Breigh threw open the door to the suite. “Identify yourself,” she commanded. She was completely naked.
The enormous bearded man at the door opened his mouth, but no words came out.
“Identify yourself, lumbering mute!” She barked. “I am training to kill people!”
“That...that's why Torg is here,” the visitor said, visibly collecting himself. Torg, overseer of the pits beneath the coliseum, Breigh recalled. Torg, Tolem’s heavy. “Torg is here to prepare you for the arena.” His voice was so deep, Breigh could feel it vibrate in her chest.
Breigh squinted long and hard at the giant. A moment later, he was weightless, upside down, and soaring through the air. A moment after that, he was crashing through a very sturdy dining room table.
Torg blinked furiously, twisting his head to one side as if trying to stop the room from pinwheeling around him. Into his field of vision poked Breigh's smiling face. “You will do nicely. Get up. I'll want to do that about twenty more times, and then we can start on strangling practice.”
With two thick fingers, Torg poked at a cut on his forehead and looked at the blood. Then he looked up at Breigh. When he appeared at the door in his fine clothes, he had the look of a reasonable man about him. But now, a feral scowl burned through the civility in his expression. He clamored to his feet. He twisted his head to one side to pop his neck. “Torg is not here to be your throwing dummy,” he growled.
“Good!” Breigh said brightly. And, again, Torg found himself suddenly in flight, this time slamming back-first against a wall, shattering an ornate brass-framed mirror before bouncing off and colliding with the floor.
To Torg, the suite must have looked upside down, with Breigh strutting across the ceiling toward him, coiled muscles rolling under alabaster skin, breasts bouncing gently with each step. She crouched down over him to look him in the eyes. “But if you're going to be my sparring partner, you're going to have to learn to keep your hands up.”
Roughly, he reached up and shoved her away. He rolled over and stood. One eye twitched. “Torg does not spar, girl,” he snarled. The mask of civility was gone now. He pulled his tunic up over his head, revealing his body to be a mountain of knotted muscle, hard as mahogany. He rolled his shoulders back; his pectorals stretched and flexed impressively, distorting the tapestry of elaborate tattoos that covered him from waist to neck.
Breigh raised an eyebrow appreciatively.
Next, Torg unbuckled his belt and lowered his trousers. Stepping out of them, he squatted down low for a moment. His calves and thighs bulged from the effort.
Breigh raised both eyebrows appreciatively.
Torg walked over to the ruined table, grabbed hold of one of its legs, and snapped it off. He slapped it heavily into his palm a few times. The head of his makeshift club had a pair of nails jutting from it, sharp ends out. Rolling his wrist, he swung the table leg around his head and torso a few times in tight, controlled arcs.
Breigh turned sideways, never taking her eyes off Torg as he circled around her, angling for a better position from which to strike. She squared her stance, raised her hands into First Position, and bared her teeth in a terrible smile.
“Come on, then, you magnificent beast!” She laughed as she leapt forward.
Tolem
Even on a normal day, little light made it down into the narrow, dilapidated alleyways of Ptolimar’s foundry quarter. But today, with The Palace floating overhead, it was practically too dark for Tolem to see the road under his feet. For a moment, he considered fashioning a crude torch from the wreckage strewn about the narrow street, but the marshy, pungent smell hanging in the air made him reconsider. Anything he picked up would have probably fallen apart in his hands due to water damage and mildew.
“Making it?” he asked without looking back.
“I’m fine,” Devan grunted. Tolem could hear the boy struggling to traverse the rough terrain in the dim light, his cane scraping erratically on the street’s long-ruined paving stones. “Is this it?”
“This is.”
Devan sniffed. “The guy who lives here is going to bankroll our operation?” he asked flatly.
The building looked like it was just looking for an excuse to collapse. It was fronted by an ancient wooden door that seemed to be made of mold. A badly tarnished brass letter “V” was affixed at eye’s height.
Tolem stepped closer to Devan and lowered his voice. “Devan, you’re about to learn that there are two kinds of money. There’s the kind of money that buys you a mansion in the Grand Corviro, and there’s the kind of money you have to hide because, if your enemies knew you had it, they’d drag you out into the street and burn you alive.”
Devan nodded thoughtfully. “If you say so.”
Tolem went to push the door open. Part of it stuck to his hand; he was surprised it didn't fall apart as it swung open. From the darkness within, a voice croaked: “Tolem, dear heart! How long it's been.”
Tolem squinted and waited for his eyes to adjust to the shadows. The embers of a dying fire cast a flickering orange glow that outlined what looked like a very old man, hunched over a kitchen table. Tolem smiled and crossed the room, careful to avoid the piles of books and cookware and broken things. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and covered his palm with it before shaking the old man's hand.
“How are you feeling, Vertus?” Tolem asked, tossing the handkerchief on the fire. The fire swallowed it like a starving dog, brightening the room for just a moment. Behind him, he heard Devan gasp quietly. The light revealed what Tolem already knew: Vertus wasn't old. He was withered and scarred from disease.
“How do I feel?” Vertus wheezed as he finished scratching notes down in his ledger. “I feel like I look. Like pressed shit on a hot day.” He cast a jaundiced eye toward the door, where Devan was lurking. Vertus tried to wet his lips with a dry tongue. “Who's this then? You finally decide to acknowledge one of your sons?” He chuckled; it came out as a wet rasp.
Tolem chuckled along politely. “No, this is my nephew, Devan. Devan fancies himself something of a thief.”
Vertus raised an eyebrow, shifting the geography of the sores and scabs that scaled every inch of his exposed skin. “Does he now?” Vertus extended a hand to him. “Pleasure to make your acquaintance, boy.”
Devan smiled thinly and waved from the doorway. “Hello.”
Vertus withdrew his hand. Tolem shot Devan a look and pulled another chair out from the table. “Sit down, Devan.” Devan did as he was told.
“So.” Vertus steepled what fingers he had left in front of his face. “To be a thief like your old uncle Tolem. I imagine how you must have looked up to him when you were a boy.”
Devan looked over at Tolem. “Actually, I didn't know he even was a thief until just recently. All we ever knew was, he was a Walker.”
Vertus looked to Tolem for clarification. “The Collegium sends out scouts to find and bring back books, scrolls, documents, news from the outside. Walkers, they call them. I was one. It gave me an excuse to explore...” He grinned. “...other interests.”
Vertus threw back his head and let out a single, sharp laugh that hit the air like a crack, then instantly started coughing. His lungs sounded like they were filled to the brim. “Other interests,” Vertus choked out, at last. He went to sip from a stone cup and found it empty. “Girl!” he called toward the back room. He cleared his throat again and bellowed, “Girl!”
A curtain to the back room parted, and there stood a young girl—skinny, with stringy black hair, and dressed in a ragged gray dress. Covering one eye was a bandage, secured like a headband that had been pulled down on one side. Peeking out from under the bandage, Devan could see the lower edge of what looked like a bad burn.
The girl stood halfway behind the curtain, as if readying herself to hide behind it again.
“Water,” Vertus rasped, thrusting the cup at the girl. Quickly, the girl stepped forward to take it.
Tolem smiled. “And who's this bea
utiful creature?” he asked quietly. Inwardly, he cringed in anticipation of the answer.
Vertus said nothing, looked at the table, as if trying to remember. He turned to the girl instead and slapped her hard on the belly. Tolem could feel Devan tensing up, though he’d never show it on his face. “The man asked you a question.”
“Lynna, sir.” She didn't speak the words so much as breathe them. She took the cup and hurried to the back room.
Tolem kept his soft smile. “How long have you had this one?”
“I haven't had her, yet,” Vertus said, his smile displaying his bright yellow teeth. “I tell you, Tolem, if the bitch doesn’t bleed soon, I may just strangle it out of her. She’s useless for anything else.”
Devan shifted in his seat. Tolem just nodded.
Lynna returned and went to set the stone cup back on the table. But her shaking hands betrayed her, and the water spilled across Vertus' ledger.
“Cunt!” Vertus bayed. With a balled fist, he swung back and caught Lynna under the jaw. She went sprawling to the floor, then, on impact, curled up into a tight little ball. She made a soft little sound, over and over. Devan thought she might have been saying, “I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” in that soft, breathy voice of hers.
Devan braced himself to stand, his jaw set, his eyes narrowed to slits. Tolem put a hand on the younger man's chest. No, he mouthed to Devan.
“No?” Devan demanded. “No?” Devan’s eyes bored into his own. He had his walking stick in hand, and he looked ready to introduce Vertus to it.
On his side of the table, Vertus stood, hopping on one foot, and shook out his ledger. The girl had scrambled, finally, into the back room. “Vert, we'll need a moment,” Tolem said back at his associate, never taking his eyes off his nephew. Vertus grunted his acknowledgement; he carried his waterlogged book over to the kitchen counter and began blotting at the pages with a rag.
Before Devan could say a word, Tolem leaned in and whispered quickly in his ear. “I'm glad you saw this, Devan. I brought you with me today for just this reason.”
“Why, because you wanted someone to break your friend’s face?”
“Because you need to know what kind of a world this is that I work in. There's no glamour in what I do. It's not sexy. It's not elegant. It's hard and brutish and it's filled with people like Vertus. You treat this thing we're doing like a game, like a party, like performance art, and I'm telling you now, you're going to end up like that.”
Tolem pointed down at Vertus' right leg. Or, rather, the stump where it had been. “That there? That’s what they do to thieves in Kauleth. And the hole that was left after? That’s how the rot got in.” Devan stared long and hard at that leg. “That happened,” Tolem continued, “because Vertus was young and stupid and didn’t see his situation for what it was.”
“Now, we need Vertus,” Tolem said. “He can get us an airship. He can get us enough Aurium to make it fly in Kauleth. So unless you know someone else who can do that, you sit down, you shut up, and you don't say shit until we're out the door. You with me?”
Vertus was seated again, watching them. He swallowed what little water remained in the spilled cup.
When Devan looked back to Tolem, it was with hard eyes. “This?” he said with quiet steel. “This is how it starts.”
He pushed past Tolem and walked around the table. Without looking at Vertus, he made his way through the curtain and into the back room.
Allister
At last, Allister and Nalan arrived at the counting room. There, leading out from under the door, they found a pair of well-worn steel tracks set into the floor. They turned in silence and began to follow them.
While the other service hallways had been surprisingly empty, the expanse that the tracks went through was amazingly dense. Navigating it had been an exercise in near-maddening frustration for Allister. As teams of guards escorted one cartful of gold coins after another down the tracks, he and Nalan would spend agonizing stretches of time—minutes that felt like hours, hours that felt like days—hunched over in side corridors, waiting for the coast to clear.
Nalan, Allister thought to himself, was born to wait. He knelt there, tranquil as a Delphan monk, waiting for his moment. But Allister himself? He was a twitchy, restless mass of tics and jitters. In those quiet, motionless times, he ran his fingers through his hair so often, he thought for sure he’d be bald by the time he got back to their suite.
If they got back to their suite. The entire time, the voice in the back of Allister’s head delighted in enumerating all the possible ways they could get caught and all the possible outcomes of that scenario.
So when Allister felt Nalan’s urgent rap on his shoulder, it was almost a relief. Finally, they caught you, the voice said. Finally I get to see what they’re going to do to you. I’ve been just dying of curiosity.
But it wasn’t bad news. Nalan pointed ahead of them at a door up ahead built into the side of the tunnel. The door was open, and from inside, a bright white light flooded out into the hallway.
The hallway was clear, and while Allister wasn’t as good as Nalan at picking up on patterns, he got the feeling that they wouldn’t see another team of guards for a few minutes at least. The pair picked up the pace, crab walking as quietly as they could toward the glowing entranceway.
As they drew near, Nalan placed his hand on Allister's shoulder. Allister froze, and Nalan moved around him into the point position. From his pouch, Nalan produced a small mirror on a thin stick. He crouched lower than he had been and eased in close to the door, trying to gain a view of what lay inside with his makeshift periscope.
Allister squeezed the backs of his thighs, which burned from all the crouching they'd done over the last hour. He sighed noiselessly.
Nalan looked back at him, a confused look on his face. He pushed the mirror stick into Allister's hand and motioned for him to use it.
Moving as silently as he could, Allister edged toward the open doorway. He positioned the mirror just so. Inside was a small white-walled room, about the size of the largest closet in their suite upstairs. Two guards stood watch, talking quietly between themselves. The ceiling was blank and featureless. The walls were blank and featureless, except for a small bronze icon embedded about halfway up in each of the three walls he could see from his vantage point. On the floor, the cart tracks ended with a pair of padded poles that would serve to hold a wheeled cart in place.
Allister withdrew the mirror stick. He tapped the edge of it on the front of his teeth as he thought. He turned eventually back to face Nalan and pantomimed that he needed something to write with. Nalan produced a pencil and a small leather notebook from his pouch and handed them to Allister, who began to write his idea.
A few minutes later, after some heated discussion conducted via frantic scribbling, Nalan stepped hesitantly out from Allister’s invisibility effect. Allister positioned himself on the floor again, angling the mirror so he could see what was happening. Nalan spent a long moment practicing his best 'confused' face, and wandered out in front of the vault door.
“You there!” one of the guards bellowed. “What business have you back here?” The guard was the only one Allister had seen yet who didn’t look identical to his partners. This one had a patch over his left eye.
“I...” The look on Nalan's face reminded Allister of a dormouse facing down the business end of a tack hammer. “I think I must be lost. Where...which way is the comfort room?”
The guard with the eye patch immediately drew his sword and stalked menacingly toward Nalan. “Oh, you need the feckin’ comfort room, do you?” he growled. Nalan took two big steps backward, bringing his hands up to defend himself.
“Bog!” The other guard caught his partner by the shoulder. “It’s just a feckin’ patron, mate. Don’t—”
The guard with the eye patch knocked the hand away. “Yeah? The last one was just a feckin’ patron, ‘mate.’” He kept his eyes hard on Nalan. “You ever have your feckin’ eyeball chewed out? It
somewhat hampers your ability to trust your fellow man.”
Nalan’s eyes were wider than Allister thought anatomically possible. “I...I just...I…”
“You what?” the guard roared. “You need to piss?” Nalan certainly looked like he was about to. “What if I poke you an extra urethra or two? Would that help?”
That, apparently, was Nalan’s breaking point. To Allister’s amazement, Nalan turned tail and ran, sprinting down the corridor from the direction he came. “Get back here!” the guard with the eye patch bellowed, hot on Nalan’s heels. “I live to serve your every need!”
“Bog!” the other guard cried out as followed close behind. “Bog! Stop!”
Allister took just a brief moment to slump against the wall and thank the gods. The best he’d hoped for was that one of the guards would leave to take Nalan to the head; that way he could try to take out the other one with a small defense spell he’d been working on. But he’d never used it on another living person, and he had no idea if it would actually work. He took one last look down the hallway to make sure both guards were good and gone, then he rose to his feet and stepped around the corner.
What he saw there just about floored him.
What the guards couldn't see, what Nalan couldn't see, and what he himself couldn't see using the mirror, was a large, spectral machine that hovered just below the ceiling around the middle of the room. Three meters wide and half that tall, the apparatus was semitransparent; Allister could see through the front face of the thing into the elaborate gearwork that made the thing up.
Dials connected to plates, which connected to bolts, which connected to pins, which connected to tumblers—it all centered around what looked like a coal chute that protruded from deep within the apparatus and ended just above the end of the cart rails on the floor. Looking at the thing made Allister’s head hurt, but at the same time it made him very happy that Nalan couldn’t see it, because the idea of Nalan getting an erection made him intensely uneasy.
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