Iron Gold

by Pierce Brown

  Now comes the garrote. A thin wire looped around my throat from behind by Gorgo, not enough to break the skin or trachea, but enough to let me know they will if they need to. It immobilizes me. “Which hand will it be?” the Duke asks. “You owe me a debt. Choose.” I rear back against the garrote, but Gorgo’s fingers are the size of potatoes. “Choose.”

  Sense abandons me. My mouth is dry, my body shaking.

  “The…left,” I manage as they ease off the wire.

  The Duke nods to his thugs and they grab my left arm. I stare in horror as he picks up his bonesaw and turns it on. The razor-sharp sawteeth vibrate. Sheer panic grips me now. The memory of flesh peeled from muscle, how the fat separates from bone, and the screams of friends. I watched, once, and all I thought was, Thank Jove it isn’t happening to me. The guilt returns. The sound of my friends shouting to each other in a bombed-out Endymion building. “Don’t rat! Don’t rat!” The fear and sight to come of metal teeth gnawing through my body. The grisly, butcher-shop look of naked muscle. I search frantically for something to haggle with, but there’s nothing I have that he wants. I feel a desperate, pitiful sob building in my chest that I don’t let out. The Duke lowers the bonesaw toward my wrist. The teeth buzz like insect wings. I grit my teeth and close my eyes.

  “There is a way to keep this hand,” he whispers. “Tell me where the sword is.”

  “I don’t know! I sold it to my broker already.”

  “Tell me his name.”

  “I…can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I told you. I don’t rat,” I say coldly. The way it comes out of my mouth soothes me. I’m less afraid, because I have a reason now to let them take the hand. A conviction.

  Forgot what that felt like.

  “I could carve through your ribs.” He twirls the bonesaw. “Take your manhood. Carve off your toes. Turn your eyes to jelly. You’d tell me then, if I really wanted to find your broker.” He’s going to do it now. Gorgo’s cologne fills my nostrils. “Tell me who he is!”

  I glare up at the Duke. “Get to it, asshole.”

  He stares down at me, then laughs. “Gorgo, I believe you owe me a diamond.” He turns off the bonesaw. The garrote around my neck disappears. I look up to see the Obsidian shuffle forward, rummage through an alligator skin billfold and pull out a teardrop diamond that he sets in the Duke’s hand. The Duke slips the diamond into his pocket and smiles down at me as the Obsidian eases away. “I’ve been tearing Luna apart for someone like you, Mr. Horn. A man with a code.”

  “What?” The adrenaline floods out of my body, leaving me as limp as empty clothes. “What are you talking about?”

  “Oslo said you were bright. Odd. A White prone to exaggeration.”

  I blink dumbly. I didn’t say his name.

  “You know Oslo?” I ask.

  “Do I know Oslo? Ha! Your broker has often served as an intermediary between the Ophion Guild and the Syndicate. If you had betrayed him, well, that would have been the end of Ephraim ti Horn. But instead, treasure awaits. You see, the master of thieves”—he touches his black jacket where his heart allegedly beats—“happens to be in need of a thief of chaos. And who better than one recommended by Mr. Oslo and tested by me? There is something of particular significance I would like to acquire. This, my dear Gray, was the final part of your audition. And congratulations. You passed with flying colors.”

  I blink up at the madman. “The sword. You had me steal the sword…from you?”

  As an answer, a gleaming smile splits the man’s face.

  I sit there, my body shivering from the adrenaline leaving the system, still not entirely sure he’s not going to snatch my hand and saw it off. “You’re a special kind of asshole,” I mutter.

  “You’ve clearly never met the other Royals.” He touches his chest in offense. “I’m the tender one.”

  “The Syndicate has enough thieves,” I say. “Why do you need me?”

  “Are any as good as you?” he asks, attempting flattery.

  “Three, at least. The Figment, Zendric…” I shake my head, wishing I had taken Holiday up on the job offer. “I told you, citizen. I don’t mess with the Syndicate. You boys play too hard. Whatever job you want me to do, use your men.” I glance at his thorns and Gorgo in particular. “I don’t wear a collar.”

  “We all wear collars,” the Duke says, tapping his forehead where the invisible crown lies dormant. “Some are more comfortable than others. And now it’s your turn, Mr. Horn.” He pulls something from his pocket and sets it on the table. They call it the Queen’s Kiss. A black iron rose that can bribe Watchmen, open doors, and intimidate even senators of the Republic. It is the warrant of the Syndicate’s ruler, and those few dark creatures who carry it do so at her bidding.

  “This is not a request. The debt is still owed. By you, the Obsidian, the Green, and the Red,” he says quietly. “Now, I assume a man with your reputation, with your…history, is prone to vendettas. I warn you against thinking of this as an onus set upon your shoulders, and instead counsel you to look at it as the greatest opportunity of your lifetime.” He points out the window with his cane. “You have a chance to become more than a thief. With the Syndicate, you can ascend. You can rule. Serve me well and this world can become your playground.”

  His silken words are lost on me. I don’t want to ascend. Could give a shit about their games or their ridiculous delusions of grandeur—they’re just another gang with better than average organization and accounting. Sooner or later, they all eat themselves. But even though I might stand on a ledge and think about jumping, that doesn’t mean I want to get bonesawed to death. That’s what will happen if I say no. Or he’ll go for my team first. And I’ll hear the screams all over again. I think of Volga standing there in the rain looking like a lost puppy.

  “I’ll do it,” I mutter. “Now, what’s the prize?”

  The Duke of Hands laughs merrily. “Glad you asked! My darling, we’re stealing the most valuable thing in all the worlds.”

  MY ASSOCIATES STARE AT the Queen’s Kiss on my glass coffee table. They have not moved since I set it down. I examine the drooping clock in the painting on the wall. One of my favorite Dalís. With the original lost or destroyed, even a forgery of La persistencia de la memoria is a treasure. This one I stole from a robber-baron Silver in the Mass. Time stands as still in the room as in the painting.

  “This is a lark, isn’t it? Another one of your games, Eph,” Cyra finally says, waving her hands in her animated way.

  Dano chuckles to himself from his place on the formofabric couch next to me. He’s sprawled on it like a drunk cat, leg over the armrest. Overcompensating his slickness like we all don’t know how insecure he is about being fifty kilos soaking wet. He smothers his spent burner in the coffee-cup-turned-ashtray on his stomach and lights another. The smoke slithers into the air, stained green and purple by the AI lover advertisements that writhe out the window on the building adjacent mine.

  Cyra sneers at him. “Is this a joke to you too?”

  “Lass, life’s a joke,” Dano whispers as smoke comes out his nostrils.

  “Wonderful. It’s all a joke. And we’re the damn punchline.” Cyra stares at the untouched vodka lemon I poured her, trying to come to grips with the tale of my night with the Duke. I want her to drink it. Shit, drink four of them, woman. She’s a damn stress when she’s sober, and only mildly tolerable when inebriated.

  It’s the late hours of the evening, dark cycle. A sluggish late summer rain falls on Hyperion. And I’m stuck between a madman with a buzzsaw and a job that will certainly kill me. I feel a sense of resignation. This is the end of the line. What the Syndicate asks is impossible. This business is so far past their paygrade I thought the Duke was joking.

  We’re going to die. But dying pure and quick on a job is better than dying slow at their hands. Now, just have to convince my crew. If I don’t, anyone who doesn’t play along will have an octopus in their mouth and their body in a gut
ter by morning.

  “This is your shit, Eph,” Cyra says. “They came to you. So, fine. You take the contract. I’m not interested. Never wanted to tangle with those psychos. If you’re smart, you’ll realize you shouldn’t get involved in this shit either. This is big. Too big.”

  “You are not out,” Volga says without any malice. “Ephraim needs our help. He helped us. You are in.”

  “Slag that.”

  “Yeah, I’m with the grass ass for once,” drawls Dano, burner dangling from the corner of his mouth. “This is manic, and not in a sexy way.”

  Volga leans forward. Cyra involuntarily flinches. “Dano, you would be in Whitehold or dead if it weren’t for this man. Cyra, where would you be if Ephraim did not pay your debt to that data shark? I would still be on Earth, loading boxes and collecting loans from sad men so I could eat.” I watch her with an unfamiliar warmth going through me. I hurt her outside the bar, but still she has nothing but love for me. Why? “We will help him because he helped us.”

  Dano claps his hands. “Bloodydamn fine speech.”

  “Cut the yapping, you mutant,” Cyra sneers at Volga. “No one owes anyone anything here.”

  “They know who you are, Cyra. They know who we all are,” I say into my Pernod. It’s a drink from the days back when I used to care, emerald green with the taste of licorice. Trigg loved them. I knocked back a pair while waiting for my team to arrive, watching the news recycle clips from the Reaper’s dismantlement at the hands of the Vox Populi. Lionheart couldn’t do anything to stop it. Made me feel warm and fuzzy, seeing the king and queen get caught with their pants down.

  “They want my team. It wasn’t a request.”

  “What if we refuse it?”

  “We refuse the Queen’s Kiss, we’re dead,” I say.

  Cyra has a burst of inspiration. “We can leave town. Set up farside in Endymion. There’s plenty of work there.”

  “I’m not going to Endymion,” I say sharply.

  “Eph…”

  “No, actually it’s a grand idea. Their Endymion outfit will be waiting to welcome us to the city. Show us the sites. The Crescent Orb, the Tridian Palazzo, the Ephor Spires.” I put a finger gun to my head and pull the trigger. “Then they kill us.”

  “We can go off-planet.”

  I sigh. “The Duke of Legs has men in the docks. They’ll kill us in transit.”

  “Then we don’t fly commercial. We charter a ship farside out of Eridan Interplanetary. I can wipe the transit records. Or get us documents for Earth or Mars.”

  “Cyra, you might have enough money to charter a ship. But to buy vintage Solar Republic passports with hologram veracity and magnetic coding on this timetable?” I ask, knowing how dearly she fancies her sparkling new condo in the Sordo District. One of the new Redache glass buildings. Gaudy shit. “After the down payment on your haunt, how much do you have left?”

  “It’s none of your….”

  “Your mortgage has a bigger appetite than Volga, love. And those diamonds you’re wearing aren’t exactly sale items. From Gustave’s?” Her face pinches. “Don’t get tight, I’m not going through your receipts. But new money all shops the same.” She looks embarrassed, but I keep punishing, because I need her to know there’s only one way out. “So…after the diamonds, the mortgage, the server farm in your spare room, I’d say you have maybe fifty thousand in your account.” By her expession I know it’s less. Lady loves to spend. “Gods. You don’t even pay taxes and you’re broke!”

  She’s not done trying. “We could combine our money. Dano. How much do you have?”

  “Me?” Dano looks up from his datapad, where he’s texting one of his warm bodies. “Rooting in the wrong mine, lass. I like fliers and Pinks too much to gather commas in the old account. Sin’s a hungry slag. What about you, tinman?”

  “I’m dry,” I say.

  “Tables leech you?”

  “Something like that.”

  “You’re a mess of degenerates,” Cyra mumbles.

  “I have money,” Volga says from the window.

  Cyra wheels on Volga. “How much?”

  “All of it.”

  “All of your share?” Cyra asks, incredulous.

  “Yes.”

  “From all our contracts?”

  “Yes.” Volga hesitates, embarrassed. “Well…I must eat. And I eat much more than you…smaller people. And I like beer. And I pay my landlord each cycle change. He says I am the best tenant.” She blushes. “And…and sometimes I go to the Cerebian. You know. The zoo? I like the popcorn and the animals. And the people are all so happy. Especially the children. But I go in the middle of the day, so tickets are cheaper,” she adds quickly at the end to mitigate the gross expenditure.

  “Volga!” I feign astonishment. “You’re out of control. A regular hedonist.”

  “I know,” she mutters, shaking her head at herself. “I know.”

  “I’m joking, Volga. You’re as parsimonious as a White.”

  “Thank you,” she says, beaming, then squints. “Parsimonious. That is a fine word.”

  “That should be more than enough money,” Cyra chirps. “With that much we can get a real starrunner. Maybe even buy a used—”

  I toss the last centimeter of my Pernod into her lap.

  “What the hell,” she sputters.

  “You’re a horrible person,” I say. “That’s Volga’s money.”

  “Kinda slagged up, Cyra,” Dano says.

  “Because I want to live?”

  “I don’t mind,” Volga says. “I will share.”

  I know she’s been saving the money from our jobs to buy herself some acreage on Earth. All those dreams of Luna, and now she wants to start a refuge for carved animals that have been discarded by their masters. She told me one night when she was drunk. She wants zebracores and griffins and all other manner of beasties that will probably eat her in her sleep. She doesn’t remember, but I do, and I’ll be damned if I let these other two take her piece.

  “Yes, you do mind, Volga. Or I mind for you. It doesn’t matter if we had ten million credits to spend. Wherever we go, they’ll find us and kill us.”

  “There’s another option,” Cyra says. “We could take it to Republic Intelligence.”

  Dano sniffs the air obnoxiously. “Odd, Eph. A prime spot like this having the smell of rats.”

  “I’m not a rat,” Cyra says.

  “You smell like a rat. Know what we’d do to rats in Lost City?”

  “You little ruster…”

  “What did you call me?” he says, sitting up at the word.

  “I’m not a rat….I just don’t want to die an old woman at the bottom of the sea. Deepgrave is what’ll happen if we try this.”

  Cyra pushes at her temples with shaking hands.

  I lower my voice to Cyra. “Headache?”

  She nods. “Forgot to bring my stuff.”

  “I’ve told you a dozen times. You gotta lay off the cyberplay.” I pull my silver dispenser from my jacket and choose a zoladone. “Earth knockoff, but it should do the trick.” She takes the pill greedily and leans back in her chair.

  She snorts and downs her vodka. I pour another for her. “Better?”

  “No!” She rubs her eyes. “Why us?” she asks me. “What did you do? I know this is because of something you screwed up. Someone you owe.”

  “Not this time.”

  Volga could blow all this open if she says I met with a Howler right before getting picked up by the Duke. She saw Holiday’s wolfcloak. But the big girl stays quiet.

  “You’re gonna do it?” Dano asks me. “You wanna do it.”

  I decidedly do not want to do it.

  “It’s the heist of the century,” I say with a smile. “Look on the shiny side. The Syndicate has never broken its own rules. Not once. If we acquire the prize, there’s no reason to believe they won’t pay us the commission. Eighty million credits.” Dano whistles. Volga doesn’t react. Cyra looks numb. “And if we surv
ive to spend it, we don’t have to steal anything ever again. Buy an island. Buy a star cruiser. You’re free. Nothing can touch you. Not even this war.”

  That sells them. Cyra leans back to rub her temples and sip her vodka, in the shallow, warm waters of the zoladone high now. She stares at the black rose. No larger than my palm, it feels bigger than the room. Pulsating evil. “What’s the timeline?”

  “A month.”

  She stares placidly at me and nods, the zoladone cooling her blood. Dano’s more animated. He pauses midway to lighting another burner. “This gets better and better.”

  “A month is not long,” Volga says.

  “We need four months to plan this,” Dano says. “A year…”

  “I know. Apparently that is nonnegotiable. We got a month. Less, actually.” No one interrupts. “We were given three specific locations and times when the prize will be in public. We just have to pick the juiciest.”

  “How do we have this information?” Volga asks grimly. “This will not just affect us. It is important to know.”

  “They’ve got their tentacles everywhere.” I shrug. “Your guess is as good as mine. Question, Cyra.” I snap my fingers to bring her attention back from her high. “How long would it take for you to don your black hat and pillage some data from Epirus and Leomant?”

  “The accounting firm? Depends on their firewalls. That’s some high-grade software. Why?”

  “Because I need to know who pays whom. We need an inside man.”

  “Bloodyhell…” Dano says, eyes fixed on his own datapad. “The Senate has just issued an arrest warrant for the Reaper.”

  We look to each other, sharing the same morbid thought. A game is afoot and we are pieces on the board. I look out the window to Hyperion and wonder what is about to shake my city. But in the back of my mind, I care more about the collar on my neck and who really holds the leash.