City of Night (18 page)

“Your den,” he replied. “You would die, without thought, for your den.”

“If I died without bloody thought, I wouldn’t
deserve
them.”

“No. And perhaps we come to the crux of the matter. I, Jewel Markess, don’t deserve you.”

“Because you haven’t done anything bad enough?”

“Oh, be a good girl and shut up.” But his hand relaxed, and the tone of his voice invited words, instead of rejecting them. “You’ll tell me to stop or to flee, Jewel.”

She swallowed. Nodded.

“I can do neither. And perhaps, one day, you will be proud of the fact; perhaps, one day, my ancestors will know, when they meet me in the Halls of Mandaros, and they, too, will forgive my desertion.

“Why did you come, today?”

“I meant to come earlier,” she told him. “We’re broke, and we want to head into the tunnels; we need to sell things.”

He hesitated. “You’ll go?”

She nodded.

“You, personally.”

“Yes.”

“Then go. But don’t linger, Jewel, and trust your instincts while you’re there. I . . . may not be in a position to fence much in the next few days. If you require money, borrow some. From me,” he added.

“If it comes to that, we will.” She swallowed. “Rath—”

“Stay,” he said abruptly. “Stay, feed me. Read to me, if you like. Do not talk to me of death. Do not offer me your fear. I have fear of my own to drive me, and if my own fear is not strong enough to keep me from my duty, yours will only grieve me, girl. It will give me guilt and no rest, but it won’t preserve my life.”

And she swallowed. “Angel,” she said softly, “go home.” She paused. “Can you get home, from here?”

“I can walk.”

She hesitated. “Carmenta—”

“I’ll circle around the holding. Jay—I spent months outrunning random dens. I can make it home.”

 

So she read.

She read from one of the books that graced the shelf above Rath’s mantel, taking comfort from its aged leather, the faded brilliance of its letters, the occasional pictures. Rath had taught her well; she saw the parchment maps of the undercity, half-furled on the table that also held the magestone by which he worked. Saw, as well, the clothing that lay scattered around the room, and could pick out the pieces that had probably seen recent use. His boots were dusty, and the leather was badly gashed, as if someone, or something, had slashed at his retreating feet.

She thought of the widening chasm that she and Angel had had to cross, and shuddered, but the words on the page still left her lips.

She got up once, and went to check the soup in the kitchen before returning to Rath’s room. There, she gave him water, watched to make sure he actually drank it, and read some more.

It was hard, to sit and read. He did not correct her mispronunciations, and he did not catch the words she missed; she missed them deliberately, a kind of test. His eyelids drifted down, and then sprang open, several times, but he said very little.

When she had finished reading, and checked the soup again, she spoke to him, her voice as soft and low as it had been when the text had provided boundaries for it. She spoke of Helen, in the Common, and of Farmer Hanson; she mentioned Taverson. She talked about the summer squalls which had been unseasonal and had caused gossip about the port for a few days.

She didn’t ask him about the undercity. Most days, she would have. But today?

She wanted to tell him to stay out, to keep away, to abandon the tunnels on which his wealth was based. She wanted to tell him to
go home,
and since he
was
home, the words would make no sense, but they were there, waiting. Vision was strong.

And she almost hated the undercity, because she could see his death in it. He had already suffered because of what he’d taken from those silent streets; something was hunting him.

But maybe life was like that: it held your death, waiting, and you had no choice but to walk toward it if you
wanted
a life. She touched his forehead when his eyes were closed.

Then she rose again, and this time, the soup was as ready as it would be; if she let it simmer forever it would be a sort of mushy stew, with bits of disintegrating potato for ballast. She scooped some out of the pot, put it in a cup, threw a spoon in, and headed back to the room.

His eyes were open; his gaze was on the door, and although he wasn’t fevered, she thought he was delirious. Because he smiled—a real smile— as she entered the room, and he whispered a name that she couldn’t quite catch. She wanted to: to catch it and hold it as if it were hers.

But it passed. She came back to the chair, sat in it, the cup in her hands, and waited. When he tried to push himself up, she set the cup on the table, and helped him, rearranging the pillow at his back. All of this, wordless. It was hard, to be wordless.

She remembered the first few weeks she had lived with Rath. The silence had been so hard, because no home, no
real
home, was silent; it was full of frustration, and joy, anger and gossip. It was full of interruption, intrusion, and care. It was full of people you wanted to strangle and hug.

But she had been at home here, regardless.

He took the cup from her hands and then grimaced and held it out; she retrieved the spoon, which he could barely use. He could drink, and he did.

“You will not always be here,” he told her.

“I can stay a couple of days if you need me.”

He raised a brow. She knew what he meant, and she had chosen to ignore it. But politely, as he had also taught her. After a moment, he smiled. “I am feeling somewhat refreshed,” he told her. “And you are obviously bored. Tell me the names of the Kings.”

She stared at him.

“And,” he added, “of The Ten.”

“With or without their current rulers?”

“Without, for the moment. The last time we attempted this, you knew perhaps six.”

She shrugged. “It’s not going to make much difference to me,” she told him softly. “And the things that do take up most of my time.”

“Not enough of your time that you didn’t pick up Angel.”

“Angel was different.”

“They always are. The Kings?”

She thought about telling him to stop. She thought hard about it. “Cormalyn and Reymalyn,” she replied. “They’re
always
Cormalyn and Reymalyn.”

“Good. The Queens?”

“Siodonay the Fair and Marieyan the Wise.”

“Good. The Ten?”

Really, really thought hard about it. “Look, Rath—”

But she saw his expression. She couldn’t even describe it because she didn’t understand what it meant: it wasn’t pleading, and it wasn’t desperation, and it wasn’t fear, or love, or pride. It was maybe all those things. He didn’t want her to stay to feed him or dress his wounds; he
allowed
that, for her sake.

But this? He wanted this for his own, somehow. For his sake.

And she hated it, because she hated exposing her ignorance. But in the end?

She would do it, for Rath. Because if she did, he would let her do the other things: feed him, dress his wounds, watch him sleep, and clean his damn kitchen. She could come here during the day, after the market. He had money, and she was willing to borrow it against future earnings, at least until he was on his feet. Maybe a week. Maybe two. Then she’d take Duster and Carver and head into the undercity.

“The Ten, Jewel.”

“I’m thinking, I’m thinking.” She exhaled. Yes, she could do that; the den would understand. “Terafin. Darias. Kalakar. Berrilya. Korama . . .” She grimaced.

“Five?”

“I told you—” she was probably going to have to stop herself from strangling Rath before the end of the first week, however.

I
T HAD BEEN YEARS since they’d lived with Rath. Duster had no idea why he’d given them the boot, and Jay didn’t—or wouldn’t—say. None of the den had stolen anything, and none of the den was loud; none of them wandered into Rath’s personal rooms—well, maybe Jay sometimes—and they didn’t eat much or leave a big mess. Besides Arann, who did the odd job for Farmer Hanson in the Common, no one worked out of the basement rooms.

But he’d taken them in and he’d spit them out. For Duster, it was no big deal; she’d been kicked out of a lot of places. Jay had taken it hard, though.

Still, if he’d spit them out, he continued to insist on teaching them what he could; Carver, Arann, and Duster, along with a taciturn Fisher, would show up in front of his door for lessons, as he called them, in fighting. Most of it was smart, a lot of it was dirty. Which suited Duster fine. Arann didn’t like it, but he went.

Rath still taught Jay as well, and Finch and Teller sometimes went with her. Jay could read really well now, and she could handle the numbers he gave her. Lander didn’t like to leave the apartment, and Jay let him stay, but she often dragged Jester out with them. By the ear.

The streets at this time of night were pretty damn quiet, which was both good and bad. The type of noise you usually got was loud and drunken, and that type of loud could get damn ugly, depending on who’d been doing the drinking. They weren’t that far from the river, and they weren’t that far from the thirty- fifth holding; the den knew the thirty-fifth well enough they could walk the holding in their sleep.

Which they were practically doing. It was chilly and damp, but it wasn’t cold—that would be months away. And if the streets were less than comfortable, the tunnels that led to the maze were warmer and—mostly—drier.

The maze was their secret. The den’s secret, and Rath’s. Beneath the older holdings, underneath basements and catacombs, tunnels existed that led, in the end, into a city. It was a city that saw no sky, no sunlight, no star or moonlight; its streets saw no patrols, and the fighting that existed between dens who were staking claims to whole holdings was nonexistent there—the dead didn’t need much. They certainly didn’t have voices.

But buildings—some whole, and some worn and tumbling, girded streets in the silence. It went on for miles and miles, and almost any basement that existed where a building was old enough had some entry into the tunnels.

On the rare occasions when they ventured into the undercity to scout around—or, be honest, take anything small enough to be moved and solid enough to survive it—Rath would examine what they’d found and take it away. He gave them some of the money he got for selling the pieces. It was always a lot, but they didn’t find much, and in truth, Jewel wouldn’t start looking until they were almost out of silver.

It was to the maze that Carver and Duster now went, finding an old building that had been broken up into dozens of ratty apartments, much like the one the den now called home.

Duster kept the magestone pocketed, her hand around it, until they approached the old wooden chute that led to the basement. It had been boarded up against rain, but time had rusted through the nails that had first kept it in place, and no one cared enough to replace them. Duster pulled the slats up, and Carver gave her a hand down; she dropped five feet and landed in a roll. She palmed the magelight and spoke a single Weston word above it until it brightened in the gloom. Carver leaped down after it. Come tomorrow, they’d replace the flat slats. Because, among other things, it did keep the rain out.

This particular building had a decent basement that only rats used; it was tall enough for Carver to straighten out in. It also had another trapdoor, and this one, they didn’t replace often, because it was the way they usually entered the maze. Duster liked the maze; she liked the tunnels that started out half-dirt and ended in worn stone, liked as well the broken arches that suggested that this buried place had once had a courtyard that saw light.

And she like the dead old buildings—stone, all—that implied wealth, because obviously, wealth hadn’t done the previous occupants a whole lot of good. Their fancy homes were buried and forgotten by all but a handful of ragged orphans and a skilled thief.

Old Rath even said their language was dead.

Duster had never had much, and she hoarded her resentment. She railed against the lucky, and she scorned the unlucky; after all, luck was something you made. And you didn’t whine about it after.

But in the maze—she never really liked the name “undercity” much—no one was left to whine. Teller often wondered what had happened to create this city-beneath-a-city. Duster didn’t care.

“Duster.”

She turned, and stopped. She had the only light in the maze, and she’d started to walk quickly, leaving Carver behind. She shrugged. Realized, after a moment, that she wasn’t even going in the right direction, and grimaced.

“Where were you headed?” Carver asked, as she turned and walked back down the street.

“Probably nowhere.”

His turn to shrug, and he did. “Let’s go to Rath’s,” he told her. The unspoken
Jay is waiting
hovered a moment in the air. Duster nodded and set off at a brisk pace down the right road.