Within A Name

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Book excerpt

Chapter 1

Ranat Totz’s worn shoe made a sodden, squishy noise when he poked the corpse with his toe. The sound was barely audible over the soft patter of the drizzle.

            He glanced around. Somewhere, beyond the low rough slate of clouds, the sun edged its way over the horizon. People already thronged the narrow street behind him. This early in the morning, it was traders and merchants with their servants and hangers-on in tow, bustling down Grace’s Walk, eyes on the wagons hauling bolts of cloth or lumber or smoked fish, or whatever else could be sold in the markets. Minds on wealth, their accumulation of it, or their lack of it. Spitting, coughing camels pulled the carts, snipping and grunting at anyone who stumbled too near. Beggars from the Lip weaved between the knots of merchants, their pleas riding across the din and rattle of the street: “Tin? Have a Tin? A Three-Side? A disk? Even a ball? One copper ball? A draw from your cask, there?”

            The thrum of it was familiar music to the old ears of Ranat, but the last question, which carried to him before the bray of a disgruntled camel cut the voice off, made his mouth water. Not that he’d ever resort to begging traders. They weren’t known to part with their booze or tin. Still, he could use a drink.

            He took a furtive glance around again and ran a long, weathered finger down his jawline, felt the steel wire tangle of his short white beard. A tremor, the first of the day, shuddered through his fingers, taking on a life of its own as it fluttered down his arm. Yeah. A drink would be good.

            No one was paying attention to Ranat, where he hovered on the edge of the darkness cast between two crooked windowless tenements, and no one but he had seen the corpse so far, obscured by a moth-eaten sack of stiff, coarse cloth that had been thrown over the body, but had failed to completely cover it.

            He crouched by the figure and tugged off the ragged shroud of burlap to get a better look. The alley was cobbled here, but close to the Lip and coated in a fingers-width of slick black mud, grasping at anything that sunk into it. A few paces further in, a soft low belch rumbled from the ground. A brass-release valve rigged to the Tidal Works began to sigh thick white steam. The warm cloud churned over Ranat for a moment before a subtle shift in the air, unseen and unfelt, funneled it upward in a slow tornado, where it vanished in the eternal grey ceiling that hung above the city of Fom.

            It was a man. Face down. Black hair shot with a few dashes of silver. Well off. Some Church official, though what he’d been doing out here on the edge of the Lip before dawn was an interesting question.

            Ranat took a deep breath, held it, let it go. Forced his hands to stop shaking. Then, he went to work. The coat was nice—heavy, light grey leather dusted with a coating of fine white hair. He worked it over the dead man’s shoulders and tried it on, brushing without success at the mud caked onto the front of it. It fit. A little big, but Ranat wasn’t going to complain about that. The boots were better than the ones he was wearing now, too, but way too big. Still, he pulled them off and bundled them in the damp wad of burlap that had hidden the corpse. He knew a guy by the arena that would pay cash for the leather if he couldn’t find another taker for them.

            He suppressed a shudder as he flipped the body over, and the mud made a soft, sucking sound as it clung to the man’s chest and thighs and face. The body was pudgy, but pasty mud masked all other features, except the color of his hair. Just another body, he told himself. No reason it should be any different than the ones he normally picked from, except that this one wasn’t already buried.

            The man’s shirt was black with old blood, where it wasn’t crusted in mud. There was a tear just below the heart, as long as Ranat’s thumb. He shuddered again, looking down at the stains on his new coat. Just mud stains, he told himself, peering at them, not too close, in the shadows of the alley. Just mud.

            The dull clatter of tin as he’d rolled the body had made him pause, and now he saw what caused it: a heavy-looking, once fine belt pouch pregnant with coins. He couldn’t have been laying here for more than a few hours then, even this early in the morning. Someone would have taken the cash. Shit, Ranat thought. One hour in this part of town was stretching it. More like twenty minutes. He felt panic rise in his stomach, sure someone must be watching him, and he rose to check the street again, but amid the teeming mass of people, he was still alone.

            Coin. He’d got lucky. The pouch bulged as he fondled the clasp that attached it to the dead man’s belt. Not just tin balls and disks, but Three-Sides. Ranat would be able to drink for a month. Maybe more, if he paced himself and stuck to glogg.

            His long fingers hesitated over the belt buckle he was trying to unlatch as his gaze fell on it for the first time. He sucked in a little whistle of breath through the gap made by his two missing upper-front teeth. Even through the greasy, briny mud, he could tell the buckle was precious. Crystals—or were they diamonds?—peeked through the seeping gaps of black ooze where Ranat’s fumbling fingers had scraped it clean. Other gemstones, green and yellow, formed the angular, stylized shape of a phoenix, with a single square ruby serving as the bird’s eye. All of it set into the metal of the buckle itself. And not just copper or bronze. The thing held the grey, dull weight of iron.

            Ranat finished tugging the belt loose and bundled it with the boots. He patted down the rest of the body. In a narrow pocket on the inner thigh, he found a letter, chunks of a broken seal of black wax still attached to it. One edge of it was stained dark and ruddy with blood. His heart lurched with excitement, but he resisted the urge to read it. Better to wait until he was out of the rain. Better to get away from this damn corpse before someone saw him standing over it and got the wrong idea.

            He took a few steps towards Grace’s Walk, paused, and went back to the alley. He crouched down, one last time, this time to wipe the mud on the dead man’s face with a handful of dripping rags heaped by a nearby doorway. The sheer wealth of the dead man was astounding, more so for where he’d ended up in the end, and Ranat half expected to recognize the soft round features, but wiped clean there was nothing familiar in the face.

            “Well,” he said to himself. “I’ve got to get the hell out of here.”

            He stepped onto Grace’s Walk again and crossed to the unnamed streets beyond, still doing his best to pretend the uneven, dark stains on the lapels of his new coat were from the mud. He heaved the sack with the boots and belt over his shoulder, and every few steps double-checked to make sure the pouch of tin was still secure under his threadbare linen shirt. He’d need to unload the boots and the buckle soon, if for no other reason than he didn’t want to carry them around, but first, he needed a drink.

* * *

Noble sir,

Please consider this an invitation to discuss the new situation in a more informal capacity. While you will find me in reluctant accord regarding most details, there are a few points I would like you to consider.

I have reserved a booth at The Crow’s Marquis for the balance of the day, where I hope you will grace me with your wisdom.

                                                      With the utmost respect,

                                                                  Your servant in Grace

Ranat drained his glass and set it among the empty ones lining the edge of the warped table, a leaning construction of driftwood and ancient shattered pallets, fitted together and tossed with apparent randomness, along with other similar bits of furniture, into the basement that everyone referred to as “the bar.”

            He took a long pull from the next glass—the eighth on the table and the last one to be emptied—and examined what remained of the wax seal, thankful the quiver in his hands was gone.

            Black wax. An image of a tree, a crescent moon hanging over it, some sort of creature seated among the stylized roots. Enough of it had crumbled away to keep what sort of animal it was—other than one with antlers or horns—a mystery.