There were only two tried and tested ways to climb socially into the upper city. One was by being fortunate enough to be born Gifted, and there was no shortage of sexual offers to male magi since the Gift tended to run in bloodlines. The parents of a Gifted child would quickly find themselves plucked from poverty and ushered into the relative luxury of the Crescent once their child became a full magus.
The other way was the old fashioned way: to get stinking rich and buy your way up. Of course, as Lynas’ family had discovered, it was easy for the unGifted to fall back into the filth of the slums if they were not cunning enough to survive the politicking of the Old Town’s magical bloodlines with their old money and old alliances. With extended family wielding political power in the Arcanum it was easy for the High Houses to remain in power and suckle from the flaccid teats of the city’s dwindling riches. Thoughts of politics always made my stomach heave.
The month of Leaffall was at an end and it was only three days before the festival of Sumarfuin was held to mark the onset of winter. The market area had been cleaned up and given a veneer of respectability. Country folk from the surrounding villages had been pouring into Setharis for the festival and to bring their cattle in for slaughter before the snows and ice arrived. The incomers held hands, laughing and kissing as they browsed the wares on offer, or danced to the bards playing tunes on their pipes. Grim-faced locals avoided any festivities and resented their carefree joy. I smiled at children wearing hideous horned masks as they wandered through the crowds carrying baskets of white heather sprigs, rabbits’ feet, boars’ tusks, black cats’ tails, and anything else that could conceivably be sold as lucky; others carried white quartz charm stone pebbles or strips of bright cloth that tradition claimed were offerings to appease the ancestors.
Sumarfuin must have held real meaning once, but these days it was just a bit of much-needed fun, a communal habit harking back to the tribal ancestors of both the Clanholds and the Setharii. It was older than the first words ever written by mankind during the era of tyrants, back when my wicked lot of bastards ruled. Some meanings and memories were probably better off forgotten.
The Arcanum and the nobility tended to frown on these old folk myths but some things even the rulers of the city couldn’t control. They certainly couldn’t stop young magi and nobles donning elaborate masks of their own and coming down to join in the revelry. It was the only time of the year when the social classes mixed freely.
A woman wearing some sort of foreign hedge witch costume, all bright beads and bones, thrust a necklace of carved wooden charms at my face. In a thick accent she declared it a talisman from some distant homeland with far too many vowels and apostrophes. She didn’t fool me; her voice was undiluted Docklands however hard she tried to disguise it. Seeing my lack of interest she thrust a basket of dragon bones and teeth under my nose. “Gathered from the beaches of the Dragon Coast, they was,” she said. “Grant you luck, so they will.” The stone bones looked genuine enough, still with traces of the costal rock they’d been dug from.
I waved her off and she moved down the line of newcomers peddling her artefacts. In the taverns and inns I’d passed through while travelling I occasionally heard tales of dragon sightings, but in ten years of travel I’d never met a single person that had personally seen a living one – well, nobody that was both sane and honest.
I bought some onion bread and chewed with relish as I made my way up Fisherman’s Wynd. The further from the market, the more sullen the city became. People kept their eyes fixed on the ground as if afraid to attract attention. A horse and cart tore down the street, causing a heavily-laden woman in the middle of crossing to leap back at the last moment to avoid being crushed. She fell to the ground. The cart didn’t slow, and nobody bothered to help her up.
Amidst the crowd somebody stumbled and bumped into my shoulder. I turned, something inside screaming wrongness. A richly dressed man stared up at me, bewildered, his pupils wide and dark, the whites shot through with red. I noted the tiny red cuts in his forearms where he’d been making blood offerings at the Thief of Life’s temple. He stank of stale sweat and sour puke, and his skin bubbled with pustules of corruption: low-level magical corruption at that. “All gone,” he muttered. “Gone. Ran out.”
A habitual mageblood addict too long without a fix. Panicked, I shoved the alchemic-addled idiot aside and hurried away. The man meandered his way down the hill, pawing at people and shouting obscenities, occasionally trying to bite chunks out of them. In that state it wouldn’t be long before the sniffers caught wind. Then it would be a quick knife across the throat and another corpse tossed onto the pyres. I kept my head down and quickened my step.
The wardens stationed on the Carr’s Bridge were carefully checking each cart as we stood in line to pay the toll and trickle over the hump of the bridge. No doubt my recent activities had caused the heightened security. Good, maybe if the authorities had been more vigilant they’d have caught the Skinner by now.
I filed in behind a gaggle of worshippers as they headed down onto East Temple Street. On entering the square a wall of incense hit me like a rock to the face. I’d never seen the point of the stuff; half the time it stank worse than the odours they were trying to mask.
By the time the bells in the Old Town tolled, the place was thronging with worshippers muttering prayers. I couldn’t help but think that our religions were an oddity flying in the face of Setharii inclinations towards practical cynicism. It was as if people refused to believe their gods had once been mortal men and women. Granted, the gods had been born Gifted, but they had still soiled their swaddling and spewed milk all over their parents at the most inopportune of times. Given time and centuries of hard work – and knowing that secret in my head – perhaps even the likes of me could find a way to become a god. Hah, wouldn’t that fuck them up!
I stuck a smoke between my lips and lit it from the sacred censor outside the Thief of Life’s temple. A priest frowned at me, but somehow I didn’t think my patron god would mind. Finally I caught sight of Charra entering the square, dressed in soft brown leathers cut for travel, a short sword sheathed at her hip and a small satchel slung over one shoulder. I gave her a wave and made my way over.
My tabac smoke wafted over and her nose wrinkled in disgust. “Do you have to use that muck?”
I shrugged. “No.” I took a long drag, then turned my head away and blew a long slow plume of smoke.
She scowled. “I hope your search was fruitful.”
“It was. I also discovered that the titans glow now. When did that happen?”
She shrugged. “Started about a year ago and has been getting steadily brighter. It’s a great mystery.”
I chuckled. “I can imagine the Arcanum’s consternation. Not knowing must be driving them mad. It certainly gave me pause when I was heading to Lynas’ warehouse.”
“I can imagine. Well, let’s go somewhere quiet and get down to business.”
At the entrance to East Temple Street we met a squad of wardens coming from the opposite direction. “Oh, come on,” I muttered, heart sinking as I recognized Eva in the vanguard. I forced myself to smile.
Those glorious green eyes flicked from Charra to me. “Well, well, if it isn’t Master Reklaw.” She inclined her head to Charra. “Business is well, I trust?”