“Like a human being?” the Historian supplies, a twinkle in his eye.
“Something like that.”
“Well, then. If you haven’t already guessed, I’m not going to turn you in. I’m not happy, either, mind you. But, from the looks of you, you could use some of what I’ve got behind that door. I don’t want you to come to my house uninvited ever again,” he says, a trace of the coldness creeping back into his voice.
I just nod, struggling not to let my head droop down as I move past him towards the front of the house. I don’t know what I was expecting, but something about the dismissal just leaves me deflated.
“Now, if you want to come to the front door and knock, that’s another story,” he calls from behind me.
I spin back around and narrow my eyes at his open, innocent expression.
“I have more windows that need oiling, and other tasks that a young man of your stature might be able to manage. If I like your work, I may even have a bed in one of the spare rooms.”
I look down at the burlap sack that clings to me and the linen breeches that end at my calf, held up by a single dirty cord. The only things of value on me are my thieving tools, hidden about my person and in a pouch strapped to my chest.
“I’m afraid I’ll ruin your sheets,” I say, gesturing glumly.
“And he’s considerate, too,” the Historian says, a look of mild amusement crossing his face. “Your payment for oiling the sitting room window will be a bath. The next job you do for me will earn you some clothes.”
I’m speechless. It has been two years since I’ve thought about having the money to buy enough food, let alone clothes. Ever since Jonah and the Simply… I shudder slightly. I can’t believe his kindness after catching me red-handed in his house.
“I don’t understand,” I finally manage, the sense of weirdness refusing to leave the pit of my stomach. “Why are you doing this?”
“Perhaps I’m an old man in need of a friend. Perhaps I really do admire your ingenuity. Or perhaps you remind me of an old friend. Can you afford to know why?” he asks, no hint of accusation in his voice.
I’m not sure what to believe, but he’s right. It doesn’t matter why. If the man is genuine, and actually wants to help me, I need him. It doesn’t mean I’m not going to watch him like a snake, or that I trust him. I’ve heard far too many stories of young children taken off the streets and never seen again. But it’s a risk I have to take. I take a deep breath, straighten my back, and walk over to the man, offering him my hand.
“I’m Jace,” I say, looking him in his lone eye intently.
He is half-taken by surprise, but the smile that spreads over his face is all warmth.
“Reknor,” he responds, shaking my filthy hand without a hint of disgust. “The Historian. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Jace. Is it just Jace, or do I have something else to call you?”
“Just Jace. My mother always told me that she’d tell me more about my past when I was ready. She died before I ever thought to ask again.”
“A shame,” he says, a strange look in his eye. “I would be very intrigued to know your past. How old are you?”
“Fifteen.”
I deliberately leave off the fact that I was born on the Desolation. The Desolation is the day when half dozen natural disasters ravaged the world. The Conflagration wiped out acres of farmland in an unexpected wildfire. The Swordplague, a supremely efficacious rust, destroyed all of the metal in half of the Khalintars to the west. The Abyss opened and killed thousands of people in Donir. The day also marked the ascent of the Sealord to the rule of his kingdom. Considering Donir is the capital, officials tried to get the day called the Liberation. They blamed the Shapers and their treachery on the disasters, but the loss was so great that people refuse to call the day anything positive.
Far too many people show great interest in me after I tell them the day of my birth, and I don’t like attention. Rosie raised me to keep my head down and remain invisible, and something in Reknor’s tone gives me pause. I see the interest in his eye, but I can’t fathom why.
“Well then, on the morrow? Or do you have more pressing engagements?”
I mime pulling out a book, tapping my chin as I open it.
“I can’t promise anything tomorrow evening, but my morning appears to be free,” I say, grinning at him.
Reknor barks out a good-natured laugh, taking another swig of the whiskey. My smile falters, though. In this brief moment of kindness, I forgot entirely about the thieves and their hatred. I won’t be back, no matter how much I might want to be. My life is over.
“My life just got a lot more interesting,” he says, nodding in farewell as he walks past. “Interesting indeed.”
I jump out the window and bend back to lock the window closed again. What might have happened? What would my life have been like? Had I succeeded in my theft, had I found this generous old man before I pissed off Kettle so much that she called for my head, had the Simply just not burned... through the crack I hear the man murmuring to himself.
“More interesting, yes. But for good or ill?”
I scale the wall opposite the alley, fingers and toes digging into the spaces between bricks. Levering myself up to the top of the building, I set off over the rooftops, hardly pausing as I leap from building to building. The structures, save for a few exceptions, are all of a uniform size in the Meadows where merchants live, so roof travel is easy and convenient. I don’t have the risk of running into a passing patrol of the Watch, and I don’t have to deal with the odd looks and shouts a dirty boy would get in a clean part of Donir.
As I run my mind drifts free. The Historian is offering something I haven’t had since I was a small child: security. My mother and I went to live at the Simply when she stopped having jewelry to sell. I may have been five. At first, Rosie seemed to hold herself above the other girls, and they resented her for it. Ultimately, though, desperation brings us all low. After living with the women, I would never dare to call the oldest profession ‘low.’ Those women have a nobility I could sense even when I was a child. The girls all doted on me, a son for women who could never have one of their own. For the last two years, though, I haven’t been able to rely on that safety. I can hardly remember what it’s like.
Reknor also offers something I’ve never had: honest work. My life has always been devoted to the streets. Others work so that you can work them, as Jonah always said, so the idea of being on the other side makes me cringe inwardly. Reknor’s still just a mark in my head, despite how nice he’s been. Besides, I don’t know how to do anything else.
I struggle to make a jump onto a flat, higher roof with a lip, scrambling up and coming back to myself just in time to take a backhand to the face. I manage to spin slightly with the blow and take some of the sting out of it, but it still rocks me to the rooftop. I don’t try to get up. Through the ringing in my ears, I hear feet shifting in the loose gravel on top of the building.
“Nothin’ ta be done,” a familiar voice says above. “He’s got ta die.”
Several large figures loom against the cloudy midnight sky. The voice is Timo’s, and that only means one thing. Somehow, in my distraction, I’ve wandered into a party of the Family searching for me. It is, perhaps, the dumbest thing I could have done aside from jumping off a roof thinking I could fly.
The Family approached me after the King’s soldiers burned down the Simply, knowing Jonah had trained me and hoping I was more amenable to their offer than Jonah had been. With Jonah’s death still fresh in my mind and the Simply’s ashes still warm, though, I told them, in as obscene a manner as my thirteen-year-old mind could imagine, to go away and leave me alone. If I had known I was starting a feud between us in the future, I probably would have used a little more tact.
Timo and I have tangled on two occasions, and both times I escaped because I’m smarter than he could ever be. He’s a great brute of a man, however, so if he ever gets a hold of me I’m in trouble.
So I�
��m in trouble.
Jonah’s voice drifts into my mind, coaching me as I slowly try to get to my feet. Immediately, someone kicks me sharply in the ribs. I tumble back down and curl up, playing up the hurt of the blows.
“Alright, Jace, when you’re outnumbered, there’re some things that can help even the score. You can act like you aren’t intimidated, like there isn’t anything in the world that could concern you less than certain death. It can cow them, mostly because when there isn’t any reason they can see for you to be confident, their minds will supply them with something worse and better than you could ever imagine for them. Now, you gotta read the situation, Jace. Sometimes it’s best to act crazy. I don’t know what it is, but everyone is afraid of crazy people. This one is harder to pull off and has mixed results. But I’m still here, hey? The last one is to act weak and pretend they’ve already won. When you know you can’t intimidate them, and they know you aren’t crazy, if you make a man underestimate you, you can get the drop on him.”
I tick off the facts. Can’t be intimidated. Know I’m not crazy. Only one option left. I try to cry as I hold my belly where they kicked me, but really all I get is some weak, fake sobs. In the darkness, it will probably do.
“Oh come now, little Jacie. We told ya not ta come back. Ya know as much as us this is our city. I seem ta remember Kettle sayin ‘If ya come back, ya are to die.’ So here ya are, still in our city, and we gotta do what Kettle says. As much as we might not want ta.”
The thieves all laugh around me, but all I can think is how terrible a job he’s done quoting Kettle’s very dire, proper announcement of my death sentence.
“Timo, look, I’m sorry, I didn’t know, I was distracted, please don’t—”
The same boot as before kicks me again, harder. Since I can count my ribs through a rip in my shirt, I can count how many he’s damaging.
“Jacie, look, I’m sorry, but this is how things go. Ya didn’t think we would fall for that crap again, did ya?”
I flash back to the last time we had fought. Remembering the weak act I played, I sigh inwardly. How could I have forgotten that? My brain just isn’t keeping up with the events of my life, and they are moving far, far too fast for my liking. Two of the dark figures haul me up, and steel glints in the moonlight. It isn’t supposed to work this way. He’s supposed to keep talking until I manage to think up a way out of the situation. I’m supposed to have more time.
“Wait!” I blurt out. “I have a stash!”
“What’s that?” Timo asks, his voice suddenly interested.
“I have a stash! I’ll let you know where it is if you let me go.”
“I don’t believe ya. Look at the clothes. He canna have more than two pennies ta rub together.”
“You think I would buy new clothes, look nice, if I had the money? You rats would come try to find me the first second I looked like I had anything. Are you guys stupid?”
Timo hates being called a rat, and he hates being called stupid even more. So I wheeze under the expected blow to the stomach. If they think that I’m letting them in on my secrets, that the kid who has proven himself smarter than the Family a dozen times over the last two years is giving up his stash to them, they’ll go for it. Every thief is constantly in suspicion that someone else has a stash. It’s considered the height of insult for a thief to find and steal another thief’s money, so when they offer it to save their lives it is generally considered genuine.
They’ll go for it.
Probably.
The group moves off a way to confer, leaving me with the two thugs holding my arms. I sag, letting my legs go to jelly. They curse as they hold my weight up. I groan, hoping it doesn’t sound too theatrical. They get their arms under my shoulders, hauling me upright and setting me on my feet.
“Thanks,” I tell them, putting all of the pain I can into my voice.
As I relax, taking my own weight again, they relax with me, gripping my arms loosely. I twist, snapping both my arms downward. Surprised, three of the hands lose their grip on me, though the fourth stays firmly gripping my upper right arm. I punch out, just like Jonah taught me, putting my free fist into an open throat. He chokes and falls away. I jump up and kick him, using my momentum to push against the other man.
He staggers backwards, my weight adding to his careening stumble. By the time I realize we are backing towards the edge, it’s too late.
“What the—?” Timo shouts as we go over the lip of the roof. I pray with all of my being that those aren’t the last words I ever hear.
Falling for three stories is a long, slow process. Oh, I’m sure it only takes a few seconds. But for anyone watching, that time is multiplied tenfold. For anyone who is actually falling, that time becomes something else entirely. The man behind me is so stupefied he doesn’t know much else to do but flail. Quietly, calmly, panicked, I can’t tell, I move so that I’ll land directly on top of him. It’s a false hope. A beggar’s hope. But it’s all I’ve got.
We hit a mound of trash with the force of a thundering bull. It slows us down, however slightly, and we slam to the bottom. Something sickening happens below me, all crunch and squish and warm... All of the breath jars loose from my body, and my head jerks with such force that my neck nearly separates. It might have. I lay there, in the trash, on top of the broken remains of a dead man, doing my best to breathe.
After a moment, I manage to move my fingers and toes a bit, or at least I think I do. I slowly pick up my head, neck screaming with pain. Staring back at me are the eyes of a very dead, very rotten cat. The urge to breathe disappears. I tell my arms to reach up and push the disgusting creature away from me, but all I get is a loose, flopping twitch, the very action I’m trying to replicate when Timo’s ugly face emerges over the pile, his expression twisted into a weird mixture of disgust and hope. When he sees my arms flopping, his face opens up in a look of total surprise. He calls out to someone behind him, and they pick me up out of the trash.
“What about Jeld?” a woman asks.
“Trust me, ya don’t want ta look,” Timo answers slowly.
“Well, let’s get this kid’s stash and get back. This hasn’t been a good night,” another man says.
A chorus of assent rises up from the surrounding thieves, and Timo walks over to me.
“Catch your breath, boy,” he says harshly. “We need ya to lead us.”
If I thought they were stupid before, I underestimated them. We march down Castleberry Street, my feet dragging as two strong men hold me up. They follow the instructions of a breathless orphan who knows he’s about to die, not a penny to his name and no reason to believe he has one... how the Creator made such idiots, I’ll never know.
We pass the Historian’s house, and I give it a slow, quiet moment of reflection. I was that close to a real life, a life where the Family can’t just murder me on a rooftop or in an alley somewhere, a life with enough to eat and roof to keep off the rain. I sigh, letting my head drop as we trudge past.
“Where is’t?” Timo demands, stopping the troupe. “No way ya have a stash on Castleberry. Everyone knows that the Watch comes here twice as much!”
“Why do you think I hid it here?” I gasp, letting my contempt show through. “I couldn’t be seen going to the same place over and over on Threepenny, could I?”
The logic satisfies him, but the thieves continue to glance around into the shadows. We make it about a block towards the next intersection when we hear a throat clear behind us. That throat clear, so deliberate, so polite, is far too familiar.
“Out for a stroll?” the Historian’s voice calls from behind.
“None of your business, old man,” Timo sneers. “Go back ta yer bed.”
“Ah, but you’re mistaken. The boy is my business. Drop him.”
“Wha?” Timo says. I can’t see the look on his face because I’m turned around, but I smile. I don’t know what the old man is thinking. They’ll kill him in seconds. But it feels like I really do have a secret stash
to have someone care enough to stick up for me.
“Just take him,” Timo says dismissively.
Lightly placed feet scuff on the cobblestones as they close, the stealthy nature of thieves taking hold even in a fight. The distinctive grunt as Timo swings his fist is followed by the meaty thwack it always makes when it hits flesh. I wince. It’s okay that I messed up, that I’m doomed. But the Historian has only been kind. I can’t bear his pain in this misguided attempt to save me.
One of the men next to me curses, letting go of my arm and running towards the fight. The other man’s grip loosens, and I would make a break for it, but they really are holding me up. The other man struggles to hold up my weight, then lets me fall with a snarl. He draws a dagger and heads towards the fight.
The old man is hearty, sure, but I heard Timo’s fist hit him, and men don’t often get up from something like that. I struggle to roll over so I can finally get a good view of the fight. Dancing and sliding in the darkness, a man moves smoothly between half a dozen thieves, kicking here, punching there, blocking, dodging, his movements snakelike and certain. Three are down, either unconscious or groaning. As I watch, a fourth comes flying out, having caught a solid kick to the chest. As another falls, the rest quickly lose stomach for the fight. They pound past me, dragging or carrying their fallen.
“Later, Jacie,” Timo says as he runs by, breathing hard. “I’ll find you later.”
Chapter 3
Iliana
The Seventh Day of Winter
In the Year 5219, Council Reckoning
Dancers glide through my stomach as if a party is starting and my fear is the music. It’s hard not to be afraid; they tell me I’m a woman, but, when I look inside, I don’t notice anything different. I still feel like the girl Uncle threw gleefully screaming into the air, what seems but moments ago. My heart still yearns to explore the depths of the palace gardens, digging through the dirt and helping the flowers to grow. What seems the day before, my father had encouraged such things, telling me that a connection with the earth and all things that grow is critical.
The Crux of Eternity: Eternal Dream, Book 1 (The Eternal Dream Saga) Page 5
