The Skewed Throne Page 3

  And the Seeker had been right. Since the passage of the Fire three years before, the number of people in the slums had increased. Not just people from the city proper either, but others as well, people not from Amenkor at all. People who wore strange clothing, who had different-colored hair or eyes, who carried strange weapons and spoke in accents . . . or didn’t speak the common language at all.

  But those people were rare.

  I peered out from the darkness of the slums now, huddled low, mud-brick pressed into my back. On the street, men and women moved back and forth. I watched each of them as they arrived, caught their faces, scanned their clothing. That man wore tattered rags but carried a dagger at his belt. Yet there was no danger in his eyes. Hard, but not cruel. He carried nothing else, and so he faded from my mind, nothing but a darker blur against the dull gray of the world. Unconsciously, I kept track of him—of all the people—but he’d ceased to be interesting. Not a target; not a threat. Gray.

  A flash of fine clothing and my eyes shifted. Not truly fine clothing—frayed edging, a tear down one side of the gray shirt, breeches stained, oily—but better than most. He wore boots, one sole loose at the heel, the nails visible when he walked. He also carried a dagger, hidden, his hand resting over the bulge of its sheath at his side. He walked quickly, tense, and his eyes . . .

  But he turned before I could catch his eyes, his torn shirt and loose sole vanishing through a doorway.

  He faded.

  Gray.

  I settled into position next to the wall, wincing once over the bruise on my chest, and let the flow of the street wash around me. When the pain had receded, I focused on the street, squinted in concentration, and felt a familiar sensation deep inside.

  With a subtle, internal movement, like relaxing a muscle, the sensation rushed forward.

  The world collapsed, slowed, blurred. Buildings and people faded, grayed. Those men and women I’d determined to be possible threats slid into washes of red against the background gray, like smears of blood, moving through the flow of the street. Occasionally, I’d concentrate on one person and they’d emerge from the gray, sharp and clear, so I could watch them, consider them. Casual glances would draw others out of the gray, their actions entering the field momentarily, and then I’d lose interest, determine they carried nothing I could eat, nothing I wanted, and the people would return to gray.

  The sound of the street blurred as well, voices and footfalls and rustling clothes all merging into a single sound like a gentle wind rustling in my ears. Threatening noises slid out of the sound, catching my attention, until I’d made certain there was no danger. Then they faded back into the wind.

  I submerged myself in the world of gray and red and wind with a sigh, a world that had helped me survive all these years alone, and searched for my next mark.

  An hour before dusk, I leaned back against the alley wall, an apple in one hand. The woman hadn’t even noticed the apple was missing. She’d set it down on the edge of the cart to pick up the sack she’d dropped. All I had to do was reach out and take it. It wasn’t much, not after an entire day’s work. But the pain in my chest had kept me from trying for anything more difficult, and I still had the potatoes back at my niche.

  I’d just turned away, ready to return to my niche, when I thought I saw the guardsman.

  It was a subtle movement, thirty paces farther down the Dredge. As if he had pushed himself away from where he was leaning against the corner of a building, turned, and rounded the corner. All I saw for certain was the vague shape of a man’s back vanishing behind the mud-brick, into the darkness of the narrow.

  A casual movement, but one that sent a prickle down the backs of my arms.

  I hesitated, watched the narrow farther down the Dredge. When no one reappeared around the corner, I finally turned and moved back into the warren beyond the street, letting the world of gray and red and wind slip away, shrugging thoughts of the guardsman aside.

  But something had changed.

  As I made my way back toward my niche, I stared down at the apple and frowned. It was a good apple. Hardly any scabs, mostly ripe, a small gouge in one side that had browned and begun to spoil, but still a good apple. I should be running back to my niche in triumph, should be huddled against its back wall, body crouched protectively around the apple as I devoured it.

  But I didn’t feel any triumph. I didn’t feel anything at all. My stomach was strangely hollow. Not with hunger either. With just . . . nothing.

  I slowed to a halt in the middle of a dark narrow. It was still light out—sun glowed bright ahead—but here there was only a dense darkness, like a smothering cloth. I halted in the darkness and simply stared at the apple. An entire day’s work.

  The hollowness had started after I’d killed the man, after I’d spoken to the guardsman.

  No. The hollowness had always been there. I’d always just ignored it.

  But now . . .

  I was still staring at the apple when someone said, “Give it to me.”

  The voice was harsh with violence, a dry, rumbling croak, but I didn’t jump. I squinted into the darkness and picked out a figure sagging against one wall. It took me a moment to realize it was a woman, sitting back on her haunches, body piled high with rags. Her hair hung in matted chunks about her face, her skin so wrinkled and ground with dirt it appeared as cracked and dry as mud. Her eyes were tainted a sickly yellow, but were alive and fixed on me.

  On the apple.

  “Give me the apple, bitch.”

  I’d seen her before, always huddled in a niche, an alcove, always in darkness. A heaving mound of rags that shuffled from one location to the next. I knew her.

  But now, as I looked into the yellowish taint of her eyes, into the blackness at their center, I actually saw her. And the hollowness in my stomach took sudden and vivid form.

  I recognized those eyes.

  They were mine.

  I ran, bolted from the narrow into the sunlight with the woman I would become screeching, “Give it to me! Give it to me, you bitch!” behind me. I ran back to my niche and huddled against its back wall and cried. Harsh, bitter tears that only made the hollowness inside me swell larger. I cried until my arms and legs ached and grew numb, until the sobs faded into hitching coughs. I watched the sunlight through the niche’s narrow opening and tried to think of nothing at all, ended up thinking of Dove, of the five years since I’d been on my own, of the woman with the potatoes lying dead in the alley, strangled by the man I’d killed. Tremors ran through my arms, shuddered through my shoulders. Every now and then tears burned in my eyes for no reason and I’d squeeze them tight, the dark, hollow, twisted sensation burning in my chest. I’d pull in on myself, hold myself hard, until the burning receded, until my chest loosened.

  Until finally the light outside began to fade and I realized what I needed to do.

  I avoided the dark alley where the rag woman had been, skirted it by four narrows. The depths beyond the Dredge seemed somehow darker, dirtier. A boy no more than seven pawed his way through a heap of refuse outside a recessed doorway, buried so deep I wouldn’t have noticed him if the heap hadn’t suddenly heaved upward. He stumbled from it, sludge streaking his face, his legs, his arms. He held a twisted spoon in one hand like a knife, sank to one knee with a snarl like a dog when he saw me, then bolted for the shadows.

  The carcass of a rat dangled from one of the boy’s hands. It swung wildly as he ran.

  That was me, digging through the garbage, snarling.

  My chest tightened again, but I shoved the sensation back, began moving faster. The light was beginning to gray into dusk. There wasn’t much time.

  I slid up the Dredge, keeping to the walls, to the alleys. I watched the people as I moved, suddenly conscious of my clothes . . . no, not clothes. The farther I moved, the more it became obvious I wore nothing but dirt and slime, the Dredge draped over my bones like lichen. I felt myself shrinking and I drew in upon myself, twice halted to turn back—onc
e when a woman stared at me with blatant shock and disgust, and once when a boy spat at my feet, laughing loudly when I jerked back in a cower.

  He might not have laughed so loudly if he’d known my hand was on a dagger beneath my rags.

  I pushed on, until I crouched in the darkness of a narrow that looked out on the fountain, at the crumbling stone of a woman, one arm raised to hold an urn on her shoulder. Her other arm had once been poised on her hip, but it had been broken off years before so that only a jagged piece jutted out from her shoulder, and only the tips of her fingers remained at her waist. Water had spilled from the urn into the surrounding pool, but now the pool was empty except for dark patches of mold, the mouth of the urn stained with water residue.

  I settled back against the narrow’s wall. I’d been here before, when I was younger, many times. But the memories were vague, blurred with sunlight. The light glinted off the water in the basin, sparkled with childish laughter. Closing my eyes, I could feel the water from the urn spilling down into my hair, could taste its coolness as it washed down into my mouth. But everything was too bright, too blurred.

  I felt a woman’s hands touch my shoulders, reach beneath my arms to bring me up out of the water—

  “I never expected to see you here.”

  I opened my eyes and stared up into the Seeker’s face, half seen in the dusk. He’d spoken gently, and now frowned as he looked down at me.

  “Is anything wrong?”

  I wiped at the tears. “No.”

  His frown deepened, as if he didn’t believe me. His stance shifted and the cold, hard danger that edged his eyes softened.

  For a moment, I thought he’d reach out and touch me, touch my face. I felt myself cringe back, hand on my dagger, even as something deep inside tried to lean forward. And he did reach out. . . .

  A small sack dangled from his outstretched hand.

  “Take it,” he said when I hesitated.

  My dagger clutched hidden against my side, I reached out and took the sack, stifling a surge of disappointment. The sack was heavy, bulged with strange shapes.

  I opened it. There were oranges inside. Good oranges—skins firm, unblemished. And a chunk of bread. And cheese.

  My eyes teared up, burned so fiercely I had to squeeze them tight. And my stomach seized.

  I thought of the rag woman, of the boy with the sharpened spoon and dead rat, and asked hoarsely, “What do you want me to do?”

  The guardsman sank down into a crouch before me, the sky dark behind him. “I’m looking for a man, black hair cut down to here, about this tall. His face is thin and sharp, like . . . like a hawk. And his eyes are dark and sharp, too. He carries a knife with a hilt shaped like a bow, sort of bent backward so it curves slightly around the wielder’s hand. Just watch for him. If you see him, follow him. See where he goes, where he hides out. Then come find me. I’ll be here at dusk every day.”

  “Every day?” I reached into the sack, grabbed a chunk of bread and crammed it into my mouth.

  The guardsman hesitated, as if still uncertain about what he proposed. His eyes were squinted, even in the moonlight. Then he shook himself. “If I’m not here, one of the other Seekers will be here . . . another guardsman like me. Tell him to give a message to Erick. They’ll know who I am.”

  I nodded, mostly focused on the food. The bread was gone, and not much remained of the cheese. I was saving the oranges. They were rare. I’d only seen them once or twice on the Dredge, and even then they’d been half spoiled.

  “What’s your name?”

  I froze, eyes wide, mouth clamped shut. I breathed in raggedly through my nose, and my heart thudded in my chest. The taste of cheese burned against my tongue.

  After a moment, I swallowed, the cheese going down like a large stone. I coughed against the pain, then coughed harder against the pain the coughing awoke in my chest.

  Erick watched me carefully. “Do you even have a name?”

  I had a name, but no one had used it in over eight years, not since my mother had died. No one had cared. Not the woman who’d taken me in at age six; not the street gang led by Dove that I’d eventually fled to after that. No one.

  I dropped my head, stared down into the open mouth of the sack, into the darkness where the oranges rested. A stinging sense of shame and something else coursed through me, burned against my skin. The same something that had leaned forward when Erick reached out with the sack of oranges, that had withdrawn in disappointment. Erick couldn’t see it. Not in the darkness. Not behind the fall of my hair.

  He sat back on his heels. “It doesn’t matter, little varis.” He paused, and when he spoke again I could hear humor in his voice. “Varis. Do you know what that means?”

  I shook my head, still not looking up.

  “It means hunter.” He chuckled softly to himself. “I think that’s fitting, don’t you, Varis?”

  I lifted my head, just enough so that I could see him, then nodded.

  He smiled. “Good.”

  Then he rose and walked down the narrow. Not fast, but steady.

  I watched until he slipped into the shadows, then gripped the mouth of the sack of oranges tight.

  Varis. Hunter.

  I began to sob.

  I had a name. Again.

  The flow of the street had changed the following day. Not because it was different, but because I was different. I wasn’t looking for a loose bundle, a momentarily forgotten basket, a stray piece of bread. Now I watched the people’s faces.

  Leaning against a narrow’s wall, half in shade, moving as the sun rose so that I stayed in the shadows, I scanned everyone, looking at the eyes, at the hair, at the nose. Scars and blemishes, jowls and scabs—they all took on new meanings.

  By midday—the sun so high there were no longer shadows—my stomach growled and I realized I’d spent the entire morning looking for the man Erick had asked me to find, the hawk-faced man. The initial excitement had ebbed, and with a strange sense of disappointment, I began to focus on bundles.

  I slid into old patterns as smoothly as the sunlight slid into dusk.

  The next day was the same. And the next.

  By the end of the fourth day, I no longer searched for the hawk-faced man. The oranges were gone, and the potatoes. I hadn’t seen the guardsman on the Dredge at all, didn’t dare return to the fountain to ask for more food.

  I saw the hawk-faced man ten days later.

  Clouds drifted across the sky, casting the Dredge into gray shade every now and then as they passed over the sun. I stood at the mouth of an alley, eyes narrowed at the woman across the street. She was haggling with a man pulling a handcart. The cart was loaded with cabbages.

  The woman had set her bag on the ground.

  I glanced around the Dredge. It was crowded, the weather mild for midsummer. People were moving swiftly. Most were smiling.

  I had just pushed away from the wall toward the woman and the cart handler when a strange movement made me pause. It was subtle, like the change in light when a cloud passed, but it didn’t fit the rhythm of the street.

  I frowned and let the world slip into gray and wind. A moment later, I caught the movement again, closer, and then I saw the wash of red among the gray.

  It slid into focus almost immediately. A boy-not-yet-man.

  I scowled, growled like a dog sensing another dog on his own territory as I shifted into a better position. My hand touched my dagger briefly. I’d seen this boy-not-yet-man for the first time right after the Fire, had seen him many times since; too many times. Lanky brown hair, wicked eyes, thin mouth. A birthmark shaped like a smear of blood at the corner of one eye marred his smooth, sun-darkened face. Clothes like mine—matted, torn, and stained with the Dredge.

  Gutterscum, just like me. Competition.

  And he’d targeted the woman yelling at the cart handler. My mark.

  I felt a surge of resentment, bitter, like ash, felt the hairs at the nape of my neck stiffen.

  Without thoug
ht, I pushed forward through the crowd, focused on the woman and the cart handler. As I moved, I felt the anger tighten in my chest, tingling in my arms, and I narrowed the focus even further. The woman raised one arm, pointing toward the sky as she yelled. Her other arm clutched the ends of the shawl draped around her head. The cart handler shook his head, both hands still firmly gripping the handles of his cart.

  He’d just drawn in a deep breath when my focus suddenly . . . altered.

  It was like standing neck-deep in the River that ran through Amenkor to the south, near the palace—sunlight harsh on the water, noise from the shops and streets along the banks strangely heightened as they hit the waves, somehow sharper, clearer. It was like standing there, neck-deep—

  And then ducking beneath the surface, into darkness.

  I felt myself slide from the world of gray and red and wind I was used to into something else, something deeper. The gray darkened. Eddies of movement I’d barely noticed before smoothed out into nothing but shadowed blackness. The background wind died out completely, only the sounds of the woman and the cart handler and the boy intruding. And these sounds were crisper. Movements grew taut, and slowed subtly.

  I glanced toward the boy, toward the woman, toward the bag at her feet, and with the new sense of awareness knew what would happen.

  I didn’t hesitate. I swam through the crush of people on the street, brushing an unseen arm, a shoulder—both sensations transitory, like brushing against unseen weeds beneath the river’s surface—and then I was at the back of the wagon full of cabbages.

  The cart handler glanced toward me as I mimicked a lurch forward, as if I’d been jostled from behind. My hand slapped onto the edge of his cart to steady myself. He glanced toward it with a suspicious frown. The woman never looked in my direction at all.

  Then I was past the cart, the woman’s sack clutched loosely in my other hand.

  I slid into the nearest narrow, crouched down near its opening, sack resting at my feet, and turned to watch with a half suppressed grin. The anger had passed.