Age of ash, p.38
Age of Ash, page 38
When she opened her door, the east sides of the rooftops were glowing gold, like the sun was sitting on the top of the Temple and looking out over the city. The smell of molasses bread and baked raisins came from the oven, and Nimal was sitting by the door, a smile on his lips.
“No,” Alys said as she walked south.
“You haven’t even heard it,” Nimal said, skipping along to catch up with her. “It’s safer than washing clothes. Practically legal.”
“Would the bluecloaks say that too?”
“Since when do they need us to be guilty of something to crack our heads?” Nimal said.
“No. If it’s a pull and it goes wrong, it could come to violence, and I’m done with that if I can be. I’m not good at it.”
“Come on, Alys. Please. I’ve got most of the crew together. I just need one more who I trust. You can’t be out of the life. Not really. Can you?” His wheedling sounded like a little boy begging his mother.
Alys stopped and turned to face him. She wasn’t angry. She was barely annoyed. Nimal lifted his eyebrows and pulled a face he thought was charming. “Have you ever killed someone?” she asked.
“I’ve been in my fair share of fights. I carry myself fine.”
“No, I mean have you killed someone. Looked at them, known you meant to do it, and then done it? You have or you haven’t. Which?”
His smile faded. “I get safe. I’m too slippery for that kind of thing.”
“I’m not. I’ve been there, and I’m not going back. That’s the end of the talk, yeah?”
He looked sober now. “Shit, Alys. Did you kill somebody?”
“Good to see you,” she said. “Best of luck with the pull.”
She walked away, and this time he didn’t follow. She made her way along the route she had before, passing her houses in turn. Black Nel’s uncle was hauling shit off the streets for the magistrates, and so she had his daughter, her cousin, Ullya. Big Salla and Little Salla who lived across the street from each other. Gibby, Tall Janna’s son, was almost too young to be useful, but keeping him out of the house for the day was a kindness to his mother since it let her do her sewing work uninterrupted. That was worth a bronze in itself, when Tall Janna had it to spare, and a favor for later when she didn’t. She passed her mother’s house, but didn’t stop there. Nicayl, who’d been an apprentice at the Seepwater butcher until the bluecloaks took the butcher away for hiding his tax money and passing off dogmeat for pork. Pale Elbrith, as thin as ever, but half a head taller than he’d been in winter. All Linnet’s old crew, less Dark Aman, who’d decided she was too old and dignified for the work.
Alys gathered them and marched them along the streets, leaving Longhill, but leaving it together. They sang the same songs that Grey Linnet had taught them. That she’d taught Alys, when Alys had been young. And while Alys pretended to enjoy the song about the tiny shiny eel and the big black toad, there was actually a part of her that did. The children gave her an excuse to dance along the street and caper, and even if she rolled her eyes when she caught an older person’s gaze, not all of her pleasure was feigned.
It wasn’t even midmorning when they reached the southernmost bridge with its yellow stone and black mortar, and when they walked along it, she had to pull Elbrith off from the stone rail. He wanted to walk along it with nothing between him and the fast, dark water but air. She had the sense he was showing off for Little Salla.
At the far end of the bridge, they clambered down the stones and onto the thin, bare strip of the Silt nearest the water where the land was too new for trees to have grown. The children all walked together, hand in hand, along the side of the river. The Khahon slid past them, seeming to go faster now that they moved against the flow. At the edge of the trees, an old man sat on a white wooden stool. He had filthy grey hair and hooded eyes, but he hadn’t approached her or the children yet. Alys kept an eye on him all the same. No one who actually lived on the Silt could be trusted.
She also watched the water—where it broke against the sand and where it lapped over it, where it pooled and where it leapt, how it had changed the shape of the land from the day before and where it had left it alone. When they came to a likely-looking stretch, she stopped and lifted her arms to the sky. The children of Longhill all circled her and lifted their own hands too.
“Now,” she said, and paused, letting the little ones fill with anticipation, except for Big Salla, who was getting a little old for the game. “Get a digging stick!”
They scattered like puppies, pulling branches off of saplings or hauling driftwood from the water’s edge. She watched them, aware as a mother wolf. When she whistled, they circled back. Elbrith was talking to Little Salla and wouldn’t be quiet until Alys made them sit apart. Then he sulked, but at least he sulked quietly.
She could remember clearly being in the circle herself. She stood now as she remembered Linnet standing, smiling the way Linnet had smiled. Only not quite, because she wasn’t Linnet. She was Alys, who had been Linly’s Alys, and Darro’s. Who had been a flea for Orrel when he was cutting and a lookout for Korrim when he’d been breaking into merchant stalls in Riverport. And now she was this, and maybe would be for the rest of her life. Or maybe not.
“We all do the rules,” she said, as Linnet had done. “What’s the first rule?”
They all spoke together, a little chorus of voices above the rush of the water. “Don’t go into the river.”
“That’s right. Water’s hungry. Everybody knows that. What’s the second rule?”
“Don’t go into the trees.”
“There’s nothing there that’s our business, and too much that isn’t. Third?”
Little Salla looked over at Elbrith and grinned. He grinned back. So at least the flirting went both ways. “Always stay together.”
“And what do we do with the things we find?”
“Bring them to Alys.”
“Yes. Everything comes to me, and I’ll make sure it’s shared out fair. Anyone who holds out is a cheat. We don’t let cheats come with us.”
We drown them in the river, Elbrith shouted, gleeful at the prospect. Alys let it go. Those were the rules that Linnet had given, every day since forever, it seemed. But there was a new rule.
“And what,” Alys said, “do we do if we find a knife?”
“Throw that bastard back,” the children shouted together.
From the edge of the trees a sound came that might have been wind or might have been a man’s laughter. Or a spirit’s. Or a god’s.
“All right,” Alys told the children of Longhill. “Let’s go find some treasures…”
Here ends the first book of the Kithamar Trilogy, where not even grief endures forever.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank Danny Baror and Heather Baror-Shapiro at Baror International for having my back in this tumultuous industry, the team at Orbit who made this possible (particularly my always-patient editor Bradley Englert and publisher Tim Holman, who took the chance of picking up this very odd project), and the small council (Ty Franck, Kameron Hurley, Paolo Bacigalupi, Carrie Vaughn, and Ramez Naam) who helped to keep me sane during the writing. And, as always, thanks to my family for supporting me all the nights I spent wandering the streets of Kithamar.
Any failures and infelicities in the story are exclusively my own.
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As Daniel Abraham
THE KITHAMAR TRILOGY
Age of Ash
THE LONG PRICE QUARTET
A Shadow in Summer
A Betrayal in Winter
An Autumn War
The Price of Spring
THE DAGGER AND THE COIN
The Dragon’s Path
The King’s Blood
The Tyrant’s Law
The Widow’s House
The Spider’s War
Leviathan Wept and Other Stories
Balfour and Meriwether in the Incident of the Harrowmoor Dogs
Hunter’s Run (with George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois)
With Ty Franck as James S. A. Corey
THE EXPANSE
Leviathan Wakes
Caliban’s War
Abaddon’s Gate
Cibola Burn
Nemesis Games
Babylon’s Ashes
Persepolis Rising
Tiamat’s Wrath
Leviathan Falls
Memory’s Legion: The Complete Expanse Story Collection
THE EXPANSE SHORT FICTION
Drive
The Butcher of Anderson Station
Gods of Risk
The Churn
The Vital Abyss
Strange Dogs
Auberon
Star Wars: Honor Among Thieves
As M. L. N. Hanover
THE BLACK SUN’S DAUGHTER
Unclean Spirits
Darker Angels
Vicious Grace
Killing Rites
Graveyard Child
Daniel Abraham, Age of Ash
