Brent Weeks - Way of Shadows

“I’m deciding who to kill. Call me that again and you jump to the front of the list, Aristarchos.”

The bard smiled with the confidence of a man who knows he has perfect white teeth that only set off a handsome face. By the Night Angels.

“We’ve been awfully curious about what’s been happening for the last few months.”

“You and the Society can go to hell,” Durzo said.

“I think you like the attention, Durzo Blint. If you wanted us dead, we’d be dead. Or are you really bound by this code of retribution? It’s of considerable debate in the society.”

“Still fighting over the same questions, huh? Don’t you all have anything better to do? Talk talk talk. Why don’t you do something productive for once?”

“We’re trying, Durzo. In fact, that’s why I’m here. I want to help you.”

“How kind.”

“You’ve lost it, haven’t you?” Aristarchos asked. “Have you lost it, or has it abandoned you? Do the stones really choose their own masters?”

Durzo noticed he was spinning the knife from finger to finger again. It wasn’t to intimidate the Ladeshian—who laudably enough didn’t even glance at it—it just kept his hands busy. It was nothing. He stopped it. “Here’s why I’ve never been friends with any of you, Aristarchos: I don’t know if your little circle has ever been interested in me, or if it’s only interested in my power. Once, I was almost convinced to share some of my mysteries, but I realized that what I share with one of you, I share with all of you. So tell me, why would I give my enemies such power?”

“Is that what we’ve come to?” Aristarchos asked. “Enemies? Why then do you not wipe us from the face of the earth? You’re uniquely suited to such a task.”

“I don’t kill without cause. Fear isn’t enough to motivate me. It may be beyond your comprehension, but I can hold power without using it.”

Aristarchos stroked his chin. “Then you are a better man than many have feared. I see now why you were chosen in the first place.” Aristarchos stood. “Know this, Durzo Blint. I am far from home and have not the means I might wish, but if you call on me, I will give you what help I can. And knowing that you have deemed the cause just will be enough explanation for me. Good day.”

The man walked out of the brothel, smiling and winking at the whores who seemed disappointed to lose his business. He wore his charm like a mask, Durzo saw.

The masks change, but the masquers remain the same, don’t they? Durzo had lived with the bilge waste of humanity for so long, he saw filth in every heart. He knew the filth was there; he was right about that. Filth and darkness were even in Rimbold Drake’s heart. But Drake didn’t act from that darkness, did he? No. That masquer—if only that one—had changed.

Fear isn’t enough to motivate me, he’d said—while planning to murder a child. What kind of a monster am I?

He was caught now. Truly and desperately caught. He’d just killed Corbin Fishill. The man’s death had been sanctioned by the Shinga and the rest of the Nine. Corbin had been managing the guilds as if he were in Khalidor, setting guild against guild, encouraging open war between them and doing absolutely nothing to regulate brutality within the guilds. Khalidorans did such things in the belief that the best would naturally rise. But the Sa’kagé wanted members, not monsters.

Worse, they now had some indication that Corbin actually had been working for Khalidor. That was inexcusable. Not taking the work, but taking it without reporting it to the rest of the Nine. Loyalties had to be to the Sa’kagé first.

The kill had been sanctioned, and it had been just. That didn’t mean that Corbin’s friends would accept it. Durzo had killed members of the Nine before, but he always took extra care to conceal whose work it was. Now Azoth had tromped around his killing grounds for hours, a little before the job was done and a lot after. Enough people knew or guessed Durzo had taken Azoth as his apprentice that they couldn’t fail to link the two. It was sloppy wet work, they’d say. Maybe Durzo Blint is slipping.

Being the best made him a target. The appearance of weakness gave every second-rate wetboy hope that they could move up. Azoth couldn’t have known, of course. Still didn’t know so many things. But in that flash of blue light from Retribution’s blade, Durzo had seen his own death. If he let the boy live, Durzo would die. Sooner or later.

And there it was. The divine economy. For someone to live, someone had to die.

Durzo Blint made his decision, and started drinking.

“Master Blint hasn’t come to see me.”

“No,” Momma K said.

“It’s been four days. You said he wasn’t mad anymore,” Azoth said, making fists with his hands. He thought he had cut them, but they were fine. Lots of other places on his body hurt, so he hadn’t just imagined being beaten, but his hands were fine.

“Three days. And he’s not mad. Drink this.”

“No. I don’t want any more of that stuff. It makes me feel worse.” He regretted the words as soon as he said them. Momma K’s eyebrows went up and her eyes went cold. Even huddled in warm blankets in a spare bedroom here in her house, when her eyes turned frosty, nothing could make you feel warm.

“Child, let me tell you a story. Have you ever heard of the Snake of Haran?”

Azoth shook his head.

“The snake has seven heads, but each time you cut one head off, two more grow in its place.”

“Really? There’s really such a thing?”

“No. In Haran they call it the Snake of Ladesh. It’s imaginary.”

“Then why did you tell me about it?” Azoth asked.

“Are you being deliberately obtuse?” When he didn’t answer, she said, “If you’ll let me finish, you’ll see the story is an analogy. Analogies are lies grown-ups tell.”

“Why?” Being stuck in bed was making Azoth petulant.

“Why does anyone tell lies? Because they’re useful. Now drink your medicine and then shut your mouth,” Momma K said.

Azoth knew he was pushing it, so he didn’t ask any more. He drank the thick mint-and-anise-flavored brew.

“Right now the Sa’kagé has its own Snake of Haran, Azoth … Kylar. Do you know Corbin Fishill?”

Azoth nodded. Corbin was the handsome, impressive young man who had sometimes come and talked to Ja’laliel.

“Corbin was one of the Nine. He ran the children’s guilds.”

“Was?” Azoth almost squeaked. He wasn’t supposed to know Corbin was even important, much less how important.

“Durzo killed him three days ago. When the baby farms were shut down, the Sa’kagé was given a chance to literally raise its own army. But Corbin was allowing or encouraging guild war that was wiping out the slaveborn. And he was a spy. The Sa’kagé thought he was a Ceuran spy, but now they think he was taking money from Khalidor. The Khalidorans paid him in Ceuran gold, probably in case he was found, and also so he wouldn’t start spending the money immediately and bring attention to himself.

“Now that Corbin is dead, his things have been searched, and unfortunately, there hasn’t been any clear answer. If he was Khalidoran, he was far more dangerous than we had thought, and the Sa’kagé should have brought him in and had him tortured until they knew for sure, but at the time, they thought it was more important to set a graphic example of what happens to those who mismanage Sa’kagé endeavors. The problem now is bigger.

“We don’t think Corbin was in place long enough to cultivate any loyalty to Khalidor among the guilds—street rats don’t care much where their meals come from—but the fact Khalidor would work on taking over the guilds tells us that they are thinking long term.”