Steal the Sky

Chapter 23

Pelkaia stood across the street from the Blasted Rock Inn, wearing her mother’s face for comfort. It was not precisely how her mother had been. She’d had to darken the shade of her skin to a more Valathean-mingled hue, had to lift and sharpen the sand-dune smooth planes of Catari cheeks. She doubted any Aransan would recognize a full-blooded Catari anymore, but still she feared her mother’s original countenance would be too exotic. Too worthy of notice.

The first time she had come here it had been after another murder, her first in more years than she cared to dwell upon, to drink to her sordid little victory. The memory of warm pride swelled within her and soured, the faces of those strangers she had bought drinks for just to hear them cheer blurred. Now… Now she came to drink smooth the ragged edges of her anger.

The chill of the desert night seeped through her clothes and prickled across her skin. Pelkaia flinched away from the emptiness. The cold reminded her of Galtro’s blood, the heat of it turning bitter as it clung to her clothes, separate from the living vessel. She’d left her son’s sullied vestments behind at her apartment before coming here – scrubbed her skin raw and red with sand and oils. But still she felt the shape of the stains, spread like guilty handprints across her body.

Pelkaia ducked her head, let lank hair frame the sharp edge of her false cheeks, and slunk into the Blasted Rock.

There was no celebration this night, no raucous gambling. The long bar to her left was elbow-to-elbow with regulars, the little square tables made of old shipping pallets occupied by bent-headed locals. A crude block print of Thratia’s face hung on the wall across from the door, her sharp eyes the first thing to greet any who entered.

She took a deep breath to steady the frightened-rabbit thump of her heart, scented the grainmash molder of poorly filtered whiskey and the stale dust of wooden floorboards long unswept. Pelkaia found an empty table and shuffled to it, keeping her head tucked down and her back hunched. She sat, and the weight on her shoulders grew heavier.

The tense atmosphere was partly her doing. If she had not killed Faud then there would be no election, no dark shadow spreading across Aransa from a compound built high above. Pelkaia set her elbows on the table and buried her face in her hands, then realized anyone looking at her would see the pearlescent ripple of sel around her fingers. She slid her hands up to tangle in her hair. Her real hair. She clenched her jaw and pulled.

“Gotta buy something to sit here, ma’am.”

Pelkaia glanced up into the face of a barboy, no more than fourteen monsoons old, chewing a lump of barksap with such vigor it crackled each time he opened his mouth.

“Strongest thing you got,” she said as she tugged a copper grain from her pocket and pressed it into the palm of his outstretched hand.

The boy shrugged, flipped the grain through the air and caught it in one fist. “You got it, lady.”

He disappeared behind the bar, the sandy curls of his hair lost behind the sloped backs of those patrons seated closest to the booze. While Pelkaia waited she did her best not to feel anything. To think anything. To focus only on the burning in her hastily stitched shoulder, the throbbing ache in her side which rose with every beat of her heart.

The boy returned with a squat brown bottle, its label block-stamped with a spindly black bee. The bottle wasn’t for her – she hadn’t paid him nearly enough – but he brought it to show her what she paid for. Pelkaia wanted to smile at him for his honesty, but the muscles around her lips were beyond her reach.

He pulled a wide-mouthed glass from his pocket, flipped it around as he had the grain, then caught it and set it on the table. With care he poured out a draught three fingers thick. He then paused, winked at her, and dribbled in a few more drops. She blinked, recognizing the charm of a showman for what it was. If this lad had poured her drinks the night she killed Faud, she might have given him her whole purse.

“Here.” She shoved another copper into his little hand and waved him away. The boy hesitated, a furrow working its way between his brows, but soon his forehead returned to smooth youthfulness and he cut her a quick bow before rushing off.

Pelkaia sighed. He was probably used to a lot more tips and attention than he was getting tonight. No matter, he was still young enough that his forehead could abandon its wrinkles with nothing more than a shift of mood. He’d be fine.

She drank. The liquor was sweet with honey and effervescent, tingling bubbles of selium erupted against the rough surface of her tongue. Pelkaia flinched back, wrinkling her nose in surprise. This was the strongest they had? This sugary… concoction? She hazarded a glance over at the barboy who gave her nothing more than another wink in return. She swallowed hard around empty air. Did he know she was sensitive? Had he thought that a selium-laden drink would help soothe her nerves?

Did it matter?

With a shrug she tossed back the rest of the drink and waved him over for another. And another.

The pain in her shoulder receded, the weight on her heart lessened. She looked up, surveying the room, grinning to herself as she recalled that first time she’d come here. It had been lively then, with the card players worked up into a lather over some Valathean game that was supposed to be new – fresh in from the Imperial Isles, the greatest game behind the Century Gates. Of course it wasn’t anything of the sort. It was Detan Honding’s game, and the only winner was the man himself.

Pelkaia stared at the empty table, conjuring him in her mind’s eye as she’d first seen him.

He’d had his back to her, head bent down over a pile of cards so that his hair slipped up and his collar slipped down just enough to reveal his Honding family crest.

The Honding wanderer. A conman and burnout. The only sorry sack of flesh on all of the Scorched to have lost his sel-sense to trauma. Some accident on his line back in Hond Steading, an explosion or a fire, and he was done. The only survivor – left useless by his survivorship. They’d even taken him back to Valathea for a while, tried to cure his inability. Or so the rumors of the uppercrust went.

Pelkaia had suspected otherwise. The Catari had stories, stories her mother had sung to her at night in their filth-encrusted cave at the fringe of the Brown Wash. Stories of men and women who could make the firemounts roar to life. If the rumors about the Honding lad were even half true, then the only thing he was running from was whatever had been done to him in Valathea.

Gods below the dunes, he’d looked so blasted pleased when she’d had Ripka’s watchers arrest him. She’d been lucky, she knew, to find watchers nearby who were willing to follow her orders. Watchers too disconnected from their fellows to realize Ripka would be down by the Black Wash, preparing to put a man to death due to the depth of his talent.

And now what? What was she supposed to do now that Galtro was dead – her self-appointed crusade complete? She felt the folded lump of paper in her pocket, the doctored report of her son’s deadly ‘accident’. Felt Thratia’s name burning a hole in her hip. Was she finished? Could it ever just end?

What would she be, when this was over?

She straightened, shoulders drawing back, jaw tightening as she pushed aside all self-pity. It did not matter what she became, it did not matter where she ended up. She’d set out to destroy those who’d contributed to Kel’s murder. So what if there were one more guilty soul to destroy? So what if there were dozens? Just because she had work yet to do did not mean she had failed. This was not over.

The inn’s door burst inward, a flush-faced man stumbling as he tugged on a slate-grey jacket. Pelkaia went cold straight to her core, her whole body felt encased in amber as the man’s mouth began to move.

“Galtro’s been murdered! Thratia’s warden now! City’s on lockdown until the sun-cursed sonuvawhore who did this can be found!” The man snapped his jacket straight and Pelkaia saw the crest whip-stitched to his sleeve: Thratia’s house sigil.

The shockwave of his words spread syrup-slow throughout the room. Pelkaia watched in perverse fascination as eyebrows lifted, curses were uttered, and a few precious mugs were dashed against the floor. Men and women took to their feet, most a touch unsteady, hands reaching for hidden weapons. They cheered. Loud and bright and joyous.

“Easy!” The barkeep, a man who had more muscle in his arms than hairs on his head cried out as he hauled himself up to stand on the bartop. “Steady, all of you bastards! We’re prepared for this.” He stabbed a finger at the regulars crowded around the bar. “Wait your cursed turns while Tik gets the goods ready!”

Prepared for this? Pelkaia’s pulse hammered in her ears, her palms went cold and damp with newfound fear. Some detached part of her marveled that she could still feel fear, that she could still desire self-preservation. The rest of her began to move.

Slowly as she could without being obvious, Pelkaia levered herself to her feet. The regulars reached over the bar, their backs to her, hands grasping for grey coats the barboy Tik was hauling out from the back room for them.

No, more than coats. Weapons emerged from the false bottoms of transport crates, their clean metal gleaming in the dusty lamplight. Well-made weapons. Valathean weapons. Pelkaia swallowed hard. She stepped on the balls of her feet, felt the sway of booze in her limbs and decided she’d have to settle for mid-stepping. It was quiet enough. And they were being so loud, the metal clanging…

“Hey.” Tik scrambled to the bartop and pointed her way, his other hand waving a grey coat like a flag. “You loyal?”

“I just wanted a drink,” she blurted, then clamped her jaw shut and slapped a hand over her mouth in shock. Why had she said that? Oh, Gods below… Why had she touched her skin?

Tik’s eyes nearly leapt from his tiny, perfectly smooth face. “Doppel!” he screeched.

The mantle of her anguish was shattered by the crushing weight of her fear. Pelkaia bolted, ignoring the pain in her side, letting the alcohol numb her hurts and fuel her movement. She was lean, she was fast. But they were much, much closer to the door.

She thundered into a burly man who, thank the stable sands, had been well into his cups by the time she’d arrived. Her shoulder clipped his, and though fiery lances of pain raced through her he spun away and twisted, toppling like a felled log before his rushing fellows. The first two tripped over their comrade, and Pelkaia’s fist closed on the doorknob. She yanked it open and her head snapped back, strange fingers tangled in her hair.

Pelkaia threw her senses out for the bottle the boy had brought her, and found a dozen and a half on a shelf behind the bar. She yanked on the sel within the liquor, heard glass shattering amongst screams as her blind tug sent the bottles spinning into the regulars. Blood and honey perfumed the air. The fingers in her hair tightened their hold.

She gripped the door with both fists and jerked herself to the side even as she flung the door wide. Roots ripped from her scalp as she hurtled out into the street, fingers too numb to maintain their hold. The ground bit her knees. She got her hands out and tucked her head, tumbled through the dust and the grit and slammed into something warm and hard and hoofed.

The indignant honk of a cart donkey broke through the screams coming from the Blasted Rock, and she rolled just in time to avoid being trampled. She found herself in the gutter on the opposite side of the street, scrambled to her feet and took off running down the slope, pumping her legs as fast as she could to stay ahead of the forward tumble of gravity. If she lost her footing now…

Something cracked against the ground beside her and she jumped aside, nearly tangled in her own feet as she slewed sideways into an alley. Pelkaia dropped her back against the alley’s wall, facing the way she’d come from, heaving in great gasps of air.

In the street where she had stood rocks rained, pitched down by her pursuers. She snorted in derision, regretted it as snot dribbled over her lips. With a grunt she dragged the back of her hand across her mouth and spit. She was Catari. She should not run scared from a bunch of Aransan backwater drunkards.

Neither would she risk any of them landing a lucky blow.

Pelkaia peeled the sel from her body and stretched it as thin as she dared, covering the entrance to the alley, mimicking perfectly the obfuscation she left over the mouth to her own home’s alley. It was an easy shaping for her now, but she didn’t need it to be perfect. Those patrons of the Blasted Rock were too deep into their drink to notice any irregularities.

As the thunder of their steps approached she forced herself to step away from the wall and stared through the thin membrane. The group approached the spot where the first rock had struck the road warily, peering all around. Pelkaia allowed herself a small smirk as the man who still held clumps of her hair glanced to the alleyway and then reached up to scratch the back of his head in confusion. Idiot.

That’s what they got for breaking with the old terms. For insisting on calling her a doppel instead of an illusionist. What you called a thing carried weight, implied meaning. Doppels could change the appearance of themselves. Illusionists could change the appearance of anything. Names mattered.

The group conferred in mutters too soft for Pelkaia to make out, then turned and started back up the slope. She suspected some of them must be relieved not to have to chase down something their mothers had told them scary stories of. Even the dullest of minds knew that being a member of a mob didn’t make one immune from harm.

Pelkaia reached up to rub the back of her head, and hissed through her teeth as she touched the raw patch of her scalp. Bastards. Her fists clenched. She could not stay here. Not anymore. There were too many layers in this city – of pain and of memory. It was only a matter of time until she slipped again. Until she was too slow to escape the claws tightening around her.

But there was no way out of the city, not tonight. Not with half the damned citizens donning Thratia’s grey uniform. There wouldn’t be any flights out. Monsoon season was coming – and Aransa was too far from anywhere else to risk the walk.

Not that she could manage a walk like that in the state she was in now. Battered and exhausted, nothing but copper and a useless knot of paper in her pockets.

Pelkaia massaged her face with both hands and groaned. She was marooned on this cursed hunk of dormant rock.

But… She clenched her jaw, drummed her fingers against her thigh. There was still one element in play. The Honding lad was out there and, as far as he was concerned, their deal was still hot. She glanced in the direction of Thratia’s compound, and caught sight of a slip of sailcloth drifting on the evening breeze. She almost laughed aloud. Trap or not, the Larkspur was calling to her.

And Pelkaia truly, desperately, did not want Thratia to have that airship.

She squared her shoulders, lifted her chin. Maybe Galtro was a mistake. Maybe the people responsible for her boy’s death were too far away for her to ever reach. But maybe not. If she had a fine vessel like the Larkspur, she could go anywhere. Once she had Thratia’s ship, she could lay low for a while; lick her wounds and court future allies. Wouldn’t it be fun to take one of Thratia’s toys away before crushing her? And wouldn’t Thratia keep her own records, peppered with other names for her to collect?

But first. First she needed to get out of this blasted city, and leave its ghosts to rot.