Flotsam

by R J Theodore

  Talbot leaned forward. Their foreheads nearly touched over the center of the table.

  “Word’s around, you’re trying to sell something the wrong people want.”

  He didn’t ask to see it, or about it. Just knew. All she’d said was that he should meet her at the bar, but he knew everything, like she’d proposed it all right there in her message to him.

  “That’s a bad item you got.” He licked his lips and polished off the first mug of ale. “Anyone pays you for that, and it’s going to end up taken from them, and them out the price. Lucky if that’s all they’re short at the end of it.”

  Talis put her hands up, a non-threatening gesture. “Hey now, since when do we take things other people aren’t trying to relieve us of? That’s the business. That’s the meat of it.”

  Talbot shook his head.

  “What do you mean, ‘no’? You want to test that ink work, but here you won’t cargo a stolen item. Out of Subrosa?” She laughed in disbelief. “I’d find more nerve in Silver Isles than I’m finding here. You even know what I’m asking you to carry? A tiny bit of nothing, except to the right buyer.”

  “I don’t want to know what it is. I know it’s drenched in problems. The authority that’d chase me down for it isn’t one I’m going out of my way to invite aboard.”

  Talis couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Didn’t like the feeling that settled into the bottom of her stomach. Here she was, so close to what ought to be a payday she could roll around in properly, but coming up with nothing but dead ends. She couldn’t afford dead ends.

  “The original contract I had to fetch this thing was a half-fortune. I can’t walk away from that. I spent money and time—risked my neck—on fetching it. Made promises to my crew. Put off repairs on my ship to fund the salvage. I need a buyer.”

  Talbot thumbed one side of his thin mustache. Looked contrite, even. But refused to say what she wanted to hear.

  “You and me, we have a long-standing business history. But as a friend, Talis, I’m telling you to shed that thing. Put it in the nearest bin, or dump it out in the skies, whatever. But you wanna be done with it. Go and scrape up some more honest contraband.”

  She pursed her lips at him, then blew a short blast of disgusted air. “Subrosa’s thieves have gone coward.”

  Talbot put a hand on hers, looked like he wanted to say more. But she pulled her hand away and stood.

  She should stay. Get another cargo from him, get some news from around; there was always something to talk about here. But between the daggerpoint feeling in her gut and the panic in her mind, she needed to move. Wanted to be far away. Alone.

  “Thanks for the drink,” she said, giving him one last angry stare, childishly putting her problems on him for the moment. Willing him to change his mind.

  “Hey now, I thought you were buying.”

  “Can’t spare the coin. I’m broke ’til I sell this thing.”

  He made a face at her but didn’t say another word as she turned and stalked out of the dingy pub.

  Three blocks from The Docked Tail, Talis dipped into an alley to escape the press of the crowd. She leaned back against the wall of a restaurant. From deeper in the shadows, the fermented smell of spiced food caked on the filth-encrusted garbage chute found its way to her nostrils. It was almost as overwhelming as her own thoughts, which swirled, berating her for being a fool.

  She needed to put this ring and the trouble it wanted as firmly behind her as she could, as soon as she could. Didn’t dare toss it, no matter the unanimous counsel she’d been getting. It was worth something. The more they told her to be done with it, the more people showed up to relieve her of it, the more she was convinced of that. It had to be, and somewhere there had to be a buyer.

  Talbot had been her best bet. He had the fewest scruples and the warmest feelings toward her now that Jasper was dead. Every other buyer she could think to line up was a long shot, and word was out that she was selling a bad deal.

  The fallback was Assessor’s Hall. Would the pawnshop clerks know, too? Whatever she could get for it, she’d have to take. There was a small bonus of the coin from the assassin’s wallet, and Sophie and Dug had each taken their own prizes from that fight as well. It hadn’t been a lot, but it was more than they’d started with. And the new revolvers weren’t a bad take.

  Pawns would do, she decided. Best to be done with this quickly.

  She took a breath. Nearly choked on the garbage stench but made herself hold it. Pushed it out again, forcefully, a ­moment later.

  Feeling better, the rank alley no longer seemed like such a haven. It was a corner, and there were eyes on her. It was no place to be caught.

  She slipped back into the traffic of the main corridor and almost instantly was nudged at the elbow and hip. Felt the barest tug at her belt, and then a small child ran ahead into the crowd, clutching the assassin’s coin purse she had tucked into her belt pouch.

  “Little bastard,” she snarled under her breath, and pushed after him.

  If anyone had a mastery of Subrosa’s mazes and secrets, it was the pint-sized populace of malnourished children. They fended for themselves, formed small gangs, or worked for the shopkeepers and crime bosses. Sometimes all of the above. They were the perfect army of thieves: abundant, hungry, and, with the proper tutelage, could be quite heartless. That’s how Tisker had been raised, before he joined her crew. His skills had been developed by escaping punishment and staying alive in the urchin pits of Subrosan slums, until he was too old to hide from authorities under a mask of dirt in the crowd of other children. At that point, many former subcity children would move into business for themselves, turn around and guide the next generation of children on their dubious career paths. But Tisker wanted out, and saw his chance in the black-stained hull of Wind Sabre. Talis had needed some convincing. She definitely had preconceived notions about just how far she should trust a scum-dwelling, bottom-feeding former child of the alleys. She still believed, to this day, that Tisker was an exception to the rule.

  The reed-thin Cutter boy with her purse managed to stay just ahead of her. Traffic seemed to part for him and then close back in to block her path. It was probably only half her imagination. A couple times she thought she’d lost him but then saw his twig-thin form just ahead of her, forced to dodge a cart or a burdened courier. She closed the distance and made a grab for his collar, nearly on him, but he dove at that moment into the dark shadow of an open doorway.

  Pursuit took her through a bar, choked with pipe smoke, decidedly not tobacco. The door on the other side opened into the streets of the next Subrosan district, with polyboard walls and floors, a patchwork of colors taken from previous installations elsewhere. The mismatched panels bounced beneath her feet as she ran.

  The boy slipped through a space between boards, so narrow she saw the edges scrape his shoulder. Undeterred, she kicked the board with her foot. It broke off, falling into a cramped alley lit with black-smoking tallow candles. The ground beneath her feet was littered with dingy blankets and coats, and beneath the candle smoke, the air was surprisingly unflavored by the smell of garbage. Though it did smell of other things.

  There were more children here, and they pressed in at her, making a show of panhandling, grabbing at her arms and, in the case of the smaller children, her legs, to slow her down and aid in their compatriot’s escape. There were too many of them to move through, though it was more like being swarmed by wake moths than held back by a mob. She kept her eyes on the bouncing gait of her quarry and pushed through the throng of dirty arms and faces. She felt small feet beneath her boots and shoved the bodies to the side, back into the press, until they gave up ground to avoid being stepped on.

  At the far end of the alley was a blank wall. Talis cursed, almost out of breath. She toed at the edges of the board, but it was not loose as the last one had been. She slammed both hands, in frustratio
n, against the dead end.

  A small scuff of sound made her look up. A foot disappeared over the top of a ledge above her. The wall to her left had a narrow vertical strip of panel missing, revealing the wooden studs beneath. Just enough to use as a narrow ladder. If she’d not heard the movement she’d never have considered it. As she tested the strength of the support against her weight, she wondered how many of these catwalks and ladders hid in plain sight across Subrosa.

  The ledge led into a plenum space less than half an arm’s length tall. Better suited to urchins and vermin than a grown woman. She slid along in the near darkness, lit from the outside wherever the polyboard was not evenly adjoined.

  This is an incredibly bad idea. The thought repeated itself with every elbowed inch she gained in the tight passage. She could feel dirt and the dried husks of dead insects beneath her palms, and her hair snagged on the underside of the boards above her. The thief moved easily ahead of her, not quite able to crawl on all fours but certainly having an easier time of it than she was.

  Her breathing quickened and an invisible hand clamped around the base of her throat. She was not made for cramped spaces. Only her rage and frustration moved her forward after the child. Everything else inside her clawed to go back. She half hoped that the boards beneath her would collapse under her weight, dump her through into the shop below, and give her an escape from the darkness.

  There were children who were pickpockets and children who were assassins. Others just did whatever it took to survive. Talis shimmied after the child, wondering which variety it was she followed. And what she was following him into.

  At the far end of the plenum space she saw the child crouch, then disappear upward again. Talis rolled after him, not keen on being left behind with only her claustrophobia for company.

  The ascent was a narrow shaft at the corner of whatever levels they were scrabbling between, and the crawlspace she left behind was a ballroom compared to the tight vertical climb.

  There was a brief increase in the light level as the child pushed through a hatch above. Then it was dark again, and Talis was alone.

  Awkward in the narrow space, she managed to climb in tiny steps, squeezing her arms tight against her sides so she didn’t end up wedged against the opposite wall of the shaft.

  At the top, she found the hatch locked from the other side. Not really surprising, though she was no less panicked by it. She pounded against it. She tried to run back over the route from the streets in her mind, to hazard a guess as to where the boy had led her.

  She’d been reckless. And now she was lost, crushed into a tiny space barely big enough for the bony child she’d chased after, faced with retracing the squeezing path back to somewhere familiar. Faced with returning to Wind Sabre penniless and outsmarted by a child. And without a buyer for the ring. She gave the hatch one last half-hearted pound with the side of her fist.

  Defeated, she let the back of her head drop against the wall behind her. Only the panel swung outward before her head could thud against it. She stumbled out backward, falling without grace. Someone caught her and gently propped her back on her feet. The hands that supported her were pale and three-fingered.

  “Ah, good,” said a melodic voice. “We have been expecting you, Captain Talis.”

  Chapter 12

  Talis had never met Zeela, the Vein merchant woman from the Platform District, but without question that was who stood calmly to one side as a younger Vein woman helped Talis out from the crawlspace behind the wall in the corner of a softly lit shop.

  The businesswoman, in contrast to her plainly-dressed assistant, was an exotic and elegant vision. Almost nothing utilitarian about her appearance. She was dressed like a queen among the starving thieves of Subrosa, radiating the confidence of someone who could do so without fear of being mugged or otherwise harassed. The tales of her people’s sixth sense undoubtedly augmented the air of mystique she wore as openly as the silks of her gown.

  Zeela was slender, her frame delicate. Her nose was narrow and long, with a petite button tip. Her eyes were large shining moonstones in a pale cream face shadowed with purple undertones. Her thin eyebrows arched like the antennae of a moth. Small gemstones sparkled from where they had been glued to the skin around her eyes. Amethyst, topaz, and citrine spilled across her temples, down across the arches of her cheekbones. Her thick, shining, colorless hair was elaborately styled: first braided into tiny individual strands, then gathered together and piled about her head like a pale corona. Silver bells, strands of pearls, and shimmering sheer ribbons in lavender and orange threaded in and out of the braids, shifting as she moved. A single fall of straight unadorned hair, dyed in a gradient from pink to lavender, fell from the nape of her neck down her back to end in a perfectly straight line at her hips.

  Layered in sheer tones that mixed their own colors, her clothing appeared weightless, a remarkable feat considering how much she wore. A full skirt tied beneath her bust fell to sweep the floor. It was embroidered with patterns of colored silk thread hand-stitched into the delicate silk fabric. Swirling colors conveyed no image or pattern that Talis could see, though from what she knew of Vein fashion, she was sure there was a design to its texture that the wearer would feel when brushing a hand across it. A short jacket covered Zeela’s bust, shoulders, and two longer arms, with full sleeves that enveloped the limbs in shining silk. The sleeves fell beyond her hands, not to hide them from sight, but to convey that Zeela was so completely at ease in her space, and so well-served by her maiden clerks, that she did not require the manual labor or spatial guidance for which the outer pair of arms were intended.

  Her second, smaller pair of hands, clasped gently over a delicate silk apron, were stained with herbal dyes in elaborate dotted designs from fingertip to just past the elbows. More gemstones were adhered in a two-finger-wide stripe from the back of her hands up her forearms. The flickering candlelight of the shop played across the faceted gems, their reflections dancing across the walls and ceiling and lending Zeela a ­celestial beauty.

  Her appearance was carefully crafted to impress the other races. The sighted races, that is, who made judgments based on such things.

  The entire Vein race was born blind. Created in the image of their Divine Alchemist, Lindent Vein, who regarded vision as a lie. He and his people relied on more physical sensations for situational awareness, along with a sense of perception that bordered on telepathic. Their blindness was the primary gift that Lindent Vein had bestowed upon his people during Recreation.

  A young Cutter child learning about the Vein for the first time might not understand how the absence of vision was a gift, but Lindent Vein’s people were preternaturally sensitive to sound, touch, and scent. Lindent Vein had made for himself, even before the Cataclysm, two pairs of arms. The outer, attached at the shoulder, were stronger and made for broad tasks, such as lifting and aiding in navigation of an unfamiliar place. The smaller, attached at the sides of the ribs, beneath the pectoral muscles, were long-fingered and sensitive, as much antenna as tool. With these they performed the most intricate of circuitry or jewelry design, with fine motor control that the most steady-handed Rakkar would envy.

  Talis was pretty sure there was even more to it than that. She suspected the Vein could perceive electrical impulses as easily as the sighted races could see color. They had an industry based on backward-engineering pieces of arcane ’tronics that others, like Talis, lifted out of the flotsam, and they had a particular fondness for anything predating the Cataclysm. No doubt they had a knack for alchemy as well, but their economy was based on the technological advances they made and the patents they immediately filed.

  Zeela’s House of Antiquities offered apothecarial concoctions, collectibles ranging from vintage to arcane, and mechanical device repair. It was a sensible business model for a Vein entrepreneur. The shop displays were full of such fragile, irreplaceable, and expensive items that Talis ha
d always assumed she couldn’t afford to walk in the front door. It hadn’t been on her list of possibilities, but it was a sensible stop for someone trying to sell an ancient and mysterious item.

  Talis instinctively checked for the pouch she wore over her heart. Confirmed that it hadn’t been dislodged in all her crawling.

  She inhaled, opening her mouth to speak, but Zeela inclined her head in a barely perceptible tilt toward a customer at the counter who had yet to complete her purchase.

  Understanding the warning, Talis closed her mouth again. As the young clerk who had helped her out of the crawlspace picked cobwebs and insulation out of her hair and off her shirtsleeves, Talis scanned Zeela’s showroom.

  The shop had no widespread lighting. Scented candles were lit, casting their minimal illumination across the narrow space—just enough to keep a sighted person from bumping into anything. The candles were more for atmosphere and communication, however, than for lighting. Talis inhaled deeply. Lavender and sage. Relaxing, calming. If she remembered correctly, that scent signaled to customers that a fresh delivery of healing herbs had arrived. As the scented air hit her sinuses, warmth spread through her upper body. The panic melted from around her heart.

  Banks of tiny drawers lined the shop’s walls, in black lacquered cabinets carved with unique Vein language marker code. It wasn’t the mathematical and systematic marks of their written alphabet, but more arcane symbols, able to communicate an elaborate idea with a single character carved into the drawer and painted over in black. Only the shopkeepers would understand what each drawer held.

  The parquet floor swirled with more elaborate patterns, formed from veneers of wood in varying thicknesses, giving both sighted and unsighted customers a level of craftwork to enjoy. Not enough to trip over, but enough to feel through the sole of a thin leather slipper.