by Daryl Banner
Then the music stops instantly. A spark.
Ruena and Sedge stare at the silent music machine, confused. It glows, shivers, shudders, sparks again.
Then a light blinds them and a terrible sound—not the music—fills the room. Ruena and Sedge go flying, thrust against the opposite wall with a grunt and a boy’s shriek. The blinding purple light is a lightning bolt outside the window-wall—Flash! The next instant, gone.
Ruena opens her eyes, gaping. The machine is in pieces. Ignoring the broken smoking thing, she races to the window, anxiously peers down to find a trail of fog where the lightning bolt tore the air in half. It struck somewhere in the slums, and like spiders of darkness scattering, all the lights in the city below go out. Darkness shivers across a spread of slums all the way to the brim where the Greens begin, all the way to the Wall …
Ruena puts a hand to the scar on her cheek. Her fingers quivering like charged lines, she says, “Oops.”
0031 Link
Link flinches; the light on their neighbor’s house has flicked out. He squints, screwing up his forehead and glancing through morning haze. Indeed, all light’s gone, even the lit windows of tall buildings in the distance.
He scrambles down the tree, pushes into the house and finds his mother standing in the dark den. “I … was watching the broadcast,” she mumbles, still staring at the blank screen. “What sort of hell is this?”
“Mom.” Link comes up to the counter, squinting in the dark. “If there’s no power—”
“No school, I know.” She smirks, crushing her face in thought. “I think I’ll take advantage of you and your brother, assuming this lasts as long as other outages have. The stores never close, and Lionis has a food list …”
Not what I wanted to hear. “No, mom. I have a project that’s due. I can’t run errands.” Of course, this is a lie; he just wants to find that fucker Dran and, upon his own knuckles, make beautiful bloody art of his face.
“Who else will stock the pantry?” She spreads her hands, exasperated. “Link, baby, I still have to work, seeing as the muds require no power, and I can’t—”
“Stop calling me baby,” he retorts, shoving his back against the wall and sulking. Why, when an opportunity so cleverly finds him, it just as cleverly slips away?
“Dad’s at the metalshop. He’s got a very important Weapon Show he’s preparing for, and Lionis is busy around the house. You and your brother must put yours into this house too, don’t leave it all to Lionis.”
His brother Wick appears at the foot of the stair, rubbing his eyes. He’s always rubbing his eyes. “The power’s out,” he mumbles, King Of All That Is Obvious. Mom informs him of the errands they’ll run. The sourness that passes across Wick’s face is just the same as Link’s. Maybe he also had plans for this gift of a day.
“Do I need to send Lionis with you two for escort?” Mom looks between the two brothers, back and forth and back again. “Stop with the faces. It shouldn’t take you two more than an hour. Well, maybe longer, as the trains won’t be operating. Oh, that’ll make my getting to the Greens considerably longer, now that I think of it …”
“We’ll do it,” says Wick at once, snatching the list off the counter.
Outside, the sun has scattered the night’s storm and in its place a furious orange burns. The two brothers move silently down the street, take the turns and stroll six more blocks to the intersection where normally they’d embark the train and head into the thick of the city.
This is when his brother faces him. “To be honest, this list can wait. I have more important things to do.”
Link has never heard more beautiful words in his life. “Me too,” he confesses. “Meet you here at noon?”
“Link … You been alright?”
He looks off as though caught by something over his brother’s shoulder. “Could ask the same about you.”
“Well, if you must know, I think my Legacy Exam went a little strange. The Marshal paid me a lot of mind, and I’m not sure that’s a good thing.” His brother smiles wistfully. “Not everyone has such a clear, focused Legacy like you. If I had your power, would’ve been easy.”
“I wish I had yours.” Link smirks, like a lemon’s kissed his tongue. “Did you smell everyone’s fear at your Exam? Smell their weakness?—Sanctum scum?”
“Something like that.” His brother suddenly hugs him, catching him completely off. “Bro, if anything ever happens, if suddenly I gotta go somewhere and … and I’m not around for a long time, or like … or like if—”
“What’re you talking about?”
Wick lets him go. “Never mind. I’m being dumb.” He ruffs his hair—annoying Link to no end—then says, “Hey, let’s meet back at the grocery store. We’ll make up some reason we’re late. Grocery store at noon, Link?”
“Grocery store at noon,” he agrees, confused.
They part ways. Link dwells on his brother’s words. What’s he doing in his spare time? Where might he go that he won’t for so long return? There is something very strange about his brother, something to do with his Legacy. Even one night when Wick was supposedly closed up in his room, Link managed a peek through his window, but his brother wasn’t there. He goes out at night too; he keeps as many secrets.
Is there such a thing as a Lesser without secrets?
Hurrying down the dark street, Link pursues the last remaining places he could possibly think to find Dran or any of the other fools who call themselves Wrath. Really, any of their faces will do to smash in at this point; they all were in on his cruel abandonment. They’re all to blame.
Shye, the avenger. Shye, of shadows and anger and things once lost, now found. Shye, the pissed-off.
Pushing into a clothing store known for all its supply of black and chains and other things the Wrath seem likely to bathe in, he casually peruses the racks, pretending to care for a sleeveless black jacket or a spotted woolen hood or gloves. His shoulder brushes against chains, rattling, he cringes and scans the store, as if already afraid of being caught. They caught me by surprise once, he thinks bitterly. They’ll never catch me by surprise again.
“Can I help you?” asks the clerk.
Link scowls. “You can mind your own,” he spits back, then returns to picking through the racks.
“We only take cash today, kid, as there’s no power. No ID’s or loans or Sanctum credit.”
“Do I look like some kid with Sanctum credit?” Link squints sharply, of malice and murder and danger. Kid, he called me. I dare you to call me that again. The clerk only rolls his eyes and resumes reading a book, a small lopsided candle by his hand.
The word “kid” makes him think of a little girl who once made an enemy of herself in the waterways, only to turn around and save his life in that toolshed. Even still, thinking on her, he wonders how far he can trust her good intentions. Did she benefit somehow from saving him? No one does a thing without a gain, he’s learned this much in fifteen years of slum life. No one at all.
Link gives up, pushes out of the store, and then—
Dran. He can’t believe what he’s seeing. Across the street, poking through a basket of a seller’s trinkets like some old man, Dran without the black gunk in his eyes, without all the black garb and clattery metal at his waist and feet, without the spraying mess of black hair. Dran almost looks a normal citizen, like some fellow bumbling about the marketplace looking for fruit. Even without all the drama, he recognizes Dran.
The leader of The Wrath gives up on the basket, thanks the seller and continues down the street. Yes, even his arrogant strut is the same. Link turns into a shadow. This shadow pursues the Wrath-Man quietly, soft-footed as a cat. Shye, the shadow, the cat. This shadow blends with the dead streetlamps, the bending of a building by sunlight, between the fissures of walls. Shye, the blended.
Dran rounds the corner and passes through the gate of a chain fence. The shadow follows and finds himself in a metal scrapyard. Shadows are more difficult to conceal here, so it keeps its
distance. The heaps of metal prove tricky, but at least they aren’t fire-hot by the sunlight just yet, as morning only hours ago broke. The shadow has eyes, and it watches as Dran picks through the metal, lifting a sheet here, pushing aside a sheet there. Dran, the metal-picker. Link, the shadow. But a shadow has no fists; a shadow needs a proper weapon.
Link sees it: a splinter of metal by his foot. It’s so easy, it’s made so easy. The makeshift sword finds way to Link’s eager, hungry hand. He stalks his prey, preparing, oh, the ideas, the many imaginings and ideas of what to do to Dran with this beautiful, sharp tool. The shadow pays back for what you’ve done, Link promises with all his fury. The shadow pays back for what you’ve likely done to countless others, for what you’ll do to so many boys after me. He grips his splinter tight, opportunity drawing so close to his lips he could lick it.
Then he trips.
Clang, loud and clumsy, the world falls apart. Sheets of metal bury Link in a sudden downpour, and he grunts angrily, trying to free himself from the silver avalanche. Another hand suddenly appears, lifting and tossing aside the heavy scraps, until Link finds himself embracing the helping hand of Dran, who lifts him from the mess and back to rights, his foot finding purchase.
Their eyes meet, and Dran almost seems to smile. Not a speck of surprise in his loose face. “Aye, Linker, thought I recognized you in the market way back there. What’s that you got in your hand?” asks Dran politely, not even caring to look at the splinter of metal Link holds. “Giving me a nose piercing with that?”
Link ignores the jab. “You humiliated me. You had all the fun at my expense and threw me to hounds. I could’ve died … or could’ve been imprisoned for life had I not, all for the likes of a prank.”
“First,” Dran points out, “you neither died nor got imprisoned. That’s both impressive and unsurprising, as you always struck me clever, ever since your first mission at that sanctuary … The Brae. You sure know how to decapitate a girl’s doll, don’t you? Second, it was not a prank, Linker-stinker. You came out of that toolshed a stronger, smarter, keener man.”
“I’ve listened enough,” Link barks back, but then he hears Dran’s words again, and it occurs to him: “Wait … How’d you know I was in the toolshed?”
“Oh, you think we truly abandoned you?” Dran grins, all his white teeth flaring. “Awwww, my boy! Had you lost your speed, we would’ve hacked off the heads of those clumsy guards. But you didn’t lose your speed, did you? Regrettably, we did slice one of the hounds in half. Schoonk! Poor animal hadn’t a chance, but that’s what he gets for being the slowest of the litter.”
“So what the—what the fuck was the point?” Link grips the splinter tighter, feeling it pinch horribly in his palms, but he ignores it. “Why’d you—Why’d you—?”
“Why’d we let you in from the start?” Dran circles him slow—Link follows with the tip of his weapon. “Our mission at The Brae was your first test. You cut a priest’s back, made a little girl cry, and stole away with a bag full of happy. But why did you cry for them?”
“I did not cry,” he spits back, his sharp point still following.
“Think those priests didn’t deserve the treatment we gave them? Think, just because they raise hands to some spiritual overlord, to Three Sister, to the King or the Marshal of Madness or whoever they feel like praying to this week, that they are … what’s the word … innocent? No man, woman, or child is innocent. Especially the ones who wear costumes.”
“And what the fuck do you wear, black eyes?”
“So you finally see.” Dran grins, confusing Link for the worse. “I, most of all, am so far from innocent. But justice is not only for the innocent and blameless. Nor wrath. We are all a victim, all a murderer, all a thief and a brother and a liar. Even you. Just as guilty as a King. Even a priest. Even a child with pretty little eyes.”
“You wanted me dead.” Link’s hand is shaking. The weapon grows heavier by the second. “You were mad that I’d lost the gold to a girl, to a—”
“A girl?” He’s still circling. Stop circling me. Stay still! “So it is a girl now that stole your gold in the waterway? Not a boy thief? … So you’re a liar, now?”
“And a thief and a brother,” he retorts, “and a victim and a murderer, isn’t that right?”
Dran stops moving. “It was a test, Linker. All of it … and you passed.” He moves to pat him on the shoulder, but Link spins in reflex, aiming his weapon hard. The thing points at Dran’s nose, but he only smiles, unafraid, unmoved. “I never told you what my Legacy is. That’s clearly evidenced by the fact that you’re preparing to bring harm to me with that—sword, is it? You have no idea what I can do.”
“I don’t care what you can do, you Wrath fuck, you piece of fucking fuck.” Link’s hand trembles so terribly, he suspects his entire weapon has gone every shade of pink.
“If you knew my Legacy,” Dran warns him, though his voice reeks more of teasing than it does threat, “you’d think twice about swinging that swinger.”
Suddenly there’s a lady at Dran’s hip, some pretty punk thing with spiky hair and hot green lips. She leans in, gives Dran a thick, wet kiss on the lips, then turns to squint at Link with acid in her eyes. “Who’s this fool?”
Dran smiles, gives his girl a little lick on the cheek and says, “This young man’s name is Link. He was just showing me his moves, weren’t you?”
Link says nothing in return. The girl reaches around his weapon like it were nothing but a fly in her face and extends a hand. The girl’s tiny face is pierced through the nose, and her eyebrows are shaven off, painted lines taking their place. Her eyes are sharp and her mouth, tiny as a nostril. “I’m Mercy.”
Link still says nothing, still makes no movement. The point hovers at Dran’s smiling face.
The one called Mercy frowns. “A serious one, this is. No smiles at all.” She squints at Dran. “You absolutely sure this kid wasn’t about to duel you to the death?” Dran laughs, which burns Link in the belly, burns him something cold and hot at once. Kid, she called me. Kid …
“Here.” Dran pulls a black band off his arm that Link, until now, hadn’t realized he was wearing. He flings it to the ground at Link’s feet. “Keep it. Memento, if you never see the likes of me again. Otherwise—and I do say this with every heavy and every light in my heart—once of Wrath, always of Wrath. Many of us will be attending the Weapon Show tomorrow. Nine blocks that way,” he says, moving the tip of Link’s weapon ever so slightly to indicate. “Yes, thereabouts. The smithing district, just before the Crossing. The only thing of Wrath we wear are these bands, and you have mine now. We won’t go in black gear. Tomorrow night, we celebrate weaponry as citizens. We celebrate strength and wisdom of slummers. We take notes, share genius …”
Dran interrupts himself to pull his girl into him. His tongue out like a snake, it slithers into her green lips. She moans humorlessly. Link’s eyes play a game between the two of them. Dran seems to forget he’s in the middle of a conversation, his hand tracing the back of his girl and coming to rest on her butt. “Mmm, yep, that’s about right.” He grins, shining teeth again in Link’s direction. “And in no sooner than a week’s time, this beautiful lady’s gonna be mine forever.”
The girl Mercy, she lifts a hand and wiggles the fingers. A fat, dull band of metal rests on one of them, no shimmer in it at all. “It’s a big thing,” she complains.
Dran cups himself down below, gives a squeeze. “But aren’t you so a fan of big things.” He nips her ear, turns an eye back to Link. “Wife … The word sits well, and someday you’ll sit with it too, Linker. Remember. Tomorrow, Weapon Show. Make it fly.”
With a pat and a squeeze of his girl, the two of them go away. Only now does Link lower his weapon. He lets it fall to the ground, the ugly, useless thing it is. When he crouches to take up the black band he so fought to earn, it feels lighter in his palm than he expected.
He wonders if all long-sought-after rewards feel as empty.
His hand’s red from wrist to nail. He didn’t realize he was gripping the long metal splinter so tight, he’s made a bleed of his whole hand.
0032 Halvesand
He encounters a beautiful puddle in the road from last night’s rain. He stomps through it to wreck its mirror-perfect peace.
Halvesand can’t help his sour mood. Grute is the last person he would share missions and tasks and duties of protection with. As effective as patrolling with a monkey. Not to mention the fact that his brother Aleks is off in the city somewhere with Ennebal—the real person with which Halves would like spending time.
And then there’s the blackout. Ever since the bolt of light struck the ward from the sky and they were thrown into darkness, he’s felt at any moment someone could slip from a shadow and shank him … or steal his glow gun, or worse. Then Grute might make some dumb sound or dumber move, throwing them both into danger—that’s really what he fears. He does not trust Grute.
But even the excitement of paranoia wore off hours ago. Now he’s just bored. Grute doesn’t even make good company.
“Got a lead,” says Grute suddenly.
Halves is confused, pokes at the gadget in his ear. “I didn’t hear anything about a lead.”
“Follow.” Not a question, an order.
Halves follows, covering Grute’s back as they approach some back alley club. Lady Luck, it’s called by the dimly-glowing sign. With a little shove, the door gives, and Grute moves in. Set out on platforms and encased in giant glass boxes, women are dancing sensuously, one in each. Candles burn all around, thickening the already too-thick air of this grimy hole. “I’m armed,” says Grute with no sense of kindness for people. “We go where we like.”
Halves realizes his partner’s in a verbal quarrel with one of the tenders. Already. “I don’t care who either of you are,” the tender snaps. “You’re in my place of business, and unless it’s a dance you want, you got no business here.”
