Robert Redick - The River of Shadows

There were poor folk in the streets, but they barely spared him a glance. They rushed from door to door, bearing bundles, frowning and nodding to one another, exchanging a few whispered words. All so familiar. The Pellurids, before the Sugar War. The doomed settlers on Cape Coristel. Rukmast, before the Arquali retreat. The quiet of a people who have learned that disaster is coming, that they will not be spared.

It was because of this fugitive memory that he spotted the killer. A big fellow leaning in a doorway, too relaxed for the circumstances, and far too focused in the look he trained on Isiq. Twenty or twenty-five, and ox-strong to boot. Not one of Ott’s men-he was far too obvious, too large and surly-but that did not mean he was harmless.

The man stepped out of the doorway, grinning a whiplash grin. Oh no, he was not harmless. He took a last long drag on a cigarette, flicked the butt into the street. Deathsmoke! Isiq could smell it ten yards off. He felt the ghost of his own addiction, like jaws closing on his brain. The big man stepped into his path.

“Sir-” began Isiq.

“You shout, and I’ll cut a hole in you big enough to slide in a skillet,” said the man. “What’s in that pouch, eh? Nah, don’t tell: just give it to me, give it here.”

Isiq put a hand on the pouch. A cry for help would make him the center of attention, and that could prove as deadly as anything this man had in mind. The steel knuckles, he thought. Use them. Right now. But what he said was, “You’re bigger than me.”

“Bigger? Mucking right I am, you rotten-arsed old dog.” The man took a firm hold on Isiq’s shirt. “You’re about to bleed,” he said.

The reek of deathsmoke on the man! Isiq could almost taste it. He felt his blood responding, the sick happiness rising in his soul. “Let go of my shirt,” he said.

The man must have heard the intended threat. He backhanded Isiq with casual brutality, looking almost bored. Then he put a hand on his own belt. A glint of metal there, below a well-worn handle.

Isiq squirmed, an old man’s feeble struggle against the certainty of death. Then his elbow slashed up at the man’s neck and the stiletto did its work, burying itself to the hilt in the soft flesh below the jaw, and the man fell forward, eyes staring, lifeless. He kicked the corpse away, furious beyond reason. “You bastard, you bastard. You didn’t have to die.”

Then, like a bursting boil, the thought: He might have more cigarettes.

Isiq ran, fleeing the temptation more than the evidence of his deed. His elbow warm and sticky, his fingers cut trying to close the stiletto, his knee wrenched anew. Behind him, someone began to scream.

Go back. There’s still time. Go back and search his pockets.

Where was that mucking theater? Had they taken down the sign? He blundered on, limping, trying to keep to the shadows. People everywhere. The nearest recoiled, murmuring at his back. Already winded, he forced himself to run on. A second turn, a third. Why were there no empty streets?

Deathsmoke.

Put it out of your Deathsmoke.

He stopped, weak and wheezing, soaked with frigid sweat. If another addict passed him he would fight for the drug. Eyes on him everywhere. A shadow in a window, a mongrel dog across the street.

Isiq shuffled backward, collided with a rubbish bin. There were rats, probably, rats before him and behind. They would remember him from the dungeon. They would smell the blood.

Look, look! the street was sighing. The decorated soldier! The leader of men! The one who thinks he can stop the war!

“Admiral?”

The voice was soft and circumspect.

“This way, sir, quickly.”

Precious Pitfire, it was the dog.

Isiq stumbled across the street. “Don’t stare, please,” said the dirty, shaggy creature.

“You’re real?”

“Very much so. And we have a mutual friend.”

“I know you. Of course. You’re the dog.”

“I suppose I can’t argue with that.” The dog was looking left and right. “The bird lost you in that tunnel; someone should have told him what to expect. Well, we can’t stay here. Follow now, but not too close. And whatever you do, don’t stare. It’s your eyes that give us away to other men.”

He darted off down the street. The admiral drew a deep breath. Somehow the craving was gone. Strange allies, he thought. A street dog, a little tailor bird, a King. And one other, the strangest of all, perhaps, if only he made it to her door.

The dog, fortunately, had no wish to be discovered. He led Isiq through abandoned buildings, gaps in fences, grassy lots. The admiral’s knee was on fire, but he kept moving, and the woken animal never left his sight. The row houses gave way to old, careworn cottages, and the sea-smell grew. Then suddenly they were passing through a gate into a dusty garden. Facing him was a little shoe box of a cottage with peeling paint. The door was shut and the window curtained, but from between them a spear of lamplight stabbed at the yard.

“Eberzam Isiq.”

The witch! He hadn’t seen her, standing there in the darkness by the garden wall. Now she came toward him, until the spear of light touched her face. The bird was perfectly right: she was not ugly, not bent and shriveled like Lady Oggosk. She was tall, and her eyes were dark and wild, and her voice had a resonance that tickled the ear. Dark hair cascaded to her elbows. A pretty witch: imagine that. All the same he knew the moment was terribly fragile. She had spoken his name with fury.

“If we have met before you must forgive me,” he said. “I have been ill. My memories were lost for months, and they are only slowly returning.”

“You would remember me,” said the woman. “And never, ever tell me what I must forgive.”

“Very well,” said Isiq, standing his ground. “All the same, I’ve heard the name Suthinia before, somewhere. And your face is vaguely familiar.”

The woman stared at him, unblinking. He could feel her rage like a flameless fire, a pit of live coals. Then she moved closer and he saw that she too carried a knife. It was naked in her hand.

“The face you know is my son’s,” she said.

“Your son, madam? Did he serve in the navy?”

She took another step, and now he knew she was in striking range. “He served your bloodsucking Empire,” she said, “after your marines burned our city to the ground. My son’s an Ormali. So was I, for two decades.”

“No you weren’t, my dear.”

Isiq whirled. A man ten years his junior stood behind him, just inside the gate. His face in shadow. His hand twirling a club.

“You tried, Suthee. Rin knows, you did try. Pitfire, one year you even canned fruit with the neighbors! But they never did let you forget you were foreign.”

“It wasn’t the neighbors who ruined us,” said the woman. “It was this one. Because of him, and his damn Dr. Chadfallow, my boy and my daughter are on the far side of the world. They’re doing my job, hunting the sorcerer I was sent here to kill. They’ve gone to my home, and I’m stranded here in what’s left of theirs. My name is Suthinia Sadralin Pathkendle.”

“Oh, come now, darlin’.” The man laughed softly. “You don’t have to keep the family name for my sake.”

“Gods below,” said Isiq. “Pathkendle! It’s you! Captain Gregory Path-”

The club moved so fast he never saw it. Isiq was down, flat, deafened in one ear. And the woman was kneeling, pinning his head between her knees, pressing the knife-point to his chest.

The dog gave a furious bark. “Stop, stop!” it cried. “You didn’t mucking tell me you planned to kill him!”

“War’s a dirty business, dog,” said Captain Gregory Pathkendle.

“You cut him, witch, and I’ll bring every spy in Simjalla to your door. I’m not a killer, damn you!”