One Man

by Harry Connolly

  “Stop!” Fay called.

  One of the constables trailed him. “It’s the bloodkind, sir. They get under the docks somehow, and the blood sets them off somehow. We got to give them a little something to placate them somehow, or there will be an ugly fight once the sun sets. And this fellow can’t tell us anything. He’s speaking gibberish.”

  It was clear that there was more blood than could have come from these bodies. There was no point asking how many injured had already been thrown over. The constable would have simply lied about it.

  Fay waved the men away, and they dropped the injured heavy. The man’s face was pale and his hands paler. A hatchet lay beside him, but Fay doubted he had the strength to lift it, let alone attack.

  He crouched beside the dying man. “How long have you been here in Koh-Salash?” he asked in Carrig.

  The heavy blinked at him. “Three months. Just three months.”

  “Why were you and your friends in such a rush to leave?”

  The man blinked slowly, then looked around at the ships, the sea, and the sky. “Your accent is shit.”

  “I wouldn’t know. I was born here.”

  “There’s no music in your words.” The heavy coughed, straining the cords of his muscular neck. A dribble of blood appeared on his lip. “You grunt like these brownskins. Like hungry pigs.” The heavy looked at him. “I was going to be rich. I was going to return home with a godwood ring on every finger.”

  “What happened?” The heavy didn’t answer. “Why did your friends steal that ship and flee the city?” Still the man wouldn’t answer. “Tell me your name. Mine is Fay Nog Fay.”

  “Nal At Isp,” the man answered, almost out of habit. “Why should I tell you anything? Are you going to have me healed?”

  “Hospitals are expensive,” Fay said. “We don’t pay to heal pirates.”

  That earned a crooked smile. “No, you hang them.”

  “Hanged? Pirates are hanged in the Free Cities. We burn them.”

  “We,” the gangster muttered. “You are one of them, no matter what you look like. Golden on the outside, shit-brown underneath. And you have nothing to offer me but a quick death. Go fuck your whore of a mother.”

  Fay sighed. The man was baiting him, hoping to be put out of his misery. “Actually, there’s something I can do for you. The Salashi are in love with the sea and with their ships. They’re fast as hell, and mean about it. You heard the alarm, didn’t you? Salashi cutters are going to run down that lumbering cargo ship your friends stole and put a few volleys into them. Anyone stupid enough to surrender gets the torch. You don’t have any family on that ship, do you? Cousins, maybe? Brothers?”

  “Fuck you.”

  Fay winced. “My condolences. They’ve lost you, and you’re going to lose them.”

  Another hard cough brought blood to Nal’s lips. “But you can fix it, yeah?”

  “I can convince the captain to let the ship arrive in Carrig. Treat the pirates like cargo he has thoughtfully delivered, in the hopes of a substantial reward. But we can only stop those cutters while they’re in hearing range of the bell, and if you help me. Why were you fleeing to the ship?”

  “My brother?” Nal murmured. “You can see that he gets home?”

  “If we act quickly.”

  “Why should I believe you?”

  Fay spread his hands. “You are in the final moments of your life, and your brother is in danger. There’s only one thing left you can do for him.”

  Nal’s eyes closed. When he spoke, his words were thick. “In Low Apricot, there’s a brothel called The Caves.”

  “That’s Sen Pul Nat’s property.”

  The heavy managed a sour smile. “Sen Pul Nat is dead, and so are most of his people. The survivors are heading home. Go to The Caves so that when the Clutching Hand seize your shriveled, hairless balls, you’ll know why. That’s all.”

  Fay stood and addressed the two ironshirts nearby. “Do what you have to.”

  He tilted his head to let Mirishiya know she should follow. As they walked away, they heard the dying man go into the water.

  “Good sir?” Mirishiya asked. “What did he say?”

  You are one of them, no matter what you look like.

  “He gave us another errand to run.” He stopped and spun on her. “And never, ever do that again. Do you hear? Never put yourself between me and a blade. You are a twelve-year-old girl. I’m the one who’s supposed to die protecting you. Understand?”

  “Yes, good sir.” Her tone was resentful.

  “Think of my reputation,” he said, and she made an ahh sound of understanding. For all her time in Suloh’s Tower learning figures and letters, she was still a street kid at heart.

  “I wasn’t afraid of that old man,” she said. “He’s what my auntie used to call a ‘dog that’s been fucked too many times.’ He had to work up the courage to attack when your back was turned.” She must have noticed the smile on Fay’s face. “Er…excuse my language, good sir.”

  “By the fallen gods, don’t talk that way around Onderishta. And never take it for granted that an armed man is harmless. Never. You can never really tell what a person is capable of.”

  * * *

  Kyrioc sat at the mouth of an alley across from Sailsday’s Regret. His face was hidden by a deep hood, and his begging bowl sat empty before him. It was too early for a heavy crowd of dancers and musicians, but people stopped at cafes and tea shops, had their hands painted, or were just passing through.

  The stairs down to Wild Dismal were right behind him.

  Every time a passerby dropped a coin into his bowl, the youths loitering in the alley behind him sauntered out to take it. When a constable wandered by and told him to move along—begging was illegal inside the walls—one of those same youths slipped him a coin to look the other way. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t there for the money.

  He was waiting for the beetles. Even if it took hours, one would have to pass through this intersection, and Kyrioc would be ready.

  * * *

  Onderishta arrived at the brothel well after Fay and the constables were in place. The captain looked relieved. He could finally move in.

  As far as Onderishta knew, The Caves was the only building in all of Koh-Salash to have a round door. Well, a pair of them, since the entrance—which stood twelve feet in diameter—had two skywood doors that met in the middle. Each had a panel at the top and the bottom carved to show long, irregular fangs. Onderishta wasn’t sure what fangs had to do with caves, but then, she’d never seen one. Still, it made the doorway seem like the entrance to a monster’s belly.

  Outside those doors stood two enormous guards with steel broadswords, which they held drawn and upright. That was illegal. Not even a licensed bodyguard was permitted to stand around with a bared long weapon, but the east tower received enough silver every month to turn a blind eye as long as the guards didn’t do anything stupid.

  Today, they appeared ready to do something stupid. Constables had been deployed outside the entrances to the building and around the perimeter in case someone was creative about escaping. But the guards stood in their place, swords held before them, as though those two men—big men, but just men after all—could hold off two dozen armed and armored constables.

  She found Fay across the street, sharing a steamed bun with Mirishiya. “Where do things stand?”

  “No one has come out. No one has gone in. But I guess we’re ready to change that. Where’s the boy?”

  He meant the other apprentice, obviously. “Special errand. Think these assholes are going to make trouble?” She jerked her thumb at the two door guards.

  Fay gave the rest of the bun to Mirishiya. “Let’s find out.”

  When the ironshirts advanced, the guards immediately lowered their swords and opened the doors like they were welcoming paying customers.

  Onderishta gestured, and a pair of constables shackled them. Then she waited while the ironshirts searched the building for belliger
ents.

  Many were found. None were alive.

  If Onderishta and Fay thought the scene at the weavers’ workshop in The Folly was awful, this was worse. Inside The Cave, over the course of a three-hour reconnaissance, they found sixty-three bodies. Nine were men and women employed there. Seventeen were Salashi men and women armed with knives or hatchets and wearing thick leather vests. Thirty-seven were Carrig men and women dressed in the dark blue pants and tunics favored by the foreign friends.

  And if the deaths in The Folly had been brutal but quick, served up with a single decisive stroke, these were messy and awful.

  Corpses lay in heaps where they had been hacked apart in narrow halls. They lay dead in each other’s arms, weapons in each other’s hearts. They lay across bloody beds, expressions of surprise on their bloodless faces.

  Onderishta felt sick to her stomach, and Fay was paler than usual. Mirishiya, in a small voice, said, “I didn’t think this sort of thing happened.”

  “You can wait outside, if you like,” Onderishta said, but the girl only shook her head stubbornly. Good for her. “All right. What do you make of all this, apprentice?”

  Instead of speculating, the girl said, “I think we should talk to the owner.”

  “That’s exactly right.”

  Like every brothel in the city, The Caves handled a lot of coin, and they took extreme measures to protect it. The constables, in searching the building, found no office or vault, no place where accounts could be recorded and balanced.

  Fay turned to Mirishiya. “Well?”

  After a few moments, she said, “I need to think like a thief.” Mirishiya looked at the door, then the reception counter, then the long bar. She went behind the counter and found an empty cash drawer and a money slot beneath it. “There’s a trapdoor,” she said, which she found behind the bar. Opening it revealed a staircase down into darkness, and the strong scent of vinegar.

  Onderishta called for a pair of constables with lanterns, then they descended into the dark. At the bottom, they found two shallow tubs beneath narrow chutes. Both were filled with cheap, watered-down vinegar.

  “It’s to clean the money,” a voice called from the darkness. The constables turned, weapons ready, and Fay shone the lantern into the far end of the room.

  It revealed a small Salashi woman in a plain dress and elaborate hairstyle. Her black hair curled around her head like a turban, and the pins that held it in place were glittering silver. She sat at a desk covered with ledgers, quill and ink pot beside her. A puddle of wax filled a candle tray beside her, and a lantern on a hook at her shoulder was dark.

  “The vinegar, I mean. Some of those who come here… Well, I don’t need to explain.”

  “Why are you sitting alone in the dark?” Onderishta asked.

  “I was down here when the fighting started. I suppose I could have rushed upstairs and picked up a knife or something, but I didn’t. I heard the screams. Blood dripped through the floorboards over there. Do you see it?” She made no move to indicate where there could be. “So, I stayed where I was until the candle burned down and the lantern ran out of oil. I guess I could have left when the light ran out, but I couldn’t move. I’m not sure why.”

  The woman was in shock. Onderishta shined the light around the little basement, hoping to find an exit that would let this woman leave without passing through the charnel house above. There was none. “You work for Sen Pul Nat, don’t you?”

  “I don’t think so,” she answered. “I heard that he’s dead, along with his uncle. Our foreign friends came here to destroy the place. To tear it up. We tried to stop them, but…”

  Mirishiya’s head quirked. She caught that the woman had already contradicted herself, which was a good sign. Now she needed to learn to hide her responses.

  Onderishta set the lamp on the desk. The light fell on a tray filled with gold, but not gold coins. A closer look showed they golden brooches of the sort noble women might wear. One looked familiar. Onderishta picked it up and turned it over but couldn’t recall where she’d seen it. “Like to pin your fancy robes with gold, eh?”

  The woman shook her head. “I don’t wear robes. Sen Pul Nat keeps them here. He trusts me. Trusted me, I mean.”

  “Where did he get them?”

  “I never had the nerve to ask. But he sends them to his wife in Carrig.”

  “All right,” Onderishta said. “Where’s the coin?” The woman laid her hand on a strongbox beside her. It was not small. “Okay. Put the brooches and the ledgers inside, then give me the key. You’re collared until this can all be sorted out.”

  She nodded meekly and did as she was told. Onderishta slipped the bulky iron key into her purse. To the constable, she said, “Tell me your name.”

  “Sempiris, child of Semlithic, good ma’am.”

  “Good. Sempiris, child of Semlithic, you and one of your comrades are going to see this strongbox and this prisoner to the south tower—”

  “Low Apricot is an east tower deck,” the man interrupted.

  “But I work for the bureaucracy, and we go everywhere. Besides, of all the towers in the city, the east is the most rife with corruption…or do you want to dispute that?” He didn’t. “See this box to the south tower and have the captain admit you to my office. You’re to stay there until I relieve you, even if it takes a couple of days. Understand? When I relieve you, if this box has been broken open, or even if the lock has been scratched by picks, I’m going to have you collared. Yes, you, personally, even if your comrades made a show of blacking your eye and breaking your nose first.”

  “You can’t—”

  “Oh, shit,” Fay interrupted. “Constable, you should not have said that.”

  Onderishta stepped close to the constable and lowered her voice. “Did you happen to notice the dead bodies upstairs? Did you see what those rooms looked like?”

  “I did, ma’am.”

  “Have you ever seen anything like that in your life?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “I have. That’s what a battlefield looks like after one side has fled. Koh-Salash is changing, and if you don’t change with it, you and yours are going to suffer. Don’t pick the losing side. Understand?”

  “Yes, ma’am. South tower. Wait for you.”

  With a nod, Onderishta went up the stairs into the street. Fay and Mirishiya were close behind. “You were right, Fay. Harl is dead. He has to be, for someone to make a move like this. How long have the foreign friends been running the gangs in Koh-Salash?”

  Fay shrugged. “No one’s really sure when they took over. Longer than I’ve been alive.”

  “And now they’ve been purged.”

  Wiping his face with his hand, Fay said, “I suppose I should feel some kinship to those foreign friends since we share the same skin tone, but I’m not sorry to see them go.”

  “If they’d left on their own, I’d be cheering,” Onderishta replied. “But the dead workers inside The Cave and down at the docks are a price we shouldn’t have had to pay.” And it was her fault. Hers and Fay’s. If they’d collared Harl at his hammerball club…

  Mirishiya spoke up. “How do we find the person who made us pay this price?”

  Whoever it was, they had already been in hiding too long.

  They stopped at three more brothels in Low Apricot, hoping to discover the name of the new boss. No one could answer. Eventually, they climbed up to High Apricot and stopped at several upscale platform halls.

  Three managers claimed to know nothing. The others wouldn’t even speak to them.

  People were afraid, and Onderishta thought they were right to be.

  Finally, they reached Sailsday’s Regret. Tonight would not be a night for music and dancing, which meant the cafe tables were out. Since it was after dinnertime, Onderishta suggested they eat, and after they placed their order, she asked to speak to the manager.

  “Ma’am, may I try this time?” Mirishiya asked.

  Fay shrugged. Onderishta said
, “We’ve been getting nowhere. Go ahead.”

  The food arrived before the manager did. They had crocks of pigeon stew with bread baked on top, and they dug in. The manager arrived when they were nearly finished. He was a short, balding man with an extravagant mustache. “Is something wrong with your meal?”

  “Clearly not,” Mirishiya said patiently. “However, due to the recent turmoil, my employers”—she gestured toward Fay and Onderishta—“have not been paid. The fellow who would normally handle things is currently sailing to Carrig. Obviously, this is unacceptable.”

  The manager removed a cloth from his pocket and patted away beads of sweat on his forehead. “I’m not sure why you bring your problem to me.”

  The girl shrugged. “We had to come somewhere. We also had to eat. This visit solves both problems. So, who should we talk to so we can rectify this accounting error?”

  “But I don’t know. I’m just the cafe manager.”

  Mirishiya sighed. “My employers do not work for free. If their services are no longer secure, and it gets around that you were the one who let them slip away—”

  The manager opened his hands as if in prayer. “I’m not being coy. The turmoil is very recent, and word has not reached my office. All I know is that new bosses have stepped into the space where the old bosses were.”

  Mirishiya opened her mouth but Onderishta raised her hand. Enough. “Thank you,” the girl said.

  “I wish I knew more,” the manager said with a little bow. “Please consider your meal on the house.”

  “No,” Onderishta said firmly. “Bring us the bill.”

  The manager bowed again and left.

  Fay was grinning. “Personal connection,” he said. “Where did you learn to talk like that? No one rectifies accounting errors on the streets.”

  “In Suloh’s Temple,” Mirishiya said. “The tutors say things like that all day. I must hear secure their services fifty times a day. Ugh.” She quirked her head at Onderishta. “You believed him?”

  “I did. Also, he said stepped into the space and I don’t think he was being figurative. We know where Harl’s old space was.”