Lies of Descent

by Troy Carrol Bucher

  In the square he’d learned something else, too, though it had been at a high cost. He should have known the warden wouldn’t help as soon as he saw the wolf glyph. The cooks had as good as warned him about the Wolves, but what was behind the warning was the real truth. Draegorans were no different than normal people. Some were good, like the tailor or the cooks. Some were bad, like Pekol and the district warden.

  If people behaved wrong or were evil, it was the duty of honest men to stop them—Draegoran, landowner, or lowborn, male or female, young or old, it didn’t matter. He would go to the island and become a Draegoran in order to help others who couldn’t help themselves, but not before he knew Stick was safe. That was his duty to the former churp. He hoped Bortha would trust him and either help or at least leave him to his reasons.

  Bracing himself for an argument, Riam spoke. “I’m not running away. All I’ve done since I left home is go where I’m told and run when I’m told. I’m done running. I’m not leaving the city that way. I’m going to the island, but not until I know Stick is safe.”

  Bortha rocked back on his heels, appraising Riam’s words. “The island, huh? Well, that explains some of it. You’ve got their blood, don’t you?”

  Riam frowned. He hadn’t meant to give that much away. He kept his lips closed.

  “I don’t know why I’m even thinking of listening to the decisions of a boy barely old enough to be off the tits he just saw,” he ran a hand through his hair, “but I believe you know the risk involved, so I’ll stay out of the way—especially if it means getting Stick out of Pekol’s reach. Now, I know you’re not telling me things.”

  “I—”

  Bortha put a hand up. “Shut up and listen. I’m not a fool, and I’m not asking you to explain, but anyone who can remove a glyph and see things that only Draegorans can see will attract the attention of dangerous men. If you are going to do this, you need to do it right, and you’d be wise to do a better job of hiding who you are. We’ll begin by getting you a long shirt and a sling to cover your arm. Then I’ll tell Pekol that the mediker says your arm is broken. That should buy enough time to get Stick out of the city, and then we’ll get you out a few days later.”

  Riam was confused. “I don’t understand.”

  “Pekol may be a bastard, but he’s a smart bastard. If both you and Stick disappear at the same time, he’ll have the Draegorans hunting you both, thinking Stick snuck you out of the city. You might get to the island and be safe, but Stick would pay for your escape. If you return to churping and don’t disappear until a few days after Stick is gone, he might not connect the two. That is, if you think you can do it. He won’t push you so hard with your injuries, but he won’t make it easy for you either.”

  Riam’s ribs still jabbed at him when he moved, and his nose ached. If the arm stayed numb, though, he could manage. He didn’t have a choice, and he would do more than get Stick out of the city. He didn’t know how, but he would make sure Pekol never hurt anyone again. Only one thing really worried him. “I heard Pekol threatening you. You don’t have to get involved. You can’t risk angering Pekol.”

  “I make my own decisions, and—like you—my reasons are my own. Let’s just say that old wounds still bite. I’ve built a nice place for myself here, but life has a way of boiling over even the largest stoup when there’s a fire put under it. Right now, Pekol is lighting that fire.”

  “What if Pekol’s already harmed Stick?”

  “Then you won’t have to worry about Pekol at all. I’ll kill him myself.”

  The look that crossed Bortha’s face reminded Riam that the man hadn’t always been an innkeeper.

  * * *

  —

  Sure as the sun came up, Pekol walked into the inn the next morning.

  “Where’s he at? I’ve given you the days,” Riam heard from the next room. He took as deep a breath as he could with the bandage around his chest and pushed himself to his feet. It hurt, but he could make it. He had to. He put on the sling and hobbled toward the kitchen.

  “Where’s Stick?” Riam asked, limping into the room.

  Pekol whistled. “By the Fallen, I marked him up good, didn’t I, Bortha?” His underbite stuck out farther than usual.

  The innkeeper nodded at Riam from behind Pekol. A silent gesture that was all the encouragement the man could give him with Pekol in the room. It was enough. Riam straightened himself up. “No worse than the beatings my grandfather gave me back home.”

  Pekol let out his peculiar cackle. “By the Fallen, I like this boy. Eyes black as night and arm in a sling, and he’s still got some fight left in him. Knew I chose right when I picked him.”

  “You’ve always had a good eye for fighters, Peke.”

  “That I have. Remember the half-blood? Made a fortune off him, and even more when he finally lost.”

  “Well, you also have the good sense to know when to bet on a man and when it’s safe to go against him.” Bortha placed his hand on the chopping block near the knives.

  “That I have.” Pekol rubbed his bottom teeth against his lip while he measured Bortha up and down. Whatever decision he came to made him smile. “They’ve some good fights lined up this Tenth Day. Been years since we went to the rings together.”

  “You know I can’t.”

  “That pecking woman of yours . . .” Pekol trailed off.

  Neither of the men spoke for several moments, but their eyes remained locked on one another. Riam remained still, trying not to disturb the awkward silence. There was definitely more going on here than two men reminiscing about old times—both were tensed-up, like loaded springs on a wain. Pekol’s hand hovered over his belt, where he kept his knife. Bortha’s hand didn’t stray from the knives Riam had eyed on his first visit to the inn.

  Finally, Bortha pulled his hand away from the block and grabbed a cleaning rag. “So where’s Stick?” He asked the question offhandedly.

  “How would I know? He did the work like he said he would and then disappeared as soon as we dumped the cart yesterday.” He grinned at the last words. He let his hand fall away from his belt. “You’ve always let yourself be manipulated by the people you care for. It’s your biggest flaw.”

  “Maybe, but I’m doing fine by it.” Bortha spread his hands and waved them at the inn around them.

  “For now, Bortha, for now. Come on, boy, we’ve work to do.” He jerked his thumb toward the door before heading out.

  “Mediker says his arm’s broken and that it can’t be used for at least a tenday.”

  “Well, he’s got another to rake the streets with, don’t he?” Bortha called over his shoulder.

  It would be painful, but all Riam had to do was keep his arm out of sight and make it through a few days of churping while he figured out how to stop Pekol for good.

  “Hold up. Your sling is coming loose,” Bortha said far louder than necessary. He bent down and turned Riam so that his back was to the door. He glanced over Riam’s shoulder to make sure Pekol wasn’t looking, then pulled a long, narrow blade from his sleeve. It was thin and flat, made for throwing.

  “Just in case,” Bortha whispered. He slid the knife under Riam’s bandage and tucked the edges of the wrap around it to prevent it from falling out. When he was satisfied it wouldn’t be seen, he leaned in close and met Riam’s eyes. “It comes to it, you drive that deep without a thought and run straight back here. Hide in the stables if I’m gone. I’ll find Stick and get him out of the city.”

  Riam nodded.

  “Hurry up, boy. We’ve streets to clean,” Pekol yelled.

  “Sollus’s luck be with you,” Bortha said, shooing him after Pekol.

  Riam hoped he didn’t need luck or the knife.

  Chapter 33

  For all his cruel traits, Pekol didn’t go out of his way to be spiteful for the duration of the morning. He told Riam to “hurry up” numerous t
imes and not to be “milking his injuries to make his lot easier,” but the words were hollow and without real threat. Riam worried to no end, far worse than if Pekol acted angry or violent. To his mind, only two things put Pekol in good spirits—shoving dregs in his purse and making someone else suffer. Which of the two he enjoyed more could be debated. Only one thing fit with Pekol’s current temperament, and it meant bad news for Stick.

  Worry for the older boy gnawed at Riam up Tinkers’ Street and down Maiden’s Fare, almost enough to take his mind off the rotten and foul discardings of so many people crammed together—things that even the beggars avoided. With only one good arm, he fumbled a chamber pot and dumped it down his breeches. “For Fallen’s sake . . .” he got out before the smell made him gag. He shook off what he could and dumped what didn’t spill down one of the waste holes into the sewers. He slammed the brass pot back onto the doorstep with a clank.

  The work hadn’t bothered him so much prior to his injuries, but after being washed and treated like a free person again, the filth made him want to tear off his clothes and jump into the nearest fountain to scrub himself clean. No one should be forced to do this. If there were no churps, people would dump their own pots and get rid of their own filth.

  He hid his disgust from Pekol and pretended to ignore his soiled clothing. He didn’t want to hear that annoying cackle anymore. It was almost funny, really. He’d hated being forced to bathe by his uncle; now it sat second on his list of desires.

  The thing he most wanted, even more than the bath, was to get Pekol talking, to try and tease out something that would let him know the truth of where Stick was and if he was alive. He couldn’t think of a way to bring it up without it making Pekol angry. He might not survive another beating.

  “It’s a good day, boy,” Pekol said, pulling the cart through the crowd where Maiden’s Fare fed into the Walk.

  The area where the two streets joined filled at sundown with grease-painted women selling their bodies. Riam knew about sex. His brother had explained it to him the first time he’d seen a pair of horses going at it. He just didn’t understand what brought so many men down to this end of Maiden’s Fare. The women here were not pretty, not like Serina. He reddened at the thought of her half-naked body.

  A woman with smeared paint leaned out from a row of windows and threw a platter of bones and spoiled vegetables toward the cart. They thudded against the sidewall and scattered along the street. Her curly black hair stood matted to one side of her head, and she wore a dingy yellow shift that hung on the bones of her shoulders.

  “I’ve warned you about that, you stupid whore!” Pekol called up to the window.

  The woman laughed and flipped her hand under her chin toward them.

  Pekol’s lower jaw pushed out so far Riam thought it would cover his nose. He pulled his purse from beneath his shirt and shook it toward the woman. The fat purse jangled with the sound of coin, making more than one passerby stop and eye the raker. There were far more coins in the purse than when Pekol paid for the meat pies three days ago, and only one place Riam imagined it could have come from—Stick’s payment for completing his time. The woman in the window stopped laughing.

  Pekol looked up at her with his doglike underbite and narrow eyes. “You heard that, didn’t you?”

  An old man with drool on his chin stopped to watch the exchange.

  Pekol spoke slow and clear, “Throw your rubbish one more time, and I’ll come back and buy you for the night.” He reached out and grabbed Riam by the hair, tilting his bruised face up toward the window. “See this? I like my whores the way I like my churps.”

  The tone of the words reminded Riam of his arm being crushed into the dirt in the Raker’s Square.

  “Not even the scum down dockside’ll want you when I’m done, and I’ll count it dregs well spent.”

  Even with the greasepaint, Riam could see the woman pale.

  The threat lit a fire inside Riam—another person Pekol would hurt. The knife under his bandage felt heavy as an anvil. He could thrust it into Pekol’s exposed side before the man ever knew what happened. Pekol wouldn’t hurt anyone after that. He could picture Pekol’s surprise when the blade drove in toward his heart, his mouth wide open while his blood spilled onto the very streets he’d spent his life cleaning. It would make a fitting end for the horrid man. It wasn’t murder. A man didn’t call it murder when he put down a rabid dog, and Pekol was far more dangerous than that. Riam’s good hand moved under the wrap of the sling.

  It would be the right thing to do. It was what his Uncle Gairen had called “honest anger.” He’d said to “use that rage . . . that wrath, to get through doing what needs to be done.” Riam’s fingers closed around the warm steel handle. It felt good against his palm, like it was meant to be there, like it was meant for him to use. His hand started to tremble, but not from fear. He’d never stabbed a man before—only pretend thieves and robbers with his brother.

  He looked at Pekol’s face, at the glee in his eyes and his wide grin. The man bounced with excitement. He would enjoy hurting the woman. I stood my ground against the Esharii and the wasps. I can do what needs to be done.

  He tightened his grip on the knife and concentrated on calming his mind, driving himself to the same state he’d used to examine the glyphs, then he went farther. In his urgency, it came almost naturally, like he’d done it a thousand times. The world around him slowed to a standstill.

  Nothing moved—not the crowd on the street or the woman in the window. Even the morning breeze ceased blowing against his cheek. Beside him, Pekol’s lifeblood glowed ethereally beneath his skin. Riam could trace the lines of it through the man’s body. There—right in the sweat-stained crease below Pekol’s armpit where it glowed the brightest—that’s where he’d stab the man. That’s where he’d pay him back for his beating, and for the guard and Doby and Stick. Riam burned with the need to tear the glow from Pekol’s body, to end his string of violence and murder. Anger and loathing bubbled up inside him. It consumed him.

  Pekol must pay for his crimes. Ever so slowly, while the world remained frozen around him, the knife slid free, pulled by a hand that was now steady and firm.

  Riam heard his uncle’s voice inside his head, as clear as if he stood among the crowd around them. Is this really honest anger, or is it revenge? Is it worth throwing everything away?

  Riam paused.

  Is it desire, or is it what should be done? Gairen’s memory asked.

  Couldn’t it be both?

  Is it worth my sacrifice? Gairen asked.

  Riam knew the answer to the final question from the past. If he executed Pekol, the crowd around him would drag him straight to a warden. He couldn’t do it. Not here. Not in the middle of the street where it would waste his uncle’s sacrifice. That would serve only revenge, and he needed to serve more than that or he was no better than Pekol—a slave to his own desires. The knife stopped just before the top of the hilt cleared the bandage.

  He let go of his anger, and the world crashed back to normal around him. The glow faded. He sagged and nearly collapsed. What strength he’d gained from his rest at the inn was gone.

  He pushed the knife deep under the bandage and made sure it would stay hidden.

  “I’m sorry, Master Raker. It won’t happen again.” The woman curtsied behind the window frame.

  “Might visit you anyway. Words don’t mean much from a whore.”

  “Fallen’s truth. It won’t.”

  Pekol thought it over and nodded. “Lucky it’s such a fine day and I’m in a pleasant mood.”

  Riam knew the way Pekol worked. He’d let her believe everything was settled and then he’d be back to snatch away her relief and confidence, like he’d done with Doby’s hopes for freedom. The woman was as good as beaten and didn’t even know it.

  Riam couldn’t watch anymore. He let his eyes wander to the high-peak
ed, wood-slatted roofs that surrounded them. Billowy white clouds floated in the sky beyond them—the type that teased farmers, giving them false hope but never giving them the satisfaction of rain. They were a fitting match to his plight.

  If it hadn’t sunk in before, it did now. The world truly was unfair. Here he stood on the street with the most evil excuse for a man he’d ever met, yet he was the criminal, without ever doing anything worse than being thrown off a boat, and all he could do was watch. He needed to do something, anything. He shook off Pekol’s hand and collected the rubbish the woman had thrown, hurling it into the wagon as hard as his injuries would allow. I should have stabbed Pekol and gotten it over with, then run for the inn.

  “Come on, boy,” Pekol said.

  Ignoring the clouds and the people and his own regret, Riam limped along beside the cart, using a sidewall for support. Without it, he would have collapsed. No, it most assuredly wasn’t a good day. His side and nose hurt like the Fallen, his face felt puffy and swollen, and his arm numb. Fear for Stick plagued him. Not to mention the shit and piss that covered his clothes. That pretty much summed life up—shit and piss wrapped in unfairness.

  “Finding that broken chest before anyone else came along and snaked it off my lanes is the cream on the cake today, boy. Don’t know who’d throw it out, but it’ll turn a few coins,” Pekol said over his shoulder.

  Riam wasn’t sure if Pekol expected a reply or talked to himself. Pekol did a lot of the latter, and it wouldn’t pay to join the conversation. He glanced over at the chest in the corner of the cart. It was a small thing, dark brown and polished, with sturdy iron hinges—the type used for storing money or valuables. They’d found it on Tinkers’ Street before the sun came up. Riam doubted anyone would throw it out. Likely, a thief left it after breaking it open and stealing whatever it held inside.

  “I’ll bet I get ten dregs for it in the square, even with the damage. Anything can be fixed with the right tools and a little money.” He looked back at Riam. “Well, almost anything.” He cackled.