One Man

by Harry Connolly

  Fay took another sip of tea and did his best to keep his expression calm. They didn’t have the package either. Whatever was being transferred had been snatched by someone else.

  And they didn’t know who.

  “Why would you want to give this package to me?”

  “I am not, you understand, a criminal by nature. It might be to my benefit to alert you to its location.”

  “How so?”

  Killer drained his cup and set it on the table with another bang. “Do you understand how honor works among my people?”

  Fay shrugged. “Let me guess. What you do matters less than what people think you do.”

  Killer sighed. “I seek an end to obligations that I find onerous. I would prefer to return to my home. There are no mighty enemies here for me to fight. This city”—he gestured to the glowing bones down the long plankway—“is cursed. No humankind should have settled here, inside the corpses of two gods murdered while they were fucking. Yth’s corpse should not have been desecrated by the cutting of skywood. The light from Suloh’s bones was not meant to illuminate every back-alley whore and cutpurse.

  “This land is traifa—forbidden. Four hundred years of blasphemy is the only legacy of Koh-Salash, and when doom comes, it will come swiftly.” He saw something in Fay’s expression that made him smile briefly, but he quickly became sullen again. “Perhaps you do not agree. It does not matter. I long for home. You long to break the hold foreign criminals have on this city. I believe that means we have common interests. Is that enough to convince you I am not trying to deceive you?”

  Fay shrugged again. Of course it wasn’t. “Sure. Why not? Tell me who you work for and how they get white tar into the city.”

  The barbarian’s morose expression darkened. “I am not a spy. I am not an informant for the eye. You will either allow me to contact you at the time of my choosing, or we must farewell.”

  Fay sipped his tea to give himself time to think.

  The most obvious way to pass a message was through the owner of the tea shop they were sitting in, but he wouldn’t want the city’s criminal network to know the proprietor was that friendly with the city’s bureaucrats, especially the investigator branch. “In Low Market, there’s a woman named Shah Til Shell who sells Carrig carpets. Her stand is near the northern end of Undertower. Give her a message, and I’ll normally get it within the hour.”

  Killer nodded and stood. “I will return to my comrades and report that I recognized you and threatened your life. You should leave this deck immediately.”

  The tiny bells in his beard chimed as he turned away.

  * * *

  At first, Tin Pail suspected the tray boys were playing with her. They seemed so eager to please but had nothing to offer. Eventually, she realized they saw her as a gateway to a supposedly easy life. A heavy’s life.

  But no one had seen the exchange or the robbery. No one had seen a pickpocket at work. No one had even seen someone they suspected of being a pickpocket.

  Her bodyguard—she wished he would accept a proper Salashi street name, but he absolutely refused—stepped up close to her and spoke quietly. She could barely hear him over the music. “Arrangements have been made.”

  Good. No foreign friend was going to run her out of Koh-Salash. This was her city. Hers.

  Before she could respond, the manager brought her a cup of the hall’s cheap brandy. She’d spoken to all the tray boys from the night before, he told her, and the guards, too. If there was nothing else, the manager needed to open. The musicians had arrived—which Tin already knew because those fucking drums were giving her a headache—and they were turning away customers. Tonight would be one of the busiest nights—

  The musicians! Tin knocked the cup of brandy to the floor as she pushed by him.

  They were on a small stage, just four feet above the crowd. To the drummers, all seated, the customers were a sea of bobbing heads, but the flute players stood during the show.

  It turned out that none of the musicians had seen the handoff or the robbery, but a flute player had recognized a pickpocket among the customers.

  “Why didn’t you call for me?” the manager cut in.

  “By the time I recognized her, soldiers were pushing through the gates and everyone was screaming, and you vanished to I don’t know where!” The flute player’s words were slightly slurred and his eyes hooded. Tin suspected he’d taken a taste of white tar before the performance.

  The manager drew himself up. “Well, I couldn’t let myself get collared!”

  “Shut the fuck up,” Tin said to him. She turned back to musician. “Tell me everything.”

  “I’ve been trying to remember her name. She was a good fuck when she was sauced, but she could be mean, too. She got caught filching on the dance floor and the manager barred her, what, two years ago?” He turned to the manager. “Remember? She offered to do you if you changed your mind.”

  “I do remember.” He turned to Tin. “She was about my height, dark complexion, oval face, large eyes, a pretty girl. Full-blooded Salashi. Someone should have recognized her, even after two years.”

  With a place like this, the manager and the musicians were probably the only staff still working here two years later. Still, Tin dared to hope. “What about that name?”

  The manager shrugged. The flute player said, “Alenya?” in his thick, uncertain voice as though he was guessing. “I only saw her for two weeks, maybe. Once she was barred from the hall, she stopped coming around. Plus, I don’t know if I should even mention this, but she could be pretty mean.”

  “Where did she live?”

  “Oh. Huh. We always went to my place for our fun. I live above a tavern in Woodgarden, and she said she was nearby but my place was nicer than hers. So, I don’t know. Plus, I think she took stuff from me, but you know, I knew she would.”

  Tin Pail could hear the customers growing restless behind her, but that was tough shit for them. “That’s not enough. I need more.”

  The flute player snapped his fingers. “She painted hands. I almost forgot about that. She worked in some shop in Upgarden, but only for a couple of days. She’s not really the society type.” He shrugged vaguely. “That’s all I know.”

  Tin looked at Paper and her bodyguard, then led them to the rail.

  Woodgarden. Pickpocket. A hand-painter. Alenya. It would be enough.

  * * *

  Scut work. That’s what the foreign heavies in Harl’s organization gave him. Bullshit messages to deliver, guard duty in the middle of the night, and worst of all, fetching meals.

  No matter what his mom thought, Cold Sunshine was not enthusiastic about being drafted into Harl’s organization. He’d liked being in a street gang with his friends, hanging on the corner, joking with the girls, maybe filching a purse or two. They’d called themselves the Quick Ones, and most of the shit they pulled was petty kids’ stuff. Cold himself had never gotten caught. He knew his Spillwater neighborhood like his mother’s kitchen and had so many ways to escape the cosh that no constable ever saw the same one twice. It was fun.

  It couldn’t last. The cosh started to notice his tricks, and it was never good for the cosh to notice you. Plus, he was getting too old for kids’ stuff. He was nineteen now, and he wanted to get away with grown-up stuff.

  Cold Sunshine wanted to kill someone.

  The idea had come to him four years earlier as suddenly as a bridge collapse. To slide his knife into someone’s heart, feel their blood flow over his hand, see the expression on their face…

  It had given him an instant hard-on. The thought haunted him for weeks until he decided he had to act on it. He waited in a dark alley for another member of his own gang—a guy he mostly liked, which made things even more exciting—and took the point to him.

  Or tried to. His strike wasn’t fatal, and it was so dark he couldn’t even see his friend’s expression, which was the whole point, really.

  Luckily, his friend didn’t see him, either, becaus
e the uproar that followed that knife strike was chaotic and terrifying. Not only did their leader swear to hunt down the attacker, but the Quick Ones nearly started three different gang wars. Cold himself watched two members of the Lower Deckers get their hands broken and their teeth kicked out because they were caught buying buns on the wrong side of the plank. Finally, Cotton Stair sent people to look into it, mainly to blunt the rage of his gang.

  No one ever suspected Cold himself, and the whole thing was too terrifying to risk again.

  But he still wanted to take the point to someone very badly. If Koh-Salash had been at war, he would have joined the military, but in peaceful times, soldiers just stood on the walls and talked about how drunk they’d get on Shieldsday. He’d have joined the cosh if they killed more people, but they were afraid of starting another Downscale War.

  Even signing on with Harl, which everyone had always expected, seemed iffy. Heavies killed people, sure, but usually, they had orders first. You had to move high up the slope for a job like that. If Cold was going to kill someone without taking the point himself as punishment, he was going to have to earn the trust of his higher-ups. He’d need an assignment.

  That looked like a long shot under Harl, who gave the most difficult and dangerous jobs to Carrig.

  It didn’t help that Cold himself was so short and slender that he was often mistaken for a kid. The top heavies among Harl’s people were generally bulky, muscular types with intimidating glares. Cold was sure that a quick, sneaky knife in the dark would be just as effective—maybe more effective—but he was so far down the slope that he didn’t dare suggest it.

  He was returning to Sailsday’s Regret with a crock full of the thick, salty porridge those Carrig assholes like to eat. It had cost six copper whistles, and not only was he not going to be paid back, the assholes wouldn’t let him eat with them.

  These were the dues he had to pay, and they sucked. He just needed a chance to prove himself.

  When he set the crock in front of the platform hall manager and his two heavies, the elder, Nal At Isp, caught his arm. “Do you see Second Boar over there?”

  “Who? I know the name, but…”

  The heavy sighed and stood. Cold followed him to a table where a huge Salashi man sat squeezed between two tables. He was the biggest asshole Cold had ever seen, and while he was dressed like a magistrate in fine green cloth, his scars left no doubt that he was a street thug.

  Cold felt a tingle at the thought of what they might ask him to do.

  Nal cleared his throat. “Second Boar, this is the guy. He can help.” Nal turned to Cold and leaned in close. “No killing.”

  Goosebumps ran down Cold’s back. Could this asshole read his mind?

  But Nal was already walking away. When Second Boar spoke, his voice was surprisingly high, like a child’s. “Why did he say that last thing?”

  Cold answered honestly. “I don’t know, good sir. I have never taken the point to nobody. Never been told to.”

  Glancing around the table, Cold saw that a wild-haired northern tramp was sitting with them, although he had the arms of a dockhand. Beside him was a guy with three braids on the front of his head who was barely older than Cold, then a handsome, smirking creep with a steel chain around his neck, and a stony-eyed woman who looked enough like the creep to be his sister.

  There was something about the last one that caught his attention. Not that there was anything special about her appearance. She was average in every way, from her hair to her clothes, but the way she looked at him gave him a chill.

  “And you won’t today, either,” Second Boar said. “The northerner scared off the eye who’s been following us around, but he put two constables on us. They’re sitting in the opposite corner, in their street clothes. See them?”

  Cold walked to the counter, then returned with a fresh pot of tea. “I saw them,” he said. “With the haircuts.”

  “Draw them off,” Second Boar said, “without starting another Downscale War.”

  Cold went into the back office, wondering where people got these ideas about him. How could they tell he wanted to kill someone?

  Still, no big deal. He fetched an old wash bucket, pissed in it, then carried it into the cafe and dumped it into the constables’ laps.

  “Fuck you, assholes!”

  The room erupted in laughter. Red-faced, the cosh leaped from their chairs, toppling their table and everything on it.

  But Cold was already at the rail and running. Not too fast, though. If he lost them too quickly, Second Boar wouldn’t have time to get away.

  He heard their feet stamping on the platform, and he laughed as he ran.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Riliska slid her apartment door open just in time to hear the slap.

  She went still, her stomach fluttering, and made her expression grave. Bitter experience had taught her that no one wanted to see a smile on her face after a fight. No one wanted to see her at all.

  Usually, when her mother had people in their rooms, Riliska would slip back outside, but tonight, there were shapes moving on the plankways that made her nervous. Her paint set wasn’t worth much, but she knew people didn’t always steal things because they were valuable. Sometimes, it was simply because they could.

  Riliska could hear her mother’s voice in the other room. “This was my idea! Without me, you’d have nothing to sell. Why I shouldn’t get half?”

  “You must be crazy.”

  Riliska didn’t know that voice, but it was male. She crawled under the table and sat in the back corner, making herself as small as possible. Sometimes, her mother’s male guests were nice to her, giving her a copper knot or a piece of fruit, but that was rare. More often, they looked at her as though she was proof of some mistake they’d made.

  This one sounded angry, and the angry ones sometimes pulled Riliska’s hair or slapped her face. She tried to decide if she’d be safer on the plankways.

  “What do you think you can do with it?” the male voice demanded. “Turn it into coin? Don’t make me laugh. The first person you approached would gut you like a hog and take it. Then where would I be?”

  “Shitting your skirts like a—”

  There was another slap, this one so loud that Riliska jumped. Then another. Then another.

  “Haliyal.” Her mother’s voice sounded small. “Haliyal, stop.”

  “I’m going to give you one day to bring back my prize, baby. Hear me? One day.”

  The bedroom door slid open, and a man emerged. Riliska could only see the side of his face from below, but she’d seen his type many times over the years. He was a little bit handsome and a little bit strong, but was mostly mean and dumb. Her mother sometimes called guys like him “fuddled.” Riliska had no idea what that meant, except that he’d never be powerful or clever or important or stick around.

  He could still be dangerous, though.

  She kept so still, she didn’t even breathe. He didn’t notice her. He just slid the door open and snatched the last bun off their tiny counter. He took a deep bite, then left with the remainder.

  Riliska crawled quickly from her hiding space and went to the counter. There was nothing else to eat there. The fuddled man had stolen her supper.

  Heart sinking, she turned to her mother sitting on the mat beside her open door. Maybe she could buy something before all the stalls closed, even though the stalls in Woodgarden never stayed open this late. Night had fallen, and what little glow Woodgarden got from Suloh’s bones was—

  “Go outside,” her mother said, looking at the floor. The side of her face was swollen. “Go play.” She slid the bedroom door shut.

  Riliska went to the doorway and opened it a little. Someone down in the lobby on the main floor had a lantern, and the shadows it cast swept across the walls on the higher floors.

  Men’s laughter echoed up the stairs. Not safe.

  She crept back under the table.

  * * *

  Rulenya slid the door shut, then push
ed a piece of broken crockery aside so she could sit on her stained mat. She hated it when one of her guys hit her, but she hated it even more when the Long Hangover saw it. Why couldn’t that fucking kid find someplace to play? Why did she have to haunt these rooms like a hungry ghost?

  And that shitbrain Haliyal… Rulenya laid her hand on her swollen cheek. By the fallen gods, she hadn’t been hit so hard in months. Someday, she would find a man who would hit others for her instead of hitting her for himself. A man who didn’t look at her home—and her—with disgust.

  There was no noise from the front room. Good. The Long Hangover must have gone out to play. Rulenya swept aside a tray covered with crumbs and old bones, then picked up a piece of folded satin. Carefully, she laid it on the mat, unfolded it, and examined the contents.

  It was the tiniest cut from the glitterkind ear that she could make with the tiny bronze knife she kept for scraping down her dyes. It was smaller than a bead of rain on a waxed plank. It was smaller than a flake of chapped skin she might bite from her lip.

  But she’d heard such stories… How it took away pain. How it healed injuries—not diseases, but even missing limbs or ruined organs could be replaced. How fucked-up was that? Her own heart could be cut out and a dead man’s put in its place, and she would go on about her life.

  Would that make her a different person? A kinder one, maybe, if the heart came from a kinder person? One who spent more time at her brushes and fixed little meals for her daughter, the way mothers were supposed to?

  She nearly laughed. Her own mother had fixed meals every day, and had beaten her black and blue. Every meal had been another chance to scold and punish, but no matter what the old monster did to control her, Rulenya had only grown wilder.

  A new heart wouldn’t change her. It would just be something new she could consume.

  Uncorking a jar, she took a long drink. Brandy was her preference, but wine did the job in a pinch. The hours when she was sober were long and sour ones, and sometimes they brought the urge to grab Riliska and leap from the deck to the dock flats below. Her mother thought she drank too much? Well, it beat the alternative.