by Julia Knight
He worked his way round the edge of the square, past the bodyguard pen full of big men with bigger swords waiting for someone to come and hire them, for a job, a day, a week. Past stalls selling steaming pastries and tart little oranges or strange dried meats. He approached Herjan’s temple cautiously just as the sun dipped to the horizon out there beyond the walls. Boys hurried round with torches to light lamps in the gathering gloom, making the whole square flicker in dusk-orange and torch-red, turning faces into angular shadows, oddly unreal. As a rule Van Gast loved this time of day in the markets—dim enough that people didn’t see your hand unless they concentrated, light enough that he could see what he was stealing.
Not today though. He let his gaze flick casually over Herjan’s priests standing at the top of the steps, dispensing wisdom, settling disagreements among traders and others who gathered to hear their advice. His little-magics flared, but not enough to have him running, not yet, not when Josie might be so close. Over to the corner where the trader Haban habitually kept his tent—and a secret exit to the square nicely hidden. But Haban’s tent wasn’t there today. Instead of the pink-and-gold-striped silk tent Van Gast had expected, full of the scent of incense and sound—if not entirely honest—trading, stood a hastily cobbled-together stall selling pots and pans and other homely metal things, half of which Van Gast couldn’t name.
No Haban—that made his itch burn even more. Haban had held that pitch for as long as Van Gast could remember, had helped him out of more than one tight spot. Yet maybe that last trade had done for him—if they’d found that diamond on Haban, he’d be in the dungeons by now, or dead. A diamond that had originally been stolen from the Yelen. A theft that had started this whole sorry episode.
The stifling heat of the Godsquare, from the old stone of the temples radiating the stored sunlight of the day, from the people who surrounded him, was a blessing to his bones. Because here was the biggest danger. A square full of racks and traders, any one of whom might recognize him. For ten thousand sharks his mother would have turned him in. Nowhere was safe, everywhere was risk—and with that risk, thrill. He was alive with it, with the flutter of his heart, the pump of his blood. The itch of his trouble bone.
He sidled up next to the stall selling pots and pans and looked about. No Josie, no white-blond hair among the dark-haired crowds. A merchantman’s crew barged past, drunk and stumbling. Two ladies, their faces painted and their outfits even skimpier than the heat demanded, winked at him, but he ignored them and kept scanning the crowds.
Guards moved along the edges of the square, attempting casual interest and failing. The itch became a burn, became a shout of run, run NOW!
* * *
Rillen scanned the crowds from his vantage at the steps of Herjan’s temple, where he lurked among the wisdom-seekers. The square was dim, orange and black against the dying sun, yellow sparks of lamps lighting up pools of people, heaving crowds among the stalls and priests, beggars and hawkers. The noise of them swirled up to him—shouts, cajoling traders, the low, pitiful tones of a professional beggar, the roar of a thousand sets of Forn’s bells swaying among the press, sounding for all the world like the susurration of waves upon a beach.
He’d prepared as much as he could. Guards all round the square, some dressed as traders or sailors, some as guards. Men on roofs—Van Gast was legendary for his way of snaking up a wall and disappearing among the chimneys. Rillen had made sure every logical way off the roof of Herjan’s temple was covered, but he wasn’t sure it would be enough, not when they couldn’t say for sure which man he was until Haban’s niece turned up. Maybe not even then, but it was all the men he had.
She entered the square and Rillen puffed out a breath of relief. He lost her a moment as she darted between a press of people, and then she stopped by a stall, staring at the corner of the temple below him. Where Haban’s stall had been. Rillen scanned the dark corner—half a dozen men. Two sailors, obviously drunk, one beggar in rags, the stallholder, a man in a green shirt and what looked like one of the bodyguards from the pen on the corner—big muscles, a lot of bare skin, a face like a dog licking a thistle and enough weaponry to floor an elephant.
Rillen made a silent signal and his guards began to move. He hurried down the steps, keeping his eyes on her. She still stood by the stall. He nodded to a guard, indicated her, that the man should bring her, and turned to the corner of the temple. He needed to know which one.
The beggar eyed him warily and drew back as Rillen approached. The sailors began to argue, flinging insults and oaths like the priests threw colored rice on Kyr’s day. The man in the green shirt stood with his back to him, and Rillen almost passed him over—nothing about him really stood out, just a man like thousands of other merchanters crew hands in the city, in a sober green shirt. And bright red boots.
Is that him? Or not? Where is that little bitch to tell me? He cocked his gun and strode forward. A voice came from behind, low and soft.
“The man in the green shirt.”
* * *
“The man in the green shirt.”
The low, feminine voice was just on the edge of Van Gast’s hearing. He didn’t stop, not to look or question or wonder who or why. He’d picked this corner to watch for a reason. The ancient stucco walls of the Godsquare just here were studded with the ends of rafters, handy foot and handholds that had saved him before. He scrambled up, his boots slipping but his hands sure. Forn’s bells jangled as he climbed, a counterpoint to the swearing that drifted up from below, followed by the thud of someone else climbing, the click of pistols being cocked. A shout of his name. Shit.
He reached the flat roof and risked a glance down. Guards, Yelen guards. He was in deep shit, and it felt good. He grinned wildly into the dark and scudded over the roof, checking that his pistol was loose and ready as he ran. His little-magics burned like a well-stoked fire. Trouble was everywhere, following him, ahead on the roof, to either side.
Yelen guards probably weren’t going to care overmuch if he was alive or dead, as long as they caught him. But they weren’t going to catch him, because he was good, better than good. He was Van Gast, uncatchable, and he was going to win. His grin stretched his cheeks, his heart thudding with the thrill as he ran, skipped around the guard who appeared from behind a chimney, slipped, rolled past another, scrambled back to his feet and on.
“Andor Van Gast!”
A shout behind, but he didn’t turn to look. A fizzing bang, and then a bullet took a chunk of roof by his feet. Dead was apparently fine.
That wasn’t what made him stumble, or shot fear through him. They knew his secret name. It was all over, they knew. His secret name, a woman giving him away…Josie, it couldn’t be but it had to be. His feet defied his brain, didn’t stop but carried on.
The roof dropped away in front of him, almost sheer and with no guards to bar his way, no guards that stupid probably. He hurtled down the slope, letting the ridge hide him from the following guns. Tiles clattered under his boots, making him slip and slide ever faster toward the edge and a dark drop. Just as he was about to tip over into the unknown, he dropped to the tiles and twisted, grabbing the eave as he turned. His bells jounced to a halt two dozen feet in the air over a narrow alley. High enough it might give the guards pause.
Tiles fell over the edge and crashed to the ground, followed by cursing as the guards followed him, though slower, more cautious than he’d been. Damn it, and he hadn’t even stolen anything. Today anyway.
The alley was empty except for two drunks trying to punch each other and missing by half a yard. No one to hide among, no stalls to cover him. Double shit. He dropped to the packed earth and rolled, jarring his knees and making his bells protest too loudly. He recovered and ran right, toward the drunks and what hopefully might turn out to be an inn where he could lose himself in the crowd. A house would do, a door to anywhere off this empty alley where he was the only target.
No such luck—no doors, only blank walls. Another bang, the sting
of shattered stucco on his ear and a hole appeared in the wall next to his head. This was getting just that bit too close for comfort. He picked up speed, his bells rattling faster than his heart. He laughed at the dread of it, the joy of it as he leaped a barrel, careered between two men ducked low as they rolled a drunk for money, and shot out of the alley like a cork from a bottle.
The square he found himself in wasn’t much of an improvement over the alley and he didn’t recognize it in the torch-lit dark. A few stallholders packing up, one or two dawdling shoppers and what seemed like acres of open space. Footsteps, hurried, scuffed, tripping as they encountered the muggers, were only heartbeats behind him.
A dark space, an alley so narrow he could hardly see it, opened between two stalls and he dived in, ignored the alarmed shouts of the stallholders and a woman’s surprised shriek. Better, much better. Dark and secret, and full of debris just right for climbing, up onto the drunken roofs of the houses that crammed round the Godsquare and the trading quarters close by. Not the smart end of town, not here, but close.
He wished his bells would shut up, or that he dared take them off, but no rack, no sailor would ever be without his endless prayers to Forn the merciless. He’d rather be shot than drown, sink down into the Deeps and an endless watery grave. Both those things paled before what rose in his mind now.
Josie had been supposed to meet him in the Godsquare, there and then. Maybe they’d already got her. On the tail of that, even as his breath heaved with the thought that they’d caught her, came another, more traitorous image. Maybe she’d set him up. Maybe this was the revenge she was after, for his betrayal. The worst thing for a Gan, for a woman, and she was both.
Those guards had known his true name. The only woman who knew his true name was Josie.
He dragged himself up the wall by way of a derelict bed and onto the roof. A proper roof now, one he felt at home on with nests of chimneys, ridges, dormers, cupolas and sharp gables with fancy fretwork to hide among. He ducked behind a cupola with a weather vane in the shape of a shark twisting in the breeze and kept still, to keep his bells from chiming and to help steady his breath and heart.
Plenty of military-style swearing drifted up from below but no footsteps in this alley. Yet—it was only a matter of time until the stallholders showed them the way. He took a deep breath and tried to think. Few options, none very palatable. These guards were maybe looking for Josie too, and might already have her. Or, with luck, she’d kept out of their way because they were looking for him. A slim hope.
Someone had set him up. Someone had said “In the green shirt” right behind him, a woman’s voice, soft and low, a voice he knew but it had been too quiet to say whose for sure. The guards had all been heading his way even before that. They’d known he was going to be there, and the only person who knew that was Josie, or whoever had sent the note. And his little-magics had itched him like crazy and he’d still gone, because he’d been sure—well, hoped like mad—it was her. How many people knew he’d do that? Not many. Josie, Holden, Guld. Maybe a few of the crew, gossiping little rumor-mongers that every sailor was. But he was sure they didn’t know his true name. Holden did, and Josie. Skrymir and Van Gast’s young son, Ansen, who crewed for Josie. No one else that he knew of. Only one woman on that list.
The sneaky sound in the alley of someone trying to be silent and failing wafted up to his little hidey-hole. No bells, not sailors. Guards. No time to think now, only do. He cast his gaze around, peering into a dark crusted with stars and the tiniest sliver of a moon. Not much to see by, but enough. He ran, the joy of it dimmed for once, the burn of a betrayal worse than the burn of his breath. But those guards wouldn’t catch him, not Van Gast, because he was good, better than good, and the fuckers could never get him.
Chapter Eight
Holden hurried along the wharf after Ilsa and Tallia. He wasn’t sure in his mind which of them he wanted to find more, but they both headed for the city walls and he followed as best he could. Ilsa was easier to spot, her chestnut hair fluttering, men moving out of her way, some watching appreciatively as she passed, others drawing away with grimaces of disgust at her Remorian looks. Tallia was more difficult, being small and dark like most everyone else, though she got the same sort of appreciation and none of the drawing away. Holden lost her more than once before they reached the entrance to the city proper and it was only because she seemed headed the same way that he found her again.
By the time they reached the Godsquare it was sunset. Orange light bounced off the ancient walls and made all the stone more mellow. Lamps appeared across the square, and the sudden change made it hard to see for long moments. When his eyesight cleared, both Ilsa and Tallia had been swallowed by the crowds.
There, another familiar face. Gilda, ducking past a stall toward an inn. Damned racks—no rules, no concept of “stay on the ship.” Whichever of the crew had let her and Tallia off was going to get an earful. Van Gast might be a rack, but Holden expected his orders to be obeyed—none of the new crew to go ashore, in case they turned Van in. Time enough for that, and Ilsa, later. Van was in trouble, Holden was sure of it. Everything, no everyone was acting too oddly for it to be otherwise.
He made for the steps to Oku’s temple, a perfect place for spying out the square. The steps were crowded with people coming for the sunset ritual, and between them and the dim dusk, Holden didn’t see the hanging figures until he was almost on them.
Racks to one side, Remorians to the other, nailed to the wall. Holden couldn’t look—and couldn’t look away. They were all dead, their blood black on their arms as they hung from hands and wrists, flies buzzing around them in a sickening dance. He stepped closer, unable to believe what his eyes were telling him. Before he’d always been safe in the knowledge that no one would touch him, no one would dare. The body hanging in front of him, flecks of blood-tinted foam on its lips, was a stark reminder that this was no longer the case. They were free now, free to be rolled for money, to be scammed, stabbed in the back and left for dead. Free to be nailed to a wall for no more reason than they were Remorian.
Holden rubbed at the scar on his remaining wrist with the stump of what was left of the other, at the remembered burn of the bond. He had freed them all for this, for persecution, madness and death. A shout from the other side of the square, by Herjan’s temple, brought him out of his trance.
“Van Gast!”
Holden whipped round, remembering now why he was here—to find Ilsa and bring her home, to discover what it was about Tallia that made Van Gast’s little-magics itch. Most of all, to make sure Van Gast wasn’t in trouble. The sun dipped over the city walls, tipping day into sudden night. The square was darkness punctuated by little globes of light. A disturbance, a wayward ripple against the tide of people, as guards ran and a figure scrambled up the wall of Herjan’s temple. Holden could make out the flash of Van Gast’s grin.
He looked out across the square, thinking there was nothing he could do to help Van Gast, not from here, and wondering if Van Gast ever needed help escaping. Tallia stood a few stalls away from where Van Gast climbed, watched intently as he disappeared over the rooftops, guards close behind. Tallia’s ever-present enthusiasm seemed dimmed, replaced with something Holden couldn’t pinpoint, some sort of intensity that shivered him.
He hurried toward her, hoping to see what she did, where she went, but she turned then, her eyes wide as she saw him hurrying down the steps toward her. Her smile looked fake, too quick, too wide. When he reached her, she was trembling and wouldn’t meet his eye.
“Hello, Tallia. I don’t recall giving you permission to leave the ship.”
She darted a glance over her shoulder, toward Herjan’s temple and the ruckus on its roof, winced as a pistol went off. “You didn’t, but I wanted to tell my family where I was going. I should have told them earlier, but I was so excited to be racking with Van Gast, I got carried away.”
Holden watched her carefully and knew it straightaway for the lie it
was. “I see. And Van Gast being chased by guards while you watch—coincidence?”
“Yes!” Her fingers twined around themselves.
Holden took her by the elbow and steered her through the crowds. He couldn’t help Van, not right now—the shots and guards were away over the roofs and he could imagine how much Van was enjoying it—but Holden had every confidence that he’d escape. Instead, he needed to find out what was going on with Tallia, what she thought she was up to. Quickly, and then try to find Ilsa, persuade her back.
Tallia’s protests were faint as he pushed her toward a tavern down a crowded alley that led from the Godsquare. A respectable enough sort of place that the barkeep gave him a sharp look as they entered. No racks in here, but sober merchantmen and a few crew. Holden plonked Tallia at a table and ordered drinks, glaring at the barkeep until he handed them over with a sullen look.
Tallia sipped at the ale. She seemed worried, distracted, fiddling with the cuffs on her shirt and tracing a pattern on the table in spilled beer. Holden let the silence drag out, until she couldn’t take it any more.
“Well, what? So, I left the ship—I thought that was the point of racks, that you could do what you want.” The words burst out of her like firecrackers.
“Maybe, but I told you, all the new crew, no shore leave till I said so. I’m sure you can imagine why, what with the price on Van’s head.”
“You think I was going to collect?” Her laugh seemed genuine, a full-throated thing that made Holden’s spine tingle.
“Here I find you, watching as the Yelen guards chase him. Not much of a leap, is it?”
She shrugged, but the smile didn’t leave her lips and all her bounce seemed to have come back, making her wriggle in her seat with suppressed energy. Holden wanted, very much, to reach for her hand, to soak up her enthusiasm, her lust for life. Something he couldn’t recall ever having. Ilsa’s voice whispered in his head, What do I have to do to make you come back to me? and his hand stayed where it was.
