One Man Read online

  “Mom?”

  Goosebumps ran down Riliska’s back. Something bad was happening, but she knew her mother’s voice. She had to go to her.

  Riliska slid the bedroom door open. She was not surprised to see a man in the room with her mother, but she hadn’t expected to see her mother tied up and gagged. Her mother’s skirt was torn, revealing her long brown legs. The man held a fistful of her hair.

  Her mother wasn’t humming. She was screaming through her gag.

  The man looked at Riliska, and any thought of helping her mother vanished. STOP AND GO AWAY, she’d imagined herself saying, but now that the moment had come, she understood how powerless she was and how empty and silly her words would be.

  The man’s eyes were wild, and his smile was huge. She’d seen scary smiles on scary people, but never like this. He wore silk finery and a steel chain around his neck, like one of the fashionable partiers outside the platform halls who came to her to be painted.

  He gasped in a mocking way, then pretended to be ashamed, then smiled again. He was clowning, but not for her.

  Riliska could not look away. He was younger than she first thought, and he was handsome.

  But in his crazy smile she could see that he enjoyed other people’s pain.

  He held up his thumb and index finger, then pressed them together as though his hand was a tiny pincer. Then he moved his hand to mother’s face and, with his tiny pincer, pinched her nostrils.

  Mother struggled and kicked. She sucked air into her mouth, but the gag was large and tight, and her eyes showed her panic. She was suffocating. She was being murdered right here in this room.

  Goosebumps ran down Riliska’s back. Was she really seeing this? Was this really happening in this very moment? Even though she knew she should run, she could not move. That horrible smile, so rigid and cruel like the grin of a carved wooden puppet, held her transfixed.

  Then, with a sort of peekaboo expression of surprise, the man released his grip, and Mother desperately inhaled through her nose, her ribs heaving and her nostrils flaring.

  Then she screamed through the gag. This time, it didn’t sound like humming at all.

  The man with the steel chain did something Riliska did not think possible. He smiled even wider than before.

  A hand clamped on Riliska’s shoulder. She could hear little chimes behind her, like the ones she’d sold to Kyrioc, only smaller. The hand on her shoulder was large, and rough, with ugly red hairs sprouting from the knuckles.

  Another hand covered her eyes. Now she couldn’t see what was making her mother scream, and if the red-haired man thought that was kindness, he was so very wrong.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Onderishta glanced at the token Culzatik had given her. It was for the Academy levels of the tower at the south end of the city. In theory, it would grant her access to Suloh’s Tower. In theory.

  The double doors ahead of her were arched and banded with iron. Two guards, leather scourges in hand, stood outside. They wore no armor other than burnished helm and breastplate, and their shields were faced with gleaming steel. They rarely drew the swords at their hips, but she expected they had been polished just as brightly. Their expressions made clear that they did not have an easygoing attitude about their duties.

  The Academy was not a bureaucratic institution, after all. It was Suloh’s temple.

  The paving stones around the temple entrance were the boundary. No one was to cross from the paler wooden deck except on temple business, under pain of a lash. A guard noted Onderishta and the token in her hand, and stepped forward to greet her. She handed him the token. He examined it in the lantern light, returned it, and let her pass.

  To a new visitor in Upgarden, Suloh’s temple would look like little more than a bungalow. The dome roof was only four feet above the top of the door frame, with a few narrow, crooked pipes to act as chimneys.

  The other guard knocked. The door swung open onto a dimly lit chamber as large as the bungalow itself, where a second pair of guards admitted her. Onderishta’s boots rang as she stepped onto the metal grate.

  Extending down several thousand feet was the main part of Suloh’s Tower, which grew wider the farther down you went. Warm air rose through the grate. Below, in rings down the inside of the tower, were books upon books, one row after another, down through the many levels of Koh-Salash.

  And suspended in the center of the shaft were long, narrow, pointed crystals, each glowing with a faint orange light. They were Suloh’s teeth, pried from his skull centuries before, and they looked like the fangs of a gigantic serpent.

  Before they were destroyed, the godkind had been predators.

  Far below, the tower was much wider to accommodate the libraries, laboratories, barracks, suites, classrooms, and more. That was where she was headed, but it was too far to see.

  Onderishta took a deep breath, trying not to think about the height or the fact that she was standing on a trapdoor. It was the third line of defense for this entrance. If the guards didn’t like the look of a visitor, they could pull a lever and drop them into an iron cage. Most were freed after an interrogation, but not all.

  Like religious zealots everywhere, temple guards could be fickle about how they treated people, but Onderishta must have caught them after a meal. The captain actually smiled politely before he unbarred the inner gate. Then he took her iron knife.

  She would have to come all the way back up if she wanted it back. Still, she knew better than to protest. She started down the stairs.

  The lift, a flimsy-looking corkscrew of a platform that barely held two people, passed her going up, then came back down again. Miraculously, it was empty. She stepped on. Suloh’s Tower was as tall as the city of Koh-Salash itself, and while she had climbed stairs and ramps her whole life, it was a long, long way.

  But where were the people? No one was dusting the shelves, or hunting for a book. The place was eerily quiet. It was only after she passed the first study rooms that she remembered what day it was. Students and tutors alike were away, mourning their loved ones.

  The hall outside the main offices were deserted except for a girl of nine sweeping a corridor. The child obligingly led Onderishta through a maze of offices to what appeared to be the sole occupied desk.

  An elderly man crouched by his window, quill fluttering as he scratched out a letter. There was a stack of correspondence at his elbow.

  “Goodness, what is this?” he asked, irritated. “Can’t a fellow get some work done on a holiday? What is it?”

  “A token.” Onderishta handed the tile to him. He squinted at it, then sighed.

  To the little girl, he said, “How is your sweeping coming? Almost finished?” She nodded. “Good. Finish up and we can go down to the kitchens. I asked Cook to prepare extra fig buns just for us. Now run along.”

  The girl sprinted away.

  “She’s not supposed to be running in the Academy, but…herm…I’m not supposed to be telling her to run, either. Must break that habit someday. She’s a good child, especially when you consider where she came from. One of our orphan students. Tested in, as they do. You really need top scores to make it by that route, but even so, those students always seem to be damaged in some way that wealthier children aren’t. I’m Flustice tuto-Beskeroth.”

  “Onderishta, child of Intermala, your virtue.” They shook hands. The old man’s grip was fragile, but his eyes were alert.

  Flustice stood and stretched. After a brief groan, he doddered toward the door, waving for Onderishta to follow. “Looking for apprentices, are you? Orders from some noble or other.” He squinted at the token again. “Safroys, eh? Hmf. Must be important. You’re lucky you caught me here. Most of the tutors and staff… Well, you know. Makes this the perfect time to get work done. No interruptions. Usually. Sometimes, I think the worst place to get any work done is at work.”

  “I don’t keep many office hours.”

  “Hrm, yes. You’re the investigator. Don’t look so surprised.
We haven’t met, but I know who you are. We keep sending you apprentices and you keep sending them back!”

  “The bureaucracy has many demanding jobs, your virtue,” Onderishta said, falling back on her standard response, “but only a few will get you killed if you make a mistake.”

  The old man snorted. “Hah! Spare me. Just last week, an apprentice perished while inspecting the city wall. Collapsed scaffolding. Two months ago, another fell from a plankway…or he was pushed. If you want to talk about dangerous work, what about going to sea? Piracy is the least of it…”

  Onderishta tuned him out, annoyed that he was making the risks of working as an investigator or constable seem ordinary. What did this old bookworm know about the dangers she had to face every day?

  They arrived in the main office and Flustice approached the log book. It rested on a pedestal in the middle of the room, already open. He flipped pages.

  “Hrm. The first number on this chit is for a young woman. Another orphan, although she’s not here today. Mourning a friend who was still trying to scrape by on the streets. She’s smart but too restless for serious study. Perhaps that’s what you’re looking for. Still, it’s always nice to have the burden of one of our charity cases lifted early. Let’s see about this second number, then. A boy this time, also thirteen years old. I don’t recognize his name, which probably means he’s nothing special, for good or ill.”

  “When will they return to the Academy for their studies?” Onderishta asked. The old scholar turned slowly in a circle until he found a window. It was shuttered. “It’s late.”

  “Ah. Hrm. They’re due back at sundown, although no one respects curfew on Mourning Day. But they might return tonight for a meal.”

  “When both arrive, send them here.” Onderishta took a slip of paper and wrote brief instructions on how to find her little house in The Folly. “I’ll see that they’re fed. Work begins tonight.” She turned to go.

  “One moment.” The old man leaned on the book with both elbows, staring at her intently. “Hrm. You’re a handsome woman of comfortable size. What do you say we get together with a cup of tea sometime?”

  Shit. Onderishta had thought she’s left this sort of thing behind her when she’d passed her fortieth year. This old scarecrow with the worthless noble title should definitely have put it behind him. She suddenly wished she had given him Fay’s address instead of her own. “I have a wife, so no.”

  “Ah, well.” Flustice shrugged and began to fill out a work form. He had nothing more to say to her.

  * * *

  Eventually, Kyrioc’s thoughts returned to the real world. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed since Riliska left him, but the boys inside the temple had gone quiet. Maybe they had moved on. Maybe they had drunk themselves unconscious. It didn’t matter. Their Mourning Day was over.

  But Kyrioc owed one more debt.

  The plankway outside his building was empty except for a shuttered and secured delivery cart parked at the rear. Most likely it was a small, mobile brothel, a common-enough sight in this neighborhood.

  But when he entered the lobby of his building, he saw that was empty too. Kyrioc’s senses went on full alert. The landlady made a sack of copper knots every night from poor folk in need of a safe, dry place to sleep, and the lobby was always full of men who had spent their days lugging cargo up The Freightway.

  Not tonight.

  Kyrioc made his way to the third floor. The lock he’d placed on the shop door had been cut and cast aside. Then he heard a slight scrape of flesh against wood and looked down the length of the hall.

  Huddled in a dark corner was a malnourished boy of about six. Was he a courier awaiting a job or had he been posted as a lookout?

  Kyrioc opened the door and slipped into his rooms, summoning his cloak of shadows. It wrapped around him tightly, engulfing his whole body.

  His cloak of iron was nearly invisible and could turn sharp edges like a suit of armor. Unlike a suit of armor, it faded slightly every time it was hit and took tremendous concentration to maintain.

  His cloak of mirrors disguised his appearance, but it worked only in crowds, and only if no one looked too closely at him. Just as the cloak of iron faded from repeated blows, the cloak of mirrors faded from sustained attention. Unsurprisingly, his years on Vu-Dolmont had not given him much chance to practice this particular magic.

  It was his cloak of shadows that he had used most often and had nearly mastered. It wrapped him in impenetrable darkness through which only he could see, and nothing could shrink or weaken except bright light.

  In fact, none of his cloaks worked in daylight, which was hardly a surprise, considering where he’d learned to summon them. If Kyrionik’s Mourning Service had been held downcity, he might have passed unnoticed through the crowd, wrapped in his cloak of mirrors.

  The interior door to the pawnshop had not been broken open, but the door to his rooms had been. Someone was in his living space.

  A short, slender man with three rattail braids on his forehead stepped into the doorway, followed by a bull of a man in magistrate’s clothes. Both held lanterns with the wicks burning brightly, and his shadow retreated from them.

  Kyrioc let his cloak dissipate in the yellow light. Both men were Salashi, but that was the only trait they shared. The one with the braids was maybe twenty-four, but he’d retained the dumb, careless swagger of a teenager. The big one behind him had muscle, but he lumbered like an aging ox.

  Kyrioc took his leather coin purse from his belt and offered it. “Take the coin and go. I won’t call the constables.”

  The little one laughed. “You have something that belongs to my boss.” He drew a knife.

  * * *

  In the street outside the pawnshop, Killer of Devils sat at the reins of the delivery cart. Wooden Pail, one of his employers, was inside the cargo box, whining about the bloodstains on his silks. Killer kept silent. The Pails had not hired him to care about finery. Besides, the young man was winding down.

  At least he’d stopped beating the woman in front of her daughter.

  He looked up at the side of the building. Lantern light was barely visible through the shutter slats, but it was moving around.

  Paper Mouse was taking too long. Why have thieves on the payroll if they couldn’t grab what you wanted and get out quickly?

  The lights from the room grew brighter, then something struck the shutters so hard, one flew off its hinges and crashed into the street.

  The light retreated from the newly exposed window. Wooden Pail slid back the panel between the driver’s shelter and the cargo compartment. “What the fuck was that?”

  Killer of Devils slid out of the cart, sprinted into the building, and vaulted up the stairs. On the way, he slid the blade of his sword from beneath his long, sleeveless coat.

  One of the Pails’ beetles—the young children they used as couriers—waited for him on the third floor, pointing at the broken doorway. Paper Mouse stood in the entrance facing the room, his lantern trembling in his hand. His other hand was empty. Killer moved beside him.

  In the apartment, Second Boar lay on the floor beneath the broken shutters. He did not move, but he was still breathing.

  The third man in the room was a tall, lean, shaggy-haired Salashi in black. A terrible scar covered his left cheek, as though he had been mauled by hounds. When he looked at Killer of Devils, his still, sorrowful expression did not change, even when he saw the bared ghostkind steel.

  Killer glanced at Paper. The little thief lifted his chin toward the scarred man. “Shit got complicated.”

  Again? But Killer did not say it. A warrior didn’t scold his fellows in the face of the enemy.

  The scarred man said, “Go.” He did not move—in fact, he barely looked at them. Killer could sense tension and readiness in his posture, but it was all defensive. It was Killer’s holy gift to know what others were about to do before they did it. This man wanted to do nothing. “The constables don’t have to be involv
ed. Just go.”

  The scarred man had taken Second Boar down without receiving a visible mark, but he was speaking the words of a coward, not a warrior. And yet, Killer could sense no fear in him. Like so many things in this awful city, the contradiction bewildered him. “We will go when we have what we came for. Rulenya, child of Rashila pawned something here yesterday. A Harkan wedding robe. We want it.”

  “That’s one full week’s interest on top of the loan already paid,” the scarred man said. “Six silver whistles in total. She has appeared in person to close out the loan, and she’ll need the chit. Loss of the chit will cost a copper knot.”

  “A copper knot?” Killer shook his head, making the chimes in his beard ring. He leaned back out of the doorway and waved to the beetle. The boy scampered close. “Go downstairs and tell good sir that the shopkeeper needs to see the woman and that he expects her to pay.”

  The scarred man still had not moved. They stood that way a short while, staring at each other.

  “A copper knot,” Killer finally said, feeling more murderous and morose than he had been in a long time. That was what a human life was worth in this cursed city. The meanest coin of all. “You want to see her?”

  He nodded toward the broken window. The scarred man leaned over Second’s still form and looked out.

  * * *

  Kyrioc recognized the northerner’s ghostkind steel immediately. There was no point in calling up his cloak of iron, not against an edge like that. The Katr hadn’t made an overt threat—hadn’t even lifted his weapon—but baring that blade was threat enough.

  He leaned over the unconscious thug and looked into the street below.

  Beside the delivery cart stood a wild-eyed young man with a long steel chain around his neck. He unlatched the cargo section and, drawing a long, slender knife, dragged someone into view by their hair.

  It was Rulenya. She was bound and gagged, and even at this distance, Kyrioc could see she’d been beaten. The wild-eyed man smiled with such exuberant malice that Kyrioc thought he was about to cut her throat while he watched.