A strange creature walked the streets of the city. She didn’t know it. Not yet at least.
Jay stood on the corner of Hamilton Street and Oakwright Avenue, huddled into the brick wall, waiting for the morning to start in earnest. Somewhere above her, hidden by the clouds and unseen, an airship floated by. The thrumming of its engines was muffled by the fog. Slowly, the rising sun chased the shadows over the cobblestones, burning through the residual mixture of mist and vapours that drifting over from the magic-processing plants and magic-powered factories that populated the southern part of the city.
She breathed on her cupped hands and stuck them under her armpits to hold onto the warmth and to keep them as nimble as possible. She had had fourteen years to learn that stiff fingers are no good to lift anything, either from passing people or from stalls. And she wouldn’t have lived to the ripe age of fourteen if she hadn’t learned that early and well.
Following the sun, people started to fill in the streets. The factory workers were always first. Some would still wear their cumbersome, magic-proofed protective coats and aprons, making them akin to thick-skinned beetles with brown, iridescent carapaces. Then the trade folk and deliveries with their wagons would come along. Some of those were pulled by horses- blood and flesh animals that left droppings and a warm smell of their stables in their wake. Others were powered by their artificial counterparts: clattering, ringing robo-horses with their steel-clad hides and magic fuel swirling in their crystal bellies.
As the hawkers rolled out their barrels and opened their booths and the shop-keepers pushed their gates open, more and more people appeared in the streets, filling the space between the tall buildings with the din of their voices and footsteps. Those interested Jay the most. Those coin-dropping, shop-window gawking, parcel-carrying, hurrying middle- and working- class passerby that had no hired guards to chase her off. Some of those would be servants to the wealthy that were running their masters’ errands. Others just homemakers after meal ingredients for their families or maybe even those enjoying their free hour or two before going about their daily business. If there was a meal at the end of this day for Jay, those were the ones that would provide it for her.
She stepped onto the pavement and started walking briskly, hunching her arms instinctively. This wasn’t her place, so far away from Drowns, too affluent for someone like her. Her- with a dress so frayed at the hem that it couldn’t be ascertained if there was a hem at all. Her- with long, mousy hair that had no acquaintance with a comb and a face that was always streaked with grime no matter how hard she tried to rub it clean with the cold water from a public pump. She was fully aware of it and, no matter how much she tried to become invisible, the glass in the windows were showing her scrawny figure and piercing, always scrutinizing, gaze of her own pale-blue eyes set into a gaunt face.
She turned her head away. She had no time to ponder her own visage; she needed to be on the lookout both for opportunities as well as dangers.
A small group of people caught her eye, surrounding a makeshift stall with a curious circle.
’Come and see, come and see! Aren’t they marvellous?’ called the hawker while his much shorter assistant was dealing with the customers that waved their hands at him, holding coins.
‘They will entertain you and make you laugh. Surprise your children. Delight your friends. Show them off at the parties. Look how small they are, truly a miracle of an Abrecari magi-technology!’
Jay sauntered closer and peered at the table from under somebody’s arm. On the green tablecloth there was a throng of miniature, magic-powered automata. Their eyes were burning bright red and gold. There were iron chickens, clucking and shaking their metal feathers, pecking at invisible seed. Monkeys with long arms that somersaulted and cavorted in circles, their joints clicking as they came to a stop, just to restart their hijinks again. There were turtles crawling along straight lines, only stopping to hide in their silvery shells and snap their sharp beaks when they emerged again. There were horses- tiny replicas of the metal beasts that pulled the wagons and carriages all over the city. Dogs and cats and creatures that Jay had no name for- all shining with their fire-polished colourful shells. All of this menagerie was in constant motion, only stopping when the magic-charged fuel would run out,, their eyes dimmed and the movements slowed down to a stop. Then, the hawker would pull out a long, armoured syringe and squirt a few drops of golden-red liquid through the port in a sluggish creature’s head to revive it.
Jay stared for a while, following the prancing toys with her eyes, fascinated by the movement, the sounds and colours. Then she shook her head. This is not what had drawn her to the table. It was the people that were gathered here, clearly the lot that had money to spare on such toys. If she timed her movements right, she might be able to free a wallet that was carelessly shoved back into the pocket, while the hands of a buyer were busy holding their new purchase. Or maybe she could bump into someone who just had start paying, make them drop the money, pick the coins up, and dart away before anyone would be the wiser…
‘You!’ she heard. The hawker was pointing straight at her. ‘I can see you there, you think I don’t?’
He produced a thin cane from somewhere under the table and shook it at Jay.
‘I know you’re not here to buy, so you better run or I’ll cop you a plum!’
Jay made face at him. What was he so twisted in the knots about? She wasn’t here to lift off him after all. Both he and his assistant kept the watch over their strongbox like a pair of entryway gargoyles over a door. Just in case, she decided to move on. She didn’t want to risk him coming round his table and suddenly finding herself near the thin end of his cane. Not only he would be likely to ‘cop her a plum’, but might even call the guards and Jay was not in the mood to argue with the law.
She scooted along the crowd, up to the next street to hide among the stream of people.
For a while, she followed a couple, young people so deeply in love that they failed to notice anything and everything around them. The man was dressed in deep brown doublet with a coat of arms on his breast and sleeve. Jay couldn’t recognize the device- most likely a private guard in one of the minor noble households. Jay eyed his girdle-bag, but the sight of the sword slung over his left hip made her keep an appropriate distance. The woman wore a woollen dress, flared at the bottom and a short green cloak that covered her arms and head. A heavy braid of her hair was swinging underneath, just showing its tip from beneath the hem of the cloak.
Years ago, Jay would have approached them, opened her eyes as wide as possible and held outstretched hand, hoping that her baby face would call to them to pity her and maybe even bring to their minds the children that they might have hoped to have in the future. Those years were long over for her though. Instead, Jay looked at the dark canvas bag that the woman had attached to her belt. She tried to think if it was big enough to hold anything more than a coin purse- something to eat maybe? Or a pocketbook? Jars of make-up or perfume? Other things that would be most likely not very useful to Jay personally, but still quite desirable to pawn off? There was a small red rose embroidered over the canvas and it swayed with every step the woman took, inviting Jay to try her luck. If she could only pull hard enough, the clip attaching the bag to the woman’s belt would give, leaving her to run away like an enchanted wind with the prize.
Jay was just sizing her strength and tensing her muscles to start running when the woman turned her head. The look she gave Jay stopped her in her tracks. ‘Don’t you even think about it’ it said wordlessly, and Jay knew that any chance of seeing what was in the rose-embroidered bag was now lost. Hurriedly, she turned into the next alley, before the woman could alert her sword-carrying companion to Jay’s, now much too transparent, intentions.
She practically ran through the narrow passage, that was barely wide enough to let one person at a time, a deep furrow between the two brick buildings. Only at the end of it she did realize that she had ventured into the part of the city in which she had no desire to be. The Labour Crossroads stretched ahead of Jay- the biggest slave market of Arklington.
Jay sighed. She didn’t want to cross the slave market, but if she turned around it would take twice as much time to get to the Greenmille Bazaar that was always a good place to score something to eat. She stomped her foot. Served her right, she should have paid more attention to where she was going than to the canvas bag at the woman’s belt. Tentatively, she stepped out of the alley.
The Labour Crossroads reeked. Despite all trade taking place out on the open air, a cloud of stench seemed to always be hanging around the wide, long plaza. It was a mixture of human faeces, never-washed bodies, fear and soured cabbage. Even the Drowns didn’t stink as bad and that was the quarter of the city whose inhabitants, having a choice between buying a piece of soap and a pint of beer, would go for the beer every time.
Alongside the longer sides of the plaza, huge steel chains were laid on the ground, the type that would hold an ironclad warship in place during stormy weather. To each link in the chain, more chains and shackles were attached. Those were used to hold the stock in place. All kind of stock- human merchandise of every colour, shape and use. There were Nyrah- stout and fair haired, their skin the colour of a well-sanded chestnut timber. Jay knew that they were taken from their land in the tall mountains, even though she had no idea where such land was. Most were Adanish though, pale-skinned folk like herself and were often citizens of Arklington or brought over from further corners of Adania. They either were sold for their debts by the decree of the law, or sold themselves, to pay off whatever money they owed. No Abrecari among the slaves though. The tall, silver-skinned people from beyond the sea were all too glad to trade their magical skill and technology, but would not sell any of their people to be slaves to other nations. And of course there were Kou. Some even argued that the poor creatures had no place in the slave market and should be sold with the animals. Dull-witted and mute, all Kou had yellow eyes and skin the unhealthy green of dried lichen.
The chained people stared as she passed, except for the Kou who only stared at their feet. Jay quickened her pace, feeling the eyes of the slaves on her back like the crawling of stubborn insects.
‘Why are you looking at me like that? Why? You’ve got it so much better than me’ she kept thinking as she put one foot in front of the other. ‘Soon you’ll be sold to a factory or a ship or a workshop where you’ll be out of the cold and out of the rain. And maybe you’ll end up in a house of somebody rich where you’ll be fed leftovers from the kitchen and given old clothes to wear. If you’re handsome or pretty maybe the master or mistress will take a fancy to you and let you sleep in their bed too.’
Every few meters or so along the chains there were tables that held ledgers. There, the slave merchants worked their trade and customers would come to haggle. Sometimes Jay was in half-a-mind to come over too, ask a merchant to put her in a leger to be sold. Sometimes, when it was bitterly cold and she didn’t manage to get anything to eat for a few days, she would deliberate if life wouldn’t be better in bondage. Before she would make up her mind though, an unnamed, nauseating dread would pool inside her stomach. ‘Not yet’ she would think then. ‘It isn’t so cold. The weather is bound to turn soon. And I’m not that hungry. Not today.’
It would have been so easy- to put her hand under a stamp machine that would mark her with magical trace ink and become somebody’s property. Today, as it was so many days before, Jay hurried past the merchants’ tables and out of the Labour Crossroads, not even stopping to warm her hands at one of the braziers that set up to keep both the stock and the buyers warm.
She followed the twisting streets back to her original destination, a small local bazaar that supplied the area with fruit and vegetables. Now, as the warm months passed, the Greenmille Bazaar lost its predominantly green stock, and the stalls carried the bounty of autumnal harvest. Fat gourds and pumpkins piled on the cobblestones. Shiny red and orange apples and pears rested in their crates. Golden onions and cream-coloured turnips peeked out of the bags. Thick carrots tied up in bundles took over the free space on the counters and shelves. The harvest must have been good and there was no lack of food and no lack of merchants calling out, praising their stock.
‘Buy your beets here folks! Roots as red as rubies! Leaves like fans! Have you ever seen better beets?’
‘Potatoes! Potatoes! Potatoes! All the potatoes you’ll ever need!’
‘Parsnips for cooking and roasting. Very special price for parsnips today!’
Then there were some items brought over from overseas if you were fond of Abrecari cuisine- delicate leaves of Rock Lettuce, streaked with gold; heavy fruit of Umbral Trees, pulsating with yellow juice; pink globules of Lord’s Beans, their leathery bodies speckled with black. Some other, more exotic produce, she couldn’t name, but the sweet smell wafting from the baskets and shelves was enticing nonetheless.
No matter your taste, you could buy anything to garnish your plate or fill your stew pot here. Anything that grew was here for you to buy and consume. If you had the coin, of course. Jay had none. All she had was her fingers and an eye to spot an opportunity. Finally luck was starting to lean in her direction. She swiped two apples from a crate while the merchant was busy arguing with the customer about the quality of his radishes.
Now Jay was standing under the granite mass of the King’s statue that was overseeing the bazaar and chewing through the apples while stomping her feet from time to time, as it was a bit too chilly to stand in one place without moving. She started thinking about the future. Or as far into the future as someone such as herself could afford to think. The days turned colder every morning and even as she stomped her feet, Jay could feel a new hole forming slowly but surely in the sole of one of her shoes. She moved out of the statue’s shadow so the sun could lie on her shoulders instead of a cloak. She couldn’t afford a cloak. ‘A blanket would do’ she thought. ‘A real woollen one, not one of those sewed up from rags and cut-offs, but how to get it?’ A used clothes shop was out of the question, the moment Jay would stepped through the threshold, she would be watched, every step she took accounted for.
Jay rubbed her stomach which had just started protesting that two apples were not a meal enough after two days of nothing at all, and scowled. She could, of course, go around the taverns in the evening and get a man that would be interested in having her for a price. A few years back she had tried that, thinking that she could take a bit of pain and discomfort in exchange for having her belly full for a few days. However, when she had finally found one that would be interested in her, back then still-undeveloped body, it turned out differently. He hadn’t been brutal, he paid and hadn’t even beaten her, but in the end she wound up aching and bleeding for days afterwards. She had even considered spending the pain-gotten money for medicine at the alchemist shop, utterly defeating the whole purpose. Even though the street-walking women and men of Drowns always said that each following time would be just a little bit easier, Jay had been put off the whoring trade and decided to push it back into the collection of last resorts.
She stood next to the statue, watching the constant stream of shoppers that rolled through the bazaar and pondering her next move. Then she noticed him- and old man moving through the crowd, uninterested in the wealth of food or the people around him. He was of her height, but his shoulders rounded him down towards the ground. He wore an old ratty cloak that was not much better than Jay’s own clothes- patched and stained, covering him from neck to ankles. He had his hood pulled over his face, his features completely obscured by the frayed fringe. He moved deliberately, the way all old men move when their joints are stiff after sleeping on a hard bed in a damp room. Just an old man, and as such, he moved unnoticed and ignored by the crowd about him. But there was something under his cloak. Jay could tell by the way the fabric was surrounding his frame. A bag? Or pouch maybe? ‘He has something’ she thought. ‘Something of value.’
She continued to watch the old man, following him with her gaze as he turned into one of the alleys leading away from the bazaar. Without thinking much, Jay went after him.
He continued down the street, squeezing between the passersby, shaking his gloved fist and mumbling to himself whenever a robo-horse clattered a little bit too close to him.
Jay kept going after him. Whatever the man was holding couldn’t be much, but Jay had the feeling that it might just be enough. Enough to get a warm blanket or pay for hot meals for few days. Enough to push back the looming shadows of whoring and slavery. She just needed him to turn into a street with a less traffic, somewhere where she would have a lesser chance of tripping or bumping into someone as she was running away.
Finally he took the turn Jay was waiting for. The old man stepped into a side-alley. Jay knew this one, running behind old brickworks-turned-warehouse. It was a passage rarely used anymore since there was no more clay being carted to the building. As soon as she saw him turning, her heart started beating faster. She quickened her pace, running even before she turned the corner herself.
‘One good push!’ she thought. ‘One good push and he’ll have his face in the mud and I will have whatever he has!’
At full speed now, she could see the rounded shoulders of the old man. She folded her arms, ready to strike with her elbow. Don’t turn around!
He didn’t.
Instead, he side-stepped, as deftly as a feline. Unbalanced, Jay flew forward, but immediately she felt her arm pulled. She couldn’t shake the grip as she was dragged back, her arm twisted behind her. She saw a flash with a corner of her eye and now she was being held, a cruel-looking blade to her throat.
‘What the fuck you think you’re doing?’
The voice was gravelly and sharp as if its owner just took a good, deep lungful of vapours and ash straight from a magic-works smokestack. Jay froze, too terrified to even draw breath. One slight movement from her or the man and the blade would sink deeply into her flesh, drinking the hot blood from her carved-up throat.
Suddenly, the blade withdrew and her arm was free. Immediately she was spun around to be face-to-face with him, the man was now holding her by the collar of her dress. From the depths of the hood, a pair of yellow eyes stared into her soul.
‘Just a fucking street kid’ growled the man. Jay struggled in his grip, but the gloved hand held her like an iron vice. Then, with a single swipe, he pushed her away. The strength of the push had sent her tumbling across the alley until she hit a brick wall to the side, narrowly avoiding a pile of old wooden crates. Jay fell to her knees, catching herself with both hands, dipping her sleeves in a puddle of muddy water. Instinctively, she huddled her head between her shoulders.
‘Trying to rob an old man? ‘She heard him chuckle a little at the end of the sentence, the laugh sounding as raspy as the rest of his voice.
Jay looked up, seeing that the cloak of her would-be victim flew open and the hood slid down on his shoulders. But what was underneath the cloak was not an old man. Not a man at all!
He stood now as tall as she would, his body composed of wiry, well-defined muscles. His completely hairless skin was a shade of green that you find on a fern that had grown with hardly any sunlight. His arms were a little bit too long, ending with broad palms and thick fingers, the fingernails completely black and square. His legs were slightly shorter too, putting his mass centre low. In addition to his yellow eyes that were now staring at her with piercing intensity, his face was as if it was chiselled from a block of olivine- sharp and uninviting. His thin lips were twisted in a sneer.
Jay opened her mouth in disbelief. A Kou! He was a Kou, but how could that be? He had spoken to her and everybody knew that no Kou was ever capable speaking anything that resembled words of any kind. No free Kou ever wore clothes, they had to be trained to accept basic garments for decency’s sake. The one that stood before her wore leather spats that seemed to provide protection for his wide feet, loose-fitting trousers of decently spun fabric and a leather jerkin with no sleeves over a short-sleeved shirt. Over those clothes were draped pouches and satchels of different sizes. A bandolier of throwing knives crossed his chest, and behind his right hip, a heavy, curved dagger poked its pommel from the sheath on his back. Jay realized that it was this equipment, that she had spotted bulging under the unassuming cloak.
The moment he moved Jay rolled herself into a tight ball. Between the wall and the crates, the Kou was blocking the only way of escape. She briefly thought of reaching into her clothes for a small handmade knife she always carried with her. Yet, instinctively she felt that it would only make matters worse. He wasn’t just some drunk stumbling and groping in a dark alley. He was someone dangerous and she knew it immediately. She wondered if he would be satisfied with a beating and maybe then he would leave and not drag her to the nearest guardhouse. She shuddered as he approached.
Instead of throwing a punch or a kick, the strange Kou pushed a nearby crate closer to her and sat down on it.
‘Eh, I guess we’ve all been there at one time or another’ he said.
Jay risked a glance; the Kou stared back at her.
‘Please’ she said. ‘You won’t give me to the guards then? I don’t want to go to Ostrah Gate!’
‘Ostrah Gate?’ he responded and chuckled shortly. ‘Afraid to go to prison but still thieving? Let me tell you kid, you’re a shitty thief. I could hear you coming from mile away too. ‘
Jay said nothing.
‘What’s your name?’ he asked.
‘Jay’ she said and finally uncoiled herself, thinking that as long as he’s talking he, wouldn’t be beating her. She pushed the hair that fell over her face and straightened her back.
‘You can call me Lethe’ he said and leaned towards her. ‘And you better pick up whoring instead, kid. You might get a public whipping, or two, but they won’t stick you into Ostrah Gate for that.’
Jay sighed. She was not about to explain to this weird creature that all she wanted was to avoid spending her life servicing sailors and factory workers in the narrow alleys, behind taverns and gambling dens.
‘Although’ he leaned back and rubbed his chin. His yellow eyes were now measuring her up and down. ‘You were able to notice me, even though it is not easy to do if I want to remain hidden.’
He stared for a heartbeat more before speaking again.
‘I can teach you.’
‘What?’
‘I said, I can teach you to be a better thief. Come on.’
He stood up from the crate and extended his hand. Jay stared at it for a second, before accepting it tentatively.
He pulled her up to her feet and looked her up and down again.
‘Alright’ he said. ‘We’re walking out of here and onto the main street and we won’t be seen by anybody.’
Jay immediately assumed her ‘walking the street’ stance with her head down, trying to be as small and unassuming as possible.
‘No, not like that!’ scoffed Lethe. ‘What are you doing, trying to skulk like that? There are no shadows to hide in, everybody will see you’re up to no good!’
He pulled his cloak about him and pushed the hood down over his head. He adjusted his stance slightly and rounded his back, making it look like it was bent by age. Immediately, the strange Kou man standing before her disappeared. In his place there was a poor old man that had certainly seen better days.
‘See? I can be this old man’ he said. ‘This old man that nobody notices or remembers but you…’
He glanced at her from under his hood.
‘Now your turn’ he said. ‘Since I’m now an old man it would be only right if I had a granddaughter to steady me on my way. Go on, be a granddaughter.’
Jay pondered. At no point in her life had she been a daughter, let alone a granddaughter. What would a granddaughter walking with her grandfather look like?
She straightened her back and with as much tenderness as she could muster, she stood at Lethe’s side and slipped her hand underneath his arm.
‘Heh, not bad’ said Lethe. ‘Let’s see how we walk.’
They moved out of the alley and entered the traffic of a well-treaded street.
Lethe slipped into the role completely, including the mumblings and the shaking of the head- the signs of a man that disapproves of the follies that would be unheard of in days past. Jay on the other hand still felt a bit awkward in her role.
‘Pat me on my hand from time to time’ murmured Lethe from under his hood. ‘You’re calming me down since getting agitated is bad for your dear old grandpa’s health.’
Jay did as he said, feeling the steel cables of the muscles of his forearms under the cloak, breaking the illusion of his assumed persona.
‘Where are we going?’
‘I’ve got some errands’ he said. ‘Don’t worry, it’s not far. Just keep up the granddaughter act.’
They moved along the cobblestone streets, until the city around them turned a little more industrial. The wide roads with paved curbs turned into muddy tracks and wooden walkways. The building turned from stone-and-brick into brick-and-planks. The shops and eateries turned into workshops and small warehouses.
Jay sniffed. The air here smelled more of metal and chemicals. Somewhere in a nearby building she could hear the rhythmic thumping of an automated blacksmith’s hammer moved by either magic or steam.
‘In here’ Lethe pointed. They passed a wooden gate that looked like it was never closed anymore and found themselves in an extension of an alley with a brick-paved courtyard. A few more workshops were housed here. They had signs and marquees, even though they were small and not flashy, but no markers of what services they provide- no bottles or anvils or golden globes that could tell illiterate clients what to expect. To someone like Jay, who couldn’t read herself, the signs may as well have been written in magic runes.
‘Where are we?’ she asked, thinking that if you didn’t know that this collection of shops and workshops was here you would never find it by accident. ‘What are all those shops for?’
‘Oh, just a workplace of some very talented people that make bespoke orders and don’t ask many questions, if you know what I mean’ Lethe cracked a crooked smile.
Jay wasn’t sure what exactly he meant, but now it dawned on her that this was the place he was getting whatever supplies he needed for his trade.
‘Maybe one day I’ll introduce you to some, but for now…’
He slipped his hand under the cloak and pulled out two copper coins.
‘Take these. And don’t look at me like that!’ he said when Jay glared at him with suspicion. She was taught by experience that no one just gave out money, not unless they wanted something in return. ‘Treat it as an advance on the work you’ll be doing.’
He pushed the coins into the palm of her hand and waved her away.
‘Go on now, scram.’ He said as he turned away to walk towards the shops. ‘Wait for me tomorrow at midnight in the alley we met. And eat something beforehand. Your stomach is rumbling like dockworkers on payday. It’s distracting.’
Jay watched as Lethe disappeared in the doorway of one of the shops and then looked at the coins he left, not knowing what to think of all this. She shrugged and made her way back home, clasping the coins tightly in her palm.
