Among Thieves

Chapter Twenty-eight

There was a series of pops so close together, they almost sounded like one. Nicco’s eyes opened wide and rolled up into his head. He fell over. I stood there, swaying on my feet, a smoking coil of rope in my hand. Then I bent down and wrapped the rope around Nicco’s neck.

The knots in the rope were spaced just right for crushing a victim’s throat-not surprising, considering Jelem’s template had been crafted for an assassin. As I twisted and squeezed, I noticed that three of the paper runes weren’t smoldering like the rest-they were still white and pristine. Glimmer to spare, then.

Nicco didn’t put up a struggle; in fact, I don’t even think he was aware he was dying. His face went blue, then purple, but I kept tightening the garrote until blood began to well around the edges. Even then, I didn’t stop-couldn’t stop. Deep down, I knew he was dead, but part of me kept saying, Make sure. Make sure! So I did, until my hands began to cramp up, until my arms were trembling with the effort. Even then, I had to consciously tell myself to ease up on the tension, to stop.

When I finally peeled the rope from around his neck, I had to wipe it on his clothes to remove the excess blood. I knew I should have felt something-relief, disgust, satisfaction-but all I could find was a vague sense of futility. Nicco was dead, but things hadn’t changed-not in any way that mattered.

I straightened up to find the square empty of the living. It was thick with the gloom of evening now. I blinked and rubbed at my eyes. The darkness felt good.

I turned to go back to Mendross’s stall and the book. Then I caught sight of Degan and stopped.

He still had his back to the base of Elirokos’s statue, but now he was leaning against it in exhaustion. A half circle of corpses lay piled around him like some grisly barricade. Not one of the bodies groaned, not one shifted in pain, so thorough had been his slaughter.

Degan was covered in gore from the chest down and from his biceps to his fingers. His own sword hung limply in his right hand, and it took me a moment to make out a new cut that had laid that arm open between the shoulder and the elbow. He still had Cretin’s blade in his left, but that hand was shaking visibly.

I looked around the square for Iron. He was nowhere in sight.

I coiled the rope carefully in my left hand. I retrieved my rapier and walked over to Degan. I stopped short of the ring of carnage.

“So,” said Degan, his voice coming out low, flat, exhausted. He indicated Nicco’s body with the extra sword. “How was it for you?”

My hand tightened around the rope until it creaked.

“You son of a bitch!” I said.

“Ah, straight to business, then.” Degan looked down at his blood-slicked boots. He flicked a small bit of someone else’s bone off the tip of his foot. “First, let me ask you something,” he said, looking up and meeting my eye. “If I had simply asked you-after you cut your deal with Solitude, after you’d come here to deliver it into Iron’s hands-to give the journal to me instead, would you have?”

I stared at him. I knew what I desperately wanted to say, but I couldn’t bring myself to lie to him.

Degan nodded. “I thought as much. So, given that, you see why I had to invoke the Oath.”

“No, I don’t,” I said. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Don’t I?” Degan leaned his head back against the stone. “Why not? Because Solitude says so? Because Iron does? Because they think the emperor will somehow destroy an empire he’s gone to amazing lengths to save?” Degan closed his eyes. “Why did you attack Shadow?” he said.

“What?”

“You heard me. Why did you attack a Gray Prince on your own?”

“Because he threatened Christiana,” I said. “He threatened Kells, the organization, everything. Shadow was going to use them as leverage against me, and sooner or later, when I wasn’t useful anymore, he’d make an example out of them. I realized the best chance for them was my dusting him.”

“But you must have known you couldn’t win,” said Degan. “That you might have died even before I got there.”

“I had to try,” I said. “There wasn’t any other option.”

Degan smiled softly. “It’s the same with me and the journal,” he said. “I can’t let them doom the empire just because they think the emperor is a threat. That’s why I called in your Oath-because it’s the only way to save both the empire and you.”

“What do you mean?” I said.

Degan rolled his head back and forth against the granite, his eyes still closed-a tired man’s head shake. “You don’t think Shadow is going to give up on you, do you? If you haven’t guessed, I didn’t kill him. He’s still out there. And he’s not going to be happy with you when he finds out that not only did you attack him, but you also delivered the journal to Solitude. I don’t care what she promised you-you can’t hide from Shadow, Drothe.” Degan opened his eyes and looked at me. “Unless…”

“Unless?” I said, knowing I was being led but not caring right now.

“Unless I take the book from you,” said Degan. “Shadow knows you wouldn’t be able to stop me if it came down to a fight. If I ‘took’ it-however that might end up happening”-a grin here-“he couldn’t blame you for the book not making it to him.”

“Maybe,” I said, “but there would still be my having attacked him. And he’ll be none too pleased with you, either.”

“Leave that to me,” said Degan. “He’s not as good as he thinks he is.”

“He was good enough to survive last time.”

“He won’t always have pocket change handy.”

I crossed my arms. “So you’re saying he was the one who got away from you after all the Rags were dealt with?” I said.

“Let’s call it a mutual fade due to extenuating circumstances,” said Degan. “Besides, I had to backtrack and get your rope for you.”

I ran my thumb along one of the knots. “And you just happened to bring it to Mendross’s stall to deliver it to me? Today? Right now?”

“If you stake out a place long enough, you’re bound to get lucky. Besides, you tend to check in with your little fruit seller first and last when something is going down.”

Was I that predictable?

“Yes, you are,” said Degan.

I made a face. Then I sighed. “What now?” I said.

Degan pushed himself to a fully standing position. “I call in your Oath and take the journal,” he said. “Nothing’s changed.”

“No, nothing has,” said Iron Degan.

I spun around. Iron was stepping out from between two stalls. He was walking easy, his sword lolling in his hand. His shirt was soaked with sweat, and his short hair lay plastered to his head. There were two fresh cuts on his right forearm and a scrape along the knuckles of his left hand. Besides the split Degan had given him on the cheek, he had picked up a shallow gash along his jaw. None of the wounds looked serious.

I glanced at Degan. He was eyeing Iron, studying his condition. It was no great leap to figure he wasn’t overjoyed.

Iron stopped outside the ring of bodies. “Has he told you what else happens if he succeeds?” he said to me. “About the consequences of his using your Oath like this?”

“Using it how?” I said.

“Bronze here is using the Oath you gave him to directly oppose the Oath of another degan-mine. That’s a no-no.”

“It’s been done before,” said Degan.

“Ancient history,” said Iron, “and a different time. We don’t do it anymore. But that’s not the worst part, is it, Bronze?”

Degan stood silently, head lowered, staring out at Iron from beneath his brows.

“Bronze here took the Oath with you,” said Iron, “knowing I was involved, and likely on the other side. By accepting your Oath, he set himself up to come into conflict with me.” Iron now openly glared at Degan. “Not only did he walk into the problem-he helped create it. It’s that last part the Order won’t be able to look past.”

“Which means what?” I said.

“Which means,” said Degan, “that if I kill Iron and take the journal-in direct conflict to his Oath-I get cast out of the Order and hunted down.”

“While if I kill him,” said Iron, “he just has his name removed from the rolls, permanently. No Bronze Degan ever again. Well, that, and he’s dead, of course.”

“But degans must have had their Oaths conflict in the past,” I said.

“That’s not the point,” said Degan, standing up straighter. He hefted both of his swords, then tossed the Cretin’s aside. “It’s about knowingly opposing a brother or sister and his or her Oath.” A sneer entered Degan’s voice. “It’s about keeping the peace rather than keeping our promises.”

“No, it’s about loyalty,” snapped Iron. “It’s about following the traditions of the Order and keeping your word to those who have sworn to follow the same path as you!”

“My word is mine own to judge,” said Degan. He switched his sword to his left hand and danced the tip in a small, intricate design. He frowned and looked up at Iron. “Believe me-if I could have found another way out of this, I would have taken it. But you’re wrong, Iron-about the emperor, the empire, and what we need to do-and that doesn’t leave me any other choice.”

Iron stepped to more open ground, away from the corpses. He brought his sword up, the guard just below his chin, and saluted smartly. “To old times.”

Degan stepped out past the ring of bodies. “It’s been a pleasure,” said Degan, though I couldn’t tell if he was talking to me or to Iron. His salute was awkward in comparison to Iron’s, slow and uneven in his left hand. My stomach sank.

Both men took their guards. Iron shifted his foot. Then he was dead.

I blinked. What the…?

I can still see them: Degan, bent forward, his right hand on Iron’s wrist, pulling on Iron’s sword arm as his own sword slides beneath it. And Iron, his sword extended but off-line, his eyes narrowed in concentration, Degan’s sword entering beneath his ribs and coming out somewhere between his shoulder blades.

For the briefest of moments, both men stood frozen before me, as still and imposing as Elirokos on his granite block. Then I blinked, or breathed, or the world turned again, and time resumed.

Iron smiled. He opened his mouth to say something, but only a faint sigh and some pinkish froth escaped. Degan grimaced and nodded in turn. Then Iron collapsed.

Degan levered his blade out of his sword brother and stepped back. He let out a shuddering breath.

“That was close.” He mopped shakily at his forehead. “I was afraid he’d see it coming.”

I gaped at Degan.

Degan gently wiped his sword on Iron’s shirt and slid it home in its sheath. Then, with great reverence, Degan took Iron’s sword and cleaned it on his own clothes. He dipped his finger in Iron’s blood, dabbed a spot onto the sword’s handle, another on its scabbard. Then he took both and stood up, sliding the blade home.

“Let’s go,” he said. “Now that we’re done, I doubt the Rags will keep their distance much longer.”

I fell into step behind him, still going through the combat in my head, still failing to fill in the missing pieces.

“I suppose that’s that,” I said.

“For me and the degans?” said Degan from in front of me. “Yes.”

“So what do I call you now?” I said.

Degan didn’t answer.

“What are you going to do with the journal once you have it?” I said.

“Destroy it.”

“What?”

“What else do you expect?” he said, his voice growing tight. “As long as it’s around, it’s a threat.”

“What about the emperor?”

“What about him? I don’t know what he’d do with it, but even if it’s locked away somewhere, it could still be used. Better if it’s gone altogether.”

“But not all of it deals with reincarnation,” I said. “Hell, not all of it even deals with imperial glimmer! There’s information on the beginnings of the empire in that book-from someone who saw it firsthand.”

Degan spun around so fast, I nearly fell over. “It’s not a relic to sell, Drothe! Not a game piece to trade. Not a history book to read.” He gestured back at the square, back at Iron. “Do you think I did this lightly? I gave up my life for what that damn book could do, and now you try to tell me to trade it? To only destroy part of it? Have you even looked around to see the damage that it’s caused?” He pointed over to where the journal lay, outside Mendross’s stall. “That journal is dangerous,” he said, “and not just to the emperor. It’s going in the fire!”

“Because you promised to protect him?”

“Yes!” he said. “Because I swore it!”

“And what about what you swore to me?” I said. “You promised to help me and keep my best interests at heart. How the hell does making me break my word help you do that?”

“If you keep that book,” said Degan, “you’ll never know peace. Shadow will hunt you. The empire will hunt you. Hell, maybe even a degan will hunt you. Believe me, your ‘interests’ are far better served by having that thing go away.”

“How fucking convenient for you that my ‘best interests’ coincide with your Oaths.”

Degan straightened up. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means I trusted you,” I said. “I trusted you not to take advantage of my Oath. I trusted that our friendship would count for something in all of this.”

I didn’t see him move; just felt the back of his hand across my face. I staggered back.

Degan’s eyes were so bright, they looked feverish. He looked feverish. “You can say that?” he grated through clenched teeth. “After all this? After I took your Oath, knowing what it would mean for me? For Iron?”

“That’s the point!” I said. “You knew what it would mean, but you didn’t tell me. All I knew was what was hanging in the balance: Kells, the Kin, me, Christiana. From where I stood, owing you a favor looked pretty damn good. If you’d even told me what it would mean for you.. .” What if he had? Would it have changed things? Would I have put all of them at risk, just to keep Degan from going to war with his own order?

I wiped at the blood coming from my mouth and looked over at Iron’s corpse. “Is that why you did this?” I said. “To be right when the rest of them were wrong? To be the degan who saved the emperor?”

“No.”

“Then why?”

Degan looked past me and clenched his jaw. “He’s the emperor,” he said. “Without him, there’s no empire. Maybe four or five centuries ago it could have worked, but not now.”

“There might not be an empire with him, either.”

“I can’t believe that. Not now. Not after…” He trailed off, staring at the square; at what he’d done. And I knew at that moment that, for Degan, there was no other option. To admit otherwise would mean he had thrown who he was away for nothing; or worse, for me.

I couldn’t ask him to do that-not after he’d already picked his path and sealed his fate.

“The book’s going in the fire,” he said. “Understood?”

I nodded. I knew why he had to do it-not for the emperor, or even the empire at this point, but for himself.

Degan put a hand on my shoulder. “It’s for the best,” he said.

“I know.”

Degan nodded and turned back around. That was when I hit him in the back of the head with the rope.

I couldn’t ask him to change his mind, but I couldn’t let him destroy the book, either. And that meant I had to take the decision away from him, no matter how much it ripped me apart inside.

There was a small flash and a pop. Degan staggered a step, then fell. Iron’s sword hit the paving stones with a clatter.

I could smell the bitter scent of singed hair as I knelt down next to my friend. “I’m sorry,” I said, my voice almost breaking, “but I can’t let it happen like this.”

Degan was blinking rapidly, his eyes wide with surprise and shock. His mouth moved, but no words came out. I couldn’t even be sure he was hearing me. Still, I reached out and pushed Iron’s sword out of his reach, just in case.

“If it matters,” I said, “it’s not about the emperor or the empire-not anymore. If it were only that, I’d say to hell with it and toss the journal into the fire for you. I could give a crap about Dorminikos compared to my Oath to you. But it’s more than that. It’s Christiana and Kells and the people I’ve sworn to protect. It’s about the Kin being hunted down by the Whites all over again, just because a couple of us stumbled across the wrong piece of history. You were right when you said Shadow and the empire won’t stop, but they aren’t just going to come after me. They’re going to come after everything that matters to me. And I can’t let that happen-not even for you.”

Degan’s hand twitched feebly toward me. I pushed it gently aside.

“As long as I have the journal,” I said, standing, “I have options and I have leverage. And right now, that’s what I need. Destroying it would take all of those away.”

I looked down at Degan. His eyes were still shifting, still trying to focus on me, but there was a hard set to his jaw. He’d heard me, I guessed, and still could.

“I’m sorry,” I said again. “For breaking the Oath, for what you did for me, for…” I looked at the rope and threw it away. “I’m just… sorry.”

Degan lay there and twitched and glowered. I turned away.

I looked around the square, wiped at my eyes, and looked again more clearly. I saw Spyro peering out from behind the curtain of his father’s stall.

“Spyro!” I yelled. The boy’s eyes grew wide, and he started to edge away. “Don’t you dare run, damn you!” I gestured at Degan. “Come get him inside your stall. Now!”

Spyro came loping over. We half carried, half dragged Degan across the square. Degan mouthed silent curses at me weakly, but otherwise didn’t put up a fight.

Mendross was peering out from behind the curtain when we arrived. His face was a mess-bloody and battered, the bruises just beginning to rise-but he nodded to me nonetheless. I nodded back, dropped all the money I had on me into a nearby basket, and gathered up the journal at Leander’s feet.

On the way out of the square, I stooped to pick up Iron Degan’s sword as well. I’d be damned if I was going to let it end up in some pawnbroker’s shop.

As I ran into the evening, I could hear the Rags arriving in Fifth Angel Square. Their timing was impeccable, as usual.

The moon had set, and I could detect a faint brightening in the east as I entered the Raffa Na’Ir cordon. The streets were silent except for the shuffling and cursing that came from behind me.

I stopped at a crossroads and waited. My right hand fiddled with the handle of my sheathed rapier.

“Damn you, Drothe-I told you I couldn’t make it all the way here,” said Baldezar.

“And yet you did.”

“No thanks to you.”

I watched as the Jarkman came limping up. He was using a crutch, his left leg bandaged and bound between two wooden supports. It hadn’t fully healed yet, and never would-not properly. Fowler’s cut had done more than just bite into muscle; it had cut tendon and broken bone. Baldezar was a cripple now.

On his back, Baldezar wore a large satchel filled with pens and inks, along with parchment and jars of treatments for the same. I had not offered to carry it. This was one instance where I did not regret my part in the outcome of events. He had tried to kill me-hobbling about the rest of his days was a smaller price than I would have paid had things been reversed.

And yet, Baldezar still carried himself with arrogance. Head high, shoulders as far back as he could manage with his crutch; he was a master of his craft and his guild, and he wasn’t about to let anyone forget it-even me. It was hard to feel pity for someone like that.

“The least we could have done was hire a litter,” Baldezar said as he came up beside me.

“The fewer people who know you’re with me, the better.” It was why I had kept at least a block ahead or behind him on the way here and why I had not paused to speak with him until now. Here, the only eyes that would see us were indifferent to both the Kin and the empire.

Baldezar humphed and readjusted the pack on his back. “Now what?” he said.

“Now,” said a smooth voice from the darkness, “you come with me.”

Baldezar jumped and nearly fell off his crutch as Jelem slipped out of a doorway. I noted he had been standing in a place where I should have been able to see him with my night vision.

“Nice trick,” I said.

“It’s neither nice nor a trick,” said Jelem. “It’s hard work. And you should be grateful I came at all.”

Jelem had been less than excited when I had found him earlier and demanded he find a safe house for me in the Raffa Na’Ir. His enthusiasm had dropped even further when I also told him I needed to collect Baldezar before we went to ground. In the end, it was only the promise of answers and more material rewards that had swayed Jelem to stick his neck out this far.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m keeping close track of who does me favors anymore.”

“That ought to be a short list, then, from what I hear,” said Jelem. “Come.”

I swallowed my retort and followed Jelem deeper into the Raffa Na’Ir. He doubled back on our path several times and paused twice to mutter glimmer into the night. Shortly after the second speaking, we arrived at a green door set in an otherwise unobtrusive mudbrick house. We passed through two rooms, out into an overgrown courtyard, and then into a separate, smaller outbuilding. It had once been a tack room, and a few harnesses and bridles still hung from dusty pegs in the walls. The place smelled faintly of leather.

Two tables, a pair of chairs, and a small chest occupied the space now, along with three tattered bedrolls piled up in the corner. A darkened lantern hung from a ceiling beam, and there was a scattering of candles about the room. Only one candle was lit. Two layers of heavy fabric had been hung across the single window to keep even that feeble light from escaping.

“There’s only one door,” I said. “That’s no good if anyone finds us-there’ll be no place to run.”

“Run?” said Jelem. “You said you wanted someplace to hide from both the empire and the Kin. If either of them finds you, it doesn’t matter if there are five doors, ten windows, and seven chimneys; you won’t be going anywhere.”

He had a point.

“How very reassuring,” grumbled Baldezar as he limped over and settled himself into one of the chairs with a moan. “Very well,” he said. “I am here.” He gestured at Jelem. “That is here. What is it you want us to do, exactly?”

Jelem arched a dark eyebrow at Baldezar but remained silent.

I eyed both men, still hesitant, still unsure whether I could do this. It was desecration of a sort far worse than smuggling a holy tract or selling a talisman of belief. This was a desecration of the truth-of truths far older and deeper than I had any right to tamper with.

Except, as I had told Degan, there was no other choice-not after all of this.

I reached into my jerkin and pulled out Ioclaudia’s journal. I set it on the table.

“What I want,” I said, my hand lingering on the cracked leather of the cover, “is for you two to change history.”