Beggar's Rebellion: An Epic Fantasy Saga (Empire of Resonance Book 1)

by L. W. Jacobs

  “We can get someone to sign for me; that’s common enough. You know my work is good.”

  He worked his hands, but she detected a note of calculation. “I could lose my job.”

  She cocked her head. “Or you could make your job a lot easier. I’m well trained, Odril. I can help with whatever work you’re doing.”

  He fidgeted, stealing a glance at her body. “I can’t pay you much.”

  “I don’t need much. Pay off these men and I’ll get you double your money back within a month.” That was a stretch, but she was desperate. Better a stretch than getting arrested.

  He swallowed. “You’ll stay with me. In my house. And do my work first, attend me at meals, I—I have a contract already written up.”

  Already written? He turned to get it and she struck her resonance, searching everything out of his direct gaze. Nothing. Who was her thief, then? She’d have believed it most of Odril. Ralhens? One of the sailors? She stilled her resonance. “Why do you have a contract?”

  He grinned. “Standard boilerplate. I actually have a whole team of calculors working for me, processing Alsthen’s books. You’ll fit right in. Just sign here.”

  Ella scanned the document. It was bad and the payment worse, but a sight better than imprisonment and discovery. What other choice did she have? If things got too bad, she could always timeslip her way free.

  Ella took the pen, LeTwi radiating disapproval, and signed.

  4

  It’s whispered the Titans have yura, that they’ve been using it for years. There must be some in the western mountains. How else would they be using their abilities?

  —Kellandrials, Collected Broadsheets, Yiel 109

  The city was dead. Carts, hawkers, and porters streamed around Tai, Ayugen bustling on a market morning, but it was still dead. The ghosts of war were everywhere: walls charred from the town burning, buildings laid on broken foundations, tiny red altars set into eaves and ledges, figures of ancestors inside. The people were still in mourning, three years on: orphans begging with blank eyes, laborers from the mines too pale for the light of day, women walking with heads down, muttering to themselves. Muttering to whoever they’d lost.

  Tai was in mourning too. Every year at this time, during the hottest part of the summer, when the breeze stopped and the sun seemed never to set, memories of the resistance came back. Of fighting and running through the streets of the city while Councilate soldiers poured in from the docks. Of months of hope followed by days of panic and defeat. Of his best friend Hake getting run through by a silver-suited soldier while Tai watched, frozen.

  Don’t go getting angry. Hake’s voice was scratchy in his head, the pubescent in-between it’d been when he died. They won fair and square.

  “Me? You’re the one they killed.”

  And you’re the one stalking the city like it’s still a war zone.

  “It is a war zone,” Tai muttered, watching a pair of Councilate lawkeepers question a dark-haired urchin. “We just don’t fight back any more.”

  Because there’s no point. Because we’re getting out. They’d been saving to move for years, ever since Hake returned as Tai’s spirit guide, and they’d found Hake’s little sister living on the streets. Not long now.

  Tai ducked a vendor’s basket, dried mavenstym blossoms arranged in elegant spirals. “One hundred and thirty-seven days.”

  What?

  “That’s how long it’s going to take us at this rate. One hundred thirty-seven days.”

  That’s...not so bad.

  “It’s after the snow flies, which means we have to wait here until the river thaws.” Longer than he wanted to stay, the way the lawkeepers had been acting.

  Hake gave the mental equivalent of a frown. Tai couldn’t see his spirit guide, but knew Hake well enough while he was alive that he could imagine him standing, arms crossed and eyes narrowed. You’ve got some kind of idea.

  Tai nodded toward the river below, where charred ship masts stuck from the water like the claws of a drowned bear. Rebels had attacked during the night, sinking two Councilate ships. You could still smell smoke on the air. “That’s my idea.”

  Join the rebels? You know that’s how I died, right?

  “No, Hake. Loot the ships.”

  He gave the ancestral equivalent of a snort. There’s no way you’d get in there. The place is crawling with lawkeepers.

  “Not from above.” A passing lighthair gave him a sharp glance, and Tai made a rude gesture back. Councilates thought it was childish to talk to your spirit guides.

  From abo—and use your resonance? Tai, no. You’ll go mad like you did last time. Remember that, attacking every lawkeeper you saw, me barely managing to talk you down?

  Tai shifted his shoulders. “I was young then. I could control it now.”

  And what happens to my sister if you don’t? She’s all I’ve got left.

  There it was. The old guilt, like a boulder between his ribs, pressing on his heart. The way Hake won every argument. Hake died because Tai’d frozen, so the least Tai could do was take care of Hake’s last living family.

  You don’t even know if there’s anything in them.

  “The rebels wouldn’t burn them if they weren’t important,” he snapped. “They were probably packed to the gills with yura.” Yura was the whole reason the Councilate had come to Ayugen—a cave moss that quieted spirit guides and gave weak access to the resonances. It was all the rage in the capital.

  Well, unfortunately, the dock is packed to the gills with lawkeepers looking for a scapegoat. And you’re going to lift a bale of yura from under their noses? They’d kill you for a rebel on the spot. And then we’d both be dead.

  Tai rolled his shoulders, ducking out of the way of a great elk pulling a cart of roofbeams. He didn’t want the guilt of what came next, the reminder of what would happen to Fisher. “Hake, you died three years ago.”

  Hake snorted. Sometimes I wish I had. But since I’m supposed to be your guide, can we agree not to raid a pack of Councilate lawkeepers? For Fisher’s sake?

  Tai sighed. “Fine. But if we don’t have enough money at first snow, we go anyway. Even if it means we’re still beggars when we get to Worldsmouth.”

  Deal.

  Tai turned a corner toward the cheaper stalls and shops of Riverbottom. He’d sent two of their kids here to beg, expecting busier streets as people came to gawk at the wreck of the rebel attack. More people meant more lawkeepers around, but also more chances to make money—and they weren’t doing anything illegal.

  Usually.

  Fisher and Curly were two streets down, two sets of hands in a line of frail children sitting against the carved wood wall of a luthier shop, begging for change. The major gangs were both there, Maimers missing hands or limbs, young girls from the Mothers clutching even younger children. Tai glanced up and down the street, then crouched and mussed Fisher’s black-and-silver locks. “Hey, Fishy, Curly, how’s business?”

  Fisher smiled at him, eyes sparkling beside her snub nose. “I saw three butterflies and a red songpickler, right over there on that rooftop.” She pointed, a young Maimer nearby giving them a sidelong look.

  Tai smiled. “That’s great. Any sales?”

  “We got three, Tai!” Curly said, voice the raspy excitement of an eight-year-old trying to sound tough.

  “Three? That’s great!” A sale or two a day was usually the best his kids could do, especially with the Councilate’s crackdown on unlicensed yura. He dug six pebble-size balls out, gray-green lichen bound together with beeswax. “Here’s some more, in case things get crazy.”

  Curly took the balls and Fisher nodded, already searching the street for more wildlife. It was the game she played to keep herself occupied on long days. They all had something—Curly juggled, Pang practiced magic tricks, others played solitaire stones. And Tai—

  Hake gave a wry laugh. You’ve got me.

  Fisher’s eyes lit up. “Tai, watch. I can get this one, too.”


  There was a Councilate woman walking their direction. Tai smiled. “Work your magic. I’ll be right here.” He squeezed in beside her, letting his chest cave and head drop to blend with the other beggars.

  Hake radiated pride. That’s my girl. Tai shared the emotion—Fisher was the youngest and sweetest of his gang, and sold yura like a black-market veteran.

  The woman approached with nose held high, as though searching for untainted air. Her shimmering white gown, stiff back, and Achuri attendant all marked her as a Councilate citizen, but nothing so much as her hair. Silvery pale and thin as spider webs, it was braided and tied in elaborate loops on all sides of her head. A lighthair. Tai fingered his own hair, dark like everyone else’s, though conspicuously thinner than the local Achuri black. A child of the city, Marrem would say to him growing up. Son of no one, son of everyone, and no reason to be ashamed of it.

  Except that lighthairs ruled the world.

  One of the beggars called out, a young Mother holding a child, but the woman ignored her. Fisher put on a bright expression and called, “A few coins for a smile, milady?”

  Tai hid a grin. He had taught his gang high Yersh, having learned it himself running for the Achuri resistance. It sounded especially dainty in Fisher’s tiny voice. They were the only gang in town who spoke proper Yersh, and it made a difference in sales.

  The woman stopped in her tracks, gazing down at Fisher. “Well, you’re a bright one.” She spoke with the heavy vowels of the capital. “Are you selling more than smiles?” The lighthair glanced around her as she asked—unlicensed sale of yura was technically illegal, though all the gangs did it.

  “We have moss, too.”

  “Well, then.” The woman leaned in, apparently unconscious of how every child on the street was now listening. “How much for a ball?”

  “It would be twenty moons, ma’am.”

  “Twenty moons?” The woman sounded offended, but that was par for the course. Lighthairs couldn’t buy anything without making a fuss over it first. “How much for more?”

  “Two balls for thirty-five, three for fifty…”

  The woman smiled and shook her head. “A lot more. Say, thirty balls.”

  Tai choked despite himself. Thirty? No one bought thirty balls at a time—he didn’t even buy that many. Tai’s heart beat faster—this would put them weeks ahead.

  Fisher was stammering, unable to add it up. “Five hundred!” Curly cried, solving it like a math game.

  Tai winced at the woman’s expression. It was too much—a hardened street kid would’ve known that. He was glad his kids still had some innocence, but every now and then, it worked against them. “We—could give you a discount,” he said.

  The woman looked at him, eyebrows raising. “So you’re in on this too? How much of a discount?”

  Tai did his own math game, balancing profit with how much closer a big sale would get them to passage out. “Say—three hundred fifty.”

  She nodded. “And how much for a hundred balls?”

  Even Hake choked this time, but Tai’s instincts flared. Was this some kind of trap? “What would you need that many for?”

  The woman crouched down, seeming to forget that she was the lighthaired lady and they the street kids, excitement lighting her face. “For experiments. I’ve heard the Achuri can use their resonances without yura—is that true?”

  Tai rolled his shoulders under the woman’s gaze. She didn’t seem dangerous, but you never knew with lighthairs. “Some of us can.”

  “Can you? Can any of you?”

  Distrust rolled off Hake. Don’t tell her. Who knows what she wants—and those days are done, anyway.

  “He can!” Curly cried. “He’s the Blackspine! He’s the toughest fighter in the whole city. That’s why none of the gangs mess with us! He killed forty soldiers all by himself!”

  “Curly.” Tai winced, holding up a hand, but if the woman had been mildly curious before, she was all eyes now.

  “Is this true, Mister…Blackspine?”

  “Tai. It’s just Tai. And that was a long time ago.”

  “But he could do it again if he wanted,” Curly pushed on. “And he doesn’t need yura for anything!”

  Looks like someone’s got an admirer.

  “How did you do it?” the woman asked, eyes intense. “Did you overdose on yura?”

  “I—”

  “Hey!” a new voice called, and Tai started. A lawkeeper was striding toward them, one hand on his cutlass. “What’s going on here?”

  “Meckstains,” Tai cursed, standing from his slouch. He’d been so caught up in possibly selling a hundred balls that he hadn’t watched the street.

  Distracted by a set of hips?

  “Shut up, Hake,” he muttered.

  “What was that?” the lawkeeper demanded.

  “Shut up, lady, I was saying.” The woman’s eyes widened, but Tai ignored her. Like Hake said, better safe and with his kids than risk imprisonment just to make a sale.

  He switched to Achuri, seeing the lawkeeper was one of the newer local recruits. “Fishhair was giving us a hard time, lording herself over us. Like usual.” He wasn’t above playing on local loyalties, if it got him out of a tight spot.

  The lawkeeper wasn’t having it. “Not trying to sell her black-market yura, then?” he responded in Yersh. “If I take you in and search you, we won’t find way too many moons and moss balls on you for a street tough?”

  There was something familiar about the man’s close-set eyes, the way he stuck his chin out when he talked. Tai looked again. “Tulric?”

  The lawkeeper smirked, Maimer tattoo poking out from under his Councilate hat. “That’s Tulric Alson to you, meckstain. I’m practically a lighthair these days. Now lift ’em up; you’re going to the mines.” He paused. “’Less you want to see if I can get you a job?”

  Tai spat at his feet. “And work for the Councilate? Never.”

  “Your funeral. Have fun digging moss.”

  As Tulric spoke, Tai felt a hum in his bones, a deep vibration like his skeleton was a wood chime suddenly struck. Tulric was using his resonance, one of the six powers yura gave access to. Tai tensed—judging by the tone, Tulric was a brawler, someone who got stronger and faster on yura. Most lawkeepers were brawlers or wafters, and wouldn’t hesitate to kill or break bones if you tried to escape.

  Which, of course, was exactly what he needed to do.

  Probably should have thought of that before you spat at him.

  And you should probably be thinking about something more useful than scolding me, Tai thought back. Aloud, he said “Look, Tulric, if you’re looking for a cut—”

  “He did nothing wrong,” the Councilate woman cut in, tone righteous.

  As one, Tai and Tulric looked at her in disbelief.

  A lighthair was defending him?

  “You’re a lawkeeper of the Councilate, yes?” she went on. “Sworn to protect Councilate laws and citizens? Well, I am a citizen of the Councilate, of Worldsmouth itself, and I tell you this man was doing nothing more than having a polite conversation with me.”

  “I—” Tulric appeared at a momentary loss. Tai nodded at Curly and Fisher, who started to melt away with the rest of the beggars on the block.

  “You will release him at once.”

  Tulric seemed to recover his cool. “I appreciate what you’re saying, lady, but I’ve got a quota to fill.”

  As the woman cut in again, Tai noticed his bones were quiet, meaning Tulric had stilled his resonance. The abilities didn’t last long, limited by the amount of winterfood you’d eaten that day. Tulric was probably trying to conserve his. Meaning Tai had a couple seconds to run before the man could get inhumanly fast and strong and run him down.

  It wasn’t much, but he was taking it.

  Tai bolted in the direction of the Iron Market and the warren of shops that surrounded it. Tulric had grown up in Ayugen, so Tai wouldn’t be able to lose him as easily as a lighthair. But Tai hadn’t survived Ayug
en this long without learning a few tricks.

  Like blindness. Tai veered left at Pauper’s Corner, snatching a handful of red chili from a spice vendor’s piles as he passed. There was an alleyway here somewhere—there. Tai ducked into the cloth-draped alley as shouts sounded behind him—Tulric pushing his way through the crowd. Tai pulled himself up on one of the scorched poles jutting from the brick wall and tried to collect his thoughts.

  You like that Councilate lady.

  “What?” he burst out. “No, definitely not!”

  Tulric bulled into the alley. Startled, Tai threw the powder from his perch, hitting the man more or less in the eyes, then swung out above him as the lawkeeper cried out. It wouldn’t buy him much time, but Tai knew how to use every second. He darted farther down the street, heading for the Iron Market. He could lose the man there. A crow could lose its feathers in that maze.

  “Tai!”

  The raspy voice nearly made him stumble. Curly came out from behind a fruit wagon ahead, Fisher behind him. Tai’s stomach dropped. “Curly! What are you doing here? You need to go hide!”

  “We were worried about you,” Fisher said, eyes wide and dark.

  “Did you kill the lawkeeper?” Curly cut in.

  “No, I— He’s right behind me.”

  As if on cue, Tulric roared from down the street. He’d cried enough chili out to see, apparently. Tai couldn’t leave the kids there now. Not with the former street thug in this kind of mood and resonating besides. He scooped Fisher up and grabbed Curly’s hand. “Come on!”

  They pelted down the street, Tai half-dragging Curly, Tulric shouting, “Stop him!” behind. This could be bad.

  This could be very bad.

  “Curly, I’m going to need you to run when we get to the market, okay? I’ll take Fisher, but you need to go find Aelya. I think she’s at the teashop. Get her and bring her back for me, okay?”

  “Okay, Tai!” Curly called, breath coming fast. Fisher pulled herself closer around his neck, eyes wide with the blank look he knew too well from the war—shock sickness, Marrem called it. Nothing to do for it now. Survive first.