Therazine banged a wet fist on the door. She was hunched over, clutching her roiling stomach. A mix of hail and rain fell in sheets. Her hair clung to her skin and stuck in her eyes, in her mouth. Six hours ago she’d exited the off-world station, and already she was hating being back on Celedin. Stepping through the aperture between Lormian and this wretched place had stricken her like a fever, as she’d anticipated. She dry heaved, fell to her knees on the stoop, and then banged the door again.
“Vexxer,” she shouted over the pounding rain. Every inch of her body was trembling and cold. A nauseous, burning feeling swam through her nerves, up her spine, and into her brain. She wanted to tear her flesh from its bones and escape this torment. Death would be significantly preferable to this. Oh, to find comfort in oblivion…
“Vexxer Roz,” she screamed.
The door swung open, and a shirtless man stepped out into the rain and put a gun to her head. With titanic effort she turned her head up, and saw she was staring up the barrel of a Darnull .45 lever pistol. Beyond that was a rotund bronze belly, topped by a square head with a fiery orange beard. The man’s ice-like eyes widened.
“Thera?” he said in a deep whisper.
Therazine scowled. “Get that gun out of my—” She doubled over. She heard the gun clatter to the stoop, felt his meaty hands grab her by the shoulders and pull her up. Beyond that everything was a maelstrom of sound, colors, and pain.
#
Eons of agony later she found herself laying on a bed. She sat up, her head pounding. The sickness had died down; more akin to a bad hangover than a raging blood fever. The room was dim, with a fire burning in a stone fireplace. The frame of the bed was stone, and covered in carvings, a style common to the people of Javadoa. She recognized it as the bed of Vexxer Roz, the very man she had been seeking when she was in the throws of her sickness. She sat still, quiet.
She smelled white ash wood on the fire. Outside she heard the patter of rain. From the other room she thought she heard water boiling. As her eyes began to adjust to the dimness of the room, she saw more Javadoan art: brutal-looking melee weapons hung above the fireplace, woodcuts showing wide-shouldered warriors fighting hordes of soldiers along the walls, gemstones on shelves still embedded with fragments of the crude rock they were pulled from. Very little of it was actually from Javadoa, she knew. Vexxer had brought few things from home when he relocated to Celedin. Most of this he had created himself.
With her fever subsiding she questioned the wisdom of seeking out Vexxer Roz. They were once colleagues, both working for the Bloodletter Society. She’d severed all ties with them. They would not be too anxious to see her again. But if there was any person that she could possibly trust in all of Celedin, she knew it was Vexxer.
The door to the room—painstakingly sculpted from a single, grand piece of oak—opened quietly. Vexxer Roz poked his bald, red-bearded head in. She looked at him without words. He opened the door further and stepped into the room. He was wearing a brown shirt now, and carrying a teapot in his left hand. He shut the door sat down on a stool beside her. They stared at each other, saying nothing. After a moment Vexxer picked up a mug from the bedside table and filled it with piping hot liquid, then handed it to her.
She took it from him. His head shined slightly in the firelight. Freshly polished? She noticed the faintest trace of red hair on the lapel of his shirt, and then realized that he’d trimmed up his beard. Dammit. He smelled of lavender as well.
She sipped the kiln tea. Terrible. Just like he’d always made. Vexxer watched her drink it, his hands clasped over his knees. She met his eyes.
“Been ages, Thera” Vexxer Roz said.
“Please don’t call me that,” Therazine said.
Vexxer nodded. “Course. Sorry.”
They were quiet again. She sipped from the mug.
“What brings you by?” said Vexxer.
“Business,” Therazine said, and then immediately regretted it.
“Business?” Vexxer said, leaning forward slightly. “Am I hearing you say that right? Do you mean business business?”
“It’s none of yours. I’m only here because I’ve just come from… from off-world. Need to recuperate. You know how it gets to me.”
“That I do. Hits you something fierce, if I recall.” Vexxer chuckled. “Do you… do you remember that one contract we had, on that feller on Koken? We got a room at the inn, what was it called, the Proletariat? We got a room and planned on sleeping off your sickness, only that bastard was right at the aperture when we stepped out from Celedin! Practically handed to us on a silver platter, only you were reeling and tossing about like a fish out of water. I never seen such gunplay as I did that day. Probably the only time I ever actually seen you miss a shot—”
“Vexxer,” Therazine said. “Are you still involved with the Society?”
“Aye,” Vexxer said. “You need to see someone?”
“No. The opposite. I don’t want them to know I’m even on Celedin. You have to understand the risk I took in coming to you. You cannot tell them that I’m in the world again.”
“They don’t got a mark on you. What are you afraid for?”
“You can’t tell them. Because I’m not here. I can’t be. I’m still off-world. I’m still gone.”
Vexxer frowned. “Okay. I won’t say a thing to the rest of them. But, I mean, Thera—they’re going to know if you get back into the business freelancing. You’re the great Therazine. You got a very particular style of killing, and they’ll recognize it. They call you the Stiletto in legends, you know.”
Therazine scoffed. The Stiletto? She’d never once used such a frail weapon to kill anyone. Any blade she wielded had a heavy head, and had to be buckled to a sash. Hell, she’d be ashamed if she used a gun that shot bullets as thin as a stiletto.
“I don’t recall being worthy of such an effeminate name,” she said.
“Well, you were the first woman to ever become Archblade. That sticks with folks in the underworld.”
“They should remember me for my deeds, not for what’s between my legs.”
Vexxer shrugged. “Folks will remember what they will remember.”
“People are asinine,” she said. “And you called me Thera again. Don’t do that.”
“Right,” Vexxer said. “That’s what he—Sorry. Won’t happen again.” He looked down at his shoes. The firelight danced off his bronze scalp. “So how’s… how’s he, by the way? You two still married?”
Therazine nodded.
Vexxer laced his fingers together absently. “Any kids?”
Therazine’s lips almost spoke the word two. She shut her eyes and held her breath.
“No,” she said quietly.
“That’s too bad,” Vexxer said. “Seemed like the type of man who’d want children.”
Therazine said nothing.
“But look at you,” Vexxer said. “Here you are. After a lifetime. Just, surprise— Back into my… back to Celadin again. After a lifetime. I don’t even know what to say. Enjoying your kiln tea?”
“You know I hate this stuff.”
“I know you hate that stuff,” Vexxer said, grimacing. “Right.”
For a while neither of them said anything. Then Vexxer clapped his hands on his knees, said something in Javadoan that Therazine did not recognize, and left the room. He paused at the door, almost imperceptibly, as if waiting for Therazine to speak. She turned to face the wall and he left Vexxer won’t say anything to the Society, she told herself. He won’t. His loyalties were clear.
But were they? It had been ten years since she’d seen him. She’d certainly changed in that time. How was she to be certain that Vexxer hadn’t as well? She looked around his room, at the war art that covered it, and realized she recognized every single piece. This room was exactly the same as when she last saw it over a decade ago. It was like a painting of a memory. The stagnancy concerned her, and she considered for a moment that Vexxer might have straightened up this room and changed it to look like it did all those years ago while she was passed out. That certainly seemed like a Vexxer thing to do, if she knew him as well as she thought she did. The Javadoans were paragons of holding on to the past.
Since the incident at her farm she’d been just moving, moving, moving. The rush to the city of Nalak, the negotiating with Madame Senzal, the chaos of the Aperture, the sickened walk through Celedin’s alien streets… She closed her eyes and let herself think for the first time in two days.
She thought of Kohl and Leshe. Her son had understood why she needed to leave Lormian so quickly. He was rational and pragmatic. He definitely took after his mother, she thought. But Kohl was not so agreeable. At first he’d begged her to stay with them, to hide with them on the streets of Nalak and figure out their uncertain future together. She’d explained to him why that was impossible, that the MonDozers and their fellow cartel families were everywhere, and looking for her. They had no money with which to pay off either the families or the authorities, no allies with which to fight back, no land with which to run to. Then he’d gotten angry with her, saying that he needed her after Bren’s death, that she was abandoning him to loneliness and mourning. She was running away to her old life. How could she do this to him?
She almost laughed. How angry Kohl would be to discover that she was now in the bed of none other than Vexxer Roz himself. How like a child he could be, driven by his emotions and sense of justice.
Kohl.
Leshe.
Bren… Oh no, Bren…
She felt a tremor in her throat, and she swallowed tears. She hadn’t cried since her first night with the Society. There was no point in doing it now. Crying had never helped anyone with anything. How many screaming, watery-eyed faces had she put a bullet through? How many—memories came rushing back to her, magnified by being in the city where she had committed so many of her atrocities. So many crying eyes. So many families, ripped apart and left bleeding. She began to shake. The sickness was gone, and her mind was free to remember and condemn.
She stood abruptly. The action caused her to instinctively reach for Vexxer’s bedside table to grab her gun (gotta go to work Thera there’s people need killin). Memories. She recoiled and left the non-existant firearm there.
The door to Vexxer’s room was unlocked, and she stepped through it.
It was, as she’d expected, different. Much of the art she remembered was gone, new furniture occupied spots that once were empty. He’d made up the bedroom for her, made it to look like it used to, to look like the past. It made sense, didn’t it? His memories of her were from long ago, and here she was: in a place where she told him he would never return to again.
Here she was. Back in Celedin looking to take on a job.
Jobs. Contract killings. Murders, is what they were. Nothing more. So many times she’d left this place to go kill, so many times she’d stumbled back after killing. And here she was, walking out again… to take a job. A nursery rhyme popped into her head.
Old ways, old ways,
Falling back on old things
Gone back, gone back,
Old birds still like to sing.
Vexxer looked up from the chair he was sitting in. A creeping, poisonous feeling ran across her skin, and she knew what he was going to say before he said it. It was what he would always say to her in the mornings.
“Rising like gunsmoke, lassie,” he said with a smile.
She fled. Out through his front door and into the streets, Vexxer Roz calling her name until she disappeared into the crowds.
#
“The Raven and the Cobbler” was emblazoned in glowing gas. The two raven statues that flanked the glass letters were rounded and misshapen, cawing with pitted beaks into the acid rain that washed away their features. Therazine thought of the factories that produced the noxious black clouds that hung above Celedin. She might have taken the driving rain as a bad omen if she didn’t grow up here and know that this was the norm for this world.
She walked inside, expecting the tavern to be filled with people—she was, after all, in the Wharf District, where the dregs of society congregated in such great numbers. But there were only a handful of people sitting quietly in the large, low-ceilinged establishment. The lights were dim, glowing blue from the gas bulbs that traced the walls. She caught the pungent odor of pipe smoke. A quick scan of the room showed her that none of the patrons were her contact.
“Close the door,” the bartender said. She let go of it, and the rainy street behind her went silent. Cut off from the noise of outside, she held her breath and listened: the wheezing of a patron at the bar, the light scuff of feet somewhere in the back of the room, the hum of the blue gas lights. No music of any kind. Large and open. Difficult to hide anywhere, should she need to.
She was immediately and astutely aware of how wet she was. She was dressed in the attire of a Lormian farmer. Leathers and breathable cloth, sewn from animal skins and plant fibers. Nothing like the water-resistant synthetic cloaks that everyone else on the streets was wearing outside. Every inch of her clothing was sopping and cold. She walked with squishy boots to the bartender.
“What can I do you for?” the man said in a hushed voice. He gave her his full attention, even as he cleaned the spigot of a tap behind the bar.
“Quiet night,” Therazine said.
“It’s one in the afternoon on a Songday.”
Therazine blinked. It was Thornsday when she left Lormian, and early evening at that. It had been so long since she’d traveled between worlds that she forgot they didn’t all operate on the same clock. She tried to recall the time difference between Lormian and Celedin, knowing it was something like 60 hours with a variable margin of 10. Or was it 15?
“Of course,” she said.
“Not from around here?” the bartender said.
“I’m looking for someone. Tall. Dresses very erudite.”
“Dresses what?”
“Dresses well,” Therazine said. “Has a turned-up mustache and long hair.”
“You’re describing a lot of people. Did this fellow give you a name? Maybe I’ll recognize it.”
Therazine looked into the bartender’s eyes. Was he a stand-in for her contact? Was she meant to meet with him? The bartender didn’t come off like an intermediary, but shed been cut down in the past for underestimating even the most seemingly innocuous people. It could be that he wasn’t even the actual bartender for this tavern. The Society could have discovered her presence in Celedin and replaced this man with one of their own. They could’ve even cleared out the bar just to get her exposed, leaving a few planted customers inside to throw off her suspicions.
“Must be the wrong bar,” she said, and she turned to leave.
“You’ve the right establishment, Ms. Therazine,” came a voice from behind her. She turned sharply, her hand going to her hip where no gun or knife sat. At a table near the middle of the tavern sat a man dressed in a fine hatch mark suit with its collar and cuffs extended. His black hair was slicked back, his mustache pointing upward along his cheeks. He motioned for her to sit down.
How had she not noticed him there before? She didn’t move, and kept one foot pointed towards the door. “Alyxandir Orgad?” she said.
“Close, but not quite,” Alyxandir Arkide said. “And if I were someone impersonating myself in order to trap you, I might have fallen for that and said yes.” He motioned again. “Please, Ms. Therazine. You look very tired and uncomfortable. Take your jacket off and have a seat.”
She stepped closer, keeping her hand on her weaponless hip. He gave her a thin smile and she sat down. She took off her coat slowly and threw it onto another chair at the table, all the while keeping her eyes on him.
“Terrance,” Arkide said, looking over his shoulder. “I’ll take a veneltian grain, with a rhine of orange. Neat. My friend here will have…” he glanced at her.
“Nothing,” Therazine said.
“It’s impolite to turn away a free drink,” Arkide said.
“I never take anything that I haven’t earned.”
“Ah, but you have earned it, my dear. By merely being who you are, you’ve earned it. Please, I insist.”
“I’ll do without.”
Arkide sighed. “Alright, then. Down to brass tacks. I am delighted to see that you’ve come, Ms. Therazine—”
“Mrs. Morlo.”
“Of course. My apologies. Mrs. Morlo, it makes me happy that you’ve decided to take my employer up on his offer.” Arkide stared at her expectantly. “You have decided to take the job, yes?”
“I might.”
“Splendid. That was such a quick turnaround. It wasn’t even three days ago that you chased me off your property with a gun. Now…” The bartender dropped off his drink, and Arkide thanked him with a palmful of glit. He waited until the bartender had moved away from the table before continuing. “Delicious stuff,” he said, swirling the drinking in his hand. “Hard to find. Only truly veneltian if it’s aged in Javadoan oak casks. Bottles sell for 200 glit, on average.” He paused. “This job I am offering you. I need to know that you can get it done. Are you still in top form?”
Therazine didn’t respond.
Arkidewaited a moment, and then took a sip of his dark drink. He pursed his lips. “I know this game you’re playing, Mrs. Morlo. You can’t hide your desperation from me. You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t need my money.”
“How much?”
“Seven-hundred and fifty million,” Arkide said. “Deposited into the account of your choosing on the world of your choosing.”
Therazine held in an alarmed expression. When he said nine figures, she was sure he had been exaggerating. Seven-hundred and fifty million was more than she had made in her entire career. It was more than she’d heard of anyone ever making in her old line of work. It was an absurd sum, but Arkide presented it to her completely straight faced. She was confident he had the money. She was confident in her skills to do whatever this job was.
Therazine hadn’t killed a person for money in over a decade. She hadn’t had the urge to since then, and she didn’t know. That hideous person that she used to be was gone. She should never come back. What did it mean if Therazine took this job, then? Regression? Could she even do it anymore? Did she still have the stomach for taking a life?
She thought of putting a bullet through Wallace MonDozer’s neck. It felt—not good, but not reprehensible either. But there were other circumstances surrounding that kill.
She thought of Bren.
She thought of her family.
She didn’t have a choice.
“I’ll do it,” she said.
Arkide cocked his head. “You haven’t even heard what the job is.”
“If you were going to tell me before I signed on, you would have done so already. Whatever it is, it’s sensitive and you don’t want me knowing about it until I’ve agreed to your cause. So, yes. I’ll do it. You have me.”
“You don’t care who my employer is?” Arkide asked.
“No.”
Arkide smiled, thin and viper-like. “Copacetic.”
Therazine was losing patience with this man. An inward anger burned through her. “Who do you want me to kill?”
Arkide downed his drink and flipped the glass upside down. He set it gently on the table and leaned in close.
“The Holy Emperor,” he said.
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