by Tim Lebbon
Here and there they heard voices, and once they must have passed under a narrow road; above them, just visible through mud-clotted slats in the ceiling, shadows passed quickly by, and shoes cast dust down into their eyes. The scent of cooking followed it down; fresh bread and meats frying on a street skillet, breakfast for those who could afford it. Kosar’s mouth watered at the thought, but then he remembered the house they had just left and the mess coating the walls and floor of the upstairs room. His stomach rumbled and he felt sick.
Kosar tapped A’Meer on the shoulder. “Not far,” he whispered. “I think we’re under the outskirts of the hidden districts. If we look for a way out anywhere soon, we’ll be where we want to be.”
“Good,” A’Meer said. “But we should be moving faster. The Monk that killed Rafe’s uncle did so hours ago. It could be anywhere in the town by now. I wonder whether it knew where to look for Rafe, or whether it thought the same thing we did.”
“We can’t know,” Kosar said. A’Meer looked paler than ever down here. He reached out and touched her face, and was pleased at her grateful smile. “But we have an advantage. We know people here, you more than me. Instead of just searching, we should ask around, see if anyone knows of a strange boy in the districts, someone who might be harbouring him.”
“The word will spread quickly, especially with me in full Shantasi armour. The regulars at the Broken Arm would be in for a shock.”
“By the time word spreads we’ll either have found him, or …”
“Or they will. They’re very efficient, the Red Monks. No emotions cloud their vision, other than hate. And that’s cleansing.”
“Is it?” Kosar asked, but things instantly felt different, as if the two of them were talking about something forbidden.
A’Meer turned away and started down the passageway again. Kosar followed.
Within a few heartbeats they sensed a breeze of aromatic air coming from their left. They took a fork in the passage, ducking under the twisted spiral of a metal machine where it supported the ceiling, and ascended rough steps cut into the side of some gargantuan buried thing. To left and right ran a crevasse, bridged only here by the steps that led up. It was pitch black, but Kosar had the sense of something massive hiding down there, not dead but dreaming, its exhalations making the dark darker. He shook his head but could not vent the visions. A’Meer glanced back, wide-eyed. She had felt it too.
Kosar had never been so pleased to see the filthy streets of the hidden districts. They emerged through a rent in the side of a building, framed by twists of fossilised machine, and a few curious stares greeted them. A’Meer shook herself, as if to shed her black hair and white skin of the dust of underground, and her packed weapons whispered together.
Kosar looked away from each set of eyes he met, only to meet another.
“Come on,” he said. “We don’t want to cause a stir.” They headed off quickly, running deeper into the districts.
It was usually held that those who lived here were criminals—thieves, murderers, rapists, bandits on the run—but it was also true that the districts offered shelter for those poets and prophets who still listened to their heart. It was a rough, dangerous place, but at least here life still sang through the air on occasion, and the future held possibilities.
Most people carried weapons, much more so than out in the normal streets, but few to the extent of A’Meer. And as the two of them progressed, they drew attention whichever way they turned. Chatter stopped, trading paused, and Kosar could hear whispers from those hunkered in doorways or pressing themselves back against walls to let the two of them pass. Most of them had never seen a Shantasi warrior, and the crowd’s fear was palpable.
“This won’t help us find Rafe,” he whispered to A’Meer. “It’ll more likely hide him from us more.”
“There’s someone I know,” she said. “She’s not far from here; we’ll go to her. She’s always listening out for news of strangers passing through. She’ll know if Rafe has been seen.”
“Who is she?”
“Shantasi spy.”
Kosar allowed A’Meer to draw ahead so that he could follow. He tried not to catch anyone’s eyes, but after staring at the Shantasi they would inevitably move onto him, their gaze questioning, eyebrows raised in query. A few glanced down at his hands and saw the bloodied strips around his fingertips, and their curiosity grew. A mercenary and a thief, one of them whispered. I wonder what he’s hired her for? Kosar stared at the whisperer, not moving away until the man averted his eyes.
But everywhere the looks and mutters were the same, and it did not take long for Kosar to become paranoid, fearing that the whole of Pavisse knew their business. In reality, much as their appearance caused a brief commotion as they passed, he knew that in the hidden districts there was always something else to draw attention. They may well be talked about, but their presence would not alter anyone’s day.
He followed A’Meer blindly. Every time he heard someone raise their voice he turned around, convinced that he would see a Red Monk, blood-hungry sword drawn and eager to bathe itself in Shantasi flesh.
…and now mercenaries, and this is a dark day dawning for sure.
Kosar stopped, turned, trying to make out who had spoken. A group of children stood huddled against a timber fence surrounding a scorpion-plant garden, eyes wide and afraid. To their left an elderly couple stood arm in arm, and when he met the woman’s eyes she glanced away, looking for something in the dust.
“What and mercenaries?” he asked quietly.
She did not answer until her partner jerked her arm, nudged her in the side. His eyes had strayed over Kosar’s right shoulder to A’Meer.
“Monk,” the woman whispered. “Red Monk.”
“Where? When? Alone?”
“Last night, passing by my house. I couldn’t sleep. I was sitting at the window watching the stars, writing a poem.” She glanced up, perhaps expecting ridicule but seeing only stern interest on Kosar’s face. “I saw it walk by below my window. Even in the dark I could see its colour.”
“You didn’t tell me—” the man said, but the woman continued, ignoring him.
“It stopped just past my window and raised its head, sniffing at the air. I could hear it, sniffing! It knew I was there, and it must have heard my heart. But then it went on into the shadows.”
“In which direction?”
“No. It went into the shadows. It did not move, it slipped away. No direction.” She was crying now, an old woman’s tears that looked like those of a child.
Kosar glanced back at A’Meer, whose attention remained focussed on the woman. “We should go,” he said. “Find whoever it is you think can help.”
“Was it a good poem?” A’Meer said suddenly.
The woman’s crying stopped, shocked into silence.
“The poem,” A’Meer repeated. “Was it good?”
“I’m not sure,” the old woman said. “I think I’ve forgotten.”
“Never forget the poetry in your heart,” A’Meer said. “It may yet have some use one day.” And then she turned and marched away.
Kosar followed, wondering what had happened back there. The old woman was not crying anymore, and as he looked back one last time Kosar saw the old man questioning her, touching her, trying to tear her gaze from the morning sky. Yet another surprise from A’Meer.
“If they came here and found nothing, maybe they moved on?” Kosar said.A’Meer stopped and guided him over to a building, its walls composed entirely of the outer shell of an old machine. Breakers had obviously been at work here—a slab of the machine lay discarded in the street, and people walked around it rather than touch or move it aside.
“If the Monks came here they came for a reason,” A’Meer said. “We know there’s more than one or two—there may be many—and coming out in force means that they know Rafe is here. They’ll not leave until he’s dead.”
“How do they even know of him?”
A’Meer shrugged.
“Whispers on the wind. Rumours. Mostly I think they can sense it; magic is their madness, and they’re well attuned to its cadences.”
“So why not do what they did in Trengborne?” Kosar asked. “Kill everyone so that they’re sure Rafe is one of them?”
“It may yet come to that,” she said. “But for now, I guess they know that if they start wholescale slaughter, Rafe will disappear in the panic. Pavisse is a little bigger than Trengborne.” She smiled, but it barely touched her eyes.
Too many memories resurfacing in there, Kosar thought. Memories of her training, perhaps, and what she had been charged with. And recollections of her battle with the Monk in Ventgoria. Perhaps she was scared that she could not repeat that victory after living so long as a normal person.
“A’Meer,” he said. “I don’t have a weapon other than my pathetic little knife.”
She sighed and rested her head on his shoulder. “Just how prepared are we, huh?” She drew a long, thin blade from a scabbard at her hip and handed it to him. “Listen to me, Kosar. I know you can take care of yourself, but this is a Shantasi blade. It’s not charmed or cursed, but it is hungry. And it’s sharper than anything you’ve ever seen.” She was unlacing the scabbard as she spoke, slipping the leather cord out through other knots that held her own weaponry. She removed it in seconds without disturbing anything else. “If you draw this, you draw blood.” She reached out and touched her hand to the sword he held, wincing as a line of blood appeared across her palm.
“Don’t!” Kosar said, shocked. He stepped back and held the sword to his side, looking around to see if anyone had noticed. There were several people watching, too interested to let their fear drive them away.
“It didn’t hurt,” she said, smiling. “Believe me, once drawn the sword won’t settle until it’s wet.”
He looked down at the weapon, expecting it to curl around his hand like a snake. He touched one fingertip to its flat surface and a drop of A’Meer’s blood slicked across the metal, catching the morning sun.
“You speak as though it’s alive.”
“No,” A’Meer shook her head. “Of course not. Not alive, not magical, just … hungry. The Monk’s swords are the same, but fed by their owners’ madness so that the effect is magnified. With me it’s more tradition, I guess, something that was drummed into me by the Mystics in Hess. But every tradition like that has some root cause.”
As Kosar strapped on the scabbard—it was uncomfortable, as if moulded specially for A’Meer’s hips and not his own—he asked where they would go now.
“The woman I mentioned,” A’Meer said. “She’s a madam. Works out of an old machine a little way from here. Five girls, a couple of them fledgers. She even has a fodder. Novelty value, I guess, although I wonder how she stops men from biting her.”
“You know the most charming people.”
“Hey, I work in a tavern full of criminals, wrongdoers and misfits.”
“Where you met me.”
“That’s right, thief.”
They smiled at each other, not knowing what to say next. Banter did not feel right given the circumstances. Things were winding up, like a sling spinning and ready to release its shot. The direction it fired in depended wholly upon what happened over the coming day. By evening they may be on the run from Red Monks, taking with them the boy from Trengborne. Or perhaps they would be burying his remains, A’Meer mourning the magic that may have been. Or maybe they would both be dead.
“How did this happen?” Kosar said, not sure exactly what he meant.
“These things do.” A’Meer stretched on tiptoes and planted a kiss on Kosar’s lips, and then she turned and walked on.
The woman was huge. Her name was Slight—a misnomer if ever there was one—and Kosar had no idea how she could move. Her arms rested on massive hips, her legs were all but hidden beneath rolling waves of fat, and her eyes were tiny beads in a face that looked like a ball of pasty dough.
“A’Meer!” she screeched upon seeing them. “You’ve decided to come to work for me after all, then! But what with the blades, vixen? You know I don’t cater for that side of things.”
“Slight,” A’Meer said. “It’s good to see you. Been cutting down on the fried sheebok fat, I see?”
“I weigh almost as much as all my girls combined,” she said proudly. “Who’s the cock? He want some? You want some, cock?”
Kosar shook his head, unfeasibly embarrassed in front of this mountain of a woman. The inside of the great machine was unrecognisable, hung as it was with drapes and curtains. It was an assault on the eyes, so much colour and form stealing concepts of up or down, left or right. Someone passed by on the other side of a drape wall, but they were little more than a shadow. Someone else snored gently nearby. From elsewhere, he thought he heard the muted sounds of lovemaking.
“Slight, I’m looking for someone,” A’Meer said.
“Someone other than him?” the madam said, nodding at Kosar. The movement sent her whole bulk shaking. Her loose breasts, each almost the size of a small sheebok, quivered as if possessing of a life of their own.
“A boy,” A’Meer said. “Slight, it’s important. This boy is precious to me, and his life is in danger.”
“Precious to you, or precious to New Shanti?” A’Meer did not reply. Slight looked her up and down. “And you all tooled up.”
Kosar did not like her. She seemed too casual, too ready with a witticism, and all the while he sensed a wily mind working behind her button eyes.
“There are a few things about me I’ve never told most people,” A’Meer admitted.
“I’ve heard about Shantasi warriors,” Slight said, shifting her weight to one side and moving, slowly, towards a wall of curtains.
A’Meer looked at Kosar and shrugged. He frowned, trying to communicate his distrust.
“Girls!” Slight called. “Slight wants a word!”
“I’m busy,” a voice said, sounding as if it came from the next street.
“When you’ve finished then, Honey. Don’t rush the gentleman; he’s paid his way.”
Shadows came first, appearing on curtains and drapes from different directions, slowly manifesting as women. They pushed through into the central room where Slight, A’Meer and Kosar waited. One of them was beautiful. One was fodder, fat and scarred with bites. One was with child, another looked half-dead from rotwine and bad fledge, and the last was a fledger, tall and yellow-eyed.
“The boy a stranger?” Slight asked, and A’Meer nodded.
“Girls, my friend here’s looking for someone. A boy. You won’t have seen him before. Maybe he was on his own, or if he’s a stranger someone in the districts may have picked him up. You seen anyone with a stranger? Anyone we know?”
“Hope,” said the fledger. “That mad old fucking witch-whore threw a sac of poison spiders at me. She had a boy with her, filthy little bastard farmer-boy, scared.”
“When was this?” A’Meer asked, but the fledger stared though her.
“When was this?” Slight rumbled.
“Yesterday.”
“Where does Hope live?” A’Meer asked Slight, and the fat woman asked the fledger, and she told them.
“Street down south, Fifthborn Circle. Not too far from here.” The fledger addressed A’Meer directly for the first and last time. “When you find that old witch-whore, are you going to slit her throat?”
“No,” said A’Meer.
The fledger raised her eyebrows at Slight. The big woman nodded and her girls disappeared back through the curtains, their movement sending a whisper in every direction.
“Thank you, Slight,” A’Meer said.
The huge woman smiled. “And yet again, you owe me. You’ll have to come and work for me soon, Shantasi.” She eyed A’Meer’s weaponry, and through the fat Kosar could not be sure of her expression. Perhaps being inscrutable served her well.
A’Meer nodded, performed a low bow and then nudged Kosar out of the old machine ahead of her.
They headed south, moving as fast as they could through the serpentine streets. Kosar kept one hand on the new sword at his belt. It banged his leg as he ran, uncomfortable and yet reassuring with its presence. He could not shake the feeling that they were rushing headlong into trouble.
When they reached Fifthborn Circle A’Meer strolled quickly along the street, looking at doors as if she would perceive a witch’s abode by its appearance.
“We’ll have to ask,” Kosar said.
A’Meer had stopped in front of a building, the door closed tight, windows shaded and mostly still unbroken. She stood back slightly and looked up at the façade, down at ground level, back to the front door again. “This is it.”
“How do you know?”
“A witch marks her ground,” she said, offering no more.
Kosar followed her gaze but saw nothing.
“She’s in the basement rooms,” A’Meer said, kneeling to take a look at the narrow slits piercing the building just above ground level. “Her signature is Willmott’s nemesis root, I can smell it.”
“Let’s go, then.”
A’Meer stood and nodded. “Quickly, but quietly. And I’ll go first.”
Kosar did not argue. A’Meer stood with her hand on the door handle, paused, looked around at him, frowning.
