Hacilith 1816: Jant saves Debrah

I was walking through the Galt Cemetery at a quarter to midnight; picking my way on a lamp-lit path between squat marble headstones. The graveyard was overgrown, and the headstones sinking into the grass. Most were simple wooden plaques, but stone Awian tombs held down the more energetic. I’m walking in a larger world than Darkling these days, but I can never reconcile myself to Hacilith carelessness and I don’t like graveyards. Some of these holes are still uncovered, for god’s sake… I hurried on, more anxious about the dead than the living – the dead might come back, but the living don’t if they’ve any sense. I couldn’t help but dwell on the image of underground bodies pressed flat by the weight of clay.

Moreover, this was Peterglass’s half of Hacilith, and the headstones provided good cover. I was watching for any flicker of movement that might end with an arrow in my back.

The breeze blew stronger and colder over this wasteland than in the sheltered town. I was using it as a shortcut to the wharf, following the smell of estuary mud and rotting planks. I had not been down here before; I was extending my market, so to speak. Peterglass, I heard, was cursing my daring, and cursing also the fact that I could better any other dealer in price and quality. Easily. I had much more variation in preparation, too; drugs they had never even dreamt of.

Still, I was feeling slightly miscast as a pusher. Still twenty-one; I had spent all morning in the shop (selling cold cures to old ladies and abortion lotion to whores), and most of the afternoon on the corner of Thousand and Fifth with Babbitt. We’d been drinking cider and waiting, with a long stick, for the cyclists to pass by. If it wasn’t for the money I would loathe these situations. I would rather be flying free on the sea cliffs, or studying the huge dusty books back at home. This involves so much walking about, no paddle trams this side of town and certainly no cabs that’ll stop for Rhydanne.

I climbed the chained rusty gates on the south side and fluttered down onto the canal towpath, as composed as middle age, completely in control; in Peterglass’s haunt. Taking his customers, Shira, shame on you. They won’t be any problem, lean and sick because I’ve left them two days not to be able to find anyone else except me.

A group of five sailors were sitting on the edge of the quay. They started up as I approached. No crossbows? I thought, treading carefully. You can change your appearance, but you can’t conceal your build. Peterglass was small and skinny, whereas these sailors were rotund and muscular. Their hair was slicked back with seagull oil, their eyes under-shadowed with lack of proper sleep. Those are swirls that were his eyes…

Racial hatred hung round them like a mist. To them I was a freak who had somehow gained the upper hand. I smelt of money and my feline eyes were evil. I consoled myself by thinking: they’re not normal, either. They’re running on a different sort of time. Time of tides and veins, not Starglass Time at all.

‘Well look if it isn’t the grey shark.’

I whipped a hand into my pocket and brought out three carefully folded squares of paper, one between each finger. I waved them like a fan, stepping back as they craned forward.

‘How much is that?’ one of the girls asked.

‘Fifteen grains is all…’ I told her. She stood apart from the others, in a grubby black net tee-shirt and tight cut off shorts. I had been shivering with cold but she showed no sign of suffering the estuary air. She showed no sign of suffering, unlike the rest. She stood avid as violence, a look in her eyes like blood. I had to speak to her alone, I thought, to save her before it was too late. Their stupidity grinds on me, their loss of will is infuriating. How could anybody do this to themselves? The fools!

‘No,’ she said, speaking for the rest. ‘I mean how much will it cost?’

‘A hundred and fifty pounds tonight,’ I said, carefully checking that the upper windows of the warehouse were not bristling with arrows. ‘Maybe another night, another price. But its quality’s assured.’ I pointed at her. ‘You, lady, can have it free if you come with me for the rest of the night.’

‘Debrah’s no lady,’ laughed a sailor.

‘I’ll come with you,’ she said slowly, more to him than to me. ‘Haven’t any love of this place, anyhow.’ Then she turned on me, her voice rising to a screech: ‘Don’t look at me like that!’

I wasn’t aware I had been looking at her like anything.

‘Think we could r-rush him and t-take it?’ A voice muttered from the back and was instantly nudged silent. I placed the wraps of paper down on slimy cobbles. ‘Well wouldn’t that be drowning the baby that brings the benefit? I make this stuff, you idiot. Where would you all be without me? Taking the fast cure, yes? A hundred and fifty right now, or I walk!’

They hesitated. ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘You know you have to.’

‘God, never t-trust rich R-Rhydanne…’

‘Thin cooks and fat soldiers. I know. There’s a boy called Felicitia who trusts me, and all the Wheel are behind me.’

They picked up the packets of white infinite, and paid me in tattered notes. Leaving the docks with a lighter heart, I was vaguely aware of Debrah trailing like a broken wolf behind me. I’m not entirely sure what to do with her, actually.