Bells of the Kingdom (Children of the Desert Book 3) (13 page)

Cleaning
went round in Idisio’s head once, twice, then latched onto a connection. Scratha Family had been wiped out twenty years ago. That had always been an abstract story for him, even after meeting Cafad; but now, walking through the rooms and halls of Scratha Fortress, Idisio suddenly realized how
many
people must have been involved in that disaster.

How much
blood
there would have been.

“Idis—” Deiq began, tone a dire warning, but got no further.

Something wrenched sideways inside Idisio’s mind, and vision unrolled with the force of a tidal wave:

Blood plastered the walls, the floor, even the ceiling; bits of grey matter, feces, urine... The stench was as grey and brown in the nose as the visual destruction was to the eyes... The screams echoed in the air as though they’d acquired a life of their own... .

Deiq’s hand cracked sharply across Idisio’s face, shocking him out of the moment.

“Gods
damn
you!” Deiq panted, and lurched back to lean against a nearby locker, his own face grey and taut. “You had to think on it, didn’t you? Had to wonder
—damnit!”

He shut his eyes and slid to a crouch with his back rigid against the locker; hands fisted against his eyes, shaking all over. Idisio, still dazed, instinctively stared at his hands, memorizing every crease and dirt spot and nail edge with manic intensity.

There hadn’t been a golden haze: did that mean the memory wasn’t from the ha’rethe this time, but from Deiq himself? Or was Idisio picking it up, the way he had opened the lock, from some unknown resource within himself?

He made himself
not think about it,
fairly sure that Deiq would get even more aggravated with
that
thread of thought.

After what felt like a small eternity, Deiq staggered to his feet, his expression as bleak as Idisio had ever seen it. He looked down at Idisio for a moment of ominous, Scratha-like silence, then turned and left the room. As he passed through the doorway, the lamp went out, leaving Idisio in darkness.

Idisio stayed still, blinking hard, both hands clenched around the sheathed dagger; feeling safer in the hot, empty blackness than standing anywhere near Deiq.

“Bluebird.”

Captain Ash studied Tank’s face for a moment, his eyebrows drawing into a faint frown. “Didn’t get along with him, then? Nobody does. He puts a shiver up my back, too.” He rubbed a hand over his face and sighed. “Bluebird,” he said, more quietly, and shook his head.

Tank hesitated, then made himself ask. “Captain? What does it mean?”

“Means you’re trouble and I ought to tell you to find another place to lay your pack,” Captain Ash said bluntly. “But Ten’s a scholar, not a fighter, and doesn’t understand that trouble’s part of the territory. I don’t count his warnings too highly, most times.”

He cocked his head to one side and fixed a sharp stare on Tank’s face.

“This is an instance that puts me in doubt, however. Just so chances to be that there’s an odd one been sniffing round last day or two, asking for word of a northern-looking redling with a southern accent and manner. Description he’s giving out matches you, Tank, all but the name—and the name he’s mentioning alongside that is one as
doesn’t
match with a mercenary life.”

Tank blinked hard and didn’t say anything.

Captain Ash looked at Tank’s expression and nodded slowly. “We don’t ask about previous lives here,” the captain said. “Told you that. I don’t put my people’s neck into a noose, either, not for commoner or king. This one’s a junior merchant—apprentice, damn near. I gave him that there’s a redling signed here, he could get that anywhere; but not the name; nothing else. Not the name, not the face, not the whereabouts. That’s your business to say.”

Tank let out a shallow breath of relief. The captain nodded again, as if that confirmed his guesses.

He went on, as flatly as before: “Interesting slant to the matter is, this junior says to pass along if you’re the one he’s looking after, he’ll guarantee your hire with the merchant
he
works for, name of Venepe. Ambitious promise. I’m not inclined to push you into his contract. There’s two others available, with better pay than what I’m willing to bet Venepe will offer; man’s known as cheap and sour. This is one of them outside jobs I was warning you of. Venepe’s not a good name on my list.”

“This... junior merchant asking after a—a redhead,” Tank said, unwilling to use the derogatory version, even though the captain managed, somehow, to make it sound completely inoffensive. “Any description or name for him?”

“Skinny blond weasel,” Captain Ash said promptly, and Tank’s heart sank. “Washed-out eyes, twitchy sort. Called himself Dasin.”

Tank shut his eyes.
Dasin.
Of all the people he
didn’t
miss leaving behind—and yet, his discomfort held more than simple irritation. Dasin hadn’t been
all
bad. Far from innocent or even good, by any measure Tank liked to use. But there were worse names that might have come to find him. Names he couldn’t win against, if they decided to take issue with any of several aspects of his past.

Dasin was, comparatively, an easy matter to handle.

“I’ll go see him,” Tank said aloud. “I’ll see about this contract. I’ll let you know if I decide to take it.”

Captain Ash shook his head, sternly disapproving. “Your choice,” he said. “Caravan yards, northeastern side of the city. Long damn walk, so send word if you take the job; no point slogging all the way back here. I’ll note the contract in the book for you. Bring your pack along, same thought. Do you ride?”

“Yes.” He didn’t add:
More or less.

“Got your own horse?”

“No.”

“That’s going to cut your pay, wherever you go. Even so, don’t accept an offer of less than a silver round a day for this one, payable each town you reach, after his selling is done for the day. You can haggle a little; start with two rounds and walk away if he won’t give at least one. Keep the contract terms town-to-town, with Venepe, not calendar-based; and if his path takes you through the Forest, the pay goes up to four silver, minimum, for that leg of the trip and anything beyond. Coastlands is easy. Northlands is a lot more dangerous, and the Forest is its own monster’s worth of trouble. You remember all that?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

The captain dismissed him with a sharp, sour wave, and Tank backed out of the small office with considerably more care this time.

The hot sun turned the damp streets into a steam bath. Tank took his time walking over the rain-slick cobbles, looking around with interest. His previous visit, if it could be called that, to Bright Bay had passed in a mad rush of fear and pain; this was the first time he’d actually seen the city.

Buildings rose high here and hunched low there, with no apparent pattern. Most were whitewashed brick or granite, but he saw a few sturdy wooden buildings at random intervals. Pottery shops and soap makers, chandlers and tanneries, barrel-makers and blacksmiths filled the air with sound and aroma. Tank’s eyes watered every time a breeze blew pungent whiffs his way. He quickened his step, eager to get out of the area.

The coastal village he’d grown up in had featured an entirely different set of aromas, but those had been just as foul. On sunny days, when he’d been allowed—sometimes forced—to walk out in the air for a bit, he’d been followed by an awareness of his own sweat and dirt; the ever-present rotten-salt sea air; the garbage that always seemed to pile up in every outside corner and niche.

Sailors didn’t care what the ports they visited looked like. Those who came to the
coastal villages
cared even less. Few had asked that their
companions
bathe first. Fewer had, themselves, bathed any time in recent memory.

That’s over,
Tank told himself, trying not to think about that time: but Avin’s face swam into memory. The boy had always managed to find something unusual during their outdoor time: a feather boasting a bizarre checkered pattern; a worn piece of wood shaped like a duck—if you held it just right and squinted, anyway; an old shoe, a woman’s, high-heeled and expensive once upon a time.

He remembered that shoe more clearly than most of Avin’s scavenged items. Squat old Banna had taken the shoe away and stared at it with a very strange expression for a few moments before shaking her head and throwing it into the nearest trash heap. Thinking back, Tank suspected she’d recognized the shoe, and that it had told her of an unhappy end to its previous owner’s life.

Realization shocked through him: even Banna, perhaps, had lost friends along the way.

Good,
came the instant, savage response.
I hope she—

Tank stopped himself before the rage came flooding up. He breathed deeply to center himself in the moment, as Allonin had taught him.

Breathe and count: one breath, two breaths, three; turn it into a silly song, if that works, or a marching chant. Breathe. Breathe.

His mind slowly settled into a glassy stillness.
Over. It’s over. Today, tomorrow, now: not yesterday.

He opened his eyes, glanced around to be sure no pick-thieves had moved to take advantage of his momentary distraction, and found a skinny, waifish face peering around a nearby corner. As soon as Tank turned his head in that direction, the street rat disappeared.

Tank stood still, waiting. After a few moments, the tangle-haired street rat peeked out again; he studied Tank for a long moment, then sidled out of hiding and slowly approached.

She,
Tank corrected himself. Even through the loose, patchworked clothes and malnutrition, the shape was wrong for a boy. He nodded, civil and carefully aware of his surroundings still, well aware that distraction was a game the local thieves played well and that most operated in teams.

“I ‘member you,” the skinny girl said, pausing a step out of easy grabbing range. Her eyes tracked Tank’s every movement, as wary of him as he was of her.

“I don’t remember
you,”
he said flatly.

She tilted her head to the side, squinting, and backed up a step. “You were all tanked,” she said. “Staggering round like a moonstruck. You walked straight out into the market square and asked for bread instead of tryin’ to steal it like you was supposed to. Blackie ‘bout split himself laughing at you.”

His heart lurched into a hammering rhythm. “What do you want?”

She stared past him, her eyes narrowing. Even knowing the game, he chanced a glance back. Nobody behind him, of course, and nothing happening; when he jerked his attention to the front again, she was gone. He put a hand to his belt pouch, surprised to find it intact and untouched.

He sucked noisily on his teeth, turning in place to survey his surroundings. He wasn’t too far from the road leading to the southeastern market, and on reflection that had been the direction the girl had stared: the same market where he’d walked blindly out to ask for bread. It seemed entirely possible she’d been trying to tell him something.

Or she might have been playing stupid games, getting him jumpy so he’d miss a real pickpocketing attempt when it came. Lifty had taught him a number of the more common tricks; Tank didn’t underestimate the inventiveness of street thieves these days.

He looked southeast, thinking it over, then shrugged and went on toward the caravan yard, rather more briskly than before.

Rain thundered down as though Wae had decided to flood the world. Eki’s breath howled by. Syrta and Payti were present in the ground underneath Kolan’s feet, in the heat flushing through his body; in the flowerbeds and in the lantern-flames. The gods were everywhere, always.

Even in the dark. Even in a scream.

People moved around him, their forms dim as fluttering shadows, speaking irrelevancies. He made no answer, offered no movement; allowed them to urge him up from his chair and to the bed, from the bed to the chamberpot, back to the chair, sometimes into a sunny courtyard.

None of it mattered. He remained in the dark, in the screaming, in the fire and cold.

The shadows around him spoke of the gods, prayed in a language he’d nearly forgotten, reminded him of a life without pain. Somewhere distant, bells tolled: not the deeper tones of the Church bells, but the lighter clamor of the Palace bells. He wasn’t sure that the Church bells even functioned these days: vague memory spoke of someone removing the clappers, long ago, but that could have been another of his many, nightmarish illusions.

He retreated from all the sounds, unwilling to listen. To emerge would be to face the betrayal, the agony, the knowing that those of his own faith had unleashed a torrent of horror upon the world.

Better for the bells to be silent than to celebrate that. Better to live in the intersection of fire and ice than to turn from the shadows and see the stark outlines of truth.

The dim prayers continued, brushing against him, maddening, compelling. There was honesty in the grieving words. Kolan began, reluctantly, to listen. The protective shadows in his mind began to fade and shred. Questions rose, connecting him inexorably to the
normal.