The Fade

23

I forgot the most cardinal of rules in the spy game. Never underestimate anybody. Nereith was staring at us across the food hall the whole time I was talking to Charn. I thought he was seething with suspicion. The reality was much simpler. He was lip-reading.

The four of us sit in the shadows of our cell, facing each other, our hunched backs excluding the others. Faint light spills from above, casting shadows down the hollows of our faces. The rough walls of the cave drip with moisture. Everything smells of sweat and shit.

Charn holds out his hand, concealing what's inside. I take it. The cold weight of a key. I study it surreptitiously, keeping it shielded from sight. It's rough, but it looks like it'll work. A simple skeleton-key arrangement. There's no design on the bow and the blade is the tiniest bit out of alignment, but as long as the teeth are accurate it should be fine. And it's a pretty good job, given the circumstances.

'How did you get it out?'

'They hardly bother checking me. I'm trusted. I put it in my mouth.'

I flinch inwardly. That was a risk we didn't need to take. All it took was for someone to speak to him and we'd have been spitted. I'd told him to hide it in his buttocks. He found the idea offensive. Interesting how the idea of raping me seemed acceptable enough but even the suggestion of something tubular near his arse makes him get squeamish.

I let it drop. No point arguing about it. He got the key. I stash it in a secret pocket inside my trouser belt, designed for the purpose. Someone doing a casual pat-down wouldn't even feel it there. Besides, they don't bother searching lowly slurry-trough workers.

Feyn is a little weak, but his arm has been stitched up. I feel uneasy about exposing Feyn to the attention of one of those Gurta butchers. I don't want them to start getting ideas about seeing the insides of a SunChild.

'What we just did wasn't easy,' I tell them. 'If we keep our heads, we can all get out of here.'

'I'd like to know what you plan to do now,' says Nereith. His voice is very low, the chesty growl of a threatened animal.

'You'll know soon enough,' I reply. 'Before we go any further, I'd like to be sure who I can trust. The more people in on this thing, the more likely someone's going to screw it up.'

He takes the point. I'm deeply uncertain about him. He's got me in an awkward position: I owe him for saving the last operation, and he can make things very difficult for us if I refuse to include him. Some prisoners make bargains with the guards, trading information for favours. Anyone caught doing it tends not to survive very long, but desperation can make traitors of the most honourable men. I'm not sure about the Khaadu. I'm not sure what he'd do.

'I know about you, Massima Leithka Orna,' he says. 'And I know you've heard of Silverfish.'

That interests me. 'I've heard of Silverfish.'

'I haven't,' says Charn. He doesn't like to be left in the dark. Nereith makes a gesture to me, inviting me to tell him.

'He operates out of Veya, as far as I know, but he's got tendrils in all kinds of places. Very secretive. Nobody has seen him, to my knowledge. The only contact is through his lieutenants.'

'This man is a criminal?' Feyn asks, in his naively charming sort of way.

'Criminal, businessman; it's the same thing where I come from,' I reply. 'He's kind of a figure of legend in the Veyan underworld.' I look back at Nereith. 'Certainly a name you don't want to conjure with unless you mean it.'

'It's true that bandying his name around is unwise,' the Khaadu says. 'But I'm sure he would consider it worthwhile, if it helped one of his people escape from Farakza.'

'You work for him?'

'I gather information,' he said. 'Rather like you, Orna, though my methods are more passive than yours. I'm a spy, of sorts, in that I'm paid to keep my eyes and ears open. Silverfish needs to know what is happening in Khaad, as in the other regions of Callespa. I'm the one who finds out.'

'Then how did you end up here?'

'I was captured by a Gurta scouting patrol on my way to Veya. The information I carried was too sensitive to trust to a messenger.' He bares his teeth in what I assume is wistful regret. It's hard to tell. 'My news is useless now. I've been here too long.'

'What were Gurta patrols doing between Khaad and Veya? That's hardly near their battle lines.'

'They were a scouting patrol,' he repeats, deadpan. 'They were scouting.'

I study him for a moment. Deciding what to do about him. He takes the advantage.

'The way I see it, we have several problems. First is breaking out of the immediate prison section, within the fort. You've taken care of that one. I assume you intend to sneak up to the Overseer's office when he is on his rounds, and make your way from there?'

I nod. That much is obvious. 'We never see him arrive or leave except on inspections, even though our shifts change all the time, so we can assume there's another way out of there. From what I know of the floor plan, I'm fairly certain that it leads out of the prisoners' area.'

'Agreed,' he says. 'Then you face the next task. Moving around the fort without being caught. Even as renowned a thief as yourself could not manage that without foreknowledge of the layout or a disguise. Your skin and eyes would give you away. The only disguise that might work is that of an Eskaran slave.'

'One of their scholars told me they keep some here.' I almost say I've heard the guards talking about them too, but I stop myself. Habit keeps me from revealing unnecessary information. They don't need to know I speak Gurtan.

'They do,' he says. 'But you don't look like one. How will you get the disguise?'

'Laundry room. I'm working on it.'

'Let me do it. I know people in the laundry room. They launder the slaves' clothes with the soldiers'. If one goes missing, the slave won't dare to raise a fuss, in case they're blamed and punished for losing it.'

I'm faintly surprised. He's proving to be very useful. 'When can you get one in my size?'

'Next turn. Maybe the one after that. There are a several dozen slaves here, each with several sets of clothes. They dress their slaves well, as a reflection of their own status. More are arriving every turn in advance of the Elder's visit.'

He's thought this through. It suddenly occurs to me that he's been planning to escape for a long time, but the opportunity only came with me. I'm the only one with the skills and, more importantly, the gender to make this work.

'The Elder gets here in eight turns' time,' I tell them. I've learned as much from the guards. 'The whole fort will be in turmoil. That's when we leave.'

'But there's a problem with your disguise,' he says. 'They only take very young girls as slaves. So they can grow up in the Gurta way, learn not to be rebellious and to accept their position. Too much trouble otherwise.'

'I know that,' I say. 'What's your point?'

'The slaves speak Gurtan, that's my point.'

'I'll deal with it,' I reply.

'Not only that, but they speak a certain dialect of Gurtan. It identifies them as slaves. They have complex rituals, gestures: things that takes years to be taught. Even the greetings are formalised. Gurta love ceremony; they demand a lot from their slaves.' He rolls his shoulders, stretching his neck. 'They'll see through you in an instant.'

'I'll deal with it.'

He shrugs, decides it's not worth saying anything more. The warning has been given, and he doesn't have any better ideas. It's a risk we have no choice but to take. Getting out of Farakza was never going to be easy.

'What then?' Charn asks. We've already talked about this, but I think he just wants reassuring.

I don't have much reassurance to give. 'I scout the fort, and I find some way for the four of us to get out without being seen.'

'See, that's where the plan starts to come apart for me,' he says.

'We can't plan an escape when we don't know what's outside,' I say. 'We go step by step. I'll find a way. Then I'll come back for you, and we all go together.'

He snorts. That's the real crux of Charn's problem. He doesn't believe that I will come back. And if it weren't for Feyn, I probably wouldn't.

'You either believe me or you don't,' I say. 'Makes no odds to me.'

'I think you need us, besides,' says Nereith. Charn looks at him. 'After all, what happens after we escape? Are you going to make it back to Veya on your own? Do you even know the way?'

'I could find the way,' I say.

'But here we have a SunChild, whose people have lived off the land for uncountable generations and is an expert survivalist by birth; and you have a Khaadu who knows exactly how to get back to Veya from here, because he has travelled this way before in more peaceful times, when Khaadu and Gurta were not enemies.'

I hadn't even thought about Feyn's potential usefulness until now. It gives me a jolt of surprise. I'm usually so mercenary as well. It's very uncharacteristic.

'You remember the way?'

'I'm Khaadu. We remember everything.'

I don't give him the opportunity to gloat over my lack of knowledge of Khaadu abilities. I have a vague memory of Keren and I getting drunk in a bar, and his recounting some rumour about how the Khaadu had perfect recall. But in the same conversation he told me how they ate their own young if they were deformed or sickly. That was much more interesting.

'What about me?' Charn blusters. 'You'll need me too.' He's sore that Nereith hasn't counted him as an asset. The two of them have been tense since Nereith learned Charn was plotting an escape without letting him in on it. They're not so close any more, I suspect.

'You've done your part,' Nereith says dismissively, and that shuts him up.

I raise my hands to placate them both. 'We're all going,' I tell them. 'So let's work together. We'll concentrate on getting away from the fort for now.'

'I was awake on the way in,' says Nereith. 'They drugged me, but it doesn't work so well on my kind.' He hunkers forward. 'I only saw the main entrance, but I think it's the only one. I've never heard the guards talk about another.'

'Wait, you know Gurtan?' I ask.

'And Banchu, and Craggen, only in the Child's Tongue though: I can't make the booming sounds the adults do. I can understand a bit of Umbra if they're not whispering too quietly. And some Ya'yeen too, although that's trickier because you can't just memorise it. They keep changing the rules. Shifting meanings and all that shit; I can't handle it too well.'

'I'm impressed.'

'Don't be. It's easy for my kind. We only have to hear something once and we remember it forever.'

I find myself becoming faintly jealous of the Khaadu's natural advantages. They'd come in useful in my line of work. But then I remember laying my head on my husband's dead chest and hearing the stillness of his heart. Forgetfulness can sometimes be a blessing.

'There's two gates to get through on the main road,' he says. 'One at the entrance to the fort, and one before the bridge. I saw them searching an outbound cart on the bridge, so we can assume they always do that. Checking for contraband, I'd say.'

'What does this bridge go over?' Feyn asked.

Charn scoffs. 'How long have you been here?'

'I have not talked to other prisoners many.'

'Much,' I correct him. We've been having a few lessons in the cell, just talking really, but he keeps making elementary mistakes.

Nereith elaborates. 'Farakza stands on an island in the middle of a river of spume rock. You know what that is?'

'I do not recognise that word.'

'It's like lava, but it melts at lower temperatures, solidifies rapidly. The river around Farakza moves slow. On top is a kind of brittle crust, that breaks and moves as the river flows. It's been cooled by the cavern air and turned solid. Beneath it's still molten. Still very hot.'

'Is that why we are so hot in these lower places?' Feyn asks, indicating the cave around us.

'Exactly. These cells are underground, and we're surrounded by molten spume rock.'

I start to imagine the burning, sluggish flow oozing past beyond the damp walls of black stone.

'So once we're out, how do we get over the river?' Charn asks.

'This brittle crust,' I say to Nereith. 'How brittle is it?'