Three
Hey!” Spike says when I emerge into the upstairs hall. “Since when are you up and about?”
“Since now.” In fact I get a jolt of pain every time I put weight on my bad leg. I’d like nothing more than to go back to bed, but the fight is today and Rekas is nothing if not punctual. “Things to do.”
“Well, in that case you can get your own breakfast.”
Spike gingerly touches her hair, making sure it has stayed in today’s preferred shape of a long front-to-back crest. It’s still green at the tips, the rest slowly fading back to her natural light brown.
My little sister has light brown skin, a hatchet nose, and dark eyes brimming with world-weary sarcasm beyond her twelve years.
She wears a too-large apron, particolored with dozens of patches.
“If you’re going out,” she says, courteously waiting for me to limp past, “Somi has a grocery list. You could spare me a trip.”
“Sorry. Things to do.”
“What things?”
“Things.” I wiggle my fingers mysteriously. “I’ll tell you when you’re older.”
She rolls her eyes. “If you’re going to a brothel you can just say. I’m not a kid.”
“Nothing so grand.” I’ve never had the bits to spare for amorous adventures, anyhow.
“Fine. Be cryptic. You’re probably just going to a physicker to ask why your poop smells weird.”
“What? It does not.”
“Does too,” she calls over her shoulder as she stomps downstairs.
“How would you know, anyway?”
“Because it stinks up the whole house!”
It takes me a little longer to descend, easing my bad leg onto each step.
The sweet-sour smell of mash-bread is everywhere, the day’s first batch cooling on the table.
The front door’s shut until we open for business, so I go to the back.
That takes me past Somi’s room, and I give a surreptitious glance at the money jar.
The big glass cylinder has never been more than half-full of steel bits that I can remember, but what’s left in there now barely covers the bottom.
My lip twists. Whatever Somi says, we need whatever I can bring in. Another pair of hands in the bakery isn’t going to accomplish anything, but if I can win this fight…
I clench my fists to keep them from shaking and take a deep breath.
Somi himself is outside the back door, surrounded by a horde of pint-sized monsters.
He has a tray of small loaves, as he does every morning, and he holds it high in the air while handing one to each of the grubby children who shout and tug at his clothing.
Sometimes he reaches down to gently smack one who tries to steal from their fellows.
“Everyone gets some,” he says with the exasperated air of a person repeating himself for the hundredth time. “No snatching.”
“Taj!” says Ema, a girl with a mass of filthy, unmanageable curls.
“Tah!” says Athie, a boy with a finger permanently wedged in his nose.
Gort, Ema’s brother and barely old enough to walk, takes the opportunity to try to chew on Somi’s pant leg.
“Hi,” I say to them. I haven’t learned the names of the rest of the skinny, faceless horde. Don’t want to. Get too attached to them and you end up like Somi, soft as dough.
“Can we see Star?” Ema says breathlessly.
“Star!” Athie shouts, and the others take up the chant. “Star! Star!”
Well. I need to meet up with Star anyway. I give a whistle, purely for show, and send, Your appearance is requested.
[Pride: my adoring public.]
Most people can’t think to their runics; they have to gesture or speak aloud.
When I was a kid it took me a long time to understand that, and I nearly got into trouble several times because of it.
Most runics also don’t have much to say back.
Star is unique, and not just because I built his body from scratch.
He emerges now from a hole in the wall, kicking his legs grandly to the delight of the crowd.
I’m the only one who winces at the sight of his two latest replacement limbs, crude work not up to my usual standards, but all I could manage in the time we had.
They work, at least, though I don’t know if they’ll stand up to sustained use.
If we win, I’ll have time and money to fix them properly. If we lose…
Star does a little hop, then a flip, inverting his legs to land with a clatter. The kids laugh and applaud.
“Careful,” Somi says, shooting me a look. “You could hurt someone.”
Hard to explain that Star knows what he’s doing. Not even Somi and Spike know he’s not a typical runic; they just think I’m particularly good at commanding him. I give a nod.
Wrap it up. I’ve still got a few tweaks to make before the fight.
[Excitement: but they are so adorably fragile.]
And filthy.
[Agreement: as well!]
The outside of the Heap is bounded by the cavern wall, which Heap-dwellers with their boundless creativity refer to as “the Wall.” That’s where most of the people live, as far as possible from the twin threats of junkfall and marauding Twisted.
Our bakery is on the inner (that is, poorer) side of town, a lopsided two-story building leaning against a massive pile of broken concrete.
It’s surrounded by shacks and shanties built from whatever material the junkheap provides, all filled with a seething, noisome mass of humanity.
Walking outward (directions in our circular world are inward, outward, clockwise, and anti), you quickly reach a better part of town, marked by houses that seem to actually have been planned instead of grown.
A little farther anti and there’s Stair #3, an endless pile of metal steps supported by a web of girders and gantries, stretching all the way to Malkuth high above.
At the base of the stair is the market, and I make my way there step by painful step, Star scuttling obediently behind me.
It’s bustling as always, thick with desperate energy: children selling pots of water for an eighth-bit (for those too lazy or broken to make it to the public fountains); stitchers with fabric fluttering from their outstretched arms, living billboards for their work; butchers offering so many different cuts of meat that with a fat coin-purse you could reassemble the pig.
Workhouse stiffs in their Malkuth clothes, mass-issued and ill-fitting but still finer than most, taking advantage of a day’s leave to strut tall among their less gainfully employed fellows.
And, of course, the Clawmark enforcers, easily picked out by the three scarred lines on their cheeks, gliding through the crowd in little bubbles of quiet deference.
Ekkeban has his own shop, buried at the back of an alley between two overflowing shanties, invisible except for those who know what to look for.
He deals in hard-to-find items the Arbiters might frown on.
Not that we get a lot of Arbiters wandering around down here, but stick out too much and they might make an example; hence the low profile.
The door squeaks and groans, and I hear more twisted metallic complaints from the back as Ekkeban levers himself out of his chair behind the counter.
He’s a big man, dark-skinned, with a face that’s a wasteland of pockmarks and ash-gray hair coiled in tight locks.
“Starting to wonder about you,” he says when he sees me. “Usually you’re in here next day.”
“Ran into some trouble,” I tell him. “Left a couple of liters behind. Had to rest for a bit.”
“Glad to see you up and about, then,” he says. His eyes are on the bag at my side. “What you got for me?”
Straight to business, as always. Ekkeban and I have maintained a successful relationship for years based entirely on the understanding that there’s nothing between us that can’t be measured in bits. Unfortunately, I’m about to put some serious strain on it.
“Not as much as I’d like,” I admit.
I tip the sack onto the counter, sigils clunking dully.
They never look like much, these things that everyone wants so badly.
Red circles of clay about the size of my palm, each inscribed with a single character in charred black lines.
Most of what’s written on these are the basics: the triple spike of MOVE, the double circles of PERCEIVE like owlish eyes, the bent lines of RESIST. Some of them still have scraps of threading wire attached.
Ekkeban sorts them with casual expertise, prodding a few to make sure they’re not already cracked. He grimaces as he looks up at me.
“Thirty-three,” he says. “Because I like you.”
“I nearly died, you know,” I say, without much hope.
“And if you did, I would be sorry. You’re a good customer. But these…” He clicks his tongue. “Nothing special, and some of them I think are near collapse.”
“You’ll sell them anyway.”
He waves that away. “Not the point.”
It’s not worth arguing, especially when I know he’s right. I sigh and look around the shop, stalling.
“How’s business?” I ask him.
“So-so,” he says, sudden suspicion on his face. “I get by. Why do you ask?”
I shrug. Most of what’s on display on the tables is crap, in case some desperate thief tries a smash-and-grab. He keeps the good stuff in the back under lock and key. On the wall over his head, though, there’s a green gleam. His pride and joy.
“Still haven’t sold that thing?”
Ekkeban snorts. “Nobody can afford my baby.”
It’s a sigil, a simple RESIST, but the clay disc it’s burned into is green.
Sigils are made in different colors in ascending order of strength, like a rainbow from one of Somi’s books: red, orange, yellow, green, and so on into the stuff of legends.
Each step up multiplies the cost by at least a hundred.
At least. You can get an orange or two off the largest Twisted, and once a year I might find a yellow and we all eat like pigs for a month.
I’ve never seen a green besides this one.
“Someday I’m going to take it off you,” I tell him.
He gives me a fond look. “You know the price.”
“Yeah, yeah. A million bits.” I shake my head and add, as though it’s an afterthought, “I’m going to need some stuff. A couple of thread junctions, four STRONGS, some plate…”
Ekkeban looks at the sigils on the counter, then back up at me. “You have cash?”
I wince, and his eyes narrow.
“I’m going to need—”
“Don’t say it,” he spits.
“Credit.”
“Taj.” He taps the counter, where crude characters are burned into the metal. “What does the sign say?”
“Most of your customers can’t read anyway!”
“Taj. What does it say?”
I sigh. “No credit. No exceptions.”
“Does that answer your question?”
“I’ll need it for an hour, Ek. The fight’s today. I just need to put the finishing touches on my masterpiece.”
“Taj.”
“How long have I been buying from you?”
“Since you only came up to my knees,” he says grudgingly. “So what?”
“So you know me. My brother and sister run the bakery. I’m not going to run out on you.”
“Not worried about you running out on me. Worried your fight won’t pay off.”
“If it doesn’t I’ll just have to hunt some Twisted for you.”
“And get yourself killed.” He snorts. “Then I’d be sad and broke.”
“Please, Ek. I’ve put up the entry fee already; you want to just hand that to Rekas for nothing?”
Ekkeban grunts. Nobody likes Rekas.
“And we’re not talking that much, are we? Four reds and a couple of joints?”
“Let me see if I’ve even got the joints to sell you.” He taps his finger on the counter thoughtfully, then turns away to duck through a doorway into the back. “Don’t get excited yet.”
I can’t help it. My foot bounces nervously as he roots around, and I scan the walls of the shop for a distraction.
Beside the counter is a bounty board, with official Arbiter notices at the top and less official bounties tacked up below.
Heading the list, of course, is Rotwurm; that monster has ruled the central Heap since before I was born.
The offer of two hundred stripes—more money than the bakery could earn in a dozen lifetimes—has only managed to lure a few score fools to their horrible ends.
Below the reigning champion are a slew of other Twisted that have acquired names, become local legends; a whole team might have to organize to hunt one down.
Broke Valley Ripper, 3 m long and MEAN, 0.
1 s. Big Belly Bob, spits flaming oil, 0.
2 s. Below those are the new arrivals, identified only by where they can be found: Half a klick clock-inward of Stair #3, killed 3, 145 b.
Two klicks inward of Zema’s place, took over homestead, big pincers, 210 b. And so on.
If I had the money to upgrade Star’s body, I could go after some of those myself. Of course, to get the money to upgrade Star’s body, I’d need a big bounty to buy parts, a rich kill, or (more likely) both.
Or I could win this fucking fight. My foot tap tap taps.
Beside the bounty list is a new poster, the paper so clean and white it can only have come down from the tiered city.
Usually that means bad news, arrests, or proclamations, but this one looks more inviting than opposing.
It says ASCEND in large block type, and below that, The Hod Council invites all to participate in our most ancient tradition, the Ascent Runic Tournament.
Test your skill and ingenuity against the very best in the city, and win the ultimate prize.
Then, in slightly smaller type, Entry Fee 100 s.
“What are you putting this shit up for?” I ask Ekkeban as he returns. “You get a lot of customers who can spend a hundred stripes on a ticket?”
“A couple of Arbiters came around and asked me politely to post it,” he says.
“And you know I’m always eager to assist the authorities any way I can.
” He dumps an armload of stuff on the table, the thread junctions and sigils I asked for.
My face lights up, and he sighs and holds up a warning finger.
“I gotta ask you one more time, Taj,” he says. “You really sure this is what you want?”
“I asked, didn’t I?”
“If I do this for you, and it goes wrong, don’t think I’m going to write it off.”
“Of course not. You’ve never let a single bit slide between those fat fingers.”
“That’s right.” He leans closer to me. “If you can’t pay, that means Rekas. The Clawmarks. You understand?”
“Sure.”
“Taj!” He fixes me with his gaze. “I like you. So I want to make sure. You understand?”
“Yes.” I give him my best sincere look. “I understand.”
“Fine.” He shoves the pile across the counter. “Good luck today.”
I hurriedly sweep the goods into my sack. “Thanks.”
I’m going to need it. Because if I burn this bridge, I’m fucked.