It was once a block of apartments, back when the Eleventh Ward wasn’t quite so overbuilt and it was an easier walk from here to the gates. As it aged and the area became less fashionable, at some point the owners had simply cut their losses and walked away. Eventually the place will either collapse or burn down in one of the fires that periodically sweep over the city, and something new will be built in its place.
Until that time, though, Grandma Tadeka has moved in and made it her own.
A lantern burns beside the main entrance all night, and Hasaka, the doorman, gives me a friendly nod as I approach. He’s a tall, powerfully built man, with a slight Jyashtani tint to his skin and dark hair to his shoulders, his arms banded with intricate, abstract tattoos. Grandma says he can pull a man’s head off like a butcher with a chicken, but I’ve never seen him do it. Aside from watching the door, he spends most of his time taking care of his boyfriend, Jakibsa, who lives in the upper stories.
“Evening, Tori,” he says, in his deep bass rumble. “Running late?”
“Just a bit.” I check, for the tenth time, that I’ve buttoned my shirt back to modest levels. Even thinking about what I did back in the alley makes my cheeks burn. Really, Tori, of all the unnecessary risks … “There’s draft checkpoints all up and down Orchard.”
“Don’t I know it,” Hasaka says. “Rot Naga and his war. What good’s some southern island to us anyway?”
“It may not come to war,” I say. “The Emperor hasn’t given the word yet.”
“Sure. And maybe the Blessed One will come down from Heaven and blow the Jyashtani fleet away with a fart.” He shakes his head, dourly.
“Stranger things have happened.” I pause. “Well. Maybe not.”
Hasaka grins broadly.
“Is she here?” I ask him.
“In her office,” he says. “No catastrophes so far tonight. Not more than usual, anyway.”
I nod my thanks and go inside. What had once been a narrow corridor leading to a set of claustrophobically small apartments had long since been gutted, wood-and-plaster walls ripped out to leave the concrete support pillars standing alone. Every available space is laid with bedding, sleeping mats in a hundred different styles, each with a patchwork of yellowing sheets and wadded-up rags for pillows. A narrow aisle leads under the central lightwell to a space at the back cordoned off from the rest of the floor by rag curtains.
A half-dozen older women move along the aisle, checking on the patients who occupy the beds. They smile at me as I pass, and I wave politely. I feel bad for not knowing them all by name, but for the most part my duties aren’t out here on the floor, and Grandma has an extensive rota of assistants. It’s become something of a badge of pride, locally, to work in the hospital one night a week.
Calling it a hospital, of course, is misleading. Hospitals are for the upper wards, with doctors, surgeons, and alchemists to mix scented unguents and potions. In the lower wards, doctors make house calls to those who can afford them, to stitch a cut or lance a boil, and in the face of disease the most they can offer is to rest and pray to the Blessed One.
They say Grandma Tadeka’s husband died when she was a girl, for want of a few bits’ worth of medicine, and that’s why she keeps this place going. I’m not certain it’s true—it’s hard to imagine her as a girl, she seems as craggy and eternal as the stones underfoot—and I’ve never dared ask her. All I know is that for as long as anyone can remember, Grandma has maintained a sanctuary for the sick, hurt, or mad. The people of the Eleventh Ward love her for it, which, given her personality, is saying a lot.
The curtained-off section of the floor is her “office,” a space with a writing desk and a few low cushions arranged around a stone hearth. She’s scribbling away when I slip inside, licking the tip of one withered finger delicately to turn the page in a homemade “book” bound with twine. Her pen is an old-fashioned goose-quill, lying beside a pot of sludgy ink.
No one seems to know how old Grandma Tadeka actually is. Certainly she’s been an old woman for as long as anyone remembers, and she seems set to go on as one indefinitely. Her hair is iron gray, with a curl that hints of southern blood, and her face is a leathery mass of wrinkles around a pair of diamond-hard blue eyes. When she squints disapprovingly at the page in front of her, I half-expect it to burst into flame.
“Tori,” she says, without looking up. “You’re late.”
I give an unobserved bow. “I’m sorry, Grandma.” Grandma Tadeka refuses any other honorific. “I got held up at the draft checkpoint by the High Market.”
Her pen skitters and pops across the cheap paper. “Thought you were smarter than that.”
“There was a boy running from the Ward Guard,” I say. “I … helped him.”
Grandma snorts. “A pretty boy, I’d wager.”
I flush again. “That’s…”
“You’re getting to that age. Kids start to think with what’s between their legs instead of what’s in their head. It’s natural, but it doesn’t make it less of a pain to watch.” Grandma looks up, finally, wiping her quill on a rag and setting it aside. “Pretty girl like you needs to have a care.”
“Yes, Grandma,” I manage, still blushing furiously, because what else can I say to that?
“I suppose you’re better equipped to deal with that than most, aren’t you?”
I take a deep breath, but say nothing.
“Well.” She gets up, the pops in her joints audible. Her robe is embroidered cloth, a pretty gift from some long-ago patient, now threadbare and patched at the knees and elbows. “If you’re done flirting for the day, we have work to do.”
* * *
The streets around Grandma’s hospital are full of her friends and associates, built up over the course of a long career. Talk to a shopkeeper or stallholder anywhere in the neighborhood, and you’ll hear a story about someone she helped—a son, a niece, an aunt, or a cousin. Braggi of Braggi’s Salt Fish owes her more than most, and the nature of his business means he has a lot of cellar space he’s happy to offer us.
He greets us out front, the shop dark and shuttered for the evening. A single lamp burns on the desk, and Braggi guides us to the heavily bolted door in the back corner. He’s a big man, the only iceling I’ve ever met, with an inch or so of shockingly yellow hair. He speaks Imperial with a thick accent, and when he drinks he belts out mournful, rhythmic songs that nobody else understands.
The lamp illuminates a long staircase, descending into a windowless cellar smelling strongly of fish. Braggi hands the light to Grandma and stands aside, looking nervous.
“You’ll be all right?” he says. “I don’t know about these people.”
“I’ve got Tori for a bodyguard,” Grandma snaps. “She’ll protect my virtue.” She stomps down the stairs, light held high.
I give Braggi an apologetic bow. “She’s running late.”
“Don’t make excuses for me, girl!” Grandma’s voice drifts out of the dark. “I’m a cantankerous old ass!”
“That, too,” I tell Braggi, who gives me a worried smile as I hurry down after her.
It’s chilly in the cellar, and the walls are stacked high with casks. Three people are sitting against the far wall, a young man and woman huddled together under a blanket, and another woman slightly apart. The two women look similar enough to be sisters; the younger is in her late teens, the older at least twenty. Grandma looks all three over with a sour expression, the lamplight turning her face into a mask of shadows.
“You’re her? Grandma Tadeka?” The young man gets to his feet. He’s well dressed, handsome, maybe sixteen. “I’m honored to meet you. My name is—”
“No names. I don’t want to know, not yet.” Grandma glares at him. “How’d you know to come looking for me?”
“M—” He’d been about to start with a name, pauses at Grandma’s expression, and nods at the older sister. “My fiancée’s sister told me that you might be able to help us.”
“And how did you find tha
t out?” Grandma says.
“I met a man in a tavern.” The older sister matches her gaze, and my estimation of her rises a notch; not many could. She remains huddled against the casks, wrapped in a wool blanket. “Paid him too much money.”
“Don’t suppose you caught his name,” Grandma says sourly.
“I didn’t want to know,” the older sister says.
Grandma’s lip quirks. She turns to me, and I take a deep breath.
Like I said, I don’t like looking into people’s minds. But it doesn’t take much to see if someone’s lying. Most people, at least, light up with yellow mistrust and acrid deceit, and I can’t help but pick up on it. Right now, the older sister is radiating suspicion, a feeling like cloth brushed over the back of my neck, but I don’t sense that she’s being deceptive. I nod to Grandma, and she raises an eyebrow and turns back to the couple.
“Are you going to help us?” the younger sister says. She’s prettier, with big, dark eyes and fine features.
“That depends, dearie,” Grandma says, and I flinch, because Grandma only says “dearie” to people who’ve annoyed her.
“On what?”
“On whether you answer my questions.” She looks across the three of them. “What are your Wells?”
All three seem taken aback. The younger sister and the boy look at each other, but it’s the older sister who moves first, silently opening her palm. With a crackle, a dancing Myrkai flame appears, throwing Grandma’s enormous shadow against the wall.
* * *
These three sought out Grandma for the same reason I did, the reason that first drove me to sneak out of the comfortable house up in the Second Ward and venture back into the lower districts I’d so recently escaped. While it’s well-known that she runs a charity hospital and sanctuary for the mad, rumor insists there’s more to it than that. Grandma Tadeka, they say, has a secret shelter for fugitive mage-bloods.
To be born as a mage-blood commoner in Kahnzoka is to face a set of awful fates. The luckiest, able-bodied men who rank as touched or talents, are sent to the Invincible Legions to serve the Emperor. In between assignments, they might be forced to stud for noble women wanting to strengthen their house bloodlines. The prospect of girls in the same situation is much worse, forced to bear noblemen’s children until their bodies give out. Magical power runs in the blood, and the Empire’s elite are loathe to see it wasted on the lowborn.
Those who qualify as adepts simply disappear. Ghul adepts are killed out of hand, of course, and the rest probably face a similar life as breeding stock. An elite few who join the ranks of the Immortals, the Emperor’s personal guard, are responsible for hunting down other mage-bloods.
Most mage-bloods don’t have the chance to conceal their powers. When they first come, they’re hard to control, and the standing bounties offered by the Immortals for rogues ensure that there are always plenty of neighbors willing to turn them in. For those who survive and remain free long enough to master their abilities, life is still on a knife-edge, always one slip away from being dragged away by chain-veiled soldiers in black armor.
This is the life that Isoka saved me from, the risk that she takes on every day. Not just the ordinary threats of the gutter—starvation, disease, murder—but the prospect of spending the rest of our lives as prisoners, raped by strangers and bearing their children. And, in all probability, never seeing each other again.
Once I was old enough to understand that, to know the danger she courted to keep me safe, I could hardly bear it. I knew there were others, without someone like Isoka to protect them, hunted by Kuon Naga’s Immortals, the Ward Guard, and the whole Empire. I went looking for a way to help them, and I found Grandma Tadeka. Since then, I’ve been assisting her as often as I can, and it soothes the pangs of my conscience.
And—at the back of my mind, in the moments before I fall asleep—a worm of a selfish thought: if the Immortals ever do come for Isoka, or for me, maybe we’ll have somewhere to run.
* * *
Back in the basement, the younger sister grudgingly says, “I’m Myrkai, too, though I’m not as strong as she is.”
“Mine is Rhema,” the boy says, which perks my interest—I’ve never seen the Well of Speed in action. “I’m barely touched, just a sliver of power, but they were going to take me for the Legions anyway.”
“And so you ran,” Grandma says.
“We ran,” the younger sister says. “M—my sister had been looking for a place for us to go. She finally spent everything we’d saved to get your name.”
“That’s a poor bargain,” Grandma says. “My name’s not worth that much.”
“Is it true, then?” the older sister says. “Do you have somewhere we can hide?”
“Well.” Grandma scratches her nose. “First I need to know I can trust you.”
“We’ll do whatever you ask,” the boy volunteers, drawing an annoyed look from the younger sister.
“Nothing too difficult. Just swear by the Blessed One that if I find a place for you, you won’t do anything to endanger me and mine.” Grandma’s smile is thin. “Easy enough, right?”
“I swear,” the boy says.
“Repeat it,” Grandma snaps.
“I swear by the Blessed One…”
All three of them stumble through the oath, and I concentrate, feeling the shades and vibrations of their minds. The boy is sincere, thick with lemon-bright fear. The older sister, too, means what she says, though she has more pulsing, deep blue determination. The younger, though …
Deceit. Hatred. Her mind is thick with brackish, foul odors. She mouths the words, and I can feel-hear-taste the lie.
Grandma turns to me, and I beckon her forward and whisper in her ear. She listens, blank-faced, then straightens.
“You and you can stay,” she says, to the boy and the older sister. Glaring at the younger, she adds, “I’ll ask you to leave, and not bother me again.”
All of a sudden everyone is shouting at once. They’re all on their feet, the older sister tugging at the younger’s arm, the boy shouting in Grandma’s face. I flinch away from the chaos, but Grandma holds her ground, unmoved.
“Why?” the boy manages to get in. “Why would you—”
“Because your girlfriend wants to sell us out. Maybe you, too, for all I know.” Grandma shrugs. “I didn’t get this old by hugging snakes.”
“That’s a lie!” the younger sister shouts.
“Meri…” The older sister is looking at her sibling with sorrowful eyes. “What did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything!” She looks between her sister and Grandma. “I wasn’t going to do anything! I just—” She shakes her head frantically. “You spent everything we had on this. How are we supposed to live, even if she does help us?”
“Meri,” the boy says, but she shakes him off, advancing on Grandma. Her hands open, and fire blossoms.
I take a half-step forward, though what I’m going to do against an angry Myrkai user I have no idea. But Grandma just holds up a hand.
“Going to burn me?” she says. “Go ahead. I warn you, though, I plan to scream, and when I do I don’t think much of your chances outside.”
“You rotting horrible old bitch,” the younger sister hisses. “I’m—”
“Meri, don’t,” the boy says.
After a dangerous moment, she closes her hands, flames disappearing with a hiss and a trail of black smoke. The girl shoots me a murderous look as she pushes past, stomping up the stairs.
“You two are welcome,” Grandma says, as though nothing untoward had happened. “If you’re still interested.”
“I’m not leaving Meri,” the boy says. He glances at the older sister, as though he expects her to agree at once. But she’s looking down, toying with the end of her braid, and I don’t need to peek into her mind to see what she’s going to say.
“I’m staying,” she mutters.
“But—”
“Meri made her choice.” The older sister takes a
deep breath. “Just like she always does.”
The boy hesitates for a moment, then runs after his lover. Grandma stands aside to let him go, then gives a slight bow to the older sister, who refuses to meet her gaze.
“Welcome to the sanctuary,” she says.
* * *
The girl—she’d finally given her name as Giniva—had still looked half-stunned when Braggi had led her away. I made a mental note to visit her, though I wasn’t looking forward to it. The anguish pouring off her mind had been practically palpable, like stumbling through a foul-tasting fog.
“I didn’t think she’d stay,” I say.
“There’s history there,” Grandma says. “There always is, with families. You can never tell.”
“Her sister, Meri,” I say. “You’re not worried she’s going to go to the guards now?”
“I expect she will,” Grandma says. “But they’ve heard that song before, I dare say. And I have a few friends spread around.”
“It still seems like a risk.”
“What would you like me to do?” She gives me a sharp look. “Slit her throat?”
Isoka would have slit her throat. I push that thought down. Isoka lives in a different world, with different rules.
We’re walking back to the hospital from Braggi’s. The street is dark and webbed with shadows, lit only by lanterns hanging from a few late-night winesinks. At this hour, the Second Ward would be silent and empty except for patrolling night watchmen, but the Eleventh is never really deserted. Parties of drunken revelers stumble along, slurring their way through lewd songs, avoiding the dungmen with their covered carts. Streetwalkers wait at the intersections, cheap, gaudy robes hanging half-open, while discreet signs in a few windows indicate nighttime entertainment for the better-heeled.
Ofalo and Narago would be horrified by this place, but it doesn’t feel dangerous. Partly, of course, that’s because I’m with Grandma Tadeka. A drunkard lurches up to her, does a double take, then straightens up and gives a deep bow. Even the prostitutes incline their heads respectfully as she passes, and no wonder.
City of Stone and Silence Page 6
