The Broken Eye (19 page)

For the next two blocks, she jogged, just in case he came to his senses. Then she started scouting the laundry lines, looking for something her size. Laundry was supposed to only be dried in the heat of the day, so that the beams of light from the Thousand Stars wouldn’t be blocked if they were needed in the late afternoon or evening, but of course not everyone followed the rules. She had flexibility for what she stole, of course. She had a belt if the trousers she ended up taking were too large, and as long as the shirt or tunic wasn’t enormous, it could work. But baggy clothes could be sloppy, and if she had to run, she didn’t want trousers that would fall down around her ankles.

She slowed as she saw what she wanted. A boy’s trousers, and a tunic, together on a line, one story up, with a cart parked right underneath them. A girl perhaps six years old was holding the pony, keeping the cart while her father or mother was inside.

Teia broke into a jog and jumped up onto the back of the cart, then stepped up onto the edge of the bed like a cat walking a fence. She snatched the trousers and tunic, dropped to plant one foot on the driver’s seat, and rolled as she hit the street.

She rolled to her feet not five paces from the little girl.

Teia winked at her and smiled. Then she bowed. The child looked so shocked that Teia thought she might not say anything at all.

Then the little girl burst into tears.

Walking as quickly as she could, Teia hadn’t quite made the first corner when the little girl’s mother ran out to her. Mercifully, the child was so distraught she couldn’t explain that a woman had fallen from the sky. Teia made it away cleanly.

She avoided the main streets, preferring the slight possibility of crime to crowds. Then she ducked into a bakery’s doorway. This late in the day, they were closed, lanterns extinguished.

Teia pulled on the trousers under her dress, glanced up and down the street, and only saw a few women who didn’t seem to be paying attention, and shucked off her dress. She pulled on the tunic, folded the dress quickly, belted trousers and tunic, bloused everything so it was baggy. Put on the hat, tucked her hair up into it, then stuffed the folded dress down to her stomach inside the tunic. The belt held it in place, and it helped flatten out what little curves she had.

It was depressing how little she had to do to make herself look like a boy.

She was back at the docks ten minutes later. When you came in to port, all your awe was taken by the city’s domes and stars and the Chromeria’s seven gleaming towers. Coming to it from the city was different altogether. To call the docks extensive was an understatement. Big Jasper was one of the largest cities in the world, and almost all of its supplies had to be brought in by ship. The system looked like chaos to the uninitiated, though Teia had once heard a fellow student whose father was a stevedore wax poetical about the symmetry and art of it all. To her, it looked like an ant swarm. Thousands of people crisscrossing, a snarl of ships of every size, carts streaming in and out, queues of burly men going in one way, and women with abacuses ticking off beads for purposes Teia couldn’t even guess at.

Teia walked straight up to a man who was answering laborers’ questions, directing them this way and that. “The
Red Gull
?” she asked, lowering her voice an octave.

“Pier Twelve, green side.”

Telling him that ‘green side’ didn’t help a color-blind person would just draw more attention to her, so Teia kept her mouth shut and walked.

The
Red Gull
was already docked, and before she even got onto Pier Twelve she saw a dandy in a wide hat of a couple different shades and yellow. Her man. Amazing luck.

He looked slightly the worse for wear from his time on the ship, relieved to have solid ground underfoot again. He was whistling.

Teia drew in paryl, cupped loosely in her hand, drafted off center so it decayed rapidly back into its spectrum of light, but now focused in a beam. Relaxed her eyes and ducked her head so the hat’s brim shielded her eyes as much as possible. She had to do it quickly. There was no way she could put on spectacles—which only the wealthy could afford—and maintain her disguise, but if anyone saw her pupils, they’d likely shout.

The light cut through his garments, through his hair, though it wasn’t powerful enough from this distance to go through his heavy leather gloves or boots. She watched him as he went past.

Belt buckle, sword, coins tucked in a breast pocket. All these lit up, white in her vision. But no silver scrollwork document case.

If he had the documents on him, they were either tucked into his boots or gloves or lengthwise beneath his belt—or made of thin enough paper that the paryl went right through them. No matter what, she was darked.

She fell in behind him, following thirty or forty paces back. If he was delivering papers to the Blood Forest embassy, she had about fifteen minutes to make the grab. She knew Big Jasper well, but she didn’t know how well this spy knew it. Neighborhoods between the docks and the embassy district weren’t nearly as bad as those farther north.

The spy walked confidently, though he did check behind himself once in a while. He never looked at a map or asked for directions. So he knew the city.

Teia couldn’t follow him and close the distance while he was being this careful. Disguised as a skinny poor boy in a hat, she could blend in well, but the man was a spy. Surely he’d notice her before she could catch up and steal from him.

If he knew the city, and if he was heading directly to the embassy, there were two alleys between main thoroughfares that he would cut through at different spots.

It was a gamble, but it was the best Teia had.

The spy brushed his left glove, as if reassuring himself that something was still there. That was it. Luck!

Teia peeled off and turned left where two roads diverged. After half a block, she began jogging. It drew attention, but not too much. Apprentices often had to run when performing chores for their masters.

She circled several blocks, jogging fast. The crowds thinned out, and she turned down the street that should intercept the spy. Too late. He was already there, heading across the road, crossing in front of her. Teia cursed quietly, and doubled back.

One last chance. This time, she ran full out to make it to the last alley. She was small enough that she might still have looked like a boy playing. She tried not to let her panic show in her face. She’d only have one chance.

She turned down the cross street and made it to the alley entrance.

Heaving a few deep breaths and trying to calm her nerves and steady her hands, she ducked her head low so her face would be hidden and headed into the alley. He was at the far end, coming toward her. Her heart was pounding so hard it shook her whole frame. There was no one else in the alley. If she were quick, she could intercept him as he passed through a narrow spot. Perfect.

Teia kept her head tilted, hat down, shielding her eyes. There wouldn’t be a whole lot of grace in this one. She would do a bump and grab, and if he didn’t notice immediately, he probably would within a few seconds. There was no crowd here, no distractions. She’d just have to hope she was fast enough to get away. She was already plotting escape routes—but let that be. Pay attention. First thing’s the grab.

She stepped through the narrow spot just as the spy did. She pretended a stumble. He brought his hands up and pushed her away. She grabbed the notes, but it wasn’t clean. She tugged a bit of sleeve, too, and the spy turned as she yanked the letters free. Shit!

And then something happened too fast for her to follow. The shadow of that narrow spot in the alley came alive, detached itself from the very wall it had been part of, and imprisoned her arm.

It whiplashed her back toward the spy. Something warm splattered against her lips and neck. The spy raised his hands, panicked—his throat slashed open, his jugular fountaining blood all over Teia.

Teia pushed the spy away and he fell, gasping like a fish. The shadowed assassin put something into her hand. A bloody knife.

She recognized him by his size and stature and eyes, because he was completely covered otherwise, his cloak drawn tight over his head, the side of the hood hooked closed to make a mask over his face, only his eyes uncovered. Murder Sharp.

He released her, stepped back quickly, stepping over the spy dying at his feet as if there were nothing noteworthy in having murdered a man.

“You’re a murderer now,” he said. “Run, or you’re fucked.” His cloak shimmered, starting around his eyes, and in trails like smoke that raced in spirals down his body, light twinkled and then disappeared.

She heard the scrape of his boot in the alley, but there was nothing there to see. She tried to look in paryl, but she couldn’t control it. She was frozen. She looked at herself—covered in blood, bloody knife in her hand, dying man at her feet.

A sharp sailor’s whistle blew in the air, the three-tone call for help. Unmistakable for anything else. “Good luck,” the air said. She could hear Murder Sharp’s wide grin, even if she couldn’t see it.

Teia stood, paralyzed, for one moment more. She saw a watchman two hundred paces down the alley. He saw her, too, bloody blade in hand, standing over a dead man. She ran.

Chapter 18

Gavin hoped that the ship going in to port would give him a chance to escape. If not that, at least a chance to send a message. And if not that, he hoped that the sailors’ natural braggadocio would serve to get word to the Chromeria for him. But though Gunner might have been half crazy, he wasn’t stupid. After he’d taken the Ilytian galley, they’d headed directly to port. The Ilytian sailors who had survived the attack had been chained to their own oars, replacing the dead slaves, given fresh oars from the supplies on the
Bitter Cob
, and kept strictly away from the
Cob
’s crew.

Away from Gavin.

The
Bitter Cob
had dropped anchor a fair distance from whatever the nearest town was. The slaves thought it was Corrath Springs, though more than half the slaves were Angari and therefore strangers to the Cerulean Sea, so Gavin figured everyone was guessing, putting a name on a place to try to give themselves some illusion of control over it. The other galley,
Rage of the Seas
—a grandiose title, but the Ilytians didn’t have much use for modesty—had been manned by Gunner’s first mate and the third mate, who hated the first mate, and Leonus, who hated everyone.

Gavin thought it was a smart move. Men who hated each other were much less likely to collude. If the officers came back with wildly different stories of how much they got paid for the galley and cargo, you could ask Leonus. Not a foolproof design, but reasonably good, especially if the next time you sent different men.

The crew who’d stayed behind were unhappy about not getting a chance for shore leave, but Gunner silenced that in short order with a few beatings.

The mates and Leonus came back the next morning, having sold the
Rage of the Seas
and the slaves—and doubtless spent the night being entertained at a brothel, but that was a tax any wise captain was willing to pay. They hoisted anchor and headed out immediately. The only supplies the men had brought back were barrels of hardtack and barrels of brandy. The galley slaves all got a measure, with a double for those in the first six rows. Leonus shorted them all, though, setting aside enough for himself that he got thoroughly sick.

It was also thoroughly stupid. If he’d only shorted a few of them, or those in the back, he could have stolen the same amount of drink. Instead, he was uniting the slaves against him.

Once they’d been under way for a couple of hours, Gavin was chained, released from his oar, and bundled upstairs. He was taken to the poop, where Gunner was waiting.

Gavin was forced to kneel again, and his chains locked to a ring on deck. He didn’t fight, didn’t grimace.

“You’re a problem,” Gunner said. He dismissed Leonus and the other sailor who’d brought Gavin up. He had his curious white gun-sword hoisted over his shoulders, and was hanging his hands off it like it was a yoke.

“My apologies,” Gavin said. In quick glances, he studied the blade again: white and black, seven lambent gems. If he’d been able to see colors, it probably would have been even more impressive.

“How long until they name your replacement?” Gunner asked.

“Men like you and me can’t be replaced, Gunner, only followed.”

A quick flash of a grin. But then, “Answer the question, Six.”

“Prisms and Prisms-elect are traditionally only named on Sun Day. If he or she dies before Sun Day, most of the duties are deferred, and the balancing is accomplished through manual means—that is, drafters around the world being told not to draft as much of one color, but more of another.”

“Good news at last,” Gunner said. Then he spat over the deck. “‘Traditionally’?”

“During wars, four times Prisms have been named early, with the final ceremonies put off until Sun Day.”

“So you could already be replaced?” Gunner said. “Good thing you’re good on an oar, I guess.”

Oh, Gunner was worried that if he didn’t ransom Gavin before another Prism was named, Gavin’s value would go down. Orholam’s sweet saggies, like Gavin was property. The thought clanged, dissonant, the vibrations shaking sand from surfaces that had been smooth, revealing rusty nails beneath the surface. It was one thing to be forced to row. Even to be beaten was hard and infuriating, but nothing more than Gavin had dealt with in training. Sore muscles? He’d had those for five hundred days straight as he’d designed the skimmer. He’d had men and women try to kill him, he’d been hated and feared everywhere he went. But to
be
a slave?

No, this was an unpleasant land he was visiting. It wasn’t his new home. Good on an oar? He would escape or be rescued, there was no question of it. He wasn’t a rower; he was simply rowing for a time.

Gavin owned slaves. When he saw stray looks on their faces, fear or despair or disgust, he judged whether it was an assassination attempt—and if it wasn’t, he dismissed it. Dismissed them. Because they were beneath his notice.