The City Stained Red

by Sam Sykes

  “We’ve been at war plenty of times. The masters always commanded from the ground. Remember Hell’s Harlots?”

  “I do.”

  “Rheniga brought them down. And the Twilight Harpists? That’s where Headhigh got his name.”

  “I do,” Rezca stated, plainly. “I remember the Isstacca, the Morose Family, and Troublemakers, Associated, as well.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Denaos leaned back, a grin on his face. “You know, I always liked the Troublemakers. They had style.”

  “The Khovura are different. The Khovura don’t play by our rules because the Khovura are not part of the game.”

  That gave Denaos pause.

  There was a certain kind of hypocrisy to crime in Cier’Djaal, a shame that extended only as far as the terminology. It was perfectly fine to slit a man’s throat in the dead of night for his coin pouch, certainly, but to refer to it as such was considered crass and unprofessional.

  Hence, throat slitting was “collar-buying,” burglaries were “gentlemen callers,” and doing things through less-than-legal means was merely a part of playing “the game.” Thus, the Jackals were elevated from mere thuggery to esteemed experts of a widespread, long-term sport whose participation was mandatory and whose rules were ironclad.

  Until now, it seemed.

  “They were looking like any other team in a footwar,” Denaos said. “I saw them fighting, burning, and looting the same as anyone.”

  “They aren’t after any of that,” Rezca replied. “They don’t want Cier’Djaal’s money; they don’t want Cier’Djaal’s rulers; they don’t want Cier’Djaal. They want its people. They aren’t players. They’re revolutionaries, radicals, cultists trying to bring us down by making us unpopular with the people.”

  That a system of organized crime could be considered popular in the first place was a phenomenon unique to Cier’Djaal. But as much as people hated being preyed upon by thieves, they more hated the thought of being preyed upon by strange thieves.

  The game, to the citizenry, provided rules, structure, order. They may still be preyed upon, but only in certain ways, in certain places, as certain punishment, and always in a very timely, organized manner with a polite, professional representative.

  And so they played.

  “And it’s working.”

  Until now, it seemed.

  Rezca raised his hand for attention. The girl in the patchy dress took precisely too long to arrive. She leaned over. He whispered in her ear. She nodded briefly.

  As she passed a table of Souksellers, she leaned over and whispered in their ears. They rose a moment later, leaning over and whispering in someone else’s ears as they walked toward the door. They, too, rose, whispered, left. The door closed shut a moment later, The Oxbow empty of patrons, staff, and anyone but Denaos and the big man who leaned on his elbows and steepled his fingers.

  “The first two months did not go well,” Rezca said. “The game was played as it always was, at first: in the alleys, in stairwells, with knives in the dark. We didn’t know their name. But it didn’t matter. Not until they found one of our dens and set it ablaze, consuming twenty-two Jackals.”

  Twenty-two Jackals in a den. Five hundred Jackals in Cier’Djaal. Fifteen years he had spent in this city. Denaos did the math in his head.

  He had to have known the names, faces, and lives of at least six of those people burned alive.

  “The announcement was taken poorly. ‘A cleansing fire,’ it was called. ‘An end to the tyranny of the fashas by burning out their hounds.’”

  “The Khovura said that?”

  “The Khovura never say anything. They barely speak the human tongue.” Rezca chuckled ruefully. “No, it was the people that said that. The public that had played by our rules for so long saw someone cheating and they applauded it. They applauded the next den to go up in smoke and they cried foul when we responded by hanging sixteen Khovura upon the Harbor Wall.”

  Denaos said nothing. The public never took sides in a game. That was against the rules.

  They might have disliked the fashas, sure; it was hard not to dislike someone with more money than most nations who also wouldn’t let a few coins of tax go unaccounted. But the fashas were good for the Jackals, the Jackals were bad for other thieves, and so the Jackals were good for the public.

  Thinking it over, Denaos had to admit that logic did sound a little contrived. But it was the logic the entire city had bought for as long as the Jackals had reigned.

  “We tried to keep it a coinwar. Then we tried to keep it an alleywar. We tried to keep it quiet, but the Khovura insisted on making it public and now it’s a footwar. What you saw in the Souk today was the latest in a long line of brawls that go poorly for us.”

  “I saw no shortage of Khovura dead.”

  “But they can always get more. The public is emboldened by their actions. No matter how many examples we make, there are always the poor, the disenfranchised, the freed slaves, and the oids that will sign on with them.”

  “Revenge,” Denaos muttered, “for a lifetime under the game.”

  “I thought that, as well,” Rezca replied. “The heads still believe that. But now I wonder if it’s less a resentment of the game and more a resentment of not being allowed to play it. Maybe they don’t feel pride at seeing us lose, but at having a chance to play for themselves.”

  He waved a big hand.

  “It’s irrelevant,” he said. “The footwar continues to go poorly. The more we fight in public, the more the public suffers and the more they go to join the Khovura. And the more the public starts talking, the more the fashas start talking. Rich men talking have never been good for us.”

  “So… what are you going to do?”

  “The same thing we always do,” Rezca replied, leaning back in the booth. “We change the rules.” He looked at Denaos over the rims of his spectacles. “This is where you come in.”

  “No.”

  The answer was reflexive enough that it surprised Denaos after he had unwittingly said it. What was a bigger surprise was that Rezca appeared unfazed by the answer. He merely quirked a brow and waited as Denaos drew in a deep breath and continued.

  “You know I’m not one to shy away from the game.” Denaos held his hand out before him, studying it as though he could see past the leather of his glove. “I was pretty good at it by the time I left.” His fingers twitched. The hidden blade just beneath his palm sprang out. “And I’ve killed a lot of people in the time I’ve been gone.”

  He pulled a hidden latch, drawing the blade back in. Rezca was cringing. Not for the blade, but for the language. The word “kill” was too crude for his civilized ears, despite how many screams of dying men they might have heard once.

  “But the shit we’ve done, Rezca… the stuff I did… the people I killed…”

  Bronze statues in the Souk. A tall woman who spoke proudly. The last noble of Cier’Djaal to have earned the title. She had never backed down from anyone, especially not him, not even when he had put the knife in her throat.

  He shook his head. He bit back whatever was rising in his throat.

  “I killed her,” he said. “I went too far. I… I can’t go back to that.”

  “Acceptable.”

  He was surprised, yet again.

  “I was there when the heads handed you down the orders,” Rezca continued. “I was there when we came up with the words.” He said them through a sneer. “‘The Kissing Game.’ To make thieves into wives and husbands, and politicians and leaders into corpses. Among the most abominable plots we’ve ever had in a long and storied history of abominable plots. To be so close to that again… if you don’t wish to be a part of it, I don’t blame you.”

  “Thanks…” Denaos swallowed the stuff back down. “Thanks, Rezca.”

  “The service you rendered unto the Jackals was great. For that, the deal you made with the heads still holds. You may walk away from the game anytime you feel.”

  Denaos paused. Rezca was too p
rofessional to make him wait long for the “but.” He appreciated that.

  “But then we are under no obligations to help you find the priest you’re looking for.”

  “Should I ask how you know?”

  “You shouldn’t. We saw your friend—the short one with the gray hair—chasing a priest in white through the Souk. One tends to notice such things in a city full of dark-skinned Djaalics. We also saw no sign of the priest after the footwar. I suppose you have your reasons for wanting to find him.”

  “I do.”

  “And he can be found,” Rezca replied. “Priests are important people. They can’t stay hidden from us for long unless someone with more pull than we have is hiding them.”

  “A fasha?”

  “We have our suspects.”

  Rezca reached into his vest. He produced a small bundle of cloth and set it on the table. It unfurled to reveal three fingers, long and thin and possessed of a sickly sheen that made them slightly more distasteful than the fact that three severed fingers were now brushing up against Denaos’s curry.

  “Notice anything?” Rezca said.

  “Many things,” Denaos replied, “and all of them completely vile.”

  “Be serious.”

  “They’re saccarii fingers,” Denaos said. “Scaly.”

  “The Khovura are predominantly saccarii, we’ve found. Unsurprising, considering their position in Cier’Djaal’s social ladder.”

  Specifically, Denaos thought, buried in the earth ten feet below the lowest rung.

  “Look closer,” Rezca said.

  Once Denaos got over a fleeting tinge of revulsion, he did just that. He stared at the three fingers, each one as long, as thin, as scaly as the last. Each one possessed of the same scar… and the same swirling print.

  “They’re… the same finger,” Denaos whispered, brow furrowed in befuddlement.

  “Of the same saccarii,” Rezca replied. “We captured one of them a while back. We cut off one of his fingers to make him talk. Then, when he didn’t, we cut off the same finger when it grew back the next day.” He narrowed his eyes. “Something is going on with the saccarii, maybe all of the Khovura. And I’m willing to bet that something is expensive enough to involve the Bloodwise Brotherhood.”

  “You mean the couthi?”

  Such was unthinkable. The couthi were quiet, thoughtful, neutral, uninterested in anything humans had to say or do that wasn’t perfectly round and made of a precious metal.

  Ideal, respectful players of the game, in other words. They wouldn’t risk that prized position by selling directly to the Khovura. Rezca doubtlessly knew this.

  “Regenerative potions aren’t unheard of, if you’re in the right circle,” Rezca said. “But that circle costs over six thousand pieces of gold to even know the name of. No one but a fasha would have access to the Brotherhood’s darkest secrets.”

  The pieces were beginning to come together, but Denaos asked anyway. Courtesy, and all.

  “So, what do you want me to do?”

  “Find out which fasha is supporting the Khovura,” Rezca said. “Chances are good you’ll find which fasha is stashing your priest. And if you don’t, the Jackals will, as a courtesy.”

  “Where do I start?”

  “There are only two saccarii fashas in the city,” Rezca replied. “Teneir and Sheffu. Start with one and hope for the best.”

  “Will I have to kill anyone?”

  “Only if you want to.”

  Nothing more need be said. Denaos got up, pushed his curry away, and began walking toward the door. He didn’t feel like talking anymore, and Rezca was a man for whom words were a commodity to spend only when necessary.

  “You didn’t ask about her.”

  Until now, it seemed.

  “She’s well, if you’re wondering,” Rezca called to Denaos’s back. “The footwar has left her largely unscathed.”

  “Largely?”

  “The Jackals are Cier’Djaal’s police, merchants, and kings, Denaos,” Rezca said. “What affects us affects everyone in the city. I suspect you and she will both realize this before too long.”

  Denaos did not say another word as he walked out the door, past the woman with the broom, and into the road. He didn’t so much as open his mouth until he was safely tucked away inside an alley.

  And then, he bent over and let the vomit come pouring out to splatter upon the cobblestones.

  EIGHTEEN

  HOUSES FOR THE COMMON MAN

  Like an open wound, a thick red line ran directly through the middle of civilization.

  No, Asper thought. That might not be a completely fair comparison. She had seen many wounds and few had been quite this ugly. Of course, none of them had been nearly so big.

  Three feet wide in bright crimson paint, the red line extended from the gate she had just stepped through, across the cobblestones of the massive square, and into the horizon of the district. There it lay, spattered sloppily, applied hastily, its purpose a mystery.

  Well, no, she caught herself again as she looked up over the district called Temple Row, that’s not entirely true, either.

  Two Gods dominated the skyline, each one vying to scrape the heavens and straining to dwarf the Silken Spire.

  To the south loomed Galatrine, Lady Sovereign of Saine, towering forty feet tall, thick as the stone She had been carved out of, brawny body brimming with the carved spikes and feathers that made up Her armor. A broad stone sword in Her right hand, Her six-fingered left hand extended in a gesture demanding creation itself to halt before Her.

  Or if not creation, then at least the God that towered over the north end of the Row.

  Tremendous, vast, a colossus of iron and stone rose to meet the challenge. Entire body bound in cruelly edged armor, save for the head bearing a pair of impressive-looking horns sweeping backward from a scowl leveled across the district at His rival deity. Viciously jagged blade in gauntleted right hand, left hand extended to the north in a commanding gesture that mirrored His hated enemy. Daeon, the Conqueror, God of Karneria, challenged foe and follower alike.

  At the feet of each God sprawled a temple. Or, Asper supposed, what ought to have been temples. Instead, they looked like fortresses. The Sainite’s gray granite aerie towers rising up to Galatrine’s calves, the Karnerian’s black iron walls belching forge smoke surrounding Daeon’s ankles.

  War and faith were synonymous with both deities and the nations they represented. The sole difference between the Sovereign and the Conqueror, the saying went, was which direction they came from when they arrived to burn your house to the ground. Saine and Karneria both had a list of conquered territories, conquered peoples, and conquered riches as long as the reach of their Gods’ arms.

  Sometimes she wondered, with so much in common, why the two were such hated foes.

  As if that question didn’t answer itself, she thought, looking down at the red line.

  She walked down the line, as useful a path as any. There were hardly any other markers in Temple Row. There was hardly room left for anything else. Absent were the other Gods: Zamanthras the Sea Mother, Silf the Patron, Khetashe the Wanderer. Those were anticipated. Their followers had their own places of worship, all of them far from civilized society. What was more worrying was the absence of other temples for more formal Gods within the main square of the Row.

  Specifically, the temple of Talanas. The Healer, it seemed, was not needed between the two Gods of war. There was something rather impractical about that.

  More than impractical, though, it essentially rendered her plan moot. She had reasoned that, if Miron had escaped the Souk, he would have sought sanctuary with his fellow Talanites. She certainly would, if she hadn’t had more unsavory fellows to seek sanctuary with. But if there were no temple, then where would he go?

  She didn’t know.

  But she wagered the man who loomed at the foot of Daeon’s temple might.

  Like an echo of his God, he stood towering, clad in black armor, gau
ntleted hands resting on the pommel of a massive sword thrust into the earth before him. All hair was shorn from his head but his brows, and those were knitted above a steely, unwavering gaze aimed across the line at the Sainite fortress.

  Temple, she corrected herself. Or… templeress? Forple? Maybe you can ask him which he prefers. Open up with a joke. That’s what Denaos would do, right? Of course, this guy probably doesn’t find that sort of thing funny. Or anything funny, really. People with swords as big as they are don’t usually have great senses of humor. She cleared her throat. Look, just say something before this gets weird.

  “Er… hello?” she said.

  The Karnerian said nothing in return.

  Of course not, she scolded herself. Why would he? “Hello?” What kind of greeting is that? He’s a follower of Daeon. Conqueror! War God! Greet him like a warrior.

  “Hail, noble sword-bearer,” she said, throwing her voice to the back of her throat, “have you knowledge of the battle-times?”

  Nice.

  “Look,” she continued, rubbing the back of her head, “I’m just a little lost. I’m a priestess of Talanas and if you could just point me in the—”

  “I can.”

  His voice was deep; the kind of effortless deep that came from men who had nothing to prove and just a little bit wrong with them.

  “Oh,” she said. “But I didn’t even—”

  “Daeon speaks through those that share His vision,” the man said. “And it is within His power to give and to take whatever is needed. What you wish is irrelevant. It is His to give.”

  “I see. So, you can tell me if there is a temple of Talanas?”

  “By Daeon’s will, many share this square under His guidance.”

  “So there is one! Great.” She clapped her hands together. “Can you show me where it is?”

  “I am capable of all things that He wills,” the man said. “For this moment, He wills me to keep my vigil.”

  “Uh-huh. And how long is that?”