Keyvine got to his feet and came close to the bars, making Clay tense in anticipation though he strove to maintain the same slumped posture. Well within reach. I’ll need to be quick.
“Oh no,” said the King of Blades and Whores. “You are here because your uncle begged for your life.”
“My uncle,” Clay said, “wouldn’t piss on my burning corpse.”
“It seems he finds some value in you. There’s a long-standing debt twixt us, you see. A debt I’ve been keen to repay for quite some time. So when your sad little scheme came to light I must say I seized on the opportunity and let him know of your imminent fate. He did seem reluctant to intervene at first but he became markedly more interested once I mentioned your true nature. It was clumsy and obvious of you to try using Black in one of my fights. Do you imagine I don’t know the signs? Quite a secret to keep for such a long time, from family as well as company interests. Luckily your uncle’s contacts in the Protectorate were able to contrive a suitably enticing trap, with my help, of course.”
Keyvine leaned his head closer to the bars and Clay caught the gleam of his eye in the shadow beneath the hat, unblinking and steady. “Judging by your age I’d guess you owe your unregistered status to the day the Black got loose. Lot of confusion that day, easy to miss another screaming child amidst the chaos. Did it kill your parents?”
Just my mother. Clay closed his eyes against the memory. Ma standing with her hand on his shoulder as he waited his turn for the Blood-lot. “Be brave, Claydon. It’ll be just a little burn, that’s all.” Then everything was screams and flames and blood . . . Ma lying amidst the blood, eyes open and a ragged red gap where her belly should be. Around him people screamed and writhed as the drake blood rained down in a fine mist. Not him though; on him the red vapour left just small specks of white on his skin. He ran. Ran and ran, all the way to his uncle’s house, and that proved only a temporary refuge.
“If my uncle saved me it’s for a reason,” he told Keyvine, staring into the one gleaming eye.
“Yes. I expect your unregistered status may have something to do with it. It’s why poor old Speeler had to die, you see? A secret loses value with every memory that carries it.”
“How’d you get him to sell me out?”
“Speeler had a long-term male companion. Charming fellow but with expensive tastes, hence Speeler’s tireless work ethic. A few cuts to the right places and he was more than co—”
Clay lunged, putting every ounce of strength and speed into his legs, ignoring the flare of agony from already strained muscles. He nearly did it, his hand brushing through Keyvine’s braided hair as the King of Blades and Whores twisted aside with less than an inch to spare. Something flashed in the gloom and Clay felt the cold chill of a very sharp blade against his neck. He froze, standing with his arm still clutching at thin air whilst Keyvine stood with his bared sword-cane protruding through the bars, poised to sever Clay’s jugular with the smallest flick.
“What are you?” Keyvine asked, voice soft, almost contemplative and free of anger. “Without product in your veins, what are you? Just another piss-alley thief, albeit with an important uncle.”
Clay suppressed a grunt as the sword-cane pressed deeper, feeling the sting of the cut and small drop of blood trickle down his neck. “They burned, Clay,” Keyvine told him. “The boy and his sister. More precisely, I burned them in that rotting old church. If you stop by there again one day maybe you’ll see them haunting away with the Pale-Eyed Preacher.”
He angled his head so the moonlight from the single window caught his face. Clay had only seen it once before, just a glimpse one night at the Colonials Rest, a flash of something from a nightmare. The burn covered half his face, the flesh mottled and puckered from throat to forehead, the pigment dimmed by the gloom but Clay knew it to be a motley collage of red and pink. Drake’s Kiss, it was called, the burn that could only result from drake fire.
“I know fire,” Keyvine went on. “I even like fire. You could say I was born in it and in doing so learned the greatest of lessons: there is no pain that cannot be endured and survived, no obstacle that cannot be overcome. All that is required is the will to succeed, a will that allows for no distractions. You should think on that when you’re off contracting with your uncle. Find me when you return, for I sense a new debt between you and me and I so detest an unbalanced scale.”
—
He was woken by the sound of a key working the lock on the heavy iron door. He didn’t rise from the bunk, turning onto his side and blinking his bleary eyes until they found focus on the brickwork. The voice that greeted him was familiar and expected, also deep with impatient resentment. “On your feet.”
Clay waited a good while before rolling onto his back, gazing up at the flaking plaster on the ceiling. His sleep had been fitful, richly populated by Derk’s and Joya’s faces, laughing sometimes, mocking at others. But mostly just burned and dead. And Keyvine. Keyvine had been there too.
“I said, get up!” the voice said with growling deliberation. “Lest you’re keen to spend the next year in here before the Protectorate decides whether to kill you or cut you open.”
Clay groaned and sat up. It was daylight now, somewhere past mid morn judging by the angle of the shadows. A tall man stood on the other side of the bars. He wore the green-leather duster and wide-brimmed hat typical of the Contractor fraternity, his hair hanging in thick braids down to his shoulders. It had been nearly two years since their last meeting but Clay still felt the same jarring disorientation when looking at his face. There were a few more lines on the forehead and the stubble on his chin was mostly grey, but the resemblance remained. They could have been twins.
“You gonna stare at me all day, boy?” the man demanded. “Off your backside, we got work.”
“Since when d’you have work for me?” Clay asked.
The man angled his head, eyes narrowing with the same angry judgement he had exhibited all those years ago when Clay shambled into his home with a recently emptied pistol in hand. “Since it turned out you were actually useful,” the man said, stepping back to jerk his head at a second man standing near the open door. Clay’s pulse quickened as he recognised him as the ununiformed Protectorate type who had shot Speeler.
“Killing the fat man was unnecessary,” Clay said as the blocky man turned a key in the lock and slid the gate open. “And since when did the Protectorate work for pirates?”
“Shut your mouth, boy!” the tall man snapped, though his gaze was fixed on the Protectorate official. Clay noted his hand now rested on his belt, just a few inches from the butt of his six-shooter.
Doesn’t know if either of us are likely to make it out of here alive, Clay realised, although the Protectorate man stood beside the bars in impassive immobility.
“Wasting time, Claydon,” the tall man said, voice hard with the urgent need to leave.
Clay sighed and got slowly to his feet. “Always good to see you, Uncle Braddon.”
They emerged from a nondescript house on Healman’s Way, a quiet road south-west of the docks mostly populated by the middle-management class. Glancing up Clay saw nothing to distinguish the house from its neighbours, same company emblem carved above the lintel, same drab curtains behind the windows. However, on closer inspection his practised eye could see the clues plain enough: a narrow gap in the brickwork on the upper storey just wide enough for a rifle, and another on the right at street level.
Expect they’ll have to close this up now, he thought, suspecting they were the first two non-employees to leave the place alive.
“Enough dawdling,” his uncle snapped. He gestured to the street where a young woman waited astride a horse, clutching the reins of two more, their saddles empty. Braddon strode to the larger of the two horses, hauling himself into the saddle with unconscious ease. “Know how to ride, I hope.”
“Well enough,” Clay lied. He t
ook a look at the young woman as he approached the other horse. She wore a broad-brimmed hat much the same as his uncle’s, though her long blonde hair was unbraided and cascaded down her back in a straight golden stream. But it was her face that soon captured his full attention. Islander, he realised, eyes roving the mask of tattoos that covered her skin from forehead to neck, the intricate pattern of red and green continuing on beneath the dark cotton of her shirt.
“This is Silverpin,” his uncle said, nodding at the woman. “Bladehand to the Longrifles. You don’t want to stare too long. She may take it personal.”
The woman, however, returned Clay’s scrutiny with placid acceptance as his gaze lingered. He had never seen an Islander without an extensive array of designs inked into their flesh, but never one so entirely covered. “Morning, miss,” he said, touching a finger to his forehead. She gave no response save a slight incline of her head, though he fancied her mouth curled just a little.
“Silverpin can’t talk,” Braddon said, eyebrows raised in amusement as Clay made a faltering attempt to mount his horse. “Left foot in the left stirrup, unless you’re planning to ride him backwards.”
They rode in silence for some time, Clay trailing along as his uncle and the woman followed Healman’s south, soon passing out of middle-management country and into the tall buildings of Company Square. Clay was not overly familiar with this district, it being far too well patrolled for his purposes; a uniformed Protectorate guard stood on every corner with a repeating carbine on his shoulder. They skirted the neat lawns surrounding Ironship House, at six storeys the tallest building in the city, one storey higher than the South Seas Maritime office opposite. The buildings shared a similar design, all tall narrow windows and straight walls rising from a broad base, but whoever had built Ironship House had been at pains to ensure it outshone the others, both in its size and the opulence of its stained-glass windows and the numerous corporate flags flying from the forest of poles on the roof. Upon viewing the building any newly arrived visitor would be left in no doubt as to which company truly held power over this port.
Clay found his gaze drawn back to Silverpin as they proceeded into Carter’s Walk, the broad thoroughfare that separated the white-marble mansions of the senior manager’s district on the left from the closer-packed terraces of Scullion Town on the right. Her hair wasn’t unusual for an Islander, especially one who hailed from the north-eastern chains. Under the ink they tended be of fair complexion, not dissimilar in fact from the New Colonials of northern Mandinor although they couldn’t have been farther apart in temperament and custom. However, they also tended to be taller than Silverpin, and a little broader whereas she was all long-limbed litheness. His gaze settled on her hips, moving in perfect concord with her horse, a curved knife at the small of her back in a leather sheath, angled for a quick draw. Bladehand, his uncle had called her, an uncommon title he had heard a few times in relation to the Contractors who ventured into the Interior in search of fresh stock and undiluted product. What use are blades in an age of guns? he wondered.
As if sensing his thoughts Silverpin turned in her saddle, meeting his gaze. The placid acceptance from before was gone now, replaced by a disconcerting directness. Her eyes were a pale, icy blue, another trait common to Islanders, and he found himself squirming a little under their blatant inquisition.
“I have,” he began, turning to his uncle and finding he had to cough a little as Silverpin kept staring. “I have business of my own. Before I do any bidding of yours.”
“Keyvine’s lot will cut your throat the second you step into the Blinds,” Braddon said, not bothering to turn around. “Best you forget any foolish notions.”
Clay’s mind was quick to summon the dream from the night before. Flames engulfing the steeple. Derk and Joya, laughing as they burned and, standing immobile amidst the inferno, a figure who at first appeared to be the Pale-Eyed Preacher, grinning madly and covered in whore’s blood, but soon shifted into Keyvine, ruined features twisted into a delighted smile. “Foolish or not,” Clay said, aware of his thickening voice. “I got a debt in need of settling.”
Braddon brought his horse to an abrupt halt, turning it about so he came face-to-face with his nephew. His expression was angry but also faintly weary, the face of a tutor forced into lessons with a dull and ungrateful pupil. “Take a look,” he said, jerking his head at the surrounding street. “What d’you see?”
Clay sighed but did as he was told, glancing around at the people passing by. Well-dressed women strolled together in pairs or trios, chattering the inane gossip of the idle rich whilst those paid to service their needs scurried to and fro on various errands, laden with groceries or pushing squalling infants in prams. Here and there a city employee swept the paving or collected litter from the gutters. It was a far remove from the familiar chaos of the Blinds but nothing he hadn’t seen before.
“Nothing,” he told his uncle. “Just rich folks and their servants.”
“Really?” Braddon turned to Silverpin with a questioning glance. She paused to scan the street for a moment, pale blue eyes narrowing slightly, then raised four fingers.
“I only count three,” Braddon said, turning back to Clay. “But she’s always had the better eye. See that lady with the little dog over by the bench?” Clay duly looked, seeing only a well-attired young woman in a dress of white and black, laughing as she tossed treats to a yapping terrier of minuscule proportions. He had taken her for either the young wife of a senior manager or an elder daughter, spoiled and filling her useless day fawning over a pet.
“So?” he asked.
“The shoes, boy. Heels just flat enough for running, and her handbag’s just the right size for a brace of vials. She’s Academy trained. The street-sweeper’s got a carbine in his broom holder and the lad hawking news-sheets has a salt-shaker strapped to his ankle. Can’t see the fourth myself but I’d lay odds they’ll be on a roof-top with a longrifle. We didn’t choose this route, boy, and if you have any thought our backers will allow you out of my sight till we’re on our way, forget it. You’re bought and paid for and it’s me who did the paying so wipe that fucking scowl off your face.”
“I want Keyvine,” Clay stated, fighting his rage. “I’m guessing you got a contract needs what I can do. You want my services then give me a day to settle with Keyvine. That’s my price.”
“My business with Keyvine is settled, and I don’t need it unsettled right now. What’s between you and him is no concern of mine. When we fulfil this contract I expect to be gone from these shores in short order and you’ll find yourself with enough Ironship scrip to buy the whole Blinds if you like. Buy it and burn it to ash for all I care. But in the meantime, you are now the Blood-blessed liaison to the Longrifles Independent Contractor Company and, unless you want a bullet through the brain, you’ll act like it.”
—
They passed into Colonial Town a few streets on, the last remnant of the original South Mandinorian settlement that had grown here some two centuries ago. The houses were all two-storey dwellings with low, sloping roofs and many verandas, the streets just as well-kept as in Manager Country but much more lively. There was a market in every square and a tavern on almost every corner. Everything was drenched in the music that floated out of the taverns or rose from street-corner trios. Fiddle, flute, drum and pianola mingled a hundred different tunes into what should have been a discordant mess but somehow worked as a harmonious accompaniment to the ceaseless bustle. It was all a great contrast to the Blinds where music was rarely heard in daylight and skin colour varied as much as fortune. Here almost every face was as dark as his own, and yet, although he had been born here Clay had never felt at home amongst these people.
Orphans have no home anywhere, he recalled. It was something Joya had said one damp night as they huddled together on a roof-top, her gaze fixed on Manager Country, the marble mansions gleaming under the two moons and seeming very far a
way. Derk rarely talked of their lives before the Blinds but Joya felt no reluctance in relating tales of their fine house and toy-filled rooms, all lost the day their father had been carted off by the Protectorate and the company bailiff handed their mother a writ of seizure. Their father’s crime had never been fully revealed to Clay and he suspected they barely understood it themselves, but it had been sufficiently grave to see him on a prison ship back to Feros and his family destitute. If they were ignorant of their father’s eventual fate they were all too aware of their mother’s and staunchly refused to discuss it. Clay had always respected their reticence though it wasn’t hard to reckon it out. A woman of no means with no skills, shunned by the managerial class and cast out to fend for herself would have had few options. Whatever her struggles, however, it hadn’t been enough to save her children from eking a living scrounging scraps in Staker’s Alley.
We’ll get it all back, Clay had assured Joya that night, putting an arm around her slim shoulders. All the toys you could ever want.
He came back to the present when his uncle’s boots stamped onto the ground. They had stopped at an impressively proportioned house on the northern fringes of Colonial Town, just a short walk from the outer wall in fact. It was much as Clay remembered, standing two storeys high like the others but with an extensive cluster of attic windows sprouting from the roof. The addition of a decent-sized stable showed this to have been a building of some importance at one point, home to a Mandinorian Imperial Consul perhaps, in the days when such things held any meaning.
Two women waited to greet Braddon as he climbed the short steps to the main door, one tall with a purple scarf on her head, the other shorter and considerably younger. Clay found the youngster capturing most of his attention, mainly due to the pair of revolvers on her hips and the half-scowl with which she greeted him. He turned as Silverpin tapped him on the shoulder, climbing down from the saddle and gesturing for him to follow.