A shopkeeper chased them down off the boxes, but Lift had gotten a good look at Darkness and was able to scurry after him, Wyndle at her side.
Darkness never paused to consider his route, or to look at the wares of street vendors. He seemed to move too quickly for his own steps, like he was melting from shadow to shadow as he strode. She nearly lost sight of him several times, which was bizarre. She’d always been able to keep track of where people were.
Darkness eventually reached a market where they sure had a lot of fruit on display. Looked like someone had planned a really, really big food fight, but had decided to call it off and were reluctantly selling their ammunition. Lift helped herself to a purple fruit—she didn’t know the name—while the shopkeeper was staring, uncomfortably, at Darkness. As people did. It—
“Hey!” the shopkeeper shouted. “Hey, stop!”
Lift spun, tucking her hand behind her back and dropping the fruit—which she kicked with her heel into the crowd. She smiled sweetly.
But the shopkeeper wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at a different opportunist, a girl a few years Lift’s senior, who had swiped a whole basket of fruit. The young woman bolted the moment she was spotted, leaning down and clinging to the basket. She sprinted deftly through the crowd.
Lift heard herself whimper.
No. Not that way. Not toward—
Darkness snatched the young woman from the crowd. He flowed toward her almost as if he were liquid, then seized her by the shoulder with the speed of a snapping rat trap. She struggled, battering against him, though he remained stiff and didn’t seem to notice or mind the attack. Still holding to her, he bent and picked up the basket of fruit, then carried it toward the shop, dragging the thief after him.
“Thank you!” the shopkeeper said, taking back the basket and looking over Darkness’s uniform. “Um, officer?”
“I am a special deputized operative, granted free jurisdiction throughout the kingdom by the prince,” Darkness said, removing a sheet of paper from his coat pocket and holding it up.
The girl grabbed a piece of fruit from the basket and threw it at Darkness, bouncing it off his chest with a splat. He didn’t respond to this, and didn’t even flinch as she bit his hand. He just tucked away the document he’d been showing the shopkeeper. Then he looked at her.
Lift knew what it was like to meet those cold, glassy eyes. The girl in his grip cringed before him, then seemed to panic, reaching to her belt, yanking out her knife and brandishing it. She tried a desperate swing at Darkness’s arm, but he easily slapped the weapon away with his empty hand.
Around them, the crowd had sensed that something was off. Though the rest of the market was busy, this one section grew still. Lift pulled back beside a small, broken cart—built narrow for navigating the slots—where several other urchins were betting on how long it would be before Tiqqa escaped “this time.”
As if in response to this, Darkness summoned his Shardblade and rammed it through the struggling girl’s chest.
The long blade sank up to its hilt as he pulled her onto it, and she gasped, eyes going wide—then shriveling and burning out, letting twin trails of smoke creep toward the sky.
The shopkeeper screamed, hand to his chest. He dropped the basket of fruit.
Lift squeezed her eyes closed. She heard the corpse drop to the ground, and Darkness’s too-calm voice as he said, “Give this form to the market watch, who will dispose of the body and take your statement. Let me witness the time and date … here.…”
Lift forced her eyes open. The two urchins beside her gaped in horror, mouths wide. One started crying with a disbelieving whine.
Darkness finished filling out the form, then prodded the shopkeeper, forcing the man to witness it as well in pen, and write a short description of what had happened.
That done, Darkness nodded and turned to go. The shopkeeper—fruit spilled at his feet, a stack of boxes and baskets to his side—stared at the corpse, papers held limply in his fingers. Then angerspren boiled up around him, like red pools on the ground.
“Was that necessary!” he demanded. “Tashi … Tashi above!”
“Tashi doesn’t care much for what you do here,” Darkness said as he walked away. “In fact, I’d pray that he doesn’t reach your city, as I doubt you’d like the consequences. As for the thief, she would have enjoyed imprisonment for her theft. The punishment prescribed for assaulting an officer with a bladed weapon, however, is death.”
“But … But that was barbaric! Couldn’t you have just … taken off her hand or … or … something?”
Darkness stopped, then looked back at the shopkeeper, who cringed.
“I have tried that, where the law allows discretion in punishments,” Darkness said. “Removing a hand leads to a high rate of recidivism, as the thief is left unable to do most honest work, and therefore must steal. In such a case, I could make crime worse instead of reducing it.”
He cocked his head, looking from the shopkeeper to the corpse, as if confused why anyone would be bothered by what he had done. Without further concern for the matter, he turned and continued on his way.
Lift stared, stunned, then—heedless of being seen—forced away her shock and ran to the fallen girl. She grabbed the body by the shoulders and leaned down, breathing out her awesomeness—the light that burned inside her—and imparting it to the dead young woman.
For a moment it seemed to be working. She saw something, a luminescence in the shape of a figure. It vibrated around the corpse, quivering. Then it puffed away, and the body remained on the ground, immobile, eyes burned.
“No…” Lift said.
“Too much time passed for this one, mistress,” Wyndle said softly. “I’m sorry.”
“Gawx was longer.”
“Gawx wasn’t slain by a Shardblade,” Wyndle said. “I … I think that humans don’t die instantly, most of the time. Oh, my memory. Too many holes, mistress. But I do know that a Shardblade, it is different. Maybe if you’d reached this one right after. Yes, you’d have been able to then. It was just too long. And you don’t have enough power, either way.”
Lift knelt on the stones, drained. The body didn’t even bleed.
“She did draw a knife on him,” Wyndle said, his voice small.
“She was terrified! She saw his eyes and panicked.” She gritted her teeth, then snarled and climbed to her feet. She scrambled over to the shopkeeper, who jumped back as Lift seized two of his fruits and stared him right in the eyes as she took a big, juicy bite of one and chewed.
Then she chased after Darkness.
“Mistress…” Wyndle said.
She ignored him. She followed after the heartless creature, the murderer. She managed to find him again—he left an even bigger wake of disturbed people behind him now. She caught sight of him as he left the market, going up a set of steps, then walking through a large archway.
Lift followed carefully, and peeked out into an odd section of the city. They’d carved a large, conical chunk out of the stone here. It was deep a ways, and was filled with water.
It was a really, really big cistern. A cistern as big as several houses, to collect rain from the storms.
“Ah,” Wyndle said. “Yes, separated from the rest of the city by a raised rim. Rainwater in the streets will flow outward, rather than toward this cistern, keeping it pure. In fact, it seems that most of the streets have a slope to them, to siphon water outward. Where does it go from there though?”
Whatever. She inspected the big cistern, which did have a neat bridge running across it. The thing was so big that you needed a bridge, and people stood on it to lower buckets on ropes down into the water.
Darkness didn’t take the path across the bridge; there was a ledge running around the outside of the cistern also, and there were fewer people on it. He obviously wanted to take the route that involved less jostling.
Lift hesitated at the entrance into the place, fighting with her frustration, her sense of powerlessness.
She earned a curse or two as she accidentally blocked traffic.
Her name was Tiqqa, Lift thought. I will remember you, Tiqqa. Because few others will.
Below, the large cistern pool rippled from the many people drawing water from it. If she followed Darkness around the ledge, she’d be in the open with nobody between them.
Well, he didn’t look behind himself very often. She just had to risk it. She took a step along the path.
“Don’t!” Wyndle said. “Mistress, stay hidden. He has eyes you cannot see.”
Fine. She joined the flow of people moving down the steps. This was the shorter route, but there were a lot of people on the bridge. In the bustle, because of her shortness, she lost sight of Darkness.
Sweat prickled on the back of her neck, cold. If she couldn’t see him, she felt certain—irrationally—that he was now watching her. She pictured again and again how he’d emerged from the market to grab the thief, a supernatural ease to his movements. Yes, he knew things about people like Lift. He’d spoken of her powers with familiarity.
Lift drew upon her awesomeness. She didn’t make herself Slick, but she let the light suffuse her, pep her up. The power felt like it was alive sometimes. The essence of eagerness, a spren. It drove her forward as she dodged and squeezed through the crowd of people on the bridge.
She reached the other side of the bridge, and saw no sign of Darkness on the ledge. Storms. She left through the archway on the other side, slipping back into the city proper and entering a large crossroads.
Shiqua-wrapped Tashikkis passed in front of her, interrupted occasionally by Azish in colorful patterns. This was certainly a better part of town. Light from the rising sun sparkled off painted sections of the walls, here displaying a grand mural of Tashi and the Nine binding the world. Some of the people she passed had parshman slaves, their marbled skin black and red. She hadn’t seen many of those here, not as many as in Azir. Maybe she just hadn’t been in rich enough sections of the city.
Lots of the buildings here had small trees or ornamental shrubs in front of them. They were bred and cultivated to be lazy, so their leaves didn’t pull in despite the near crowds.
Read those crowds … Lift thought. The people. Where are the people being strange?
She scrambled through the crossroads, intuiting the way. Something about how people stood, where they looked. There was a ripple here. The waves of a passing fish, silent but not still.
She turned a corner, and caught a brief glimpse of Darkness striding up a set of stairs beside a row of small trees. He stepped into a building, then shut the door.
Lift crept up beside the building Darkness had entered, her face brushing the leaves of the trees, causing them to pull in. They were lazy, but not so stupid that they wouldn’t move if touched.
“What are these ‘eyes’ you say he has?” she asked as Wyndle wound up beside her. “The ones I can’t see.”
“He will have a spren,” Wyndle said. “Like me. It’s likely invisible to you and anyone else but him. Most are, on this side, I think. I don’t remember all the rules.”
“You sure are dumb some of the time, Voidbringer.”
He sighed.
“Don’t worry,” Lift said. “I’m dumb most of the time.” She scratched her head. The steps ended at a door. Did she dare open it and slip in? If she was going to learn anything about Darkness and what he was doing in the city, she’d have to do more than find out where he lived.
“Mistress,” Wyndle said, “I might be stupid, but I can say with certainty that you’re not a match for that creature. There are many Words you haven’t spoken.”
“Course I haven’t said those kinds of words,” Lift said. “Don’t you ever listen to me? I’m a sweet, innocent little girl. I ain’t going to talk about bollocks and jiggers and stuff. I’m not crass.”
Wyndle sighed. “Not those kinds of words. Mistress, I—”
“Oh, hush,” Lift said, squatting beside the trees lining the front of the building. “We have to get in there and see what he’s up to.”
“Mistress, please don’t get yourself killed. It would be traumatic. Why, I think it would take me months and months to get over it!”
“That’s faster than I’d get over it.” She scratched at her head. She couldn’t hang on the side of the building and listen at Darkness, like she had at the guard captain’s place. Not in a fancy part of town, and not in the middle of the day.
Besides, she had loftier goals today than just eavesdropping. She had to actually break into this place to do what she needed to do here. But how? It wasn’t like these buildings had back doors. They were cut directly into the rock. She could maybe get in one of the front windows, but that sure would be suspicious.
She glanced at the passing crowds. People in cities, they’d notice something like an urchin breaking in through a window. Something that looked like trouble. But other times they’d ignore the most obvious things in front of their own noses.
Maybe … She did have awesomeness left from that fruit she’d eaten. She eyed a shuttered window about five or six feet up. That would be on the first story of the building, but it was up somewhat high, because everything was built up a ways in this city.
Lift hunkered down and let some of her awesomeness out. The little tree beside her stretched and popped softly. Leaves budded, unfurled, and gave a good-morning yawn. Branches reached toward the sky. Lift took her time, filling in the tree’s canopy, letting it get large enough to obscure the window. Around her feet, seeds from storm-blown rockbuds puffed up like little hot buns. Vines wrapped around her ankles.
Nobody passing on the street noticed. They’d cuff an urchin for scratching her butt in a suspicious manner, but couldn’t be bothered with a miracle. Lift sighed, smiling. The tree would cover her as she broke in through that window, if she moved carefully. She let her awesomeness continue to trickle out, comforting the tree, making it even more lazy. Lifespren popped up, little glowing green motes that bobbed around her.
She waited for a lull in the passing crowds, then hopped up and grabbed a branch, hauling herself into the tree. The tree, drinking of her awesomeness, didn’t pull its leaves back in. She felt safe here surrounded by the branches, which smelled rich and heady, like the spices used for broth. Vines wrapped around the tree branches, sprouting leaves, much as Wyndle did.
Unfortunately, her power was almost out. A couple pieces of fruit didn’t provide much. She pressed her ear against the window’s thick stormshutters, and didn’t hear anything from the room beyond. Safe in the tree, she softly rattled the stormshutters with her palms, using the sound to pick out where the latch was.
See. I can listen.
But of course, this wasn’t the right kind of listening.
The window was latched with some kind of long bar on the other side, probably fitted into slots across the back of the shutters. Fortunately, these stormshutters weren’t as tight as those in other towns; they probably didn’t need to be, down here safe in the trenches. She let the vines wind around the branches, drinking of her Stormlight, then twist around her arms and squeeze through cracks in the shutters. The vines stretched up the inside of the shutters, pressing up the bar that held the shutters closed, and …
And she was in. She used the last of her awesomeness to coat the hinges of the shutters, so they slid against one another without a hint of a sound. She slipped into a boxlike stone room, lifespren pouring in behind her, dancing in the air like glowing whispermill seeds.
“Mistress!” Wyndle said, growing in onto the wall. “Oh, mistress. That was delightful! Why don’t we forget this entire mess with the Skybreakers, and go … why … why, go run a farm! Yes, a farm. A lovely farm. You could sculpt plants every day, and eat until you were ready to burst! And … Mistress?”
Lift padded through the room, noting a rack of swords by the wall, sheathed and deadly. Sparring leathers on the floor near the corner. The smell of oil and sweat. There was no door in the doorway, and she peeked
out into a dark hallway, listening.
There was a three-way intersection here. Hallways lined with rooms led to her left and right, and then a longer hallway led straight forward, into darkness. Voices echoed from that direction.
That hallway in front of her cut deeper into the stone, away from windows—and from exits. She glanced right instead, toward the building’s entrance. An old man sat in a chair there, near the door, wearing a white and black uniform of the type she’d only seen on Darkness and his men. He was mostly bald, except for a few wisps of hair, and had beady eyes and a pinched face—like a shriveled-up fruit that was trying to pass for human.
He stood up and checked a little window in the door, watching the crowd outside with suspicion. Lift took the opportunity to scuttle into the hallway to her left, where she ducked into the next room over.
This looked more promising. Though it was dim with the stormshutters closed, it seemed like some kind of workroom or den. Lift eased open the shutters for a little light, then did a quick search. Nothing obvious on the shelves full of maps. Nothing on the writing table but some books and a rack of spanreeds. There was a trunk by the wall, but it was locked. She was beginning to despair when she smelled something.
She peeked out of the doorway. That guard had wandered off; she could hear him whistling somewhere, alongside the sound of a stream of liquid in a chamber pot.
Lift slipped farther down the corridor to her left, away from the guard. The next room in line was a bedroom with a door that was cracked open. She slipped in and found a stiff coat hanging on a peg right inside—one with a circular fruit stain on the front. Darkness’s jacket for sure.
Below it, sitting on the floor, was a tray with a metal covering—the type fancy people put over plates so they wouldn’t have to look at food while it got cold. Underneath, like the emerald treasures of the Tranquiline Halls, Lift found three plates of pancakes.
Darkness’s breakfast. Mission accomplished.
She started stuffing her face with a vengeful enthusiasm.
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