Jay Lake - Endurance

Bless you, winter, I thought. I’d always hated the cold. My old loathing was sufficient to get me moving again.

I stumbled to my feet, slipped the Eyes of the Hills back into an inner pocket, and went in search of a skylight or a stairway down.

Eventually I was confronted with the prospect of dangling from the building’s front and slipping through one of the fourth-storey windows that let into the offices within. Had there been a ledge? I tried to recall that much detail from my earlier observations. After the ugliness of my missed jump, I lacked my usual confidence in such maneuvers. The alternative was to climb back down and walk in the side door.

That appealed even less.

I waited for a lull in the traffic below-most people don’t look upward as they go about their business, but it only takes one-then slipped over the cornice along the street facing.

Ledge!

This time I was very careful of my balance, and managed to slip into the second window I tried. The small office within was vacant, furnished only with scattered junk and scraps of paper. Not even the rats had found anything to do here.

Now to creep fog-soft until I could listen downstairs. My shins still ached terribly, and I worried about how well I could hold a silent position, but I was committed to my course. With overdone caution I crept along the upper hall. I was wary of canary floorboards singing out my steps. Stairs carried me down to a landing on what would have been the third floor, in the ceiling of the cavernous warehouse. I was able to cautiously observe Iso, Osi, and the Rectifier crouched around a much larger and more elaborate version of their earlier diagram.

He was here. Now, how to get him away. I’d figured earlier that if I found the old pardine, my chances of walking out free and intact were much better than being caught alone with Iso and Osi. The question was whether I was willing to put that theory to the test.

Or I could create a distraction and meet later, after I’d separated the Rectifier from the twins. Setting fire to the building suggested itself. But I doubted I’d fool any of those three. Likely I’d create larger problems that I might later regret.

Such forethought still felt odd to me, but I had a child to consider now. Though I did not realize it then, finally I was coming into a measure of wisdom.

I was cold, I was tired, and my legs were killing me. The direct approach held a stronger appeal with every passing minute. Seizing the initiative, I clomped down the stairs, shouting out a greeting as I went and wishing I had something of the pardine language.

All three of them looked up, startled at my approach. At least I’d gotten into the building unnoticed. I knew the significance of me entering from upstairs would not be lost on either my newfound enemies or my old friend. “Rectifier,” I called out. “We must be away now.” I nodded to Iso and Osi. “Gentlemen. Always a delight to see you.”

The twins flowed into a stance that once more suggested violence, with the muscular aura of a fighting pose. The Rectifier simply stood, shrugged, and extended his claws. I knew what that meant. With luck, the other two did not.

“Green,” Iso called back to me as I reached the floor. I briefly lost sight of them through the jumbled maritime supplies, which should have scared me, but I trusted the Rectifier. I had to.

“Welcome,” his brother said. I realized from the cast of his voice that the two of them were on the move.

“Hold,” rumbled the Rectifier, but I could not tell to whom he was talking. Hopefully not me. Palming both my short knives, I vaulted up onto a stack of spars covered by cargo nets.

Osi’s head bobbed about two rods to my left, beyond several hummocks of crates. I could not see Iso. The Rectifier stared at me from a position almost directly in line with the side door. His ears flicked back once, he nodded, then he ducked.

He was on my side, then. I’d hoped to bluff my way out of here, but it appeared we’d be playing blade tag for our exit rights this afternoon.

This I could do.

A quick, short leap to a pile of deck grates, which shifted beneath my weight. I swiftly rolled off the back down into a little grimy walkway between the grates and a row of coiled hawsers. That had made some noise, and left a spiral of dust. I kept rolling into a space between two coils and slid backwards.

Silent for a five count, I heard footsteps moving very softly. A saffron-clad leg passed so close I could have stabbed a calf. Instead I tossed a piece of nautical debris, some chunk of brass, over my shoulder so that it sailed back toward the stairs with a clatter.

The twin, whichever he was, slipped onward quickly. I wriggled out and followed him.

“Green,” someone whispered, but not from behind me. I checked. I slid around the next corner to come upon either Iso or Osi craning their neck to look over into the next narrow walkway.

Flipping my remaining short knife around handle-first, I struck him hard at the base of the skull. He collapsed. The other brother shrieked nearby, then cursed in a language I did not recognize. At least I assumed it was cursing, from the tone and volume.

I had finally touched one of them after all.

The Rectifier roared, something shattered, and more cursing erupted.

I bent to cut this one’s throat when I heard the pardine shout out, “Do not kill them, Green. Leave with me now.”

Point against skin, I stopped. Did I trust him? These men were dangerous, hideously dangerous. But the Rectifier knew something, or he would not have spoken so.

I patted the fallen twin’s cheek instead. My fingers trailed along his papery skin. Let him cleanse himself of my feminine depravity. Still, being a Lily Blade, I also left behind a single ruby drop beading the twin’s neck as my calling card before I raced swiftly toward the door. There I followed the Rectifier out into the late afternoon’s snow flurries.

With a giant like the Rectifier alongside me there was small point in skulking, so we swaggered as if we owned the streets. A night of hard freeze-the season’s first, if so-seemed to be coming on. That drove most people indoors earlier than usual. Still, dozens marked our passing.

I looked over my shoulder to see if we were pursued. Nothing behind us but the pale shadows of snow swirling through city air.

“We should go Below,” I told him. “It will be warmer, and we will be hidden.”

“Prefer the open air,” the Rectifier growled at me. “Underground is too far from the trees.”

He led me instead to a tiny bar off a grimy alley near the Dockmarket. No sign here, any more than the Tavernkeep’s place was marked. Inside nine tables were drawn up knee-and-elbow distance apart. The ceiling was so low the Rectifier was forced to duck his head. The walls were crowded with broken weapons, rusted blades and shattered wooden poles-the aftermath of a battlefield or a dueling ground had been scoured to fit this place out. An odd assortment of characters lurked there, including a few more nonhumans. The world was vast, I knew, but where was the land of the very tall, very narrow-bodied blue-skinned man in pangolin-hide armor? His eyes were as mournful as last year’s graveflowers.

I avoided his stare, and the stares of the others, while the Rectifier wedged us into a table at the back of the room.

“No one comes here,” he said against all evidence. The place smelled of sweat and ferment and the odd undercurrents of unfamiliar people. There was no fire, not in this room, just the close, stale of air being breathed by too many lungs.

“Why did you not let me kill them?” I asked, moving straight to the point.