by Chad Huskins
As if we never existed.
“If this is your decision, Sia,” Halorax said, “then we must get moving.”
“I expect to be paid—” Fritt began.
“I told you you would be paid once you delivered Drea Kalder to her destination. There’s a new destination now, Fritt.”
“You expect me to deliver her to the Syphenus?”
“We all will,” Thryis said, putting an arm around Drea. “We’ll all go with her. And the sooner the better.”
Fritt raised an eyebrow. “You still want to go with her, knowing that the Syphenus may kill her on the spot, as well as any family or friends associated with her?”
“Drea Kalder does not face death without Thryis Ardenk,” she said, squeezing Drea’s hand. “Every fool knows this.”
: Avenue of Gods :
The nip of autumn was in the air. The city’s birds had fled to their seasonal shelters—the sparrows to their eaves, the pigeons to their cotes. Except for the leaves being pushed through the streets by a solemn wind, the lanes were empty.
The city had never seemed so dead.
They rode atop horses that Fritt had provided. Drea and Thryis rode together. The four of them went slowly through the chilly streets, each one more hauntingly quiet than the last. While some people had hurried from their homes upon hearing the news of Fedarus’s death, most seemed to have retreated inside, shuttering their windows as if to deny the evil news.
Some homes, Drea saw, had gone so far as to scrawl the Black Four on their doors, as a ward against evil.
Fritt led them through a narrow, cobblestoned alley leading to the Street of Steel, where armorsmiths and swordsmiths made their living by day, singing and hammering away on their anvils. None were out this morning. The street was as silent as a tomb.
Also silent, the main warehouse district of the Steamwright Collegium. That was the name of the vast company that had first brought steam-powered engineering to Drith, and the principal authors of all modern slavery laws.
It was strange not to hear the slaves hard at work inside the Collegium’s warehouses. Such was the upset caused by the Imperator’s death, no one could bring themselves to fulfill a normal workday.
“The whole city has become afraid,” Thryis muttered. “It’s as if they fear that, with Fedarus killed, they’re all next.”
Fritt led them down Helecia’s Causeway, then through the broad streets of the Fair Bazaar, where small-time trade was conducted. But for a blind beggar shuffling across one lane, these streets were also empty.
Drea thought she spotted the eyes of a few homeless, but even they kept to their alleyways, staying away from the sounds of Lictors and their whistles. Fedarus was dead; the People’s Favored, the Imperator of Drith, the Beloved One, dead at the hands of traitors. The Lictors, entrusted with keeping peace in the streets, would soon be out in full force making sure no looting took place.
Everywhere they went, they saw the same scene. Messengers in brown tunics and gold capes screaming “Fedarus is dead!” and blowing their whistles so that all made sure to heed.
Drea followed close on Fritt’s tail, stopping when he stopped, listening when he listened. She glanced regularly over her shoulder at Thryis for encouragement. Once, they came to a halt at the center of a small gallery, and Fritt just spun his horse around slowly, looking about.
“Why have we stopped?” Drea whispered, as if the stone houses all around them had ears. Perhaps they do, she thought. The spies of House Syphen were said to be everywhere. And as Halorax had said, some of the Syphenus were said to be fell-sorcerers. No one spoke about it publicly, of course, for that wouldn’t be proper.
“Why are we stopped?” Thryis said, echoing Drea.
“Listen,” Fritt said, raising a hand.
Drea was about to ask what they were meant to be listening for when she heard it. A distant rumble, a crowd of people shouting, the sound of glass breaking, a painful scream.
“A riot?” Drea said. She had seen enough slave uprisings in her lifetime to know what a rabble sounded like rioting.
“Sounds like it’s coming from the East Brook,” said Thryis.
The city of Drith was split into four parts by a river, known simply as the Split River. The largest of the brooks was on the east side, near Lower City. And Lower City was filled with rookeries, the slums where the poor huddled together with thieves, killers, and runaway slaves.
Fritt nodded. “If anyone would riot first, it would be those in the rookeries. This way. Follow me.”
They obeyed without question, following him through a series of winding alleys, until they emerged onto the Avenue of Coopers, a road mostly dedicated to the building of casks, trunks, and other such furnishings. Here, too, the world had gone quiet. Drea saw a pair of dogs chasing after a cat, but otherwise there was no sign of life.
Then, they heard the approach of heavy feet. And whistles.
“Quickly! Hide!” Fritt said. He jerked the reins of his horse to aim it into a nearby alley. When the girls and Halorax joined him there, they were just in time to watch a cadre of Rain Guards rush by.
Whereas Lictors were city constables garbed only in light brown leather and carrying shortswords and shortpistols, Rain Guards were the Protectors of the City, meant to defend Drith against any foreign invaders. They were garbed in heavy steel armor and cerulean-blue cloaks, and armed with the finest longpistols.
“Why do we hide?” Drea whispered once the Rain Guards were gone. “If I’m going to turn myself in anyway, why don’t we just go to them?”
Fritt looked at her like she was the stupidest person he’d ever encountered. “Girl, we want your surrender to appear genuine, don’t we?”
“Yes. And so? What does it matter if—”
“If a group of Lictors or Rain Guards happens upon you, they’ll arrest you on sight,” he said. “And you won’t even have the leverage of honesty and forthrightness with Lord Syphen. He’ll have every reason to think you were running away and just happened to get caught. Your admission of surrender will be most weak if that happens. Your coming to him must be in the form of respect and submission, not capture and guilt.”
They traveled up the Stairs of Arakus, which the loremasters claimed were older than the city of Drith itself, and had been built to commemorate the battle between Arakus the Serpent and the city’s founder, Driythe.
At noon, they finally reached the Avenue of Gods, which was dominated by the statues of all the Major Gods. There was Loraci, who loomed high over the road and pointed an accusatory finger down at all who passed beneath her. There was Yanuus, the god of smiths and industry, who held a hammer in one hand and an auger in the other. And there was, of course, Mezu, the All-God, who had created the world from nothing and breathed fire into the sun.
And there were lines of Drith flags up and down the lane, all rippling in the gentlest of breezes. The emblem was that of a hand raising a single bloody sword to the sun—the symbol of Drith’s prosperity through the riches it gained through its onging legacy of conquering other nations.
The Avenue of Gods also held the lavish homes of countless nobles of Drith. The home of Phaedos Syphen was the most opulent of them all. The steps leading up to it were made of marble, and the pillars that lifted the atrium ceiling were carved with depictions of past wars and heroes.
The large iron door to the house made an imposing sight. It was engraved with House Syphen’s coat of arms—a White Boar that represented their tenacity. Below the White Boar were a pair of crisscrossing spears, as well as the words of House Syphen: We never shall perish.
Fritt stood to one side and allowed Drea a moment to gather her courage. Thryis and Halorax looked at her, waiting to see if she might knock. This was her choice, after all. Her action, not theirs.
At last she summoned suitable willpower, and approached the door. Drea raised the knocker. It was heavy and made of iron, and she thumped it twice.
A long silence passed, during which they li
stened to another riot break out a few streets behind them.
Thryis whispered, “I hope the city doesn’t burn. The gods know we cannot afford another terrible fire.”
Drea knew what she meant. Drith had only just recovered from the devastating fires from two years before, which had been started during the fiery lightning of a fellstorm. Almost half of Lower City had been engulfed in flames, and many apartments of Upper City had been lost, too.
At the door, a peephole opened, and a single eye glared at them. “Who is it?”
“It’s…” Drea’s voice caught, and she cleared her throat and started over. “I’m Drea Kalder, and I’ve come to turn myself over to the mercy of the Senate, who calls for my head.”
The eyes winced, then looked at her critically. The peephole shut quickly.
Another period of silence, but this one was shorter.
Then, they heard the iron door click. They stepped back and listened as it moaned and whined. Steam shot out of the pipes that lined the wall beside it, and the cogs outside the wall clicked and scraped as the door slowly opened.
Drea stepped back as four men exited quickly through the door with their swords drawn. These were neither Lictors nor Rain Guards, these were the personal guards of House Syphen, hired by a guild of security officers. They wore only thin leather armor and had no helmets.
As soon as the door had opened, Drea had dropped to her knees in the universal gesture of surrender. Her friends followed suit. Thryis knelt beside her, and reached out to grab Drea’s hand to give it a reassuring squeeze.
Now one of the guards put the tip of his blade under her chin and said, “Rise. Now.”
They all did as bidden, and Drea kept her eyes downcast. Also a universal sign of surrender. But when one of them snatched her by the elbow and yanked her through the door, Thryis stepped forward and slapped the guard’s hand away. “Now, see here—”
The guard spun and put the edge of his blade to Thryis’s throat.
“Thryis, don’t—” Drea began.
The blade had stopped Thryis from stepping forward, but it did nothing to stop her mouth. There were few forces that could, in Drea’s experience.
“This young woman is the last of one of the Four Patron Families, those that built this city!” Thryis said, launching right into her tirade. “She is a Lady of Drith, and she has come to you in formal surrender, and so far she’s been proven guilty of nothing at all. You’ll give her all the formal respects and pay all manners due her station.”
“Her station, girl,” the guard growled, “is that of a traitor and conspirator, and that places her no higher than the cockroach I scraped beneath my heel just this morning.”
“As I said, she’s not been tried or convicted—”
“You women of the Major Houses, you’re all the same. You don’t know when to keep your mouths shut. All you know is how to comb your hairs with combs made of jade, and play with dolls bought by your fathers’ hard work.”
Thryis stepped closer to him, pressing her neck harder against his blade until it brought a trickle of blood. She began to say something when Drea intervened.
“Thryis luv, it’s all right.” She gave Thryis’s hand a squeeze. “It’s all right.”
Often this was the case, where Drea had to protect Thryis from harm brought on by her mouth, even as Thryis used her mouth to protect Drea.
“Drea,” said Thryis, the blade still at her throat. “I’m afraid I might’ve been wrong to suggest we come here. I’m sorry, I thought we would find sensible men, but now I look into their eyes and I see naught but malice and contempt. I do not see sensible men willing to listen. I see asps. Poisonous vipers. And they look at us now with utmost suspicion.”
Drea was about to respond with more mollifying speech when suddenly a low, powerful voice came from the doorway, and everyone turned to recognize the speaker. “Let it not be said that House Syphen is filled with asps, nor with insensible men.”
In the doorway, Phaedos Syphen emerged. Tall and lean, and with arms more fit than one might expect of a man in his advanced age, the patriarch of House Syphen cut an imposing figure. Except for his head, which was bald and egg-shaped, with tufts of white hair around his ears, his body was deceptively young. He also wore the red-and-white toga of a senator. To prove his refinement, he carried the extra folds of his toga in his left hand, and from his neck swung pendulously an amulet that flashed the darklight of a stygian bluestone.
Stygian stones were the most sought-after stones in all the world, for their rarity and beauty were both unmatched. The price of just one could feed an entire family in Lower City for a year.
Drea bowed, and when she did, she saw that Lord Syphen had the most well-threaded sandals she’d ever seen, with perfect leather laces and golden buckles. Those had not been purchased on the Streets of Cordwainers, surely, but in some exotic locale far from Drith.
And on those sandals, around his toes and ankles, Drea saw dark red stains. Fresh blood. The blood of Fedarus, she thought, horrified. Gods above and below, the man is fresh from murdering the ruler of all of Drith, and appears so stoic here at his door with the Imperator’s blood still on him.
“And what’s this?” Lord Syphen asked. “Drea Kalder come to see me?”
“I’ve come to surrender to the Senate, my lord,” Drea said humbly. “And you are one of its chief representatives.”
“Oh? Surrender?” His dark eyes looked from Drea to Thryis, then from Thryis to Halorax, and finally over to Fritt. His was an eye most critical, hawk-like, and predatory.
Drea felt like a field mouse looking into a cat’s eyes.
“Tell me, what have these people been putting into your mind? I can only guess that someone put something in your mind, after all, since you are here at my doorstep in such submission. That, or you have a guilty conscience.”
“My conscience is clean, Lord Syphen.”
“Then you have nothing to fear by stepping into my parlour. Come, Drea Kalder. Let us speak alone.” He stood to one side and waved her into the door.
“Do…do I have to?” Drea hesitated, and looked back at her friends. “Um…that is, do I have to come alone?”
Syphen smiled, and it was rather pleasant. Drea’s instincts told her to mistrust it immediately.
“What is it you think will happen if you come inside alone?” he asked.
“Nothing. That is…I’m not sure. But…well, forgive me, Lord Syphen, but I am young and sometimes foolish.” Drea decided on this tactic—she would admit to stupidity, to being a downright witless creature, for this ploy had a twofold advantage. Firstly, it showed she had no ego, and that she recognized Syphen’s higher station, which would help to engender goodwill. And secondly, if Drea was perceived as being witless, she couldn’t very well be effective in a conspiracy of her father’s, now could she?
“So,” Syphen said, “being young and foolish means you cannot speak to a man in private?”
“My mother taught me that, if I am to be so witless, I should at least foster one skill, and master it to its completeness.”
“And what skill have you mastered?”
“That of recognizing others around me who are truly friends, and who are smarter and have only my best interests in mind.”
“She means me,” Thryis said, raising a hand to finally push the blade away from her neck. “I wouldn’t have it! Drea Kalder going somewhere without me, to discuss matters of her own well-being? The very notion of it! The poor girl barely understands the concept of astrology, she has no rhythm in dance, and she’s utterly hopeless at sewing. She cannot even be trusted with coins, for her arithmetic is abysmal. There’s not much to recommend her, and even less she can do competently without my guidance.”
All untrue, of course—yet, with a grain of truth in each lie. It was true that Drea was a poor seamstress, and an even poorer astrologer. Many of the feminine arts eluded her, no matter how hard she had concentrated on the lessons with her mother.
; But Drea knew why Thryis had attempted the deception, and she watched Lord Syphen carefully to see how thoroughly it was achieved.
After a moment of considering the silly blonde girl, Lord Syphen chuckled lightly. “So, it is true what I’ve heard. That Drea Kalder’s best friend in life is also her lawyer.”
“I do not take the two burdens lightly, but yes, that is me,” Thryis said. “It was the gods’ will that we met fortuitously one evening in the Forum, and ever since then I have endeavored to rescue her from herself. I’ve listened to what the priests and augurs have had to say on the matter of the gods testing us with certain trials, and I believe that Drea Kalder is my burden to bear for the remainder of both our lives.”
A long silence passed between them. Somewhere far away, they could hear another riot breaking out, and the whistles of Lictors as they chased down looters, brawlers, and vandals.
“You’ll both make for fascinating entries into my journal today,” said Syphen, after giving them all another look of appraisal. “And that says something, considering all that’s transpired today.”
You mean how you and twelve other senators surrounded Imperator Fedarus inside the Senate and murdered him, Drea thought, but didn’t dare say. The very thought made her livid. Drea hadn’t known Fedarus very well—she’d only met him a few times—but the act of these “Thirteen Heroes” that killed him…it seemed cowardly.
“Very well,” Syphen said. “Step inside. But just you two. I will speak with you, Drea Kalder, and I will entertain your better half here, as well. But these two? They must remain under guard. Depending on how our talks go, I will decide whether or not to summon the Lictors.”
Drea swallowed. “Thank you, Lord Syphen,” she said, and followed him warily inside. All the while, she was thinking, Have I just sealed my own fate? Have I walked willingly to my death?
The doors shut behind her with a metallic squeal and a hiss.
