Steal the Sky

Chapter 24

Something jarred Detan’s foot, thrusting him back into wakefulness. He snapped upright, half-tangled in the mass of excess sailcloth and rope he’d been dozing on, eyes blurry as they adjusted to the gathering dark.

“What?” he muttered, wiping crusted sleep from his eyes.

“Don’t you hear that?” Tibs said, crouched at his side. “Sands below, you’d sleep through monsoon season.”

Exhaustion had driven them both to rest, and now it seemed night had well and truly come to Aransa. The lanterns ringed round the u-dock gave him just enough light to see by, and Detan couldn’t help but wonder who’d come along and lit them while he dozed. The little kite still drifted in the wind, tied to the rail at the aft of the ship, fluttering like a forgotten party streamer. He closed his eyes against distraction, trying to hear whatever it was Tibs had picked up on.

The deck below him smelled of sharp Valathean teakwood and warm wax, the ropes holding the ship to its mooring posts creaked with subtle swaying. Tibs’s breath was soft beside him, calm but wary. His own heart thumped in his ears… and someone was scraping at the lock on the door to the servant’s entrance.

He snapped his eyes open and scrambled to his feet. “You think it’s the doppel?” he whispered.

Tibs shrugged, but had a small knife in his hand. “Let’s find out.”

As Tibs loped across the gangplank, Detan cast around for a weapon of his own – and came up with nothing. He had his knife, sure, but he was more danger to himself with it than anyone else. With a shrug he snatched up the leftover sap-glue pot and hurried after Tibs. The least he could do was confuse the creature, if it came to it.

They crouched behind a stack of cargo crates that rested near the door, listening to the faint click of thin metal picks moving within the lock. After what felt like half a lifetime, the door swung inwards and a slender woman stepped through, dressed all in black. The way the lantern was angled he could only see her silhouette, but he felt certain from the confidence of her steps it must be the doppel at last.

“Hullo!” Detan called.

The shadowed woman dropped into a ready stance, head swiveling as she searched for the source of Detan’s voice. They were well hidden – he’d made sure of it – and the woman didn’t have anywhere to go that he wouldn’t see her. The shade of the door obscured detail, but if she took a step in any direction she’d reveal her face to the light. Judging by the sigh he heard, he figured the owner of said shadow had just arrived at the same conclusion.

“Come on out now, into the light. No use mucking about in the dark,” he said.

The shadow moved closer in hesitant, stop-start movements that belied the owner’s consternation. A sun-dark face emerged, and he whistled good and low.

“Well I’ll be spit and roasted, it’s the good watch captain herself. No, wait.” He slipped out from behind the crates and crossed to her in a few long strides. She flinched back as he approached – not at all something the doppel would do – and he reached out and poked her in the forehead. There was no telltale ripple of sel. He nodded to himself, even as she scowled at him. “Yup, the lady is in the flesh.”

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t do that,” she growled.

He looked her up and down, real slow so she knew he was getting the detail of it all filed away. The upstanding watch captain did not appear before him in her blues, oh no sir, she was tipped from top to toe in black and had her hair pulled back so tight he thought it might pull her eyes to slits.

But then the finer details settled into his mind, and his skin went cold.

A crimson smear marred her lips, the knuckles of both hands ruddy and raw. Dark purple bloomed over the ridge of her jaw, and she stood with her weight shifted to one side to ease some unseen pain. A garnet splotch had settled upon her shoulder. Detan felt as if spiderwebs were clogging his throat. The watch captain had been in a real, honest-to-skies fight.

“I’m going to have a hard time forgetting I saw this,” he said.

“I suggest you do. I was just passing through, anyway.”

“Now, my dear captain, this is in fact private property, and while usually one would not bar the door to such an honorable slave of the common citizen as yourself, I must insist that you cannot go slinking about in the shadows of any private residence you so choose. Great dunes, woman, the violation is unfathomable.”

“I’m not here in any official capacity.”

“A social call between the crates, then?”

She clenched her jaw and drummed her fingers against her thigh. “Not that it’s any of your business, Honding, but I have personal matters to see to here tonight.”

“Got a date, eh?”

“I can, and will, throw you off this dock.”

He held up both hands, palms out. “Fine, fine, suit yourself. But I just cannot let you be seen running about the place at all hours in a getup like that. It’s ungentlemanly.”

“Pardon me, but–” Tibal said so damned close to his ear Detan jumped half his own height and nearly went sprawling amongst the crates.

“Sweet skies, Tibs! You cannot do that to a man!”

“Apologies, but as I was saying, it may be prudent for you and the watch captain to discuss matters somewhere a bit more secure. There was a guard making a regular patrol of this door.”

Ripka half-turned and opened the door behind her a little wider. Detan peered into the shadows, and was surprised to see a slumped man leaning against the wall just outside. The man was breathing, real slow, a long line of drool wetting his twisted collar.

“Thank you, Tibal, but the discussion is over anyway,” Ripka said.

“Fiery skies it is!” Detan grabbed her by the elbow and dragged her away from the door. “Why are you here, watch captain? Specifically. And keep in mind I’m on the security detail here tonight, I got rights enough to be asking. Rights Thratia’d be pleased as punch to back up.”

“Really?” she drawled. “Thratia often keep her security personnel under guard behind locked doors?”

He scowled. “Fine. Then why don’t you just tell me out of the goodness of your lawful little heart?”

She shook off his grip and glanced about her new location, checking the shadows, but poorly. Detan grit his teeth in frustration as he watched her. All frontal assault, pride and bluster. The blue hand of justice. She had no business skulking about anywhere, let alone in Thratia’s compound.

Pits below, didn’t she know you had to let your eyes adjust to the light before you picked the shadows to check? All she was seeing was shapeless dark, but he saw the barrels and the dust bunnies. The loose floorboards and the stray ropes. A breeze picked up across the dock and Ripka folded her arms over her chest in response.

“Blasted skies, woman, you’re damn near freezing and it’s clear as quartz you don’t know a thing about sneaking.”

She sucked her lips back until they were a hair-thin line, her brows pushing together in irritation. “Look, Honding, just let me do what I came here to do. Then I’ll get you two out of here.”

Tibs slithered forward, dropping his voice into the same, smooth pitch Detan had once heard him use to calm an angry donkey. “It would perhaps help, watch captain, if you were to inform us of what exactly it is you came here to do.”

Detan stared in amazement as she gave Tibs’s question serious consideration. The same damned question he’d put to her not more than a dozen heartbeats ago. Well, he supposed it didn’t much matter how the information came to light, just so long as it did. Still, his ego ached that she would answer Tibs’s queries and not his. Maybe she was just thick and needed to be told things twice.

When she spoke it was with a drawl born of hesitation, lips turned down as if each word offended her so grievously she had no choice but to make the appropriate expression. “You are aware that Mine Master Galtro was found murdered this afternoon?”

Detan sucked air through his teeth in shock. “Sorry to hear it, captain. He was a fine man, even a lout like me saw as much.”

“Well.” She sniffed and shifted her weight. “I appreciate the sentiment, but what I need now is action. The scene of the crime looked wrong, and I’m certain there were some files missing. Since it’s clear enough you won’t stop chewing my ear unless I tell you, well, I’m here to see if Thratia’s got those files squirreled away anywhere.”

“Wrong how?”

“Honding, I really don’t have the time for this.”

“Come on, just walk me through it.”

Ripka rolled her eyes but she did it, walking him through the place with her words just as she’d done with her own sore feet. Through the front door of the Hub and there’s dead blues on the ground, laid to rest with swords and crossbows. Into the records room and the shelves have been tossed. There’s Galtro, back against the wall in a pool of his own vitals, with a poke hole in his belly. Three dead men in the room, all Thratia’s, and they’d been done in with a mix of daggers and Galtro’s sword, which she found further off than he’d ever be able to chuck it.

“Wait, now, what weapons had Thratia’s men got?”

“Swords and a crossbow.”

“I see.”

“I reckon you do. Now, if you don’t mind.”

“Hold now, captain,” Tibs said. “I am sorry to press, but there appears to be something you’re not sharing.”

“What? You want me to tell you what color pants they were all wearing? Pits below, you’ve got the thrust of it already.”

“Yes, quite, but forgive me if I’m not convinced that all that was enough to send an upstanding servant of the populace on a breaking and entering spree.”

Skies above, but Tibs was good at digging to the heart of matters. Detan watched as Ripka shifted her weight, adjusted a weapon’s strap, pressed her lips together, and then finally let loose with a puff of a sigh.

“I’m just not certain on the other thing, all right?”

“Let us examine it then, captain.”

She pursed her lips together, as if deep in thought, then shrugged. “Fine, fine. There were footprints in the blood that didn’t belong to anybody. Workman’s prints, big flopping boots with the weight all rolled down in the toes. Not to mention their eyes were all closed. You ever see four men dead all at once, and not a one left staring at nothing?”

With a grimace Detan shook his head. No, no he hadn’t. It was rare enough for one soul to keep their eyes shut crossing into the dark, most went in wide-eyed and were left wanting. Four dead with closed eyes was unheard of.

“Somebody closed ’em,” he said.

“Right. It must have been the doppel.”

“Sure.” Detan frowned down at her. “But that doesn’t explain what you’re doing here.”

Her jaw clenched so hard he could see the sinew of her neck stand out, ready to snap. But she spoke anyway. “I gathered some… information.” There was a clot in her throat. She cleared it away. “There are weapons in the city, being handed out to Thratia’s supporters… smuggled in the bottom of crates.” Ripka’s words quickened as she warmed to the subject. “Valathean weapons, if what I saw is true of the bunch. And just how do you think she’s paying for them all? It’s not with grains. She wouldn’t dare be so obvious.”

“It’s… a trade?” Detan was unable to hide the rasp in his own throat as realization took hold.

“I have good reason to believe so. Yes. I came here looking for a paper trail, something tangible. If Thratia’s caught out selling humans, even if they’re doppels, the people won’t have her. Without them, she won’t be able to keep her hold no matter what Valathea does. And I don’t believe the empire will want to be publicly connected with her once that comes out – the slavery of doppels is illegal, even if they turn a blind eye to it when convenient. But I need evidence of her network, I need the names of everyone involved.”

She didn’t just need the doppel dead, then. Thratia was worried about a different kind of contract. He felt cold, hollow. To still the tremble in his fingers he locked eyes with Tibs, and his friend gave him a subtle nod. Trading a doppel, a live deviant sensitive of any variety, meant only one thing: whitecoats.

Valathea may not publicly hold with the live trade of sensitives, but a little slavery in the name of experimentation, of progress, wasn’t beneath them. Oh no, deviant sensitives weren’t to be suffered to live so long as they were free. But pinned to a board like a butterfly, sliced open and pieced back together again to see how they worked? How they could be used? That was all right by Valathea, just so long as it was their whitecoats doing the slicing.

And they were here. In Aransa. Had to be, if Thratia was dealing with them. He felt the shadow of that imperial cruiser he’d noticed on his way up the steps pressing down on his mind like a lead weight, pushing aside defenses he’d spent the past few years of his life building. Crumbling walls that held back darker memories, and darker urges.

Sweat sheened his skin, immediate and slick, and he spat bitter bile on the ground.

“Honding?” There was a soft edge to Ripka’s voice, a note of gentle worry. He pressed his eyes shut, squeezing so hard white lights spun behind his lids. Echoes of his own screams crowded his mind, pushed aside gates he’d built against raw instinct. He felt the tickle of his sensitivity returning, the promise of release if he just reached out and touched the selium buoyed in the belly of the Larkspur, vast and inviting.

“Sirra.” Tibs had his fingers hooked in Detan’s shoulders like claws and he shook him once, hard, snapping Detan’s head back and his eyes open. He stared at Tibs, focusing on his breathing, seeing nothing but the webs of wrinkles radiating out from his old friend’s calm, brown eyes. Tibs raised a brow in question, and he nodded, stepping back. He was under control. For now.

Detan knew too well what was at the end of the line for the doppel if Thratia got her claws in her. And here was sweet little Ripka, thinking Thratia meant mere jail or death for the doppel. He’d laugh, if he could feel anything through the ringing in his ears.

It wasn’t the purge that had Thratia nervous. That’d be bad for Aransa, sure, but the city would recover. But even General Throatslitter had mind enough to fear dealing with whitecoats. She’d had to have been desperate to make a deal with those monsters.

Execution for the doppel’s crimes was one thing, but nobody deserved that. Not even a madwoman. Understanding passed in a glance between him and Tibs, and he let out a defeated sigh.

Ripka’s eyes narrowed. “What is it?”

He shook his head to clear it and crossed to the edge of the deck, staring out at the city splayed below. Nothing seemed particularly out of place. He’d seen violent power upheavals before. They were bloody, drawn-out things. Fires in the streets and heads in the gutters. He didn’t see any evidence of something like that brewing here, and for that he was grateful. When a city went feral, who survived the changeover was often a matter of pure chance, and he hadn’t lucked through too much of late.

I should grab Tibs and go, he thought, eyeing the sleek shape of the Larkspur. Maybe the doppel wouldn’t make it through Thratia’s tightening net. Maybe they’d be safe out there after all.

But he couldn’t do it. Couldn’t leave her to what he’d lived through himself.

Ripka’s fingers coiled around his arm and pulled him around to face her. “Tell me.” There was no anger in her voice, it sounded almost pleading. But he couldn’t explain – not really. To admit knowledge of what happened in the whitecoats’ tower would be to admit his sel-sense remained, albeit in a twisted form. He closed his eyes for just a heartbeat, and decided on a path.

“You’re looking under the wrong roof,” he said.

She threw her hands into the air in frustration. “Then where do you suggest I look? I’ve got no lead on the doppel. All the information I do have points here.” There was a hitch in her throat that Detan chose to ignore, a subtle shifting of her eyes toward the floor. She was ashamed of something. The thought made him unreasonably angry.

“Sure you do.” He forced the biggest smile he could muster, piling his fear under false bravado. “You know just exactly where to look! You won’t find your evidence here, she’s too careful for that, but I bet ole Galtro kept real precise records of every ship in and out of his docks – even if the cargo was sparse on the leaving, eh? And you said yourself the records room had been tossed over. Either there’s incriminating evidence in there about her, or a way to identify the creature she doesn’t want you getting to first. If you catch the blasted thing, then she can’t trade it to Valathea.”

Ripka snorted. “Thratia’s got the Hub on lockdown while she completes her ‘investigation’.”

Tibs cleared his throat. “If you would agree to suffer the Lord Honding’s company, watch captain, I believe Thratia’s prohibitions will not prove a hindrance.”

“Oh no, I’m not going to be seen breaking into a place with that rat.”

“Psh, you’re one guard-check away from being seen that way right now. Look, Rippy–”

“Watch captain.”

“Right. I’m the man for this. It’s clear as a still sky you don’t know about the greyer side of life, and I’ve spent my days learning how to turn soot into salt, eh? I can have us in and out in a snap. That is, if Tibs here is all right watching the Larkspur on his lonesome.”

“I believe I’ll manage. I don’t think the doppel will be doing much ’sides laying low tonight,” Tibs said.

Detan clapped. “Then it’s settled! Come on, Rip.” He scurried past her and opened the door to the servant’s entrance. “Out of the dark and into the shit with it then, eh?”

“You don’t make a lick of sense, Honding.”

He shrugged. “I hope that particular expression will not become clear to you in time.”

As they started down the short steps back out into the Aransan streets, Detan found himself praying to the sweet skies for the first time in a long, long while. Either Tibs would get the doppel out of the city – noisily, so there’d be no question of a purge to clean away the stain of a hidden doppel – or Ripka would arrest the thing and take its head.

Despite what she’d done to Faud, and maybe even Galtro, he found himself hoping she’d get to Tibs before Ripka got to her. But even if she didn’t, dead was still better than the whitecoats’ tower. He was sure of it.