An Unmarked Street
Maw District, New Sarresant
She kept to the shadows whenever she could. Faith was abundant in the Maw, but her body had limits when it came to maintaining leyline tethers. Fatigue was a hindrance she could do without; no telling how much longer the evening’s pursuit would continue.
She’d followed these two since sundown, when they left from a back entrance of Reyne d’Agarre’s estate. Right away it had been clear these were no ordinary guests, nor were they the servants and gardeners who frequented the grounds. One was a wiry man of middling height, lean, with a hip-scabbard dangling from his belt. The other man towered over his companion, a brute who went without a cloak despite the chill creeping into the autumn breeze. Together they made a beeline through Southgate, crossing through the Market district at the center of the city, traveling along the Riverways just far enough to cross the river and make their entrance into the Maw.
These two were the first she’d followed who did more than routine comings and goings, errands to the butcher shop or the candlemaker or any of the dozens of other artisans and merchants required to keep an estate like d’Agarre’s running in good order. She’d hoped they would lead her into the Gardens, the Harbor, or the military camps outside the city. Still, she might learn somewhat about d’Agarre’s operations, even here in the slums. And neither of these men had a look suggesting they kept permanent residence in the Maw; with luck, she might follow them after they’d conducted whatever business they were about, and make a connection elsewhere. For now, vigilant pursuit.
Her breath caught as they came to a halt, and the larger of the two men craned his neck to look up and down the street. By reflex she tethered Faith and faded from view, slivers of a second before he saw her. The Nameless take her luck; she’d been caught between hiding spots as she tailed them. She’d kept a good distance behind, but the bigger man had already cast a suspicious eye once back in the Market, a sign he thought they might be followed. He hadn’t seen her, thank the Gods, but if she kindled further suspicion they might abandon the night’s errand. Seconds passed, and it seemed she’d been quick enough this time, or at least the man gave no outward sign that anything was amiss. He turned his attention back to the building in front of which they’d stopped. A warehouse. Storage space was cheap in the Maw, provided you didn’t mind the constant threat of local toughs breaking in and stealing your goods. There were a few less reputable merchants who did business in the district, and it seemed one was working here in spite of the late hour. The upper floors of the warehouse streamed light back out onto the street, and even from two blocks away she could hear the sounds of activity coming from the building. The shorter, wiry man gestured to someone on the other side of the main door, and she could hear raised voices.
No telling whether the men she followed or the men inside the warehouse might be binders, able to detect her leyline tethers. But she was here for information, and a few risks had to be taken to get it.
She tethered Mind, fixing the binding to a point beside the men rather than into herself. Had she done the latter, it would have sent out copies of her, exact mimics made of light and energy. Instead, as soon as the tether snapped in place her senses seemed to leap forward; she saw and heard as if she stood just beside the men.
“ … drops from the lily petals,” the wiry man finished, just as her senses shifted.
Some kind of pass-phrase? She cursed under her breath for having missed the entirety of it.
A pair of eyes through an opened slat in the door replied, even as they looked him up and down. “And the fish will swim upstream with the morning tide. Thank the Gods you’ve arrived.”
“Everything’s in order then?” the big man said in a gruff voice.
“Yes, everything’s ready. Come around the back to make your entrance. Tell ’em ‘Margot waters the lemon trees’ and they’ll let you in.”
The slat slid shut and the two men walked the alley between the lighted warehouse and the dark one beside it, leaving her view. She released the Mind binding, feeling her senses snap back where they belonged. A grueling binding to maintain, not least for the dizziness that followed when she let it go. She paused, safely hidden in the shadows, to let the effects fade. Whatever was going on inside that warehouse pertained to d’Agarre’s plans, of a certainty. And she had the password to the back door if not the front. She could always tether Faith and wait to squeeze inside if they opened for someone else, but no telling whether any more arrivals were expected.
“What do you think, Zi?” she whispered. “Worth trying to sneak inside?”
Her companion materialized on her shoulder, his scales as bright a red as she had ever seen them.
Yes, he thought to her, then faded once more from view.
Well, that settled that.
She lingered in the shadows long enough to be certain the two men had made their entrance, then took a deep breath and let her Faith dissipate. She strode toward the rear entrance of the lighted warehouse with a show of outward confidence. As she drew near she heard once more the dull buzz of activity within. This was more than a few secret conspirators. No telling precisely what she might find inside, but it sounded like a crowd. As usual for the Maw, she had enough Faith and Body to get away unseen, in haste, if she had to. She’d gotten into places she wasn’t meant to be scores of times for the benefit of her sketches. She could do this. One more deep breath for good measure, and she approached the door.
The slat was shut when she arrived. She rapped the door twice, firm and clear. A long moment passed, time enough for her nerve to threaten to fade, before the slat whipped open without so much as a warning. A pair of suspicious eyes regarded her from the other side. Young eyes, absent crow’s-feet or any other adornment of age.
“What do you want?” came the voice from beyond the door. Her first thought had been to use charm, but in the moment she decided confidence was the better approach. The street rats of the Maw had little enough use for pretty girls or flattery, but they respected strength, and they were used to being too unimportant to be noticed.
She affected an air of detachment, only deigning to look the young man in the eyes for a moment before glancing back toward the street as if her mind were occupied by other matters.
“Margot waters the lemon trees,” she said nonchalantly. “Here with a follow-on delivery from the estate.”
The eyes on the other side of the slat narrowed, suggesting a frown.
“Is there a problem with your hearing, boy?” she demanded, letting a touch of irritation into her voice.
“No, m’lady, only, they’ve started and—”
“Gods damn it, you mean to tell me I’m late? Open the bloody door then.”
She kept the satisfaction from her face when she heard the sound of locks being unlatched. The door swung inward, revealing a lanky youth.
“Thank you, boy,” she said, striding by him with a sense of purpose. She nodded ahead, toward the hallway that forked left and right. “Which way to the meeting?”
“Either way,” he mumbled. “Just in the center of the warehouse there.” He pointed down the hallway.
She turned her back on him, walking down the right fork without sparing a glance back over her shoulder. With any luck he’d see nothing more than someone more important than he was, on business he didn’t need to understand.
Now that she’d made it inside, her suspicion of a crowd gathering here was confirmed in spades. She tethered Faith as soon as she was clear of the youth and the door, fading from view. A long corridor wound its way around the outer edge of the building, the windows lining the inner wall giving her a view into the warehouse proper. Inside she could see the makings of a grand reception, with dozens of men and women—perhaps half a hundred or more—assembled beneath a series of crates piled along the west wall in a kind of makeshift stage. Most of the attendees had the look typical of Maw denizens: ragged clothes, gaunt faces, eyes that alternated between desperation, fear, and rage. Some few street toughs in leathers, but most were the types that hid from thugs when they came calling. A strange mix. She emerged at the back of the room, still shrouded in Faith for the time being, just as the smaller of the men she’d followed here, the wiry one with the dueling sword, climbed atop the crates and turned to address the room.
“Thank you,” the man said in a clear voice that carried through the hall, stilling the murmurs and chattering of the crowd. “Thank you for coming to hear my words tonight.”
He waited for silence to fall before he continued. “I know you have all heard promises before, promises of protection, perhaps. Of food. Empty words from men who would place themselves above you. Rich men, clawing for a seat on the Council-General. Bosses looking to legitimize their gangs. Nobles. Priests.”
“What makes you any different?” a voice called from the crowd.
“Because,” the man shouted back, his voice coming alive with a chilling intensity. “Because I can deliver on the promise of my words. Others promise bread; I promise blood.”
At this, the larger of the two men approached the stage, carrying a wide crate. With a grunt and the focused attention of everyone in the room, he hefted it up to the speaker, who wasted no time prying the top open. He reached inside and withdrew a long-barreled musket, obviously meant for the army camps outside the city, and a hush fell over the crowd.
“You see? The time for action approaches. I do not ask you, the least of the citizens of this city, to bide your time with the comfort of promises. I propose instead to give you the power to forge your own way. Strength is the answer, brothers and sisters. Égalité will never come from the deliberations of men with everything to lose. Only the desperate can change the world.”
Murmurs spread through the room, hot with anger, affirmations of what had been said.
Yellow, Zi thought to her. What? Almost she asked after it, then remembered Zi had said the same when Reyne d’Agarre had stolen the crates at the Harbor, and again before the violence in the Maw. Was this man using the same gift? Did this man have a kaas as well?
“You fear to act,” the man said, a challenge to the crowd. “You fear to act because the priests and the soldiers have magic they claim comes from the Gods, and they wield it like reins fastened about your necks. But I tell you now: Our cause is not without a power of our own.”
In a blink, he moved from one end of the stage to the other, too fast to be seen without the benefit of a Life binding to sharpen her senses. A gasp rose from the crowd and he moved again, drawing the dueling blade at his side in a threatening stance, then moved once more, seeming to fade in and out across the stage.
Red, Zi thought, as the crowd took up a cheer.
That confirmed it. This man had a kaas. That was what Zi’s promptings meant. The red haze around her vision when Zi granted his gift—the wiry man was using it now. She shifted her sight to the leylines to be sure, and found nothing, none of the telltale connections that would reveal a Body tether.
“With this power we need not fear to oppose our so-called masters. With us to lead you, with weapons in your hands and fire in your hearts, you need not bow to men who suppose themselves your betters. Change is coming, and you will bring it. You, the hungry, the poor. You will set fire to their great council halls, their lavish manses, their chapels and cathedrals.”
Now the crowd roared. Hands reached for the weapons, and the larger man gave them out, throwing rifles one at a time into the assembly. The speaker observed the exchange for a time, then turned to a pair of boys lingering near the stage, giving some order that had them scurrying toward the warehouse’s main entrance.
“Even here,” the speaker called out. “Even here in the Maw, they dare build obscenities in the name of their Gods, the Gods of oppression and misery for the common man. I say: enough. We send them a message tonight. Take up your arms, and march with me. March to purge with fire the excess of their overreach. Tonight it begins.” He pivoted toward the wide doors behind him, still firmly shut, and raised his sword. “Tonight we burn the Sacre-Lin chapel to ash.”
His words rang in her ears. They couldn’t. Her uncle had serviced the denizens of the Maw district for years, fed the poor and taken in the sick. She’d seen the lavishness of the priesthood firsthand, from the Exarch’s Basilica in the Gardens to a dozen other chapels and cathedrals scattered throughout the city. But no residents of the Maw could confuse her uncle’s charity for pompous grandeur. Yet the speaker’s cry had been taken up among the crowd, anger burning in their eyes as they called for fire and blood.
It had to be the kaas’s influence. Which meant Zi could stop it.
A yellow haze flared at the edge of her vision before she could form the thought into a request, and she felt a tableau of emotion from the crowd: passion, anxiety, hope, righteous anger. Without saying how, she massaged them all toward shame for contemplating the man’s words. Shame, and fear.
As one the crowd turned their heads in a growing panic, as if she’d sounded a thunderclap over their heads. At the same moment the wiry man closed his eyes, drawing in a breath and wearing an expression of raptured bliss. “Sarine,” he said in a voice barely above a whisper.
She let her Faith dissipate. Zi appeared at her feet, his neck arched up in a menacing pose, body flushed a radiant yellow like the glint of the sun on the surface of still water. The crowd wavered, pressing themselves to the sides of the room, even the toughest-looking among them seeming to cower in newfound fear.
“Your kaas is strong,” the man called out into the now-quiet chamber. “D’Agarre warned me as much.”
The doors to the warehouse rattled open behind him, wooden planks rolling to the side revealing the street beyond. The speaker laughed softly to himself, jumping down from the crates to the floor of the warehouse, drawing his thin dueling sword and holding it point downward at his side.
The crowd broke in terror, throwing muskets to the ground as they dispersed in a chaotic rush through the warehouse doors. Not quite the raging mob the man had tried to conjure with his little speech. Even his companion, the larger man, fled with the others into the night of the Maw. The speaker affected not to notice, only paced toward her, keeping his sword at a low guard.
“So,” the man said as the last few of the crowd trickled out through the main doors. “Shall we?”
She held her ground as he approached. “Why?” she asked. “Why the Sacre-Lin? Why now?”
“Did you think you could skulk around d’Agarre’s estate unobserved? As to why, let us say some of us are less patient than others. One way or another, I knew I’d have your attention tonight.”
He came to a stop ten paces away, fixing an empty smile on her.
“Now. Let’s see if Reyne d’Agarre’s fear of you is justified.”
Unprompted, Zi’s scales flushed from gold to red. She felt herself speed up, her heart racing through her chest. Without the surge of energy from Zi and the Life binding she had already tethered, she might not have seen the bunching of muscles in the man’s left leg, the shift in his balance. As it was, when he sprang forward, sweeping his sword around in a whirling cut, she sidestepped with room to spare.
He spun with a flourish, shifting to a high guard as he came about.
“Oh yes,” the man said. “This will be most satisfying.”
She crouched low, stepping back to create distance between herself and the long reach of his blade. She’d never even carried a dagger before, but found herself wanting one now. Even with her gifts his steel was deadly, and he had Red as well. It would be a risk to try to get in close, but she had no choice; Entropy might send the whole warehouse up in flames.
Once more the man charged forward in a lunge, darting strikes slicing the air. This time she added Body to her leyline bindings, giving her enough speed to dance out of the way. Dashing behind him as he rushed toward where she had stood, she delivered a Body- and Red-assisted kick to the man’s leg. With her combined gifts it would have been enough to shatter bone had it not impacted on a glowing barrier that sprung up between them at the last possible instant.
White, came the thought from Zi, echoing in her mind.
So, a power from the kaas. Memory sparked, seeing it; Zi had protected her the same way, from the giant cat at Rasailles, though whatever the nature of the shield, the force of her blow had still sent the man crashing to the ground. He recovered almost at once, springing to his feet and bringing his sword up between them. Now a touch of fear kindled behind his eyes. Reaching up to his collar, he unclasped his cloak, letting it tumble to the floor of the warehouse. Then he leaned back in a defensive stance, waiting.
Her turn to attack. With another surge of energy from Zi she charged in an uncoordinated flurry. It was clear her opponent had the edge of a lifetime’s training over her, but she had the advantages of speed and strength. Even so, she found herself hurtling toward him off balance, her strikes pushed aside by his steel as he swept around in an attempt to anticipate the angle of her attack.
He struck her, an impaling cut that would have run her through the belly if not for her own shield of White. But she struck as well, and this time he had no such protection. Her attack caught him in the chest, sending him sprawling to the ground gasping for air even as she rebounded off the edge of his blade.
“Yield,” she demanded in a rasp, still struggling for air. “Yield and foreswear your service to Reyne d’Agarre.”
He spat a cruel laugh as he scrambled to his feet. “I do not serve d’Agarre. It is the Codex that demands your death, abomination.”
She shook her head. “Your Codex is tainted by evil. And you must see you cannot win this fight.”
“I see you are an untrained girl with the magic of the priests. And your kaas has already used its White.”
He stepped back and took up a defensive posture, waiting.
Anger welled within her. Was that how it worked? Could Zi only shield her once, or at least once in a span of time? The lack of knowledge made attacking a foolish risk. Whatever advantage she had in raw speed was tempered by her enemy’s trained reflexes; if she tried another charge, it might well go against her. But this man intended to murder her uncle. She could not just leave him here, but nor could she strike with only Red and Body, without the benefit of Zi’s protection.
Then she remembered mareh’et.
She took a step back, and her enemy smirked, opening his mouth as if he intended to speak. Whatever he’d meant to say died on the vine as she surrounded herself with the nimbus of the Great Cat.
His eyes went wide, though his blade never wavered from his guard. It stayed suspended in air as she flew toward him, bolstered by Zi, by the leylines, and by the spirit of the Great Cat. In an instant she stepped inside his reach, shearing through tunic, flesh, and bone with one swipe of the spirit’s ethereal claws. A fountain of blood and entrails spilled out through his belly as his sword clattered to the ground, shock wrought on his face. An echo of a memory danced behind her eyes: the hunter victorious, the predator sated with the blood of a kill.
For a moment a golden rush took her, a cascade of honey trickling down her spine. Pleasure. Quivering, unfiltered pleasure, enough to consume her senses and leave her hungering for more.
Then it faded, and the horror of what she had done struck her with all the force of the man’s discarded steel.