Ash and Ambition

by Ari Marmell

  Fighting the instinct to hide, struggling hard to adopt a posture that said “I have every right to be out and about at this hour,” she made her way into the Tohl Delian night.

  It was a balancing act, the lot of it. Avoid the main avenues, where the odds favored bumping into official patrols and were stacked against encountering the people she sought; but avoid, too, back streets so small or out of the way that her mere presence would raise suspicions. Other nighttime pedestrians either ignored her completely or watched her in sidelong suspicion until they had passed. None made any move to attract her attention.

  She wondered, idly, how many of them were out and about legally, and how many were as anxious as she to avoid official notice.

  More than once she heard the jingle of mail, carried on the chill breeze. Then she ducked into back alleys or the shadows around drab stone corners, hunched in the darkness until the Deliant soldiers were long past.

  The blocks of squarish buildings, like rows of dull and graying teeth, looked very much the same wherever she went, and her unfamiliarity with Tohl Delian slowed her terribly, so that what should have taken only an hour or two dragged on. It was well after midnight when she finally found herself in what, to judge by the disrepair of the homes and the rougher cut to the garb of passersby, was one of the city’s poorer districts.

  Here, the night streets were dim indeed. Few streetlights shone, for many had been scavenged of their feeble reservoirs of oil. Above, the autumn overcast hung thick and ponderous; of the four moons, only Kalitarra and Perradan shone at all, and neither was at full. Still, she’d been wandering long enough, and the shift had been sufficiently gradual, for her vision to adjust.

  Tamirra allowed her shoulders to slump, her stride to take on a nervous hitch, and continued on her way, choosing streets and turns largely at random.

  For another hour or more she walked, offering herself as bait, with no results. The people, fewer in number now, ignored or feared her as they had before. Again she nearly bumped into a Deliant patrol, and again she hid herself rather than risk being stopped.

  Clearly the scum here are as paranoid as everyone else.

  She decided to sweeten the lure. She approached other pedestrians, now, rather than ignoring them, asking for help in a quavering, tear-laced voice. She was lost. She couldn’t find her way back to her hostel, near the main gate. Oh, wouldn’t someone take pity and help her? She avoided anything resembling a Ktho Delian accent, just to drive home her status as poor, helpless stranger.

  Most recoiled, hurrying their steps, wanting nothing to do with her. A few mumbled half-hearted encouragement and vague directions while pointing back down this street or that.

  Until, finally, she turned down a small alleyway and found herself confronted by a trio of rough, unshaven men.

  “Couldn’t help but overhear,” one of them told her with a chuckle. “We can help you out, flower. But it’ll cost.”

  “Oh!” She put a hand to her lips. “I… I don’t carry much coin, but I’d be happy to pay what I can if you’d—”

  They were moving closer, now, gathering around. Two had produced daggers—poorly maintained, she noted with professional disdain—and the third a club that had probably once been the haft of a larger of weapon. Not the most impressive of arsenals, but in a city where citizens weren’t permitted to go about openly armed, they were intimidating enough. Or would have been under normal circumstances.

  With a normal victim.

  Their breath, as they surrounded her, was a miasma of garlic and spirits so cheap and so strong they might knock the lice off a man’s head. It was enough to persuade her not to waste any more time here than she had to.

  In half a heartbeat, she had a small dirk—sewing scissors, designed to be separated and reconnected to form a single blade—out of her belt and deep in the flesh between thigh and pelvis on the nearest thug.

  She pivoted on one foot as he collapsed, screaming. Her open hand whipped out to snag the end of the second man’s cudgel a split second before her heel connected hard with his sternum. He flew back, breath whooshing from his lungs, to slam against the nearby wall, leaving his weapon behind in her grasp.

  The last of the trio reacted more swiftly than Tamirra had anticipated, actually impressing her. He thrust with his dagger, fast and professional, as she came out of her spin. She twisted, sliding her foot back behind her, so the blow slid past. He stabbed out again. This time she parried with the edge of her empty hand, smacking into his wrist and knocking his blade out of line.

  It left him open, and that was all she required. The club landed, hard—a swing, a thrust, another swing. His upper left arm, a rib, his right leg all cracked; probably bruised, possibly fractured. He gawped, gone pale to the lips, and a final rap to the head put him down.

  Tucking the club under one arm, Tamirra knelt to retrieve his fallen dagger. A few steps and she crouched again, this time beside the man she’d stabbed. With a cold, merciless yank, she retrieved her own dirk—and promptly replaced it in the wound with the blade she’d just picked up. A final yelp and the robber passed out.

  Her remaining assailant had only just regained his breath and hauled himself up against the wall. He tried to glare defiantly as she approached, but she could have bathed in the waves of fear spilling from him and they both knew it.

  “Koldan Ovrach,” she said, all doubt and helplessness gone from her tone. “And don’t insult me by pretending you don’t know who he is.”

  “What…” He cleared his throat, tried again without the shaking. “What about him?”

  “Take me to him.”

  “What makes you think I know where he is?” he asked, sullen.

  “Self-preservation.”

  “Huh?”

  “You’re only useful to me because I need to find him. And you want to live. Since living means taking me to him, you know where he is. It’s a biological imperative.”

  After more quantities of sweat that were quite impressive given the weather, he swallowed once and nodded. “Follow me.”

  “You’re a credit to your bloodline.” Then, just as he took his first step, “If you’re carrying a blade or any other weapon, hand it over. And trust me, if you make me search you, I will find anything you’ve got hidden, and make you very uncomfortable and bloody in the process.”

  He gave her a petulant glare—and a dagger.

  “Now I’ll follow you.”

  The route they took was not unlike that she’d used to get here, consisting of back roads and walkways, distant from the flow of nighttime traffic but not so obscure as to be innately worthy of suspicion. The man clearly knew not only where he was going, but all the tricks for arriving there unmolested. Not once did Tamirra so much as hear the distant jingle of mail or the drumming of marching boots.

  She knew the brigand gave serious consideration to running. She’d have expected it even if it hadn’t been obvious in the set of his shoulders, the stiffness in his steps.

  “Third knot,” she told him. Then, before he’d even completed the wh in What? she sent the dagger she’d taken from him winging hard down the block. It sank with a thud into the trunk of a small evergreen, quivering dead-center of a protruding knot.

  The third up from the bottom, in fact.

  “What was that about?” he demanded in a hoarse whisper. “Are you trying to bring a patrol down on us?!” She refused to answer until their course took them past the tree, whereupon she yanked the blade free with a cringe-worthy squeak of steel on wood.

  “The small of a running man’s back is a moving target,” she mused as though the thought had only just occurred, “which makes it a harder shot. On the other hand, assuming a quick reaction time, it’s also a closer target. Those probably cancel each other out, wouldn’t you guess?”

  He didn’t actually say he got the point, but he never did try to run.

  Their winding trek finally ended at a large carpenter’s workshop, very near the city’s south wall. She r
ecognized its purpose by the larger equipment—pedal-driven lathes and saws, for instance—as well as the stacks of lumber, all of which were stored under an overhang outside. It was, Tamirra had to admit, a clever headquarters for a gang of thieves and smugglers. Nobody would question large deliveries moving in and out, smaller goods could be hidden amidst the lumber and furniture, and any late night activity could be explained away as craftsmen and—women catching up on their commissions.

  The sight of their destination added a tiny bit of steel to her guide’s spine. “Koldan… He, um, he’s not fond of unexpected visitors, you understand?”

  “Unless Koldan is even more of an idiot than I take him for, I’m not unexpected. Now go get us inside.”

  With a resigned sigh, he marched ahead and pounded a fist on the workshop door.

  Nothing. He knocked again. And again.

  Finally an irritated voice called out from within. “It’s the middle of the damned night! Come back in the morning!”

  As low as he could while still be heard, the thug hissed back, “I need to see Koldan!”

  A narrow panel, hidden not in the door but among the bricks beside it, slid open. Tamirra couldn’t see through it from her angle, but she figured about an equal chance of either a face or a crossbow lurking behind it.

  “I remember seeing you around,” the voice behind the wall said, “which is the only reason you’re still breathing at all. But I don’t think you’ve got any business with Koldan.”

  That’ll do.

  The brigand yelped as he was shoved roughly aside. “My name,” she told the startled sentry, shedding the identity of Tamirra entirely, “is Silbeth Rasik. And perhaps you can ask Koldan why he appears to be neglecting his business with me.”

  Chapter Six

  At some point in Tohl Delian’s history, this spot had housed a public bath, or perhaps a steamroom, dug deep into the insulating earth. When it had closed, for whatever reasons and whims of business steered the course of such facilities, it had been locked away and largely forgotten, with the woodworking shop eventually constructed above.

  Today, hidden behind a concealed entrance, it functioned as the heart and brain of Koldan Ovrach’s criminal empire-in-miniature.

  Silbeth leaned one hip against a support column and idly glanced over the balcony at the floor, and the sloping, tile-lined pits that were the former baths. Within one of those hollows, a cluster of men and women gathered around a table containing stacks of coins. Each disk of copper, brass, or silver—or, far more rarely, gold—passed from hand to hand. The first scraped a fine blade along the edge, stripping just a flake or two of valuable metal from the currency without any obvious alteration, slowly gathering those leavings into piles large enough to be melted down for actual use. The second and subsequent sets of hands counted and organized the coins by type, recording the totals in worn and ragged ledgers. In a second pit, older and more seasoned criminals debated the value of stolen goods, while the smugglers gathered in a third traced out Deliant patrol routes on rough maps and argued over how best to sneak shipments past the walls.

  Or at least, she thought that was what they argued over. She couldn’t be certain, in part because they kept their voices low even in the heat of their disagreement—as though afraid, even here, that the wrong ears might be listening—and in part because their boss was currently shouting loudly enough for all of them.

  Koldan himself reminded Silbeth of nothing so much as a bear just emerged from hibernation—and not only because he smelled, to her mind, more animal than man. He was shaggy, his russet hair and beard longer and fuller than current Ktho Delian fashion, and his shoulders broad, but his features beneath that beard were surprisingly harsh, and his skin hung loose as though he’d but recently shed a great deal of weight.

  If he had, however, it had resulted in no obvious weakness, either to his movements or his voice. Currently he bellowed at a gathering of his enforcers, demanding to know how an outsider such as she had even found his headquarters, to learn the name of the “traitor” who had led her here. (Her guide had, wisely, disappeared the moment the door guard had gone to deliver her name to Koldan, and she’d decided to let him go.)

  Several other fierce-looking thugs watched over her, ensuring she did nothing and went nowhere without their leader’s permission. She, however, after a few more moments of idle musing, decided she’d had enough with waiting.

  “Perhaps,” she suggested loudly, “you could leave off your tantrum until after we’ve concluded our business? I’m sure you’ll have plenty of time to eat your subordinates after I’m gone.”

  Koldan went dead silent in mid-word, turning to stare with a twisted expression somewhere between fearsome and sickly. Then, growling, “You ought to learn yourself some patience, woman.”

  “I think I’ve shown quite an excess of patience, seeing as how you were supposed to contact me two days ago.”

  Again he growled, waving an arm at the people around him. The sound contained no actual words that Silbeth could make out, but clearly the others took some meaning from it. In a matter of moments they’d produced a pair of chairs—horribly mismatched but looking quite comfortable—and a small table to go along with them. The furniture laid out, the smuggler settled in one seat, gesturing for Silbeth to take the other.

  By the time she sat, a pair of mugs had also appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. She took a polite gulp of the harsh spirits, managing neither to choke nor allow her eyes to water until they bobbed like tiny rafts, but otherwise ignored the drink.

  “We had no way of knowing exactly when you were coming,” Koldan said then, his tone flat. He was informing her of a fact, not making any sort of apology. “It was eating into my other operations, having to send someone across town to check Tiarmov’s every day. If you’d waited, one of my guys would have found you there in a few more days. A week, at most.”

  “Absolutely not acceptable. This isn’t a sightseeing sojourn I’m on. You were to make contact the day I arrived!”

  “Tough. You’re not my only project, Rasik, and I’ll run my business as I see fit. Besides, it’s done and you’re here. Get past it.”

  Inwardly she seethed, and she hated to back down, to begin their dealings with even the slightest show of weakness, but he was correct at least in this: It was done. Nothing could be gained by pressing the issue.

  “Fine. I’m past it. Let’s talk specifics.”

  “I’m all ears.” He smiled, almost a leer. She restrained herself from punching him until teeth were a distant memory.

  “You should already have been informed that we’re hiring you for your smuggling network, yes?”

  The starving bear nodded. “You won’t find better.”

  Not for what we could afford to pay, anyway. “You understand that this isn’t just a matter of misdirecting a few gate guards? While I hope otherwise, it’s entirely possible that the military proper or the Ninth Citadel will be hunting us.”

  Several of Koldan’s people blanched. Even here, secure in their headquarters, overt mention of the Citadel, the Deliant secret police, was enough to trigger their paranoia.

  Koldan himself, however, merely nodded a second time. “So I’ve been told. And am charging accordingly.”

  I’ll bet. Silbeth gave a silent prayer of thanks that arranging that payment wasn’t part of her own assignment. She could never have secreted that sort of coin into the city on her own.

  “All you’ve got to do,” he continued, “is tell me where, when, and what.”

  “Where is easy. If things go well, we’ll just meet at Tiarmov’s. If not, then here.”

  The tic in his jaw suggested he was less than thrilled with that latter option, but for the moment, he made no argument.

  “When is trickier. Sometime in the next few days, but exactly when depends on how the rest of my efforts go. You may have to be patient and ready to go on a moment’s notice.” She sneered lightly. “More so than you were when it came to meeting u
p with me.

  “As to what…” If this lummox is going to cause me any problems, it’s going to be now. “It’s not a ‘what’ at all. It’s a ‘who.’”

  The surge of greed practically set the skin of his face to rippling. “Well, now, that complicates matters. It’s a lot harder to smuggle out a person. Can’t just stuff them in the nooks and crannies of a crate or what have you. We’re going to have to renegotiate my fee just a—”

  How utterly predictable. “We’ll do nothing of the kind. I know what sorts of missives my employers exchanged with you when they hired you for this, Koldan. You knew this was a possibility when you agreed to their offer.”

  “A possibility. Not a certainty. Things change.”

  “Not this thing.”

  The gang lord made no overt move, but Silbeth would have to be blind not to notice the half dozen brigands closing from all directions on her side of the table. “I wouldn’t think,” her host taunted from behind his beard, “that it’s in your best interests to be a stickler about this, Rasik.”

  Her reply was calm, soft, and utterly without fear. “And I wouldn’t think that this is the sort of approach you want to take, or the impression you want to make, with the Priory of Steel.”

  The thieves and smugglers moving in behind her suddenly seemed deeply invested in their impersonations of statues and snowmen. Koldan scoffed, but it sounded forced. “You? Priory of Steel?”

  Silbeth said nothing.

  “Anyone could claim to be a member of the Priory!” he protested.

  “Anyone could,” she agreed.

  “So I’m, what, supposed to believe that you are, just because you say so?”

  Her answering smile was friendly, not remotely threatening, though she tensed beneath the table, ready to jump at anyone’s and everyone’s next move. “Yes.”