28 A Piglet and Three Slinkts

Year 906YC, seventeen years earlier

THREADFIN GRIPPED HIS sister’s hand, sweat trickling between their fingers in the summer heat. Huddled together, they watched the men and women gather below. Many of them were ancient, wrinkled and bent with white hair or no hair at all. One, who was younger with hair in long dark braids, glanced up towards the gallery.

Both children ducked. They held their breaths waiting to see if someone would come. It had been Liviana Avitus, the youngest conclavist in history. She was the talk of the city, though Threadfin didn’t understand why. He didn’t like the way she looked down her nose, the way she seemed not to see him.

Aiyana giggled and her brother grinned. She didn’t seem to mind Avitus, suggesting she might be a good fit for their father, though tiny pockmarks marred the young woman’s face from a childhood condition. Avitus had flirted openly with the imperator, but Markus Olen hadn’t appeared to notice. Threadfin didn’t know much about flirting. Aiyana did.

His sister had a small leather-bound book in her left hand, one finger wedged between the crinkled pages. Paper. That book alone was worth a fortune since Atlantis had disappeared two years ago. Some folk said the sea had swallowed the island. Others suggested giants had smashed it to dust. He wondered what she was reading, but instead whispered, ‘Where is grandfather? I don’t see him. We can’t do this if he arrives.’

‘I don’t know, but father won’t be here.’

‘Why not?’ It was normal for at least one Todralan representative to attend conclave gatherings.

‘I’m not sure,’ she replied, trying to appear all knowing and regal, ‘but I heard father saying something about an attack in Lame, in the borderlands. A full cohort was slain I think, and some redcloaks too. Not that they are any loss. Some sort of creature, or something. I think he was just looking for an excuse. You know father hates politics. Anyway, today is probably nothing important,’ she added judiciously. ‘Old people always talk about nothing. It’s our best chance.’

‘They’ll tell him when he returns.’

‘No, they won’t, not if they don’t see us, and neither will Sarscha. She’s got blade practice for another two hours. Swords, I think. I’ve planned this out, like last time.’

‘Last time we got caught.’

‘Just trust me.’

She let go of his hand and crept ahead towards the broad marble stairs. She listened, watched, and then signalled for him to follow.

Outside, the day’s heat was oppressive, for breathers anyway. It was not yet midmorning. Threadfin stood in the shadows. He’d pulled the cowl of his linen tunic over his head, a cloth mask covering his nose and jaw. He wasn’t old enough to wear the traditional dalba, a ridiculous elitist cloak thing, which covered everything and customary for a Todralan beyond the palace walls.

Aiyana was of age, but she always managed to wriggle out of it. She was good at doing that. The dust of the streets, mingled with the stench of the sewers, meant most citizens wore masks. Adding the grolg and sydarags fouling the streets along with the pigs, fowl, and the skunks held in their pens at the far side of the city, meant father was irritable on hot days. Grandfather would rebuke such criticism, saying it was the smell of trade, of a living imperium. He should embrace it and not grumble. Their father never took such criticism well.

Close by, a ring of tanned children in faded rags joined hands. They danced in a circle of dust, singing. Threadfin wished he could join them. He knew the rhyme, and found himself mouthing the words.

A white stone

A blue stone

A green stone

Four

A cloud stone

A sun stone

A star stone

Eight

Spectrum guide and Spectrum hide

Inside, outside

A Shathra Stone gate

Children also raced about playing Whip the imp or Imperator’s limp, with both games being much the same, while traders hollered and bickered. Older men sat smoking pipes while playing Soul & Fury on wooden or cloth boards, or The Gorgon & Grim, a game strictly for Muckers. Throughout was a bustle of activity that said the city was alive with purpose and promise.

He watched as his sister stood on a street corner, her friend Cathya holding her book for her. She nattered with local boys who didn’t know who she was. Then again, maybe they did. Threadfin saw the way their leader, a boy of ten, seemed in awe of her. He smiled at her shyly. Several of them appeared pale, scratching at open sores on their arms. There had been minor outbreaks of sickness. Threadfin knew it bothered Aiyana, if not why.

Dressed in a borrowed servant’s tunic, her legs and arms exposed, his sister appeared as just another runt from the Muck if a little less dirty. He knew he could never do the same. His appearance had grown worse the last few years. Even in the Muck, folk considered virals lower than animals, not that many believed they existed. Rumours he suffered a skin condition had spread throughout the population, and Aiyana did her best to encourage such tales. ‘Better a skin blight than angry mobs trying to kill you,’ she’d told him once, and he couldn’t find fault with her logic. People believed Plagueborn responsible for all maladies.

‘Why do they hate me?’ he’d asked once.

‘They don’t hate you,’ she’d answered patting his head. ‘How can they, when they don’t know you?’

‘Well, I don’t like them.’ Aiyana had discovered a non-infectious skin disease in her books to explain his appearance. He didn’t recall the name and didn’t care. Breathers didn’t matter to him, nor what they thought. She was all he had in the world. All that mattered.

The lead boy held out his hand and she placed three silver dralans into his palm. After a debate, she added a fourth. Scrips were all Muckers could earn. It was illegal for them to have coin. She always took risks. Grinning, the boys broke up and mingled with the market crowd.

Skipping back to her brother, Aiyana wore the biggest grin. ‘They’re greedy, but I can’t blame them. Cath and Rylana have agreed to help, though I think Rylana’s going to chicken out last minute. She always does, but she does insist on being included. Least those children can buy something to eat now. I gave them enough for several months.’ She spoke as though she were many years older rather than a few.

‘If they get caught with it, they’ll end up in the dungeons.’ That idea didn’t bother him much. He didn’t like how they’d smiled at her, especially the lead boy.

‘Not the first time they’ve had coin. They know to use it outside of the city with the foreign merchants.’

‘What about the others?’

‘Others?’

‘Like me. We’re helping them too, right? Not just, I mean, not just ... them.’

‘I help all who I can,’ she said, and he knew she wasn’t telling him something. ‘Their lives are worse than ours, after all.’

‘You mean their fathers are nastier?’ Why did she care? They were breathers. So was she, but that was different. He didn’t how, but it was.

She threw a thin arm around him and hugged him, kissing his shredded cheek. ‘No, they just don’t have any big sisters like me to look after them.’

‘No, I suppose they don’t.’ Even if they had big sisters, none could compare. She was his and no one else’s. Sarscha didn’t count.

‘Let’s go, they promised it would happen soon.’

‘Won’t they just run off with the money?’ Most of them were thieves from what he’d seen of them. He didn’t like thieves.

‘They’re poor but honest, and they know who I am. They’d never squeal. Besides, no one important listens to children, and never to Muckers.’

‘Better hope father doesn’t find out. He always seems to know things, no matter what you say.’

‘Here,’ said his sister, holding out her hand. Resting on her palm was a small piece of dull metal and a piece of cord. ‘A boy gave it to me. He told me it would protect me. I think he likes me, but his ears are too big.’

Like smaller ears would make a difference. ‘He’s a Mucker, Aiy. You’ve got to remember who you are.’ That boy had been leering at her, he was certain.

‘Like I can forget,’ she said with a wry twist to her mouth. ‘Can’t I just give my little brother a present?’

‘Don’t you want it?’

She grinned. ‘Your life is worth more to me, even if it’s half a life. I never want anything to happen you, Fin. They call it a crucifix. Some say one of the Angelborn, her name was Etruria, that she was nailed to one. It was long ago after a big battle. She protects soldiers and such, but I think she’ll make an exception for you. Don’t let anyone see it. The paladins have banned them. They say they’re blasphemous. Father would be apoplectic.’ She giggled.

Threadfin didn’t know what that last word meant, or that other one, but then she was always using fancy words. She spent half her time in the libraries. He placed it around his neck and tucked it beneath his tunic. He would value it for as long as he existed. Not because of what it was, but because she had given it to him, because the Church had banned it. Threadfin didn’t like paladins much. Patriarchs of the Church, they didn’t like virals, always denouncing them. He thought he knew what that word meant. It wasn’t anything good, anyway.

Once they’d settled back into their spot on the narrow gallery, they waited. Rylana had chickened out as predicted. She’d never gotten over that whipping.

Half an hour passed before the first screech and guttural whines erupted. From a small doorway in the apse of the chamber, a piglet and three juvenile slinkts emerged. The piglet squealed in terror as it dodged between pillars and wrinkled feet. The predators, possibly a year old, gave chase. Even at that age, vicious teeth filled their narrow snouts, although when young, their piercing whines were ineffective. The conclavists shouted or yelled with the odd screech thrown in. A guard managed to skewer one slinkt with a spear.

Men and women yelled, hitching their cloaks and tunics, leaping atop their seats. One or two fled towards the main entrance, looking to escape. Two conclavists collided and ended in a heap with a snarling slinkt leaping over them. One young woman, however, stood stock still throughout. Liviana Avitus stared up at the gallery with a deep frown.

In the shadows above, Threadfin, Cathya and Aiyana laughed until it hurt. It was a great day.

They fled out into the street, in hysterics, losing themselves in the stink and furore of the city, young and happy, and oblivious.