Twenty-Six
Well. Nobody is watching me. I’m just a short, skinny Heaper in battered leathers, carrying a heavy pack that (unbeknownst to the watchers) is filled with a small fortune in sigils. Nothing special.
Ky attracts some eyes, of course. She’s still wearing Ameliana’s battered old dress, but she’s taken off her cap and let her hair down in its full glory.
There’s something about the way she carries herself, too, as proud as any Clawmark, as though the attention of everyone on the stair is only her due.
[Embarrassment: I’m blushing.]
No, you aren’t.
[Clarification: I would be, if I had blood. And skin.]
I smirk. No, you wouldn’t. You love the attention.
[Assessment: possibly you are correct.] He puts the shield away and waves to the goggle-eyed crowd.
He’s not the only runic on the steps, but there’s no disguising him as a labor model; the shining blades that tip his limbs make it clear this is a construct intended for the arena.
For Heapers, the smoothness of his movement carries darker implications—most runics don’t move like that, but Twisted do, and people shy away instinctively.
Malkuth citizens meanwhile might recognize the shape of the notorious champion of Venci’s pit, apparently back for another round.
The attention ripples ahead of us, and by the time we reach the top of the steps authority descends.
A flying squad of Arbiters in sigwork breastplates comes out from behind their barricades, a wide circle of bare metal forming as onlookers retreat to a safe distance.
The sergeant, an older man with silver bars on his helmet, steps directly into our path.
The rest remain a step behind, hands on their swords.
“Passes,” he barks, every Arbiter’s inevitable all-purpose conversation starter.
I have my forged Malkuth pass in my pocket, but Ky has assured me I won’t need it.
She steps breezily forward to show her own documents, and the change that comes over the Arbiters is remarkable.
All their belligerence and hauteur is replaced with cringing subservience.
They seem to have only two categories of civilians, “faces to grind” and “boots to lick,” and Ky has abruptly promoted herself to the second.
“Apologies, miss,” the sergeant says. “Do you and your”—he glances to me, unsure which group I belong to—“companion require an escort?”
“That would be lovely, thank you,” Ky says, running one hand through her hair. “Just to the nearest Yesod entrance, if you please. I am returning home.”
“Of course, miss. Right this way.”
“Make them crawl all the way there,” I mutter as we fall in behind the squad.
She rolls her eyes. “They’re only doing their job.”
Like practically everyone in the Heap, I’ve been on the wrong end of Arbiter boot-leather more than once, so I wouldn’t be averse to seeing those neat uniforms get a little messy.
But the looks on the faces of the crowd aren’t a bad substitute; they’ve gone from curious to awed.
Down here people can go their whole lives without seeing someone from Hod, almost like Ky’s visitors from Above.
I just hope she’s right that public attention will keep us safe from Gestian and the Cavcante. I can almost see the rumors spreading around the fringes of the plaza. Within an hour everyone on Malkuth is going to know we’re coming.
Speaking of satisfying: Coming back to Ekkeban’s shop had to rank as one of the crowning moments of my life. The big man glares at me, moderating his expression only slightly at the sight of Ky by my side.
“You asked for a week, Taj,” he says. “It’s nine days now. And I asked around, word is you’ve been up to some pretty strange—”
“We’re going to need some more stuff,” I tell him, shrugging out of my too-heavy pack and setting it on the floor beside the counter.
“A lot more stuff. Every orange and yellow you’ve got in stock, plus joints, spars, a couple of big rolls of wire…
” I tap my fingers, as though considering, and then point to the green RESIST that has pride of place overhead. “And that.”
“Very funny.” Ekkeban isn’t laughing. “I knew I shouldn’t have gotten involved with you. You’ve been taking advantage of my gentle and retiring nature. Have you got my money or not?”
“A million bits, was it? For the green?”
He shakes his head. “Yeah. A hundred stripes or nothin’ for my baby.”
“Will this do?”
The look on his face as I pull out Rotwurm’s head and slam it on the counter is something I will always treasure.
The crowd at the Yesod stairs is more worldly than their counterparts below.
Fighting runics are more common here, so Star isn’t as much of a novelty.
Ky herself attracts more attention now; Hod citizens descending to the second tier is hardly unknown, but it’s not exactly common.
And here’s one coming up from Malkuth wearing a dress that’s practically rags and accompanied by a young man of highly dubious aspect.
Word has preceded us sufficiently for a welcoming party to be readied.
A squad of Yesod Arbiters is waiting at the top of the stairs, and there’s a brief standoff between the sergeant who’s accompanied us so far and the officer who greets us now.
Eventually the sergeant accepts that his role in the drama is done, and he and his men bow to Ky and file back down the stairs.
The new officer, a younger woman wearing a crisp uniform but no armor, makes a show of examining Ky’s pass before smiling at us.
“Miss Tranto,” she says. “A pleasure to meet you. We’ve received a number of notices regarding your sudden disappearance. The Council has been most concerned for your safety.”
“I’m sure they have,” Ky says. I suspect I’m the only one to notice the flicker of irony. “But as you can see, no concern is required.”
“If you’d like to rest here and refresh yourselves, I’m sure you must be—”
“No, thank you. I will be proceeding directly home. If you wouldn’t mind directing us?”
The officer’s expression flickers for a moment, and then her smile returns.
“Of course,” she says. “This way.”
I’ve never gotten to see much of Yesod in daylight.
The sunlamps overhead give everything a cheery brightness totally at odds with Malkuth’s red-ringed shadow or the yellowish work-lights that illuminate the Heap.
The big houses sparkle and gleam, windows polished and siding freshly painted.
Broad lawns host well-dressed men and women and children running about in a carefree fashion.
There are dogs, creatures I’ve read about but never seen, chasing one another and barking excitedly.
Runics too. Labor models, but more complicated and elegant, with lifelike movements and neat, polished chassis.
Small carriages are pulled by large horse-shaped things with ten legs, and a spider-like construct not unlike Star pushes a baby carriage and simultaneously tends to its tiny occupant with its long, delicate limbs.
[Realization: robbing houses was the wrong approach. We should have sought out wherever these runics are stored.]
No kidding. I can’t help but size up every family we pass in terms of how much potential loot they’re carrying, but the runics would be the richest prize of all. Except, of course, for what’s in my own pack.
With only twelve days to go before the deadline to register for the Ascent, I spent the week after our return working harder and faster than I’ve ever worked before.
Ky helps with the more mundane tasks, wrapping wire or attaching joints and spars, but mostly she runs interference with Spike and Somi.
Part of me feels a desperate guilt at leaving my family to her, but it doesn’t last long.
I’m the only one who can do this work, though it hardly feels like work at all.
I’m like a starving rat set loose in a warehouse full of cheese.
In addition to the sigils we got from Ekkeban—the precious green RESIST and stacks of yellows and oranges of every type I can get my hands on—I’ve got everything we looted off Rotwurm’s corpse.
While the BLAST weapons destroyed the majority of the ancient Twisted’s innards, there was still a shocking amount left intact, MOVEs and RESISTs and stranger things the monster had found and incorporated into itself over the decades.
I don’t know how it’s all going to fit into Star, but I’m dying to find out.
So that’s why I keep to my room. Kind of. Mostly. As the actual day approaches, though, I realize there’s a conversation I’ve been avoiding. Time’s running out, so I steel myself and march downstairs like I’m going to have a chat with the executioner.
Somi’s in his room, reading one of the new books I brought him. The Preparation of Sausages and Other Preserved Meats. Fascinating stuff, I’m sure. On Yesod there are bookshops, with more than a person could read in a lifetime. After all this is over…
“Finally decided to say hello?” Somi says, and I wince.
“I’ve been a little busy.”
“I bet. You’ve been working away.” He looks over at me. “There’s all kind of rumors in the market. Somebody told me you killed Rotwurm. I told her not even you would be that crazy. Right?”
I give a noncommittal shrug.
“If you’d killed Rotwurm, this wouldn’t be so empty,” he says, tapping the new jar that had replaced the one the Clawmarks had shattered. “Whatever score you’re working on, it hasn’t paid off yet.”
For a moment my stomach drops into my boots.
What the fuck am I doing? We killed Rotwurm; even if I split the bounty with Ky, it’s still an unfathomable sum.
I should be using it for my family, new clothes for Spike and books for Somi and whatever else they want, not betting it all to, what, win even more?
I think of the fortune in sigils up in my room and feel a guilt so intense it makes me want to melt into a puddle.