She took the stairs as quickly as she could, hoping as she fled that her pace struck a balance between necessary haste and little enough noise to avoid discovery as she fled.
Chapter Five
Sot
Sot straightened the sleeping pad—as if it would matter to Vadi—and pulled her off the floor and onto the bed.
She was so small.
Driven by guilt as much as respect for the dead (how could she be so suddenly dead!), he straightened her legs and arranged her arms at her sides… but that made her look unnaturally stiff. He settled for folding her right arm across her ribs.
Her eyes had opened a little: blank and glassy slivers; one, dark red.
That was almost too much for Sot. He groaned. "Vadi…"
Carefully, madly concerned with applying too much pressure, he lowered her eyelids with his stubby, thick fingers.
Dried essa was sticky on her skin.
He almost wiped his hands on his hip, but remembered he was naked and chose the bedding instead.
They had just been slicking! Right there!
Now she was dead!
He could barely look away, even mostly feeling around on the floor to find his trousers and tunic. He dressed slowly, aware he was in some kind of shock, but unable to shake it off.
Vadi.
Although Lama had been there when it happened, Vadi had been his first.
And he had been her last.
He found his boots and squeezed them on.
So strange to think of it.
She had been alive not five bits ago!
Just then!
Sot hadn't seen a dead person since he'd been a kit and almost fell over the bloated, days-old corpse of a magn in the alley a few doors down from the Steadfast Capful. Probably a mugging victim, but scavenging, hungry guttersnipes had done much worse to the corpse than whatever had taken his life.
That was a ruin, that dead thing in his memory.
Vadi… well, her skull was cracked and glistening, but if you looked at her from the other side of her head and didn't stare too long, she could… almost… simply be sleeping.
How long Sot stood there, he couldn't have said. Their lives since they'd met when they were all fourteen years old, and up until the final falling out around five years ago, played out behind his forehead.
He felt a little sad.
The door opened, at last forcing Sot from his reverie.
Even as Lama slipped inside and closed the door behind her, Sot could see she quickly comprehended what lay before her.
Lama's face, at first ruddy from the cool outside air, paled as he watched.
"What..?"
She took a small step closer. Sot noticed she kept her left arm tight against her body. He saw the baby-sized bulge there…
Lama said it again.
"What..? What did you do? Is Vadi…"
Sot's voice was high, befitting the vice he felt clamped around his chest. "It was an accident." The words came out fast. "She…"
Sot watched Lama take in the broken shards of the jug, the slowly dripping essa on the wall… the mess of Vadi's skull.
He realized there was really no need to get into the how and the why.
So he changed focus and pointed at the lump beneath her coat.
"Is that… did you actually..?"
Lama ignored him. She gaped at the body of their former friend.
"Vadi..?"
Sot watched Lama's expression flow from surprise, through regret, and on to grief in the time it took for him to take a ragged, shallow breath.
When she finally turned to look at him, Lama's face was neutral and hard.
"You killed her," she said.
"I didn't mean to."
The particulars spilled out of him after all.
"I was trying to get her something to drink. She was going to leave, to find you, and her key… she noticed her key was missing, and… and where have you been? Why did it take so long?"
Lama darkened. Best not to put any of the blame on her. The night had turned sour enough, and they still had to work together to get through it.
He shook his head. "It doesn't matter right now." Sot pointed at her chest. "Let me see him. Is he… did you use the thing?"
Lama opened her coat and revealed baby Ranith, sleeping deeply.
Sot's eyes widened and his mouth dropped open.
"Shaper's hand. You really did it."
"But." She studied the child. "I was interrupted. Twice." She adjusted Ranith's position against her chest, then raised her head to look at Vadi. "I did something… that was…" She looked directly at Sot. "…not an accident."
Sot swayed and clutched his head with both hands. "This changes everything. I don't know what we're going to do."
He paced tightly between the bed and the wall.
"They'll look for Vadi," he said. "They'll know she's gone… we don't have time to… I don't know what we would do. Bury her? We don't have time. We have to get out of here, and it's still four days until we're supposed to meet Ulthus and hand over the kit, we should have waited, and—"
"Sot!"
He thought she was angry. She just looked tired.
"You're right. We don't have much time. But you know it had to be tonight."
Sot stopped pacing. He nodded.
Lama looked at Vadi through narrowed, calculating eyes. "Wrap her up in the bedding and do it well. You know. Like a… a…"
Sot nodded again. "Like a shroud."
He did so, careful to avoid the blood soaking through the blanket tangled around Vadi's head.
Lama bent and took up an old tunic. One end between her teeth, the other in her free hand, she ripped away a long ribbon of cloth.
"Help me secure Rani— him."
She held the sleeping infant against her side while Sot used the torn fabric to wrap him in place beneath her coat.
Lama nodded. "Good. Now I can almost use both hands."
Sot nodded. "What about..?"
Lama pursed her lips and sighed. She nodded slightly. "Give me the lamp."
"What..?"
"Give me the lamp, Sot."
Sot turned and took the little candle lamp from a shelf on the wall. He reached over the bed (and the cocooned, seeping corpse) and handed it to Lama.
She removed the lampshade and tossed it in the corner. "Here." She took one of the two candles from within and handed the other one to Sot.
She crouched, unconsciously bracing the infant with her arm, and applied the flame to the trailing end of Vadi's makeshift shroud. It took a few bits, but the rough cloth ignited.
"Set the bed on fire," she said.
"What?" Sot eyed the flames licking at their one-time friend. "Are you off your path?"
"Set the bed on fire, Sot! There's no time to say everything twice!"
Alarm bells rang out.
Sot's whole body jerked. He looked at the fire on the bed, at the candle in his hand.
"Oh no."
It sounded like every bell in the palace, and the yard.
Lama rolled her eyes and turned for the door. "Never mind. Just throw it on the bed. Let's go. And make sure the door is closed tight behind you."
Lama
In the central hallway of the launderers' warren, Lama and Sot found themselves crowded among their fellow launderers shuffling from their apartments, most still in their sleeping clothes.
Someone down the hall had the idea to open the shutter on a glowglobe, and others followed suit, making it easier to see Tupu standing near the outer door clanging a bell over his head that no one had trouble hearing.
"Fire!" He cried. "Fire in the palace! Everyone to the yard! Let's go! Get moving! Outside! Let's go!"
He threw open the door and took the lead. Lama and Sot followed the flow as people moved out as best as they could in the press of the hallway, which wasn't built to accommodate everyone at once.
Lama kept to Sot's right, the concealed baby between them, and hoped the
magicked scent of the cloth would be enough to keep Ranith quiet in the midst of the chaos. If he started to cry…
Sot was pulling ahead. She leaned into him and whispered in his ear, "Stay back from everyone."
He didn't acknowledge her, but he did slow down and let others push past.
Tupu lingered just outside the warren, waving people out and onward, issuing orders as they passed. "You get on the line! You, help at the well. The one by the stables!"
He saw Lama and Sot bringing up the rear. "Hurry! You two, grab a wheelbarrow and shovel over where they're shoring up the wall. Know what I mean?"
Lama nodded; they'd want loose dirt and soil to throw on the flames, presumably. Sot called, "Got it!"
Tupu nodded and dashed off toward the bucket line forming up between the palace and the stable well.
Lama said to Sot, "Follow me close."
Peripherally, she saw him nod. Her focus was on the tower.
Thick smoke streamed from the top floors, blacker than the sky now that it was nearly tahwake. From where she stood, the fire itself was barely discernible as a slight orange glow near the top of the tower.
Visibly, there was more fire, and more light, from the torches, lanterns, and glowglobes employed by those helping fight the blaze.
That was good. The better light-adjusted everyone was over there, the more concealing the darkness near the wall.
The closest magn was halfway across the yard by now. Best as she could tell, no one turned or looked in their direction.
"Come on."
Lama made for the curve of the yard wall, running fast as befit someone desperate to help with the crisis. She heard Sot's heavy tread behind her.
They raced past the repair site, taking them farther away from the bucket lines and the most frenetic activity. As Lama had hoped, the guards usually there had abandoned their post to help with the fire.
Not too much farther along the wall was a small access door, meant for deliveries from the city. It, too, had been abandoned.
Vadi's servant's key unlocked the door.
Lama shook her head, trying to gnaw through a gristly truth. Vadi was dead..?
The passage inside the wall between the yard and the outer door was no more than three strides long.
She'd strolled through it many times over the years.
It was always a relief to pass into the Shadow District, to home; to put the yard behind her for a brief day of rest. When those were allowed.
A fierce grin stretched across her face.
Just three strides to freedom.
Three strides to put all those years of misplaced trust, bad luck, and tragedy at her back, where, Shaper weigh it, it could all burn.
She shoved Vadi's key into the outer door lock.
Behind her, Sot's single laugh carried the same exhilarated, terrified jubilation she felt in her own chest.
Lama opened the door.
Part Two
Chapter Six
Kug
In the life Kug had chosen there were few quiet moments, and fewer solitary pleasures. Few pleasures at all, indeed, though the passage of time had mellowed his desire for such in nearly equal measure.
Still, he did like this mark before tahwake, when he could make his toilet, dress, and come down to the dark, quiet, empty common room of the Steadfast Capful and enjoy the company of his own thoughts before Ressa and Prak arrived; before the fires were lit and the glowglobes refreshed; before the everyday kitchen cacophony began; before he opened the doors to the people of the Shadow District.
He stopped at the foot of the stairs and surveyed his dim corner of the world. It seemed the boy did his job well enough the night before. The tables were more or less where he liked them; the floor appeared swept. Nothing was broken or missing, so far as he could tell as his eyes adapted to the near-dark.
This was a good start. That, these days and for so long now, counted for Kug as a victory.
Somewhere along the wide trade roads to the south, Kug knew, the Khal caravan town marked the start of the day with weary magn and fieldtrodders grateful to be relieved by their replacements. Someone much like Kug, but twenty years younger, donned a cloak and stepped out of his modest wagon.
He'd fill his lungs with the cool morning air and let it out in a billowing white cloud. He'd stretch his limbs, glance at the sky in a habitual, but always ineffective, attempt to gauge the coming weather, and stroll up the chain to get something warm to drink.
All around him, the wide world.
Open sky. Far horizons.
Adventure.
Mundanity and folly as well, and usually more of it than not, but ever and always, the sense that the day, somehow, would bring something unexpected.
He grinned wistfully. Or someone… like Naka, with her sight half on the horizon and half on the inside of her pretty forehead…
Kug sighed.
With no one else to lend their warmth and the fire pit not yet lit, the air in the common room was stale and brisk. The puff of vapor he exhaled was a well-played, if thin and lackluster, symbolic parody of his former life.
His lips curled. He was not so dulled he couldn't appreciate the wry humor to be found there. He chuckled softly. Sometime soon, he should allow himself a day beyond the walls and yard and fences of his domain.
He was fond of the Capful, and carried a kind of pride in the little community he'd built around the tavern. Still, fondness could be strained by routine. Kug knew it would do him good to set his gaze on a far horizon, and in the doing, grant himself the space to allow a renewed sense of appreciation on his return.
Perhaps he could spend a day along the shore, outside of the city. Look to the north and see nothing but water, much as he once stepped out of his wagon to see nothing but prairie, all the way to the edge of sight.
The thought of it… a holiday..?
He'd never quite gotten the hang of swimmercatch… but then, he'd never given himself much of a chance to learn.
Indeed, leave aside learning swimmercatch… All these years living just a stroll away from the Dalq Sea, and he'd never once been upon it.
Maybe hire a boat?
The idea of nothing more than a thin hull between him and all that water, who knew how deep, was a bit troubling. Kug loved the feel of warm, certain, solid ground beneath his feet. To sink through the skin of the sea… like falling through a sky in which you cannot breathe, and cannot even see the ground…
He shook his head and chuckled again. Did he truly miss adventure, or did he not?
He would hire a boat.
He would take a day, and leave this place, and try his hand at hooking a swimmer once and for all, and he would sit himself down in a boat and see how it felt.
Soon.
Very soon.
He would.
He heard the faint clack and creak of the kitchen entrance door being unlocked and opened, which was his signal—just for now—to close the door on his musings.
Prak and Ressa came through the swinging doors behind the bar. Young Prak carried fuel for the morning fire in his thin arms.
Kug raised a hailing hand. "T'yer day."
Prak nodded, his burdened stride a little shaky as he made for the firepit in the center of the common room.
Ressa waved back. "T'yer day, Kug." The older woman assayed the workspace behind the bar, nodding to herself. "Good closing, Prak!"
Kug ambled over to the firepit. "I thought the same."
Prak looked up from arranging layers of hopper dung, dried reeds, and hay in the shallow, round pit. "Thanks." His tone carried a bit of sarcasm, as usual. "How long since it wasn't, eh, Kug?"
Kug grinned. "I'm at a loss to recall."
He certainly could, but why remind the boy of his failures when they were, Kug had to admit, of late overshadowed by accomplishment?
Prak took a towel from where he'd hung it on his belt and wiped his hands. "Day's gonna come when you don't need to get up before Tah, Kug. When you can
leave this all to me." He headed for the kitchen and added, "Might be already here…"
Ressa exchanged a look with Kug as Prak passed her behind the bar and went into the kitchen. Kug rolled his eyes, but smiled. "Might..!"
From the kitchen, Prak called, "Is!"
Ressa shared Kug's smile. "He's ambitious."
Kug opened his mouth to say, "Relatively," but the peal of distant bells came out instead.
At least that's how it seemed. The timing was disconcerting. He closed his mouth and frowned.
Ressa cocked her head. "The palace?" The tip of her tongue slipped out between her pursed lips: Ressa, thinking. Her eyebrows shot up. "All the bells, sounds like," she said. "Wonder what that's about?"
Kug's thoughts automatically went to concern for Lama… but that was unnecessary. There was no safer place in the city than within the palace walls.
"I'm sure we'll find out before long," he said. "I'm going to tend to the flites."
"Wear gloves," Ressa said automatically.
Kug passed through the kitchen, where Prak chopped vegetables with focused zeal, and out the door to the yard.
He never wore gloves. Let the flites nip at him as he took their eggs; their little teeth rarely broke the skin of his still-tough hands. It was a tiny challenge, a kind of game, every morning.
Outside, the palace bells weren't simply noticeable, they were clamorous. The distant, tidal shurrash of excited, shouting voices flowed between the peals. The racket had to have everyone in the neighboring districts wide awake and wondering.
Tah was just beginning to light the sky.
Save toward the palace.
Kug had seen plenty of prairie fires. He recognized the smoky clouds even as the itchy tang tickled his nostrils.
A fire at the palace, then.
Lama and Sot would be helping put it out, along with every other available magn. He hoped Vadi and her mother were all right.
Kug grunted. Like he'd told Ressa, he'd hear all about it; if not from Lama herself, then from some palace yarder, probably before tahigh.
He walked to the flite pens, ducked under the low roof…
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