Steal the Sky

Chapter 30

Detan snapped a hand out, grabbed the rope and screeched to wake the dead as he slid down it, skin burning and tearing and his grip growing slick with the lubrication of his own blood. Tibs snatched at it, their combined weight jarred him so hard he felt his shoulder pop, but not give. Not yet, anyway.

The doppel’s head appeared above the rail, wearing Ripka’s face still but the eyes so wide she was near unrecognizable.

“Up! Pull us the fuck up!” he screamed above the wind whipping in his ears, stealing his breath, not knowing if he could throw his fear-choked voice far enough to reach her.

Her mouth moved, yelling something back he couldn’t hear, and the Larkspur began to descend. Ribbons of pearlescent sel spun out from the side of the ship, released through jettison tubes under the doppel’s command. They streaked the sky, but huddled close to the Larkspur, still under not-Ripka’s sphere of control.

Tibs squawked something unintelligible as the ship dropped, the rope swinging in crazy, twisting arcs as its backside slewed around. Detan’s grip strained, burned. His hand felt bathed in fire but there was little he could do save keep holding on. To switch hands was to drop Tibs.

If he dropped Tibs, Detan wouldn’t be but a heartbeat behind him in the plunge.

He looked down, stomach threatening an untimely revolt as they swung and swung and swung, saw she was dropping the ship down low over the market. Saw a neat little row of faded brown awnings nearly a man’s length below.

His fingers began to spasm, and he thought of his hand only as an extension of his will, a collection of muscle and tendon and bone beholden to his desires. He gritted his teeth, clenched every last measly muscle in his body, and fell anyway.

Tibs held on for a scant breath longer, the jerk of his stationary body against Detan’s descending soon-to-be-corpse knocking them apart. Detan went cartwheeling, screaming out because there didn’t seem much else he could do, and crashed side-first into a thick, stinking stretch of canvas.

Something snapped. Bone or wood, he couldn’t tell, but he heard the crack of breaking and the canvas twisted beneath him, dumped him in a tangled heap of moldy linen and shattered pottery.

He lay still a moment, gathering his breath, mentally going through a checklist of his hurts. Bruises and scratches, mostly, he decided as he eased himself upright. Revised his opinion as he pressed his hands to the rubble-strewn ground to heave himself up.

And his hand skinned raw, of course.

Clenching his jaw tight so that he wouldn’t scream, he cradled his rope-mangled palm against his stomach and staggered forward, huffing for breath as bright motes danced at the corners of his eyes.

“Tibs!” he called out, forcing his bruised legs to carry him down the row of shop stalls, further along the direction the Larkspur had been traveling. He had to be nearby. Had to be.

A soft groan drew him like a lure to a caved-in heap of canvas. Tibs’s awning had bowed inward, cradling him like a sling, the tent poles holding it upright half-cracked and showing their pale innards to the world.

“Tibs!” Detan scrambled over, untangled the heap and found Tibs flat on his back, blinking up at him with wide, bleary eyes.

“Just winded,” he rasped as Detan gave him his good hand to help him gain his feet. Shouts echoed somewhere in the market, drawing closer.

“Best be on our way,” Detan said, brushing dust off Tibs’s coat with one hand while he glanced over his shoulder toward the shouting. “Unless you’ve got the grain to pay for a whole potter’s shed worth of rubble.”

“’Fraid not.” Tibs rubbed the back of his head with a hand and pulled it away, staring at both of his palms side by side. One was just a touch red, the other perfectly hale. “Lucky, that,” he muttered.

“For you. I damn near lost half my hand. Ladies will weep to hear of this tragedy.”

“Weep because you didn’t lose the whole thing?”

Despite his pain and his fear and his anger, Detan choked on a startled laugh and chocked Tibs in the arm – lighter than he usually would, but a good shove all the same.

Tibs’s voice dropped low, sobered. “Better get a salve on that and wrap it up, though.”

“And what apothik do you think will do me that favor?” Detan snapped, Bel’s wide, empty eyes eclipsing his thoughts like a spreading stain.

“Don’t be a damned fool.”

“I’ve been a damned fool. If I hadn’t–”

“That’s not what we do.”

“But–”

Tibs stopped, half-turned real slow, and slapped Detan so hard across the face his eyes became reacquainted with those lovely little sparkly motes.

“Pull yourself together, sirra. Now.”

Detan staggered a step, shook his head to chase away the brightness. He looked down at his hand – not too bad, but it’d need attention soon if he wanted to keep infection clear. He looked up to the sky, saw little more than a bleak smudge of black against deeper navy where he thought the Larkspur should be. Could have just been a cloud, or a flock of birds.

“Right,” he said, rubbing his jaw with his good hand. “Right. We need to–”

“You there!”

Detan spun around, nearly tangling his feet in the mess of the stall Tibs’s unheralded arrival had made. A ring of a half dozen or so men and women crowded around them, ruddy candles sheltered by dust-coated lantern glass held high. They carried a mishmash of weaponry – cooking pans, heavy bats meant for playing stickball. Despite the inelegance of their threat, Detan had no intention of taking them any less seriously.

“Hullo!” he called out, stalling, stepping backward through the treacherous footing of the destroyed stall to put some distance between them. “Lovely night, isn’t it?”

“Not from where I’m standing.” The taller of the women stepped forward, her shoulders broad as Detan’s arm was long, her eyes set in a permanent squint by the wrinkles spackled in tight around them. More worrisome than her squint, Detan noticed with mounting alarm, was the thickness of her fingers, the stubbed length of her nails. The subtle curve of hard muscle beneath her sleeve. “You two prepared to pay for the damage you’ve done?”

“Uh, well…” From the way she twisted the grip of her frying pan, Detan held no illusions that she’d be sure he paid – one way or another. He patted his body down, fishing through pockets, seeking the grains of silver not-Ripka had given him. Nothing. He swallowed, fumbled some more, shot a frantic glance at Tibs. The withered bastard just shrugged.

“You see,” Detan began, taking another step back, Tibs following him toward the thin wall which hemmed in the level’s edge. “It was quite the accident, and I’m afraid all our grains have, ah, fallen out of our pockets. I’m sure if you rooted around in the wreckage for a while you’ll find sufficient funds. Look!”

He grabbed a half-snapped awning post and jimmied it upright. “A little sap glue will fix this right up – I-I have just the thing!”

Frantic, he fumbled in his coat for the little pot of glue he’d used to construct the kite and felt nothing but a sticky puddle on the inside of his pocket, bits of broken clay floating within it. Tibs grabbed him by the upper arm and squeezed. “Sirra…”

“What?” he hissed.

“Enough!” the woman barked, and the mob rushed them.

Detan let out a yelp of surprise as the market-dwellers vaulted over the wreckage, knocking aside anything that was in their way with their makeshift weapons.

“There’s no need–” he said, but they were yelling some local charge and Tibs yanked back on his arm so hard he stumbled, fell backward against the low wall.

It was lower than he remembered. The top of it smacked him square in the back of the thighs and he reeled, arms windmilling, top half leaning too far over the edge for him to regain his feet.

Fear of falling surged through him, his recent perilous descent cutting-bright in his mind, memory of having the breath whipped from his lips and his limbs twisted by treacherous currents all too fresh. Pits below, but he’d rather face that frying pan than another fall through the empty dark.

Tibs shoved his chest, and over he went.

He landed flat on his back in a moldering heap, all the air whooshing out of him even though he was panting with panic. Tibs landed beside him, light as a cat, though his feet disappeared into the ground as if swallowed. Detan opened his mouth to swear or scream or just generally curse the world bloody, caught a whiff of the fetid pile all around them, and fell into a coughing fit.

There was yelling above, angry and sharp but far away. Something thunked near his head – the frying pan? He rolled to get a closer look, morbid curiosity directing him now, but Tibs had his hands under his arms and yanked him to his feet, then dragged him off away from the compost pile that had been their soft landing.

“I hate pits-cursed mushrooms,” Detan croaked when he could breathe without spasming again, when Tibs had herded him safely into some dense maze of alleys he hadn’t bothered mapping.

“Yeah, well, they like you.” Tibs flicked something grey and slimy and cone-shaped off his shoulder. Detan shivered and flapped his coat like it were a pair of wings to shake the debris clean.

“Probably picked up some freakish infection from that mess,” he grumbled, trying to peer at his skinned-opened palm in the low light but seeing little more than a dark, muddled mess.

“Wasn’t nothing more noxious than you in that heap.”

Detan laughed, the sound a little high, a little frantic.

“What next?” Tibs asked, his voice soft but gravelly, grounding Detan’s mounting mania in an instant.

What next, indeed. He scowled at his hand, thinking. He needed medical aid, the kind you pay for, and the grains that didn’t tumble out of their pockets in the fall were back in their rooms – no doubt watched by Thratia’s people. The flier was safely stashed with New Chum, but they couldn’t make that crossing until he was bandaged up.

And the only apothik he’d known inclined to offer him any flavor of charity was, well… And Ripka sure as shit wasn’t able to offer him any assistance. She was getting ready to walk for a crime he’d done.

He swallowed. Something the doppel had said, about her people’s remedies… He closed his eyes, pressing them tight enough to summon the motes. Remedies for a long-lived people, and the spicy-sweet aroma of her perfume, worn close but still detectable. A scent he’d encountered once before.

Detan snapped his eyes open, grinned at Tibs. “It’s time to pay the doppel a house call, old chum.”

Tibs gave the black-grey sky a surly eye. “Don’t much think the lady will be in residence at this particular juncture.”

“Lucky for us it’s not her company we’re after. That woman’s Catari, I’m sure of it, and those folk keep their remedies close.”

“More likely to poison yourself than heal that hand.”

Detan bit his lips, muting himself for just a breath, then said slowly, “It’s not just the medicines. I’ll need a weapon, soon. Doppels like to keep the medium of their art close to hand, and I doubt she’ll be popping by home to collect her stash.”

Tibs bristled all over like a rockcat sighting a coyote. “Bad idea.”

“And would you rather have me running around with a sword or one of those ridiculous crossbows the Watch is so fond of? I’d be more likely to put your eye out than Thratia’s. And anyway, we’re going to need a way to get the doppel’s attention.”

“Destroying half the city would do that, I grant you.”

“Then we’re in agreement!” Detan raised his hands to clap and caught himself just in time with a grimace.

“Small problem with your brilliant plan, sirra. I reckon you just happen to know where she lives now, hm?”

“We did get acquainted. Being complicit in arson together will do that to a pair.” He strode off, barreling ahead as if he knew where he was going through the nest of side streets, knowing only that he couldn’t stand still.

“And just where might that be?” Tibs said, a shadow at his side, not bothering to correct his course. Knowing, just as Detan did, that he had to work it out for himself.

“Fourth level – amongst the retirees and their lot. Can’t miss the place.”

“Really.”

“Yessir.”

“Fourth level.”

“Mmhmm.”

“Gotta go up to get there. Back through the market.”

Detan groaned. The sooner he could show Aransa his retreating backside, the better.