The Broken Man

by Brandon Jones

  Vale buried her face in her hands and prayed silently to the Faceless God. She prayed for the gift of knowledge, to know how to confront her problems. She prayed for the gift of courage, to have the strength do what needed to be done. She prayed for the gift of faith, to recognize God’s hand in…

  “Ummrhhrg,” Josen moaned, stirring and opening his eyes.

  “Oh, thank the Faceless,” Vale said, relief flooding her as Josen blinked groggily. “You’re awake.”

  Josen groaned something indistinct again and stretched, as if he was only waking from a particularly long nap. Vale stepped into the hall long enough send one of the staff running for Doctor Roetu. When she returned to the chair at Josen’s side, her brother was marginally more awake, though he still looked more tired than she had ever seen him.

  “Josen?” Vale asked gently.

  He blinked once slowly and his eyes slowly focused. He turned his head and looked at Vale for a long time before saying anything.

  “I,” he said slowly, pausing after the single syllable, as if the simple act of opening his mouth had spent all of his energy, “am starving.”

  Vale laughed. “We’ll get you some food as soon as Doctor Roetu can get here to check on you.”

  Josen looked as though he wanted to argue but decided it wasn’t worth the energy. He rested his head back on his pillow and let his body relax. His eyes rested shut and his breathing became regular again, as if he had already fallen back asleep. Her little brother. Vale reached out and touched his hair gently, remembering him as an eager little boy. He always wanted to help, but his idea of help had never lined up with what everyone expected of him. Vale wondered if that said more about Josen’s methods, or everyone else’s unwillingness to accept what Josen offered.

  What did it say about her? She wanted—desperately needed— his help, but was unwilling to consider asking, afraid of the help he might offer.

  Faith.

  She knew what she needed to do, but she didn’t want to do it.

  Courage.

  “Josen,” she said again, the name coming out soft and strangled.

  Josen’s eyes fluttered open and he looked at Vale.

  “Josen, I need to tell you something,” she said. “And I need… I need your help. And I don’t mean I need you to come up with some crazy, half-legal scheme to try and fix my problem,” she said, hurriedly. “I need you to listen. It’s about Kalen.”

  Knowledge.

  Vale stopped thinking and talked. She told Josen about their financial troubles and Kalen’s addiction, which in turn led to more debt. She told him about Kalen’s imprisonment, and the deal she made with Lady Stonelowe, how Lady Stonelowe was now holding Kalen hostage, and how Vale had been given one last chance to give the Ladies what they wanted.

  She told him everything.

  Alia

  Alia couldn’t help but glance down the alleyway as she passed it, the one that led to the backside of Jerutal’s apothecary shack. She tried not to come this way anymore, but an unavoidable errand forced her hand this morning. She hadn’t been down that alley in weeks, didn’t know if she would ever again. She was terrified by what she might find there, inside a little waxed envelope—so she chose to ignore it.

  Alia hurried past the alley and towards her home in the Basin, a small apartment Lady Oak had arranged for her, a short distance from the Oak estate house. It wasn’t a long walk, but it gave Alia time to think as she maneuvered through the odd streets of the Lower City. The seasonal nature of the city required that everything here be temporary, ready to be broken down and moved at a moment’s notice. But there was also a strange permanence to the city, like the soul of the city understood that no matter how many times the people left, no matter how many different shapes the streets took, they would always be back. It was only a matter of time. The city was resilient—alive, even—and Alia had come to love it. It had been her job to help kill it—still was, she supposed, even if she was ignoring it—but she couldn’t bear the thought.

  She knew what Feramos would say—she could practically hear his soft, rumbling voice, like a distant waterfall. Weeds, even those bearing the most delicate flowers, must be uprooted to make way for true growth.

  But these weren’t flowers or weeds. These were people—people with lives and dreams and a thousand different struggles. How did she or Feramos or anyone have the right to choose something for these people they would not choose for themselves?

  She couldn’t, especially when her actions led to the deaths of innocent people. Like that poor boy at the cattle pen. She didn’t even know his name. Like Muhal and Shiori who had, in spite of her explicit instructions, been responsible for the breach in the Oak Canal on the night of the Planting Gala.

  As she approached her building, Alia’s heart grew heavy at the thought of her friends, now lost to some unknown fate. She could only assume they had been caught off guard and swept away in the torrent when the water came pouring out. Her orders hadn’t ever involved direct attacks on people, but she had been a fool to have ever believed her actions and orders wouldn’t lead to indirect harm for people besides the Reverate Stewards. Indeed, she thought as she unlocked her door and entered her apartment, the Stewards seemed almost entirely insulated from the…

  All thoughts evaporated from Alia’s head as her eyes fell on a man sitting in front room. She froze at the sight of him, her mind refusing to process what her eyes were telling her.

  “Close the door, Alia,” Feramos said without looking up. He sat at ease in one of her soft chairs, but his face was hard. He held a short glass of liquor held loosely in one hand, and his sword was propped against the side of the chair in easy reach.

  “Faramos,” Alia said, trying not to sound terrified. “What are you doing here?”

  “To finish what we started. We have dallied long enough. It is time to do things my way.” He turned his eyes on her, and Alia felt as though she would burst into flame at the fire in his eyes. He gestured at the chair across from him with the glass-filled hand. “Sit. We need to talk.”

  Tori

  Tori crouched in deep shadows at the edge of the jungle and wiped the sweat from her forehead. She couldn’t understand how anyone would ever want to live in Kendai. Jurdon was hot, and Ludon was humid, but only Kendai managed to combine the two in such fierce fashion, and the night offered no reprieve. God’s tears, it was as bad as the Ceral Basin, except people lived in Kendai all the time. Tori shook her head and wiped the sweat out of her eyes again. She would never understand it.

  Beyond her, lit by the pale light of a crescent moon, Tori looked out over a clearing where rows of tall grass-like plants swaying in the night breeze. She stared intently, watching for the signal from Winder, her heart beating fast in her chest. She hadn’t been this anxious in a long time—not since the day Tori had watched Saul being led away in chains—to what would ultimately be his death. His murder.

  He hadn’t killed himself. She knew that. Saul would never have done such a cowardly thing. He was too clever for that, too resilient. Had been.

  No, Saul was set up. Tori had spent months chasing down every loose end and possible trail, and Saul’s name intersected with Aboran’s far more than was probable. It seemed Saul hadn’t been forthright with her and Josen about his relationship with Aboran.

  The details were still murky, but Saul and Aboran had almost certainly been partners at some point. She had been able to connect them to jobs in Sefti and Ludon, and she caught hints of schemes in Kendai, Jurdon, and even Tor Poman. The deeper Tori delved, the more the two men’s plans and purposes seemed intertwined, to the point that it was difficult at times to tell where Saul ended and Aboran began.

  Except Saul had been ended, definitively, a few months ago. Saul’s trail ended in a cold cell at the top of the Finger in Ludon, and Aboran’s trail only grew more distinct. It made Tori sick to realize that Saul, a man she respected more than almost anyone else in the world, had been betrayed by a man he once called a
friend.

  There. Two flashes of light in the darkness—the signal from Winder. The sentry had just passed behind a far building. It was time to move.

  Tori ran, bent low as she entered the rows of tall grass. She didn’t recognize the plant, but she had her suspicions. In fact, these plants were part of what brought her all the way to a Kendanese jungle in the middle of the starving night. These plants, and another name, a new name coaxed from a terrified, rub-addicted street informant she found in Sefti: Riveran.

  Tori slowed as she approached her target— the largest of three wooden structures set at the edge of one of the fields. To get inside, she would have to emerge from the grass and cross the twenty or so strides of empty ground. She waited, peering carefully in every direction, listening for any hint of footsteps or rustle of cloth.

  Nothing. She would have to expose herself or go back the way she came. With a deep breath, Tori stood and walked as confidently as she could manage. One of the tricks of infiltration was knowing when not to sneak. Saul had taught her that.

  When she reached the building, Tori ducked into the shadows, pressing her back to the wall as she moved, then ducked behind a row of barrels. If her information was correct, the simple warehouse was actually a rub smuggling shack belonging to Riveran.

  After uncovering the name in Sefti, it hadn’t taken too much work to see that Riveran’s name intersected with Aboran in much the same way Saul’s had. Another partner, perhaps, or maybe another name for Aboran to cower behind. Either way, she was hoping she might find some answers inside. In fact…

  On a hunch, Tori rose up next to the barrels, working the lid off the nearest. The lid came off with a soft sucking sound, and Tori reached gingerly inside, not wanting to cut her hand on the sharp petals of rub.

  Except this wasn’t rub. Tori’s hand dipped into the barrel and came out with raw ceral seed—ceral with the rough, sharp hull still encasing the edible grain within. That didn’t make any sense. Raw ceral was useless. What would anyone—let alone rub runners—want with barrels of the stuff?

  The warehouse door was locked, but it gave way to Tori after a few seconds. She didn’t relish the idea of walking blind into the dark building, but she needed answers. Slipping her lock picks back in her pocket with one hand, she eased the door open with the other, careful to stand back in case the motion set off any sort of surprise.

  A huge hand clamped over her mouth from behind, and Tori felt the terrifying cool press of sharp steel against her throat.

  “Not a word,” a man’s voice, his rough stubble scraping her cheek as he leaned in, “or I’ll—”

  Tori threw her head back and to the side, felt the man’s nose crunch against the side of her head. The knife dropped from his hand and Tori spun. She hit him again, and he stumbled back, stunned, but she didn’t stop. She lashed out with her own knife, slashing the staggering man across the face. He screamed. Blood pounded in Tori’s ears as she plunged the knife up to the hilt in the man’s neck. He dropped, then stopped thrashing.

  She needed to go. She glanced back at the yawning blackness in the side of the smuggling shack, the still-open door, her chest heaving, her senses painfully alert. There was no telling what or who would be waiting inside. This was supposed to be a quick in and out mission. Observe and leave. If there were more guards, she was in no shape to…

  Where was Winder? He was supposed to have met her here, at the building, after giving the signal. Blood tickled her neck, running down into her shirt from a shallow cut where the man’s knife had rested against her skin.

  “Ah. You know,” said a too-smooth voice. A man stepped out from behind the building. Two men. A wide, dark-skinned man held Winder by the hair, and a gleam of steel at his throat. Winder’s eyes shone with terror. “This would be the part where I threaten to kill your partner if you do not surrender,” the wide man said. He looked at the bleeding body at Tori’s feet and sighed. “But I am tired.” He pulled the knife away from Winder’s throat, spinning his knife lazily in one hand.

  And buried it in the back of Winder’s head, right where his skull met his neck. Winder’s body dropped, lifeless, before Tori could even gasp.

  “And I am bored of threats. Yes?”

  She gaped. The violence was so casual, so…

  A cord slipped tight around her neck at the same moment rough hands grabbed her arms. Tori cried out as her arms were twisted behind her back, then up until she was forced to her knees.

  “Ah,” the smooth voiced man said, stepping closer. “Thank you, gentlemen.”

  “Yes, Epalli, sir,” one of them said.

  Epalli took her by the chin and looked into her face. Tori glared at him hating him. “Such spirit,” he said. “Yes, I can understand why Riveran wished you to live. Foolish, but understandable.”

  “Riveran can starve in hell,” Tori said and spit on Epalli’s hand. “And he can take Aboran with him. Saul deserved better.”

  He frowned at her, then cocked his head and chuckled. He wiped the spit on her shoulder, then backhanded her hard enough to make her ears ring.

  “Stupid girl,” Epalli said, waiving away the men holding her. “Loyal to a man who never existed.”

  “What? What the hells are you talking—” She started to come to her feet, to rush the fat moron.

  Epalli didn’t let her get that far. His foot crashed into the side of her face as she rose, and Tori crashed to the dirt, the hot taste of blood in her mouth. She rolled, moaning in pain.

  “You have tracked him this far, to one of his hidden rub farms, and still you do not know?”

  “Where is the rub?” Tori managed to cough out. It was the only thought that managed to catch any traction.

  Epalli let her climb to her knees before planting another kick in her ribs. “All of it is rub.”

  Tori coughed and struggled for breath. She couldn’t have formed the words to respond even had she known what to say.

  Epalli went to one knee at her side. Tori lashed out with a weak fist. Epalli deflected it easily and retaliated with a sharp, precise blow to her eye. Her head bounced off the hard ground, and she tried to roll away, to do anything to get away from this man. He pulled her back toward him. “So many lies,” he said. His breath was hot on her face. “So many names for a thing that is just one thing. Saul, Riveran, and Aboran. Rub and ceral. These are not separate things, only aspects of the whole.”

  “No,” Tori said, head swimming. She didn’t understand what Epalli was saying. “No, Aboran betrayed Saul, set him up—”

  “No,” Epalli said. “The setup was for Josen. Always for Josen. Saul is sorry you were caught up too, but…” Epalli trailed off, pleasure evident on his moonlit face.

  “Saul would never.”

  “Saul did,” Epalli said. He grinned. “Did you think he was your friend? You aren’t his friend, no more than I. Saul doesn’t have friends.”

  “I will kill you,” Tori said. He was lying. The filthy, starving bastard was lying to her.

  “Take her,” Epalli said, turning away. “We’ll keep her until Saul is done with the Oak boy. He can decide what to do with her then.”

  Jamis

  “When?” Jamis said softly, concentrating fiercely through the haze of a rub-induced high. He flexed his gloved hands—a necessary affectation now that he moved in more polite circles. A person could wear gloves for any of a number of reasons, from practical to vain, but the pink scars covering his hands could mean only one thing. He was a rub addict, and a heavy user at that.

  Riveran had been giving him more and more rub, encouraging Jamis to use it as often as possible. Jamis complied. His new employer had an apparently unlimited supply of rub and was far less stingy than Grand. Jamis could keep a rub high for an entire day, if he wanted to. He often did. The burn of rub fed his thoughts of revenge on his nameless tormentor, kept his hatred hot and helped distract him from the more nagging, less comfortable misgivings that buzzed in the back of his mind.

  He thoug
ht about that man often, about their brief meeting and how he had ruined Jamis’ life so effortlessly. How sweet it would be to feel the man’s blood, warm and sticky on his hands. Would it burn like the rub? The thought was sharp, sweet, intoxicating. Some small part of Jamis, some nearly forgotten piece buried in the back of his mind, revolted at the gory imagining. But his thoughts were hard to hold on to. He could only control them for in short bursts before they scattered like a flock of skittish birds—fluttering, then reforming only to scatter again.

  Jamis wetted his lips and asked again, louder this time. “When will you help me find him?”

  “Soon,” Deferate Riveran said absently.

  “That is not an answer,” Jamis said, his head buzzing. “When will you help me find him?” he asked again. He asked, in part, because he did not dare ask the far more pressing question of how. He was afraid Riveran would not have a good answer to that question—afraid there wasn’t a good answer to be had.

  Deferate Riveran paused in his conversation with Epalli and glared at Jamis. Epalli had been gone for several weeks and had only just come to the Basin this morning.

  Oh, Jamis realized. Epalli and Riveran were talking, and he had interrupted them. Twice.

  “The Midsummer’s Gala is in a few days. If everything here goes as planned, we should be less busy after. I will look into it then.” Riveran’s voice was stern and final. Jamis could tell he was irritated, but he was also distracted—less interested in berating Jamis than in his conversation with Epalli.

  Jamis nodded and looked down at the dusty road, pushing aside a welling hatred as he slid off one of his gloves. Riveran was using him. Jamis hated being used. That’s what had gotten him into this mess in the first place. He shoved his exposed hand into a pocket, where he crushed a pinch of rub between thumb and forefinger. Jamis massaged it, breathing deeply, eyes still on the ground at his feet. He welcomed the burning warmth, the hazy euphoria cresting in a gentle wave over his body. It wasn’t much. It was a small amount of rub. But it was a distraction.