by Levi Jacobs
Tai was in mourning too. Every year at this time, during the hottest part of the summer, when the breeze stopped and the suns seemed never to set, memories of the resistance came back. Of fighting and running through the streets of the city while Councilate soldiers poured in from the docks. Of months of hope, then days of panic and defeat. Of his best friend Hake getting run through by a silver-suited soldier while Tai watched, frozen.
Don’t go getting angry. Hake’s voice was scratchy in his head, the pubescent in-between it’d been when he died. They won fair and square.
“Me? You’re the one they killed.”
Well you’re the one stalking the city like it’s still a war zone.
“It is a war zone,” Tai muttered, watching a pair of Councilate lawkeepers question a dark-haired urchin. “We just don’t fight back any more.”
Because there’s no point. Because we’re getting out. They’d been saving to move for years, ever since Hake returned as Tai’s spirit guide, and they’d found Hake’s little sister living on the streets. Not long now.
Tai ducked a goodwife’s basket, dried mavenstym blossoms arranged in elegant spirals. “One hundred and thirty-seven days.”
What?
“That’s how long it’s going to take us at this rate. One hundred thirty-seven days.”
That’s... not so bad.
“It’s after the snow flies, which means we have to wait here until the river thaws.” Longer than he wanted to stay, the way the lawkeepers had been acting.
Hake gave the mental equivalent of a frown. Tai couldn’t see his spirit guide, but knew Hake well enough while he was alive that he could imagine him standing, arms crossed and eyes narrowed. You’ve got some kind of idea.
Tai nodded toward the river below, where charred ship masts stuck from the water like the claws of a drowned bear. Rebels had attacked during the night, sinking two Councilate ships. You could still smell smoke on the air. “That’s my idea.”
The ships? There’s no way you’d get in there. The place is crawling with lawkeepers.
“Not from above.” A passing lighthair gave him a sharp glance, and Tai made a rude gesture back. Councilates thought it was childish to talk to your spirit guides.
From abo—and use your resonance? Tai no. You’ll go mad like you did last time. Remember that, attacking every lawkeeper you saw, me barely managing to talk you down?
Tai shifted his shoulders. “I was young then. I could control it now.”
And what happens to Fisher if you don’t? She’s all I’ve got left.
There it was. The old guilt, like a boulder between his ribs, pressing on his heart. The way Hake won every argument. Hake died because Tai’d frozen, so the least Tai could do was take care of Hake’s last living family.
You don’t even know if there’s anything in them.
“The rebels wouldn’t burn them if they weren’t important,” he snapped. “They were probably packed to the gills with gold, or yura.” Yura was the whole reason the Councilate had come to Ayugen—a cave moss that quieted spirit guides, and gave weak access to the resonances. It was all the rage in the capital.
Well unfortunately the dock is packed to the gills with lawkeepers looking for a scapegoat. And you’re going to lift a bale of yura from under their noses? They’d kill you for a rebel on the spot. And then we’d both be dead.”
Tai rolled his shoulders, ducking out of the way of a great elk pulling a cart of roofbeams. He didn’t want the guilt of what came next, the reminder of what would happen to Fisher. “Hake you died three years ago.”
Hake snorted. Sometimes I wish I had. Being a voice in your head is a pain in the ass.
“Try having an ass in your head instead of a voice.”
His friend laughed. Guess you got me there. Can we agree not to raid a pack of Councilate lawkeepers though? For Fisher’s sake?
Tai sighed. “Fine. But if we don’t enough money at first snow we go anyway, even if it means we’re just beggars when we get there.”
Deal.
Tai turned a corner toward the cheaper stalls and shops of Riverbottom. He’d sent two of their kids here to beg, expecting busier streets as people came to gawk at the wreck of the rebel attack. More people meant more lawkeepers around, but also more chances to make money—and they weren’t doing anything illegal.
Usually.
Fisher and Curly were two streets down, two sets of hands in a line of frail children sitting against the carved wood wall of a luthier shop, begging for change. The major gangs were both there, Maimers missing hands or limbs, young girls from the Mothers clutching even younger children. Tai glanced up and down the street, then crouched and mussed Fisher’s black-and-silver locks. “Hey Fishy, Curly, how’s business?”
Fisher smiled at him, eyes sparkling, seeming somehow too large beside her snub nose. “I saw three butterflies and a red songpickler, right over there on that rooftop.” She pointed, a young Maimer nearby giving them a sidelong look.
Tai smiled. “That’s great. Any sales?”
“We got three, Tai!” Curly said, voice the raspy excitement of an eight-year-old trying to sound tough.
“Three? That’s great!” A sale or two a day was usually the best his kids could do, especially with the Councilate’s crackdown on unlicensed yura. He dug six pebble-size balls out, gray-green lichen bound together with beeswax. “Here’s some more, in case things get crazy.”
Curly took the balls and Fisher nodded, already searching the street for more wildlife. It was the game she played to keep herself occupied on long days. They all had something—Curly did math games, Pang practiced magic tricks, others played solitaire stones. And Tai—
Hake gave a wry laugh. You’ve got me.
Fisher’s eyes lighted on something. “Tai, watch. I can get this one too.”
There was a Councilate woman walking their direction. Tai smiled. “Work your magic. I’ll be right here.” He squeezed in beside her, letting his chest cave and head drop to blend with the other beggars.
Hake radiated pride. That’s my girl. Tai shared the emotion—Fisher was the youngest and sweetest of his gang, and somehow the best yura seller too.
The woman approached with nose held high, as though searching for untainted air. Her shimmering white gown, stiff back and Achuri attendant all marked her as a Councilate citizen, but nothing so much as her hair. Silvery pale and thin as spider webs, it was braided and tied in elaborate loops on all sides of her head. A lighthair. Tai fingered his own hair, dark like everyone else’s, though conspicuously thinner than the local Achuri black. A child of the city, Marrem would say to him growing up. Son of no one, son of everyone, and no reason to be ashamed of it.
Except that lighthairs ruled the world.
One of the beggars called out, a young Mother holding a child, but the woman ignored her. Fisher put on a bright expression and called, “A few coins for a smile, milady?”
Tai hid a grin. He had taught his gang high Yersh, having learned it himself running for the Achuri Resistance. It sounded especially dainty in Fisher’s tiny voice. They were the only gang in town who spoke proper Yersh, and it made a difference in sales.
The woman stopped in her tracks, gazing down at Fisher. “Well you’re a bright one.” She spoke with the heavy vowels of the capital. “Are you selling more than smiles?” The woman glanced around her as she asked—unlicensed sale of yura was technically illegal, though all the gangs did it.
“We have moss too.”
“Well then.” The woman leaned in, apparently unconscious of how every child on the street was now listening. “How much for a ball?”
“It would be twenty marks, ma’am.”
“Twenty marks?” The woman sounded offended, but that was par for the course. Lighthairs couldn’t buy anything without making a fuss over it first. “How much for more?”
“Two balls for thirty-five, three for fifty…”
The woman smiled and shook her head. “A lot more. Say,
thirty balls.”
Tai choked despite himself. Thirty? No one bought thirty balls at a time—he didn’t even buy that many. Tai’s heart beat faster--this would put them weeks ahead.
Fisher was stammering, unable to add it up. “Five hundred!” Curly cried, solving it like a math game.
Tai winced at the woman’s expression. It was too much—a hardened street kid would’ve known that. He was glad his kids still had some innocence, but every now and then it worked against them. “We—could give you a discount,” he said.
The woman looked at him, eyebrows raising. “So you’re in on this too? How much of a discount?”
Tai did his own math game, balancing profit with how much closer a big sale would get them to passage out. “Say—three hundred fifty.”
She nodded. “And how much for a hundred balls?”
Even Hake choked this time, but Tai’s instincts flared the next moment. Was this some kind of trap? “What would you need that many for?”
The woman crouched down, seeming to forget that she was the lighthaired lady and they the street kids, excitement lighting her face. “For experiments. I’ve heard the Achuri can use their resonances without yura—is that true?”
Tai rolled his shoulders, suddenly uncomfortable under the woman’s gaze. She didn’t seem dangerous, but you never knew with lighthairs. “Some of us can.”
“Can you? Can any of you?”
Distrust rolled off Hake. Don’t tell her. Who knows what she wants—and those days are done, anyway.
“He can!” Curly cried. “He’s the Blackspine! He’s the toughest fighter in the whole city, that’s why none of the gangs mess with us! He killed forty soldiers all by himself!”
“Curly,” Tai winced, holding up a hand, but if the woman had been mildly curious before, she was all eyes now.
“Is this true, Mister… Blackspine?”
“Tai. It’s just Tai. And that was a long time ago.”
“But he could do it again if he wanted,” Curly pushed on. “And he doesn’t need yura for anything!”
Looks like someone’s got an admirer.
“How did you do it?” the woman asked, eyes intense. “Did you overdose on yura?”
“I—“
“Hey!” a new voice called, and Tai started. A lawkeeper was striding toward them, one hand on his cutlass. “What’s going on here?”
“Meckstains,” Tai cursed, rising from his spot. He’d been so caught up in possibly selling a hundred balls, in keeping this woman out of his past, that he hadn’t even been watching the street.
First day on the job?
“Shut up, Hake,” he muttered.
“What was that?” the lawkeeper demanded.
“Shut up, lady, I was saying.” The woman’s eyes widened, but he kept on. Like Hake said, better safe and with his kids than risk imprisonment just to make a sale. He switched to Achuri, seeing the lawkeeper was one of the newer local recruits. “Fishhair was giving us a hard time, lording herself over us. Like usual.” He wasn’t above playing on local loyalties, if it got him out of a tight spot.
The lawkeeper wasn’t having it. “Not trying to sell her blackmarket yura, then?” he responded in Yersh. “If I take you in and search you we won’t find way too many marks and moss balls on you for a street tough?”
There was something familiar about the man’s close-set eyes, the way he stuck his chin out when he talked. Tai looked again. “Tulric?”
The lawkeeper smirked, gang tattoo poking out from under his Councilate hat. “That’s Tulric Alson to you, meckstain. I’m practically a lighthair these days. Now lift ‘em up, you’re going to the mines.” He paused. “‘Less you want to see if I can get you a job?”
Tai spat at his feet. “And work for the Councilate? Never.”
“Your funeral. Have fun digging moss.”
As Tulric spoke, Tai felt a hum in his bones, a deep vibration like his skeleton was a wood chime suddenly struck. Tulric was using his resonance, one of the six powers yura gave access to. Tai tensed—judging by the tone of the resonance, Tulric was a brawler, someone who got stronger and faster on yura. Most lawkeepers were brawlers or wafters, and wouldn’t hesitate to kill or break bones if you tried to escape.
Which, of course, was exactly what he needed to do.
Probably should have thought of that before you spat at him.
And you should probably be thinking about something more useful than scolding me, Tai thought back. Aloud he said “Look, Tulric, if you’re looking for a cut—“
“He was doing nothing wrong,” the Councilate woman cut in, tone righteous.
As one, Tai and Tulric looked at her in disbelief.
A lighthair was defending him?
“You’re a guard of the Councilate, yes?” she went on. “Sworn to protect Councilate laws and citizens? Well I am a citizen of the Councilate, of Worldsmouth itself, and I tell you this man was doing nothing more than having a polite conversation with me.”
“I—“ Tulric appeared at a momentary loss. Tai nodded at Curly and Fisher, who started to melt away with the rest of the beggars on the block.
“You will release him at once.”
Tulric seemed to recover his cool. “I appreciate what you’re saying lady, but I’ve got a quota to fill.”
As the woman cut in again, Tai noticed his bones were quiet, meaning Tulric had stilled his resonance. The abilities didn’t last long, limited by the amount of yura and winterfood you’d eaten that day—Tulric was probably trying to conserve his. Meaning Tai had a couple seconds to run before the man could get inhumanly fast and strong and run him down.
It wasn’t much, but he was taking it.
Tai bolted in the direction of the docks, toward the warren of shops and backalleys that surrounded them. A shout sounded behind him, and he poured on the speed. Tulric had grown up here—Tai wouldn’t be able to lose him like a lighthair in the maze of sidestreets. But Tai hadn’t survived Ayugen this long without learning a few tricks.
Like blindness. Tai veered left at Pauper’s Corner, snatching a handful of red chili from a spice vendor’s piles as he passed. Then was an alleyway here somewhere—there. Tai ducked into a cloth-draped alley as shouts sounded behind him—Tulric pushing his way through the crowd. Tai pulled himself up on one of the poles still jutting from the clay wall, remnants of a lean-to that had burned years ago. Slow breaths: in, out. In—
You like that Councilate lady.
“What?” he burst out. “No, definitely not!”
Tulric bulled into the alley. Startled, Tai threw the powder from his perch, hitting the man more or less in the eyes, then swung out above him as the lawkeeper cried out. It wouldn’t buy him much time, but Tai knew how to use every second. He darted further down the street, heading for the Iron Market. He could lose the man there. A bird could lose its feathers in that maze.
“Tai!”
The raspy voice nearly made him stumble. Curly came out from behind a fruit wagon ahead, Fisher behind him. Tai’s stomach dropped. “Curly! What are you doing here? You need to run, to hide!”
“We were worried about you,” Fisher said, eyes wide and dark.
“Did you kill the lawkeeper?” Curly cut in, all wide-eyed excitement.
“No, I—he’s right behind me.”
As if on cue, Tulric roared from down the street. He’d cried enough chili out to see, apparently. Tai couldn’t leave the kids there now. Not with the former street thug in this kind of mood, and resonating besides. He scooped Fisher up, the girl a wisp in his arms, and grabbed Curly’s hand. “Come on!”
They pelted down the street, Tai half-dragging Curly, Tulric yelling behind. This could be bad.
This could be very bad.
“Curly, I’m going to need you to run when we get to the market, okay? I’ll take Fisher, but you need to go find Aelya. I think she’s at the teashop. Get her and bring her back for me, okay?”
“Okay, Tai!” Curly called, breath coming fast
. Fisher pulled herself closer around his neck, eyes wide with the blank look he knew too well from the war—shock sickness, Marrem called it. Nothing to do for it now.
The noise of the market hit first: clang of metal on metal, shout of merchant and customer, the roar of forge and hammer and mongrels fighting for scraps. Tai felt the heat next, rounding the corner to smithies ablaze in the summer sun. Smells came next, pastry meats and sour sweat and linseed oil, mixing in a red dust that left your tongue with the tang of pig iron. Tai ducked left into the narrow row of armor merchants and dropped Curly’s hand. “Go! Get Aelya!”
Curly nodded and vanished into the crowd. Tulric shouted behind them, and Tai slipped into the throng. Four years running for the resistance had taught him how to maneuver a crowd, and this wasn’t the first time he’d had to lose someone in the Iron Market. This place had been the resistance’s biggest secret, making axes and broadswords under guise of farm tools and cutlery. Now it was open and legal and duly taxed by the Councilate—but there were still secrets.
Tai ducked low behind a corpulent pair of Councilate merchants, cradling Fisher as he crab-walked under the counter into a wooden stall. A swarthy blacksmith looked down at them and Tai forced a smile. “Brother,” he said in Achuri, “is there a backdoor around?”
The smith winked and went back to polishing his wares, but his foot scraped a line backward toward the clanging forge at the back. Tai crouched under the counter, holding Fisher close, and offered a prayer to the ancestors for Tulric to pass without seeing them.
He did, resonance thrumming past them and deeper into the market.
“Hold on Fishy,” Tai whispered, and they scuttled into the back.
The heat was intense, the roar of forge and clang of steel too loud to talk, but a lanky man in a worn leather apron took one look and motioned them toward him. There was a tool rack there, which the man slid aside to reveal a narrow tunnel. Tai smiled at him, locking arms in the old resistance style, and worked his way into the tunnel, Fisher coming behind.