him long enough for Daks to get close, the man’s eyes widened in apparent horror and he threw a hand out in front of him.
“Stay away!” he shouted before turning and bolting.
Shit!
Daks took off after him. “Wait! I’m trying to help. I can help you.”
The Seer Page 3