The Fade kj-2

by Chris Wooding

  Then he sags, and the fevered light in his eyes goes out. I turn back to the salvage dump, and so does he. The Overseer watches us for a few moments more before deciding not to dirty his hands with prisoner squabbles. He moves on, the guard trailing behind him.

  There's nothing I can say. No thanks would be enough. Juth is letting us go, and his last faint hope goes with us. That's not an easy thing to give up. I've seen people go mad clinging to that final glimmer of self-preservation. I've seen people die and take everyone down with them. It takes courage to accept the inevitable.

  Nereith and Feyn are both watching me. We're ready to go. I'm about to give the signal when Juth grabs my arm. He pulls out a tattered, sweat-crinkled envelope from inside his shirt and pushes it into my hand.

  'Please,' he says.

  I glance at it and slip it inside my top. The address is in Veya. I don't ask how he obtained the paper. By the looks of it, he's been carrying it around for some while, hoping to find a way to get it to the outside. He must have always known he had no chance of making it himself.

  'I will,' I tell him.

  'Deliver it by hand. Promise me.'

  I feel I owe him that, and Veya is where I'm headed eventually anyway. So I promise. Then he lets me go, his fingers trembling. I wish I could save him, but I can't.

  I pull off my gloves, scan for guards, and motion to the other two. They down gloves and we walk calmly out of there, across the walkway, into the red shadows of the forge machinery. The other workers watch us go, and I know in their hearts each of them is either cursing us or wishing us good fortune.

  Getting to the foot of the stairs is easier than it was before. I know where I'm going, and both Feyn and Nereith can handle themselves. Feyn has natural camouflage and he's utterly silent; Nereith isn't trained in stealth but he's certainly not clumsy. There's a certain grace about the way he moves.

  There aren't any guards in sight as we make the short dash between the machinery and the stairs. I feel a slackening of tension in my gut as we slip into the cover of the waist-high metal barrier obscuring the steps from the forge. We hurry up the stairs, crouched low, and when I reach the top I pull out the key that Charn made and it turns first time. Little things like that give me a good feeling. We can do this.

  Once inside the Overseer's office, I shut and lock the door to the forge. Nereith and Feyn take in the dingy room with the same faint puzzlement as I did the first time I was here. The key to the other door is on the hook again but I don't have time to mess about with threads and candles like before. I'll have to leave the door unlocked and the key in it. He's left it there before, so maybe he's absentminded enough to think he forgot to turn it. Hopefully he won't notice until he leaves at the end of the shift anyway. The plan's not as neat as I'd like, but that's the way it has to be.

  I scout out the corridor, check it's clear, then lead Nereith and Feyn to the storage room where I left my slave's clothes. I open the door slightly, slip in, then let them past after. I'd left a clay shard where it would be shifted by the opening of the door. Nobody has been here while I was away.

  'Stay here until I get back,' I tell them as I dress hurriedly in the dark.

  'Where are you going?' Nereith asks.

  'Creating a diversion.'

  Suitably attired, I head out into the corridors. I'm not nearly as confident as I was last time I was here. By now the girl who originally owned these clothes will have been missed, and undoubtedly Ellya will have told the other slaves she was last seen storming off to find me. This dress is dangerous now. I have to avoid the other slaves if at all possible, and hope I don't bump into any Gurta who knew my victim well enough to care about her disappearance.

  It's a short distance, and the only person I see is a guard, who doesn't even glance at me. My luck's holding.

  I find a linen room I'd selected on my last excursion. This is where clean sheets and blankets are stored after drying. Shelves of fabric line the walls, awaiting pickup by slaves. The Gurta are fastidious, obsessive about cleanliness and elaborate ritual, and that means having people to look after them. They've used slaves, of one stripe or another, since their histories began.

  The shelves are only half-full when I get there, but it's enough. All the slaves are out cleaning the rooms of the dignitaries. I walk in, take the lantern down from the wall, smash it on the floor at the foot of a set of shelves and walk out again with the fire already beginning to catch on the bed sheets.

  My journey back is as unhindered as my journey there, and it's with some relief that I return to the storage room where Feyn and Nereith are waiting. I strip and pull on my travelling clothes again, then tie my hair up with a thin blue scarf. The time for deceptions is over; I'll stand or fall with these two. There's a certain comfort in that.

  'What will happen?' Feyn asks, and it takes me a moment before I realise he means: Now what?

  'We wait. Sooner or later somebody's going to notice that I've just set one of the rooms on fire.'

  A distant scream, exquisitely timed, and Nereith actually starts laughing, which sets us all off. We keep it muffled, but we really can't help it. It's that slightly hysterical laughter you only get when you're scared out of your wits. There's nothing like it.

  Then we hear footsteps outside, racing, and we all hush at once.

  The footsteps recede quickly. Someone is ringing a bell. Another pair of runners pass by our door. People in the corridors between here and the junk room where I stashed the slave's body are rushing to the summons. Everyone helps in a fire, slaves and guards and scholars alike. This is my way of making doubly sure that our short journey is made unobserved.

  We wait in the dark, as still as the barrels and jugs and coils of rope that hunker half-seen all around us. We wait, and wait, and when we hear no more footsteps, I say: 'Now,' and we're gone.

  I'm a veteran of breaking into and out of places, but the way it's done is by not taking chances, by being prepared. The parts of this plan that kill me are those in which I have no option but to put my head into the fanged mouth of chance. And we haven't even got to the really dangerous part yet. That waits for us outside.

  Two guards burst through a door into the corridor right in front of us.

  I knew it. Fucking typical.

  It takes a moment for them to register that there are three escaped prisoners loose in the fort, but they go for their swords quickly. Still, I have the advantage of surprise. I was already running at them when the door opened. The first only just has his hand on his hilt when I drive the heel of my palm into his nose, spearing the cartilage into the front of his brain. His stunned gaze empties and he crumples.

  The second guard pulls out his sword and takes a slice at my neck, hoping to take my head off. It stirs my hair as I duck, then I grab his outstretched arm at the wrist and punch into his armpit, between the iridescent armour plates of hardened sap. Hit a Gurta hard enough in the right spot and you can stop their heart. My aim is good, and I've got a lot of hate behind that strike.

  I stare down at their lifeless faces, their pinched features white, cheekbones tinged with blue. Two for you, Rynn. It's not even a start.

  'I see your reputation was not exaggerated,' Nereith says dryly, as he grabs hold of the wrists of one of the dead guards. 'Let's get these bodies out of the way.'

  We put them in a storeroom, barely bothering to hide them. We don't have time. Nereith takes up one of the swords, but I tell him to leave it. The extra weight could make the difference between life and death, if we get as far as the river. He obeys without complaint. I'm not sure he knows how to use a sword anyway.

  The last section of the dash is unhindered. Doors slam distantly, voices echo down the corridors, but we reach the spiral stairs without incident and head down into the thick darkness. The junk room is as I left it, though the air is faintly putrid with the scent of over-ripe decay. The slave in the chest is beginning to go off. Feyn notices it instantly, looks towards the chest and then back at me, a questi
on in his black eyes.

  I shake my head. Don't ask.

  The drop from the window isn't a problem for any of us. This part is as safe as it gets. Due to a trick of the fort's construction, it's dark enough that we can't be seen from the yard: a convenient fold in the architecture, shadowed from the shinehouse that rises above the fort.

  We gather against the wall, hunkered low. Ahead of us is the yard, scattered with piles of crates and sacks, busy with workers. A storage silo yawns on the far side, fed with cargo from the carts. The men yell bawdy jokes at each other, the answers returning in chorus since they've all heard them many times before.

  'I'm going to get closer,' I tell Feyn and Nereith. 'Come after me when I give you the signal.'

  With that, I scamper along the wall. With my black clothes and dusky skin I'm almost invisible. A quick rush to the cover of a netted heap of boxes gets me a good angle on the activity. There's a covered wagon nearby, its tailgate hanging down, half-loaded. Sheaves of metal rods are being slung into it with little care or delicacy. Behind them are several tied crates beneath a loose tarp. More slave-made weaponry and machine parts, on their way to the Borderlands? Perhaps.

  A cart is just being let in through the gate. For a short time I watch and wait, observing the lax rhythm of the labour. Seeing where they go, who they stop and talk to, when the best moment would be to make a run. I'm thankful that they leave their carts at the edge of the yard, to make space for other traffic. There's a lot of peripheral clutter. If not for that, we'd never even get near.

  I wave at the others and they scuttle, low and quiet, to my side. We're well hidden here, as long as nobody decides to look behind the crates. And we're beyond the point where I can even consider the possibility of failure. There really is no going back.

  'That one?' Nereith asks, peering around the side of the boxes at the wagon.

  'Good as any,' I say. We can make it in a dash. With luck no one will spot us. I've been relying far too much on luck lately, but in the absence of preparation it's the best thing I have.

  It's all about expectations. Nobody expects three escaping prisoners to stow away on a wagon. I doubt half of these Gurta even know there's a prison inside Farakza. As long as we're not seen, we have every chance.

  'Ready?' I say to Feyn, because he's first to go. I have to be last. I have to pick the times.

  Feyn nods. I look out and around. The wagon obscures most of the courtyard; the loaders are heading back to the warehouse.

  'Go!'

  And he's off, running low to the ground, not looking anywhere but at his destination. It's a matter of instants but the time stretches like putty. Then he's up on the tailgate, disappears inside, gone as if he was never there. The chila tethered to the front of the wagon murmurs, tossing its furred head. But no alarms. No cries.

  'Go!'

  Now it's Nereith, and he's a little slower. Those seconds scrape by like fingernails on slate. I'm not watching him, only the warehouse door where two workers have stopped and are talking.

  I look back, and Nereith is gone. He's made it.

  My turn. I keep my eye on the workers. They're looking over at the wagon now, and one of them is heading back.

  Then I hear a grunt from the chila, and someone very close by hollers to one of his companions: ~ Move it! I'm getting old just watching you, you lazy molchon ~ Many Gurta insults are untranslatable; they have a wide and colourful variety.

  I skirt around the boxes to find the owner of the voice clambering into the chila's saddle. He pulls on his gloves and picks up the reins. Getting ready to leave.

  My ride is about to depart without me.

  I race back along the boxes, just in time to see a scar-faced Gurta approach the rear of the wagon. He takes hold of the tailgate, swings it up and locks it. ~ No more ~ he calls to the driver. ~ Let's get going ~

  The driver cries a command and snaps the reins. The chila takes the weight of the wagon and begins to lumber forward. Just as it begins to move, the scar-faced Gurta hops up on the tailgate and climbs inside, pulling the flaps closed behind him.

  I break cover and sprint. It's barely travelled six spans, but the extra distance has opened up a terrifying view of the courtyard. I can't tell if any of the workers witness my dash. It doesn't matter, because if I get this wrong I'm dead anyway. I vault up on to the tailgate, thrust aside the flaps and lunge in.

  The scar-faced Gurta is bent over as I come at him, occupied with tying some metal rods together. Of the stowaways there's no sign. He turns at the sound of my approach, his face shadowed in the gloom of the wagon. I rush him in the cramped space. Shock registers on his features. It's the expression he dies with.

  I try to muffle his fall but he knocks rods into a noisy tumble. ~ Everything alright back there? ~ the driver calls jovially. I freeze. Waiting. The wagon rolls onward.

  Silence. Silence. And still silence.

  I let out a breath. The driver probably thinks he hadn't been heard, and he doesn't care enough to persist. We're still moving. I don't dare shift the body for fear of making more noise, so I creep to the back where I find Feyn and Nereith hidden behind some crates, under tarp. Nereith's calm facade is paper-thin now. He knows how close that last one was.

  I hunker down with them, and we cover up and wait. Moments later, we hear the driver call out. ~ Good luck tomorrow, friends! I envy you the honour of meeting an Elder! ~

  I think of the 'honour' I would have suffered, had I met him. I can't help a shiver.

  ~ Good journey ~ the guards call back. They're separated from us by nothing but the hide that covers the wagon.

  We never even slow down. Past the gates, past the walls, and out of Farakza. My heart is punching at my gut. I can't believe we've got this far.

  But there's one more obstacle before we're free. And it's the worst of them all.

  19

  Next time I meet Gendak, things get nasty.

  I know that something's wrong when I see his face, even before I spot the chirurgeon standing in the room. There's another Gurta here too, older than Gendak, hair silver grey, skin dry and cracked around his rheumy eyes. He's dressed expensively, and regards me as if I were a particularly vile insect. A scribe lurks nearby, his quill hovering ready.

  The guards strap me in tight, as always, but a dreadful sense of foreboding grows in me as they check my bindings.

  This will be my last visit. After this, I'll be gone. The Elder is coming next turn; the guards talk about nothing else. I can only hope that chance isn't going to be so cruel as to stop me now.

  Then it occurs to me. Maybe they know about the escape. But by then it's too late. I've been secured, and the guards have left.

  ~ They let their women fight and die in their wars ~ the old man croaks. ~ Disgustin g ~

  ~ Very few, Magister ~ Gendak replies. ~ This one is exceptional ~

  ~ She is exceptional only in that her conduct is even more shameful than most of her kind ~ the Magister snaps.

  Gendak is clearly cowed. His expression is uncertain, remorseful. He doesn't say a word, but he looks at me, and it's like he's begging me not to blame him for what's to come.

  I don't like this.

  The chirurgeon is preparing a spike. I can see through the glass that it's full of some kind of liquid. Those bastards have drugged me twice already; there won't be a third time. I begin to turn my mind inward, furling it closed, concentrating. A lifetime of discipline has given me exceptional control over my body, including the ability to resist and eventually neutralise most poisons. It's one of the harder techniques of chua-kin training, but it's come in useful in my line of work.

  ~ Your methods are entirely too gentle ~ the Magister tells Gendak. ~ She has been playing for time ~

  ~ I was gaining her trust ~ he protests. ~ Such methods are slower but yield better results ~

  ~ Nonsense ~ he says. ~ She'll trick you, lie, betray you if she can. It's in their nature ~

  Well, at least he got that right.
r />   The spike is inserted into my inner elbow, and the drug spreads. It's gentle, insidious: it doesn't burn but it soothes. I can't entirely suppress the effects but I can stave the worst off as long as I keep my chants going. My body is working frantically to cleanse me, defying the drug's hold on my system.

  ~ Give it a moment to work ~ says the chirurgeon, as he leaves. ~ Then she'll tell you anything you want to know ~

  So that's it. A concoction to loosen my tongue. Well, fuck you for not having the guts to just kill me, because this won't work, and you'll never get another chance.

  Knowing what it is, I can concentrate on negating its effects. These kind of potions create a soporific blanket, putting the victim into a hypnotic and suggestible state. But my mind is anchored now, and though I feel like I'm floating in a dream, my thoughts are still clear enough to make out.

  ~ Ask her ~ the Magister demands of Gendak. The guards stand by, watching me closely.

  He leans in, wets his lips, speaks. 'What is the name of your master?'

  'Plutarch Nathka Caracassa Ledo, Magnate of Clan Caracassa, member of the Turnward Claw Alliance,' I slur. The words slip out past my teeth with frightening ease. I tell myself he already knows. This is only a warm-up.

  'Explain your duties as Cadre.'

  The scribe writes in the background; I can hear the scratch of his nib. I wonder what Gendak's getting at. We've been over all this. 'Whatever my master requires of me. Information… sabotage… theft. Assassination.'

  'Did you ever act as his bodyguard?'

  'Caydus or Jyirt are his bodyguards. But… sometimes I do it too. When they need… At functions and parties… he prefers the women there then… me and Vala and Quaday.'

  'And you are loyal?'

  'I'm a Bondswoman,' I say.

  He glances at the Magister, then back to me.

  'I'm going to say a name. You tell me if you have heard it before.'