The Skewed Throne Page 4

  The boy was only ten steps from the woman and the cart when he finally noticed the sack was missing. He froze in the middle of the Dredge, so sharply someone stumbled into him from behind. His gaze jerked from side to side. His eyes narrowed viciously. His mouth tightened to a frown.

  Then his eyes latched onto mine.

  I grinned. I couldn’t help it.

  Somehow, his eyes narrowed more, became blacker, and I felt the elation inside me curdle and sour, the strange new focus shuddering away at the same moment, making the sourness worse. The real world rushed forward, the sounds of the street loud. My grin faltered.

  I gripped the sack and stood, turning to head deeper into the alley. I didn’t know what was in the sack, but I no longer wanted to wait on the Dredge to find out either.

  I’d reached the deepness of the alley, the sourness twisting into nausea, when someone grabbed my arm and spun me around.

  I reacted on instinct, my dagger out and ready before I realized it was the boy-not-yet-man. Except this close, with his own dagger drawn, he seemed much less boy and more man. We’d never been this close, never spoken except through scowls and heated looks.

  He reminded me of Dove.

  He stepped back, his breathing hard, anger harsh in his eyes. The red birthmark at his eye appeared black in the light from the mouth of the alley. He said nothing, only glared. After a long moment I drew in a deep breath to steady my shuddering heart and said shortly, “What do you want?”

  “I want my sack.”

  I snorted, felt the strange nausea deepen. I tasted bile at the back of my throat, felt a cramp shudder through my stomach. I grimaced. “It isn’t yours,” I said through the pain.

  “But it will be,” he said harshly. He didn’t get to continue. I gasped at another cramp, dropped the sack as I hunched over my stomach and sagged convulsively to my knees. The boy jerked back, wary and confused, then lurched forward to retrieve the sack as I collapsed to my side, my knees pulled in tight. The bile was like fire, scorching my throat, and the pain in my stomach radiated through my chest, alternately hot and cold. I sensed the boy leaning over me, felt his breath against my face as he spat in a whisper, “Don’t mess with me, bitch,” and then he was gone.

  I saw a retreating shadow and forced myself to concentrate. “My name is Varis,” I murmured to myself as the sunlight at the end of the alley came into view, a white blur interrupted briefly by the boy’s form.

  I was still focusing hard on the light, the strange pain just beginning to fade, when I saw the hawk-faced man. He walked across the mouth of the alley without glancing inside, there and then gone. I might never have noticed, except I was concentrating so hard on remaining conscious. In case the boy decided to come back. Or in case something worse came along.

  I lay stunned for a moment. Long enough for the sunlight at the mouth of the alley to fade as a cloud began to pass.

  Then I rolled onto my knees. A wave of reawakened nausea poured through me and I dry-vomited, nothing but a sour taste flooding my mouth. When it passed, I staggered to my feet, using the wall for support, and made my way to the mouth of the alley.

  I didn’t expect to see him. I’d taken too long getting to the street. But he’d halted about twenty paces away, back toward me. I watched as he scanned the Dredge, as if searching for someone. Then he turned and I saw his face clearly.

  He fit the guardsman’s description of the hawk-faced man. Black hair, dark eyes, thin face, sharp nose. I couldn’t see a knife, but I knew it was him.

  He scanned the Dredge one more time, eyes narrowed, then moved into the alley farther up.

  I shoved away from the wall to follow, but another spasm of pain hunched me over on the edge of the Dredge, heaving again. The people on the street flowed around me, leaving a wide space, as if I were diseased. I leaned against the near wall until the spasm passed, then stood.

  I felt sweaty and chilled at the same time. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and began a cautious stagger toward my niche. I didn’t feel well enough for any more activity on the Dredge. The hawk-faced man would have to wait.

  I spent the rest of the day and most of the night passing in and out of consciousness at the back of my niche. Shudders coursed through me, so violent at times my head cracked against the worn mud-brick, my arms flopping uselessly at my sides, spittle drooling from my mouth. Once, I bit my tongue hard enough to draw blood.

  When the spasms passed, I lay back against the stone and cried, so weak I could barely raise my arms. The sobs racked my body as painfully as the spasms, but I couldn’t seem to stop. I didn’t understand what was happening, didn’t know how to stop it.

  Eventually, I realized that the spasms were taking longer to come, lasted a shorter time, and weren’t so harsh. They decreased, until finally I rolled onto my side, tears running down my face, and stared out at the moonlit darkness beyond my niche, the last tremors tingling down my arms.

  There, in the moonlit darkness, I saw the world of gray and red and wind. Whatever had happened on the Dredge that afternoon, whatever had pushed me deeper into the grayness, had caused this. I’d gone too deep. I’d pushed myself so far beneath the gray surface of the river I’d almost drowned.

  I closed my eyes and drew myself in tight, even though every muscle hurt. I’d never felt so . . . drained.

  I breathed in with slow, careful breaths, slipping toward true sleep. My last, cold thought was that I’d have to be more careful when using the river, the world of gray and red and wind.

  I didn’t want to drown.

  The next day I placed myself near the alley where I’d seen the hawk-faced man. Before settling in, I checked for the cart handler and for the boy-not-yet-man.

  I frowned. He wasn’t a boy-not-yet-man. Not now. I’d seen that yesterday, seen it in his eyes.

  I shook myself, feeling a backwash of weakness slip through me, and refocused on the crowd. Neither the cart handler nor the boy-not- . . . nor Birthmark were in sight.

  I frowned again, thinking of how his eyes had narrowed when he’d seen me with the sack, how black they’d become.

  Not Birthmark. Bloodmark.

  “Varis and Bloodmark,” I said out loud, then grimaced.

  Bloodmark wasn’t in sight. And neither was the hawk-faced man.

  I sighed and sat back against the wall of the alley to wait.

  The hawk-faced man didn’t show until almost dusk. I’d snagged two scabrous apples, a potato as hard as a rock, an entire loaf of bread, and was almost ready to give up when I saw his sharp features heading toward me.

  I faded back into the narrow, moving casually, watched him as he passed. His gaze followed the people on the Dredge, eyes flickering swiftly from face to face, mouth flat. He clenched his jaw as he moved, the muscle just beneath his ear pulsing. His clothes were well made, but fading now, stained by his stay in the depths. Mud coated his boots.

  Tucked into his belt was a dagger, the hilt curved like a bow.

  I glanced sharply again toward his face the moment before he stepped beyond the narrow, memorized it—the faint pockmarks on his cheeks, the lines at the corners of the mouth and eyes—then shifted forward to the corner to follow him.

  He paused at the mouth of the alley, just as he had the night before, and searched the crowd. After a moment I realized he was waiting—for someone, for dusk, for the right moment, perhaps.

  Then he scowled at the crowd, glanced toward the cloudless sky just beginning to darken toward night, and entered the alley.

  I waited five breaths, then took a deeper breath to steady myself, and followed.

  Daylight fled as the hawk-faced man moved deeper and deeper into the depths beyond the Dredge. I kept close enough I could see his dagger at first, but far enough back I didn’t think he’d notice me. The texture of the Dredge changed the farther we moved, worn mud-brick darkening to decayed stone. The faint scent of dampness and mildew and piss that coated each narrow deepened into reeking slime and shit. The wat
er that slicked through the gutters thickened into sludge, and corners and niches rounded with packed, collected refuse.

  Twice the man halted, looking back as I slid against a slime-coated wall and grew still. Both times he stood silently, face hidden by the darkness of night, lit only vaguely by the moonlight. I held my breath, aware that now I followed only a silhouette of the man I’d seen on the Dredge, and hoped that he saw nothing behind him but rotting debris from a thousand discarded lives.

  Eventually, he’d turn and continue, and after a moment I’d push away from the wall and follow.

  Finally, he halted before a bent, iron gate leading into a narrow courtyard black as pitch. The stone wall of the courtyard lay half crumbled in the alley, the curved arch above the gate completely collapsed. He slid through a gap in the twisted bars and vanished in the darkness beyond.

  I huddled against a wall twenty paces away and watched the gate, breath barely a whisper. Somewhere, a dog barked, the sound vicious, and a rat scratched its way through the crevices and stone of the wall behind me. I glanced down the alleyway in both directions, saw no one, and frowned at the gate again, at the utter blackness beyond the gaping mouth of the doorway.

  I wanted to follow, but when I stood to slip across the alley the hairs on the nape of my neck tingled, shivering across my shoulders. Deep down in my gut I felt the cold, shuddering stirrings of the Fire. Barely a tendril of flame, just a hint of warning.

  I hesitated, drew in a deep breath—

  And then headed away from the courtyard, back toward the Dredge, back toward my niche.

  I knew where he’d gone. The guardsman . . . Erick . . . would have to be satisfied with that.

  I ignored the fact that my arms were trembling. And that the tendril of Fire did not die.

  At dusk the following day I found my way back to Cobbler ’s Fountain. Erick was waiting.

  “Have you found Jobriah?”

  “The hawk-faced man.”

  Erick laughed. A laugh that sent shivers through my arms. “The hawk-faced man. I like that.” Then he seemed to harden, eyes intent, mouth tight. The scars that marked his face stood out in sudden relief. “And can you take me to him?”

  I nodded, wary. He didn’t seem like the man who’d brought me oranges. This man stirred the tendril of flame that still curled in my gut.

  “Good. Take me there.”

  He made no move to touch me, but when I rose, I veered away from him.

  We slid off the Dredge, into the back streets, and headed deep. Worn mud-brick shifted to decayed stone again, piss and filth to sludge and shit. Erick said nothing, just stalked behind me as I shifted from shadow to shadow. He made no attempt to hide, seemed annoyed at my scurrying crouch, but he did nothing to stop me.

  By the time we reached the street outside the broken iron gate night had fallen completely and the tendril of flame in my gut had grown to a white Fire. I huddled at the corner of the narrow I’d used the night before. Erick stood at its entrance.

  “The gate,” I said in a hushed voice and turned to look up at the guardsman’s face.

  A footfall echoed down the street and without a sound Erick slid back into the narrow. He’d lowered a hand to draw me back as well, but the gesture was unnecessary. I’d already moved.

  He cast me a brief, considering look, but then the man on the street caught his attention.

  It was the hawk-faced man. Jobriah.

  As he had the night before, he paused at the entrance to the gate, then ducked through its bars into the darkness beyond.

  Erick shifted forward, body rigid with tension. He surveyed the street, listened to the sounds of the night—a gust of wind, distant clatters of movement, nothing close.

  Then, without a word, he walked across the street and ducked into the courtyard, as silent as the night.

  The white Fire in my gut flared briefly at the suddenness of his movements, then settled back down. But it didn’t die.

  I fidgeted at the mouth of the narrow in indecision. Erick hadn’t said anything about staying, hadn’t said to wait. I’d found the hawk-faced man. My job was done.

  I turned to go, and heard another footfall on the street.

  Stomach clenching, the Fire twisting its coldness deeper into my chest, I crouched down at the base of the wall and held my breath, waiting.

  Another man appeared. In the darkness all I saw was a fat face, large body, sunken eyes. The white Fire surged as he stalked into view, so intense I shivered.

  He stepped into the courtyard, pausing only to squeeze his body through the narrow opening.

  I straightened from my crouch, placed my hands against the decaying stone of the wall, and bit my lip.

  Erick knew about the hawk-faced man, not this other. But he was a guardsman, a Seeker. He could take care of himself.

  I turned to leave, the tingling Fire surging through me, and thought suddenly of the woman the man had killed. I’d stood at the entrance to the alley and listened to her struggling as he strangled her. I’d heard her gasps, his grunts, heard her body slide to the ground. I’d done nothing.

  In the darkness of the narrow, I saw her body staring blankly up into the night, leg bent beneath her, hair lying in the trickle of filth running down the alley.

  She reminded me of the woman Dove had gone after.

  And she reminded me of my mother.

  I turned, fought down the taste of sourness at the back of my throat, and sprinted across the street for the courtyard. My knife glared dully in the faint light before I slid through the iron bars into the blackness.

  My eyes adjusted, but I still couldn’t see anything. I crouched down in the dirt just inside the gate, drew in a trembling breath, and let the world slip into gray and wind.

  I caught a wash of red sliding through a doorway at the far end of the courtyard—a fat wash of red—and then it vanished behind the walls of the building.

  I held my breath, concentrated on the eddies in the gray that I’d barely noticed before—eddies that now showed me the vague forms of rocks, the dead husk of a tree in one corner—and ran across the courtyard to the edge of the door. I glanced inside. Nothing. But a strange lightening of the gray outlined another door. The lightened gray flickered.

  I frowned, then let the gray and wind slip.

  Candlelight flickered through the doorway from a room deeper in the building.

  I picked my way across the small room, careful of the debris of crumbled stone that littered the floor. Boot prints stood out in the dust, many overlapping each other. They all led to the inner doorway. I tucked myself low at the doorway’s edge, took in the inner room at a glance.

  It was much wider than the outer room. Deeper. The candlelight came from a table set against the wall at its farthest reaches, where the hawk-faced man stood, looking at something on the table, one hand clutching a wineskin that sloshed as he moved. His shadow reached back into the blackness of the rest of the room, long and thin. Blankets lay in a heap next to the table.

  I saw no one else in the room.

  Before I could frown in concern, Erick stepped out of the shadows. In two long, silent strides he came up behind the hawk-faced man and reached around, knife in hand, ready to slit his throat.

  It would have been a quick, decisive stroke, except the hawk-faced man shifted, raised the skin to take a drink.

  The cut intended to slit his throat drew a deep gash across the base of the man’s chin, so deep it exposed the bone along the man’s jaw as he gasped in shock and jerked backward, stumbling into Erick.

  The two fell, blood sheeting down the hawk-faced man’s chest, a flap of flesh dangling beneath the exposed jaw. Erick cursed, heaved the man off his chest with enough force to crack Jobriah’s head into the table. The candlelight jerked. The man screamed again—a low, horrible scream, like a strangling dog—and dropped to his knees before the table. The wineskin thudded to the floor as he clutched at his chin, blood coating his hand, spattering his arm.

  He mo
aned, rocking forward and back, eyes dazed, as Erick rose from the floor and circled around behind him. Erick’s eyes were flat with purpose, the spatters of the hawk-faced man’s blood on his face black in the shuddering light.

  Erick had just knelt on one knee behind the man, had shifted and leaned forward as if to embrace him, knife bared and black with blood, when I caught movement at the edge of the candlelight.

  It was the fat man.

  He never saw me.

  I sprinted across the length of the room, watched as the fat man raised his dagger above Erick’s back, ready to drive it down into the base of the guardsman’s neck. I saw Erick reach around the hawk-faced man’s chest and slide his dagger between the man’s ribs. The man stiffened, gagged as blood began to pour from his mouth, his hand falling away from his chin and the dangling flesh there.

  Then Erick heard me, turned just as I slammed into the fat man.

  We plowed into the stone wall, the fat man grunting in surprise, stumbling over his own feet. Then the grunts turned from surprise to pain and I realized I was stabbing him with my dagger, over and over. I could feel blood against my hand, could hear it pattering against the stone, against the floor as we fell in a wild heap. I opened my mouth and screamed into his startled face, saw the startlement turn to rage, to hatred, saw the shock slide to determination as he shifted to get the arm with his own dagger into a position to gut me.

  Before he had a chance, one of my wild thrusts plunged into his neck. I felt it slide in, deep, felt the blade nick the bone of his neck, scrape and slide deeper, felt the thick folds of his skin against my hand for a brief sickening moment before I jerked the blade away.

  His eyes widened, and like a suddenly broken spider-web, his arms and body slumped to the ground. Blood seeped from the wound, but not like the hawk-faced man’s blood. This blood came slower.

  I was still screaming, still stabbing. Then Erick’s arms enfolded me and pulled me away from the dead fat man, pulled me away and carried me across the room to the shadows, where he sat and held me, murmuring in my ear until slowly, slowly, my screaming faded down into sobs.