The Penitent Damned
Duke Mallus Kengire Orlanko, Royal Minister of Information—sometimes called the Last Duke, though not in his hearing—did not look particularly dangerous. He was short, balding, and tended toward the portly, a roly-poly little man with an unfortunate taste for rich purples that gave him the look of a ripe plum.
Nevertheless, it was widely agreed that the Duke was the most dangerous man in Vordan, if not beyond. This was not simply because he was the inheritor of the most powerful fiefdom in the kingdom (though he was), or even because as Minister of Information his secret police, the all-seeing, all-knowing Concordat, had an informer in every shadow (though they did). What gave Orlanko his aura of terror was the certain knowledge that he had merely to crook a finger, and grim-faced men in long black coats would go to the home of the object of his displeasure in the middle of the night and haul the unfortunate away; and more importantly that no one would ever say a word about it, whether the prisoner was a beggar or a peer of the realm. Even the other Ministers of the Cabinet walked with care around the Last Duke.
The most unusual thing about his appearance was his spectacles, made for him specially by the Doctor-Professors of the University. They had wide, thick lenses, and from most angles they obliterated the upper half of the Duke's face into a vaguely flesh-colored blur. Every so often, though, they'd slip by chance into a perfect alignment, and the startled subject of that level glare would find the Duke's eyes bearing down on him, magnified to five times their normal size.
Currently, this unsettling stare was being directed at a thin sheaf of paper, which lacked the capacity for terror or unhappiness with its lot. In this, the Duke reflected, it had something in common with his visitor.
"The third item," Andreas said, helpfully.
The Duke tapped his finger on the paragraph in question, read it again, and sighed. He leaned back in his chair — custom made by the most cunning artisan in Hamvelt, it reclined gently under his weight with an almost subliminal whirring of gears and springs — and looked up across the vast expanse of his polished ironwood desk at his assassin.
It wasn't that Orlanko didn't like Andreas, or that he had ever given unsatisfactory service. Rather, the Duke didn't care for what Andreas represented. Not the fact he was a killer — there were plenty of killers in the service of the Concordat, though fewer than the man on the street might have assumed. But Andreas was unique. He didn't fit into the carefully-coordinated hierarchy of the Ministry of Information, standing off to one side of Orlanko's organizational charts like an awkward party guest. He, and a handful of others like him, were the Duke's concession to the messiness of the world, the fact that not every problem could be slotted into an appropriately labeled box and taken care of in the normal course of business. For all Andreas' efficiency, Orlanko hated to be reminded that he was still necessary.
Physically, there wasn't much to distinguish Andreas from any other Concordat agent. He was of medium height and medium build, with fair skin, sandy brown hair, and a face that was easy to forget. He wore the black leather greatcoat that served the secret police in place of a uniform, hands in his pockets, the fringe hanging behind him like a cape. The important differences were inside the man's skull. Andreas, Orlanko had found, thought in a different way. Not a normal way, to be sure, but there were times when the twisted path was the most effective, in the same way that a corkscrew can be the most effective tool for a job.
In this case, though, Orlanko wondered if the assassin's unusual perspective had led him astray. He frowned.
"Someone has obviously gotten desperate," the Duke said. "Desperate enough to hire a thief to try to steal from us, and I may say without false modesty that this is very desperate indeed. But what makes you think he has a chance of success? Surely ordinary procedures will be sufficient."
Orlanko loved 'ordinary procedures'. He'd written most of them himself, over the years, converting the Concordat into an organization that ticked over like a gigantic clock with human bearings.
"The problem is the thief," Andreas said. "I've included some eyewitness reports from his last job, in Hamvelt."
The Duke leaned forward, flipped the page, and read. His index finger tapped the paper again.
"Ah. You're certain this is the man we're dealing with?"
"Reasonably certain. We know he's in the city, and for him to risk venturing within our reach the job must be a sweet one. This is the only thing that qualifies."
"I see." Orlanko leaned back again. "How do you want to proceed?"
"If we can believe the reports, the thief's … capabilities are unknown. I assume you want the identity of his backer?"
"Of course."
"In that case I would like to borrow some of your … 'special assets'."
The Duke's expression darkened. "Matters at court are coming to a head. I may not be able to spare them for long."
"We won't have long to wait. The thief won't risk being in the city any longer than he has to. It'll be tonight, or tomorrow at the latest."
Orlanko hesitated a moment, then nodded. "As you wish. But I expect good results."
"Of course, Your Grace." Andreas bowed, coat flapping. "I will begin immediately."
· · ·
Alex grabbed the lip of crumbling brick and hauled herself up until she could swing one leg over and lever herself up to lie flat on the narrow surface. The bricks made up a battlement-like rise perhaps a foot wide. Beyond them was the building's roof, a sloped, irregular surface of wooden shingles, but she dared not trust that with her weight. Most of the the tenements of the Newtown district still had their original hundred-year-old roofs, patched inexpertly and sporadically as they rotted and started to leak, and the ancient shingles were likely to shatter under her weight.
Instead, she rose to her feet, as smoothly as a dancer. She looked around for a moment, taking her bearings from the lights of the city, and then started to pace easily down the narrow strip of brick.
On her right hand was the roof, and on her left was a sheer drop — five stories to the street below, without even the hope of catching a convenient clothesline to slow her fall. The winding streets of Oldtown and the narrow alleys of the Docks were always thick with ropes, which could be quite useful for a second-story man — or woman, in Alex's case. Here, though, the long-dead Farus V had decreed that the boulevards be wide and straight, in accordance with the latest Rationalist principles, and though the area had gone a bit down-market since the old boy's day, the buildings were still too far apart to string washing-lines.
Alex's heart was beating fast, but it wasn't from the precariousness of her foothold or the prospect of a hundred-foot fall. Young as she was—another month would see her twentieth birthday—this sort of work had become so second-nature to her that a few inches of moldy brick might as well have been a broad highway. This, the rooftops of a great city at night, was her world, into which she'd been born and in which she'd spent her entire life. Anyone who had asked her about the possibility of a fall would have gotten only a quizzical stare in response.
Her nervousness had quite another source. This wasn't Desland, with its brightly painted shingles and sleepy constabulary, or even Hamvelt, with its terraced archways and sharp-eyed sell-mercenary guards. This was Vordan City, home to the Last Duke's Concordat, who watched from every shadow. Ever since she'd started working with the Old Man, some three years now, he'd been telling her dark stories about the city of his birth, to which he'd sworn up and down he'd never return.
Everyone knew what a thief's oath was worth, of course, and it was no surprise that enough money had made a liar out of the Old Man. They'd been at a loose end after a successful job in Hamvelt had produced more heat than they'd bargained for an
d sent them fleeing south and west towards the mountainous country near the border. Even still, when word had come through the Old Man's labyrinthine network of contacts that a proposition was on offer in Vordan with an almost ludicrous sum of money attached to it, he'd come close to turning up his nose at it. Alex had worked hard to convince him that they should take the deal; the fact that the job was obviously impossible only sweetened the pot.
Besides, she thought, if it's impossible, they'll let their guard down.
Alex liked impossible things. It was impossible to jump from one tenement block to the next, for example. You'd need a grappling hook and a lot of line, and even if it found purchase on the rotten shingles crossing would be a dangerously long and noisy endeavor.
She herself was impossible, after all. In this day and age, who believed in magic?
At the corner of the tenement roof, she paused, perched like a gargoyle. Twenty-five feet across the way, another hulk of a brick building loomed. A few lights flickered weakly in window frames on the upper stories, but lower down the shutters were tightly closed. It certainly wasn't impossible to climb one of these buildings from the outside—indeed, with their flaking mortar and crumbling bricks, it wasn't even a challenge. It was reasonable to assume, therefore, that the targets had taken some precautions against a stealthy approach from below. But from above?
Alex spread her arms like an orchestra conductor, raised her hands, and smiled. Liquid darkness rushed out of her cuffs, flowed over her hands like ink, and spread outward.
· · ·
"Always try to think like the target," the Old Man had told her, that morning. "Be the target, as close as you can. Whatever you're trying to steal, hold it close to your heart, and think what you might do if you heard a bad man like me was going to come and take it from you."
He laughed, his ancient, wheezing laugh that showed off empty gums. Once upon a time he'd been a legend, the master thief Metzing, scourge of the burghers of Hamvelt and merchant houses all across the League cities. By the time Alex had met him, he was seventy years old if he was a day, and while he remained surprisingly spry his thieving days were done.
Alex had heard it all before. She was more interested in breakfast, which was steak and eggs done with some kind of runny cheese you didn't get in the League cities. Vordanai cuisine had some odd eccentricities, she'd discovered in her brief time in the city, but for the most part it was delicious. Except for the sausages. She taken a bite of one she'd bought from a street vendor and sworn off ground meat for the duration.
The Old Man glared at her, and she realized she'd forgotten to offer the proper attentive noises. Her mouth was full of egg, so all she could do was nod vigorously, to show she'd understood. He snorted and waved a dismissive hand.
"You don't listen," he said. "But you never did, so why should I be surprised?"
Alex swallowed. "I'm listening. I'm listening!"
"Fine, then you listen but you don't hear." He sighed and sank back in his chair. "We should never have come here."
"What, to this inn?"
It was quite a nice one, in fact, on the eastern end of the Island, as the Vordanai termed their most fashionable district. The Old Man always said that people expected to find thieves in low dives and cheap flophouses, so any thief who cared to avoid attention would avoid such places at all costs. Alex secretly thought that he'd simply acquired a taste for luxury during his illustrious career, but she wasn't complaining. They sat at their own table in the well-appointed common room, with leather chairs and well-dressed waiters bowing whenever Alex raised a finger. Beside them was a window made of real glass, with an excellent view of the spires of the Island and the bridges that connected it to the Exchange.
"To this city!" the Old Man said, rapping the table with his knuckles. "I swore I'd never come back. I knew it would be the death of me."
"It's only for a few days," Alex said. "And the money's good."
"Too good," the Old Man muttered.
"What do you expect? The Concordat has everyone scared stiff. I imagine the client had to up his price to attract any interest."
"So more fools we, to take an interest."
Alex sighed. "Come on. I'll do the job tonight. We'll be out of the city by morning. In two weeks we'll be back in Desland, and we can spend a year living like merchant princes if we like."
She'd dreamed of Desland, asleep in the soft feather-bed upstairs. It was the closest thing she had to a home, the place where she'd spent her formative years, and she was fond of it. It was a quiet, orderly city, building and citizenry both decked out in bright colors, framed against a bay so blue it made your eyes water to look at for too long.
More specifically, she'd dreamed of a rather nice young man who lived there, who she had allowed to kiss her on several occasions and, on the night before she'd left, to slip a hand inside her blouse for a few minutes of inexpert but enthusiastic fumbling. Thinking about him brought a flush to her cheeks, and she bent closer to her plate in case the Old Man noticed.
She needn't have worried. He was staring out the window at the tallest building in the skyline, a great ancient hunk of stone with two tall, pointed towers connected by a fragile-looking rope bridge. This was the Sworn Cathedral of Saint Ligamenti, a relic of a by-gone age that she had been mildly curious to go and visit. There were no cathedrals left in the League cities; angry mobs and self-righteous city councils, drunk on their new power, had razed them during the Schism, mostly to be replaced by allegorical statues of Truth and Freedom triumphing over Tyranny.
"It was always a bad place," the Old Man said, and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "For people like you. Not a mile from this spot, the Pontifex of the Black ripped out the tongues of heretics with hot pliers."
"That was two hundred years ago," Alex protested. "There hasn't even been a Pontifex of the Black since before the Schism. And Vordan is as much Free Church as the League, these days."
"Elysium has a long memory. And everyone knows the Last Duke is close with the Church." He jerked his head at the window and the Cathedral. "They're holding services in that great damn abattoir again, you know."
"All right, all right. I'll be sure to keep an eye out for any Black Priests while I'm out there." Alex rolled her eyes. And I'll watch for dragons and bogeymen, too. "Now, let me tell you my idea —"
· · ·
Two globes of darkness encircled Alex's hands, flat black in the faint moonlight. She pointed one hand toward the roof of the other tenement, and extended her will. Blackness surged out in a long, thin line, like a rope made of pure shadow. She could feel it tense and quiver as though it were an extension of her own flesh, and she felt the force of impact as it hit the bricks and punched inward with a soft crunch. A hundred tiny black filaments radiated outward, scrambling for a hold.
She waited a moment, then tugged to make sure the grip was solid. Once she was sure, she took a deep breath, and stepped off into space.
For a brief, heart-stopping instant she dropped straight down, until the line of darkness jerked her arm up and turned the fall into a swing. A second later she was hurtling toward the side of the building with bone-cracking speed. She threw up her other hand, and a second black beam lanced out, this one straight into the brick wall.
The liquid darkness could be hard or soft, firm or yielding, as she required. In this case, an effort of will turned it hard and springy enough to kill the momentum she'd picked up crossing the gap. She let it evaporate, bit by bit, until she finally came to a stop with her feet against the wall, hanging from her shadow-rope, her weight supported by a few strands of braided darkness. From there it was just a matter of walking up, shortening the rope as she went, until she could throw her hands over the brick lip of the rooftop and pull herself on top.
Impossible. Alex grinned in triumph, face flushed. She wished the Old Man could see this. He had taken a long time to come to terms with Alex's strange power, but eventually its sheer usefulness had won him over. A
fter that, he'd taught her a great deal about what could be accomplished by an athletic young girl with a rope and a head for angles.
"Elysium has a long memory." She shook her head at the memory of his disapproving frown. Maybe once upon a time, the Priests of the Black hunted people like me. There were enough stories about it, certainly. But as far as Alex could tell, there was no one else like her, not anymore, and no Priests of the Black either.
Distractions. Alex heard the Old Man tut-tutting in her ear. She got to her feet, carefully, balancing on the narrow brick pathway, and worked her way around the length of the roof. The information the Old Man had pried out of his reluctant contacts indicated that the archive occupied the northern half of the floor, and Alex glanced up at the stars to make sure she hadn't lost her bearings.
When she reached the northeast corner, she crouched, and let darkness roll out from her fingertips once again. It dripped down like molasses until it touched the flimsy, ancient shingles, then split into a hundred smaller filaments that drilled out through the wood like termites. Pieces began to fall away, just a dusting at first, then chunks the size of wood chips.
The tricky part was not letting anything drop before it had been sliced into small enough pieces that it wouldn't make a sound; the black tendrils crossed and re-crossed, and beads of sweat popped out on Alex's face with the effort. Eventually, a roughly circular section of the roof simply disintegrated into dust and splinters, falling away with a soft woof. Alex leaned over it and fired a shadow-line down, willing it solid enough to support her weight. She stepped out over the hole, balancing with both hands on the dark beam like an acrobat, and let it contract to lower her into room below as lightly as a feather.
That ought to be neat enough to please even the Old Man. As Metzing, he'd been famous not only for stealing what nobody thought could be stolen, but for making it look effortless. When they'd met, she'd only just begun her own career, and her brute-force reliance on her power to get past obstacles kept getting her into trouble. The Old Man had taught her the art of thievery.
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