just the same. He gets to bucking, he’ll break you straight in two.’
‘What’s it to you, Mazzie? The color of my ochre don’t change with my reasons.’
‘Won’t have no part in turning a child into a weapon.’
‘Mazzie of the Stained Bone, witch-woman of the Isthmus. Thrown out of Miradin for blasphemies unspeakable. The things that are darker than night whisper secrets in her ear, and the High Laws no more than chicken scratch. Don’t make any bargains you can’t keep, or she’ll snatch up your firstborn and leave a straw doll beneath the pillow. Didn’t figure you for a soft stomach.’
‘No more surprising than discovering the king of Low Town takes stragglers in beneath his roof.’
‘Everything they say about you true?’
‘Enough of it,’ she acknowledged. ‘Besides, it’s not about what I heard. I saw what you were from the first foot you stepped inside my house.’
‘It’s the spirits, then? They let you know the sort of man I am?’
She didn’t answer.
‘The spirits got a line on tomorrow’s racket numbers?’
She puffed silently at her cigar, eyes never leaving mine.
‘They never do, do they?’ The dreamvine was bright and potent, and I was enjoying the whole thing more than I should have.
‘You think you can live the kind of life you’ve lived, do the kind of things you do, and not have it leave any trace?’ she asked.
‘Is your own history so uncheckered that you can afford to pass judgment on mine? What would I see, if I had your gift? What does the mirror tell you, Mazzie, when you look into it?’
There was nothing light or friendly in her smile, nothing of a smile at all really. Nothing but the form of the thing, her teeth crooked and white. ‘Don’t have one.’
The spreading silence gave me time to recollect how much pain I was in, slowly but surely bleeding past the dreamvine. I’d need something stronger, and soon. The sunlight percolating in through the hole in the roof was fading fast, evening soon to plant itself on a city that was near boiling. The stove popped suddenly, a wet spot on a log flaring to life, but Mazzie didn’t jump, didn’t so much as move.
‘I figured you was coming by today. Decided to take your advice from last time, break out the shakers, give them a roll,’ she said.
I leaned back in the stool and opened my arms wide. ‘Take your shot.’
‘You build a maze around you, and dare fools to walk through it.’
‘A fool don’t need any help taking a tumble.’
‘No merit in pushing them.’
‘I think of it as a public service.’
‘Corpses stand at your shoulder, and they wave at brothers ahead. The fuse is running fast, and when it sparks it’ll level more than you thinking, more than you plan. The blood you avenge will be repaid a dozen-fold, a hundred, repaid in rivers and torrents. You ain’t careful you’ll drown beneath it, die with it choking your throat and filling your lungs.’
‘You finished?’
‘Just about.’
Suddenly it didn’t seem so funny, didn’t seem funny at all, and I wanted to give her a shot straight on that false grin. ‘If that’s the best you got then your gift ain’t worth a tarnished copper. You see dead men in my past because I’ve put a string of bodies in the ground, and dead men in my future because I’ve got a list of motherfuckers waiting to join them. I don’t need your bones to know there’s trouble brewing – I’ve been arranging its arrival all week.’
‘The bones, they say one more thing – they say you running around in the dark, that the things you think true are false. They say the more you struggle, the tighter the bonds.’
I swallowed that with the last of my joint, then dropped the butt to the floor. ‘The boy needs training or he’ll end up mad, or worse. If you’ve got any of the ethics you affect, you won’t leave him twisting in the wind. Far as the rest goes, you don’t know nothing about me, not where I been nor where I’m headed.’ I kicked over my stool and walked to the door. Her cackling followed me out into the street.
Between the beating, and the dreamvine, and the day, and my life, I wasn’t in top shape. If they’d have been smarter they could have probably snatched me up with my back turned, and that would have been the end of it, or near enough. But a few blocks out from Mazzie’s I caught sight of someone tailing me, and if I didn’t put the whole thing together I was at least sharp enough to smell a threat.
Not that there was much I could do to head it off. I was still deep in the Isthmus, miles away from a friendly face. I was too tired to run and anyway I didn’t know the geography enough to chance it. The best I could do was put myself in a position to meet them head on. An alley led off the road I was on, dead-ending after about twenty yards. I followed it, put my back against the wall, pulled the knife from my boot, and waited for the end.
It wasn’t long coming. Adisu rounded the corner, the Muscle with him, both the worse for wear. A bandage was rolled around Zaga’s arm, saturated with crimson, though it only had the effect of emphasizing the width of his bicep. Adisu himself had an ugly scar marring a face not noted for its beauty. It was turning a color that suggested medical attention was in order.
He didn’t appear worried about it, though. In fact, he seemed positively giddy. ‘You seem surprised to see me.’
He was not wrong. I had a pretty long list of folk I’d like to have seen returned from the dead. Adisu the Damned was not on it. ‘Looks like you boys have been through some trouble.’
‘You could say that. A squad of boys from Black House came by and paid us a visit. Maybe you heard about that. Maybe you even heard they put me down,’ he laughed. ‘Probably the ice figure one Islander is as good as another.’
As someone familiar with their thought process, I could confirm that this was exactly how the ice figured. No doubt Guiscard had believed himself honest when he’d told me that Adisu would no longer be a problem. No doubt whatever heavy had told Guiscard that Adisu would no longer be a problem had believed himself honest as well.
‘I’m sure glad to hear you survived it,’ I said.
‘No, Warden, I don’t think you are.’
‘You’re not suggesting I had anything to do with your misfortune?’
‘Who the hell else would it be? I pay my taxes to the guard, same as everyone. And there isn’t anything I’m into that would get the ice looking my way. Nothing except you. I didn’t realize you still had pull with your old people.’
‘It took some talking,’ I admitted.
‘You look like you’ve had almost as rough a day as me,’ Adisu said.
‘It was a long morning.’
‘Who been beating on you?’
‘Black House, believe it or not.’
Adisu laughed. ‘You know something, Warden, I think you’re the most hated man I’ve ever met.’
‘It’s a talent,’ I agreed.
‘I’m glad they left something of you for us to play with. I’ll tell you honestly, I was pretty worried I wouldn’t get this chance. The ice only left the two of us, and I wasn’t about to head out your way, not with that tame giant you keep behind the bar. But then I remembered you’d been frequenting old Mazzie’s. I figure we’d wait around for a while, see if you’d show. It was a long shot, no question. I certainly didn’t think we’d nab you so quick. I guess I must have done something to please the Firstborn.’
‘More likely I did something to piss him off.’
‘Works out the same either way,’ he said. ‘I’ve been thinking about how I’m gonna kill you for the last ten hours, since I saw the ice break my cousin’s face into the ground. I’ve got all sorts of ideas.’
I flourished the knife in my hands, but it was mostly for show. I was as weak as a newborn kitten. After the tuning-up Guiscard and his boys had given me, I didn’t imagine I’d give a credible account of myself. Still, you never know. Maybe Adisu would decide to sprint forward and impale himself on my blade. I figured I’d at least give him the option. ‘You smell like you rolled in shit,’ I said. ‘And I find your grandiosity immensely tiring.’
