The Barbed Coil

by J. V. Jones

  Tessa felt like an interloper. Prying, reading, searching, then discarding, she rifled through everything within reach. She couldn’t stop herself. She knew it was wrong, yet the sight of one more folded document, or a faded report card, or a last will and testament, was enough to send her into a frenzy of wanting to know.

  These were her people now. She knew their legal status, their financial standing, their college grades, and their secrets.

  Hours passed. The sun sent shadows circling around the glade. Tessa was blind to everything except the latest fragment in hand. By turns she was a detective hunting for clues and then a child scrambling for prizes. One married couple had their own separate boxes: The man had kept all his wife’s love letters tied together with a satin bow. The wife kept Polaroids of herself nude with another man.

  Almost in a trance, Tessa knelt forward and reached for the last pile. Fat with envelopes, legal pads, greeting cards, and computer printouts, it looked much the same as the others. Tessa had only one rule: If an envelope was sealed, she wouldn’t open it. She knew it was a hypocrite’s law but kept to it all the same. If someone wanted to keep something so secret that locking it away wasn’t nearly enough, she felt bound to honor their wishes.

  The robbers had opened most envelopes anyway. Certainly the larger ones that may have contained jewelry or cash had been torn apart, their contents thickened by shuffling hands, their once gummed flaps now paper curls on the breeze.

  Take this last pile: almost everything had been opened and searched. Tessa sorted through the various envelopes. A company sales report, an adoption certificate and all the attending legal papers, a collection of fishing flies taped to bright yellow cards, and a series of old girlie magazines featuring fifties starlets in swimsuits and ostrich feathers. It was funny what people considered valuable.

  In the whole lot there was only one envelope that did not appear to be opened. A long manila envelope that had somehow got wedged between the fishing fly cards and the adoption papers. Instinctively Tessa knew it belonged to neither pile. The envelope was too frail, too delicately colored, to fit in with the rest of the papers.

  Glancing around, she checked the boxes nearest to where the pile had been. It was impossible to tell which document had come from which box.

  Turning back to the envelope, Tessa spotted a thumbprint smudged upon the top right-hand corner—just where a stamp would be. She knew the mark well by now. She had seen it before on Lilly Rhodes’ newspaper clippings and the Sanchez family portraits. It was the mark of a thief. The man who had pried open these boxes and sifted through their contents like a prospector panning for gold had picked up traces of ink along the way. His fingers bore the vestiges of all the documents he had touched. Greed-driven sweat had ensured the ink was stamped from deed to deed.

  Tessa’s own hands were cool and dry.

  As she flipped over the letter, a gust of wind cut across the glade. The flap of the envelope lifted up from the gummed line. Something small shifted in Tessa’s chest. The letter had been opened. The flap was merely resting against the seal.

  Grasping the envelope by its top corner, she shook it open. Nothing fell out. Disappointed, she pried her fingers into the slit and looked inside. The shaded manila interior revealed no contents to the eye.

  Something wasn’t right. Tessa weighed the envelope in her palm: the subtlest of pressures was weighing down the bottom corner.

  Excitement fluttered from Tessa’s chest to her stomach. Grasping the envelope in both hands, she tore it in two. The paper ripped with an oddly musical sound, like the skitter of beads in a jar. Discarding the top part with the flap and the seal, Tessa turned to the bottom half and pulled it open. The late afternoon sun thinned to a buttery line and shone straight down upon the dark inner folds.

  First glance revealed the usual creases and lines. Second glance revealed that the main fold running down the center of the envelope was oddly distended. Something was jammed behind it.

  Tessa’s heart was beating fast now. She tore the envelope a second time—right down the center. A spark of golden light flashed in the air, and then something very small yet heavy landed in her lap.

  It was a ring. A golden ring made up of thread upon thread of precious metal, wound in an intricate design. Trapped behind the seams of the envelope, it had gone unnoticed by the thieves.

  Tessa picked it up. Closer inspection revealed the threads had thorns. The ring was a miniature coil of barbed wire. As tangled as a pit of smoke-drowsed snakes, the gold didn’t reflect light, it sprayed it. Tessa blinked three times in quick succession: it was difficult to focus too long upon the design. When a chill draft blew east across the glade, Tessa was braced and ready. For some reason she had been expecting it.

  There was something here, something locked within the coils of the ring, and if she could only stop blinking and concentrate for a while, she would surely uncover it.

  A faint buzz sounded in her ears. Unlike earlier, when the noise was high and jarring, this time it was a mellow rush: a seashell held to her ear.

  Tessa turned the ring in her hand. The gold writhed in circles with neither beginning nor end. It was ancient—that much she knew—but the period and style eluded her. The basic design had a Middle Eastern feel, yet the interlacing of the threads was almost Celtic. The goldwork itself was so exquisitely wrought, it could only have been created by a master craftsman.

  Tessa wondered how it would look on her hand. She wondered if it would fit her.

  With the sound of a distant sea sifting softly through her ears, and the last shaving of sunlight slicing light from the glade, Tessa chose to put on the ring. In the fifth hour past noon, on the fifth day of the month, in the fifth month of the year, Tessa McCamfrey opened her fingers wide and slipped on the golden band.

  She didn’t feel the barbs until the moment the ring was in place. The gold slid upon her hand like a cool-fingered caress. Down it went over knuckle and nail to the broad base of the joint. Only then did it show its teeth. Tessa felt a tiny pinprick near the back of her finger. Then another, then another, then another after that. Within seconds her finger was circled by a ring of biting thorns. Somehow the barbs on the outside had turned in.

  The pain was like nothing she had felt before. It was shocking, like warm feet on cold tile, or hands thrust under a scalding tap, but there was something more as well. She was reminded of medieval texts that spoke of exquisite, enlightening pain. She felt breathless, exhilarated, close to the core. She felt the old world moving away.

  The sound of the sea grew louder, the light wavered once, then died. Blood formed a lacework upon pumice-pale flesh, as five golden barbs etched their secrets upon the bone.

  Ravis couldn’t understand why he’d missed his ship to Mizerico. He was not a man to overstay his welcome. And he never needed much sleep. Why, then, had he overslept, waking a full two hours past the crack of dawn? And, more important, why had Clover’s Fourth seen fit to sail without him? Biting down on the scarred flesh of his lip, Ravis switched his gaze from the empty dock out to sea. He had to leave this city today.

  After a moment scanning the sparkling blue water of the Bay of Plenty, Ravis spied a dark thumbprint about to disappear over the horizon. Clover’s Fourth. It was the last he would ever see of his ship.

  “Aye, my lord Ravis,” said a dockhand, breaking into his thoughts, “they must have thought you were already aboard. ’Tis an easy mistake to make.”

  Two things struck Ravis about the man. First, if the ship had sailed an hour ago, why was he still on the dock? And second, how did he come to know the name Ravis? Raising his teeth from his scar, Ravis forced himself to speak calmly. “Did you happen to see the good captain this morning?”

  The dockhand beamed, his teeth offering an eye-catching collection of texture, color, and gaps. “Aye, that I did, my lord. But you know Captain Crivit—never one to speak with the likes of me.”

  Ravis did know Crivit, and although he would indeed prefer
not to speak with the likes of the man before him, he wasn’t above paying for their silence. The dockhand smelled of fine berriac and the mountain-pressed, oak-aged liqueur sold in the dockside taverns for ten pieces a glass. The dockhand would be lucky if he earned half of that in a week.

  Ravis took a coin from his scored-leather tunic, looked at it, then tossed it into the sea. The silver piece flashed once and then disappeared into the dark blue waters of the harbor. Satisfied by the sight, he repeated the action. The dockhand watched him with growing disbelief. By the time the third piece sank, the dockhand spoke up:

  “My lord Ravis, if it’s money you’re wishing to throw away, why not toss it toward a family man rather than straight out to sea?”

  A family man? Ravis sucked at his lip. Suppressing his impatience, he tossed a fourth coin into the water and said, “I’m looking for the truth, my friend, and I’m hoping the old woman of the sea will help me find it.”

  Comprehension dawned on the dockhand’s pitted face. “The old woman of the sea had the tides to turn this morning, my lord. I doubt if she saw a thing.”

  Another coin in the water. “Ah. Then perhaps you watched the bay on her behalf?”

  “That I did, my lord.”

  Ravis threw the next coin toward the dockhand, who caught it like a lizard snagging flies. For a man who stank of wine, his reflexes were remarkably good. “So, my friend, what did you really hear this morning?”

  The dockhand bit on the coin before he spoke. “Captain knew you weren’t aboard.”

  “And?” prompted Ravis, tossing another coin the man’s way.

  “No one knew where you’d got to. Captain ordered the ship to be searched, and when there was no sign of you, he upped anchor and set sail.”

  Things were becoming clearer now. Crivit had searched for him. So the good captain had genuinely not known where he was, which ruled out foul play such as sleeping drafts in wine but still left open the possibility of profiteering from a fortunate happenstance.

  “Did Clover’s Fourth set sail on time?”

  “To the minute.”

  Ravis made a small hard sound in his throat. All his worldly goods—all his weapons, his possessions, and his profits from the last three years—had sailed off into the sunrise with that ship. By sticking meticulously to his sailing schedule, Crivit had secured himself quite a stash.

  “Did anyone suggest they hold sail until I arrived, or send men into the city to look for me?” Ravis threw the dockhand a third coin.

  Catching it, the dockhand shook his head. “First mate wanted to send someone into the taverns, but Captain said they didn’t have time. Said the tides would likely turn at any minute and the ship would be stuck in the harbor for another full day.”

  Ravis drew a thin breath. The tides were a captain’s best friend and his most often used excuse. Crivit had executed a perfectly legitimate robbery. Ravis knew he would never see his possessions again; they would be lost at sea, stolen by pirates, ruined by salt water, or eaten by marauding sharks. Any half-plausible excuse the captain could come up with.

  Ravis kicked at the rotten, bird-limed timbers of the gangway. How had this happened? He never overslept. He had been drugged often enough to rule out that possibility—his head and stomach were feeling altogether too settled for that—yet there was no other explanation. He had not been knocked out, bound up, or seduced to the point of passionate abandon. Nothing to unduly tire or hold him. Yet here he was, an hour late for the ship that would finally have taken him a safe distance from this place.

  Glancing over his shoulder, back toward the hazy blue-gray mass of the city, Ravis found himself shaking his head. Bay’Zell was about to run out of time.

  “My lord,” said the dockhand, idly reeling in the last of the mooring rope, “if you be needing a place to stay until the next ship south ups anchor, you’re welcome to stop with me.”

  Ravis waved him away. “I doubt very much I could afford your rates, my friend. Anyone who drinks fine berriac for breakfast is bound to charge too much for me.” After bowing to the man, Ravis made his way back up the gangplank to the quay. Truth was, his finances were now stretched to the point of breaking. He didn’t need to weigh his purse to know that it held a good deal more silver than gold. And even that was scarcer following his stunt of throwing coins out to sea.

  Well. That would teach him. Impressing dockhands with shows of nonchalance was a lot more expensive than it was amusing. Now he had some real problems to deal with.

  He was stranded in a city that would see him hanged if they discovered who he was and what he had done. He had barely enough money to buy silence from a gatekeeper. And one hundred and fifty leagues southwest of here, somewhere in the jasmine-scented south-facing hillsides of Mizerico, a certain beautiful lady would be counting the days to his arrival. Doubtless she would have to count a few extra now. And she was exactly the sort of woman who hated to count and wait.

  All in all there was little amusing about it. Later today, on the far side of the Vorce Mountains, Izgard of Garizon would crown himself a king. Now the people of Bay’Zell, the finest port and northernmost city in Rhaize, might think this no concern of theirs. Yet they were about as wrong as it was possible to be. Izgard had spent the last ten years planning the taking of just two things: the Barbed Coil and all the land that lay between Garizon and the sea.

  Things were going to get very difficult for the people of Bay’Zell, and Ravis had no intention of being here when they did.

  Walking along the harbor front, Ravis tried to ignore the fishwives pulling backbones from herrings and drunks drying out in the shade. The everyday sights of Bay’Zell made him uncomfortable. When the wind tugged stray hairs from its binding, he shoved them behind him like buzzing flies.

  What by all four gods was he going to do now?

  “Aagh!” A high-pitched scream ripped through the spring clear air.

  Automatically Ravis turned his head in the direction it came from: an alleyway nestled between two inns. He knew the place well; prostitutes took their one-silver clients there. Two-silver clients were treated to a bed.

  “Get away from me!”

  Ravis had just decided to carry on walking—he was in enough trouble already without venturing into the notoriously dangerous world of pimps and their charges—when the second cry sounded. He was struck by the foreignness of the woman’s voice. She might be a whore, but she wasn’t a homegrown one. He had never heard an accent quite like hers before—husky, rhythmic, and oddly compelling—and try as he might he couldn’t place it.

  A small, hysterical gasp came from the alleyway.

  Hearing it, Ravis glanced out to sea. It was turning out to be quite a day: for the first time in his life he had overslept and missed his passage, and right now, when he should be contacting the one man in the city who could help him, he was about to do something very rash instead.

  He changed his path. Cutting across the cobbled road toward the inns and the alleyway, he felt for his knife. The movement was smooth, fluid, almost a reflex action. For seven years he had entered no taverns, brothels, private homes, or palaces without first feeling for his blade. Hard lessons had been learned the day his bottom lip was sliced in two.

  Ravis stepped into the alley. Shadows fell on his back. His eyes took a moment to grow accustomed to the dark, but his body moved ahead of his sights. Out came his knife. The blade—sharpened every morning before he shaved or splashed water on his face—was pointing up. The pattern-welded edge was as dark as acid could make it.

  Three figures formed a triangle at the alleyway’s end. Two large bulky men and a woman, back pressed to the wall. Thrusting his body forward, Ravis drew zagging lines with his blade. The steel skin whistled as it cut the air. The largest of the two men moved forward to meet him. He was carrying the tanged, cross-guarded blade of an Istanian mercenary.

  Ravis feinted to the left—a simple move designed to test the speed of his opponent’s reflexes. As he pivoted his w
eight onto his left knee, Ravis caught a sharp whiff of the tanner’s yard. Falling back into the space he had just vacated, Ravis took his opponent by surprise. His blade sailed toward the man’s exposed right flank.

  Even as the fabric of the Istanian’s tunic parted, Ravis assessed the threat from the larger man closest to the wall. Lashing out with his right foot, he kicked the first man to the ground. Mud sliding beneath his boots, he swung toward the wall. The second man had bloody scratch marks on his cheek. Someone with very sharp nails had just raked through a portion of flaking, scrofulous skin.

  Ravis toyed with the idea of marking the other cheek in a similar way with his blade. Toyed and then discarded it: far better to go for his throat.

  Ravis worked swiftly. Moves were shaped by his body with only a passing bow to his brain. Keeping the injured man down with a series of hard kicks to his wounded flank, he struck out at the second man, sticking arm and shoulder flesh with his knife. Falling into the cadence of a well-rehearsed dance, Ravis did what was required of him, nothing more. No plays were wasted, no thrusts failed to bite. Everything was executed with hard-learned thrift.

  Oh, he had been party to showier fights, but down a dark alleyway set well back from Bay’Zell’s northern harbor, with two men attacking him and an audience of merely one, show had little meaning. Ravis could see no benefit in wasting his talents on the dark.

  When finally he pulled his knife from the brittle bone of the second man’s shoulder, he was out of breath and shaking. A gob of skin and muscle tissue slid down the wax-stewed leather of his tunic. As he turned around to face the third figure, whose presence he had barely registered during the fight, he worked hard to control his ragged breaths. Even in the dark he preferred to keep his weaknesses concealed.

  “Are you injured, my lady?” The honorific was probably more than the woman deserved, but Ravis had known enough prostitutes in his time to realize that many had better manners than the finest court-bred maidens.

  The woman pressed her slight form against the wall. She said nothing. Judging from the play of shadows on her body, she appeared to be dressed most strangely. By the gods! She was wearing men’s britches.