by Sarah Fine
I eyed Zip, and she hooted softly at me. “How can we trust her?”
Ana shrugged. “We can’t, not completely. But she’s already risked herself a few times to help us. That torn-eared Mazikin was about to fight Takeshi just so he could claim me as a slave, and Zip saved us. And she got us down here after you freaked out. I’m willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. If that doesn’t work out . . .” From beneath her cloak, I caught the dull glint of one of her blades.
“Would this be a safe place to bring Malachi?”
“It’s a good first stop,” said Takeshi quietly. “From here, we can plan the assault on the palace.”
I pushed myself up to a kneeling position, already reaching for my weapons. “Then let’s go now.”
Ana shook her head. “We can’t just walk into the square unprepared. It’s not only a matter of fighting the guards. He’s in chains.”
I looked down at my blunt, broken nails, my plain, weak, human hands. If the strength of my feelings was all that mattered, I would have been able to tear through those manacles like paper. But since my feelings barely mattered at all, we needed something better. I looked up at Takeshi. “When you unlocked that safe chamber right after you found us, you used a skeleton key. Where did you get it?”
Takeshi gave me a wry grin. “Stole it from the Smith.” He pulled the thing from his pocket and held it up. “He runs the metalworks on the east side of the city.”
“Is he Mazikin or human?” Ana asked, taking the key from him and examining it.
“Human. But he’s been here for a very long time. He and his human slaves make all the weapons for the Mazikin guards.” He gave me a cautious look. “He’s the one who made the Queen’s steel claws. And if we want to unlock Malachi’s chains, we’ll need to get the key from him.”
I got to my feet. “Sounds good,” I said, entertaining thoughts of dipping this Smith person face-first into a vat of molten metal.
“He sells his wares in a market west of the factory. We’ll need to steal his master key, and he’s very well protected. Our best chance is to do some reconnaissance and see if we can slip in to his inner sanctum.”
“He can’t be bargained with?” I asked.
Takeshi shook his head. “He is not our friend.”
“Wait,” said Ana. “You said all humans were slaves. But this guy runs a factory and sells stuff?”
Something cold flashed in Takeshi’s eyes. “He’s their ally, so he has special privileges as long as he obeys them. It’s the same for the Tanner on the west side of town, who is responsible for clothing the entire city. The Tanner and the Smith have expertise that has been useful to the Mazikin, and they’ve been highly cooperative with the creatures.” He rose from the floor in a single smooth movement. “They are as much the enemy as the Mazikin.”
“You’ve never tried to stop them, though?” I asked. When he shook his head again, I continued. “But you said you’ve caused trouble.”
“Habit. Nothing more.”
“So you’re just pissing them off,” I snapped. “And what do you bet they’re taking some of that out on Malachi?”
“Malachi has caused them enough trouble all on his own, Lela. He was very good at it, as I recall.”
“But the trouble he caused was always intended to help the people he was supposed to protect.”
“Am I a Guard here, Lela? Who am I supposed to serve?”
“I—”
Takeshi’s dark eyes went bright with sudden fury. “That’s what they call me here. The Guard. I hadn’t been called by my name in years, not since I heard it fall from Ana’s lips yesterday.” He leaned closer to me, tension emanating from him. “I was forsaken by the Judge after a hundred forty years in her service, right when I should have been released into the Countryside. Unlike she has apparently done for Malachi, our all-powerful Judge didn’t send anyone here to rescue me. For a decade, I have been one man among a million slaves and a million carnivorous enemies, with absolutely no means to escape this hell, including death.”
“Tak—” Ana began.
“No.” He lifted his hand to stop her and got right in my face. “Forgive me if I haven’t tried to play the hero,” he said in a quiet voice. “And I’ll forgive you for making judgments without knowing anything about me or what I’ve been through over the last century and a half.”
“Then tell me what I should know,” I said, ignoring Ana’s warning glare.
Takeshi leaned back and wrenched his shirt up, revealing a thick diagonal scar across his stomach. “The Judge is not the first of my masters to betray me.”
I stared at the horrible scar. “Your master did that to you?”
He let out a bark of laughter. “No, Lela, I did that to me. Where I came from, suicide was sometimes the only honorable death—much less shameful than accepting defeat. But that was not how it happened for me.” He let his shirt fall over the scar. “I was a warrior, and I served my master well. With all I had, from the time I was a boy. When he told me to kill, I killed, and I was very good at it. Perhaps too good. When he sent me to help another lord secure his lands from raiders, I did. But instead of being grateful, that lord turned on my master.”
“I take it your master wasn’t forgiving.”
Takeshi ran his hand over his stomach. “It was worse than that. When I saw that this rival lord was trying to undermine my master, I sent a message, and received the assassination order in reply. I killed that rogue lord, which enabled my own master to take his lands.” He bowed his head. “I thought he would be honored. But the dead lord was well loved by his people, and they rebelled against their new lord. They wanted blood.”
He looked at me. “I was summoned before my master. In front of all his men and the subjects of his dead rival, he asked me why I had so hastily and unjustly executed the lord. I had a choice—to betray my master by revealing that he had ordered the assassination, or to take the blame.” His fists clenched. “I did what my honor dictated, and I hoped for clemency.”
“But you didn’t get it,” I said softly.
His palm spread over his belly. “Seppuku is a ritual. Once you make the cut, your kaishakunin—your assistant—ends your suffering by cutting off your head. It is quick.” His voice was hushed and his eyes glazed. “My master told me he would be my kaishakunin. And I remember thinking, ‘I am willing to die for this man. To be the sacrifice that pacifies his new people.’ I thought he was honoring me by performing this service, that this was his final acknowledgment that I had served him well. So I knelt before him, and I plunged that knife into my belly, and I sliced my insides like this.” He slashed his finger across the path of the scar, from the lower left side of his stomach up across his belly to the right.
Ana winced and pulled his hand away from his body. He watched their fingers tangle. “Do you think he was honoring me, Lela?” Takeshi whispered. “Do you think he repaid my loyalty by ending my pain?”
I folded my arms across my chest and shook my head.
“He stood over me, sword in hand. But he didn’t carry through. Instead of ending my pain, he watched me suffer. And it hurt as much as the wound, the knowledge that he was throwing me away, that I was merely a tool to be discarded when I had served my purpose. He let me die that way, at his feet. He even said, ‘Mercy is too good for you,’ loudly, so all could hear. To cement their allegiance, he heaped shame upon my head. I died knowing that I was worth nothing to him.”
Takeshi gestured at the scars on his face, made by claws instead of blades. “When I arrived in this city, I was stupid enough to hope. But as time passed and no one came for me, I understood. It had happened again. Years of service. Years of suffering. And still, I was worth nothing to the master I had served so faithfully.”
Ana’s arms coiled around Takeshi’s waist, and she laid her forehead on his shoulder. Her eyes were tightly shut; it looked
like she was trying not to cry. My own eyes stung as I watched their pain. “I’m sorry, Takeshi.” I had no idea what else to say.
“Thank you,” he murmured, then turned away abruptly and approached his Mazikin disguise, which was propped up against the wall, the face snarling and scarred. For the first time, I thought about what he must have done to make it. His graceful, elegant appearance was simply another disguise, one that made him all the more dangerous, because it was easy to forget that this was the man who had trained Malachi and Ana to kill, and who had done a really good job of it. But when the time came, would he really help us complete the mission? Did he even have it inside of him, after everything that had happened?
He stuffed his disguise into his satchel. “We should get going if we want to do this today. The Smith’s domain isn’t far. Maybe ten blocks down, in the factory district. And everyone’s still in the square. They’re having a lottery.”
“To see who gets to go to the land of the living.” And possess the body of a homeless person. Or one of my classmates. “If we kill the Mazikin bodies here while their spirits are inside humans there, will that end them for good?”
“Maybe,” said Takeshi, casting a wary glance at Zip, who had pulled out a comb that appeared to be made of polished bone and was brushing my mother’s hair while cooing softly to her. They seemed to be in their own bizarre little world, and I was happy that neither of them understood a word we were saying. “Mazikin don’t have eternal souls. Not like humans. Once their bodies are dead, they’re gone, as far as I know. They don’t appear at the gates and come in again. They’re tough creatures and hard to kill, but unlike us, they stay dead. If their physical bodies die, their spirits, the aspects of them that possess humans, die as well. I’m sure the bodies of the Mazikin that are currently possessing humans are kept in a protected place, though. Probably near the portal, which is likely to be located in the Bone Palace.”
“So . . . the Bone Palace . . . ?” Ana made a face.
“It’s exactly what it sounds like,” said Takeshi in a flat voice. “I haven’t ever been inside, but there’s no other place the portal could be.”
“Then we’ll check it out after we get Malachi to a safe place so he can recover,” Ana said.
I reached for my cloak and gloves, which had been folded and left on a patch of bare rock next to the goatskin pallet I’d been lying on. If I gave myself time to think about Malachi and how he was feeling right now, I thought I might start screaming and never stop. So I pulled the gloves on my hands, tied the cloak at my neck, and strapped my knives around my thighs.
Ana gave Zip and Rita a vague explanation of where we were going but didn’t tell them our specific plan, just in case. Zip promised to stay in the lair and to be ready when we arrived later, and then she comforted my mother, who burst into tears when she was told I was leaving. Although she’d seemed barely aware of me for the last several minutes, she came toward me and took my face in her hands, looking at me with amber-brown eyes full of concern—and startling clarity. “Cuidado con los monstruos. No deja que te roban los dientes,” she whispered, leaning forward to kiss my cheeks.
I pulled away from her grasping fingers gently, even though part of me wanted to scream at her—Too little, too late, too little, too late. I didn’t know how to be her daughter. I didn’t know how to accept the loving words or the worried looks, especially when they came so suddenly, rising out of the haze of her illness and sinking back in just as quickly. So I waved to her, pulled my hood over my face, and followed Takeshi as he led us along a rocky, deserted passage and up to the street.
He didn’t make us wear the leashes or collars this time. Those were safely tucked away in his satchel. Takeshi told us to stay close to him and keep our heads down, then he guided us into the predawn chill, which bit at my cheeks and made my breath puff out in white clouds in front of my face. In the distance, the crowd in the square cheered raucously. “Are they hurting him?” I asked, rubbing away the pain in my throat.
“I don’t know,” answered Takeshi. “He’s probably not feeling much at the moment. It would take awhile for him to regain consciousness, for his regrown heart to get enough oxygen to his brain to allow him to feel pain.”
I wanted to vomit all over the crumbling concrete at my feet. Ana’s shoulder bumped mine, letting me know she was next to me. It was as much a reassurance as a warning to keep it together, a reminder that I didn’t have the luxury of acting pathetic.
“Is there anything here that isn’t made of concrete or steel?” Ana asked, probably trying to distract me from thinking about Malachi—wondering whether his heart would beat the same way after it had been torn from him repeatedly, whether his mind would survive intact after his body had been abused so terribly.
“It’s really all the building material they have,” Takeshi replied. “Unless you count bone.”
Ana grimaced. “Ugh.”
We crossed a deserted intersection. Down the block, I heard moaning and screeching, but I didn’t turn my head. Ahead of us, the factories loomed, bright lights fogged by black smoke. The air here was slightly warmer but filled with an acrid, metallic scent that burned my eyes. “No wood?” she asked.
Takeshi laughed. “No trees. But there is plenty of sand. Between these factories and the city gates is the mining zone. Salt and sand and limestone and iron. Oil, too. These are the materials available to them, and so they make concrete and steel, and they refine oil for fuel. There is a river that flows beneath the city, and it’s the only water source. This is a hard place.” His gaze traveled from the street to the massive smokestacks looming in front of us. “Can you blame them for wanting to escape it?”
“Yes,” Ana and I said at the same time.
I bumped into Takeshi’s back as he stopped abruptly. “What is it?” I asked.
“In the alley,” he said in a low voice. He sniffed at the air.
I looked in the direction he was peering, down a side street to our left. Was that a flash of white skin and dark cloak? “I could go—”
“No. Wait here,” Takeshi said, then plunged into the alley. He disappeared from sight almost immediately.
“I’ve seen that cloaked figure twice now,” I said to Ana as I stared at the mouth of the alley.
“Least of our problems.” Ana’s voice was tight with anxiety.
I spun around to see her standing alone in the intersection, her eyes wide. “What?”
“It is against the law to roam the streets without a master,” said a voice from the shadows. My blood went cold as no fewer than ten men stepped from buildings and alleys all around us, knives drawn. Instantly, I felt a blade against my throat and heard a sharp cry that told me Ana was in the same situation. My captor pulled me against him. He stank of sweat and goat. I fought to hold back my panic.
“Do you have a permit to walk free?” the man demanded.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’ve got a permit right here.” But before I could reach for the knives at my thighs, a sharp slice of pain in my throat made me gasp. My assailant’s gravelly voice rumbled in my ear. “Try it, and I’ll remove your pretty head.” The warm trickle of blood into the neckline of my tunic told me he was serious.
As much as I could with the knife at my throat, I glanced over at Ana next to me. Her hands were out to the side, and her throat was sticky red, but her face was a blank mask. I couldn’t tell if she knew what was going on any more than I did. Where was Takeshi? Had he known we were being watched?
I felt the blade withdraw a bit. Instead, thick fingers wrapped around my neck and wrenched my head up. A dark-skinned, bearded man who looked to be in his thirties stepped in front of me while the person behind me kept the knife close to my skin. While my attention was focused on the bearded guy, one of his friends ripped a blade from one of my thigh sheaths and held it up to his lantern. “That wasn’t made by the Smith,” my bearded assailant gro
wled.
“Who could have made it then, Nazir?” the other man asked, peering at the edge of the blade with sharp curiosity.
“Someone on the outside,” hissed Nazir.
The other man’s mouth fell open as his eyes lit on me. “Outside?”
The man behind me released his grip on my neck as Nazir said, “Strip their weapons.”
My thigh sheaths were ripped from my legs, and the blade moved away from my throat, allowing me the chance to look around. What I saw made my heart sink. Ana’s hands were being tied behind her back. The only weapons we still possessed were the grenades strapped to her chest, but seeing as our hands were now being roughly bound, they wouldn’t do us much good at the moment. “Four of you stay to monitor the market,” ordered Nazir, grabbing my arm and tugging me forward. “The rest of you, come with me. The Smith will be eager to meet these two.”
TEN
THE HUMAN POSSE LED us down the street. Six men, relatively straight-backed and fit, though many bore ghastly scars, mostly claw or bite marks and signs of blistering. From the way they held their weapons, I could tell they were competent with them, but they weren’t warriors. Their eyes darted from street corner to street corner, as if they were afraid something might leap out and attack at any moment. Though most of the buildings in the area were illuminated, their first floors were largely empty, and the roads were quiet except for the shouting and cheering that could be heard blocks away in the main square. Every wave of noise felt like a celebration of Malachi’s pain, cranking my rage and frustration a notch higher. We were wasting time. Every moment we spent in captivity was another delay in our rescue plan.
