The City Stained Red

by Sam Sykes

  She saw herself in his face.

  In his cringe, she saw the grime-black of the soles of her feet, the soot clinging to her belly and arms. In his frown, she saw the tatters of her silks and the ash-choked locks of her hair. And in his wide, wide stare, she saw the furrows that tears had gouged in her cheeks, dripping from eyes as red and wet as her knuckles.

  She sniffed. “Hey.”

  He grimaced. “Hi?” He flinched, as though suddenly aware of her presence. “Um, would you like to come in?”

  She stared at him. He glanced around nervously before stepping aside. One foot in the front of the other, she entered.

  She felt the emptiness of the temple, the absence of people filling her like a breath of air too cold and too thin. Every pew converted to sickbed lay empty. There wasn’t so much as a stray bit of stitching or scrap of bandage left. The floors had been scrubbed clean of blood. One might never know how much suffering occurred here if one hadn’t seen it.

  Or if one didn’t know what kind of suffering there went on out there.

  “Oh!” She heard Aturach scurry excitedly up behind her. “You noticed? We took your advice, worked in shifts. It took days, but we finally did it.” He gestured to the empty pews. “Every last man, woman, and child in here was seen back to their family alive. Honestly, I’m a little surprised we managed to do it. Even for all that I prayed, all the work I did, I doubted that we could save all of them.”

  He breathed in that vast, empty air. He exhaled it in a long, grateful sigh.

  “I guess Talanas really is looking out for Cier’Djaal,” he said, turning to Asper, “isn’t He?”

  She turned to look at him.

  She smiled weakly.

  And then vomited on his feet.

  Directly to the right of the wooden idol of Talanas, incense burned. The smoke was, according to the hymns, the last words of the dead. What the forgotten, the ill, and the dying whispered before their suffering ended lingered in the world between this one and the next. In the embers of the incense, in the scent that filled the air, in the curl of the gray plume, the lost words were made visible.

  Directly to the left of the wooden idol of Talanas, a bell rang with a gentle tap. It was a hollow bronze cylinder, unadorned but for a single engraving of the Phoenix, the Healer’s symbol. The sound was a low, constant hum that faded over the course of long moments. It was the sound, according to the hymns, of Talanas drawing in a deep breath and holding it that the rest of the world might breathe for a little while.

  Directly before the wooden idol of Talanas, two people knelt in meditation.

  Beneath the robe that didn’t quite fit, Asper’s freshly scrubbed skin still tingled. Or so she assumed. She could barely feel it, or the pillow under her knees, or the presence of Aturach beside her.

  She watched in silence, waiting for the moment when she was supposed to feel her breath come as Talanas’s left.

  If it came, she didn’t notice.

  She observed the tip of the incense curling, the embers traveling down the stick and leaving a gray twist behind. She watched it as it broke under its own weight, a trio of gray coils of ashes lying beside the idol. They reminded her of the bodies, coiled upon a blackened floor, like children slumbering beneath blankets of soot. She watched as the incense continued to burn, as more bodies fell.

  She continued watching it as the sound of the bell went silent and Talanas released his breath.

  This was what was left of the dead.

  This was what was left of her God.

  Ashes and silence.

  “I think it was right after my parents died that I first asked myself.”

  Aturach had waited until after Talanas had released his breath to speak. His eyes were locked on the idol.

  “Not in so many words. I don’t think anyone really ever looks up to the sky and says ‘do you even exist?’”

  I do, she thought.

  “It happened right after the riots,” Aturach said. At this, he looked down at the floor. “The Houndmistress was going to put an end to the Jackals and the thieves and bring this city back to its people. But she didn’t. There were riots. A lot of people died. I guess you might not have heard of it.”

  I did, she thought.

  “Anyway, my parents died. Not a huge surprise, I guess. Lots of peoples’ parents died. People. They were Talanites—not devout, but no one on our street was, what with work and all. But they were people. And I wondered, ‘was it us? Did Talanas not save us because we were too faithless?’ Which is ridiculous, I think.”

  I don’t, she thought.

  “So, maybe I joined out of fear. Fear that I’d be next if I wasn’t a better Talanite or something.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Stupid, right?”

  “No,” she said. She looked back to Talanas. “I think the only reason we worship is out of fear.”

  “Come again?”

  “Maybe we don’t say it, but we do it to make ourselves think someone is looking out for us. Because we don’t think anyone else will.” She looked to Aturach again. “And we’re right to do so.”

  He held her gaze. “I heard what happened. Even before you told me, I knew what happened at Ghoukha’s house. I was a little surprised that we didn’t get any of the wounded over here. I suppose that they’re rich, and they have their own private healers to—”

  “There weren’t any wounded.”

  “Oh?”

  “They were all dead.”

  His gaze fell. “Oh.”

  “All of them. Servants. Nobles. Fashas. Anyone who didn’t get out.”

  Aturach said nothing. Neither of them did. Nor did they turn away from the idol. Talanas appeared unfazed by this news. His arms were extended in benediction. His smile above His beard was enigmatic. His eyes were turned upward to a hopeful heaven.

  But above Him, there were only the gray wisps painted across the air by the burning incense. The last words of the dead.

  Funny, she thought, how Talanas, patron of the suffering and healer of the wounded, always looked so upbeat.

  He was just the Healer, after all. Maybe He didn’t care so much about the dead.

  “I asked myself tonight,” she said suddenly, the words tumbling out.

  She heard the shift of Aturach’s robes as he looked at her.

  “Not in so many words, like you said.” She watched the gray wisps dance over Talanas’s head. “In words that meant something else. I was… praying.”

  “What, in the middle of all that fire?”

  “No, not like that. I was really praying.” She gestured to the idol. “This is just ritual. This is hymns and incense. What I was doing, it’s like… like a reflex, like wincing just before someone slaps you, even if you know it’s coming. I wasn’t praying to Talanas, but to anyone. I was just saying things and I really wanted them to be true.”

  She felt a smile creep across her face, unbidden. To hear it said like that, she thought, it sounded a lot like lying. Maybe there wasn’t much of a difference.

  “And then?” Aturach asked.

  “And then everyone was dead,” she said. “And there was…” She rubbed her left arm, tried to ignore the whispers in her head. “I got out, somehow. And then I saw the house burnt down and they—my friends—told me everyone was dead and I already knew that.”

  She sniffed. A wet sigh.

  “I never once asked Talanas where He was. I never once blamed the Gods. I never looked to heaven. I just looked at the embers of that house and thought, ‘What did I do wrong? Why am I the only one who cares? What was I supposed to do?’”

  “That’s reasonable,” Aturach said. “We all look back on tragedy and wonder what we could have done differently.”

  “It wasn’t wondering.” The force of that word surprised her as it came out. As did the heat behind her eyes as she turned on him. “It wasn’t a wonder, it was a need. I had to do something. I needed to do something right there and then or I was just going to… I would have…”


  Her hands had balled into fists without her even noticing. She looked down at them. The scrapes on her knuckles were a bright ruby red against her scrubbed skin. They didn’t sting now. No more than they had when they had been smashing against Dreadaeleon’s face.

  “You don’t belong here, you know.”

  These words, too, were a surprise. But not a shock, like hers had been. The words that Aturach spoke were more a stinging sensation, like she had just been slapped across the cheek. And it hurt.

  “What, you mean here in Cier’Djaal?”

  He shook his head. “Here. In this temple. Before Talanas.”

  “I’ve been a priestess all my life,” she protested.

  “You were born into the clergy?”

  “I might as well have been. I became an initiate when I was very young.”

  “I joined when I was fourteen,” Aturach replied. “I needed to do something, too. For me, that was prayer. For me, that was attending a temple, taking oaths, doing the Healer’s work. That was doing something. But it’s not for you. Prayer isn’t enough. The Healer isn’t enough. You need to save everyone. You were just too young to realize it before you knew it.”

  “Don’t tell me what I am.” Her fists were still curled unconsciously. “Don’t talk down to me.” She gritted her teeth without knowing it. “Don’t be horrible like everyone else.”

  The moisture rimming her eyes, the way the tears stung her cheeks. She was aware of those.

  “Please.”

  He inched off the pillow, closer to her. She trembled as though she might strike him, and he flinched as though he believed it. Yet his hands were steady as they reached out and took hers; his voice was calm as he whispered, the words of the dead hanging between them.

  “Asper,” he said, “I couldn’t. I can’t. I’m not. And that’s what I am. I’m a person of ‘nots.’ But you…” He looked over his shoulder to the empty pews. “I would have thought prayer was enough for those people. I would have said that I did my duty and fulfilled my oaths and I would have slept soundly in my room as they died down here.

  “But you… it’s not enough for you. Talanas isn’t enough for you. Faith isn’t enough for you. You need more. You need living people. That’s why you don’t belong here, Asper.” His smile was soft, weak, a flickering candle in the dark. “But I’m glad you are.”

  A long tendril of smoke slithered in the air between them. The thick scent of the incense cloyed her nostrils. There was nothing more to it than that: just an aroma and some smoke.

  This smoke wasn’t the words of the dead.

  That wasn’t Talanas on the altar.

  Those people were still ashen heaps on the ground.

  Gods didn’t listen. People were scum. Steel was worth more than gold. Gold was worth more than flesh. Blood was everywhere. People died in the streets and nobody cared. This city was shit. The world was shit and no words a man with a soft smile could say would ever change that.

  But sometimes, it was nice to feel good about them anyway.

  Or at least to try.

  Aturach looked over her head. The moonlight shone stark through the window, waning.

  “It’s getting late.”

  At the end of that sentence, he squeezed her hand. She smiled at him, withdrew hers, and felt his fingers brush against her palm.

  “Yeah,” she said. “My friends will be worried about me.”

  Liar.

  “And I should be resting in preparation for tomorrow,” Aturach sighed as he rose. “The mediation will take—”

  “The mediation? It’s still going ahead?”

  “You hadn’t heard?”

  “I hadn’t heard and I was there. How did you?”

  “Word travels swifter than bare feet on cold stone,” he replied. “Swifter still when it’s carried by fear. The Karnerians and Sainites are at each other’s throats with accusations as to who sent the Khovura. If the mediation doesn’t go ahead soon, we’ll see war before the week’s out.”

  “That can’t be right.” Asper hopped to her feet. “There was just an attack. They shouldn’t rush into this. It isn’t safe.”

  “All of Cier’Djaal won’t be safe if we don’t rush into this,” Aturach said. “With Ghoukha no longer around to oppose her, Lady Teneir’s recommendation that it be held on the border of the Sumps, closer to the poor, was approved. They’re already setting up. It’ll be at sunset.”

  She held a hand to her temple. “How does everything move this fast in the city? Back when I was adventuring, it all seemed to be from moment to moment.”

  “Who can afford to wait?” he said, sighing. “Regardless, if there’s trouble, I should be there.” He looked at her meaningfully. “You should, too.”

  “Two armies squaring off? If there’s trouble, there’s not a lot either of us can do.”

  He continued to stare. He blinked once. The incense smoke began to dissipate around him. She sighed, rubbed her eyes. She needed sleep.

  She needed a lot of things.

  Most of all, she needed not to say what she was about to say.

  “Sunset, then?”

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  SIX COFFINS, NEATLY ROWED

  Silf was a God of necessity.

  Men born to prestige worshipped Daeon, the Conqueror. Men born to compassion worshipped Talanas, the Healer. Men born to skill worshipped Arexes, the Smith.

  Men who should never have been born at all worshipped Silf, the Patron, God of Thieves.

  No one chose to worship Him, of course. He merely accepted whoever was willing to pay for His blessing: a scoundrel God, but an ironically honest one. And since His worshippers were often less than willing to part with coin to begin with, He was rarely called upon outside of the most desperate circumstances.

  And to invite a thief into one’s house, one’s circumstances must be especially desperate.

  Denaos sat across the table, staring at his God as Rezca pushed him forward. Up close, Silf didn’t look so impressive: tiny ebonwood idol carved to resemble a thin man with two faces reclining on a throne made out of knives. One face was a smile, coy and terse, the other a frown, vaguely disapproving. Mild emotions, both deprived of any great mood; Silf parted with nothing, not even an emotion.

  Not without pay, anyway.

  There was a jingle of coins as Rezca dropped his purse on the table and reached in, fishing out a bright golden piece. He placed it in the wooden bowl carved in Silf’s lap.

  “A bargain’s a bargain,” he said, sliding the idol to his left.

  Yerk looked out from under his hood and slid a hand into his vest. He produced a second gold coin and set it in the bowl. “A bastard’s a bastard.”

  He slid Silf to his left. Anielle pulled her glove open, withdrew another gold coin, and set it in. “Luck for the worthy.”

  She slid the idol to Denaos. The two faces of Silf stared up at him expectantly, echoed in the expressions of those seated beside him. He reached into his pocket, clasped the heaviest thing he could find, and placed in the bowl.

  A piece of copper, tarnished and ugly, lay flat upon the gold coins like a wart.

  “Gold for the master,” he finished.

  Yerk looked at the copper coin, then up at Denaos. His eyes were wide and white. “Unwise to start a meeting with blasphemy.”

  “It’s not blasphemy,” Anielle said with a pointed glare at Denaos. “It’s just bad luck.”

  “It’s a rhyme,” Denaos muttered under his breath.

  “Same thing,” Yerk said, ignoring him. “Luck, disrespect, blasphemy… all the same to Silf. These are harsh times. Times when we’d be lucky to have the Patron watching our back.”

  “It’s a rhyme,” Denaos said again, louder.

  “He’s just a little rusty. He hasn’t played the game in years and we haven’t whispered the pact in longer,” Anielle said to Yerk. “Besides, no one told him—”

  “IT’S A FUCKING RHYME.” The coins jingled as Denaos slammed his fist on t
he table. “It’s something made up by gutter-priests to bilk dumbshits out of their money. It didn’t do anything when we were young, it didn’t do anything when we were older, and it’s not going to do a fucking thing to save us from our own stupidity now.”

  He thrust a finger across the table at Rezca so fiercely it might as well have been a blade.

  “Ghoukha’s dead. A lot of people are dead. The fashas are scared, the Karnerians and Sainites are preparing for war, the Khovura ran wild in our yard, and we’re here spitting rhymes like they mean a fucking thing.” He leaned across the table. “Where was my backup? If we had had Jackals there to fight the Khovura, they’d… they’d…”

  Anielle and Yerk looked at him, waiting for him to finish that thought. The flat stares that met him suggested that they knew as well as he did what would have happened.

  They’d probably be dead, all the same.

  “It could have been different,” Denaos muttered, settling back in his seat.

  “As I recall…” Yerk paused to fish a cigarillo out of his vest and lit it. “It was you that suggested Ghoukha might have allied with the Khovura. Is it not better he is dead if that were the case?”

  “I wanted you there in case that were the case,” Denaos retorted. “And in case he was a target of the Khovura, I would have wanted you there to protect him so we could have figured out what they wanted and gotten in good with the richest fasha around while we were at it.”

  “We were already in good with him and every other fasha.” Yerk took a puff of his cigarillo. “The Jackals have had an understanding with the fashas since the riots. Whatever fool errand led you to believe that it was any fasha, let alone Ghoukha, was—”

  “Our ‘understanding’ with the fashas goes as far as agreeing not to hurt them too badly if they pay up,” Anielle interrupted. “We’ve been squeezing them for years. Why wouldn’t they try to take a chance to put us down if they had it? Especially if we can’t even keep the Khovura out of their houses. I’ve heard Ramaniel’s theory. It adds up. It was a good bet and we should have been there.”