The Silver Lake (2 page)

Once free from His regard, the spirits crept forward to gather about a single, fragile stream sparkling like a line of tiny raindrops on the dark streets of Anavatan; a line so small it had been missed by the God of Prophecy; a line that relied upon a single, desperate decision, yet unmade, to take form. Rustling excitedly in their nest of shadows, the spirits peered up at the ones who might make that decision, knowing, as Incasa did, that such things could not be forced, they could only be manipulated. But during Havo’s violent Dance above the capital a great many manipulations might be possible and a great many decisions made by those who held the true power in the City of the Gods.

Above them, two boys, one dark-haired, the other blond, crouched on a dilapidated rooftop in Anavatan’s western dockyards, unaware of the battle about to be fought on the streets of their city, watching as the sun struggled to breach the heavy bank of clouds on the horizon. As a single shaft of light broke free to bathe their faces in a pale saffron glow, the younger of the two boys dropped his gaze to the dark drifts of shadow clinging to the buildings like moss. They seemed to stare back at him. He shivered and the older boy’s head snapped around at once.

“You all right, Spar?”

He gave a distracted nod.

“You sure?”

“I’m just cold, Brax,” he answered vaguely, his blue eyes unusually pale.

The older boy frowned. “You need a new jacket; the winter really did that one in. Hey, maybe if you look really sick today Usara’s lot’ll give you a new one.” Spar shot him a cynical glance and he snickered. “Right, the God Himself s as likely to give you a golden cloak as His priests are to give you anything more useful than a packet of moldy powder today. Piss-heads.” He spat, then made himself smile reassuringly. “But don’t worry, all right? We’ll get you one.” After Spar nodded, he returned his gaze to the horizon, taking in a deep breath of the chilly, predawn air. “Looks like the rain’s gonna keep on,” he observed. “You might figure that’d keep people inside, but a hailstorm of snakes and lizards wouldn’t stop half the city from jamming into Usara’s temples today, would it? Not with all that free ...” he paused dramatically, “...
medicine
just lying around for the taking.”

He laughed at his own joke as Spar gave a very unchildlike snort in reply. On the last morning of Low Spring, the priests of Usara traditionally doled out free advice and medicines to the poor. Or rather, emptied their cabinets and trunks of all the leftover stale herbs and rancid salves that were no longer worth the exorbitant prices they charged. But even knowing that, Usara’s temple courtyards would be bursting with people today, the poor and the not so poor alike, all pushing and shoving and fighting for their share of the Healer God’s charity.

And none of them paying enough attention to their own pockets.

“Still, you gotta watch it,” Brax continued, the predatory gleam in his eyes replaced by an expression of caution. “Greedy people are careless, but they’re also really ugly if they catch you lifting their shine, so you gotta be careful and you gotta be fast. Use the crowds; keep hidden.”

Spar nodded absently.

“An’ Cindar’ll want us at the dockside Usara-Cami this morning,” Brax continued. “That’ll help. The pickings won’t be so rich as at the bigger temples but there’ll be a lot more people and a lot fewer guards.” Cocking his head to catch the faint sounds of snoring coming through the broken shutters behind them, he grimaced. “If Cindar
ever
wakes up,” he added with a sneer.

Spar rolled his eyes in agreement. Cindar was their abayos, a lakeside village word that had come to mean either parent, employer, or one who acted as guardian in exchange for service as delinkon—apprentices—in this case two undersized children able to maneuver through the city’s crowded marketplaces without being detected. Cindar had taken Spar in five years ago when Brax had grown too big to squeeze through the narrow windows and openings their profession demanded. Slight, quiet, and small, he usually distracted their potential victims while Brax and Cindar cut their purses or robbed their stalls by day, and acted as a lookout while they plundered local businesses and warehouses by night. They were a team, a family, and as long as each one of them did his part, a successful one.

Now Brax interrupted his reverie with an inquisitive noise. “So, what do you figure?” he asked. “Is it safe to go, or will the Battle God’s arse-pickers be out nosing for a quick snatch today?”

Spar considered the question seriously despite the older boy’s scornful remarks. The city garrisons that patrolled Anavatan’s streets were the traditional soldiers of Estavia, God of Battles, and although the best and the brightest of them served at Her main temple, those that were left were still a force to be reckoned with. Brax knew this, whatever he might say, but what he didn’t know was whether they’d be a force to be reckoned with today. And Spar would. Although Spar was five years younger than the fourteen-year-old Brax, the older boy always asked him what he thought—what he
felt
—be fore making any decision because Spar
knew
things. He could sense a patrol coming within half a mile and he often dreamed of dangers that came true later. And although Cindar would be sure to ask him, too, Cindar drank, and so every morning Brax and Sparcame up here to watch the dawn sun paint the city streets with orange fire and get a feel for the day’s trade. It wouldn’t be the first time Brax had refused to follow some raki addled plan of Cindar’s because of what Spar had said up here and it likely wouldn’t be the last time either.

But not today. Spar shrugged in response to Brax’s impatient cough. Despite his earlier disquiet, he couldn’t sense any immediate danger around the morning’s trade other than the usual hazards in picking pockets inside a God’s temple courtyard, but the risks there were actually pretty small. They were unsworn, among the very few—mostly poorer—citizens in the City of the Gods who refused to worship any of its six divine patrons and so the three of them could plunder an entire temple and it would be the fault of the sworn for not guarding it properly. If Brax and Cindar wanted to rob Usara’s prayer niches this morning, Spar would help them unhook the wall lamps; it was all the same to him. As long as it felt safe. And it did. Mostly. There was something happening on the very edge of his senses, something dark and frightening, but it was not happening today. When it did, he’d be ready for it.

A crash behind him interrupted his thoughts and a familiar voice slurred by sleep and drink shouted out a string of incoherent curses before finally making sense.

“Brax! Spar! Where the ... get in here!”

Shaking his head, Brax stood. “The way he was pourin’ it down his throat last night, I figured he’d be out for at least another half an hour,” he said in disgust as he pushed open the dilapidated shutters. “Good thing we lifted the last of his shine early, yeah?” With a grin, he tossed Spar one of the two copper aspers he’d taken from Cindar’s purse before throwing a leg over the windowsill. “We’re done here anyway, right?”

Spar nodded slowly.

“Good, then. C‘mon, before he shouts himself into a fit.”

Together, they returned inside as, across the city, Havo’s Invocation song ended and Oristo’s began.

By the time they reached the small, second-floor room they shared with their abayos, Cindarwas up and trying with little success to scrape the last four days’ worth of stubble off his face, his hands shaking visibly. He was not a tall man, but he still towered over the two boys. He had Brax’s dark hair and eyes, a pockmarked, dissipated face, and a twisted, poorly healed scar that ran along one comer of his mouth where a garrison guard’s spear had caught him last summer as he’d come out of a silver smithy late one night. His eyes were red-rimmed and deeply suspicious, but when Brax held out his hand for the knife, he grudgingly gave it up.

“Don’t think this means squat,” he growled as he dropped heavily on the lumpy pallet behind him. “I can still outlift either one of you any buggerin’ day of any buggerin’ God’s month you can name.”

“Not if you slit your own throat first,” Brax sneered back at him as he began to carefully scrape the coarse, curly hair from the man’s cheeks. “Why’re you botherin’ with this anyway?” he asked.

Cindar spat a gob of spittle at the wall. “We gotta look respectable, don’t we?” he growled in reply. “Poor but respectable, so those second-rate butchers at Usara-Cami’ ll give us what we want and don’t go reporting me to the buggerin’ priests of Oristo just because you two ain’t eating offa golden plates.”

Seated by the room’s tiny, dirt-encrusted window, Spar rolled his eyes. The priests of Oristo were the self appointed guardians of the young in Anavatan and the priests of the Dockside Precinct where they made their home were particularly aggressive in their duty. They knew about Cindar’s profession and they disapproved of it, and although they’d never been able to gather up enough proof to send the Battle God’s garrisons after him, that didn’t stop them from making daily attempts to convince him to surrender his delinkon into their keeping. But Cindar had been brought up by Oristo’s abayos-priests himself and had raised Brax and Spar to despise the yellow-clad Protectorates that huddled in the Hearth God’s temple, trading menial labor for flatbread and boza, a thick, brownish drink made of fermented wheat. He’d raised them to hate the priests they served as well.

“There’s no greater pack of hypocrites in Anavatan than Oristo’s bloody lot,” he snarled, warming up to his topic. “Sure, they may talk high and fine, but they don’t give a rat’s arse for the poor; they only care for what they can squeeze out of them.” He glowered at Brax. “No self-respecting thief would ever serve a priest, and don’t you forget it. You wouldn’t be in their tender care for five minutes before you’d be breaking your back for them. And as for Spar, they’d sell him to the God of Prophecy’s white-eyed lunatics at Incasa-Sarayi in a heartbeat if they ever found out what he could do for them. They’d addle his brains with their seeking so fast he’d go mad from the strain before he was old enough for you to shave
him,
if they even let you near him. So you keep your mouths shut today, both of you, ‘cause Usara’s so-called physicians are no better; charlatans and thieves every last one of them. They’re only giving away free medicines so they can spy on us.”

He shook a finger at Spar who was, as usual, ignoring him. Cindar could rave for hours about his opinion of the Gods and their temples and had done it so many times before that Spar was bored by it.

“Well, piss on them if they are,” Brax retorted, allowing the effect of Cindar’s words to drive him to angry bravado despite Spar’s warning glance. “The day we can’t outrun those fat farts is the day you deserve to be reported.” He frowned suddenly. “An’ I’ll report you myself if we don’t eat soon.”

He moved to work on Cindar’s other cheek as the man answered his threat with a sideways scowl from beneath his heavy, black brows, but then jerked his head at a small, cloth-wrapped bundle by the side of the pallet, ignoring Brax’s curse as he almost took off an eyebrow. “So eat,” he snarled.