by K. Eason
“Nailed doors are a barrier to the angry dead.”
She chewed on that then and kept silent. Tried not to think what might be waiting at Still Waters.
Aneki said you would come.
Still Waters had been Aneki’s great pride. Bathhouse and brothel, with a good reputation and a regular clientele from the garrison. Fresh paint each spring on its shutters and door. Fresh whitewash on its bricks, and a sign forged out of iron. Still Waters had been, well, not a gem, exactly. But certainly well kept and respectable.
Not bad for a bondie’s lifework, is it?
Not that Aneki had been a bondie any of the years Snow had known her. She had a scar on her neck from the collar with the Illhari sigil that meant freed and citizen right beside it. She was a half-blood whose mother had been a bondie in a place like this one. She’d claimed an Alvir mother some days, a Talir mother on others. Confessed once she had not known and did not care.
One toadbelly’s like another, yeah?
For the first time since it started, Snow was glad for the rain. Glad for the relentless grey and blur, so she did not have to notice the peeling paint on Still Waters’ shutters, or that the sign was altogether missing. There were boards across the door, same as everywhere else on the street. Still Waters had windows on its ground level, flat slits high on the walls, too narrow for anyone to get through. Those shutters too were blocked and sealed. But the shutters on the second and third floors were intact. Closed from the inside, unbroken. Looked like Aneki had shut the place up against the storm, yeah, Snow could imagine that. Could imagine her still inside.
Or not. Laughing God.
“Listen, Veiko. I say we wait in a doorway until the rain stops. I can conjure a damn fire. You listening?” She tried to catch his gaze. Gave up and put her hand in the center of his chest, instead, and slapped hard. His armor ate most of the impact, but he was wet enough that water squelched through the patches of leather and metal.
Might as well push the mountain, for all the good it did her. Might as well strip and dance in the street, for all the attention he paid.
“No,” he said. He peeled her palm off his chest and held it. Hard to say whose skin was colder. He stretched his hand out, still gripping hers, so that she had to turn with him. “Look.”
But it was only Logi, sniffing the barred front door. Pawing at the corners.
“There is something inside that he wants.”
“Probably a rat.”
“Not a rat.”
She wanted to ask What then? Reckoned she knew the answer. Angry dead. Ghosts. Aneki’s bones in the hallway. Hope shattered against the back of her throat. She didn’t protest when he gripped her hand even harder, when he pulled her with him around the corner.
The alley behind Still Waters, like the others, suffered an excess of neglect. Mud to the ankles. Some of the buildings had courtyards that opened onto the alley. Most of those were overgrown and ruined—gates pulled off, broken tiles and churned earth where there had been gardens and fountains and pretty plazas. The back doors, like the front, had been nailed closed, blocked, sealed.
Somewhere, beyond the storm, the sun gave up and slipped below the horizon. Snow felt that shift. A chill that went deeper than skin. A darkness creeping up on the witchfire’s limits, eating away at its glow. There’d been a day she’d’ve loved this kind of shadow. Worn it like a cloak and slunk around Cardik, feeling smug that no one saw her. Now she’d walk naked across Market Bridge to see those lamps carving out spots of bright. Now she’d give a finger if she saw Still Waters’ gate in one piece and—
Please, no one, God or spirit, had been listening to hold her to that bargain. Because that was the old wrought-iron gate, all leaves and vines and narrow metal bars, still standing between the brick posts. That was the lock, rust-red now, hanging off the chain on the inside. The bars had seen some damage. Bright lines scored into the black, silver wounds where weapons had struck. But the bars themselves had not bent. Had not broken. And that meant the wards on the iron gate were intact.
Snow passed her hand over them. They glowed. Recognized her. Warmed her skin as she wiggled fingers and palm through the gaps in the bars. Wards intact. Lock still in place. And the back door, across the courtyard, had no boards across it.
She pulled her hand back. Crouched and worked at her left boot. There was a pocket up at the top, small and tight on a good day. Now the leather was swollen and stiff. She worked a finger into the pocket. Grunted as she drew out the slim metal rods.
“I told Aneki, get this gate. Said no one but children could get their arms through the bars. The fuck did I tell her that?”
“Why did you not simply ward the lock, too?”
“Because Aneki trusted keys more than conjuring. Or maybe more than she trusted me, yeah?”
Snow stretched up on her toes and rolled her shoulder. For the first time, she was glad for the rain, slick on her skin. Almost as good as oil. She willed the witchfire out of her right hand, sent it licking up her arm and across her shoulders and down the other side. They were between waves of rain at the moment, down to a miserable mist. But the mountains still snarled with thunder. Summer storms moved fast. Best she did, too.
Briel, she sent, and an image of this place. Of the firedog as she remembered it, and a room warm and dry. Come here. Come home.
Got wet svartjagr back, cold svartjagr. Svartjagr very interested in
fire
and
warm room.
Got a sending of cold and narrow, of water dripping, and then movement. Icy slash of drops on
my
Briel’s hide as she launched into the storm.
Careful, Snow wished her. Stay low.
Lightning split the darkness. Bleached everything visible, flicker and dim and bright again. The courtyard was all weeds now, the garden overgrown. And the back door was ajar, when it had been closed, and it was exactly wide enough for a woman’s face.
There, pale smear, and gone in the next flash.
Logi’s ooof was lost in the thunder, but his stance was clear enough. Ears up. Tail stiff. Nose working. But not snarling. Not barking and lunging.
“There is something,” said Veiko.
“Something, what? A rat? Or a person? Or does he bark at ghosts?”
He shook his head. Sent water sluicing off his braids. “He remembers this place.”
“Logi’s sentimental now? Fuck and damn.” But no one came outside. No one shut the back door, either. Maybe there was someone in there, waiting. Watching. Maybe priming a crossbow, think of that.
Veiko’s problem, then. He had her back. He had a damn hunting bow. She had smaller, more pressing problems.
Snow leaned her head against the bars. Closed her eyes and probed around the lock’s guts. Damn Aneki anyway, for taking her advice.
She bit her lip and eased her pick deeper into the lock. Held her breath. Lightning and thunder together, flash and bang, so that the gate rattled on its post. Logi loosed a bark that could’ve cracked stone. She caught breath and willed her heart slow down and congratulated herself on keeping hold of the damned pick, never mind cold stiff fingers—she looked up, meaning to shake rain from her eyes, and froze solid.
There was a woman in the courtyard, creeping along the edges of wall and garden where the shadows grew deep as the vines. Shock slammed up under Snow’s ribs, sent hot and cold racing down all of her limbs. Her hand spasmed, driving the pick deeper into the lock. A snap she felt, rather than heard, as the slim metal broke. The lock gave way. Clicked and hinged open. Her eyes flicked that direction—
Thank you, Laughing God.
—and then, when she looked back, the courtyard was empty.
Could’ve been a ghost, but more likely her own fool imagining. She wished for Briel’s svartjagr senses right now, that could find shapes in pitch dark. But Briel was still some distance away. Too far to help.
She eeled her arm out of the gate. Swung it open. The metal creaked, s
huddered a protest she could feel against her hand.
“Gate hasn’t opened in a long time,” she said.
“Mm.” Veiko pushed gently past her. He held his axe in one hand. Had a fistful of Logi’s scruff in the other. The dog’s ears and tail were still straight. But he wasn’t rushing ahead.
Snow called the witchfire back to her hand. Raised it high and peeled the shadows back, so that the light crept farther into the courtyard. It weakened as it traveled, turned from glow to tepid dim, so that everything it touched took on shades of cobalt and smoke.
“Angry dead?” Her voice got as far as the edge of the witchfire. Died there, in the shadows.
“Perhaps.” Veiko took a breath. Held it. Sang a few liquid notes in his own language. The song didn’t travel far. Slammed into the rain and the dark and stopped, at the edge of the witchfire.
“If there are angry dead, they will stay back,” he said. He pushed the door open with the head of his axe. Stood back and aside, in case something rushed out.
Only quiet. Only shadows. The latch on the door was broken. It rocked on its hinges as the breeze lifted. Sagged back again as the storm took a breath.
Snow went inside first, in the witchfire’s wake.
* * *
There were more fair-skinned Toer bondies in the halls, wearing collars and fresh ink. They froze when they saw soldiers in the hallways. Some ran, but not far, not fast. They didn’t resist Neela’s herding. Huddled together like unhappy sheep and shivered. Expecting abuse, which was no surprise in a House like this. Conservative. Anti-Reform. But no godsworn yet. They had to be somewhere inside, unless Toer’s highborn residents had abandoned the place.
“No,” Istel said, when Dekklis mentioned the possibility. “They’re here.”
“Laying ambush?”
He shrugged. “Could be. But they’re letting us get pretty deep.”
“The better to trap us,” Rurik murmured. “Well, let them try.” He sounded as if he might welcome the attempt.
The first resistance came at the doorway that led to the family wing. It was a Dvergir male this time, clearly a consort. Slim and soft-bodied and shaking so hard, the blade in his hand looked more like grass in a gale than solid metal.
“You will come no further,” he said, and squared across the doorway. “In Toer’s name—”
“Oh, motherless hell,” Rurik muttered. “Dek, let me handle this. I know him.” Then he laughed out loud. “Suo’Tik Brek. I thought that was you. Put the sword down, yeah? Before someone sticks you with it.”
Brek startled back a step. Squinted and poked his head in Rurik’s direction. “K’Hess Rurik? Is that you?”
“It is.” Rurik took the very untraditional lead, ranged himself in front of Dekklis and Belaery and Praefecta K’Hari. “I’m First Tribune now. And you need to put that weapon down, in the name of Illharek. Savvy that? The First Legate’s here, and she isn’t happy with this toadshit.”
Brek blinked hard. Swung his head back and forth like a bear sniffing berries. The sword wobbled harder. “I have, I mean—Domina commanded me hold this door.”
“Domina commanded you die here, then.” Dekklis shouldered forward. “Put the blade down, or you will do exactly that. Your First Legate commands, in Illharek’s name. You’re Illhari, Suo’Tik Brek, from a good House. Not a heretic and a traitor.”
You could admire the man’s bravery. Brek shook his head. Steadier now, all his courage holding him upright: “No, First Legate. I can’t. I—”
Came a crack then, like thunder from Above. The whole of House Toer shivered. A faint smoke-smell drifted down the corridor.
“Conjuring,” Belaery snapped. “Or godmagic.”
“Go,” Dekklis said. “Istel, go with her.”
Dekklis reckoned Brek would step aside then. He might be brave, but he wasn’t suicidal, and Illhari consorts didn’t fight. They played chieftain’s table with each other, practiced dancing, maybe did a little painting. They didn’t train at arms. Brek would stand aside and Dekklis could disarm him and send him home to House Suo’Tik—
Brek shouted and swung hard at the first target that moved into range—Istel, who did not break stride. Instead, he flowed sideways, drew his sword and dragged its length across Brek’s belly. Brek was too shocked to scream. Gasped and doubled as the blood and shit-stink of guts filled the hallway. Dropped the sword and tilted forward, baring the back of his neck for Istel’s neat downward chop. His body dropped like a sack of wet meal.
A moment then while Istel braced a foot and pried his blade loose. Brek’s head flopped, half unhinged. Eyes staring, mouth slack, as the blood gushed across the stones.
Then Istel stepped past him, sword still drawn, Rurik on his heels. One eyeblink after that, Belaery hop-skipped over the spreading blood. One of the bondies in custody let out a thin wail, until a soldier cuffed him silent.
“Hell,” said K’Hari Dannike. “His mother’s going to spit svartjagrs when she hears about this.”
“Can’t say I care what she does. Suo’Tik is as old as Toer. Bet me this heresy toadshit isn’t there, too.” Dekklis finished Istel’s work, quick hard cut, and rolled the head facedown.
“Fuck and damn, Dek—”
“Shut it.”
Dekklis threw her old commander a hard look. Not the time to explain angry dead and Veiko’s advice and why Dekklis believed it. This was a time for order, and for orders. “Praefecta. Take a triad up the left passage. Make sure there are no more armed consorts up there. If they disarm, arrest them. If they resist arrest, you kill them. —Rest of you, follow me.”
She stepped over the
damn waste
cooling meat in the doorway. Moved fast up the corridor, careful of bloodslick boots on tile, until she heard a crack like splitting stone and saw the smoke fingers reaching along the ceiling.
She started to run then, full-out. Skidded up the curve of the corridor, bounced off the wall, kept going. There was a room at the not-quite-end of the hallway, door blown sidelong and smoldering across the threshold. There was fresh blood and another body: a servant, Dvergir and female, this time. And beyond her, two more bodies on the floor inside. Toer’s third and fourth daughters—hell and damn, what were their names?—sprawled and twisted as if they’d been thrown across the room. Scorch marks crawled up the walls, and whatever furnishings the room had had were smoking and melted shapeless.
Toer’s fifth daughter—Valiss, wasn’t it?—stood there, waiting for them, bloody-faced, hands raised and empty and open in surrender. There was a mark on her right palm. Tal’Shik’s symbol. Of Toer’s matron, there was no sign at all.
Dekklis couldn’t summon any surprise for that, or the sigils inked into the hands of her sisters, or for the slag-pile that had been intricate stonework and mosaic.
“Belaery, did you see what that was? An altar?”
“Apologies,” Belaery said, and tucked a thread of loose hair over her ear. “I don’t know. This little toadfucker here”—she threw a kick at the third daughter’s corpse—“studied with us for a season. Knew just enough conjuring to get herself killed when I tried to stop her, and took most of the room with her. They were intent on destroying it, whatever it was. Which, as you can see, they did.”
Dekklis closed her eyes. Her blood beat red across the back of her eyelids. She heard Istel moving. Heard the soft clink of steel manacles, and a grunt from Valiss that said Istel was not being gentle with his arrest. Good.
Rurik said crisply, “All right. Then we ask Valiss there what it was. She’ll tell us.”
“No. She won’t.” Istel’s anger was a blast of heat like a furnace door opened and shut. “She bit off her own tongue.”
Dek’s eyes snapped open. Found Toer Valiss grinning at her, red leaking down her chin. Laughing, damn her, because Valiss knew what the law said. She was House Toer, entitled to a Senate hearing to decide her guilt. That hearing would turn into Suburban street theatre, with a Midtowner adept saying what s
he had seen, while Toer Valiss stood there mutilated and mute and Toer’s matron squawked and howled about procedures and rules and how dare that conjuror speak here, what had they done to her daughter. The men—Rurik, Istel—wouldn’t be allowed to testify at all. So, the only evidence would be that mark on Valiss’s hand. And who could say the adept hadn’t put it there? It wouldn’t matter what Belaery said, not when it was a Senator’s word against a Midtowner adept’s.
“Toer Valiss,” Rurik gritted. Waited, as her laugh sank into gurgling. “Toer Valiss, in the name of the Illhari Republic, I place you under arrest for heresy and treas—”
“Wait.” Dekklis raised her fist. “First Spear.” And when Neela came up beside her: “Clear the house of any resistance. I want all our people out. Tell the Praefecta I want the consorts locked in their chambers. I want the bondies brought with us. Is that clear?”
“Yes, First Legate.”
“Good. Go. —First Tribune, Adept, Second Scout: you stay with me.”
Neela snapped a salute. Collected her troops with a nod and a gesture. They filed out in neat order. Young troopers, all Illhari, none of them having seen any real action. But disciplined. No looking back, no questioning looks tossed between them. They might talk in the barracks, later. They might not. Per and Neela had picked this lot out of the Midtown and Suburban ranks. Special assignment for people who would not otherwise be chosen for anything official. People with no reason to gossip to highborn relatives.
“Adept,” Dek said, when the last bootstep had faded. “I have a question. Can you conjure fire? True fire. Not witchfire. “
Belaery snorted. “Of course.”
“You said the third daughter studied in the Academy. Could she conjure true fire?”
Belaery cocked her head. Her eyes narrowed. “Yes. It’s one of the earliest lessons.”
“Good. —First Tribune, would you please retrieve that damn idiot Brek? His body should be in here.”
Rurik was frowning at her. Jerked a nod and spun and stomped disapproval all the way down the hallway.
“First Legate Szanys Dekklis.” Belaery dragged her name out, tasted the syllables. “What are you thinking?”
