Sworn in Steel

by Douglas Hulick

  “How?” I said. “If you’ve never met a degan, how do you know so damn much?”

  I almost got him. Heron opened his mouth, ready to speak, ready to show me just how little I knew; then he caught himself. I watched, poised for the kill, as he took a step back and followed it up with a slow breath.

  So close.

  “I’ve been studying the Order of the Degans for longer than you’ve been alive,” he said softly. “If I say I know something about the Order, or its history, then I know it. I don’t need to prove it to you.”

  I looked around the room, and then back at him. “You have them, don’t you?”

  “What?”

  “Ivory Degan’s records.”

  I’ll give him this: His eyes barely flickered. But flicker they did, off toward a wall to my left. I pretended not to notice.

  “Your acting company has an extra day,” said Heron, his voice turning as brittle as early winter ice. He stepped back over to the table and poured himself a fresh cup of tea. “I would suggest you spend it packing up your scenery and preparing to depart. As for your allowance, the sum has been adjusted. You’ll find the remainder of it—and the ahrami I promised you—near the door on your way out.”

  I nodded and turned away.

  “I don’t want to see or hear from you until the day of your audition,” he said as I left. “Am I understood?”

  “You’re understood,” I said, not bothering to look back. The same servant met me in the hallway, led me to the door, and handed me my blades, along with a purse and a satchel. The satchel held a box.

  Then I was outside, the door to Heron’s house closing behind me. The boy was still waiting, a torch now in hand against the darkness.

  I followed him along the boardwalk and onto the grounds. He was chatty now, trying to pry gossip and secrets of the meeting from me; I wondered idly whether he was on someone’s payroll, or if he simply sold what he gathered to the first person who paid.

  Either way, I didn’t say much. I was too busy trying to figure out how the hell I was going to break back into this place so I could raid Heron’s library.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  I took to the streets after that.

  I admit it wasn’t the smartest move on my part—wandering a strange city with a price on your head will rarely get you labeled as clever—but given most Zakur didn’t know me by sight, and most Kin stayed in the Imperial Quarter, I figured the odds were in my favor, for the moment. In a few days, though? Who knew?

  Smart or stupid, though, I needed to wear down some shoe leather if I wanted to come up the beginnings of a plan to crack Heron’s ken. Once, I might have sat down with Degan over a meal or a drink, to let his wry wit cut through the tangles in my head like a blade through cheese. But those days were gone. Now my knots and distractions were my own to deal with, and I’d discovered that in my friend’s absence, the only solution was miles. Miles and movement and the ability to lose myself in the streets.

  I went away from the padishah’s grounds, seeking out the back ways and darker corners of the city that I knew would exist even within the second ring. I passed through midnight scroungers’ markets and around poets arguing on street corners; waved off gap-toothed beggars and declined the services of eager linksmen. I hunted darkness and solitude, sought out the familiar smells of old garbage and fresh crime.

  It was all coming down to time: begged time, borrowed time, even stolen time—all of it tight. Even without the wazir and Heron wanting me gone, balancing Wolf’s impatience and the task Mama Left Hand had laid at my feet would have been a hell of a trick, but with only two days to do it? Maybe if I’d been in Ildrecca I could have pulled something off, but that required resources I didn’t have access to in Djan. Here, being a Gray Prince had me more a target than a threat, had brought more peril than prestige. I’d foolishly thought to brandish my title like a sword, to cow the Kin and impress the Zakur with my rare status; instead, I should have taken a tip from the other princes and used it like a shield.

  When you operate without an organization at your back, you can only rely on yourself and your reputation. I knew that—had operated on the premise for more years than I could count, both as a Draw Latch and then later as a Nose. Even when I’d had Nicco’s reputation to lean on, I’d never let my own fall too far behind. Having an Upright Man’s name in your pocket helps, but unless he or his Cutters are standing there with you, there’s always the chance that the cove you’re pushing will decide he’d rather push back than give in.

  I’d forgotten that; or, at the least, I’d let it drift away over the last several months. Instead of worrying about being Drothe, I’d focused on being The Prince. And in Ildrecca, I’d been able to get away with it: I still had a name on the street, and the tale of my rise was fresh enough, that any stumbles or gaps were been easily ignored. Up until Crook Eye had called my bluff, I’d been able to pretend that the title was enough, that the dodge would take care of itself, as long as I moved fast and didn’t let the other princes look too close.

  But not here. Here, I was just another Imperial, a member of the Kin who brought a bit more to the table, but not enough to make a difference, not when it mattered. Gray Prince or Wide Nose, I was all but alone. And when you were alone, the best thing to do was not stand up and wave your arms as I had done, but to stick to the shadows, to keep your voice low and your eyes open, to play to your strengths.

  To be what you were, and not what you were pretending to be.

  I redoubled my pace, suddenly eager to get farther into the night. To get back to Fowler. To figure out how the hell I was going to get out of this, because while I didn’t know what I was going to do, I knew how I needed to go about it.

  I needed to be a Nose.

  Not for the first time, I missed the bells of Ildrecca. The old temple ringer down in the Square Hills cordon, calling the monks of Corvous to prayers with its monster of a clapper; the somber wind-bells over at the Sisters of Despair’s chapter house in Cold Street; the lyrical clapping of the brass hand bells up on Osprey’s Crag that had been rung every night for the last hundred years, though no one ever knew by whom. All had helped me mark the night, letting me know how far from dawn or dusk or an appointment I might be, and all had kept me company. Their absence was something I’d felt ever since I’d gotten here.

  Still, el-Qaddice had its fair share of night rituals as well. I’d already come to expect the deep, rolling chant that welled up from the Temples of the Horned Horse that stood in every circle of the city. The slight difference in each temple’s timing made the prayer sound more like a wandering echo of itself, and the sound had caused me to stop, entranced, the first night I’d heard it. Later, sometime past midnight, I knew the mystics of the Old City would spin their cleansing chimes, filling the air with a thin, tinkling music that was meant, I was told, to keep two rival bands of djinni from resuming an ages-old war in the skies over the city. I hadn’t been able to make full sense of it, but the ancient grudge supposedly had something to do with a silver thread and a peach and a thimbleful of dust. All I knew was that I’d yet to meet any guard patrols, let alone djinn, when the chimes were sounding, which was fine by me.

  Those chimes sounded now, bringing an eerie sense of foreboding to the streets. I felt the hairs rise along my arms and neck, only to fall back down as the ringing faded. In the silence that followed, I became aware of the soft tread of slippered feet at my side.

  I looked over, saw the ghost of a shadow in my night vision, and grimaced.

  “How long have you been following me?” I said.

  “Long enough to know you for a fool to walk the streets of el-Qaddice alone,” said Aribah, her voice a near-disembodied thing in the darkness.

  “Not alone as I first thought, it seems.”

  “Which only makes your actions that much more reckless.” I could practically hear her shaking her head. “To think that the Family would give one such as you the gift of dark seeing . . .”

>   “The Family had nothing to do with it,” I said. “I got my night vision from my stepfather.”

  “And he received it how?”

  That was a good question. I’d always wondered where my stepfather, Sebastian, had gotten his night vision: who had performed the ritual for him, and how he’d learned to use it and pass it along to me. Those first few nights, I’d lain awake studying the still house with my freshly magicked eyes, spinning tales in my head about Sebastian and the kinds of adventures he must have gone through to receive the gift that was now mine. I’d always known he’d traveled before settling down with us in the Balsturan—with the tales he told of Sadaz and Un’Naang and Cyprios, it was no secret he’d ranged far and wide in his youth—but after that night in the forest, those wanderings had taken on fresh meaning in my imagination, complete with demons and djinn and hoar-goblins. How else to explain the solemn ritual he had performed, the magic that had passed from his eyes to mine? A ritual he had never had a chance to teach me, because he was dead three days later.

  After Sebastian’s murder, my imaginings had taken a darker turn: Clever bargains with inscrutable wizards had turned into desperate deals with demons in my head. I’d known better, of course, but I’d been young, and with no better answers I made up something that seemed to fit with the sole fact I had: Sebastian had been cut down by assassins in our doorway, and I’d never known why.

  I looked at a flicker of amber that was the young assassin next to me. No, it hadn’t been the neyajin. Sebastian’s killers hadn’t been Djanese. And even if they had, the killing had been done in daylight. That didn’t seem like a neyajin practice.

  I turned my eyes forward. “I don’t know how he got it,” I said.

  The sound of shoes stopping suddenly in the street. “Truly?”

  “Truly. I have no idea who gave it to Sebastian, nor how he passed it on.”

  “Then we share an interest in your eyes.”

  “For different reasons, but yes, I suppose so.”

  Another pause, and then the slippers began walking, although this time at a more contemplative pace. I fell in beside them as best I could, given I wasn’t sure where precisely Aribah was in the darkness. I noted that we both naturally drifted away from the few lights we found spilling out of windows or doorways, invariably favoring the darker path when presented a choice.

  “So why the shadow?” I said.

  “My grandfather still thinks you’re too valuable to risk losing.”

  “And you?” I said. “What do you think?”

  “I do as I’m asked.”

  “Asked,” I said, “or told?”

  Aribah’s voice grew prickly. “I’m here to make sure you don’t fall prey to the hazards of el-Qaddice.”

  “You mean to make sure my eyes don’t fall hazard. I can’t imagine that my overall health is of much concern to your grandfather.”

  “The two are one and the same. To lose you is to lose the potential of your gift.”

  “I thought your grandfather decided my gift wasn’t the same thing as what the despot handed out, that what I have can’t help your school.”

  “Not being able to possess something does not make it any less dear.”

  Meaning things weren’t as cut-and-dried as the old man had made out in the tunnels. Interesting. And worrisome.

  I glanced over at the amber-tinted smudge beside me.

  “How do you do that?” I said.

  “What?”

  “Hide from my ni—from the dark sight.”

  A snort in the night. “You think I’d reveal our secrets to an Imperial?”

  “Just as you thought I’d reveal mine to a Djanese?”

  I watched the blur that was Aribah as she kept pace with me. Finally, “It’s a special dye,” she said. “Painted on in the form of runes, over and over, and then pounded into the cloth until the power is bound to the fibers themselves.”

  “And your faces and hands and blades?” I said.

  “A similar procedure.” Then after a moment, she added, “Only with less pounding.”

  I grinned at the unexpected comment. “Humor?” I said. “I didn’t think that was allowed among the neyajin.”

  “It is not only allowed, it’s encouraged. I thought you, being of your people’s Zakur, would understand.”

  I thought for a moment, trying to translate her meaning. “You mean gallows humor?” I said at last.

  “If by that you mean using laughter to defeat the dreams that come to you in the night—and the regrets that haunt you during the day—then yes, that’s what I mean.”

  “In that case, yes, I understand, and I apologize for my surprise.”

  We went a handful of paces farther along before I heard a rustle of cloth beside me. Looking over, I was startled to see Aribah drawing the tail of her turban away from her face.

  It wasn’t only her eyes that were stunning: The fine arch of her eyebrows was echoed in the sharp lines of her cheek and the downward turn of her mouth. The swath of dye only accentuated the reveal, making it seem as if the upper part of her face was hidden by a mask, or the night.

  She didn’t look at me as she walked, and I made a point not to stare. I understood the gift she’d just given me.

  “My grandfather says that to be able to laugh in the face of what you’ve done, and what you will do again, is one of the most important skills we can learn,” she said softly. “It’s why we tell tales not only of success, but also of failure, not just to learn from them, but to learn to laugh at death.”

  “I’d think failure in your line of work would carry too high a cost to be laughed at.”

  “Sometimes, yes, but there are more . . . nonlethal close calls than you might think.” She looked over, and I looked away so as to not fall into her eyes. “Is it the same for you?”

  “Similar,” I said. “Although I don’t make a habit of . . . well, I don’t belong to a school like you do, so I have to be a bit more selective about who I share my failures with.” I tapped my nose. “Reputation, you know.”

  “It must be hard to be on your own,” she said. “With the school, as long as people fear one neyajin, they fear us all.”

  “Oh, it’s supposed to work that way with the position I have, too.”

  “But it doesn’t?”

  I hesitated. “Not exactly, no.”

  “Then you’re doing it wrong.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “If the others like you are feared, and you aren’t, then you’re not one of them; if you were, it would be the same for you.”

  “It’s not that simple. We—”

  “It is precisely that simple.” She stopped and began re-fastening her face cloth. I stopped as well. This close, my night vision could make out her eyes between blinks. “If the other members of your school are feared, but you are not, then you’re not only failing yourself—you’re failing them. To leave an opening for doubt, to give your victims reason to hope they might live when you come for them, is to walk the path of weakness. Weakness not only for you, but for all those who share your status.” She poked a finger against my chest. “Whether you respect them or not—whether you even like them or not—you’re doing your fellows no favor by undermining them.”

  “And if they’re the ones doing the undermining?” I said, maybe a bit too defensively.

  “Then they’re fools as well. Harming your reputation only harms their own. If people see you as being weak enough to fall, how long before they start to see the same weakness in those who caused your fall?”

  I shook my head. “That’s a good theory for a school of assassins, but it doesn’t quite work the same for a group of crime lords. We have every reason to want to see the others fail; their fall only helps us rise higher.”

  “But at your own expense,” said Aribah, her eyes gleaming so bright in the night I expect anyone could have seen them just then. “Even among the neyajin, we know to keep our disputes hidden. If our school was known to be fractured, none w
ould come to us; worse, a rival, or even the agents of the despot, might see it and know us to be ripe for the breaking.”

  “So in other words, you’re saying it’s better that the door appears whole even if it’s rotting from within, so no one knows they can kick it down?”

  “That’s not how I’d put it, but yes.”

  I studied the rooftops around us as I considered what she’d said. I’d long known the value of appearances—or lack thereof—on the street and in criminal organizations; as a Nose, I’d spent a good deal of time either shoring up or slowly dismantling them, one piece at a time. What Aribah was saying was nothing new, but the way she was saying it, the way she was talking about the illusion of unity keeping the despot at bay . . . I’d never considered that that kind of an approach could be applied on a broader, and higher, level.

  “My thanks to your grandfather,” I said, turning back to her. “He taught you well.”

  Aribah bowed, albeit a bit stiffly. “I will convey your praise to him.” The words didn’t come out exactly supple, either.

  “As for you . . .” I gave her a formal salaam, smiling when I saw her eyes widen at how deeply I bowed. As my junior, she had every right to expect much less than I gave. “Thank you for the lesson,” I said, straightening up. “I will take it to heart.”

  It was hard to tell under the cloth and the dye, but I could have sworn I caught the faintest hint of a blush on her cheek as she began another bow, caught herself, and then turned and hurried off into the night.

  I stood smiling as I watched her—or what I thought was her—go, then turned and headed toward the Imperial Quarter. I hummed as I walked.

  It was still dark—but only just—when I came limping up to the gate to the Imperial Quarter. It felt as if I’d covered half the Old City in one night, and I was starting to wonder if I might not have been far off. Given the looks the guards on each side gave me, it was clear I was wearing my fatigue all too openly. The brief lift I’d gotten from my conversation with Aribah had fled; now all I wanted was a long day in a soft bed, followed by a hot meal. There was nothing at this point, I’d decided—not even the promise of Heron’s library—so important that it couldn’t wait a few hours.