J Simon
I
I never figured on dying in prison. I’m just not important enough. I’ve never tried to conquer the world, not even a little. Who needs that kind of aggravation? Sure, the dice have a habit of rolling my way (palm-and-switch, edges shaved with a renderer’s scalpel, accuse my opponent of cheating as a distraction), but I’ve never been caught at it. Accused—yes. Caught—no. Here’s a tip. If your opponents are a little too sharp, get their attention by “accidentally” dropping some gaffed dice, and then play honestly. They’ll be too busy watching the dice to notice you short-changing the bets.
Which brings us to Vinsama, the great oceanside city of seaweed and flowers and peculiar fermenting spices. The Changewinds are strong there, striking capriciously and mutating life into weird and inexplicable new forms. Animals, fine, who cares if your cat turns gigantic or sprouts nine extra arms—but sometimes it hits people. Renderers are expensive, and they can’t fix everything. Which means a fearful, concerned populace… which means vast new realms of undiscovered profit for the man selling a map of the Changewinds!
My plan was simple. Step one: Sprinkle some nausea-inducing drugs around a candy shop so that the shopkeeper, alarmed by the sight of children enthusiastically barfing all over the place, would throw everything out. Two: Root through the garbage. FREE CANDY!! Three: Run a ‘treasure hunt’ for hundreds of children by throwing the stuff into the deepest and darkest corners of Vinsama. Altruistic, right? Some would say, a gift straight from the overflowing bounty of love in my heart. Plus, I could map the Changewinds by seeing which children came back… altered. Four: Don’t actually do any of that, as it would require effort, but tell people I had, which would enable me to sell my made-up maps for precisely the same amount of money. It was a good plan. It could have worked. It should have worked. I had to run into the one guard too stupid to understand the fundamental principles of economics, which is to say, bribery.
The door of my cell rattled open. I squinted as someone raised a lantern against the utter blackness, illuminating hard stone walls weeping with water.
“This way,” said a no-nonsense voice.
“You have to understand, I love children, I’d never hurt children! I just told people I had, so that my fake, made-up map would seem more plausible! See how considerate I am?”
“My mother bought one.”
“And a handsome woman she is. Urk!”
The second guard poked a dagger into my side, apparently eager to play a thrilling game of ‘find-the-kidney’. My new friends hustled me up and out of the prison, through a servant’s hall, and into the royal palace of Vinsama. I was taken to a room of staggering opulence: So many paintings had been crammed on the walls that they actually overlapped; the floor was wobbly and soft thanks to two or three dozen layers of story-worked carpets; and there were so many crystal-and-silver chandeliers blazing with candles that the entire ceiling seemed to be made of light. Everywhere I looked were exquisite (and valuable!) statues, vases, and bright gilded armor. There was only one small problem: Nothing I saw would fit in my pocket.
“Leave us,” said a quiet voice. The guards bowed and departed, closing the great golden doors behind them. The man who had spoken had a great flowing lion’s-mane of white hair, but that was his only softness. His eyes were grey, hard, like twin chips of steel, and his face was scarred, twisted into a sardonic smile that seemed to whisper unsettling things about Man’s Place In Nature. His silk shirt, his belt, just about everything he had was defaced with the sign of the scarred circle. Also, he was wearing slippers with fluffy balls at the tips. Only a rich jackass could get away with wearing something that ugly.
“Your majesty,” I said, bowing.
“None of that,” he said, choosing a glass from a table bristling with wine flutes. “Vinsama hasn’t had a hereditary king for over two hundred years. I am Lord Dreiva, ruler of Vinsama, chosen of the people.”
“And I am Azaq of the Eternal Lament, haunted by the memory of six adoring little daughters who died because I couldn’t afford to feed them. I have therefore devoted my life to giving candy to children, in between beating my chest, rending my hair, and sobbing wildly as tears pour down my cheeks. Please, if you must punish me for what happened today, consider the burden of suffering that weighs me down already!”
Lord Dreiva sipped, considered, and quite deliberately poured the rest of his wine onto the fabulously costly carpet. I winced. He turned to me, his eyes cold and grey. “I employ many renderers,” he said softly. “They can do all kinds of things to a man’s body. Lying to me is… perilous. Remember that.”
“Um.”
“Your name is Shale, or at least, that’s what you call yourself these days. You’ve been exiled from six kingdoms and city-states, cautioned forty-six times for gambling, arrested sixteen times for stealing, and censured sixty-six times for ‘conduct deleterious to the practice of virtue’. You are beyond hope and beyond help.”
“I debate that,” I argued. “You haven’t seen how virtuous I can be when people threaten to kill me.”
Lord Dreiva limped toward me, that eerily unchanging smile twisting his face. “You are also,” he said, “extremely unimportant. So tiny, so pathetic, so small that you could never be a threat to me. I like that. It means you won’t get ideas.”
“You know, your renderers could fix that face,” I said conversationally. “Plump your lips up at the same time. Have I mentioned my pathological fear of people pouting at me? Way worse than torture.”
“If you must know,” Dreiva said, “I asked my renderers to do this. What a traitor a face can be. Wear a mask, and your enemies see only what you choose. Now. As to your assignment…”
“Assignment?”
Dreiva picked up another wine flute, held it up to the light—and then, in a single swift movement, threw it in my face. I forced myself to remain still, dripping soddenly on a carpet worth five times more than my life.
“Very good,” Dreiva said softly. “Please do consider the deeper implications of power while I tell you a story.
“Two hundred years ago,” he said, “Vinsama had a cruel and incompetent king. A Syndicate of nobles, merchants, soldiers and crafters united to depose him. They chose one of their own to be the new king, one they hoped would be pure and true. It didn’t work. They had to replace him, and then his replacement, and so on. Even when they found an adequate ruler, the most ambitious among them continued to strew unhappiness and dissent, insisting that they deserved the throne. Vinsama has had a new ruler every four or five years since.”
“They could’ve done a hell of a lot better than you,” I said. I couldn’t tell if he was smiling, but Lord Dreiva seemed amused by my small act of defiance.
“Perhaps. I was but a merchant until three years ago, when I was made king and put into action a plan I’ve been crafting for most of my life. The Syndicate is already turning on me. I rather thought I’d have more time. No matter. I’m releasing you, and half a dozen like you, with a simple assignment: Infiltrate the Syndicate and find their secret headquarters. I suggest you carry out your assignment quickly. If one of the others finishes first, I’ll have no further use for you. Not alive, anyway. My renderers can always use parts.” He chose another glass of wine, sipped, considered. “You have until nightfall on the third day.”
“Fine. I agree. Now can I go?”
Lord Dreiva shook his head, that frozen, mocking smirk becoming more and more unnerving the longer I was forced to look at it. “Now, now, Shale. We both know you’ll run away the instant I release you, never to be seen again… unless I have my renderers forcibly adjust your attitude. Their surgical techniques can be crude, but are certainly—shall we say, ‘motivational’.” He clapped his hands. The doors opened, and the two guards came in. “Take him upstairs.”
“Wait!” I said as they grabbed my arms. “I’ll make you rich! I’ll drown you with treasure! I’ll give you everything you ever wanted! Please!”
“But Mr. Shale,” he said, “you can give me all that just as easily after they’ve operated on you.”
The guards dragged me out of the room, the doors slamming behind us. I struggled uselessly, gasping for air, eyes wide. At some point, since there wasn’t anything better to do, I just starting screaming…
* * *
I blinked groggily, slowly opening my eyes. I was lying on the shore of Vinsama Bay, where hundreds of ships lay at anchor, hailing from every bizarre and peculiar land the winds could reach. There were ships like double-hulled canoes of vast size; ships bristling with so many lantern-bedecked pagodas that they looked like forests gone mad with light; colossal turtles, supremely bored, with cloth-and-wood platforms mantling their backs. I tentatively touched the back of my neck, which felt oddly stretched, like a blister that hadn’t popped. It was uncomfortable, but didn’t really hurt. Say what you will about Lord Dreiva’s renderers (and I had, loudly, in seven different languages, until the knock-out drugs took effect), but they knew their business.
Someone cleared his throat. Shading my eyes, I looked up and saw a mercenary wearing the sign of the scarred circle.
“Take this,” he said, handing me a scroll.
“What is it?”
“Something of value. Do as his lordship bid and buy your way into the Syndicate.” He paused. “Or don’t. Our archers could use the target practice.”
“Is this a treasure map?” I said with growing excitement. “You know, a treasure would be wasted on the Syndicate… but if I showed up riding a gilded palanquin while scantily clad nubiles fed me grapes, they’d have to respect me. It would accomplish precisely the same thing!”
“Shale…”
“No, no, you’re right, that’s pretty cliched. How about… having scantily clad nubiles ride around in palanquins while I used a slingshot to shoot passersby with gilded grapes?”
“Take as much time as you want, Shale. But in three days…” The soldier sliced a finger across his throat, then turned crisply and walked away. I got to my feet, rubbing the back of my neck. Well, I’d deal with that later. Turning my back on Vinsama Bay, I beheld the city itself.
Rumpled hills marched away from the sea, crossed by zagging cobbled streets and tilting vertiginous houses that towered four and five stories above them. Flowers were everywhere—each wall clothed with vines, each windowbox overflowing with a mad excess of growth, each streetlamp a mass of whirling, questing tendrils. The Changewinds had been at work here, too, turning morning glories into enormous blooms an armspan across. And the people! They were colorfully garbed, crazily coiffed and weirdly bearded, and trust me, I’ve been enough places that I know. The best word for the streets was “busy”. Not crowded, exactly; there was just a constant stream of humanity flowing around and past ground-level shops and push-cart merchants.
I glanced at the treasure map in my hand. I was supposed to buy my way into the confidence of the Syndicate. Right. But let’s examine the logic, shall we? Let’s say I promised you a hundred gold if you rolled double sixes. Wouldn’t the offer be precisely as touching whether you succeeded or failed? In other words, it’s the offer itself that has value, not the end result. Especially since my gaffed dice always roll double sixes and I hand the money over without hesitation (after which some unnamed person tips off the city guard that you’re carrying a large amount of counterfeit money, and collects a sizeable reward for turning you in). Anyway, since handing over the map would be precisely the same gesture whether it led to a real treasure or a dug-up pit, it would be stupid of me not to claim the gold first!
I carefully unrolled the map. Vinsama is bounded to the south by the ocean, to the west by a vast empty marshland, and to the east by a huge river. A large island in the river’s mouth houses the royal palace. A smaller island just off-shore was marked with an ‘X’, which I took to represent the Shale Friendly Society And Benefit Fund. Smirking just a little, I sighted down the shore of Vinsama Bay and headed east.
It didn’t take long to reach the river. I guess my stabby little friends hadn’t bothered to drag me very far. The river was almost half a mile across as it neared the sea, and I could see the royal palace on its island nearly halfway across. It was truly lovely, all crisp clean white like frosting on the world’s largest cake. Which, if I were in charge, it eventually would be, no matter how many bakers I had to enslave for how many years. Talk about a public works project we could all get behind! A ways to the south, a much smaller island boasted trees but little else. It looked to be uninhabited. All I had to do was get there.
The river was far too wide for bridges. Instead, a collection of rafts, ferries, and boats waited for customers along the shore, from dilapidated platforms big enough to carry four horse-carts at once to lacquered skiffs as lovely as petals strewn from a maiden’s hand. I chose one of the latter, crewed by a lugubrious old man who appeared to have given up on life.
“The island, please. The little one.”
“You have money?” he asked.
“That’s right! I do!”
“And you’ll be paying it to me?” he clarified.
“What do you know—another win-win. It’ll make us both happier if you assume that!”
He looked at me for a long time. “You’ll have a hard time swimming back,” he finally decided. “There’s things in the water. Sea Devils. Sharks. Worse.”
With sharp, crisp strokes of his paddle, he sent the little boat skimming across the water. I hummed merrily as the island grew closer and closer. It wasn’t long before we crunched up on shore. I headed straight inland, looking for the rocky spire depicted on my map.
I stumbled into a clearing. The spire was there, but so was something else. Specifically, a very fat man wearing a very fine silk robe. He was having what looked to be three picnics at once, and he’d obviously been there a long time. Around his neck hung a medallion bearing the mark of the scarred circle.
“Didn’t waste any time, did you—” He checked a small sheet bearing six or seven small painted likenesses. “—Shale. His lordship didn’t think you would.”
“Who the hell are you?”
“I am Brugah, his lordship’s chancellor and confidant. Sadly, I must do as I was bid and give you an extra dose of motivation—which is to say, pain.”
“Yeah?” I glanced left and right, but hulking, spiky soldiers failed to step out of the woods. “And how do you intend to do that?”
Brugah sighed. “Please don’t think me crude. This is not my way. Anyone can bash away with swords. Few are daring enough to ensnare with words, to enslave with obedience and steal with gifts… but… my orders were both clear and direct.”
He touched a device in his pocket. Whatever Dreiva’s renderers had implanted in my neck began to tighten uncomfortably, constricting around my spine.
“Wha—” I started to say. He touched it again.
Pain… I’ve never felt such pain. Molten iron searing through my flesh. I fell. No chance to scream. Lungs frozen. Body frozen. Brugah sighed and touched the device one more time. The pain stopped.
“Do you understand?” he said gently.
“You… gave up too soon!” I gasped. “The instant it started, I converted to atheism. Smart, huh?”
Brugah looked intrigued. “Explain.”
“Look. There are fifty thousand religions in the world, and they can’t all be right. If I pray to just one god, odds are I’ll pick wrong and no one’s home. But! If I convert to atheism, but promise my soul to whoever saves me, I can tempt fifty thousand gods at once!”
Brugah snorted. “I see a flaw in your reasoning, as exemplified by the complete and utter lack of divine intervention just now.”
“I know!” I said, aggrieved. “Fifty thousand gods, offered the gift of my undying soul, apparently decided it wasn’t worth the effort. It only confirms my opinion that all gods are jerks, and that I should devote my life to the long and pleasurable process of breaking every single one of their commandments.”
Brugah laughed, his whole body moving with infectious merriment. “I like you, Shale. I’d hate to kill you. In fact, I rather think I won’t. But his lordship will. Stop larking around and do your job. Infiltrate the Syndicate. Find their headquarters. If you don’t—” He tapped the back of his neck meaningfully. “—you’ll learn that there are worse things than pain.”
“Look,” I said cagily, “you can’t be any happier than me about being forced to work for Dreiva. If we joined together—”
Brugah roared with laughter. “Oh, no,” he finally said. “I haven’t been forced to do anything. You don’t understand, do you? I figured out long ago how to live a life of comfort and ease. I serve the ruler of Vinsama, whoever he or she may be. I make myself indispensable in a thousand little ways, and offer my service to whoever happens to be in charge. I served a dozen lords before Dreiva, and I anticipate I’ll serve a dozen lords after him. It really doesn’t matter who wears the crown. They quickly see it’s in their best interest to keep me happy.”
“Sure, sure,” I said, improvising wildly, “but together, we could depose Dreiva and take the throne for ourselves. Whatever you have now, you could have twice as much!”
Brugah snorted. “A man can only take one bath at a time. Having two bathtubs is precisely the same as having one. And having enough gold for two lifetimes is precisely the same as having enough for one. I like being second-in-command. I get everything I want, and I get it forever… as opposed to the king, who spends three or four years fearfully looking over his shoulder until the axe inevitably falls. No, Shale. Whoever is lord, I will obey. Go. Do your job. Don’t ask more.”
“Yeah, about that.” I held out my hand. “I need money for the ferry.”
* * *
Finding the Syndicate should have been easy. A dread secret society running things from the shadows? Try and stop people from gossiping about it! Sadly, none of my usual techniques worked. I gambled with sailors, bought beer for musicians, and chatted up merchants (who didn’t notice that, while I kept buying, I also kept paying the same coins over and over). I learned, from top to bottom and in alphabetical order, nothing. I guess Dreiva wasn’t the first lord to go after the Syndicate; they’d clearly developed ways of staying hidden. Which—uncomfortable thought—made me wonder what sort of extreme measures they had in store for the hapless fellow who did learn their secret. On the other hand—even more uncomfortable thought—I kept seeing a vision of my head popping clean off my body when Dreiva triggered the time-bomb in my neck. Call it quaint, but I have an aversion to dying. For one thing, it makes it really hard to eat pie. So I kept going, doggedly trying to nudge the conversation back to the Syndicate when all anyone wanted to talk about was the Sea Devils and their latest horrifying midnight atrocities. What are Sea Devils? Great question!
“Giant mutant clams,” a grizzled old sailor assured me, “grown arms and come to avenge their kin!”
“A crew of pirates, lost at sea, who fired their brains out of cannons and into the bodies of sharks, lest they starve to death,” a smoky-voiced singer insisted, “and also something about buried treasure, but I haven’t figured that out yet.”
“You know how renderers dump their failed experiments in the river?” a tinker told me, “well, there’s a city-sized blob of flesh and machine down there, and it won’t rest until it kills us all!”
Everyone agreed that the Sea Devils struck, unseen and unknown, in the middle of the night, and always from salt or brackish water. Ships sank for no reason. Waterfront warehouses collapsed. Docks were found torn to pieces. Something was out there, and it was real, and it was terrifying. It was also a major pain in the ass, since it kept me from finding out anything useful.
“SYNDICATE!” I bellowed at the perplexed tinker. “SYN-DI-CATE!”
“You want Roaf the Baker,” she said. “He’s high in the Syndicate, he is, and people go over there all the time to complain about the Sea Devils. Has a shop right on Knucklebone Point.” She paused, suspiciously hefting the last coin I’d given her. “Wait. Why is this so light?”
“Well, it’s sure not painted candy,” I scoffed. “If it were, you could bite right through it.”
Glaring suspiciously at me, she promptly bit the coin in half, released the knock-out drop concealed within, and keeled over on the spot. I shrugged, helped myself to an extremely tacky monkey’s-arm back-scratcher, and headed for Vinsama Bay. It was already late afternoon, the sky golden as I cut across a park lousy with trees and flowering grasses. A gaggle of children ran past, shrieking with laughter, acorns as big as my head strapped to their backs. Shortly afterward, a Changewinds-altered titano-squirrel bounded thunderously after them, cocked a barrel-sized head at me, and stated ‘CHIRP.’
“Some game,” I said faintly.
Knucklebone Point wasn’t far, nor was the shop of Roaf the Baker. The purple, five-story house smelled wonderfully like baking bread, and its Changewinds-enhanced vines sagged under such a mad excess of flowers that falling petals turned the ground into an unbroken shroud of cream and bone, berry and flame. Shrugging, I walked across it and tried the door. It was open.
“Hello?” I called.
“Straight back, please!” called a jovial voice. “Unless you’re here to buy something. Then you can hop in spirals like a frog with a head injury for all I care!”
I crossed a dusty, empty foyer, only to be socked in the face with moist, buttery, dough-scented air as I stumbled into the bakery proper. Roaf was almost as big as Brugah, but compact instead of corpulent. He rushed back and forth between six oversized ovens, his black eyes crinkled in anticipation of the wonders he’d find there, his huge mountain-man beard defying all expectations by not constantly bursting into flames. There was another customer there, a young woman in stained and well-worn travel leathers. The bone traps hanging from her belt marked her as a delver; someone crazy enough to hunt down bizarre mutant monstrosities, tough enough to catch them, and smart enough to make money selling them. I have to admit, I was impressed. Healed stitches wandered across her face, and one of her eyes was huge and wet and brown. A cow’s eye, I think. I liked it. It was friendly.
“—you have to tell the Syndicate,” she said passionately. “This is important!”
“Is it?” Roaf wondered. “They tell me that stress makes people eat, Greya, but you haven’t bought a single muffin since coming into my shop.”
Greya stared at him. “Three,” she said, slapping down some coins. Roaf served her, and Greya promptly smashed all three into her mouth.
“Lhhk!” she said, spraying pieces of muffin into Roaf’s beard as she brandished a broken plank at him. Muddy circles of various sizes crossed and re-crossed it, forming an oddly enticing pattern.
“Uh fuhd thu—” Greya paused, forcing herself to swallow. “I found this at a Sea Devil attack site. Look at it! Look!”
“That’s a mighty fine piece of wreckage,” he said admiringly.
“It’s a piece of art. Animals don’t make art, Roaf! Someone’s directing the Sea Devils, controlling them. Someone’s making them attack us!”
“All I see is a bunch of muddy rings,” he said apologetically. “Maybe if you treated me to my famous double-rum cake, my eyes would cross hard enough to see what you see.”
“It’s proof. Proof that all this terror, all this fear in the night, someone’s doing it on purpose. You have to tell the Syndicate.”
“Muffin?” he said.
“I’ve spent all my money.”
“Oh, that’s all right. I’m sure your mother will make good on your debts,” he said cheerfully. “Here, have two. And a third for your friend!” He glanced at me. “And how many do you want?”
“None.”
“I see. You’re a merchant captain, aren’t you? I can always tell. You want to know about the turtles!”
“Um…”
Roaf danced from one oven to another, literally putting out fires, before grabbing a loosely heaped stack of nautical charts and shaking them at me. “Up-to-date. Accurate. Cheap! I know where all the island turtles are. The big ones, with their own forests and streams. The really big ones, with their own weather. I know which way they’re going, what currents they’re dragging after them, what kind of giant waves they’ll kick up when they go under. And for just a handful of coins…”
“I had something else in mind,” I said, unrolling the map with a snap of my wrist. “My name is Shale. I happen to have a genuine, no-fooling treasure map, which I found in a salten sea cave surrounded by a ring of dead pirates. The Syndicate could always use more funds, yes?”
“Certainly,” Roaf agreed, “and I’d love to help you, but I can’t. I have six Madness Twists in the oven, and I can’t even think about Syndicate business until someone buys them all.”
Roaf eyed me expectantly. I sighed.
“People used to put some effort—some artistry—into their shakedowns,” I complained.
“Will you be buying all six, then?”
“What the hell. Better than being stuck in this stinking town for another stinking day. Serve ‘em up.”
I put some coins on the counter (real ones, this time), and Roaf busied himself at one of his ovens. The Madness Twists lived up to their name, coiling back on themselves like a nest of insane snakes in bread form. I picked one up, impressed despite myself.
“Who needs directions to Roaf’s?” I asked. “Follow the trail of people who ended up standing on their heads and spinning just from trying to make a damn sandwich.”
Greya picked one up, fascinated. “If I butter it, will a genie come out? More importantly, will he stop dizzily barfing long enough to grant wishes?”
“Oh, stop,” Roaf said, pleased. “Or don’t. It’s your choice, really, if you feel compelled to keep complimenting me.”
“Look,” I said, waggling the parchment in his face, “you’re not going to find a better treasure map. Water resistant. Flame retardant. Ghost-proof. Also, it’s a map that shows you where to find a damn treasure. All I’m asking in return is a measly sixty-five percent. Will you take me to the Syndicate or not?”
“And my Sea Devil news!” Greya hastily said. “The Syndicate wants that, too!”
Roaf drummed his fingers on the countertop, frowning for the first time.
“Greya… Shale…” He took a deep breath. “To be perfectly honest, I don’t have anything to do with the Syndicate. That’s all lies.”
“What?” Greya said, astonished.
He shrugged. “Letting people think I’m important, it’s very good for business. They keep buying things. Didn’t you think it was strange, that I’ve publicly announced myself… yet Dreiva leaves me alone?”
“But… you said…”
“I’m incredibly offended,” I said. “I can’t abide dishonesty.”
I turned on my heel, cloak flaring, and stole two large sugar-sparkling cookies from the counter. Not much in the way of repayment, but I felt it was important to make the gesture. I strode from the bakery. Hesitating only a moment, Greya followed.
“Shale. Shale!” she called as I scraped my feet across that delicate shroud of fallen petals. “Is that treasure map real?”
“Depends. How much are you paying me for it?”
Greya shot an odd look at me. “Could you help me out? Maybe raise a little flag when you’re not bullshitting me?”
“My dear lady!” I said, shocked. “I do not lie. I uplift my audience with salubrious falsehoods and beneficial fabrications, telling them the world as it should be, filling their blinkered lives with wonder and hope! At, admittedly, some small detriment to their coin pouch. But what do material things matter?”
“Did you steal anything from Roaf?” she demanded. I grinned, wordlessly producing the two cookies.
“Take them back.”
“I think I’d rather— WHOA!” I said as she put her hands under my arms, braced her feet, and effortlessly lifted me into the air.
“Did I mention that my parents are renderers?” she said calmly. “I don’t want to hurt you—”
“How convenient! I especially object to being hurt!”
“—but I will stand up for my friends.”
“Fair warning: I have a very weak bladder. Hold me aloft at your own risk.”
Greya set me down. She wasn’t even breathing hard. I looked at her with new respect.
“Did Mommy and Daddy give you anything else, or did they stop at giving you the strength of ten?”
“Take them back.”
“Can’t,” I said, crumbling the cookies in my hands until there was nothing left but tasty, tasty chunks. “I can, however, give one to you. How about it?”
“Do you really think I’d stoop that low?”
“Refusing won’t un-steal them,” I said reasonably. “Refusing won’t help Roaf. All you’re doing is putting delicious, delicious cookie chunks in my mouth. But if you take what’s in my left hand, you’re nobly, selflessly preventing me from profiting from my crime.”
Greya licked her lips, glancing at the enticing chunks of sugar-glazed confection. “You’re not just probing to see how susceptible I am to temptation?”
“Heaven forfend!”
“Well… I guess you’re right. Even a busted hourglass is right after an hour.”
She grabbed the cookie chunks from my left hand—and then, moving in a blur of renderer-enhanced speed, grabbed the pieces from my right hand, too. Looking pleased with herself, she began eating two-fisted.
“HEY!” I cried.
“Yuh nah gon’ profit fah evuh,” she explained, crumbs shooting out of her mouth. “Look, Shale,” she said as I glowered at her, “you are a sick, degenerate— wow, these are good— depraved man. You’re right. My duty is to prevent you from enjoying the spoils of your despicable behavior. And I will, no matter how terrible a sacrifice it requires.” She somehow managed to fix me with a steely glare and lick her fingers at the same time. Her big brown eye, I noticed, blinked at a different rate than the other one.
“Yeah, I’m leaving,” I said irritably.
“Wait! What I said about you being sick, twisted, and depraved—” Greya paused. “Wouldn’t you like an opportunity to prove me wrong? I’ve been trying to find the Syndicate for days. With my Sea Devil information and your treasure map—”
“Pass.”
I made my way to Vinsama Bay, where the setting sun brought the sea aflame with every mad shade of orange and red ever to seep from a murdered flower. Numerous docks jutted out into the ocean, and—lucky me—a seafaring ship was loading cargo near the end of the longest one. I strode across the weathered planks to the end of the pier, Greya hesitantly following.
“I’m offering you the opportunity to be selflessly good for once!” she insisted.
“That’s what I was afraid of.” I approached a seaman who was senior enough to merely stand around, smoking his pipe and watching the others work. “I’d like to book passage,” I said. “The farther away from Vinsama, the better.”
He glanced at me—and stopped dead, the pipe falling from his open mouth. He hastily glanced at a little booklet in his left hand.
“I… uh, have to…”
He sprinted up the gangplank. At a garbled shout, the crewmen dropped their cargo—some of which tumbled into the ocean—and ran after him. The gangplank was flung roughly from the ship, and I jumped back as it clattered to the dock. Up on board, I could see sailors running up signal flags.
“Shale?” Greya asked.
“Teeny little misunderstanding,” I muttered, breaking into a run as I headed for shore. I got there at almost the same time as a squad of four mercenaries, each bearing the sign of the scarred circle. They drew their weapons, apparently well-versed in dealing with deserters. The only thing that saved me—for the moment—was that they were too smart to come at me one by one, and hesitated at the edge of the narrow dock. I smiled brightly, waving at their leader.
“Ah! You brought fresh meat! About time. The Sea Devils are getting hungry. Well, enough stalling. Command them to come get me.” I trotted out to sea, looking back expectantly.
“We’ll come when we’re ready,” he said tersely.
I winked at his men. “You know Dreiva hired you to be a meal, right?” I said conspiratorially. “Once I lure you out to sea, the Sea Devils will drag you under, enmesh you in the palpating secretions of their slime glands, then infiltrate and digest you with a thousand thousand writhing cilia.” I grinned at Greya. “Funny, isn’t it, how none of them ever believe me until it’s too late?”
“He’s lying,” their leader said tersely.
“Can I get some applause for his wonderful performance?” I asked his men. “Works every time. What the hell—send the morsels out when you’re ready.”
I walked down the dock, humming to myself. I didn’t look back, but I could hear the sounds of a heated discussion behind me. Greya followed, staring at me as I stomped my feet here and there.
“Shale… I think they’re going to kill you.”
“Oh, I know they will,” I said cheerfully. “Still, bawling about it won’t help. I mean, it might, if I managed to cry hard enough to actually blast tears directly into their eyes and blind them. The thing is— ah!” My stomping returned a booming, hollow sound as I reached the midpoint of the long dock. What shipworms and saltwater hadn’t weakened, webs of mutant iridescent fungus had very nearly digested. The whole stretch was incredibly weak and just this side of collapse. Spotting a coiled rope a little farther seaward, I retrieved it just as the four men came edging cautiously out along the dock. I don’t know what their leader had told them, but he was right out front, in the most vulnerable position.
“Enough of this,” he said. “Come quietly, and we’ll take you to his lordship for judgement. It’s the best chance you’ll get.”
“Ah, but you’ve fallen into my trap!” I said merrily. “I’m the famous pirate Svengir Cruelstone, and I just tricked you into lining up and facing me one at a time. Thanks, dolts!”
“He’s lying,” the leader said tersely, though I noticed that he’d stopped moving forward.
“Am not!” I said, walking up and down the rotted patch of dock and winding my rope under this and around that. “No answer? Guess I stumped you, huh?”
“The thing is—” Greya stuck her fist in her mouth, eyes wide.
I grinned at her. “No, no, go on!”
“The thing is, if you’re such a great thief, wouldn’t prancing around, beating your chest and announcing how mighty you are… well, wouldn’t that just get you arrested extra-fast?”
“Ah, but I’m not a thief!” I announced, winding my rope around a creaking support. “Hiding in the shadows is for small men, coward men, tiny men afraid to be seen. I, my dear, am a pirate. True strength is announcing yourself to your enemy, letting him know exactly what you’re going to do—and then doing it to him anyway. Good stuff, huh?” I bowed to the leader. “I am Svengir Cruelstone, pirate lord, and since looting your bodies lacks promise, I’m going to do something much more amusing: I’m going to arrange your corpses in ridiculous and humiliating poses!”
“GET HIM!” he snapped.
I spun around three times, wrapping the rope around my waist. I LEAPT seaward, yanking with everything I had. The rope snapped taught. The rotted section of dock made a wet crunching sound and twisted sideways as half its supports gave way. The mercenaries did me the vast favor of freezing in place, slack-mouthed and wide-eyed. I yanked again and the whole dock collapsed, four men plunging into the sea. Burdened by chain armor and swords, they started paddling around in small and ineffectual circles.
“You did it!” Greya said, astonished.
“Could you try to sound less surprised? I’m great. Of course it worked.”
“If you’re so confident, then why are your hands shaking?”
I glanced down. “Uh… well… why waste time not practicing the moves it would take to swordfight an army of bees if I had tiny rapiers strapped to my fingertips? Face it. I’m good at everything.”
“Except escaping,” she noted drily. “You just ripped a huge hole between us and shore. How do mean to get across it?”
“Er…” I paused, stymied. It was true. There was a fifteen-foot gap between me and the other side of the collapsed dock, a gap filled with little more than water and extremely angry soldiers. I might be able to swim faster than them. I wasn’t sure I wanted to bet my life on it.
“Of course, I could use my renderer-built strength to get us across,” Greya said lightly, “if you promised to help me find the Syndicate.”
“You’re blackmailing me?” I said, amused.
“NO! I’d never stoop to that!” Greya reddened. “This isn’t coercion. This is… unearthing the secret core of goodness that exists somewhere deep inside you. I’m giving you an excuse to be the hero you always dreamed of!”
“Tell you what. Forget all that and help me commandeer a ship. You can be Ilyuraan Cinderheart, lord of all waves and rebuker of fish.”
“Ew, no.”
“That’s a great pirate name!” I said, stung. “It’s got a mystique!”
“No, see, if I were a pirate, I’d be called…” Greya broke off, turning red again. “Enough. Promise me!”
“Fine,” I said, putting my hand over my heart. “I give you my word: Circuitous. Oh, come on, it was a joke! Fine. I promise to help you. Are we good?”
Greya shook her head. “I know I’m going to regret this… but…”
She put her arm snugly around my waist, tensed, and JUMPED. My head snapped back like a doll’s, wind rushing past my ears, and we came crashing down a good five feet past the hole. I led her to shore, then took a half dozen turns at random as I wound my way inland, Greya following right behind me. We stopped at a speechless sort of five-way intersection, where a girl in a stupid hat was using a long pole to light streetlamps against the encroaching night.
“Nicely done,” I said appreciatively. “You may be the strongest person I’ve ever met.”
“Um.”
I put my hands on my hips. “Not clear on how compliments work, are we? Permit me to illuminate you. I say, ‘gee, you’re strong!’ and you say, ‘why thank you, Mr. Shale, and may I say that you possess a sort of diseased, swarthy handsomeness that I just can’t get enough of!’, and then you bring me pie and we ride off into the harvest moon. Easy, right?”
“Saying I’m strong isn’t a compliment,” she mumbled.
“I’m a bit of a connoisseur,” I insisted. “For example, when the last girl I chatted up asked whether my face always looked like that, or if it was an involuntary reaction to the way I smelled, she was flirting with me. Admiring your strength? Compliment.”
“But it’s not me,” Greya insisted. “It’s what my parents did in rebuilding me. If I painted a spectacularly pornographic portrait of you, three donkeys, and a runaway water-wheel—”
“You have a real gift for metaphor,” I said appreciatively.
“—should the canvas feel good when you admire the painting? The canvas had nothing to do with it. It was just there. It’s the same thing with me. My parents painted strength on the canvas of my body. You complimented them. You didn’t compliment me.”
I snapped my fingers. “I said you were good with metaphors! COMPLIMENT! I win again!”
Greya pursed her lips, trying not to laugh. She walked over to a garden whose flowers cast strange, grasping shadows in the lamplight. “Fine. You win. And to claim your prize, all you have to do is keep your promise and help me save the city—right?”
I looked left. I looked right. I even bent over and looked backward between my legs. “The city looks fine to me.”
Greya picked a flower and spun the stem between her hands, sending it whirling up into the air. “Shale… I’ve lived in Vinsama all my life. What’s happening now feels different. We’ve had rulers who were ambitious or cruel or greedy before, but Dreiva is all that—and competent. He’s brought in an army of mercenaries who are loyal only to him, instead of using the city guard like past lords have done. And that’s not even to mention the Sea Devils, spreading fear and horror for reasons we can only guess. I saw what you did to those mercenaries with nothing more than a diseased mind and a silver tongue. You can see things I can’t, leap to conclusions I’d never even consider. Keep your promise. Please. Help me save the city.”
I glanced at her. “Isn’t that the Syndicate’s job? A little arrogant, don’t you think, taking it on yourself?”
“They… it’s just…” She bit her lip. “I shouldn’t be telling you this. You’re probably trying to worm your way into my good graces so you can manipulate me.”
“Well, I won’t do that now,” I said exasperated. “Talk about losing the element of surprise.”
Greya walked on until she was cloaked in darkness, hugging her arms to her chest. “Do you know what it’s like,” she said, her voice cracking, “to be a failure at everything? No. Worse. To look at the people you love the most, and realize that you’re their problem. You’re the one who killed their dreams. The world… the world is going wrong, and I’m done sitting around waiting for someone else to fix it. It’s time to make their sacrifice mean something.”
I gazed wordlessly at her, the device in my neck choosing that inopportune moment to start throbbing again. Sob stories are nice and all, but explosive decapitation kind of gets my attention. I was going to betray her to Dreiva in the end. Giving her hope now would not be a kindness.
“Here,” I said, looking away as I thrust the treasure map at her. “Take it before I come to my senses.”
“No. I don’t care about that.” She paused, then snatched the map out of my hand and stuck it in her belt. “I want your help. You promised.”
“I also promised to run around licking orphans, according to the little girl I hired to play my daughter the last time I was on trial.” I paused. “I really should have held auditions. The point is…”
“The point is, for you to break your sworn word would be a terrible sin,” Greya said, slowly reasoning it out. “Therefore, if I committed a slightly less terrible sin to prevent you from doing it, I’d actually be increasing the total amount of goodness in the world. So, if physically dancing you around like a demented puppet-man is less bad than you breaking your promise, I have to do it! I don’t have a choice!”
“You’re dangerous,” I muttered. “Did anyone ever tell you that you’re dangerous? You’re dangerous. Fine. I’ll give you one day. After that, you’re on your own.”
Greya led me through Vinsama. It wasn’t that late, and there were still plenty of people on the cobbled streets. Light and music poured from the open doors of various shops and restaurants; a five-piece band tried to lure us into a bar, their intimate, smoky, salacious music making promises that no tavern could possibly keep. We soon left the business district behind, the twisting road climbing and descending surprisingly steep hills. The only light was from muted street-lamps, though song and laughter echoed from various upper-floor windows. On the crest of one hill, we skirted a densely forested park where fireflies blinked and bubbled on a fine summer breeze.
“Finally!” I said, pleased. “I was starting to get sick of the Changewinds. Nice to see something normal for a change.”
“Normal, huh?”
Greya cupped her hands to her mouth and mimicked the harsh call of a hunting owl. Instantly, the things in the trees lit up bright as day: Sleek, fat land squid with brightly glowing bodies, each mantled with its own color and pattern of bioluminescence, each using the glowing tips of its tentacles to fish for bats.
“That’s… unsettling.”
“Really, Mr. Shale?” Greya said, amused. “I look around and see amazing, wondrous, beautiful things. My life is a dozen times richer than yours. And you call yourself a thief!”
“And you call yourself a delver, but I don’t see you catching the damn things and selling them as the world’s most horrifying night-lights.”
Greya’s smile slipped. “I don’t sell cephalopods. Not ever. It’s actually unnerving how smart they are.”
The squid went out one by one, leaving only the seemingly innocent fireflies bobbing and dipping, flashing and pulsing. I shook my head and followed Greya.
The hills flattened out as we approached the great western marshlands. All at once, the houses stopped. Ahead of us stretched a swampy mire illuminated by moonlight, moss hanging from the trees like a ragged ghost ship’s sails. Vines and moss and epiphytes were everywhere, real fireflies haunting the lowlands in numbers beyond count. A rickety, narrow boardwalk zagged into the darkness, raised up on stilts.
“That way?” I said dubiously.
“It’s not as bad as it looks.”
“I hope not. I might sneeze.”
Surprisingly quickly, the rest of Vinsama was lost to sight. The path split three or four times, but Greya led me unerringly to a moss-roofed shack deep inside the swamp.
“You live there?” I said dubiously.
“Me and my parents.”
“You said your parents were renderers,” I reminded her. “Renderers are rich. Renderers live fat. Sprawling estates. Huge mansions. And your parents live here?”
Greya flushed. “Not all renderers are rich.”
“Yeah, right. Show me the king who wouldn’t pay half his hoard for a heart that worked. This? This is pathetic.”
“Then you’ll fit in perfectly,” she said sharply, pushing me inside.
The main room—which was about half the house—was cheery and bright, as well as warm from the hearth along the wall. A handsome woman with silver-white hair sat at a round table, going over sheafs of schematics. The man at the hearth was tall and gaunt, stirring a cookpot with abrupt, almost angry movements.
“Mom! Dad! I’d like you to meet Shale.”
The man scowled at me. “I don’t like the looks of him. Working for Dreiva, I’ll bet.”
“Dad, you say that about everyone.”
“And sooner or later it’ll be true, and then you’ll thank me for my vigilance,” he snapped. “Also, stop calling me ‘Dad’. That’s just the kind of information Dreiva could use against us.” He glared at me. “It’s her little joke. We’re actually unrelated. Also, I hate her. I’d be mildly displeased if someone abducted and tortured her, but not especially inclined to pay the ransom.”
“Dad, Shale is not our enemy.” Greya paused. “Wait. Let me rephrase that. He’s not the worst person I’ve ever…” She stopped. “I don’t think he’ll murder us in our sleep.”
“It would take too much effort,” I said helpfully.
“I’ll have to kill him,” the man said, reaching for a delicately inlaid wooden box. “Look away. This could get messy.”
Greya was aghast. “You’re going to beat him to death with a music box?”
“DON’T TELL HIM THAT! He might deduce it was an anniversary present, which implies that I’m married, which is just the sort of thing Dreiva would love to know! Well, the joke’s on you. My wife and I died ages ago. That’s right, you’re talking to a couple of ghosts!”
“I’m Yesteba,” the woman said comfortably. “This is my husband, Sayner.”
“NO!” Sayner cried, clutching his heart.
“And you stay with him?” I wryly asked her.
“Well, I do love him,” she said thoughtfully.
I sat down at the table. Sayner put full bowls of stew down before Greya and Yesteba and himself, then looked at me for a long, long time before fishing a single slimy onion out of the pot, splopping it into a bowl, and serving it to me. Yesteba merrily swapped bowls with me. Looking grim, Sayner filled hers the rest of the way.
The meat in the stew was weird, stringy and juicy and surprisingly succulent, but I liked it. It went perfectly with the little bowl of creamed butter Sayner had set out. I helped myself to a little more butter. Then a lot more. Then a lot lot more.
“Does that chomping maw ever stop?” Sayner grumbled. “Suck the dog dry, why don’t you?”
I stopped, butter dripping from my lips. “What…?”
“He’s kidding,” Greya hastily said. I nodded, relieved, and took another bite. “We’ve got plenty of dairy dogs,” she added.
“Would you like more Spider?” Yesteba politely asked.
I froze. I patted my lips with a small cloth. I slowly and deliberately swallowed.
“Have I mentioned how much I hate the Changewinds?”
Sayner began to clear the table, still shooting distrustful glances at me. Yesteba returned to her schematics, frowning thoughtfully. Greya pulled her chair closer to mine.
“Should we make our plans for tomorrow?” she asked.
“I figured we’d just wing it.”
Greya’s eyes narrowed. “I’m fully aware that you mean to run off without helping me, Shale… but I’m betting that there’s some shriveled remnant of humanity deep inside you that will make you do the right thing. And you know what? I fully expect to lose that bet. I fully expect you to disappoint me. Well, I don’t care. I’m going to look Reality full in the face, spit in her eye and call her mother fat, because this is the way the world should be and this is where I stand.”
Yesteba glanced at me. “Greya… who is he, again?”
“This is Shale,” she said evenly, “the thief.”
“Well, now, I wouldn’t say that,” I said hastily. “If you focus on everything in the world I haven’t stolen, I’m hardly a thief at all!”
It was interesting, watching Sayner’s face. Who knew there were so many distinct shades of red? The rainbow fooled us all.
“GET… OUT!”
“Greya?” Yesteba asked.
“I need him,” Greya said simply. “I need his help. He sees things that I can’t.”
“You will not break my daughter’s… ah, this unrelated stranger’s heart,” Sayner said fiercely. “Get OUT!”
“Wait.” Yesteba drew him aside, whispering in his ear. Sayner scowled, shooting several ugly glances at me. “Perhaps we can offer something in trade,” Yesteba said pleasantly. “Do you need a renderer for anything?”
“Depends,” I said. “Who’d be hacking me to bits… you, or him?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sayner muttered. “I paint extra-pretty toilets for fat ladies… and you can tell Dreiva that, too, thief.”
Yesteba rolled her eyes. “We both are, dear. I draw the plans, and Sayner translates them into flesh. My ideas, his skill.”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “Well… as a matter of fact… some associates of mine implanted a nasty little such-and-such in my spine. A laughable little inconvenience, really, but I wouldn’t mind having it gone.”
Yesteba sucked her lip. “Spines are difficult…”
“He could die!” Sayner said happily.
“It’s a deal,” Yesteba said, reaching over to shake my hand… which, considering that she hadn’t actually asked for anything, I was only too happy to do.
“Is there anything I can do?” Greya asked.
“Keep Sayner from killing me,” I said. “Seriously. I’ll pay you.”
Yesteba showed me into the next room, where I lay face-down on a disturbingly discolored wooden table. She drew aside some heavy curtains, revealing racks of sharp and horribly stained tools, glass jars filled with nightmares I hadn’t had yet, and blood-spattered tomes filled with spine-chilling illustrations.
Sayner stabbed me with something sharp. “You may feel a sharp pain,” he said, “and then sixty or seventy more of them. Then just one, but really bad, like having your heart yanked out through your nose. And then, if I can find any, I’ll apply the anaesthetic.”
“Gargle,” I protested. I guess he was joking, because my vision went blurry and consciousness fled.