Seven Blades in Black

by Sam Sykes

  Funny thing. I didn’t even see the fear in Necla’s eyes. I didn’t see his mouth hanging open as he fumbled for words. I didn’t see anything I’d have otherwise taken pleasure in. I just saw the mechanical nodding of the dumb bastard whose skull I was going to blast open if he ever spoke of her again.

  “What am I going to blow off, Necla?” I asked.

  “You’ve made your fucking point,” he snarled. “Now back—”

  “What,” I said, slamming his head against the wall, “am I going to blow off?”

  His voice trickled out between the wall and my forearm on a thin, raspy whisper. “My head.”

  “And what am I going to do it with, Necla?”

  “With… with your gun.”

  “With the Cacophony.”

  “With the Cacophony.”

  As if the ability to induce hallucinations wasn’t enough, Nightmages could read the surface thoughts of people. Better to weave their illusions, I supposed. Necla had looked into my head to see Liette’s name. Now I wanted him to look into it and see exactly what I was going to do to him if he spoke it again.

  I held his gaze for a good long while before I lowered my weapon and slid him back into his holster. I could feel his singe of disappointment as I did. I released Necla and stepped back. I looked him over, brushed a stray bit of grime off his coat, felt his skeleton try to leap out of his skin. Then I stepped back and made a gesture toward the stairs.

  “After you,” I said.

  That was stupid, I knew. Necla could use my Redfavor for revenge. Or he could make sure that I never saw his bosses. Or he could have Cavric or Liette killed. Or he could forgo all that and use his magic to make me think my hands were snakes and use them to strangle myself or some freaky shit like that.

  But I wasn’t going to let it be said you uttered that name with anything less than respect around Sal the Cacophony.

  Also he wasn’t talking anymore.

  Worth it.

  The stairs ended at a door made of old, stained wood, far from the other iron gates on the ship. Without a word, Necla pulled it open and stepped aside. I walked past him, cast him a glance. He didn’t look me in the eye.

  I never said he wasn’t smart.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  THE WEARY MOTHER

  The door clicked shut behind me as I entered a dark hallway. The scent of cheap tobacco filled my nose. Ahead, the light of a single lamp burned and beckoned me forward, to the lair where it all happened.

  No one knows who leads the Ashmouths. People have theories, of course: They receive commands from an evil god; they’re ruled by an immortal mage who cheated death with profane magic; there’s a single guy who gets assassinated and replaced every other week. All fine theories.

  But the truth?

  “Ha! That’s kang, you old bitch!”

  The truth is much worse.

  “That’s kol, at best. Try again. Less attitude. More intellect.”

  Two voices wafted out of the room on clouds of stale cigarette smoke. One gravelly and jagged, one stern and hard, both female and neither one I especially wanted to hear.

  “You’re just trying to avoid the shame of defeat, you diseased cow,” the gravel voice rumbled. “That’s ten fire tiles in a row. Kang.”

  “I count nine fire tiles and one earth, fool,” the stern voice hammered in reply. “That’s kol and I’m being generous to give you that.”

  I hesitated in the doorway for a moment, not quite sure of the protocol. Do I knock? Do I bow and scrape? Should someone announce me? I was never sure with the Three.

  “Don’t be shy, dear,” another voice, soft and lilting and tossed my way like a handful of rose petals, said. “Come in, come in.”

  And, with that elegant entrance, I walked right into the heart of the Ashmouths.

  It was a small room, bereft of any furnishings but the lamp hanging from the ceiling and the circular table that sat beneath its halo of orange light. Placed on top of it, amid drained whiskey glasses and stubbed-out cigarettes, was an Emperor’s Wager board, stacked with tiles so high it suggested that the game had been going on for a very long time. And situated around it, patiently and methodically placing and removing tiles, were the three women who ran the organization with more blood on its hands than most militaries.

  Gan. Pui. And Yoc.

  Pui, tall and thin and leather-skinned, looked up in my direction. Under a tight braid of gray hair and through a mouthful of yellow teeth, she grinned at me in a way that made the skin of her face draw up around her cheekbones like a skull.

  “Well, well,” she rasped like she had rocks in her throat. “As I live and breathe.” She took a long drag on her cigarette and let out a cough. “Sal the fucking Cacophony.”

  “Funny,” Gan, short and built like a beer keg, her black hair in a tight bun and her eyes hidden behind dark glasses, muttered. “I don’t recall ordering a pain in the ass.” Her jowly face trembled with a growl as she placed a water tile on the board and took two wood tiles off. “Maybe one of you two hags did.”

  “Now, now.” Yoc, old and white haired and sweet as a grandmother—if that grandmother also had people killed on the regular—smiled at me. “I’m sure she has a good reason for being here.” She raised the hand that had signed the contracts that had killed a thousand men and women and took up her whiskey glass. “After all, I’m sure she knows how much we don’t like having our game interrupted.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Gan said. “She seems stupid enough.” She made a gesture toward Pui. “Your move, imbecile.”

  “Watch your fucking manners, you dry turd,” Pui snarled. She spoke through teeth clenched around her cigarette as she added three earth tiles to the board. “’Course, if she came here, she better fucking tell us why before I get cross.”

  “Oh dear,” Yoc sighed. “We wouldn’t want anyone to get cross, would we?” She smiled at me. “You’d better speak up soon, dearie, before you start to seem rude.”

  That was good advice, really. And it was pretty stupid of me to have stayed silent as long as I did; one didn’t waste the Three’s time if one didn’t want to end up with their teeth pried out.

  But I couldn’t help it. How often do you meet the three old ladies who have people killed for money?

  “Er… right.” I stepped forward. “Sorry about the intrusion, but—”

  “Scarf, dear,” Yoc said.

  “What,” I asked, then remembered who I was talking to, “madam?”

  “Take off your scarf,” Gan growled, organizing her tiles. “I hope your mother is dead so she doesn’t have to see what a disrespectful child she raised.”

  “Right, sorry.” I pulled my scarf back, made a bow for additional effort. “I’ll be quick. I’m here because I think you sold something to a friend of mine.”

  “We sell a lot of things to a lot of friends,” Pui said. “The Ashmouths make deals every day.”

  “I’m afraid she’s right,” Yoc added, placing four metal tiles down and taking two fire tiles. “Business has been brisk. I can’t imagine taking the time to remember every old deal for anyone who walked in.”

  “It was no ordinary deal,” I said. “And I’m not just anyone.”

  “Got a point,” Pui grunted. “The Cacophony is special.”

  “Special pain in my snatch,” Gan said. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten the incident with the Freemaker Six Quarts of Aged Rum and his potion stock. We lost good money there.”

  “We agreed that it wasn’t her fault, Gan sweetie,” Yoc said.

  “You agreed. I said we should kill her on principle.”

  “There was an incident at a township called Stark’s Mutter,” I interjected. “A Vagrant used forbidden magic to kill a lot of people.”

  “They’ll do that, won’t they?” Yoc sighed.

  “I believe he killed them to summon a Scrath,” I said. “I know there’s precious few ways to do that and I know you hold all of them.” I took a cautious step closer. �
��I want to know…” I paused, reconsidered. “I was hoping you would tell me where Vraki the Gate went. He bought something from you, I’m sure.”

  “Huh.” Gan let out a chuckle—or she threw up a little; it was hard to tell. “The Cacophony was hoping. What a gentle soul she is.”

  “So pleasant.” Pui’s laughter devolved into a hacking cough. “And so polite. We should help a good girl out, shouldn’t we?”

  “It would be the polite thing to do,” Yoc said. She paused, bit her knuckle. “Oh, drat. But if we went and gave her something for nothing, what would people think? What would people say?”

  “There are protocols,” Gan agreed. “A deal’s not a deal if nothing’s given.” She snorted, took two earth tiles away. “Do we owe the Cacophony a favor?”

  “Not that I can remember,” Pui said, adding two fire tiles. “Does the Cacophony owe us a favor?”

  “I don’t think so.” Yoc shook her head, took away three wood tiles. “Oh dear, that sounds like an impasse to me.”

  “Ah, well,” Gan said.

  “Tough break,” Pui added.

  “So sorry, dear,” Yoc said. She added another wood tile and grinned. “Oh! Is that kol? Did I win?”

  “Please.” I couldn’t keep the whine out of my voice. “This is important. I know Vraki the Gate had an obelisk from Haven that he used. I know you’re the only ones who can get such a thing. He had to have come to you.”

  “Well, if you’re so fucking smart, why come to us?” Pui asked.

  “Because I need to know where he went next,” I said. “I need to know what he’s planning. He’s got prisoners… kids. He’s going to use them for—”

  “Oh my. Children, you say?” Yoc shook her head, made a tutting noise. “My, my, that is a shame. A dreadful shame.”

  “Right, so you’ll—”

  “And I expect I would care just a teensy bit more…” Yoc looked up at me and gave me a smile as sweet as sugar. “But you know how many orphans I’ve made, don’t you, dear?”

  “It loses its shock value after the first time,” Gan agreed. “Becomes rather tiresome, if I’m honest.”

  “But that’s not why you’re really asking, is it, Cacophony?”

  For the first time since I had entered, no one’s eyes were on the game board. Gan and Yoc looked toward Pui. And Pui, her eyes bright even as the rest of her was withered and darkened, was looking right at me.

  “Not that I doubt you’re concerned with those poor little children,” she said. “I expect, if you had met three ladies just a touch dumber than we, they might have bought it, too. But, sweetie”—she held out her hands to her companions—“we’re the Ashmouths.”

  “We know everything,” Gan said.

  “We hear everything,” Yoc added.

  “And we know what the name Vraki the Gate means to you.” Pui leaned forward, grinning. “He’s not so unlike us, is he? A murderer, yes. A monster to some. But, at his heart, a businessman. He wanted to buy a coup of the Imperium, long ago.”

  “He wasn’t alone,” Gan muttered. “How many mages joined him? Galta? Riccu?”

  “Jindu,” Yoc added, her voice cutting through me.

  “An ambitious plan. And the price for it…” Pui’s grin grew a little broader, a little blacker. “Well, you know, don’t you, dear?”

  Theirs were the hands that signed a thousand death contracts a year. When they could be bothered to look up from their game, they decided who lived and died with a stroke of their pen. At a word, they could have me stripped, tied, tortured, and cut up into a thousand pieces to be fed to dogs.

  Yet only when Pui said what she did, only when she looked at me like she did, like she knew what had happened all those years ago that made me write this list I carried…

  Only then did I feel my blood go cold.

  “You know, I do remember hearing something like that.” Yoc’s eyes turned predatory as they turned on me. “Yes, it’s coming back to me. Something about a betrayal? A great mage dying in the dark? My, my. That would make me want to find Vraki, too.”

  My scars began to itch. In the back of my head, I could hear the sound of screaming, of a mouth whispering apologies, of a song with a verse I couldn’t understand.

  “Well, since she wants to know so badly,” Gan said. “Perhaps we could be merciful this once and strike a deal?”

  My mouth tasted dry and cold. I knew the answer, yet I asked anyway.

  “What do you want?”

  I felt their eyes drift to my hip. I felt his warm anger through the leather of the holster. I felt the hiss of their words.

  “The Herald of the End Times,” Gan whispered.

  “The Mad Emperor’s Legacy,” Pui rasped.

  “The Cacophony,” Yoc said. “Give it to us, dear, and we’ll tell you everything you could ever want to know about Vraki the Gate.”

  “And Taltho the Scourge,” Pui added. “Kresh the Tempest, Riccu the Knock…”

  “Jindu the Blade, Galta the Thorn, Zanze the Beast…” Gan hummed, stacking her tiles one atop the other. “We know about all of them, Cacophony. We know about your list. We know what they did. We know why you want to kill them. We know where they’re going. We know when they sleep.”

  “And we’ll tell you,” Pui said. “We’ll tell you where to find them. Their families, too, if you want. We’ll tell you how to kill them. We’ll tell you the six words you can whisper in their ears to ensure that they die in such fear and in such pain that their last words will be to speak your name, over and over, begging for release.”

  “We can do that,” Yoc said, taking a sip of her drink. “We can do all of that and more. All we want”—she glanced toward my hip—“is that tiny little trinket there.”

  I believed them. Every word.

  You might find it hard to believe, but the Three don’t lie. Their assassins do. Their thieves do. But they don’t. When you know everything, there’s just no need; you can already get everything you want with the truth. So, I didn’t doubt at all that they could find who I was looking for. I didn’t doubt at all that they could give me what I wanted.

  And I did want it.

  I wanted it so bad that I could see it just now, without even closing my eyes. In the shadows cast by the swaying lamp, I could see the smoke twist and writhe. I could see Jindu come out of it, tall and lean and eyes so bright like I remembered them. I could see his lips whispering soundlessly, mouthing apologies to me and begging for forgiveness. And I could see my gun pressed against his temple, my finger on the trigger, and…

  And my scars itched.

  And the burden on my hip felt suddenly very heavy and warm, like a pound of flesh cut right out of me.

  And I knew what my answer was.

  “I can’t,” I whispered. My lips were so numb and my voice so distant, I almost didn’t believe I had said it. “I… I can’t.”

  “It is valuable, true,” Pui sighed, a plume of smoke escaping her lips. “We could add rewards. We could give you metal. We could give you birds.”

  “Men. Women. Bigger guns,” Gan hummed.

  “Whatever you wished, dearie,” Yoc said, nodding encouragingly. “We know how important it is. We’re not going to cheat you. Simply name your price and the Three will oblige.”

  I could feel him burning. He was seething in the leather of his holster, his growl low and iron at my hesitation. He could sense my temptation. And he didn’t like it. But he didn’t burn me. He knew, as well as I did, what my next words were going to be.

  “We made a deal, he and I,” I said. “And Sal the Cacophony doesn’t go back on deals.”

  “Mmm,” Pui hummed, shrugging. “Oh well.”

  “More’s the pity,” Gan said, turning her attention back to the game.

  “Glad you could stop by, dear,” Yoc said, looking back down. “Door’s back the way you came.”

  I opened my mouth to protest, but what could I say? I had already wasted their time and I knew the Three were being generous
just letting me fuck off instead of having me killed for the effort.

  But I couldn’t leave. Not just like this. Not without another word. I hadn’t avenged Stark’s Mutter. I hadn’t fulfilled my promise. I hadn’t saved the kids.

  I hadn’t killed Jindu.

  I had to do something. Anything. Even if that meant every Redfavor I had or ever would have.

  And I was halfway to offering just that when I heard the groan of iron.

  The boat pitched suddenly to the right. The Three immediately leapt over their game board, holding it down to keep it from sliding off, heedless of the glasses and other fineries that went shattering to the ground. I seized the door frame to keep from being swept off my feet.

  “The fuck was that?” Pui asked.

  Apparently they didn’t know everything.

  “Oh dear,” Yoc said. “Is the water getting rough?”

  “On the Yental? This time of year?” Gan said. “Don’t be stupid, you old cow.”

  “It’s Necla,” I growled, pulling myself up as the ship righted itself. “Part of his magic. I saw the illusion he made of the storm following the ship. He’s probably using something to make us think it’s kicking up.” At their glances, I shrugged. “He’s an asshole like that, isn’t he?”

  The Three exchanged a brief glance before looking back at me. And from the frowns scarred across their faces, I knew what their words were going to be before they spoke them.

  “Necla can’t make illusions that size,” Gan growled.

  My brow furrowed. I wanted to speculate.

  Turns out there was no need, though.

  In another second, the boat pitched again. Iron roared angrily. The Three shrieked as their game threatened to slide off. The lantern fell from the rafters, hit the ground, and shattered, its light winking out and casting us into darkness.

  And between the howl and groan of metal and timber, and amid the howl of distant wind, I could hear someone call my name.

  “Cacophony! Come out and die!”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  THE WEARY MOTHER