Vengeance
Authors: Colin Harvey
Swimming Kangaroo Books
www.swimmingkangaroo.com
Copyright ©2008 by Colin Harvey
First published in 2008, 2008
SWIMMING KANGAROO BOOKS Arlington, Texas
This book, the first, is for Kate, for all her support.
Swimming Kangaroo Books, May 2008
Swimming Kangaroo Books
Arlington, Texas
ISBN: Paperback 978-1-934041-25-3
Other Available formats: PDF, HTML, Mobi (No ISBN's are assigned)
LCCN: 2008927351
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Copyright ©2001, 2005, 2008 by Colin Harvey
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, whether living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A radically different version of this work was first published electronically at www.hiddencave.com in 2001
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.
Cover art by Berin Uriegas
Colin Harvey is the author of the science fiction and fantasy novels
Lightning Days
and
The Silk Palace
, as well as the forthcoming paranormal thriller
Blind Faith
, due out in July 2008. All are published by Swimming Kangaroo Books. He is the editor of an anthology of original speculative crime stories,
Killers,
due later in 2008, and is currently working on a major new science fiction novel,
Winter Song,
which he hopes to complete for 2009 publication.
His short fiction has appeared in a number of small press webzines, and in addition to reviewing regularly for
Strange Horizons
and The Fix, he is a member of the Horror Writers Association and serves on the Management Committee of the Speculative Literature Foundation, where his duties include judging the Gulliver Travel Research Grant. He can be found on MySpace, LiveJournal and has a Web site at www.geocities.com/colinharvey. Colin was on the preliminary list for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer.
Colin lives between Bristol and Bath in the United Kingdom with his wife, Kate, and two spaniels, Chloe and Alice. When not writing, he likes long walks with them across the nearby fields. Sometimes he even manages not to think about writing, but about his other passions, cooking and Liverpool FC.
"Spare a coin for a poor orphan child, pretty Dem?"
The voice seemed to pipe out of nowhere, and Jocasta stopped on the street corner, her chain of thought interrupted.
"Oh,” she murmured. She looked around for her companion, but it had rounded the corner, not realizing that she had stopped. “I'm a—I'm not a Dem, child, I've never married,” she said sadly, looking down at the source of the voice, who gazed up at her.
The girl was about six years old, Jocasta decided. She guessed again: The girl's legs were missing below the thigh, which made it hard to tell. Clad in a bilious green robe that bunched around her waist, she perched on a rickety wooden cart, which, judging by the calluses on her outstretched hand, she wheeled around herself. Her eyes were a rich chocolate brown, but Jocasta recoiled from the thin green stream of snot trickling from one nostril, while a malodorous waft floated up from the child. One of her shoulders was exposed to the air, showing a hideous rash of pustules.
She caught Jocasta's horrified glance, and blurted, “'s not catching, Demoiselle.” Then: “Spare a coin?"
Jocasta opened her mouth to say, “I haven't got any,” but what actually came out was, “If they find you up here in The Magister's Quarter, they'll kill you, child."
"The Festival of Shamsharra, innit? Free folk are allowed anywhere then.” The girl added querulously, “Even ones like me."
Jocasta rummaged in her coin cache and said kindly, “Do you really think it would seem anything but an accident?” With her free hand she drew her forefinger across her throat as she handed over the copper, gripping it in the tips of her fingers so as not to touch the girl's flesh.
She probably isn't cursed,
Jocasta thought,
but it won't hurt to be sure.
The child took it, and Jocasta said, “Now, run along—"
She was interrupted by the girl's shriek.
A shadow fell over them, and Jocasta urged, quietly, but harsh with near-panic, “Be quiet! Be still!” The girl complied, and Jocasta added in a gentler voice, “It's only my spellhound."
The little girl stared up at the monstrous bulk. Apart from a tiny shiver, she was statue-still, her eyes wide. Finally she whispered, “You one o’ the warders? Has he come to git me?"
"If I were,” Jocasta said, “you'd be in the back of a prison wagon already.” She laughed and said, “
He
is an ‘it.’ I use it to track spells. Hold your hand out; no not with the coin."
"Its fur is soft. Can it talk?"
"No,” Jocasta said.
Hieroglyphs formed dancing motes of light in front of the spellhound.—This is how I talk—.
As the child gawped, Jocasta urged, “Now run along. Shoo! Before the warders catch you."
Obediently, the child spun her cart with the ease of long practice and sped off.
Jocasta stood up straight and adjusted her dress, gazing out over Frehk. They stood on one of the highest hills in the city. It was early spring and the breeze that blew off the bay still chilled. “I should have worn my cape,” she said, half to herself. “Especially if we're not back at the office until late afternoon."
—Did you not pawn it last week?—
She chuckled grimly. “I was trying to forget that."
—Oh.—
She took a deep breath. “We shouldn't stand here too long."
—We were early. We will not be late.—
"Good."
—Did you give that child money?—
"I did,” Jocasta said, trying not to sound defensive.
—Does it seem sensible to you to give a beggar child your last coins?—
"You sound as if you are my owner.” She half-laughed.
—I am very aware of who owns whom. That is why I said your, not our, last coins. Still, I have your interests at heart.—
But I suspect you'd rather that I didn't sell you,
she thought.
If I did, your next owner might not allow such independence of thought.
Instead she said, “We don't have enough money to pay next week's rent, whether I gave that child a coin or not. By contrast, it will make a lot of difference to her."
—And perhaps the fates will look kindly on our mission, if you make them a small offering?—
They walked slowly, as if attending a friend's execution, and Jocasta took deep breaths to calm her thumping heart.
—If he does not hire us, it is not the end of the world.—
Jocasta wanted to scream that it
was
the end of the world but made herself ignore the well-intentioned platitudes. Instead she said, “If we don't get this contract, I won't be able to pay next month's bills."
—It is that bad?—
"It's that bad."
They rounded the corner into Unnamed Square, and Jocasta clutched at the stabbing pain in her lower gut. “Damned ulcer,” she gasped. The spellhound pretended not to hear her, aware of her embarrassment at suffering from such an archaic and—if the patient had money—easily treatable complaint. Instead, it looked impassively around the square. The square was built around a tiny park at its centre, which was full of trees. There was only one home on each side, and they were all as different and individual as their owners could make them.
Jocasta leaned on a wall, trying not to whimper, and after a dozen heartbeats, straightened up. She took deep breaths and sipped from a small bottle of potion she'd purchased from a healer the previous week. After a few moments, the pain eased.
She took a few more breaths and, leaning on the wall, looked away from the square and gazed out over the city of Frehk. A flitter the shape of an oversized bathtub sailed serenely, sedately, across the skyline.
Even up here, the smell from the Festival of Shamsharra permeated everything. Sweetmeats fought with the odour of deep-fried kelp, with pungent cow dung smeared on the bulging bellies of pregnant women for blessings from the spirit world. Marijuana and Capellan hemp bracketed either end of the olfactory spectrum.
"If you breathe deeply enough, some believe you can hear the insanity and taste the psychotropic,” Jocasta said, more to distract the spellhound from her weakness than from any desire for conversation.
It seemed to work.—We should go to Duff's mansion,—it said,—unless your plan is for us to arrive late?—
Jocasta took a last look down at the rooftops of the city, partly hidden by the fog that defied all attempts at elimination. The bonfires of the poor fuelled the mist as the festival split into a hundred-headed hydra of street parties, and people ceremonially burned effigies to celebrate the end of winter.
The spires of rich merchants’ palaces poked through the mist in a mosaic of grey and colour. The edible webs of fruit-spiders decorated elegant palaces, while old ribbons dangled from the meanest hovels: Each in their own way celebrated winter's end and the rebirth of the world.
A couple of hours earlier, when they had set out, Jocasta and the spellhound had been part of the same crowd. Although the street parties had been breaking up, from the top of Pommel Hill down to the edge of the docks, a few last jugglers cast balls and truncheons spinning in the air. Not all of them caught everything they threw—some dropped their toys deliberately for the amusement of the crowds. Clowns on stilts and unicycles ducked between armoured militia cruisers whose occupants watched warily for any action against their sponsors. Mime artists performed sketches. Hawkers, human and alien, jostled and shouted to make themselves heard above the zealots with their loudspeakers. An occasional scream pierced the shouts, as someone noticed their wallet was gone. Sometimes a drunk would grope a passing girl, and Jocasta had seen several couples sneaking down side alleys.
"Enough daydreaming,” she said as they strode further into the square. Jocasta was certain that they were being watched from the Duff manse. “Even up here, the pressure of Frehk's millions means that they can't live in complete isolation, so I suppose they assert their wealth through individuality."
—Why should they need to, when they have country retreats?—
"Strange isn't it?” Jocasta agreed. “I'm surprised that Duff hasn't stayed there for the last month and waited out the Festival. My guess is that whatever has caused so many whispers to echo around the city is the same reason that Duff is still in town. And why he wants to see us.” They skirted the square. Jocasta thought that she caught the trill of birdsong and held her chest for several seconds. “Probably only an imago,” she muttered. “No bird could survive long from insect predators, even up here.” Even the thought of seeing one of the near-extinct creatures took her breath away.
They stood in front of the Duff manse.
It's as big as a small village,
Jocasta thought. Crenelated turrets and soaring spires were not to her taste, seeming to be there solely to show their master's wealth. The white surfaces of every wall blinded with their brightness, even though the sun was hidden behind clouds.
Probably enhanced with a spell,
she thought.