The Silver Lake (5 page)

Behind him, Spar followed, his own expression cautious. In this mood Brax was motivated but combative, much like Cindar, and needed extra watching.

An hour later they shared a boka stuffed with lufer fish at a food stall tucked under the shadow of a large fishing vessel from Rostov. The trade had been good, and Brax’s mood was considerably lighter. As the noon song began, he ignored Spar’s pointed glance with casual elan. He was probably just reminding him of Cindar’s order, and Brax had no intention of obeying him right then. They had a chance to make some real shine today and Cindar was probably so drunk by now he’d have forgotten his own name, never mind what time they were supposed to meet him.

The younger boy dug him in the ribs.

“What?”

Spar jerked his head past the ship’s great prow and Brax froze.

Across the quay, two boys around his own age were just leaving Kedi-Meyhane, one of the better dockside inns. They were well-dressed in warm hide jackets and sandals that looked almost new, and the younger of the two was wearing a woolen cap that came down over his ears, protecting them from the cold. Brax felt a sudden stab of jealousy as his fingers dropped to the pommel of his knife.

“Graize,” he spat. “And Drove.”

Beside him Spar’s face had twisted into an uncharacteristic mask of hatred. Like Spar, Graize had latent, almost instinctive prophetic abilities, but unlike Spar he was able to use that ability to lift the ripest pickings in Dockside without causing so much as a ripple from the authorities; an ability their abayos often reminded both Brax and Spar of when pickings were slim. But Graize and Drove had also robbed Cindar himself as he’d lain passed out before a raki stall last autumn. Brax had sworn he would kill him for that one day.

Now, as the other boys passed them by, ignoring them with studied contempt, Spar glanced over at Brax worriedly, but the older boy just gave a sharp shake of his head.

“ ‘Sall right,” he growled darkly. “There’s too many people around.”

“We’ll get him one day,” Spar assured him gravely, the danger inherent in the situation driving away his usual silence. When Spar spoke, Brax listened. “Graize’s just a cheap trickster,” he added. “He’ll slip up. Then we’ll get him.”

Nodding, Brax jerked his head in the direction of the marketplace. “Yeah, besides, we need to get Cindar before he can drink away all our shine.” He allowed the younger boy to draw him away but, just before they turned the comer, he glanced back to see Graize sneering triumphantly at him, an expression of sarcastic invitation in his cold gray eyes. His face flushed in sudden anger, Brax took a single step back the way they’d come, but as Spar grabbed his arm, he made himself think clearly and, breathing heavily, allowed the younger boy to pull him down the close. Not now, but one day, he promised himself, one day they’d get him, just like Spar said they would. And even if that wasn’t one of Spar’s prophecies, Brax would make it one, but for now they had other, more important business to deal with. As they made their way back toward Uzum-Dukkan, he forced himself to put the other boy out of his mind.

Leaning against a stack of eastern timber, thirteen-year-old Graize grinned triumphantly as he watched his fellow lifters retreat. Seeing Brax and Spar was always good for a laugh, he thought, especially on a dark and grubby day like today. Fishing through his pockets, he pulled out a bag of dried figs, popping one into his mouth, before turning to his companion.

“I guess they remember last autumn,” he said with a wicked chuckle, tossing a fig into the air. It was snatched up by a passing gull and he tipped his head in acknowledgment of its skill. “I wonder if their abayos does,” he wondered idly.

Beside him, Drove snickered. “Him? Not likely, he could hardly see straight, he was so drunk.”

“He could hardly even see crooked,” Graize added. “He was facedown in the dust.” He snickered at the memory. The sight of Cindar lying, snoring, on the street had been too good an opportunity to ignore. Brax and Spar had come running a few moments later but not before he and Drove had striped the man of his purse, his belt, and his knife. They’d have had his sandals off as well if a troop of garrison guards hadn’t appeared around the corner, forcing them to make a run for it. Brax had sworn he’d get even with them, but Graize had just laughed at him from the safety of a winding close. Brax was no threat to either of them and Spar was only a child.

He began to laugh again, his gray eyes paling until the pupils stood out like jet-black dots, giving him an unfocused, otherworldly gaze as he remembered the look on Brax’s face just now. A passing butcher’s delinkos whistled appreciatively at him and he smiled back at her with an easy grace, used to the attention. Light brown hair was unusual among the Anavatanon, gray eyes even more so. The priests of Oristo who’d raised him until he’d run away at the age of eight had believed he had Volinski blood and had treated him kindly but distantly. The leader of the pack of young lifters he’d made a place for himself in had believed Incasa was sending him visions that were slowly leaching the color from his eyes, and had treated him like a respected seer.

Graize didn’t care which, if either, were true. He believed in himself and his ability to get whatever he wanted from people. If their beliefs helped him to do that, then they could think whatever they liked. He knew he would be rich one day. And powerful. He’d seen it. He’d
dreamed
it, and he always got what he wanted in his dreams.

He bared his teeth in the direction Brax and Spar had retreated. What he wanted from most people was their shine, but what he wanted from Spar was the acknowledgment that he was the stronger seer; from Brax ... he paused. He wasn’t sure what he wanted from Brax, submission certainly—the cocky little bastard always acted as if he were better than everyone else—but whether he wanted submission in friendship or in enmity he was never quite sure. The conflict confused him and confusion made him angry, so he usually chose enmity. He knew that Brax and he would make a powerful team; he’d dreamed that, too. He’d even told the ungrateful little jerk that last summer when Spar lay dying from an infected injury and Cindar was too drunk to do anything about it, but Brax had been too scared to leave them. If Spar had died, he might have pried him away, but Spar had recovered and Brax had turned his back on Graize’s offer. He thought he didn’t need him, but that was going to change soon enough; Graize could feel it.

Maybe, he thought spitefully, he should change it for him. If he knifed Cindar the next time the drunken old fart fell down in the street, Brax would have no choice but to come crawling to him. And he needed him to come, crawling or not. Brax was key, somehow, to either his own prosperity or his obscurity. Graize hated to admit it, but he’d dreamed that as well. Brax was key.

Something flickered past his vision and he glanced about suspiciously, but when nothing untoward presented itself, he shook it off. Probably nothing more than a passing harbinger of rain, he decided.

Or a passing harbinger of Cindar’s own passing, his
mind supplied.

Graize nodded, his lighter mood returning like the sun after a rainstorm.

“They’re gonna lose Cindar to the raki or the garrisons one day soon enough,” he noted out loud. “Then both of them’ll have to either come crawling to us or starve.”

Beside him, Drove nodded in silent agreement. Two years older than Graize, he’d survived on the streets his whole life and knew just how harsh it could be without protection. As a small child, he’d begged for food with his crippled mother in the Tannery Precinct, the poorest section of Anavatan. When she’d died, he’d joined the same gang of lifters as Graize had, using his size and strength to help them hold their territory until they’d come to the attention of the dockside factor—a kind of thief’s procurer—who’d carved out his territory by threatening any lifter who wasn’t already protected by an abayos. He’d objected to them plying their trade without paying for it and had set the garrison guards on them. Only he and Graize had managed to avoid capture. Now they worked together running dice and shell games to fleece the dockside delinkon. With his quick mind and sharp prophetic abilities, Graize formulated the plans while Drove provided the solidifying strength needed to carry them out. Together, they made twice as much shine as they had with the lifters and, so far, they’d managed to avoid the local factor, rival gangs, Estavia’s guards, Oristo’s abayos-priests, and any divine attention—no mean trick in the City of the Gods. Graize was concerned, no, more like obsessed, Drove amended, with Brax and Spar, but he couldn’t see why. Half starved dockside rats were as commonplace as the actual rodents they were named for in Anavatan.

He said as much to Graize now and the other boy turned, his pale eyes sparkling wickedly.

“So, do you feel like being rat-catchers today and chasing them down?” he asked, fingers drumming excitedly against the pommel of his knife.

Drove just shrugged. “If you want to, but I kinda hoped we could go to Usara-Cami today,” he answered.

Graize gave a sneering laugh. “What for? The pickings are far better here.”

“Well, I have these ... um, things on my neck.” He pulled his fleece-lined collar down to show the other boy a scattering of red spots beneath the patina of dirt. “Terv thought it might be the smallpox,” he said quoting the ash collector’s delinkos from the Kedi-Meyhane, the only person he knew with any kind of an education other than Graize.

“Terv doesn’t know his arse from the moon,” Graize answered scornfully. “They’re flea bites.”

“You sure?”

“Completely.”

Drove looked disappointed. “Still, I could get some, you know, salve for them.”

“Soak your clothes in lye. That’ll get rid of them.”

“The bites?”

“The fleas, stupid.” Bored with the conversation, Graize moved off toward a group of delinkon gathered around two porters gesticulating wildly, a pile of bundles lying on the ground between them. “C‘mon, there’s gonna be a fight,” he said over his shoulder. “Time to work.” Sidling up behind the crowd, he leaned toward the ear of the best dressed youth, a jeweler’s or goldsmith’s delinkos by the look of him.

“A silver asper says the scrawny one throws the first punch,” he whispered.

Watching the larger of the two porters bunch his hands into fists, the youth nodded eagerly. “It’s a bet.”

Behind them, Drove grinned to himself. No one ever won a bet against Graize; he always knew who was going to throw the first punch.

As if to prove him right, the smaller of the two porters aimed a wild swing at the larger man’s head, but before the crestfallen delinkos could even reach for his purse, Graize had proposed another bet. And so it would go, Drove knew, until the youth had run out of shine or the dockyard guards had come to restore the peace. But, by then, Graize would have discovered another opportunity, anyway. Drove chuckled to himself. It was going to be a very profitable Havo’s Dance this year, he thought happily; nothing was going to go wrong.