The City Stained Red

by Sam Sykes

  During all the years that had followed, Lenk always knew his grandfather had a point.

  It was only now that he was beginning to realize that the alcoholic might have had a better one.

  He tilted his head back, drained the rest of his tankard, and set it back down on the rotting wooden table, next to the other two empty ones. He wiped his mouth and, with foam-stained fingers, made a beckoning motion across the table.

  “All right, I’m ready,” he said. “Tell me again.”

  Asper’s frown deepened, as it had progressively deepened with every tankard. A furrow of irritation marred her brow.

  “Miron has been dead for centuries. Whoever owes us money isn’t who he says he is. The Khovura know we’re looking for him. The demons are with them and they are all trying to kill us.”

  Lenk returned the stare. He nodded slowly. He looked down at his empty tankard and hummed.

  “No,” he said. “I was wrong. That’s not going to do it.” He slid the tankard to the side. “One more.”

  Denaos nodded, tilting the last of the fourth pitcher into the tankard. “You’re buying the next one,” he said. “The man drinking shouldn’t consume more than the man paying. It offends Silf.”

  “Silf is a god of thieves whose rules change when it’s convenient.”

  “He’s good to His own,” Denaos replied.

  “So I see,” Lenk muttered, eyeing the small pile of coins before the rogue. “Did He give you that?”

  “No.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “A loan.”

  “From who?”

  “Friends.”

  “Which friends?”

  “Additional evasive answer.”

  “What?”

  Denaos looked up. “Sorry, I just thought I’d save us both some time there.” He slid the tankard back to Lenk. “Drink up.”

  A hand caught it. Not Lenk’s. The young man looked up at the tankard in Asper’s grasp. Then he looked up farther at the scowl scarred across Asper’s face. Then he looked down as she slowly upended the tankard and poured the ale onto the floor.

  “Well,” he said, “I shouldn’t have to get the next one after that.”

  “Shut up,” she snarled. “And listen. I’ve told you three times already. If I have to tell you again, I’ll use this”—she shook the tankard—“to smash a new hole in your head to shout into. The Khovura know who we are. They know what we’re doing. They know who we’re looking for and we don’t.” She slammed the tankard onto the table. “Miron Evenhands, the Lord Emissary, the fellow with your money does not exist.”

  “Which means we won’t be getting paid.” Lenk gestured futilely to the empty tankard. “Which felt like reason aplenty to drink heavily.”

  “You’re not drinking over money lost. You never do.” Her voice was hard and edged like a rough blade. “You’ll kill over it, but never drink. You’re drinking because it’s been two days and Kataria still hasn’t come back.”

  His left eyelid twitched. She set the tankard down heavily upon the table.

  “And if you’re going to be absolutely useless until she does, then could you please let me know so the rest of us could figure something out?”

  It was an iron-and-straw silence that hung between them, something vast and heavy balanced precariously on something small and flimsy, teetering between the man and woman, waiting to see which of them would push it upon the other.

  Outside, there was a rumble of thunder. The clouds that had gathered as evening fell began to mutter and complain to each other. A droplet of rain fell upon the window of the cramped, dingy room that separated the other cramped, dingy rooms they had bought from the innkeeper.

  It was Lenk who pushed the silence over. He leaned across the table and rubbed his eyes.

  “Look,” he said, “it’s not that I don’t get what’s going on. Obviously, payment aside, people trying to kill us is bad and demons trying to kill us is worse.” He glanced at Asper, who rubbed at the torn sleeve of her robe. “But it’s a little difficult to find someone who doesn’t exist.”

  “You seemed pretty confident that we could find him before,” Asper shot back. “All we need to do is stop looking for Miron and start looking for whatever man or thing is pretending to be Miron.”

  “Thing” might be too generous a term to describe whatever was masquerading as Miron, Lenk mused. Nothing ever was so simple as that when demons were involved.

  He sighed. “And how do you suggest we do that? You didn’t find any leads on where Miron—sorry, Not-Miron—actually is, did you?”

  “No. But I at least found out that he wasn’t who he said he was. Did you find anything?”

  “Not pertaining to Miron, no,” Lenk said. “And since Dread and Gariath aren’t back, I don’t think we’ll be hearing from them.”

  “Kataria might still—”

  “If you finish that sentence, you had better hope I don’t get hold of that tankard again.”

  She sank into her chair, crossing her arms. “Well, where does that leave us, then?”

  In the silence that followed, the long, deliberate sound of slurping echoed in the musty confines. They turned toward Denaos, who drank noisily from his own still-full tankard, smacked his lips, belched, and set it back down on the table. He folded his arms, stared pointedly out at nothing, and said not a word.

  “Yes?” Lenk asked.

  “Oh,” the rogue replied, “nothing. I was just thirsty.”

  “Just say it,” the young man said with a sigh.

  “No, no. It’s quite all right. You two go on striking your foreheads together, hoping to get enough of a spark to light a tinder.” He plucked up his tankard. “I’ll just sit here and, you know…”

  He took another agonizingly slow slurp.

  “Denaos,” Asper pressed.

  “Fine,” the rogue said with another belch. “If you can both agree to trust me enough to hear what I have to say without interruption or asking how I found out or questioning my methods, I can tell you how to find Miron.”

  “Agreed,” Lenk said.

  Asper did not say anything, fixing the rogue with a glare. He met her gaze with an expectant look. With a mutter, she relented.

  “Fine.”

  “Lovely.” Denaos leaned over the table. “All right, so, if we know that the Khovura have a reason to stop us from finding Miron, would it be safe to assume that our best link to him would be through finding them?”

  “If they’re attacking us like Asper says they are—” Lenk began.

  “They are,” Asper snapped.

  “—then it would at least be smart to know where they are.”

  “In that case,” Denaos said, “we need to find a way into the house of Fasha Ghoukha.”

  “Ghoukha?” Asper asked. “Why do—”

  “You already agreed not to interrupt,” Denaos replied, holding up a finger. “There’s a fair amount of evidence to suggest that he’s housing, aiding, and abetting the Khovura. Get into his house, you can find where they are, what they’re doing, and maybe Miron… or Not-Miron. Whatever.”

  “But how—”

  “You also agreed not to ask how,” the rogue said. “Fortunately, the parts that you’re not allowed to know also suggest that Ghoukha is in the habit of throwing large parties. And they aren’t too difficult to get into.”

  “They are when they’re full of rich people,” Lenk said, “and we look the way we do.”

  “It’s easier than you’d think,” Denaos replied. He glanced over his shoulder as fat drops of rain continued to strike the window. “Probably even more so now that the weather’s turned. Rain’s bad luck in Cier’Djaal. For fashas, anyway.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Free water,” Denaos replied, “is bad for business. They like to throw themselves feasts and remind themselves that they still shit gold. Lots of money, lots of liquor, lots of guests. We can think of something.”

  “Can you think of something
to get rid of that giant dragonman he keeps with him?” Asper asked. “I can’t imagine it’s easy with him around.”

  “It won’t be a problem.”

  Every ass cheek sprang off wood at the sound of Gariath’s voice. They craned their necks to the bed pressed up against the wall, where what they had assumed was a large pile of blankets had been. The dragonman lay on his stomach, eyes closed, arm draped over his head.

  “How long have you been there?” Asper asked.

  “Long.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything?” Lenk asked.

  “Because.”

  “How do you know the dragonman won’t be a problem?” Denaos asked.

  Gariath cracked open a single black eye to regard the rogue. Then he snorted, rolled onto his side, and said nothing more.

  “Well, there you have it, I guess,” Lenk said.

  “There we have what, exactly?” Asper asked. “Cryptic gibberish from a drunk and a dragonman is hardly anything to base a plan around.”

  “And yet, we’ve done more with less,” he replied with a shrug. “If Gariath says it’s not a problem, I believe him.” He glanced toward Denaos. “Whether or not I believe you is another matter. What’s your plan?”

  “Simple enough,” he replied. “Find the Khovura, find Miron. Find Ghoukha, find the Khovura. That’s the second plan.”

  “What’s the first?”

  “To sleep now and tell you later.” The rogue yawned, scooping the rest of his coins into a pouch and drawing the strings tight. “I’d rather spring it on you when there’s less time for you to think about it.”

  “That doesn’t give me any confidence,” Lenk said.

  “Then let’s forget about the money, Miron, and Cier’Djaal altogether,” Denaos said. He rose to his feet, tossed the coin pouch up, and caught it again. “Hardly makes a difference to—”

  The door opened and slammed shut. They looked to the entry of their dingy room and saw a boy in a dirty cloak, hair wet with rain, a wild look in his eyes. It was only scarcely recognizable as Dreadaeleon. There was something much too unrestrained and inelegantly twitchy about him for him to be their wizard.

  “You took your time,” Lenk muttered as the boy stalked in. “Where the hell have you been?”

  “Out,” Dreadaeleon replied.

  “And did you find out any—”

  “No,” the boy interrupted without looking at Lenk. His eyes were firmly fixed on the pouch in Denaos’s hands. “Is that gold?”

  “It’s a loan,” Denaos replied, drawing it against his chest protectively.

  “Give it to me.”

  “Fuck off. Why should I?”

  “I need to buy a woman,” Dreadaeleon said.

  Asper’s eyes went wide, jaw hanging open. Lenk’s brows went up in disbelief. Gariath stirred slightly but made no move to rise.

  It was only Denaos who moved. Slowly, he circled around the table and stood before the boy. He stared down his chest into a pair of eyes that were wide, wild, and untrembling. His mouth set in a frown, his eyes half-lidded, Denaos took the pouch in hand and held it up.

  He gave it a brief toss, testing its weight, before he took Dreadaeleon by the wrist, held his hand palm-up, and dropped the pouch into the boy’s grasp. He put his hands on Dreadaeleon’s shoulders, looked him square in the eye, and drew him in for a long, close hug.

  “I’m so proud of you,” he whispered softly into the boy’s ears. “Go with the Gods, my child.”

  “Thanks,” Dreadaeleon muttered as he turned to walk out the door.

  “Wait!” Asper called after him. “You can’t just—”

  “Don’t you ruin this moment,” Denaos growled over his shoulder. “It’s special. This is a special day.”

  “But we’re about to plan something for—” she began to protest.

  “I’ll hear about it later,” Dreadaeleon replied.

  He waved a hand. The door opened of his own volition as he walked through it. Another wave and it shut behind him.

  “How could you let him do that?” Asper snapped at Denaos.

  “Do what?” Denaos asked. “Go perform something perfectly legal, however expensive?”

  “He isn’t ready!”

  “That’s his decision, isn’t it?” Denaos gestured with a hand as he turned to disappear into one of the side rooms. “You can catch him and try to convince him of the error of his ways, if you want. But you’d better hurry. I’ve seen that look before. He’ll be sprinting.”

  Without another word, he vanished behind a door, leaving Asper no one else to direct her outrage toward but Lenk.

  “And you have nothing to say about this?” she asked.

  “Do you?” he replied.

  She looked very much like she wanted to have the comfort of flying into a sputtering, half-verbal rage. But the expression that came across her face was despairingly aware.

  “I don’t know,” she said, slumping back into her chair. “It’s just… what’s happened since we got here? Dreadaeleon is buying whores, Denaos is sneaking around, Gariath disappears for days at a time, Kataria’s gone, and you and I are…” She rubbed her left arm. “Is this what you wanted, Lenk?”

  He looked down at his empty tankard with an intent that seemed to suggest he thought it would talk back when he spoke into it.

  “You know, I’m not sure what I wanted.” He leaned back in his chair. “I mean, I guess that’s a lie. I had this vision of us walking through the Harbor Gate, Miron handing us our money, giving us a firm handshake, and parting ways forever. Then we’d all get a drink together—just one—and make a few jokes and one by one, we’d leave.

  “In my mind, Dreadaeleon was always the first to go. He’d say something about magic, reporting into the Venarium or some such, call us all barknecks, and then leave. Denaos next, just getting up to take a piss and then never coming back. Then you, going off to accompany Miron to the church or something. Then Gariath, who would just wander off and maybe I’d hear about him in legends, some kind of monster terrorizing the countryside or something. And then it’d be just me and…”

  With that last word came a quaver in his voice, and he chose to go no further. He glanced up from his tankard. Asper was staring pointedly at his forehead, too courteous to look into his eyes and make him finish that thought.

  “Then Miron disappeared and the Khovura happened and all this happened and it all went right back to killing,” Lenk said. He laid his head upon the table and rubbed the back of his neck. “Maybe that’s how it was always going to be. Maybe it just comes too easy and everything else is just too hard. Maybe it’s always going to be killing.”

  “No.”

  One word. Uncertain. He looked up at her. She was no longer looking at him, any part of him.

  “If it was always going to be like that, we wouldn’t even try,” Asper said, rubbing her left arm. “We’d just accept it.” She leaned her elbows onto the table. “I guess that’s why I didn’t want Dread to go. Even if he’s not doing anything terrible, I guess… I just had to try to do something.”

  “You know, whatever Denaos has planned, it might end badly,” Lenk said, looking intently at her. “Could be more killing.”

  “Could be,” she said. “I’m not going to say that it’s all right, either, that we’re doing it for Miron… or Not-Miron or whatever. I know it’s still killing. But there’s got to be some kind of difference between killing for the sake of money and maybe killing for the sake of something else.” She flinched. “Right?”

  He felt something spatter across his brow. He looked up and took a drop of water in the eye. He scooted his chair back and balanced his tankard on his belly to catch the water dropping from the leak in the ceiling. There was a rhythmic echo with each drip, an endless sound hanging between fleeting moments.

  “We could leave it,” he said. “Whoever Not-Miron is, he doesn’t want us to find him. The Khovura wouldn’t chase us outside of Cier’Djaal, probably. We could just leave. Go try ag
ain somewhere else. That’d be doing something else, wouldn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” she said, looking down. “Yeah, it would.”

  For the first time that night, their eyes met. Only for a single echo, a moment during which a drop of rain hung over an empty tankard. But echoes could last forever, if the emptiness was big enough, and sometimes cups ran deeper than most people knew.

  So they stared at each other, and in that echo they realized that they both knew only one way to try. And that way didn’t involve them leaving behind the city, leaving behind everything they had pushed for, everything they had lost.

  Or maybe they were drunk and angry.

  Lenk didn’t know.

  He said nothing as he set his tankard back on the table, rose up, and walked to another of the side bedrooms. Asper didn’t watch him as he went. Their echo was over. Water splashed against the floor with a dull rhythm. Tomorrow, they would be going back to what they did, back to trying the only way they knew how to.

  Lenk wondered, as he opened the door to a dark bedroom, if it would end in killing.

  Lenk tried to tell himself, as he closed the door behind him, that he didn’t know.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  AND HER

  A human was a finite resource.

  The bulk of him went to his fears. More went to his hungers. A few stray drops were spared for his loves and his devotions. Whatever scraps were left went to his senses.

  All that was left of Lenk that night was wordless, shapeless thought.

  The roof of his room was leaking. Rain came through on a tone-deaf chorus, a dozen little tin notes ringing out as drops fell into tin mugs, pans, other things that didn’t matter.

  The sheets of his bed were of poor quality. Overeager, inexperienced bed mates, they scratched at his naked flesh, brushing passionlessly against old scars, enthusiastically groping new wounds that aspired to be as old, as twisted.

  He hadn’t bothered to turn off the lamp. It sputtered out on its own ages ago. He didn’t care. He didn’t mind the dark. Or the rain. Or the itchy sheets. Or the way his body ached and begged him to just lie back and stop thinking.

  He didn’t have the sense to mind.

  He rolled onto his side and stared at the corner where he’d propped his sword, the tatters of his tunic hanging from the crosspiece like a blindfold. It didn’t matter. The sword could still see him, blind and in the dark. The sword was still staring at him, looking at him as though it was the answer to everything.