Ship of Smoke and Steel

by Django Wexler

  “She must have overheard some of the girls talking, my lady,” he says. “Nothing but silliness.”

  “They said there was a ghost ship in the harbor. It comes to collect evil souls.” Tori sounded excited. “Kuko said she saw Immortals watching for it!”

  “There’s no such thing as ghosts,” I tell her. “And certainly no ghost ships.” Though the Emperor’s Immortals are real enough, unfortunately.

  “That’s right,” Ofalo says. “I’ll have a word with Kuko.”

  “And whatever happens,” I add, “you’ve got the Ward Guard and all the servants here to keep you safe.”

  “I’m not scared!” she protests.

  I say my good-byes, which means more hugs and a promise to visit again as soon as I can. Ofalo walks me out, back through the perfect house and its perfect gardens. With him at my side, the other servants know better than to sneer.

  “There’s a girl who takes her shopping,” I tell quietly. “Kuko.”

  “Yes, my lady. She’s a good girl, a hard worker.”

  “Did you know she’s been taking Tori to listen to agitators?”

  There’s a long pause. “I had no idea, my lady. I’m terribly sorry.”

  “Just take care of it.”

  He inclines his head. “She’ll be dismissed at once. I’ll make certain whoever accompanies Lady Tori in the future is … reliable.”

  “Good.” We pause at the front door. “I’ll expect your next report in a month.”

  “Of course, my lady.” He bows deep, wispy beard swaying. “We are honored by your trust.”

  His face is as calm as ever. I wonder what he thinks of me, if he thinks anything at all. Maybe he just sees me as a bottomless coin purse, a lifetime meal ticket.

  If so, it’s for the best. He wouldn’t want to know the truth.

  * * *

  The cab is waiting in the street outside, Hagan lounging on his seat while the old mare munches from a feed bag. He straightens up as I emerge, his collar damp with sweat. From the halfsmile on his face, I can tell he likes the way I look in the kizen, all clean and feminine, like a noblewoman. I flash him an obscene gesture, and he laughs.

  “Your command, my lady?” he asks.

  “Take the highway to the Fifth Ward,” I say. “We’ll change and head to Breda’s from there.”

  He nods, and I hop up to the carriage door before he can offer to help. Hagan clicks his tongue, and we move off at a slow walk. The Second Ward has wide, winding streets, lined with houses like Tori’s, set well back among their gardens for privacy. Huge round stones sit on squat pillars, carved with the circular emblems of noble houses. Lesser houses, here. Anyone with real power would live in the First Ward, or better yet in the Royal Ward, in one of the palaces the Emperor bestows on his favored subjects. Still, seeing Tori in her comfortable place, among the residences of those who might once have sold her life for a few coppers, gives me a warm feeling. It’s revenge on everyone who told us we weren’t good for anything.

  She’s as good as any one of you rotting parasites. And all it takes is a bit of gold.

  We pass back through the gate in the ward walls, waved through by bored guardsmen. Another difference between the Second Ward and the Sixteenth: here the fortifications only face outward, to defend the residents from the rest of the city. Back home, they face inward as well and we live under the crossbows and catapults of the Ward Guard.

  It’s an hour’s ride to the Fifth Ward along the military highway that runs straight as an arrow from the docks to the citadel, cutting across Kahnzoka’s ancient, tangled streets like a knife dragged through a plate of noodles. High ward walls line it on either side, with shacks and lean-tos at the bottom, growing up like mushrooms in spite of the guards’ efforts to root out such unauthorized residents. A hundred hawkers have set up their wares along the road, wearing broad hats to keep off the brutal sun, shouting the virtues of fruit, sweets, cakes, pottery, silks, and a thousand other things. Small boys run alongside every carriage that passes, even my modest cab, announcing the services of their employers.

  Far below, at the base of the hill, the Imperial Navy piers are visible, along with a slice of the bay beyond. The sleek, many-oared warships moored there show no signs of alarm. Ghost ship. A smile flits across my face. We’d both heard the stories of the dreaded Soliton as children, but I’d forgotten about them until now.

  I’m more interested in the other carriages that pass us. I keep the heavy curtains mostly closed, peering out through a crack. The traffic is mostly transport wagons, hauling goods to the wealthy wards, with a few private vehicles mixed in. A squadron of Ward Guard cavalry rides past, hooves scattering mud. And, moving slowly, a matte black wagon pulled by gray horses, the driver anonymous under a hat fringed by a dark veil.

  The Immortals are in town, and openly. I’d heard only rumors. Inside that wagon, behind mesh screens that hide them from view, the Emperor’s elites watch the crowds.

  For hundreds of years, ever since the Divine Emperor was chosen by the Blessed One himself, mage-born have been permitted only among the nobility. Commoners who are touched or talented are taken from their families; depending on their Well and abilities, they are either inducted into the Invincible Legions or parceled out to noble families as breeding stock to improve their bloodlines. But a few always slip through the net, and the Empire is not overconcerned. The fugitives find ways of employing their powers that keep them beneath the notice of the Imperial authorities. So touched and talented are not unknown in the lower wards.

  Adepts are another story. We are too dangerous to be left alone. The primary responsibility of the Immortals is to make sure that every adept born within the Blessed Empire is placed at His Imperial Majesty’s disposal. They are valuable assets for the Legions, securing the homeland against Jyashtani aggression or the machinations of lesser states. Their children—and they will be forced to have many—are adopted out into the noble families, who fight one another in the Imperial court for the privilege of taking them. The strongest make up new cadres for the Immortals, their loyalty the bedrock of the Emperor’s power.

  The Emperor’s dark-armored personal guard have always been my private terror. Most of the young street children worried about being snatched by slavers, or being caught by the Ward Guard for real or fabricated crimes. And I’d fretted about those things, too, though more for Tori’s sake than my own. But Ward Guards would usually let you off with a beating, and slavers could be bribed or escaped. If the Immortals caught me, though, there was no coming back.

  I sit back and let the curtain fall. There’s no reason to think I’m in danger of being found out. There are enough ghulwitches and deserters to keep the Immortals busy, not to mention Jyashtani spies. But my heart still beats a little bit faster as we drive on.

  * * *

  Breda’s is the closest thing I have to a home in the Sixteenth Ward. I move around as much as I can, from flophouse to apartment, with a backup always ready in case I need to disappear. Being tied to routine makes you predictable, complacent. But there are times when I need to be seen, when I want people to find me, and that’s when I set up shop in Breda’s run-down winesink.

  It’s a big place, by Sixteenth Ward standards, on the ground floor of a half-ruined building right on the harbor. That’s one reason I like it—there’s always enough of a crowd to drown out a conversation, and plenty of eyes around to make sure no one tries anything stupid. The other reason is that Breda keeps things simple—no dream-smoke, no viper’s milk, and definitely no credit. Just jug after jug of watery beer and sour wine, and a yard-long club under the bar that he can swing harder than a mule’s kick.

  I walk in, Hagan a respectful step behind me, and there’s a satisfying pause in the buzz of conversation, three dozen people taking a quick glance before they go back to their drinks and dice. The air is thick with smoke and the smell of salt water, and the floor is gritty with sand and rotten straw. Apart from the bar in the back corner, which is m
ade from timber as heavy as a ship’s mast, the furniture is flimsy and cheap. Given how often things get smashed, I can’t blame Breda for saving his coin.

  Breda always holds a table for me by the fire. It’s too hot in the summer, but I can sit with my back to the wall, and the crackle of the hearth adds another layer of protection against eavesdroppers. As soon as he catches sight of me, he scuttles out from behind the bar, all obsequious smiles. It’s a strange look for Breda, who’s near seven feet tall and thick as a side of beef, with a round, sagging gut and strings of greasy gray hair tugged over his bald pate. But he long ago decided it was better to be on my good side—or more accurately the good side of my employers.

  It’s too loud to hear much, but he just bows and gestures me to my table, then scurries off to fetch drinks. I take my time on the way across the room, looking over the regulars for anyone out of place. I get a few quiet nods, and offer a few in return. The majority of the crowd are honest folk, at least in theory. Sailors, dockworkers, fishermen. But here and there are thugs, prostitutes, thieves, and killers. My people.

  When I sit, Hagan takes himself elsewhere. It’s a small table, with just one other chair across from me. It’s not long before someone takes a seat, a plump, well-dressed woman who’s sweating freely through her too-thick makeup. She stares at me for a while, throat working nervously. I sigh.

  “Spit it out,” I tell her. “Or else go have some more drinks until you work up the nerve.”

  “Right,” she says. “Sorry. It’s just … sorry. I…” Then she pauses again, and I want to scream.

  People. I don’t rotting know how to talk to people.

  But it’s expected in my position. As long as the gold keeps trickling upward, I’m in the clear with my bosses, but there’s a little more to it than breaking heads. As ward boss, people want to ask me for favors, or to adjudicate disputes, or beg me to cut them a break, just one more week, swear to the Blessed. I’d heard every story a hundred times over before I was fourteen, but I still make time to sit and listen. A little goodwill goes a long way. People are more likely to tell you things, or clam up when the Ward Guard pokes around.

  That doesn’t mean I don’t sit and fantasize about doing horrible things to them while they blather on. I swear, if one more shopkeeper tries to tell me that he’s behind on his payments because his grandmother is ill, I’m going to carve him and the old lady into chunks.

  The well-dressed woman is here to ask me to find her daughter, who’s working in one of the dockside brothels. Mom thinks she was captured by slavers, but my guess is the girl just ran off on her own. I promise her I’ll look into it. I’m not in the business of returning runaways, but if she is being held against her will some brothel-keeper will need sorting out. Keeping slaves is illegal in Kahnzoka, and one of the few things likely to bring the Ward Guard down on all our heads.

  I don’t get any sick grandmothers, but there’s a couple of bad backs and a fishing boat swamped in a storm. By the ragged state of the fisherman, his story is probably true, but I make a mental note to visit the others unexpectedly and make sure they know my patience isn’t infinite. There’s also a shopkeeper whose place was rolled by a gang from the Fifteenth Ward, which I’ll complain about to the appropriate authorities, and a young prostitute who claims his client skipped out without paying.

  “Who was he?” I ask the boy, a pretty little thing in soft silks.

  “Some aristo.” He snorts and tosses his long hair, a move I’m sure wins him many a customer. “Toyara something.”

  “A little detail would be useful,” I tell him. “Find out his full name and send me a note. I’ll have someone look into it.” I will, too. It’s bad enough when highborn parasites come down to the Sixteenth Ward to slum it, but if they start getting the idea they don’t have to pay, it’s going to cause problems for everyone.

  After a few hours of this, I’m itchy and bored. The heat is stifling, and I’ve already loosened the collar of my kizen as far is it will go. Breda’s beer is barely chilled when fresh, and not strong enough to even give me a fuzzy head. After another shopkeeper bows his way out, swearing that he’ll pay any day, I decide I’ve had enough. Hagan rises from his own table and meets me on the way to the door.

  “Getting on your nerves already?” he says, grinning.

  “They were getting on my nerves an hour ago,” I mutter. “I’m half a minute from kicking someone in the balls just to liven things up.”

  Still, once we step out the front door, I’m feeling good. The glow of Tori’s company, of seeing the life I’ve built for her, step by painful step, is still with me. And now that I’m finished at Breda’s I can get out of the damned kizen.

  The sun is sliding down to meet the ocean, tinging the waterfront with orange. The docks are crowded, workers and sailors coming off shift and flowing up into the city, regular as the tides that float the ships. That flow, up to the wineshops, gambling dens, and brothels of the Sixteenth Ward, is what keeps us all alive. It pays for Tori’s house and Ofalo’s salary. The city breathes, in and out, and I feel it in my own chest. Kahnzoka may be halfway to the Rot, but it’s my city.

  “Where to?” Hagan says.

  “Bleak Street.” It’s another of my hideouts, just a cheap room in a tumbledown building at the district’s edge, but it has the virtue of spending the day in the shadow of the walls. “I need to get out of this rotting heat.”

  He nods and falls in. I stop at a street stall for dinner—fried gripper and chestnuts, wrapped in old rag paper. I eat as we walk the rest of the way, tearing apart the flaky fish with my fingers and blowing on it when it’s too hot to touch. I’ll take Sixteenth Ward street food over the “cultured” stuff they serve at Tori’s every time. Except that plum juice. They get that right.

  The apartment at Bleak Street is on the second floor, up a rickety exterior staircase. Hagan pauses at the bottom, and I wad up the paper from dinner and toss it in the gutter.

  “I’ll head back, then.” He has his own place, down on Larker’s Row. “Meet at the square in the morning?”

  I cock my head. “Or you could come up.”

  “Or I could come up.” He looks at me with a widening grin.

  It’s probably a bad idea, but I feel good enough that I don’t care. I tug at the collar of my kizen. “If you’re coming, hurry up. I need to get out of this thing.”

  He doesn’t take much convincing. I turn on him as soon as he closes the door behind us, kissing him while I tug irritably at the knots that hold the kizen closed. Sometimes I’m tempted to take a Melos blade to the thing, I swear to the Blessed One. Hagan helps, with his strong, clever fingers, and I sigh with relief as the silk slides off and puddles on the floor. Then I sigh again, for other reasons.

  * * *

  “You really don’t care, do you?” he says.

  He’s standing by the window, where the light is fading through the rag curtain, highlighting his smooth, lean muscle. I’m lying on the sleeping mat, sweat cooling pleasantly on my skin.

  “Care about what?”

  “About Shiro.”

  “Oh, blessed above.” I sit up, cross-legged, and glare at him. “Do you want me to lie to you? Should I tell you I’m hurting deep inside?”

  “I wouldn’t believe you.”

  “Then why are you asking?”

  “I’m just trying to understand you.” He shakes his head. “We’ve worked together, what? Three years?”

  “Four, by now.”

  “Four years. I knew Shiro for two months and I knew him better than I know you.”

  “Remember the first thing I said when I hired you,” I tell him.

  “Right. No personal questions.” He turns away from the window and comes back to the mat. “I don’t want to pry. I just wish I knew what you were thinking.”

  “What’s to understand? I hurt the people I’m supposed to hurt and collect the money and pass it along.”

  “The perfect ward boss?” He gives a sour smile.
“Like a little clockwork machine.”

  “That’s right.” Even Hagan doesn’t know about Tori, of course. As far as he’s concerned, the house in the Second Ward is just another part of my business. “Look. Shiro was just a kid I hired to back me up. If I’m going to feel bad about him, why not feel bad about those poor rotscum working for Firello?”

  “They were trying to kill you.”

  “Because he paid them to back him up. Just because somebody took my money instead of someone else’s I’m supposed to be broken up about him?”

  “What if I’d gotten stabbed, instead of Shiro?” Hagan makes a face. “You know what, don’t answer that.”

  There’s a long silence, as the last of the light from the window dies. The room goes dim, only the aggregate glow of the never-sleeping city outside providing any illumination. I grab Hagan by the shoulders and drag him down, my lips finding his. He only resists for a moment.

  It’s easier than trying to figure out what to say to him. I don’t rotting understand people.

  It’s probably a mistake, sleeping with Hagan. Not the sex, exactly. I’d never pretended to innocence, and when I was old enough to feel the urge I’d gone to a ghultouched—swallowing my disgust at dealing with such a creature—and for a ward against unintended consequences. And it’s not really Hagan’s fault, either. He’s a good lieutenant, easy to get along with, a good rut. I like him. Which is the problem.

  If it had been him instead of Shiro, would I have done what needed to be done? Or would I have gotten stupid? I don’t want him to understand me. I want him to have my back.

  It’s a good image he used, and it stays in my mind as we clutch and kiss and gasp. A clockwork machine, like toys they make for little rich boys. A windup doll. It’s all I want to be, all I need to be. No room for doubt or sadness. Just a machine.

  * * *

  When I open my eyes, it’s to the sound of boots on the stairs outside. There’s a pause, then the mutter of voices.