A Blade of Black Steel

by Alex Marshall

  Purna held up a finger to quiet him and looked over the side of the bank. Now that her eyes were adjusting, she could see that the water’s edge was empty save for one of the stick-backed fuckers. Its mantle of wet wood gleamed in the darkness as it tried in vain to climb the slope after her, coming up a few paces before its weight dragged it back down the muddy incline. Digs poked his head over the edge beside Purna’s, and seeing the abject efforts of their pursuer, let a long, snotty glob of spit descend from his mouth, its tether growing thinner and thinner, until it broke off… and the creature snapped its head up in time to catch the loogie in one of its cavernous eye sockets.

  “Real mature,” Purna hissed, pulling him back out of sight of the monster.

  “I never made any claims toward such a depressing condition,” said Digs, sitting next to her in the moldering leaves and slimy roots, and they hugged each other tightly, feeling one another shiver from more than their drenched clothes and the coolness of the evening. “The others, though? Did they…”

  “I don’t know. Keun-ju went down bad, and I think it might’ve terminally messed up Sullen—he tried to go after him but I wouldn’t let him, and then he was right behind me, and then he wasn’t.” Looking down, Purna saw she’d also lost one of her boots to the monsters or the mud, so that she and Digs only had a pair between them. “Just our luck, meeting desperate foot fetishists after we lost the count.”

  “Hassan and his foot thing,” said Digs with a chuckle. “He’d have fit right in.”

  “Come on,” said Purna, the return of her breath also heralding the return of her common sense. “Into the woods with us, Pasha, and keep an eye out for one of those big live oaks we saw on the other side of the swamp. I think this may be one of those circumstances Maroto talked about where you’re better off sleeping in a tree than on the ground.”

  Even along the supposed trail the brush closed in thick around them, and when the moonlight finally arrived it shone on barren brambles and poison ivy. Purna stopped them at the first suitable tree she spied, not wanting to get too far ahead lest Sullen reevaluate his suicidal ambitions and come looking for them. The live oak was as wide around the trunk as a dozen barbarians shoved in tight, and the low boughs weren’t much thinner, long, swooping branches that looked made for sitting on, with tendrils of moss for cushions. Once Purna had given Digs a boost up to the tree’s crotch he wiggled himself around and dropped a hand to help her up. Now that they were safely off the ground Purna laid out her horned wolf hood to dry on an upper branch, and Digs stripped down to his skivvies. Then they made themselves as comfortable as they could, wedging themselves into the crooks of branches in such a fashion that they were unlikely to slip out without a push.

  Only then did they break the silence, this corner of the Haunted Forest every bit as still as the rest, and kept their talking to the absolute minimum, lest they be overheard by… well, pretty much anything. If it was out here, they didn’t want it knowing about them. Still, there were essentials that had to be covered before resuming their tactical silence.

  “Got anything to eat?”

  “Some dried figs. Here.”

  “Ugh!”

  “Yes, they’re not so dry anymore, I’m afraid.”

  “Take ’em back, take ’em back. Anything to drink?”

  “My flask.”

  “Keep it. Still have a skin with some water in it, let me know if you—”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Here.”

  “You said Keun-ju took a tumble, but you don’t suppose he might have…”

  “No.”

  Some soggy sniffling.

  “And Princess?”

  “I’m so sorry, Digs.”

  A wracked moan.

  “Yeah, I know. She was a good pony.”

  “The… the… the best.”

  More sniffling.

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “I loved her,” said Digs, as brokenhearted as she’d ever heard him. “Not like Prince, but in time… I miss Prince so much, Purna, as much as Din and Hassan and Maroto. I guess that sounds… well.”

  “It doesn’t sound anything, Digs,” she told him, the words thick as swamp mud in her throat. “And… and thank you again. For what you did for me. I know Prince would still be here if—”

  “No,” said Digs firmly. “It’s what he would’ve wanted. And what I wanted. I’m actually happy about it, or trying to be. I mean, he was a devil, not just a dog, and all devils want to be free, don’t they? That’s their whole deal. I’d have let him go sooner if I’d known that’s what he wanted…”

  “Oh Digs,” said Purna. “You gave him your heart, what devil could want more than that?”

  Now they were both sniffling, and then Digs gave a wet laugh. “I’d pass you a hankie, but everything I had in the Star was on that pony.”

  “Yeah. Me, too.”

  “Damn.”

  “Yeah.”

  “…”

  “…”

  “The magic post…”

  “The compass?”

  “Keun-ju had it in his pocket.”

  “Ugh.”

  “Double ugh.”

  “Triple.”

  “…”

  “…”

  “Silver linings, Purna, silver linings—I got my hat back.”

  “Bully for you!”

  “No need to be ratty. Surely you didn’t lose everything but your waterskin and your snark?”

  “I’ve got my kukri, a mud-clogged pistol, and Maroto’s old pipe.”

  “See, that’s not bad! Shame we don’t have the means for a puff, I’m famished for a kiss from Lady N.”

  “You know…” In the growing moonlight, Purna carefully unbuckled her belt from her traveling pantaloons, and slid off the pipe box she had picked up in Black Moth. The woman had claimed it had a gasket around the side that made it waterproof, but here was the test… and unclasping the cedar-lined silver case, she felt around and confirmed the contents were indeed dry. Taking out Maroto’s pipe, she rubbed out two of the treacle-cased flakes of tubāq in her palm and fed them into the tankard-shaped bowl. As Digs watched in solemn silence, she held the pipe between her teeth, closed the case back up, and flicked the steel wheel of the coalstick a few times until it gave off a pleasant glow. Then she applied fire to weed, and puffed Maroto’s pipe for the very first time.

  “Remember, dearheart, ‘blow’ is just an expression,” said Digs as she struggled to get it lit, her big stupid tongue in the way.

  “I… here, you do it,” said Purna, glad the darkness hid her blush and shoving the pipe and coalstick into Digs’s hands. Never in a million billion years would she have guessed it would come to this, she and Pasha Diggelby sitting in a tree, P-U-F-F-I-N-G, but that was the way of the Star, wasn’t it? Sometimes the last friend you’re left with is the last one you ever expected. “What are we doing out here, Digs?”

  “Mmmm,” said Digs, the surface of the bowl now smoldering as nicely as the coalstick he neatly capped with an expert thumb. “Dying, I suppose, but slower than all our chums, so maybe we’re ahead?”

  “Maybe,” said Purna, nervously plucking at hairs on the back of her neck. “Do you think we’ll ever catch up to Maroto without the post or compass?”

  “Maybe,” said Digs, sounding obscenely pleased as he let out a cloud of smoke and passed her the pipe. “The real question is do you think he wants to be caught?”

  “Maybe again,” said Purna, trying not to be frustrated by how hard it was to smoke the pipe with her bedeviled tongue. “Thanks for the help with this, Pasha.”

  “My pleasure, Tapai,” said Digs, and that tore it—Purna had absolutely no regrets about what she’d done or the fibs she’d told, but considering the wanted poster she’d found back in Black Moth, she owed Digs the truth. Not for honor or friendship, but for something he prized even more dearly—his own protection.

  “I have a confession, Digs,” she said, her voice sounding so loud
up here in this silent tree, in an unnaturally still forest.

  “Oooooh!” said Digs. “Is it juicy?”

  “Juicy as Maroto’s bottom,” said Purna, passing him the pipe so she wouldn’t drop it if he came at her. Now that she’d resolved to tell him, it occurred to her he might be angry. Very angry. Nobody likes to be made a fool of, not even a deliberately foolish fop from the Serpent’s Circle. Nothing to do but go for it, like Maroto always said… “I’ve been lying to you, Diggelby, for as long as I’ve known you.”

  “Who doesn’t?” said Digs, the rising silver moon getting caught in the blue smoke he blew up into the charcoal sky. “It’s the mode, darling, nothing to get your knickers twisted over.”

  “Listen,” she said, and her tone finally got him to sit up a little straighter. “My name’s Purna and I hail from Ugrakar, but those are about the only things I’ve told you that are true. I’m a… I’m not of noble blood at all. I’m not a tapai, not even close—I come from a long line of Harapok rug merchants. And last year, when my aunt and uncle finally trusted me with taking the winter line to the Empire, I… I sold the rugs, like I was supposed to, but instead of coming home with the earnings I spent them all on passing myself off as a foreign noble. Three weeks before we set out to the Panteran Wastes I was slinging mats at the Serpentian Bazaar. I’m not one of you, Pasha, and never have been. I’m a merchant, and almost as bad, a thief, a two-faced girl who dreamed of making herself something she wasn’t.”

  Pasha Diggelby didn’t say anything, which wasn’t good, but he didn’t tear off a glove to slap her, either, so it wasn’t going as bad as it might, either. Then he let out a protracted sigh, and dramatically kicked his bare heel into the tree a couple of times. He let out another sniffle, and wiped his nose—was he actually crying over the news? Purna hadn’t thought she could feel any lower, but what did Maroto always say about there always being a deeper hell to slip into?

  “Well, damn,” he finally said. “I never thought I’d go to pieces over losing a bet. I can practically hear Din shaking her purse at me from beyond the grave. I’d give anything to be able to see the look on her face right now, regardless of the expense.”

  “Digs, have you been hitting the scorpion again?” asked Purna. “Did you hear a word I just said?”

  “I actually swore off scorpions after the Lark’s Tongue… I traded that big blue blighter to Singh’s son for one of his centipedes,” said Digs. “Though now I can’t remember for the life of me where I put that beautiful little bug. I had him in my turban pocket before I traded it for this hat, but I’m sure I would’ve remembered to take him out before—”

  “Digs!”

  “Of course I was listening, and of course you’re not noble,” said Digs, though without the attitude she’d expected. “There is no Thirty-ninth Tapai of Ugrakar, everybody knows that.”

  “They do?” Of all the outcomes of her confession, this was the last one she’d expected.

  “Well, maybe not everybody. But Din did, and that first night we met you, at the garden party—whose was it?”

  “Zir Mana’s,” said Purna sheepishly. “I’d delivered a rug to the estate earlier that week and overheard the servants talking it up, so I gate-crashed it. That’s how I got in with all of you.”

  “Zir Mana’s hedge maze, right!” Digs puffed the languishing pipe back to life before continuing. “Anyway, it was so obvious you didn’t have the breeding—even for a foreign fop, the way you acted was just agonizing. Hassan pledged coin that you were a spy of some stripe, Zir Mana was convinced I’d hired you as a prank, and Princess Von Yung thought you were operating some sort of long con, but Duchess Din and I knew from the first that you were a middling class lass shooting for the stars.”

  “What?” Purna felt as silly as a sincere coxcomb who’d worn the wrong wig to a powder party. “Was there anyone who thought I was genuine?”

  “Hmmmm,” said Digs, considering. “Maroto?”

  “Ha!” Purna leaned back in her arboreal seat, remembering all the times she and her noble friends had had, before, during, and after the Panteran Wastes. “So why’d you all let me tag along? What I did’s a crime, obviously, and a capital one at that in most lands.”

  “Because you seemed fun, and we had a lot of money on the table at the outset.”

  “Oh,” said Purna; even after all that time playing at being one of them, she’d overlooked the most obvious explanation of all. To think of all the times she’d had a secret laugh at their expense when she’d made some social blunder and they’d failed to pick up on it, thinking them too thick to realize the obvious… “So if you and Din both had my number, how come you said you lost the bet?”

  “Yes, well…” said Digs, sounding a little embarrassed, “Din wagered you’d come clean in your own time, but I bet you’d never reveal your secret. She gave you more credit than I, I’m afraid.”

  “No, Digs, you gave me plenty,” said Purna, her new tongue no longer feeling so constricted in her mouth; it matched the tightness in her throat. “But you’re shortchanging yourself a bit, as usual. I’d have eaten poison buttsauce before telling Von Yung or any of the rest about my past, but not you. You’re a chum.”

  “So are you, Tapai, so are you,” said Digs, puffing Maroto’s pipe and then passing it across to her as they watched the moon climb higher over the Haunted Forest. It was sort of beautiful, in a tragic way, especially with all their friends probably dead, Sullen and Keun-ju the newest in an increasingly long line of folks they’d met who’d then met a bad end. It was enough to make a girl think she was cursed… but Purna dismissed the silly notion with a boggy belch. Besides, there was no sense counting Sullen or even Keun-ju out before the sun arrived to shine a light on the subject; life’s full of enough sorrow without weeping over tragedies that might not have even come to pass.

  Take Maroto, for example—maybe he really was a double agent for Queen Indsorith or maybe he was just a dope who tried to fix every problem by showing it his back, but either way they couldn’t know for sure just yet. And until they found him and the truth she sure hoped he was happy, wherever he was. Funny to think that of all the familiar names and faces on that wanted board, his wasn’t—or maybe he’d torn his down when he came through, same as she had!

  A merry thought, but one that reminded her of the whole reason she’d finally spilled her guts to Diggelby, and suddenly she didn’t feel quite so merry anymore. Clearing her throat, she said, “One other thing I need to tell you, Digs.”

  “Do try to make it interesting this time,” he yawned. “Unless you want first watch.”

  “It’s, um, well, you won’t be able to read it now, between the dark and all the muck that got on it when I fell in the swamp, but I found a wanted poster in Black Moth.”

  “Bounty hunting?” Digs sounded intrigued. “Might be a lark, depending on the quarry.”

  “No, dummy, I found a poster with my name on it! That aunt and uncle I told you about, the ones whose rugs I ripped off? They… they’ve got a price on my head, either to bring me back alive to Harapok… or to bring just my head back, for a smaller price. I know with the Star falling apart and lost kingdoms rising from the sea it hardly registers, but it gave me a nasty shock, and, well, you’ve got a right to know, seeing’s how we roll together.”

  “Mmmm,” said Digs thoughtfully, and after a long silence, asked, “How much are they offering? I need a new pair of boots.”

  “Goodnight, Digs,” said Purna, still scared and tired and more than a little crazed after the day’s awful ordeal, but relieved to know that Pasha Diggelby had her back. Come what may in the night, when dawn broke they would set out again for their missing friends, and not even the absolute ugliest, grossest monsters in the Star could stop them. Not for long, anyway, though Purna needed a new boot, too. Settling in for her watch, she whispered a prayer to Maroto’s ancestor Old Black that she lived long enough to get one, and while she was at it, either save her mentor or avenge his death, de
pending on the circumstances.

  What barbarian could ask for more?

  Sullen crept along the shoreline of the dark swamp, picking up every sneaking devil now that the sun had set and his catlike eyes were attuned to the night, the parasites pulsing silver through the withered skins of their hosts. By staying away from the pools and the deeper water beyond, he was able to catch and kill four of the devils in the shallows, or banish them back to the First Dark, anyway—who knew what happened after they faded away from the corpses they had infested. His arms were really stinging from where that first one had grabbed him on the trail, before he’d gotten the hang of driving his sun-knife straight into wherever the devil lurked. They soon learned he was a danger, unfortunately, and through some unknown method the word must have spread that Sullen was to be avoided—before the moon was out from the trees he couldn’t entice another woodpile into approaching him, and blundering out into the open swamp obviously wouldn’t help anybody. Keun-ju was gone.

  He was trying not to freak out like he had after Fa had bit it, but it wasn’t really working—every step Sullen took in this world brought him deeper into darkness. He could scarcely have been more upset if Ji-hyeon had been the one to disappear into a devil-haunted swamp… and Keun-ju hadn’t just disappeared, he’d sacrificed himself so that Sullen and the rest could flee. It was the sort of selfless heroism Sullen always imagined himself performing, except whenever the opportunity arose he blew it, finding an easy way out, fleeing instead of fighting, a lifetime of softness in his village making him better at dodging fights than winning them.

  Looking out over the dismal black water with its pathetic, scrabbling devils, Sullen felt himself slipping backward in his memories, to Emeritus, and the Faceless Mistress. Maybe all of this was his punishment for going against her will. Maybe if he’d confronted Zosia back in the Cobalt camp and carried out the goddess’s command to stop the old woman then none of this would’ve happened, maybe Keun-ju would still be with him… He wished she would materialize, right here and now, so he could give her a piece of his mind. What right did the gods have to harass innocent mortals, making sport with their lives? Or maybe this trap had actually been set by Hoartrap the Touch or the Procuress or the two working together; after all, both magic post and devilish compass had led them straight into it…