The Broken Man

by Brandon Jones

  “Please,” Jamis said finally, unable to bear it. “I heard… I mean, I have been told…” Jamis trailed off as Grand played a pair of cards this time, raising the bet without a word. The beady eyed man burst into a fit of giggles as he matched the bet and laid down his final hand. Grand’s mouth twitched almost imperceptibly as he ceded the hand to his opponent.

  Rather than taking the sizeable pile of coins in the center of the table, the beady eyed man pushed them Grand’s way with shout of triumph.

  “There there! There, Grand! There, you want. I want. I…” he trailed off, frustrated as if thinking was difficult. He certainly had a hard time speaking. “We agreed. You pormised. Promised. You did, you did. We have a deal, we did. We do.”

  Grand nodded. He reached beneath his seat, rummaged for a moment and produced small bag—it couldn’t have held more than a twelfth of rub—and tossed it to the man. The beady eyed man snatched at it gleefully, dropped it, fell to his knees to retrieve it.

  “The thanks! I knew you would… you had to. I’m gratiful… um. Gratifated. Thankly!” the man said as he disappeared out a side door. It would have been funny, had it not been sincere.

  Jamis looked at the amount of money on the table as the man scrambled away with his bag of drugs—a mound of silver and copper enough to buy nearly twenty times more rub than the man had walked away with, at least at street prices.

  Then Grand turned to face Jamis. “What exactly is it you have been told?” Grand asked.

  Jamis extended his hand again, the few coins there—only two silver among half a dozen copper—looked more paltry than ever next to the sum piled on the table. The metallic taste of blood washed over Jamis’s tongue, and he realize he had chewed a hole on the inside of his lip. He forced his mouth to stop, but otherwise ignored it.

  “You sell rub. You find a price anyone can pay.” Jamis’s eyes flicked to the few coins in his hand, then back to Grand. “There’s always a way.”

  Grand raised a skeptical eyebrow but took the coins out of Jamis’s hand all the same, gesturing to the chair the beady eyed man had vacated. “True enough, I suppose,” Grand said. “Though, putting it that way makes it sound so mercenary. I think of myself as rather more charitable. Well, no. Charitable is the wrong word,” he said, laughing at his own private joke.

  Jamis laughed with him, though he didn’t understand.

  “Maybe an employer of sorts, to those who have few options for employment elsewhere. Take Kamly, for instance,” Grand said, nodding in the direction the beady eyed man had gone. “He was a good man—wife, kids, and such—until he gambled away everything he owned. He owes money to so many different people in such copious amounts that, when he turned to rub to forget, no street dealer would sell, not at any price.”

  “What … what service does he render?” With an effort, Jamis kept his eyes on Grand’s face and away from the alluring shadow beneath his chair.

  “Oh, Kamly is something of a special case. I suppose, if I was forced to put a name to it, we could call it entertainment. He amuses me.”

  “As a card partner?”

  “Of sorts.” Grand motioned to the table, the pile of coins sitting there. “The coins are symbolic—a means of facilitating incremental betting. Makes the game more interesting. Kamly has no coin of his own to wager.”

  Jamis could feel Grand leading him on, but he couldn’t help but give voice to the question. “What are they symbolic of? What does Kamly put up as collateral against the coins?” he asked.

  “His life.” The casual way Grand said it was alarming, even through the lingering remnants of Jamis’s high.

  “And he gets his rub if he wins?”

  “No. He gets the money if he wins—though it has amounted to the same thing so far. He always chooses to buy rub with his winnings.” Grand’s smile widened. “You know, I’ve increased the amount of money he wins each time and decreased the amount of rub I let him buy. With the money he won today he could have cleared his debts in full—with some left over. As you saw, he didn’t even hesitate. I’m fairly certain he didn’t even notice.”

  Jamis could only stare. Part of him wondered what had happened to the man’s family—if they were worried about him, or if he had wrecked them as thoroughly as he had wrecked himself. “Why?” was the only thing he managed to say.

  “Why doesn’t he take the money?” Grand asked. “He lets his addiction control him. Why do I do it? I already told you. It brings me pleasure. But I think the why you’re referring to is more along the lines of, why am I telling you all of this?”

  Jamis nodded. He was wondering all of those things, though not so clearly. He glanced beneath Grand’s chair, then back up. Grand noticed, and his grin—his perpetual, wide-mouthed grin—broadened further.

  “Do you know what it is you really want?” Grand asked.

  Jamis opened his mouth to say, but Grand cut him off.

  “Don’t tell me. I don’t care. I know it isn’t this,” he said, producing a bag of rub from under his chair—one much larger than the one Kamly bet his life against—and set it on the table between them. “It never is. Not really.”

  Jamis’s hands itched and pulsed. It was all he could do to keep them clasped, shaking in his lap.

  “Forgive me a self-indulgent moment of philosophizing,” Grand continued. Jamis wished he would get to the point, whatever it was. “Rub is never really what people want. It is just the most effective means of temporarily forgetting how monumentally you have failed at whatever does matter to you. Ah, yes—I thought so,” Grand said. He held up two of the eight coins Jamis had given him—the two previously silver coins Jamis had broken were reverted back to clay blanks. “How interesting.”

  Jamis very nearly bolted, but hesitated, held by the bag of rub on the table. What would Grand do if he took it and ran? Could he get past the guard at the top of the stairs? Unlikely, but maybe it was worth the chance…

  “No, no reason to worry,” Grand said, sensing Jamis’s panic. In all this talk, Jamis forgot the need for haste, to leave before the coins reverted. “I’m not upset. I’m quite impressed, actually. Those were nearly perfect. Very nearly.”

  “What then?” Jamis asked, staring at the bag of rub on the table. “Are you going to…” Jamis swallowed, “going to kill me?”

  “Oh, no. I try not to make a habit of killing useful people. Employer, remember? I actually have a proposition for you. But first, I want to make something abundantly, unmistakably clear: I am a truly appalling person. Despicable. I don’t pretend otherwise. I am dealer, and I deal in addiction.

  “I don’t force anyone to work for me. I don’t detain or threaten. Ugly, inelegant tactics. Those in my employ can leave whenever they would like, at any moment of their choosing.

  “But no one leaves. Take it from an expert in addiction—if you take the rub, you will be a slave. You will chain yourself to me, and it will thrill you. You will thank me every day for any misery I put you through. You will kneel at my feet and beg to be used just once more.”

  Grand let the claim hang in the air for a long moment, the dim, nearly empty room devouring the words. Jamis looked to the door, then at the bag on the table, then to Grand’s dark, empty eyes.

  “Choose,” Grand said. His pale skin was flushed, empty eyes feverish. “Will you take the bag anyway? Despite the terrible things I’ve promised? You only have to agree to work one job for me. A single task for a single bag of rub. What do you say?”

  Jamis could walk away. He could go home. If he found a way to send a message home, his parents would pay for passage. He wasn’t truly out of options, not yet. He stared at the bag on the table, barely aware of Grand’s breathing growing heavier as the moment stretched.

  “One job?” Jamis asked.

  Grand shuddered and his eyes rolled with pleasure, but he managed a nod.

  Alia

  Alia crouched, leaning up against a fencepost as she shook the sack viciously. She shivered as the thing in the
sack writhed and thrashed in protest of its ill-treatment. This isn’t about me, she reminded herself. It was about her people, about loosening the Church’s stranglehold. All it would take was one bad ceral season, one small disruption in what had been a constant flow of nearly free food for centuries. That’s what Feramos said. Then the people would see, see how dependent they had become, and break free.

  And she was the key to that disruption.

  A big, broad-shouldered bull on the other side of the fence rolled a lazy eye at her and snorted.

  She looked around to make sure no one had seen her. She saw only one boy—sixteen at the oldest—half asleep watching the cattle, and she was sure he hadn’t spotted her. Her heart thundered in her chest, pumping an inordinate amount of life through her veins. She was thrilled and terrified, her body shaking with both. What did she think she was doing? But this was exactly what she had come to the Ceral Basin to do.

  She shook the bag again for good measure, then stuck her other hand—wrapped in a thick, elbow-length leather glove—into the sack, where she found the source of the writhing. She closed her fingers around four feet of agitated, hissing rattlesnake, shivering as she worked her hand up toward the snake’s head and withdrew it from the bag. A high-pitched squeak almost escaped her mouth as the snake redoubled its thrashing and she nearly dropped it. She pushed the angry, thrashing snake away from her and let go, letting it fall through the wide openings of the cattle pen. It was dark enough that she could barely see the snake by the time it hit the dirt. The snake’s mottled coloring disappeared easily against the trampled, muddy ground. She took a slow, deep breath, trying to calm her wild emotions.

  The result was immediate. One of the sleepy oxen screamed and surged to its feet. It made to bolt but stumbled over another startled beast. Alia heard one of its legs break with an audible crack. It thrashed and bellowed hideously on the ground, its movements already slowing from the poison.

  The snake must have struck again, because a different ox screamed and thrashed. The whole pen of oxen, sleeping and sluggish seconds before, was in riot. The bulls cried and pressed against each other, surging like ocean waves, stepping on and tripping over those slow to rise from sleep.

  The boy she noticed earlier vaulted over the fence and began trying to calm the terrified animals. He must have been stronger than he looked because he grabbed the nearest bull by the horns and wrenched its head around, staring it straight in the eyes. The animal shuddered but began to calm.

  Alia nearly cried out as the boy released the animal and stepped into the mass of churning cattle, but he was fearless. He stepped nimbly between the massive bodies and around thrashing horns, pulling them aside one at a time and soothing them, calming them. Alia watched, stunned. She had assumed this boy had been relegated to his post because of youth and inexperience, but the way he moved through the cattle, the way he commanded their respect as he calmed them… Alia had never seen anything like it. In a matter of moments, he worked his way through a quarter of the herd, and the rest were calming on their own. She couldn’t believe it. There was no way she could have foreseen…

  A dark, massive ox standing next to the boy let out a sudden, earsplitting bellow of pain and fear. The midnight-colored ox spun and kicked wildly at the snake it couldn’t see. Caught by surprise, the boy tried to leap out of the way, but there was nowhere for him to go. Alia gasped as one of the black ox’s massive, muddy hooves caught the boy on the hip and threw him to the ground, out of sight. The herd reacted with collective panic, imbued with fresh bestial terror. The midnight black ox surged away from the press and fell to the ground just in front of Alia. Its eyes rolled and its chest heaved as it snorted and spit, but it didn’t rise. The boy never emerged.

  Alia ran. She pelted away from the pens, headless of her direction or who saw her running. It never crossed her mind to act more circumspect, less terrified and guilty. Her heart thundered in her chest and tears streamed down her face as she ducked into a rough alleyway—if the shoulder-wide space between two rows of rickety, barely upright shacks leaning against each constituted an alley. She hated this place, hated the Ceral Basin, hated whatever was left of her soul. There couldn’t be much.

  She squeezed deeper into the dark crevice, darker even than the already moonless night. She tried to regain control of her breathing as she stumbled forward, ragged sobbing gasps. When had she started crying?

  She tried to stop, to quiet the sobbing, but her body wouldn’t cooperate. Not that it mattered, some part of her thought. No one would be able to hear her over the panicked bellowing of cattle coming from behind her. That was part of the getaway plan.

  Hoarse men’s yells began to mix with the bestial baying, men rushing to see why the cattle pens had turned from placid and sleepy to roiling, violent panic. Alia slipped in something soft and fell on all fours in the dark alley, crying out. Sour mud leapt into her mouth. She coughed and sputtered, trying to spit it out, but it didn’t help. The grit spread and worked its way between her teeth, the back of her throat, underneath her tongue. She heard a loud, collective crash and the braying was soon joined by the sound of thundering hooves. The cattle had broken through their pen and were stampeding away, crashing through poorly built buildings out toward the fields. It couldn’t have gone better. She didn’t care.

  She knelt there and sobbed, the anxiety and terror welling up until she could barely gasp in a breath between sobs. She hadn’t meant to, hadn’t even known anyone would be at the cattle pens in the middle of the night. But why in starvation did that matter? She had killed that poor boy. He had died and it was her fault. Her intentions could starve in the deepest, most blighted hell. He had been magnificent for one, brief moment. Until her work swallowed him up without thought. Without feeling. She didn’t know his name. She wondered who else would weep for him.

  Alia felt her chest tightening, her throat seizing up, the panic threatening to choke her entirely. She wondered if she deserved it. She wondered if she shouldn’t just lay down in the muck and give up. It would be so easy, alone in this alley. Just let go.

  “Miss?” came a gentle man’s voice from somewhere in front of her. She looked up and saw a dark shape standing in the mouth of the alley, only a few yards away. “Miss, are you alright?” He squeezed into the alley and tried to help her to her feet. She shook off his first attempt but he was persistent.

  “You’re safe,” he said, producing a clean handkerchief from one of his pockets.

  “Whoa, just breathe. You’re going to be okay, I promise. That’s it.”

  Woodenly, Alia took it and wiped at her face. The gentle touch of another person was grounding, calming. She wasn’t alright, but she was grateful for the kindness of this stranger, whoever he was.

  “Good, good. We’re safe here,” the man said, misinterpreting the source of her distress. That was fine with her. “The oxen took off toward the fields, thank the Faceless. What’s left of them, at least.” He shook his head. “Starving things are going to be expensive to replace, and Abearth’s union will doubtless claim I somehow owe him repayment for the property the starving things trampled on his watch.” He said it more to himself, shaking his head again and refocusing on her.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, smiling at her despite her mud-covered dress and tearstained face. He had a nice smile. It was genuine and comforting and chased with mischief. “I’m being rude. I’m Reverate Josen Oak. What’s your name?”

  Vale

  The hallway felt cold and empty to Vale, despite the rich wood paneling and gently flickering gas lights lining the walls. She sat on beautiful hardwood bench outside the office of the Senior Prefect of the Ladies of the Archon, Lady Arietta Stonelowe. Vale couldn’t help but feel as if she were sitting outside her father’s rooms, waiting for a scolding.

  It was ridiculous. Even with Josen back to take up the Reverateship, she was a vital part of her family’s ceral operation. She was one of the most powerful women in Ceralon—in all the Passbound Union,
for that matter. She was not a little girl to be scolded by some disapproving adult. It was ridiculous.

  “Valencia Oak?” A pretty woman looked Vale’s way as she stepped out of the office. She wore her Seftish blonde hair up in a fashionably messy bun, and her slim skirt was cut to draw attention to her long, shapely legs.

  It was all Vale could do not to make up an excuse on the spot and postpone the meeting to another time—never, if that was on the list of options. But she had already put this off for far too long.

  She stood calmly and nodded without speaking, settling for a mild contemptuous sniff in the secretary’s direction. Did the woman realize how the Senior Prefect used her? Did she know her boss valued her only for her ability to distract the slobbering men who came crawling to the Senior Prefect for one reason or another? It was crass, artless, and entirely ineffective on Vale.

  “Excellent. The Lady will speak with you. This way, please,” she gestured.

  “I’ll show myself in,” Vale said, pushing past the woman and into Lady Stonelowe’s office.

  Lady Arietta Stonelowe was a hard woman by any measurement. Her steel-grey hair was cut short, just long enough to keep pulled up in a tight tail at the back of her head. She might have been pretty once, but age and responsibility had worn her face hard. She was easily the most intimidating woman Vale had ever met.

  Lady Stonelowe was bent over a magnificent walnut desk, carefully massaging something into the surface of the desk with a rag. The desk was bare, cleared for the purpose of the cleaning, except for Lady Stonelowe’s pistol—as hard and unadorned as its owner—sitting at one corner of the desk.

  Vale ignored it, choosing to stare hard at the center of the desk instead. It was a beautiful desk, far more ornate than Vale would have guessed the First Prefect would want. The top of the desk was inlaid with various types and shades of wood to form some sort of flowing artistic pattern Vale couldn’t resolve. Mountains, perhaps?