Daniel Abraham - The Dragon's Path

She’d forgotten about the puddle of piss, but she was feeling well enough now to open her window and pour the night pot’s contents into the alley. She swabbed up the rest with a dirty shift, then threw that out the window too. She’d eaten a link of gristly sausage and a heel of black bread the day before. She knew she ought to be hungry, but she wasn’t. She pulled off her carter’s boots, pulled open the first of the wine bottles, and lay back on her bed, her back against the little headboard.

The wine was sweeter than she was used to, but she could feel the bite of it. Her stomach rebelled for a moment, twisting like a fish on a fire, and she slowed down to sips until it calmed. Her head throbbed once, the beginning of an ache. The wind paused, leaving her in silence. She heard the voices of the two Kurtadam guards rising from below her.

The woman—Enen—laughed. Warmth and calm slid into Cithrin’s blood. She took one last, long drink straight from the bottle’s neck, turned, and set the wine on the floor. The darkness behind her eyes was comfortable and deep. The roar of the wind kicking back up seemed to come from a great distance, and her mind, such as it was, sparked and slipped. Connections came together in unlikely, unrepeatable ways.

She had the sense that Magister Imaniel had left her something for Captain Wester. She thought that it had to do with the canal traffic in Vanai connecting to the docks in Porte Oliva, and also with herbs and spices packed in snow. Without drawing a line between awake and dozing or dozing and asleep, Cithrin’s consciousness faded to darkness. Time stopped, started when she became vaguely aware of angry voices, very far away, and stopped again.

“Get up.”

Cithrin forced her eyes open. Captain Wester stood in the doorway, his arms crossed. The light was dim, the city in twilight and cloud.

“Get out of bed,” he said. “Do it now.”

“Go away,” she said.

“I told you to get out of that God damned bed !”

Cithrin pushed up on one arm. The room shifted, unsteady.

“And do what?” she said.

“You’ve missed five meetings,” Marcus said. “People are going to start talking, and when they do, you’re done. So stand up and do what needs doing.”

Cithrin stared at him, her mouth slack with disbelief and a rising anger.

“Nothing needs doing,” she said. “It’s done. I’m done. I had my chance, and I lost it.”

“I met Qahuar Em. He’s not worth pouting over. Now you—”

“Qahuar? Who cares about Qahuar?” Cithrin said, sitting up. She didn’t remember spilling wine on her tunic, but it tugged where dried wine had adhered to her skin. “It was the contract. I tried for it, and I lost. I had the world by the hair, and I lost. I failed.”

“You failed?”

Cithrin spread her arms, gesturing at the rooms, the city, the world. Pointing out the obvious. Wester stepped closer. In the dim light, his eyes seemed bright as river stones, his mouth as hard as iron.

“Did you watch your wife and daughter burn to death in front of you? Because of you?” he asked. When she didn’t answer, he nodded. “So it could have been worse. You aren’t dead. There’s work that needs doing. Get up and do it.”

“I’m not permitted. I had a letter from Komme Medean that I’m not allowed to trade in his name.”

“So instead you curled up in a mewling ball in his name? I’m sure he’ll be thrilled. Get out of bed.”

Cithrin lay down, pulling her pillow to her chest. It smelled foul, but she held it anyway.

“I don’t take orders from you, Captain, ” she said, making the last word an insult. “You take money from me, so you do what I tell you. Now go away.”

“I won’t let you throw away everything you’ve worked for.”

“I worked to keep the bank’s money safe, and I’ve done it. So you’re right. I win. Now go away.”

“You want to keep it.”

“Stones want to fly,” she said. “They don’t have wings.”

“Find a way,” he said, almost gently.

It was too much. Cithrin shouted wordless rage, sat up, and threw the pillow at him as hard as she could. She didn’t want to cry anymore, and here she was, crying.

“I told you to get out!” she screamed. “No one wants you here! I am canceling your contract. Take your wages and your men and lock the door behind you.”

Wester took a step back. Cithrin’s chest went hollow, and she tried to swallow back the words. He bent down, picked up her pillow between thumb and finger, and lobbed it back to her. It landed on the bed at her side with a soft sound like someone being punched in the stomach. He nudged one of the empty wineskins with the toe of his boot and took a long, deep breath.

“Remember that I tried to talk you back to your senses,” he said.

He turned. He walked away.

She had anticipated the pain, braced herself for it, so it wasn’t the anguish of knowing he would leave her that surprised. The surprise was that even knowing, even being ready for it, the despair could still swamp her. It felt like something had died halfway between her throat and her heart, and was curled there inside her body, rotting. She heard him walking down the stairs, each step quieter than the one before. Cithrin snatched up her filthy pillow and screamed into it. It felt like days, just screaming, her body shaking from hunger and exhaustion and the poison of wine, beer, and ale. The muscles in her back and belly were threatening to cramp, but she could no more stop screaming and weeping than she could choose not to breathe.

There were voices below her. Marcus Wester and Yardem Hane. She heard Yardem rumble something that she recognized form its cadence as Yes, sir though the syllables before and after it were a confusion. Then a smaller, higher voice. Roach, perhaps.

They’d all go. All of them.

It didn’t matter.

Nothing mattered. Her parents were dead so long ago she didn’t remember them. Magister Imaniel and Cam and Besel, all dead. The city of her childhood was burned and broken. And the bank, the one thing she had ever made for herself, would be taken from her as soon as the auditor arrived. She couldn’t bring herself to think that a few guards leaving early could matter.

But it did.

Slowly, very slowly, the storm within her stilled. It was full dark now, and tiny raindrops tapped against the window like fingernails. She reached for the wine bottle beside the bed and was surprised to find it empty. But there was still the other bottle. And the tun of beer. She would be all right. She only needed to get her strength back. A few more minutes were all she needed.

She hadn’t quite roused herself when the footsteps came. First the steady tramp at the base of the stairway, and then, before it even reached the top, heavier thudding. Something hit the wall of the house, and Yardem grunted. There was a wet sound that might have been rain pouring off the roof, but seemed nearer than that. A light glowed. A lantern in Wester’s hand. And behind him, Yardem Hane and the two Kurtadam guards struggling with a copper basin easily four feet long.

“We should have brought it first and filled it later,” Enen said, her voice straining.

“We’ll know next time,” Marcus said.

Through her doorway, she saw the three guards put down the basin. It was as tall as Marcus’s knee and it sloshed.

“What are you doing?” Cithrin asked, her voice smaller and weaker than she’d expected it to be.

Ignoring her, Yardem handed a round stone jar to the captain and started lighting the candles and lamps in the main room. The two Kurtadam saluted and went back down the stairs. Cithrin sat up, steadying herself with one hand. Marcus walked toward her, and before she could stop him, he grabbed her by the hair and dragged her off the bed. Her knees hit the floor with a thud and a stab of pain.