The Broken Man

by Brandon Jones

Akelle’s grin was quite possibly the largest Josen had ever seen on anyone. “We’re going to steal the fifth Vuriche.”

  Chapter 32

  “Reverate Berden!” Vale called out. Berden’s head turned at the sound of her voice, but he didn’t seem to see Vale through the people packed tight around him—other clergy, a few of his personal aids, and his labor master, all vying for his attention. Berden’s duties as the Arch Reverate Steward, along with his unwillingness to delegate many of the more mundane tasks of farming to a field master, made Berden a very busy man.

  “Reverate! Reverate Berden! A moment, please?” Vale called again, this time close enough for Berden to pick out.

  “Excuse me,” Berden said to the man closest to him, whom Vale had apparently interrupted. “Young lady, I am extremely busy, and you—”

  “I know. I apologize, but the matter is urgent.”

  “Ah, Vale,” Berden said, finally recognizing her. “Undoubtedly. But as you can see—”

  “I just need your signature,” Vale said, pressing forward and holding out a piece of paper. It was an effort to keep her footing as she continued to walk with the moving mass, trying not to get trampled. She doubted any one of them would slow for her if she fell.

  “Make an appointment,” Berden said, waving her off as he turned back to the man Vale had interrupted.

  “I’ve tried,” Vale said, interrupting the same man again. The man, a frail, elderly Deferate, glared at Vale. “Several times, in fact. They keep putting me off.” Vale extended the piece of paper again. “Your staff, that is. Everything is in order; I just need your signature.” Berden paused and snatched the piece of paper, and the entire little entourage stopped with him, muttering behind their hands to each other and glaring.

  “Fine,” Berden said, not bothering more than a quick, dark glance at the contents. “It will be taken care of.” Berden turned away from him as he pocketed the paper and began to walk again, but Vale wasn’t finished yet. She needed just a bit more. Josen had better appreciate this.

  “When?” Vale forced the word, almost physically painful.

  Berden looked at her undisguised loathing—like he had stepped in something slimy and didn’t have a stick nearby to scrape it from his shoe.

  “Soon.” Berden’s tone was final, making it as clear as possible that the conversation was ended. Vale let Berden stomp away, his circle of followers in tow. She had to fight the urge to put her hands on her knees and give in to the hammering pulsing anxiety in her chest. Instead she affected composure as Berden and his entourage shrank into the distance.

  Josen owed her for this. He owed her big. He would help her, or… Or what? she asked herself. For the hundredth time, Vale contemplated telling Josen the whole of her troubles, and for the hundredth time, she rejected the idea outright. The last thing she needed was Josen getting heroic, deciding to do something rash. If she wanted to get Kalen back, alive and healthy, she had to convince Josen to do what he was told and vote the Ladies of the Archon into the Basin. Vale had done her part to help him. It would be enough. It had to be.

  * * *

  “Look, friend,” the Carter said as he glanced over the papers, “I get it, but I don’t think I can let you through.”

  “Does there seem to be anything out of place?” Abbahim asked, his most friendly smile on his face. It was a strain to keep it there. He had little patience for the Church’s bureaucracy under normal of circumstances—mostly arrogant, self-important fools that made business difficult just to prove their own power—and this was hardly what anyone would call normal.

  “No, your papers look fine. Everything’s in order.”

  “Then I fail to see the problem,” Abbahim said. Arka’s breath. He liked that Oak boy for some reason. He was far more interesting than any of the other Reverates and Deferates Abbahim had met, but this was a hell of a spot to be put in, even by a likeable young man paying Abbahim a ludicrous sum of money.

  “It’s just…” the Carter paused. Abbahim didn’t know this man, but it was for the best. Abbahim would feel less guilty for browbeating him.

  “It’s just what, Deferate?” Abbahim said, letting his irritation shine. “My papers are in order, and I have a deadline to keep. What exactly, then, is the problem?” Abbahim watched the man look up from the papers and over Abbahim’s shoulder at the sea of sheep waiting behind him. Abbahim could hear them bleating and milling about, hear the dogs barking as they ran the perimeter, keeping strays from wandering too far, men yelling at the dogs, signaling instructions to them. The Carter sighed and reached for the stamp.

  “I don’t know what you think you’re going to do with all those sheep, is all. They can’t stay in Ceralon, and the Ceral Basin part of the permit is still pending.” The Deferate Carter pressed the stamp to the paper with a thump, then held it out to Abbahim. “But I suppose the other Passes aren’t my concern. I don’t care if they just send you packing back this way, but don’t expect to get back through tonight. You’ll have to wait at least until morning to get back through. Maybe longer, depending on how long it takes to get your entire herd through.”

  “I appreciate your concern,” Abbahim said as he took the paper, “but I have assurances that matters will be settled by the time we reach Basin Pass. I don’t expect to bother you again for a week or more.” Though with more gold and less livestock, Abbahim thought.

  “Good luck,” the man said, gesturing Abbahim toward the gate.

  “Thank you, good Deferate,” Abbahim replied, again forcing the smile to his face. It may be I will need it.

  Chapter 33

  Josen gazed down on Ceralon and adjusted a small pack on his shoulder, the single metal mask inside shifting against papers he would need for the night. Strings of gas-fed streetlamps connected the various clusters of dimmer lights—neighborhoods and homes. Josen looked to where the Basin Pass would be, west of the expanse of lights marking the Palace of the Faceless God.

  He strained his eyes, trying to make out any hint of Abbahim and his sheep. He thought he might be able to see a milling mass of some kind that could be a herd of two thousand sheep, but it was too dark to be certain. He mentally mapped the night’s targets onto the dark landscape below him: smash and grab chaos at the Falice, Orenlaw, and Nessoya mansions here in Ceralon; less conspicuous mischief in the Basin—Shepherd’s canals, Berden’s manor, his own warehouses.

  “Your boys know not to start smashing until they’re ready to run, right?” Josen asked absently. Three hits in Ceralon, three in the Basin. That should make a fantastic mess of things.

  “They’re ready, and they know the plan,” Tori said.

  “Tonight is all about leaving a mark—getting people’s attention.” He was nervous—far more nervous than he should be, and he couldn’t say why. “The last thing we need is some tough getting nabbed because he couldn’t run fast enough with his arms full of loot.”

  “Josen—”

  “And they’ve each been shown a sketch of the fifth Vuriche? They understand that if they do find it, they’re not to do anything with it, just report it back? And you made sure everyone has a mask?”

  “Josen,” Tori said, turning his face toward her. “Relax.” She looked better than she had three days earlier, like she had gotten a few nights of good rest and a couple solid meals, but she still looked haggard. Still, right now she was the calm, steady presence he needed right now. “Everyone knows the plan. You just do your part.”

  “Okay,” Josen said. This was just the biggest job he had ever run. He would relax once he got moving, but this part—the wait before the plunge—was killing him.

  “Where’s Akelle?” Tori asked.

  “Meeting me at the Basin Pass. We’re doing Berden personally.”

  Tori smiled and gave him a playful shove. “Good. Now get out of here and go do your job.”

  The walk to the Basin gate was blessedly uneventful, and it gave Josen a good amount of time to get his nerves under control. He sucked on on
e of Roetu’s ceral candies as he walked. He didn’t plan to do much in the way of breaking tonight, but he eaten as much ceral as he could handle over the past day—just in case.

  It was a delicate balancing act, eating enough real food to give his body the energy it needed while also packing his body full of ceral energy—useless for the mundane tasks that kept his body running, but vital for breaking. To complicate matters even more, the more pure his diet of ceral was—the less he ate of other foods—the better his breaking worked, and the longer the ceral energy lasted. But he couldn’t spend the night running and sneaking without some real food in his body.

  As he neared the Pass proper, the host of office buildings and specialized boutiques abruptly gave way to an open meadow. Paths leading from entrances at the edge of the mountain meadow all converged at a single point, where a large freestanding stone arch marked the entrance of the Basin Pass. At this late hour, the Pass itself was empty, absent even the rolling mist that typically filled the Passes while they were open.

  Josen stood in the shadow of the last available building, waiting and watching. Though he couldn’t see them from where he stood, Josen was pleased to hear what sounded like thousands of sheep at the other end meadow, noisy and cranky at being moved at such an odd hour. They would have gone the long way—around Ceralon instead of straight through the way Josen had come. Abbahim had managed his part. Now it was time for Josen to do his.

  “I don’t suppose we get to do this the easy way?” Akelle asked, emerging from a particularly deep shadow to Josen’s right. “Walk up to the Pass and real polite like for the nice men there to let us through?”

  “No,” Josen said, and he began walking down the nearest path, bent low, doing his best to stay lower than the tallest grass and bushes. Now that Akelle was here, there was no reason to wait. “We get to do this the old-fashioned way.”

  “I was afraid of that.”

  “Mask on, cloak on,” Josen said, slipping a thin black band around his eyes—the same he had worn to visit Madame Junishu—and checking the clasps of his own cloak. “Stay close,” Josen said.

  “I know how it works,” Akelle said, donning his own mask and cloak. “Keep moving; don’t fall. You’re not going to make me hold your hand again, are you?”

  “You’re not going to make me drag you through by the hand, are you?”

  “Shut up. That only happened once. Let’s go.”

  The flock of sheep being shepherded into the meadow provided an excellent distraction. Seven or eight Carters carrying lanterns and dressed in the official green and gold garb of their order rushed to meet the oncoming shepherds and their flock, leaving only a single man to guard the Pass. The man—fresh from the Seminary, no doubt—stood at the edge of the light cast by a pair of gas lanterns hung from the Pass arch. He gazed after his fellows, clearly more interested in the goings-on there than in acting as any kind of an impediment—which suited Josen’s needs perfectly.

  Twenty paces from the Pass, Josen stood to full height and broke into a sprint, glancing briefly behind to make sure Akelle was close. The Deferate Carter, faced the wrong direction and standing an equal distance to their right, turned with just enough time to let out a wordless shout as Josen and Akelle sprinted past him, faces obscured and cloaks billowing. They passed under the arch and continued their sprint down the ramp, not slowing even as they ran at the wall of earth at the far edge of the pass.

  Josen tapped the pool of ceral energy building inside of him, letting it flow into the space around them. Pass mist leapt up from the hard-packed ground, erupting in little spurts as their feet touched the earth. Josen pushed delicately, as if he were breaking the very air. The mist leapt up his legs at his next stride, then to his chest.

  “Starving hells,” Josen heard Akelle swear under his breath. “Starving, starving hells.”

  A wash of buzzing, almost painful heat exploded through Josen as the mist engulfed him entirely. Rushing silence filled Josen’s ears and made them ache. His bones vibrated as he continued to run even as the world shifted and rolled beneath his feet. He did his best to ignore the sharp tingling sensation even as goose bumps gathered across his skin as the alternating hot and cold sensation became cold, shivering energy that pressed in on him, writhed around him, and suddenly burst and dissipated as Josen burst into the muggy air of the Ceral Basin.

  He stumbled to a halt as Akelle staggered out of a tiny pocket of mist behind him and fell to his knees. “Are you okay?” Josen asked quietly, the pocket of mist they had emerged from disappearing into the night even as he helped Akelle to his feet.

  Akelle looked like he wanted to throw up, but he nodded. Sprinting through the Passes was never a pleasant experience.

  “Okay,” Josen whispered. “I’ll go first, draw the guards away. Meet me at Berden’s as soon as you can. Northwest corner of his estate, the stone fountain.”

  Akelle nodded again. Josen clapped him on the back and ran.

  * * *

  Berden’s estate home was lit up, bright and impossible to miss as Josen and Akelle approached less than an hour later. Heart pounding in anticipation, Josen patted at his bag for the tenth time in so many minutes, making sure the folded papers were still there. They were, just as they had been the other nine times.

  It was a simple job. All Josen had to do was make sure the papers ended up on Berden’s secretary’s desk, and then make a commotion similar to the one being made at five other important houses in Ceralon and the Ceral Basin—break things, steal whatever could fit in his pockets, and make a show of it.

  And keep their eyes open for any sign of the Vuriche. Josen was sure Berden would never own such a thing, but he would keep an eye out regardless. For Josen, tonight was all about the paper.

  They didn’t speak as they approached the manor. They didn’t need to. They had discussed the plan in detail already, and they moved together with years of earned familiarity. They would stay together, two pairs of eyes to make sure everything went as smoothly as possible. They wanted to create a stir, not actually draw attention. They stepped from shadow to deep shadow, the kind made possible by bright lights on a moonless night, until they reached the manor walls. Even someone as rich as Berden couldn’t banish all shadows, each pool of darkness, and Josen and Akelle knew how to use every one.

  Finding a climbable wall and an open window was simple. Berden was a cautious man by nature, but—like all of his peers—also a complacent one. No thief had dared openly molest the clergy since Lukas Thorne thirty years ago—and he had been tortured publicly for three days before being burned alive. Basic security measures were to be taken as a matter of habit, but anything more would be considered the height of paranoia. No thief would dare, surely.

  Josen grinned at the thought. The idea of shattering that false sense of security gave him a perverse pleasure. The knowledge that he would be invited to dinners and parties by the very people he would rob tonight made him want to laugh aloud.

  He reigned in the feeling but couldn’t stop grinning. He still had a job to do, and Abbahim was waiting on him.

  After a short climb and a half dozen locked windows, Akelle found an unlatched second-story window and gestured Josen over. Josen couldn’t remember from the outside exactly where the offices were, but he knew this wasn’t it. The room was dark and apparently unused—a guest room by the look of it—and the hall outside was empty.

  “Do you know where the secretary’s office is?” Akelle whispered as they crept across the wooden floor. Josen crouched next to the door and nodded before turning the handle to crack it open.

  “More or less.”

  “Fantastic,” Akelle said sarcastically. “You lead the way. I’ll more or less follow.”

  Sneakthieving in an occupied house was slow work—painfully so at times. Josen preferred to lure the target out of their home to give himself the freedom of an empty workspace, but that wouldn’t work this time. He needed Berden here for this to work.

  The doo
r groaned as Josen opened it just wide enough to slip through. He froze, waiting and listening as the groan echoed into silence. Then he heard heavy footsteps moving toward them. Josen swore silently, motioning for Akelle to stay inside the room while he flattened himself against the wall behind a decorative wooden stand.

  “Oy, Garson. Is that you?” a voice whispered loudly from down the stairs at the end of the hall.

  Josen weighed the options of pretending to be Garson versus staying quiet, but he thought a second too long and the decision was made for him. The footsteps started up the stairs.

  “Garson, you starving idiot, Reverate Berden told you to walk the perimeter while he met with Reverate Riveran.” The man with loud feet stopped talking as he reached the top of the stairs and looked down the seemingly empty hallway. “Garson?” His posture tensed, and his movements turned subtle and dangerous. He eased a long, slender club from his belt.

  Josen took a deep breath and checked his mask, then stood up in full sight of the guard. God’s tears, Akelle had better being paying attention on the other side of the door.

  “I can explain,” Josen said, holding his hands up, trying to pacify the bulky man approaching down the hallway.

  The man raised his club, muscles tense. “What the … Who in the starving hells are you?” He approached Josen slowly, club wagging in the air behind him. “Don’t you move—”

  “Now hold on,” Josen said, taking a step back as the man passed the loud door. “I know what this must look like, but I can explain—” The door hinges protested once again as a bleary-eyed-looking Akelle ambled out, doing an impressive job of looking scared and confused at the menacing man looming over Josen.

  The brief, confused glance over the shoulder was all the opening Josen needed. He lashed out, his fist connecting hard with the guard’s neck, just beneath his ear. The big man dropped with a grunt, dazed but still conscious. His club clattered to the floor, and Akelle leapt at the man, doing his best to keep him from crashing through any furniture. The big man jerked as Akelle scissored his legs around the man’s neck, applying pressure until the guard’s motions slowed, then stopped.