by Lynn Abbey
A spare candle came to hand. Wrapped in the cloth and laid carefully in the cache, Dace told himself it would pass casual muster. He patted the wand for luck and, with his heart pounding in his throat, slipped out of the room. Bump, rap, twist, and the lock was set.
No one had seen him come or go, he hoped. No one suspected that he was carrying ancient treasure above his belt, he hoped. No suspicion would fall on him when—as would inevitably happen—Perrez realized his fortune had gone missing.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered to the lock.
Jopze and Ammen were deep in a game of draughts. They didn’t notice Dace until he was in the shop and, as neither Bezul nor Chersey were behind the counter at that particular moment, neither of them suspected he had come from Perrez’s room. He thought about taking the wand up to his room, but that would only add complications when it came time to take it to Makker—for that matter, Dace had considered taking the wand straight to Makker, but it was time to put the kettle on for supper.
Chersey surprised him in the kitchen while he chopped second-rate greens. She said he looked peaked and wanted to send him upstairs to rest. Dace could scarcely meet her eyes; she was so concerned and so wrong about what was on his mind. She would likely have given him three shaboozh, if he could have borne the shame of telling her why he needed them.
But he couldn’t bear it and he insisted on fixing supper—his last supper. Careful as he’d been in Perrez’s room, Dace didn’t believe he was going to get away with robbery. The dragon’s claws and teeth scratched against his belly. The tight belt kept his secret, but not for long.
Dace burned the soup and nearly spilled it all when his shirt hem caught on the kettle’s handles. The wand was a few threads from catastrophe, but somehow it didn’t fall out and Dace got himself put back together. He excused himself as soon as the dishes were scraped.
“I’m going to the Frog,” he told them all, Chersey, Bezul, Gedozia, and Perrez together.
“That girl again.” Chersey rolled her eyes.
It wasn’t right for Chersey to blame Geddie for every wrong thing, but she didn’t know about opah or Perrez’s black wand, so tonight, Dace let the insults slide. He escaped into the amber light of a summer sunset.
So froggin’ far, so froggin’ good. Perrez didn’t yet know his precious wand was missing. There’d be hell to pay when he discovered the robbery, but maybe—just maybe—he’d blame someone else. I’d be a fool to run off to the swamp. Run off, and they’ll know it was me. Stick around, swear I did nothing, and—who knows—maybe I’ll get through this … .
Chersey emptied a basin of dirty water into the sump. Bezul was in the back figuring the day’s accounts, Gedozia had taken the children for a walk, and Perrez was skulking in the kitchen. She ignored her brother-in-law. It was usually the best way to avoid his pleas for money and, usually, he got the hint.
Tonight was different. He hadn’t asked for money; that was a big difference. He hadn’t said much of anything at all until she’d wrestled the basin into its home beneath the sideboard.
“Chersey,” he said now that her chores were finished. “I need to talk to you.”
She dried her hands and sat on a stool. “About what?”
“Dace. I’m worried about him. Maybe you haven’t noticed, but he’s changed in the last few weeks—”
“He’s fallen in love with that girl above the Frog and Bucket—or he thinks he has.”
Perrez shook his head. Suddenly he looked older, soberer than she remembered seeing him. “It’s not women. I think it’s opah.”
“Opah? That’s what—? Some new plague come down from Caronne?”
“In a way. They make it from krrf and the best krrf—the strongest—comes from Caronne. But I’ve heard they make it right here, in the villages outside the city. Last week, Dace offered to sell me some. He’d gotten it from Makker … at the Frog:’
Everyone who lived on Wriggle Way knew Maksandrus, and stayed out of his way. Every few months he or one of his cronies showed up at the changing house, hoping to trade the fruits of his labors. Those were the days when Ammen and Jopze earned their keep. Chersey hadn’t made the connection between Dace, the girl, and Makker. Guilt rose within her.
“Let me get Bezul.”
“I didn’t want to bother him.”
“It’s no bother. Bez needs to hear this.”
She fetched her husband and together they listened to Perrez’s account of a conversation he’d had with Dace the day before he’d gotten battered on his way home from the market.
“If you ask me, he got caught selling the stuff—and not by the guard. He’s in over his head.”
“Why tell us now?’ Bezul demanded. “We needed to know last week.”
“I thought he’d come to me and we could work it out together without involving you!”
“And now you don’t. What’s come up?”
Perrez writhed his shoulders. “He’s hiding something. He’s done something—it was all over his face at supper. I know that look, Bez—you know I know it. You’ve got to talk the truth out of him.”
“I can’t very well now, can I?” Bezul’s voice rose. The only time he ever yelled was when Perrez got under his skin. “He’s gone off for the evening. Gone to the Frog … or do you expect me to walk over there and haul him out by the shirtsleeves?”
In the moments before Perrez framed an answer, they all heard the sounds of footsteps and laughter: Gedozia bringing the children back. Chersey caught Perrez’s eye, enjoining him to silence.
Perrez obeyed by flinging himself out of his chair and marching out the kitchen door a half step before the children rushed in.
Makker’s thick fingers stroked the shaft of the dragon wand. Dace himself hadn’t held the wand long enough to know if the shaft was wood or stone. He’d laid it on the table as though it were a thing on fire.
“You did well, Dace. I admit, I wasn’t sure you’d come back—froggin’ bad cess for you, if you hadn’t. I wouldn’t have wanted to break your good leg.”
Dace wasn’t sure how to respond. A nod seemed the best course: a nod, a smile, and a fervent hope that he could leave soon.
“I’ve got an idea,” Makker said, smiling in a way that dashed all Dace’s hopes. “There’s a man who wanted this thing—a man I think you should meet Walk with me to the Maze. You can make it that far?”
He should have said no, but a lifetime of denying his deformity set his head bobbing.
Makker’s bodyguards flanked them: Kiff and the other one whose name was Benbir and wore five knives on a baldric across his barrel chest. Dace had never felt so safe—or terrified—as he felt with these three men matching his gimpy stride.
Though Dace had never ventured into the Maze, he knew the names of its more infamous taverns and brothels. There was no mistaking the Vulgar Unicorn, not with its signboard hanging brazen in the twilight.
The tavern stank of stale wine, spilled beer, and charred sausage. The long tables in the middle of the commons—the “cheap seats” Kiff called them—were dotted with men and a few women, all of whom went back to looking at their drinks as soon as they’d taken Makker’s measure. There were fewer folk at the smaller tables along the shadowy sides of the room. One of them was a lopsided man—Dace assumed it was a man—with hair on one side of his head, but not the other, and a tongue that lolled out the corner of his mouth. He had a huge hump where his right shoulder should have been and lurched violently as he walked. His arms looked long enough to drag on the floor.
Dace had never seen anyone more crippled than himself and, despite all the cruel stares he’d endured, couldn’t take his eyes off the scuttling fellow.
“That one’s got a friend,” Makker said softly. “We leave him alone, and he does the same for us. Come along now.”
Kiff led the way up a flight of stairs to a corridor of shut doors. He paused on the hinge side of a door no different than the rest. Benbir took a similar position on the latch side. Makke
r knocked once and a man’s voice called Makker by name. Makker gave Dace a shove and, leaving Kiff and Benbir behind, they entered.
A ceiling lamp provided the room’s only light. Its flame cast long shadows over a seated man’s face, making it difficult to fix his features. He was a small man—small, at least, compared to Makker, Kiff, and Benbir—but there was no doubt in Dace’s mind that he was in the presence of a powerful man. The stranger’s head was bald and shiny, his fingers, long and menacing Even Makker drew a deep breath before saying—
“He got it.”
“You wouldn’t be here otherwise,” the seated man said with what was both a Wrigglie accent and something more refined. “I’ll take it now.”
He extended that elegant hand and Makker gave away the wand as fast as Dace had given it to Makker.
“A beautiful thing. Yenizedi. A thousand years old; and still charged. You’ve done well, Makker, you and your friend. Introduce me to our thief.”
Makker motioned Dace forward. “Dace, from the Swamp of Night Secrets. Lord Night.”
Dace stepped into the cone of lamplight. He extended his hand; the gesture was not returned. He couldn’t see Lord Night’s—that had to be a made-up name—eyes but knew he was under close scrutiny and was determined not to blink or quiver.
“You’re an insolent lad, for one with but a single leg to stand on.”
Dace’s breath caught in his throat—not for the insult. He could bear any words, but the word itself was an unusual one. Truth to tell, he didn’t know what “insolent” meant, except he’d heard a similar word, in a very similar accent, in a very different place: the Processional when a nabob wearing a false beard had ordered him aside. Lord Night was clean-shaven; that only strengthened the connection.
“Lord Noordiseh,” Dace muttered, unaware that his tongue had shaped the words aloud. “Perrez turned to you.” Dace’s eyes fastened on the object in the nabob’s hands. “He told you about the wand. He trusted you—”
A gasp echoed through the room. Dace couldn’t say from whose throat it had emerged. Lord Night, who was also Lord Noordiseh, had raised his head and Dace couldn’t break the stare of the man whose eyes he could not see.
Oh, Thufir, save me! Dace prayed, but his silence and his prayer came too late. The amber drop at one end of the wand was glowing and a thin wisp of smoke rose from the golden dragon’s head.
The smoke first thickened, then divided itself, becoming two airborne serpents with shimmering amber eyes. Makker made a break for the door, but Dace couldn’t move to save himself or try. His serpent flew closer, coiled, and raised itself in easy striking distance. Its maw opened: amber, like its eyes.
Oh, Thufir—Dace prayed.
He could not even shut his eyes as the fangs fell. There was no pain, so perhaps Thufir had intervened at the last. The room dimmed and Dace felt as though he were falling from a very great height as he heard a woman’s voice say, in Wrigglie—
“Well done, my lord. Your secret is safe with these two—”
Perrez, paced the kitchen, full of anger and self-pity, as only he could mix them. “It was worth a fortune. A frackin’ froggin’ fortune. It was going to set me up. I had a deal with Lord Shuman Noordiseh. He was going to sell it to one of King Sepheris’s court magicians. I’d sworn him a quarter share, but I swear, the gold alone was worth a hundred royals.”
“Maybe Lord Noordiseh wasn’t satisfied with a quarter share. Maybe Lord Noordiseh stole it,” Bezul suggested with the bitterness he reserved for his younger brother.
Chersey wanted to give them both a hearty shake, but until Dace came home to settle the matter the only thing shaking was her nerves. He’d been gone all night. Dace had never stayed out all night, and for him to disappear at the same time as Perrez’s Yenizedi rod. If such a rod had truly been in Perrez’s possession … Well, it was suspicious.
Ammen and Jopze were out on the streets, working their connections, hoping someone had seen Dace. Sweet Shipri, with that limp and crutch, he was easy to notice, hard to forget
“I never trusted him,” Perrez insisted. “He’d stare right at you like he was staring through you, like he was planning something. Planning to rob me blind!”
“You encouraged him,” Bezul sneered. “Showing him the rod, using him as your message boy. He idolized you—the gods only know why—”
Chersey retreated to the shop. The door was barred because none of them was in the mood for business. She was counting padpols for no good reason when she heard a knock.
“Chersey, Bezul—let me in!”
Chersey recognized the voice: Geddie—the scrawny girl from the Frog and Bucket, the very last person she wanted to see.
“We’re closed.”
“I got to talk to you—it’s about Dace.”
Chersey hurried to the door. As she opened it she saw the crutch—Dace’s crutch—in Geddie’s hand.
“Sweet Shipri—”
“Can I come in?”
Chersey retreated. “Bezul! Perrez!” She’d meant to shout their names, but there were tight bands across her breasts. “Where did you get that?” she asked Geddie. “What happened?”
Footsteps signaled that Bezul and Perrez had heard her. Chersey was transfixed by the crutch; she couldn’t turn to see her husband.
“Don’t know,” Geddie answered.
The girl’s discomfort was palpable and, to Chersey’s eye, not from grief. “How did you get his crutch? Dace wouldn’t go anywhere without his crutch!”
“He—he—I don’t know. He was where he shouldn’t’ve been and—and—he’s gone! That’s all.”
The world spun, taking Chersey’s balance with it. She would have fallen if Bezul hadn’t caught her. Somehow he supported her and took the crutch from the girl’s hand.
“Gone? Gone where?” Bez demanded. “Back to the swamp? Were you with him? Do you know who did it?”
Geddie shook her head and ran from the shop. Perrez started after her. Bezul barred his path with the crutch.
“Leave it. Whatever’s happened, it’s out of our hands. You were right; Dace was over his head.”
“My rod!”
“Wasn’t your rod.”
“He stole it from me and that girl knows—”
“Stop it!” Chersey screamed. “Stop it, both of you! He’s gone. Gone! Dead.”
The last word tore her throat and stole her strength. They couldn’t be sure, of course. They’d never be sure, but they’d all survived the Troubles. They all knew what gone meant.
Chersey clung to Bezul for support. He rubbed her back and stroked her hair like a little girl’s.
“There, there. It’s not your fault. We did everything we could.”
Guilt muted Chersey’s voice, she could do no more than shake her head while she sobbed.
A week passed. The sea went glassy and there wasn’t a breeze to be had in the whole city. Old-timers squinted at the clouds lined up on the horizon and checked the latches on their storm shutters. At the changing house, Bezul asked for help battening down the stock. Perrez heard the call and made himself scarce. He wasn’t one for hard labor or sympathy.
The way Chersey mourned, anyone would think Dace was flesh and blood instead of a thief. There wasn’t a doubt in Perrez’s mind that the Nighter had stolen the shipwreck rod. Perrez hadn’t imagined the boy had enough cunning for thievery. Frog all, if he had imagined it, he’d never have shown Dace the wand, much less the cache where he kept it.
Frog all.
The day after the theft—the day after the frogging boy vanished—Perrez had made a personal visit to Lord Noordiseh’s Processional mansion to confess the bad news. Lord Noordiseh had taken it well, and why not? His future and fortune wasn’t riding on the sale of a Yenizedi rod.
Damn the Nighter and damn the world … Every frogging time Perrez got something put together to get himself lifted off Wriggle Way, something else came along to ruin his dreams. Something named Dace.
And something
called opah.
It wasn’t Perrez’s way to blame himself when there were more worthy targets to hand, but he wished he’d handled that conversation with Dace differently. He’d guessed the boy was tangled in the opah trade. Perrez even had a fair idea what had happened: The Nighter had gotten himself in debt—probably to Maksandrus over at the Frog and Bucket—and Makker had put Dace up to the theft.
Perrez could have told Dace that Makker never settled for less than blood. Even money, Makker had killed the Nighter soon as he had the Yenizedi rod in hand.
“What a fracking, frogging waste,” Perrez muttered as he strode along Fishermen’s Row.
He could have bought the damn rags. The rod would have made him rich, but Perrez was not poor without it, not so poor he couldn’t have bought nine opah rags. He could have thrown stronger warnings across Dace’s bows, but he’d been the recipient of strong warnings all his life and knew exactly how the boy would have received them. He’d thought that disdain would be enough: Respectable folk knew better than to rot their tongues with opah …
Perrez came to the dock where he’d first met Dace, almost a year ago, when the boy had ventured across the White Foal to sell some cheap jewelry he’d dug out of the swamp ruins. A few gulls bobbed in the water, otherwise the dock was quiet, unoccupied, unobserved.
Perrez stared at the birds until they took flight, then he dug into his trousers and pulled out a wad of cloth. It was another waste, another fracking, frogging waste, but Perrez reckoned that he owed the boy something and slowly, scrap by scrap, he cast his opah rags into the water.
Gathering Strength
Selina Rosen
Kaytin feigned sleep as he heard Kadasah slamming around the hovel she called home. She made not even the hint of an attempt to move more silently in order to keep from waking him up.
And he so desperately needed to sleep. He had chased the accursed woman until she caught him, and now … Well, she was trying to use his manhood completely and totally up.
