Age of Ash, page 36
“It’s all right,” the Bronze Coast woman said. “It wasn’t worth dying for.”
“I was so close,” Sammish said, and the grief in her voice hit Alys like a blow. She looked away, back to the fire. The street was slow with people pausing to stare. Hundreds of eyes turned toward the burning brotherhood.
And one pale head, turned away.
Alys hauled Sammish out of the crowd, pointing. “That’s her. Andomaka. She’s right there.”
Andomaka walked alone, heading south and up toward the palace. Her stride was deliberate, neither running nor spent. She wove her way among the spectators, not looking back, her whole mind on something that was still before her.
“What do we do?” Alys said.
Sammish shook her head, then looked down. In her hand, she held her little knife.
“If you kill her in the street, you die with her. The guard will cut you down,” Saffa said, but Sammish didn’t seem to hear her. Sammish’s lips moved as if she were speaking to herself. Talking something through. When she smiled, it was tight and hard.
“Saffa, you stop her,” Sammish said. “Make her turn back. At least make her pause. Do it now!”
Alys saw Why? in the older woman’s eyes, but it didn’t reach her lips. Instead, Saffa nodded, turned, and trotted away quickly after Andomaka. Sammish covered the blade with her hand and turned to Alys.
“You go right. I take left,” Sammish said. “Keep eyes on me. I call the go.”
It walked calmly and steadily, but its mind was stretching four moves ahead.
Tregarro would have heard. He would still be in the palace kitchens. It would find him there. Or if not, there would be other guards from the brotherhood. Or if not that, Andomaka was still a child of Chaalat. The family had its own places in the palace and without. There was little pleasure in going begging for shelter in its own city, but it would find a place that could be protected.
The voice that called its attention back to the world was a woman’s. Loud, even above the catastrophe, and buzzing like a hive with rage. The name she shouted was Ausai.
It turned, and there she stood. Saffa Rej, of the Bronze Coast, not twenty feet from her. She wore a servant’s robe and belt as plain as a mendicant’s, but she wore it like battle armor. She carried no weapon, but her chin was high, proud and arrogant. The brightness of the flames behind her made her seem darker by contrast.
“There is no Ausai here,” it said, in the tongue of the Bronze Coast. “He was a man, and as all men, he died.”
“As did our son,” Saffa said.
It felt a passing melancholy. The memory of getting that boy-child on her was still fresh, even in this new body. It remembered Saffa as she had been when they had been lovers. The touch of her skin. The pleasure they had shared. If it hadn’t been for the plot against it, that would have been all they were to each other. A few intimate moments. Her son would be alive and swimming in the warm waves far to the south. Whoever put Byrn a Sal on the throne, they couldn’t have known how far the price for their crime would carry. How many innocent lives they would scar by trying to cut the thread.
“As did yours,” it said, and gestured back toward the fire. “This was you, then?”
“You will die for what you have done.” She did not approach.
A man with a mule rushed past them, oblivious. Someone cried out that the fire was spreading, someone else shouted back that it wasn’t. The thing that called itself Kithamar spread stolen fingers, palms facing the sun. The wind whipped its robe and hers. “I will never die,” it said, still in the tongue of the Bronze Coast. “And if you dreamed to break my power, you should have woken before this. Now, it’s too late.”
It reached past its flesh, deep into the secret depths of the city. Its breath rooted it in place. A servant girl blundered into it and away like a blind fish bumping against a boulder large enough to split a river. With each breath, it drew its power in. Saffa was doing the same. It could see the invisible tendrils, soft as skin, that the woman summoned up. It would have been fearsome magic anyplace else. But this was Kithamar, and it was Kithamar, and for all her power and rage and the profundity of her mysteries, Saffa was a candle flame. It could snuff her out and not blister its thumb.
Behind her, a loud rumble as the floors of the brotherhood’s house collapsed. The crowd gasped at the rolling black smoke that rose up and was ripped apart by the wind. Embers glittered in the air like stars going out. The late morning sun turned a bloody orange.
Saffa raised her hands, as if to strike. Then, without warning, turned her back, lowered her head, and sprinted.
The thing that called itself Kithamar waited, ready for some new and unexpected assault, but nothing came. Saffa’s dark hair vanished into the press of bodies. Another shout, and a stream of men in red cloaks. More of the palace guard arriving at last with spades and sand to hunt embers and bury them. With a long, shuddering breath, it let its magic fade, seeping back into the city that it came from. It stood for a moment, unsure whether to laugh or rage. Saffa Rej, its old lover and, it supposed, its victim, had come so far and dared so much. It felt a cold, ice-bound pity for her. And a frustration to have come so near the climactic act of violence, only to turn away.
In someplace that wasn’t the world, it ground sharp and inhuman teeth. But in the street, it only turned back the way it had been going. Tregarro and kitchens. That was next. And at least it knew now where the fire had come from. It hadn’t been young Karsen’s hand. If a Sal and his allies had been ready to move against it now, that would have been inconvenient. There would be time to rebuild…
It walked toward the red gates. They stood open now as the guards and servants poured forth to aid in the redemption of Green Hill from the fire. As it reached them, its robe caught the wind and billowed out behind it like a bedsheet. Something about that seemed wrong. It put its hand to its waist just where the swell of its hips began. To the place where its braided leather belt should have rested and didn’t.
In that moment, it realized that something precious was gone.
Alys counted under her breath. Twenty-eight. Twenty-nine. Thirty. One with each step, her eyes forward and down. Her ears strained for running footsteps behind her, and the fear was like a hand on her chin, wrenching her neck to look back. Just a glimpse. Just enough to know if she’d been seen. Just enough to know whether to run.
She kept her pace slow. Her steps even. Thirty-nine. Forty. Forty-one.
Before her, Green Hill sloped down to the bridge at the palace’s southmost corner. The one that crossed the canal. She didn’t want to go there. Half her mind said it would be safer to swim across the canal. The bridge was a choke point. It was where Andomaka, the thing that lived in Andomaka now, could catch her. A sprint through the trees, a dive into the water, and a fast swim across into the streets of Stonemarket.
She kept her eyes down and forward, holding the cut belt wadded close against her belly. The belt. And the sheath. And the blade. Forty-nine. Fifty. She’d made it this far. The impulse to look back had faded. Alys kept going as if she were innocent. She even let herself smile.
Sammish was gone. Like any good cutter, she’d done her part, handed off the take, and vanished into the crowd like a stranger. Saffa was gone. Like any good flea, Saffa had held the touch’s attention just long enough, and then dissolved. It was all on the walk-away now.
It was all on her.
The bridge to Stonemarket was crowded, but not blocked. Carts were stopped while the carters gossiped and pointed back at the plume of smoke that had been a brotherhood. The gabble of voices was like listening to geese flying low overhead. The words meant nothing to her. She reached the edge of the bridge, set out across it. Reached the far side. No one shouted to stop her. No one grabbed her arm or her neck.
At the confluence where four streets came together—the easternmost corner of Stonemarket and the northernmost part of the Smoke—she paused to slip the snaky mess of leather and silver under the cloth and next to her skin. Only then, she looked back. Whatever she had hoped or feared to see, it wasn’t there. She felt something loosen in her chest. Relief flowed into her, so profound it could have been sorrow.
She turned south, and then west. It wasn’t midday yet, and she knew her way through this part of the city better than she once had. She’d be back in Longhill before the sun ducked behind the vast hill that was the Palace and Oldgate.
She’d be home.
Through all the long hours of the morning and into the afternoon, there was no other news in Kithamar than the burning of the Daris Brotherhood. The compound, they said, was still smoking. It was a ruin. The magistrates were going to have the canal redirected, flood the buildings so that no coals could come to life and start the fire again. It had started from a careless maid dropping a candle. Or the oven that cracked and spilled its fire. Or a lightning strike from the clean, wind-driven sky, a clear sign that the brotherhood had offended a god.
In the taprooms of Stonemarket, they found whatever servants had worked there and bought them beer for solace and to loosen their tongues. Old men shook their heads and made sounds of disapproval or sympathy. In Riverport, a half dozen merchant houses called emergency meetings to consider how the fire changed the delicate balances of patronage and allegiance. In Longhill and Seepwater, people said that a fire that took down a compound in Green Hill would have killed hundreds in Longhill and left hundreds more to sleep in ashes, and no one west of the river would have cared. They took a quiet pleasure in the rich and powerful suffering for once, and then went on with their days.
With the afternoon, the wind died down—not ending but growing less vicious. And before the first reddening of sunset, the fire and the brotherhood and all of Green Hill were forgotten. Runners came from the palace, shouting at the tops of their voices, announcing the terrible news.
Byrn a Sal, prince of the city, was dead.
Where’s the blade?” Sammish asked, leaning across the table.
“Sunk in the middle of the river,” Alys said, only partly lying. “Anyone that wants that thing back had better be a fish.”
“And Andomaka?”
“No sign, no word, nothing.”
The Pit was open for business in that the door wasn’t locked and an ancient, one-eyed man had been paid to take the usual keep’s place giving out cider and beer and bowls of stew from the common pot. Alys and Sammish were the only two at the tables, though. Longhill, like all the other quarters, was out, lining the streets for the funeral procession. Some would watch the recent dead pass by and talk in low, worried tones about whether the omen was good or bad—whether losing a new prince so quickly was a doom upon the city or a happy escape from a terrible rule. Others, including most of the regulars of the Pit, were running pulls in the crowd, or preparing them for the celebrations that would come with the next day’s coronation. In any other situation, Alys would have been out there with them.
Sammish was wearing a heavy cloak, and her hair was tied back. There were dark patches under her eyes that spoke of sleeplessness, and an urgent, nervous energy around her. Possibly fear, possibly excitement. Her leg drummed a fast tattoo, shaking the table between them. “With any luck, Andomaka and Tregarro and the whole brotherhood’ll think we’re bones and ash. The only one they know to look for is Saffa.”
“Where is she?”
“Leaving. Going back south,” Sammish said with a harsh laugh. She sobered. “I’m going too.”
Alys sat back. Of the thousands of things Sammish might have said, this wasn’t one she’d imagined.
“You’re leaving the city?”
“I wanted to find you first. Make sure the knife was done with. And say goodbye.” When Alys didn’t answer, she shrugged. “I wasn’t really thinking past the pull. Everything was toward that, and now it’s done. When Saffa and I met up, we started talking about how to get her out. And I was just planning like it was both of us. Me and her. It just made sense.”
Alys didn’t understand the sting she felt at the apology in Sammish’s voice. She shook her head like she was trying to come back from a hard thought. “Where are you going?”
“Bronze Coast, I’m thinking. Back home for her. Someplace no one will be looking for me.”
Alys coughed out a laugh. “It is harder to seem like you’re under the ruins in Green Hill when you’re walking around in the Seepwater streets, isn’t it?”
“That’s a reason.”
Alys looked away, and the one-eyed man lifted his chin in query. She motioned him back. She didn’t need more food or drink.
“How long until you come back?” Alys asked.
“I don’t know,” Sammish said, but the way she said it meant never. “The things she talks about there? The spirit house? It might be something to look at once I’m there.”
“Following gods? So a religious pull?”
“Maybe not a pull. Maybe just something. I don’t know. Can’t know until I get there. But the way she talks about it, it sounds… they understand grief there. I’d like to do that too.”
“Grief?” Alys said. “You?”
“Lost someone I loved,” Sammish said with a wry smile.
Alys tried to hide her surprise, but Sammish saw it anyway. “I’m sorry for that,” Alys said. “I didn’t know.”
“I didn’t talk about it,” Sammish said.
“All right, then. Give me a day to get ready, and I’ll come too.”
“No,” Sammish said, like she was closing a book. When she spoke again, she was gentler, but the effort to be gentle was obvious. “Better we don’t travel together. Two of us is a risk enough. All three, and word could get back. You should stay here and keep your head down, or go west. Someplace where an Inlisc girl won’t stand out.”
“You’re Inlisc.”
“I never stand out.”
“You do sometimes.”
Sammish took her cup and drank her cider to the pulp and grit at the bottom, then put it back on the table gently. As if it were delicate and might break. She stood up, and Alys stood too.
“You did good work,” Sammish said.
“You too. Be careful out there.”
Alys stepped in and embraced her. Sammish stiffened and started to pull back, but then paused, seemed to make a decision, and softened. They stood for a long, warm moment, and Sammish rested her head on Alys’s shoulder as gentle as a cat curling up to sleep. She murmured something like It would have been good but Alys didn’t want to break the moment to ask what she meant.
After a few long breaths together, Sammish pushed her away and stepped back. They looked at each other for another moment before Sammish turned and walked to the door and the street and the world. Alys sat back down.
The old man trundled forward, and Alys gave him Sammish’s empty cup. She sat alone for a time. She still had a little money left. She felt a little bad that she hadn’t given it back to Saffa, after all the Bronze Coast woman had been through. But Longhill was hard for a girl with no coin, and Alys still had to eat. The common pot had barley and pork and something that had probably been trout, and it tasted fine. She ate slowly, and she ate alone.
She could tell when the funeral had passed from the sounds on the street. The eerie silence gave way to footsteps and hooves, the clatter of wagons and carts. Some laughter. A man berating a woman for flirting with someone that wasn’t him. Alys waited.
The first crew to come to the Pit was Nimal, Little Coop, and two others. Alys nodded to them, but they were older than she liked, skilled at what they did, and too likely to use any opportunity she gave them to their own advantage. She waited, pointedly ignoring them while they split their morning’s take. The regular keep came in next with a sprig of funeral flowers behind one ear and a dolorous expression. The one-eyed man left, and Alys wasn’t sorry to see him go. The next crew that came was younger. Dark Aman was among them. It had to be one of the girl’s first pulls, and her cheeks were dark and flushed with the pleasure. Alys waited until the younger crew had done their cut, then waved the girl over.
“Good day?” Alys asked.
“Did all right,” Dark Aman said, wanting to brag and not wanting to announce that she was carrying coin. Smart girl.
“Want to get an extra bronze?”
“For what?”
“An errand for me. I need some things from my old room. Someone might be looking for me and I don’t want to get found. Since you’re not me, you could get in, get out, and bring my things to me here.”
“For a bronze?”
“Two if you hurry.”
The girl licked her lips, caution warring with avarice. “What do you want me to get?”
“A couple robes. A satchel. A wallet, and I know how much is in it, so don’t think to help yourself. And a box.”
“What’s in the box?”
“Ashes,” Alys said. “Just ashes.”
There was a name for that night. Gautanna. It was an old word, from back before the Hansch had come. It meant the moment of hollowness, or the turn from effort to release. From fighting for air to letting a breath flow back out into the sky. Kithamar, that night, had no prince, and things that were impossible at other times became possible then.
Or that was the story people told. Maybe it was only a way to paint over the unsettling times that came when a prince died. Maybe playing at there being gods in the streets was enjoyable. An easy thrill that no one had to pay for. The last time hadn’t quite been a year ago, and Alys had spent the dark hours with Orrel and Sammish, planning for morning and the drunkenness and joy that followed the coronation. She hadn’t felt anything then but the bright anticipation of a good day’s take. Now Orrel was dead and Sammish was gone, and the idea of the world growing thin and gods on the streets, of cold and deep magics stirring in uneasy sleep, seemed too plausible.
Her mother was waiting for her. The old woman was on a stool outside her door, smoking a pipe and looking up at the clouds as the sunset turned them to gold and blood. She smiled when Alys squatted down beside her.
