The Mortal Tally

by Sam Sykes

  Even now.

  The gutter-priests had given him a flask of whiskey to drink from whenever the pain acted up. He had gone through it quickly. He had nothing left now when his fingers began to ache.

  No, he corrected himself, they were stumps. The stumps where his fingers should have been ached. Yet he could feel them still. Or rather, he felt the absence of them.

  When he twitched the stumps of his fingers, he felt them not moving. When he pressed his hand up against the cold stone of Cier’Djaal’s wall, he didn’t feel the chill of it. And when his whole hand ran along those stumps, searching for the fingers that had first held a girl’s cheek, that had wrapped around blades and bottles with equal skill, that had plucked pockets and locks and skirts and belts alike…

  They weren’t there.

  And that hurt in a way he could not explain.

  He had been carved by a demon’s claws, gnawed on by monsters, choked out by men—and at least three women—twice his size. He had been beaten, burned, hurled, bludgeoned, and broken before and had always walked away. Sometimes with a limp and sometimes by crawling a little to begin with, but he had always emerged and been ready to take it again.

  Four fingers. That’s all they had been. Four chunks of meat attached to bigger chunks of meat. No matter what he might have thought of them, they had just been meat. Losing them wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to him. Nor even the worst thing that had happened to him.

  So why does it hurt so much?

  A shriek. Ten feet away from his head. He looked to his left. The seagull looked back at him, just a touch offended that he had so rudely lowered the tone of its home.

  Denaos blinked, looked around. The scent of salt. The muttering of waves. The dim burning of those few streetlamps that someone had bothered to light, bravely standing up against the cold night creeping in from the sea.

  Harbor Road.

  Years ago a pale boy from the north had stepped onto these docks and Ramaniel had been born. Years later Ramaniel had died and it was Denaos who had stepped onto the boat that took him away. And just a few weeks ago, Denaos had come back.

  No matter how many times he died and came back, Harbor Road never seemed to care. It was always the same press of flesh that sought to be the first to take money from those coming ashore and the last to send silk off with those heading to sea. Live or die, Harbor Road never changed.

  Until tonight, anyway.

  Battles between the Khovura and Jackals hadn’t been enough to drive merchants away; after all, street violence was Cier’Djaal’s second-biggest commodity. Only when the foreigners’ war intensified, when fireflasks fell like rain, had the regular merchants pulled up anchor.

  And with the carcasses gone, the vultures had fled. The sailors who had brought the wares left with their ships. The prostitutes who sold them comfort and the taverns that sold them courage had retreated back to the shadows. Warehouses had been locked up and given cursory guard that was always ready to flee should the foreigners decide to take their fight there.

  All that remained on the streets was a few unlucky sailors who had been left behind and the few unlucky bars that had booze to sell. All that remained in the water at the docks was a few fasha pleasure barges that had either too many guards or not enough goods to attract thieves.

  And seagulls, of course. There were dozens of the feathery little fuckers lording over their new kingdom.

  But overall, Harbor Road looked quite a bit like an open-air tomb with plenty of room.

  Which, he supposed, explained why he was there.

  He couldn’t remember how he’d gotten here. Nor even where he had been before setting out. He had finished his whiskey, found the pain still present, wandered out to find more, and simply never seen the point of stopping.

  And somehow he had ended up here, in the stale salt air and among the sleeping drunks and seagulls picking at offal in the alleys.

  And it still hurt.

  “Ramaniel!”

  He cringed. Voices seemed to do that to him lately. He didn’t bother to turn around at the one that came from behind him, nor at the footsteps that followed it. The hand that was laid on his shoulder felt abrasive, like a palm bristling with needles.

  “What are you doing out here?” The voice sounded strange in his ears. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

  It wasn’t until Anielle was in front of him, her needle-hands on his face and forcing him to look up into her dark eyes, that he recognized her. And that lasted for only a moment. Whatever she saw in his face, it twisted hers into that of someone he didn’t know.

  If he had ever known her at all.

  “Fuck, Ramaniel.” Her eyes drifted to his maimed hand. She winced. “Rezca told me what happened. Silf alive, I didn’t want—”

  “Rezca?” Denaos muttered.

  “The gutter-priests told him. He was the first one I found when I came looking for you. I escaped that place, wherever it was Teneir took us, and I went to find you, but I…”

  She paused, glanced around.

  “It isn’t safe out here,” she said, voice dropping. “No place is safe.”

  That much made sense to him, at least.

  She took his whole hand in her own, wrapped her fingers tightly around the ones he still had. And it still hurt. Somehow it still did.

  “Come on,” she whispered.

  And he did. His legs felt numb under him, simply following along as she pulled him down the streets and past the drunks and empty bars and quiet whorehouses.

  She was saying something to him, but he couldn’t hear her. He couldn’t hear anything in that open-air tomb but the sound of her footsteps and the heavy gulps of sick breath he took. And they echoed forever.

  It was the pain. His ears were full of it. Her hands were made of knives. His skin was made of paper. Every time she pulled, he felt like bleeding. Every time she squeezed, he felt like weeping. And every time she reached back with her other hand, as though assuring herself that he was still there, he felt like screaming. But it would do no good, he knew. He wouldn’t even hear it. He couldn’t hear anything.

  She did it.

  But that. Those three words.

  She did it.

  A nail in his ear. His thoughts a hammer. Coming down, over and over. She did it.

  His thoughts. Or someone else’s. Ramaniel’s or Denaos’s or some other dead man’s. He didn’t know. And he couldn’t shut them out.

  All the ways she had tried to convince him to leave with her. All the ways she had tried to keep him away. All the looks she had spared, the words she had said. She hadn’t been there when Yerk came to save him. She was gone. And now she was here.

  Escaped, she said. How could she have escaped while he was left to bleed out in the dark?

  A slurry of fears and pains ran through his head until they formed scaly lips, Teneir’s mouth puckered in a smile as she hissed.

  You know who.

  Her name, a needle in his neck.

  “I’m sorry.”

  He heard her voice. He started, looking down at her. They had stopped moving, in an alley somewhere, amid refuse and castoff from the sailors. No sounds here, no echoes. He could hear her.

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. She looked up at him, eyes brimming with tears. “I shouldn’t have run. But they left my shackles loose and I heard the screaming and I… I just…”

  Escaped.

  Unscathed.

  From a den below the earth, filled with Khovura and whatever monsters Teneir commanded.

  How?

  “Ramaniel,” she said, gently cupping his face. “Ramaniel, I should have done more. I should have convinced you. I should have drugged you and taken us to a ship and left when…”

  But she hadn’t.

  And they hadn’t.

  She had wanted to leave, but she hadn’t left him behind. She’d had something left to do with the Jackals. She had wanted so badly to leave, but she hadn’t just left on her ow
n.

  How?

  “No. I won’t give you excuses.” She shook her head. “I won’t do that. We’re together now. We’ve escaped. We’ve… we can get out of here, Ramaniel. Finally. Please, let’s just go. Let’s just leave this behind.”

  He couldn’t.

  No matter where they might run to, whatever they might leave behind, he would still hurt.

  “Ramaniel.” She drew his face closer to hers. “Please.” Her breath, warm and healthy, upon his lips. “Forgive me.”

  She drew his lips to hers, closed her eyes. Panic surged through him at her touch, at this closeness, at how easy it was for her to do it. But slowly it faded. And slowly pain followed. Almost.

  “Forgive me,” she whispered as she parted from him. “Forgive me.” She took his maimed hand in both of hers. “Forgive me.”

  She drew it up to her lips, hesitated a moment. Then, gently, pressed her lips to the bandage and closed her eyes.

  And then, in the span of the echo of a seagull’s cry, he knew why it hurt.

  Because of her.

  Because she had done it to him. Because she had escaped and he had not. Because he had bled and she had not. Because he hadn’t listened to her. Because it didn’t make sense. Because it made perfect sense. Because she was the rat. Because he was the fool. Because she had betrayed him, betrayed the Jackals, betrayed the city. Because he hadn’t been able to save them, the people, his friends, his fingers, any person or any thing. Because the blade was in his hand. Because—

  The blade was in his hand.

  He didn’t remember how it had gotten there.

  His forearm was on her throat.

  He didn’t remember doing that.

  But there it was. The blade at her throat. Her eyes wide with fear. Her mouth, open and quivering. Her screams choked behind his arm as he pressed her against the wall of the alley.

  His stumps aching, on fire. His blade trembling, a tear falling from her eye as a wordless plea fell from her mouth, both of them hitting the steel. He pricked it beneath her jaw, watched the blood blossom. His thoughts, a hammer in his ears, over and over.

  She did it.

  Left you to die.

  Escaped. How? She did it. She did it. She did it. She did—

  Steel flashing.

  Falling.

  Clattering.

  His voice, raw and painful in his ears.

  “Go.”

  Her voice, sharp and full of needles.

  “Ramaniel, don’t—”

  “GO.”

  He didn’t remember what she said before she left. He didn’t remember what she begged of him or what she denied. He didn’t remember when she disappeared or when he staggered back and pressed his hands, whole and maimed alike, to his face, and collapsed.

  And he didn’t remember who it was—Ramaniel, Denaos, or another dead man—who emerged from the alley and staggered off into the night.

  Still night.

  It felt as if hours had passed. More than enough to let the day come. Not that it mattered, of course. He had some vague notion that things would be clearer in daylight; must have heard Asper say that somewhere or something. But clarity wasn’t what he needed. What he had done was all too clear. What he needed now was something dark and quiet to smother it beneath.

  And the night was inadequate for that.

  So, like most vermin, he slunk away, and crawled under a bridge and stared down at the water.

  Silktown had been built across the streams where the sea ended and the Lyre River began to wend its way out into the desert. The fashas liked the natural barrier to separate themselves, and the architects they had commissioned had crafted arches that spanned the waters.

  The sons and daughters of fashas, young lovers with unnecessary dreams, often stood on those same arches at night. Drunk off the promise of their easy futures and carefree presents, they would kiss coins and toss them into the water to make wishes that had already been granted. Enterprising urchins, such as he had been, found it profitable to lurk under bridges and go diving for these little tokens of adoration.

  A rich man’s kiss could buy an awful lot, back in those days.

  He stared down at the river, swift and black and rushing as it ever had been. Back then the promise of coins at the bottom of it had made it seem less daunting. But tonight it looked like some gaping maw that swallowed everything.

  He stared at it, into it, as though if he stared long enough, Anielle might emerge from it as she had so long ago and hold aloft a golden coin and say, “Throw away those rags, pale boy, I’m buying you something pretty.”

  In hindsight, a happy ending had never been possible. Not for people like him. Those were for people like Asper, women who did good work and found good men and had hard and happy lives. People like him led easy, dirty lives whose happiest ending usually involved doing what those good, hard folk couldn’t.

  For a long time, he had been fine with that. He had been fine being the man who did what the others couldn’t, the man who got his hands dirty, the man who knew the dark secrets and the dark trades. Asper could heal the sick and inspire the hopeless. He could just stick a knife where it needed to be stuck.

  Turned out he wasn’t even very good at that.

  The rat had been one of the Jackal heads. That’s how they’d known about all the Jackal operations and sabotaged them. The rat had been working with a fasha. That made sense, too. Anielle had wanted out, had had money to get out, had wanted him to go with her. Teneir had even said so. And then Anielle had escaped while he had been left behind.

  It all made sense. Bloody, ugly, dark sense. And when it came down to it, he hadn’t been able to do what had to be done.

  Maybe that was why everything still hurt.

  Footsteps scraped on stone to his right: deliberate, to let him know someone was coming. He looked up, caught a glimpse of starlight reflecting off Rezca’s spectacles before he came beneath the bridge. He settled beside Denaos without a word, stared down at the river alongside him.

  Two northerners. Last heads of the Jackals, save Yerk. Ironic, Fenshi might have called it. But then, Fenshi never really understood irony.

  “You are bloodied,” Rezca noted.

  “Yeah,” Denaos said.

  “Anielle is dead, then.”

  A pause, longer than he intended. A lie, harder than it used to be.

  “Yeah.” Denaos looked at him. “You figured it out?”

  “Shortly after she came to me to find you. I got the impression she was trying to avoid me. But I saw what happened to…” He made a gesture to Denaos’s hand. “And then her, without a scratch. I put it together. Too late, sadly.”

  “You should have been the one to do it.”

  “I should have.”

  “You’re supposed to be in charge.”

  “I am.”

  “You failed.”

  “I did.”

  There was remorse in his voice, but not a lot. Rezca didn’t work that way. He allowed himself to feel as much as he needed to, but that wasn’t much. Head of a gang like the Jackals, he had to be hard.

  “What now?” Denaos asked.

  “Regroup,” Rezca replied. “Consolidate. Assess our priorities and act on them, same as we did after the riots.”

  “Teneir’s the fasha behind the Khovura,” Denaos said. “Should go after her.”

  “I am aware of that, yes.” Rezca’s face lowered. Slowly he removed his spectacles and rubbed his eyes. His body shook with an involuntary chuckle that he couldn’t contain. “Silf, but isn’t this a fucking mess?”

  Denaos didn’t disagree.

  “Ever since I came off the boat and into this city, I can’t remember a single time when the fashas actually ran things.” He looked to Denaos. Beneath the glare of his spectacles, his eyes seemed clear and calm. “It’s always been down to the thieves, hasn’t it? Fashas squabble, thieves sort it out. Merchants dispute, thieves get things moving. Richest city in the fucking world and it�
�d all come crashing down if its vermin stopped working for a day.”

  “Shit’s always been bad,” Denaos said. “Not as bad as it is now.”

  “No, not as it is now.” Rezca sighed. “Did you want to be a thief, Ramaniel?”

  Denaos stared at the river. “No one wants to. It just happens.”

  “Yeah. It just happens. Same as any shit.” Rezca rubbed his neck. “When we were kids, we told ourselves it was just to get by. When we were young, we told ourselves it was just to get big. Then suddenly we’re on top and doing the same shit every other thug before us did.”

  “Just happens,” Denaos repeated.

  “Yeah. Just happens.” Rezca chuckled, replaced his spectacles. “I had this idea that I was going to be the one to change things, you know? Stop lurking in the dens and taverns and actually step up. Unite the fashas, bring the Jackals out, form an army, turn this city into a nation instead of a pack of dogs gnawing at each other. We already ran the city. Wouldn’t have been too hard to bring it out in the open.”

  “You ever heard of a thief going out in the open?” Denaos asked.

  Rezca paused. “No.”

  “Me neither.”

  “Still… that’s how it’s always gone, hasn’t it? We keep doing things the same way because that’s the way they’ve always been. More killing, more burning, more stealing. And this city never goes anywhere because of it.”

  “Where’s it supposed to go?”

  “Someplace where foreigners can’t kill thousands over shit from a spider’s anus. Someplace where no one has to sell themselves for food. Someplace where we can earn lives without having to buy them.”

  “An idealist criminal,” Denaos said. “Fenshi would have applauded.”

  “Fenshi’s gone. Anielle’s gone. Yerk vanished in the night. You and I are all that’s left, Ramaniel. You, me, and whatever ideals I can scrape together.”

  “And you want to build a city on them, huh?”

  “More than a city. A nation. The world envies Cier’Djaal’s fortunes. It’s time we showed them an entire system they can envy. I can make that happen.”

  He rose to his feet, brushed his leggings off.