The Traitor God

Chapter 16

The woollen dress and cowl Charra insisted I wear prickled my skin, a nauseating reminder of the sensation of crawling lice. She could get me through the gates easily enough but as she was usually accompanied by women I had to masquerade as one to avoid drawing notice. My disguise was passable if I hunched down to hide my height, pulled the cowl up, and hid my scarred face behind veils of hair. I grumbled about it but Charra knew best; if I was going to be noticed then it would be at the gates rather than amongst the unwashed masses of Docklands. If that meant I had to feel like a fool then so be it – I was emphatically not blessed with the bone structure for this sort of thing. Charra found the sight of me shoehorned into a dress amusing. Insufferable woman. For her part, she just threw on an old cloak to hide the short sword hanging at her hip, and looked smug.

We passed though Pauper’s Gate and down to the docks. Fortunately she knew the gate guards well enough – and paid enough – to get us in and out without fuss or bothering the sniffer. If the Arcanum ever discovered that little arrangement all involved would be burnt alive.

Once we were out of sight of the wardens Charra lost her composure and started sniggering. “I can’t believe you fell for that.”

It took me a moment. I looked at my dress. “Oh, you little bitch,” I said, careful to keep my voice down. “Don’t you dare tell me I didn’t need to wear this.”

She swallowed and took a deep breath to calm herself, hand clutching her chest. “There was a very good reason for it actually.”

I mock-growled. “Your own amusement doesn’t count.”

“Walker, there is too much darkness in the world just now. We have to enjoy what lighter moments we can. All too soon they will be dead and gone.”

I rolled my eyes and lowered my head to hide behind all that hair again. For a moment it felt like old times, and she had got me good again. I was stuck wearing it for a good half hour until I found a quiet corner to strip it off. She was right enough; there wasn’t much laughter and joy going around these days. I doubted I’d live long now I was home in violation of my old bargains, so who was I to deny her a few last, good memories of me? Besides, you’d drown in darkness if you couldn’t laugh. Life is a farce and death an arse. Charra got that, just one more reason why I loved her dearly.

Pauper’s Docks lay outside of Charra’s sphere of influence, deeper inside the alchemic syndicates’ territories than she usually cared to venture. She didn’t exactly see eye to eye with them, and funnily enough any alchemic dealers that happened to stray onto her streets had their legs broken, if they were lucky. It made finding somebody willing to talk to us somewhat problematic, but my coin loosened their tongues. It seemed that the Harbourmaster had gone to ground after the recent assassination, and the local rumour mill didn’t have much information on his whereabouts. People were more interested in gossiping about overdue whaling ships and fishing boats lost at sea.

It took a few hours and a small fortune in bribes before we were able to track down the name and description of somebody who had the answers we sought, an Esbanain ex-pirate named Aconia involved in the illicit distilling of dockhouse rums. We found her in one of the dozens of small drinking dens that littered the stretch facing the docks, each shack cobbled together from the same mix of driftwood and scavenged debris.

Charra pulled back the tarred canvas sheet that served as a door and we slipped into a room that reeked of tabac smoke and sweet rum. A ragged young juggler was frantically flinging balls up into the air and flailing to catch them. They bounced off his upturned face to the laugher of the dozen or so people crammed onto barrels and crates. We had been told that Aconia was middle-aged with a harsh look, long black hair tied back out of the way and scarred skin like tanned leather, weathered by decades of salt and sun. The woman matching her description also had a distinctive heavy machete tucked into her belt, and judging from the notches it had seen a lot of use. She was leaning back against the wall, long black boots up on the only table as she chuckled at the juggler’s antics. She spotted our scrutiny and sized us up with a glance. I pointedly rubbed my chest, tunic cloth bulging around the hidden money pouch. That got her attention.

She flashed a bawdy grin and inclined her head towards the men occupying the rest of the room, eyes never leaving us. “Be leavin’ us now, you dogs. Aconia has business.” One tucked the squawking juggler under an arm and carried him out while we took their seats.

Aconia ran her gaze down my scars, noted the hilt of Dissever at my hip, and then looked to Charra, dismissing me as some sort of hired muscle. “So what can Aconia of the Fortuna Esban do for you?” she said.

“We’re looking for the Harbourmaster,” Charra said. “You know where he is.”

Aconia’s eyes tightened, jaw muscles flexing. It wasn’t a comfortable topic for her. “Ah, my lovelies,” Aconia said, licking cracked lips. “Answers depend on how much you can pay. In a hurry, yes?” She set to haggling with Charra like a pair of corvun squabbling over the corpse of a seagull. Aconia’s initial reaction bothered me; she didn’t strike me as the worrying type. I could have taken her mind and forced her to reveal all she knew, but I refused to become the monster the Arcanum always feared I was. Nor did I want to alarm Charra with a vivid demonstration of what I could do if all it took was a few coins to gain the same information.

Eventually they came to an agreement and I handed Charra my coin pouch. When she passed it back it felt distressingly light.

We followed her along a winding alley past streets deserted due to a collection of tanneries reeking of a heady mix of salt, ammonia and dung. As we approached a row of derelict mossy-stoned workhouses I sensed her tension growing and eased open my Gift, tasting the ether for stray thoughts and emotion. Aconia lit up like a Sumarfuin bonfire, radiating anger. It was not, I thought, directed at us. We stopped before a thick iron-bound door with a grilled peephole slat that would take a battering ram to open. Somebody had glued broken glass to the windowsills to deter climbers.

“This is the place,” Aconia said. Her muscles tensed, heart beating quicker, breathing faster, fists clenching.

I was about to say something but Charra beat me to it. “So what do they have on you? Perhaps we can help each other.”

Aconia’s hand caressed the hilt of her knife, but didn’t draw it. I didn’t want to see her dead but I’d not bat an eyelid putting her down if she forced my hand.

I stiffened and scanned the rooftops. For a second there I thought I’d sensed a presence, a hint of movement and a whisper of thought…

Aconia shrugged and lifted her hand free. “My business is my own.”

I locked gazes with her. “Fair enough. If things get heated in there, will you stab us in the back?”

“If I stand to gain from it,” she said with total honesty.

At least we all knew where we stood. I cracked my knuckles and held out a hand. “No hard feelings. I appreciate that you’ve been straight with us.”

Aconia pursed her lips, stared at my hand for a moment, then her calloused palm slapped against my own. A jolt of my magic stabbed through into her mind. She stared at me with horrified eyes as I cracked open her mind and set my compulsions in place.

I sighed and leaned in close. “I like you, Aconia, and if I’d time left when all of this is done and dusted then I would happily toss a few ales back with you. Sadly, that’s never going to happen.” I didn’t give a rat’s arse about meddling in the minds of scum, or in self-defence, but she’d been honest with me and my actions left a sour taste. It was a violation to enter her mind and subvert her will. I hated myself for doing it, but didn’t see any safe alternative.

“Stop flirting, Walker,” Charra said.

There would be no flirting with her after this, unless I chose to wipe her mind clean afterwards. “Aconia has decided to help us out in there if things go wrong,” I said.

For a moment Charra looked confused, then her eyes narrowed. “What did you do to her?”

“Hey, I can be charming when I want to be.”

She stared in silence for a few seconds. “We’ll have words about this later.”

I cursed under my breath. Charra was no fool and I fully understood how uneasy I’d made her: she was only just realising how unprotected she actually was around me, and being vulnerable was something that Charra couldn’t abide; she had shaped her entire life around that fear. I didn’t think she had ever truly thought of me as a real magus before now, not like those rich pricks up in the Old Town. To her I was a friend first and a magus second, and I’d always been very, very careful not to let her see the worst of what I could. Now she suspected I was more than I claimed.

“If we have to,” I said, sighing. “After you, Aconia. Give us a real nice introduction.” Her mind screamed at me, but her face smiled.

We followed Aconia to the door and she rapped three times, paused, then four more.

“Who’s there?” a gruff voice said from the other side.

“Aconia of the Fortuna Esban. Open up, you dogs.”

A slat in the door slid open and a pair of suspicious eyes peered out. “What do you want?”

“Have some people needing to talk to your boss, Clay.”

“That so? Well, he doesn’t need to talk to them.”

“Call your master, dog,” Aconia growled. “Have I ever steered you onto rocks? I am trying to pay off my debts, and if you get in my way I will gut you like swine.”

The slat clacked shut. Almost a minute passed before they unbarred the door. It swung open and Aconia sauntered straight through, seeming entirely unconcerned. Which was a damn good act considering half a dozen burly men were aiming crossbows at us.

For a supposedly derelict building the insides were in good repair, if a little bare, with only seven chairs and a table complete with dice and piles of coin. At the back of the room a set of stairs led up to the second floor.

A portly balding man with dropping grey moustache and bushy eyebrows stood watching us from behind his wall of muscle. They all wore hard-wearing brown leathers for ease of disguising blood stains. “This better be good, Aconia,” he said. One of his men slammed the door shut behind Charra and dropped the bar back into place.

“It always is, Clay,” Aconia replied. “These two need a word with Raston.”

“The Harbourmaster ain’t seeing nobody,” Clay said. He drew a knife from his belt and fixed a glare on me.

Charra stepped forward, slowly, her hands kept in clear sight. “He’ll want to see us. Tell him that Charra will owe him a favour in exchange for some information.”

Clay laughed. “You could be a bloody magus for all I care. I got my orders. You’ll bleed out the same as any other ugly bastard. The alchemic syndicates will thank me for it.”

Charra’s lips tightened. “Raston is neck-deep in shit. Do you really want to be the one to dunk his head under and tell him to get swallowing? You let him know that Charra wants to talk to him. Right fucking now. Otherwise he’ll have more than my boot on his head pushing him under.”

Aconia started, staring at Charra. My hastily implanted commands were already starting to break up and she was regaining a measure of control over her body. She was strong-willed alright. But my commands would last until we were done here.

Clay’s eyes flicked to his henchmen and their crossbows. “And what’s to stop me just killing you and that chewed-face mongrel next to you?” I winked at him in reply. He found that off-putting.

Charra sneered. “You think we didn’t plan for that? We’d be fucking stupid to come in here without any backup waiting outside.” She shook her head. “Every one of you will die in excruciating agony if you so much as lay a finger on us.” Her bluffing was superb, totally calm and very reasonable. I couldn’t have done better myself. “All we need is a few answers from Raston, nothing more. And a favour from me is worth more to him than your lives.”

Clay ground his teeth and put away his knife. “Fine.” He scowled at his men. “They move, you shoot.” He stomped up the creaking stairs.

I relaxed, glad that blood didn’t need to be shed. For a second there it seemed a civilized meeting with the Harbourmaster would be too much to ask for. Sadly we still needed to suffer the tedious back and forth of bargaining and threats in order to get the actual truth out of him.

Clay screamed. His cry cut off to a gurgle.

Four of Clay’s men dropped their bulky crossbows, drew knives, and charged upstairs, leaving behind a pair of nervous guards with itchy trigger-fingers.

The men upstairs roared in challenge, briefly. A few seconds later they flopped back down the stairs in a crimson mist of arterial spray, each dying of a single lethal cut to the throat.

“Run!” I said to Clay’s remaining men. They dropped their crossbows and fled into the street.

Power flooded into my body, strengthening muscles and quickening reactions beyond human limits. My senses were pin-sharp, mind reaching ahead, Dissever finding its way into my hand. Weakening spurts of blood spattered my boots as I took the steps three at a time up to the landing and launched myself into the Harbourmaster’s room faster than anybody could possibly react.

The room was cluttered with ledgers and shelves groaned with sheaves of parchment. In the corner lay a pile of smuggled Escharric artefacts, a fortune in pottery and statuettes, coins and inscribed tablets. The room was as empty of life as the Escharric desert itself. Clay lay crumpled at the feet of an older man, dead on his chair, a single puncture wound gaping between skull and spine. The assassin had killed them both. If Clay hadn’t had the bad luck to go upstairs at that exact moment then he’d still be alive and the assassin would have slipped away without anybody noticing. I cursed, scanning the room. A breeze set loose window boards creaking, boards with nails torn free of the sill. I peered out and up. Specks of dust drifted down from the roof.

I stepped out and swung myself up. Steel flicked out at my face before I found my footing. Dissever came up, shearing through the twisted steel hilt of a grey-clad assassin’s knife. Taking advantage of the momentary surprise, I grabbed a hold of their suddenly weaponless hand with my left and rammed my knee into their belly. It was a woman, eyes widening in shock behind a black leather mask as she crashed down in a clatter of tiles.

“Didn’t expect that, did you?” I snarled, leaping on her. “Who sent you?” I crushed her against the roof with brutal strength.

Her own knee snapped up into my belly like a kick from a horse – far too strong for a normal woman. I gasped in pain as her blow launched me backwards off the roof. The ground rushed to meet me but an outflung hand caught the window sill and I jerked to a stop, arm nearly wrenched from the socket, broken glass gouging skin. If I hadn’t had magic reinforcing my body I’d be a broken mess on the street below.

I hauled myself back up. The assassin was already two rooftops away, steps flowing with unnatural grace and speed. I had badly underestimated her. She was a mageborn with magic-enhanced physical abilities.

I leapt over the gap to the next rooftop. It was daylight and sniffers weren’t likely to loiter this far from the city walls. To the pyre with subtlety – she’d just offed our best lead. In the same manner I’d killed the warehouse guard, I gathered my power and struck at her mind, hoping her stunted Gift would allow her to survive it.

She stumbled, fell, but was back on her feet in seconds; seconds too late: I had already closed the distance. I leapt onto her rooftop, fist lashing out. She spun, leaned to one side, and casually deflected my blow with one hand while the other smashed into my stomach. Air exploded from my lungs and I doubled over. Her elbow cracked into my skull as I fell. She stamped on my hand while I was down, heel grinding, forcing me to let go of Dissever. I grabbed for her leg and she pulled back, cloth tearing. My fingers brushed dark skin. I had her!

Magic roared into her, throwing her body into spasm. We rolled across the roof struggling mentally, coming to a rest with me on top. Her will was stone, but I hacked my way in, exposing layer after layer of rocky strata. Her fingers clawed at my eyes. I blocked, tried to push her arm down and pin it to the roof. Her arm didn’t move. Instead she shoved me aside and started to beat me like a fishwife beating a dirty rug. She was stronger than me, faster, better, and she hadn’t spent the last ten years lost in ale cups. The heel of her hand thudded up into my jaw. I saw stars and made a feeble attempt to bring my hands up to ward off the inevitable deathblow. To my surprise, instead she made a run for it.

That was a mistake. I’d been in her head already, and that made it easy to get back in. She should have pressed her advantage in hand to hand. I gathered my will and speared deep into her. Her legs stopped working and she fell. I approached as she groggily tried to rise, and failed.

“It’s over,” I said.

“Think so?” she rasped. A length of fine chain flicked out from her wrist, weighted hooks embedding themselves in my coat. She gave a mighty pull and I lurched towards her. She seized my leg in one hand, the other going for my crotch.

Panicked, I forced my will through the last of her mental defences.

I heard a creak of gutstring and wood off to one side of the roof. Charra had climbed up a ladder and was aiming a crossbow at the assassin. Her finger squeezed. I sensed the assassin’s instinctive urge to spin around and use me as a shield – immediately discarded – then her utter horror. In that moment I knew her thoughts. I knew her. Terror iced my spine.

“No!” I screamed, blocking the shot, far too late to stop it.

String thunked against crossbar. The bolt flashed past my leg, taking a chunk of cloth with it. I sagged in relief. Charra had been able to force the shot wide at the last moment.

“Have you gone horseshit mad?” Charra said, dropping the crossbow and clambering onto the roof with a knife in her hand.

I swallowed, then carefully removed the immobilized assassin’s mask.

Layla.