by Gwen Perkins
His eyes drifted up to the sky, watching the faint blink of a star coming out of the pale gray darkness. He wondered if Asahel would come or if, what he hadn’t expected would happen and he’d be left to do the work alone. A faint sound of bells carried to him from the city below, the sound of the great clocks at the university tolling the hour. He waited for each note to strike as if it was the sound that would call his friend.
One… two… three… Nothing.
He shivered after the last bell rang, counting six. Then he set the lantern on the dirt. The flame wavered behind the glass, quaking harder as he slid his hands around the bars of the fence. He pulled himself over the top with a loud groan.
It was followed with a thump as his body slammed into a thick bed of peat moss. Quentin laid there for a moment, unable to breathe, then he pushed himself up so that he was sitting. His fingers felt for his purse, drawing back when he found it, the weight of silver comforting. The next thing that he looked for was the presence of other people that the torches had suggested.
Quentin hadn’t been to the Thana since he was a child. The Mathar family no longer buried their dead in crypts. It had nothing to do with fashion and everything to do with the fact that Quentin’s grandfather had been the last to whittle away at a dying fortune.
An old bloodline—that was all he’d had to offer Catharine for her hand. That, and a pretty face. It had been enough for her father to think that magic, and the status it bore in the noble classes, would live on in his grandchildren. But Catharine had wanted no part of him, not even the name that he bore. And yet, Quentin thought. People think I made the bad deal. Beauty—what good is it, in the end? It’s hardly something you can leave behind.
There was much beauty around him but little life. He didn’t move as he eyed the surroundings, noticing that the sun was almost gone. The crypts themselves were tall enough to obscure the light that was fading down behind the distant hills. A narrow white obelisk jutted from the Thana’s center. The other pale buildings were arrayed in a semi-circle around it, radiating out like rays of the sun themselves. Quentin couldn’t see the obelisk’s base from where he stood; however, he believed that if there was a caretaker, then that was where he’d find the man. He vowed inwardly to stay away from it. The only question was where else to start.
Unlike the graveyard of before, the names on these crypts were ones that he recognized. As Quentin walked the narrow path that circled the buildings, he realized that the stone sigils carved into the facades were those of the noble houses. Some of the sigils were animal, other jewels—still more, plant in origin. But the names of the families were always familiar. Knyvet, Carnicus, Gredara….
It was that crypt at which he stopped. It bore his wife’s name, a name that he had taken for his own.
The Gredara crypt was humble in height. Its true glory was in the intricacy of its design, the lily crest of House Gredara entangled with stone carvings of men and women. They were ancestors, he realized as he traced figures on the walls. Whereas other crypts kept their history to the coffin, the Gredara struggles were embroidered in stone for all to see.
Catharine had never brought him here though her mother was buried inside its depths. Quentin understood now. To see the carvings was to know her history. As much as he longed to drink it in, to puzzle out her origins, he forced himself to turn away. The heretical acts of magic—he could justify their secrecy for her protection. But spying on her past—that seemed a lie he wouldn’t be able to keep.
He took a few more steps forward, lost in his thoughts before the sound of pick hitting dirt halted him.
A burial. But who? And at such an hour? The only men buried in the Thana now were those of tradition. Cercia’s noble families did not go to their end quietly—there were many who believed that, in the absence of God, a glorious funeral was the best guarantee for immortality. The next scrape of gravel on steel drew Quent a little closer, curious as he was to know the origins of the sound. The dark had fully fallen over the ground, making silent movement difficult. It was too hard to see the broken branches and dents in the path. Quentin’s normally nimble feet stumbled twice down that road.
But on neither occasion did the sound stop.
It gave him hope that Asahel had come. Quentin’s step quickened as he considered the possibility, remote though it seemed. He used the crypts as cover, following the shadows as much as the sound ahead. As the noise grew louder, he pressed his back against a nearby wall, hearing strained breaths that didn’t sound like any sound he’d ever heard Asahel make, wheezing like an old bellows with every pitch of dirt. It was followed by a young woman’s voice, high and clear as the tower bells at dawn.
“Why are we digging? Most of this lot aren’t buried like proper folk. Do we really want someone who is? Why, he mightn’t have anything. Not like thems in the crypts.”
“We’re digging—” The low, grizzled voice of a man interrupted her. “Because I don’t trust as those—those graves don’t have some curse on them.”
“That’s nonsense,” A third voice said, this one also male. It was thinner, however, almost songlike in its cadence. “Curse talk. You might as well hire yourself for a nanny, telling stories like that.”
“Them stories’s what pays your wages.” The other man returned. “And I don’t hear you bellyaching about that.”
“He hasn’t got much of a belly to ache with,” said the girl.
“Lot of good your wages do me,” the man who Quentin thought of now as the Thin One replied. “Twenty five percent of nothing’s still nothing.”
“See?” The sound of digging stopped suddenly, followed by another wheeze. “No money. Cursed. We’re definitely cursed.”
Quentin could hear the trio sigh in unison. It was followed by a clattering sound, a shovel hitting another piece of metal. He jumped, stumbling a little, and caught himself against the wall.
“What was that?” He heard the thin man ask. The fact that neither of the others answered gave Quentin pause. He was afraid to peek out and see what they were doing, his hands pressing flat against cool stone walls as he began to edge further from the sound of their breathing. It’ll be easy enough, he thought, sweating a little, to get away. They don’t know I’m here—
A tap on his shoulder alerted him to the fact that he’d been discovered before he’d even had a chance to finish the thought. Turning, Quentin stared directly into the shoulders of a man who resembled ox more than human—right down to the bullish face and the slow snorting of breath from his nostrils. Quent stilled, trying to think of a response. For once, his mouth was failing him.
“You don’t belong here,” the man growled. He reached out and clenched Quentin by the shoulder, lifting him up off the ground. The pressure caused the redhead’s chest to pound as he fumbled with his hands, searching for the energy in the air. The Laws may have prohibited the use of magic on man but it said nothing about clothing.
With a loud ripping sound, he channeled the magic into his sleeve, wincing as the heat stung the fabric and twisted itself free from his attacker’s hands.
Quentin dropped down, then lept up, hoping to run. A heavy fist plowed into his jaw before he could make the attempt. His body slammed backwards, sliding into the mud and falling silent.
“Damn magicians,” was all the other man said.
Chapter 5
Asahel’s heart was pounding so hard against his chest that he thought the group clustered around Quentin’s fallen body could probably hear it. The girl with them had lifted her head, her clear green eyes penetrating the shadows where he was crouched. Her stare felt directed at him, marking him as a target.
“What is it, Meg?” One of them asked, a man so thin it looked as if his skin had simply been painted on his bones.
“Nothing,” she said. He was sure that she met his eyes then but the girl twisted her head too quickly for Asahel to make any sort of motion.
“What’ll we do with this sorry bastard, Pig?” Another man, older, a
sked the thin one. Just a moment before, the questioner had been holding a shovel. Now he was leaning against it and looking down at Quentin as if he meant to bury him. Pig appeared to be giving the question great thought, looking first at the questioner, then at Meg, and finally, at the man who’d punched Quentin.
No one answered. Asahel squinted, trying to read the outline of his friend’s body through the darkness. Please let him be breathing. His fingers clenched, knotting together hard. If wishing alone could make it so, Asahel thought, it would have. The air around him went static, a few blades of grass suddenly stirring as the silence continued.
The older man snorted, breaking the calm. “Look at the clothes. Money. He’s got that.”
“That’s a crest on his ring.” Meg’s voice was barely audible and all three men looked at her.
“So it is, love. So it is.” The older man leaned his shovel against the dirt as he knelt down to examine it. Asahel couldn’t see the exact gesture. All that he could determine was that the man was bent down at Quentin’s side. With no small relief, he saw his friend’s body stir.
“He’s still alive, Taggart.” Pig pointed out. “We ought to go for a ransom. What crest is it?” Taggart, Asahel assumed, was the older man still kneeling by Quentin. Taggart tugged at the redhead’s fingers, staring at the signet. Quent was stirring more fervently now and Taggart dropped his hand, scowling at him from one squinted eye.
“Swan. Saw those here somewhere.”
“Aye.” Pig used his thumb to jab in the direction of the Gredara crypt. “Old name, that one.”
I don’t know what good it will do you, Asahel thought. If everything Quentin said about his wife was true, Catharine wasn’t likely to ransom him. And with the couple’s inability to produce an heir, he doubted that Quentin’s father-in-law would be any more eager. He inhaled sharply, feeling the breath scissor through him. I need help. And it can’t be Catharine, nor anyone from the docks. There’s too much risk to what little reputation he’s got left. He stood there, his sense of impotence choking him as he watched Taggart gesture at the silent brute who’d punched Quentin down. In one seamless motion, the man swung Quent over his shoulder so roughly that the redhead’s skull slammed against his back. His captor didn’t appear to even notice.
“Back to the hall with him, Embr,” Taggart said, his arms grand in their movement. “If he’s a Gredara, we’ll be kings by the end of the week, we will.”
“You talk too much,” Pig muttered. The girl had dropped to her knees and Asahel noticed that her hands were smoothing out a patch of earth. “What if he’s got someone who knows that he’s been here? Minding the place is a brilliant job for you crooks and you shouldn’t be careless with the opportunity.” Asahel saw the lines around Meg’s mouth harden.
“Da’s the boss. It’s him I mind,” she said as she picked up the shovel and stood, clumsily tucking it under her arm. There was little bulk to the woman—certainly not enough to make carrying a shovel a graceful task.
Pig responded only with a scowl. It made his thin face less pallid.
“Come along, then,” Taggart called back. “We don’t know if he’s got family out looking. Best to make it to the hall before somebody’s notices he’s gone.” Asahel bit his tongue, surprised that the dirty band of thieves didn’t know who it was that they were dragging. Then again, he reflected, they had no reason to. He himself wouldn’t have known, had it not been for years spent at university. The highest and the low simply didn’t mix and it had been that way for so long that both sides believed it choice and not just tradition.
You follow them and then what? Asahel’s foot sunk into the mud as he took a step forward, afraid to do much more than that. Again, his mind turned to the thought of an ally as he followed the five through the winding maze of streets that led down from the heights of the Thana and into what he’d heard sailors call the “Underbelly.”
This was a different world than either dock or palace. The Underbelly was a cramped, crowded area that bled out from the edges of the water and into the city proper though it never touched the heart. It was said that you knew this part of Cercia first by smell. It was a saying proved instantly true as the group wound its way through the narrow alleys—the streets smelled of dead flowers and murder. Asahel found himself gasping a little at the scent as they passed one doorway, overpowering cologne drifting out into the air from the cracked windows. His eyes lifted to the sign hanging cocked above the door. Medical Doctor. He frowned as he saw it but wasn’t surprised. The poor had no options for their medicine. The perfume, no doubt, was sprayed to hide the death-smell within.
Embr carried Quentin past the doorway easily. His prisoner’s head stirred as they walked past the doctor’s but his breath was still shallow. Asahel couldn’t tell whether or not Quentin was coherent but he thought that he glimpsed bright eyes opening for a second before closing again. He ducked into a doorway as Embr passed the next corner and Taggart halted, his face crinkling up as he stared into the crowd. Asahel was out of place, even here, his clothing rough but still clean. Unlike Pig and Taggart, his pants were not constructed from crudely-hewn patches. It was a sure sign that he was an outsider and this was not a place he could afford to be marked.
His eyes stared up at the door, noticing that it had a crude crest of its own. It had been hacked above the window with some blunt knife, a shovel resting on a lily. He frowned, not understanding what it meant. It was, however, a reminder of where he had to go.
Turning on his heel, Asahel began to walk as quickly as he could towards the city’s heart. He kept his head lowered, hoping that he’d avoid any trouble. As he’d expected, he did. The Underbelly throbbed in the darkness, with encounters far more desired than any that he could provide. His feet shuffled against the cobble, stumbling on the uneven paving as he kept moving. There was no real sense of direction, simply a need to keep pressing on lest his friend find danger at the hands of the men that he’d met at the Thana. The anger that he’d felt at Quentin was still present, though muted—it had dulled in the wake of a bigger problem.
Asahel ran out of the Underbelly and towards the heavy stone structures that marked the district in which Quentin lived. He was out of breath by the time he reached the first of the streets, resting his palm against a tree, huffing as he tried to formulate his thoughts about who to take this problem to.
The City Guard wasn’t an option. Their ranks had been corrupt as long as Asahel had been alive. They were just as likely to save Quentin and ransom him themselves. They’d call it a fine, Asahel knew, but it was as good as extortion in the end. Not to mention—he shuddered—the penalty that the Guard would call for if Quentin’s reasons for being in the Thana were discovered. Quent’s lips were loose at the best of times. Asahel didn’t believe the possibility of torture would tighten them.
He straightened up, letting his feet carry him as he thought. Catharine Gredara was another obvious option. Quent’ll not forgive you if you ask her, he realized. The light in his friend’s eyes flared as he spoke of his wife but invariably deadened when the subject of Catharine’s affection came up.
No, if Catharine truly had no love for Quentin, he wouldn’t wish him worse. Even if, Asahel was silently cursing him for the mess he’d created.
His foot stepped on a twig. The sound of its crack was harsh in the silence. A passing Guard paused, touching the golden braid on his hat in slow salute, his eyebrow raised in question.
“I… I’m here to see a friend. That way.” Asahel said, clumsily pointing down a narrow side street ahead. The Guard relaxed but he noticed that the man’s step was still slow. Suspicious.
Best not to draw attention. With those words in mind, he swiftly walked towards the street. He ignored the shadow behind as he glanced at the tall doors, reading the names. The buildings here were tall and narrow—wealth in this part of Pallo was measured by elegance and height. It showed by the darkness of the place, lit by lanterns even in the daytime. It was this that gave Lantern
Street its name—that, and the gilded lamps that its watchmen carried as they passed the narrow corridor. Were it not for them, Lantern Street would easily have decayed into something worthy of the underworld through which Asahel had just traveled. There were some who whispered that once, this very street had marked the Underbelly’s start.
He realized as he passed a second Guard that he hadn’t lied—there was a man on this street with which he and Quentin had gone to university. As with almost all the students, Felix Carnicus had been part of the golden number whom had grown up with Quentin. Unlike the rest, Felix had kept from tormenting Asahel. He hadn’t tried to stop the constant teasing and fighting as Quentin had done but he’d walked away from it, at least.
Asahel had given him credit for that. Even if Quentin hadn’t.
It was those small comforts, after all, that Asahel had used to carry himself from one day to the next in the colleges where he was told over and over that he had no place, whatever his magical talents. It didn’t mean that Felix and Asahel had spoken in the three years after university’s end, nor that they had spent much time together in their school years. The colleges existed to train magicians in the use of magic and the restrictions—or Heresies—that bound it. It was a system that relied, in part, on the fact that magic proliferated in the upper classes. The magicians left the universities and returned to the same world that they had always known, changed themselves only slightly by their education. If anything, all that magic did was to bind its users more firmly to the privilege of their class.
Not so for Asahel. He hadn’t been a part of that world to begin with and his brief journey with the university had made him painfully aware of it, yet still barred from it. Even now, he could still feel the grit of work under his fingernails: cassia, pepper, galingale. It was, he knew, all Quentin saw sometimes when their faces met, the wrinkles and lines of hard work that separated them from one another.
