Knaves

by Abbott, Alana Joli; Meadors, Melanie R. ;

  Makes me proud, thinking I did all that. Damned fine job.

  AND THAT’S A story about me. Enjoyed it, I hope? Yeah? I killed someone for this sword I’m wearing, I’ll just casually mention. Apropos of nothing.

  ASSASSIN OR THIEF

  • A STORY OF TABAT •

  Cat Rambo

  HAVING BEEN ONE of—” the Dark said, stressing “one of” just enough to show her polite self-effacement by its inclusion, “—the finest assassins in the multiverse,” (she had learned the word from her husband only last week during his pontification about the extra-dimensional nature of the city in which they dwelt, and took a certain delight in displaying it now), “I feel it essential to establish the distinction between assassin and thief.”

  The conversation, taking place in the crowded, jostling noodle shop and bar around the corner from the small garden apartment the Dark and Tericatus had chosen as their living quarters, was yet another of the interminable bar discussions that often take place in the city of Serendib. Situated and composed as it is of a multitude of realities, its citizens approach philosophical issues from a variety of viewpoints.

  This time the participants were the Dark; her husband, the sorcerer Tericatus, her oldest friend and enemy, Chig the Rat God; and an unnamed woman who none of them knew, who had wandered over from another, presumably less entertaining conversation, and was listening in without introducing herself. Such behavior was a little rude, but not outside the bounds of Serendib courtesy, where often the silent have a reason to be so.

  “If there is a distinction—and I am not agreeing one exists—it is surely only a matter of degree,” Chig said. “Thieves steal from people, and what is taking a life but a form of that?”

  “You are trying to annoy me,” said the Dark. She suspected he’d introduced the topic on purpose to that end, and opted to use unexpected directness to throw him off guard.

  But Chig was not to be diverted. “That is an interesting way to deflect my question,” he said.

  Tericatus cleared his throat. “I have found two things,” he interjected. “One is that such things are often a question of how a person thinks of themself. The actions of a thief in a situation may be very different from those of someone styling themself an assassin.” He took a sip of ale.

  “And the second?” the Dark prompted.

  Chig interrupted before Tericatus could reply. “Then we should be able to put someone into a situation and determine whether they are thief or assassin by how they act.”

  Tericatus opened his mouth anew, but this time the nameless woman interjected. “You are saying that whether I am thief or assassin predicts what I will do? That seems easy enough to put to the test.”

  The Dark peered at the woman with interest. “Are you one or the other?” she asked.

  “I am,” said the woman, “but I will not tell you which, in the interest of science.”

  The Dark’s eyes narrowed, but she nodded.

  Tericatus said, “But if you know it is a test, you might change your answer.”

  “Now you are growing overly complicated,” Chig said. “Let us think of our test situation before we concern ourselves with that.”

  “What do you propose?”

  Chig stroked his whiskers with a thoughtful paw. “We certainly have the Dark as our baseline, for who is a better example of an assassin?” He gave the Dark an oily smile that she did not return. She was feeling a trickle of unease deep inside. Chig was very fond of long-hidden machinations, and the Dark was reasonably sure that the woman was his catspaw, so to speak. She looked over at Tericatus in one of those moments of unspoken marital telepathy that they shared from time and time. He shrugged at her, meaning, Wait and see.

  “It could be a situation that calls for an assassination or a theft, but that would seem a heavy-handed choice,” Chig mused. “Therefore, something outside either realm and yet still a trifle unsavory and outside the law.” He stroked his whiskers lovingly once again, setting them in perfect order.

  The Dark decided that supplying her own factor into the situation would surely change it up enough to disturb Chig’s plans. She did not wish to be predictable, and she and Chig had known each other a very long time indeed, so she discarded the first notion that came to her, and then the second, and then even the third as a precautionary move (she congratulated herself on the acumen displayed therein), and said, “Gambling, in the form of the beetle bets.” She was pleased to see what she interpreted as a flicker of annoyance crossing over Chig’s face (although rats are notoriously difficult to read in their expressions) and that he took care not to look at the woman.

  “That seems fair enough,” Tericatus supplied.

  “Very well,” Chig said in a sullen tone. The woman nodded, and they paid their tab in order to exit.

  “What is your name?” the Dark murmured to the woman as they made their way toward the door.

  “Victoria,” the woman said, giving her a little smile, flirtatious as a wink, charming the Dark despite herself. She was a very pretty woman, when one looked at her, with long, black hair as lustrous as though it had just been brushed out, and eyes the same shade, made even darker by the lashes surrounding them, reflecting slivers of light from the colored sign pulsing behind the bar.

  Tericatus laid his hand on the Dark’s elbow, steering her ahead of him. She leaned to murmur in his ear, “Does she have charms laid upon her?” He shook his head, and she frowned, but kept moving nonetheless.

  The beetle races are illegal in Tabat because they alter the laws of chance itself, and that is a very risky thing, because so many things there depend on those laws.

  Such events are held near the great coffee roastery that usually (but not always) sits on Serendib’s southern side. The aromas wafting from that establishment—and all the consequent nearby coffee shops—hide the acrid smell from the race/battles that would otherwise force Serendib’s law enforcers to notice their presence on occasions other than the pre-scheduled monthly raids.

  The world of the coffee roastery is assuredly a pleasant one. The trees around it, tall and leafy, are laden with lemons almost as fragrant as the factory’s product. In their highest boughs, owlkits nest, the progeny of parents in the nearby brewery, whose line will spread even further with passing generations.

  But go farther up the street and the puddles grow oily from a constant, acidic mist, shifting to cobblestones slippery underfoot. The buildings change to fungal, pallid, and flabby structures that must be grown anew every few months.

  The coliseum that holds the beetle races is an immense puffball, its massive, warty outer walls sprayed with fixative to hold them in place, flammable as fireworks if not for the constant rain on the other side. Stands held the watchers now, and in the middle an immense round of violet and green marble, perhaps ten yards in width, spun like an enormous turntable on which the beetles crawled, and in its center was a black sphere, filled with stars.

  Despite the number of people there—at least a hundred gathered into the wooden stands—silence held. The only sounds were breathing and the ticking of the legs of the great hand-sized beetles crawling over the round.

  Each beetle wore around its neck a tiny basket woven of silver wire. Surrounding the round were the beetle-brats, who constantly removed or slipped tiny glass beads into the baskets of passing beetles, marking the bets, while their juniors ran back and forth between them and the crowd in response to wordless hand signals.

  Tericatus breathed in the Dark’s ear, “You know it is possible here to lose one’s luck entirely, and that is not something I can cure easily with magic.”

  Her only response was a sideways flick of her ebon eyes and a quirked lip that told him that, although he had no clue what it was, she held some plan.

  Victoria stooped to a vat by the entrance and took a handful of beads, as did the Dark and Chig. Tericatus refrained, although he gave the vat an uneasy glance as they passed on their way to the stand, noting the thousand colors of
beads that seemed to roil of their own volition under his gaze, as though urging themselves toward him.

  They began to bet.

  The beetles crawled and clacked on the marble round, sometimes meeting to mesh mandibles and attempt to push each other into the great black central round. Two perished in this fashion, the loser pulling the victor in after it, and several faces in the crowd paled or flushed, or looked about for ways of escape before a beetle-brat came to show them towards a booth in the back.

  They all gave their beads to a single beetle-brat.

  “That means we all win or lose together, you know,” Chig said in question to the Dark.

  “I am familiar with the rules, yes,” she said. He shrugged, and they turned their attention back to the game.

  How many hours passed, while they watched the beetles?

  How many beads went from one basket to another, then another, or went spilling down the void in the center?

  How many times were the guttering lamps near the doorways replenished? Dawn was tentatively touching the doorway’s edge by the time they stood, a beetle brat filling each’s hand with a clump of beads much smaller than originally, and moved to the booth to cash out, the only way to know who had won or lost.

  “I am not sure what any of this has proved,” Tericatus muttered. He had grown to the age where a sleepless night was not as effortless as it once was, and tiredness gnawed redly at the corners of his eyes and etched lines around his mouth.

  The Dark, untouched by the rigors of the night, shrugged.

  They stepped into the reckoning booth.

  “It appears we have lost our luck!” Chig said in pretend shock.

  “Indeed,” said the Dark. “And yet I was prepared and brought my own to substitute, so I have lost luck pre-purchased in the market.”

  “Ah,” said Chig. “Then it will be sad to tell you that this was all a trap, and I swapped out ownership of the markers through certain arcane preparations, and you have been saddled with twice the loss, and both of us with half.” He bared his teeth in a grin.

  “Ah,” said the Dark. “That would be sad, had I not refrained from doing the same and also performing certain sleights with ownership.”

  Chig started to say something, then stopped. “What?”

  “You were about to tell me you had anticipated that move, were you not?”

  The rat god frowned and nodded. Victoria’s brows furrowed slightly.

  “Anticipated. And since your co-conspirator did not do the same…” She shrugged. “She is a thief, and not the same as an assassin, and hence I have won the argument as well. An entertaining evening, for which I thank you.” She bowed to Victoria and Chig with elegant satisfaction, and took her husband’s arm, smiling.

  As they walked home, past the trees where owlkits stirred, chirping out a morning sound, she said, “When all of this started, you said you had found two things, but you only told us the one.”

  “That is true,” Tericatus said, yawning.

  “And the other?” she pressed, after a few more steps.

  He tilted his head to examine her. “I am not really sure you wish me to say.”

  She frowned. “Out with it.”

  “As I said, one is that such things are often a question of how a person thinks of themself. The second thing I have found,” Tericatus said, rubbing his nose, “is that such things usually matter only to oneself, and realizing that may save one some sleep.”

  And after that, the Dark was silent all the way home.

  THE WEIGHT OF SHADES AND SHADOWS

  Shanna Germain

  KANSA, BONE-ACHED AND barefoot, walked the narrow wheel track road into town alone. She was red-on-red. Sun-scorched, blood-washed. Her clothes, once blues and yellows, were now darkened by dirt and death. Even her pale hair was twisted and tangled with the reckonings of the ages prior.

  The sun dragged itself to midday as she crossed beneath the town’s arched pillar post, and her bloodied shadow grew smaller with each step. Overhead a silver sign swung in no wind, promising a kind of town and whatever else someone might read into the name of Last Hope. Perched atop the pillar post, the devil’s piebald magpies regarded her with a single eye each. She raised her left hand, palm open to show the silvered whirls upon it, and called, “Be your mourning ending as soon as it’s begun.” The final word sent her coughing up dust and sand. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d spoken.

  The birds had no response for her. Under the weight of their silence, she entered the town where she’d been born and raised. The place she’d once thought of as home, but which she now hoped would be her end. Come one way or another.

  Her bare feet left crimson tracks in the hard dirt. She vaguely remembered when she’d said goodbye to her boots. First one had gone south on her, heel sprung to nails that bit the ball of her foot with each step. She’d stuffed it with moss and leaves, and then a crumple of her dress. Learned to live with another pain. The other boot gave up the ghost somewhere in there, and one morning she couldn’t bear to put them back on. She reached for the memory in more detail—had it been before or after the Crim? Was Haile still with her then?—and found she couldn’t quite grasp it. No matter. She wasn’t here for that.

  She was Kansa, Devil’s Only (née Eldest) Daughter, and she was here to ruin her father, or die trying. Once and for true.

  Sixteen years she’d spent doing his bidding. Then sixteen more rejecting that call to hone her skills, narrow her path, see clear and true. These last sixteen, then, for pain and blood, her heart cut to tiny ribbons and flown for all to see.

  She was this close. She thought she’d feel fear now. Or maybe dismay. Remorse. Apprehension. Any of those, maybe all. She felt nothing but gritted determination. It sang through her teeth, through her bones and blood, urged her forward like a war cry.

  Kansa focused on this step and then this step, her gaze never leaving the brown building that sat at the street’s end. Unobtrusive. Nothing to think twice about. You might notice the metalwork hound asleep on the porch or the bit of wood that read “Road’s End” in painted white letters, but a watchdog and a saloon sign were not uncommon in this end of the world. And you’d not notice the elaborate metalwork beneath the eaves or the protective insignias upon the door if you didn’t already know to look. She knew where to look. It was her blessing, and her curse. One of many.

  A figure in gold and green slid into the road and lowered itself in front of her. Far enough away that Kansa didn’t have to make an instant decision, close enough that she would have to make one soon. For now, she kept walking. This step. The next.

  The robes, the hood, the woven green-gold details of the fabric—it all ticked something in Kansa’s brain that she couldn’t quite pattern out.

  Before she could, a visage unfolded itself from beneath the layered hoods. One eye sewed to a permanent wink, lips rouged red, an intricate weave of gold and rubies inlaid in her face.

  Kansa held her breath against the swear that rose. When she swallowed it away, she felt the word’s edges sharp against her throat.

  A Lady of the Deck. Here, in Last Hope. Kneeling in the street before her.

  The best sign or the worst one. A complication, either way. Kansa had tangled with Ladies of the Deck before and had no desire to do so again. But then, she had no desire to be here either, walking down this street, bloodied hands and heart, toward the end of this long road. Yet here she was. Desire and determination—long ago, she’d thought them the same thing, or close enough. Now she knew better.

  She thought of the magpies’ answering silence as she’d walked beneath the gate. The crimson footprints that followed behind her. Perhaps she should have turned away at their silence, gone back. But gone back to what? There was nothing left for her out there. She’d used the world all up and spit it out, just to walk here now.

  Kansa made her decision. “Lady,” she said. Her voice had returned, and she felt the road in it, gravel and steel. Not a quaver. She hoped
she wasn’t using up all her iron on this; she was going to need every bit of strength she had later. Her father was no dealer to shrift on.

  “Lady,” A little softer. “I’ve no bones with you. I urge you, take none with me.” Neither threat nor plea. Something in between.

  Kansa didn’t truck with wire-builts or metalwork. She left that to others. Guns made her hands sweat and swords were cumbersome to carry. But she had the etchings of the dust devils on her skin, the talisman of Sardeon around her neck, and—if those didn’t do their job—a pair of heftwood blades stowed at her hips. The Lady would know that. There was no need to show them.

  The Lady rose to her full height, which was a good head shorter than Kansa but somehow felt much taller. It was the way her shadow stretched and danced, covering Kansa in dark chill. The way her sewn-shut eye measured Kansa without seeing her.

  The Lady reached into one of the metal slots in her neck and pulled out a card, sweat-bent and edges worn. Then another. Their backs were all-black.

  Kansa sighed with relief. A mere shadow prophesy, then. That was nothing. Mirrors and rumors, rarely come to fruition. She’d had her future spoken before, and none of it had come near to true. She would let the Lady read her cards and be on her way, no harm done.

  Already, her mind went forward, to the end of this walk and what waited there. Revenge or death. Possibly both. She would soon find out.

  Which was why the Lady’s attack caught her off guard. The first card became a bird flying toward her, mid-air became a wasp that struck the side of her wrist between the layers of her wraps, a handful of tiny stings, more attention-getting than painful. The second card folded twice, became a blade, aiming for the bare space inside the crook of her elbow. Kansa caught it with a close of her arm, feeling it slice her skin even as she held it tight. It didn’t dissipate, but grew more solid in her grip.

  No, not shadow cards. Not a false prophesy. What delirious magic was this? Not the devil’s due. Something else. Something she’d never seen before.