Jay Lake - Endurance

The tunic fit my shoulders but would not close over my belly. The trousers were impossible. Frustration nearly made me cry.

They smelled bad, they were in need of cleaning and oiling, and worst of all, they did not fit. The baby had stolen my body from me.

I went stalking off after Ponce, suddenly very conscious of how large I’d grown, how foolish and ungainly I had become.

When I found him, the boy was engaged in close discussion with a quarryman. Or at least, someone with a great sheaf of papers and a wagonload of various small stone slabs in different colors and textures.

“Now,” I said roughly, grasping at Ponce’s arm.

“My pardon, Lucius,” he told the merchant as I dragged him away.

Lucius just stared a moment before shaking his head and laughing.

When I’d gotten Ponce to a quiet space between two tents, I shoved the leathers into his hand. “If I were home-in Kalimpura at the temple, I mean-I could get another set.”

“Of what?” He turned the leathers over as if he had never seen them before.

“Of those.” I patted my belly, growling at him. “I have grown too fat for them. But I need working clothes.”

“C-could they be let out?” He stopped at the look in my eyes, before gathering his courage and trying again. “We have nothing like this here. This is a temple, of a peaceful sect.”

“I know whose temple this is.” I narrowly avoided calling him a fool. “But I need something better, now.”

“We could find sturdy canvas trousers,” he said dubiously. “Some among the young men would have them to fit you. Sister Gammage could take up the cuffs. As for the shirt… more canvas? And maybe a leather vest?” In a careful voice, he added, “From among the men, obviously.”

It was a terrible solution. But my other options were worse. I’d already learned the foolishness of working in a robe, and my borrowed boy’s clothing would not suit for heavy fighting. “Dark as it can be, black if possible.”

“We are not carrion birds, to dress like shadows.”

“I am a night hunter.” I almost snarled in my frustration.

Several hours later, I was off through the streets. My clothes were still damp from the swift, cheap dye job, and I had best not sit on any pale furniture for a while. At least I had something sturdy to work in.

Even so, my clothing bore its disadvantages. The Velviere District was no place to walk around looking as if one advertised for work as a housebreaker. Likewise, because of the wide lawns, roof-running was useless here. I needed the crowded parts of the city, narrow alleys, with little bridges where barrels or bales passed over traffic from one warehouse to another. There I could take to the roofs once more.

So I found them. Once I’d scrambled up a black iron drainpipe, I felt much safer. Atop a red-tiled roof that sloped down toward Theobalde Avenue, I crouched and watched the street.

My sense of being followed tingled. This was the same feeling I’d had when I thought I’d spotted Skinless. I didn’t see how Blackblood’s shambling avatar could move through the daylit city unimpeded. On the other hand, if the twins were able to cloak themselves from the eyes of a god, it was logical enough that a god could cloak his minions from the eyes of men.

I studied the scene awhile. People walked with a bit of an edge, something disturbing their movements without interrupting them. As travelers along a country road might circle round the reek of a hidden corpse without ever quite knowing why. Horses, though, being essentially stupid, were much harder to fool. None of the teams being driven down the street would have anything to do with an alley mouth a block up from me. They shied, they bucked, they stopped.

Staring for a time told me little except that my eyes ached, which was not exactly news. Still, something was in there. I was pretty sure it stared back at me, for all that I was a curved shadow among some chimney pots. I was almost certain Skinless was below. So certain that I flicked a wave of my hand before bounding away.

The avatar was welcome to try following me over the roofs if he pleased. We were not Below this afternoon. This was my country now, the land of water tanks and air vents and lopsided little sheds scattered with empty bottles reeking of gin or wine.

I led a merry chase, not bothering to see if he was behind me. Likely enough both Skinless and Blackblood understood where I was headed. The twins’ warehouse wasn’t difficult to locate from above. I’d been in and out of there the better part of a week without taking great care to obscure my movements.

Spying within would be a greater trick, for the building lacked convenient windows. I was perfectly confident that I’d solve that problem soon enough. When I reached a rooftop across the street from my goal, I settled in behind a decorative false parapet and simply watched awhile.

Of course no one came and no one went. We’d used a side door that from this vantage I could barely glimpse in the narrow close between their warehouse and the next. A watchman’s entrance, that bypassed the great loading doors fronting onto Theobalde Avenue. I studied the grimy mouth of the alley until I thought I could spot my own footprints leading in and out. A pretty muddle, mine mixed with several others. Had the Rectifier been here recently?

An hour passed quietly. No movement, no evidence of movement. That was fine. I’d expected nothing more. Then I slipped back across my chosen roof and detoured several blocks so I could approach the twins’ warehouse unseen from behind.

I would have bet good money they had the doors warded, but the roof might have received lesser diligence. At a minimum, it would not be seen as such a danger. Iso and Osi had taught me something of passing by scrutiny, things I had not known for myself before. For example, a curving approach to a numinal boundary provided no angle for the magic to act against. As with any weapon, magic requires leverage. Likewise, holding power beneath your tongue or within your fists could distract a warding sigil.

It was hard to cross roofs in that fashion. I gave the process a try. One of the Eyes of the Hills fit into each hand as I stepped drunkenly along the roof of the building behind theirs. There was a gap of about eight feet. Their roof stood a few spans higher than the one I was on.

This was the first test. Could I make the jump without alerting the twins either magically or through sheer misplaced balance? I patted my abdomen, whispered, “Not yet, baby dear,” took a deep breath, and sprinted into the leap.

My takeoff was perfect. I’d trained for this over the years, both with the Dancing Mistress and among the Lily Blades. My kick and follow-through, and the arc of my jump, were all as should be. My mistakes were being over half a dozen pounds heavier and off my usual center of balance.

Feet scrabbling, I struck the edge of the opposite roof shins-first. Momentum brought my torso past the edge but I muffed the fall trying to protect the baby. It was a flat roof, and so I did not immediately slide off, but two of the half-rounded tiles on the edge did. They landed in the narrow space four storeys below with a shattering crack that betrayed my presence.

Forcing myself to move against the intense pain in both shins, I rolled all the way onto the roof, tucked flat and small. All I could do for a while was breathe, deep and hard. If Iso or Osi had thought to check just then I would have been a dead woman.

I had not blown a jump like that since… well, ever. I’d done better in my first childhood sallies with the Dancing Mistress. Shamed, I took a few more moments to collect myself. Flecks of snow eddied across the sky, dotting me with tiny, frozen kisses as I lay curled around my regrets and tried to will my legs back into motion. The damp of my borrowed clothing threatened to turn to clinging ice.