“Good,” A’Meer said. “But we should be moving faster. The Monk that killed Rafe’s uncle did so hours ago. It could be anywhere in the town by now. I wonder whether it knew where to look for Rafe, or whether it thought the same thing we did.”
“We can’t know,” Kosar said. A’Meer looked paler than ever down here. He reached out and touched her face, and was pleased at her grateful smile. “But we have an advantage. We know people here, you more than me. Instead of just searching, we should ask around, see if anyone knows of a strange boy in the districts, someone who might be harboring him.”
“The word will spread quickly, especially with me in full Shantasi armor. The regulars at the Broken Arm would be in for a shock.”
“By the time word spreads, we’ll either have found him or…”
“Or they will. They’re very efficient, the Red Monks. No emotions cloud their vision, other than hate. And that’s cleansing.”
“Is it?” Kosar asked, but things instantly felt different, as if the two of them were talking about something forbidden.
A’Meer turned away and started down the passageway again. Kosar followed.
Within a few heartbeats they sensed a breeze of aromatic air coming from their left. They took a fork in the passage, ducking under the twisted spiral of a metal machine where it supported the ceiling, and ascended rough steps cut into the side of some gargantuan buried thing. To left and right ran a crevasse, bridged only here by the steps that led up. It was pitch black, but Kosar had the sense of something massive hiding down here, not dead but dreaming, its exhalations making the dark darker. He shook his head but could not vent the visions. A’Meer glanced back, wide-eyed. She had felt it too.
Kosar had never been so pleased to see the filthy streets of the hidden districts. They emerged through a rent in the side of a building, framed by twists of fossilized machine, and a few curious stares greeted them. A’Meer shook herself, as if to shed her black hair and white skin of the dust of underground, and her packed weapons whispered together.
Kosar looked away from each set of eyes he met, only to meet another.
“Come on,” he said. “We don’t want to cause a stir.” They headed off quickly, running deeper into the districts.
It was usually held that those who lived here were criminals-thieves, murderers, rapists, bandits on the run-but it was also true that the districts offered shelter for those poets and prophets who still listened to their heart. It was a rough, dangerous place, but at least here life still sang through the air on occasion, and the future held possibilities.
Most people carried weapons, much more so than out in the normal streets, but few to the extent of A’Meer. And as the two of them progressed, they drew attention whichever way they turned. Chatter stopped, trading paused, and Kosar could hear whispers from those hunkered in doorways or pressing themselves back against walls to let the two of them pass. Most of them had never seen a Shantasi warrior, and the crowd’s fear was palpable.
“This won’t help us find Rafe,” he whispered to A’Meer. “It’ll more likely hide him from us more.”
“There’s someone I know,” she said. “She’s not far from here; we’ll go to her. She’s always listening out for news of strangers passing through. She’ll know if Rafe has been seen.”
“Who is she?”
“Shantasi spy.”
Kosar allowed A’Meer to draw ahead so that he could follow. He tried not to catch anyone’s eyes, but after staring at the Shantasi they would inevitably move on to him, their gaze questioning, eyebrows raised in query. A few glanced down at his hands and saw the bloodied strips around his fingertips, and their curiosity grew. A mercenary and a thief, one of them whispered. I wonder what he’s hired her for? Kosar stared at the whisperer, not moving away until the man averted his eyes.
But everywhere the looks and mutters were the same, and it did not take long for Kosar to become paranoid, fearing that the whole of Pavisse knew their business. In reality, much as their appearance caused a brief commotion as they passed, he knew that in the hidden districts there was always something else to draw attention. They may well be talked about, but their presence would not alter anyone’s day.
He followed A’Meer blindly. Every time he heard someone raise their voice he turned around, convinced that he would see a Red Monk, blood-hungry sword drawn and eager to bathe itself in Shantasi flesh.
… and now mercenaries, and this is a dark day dawning for sure.
Kosar stopped, turned, trying to make out who had spoken. A group of children stood huddled against a timber fence surrounding a scorpion-plant garden, eyes wide and afraid. To their left an elderly couple stood arm in arm, and when he met the woman’s eyes she glanced away, looking for something in the dust.
“ What and mercenaries?” he asked quietly.
She did not answer until her partner jerked her arm, nudged her in the side. His eyes had strayed over Kosar’s right shoulder to A’Meer.
“Monk,” the woman whispered. “Red Monk.”
“Where? When? Alone?”
“Last night, passing by my house. I couldn’t sleep. I was sitting at the window watching the stars, writing a poem.” She glanced up, perhaps expecting ridicule, but seeing only stern interest on Kosar’s face. “I saw it walk by below my window. Even in the dark I could see its color.”
“You didn’t tell me-” the man said, but the woman continued, ignoring him.
“It stopped just past my window and raised its head, sniffing at the air. I could hear it, sniffing! It knew I was there, and it must have heard my heart. But then it went on into the shadows.”
“In which direction?”
“No. It went into the shadows. It did not move, it slipped away. No direction.” She was crying now, an old woman’s tears that looked like those of a child.
Kosar glanced back at A’Meer, whose attention remained focused on the woman. “We should go,” he said. “Find whoever it is you think can help.”
“Was it a good poem?” A’Meer said suddenly.
The woman’s crying stopped, shocked into silence.
“The poem,” A’Meer repeated. “Was it good?”
“I’m not sure,” the old woman said. “I think I’ve forgotten.”
“Never forget the poetry in your heart,” A’Meer said. “It may yet have some use one day.” And then she turned and marched away.
Kosar followed, wondering what had happened back there. The old woman was not crying anymore, and as he looked back one last time Kosar saw the old man questioning her, touching her, trying to tear her gaze from the morning sky. Yet another surprise from A’Meer.
“If they came here and found nothing, maybe they moved on?” Kosar said.
A’Meer stopped and guided him over to a building, its walls composed entirely of the outer shell of an old machine. Breakers had obviously been at work here-a slab of the machine lay discarded in the street, and people walked around it rather than touch it or move it aside.
“If the Monks came here they came for a reason,” A’Meer said. “We know there’s more than one or two-there may be many-and coming out in force means that they know Rafe is here. They’ll not leave until he’s dead.”
“How do they even know of him?”
A’Meer shrugged. “Whispers on the wind. Rumors. Mostly I think they can sense it; magic is their madness, and they’re well attuned to its cadences.”
“So why not do what they did in Trengborne?” Kosar asked. “Kill everyone so that they’re sure Rafe is one of them?”
“It may yet come to that,” she said. “But for now, I guess they know that if they start wholescale slaughter, Rafe will disappear in the panic. Pavisse is a little bigger than Trengborne.” She smiled, but it barely touched her eyes.
Too many memories resurfacing in there, Kosar thought. Memories of her training, perhaps, and what she had been charged with. And recollections of her battle with the Monk in Ventgoria. Perhaps she was scared that she could not repeat that victory after living so long as a normal person.