Rob Scott - Lessek_s Key

The morning was bright, filled with the telltale aromas of low tide: the tang of seagull guano, tidal rot and decomposing fish innards. Brexan left the Redstone for some fresh air and shortly afterwards found herself spilling the contents of her stomach into a muddy alley running from the street down to the river. It wasn’t the foetid smells of the wharf blowing in on the morning breeze, but the fierce early-aven sunlight that pushed her over the edge.

Once she’d finished heaving, she went to find water, stepping across the threshold of a nearby cheese shop. Almost immediately, she regretted her course of action. ‘Demonpiss,’ she muttered as the pungent smell hit her, and backed out as quickly as she could. Mould cheeses of varying shapes and sizes dominated the wooden shelves and as she started dry-heaving, she wondered who in all Eldarn would pay money to eat spoiled cream with plants growing out of it. She cursed, spat out a mouthful of discoloured saliva and grumbled, ‘Everything in this town makes me puke. I’ve got to do something about this. The other day it was Sallax and this morning, it’s the slobbering cheese.’

She stumbled back towards the waterfront, searching for a tavern, a produce stand, any place where she might get something to quiet her raging stomach. She felt the ground shifting beneath her feet as sweat dampened her forehead, armpits and back. Several streets later she came to a boarding house with a large tavern downstairs. She pushed her way through the door and squinted while her eyes grew accustomed to the semi-darkness.

As she bumped and shuffled towards the bar, a gruff voice asked, ‘You all right?’ With her eyes still not focused, Brexan wasn’t sure if the bald man had an open sore on his forehead or if he had been injured in a fight.

‘Fine. It’s just a bit bright out this morning.’ Brexan tried not to sound like a woman on the verge of collapse. ‘I’d like some water, please.’ No sooner were the words out of her mouth than she regretted making the request.

‘Water?’ the bartender squinted at her.

‘And a beer,’ Brexan added quickly, ‘in a tankard, please.’ She dropped several copper coins on the bar, unconvinced she would be able to smell the beer without retching right there onto the man’s boots. Pretty sure her stomach wouldn’t be able to handle even the smallest sip of the local brew, she leaned against the bar, her back to the tankard, while waiting for the barman to bring her water. Brexan rubbed her eyes, but when she tried to focus on the tavern’s sprawling front room, she saw stars, tiny sunbursts of yellow, red and white.

Then she saw him.

He was sitting alone near the window; he hadn’t seen her come in, or if he had, he hadn’t recognised her. He certainly hadn’t marked her as the soldier he’d spoken with in Estrad Village, more than a Twinmoon ago. Lafrent, Jacrys- whatever his name was, he was a Malakasian spy and Lieutenant Bronfio’s murderer – and there he sat, enjoying a mug of tecan and a loaf of what smelled like fresh-baked bread. The well-dressed man appeared to be watching the street.

Brexan blessed her good luck – one stroke this morning, anyway – that the killer had not been facing in the other direction.

‘Your water,’ the barman said sarcastically, placing the goblet next to the untouched tankard of beer.

Brexan turned back to the bar and emptied the goblet, then lifted the tankard, grimacing at the thought of more alcohol – but it was the excuse she needed. She turned back to the window, leaned against the bar and watched Jacrys.

*

Jacrys Marseth tore off a chunk of bread, dripped it into his tecan and savoured the flavours: a reminder of home. He didn’t actually miss home, but by having the same breakfast every day, he was able to bring some predictability to his life in the Eastlands. No matter where he woke, whether it was in a feather-lined bed or behind a stack of crates, breakfast was Jacrys’ daily offering to himself. Bread and tecan was spy food, quick, sustaining and readily available.

As he watched the street outside, Jacrys thought of his home. He had not been back to Malakasia in thirty Twinmoons or more; he didn’t even know if his father was still alive. His mother had died long ago – Jacrys remembered his father’s clumsy attempts at baking bread and the discarded loaves – some overdone, some undercooked, some not risen, emerging as hard as logs. Growing up without a mother had been difficult, made worse by his father’s frequent absences – a tradesman in search of a trade, the old man had travelled from town to town throughout northern Malakasia, sometimes going as far as Port Denis to take work on the docks. There had never been much money in the house and Jacrys was often left alone to fend for himself. He had learned to fight among Pellia’s street people, how to use a knife without flinching, and he even picked up a few spells from a conjuror living below a brothel. The magician had been young, but sickly; it was much later that Jacrys realised the sorcerer-turned-carnival trickster had been so ruined on Falkan fennaroot that he was surprised any of the spells worked at all.

Jacrys had found the magician’s decomposing corpse one summer’s day, and in return for disposing of the stinking body off the Pellia wharf, the madame who operated the whorehouse upstairs had given him the dead man’s apartment. Jacrys ran errands for the women, sometimes fetching a particular vial of perfume, sometimes slinking through dark alleys to slip a dirk between a stranger’s ribs. The madame, while open-minded about sexual engagements, did not tolerate violence or abuse to her girls. Jacrys, although younger than most of the men frequenting the brothel overhead, had grown skilled in hand-to-hand combat, and was even more deft at moving through Pellia undetected; he was the perfect errand boy for the whorehouse. From time to time one or more of the girls came to thank him personally for his services.

At the age of one hundred and thirty Twinmoons, Jacrys had been badly wounded, stabbed twice and slashed across the abdomen by an angry customer who was just as skilled with a short blade. Jacrys was nursed back to health by the whores, then packed quietly one evening and slipped away. He had realised that although talented, he would not last long here; no matter how deliciously the girls rewarded him, it was time to go.

He had enlisted in the Malakasian Army, being promoted to sergeant after only eleven Twinmoons in the Prince’s service and making master sergeant before turning one hundred and fifty. One night, while patrolling the border between Averil and Landry, Jacrys’ platoon had been attacked by a crowd mostly of Pragan students. The angry, inebriated mob had decided that together they could march, unarmed, through Averil and north all the way to Welstar Palace. Strengthened by too much Pragan wine and fennaroot, the mob had taken a border station, killed several guards and begun moving through a residential area of southern Averil, lighting fires and attacking Malakasian citizens as they went.

Jacrys’ platoon, one of three, had been ordered to show no mercy, and to send a powerful message by bringing back prisoners for a public display of Prince Malagon’s disapproval. His lieutenant had ordered Jacrys to move his squad into position alongside the mob’s exposed flank, using the narrow alleys as cover. Anticipating a quick – and bloody – victory, his soldiers had hurried into the fray, in their eagerness breaking formation. Screaming orders, Jacrys had tried to keep his squad together, but the scent of blood and the promise of carnage was too much. Though unorganised, drunk and disorderly, there were now hundreds of Pragans: they had taken heavy losses, with scores of them dead or dying, hacked down, knifed, some even set alight with torches – but they had not retreated.