ability for fine speech.
I reached down to my boot and pulled out my stash, three argents I’d found or thieved and an ochre Rob One-Eye had given me for serving as lookout when he’d knocked off the old Light Street bank. “There’s yellow in here. It’s a fair trade.” I didn’t know what the price of a child was exactly, but there were too damn many wandering the streets of the city for it to be worth much more than that.
The two stared at each other numbly, their slow reptile minds trying to process this new development. Given enough time, one of them was going to realize that it was easier to kill me and take what I had than meet my demands-better not to allow them the opportunity.
I held the small packet of coins in my off hand, and with the other opened the straight razor I had pulled out with it. “I’m taking the girl,” I said. “You have your choice of payment-gold or steel.”
The younger one moved forward threateningly. But I caught his eyes and he stopped short. The purse jangled.
“Gold or steel. Take your pick.”
Another sharp laugh from the one holding the child. That sound was grating on me, and I had the urge to throw in the towel on this negotiation business and see what the insides of this lice-ridden degenerate looked like.
“We’ll take it,” he said. “Saves us the trouble of bringing her to the docks.”
The other seemed less certain, so I threw the pouch on the ground in front of him. He reached down to grab it and I thought about going for his face with my blade, a few quick swipes then on to his senior partner-but the old one still held the girl firmly, and I had no doubt he’d do her without blinking an eye. Better to play it straight and hope they’d do the same. The loss of my coin stung, though. I wouldn’t see another ochre for a long time, not with poor Rob doing twenty in Old Farrow for cutting up a priest in a bar fight.
“Walk out the other end of the alley,” I said as the youth stood up straight, my hard-won loot in his hands. “And don’t think yourself any sharp ideas.”
The one holding the girl stared at me. Then he smiled, checkerboard patterns of black and green. “You make sure to keep your preserve well tended now, young warden.”
“If I see you again, I’ll sever your balls from their stalk and leave you to bleed out in the street.”
He laughed his ugly laugh and backed away, the boy following close after him. I watched them off until I was certain they weren’t planning on rushing me, then closed my razor and walked over to the child.
Her almond eyes and dusky hue showed Kiren blood, and her tattered clothes and bruised skin spoke to at least a few nights on the streets. Around her neck was a wooden necklace, the kind you could buy two for a copper in Kirentown, back before the plague shut down their market. I wondered where she’d gotten it. A gift, probably, from her mother or father or a score of other relatives now in the ground.
The retreat of her abductors had done little to calm her nerves, and she still sobbed uncontrollably. I knelt down on one knee and slapped her across the face.
“Stop crying-no one is listening.”
She blinked twice, then wiped at her nose. The tears stopped, but I waited for her breathing to return to normal before I continued.
“What’s your name?”
The thin stretch of her throat expanded as if to answer, but she couldn’t force her lips to form the words.
“Your name, child,” I said again, trying to put some tenderness into my voice, for all that it was an emotion with which I had only passing relations.
“Celia.”
“Celia,” I repeated. “That’s the last time I’ll ever hurt you, do you understand? You don’t need to worry about me. I’m looking out for you, okay? I’m on your side.”
She looked at me, unsure how to answer. The time she’d spent on the street hadn’t left her overflowing with trust for her fellow man.
I stood and took her hand in mine. “Come on. Let’s find you somewhere warm.”
It started to drizzle, then it started to rain. My thin coat soon soaked to my body, so the girl had to make do in her ragged dress. For some time we walked in silence-though the storm pounded her tiny frame, Celia didn’t weep.
The Aerie had been completed, its edifice jutting out into the ether, but the maze surrounding it was still being constructed. We had to struggle through a hundred yards of overturned mud, no easy task for the tiny legs of a small child, though she barely noticed. As soon as we had come within view, her eyes had locked on the tower in awe and excitement.
Five weeks prior the entire population of Low Town, swelled by crowds of outsiders and shepherded by a flock of guardsmen, had celebrated the installment of the Blue Crane in his new surroundings. I’d watched from the back as the High Chancellor honored a lofty figure in extravagant robes. No one from the area had since shown courage enough to introduce themselves. Now seemed as good a time as ever to welcome the wizard to our neighborhood.
The little one by my side, I strode up to the tower with what arrogance I could muster.
A dozen feet above the ground a monstrous statue sat on a small ridge, jutting out from the building proper and marring the smooth perfection of the exterior. Beneath it I could see the outline of a door. I banged on its center and yelled into the night.
“Open up! Open up now!”
The movement of the gargoyle was no small shock, and Celia let out a shriek. I bit my lip trying not to do the same. The thing above the door twisted its heavy features with an ease that was unnatural, and its voice was inhuman if not directly threatening.
“Who is this that disturbs the repose of the evening? The Master is sleeping, young friends.”
I hadn’t lost the savings of a childhood ill-spent to retreat at this gentle remonstration, and there seemed to be no reason to show this construction any more deference than I would his fleshly equivalent. “Then you’ll need to wake him.”
“Sadly, child, I do not arrest the Master’s slumber at the will of a pair of ragamuffins. Come back tomorrow and he might be willing to see you.”
A flash of lightning illuminated the landscape, the spire standing out uncannily against the barren ground surrounding it.
“Will the Blue Crane sleep warm in his bed and awake to the corpses of two children on his doorstep?”
Concrete eyebrows curled inward and the strange creature grew less friendly. “Do not speak such of the Master-my patience is not infinite.”
Things had gone too far to back away, and even then I understood that advance is often the only alternative to retreat. I shouted louder, my voice cracking with the strain. “Does the First Wizard care nothing for the people of his city? Will he rest in his castle while the children of Low Town drown in this storm? Call him down! Call him down, I say!”
The gargoyle’s face glowed in the moonlight, and I was conscious of the danger I was courting. The thing hadn’t shown itself capable of movement beyond its perch, but there was no knowing what forces it might martial in defense of the tower. “Your abuse grows tiring. Leave, else the consequences…” It quieted mid-sentence, its visage frozen, all signs of intelligence absent.
Just as unexpectedly sentience returned. “Wait here-the Master approaches.” It was not lost on me that this offered no guarantee of our safety. The wind screamed its hatred through the night. Celia squeezed my hand.
The stone shifted to reveal a tall, thin man with a long beard and eyes that glimmered even as they shook off the haze of slumber. I had only seen the Crane that once, from a distance, and he had looked more imposing in the midst of a vast crowd of people. I watched an inclination toward geniality combat the appropriate response to being woken late in the evening by a pair of vagrants. Somehow I wasn’t shocked to discover the first winning out.
“I am not used to company after midnight, particularly company I’ve yet to meet. Still, the Daevas bid us show kindness to all our visitors, and I shall do no less. What is it you wish of me?”
“You’re the Blue Crane?” I asked.
“I am.”
“The one they call the savior of Low Town?”
