Flame's Shadow

  Korata was going to kill him.

  She had a reputation to maintain, he knew that, but he'd gone and been stupid anyway. Dravus had seen a small handful of people visiting her restaurant with missing fingers, and it was no secret that Korata had been the one to take them. That was what she did, if you didn't hold up your end of whatever bargain you'd struck with her. She wasn't a cruel woman, but she wasn't known for her mercy. She was a squat woman with thick thighs, broad shoulders, and large breasts, with a voice that was often louder than it needed to be. She had four sons, each larger and more muscled than the last, all essentially interchangeable so far as anyone who worked with Korata was concerned. Each of them was fearsome, but none of them commanded respect in the same way that Korata herself did.

  She was one of the most important people among the lower classes in Genthric, a woman who had clawed her way up from nothing until she was practically bumping elbows with the nobility. She had secured for herself a position at the very lowest tier of the illustrati, with enough fame to grant her the ability to shout a man to death - or at least, that was one of the stories that people told about her.

  She was going to kill Dravus, he was sure of that.

  The rooftop races were to blame.

  * * *

  "Have you gone to see Lexari?" asked Forus with a smile.

  Dravus was trying to limber up before the race. He focused on stretching out his long legs. "No," he replied. "Too many crowds."

  "You should look up every now and then, and maybe you'll catch sight of him," said Forus. "He can fly."

  "I thought that was just a story," said Dravus. He ran his fingers through his shaggy black hair, wishing that he had thought to get it cut before the race. It hadn't seemed like it would be a problem last night, but now he noticed that it was hanging down into his field of vision. Maybe it had always been like that, and he was only noticing now for the same reason that he felt a pressure in his gut and a cold sweat in the small of his back.

  "Well of course it's a story," said Forus. "But they tell stories about things that are true all the time. Lexari has giant wings made of light, huge ones, each two or three yards across. He flaps them like a bird."

  "And you've seen this?" asked Dravus. He stood up tall and started rotating his shoulders.

  "Of course," said Forus. "I just caught the tail end of it, but he had the wings alright."

  "So you didn't actually see him fly," said Dravus.

  "Come on Dom, you don't need to be so skeptical," said Forus. "But no, I didn't see him fly. I hardly doubt that people would lie about a thing like that though, would they? They love Lexari, but they wouldn't lie for him like that."

  Dravus shrugged. "I don't know. All I'm saying is that I've heard all of the same stories about the illustrati that you have, and not all of them have the ring of truth. It may be that Lexari can fly. I don't really doubt it too much. But you have to be careful about what you believe if you don't want to get taken for a fool." Forus could always be seen with some pamphlet or another, printed on the cheapest yellow paper that would still hold ink, each filled with another wild story about illustrati fighting pitched battles with their elements clashing against each other, or searching out exotic treasures in foreign lands.

  "You'd call me a fool? This coming from the man that bets so much on himself?" asked Forus.

  Dravus shrugged. He cocked an ear. He could hear the crowds growing noisy. "Come on, I think it's time."

  The rooftops of Genthric were almost uniformly covered with red clay tiles, except in places where the roofs were flattened for extra living space. The taller buildings had balconies and covered corridors that were open to the city air, and at the moment all of them were filled with people. Some of the roofs had people sitting or squatting on them. The lower classes drank wine from glass bottles with woven basket covers, and they spoke loudly to one another, sometimes shouting over the rooftops to their neighbors. Above them, where the wealthy watched from the balconies, the wine was drunk from goblets, and the conversation more demure. The air smelled of smoke and seawater, and there was a mild breeze that kept the sun from being too fierce. Dravus took one last moment to drink from his canteen, then stepped out into the sunlight with the other racers. The audience - his audience - cheered.

  "Nemm was there beside him," said Forus, as though this moment weren't enough to send their hearts hammering. "I'd let her sink one of her glass daggers into me for the slightest taste of her sweet lips."

  "Only one dagger?" asked Lorenz, one of the other racers. "I'd let her use both, just to have the scent of her hair fill my nose."

  "You think so little of her?" asked Rafaello. "Why, to have just the faintest sniff of her morning breath I would let her cleave my arms and legs from my body in one fell swoop."

  "One fell swoop?" asked Michel. "Your devotion to our most esteemed lady Nemm is lacking if you wouldn't let her use a club to amputate you, which I would do just for the sight of her upper eyebrow."

  "But the upper eyebrow is her most fetching part!" protested Forus with a laugh.

  This continued on for some time, with the racers trying to one up each other. Dravus didn't join in. That sort of braggadocio had never been his way, and he had a great deal on his mind besides. They were all being paid a sum of fifty capi for participating in the races, with the winner getting an extra hundred on top of that. It was a tidy sum given that it was only about an hour's worth of actual work, and there were other considerations as well, like a measure of fame and the affections of pretty girls. It wasn't difficult for Korata to gather up six young men willing to risk their lives for the entertainment of others.

  Dravus had won the last six races. The money was a pittance in comparison to how much Korata was making, and how much the men and women who watched from the balconies were gambling with each other, but the first win had comfortably padded out his meager living arrangements, and ensured that he could drink good wine and eat meat with every meal. When it came time for the second race, he had bet almost all of the money left over on himself, on the theory that he wouldn't be too much worse off if he had to go back to living in poverty a week early. He'd done the same on the third race, and the fourth, each time watching the pile of coins multiply. He spent little of it. He had so much money that he had to open an account at one of the banks, a large place with an interior courtyard and vaulted ceilings.

  For the fifth race he had gotten a note showing proof of credit from the bank, written on fine paper by a man with a greasy mustache and a floral scent. Dravus had been ready to have to explain to Korata how this was easier than carrying thirty pounds worth of coin into her restaurant, but she was completely unperturbed and took the note without question or comment. He'd won that race at three to one odds, and Korata had ensured that the bank's ledgers reflected that at the end of the day. It wasn't nearly as exciting as being handed a pile of gleaming coins, but it was thrilling all the same when he put it in any real terms. He had enough money to pay for a place of his own, if he wanted to, instead of sharing a room with two other men. He could buy passage across the Calypso, if he wanted to, or even across the Pensic if he chose to consign himself to the bowels of some colony ship. He left the money untouched though, and saved it all for the sixth race.

  This time Dravus watched carefully as the banker wrote out the proof of credit. There was a thin wax seal on the upper corner of the note, and the banker had an elaborate signature that would have been difficult to forge. The note came with a hold on the account, so that he couldn't simply give proof of credit to Korata and then take all of the money from his account if he lost. The actual styling of the numbers had been given less attention though, and it hadn't taken Dravus too much time to turn a one into a two, once he'd bought a quil
l and ink and spent an afternoon practicing. He'd been ready with an explanation of how he had doubled his money with a different bet, one made with another person across town, but Korata had simply taken his note as though she saw dozens of them every week, giving it no more scrutiny than the goblet of wine she idly drank from. He had run the race as hard as he possibly could, and taken his sixth win with a comfortable lead. The odds were two to one now, but Dravus had been able to effectively triple his money with the forged note. The elation he'd felt afterward when the money was in his account overshadowed the thrill of winning by a considerable margin.

  The odds were down to three to two, which was the worst that Dravus had seen. That meant that people were too confident that he was going to win. The payout would hardly be worth anything. Dravus had stared at the ceiling when he was trying to get to sleep, listening to the sounds of the city outside while he wavered on whether he was going to bet again. He had enough money to open up a shop somewhere in the city, or buy his way into an apprenticeship of some kind. He was only seventeen, not yet too old for that sort of thing. He could start over and become the sort of man that his father had always wanted him to be, and he'd have some comfortable padding besides that. At three to two, that was the sensible thing. But on the other hand, the simple addition of a fresh mark on a proof of credit would be enough to change the odds significantly. Dravus had four thousand capi, which he could turn into twelve thousand.

  He'd gone ahead and done it. There had been plenty of time for regret and second thoughts afterward, once the bet was on the books and the note of credit was locked away in Korata's strongbox. What's done was done, and there was no going back on it now in any case. If the note of credit had passed muster once, there was no reason that the deception would be uncovered now - not unless he lost, and Korata tried to collect the money from him.

  As he stood on the rooftops and listened to the other racers, he was sure his heart was beating faster than theirs.

  Korata came out onto the rooftops with them just as the crowds were expressing their discontent. She carried herself like there couldn't possibly be a more important person in the entire world. Her hands rose high above her head, which brought a weak cheer from the crowd, and then she called out to them.

  "We have six fine racers gathered here today!" she shouted. Her domain was sound, and she was famous enough to have a measure of true power, though it wasn't clear what her upper limits were. Her voice boomed loud enough for everyone watching to hear. "Six fine racers," she repeated. "Yet only one can win." She went down the line of racers, clasping each on the back and giving them a short introduction for the audience. The races themselves didn't take all that long, so Korata liked to grandstand and strut around in front of her captive audience while she had them. She saved Dravus for last. When her meaty hand landed on his shoulder, she dug her painted nails into his flesh.

  "Dravus de Luca!" Korata yelled to the crowd. This close, her voice was loud enough to rattle Dravus's bones and leave one of his ears ringing. "Son of a baker, a stoic runner, and the winner of the last six races with practiced ease!" That wasn't entirely true. The fifth race he'd only won because the city guards had interfered, and they'd been down to four runners in the sixth. He was faster than the others, but circumstances had been on his side. "I know that many of you have bet on him, thinking he's a sure thing. And others have bet against him, thinking that his luck cannot possibly hold for long. Watch this one closely!" Her grip tightened, and she leaned into him. "You had better run for your life," she whispered.

  Dravus got down into position with the other runners as Korata continued her speech. He did his best to tune it out, since he'd heard it so many times before.

  "Three laps around, six flags to touch, the first one back crowned winner," shouted Korata. "No interference of any kind." This last was said with a wink to the crowd. Interference was one of the primary attractions of a rooftop race. A few of the nobles had taken to bringing rotten vegetables up to the balconies with them, and it was generally agreed that this was both unsporting and hilarious. Given that serious money was riding on the races, there was a heavy incentive for interested parties to change the outcome, and this too had simply become part of the spectacle. Korata's four enormous sons were stationed at various parts of the course to prevent the worst abuses, but the races had become more and more hazardous as time went on, much to the delight of the audience. Last time two of them had carried truncheons, and now all four did, though this was more by way of warning than because they would actually use them.

  This part of Genthric had been built centuries ago, during a time when the city council had enacted a ban on carts in all but a few sections of the city. As a consequence of that, the roads between buildings had been built with only pedestrians in mind, and so the gap between neighbors was small. More importantly for the race's purpose, it meant that the gaps between rooftops were narrow enough to leap over, though still hazardous. Dravus's eye flickered across the red tiles as he charted his course, mostly to reassure himself. He already knew it by heart.

  "Three! Two!" Korata was shouting out the countdown, joined by the crowd. Dravus grew nervous in the final second, and felt bile in the back of his throat, but that was exactly as it had been for the six races before, and when Korata shouted "One!" he was off ahead of the others.

  Dravus leapt over the first gap, which wasn't more than three feet, and pounded on ahead. Korata had called them flags, but they were nothing more than strips of red fabric tied to convenient locations. The first was hanging from a chimney, and as soon as Dravus pressed his hand to it, he shifted his momentum, on to the next one. The crowd cheered, and despite the exertion, he smiled. He had scouted out the area under moonlight the night before, making sure that the tiled roofs were stable and that there were no obvious obstacles that he'd need to avoid in the broad daylight. The crowds cheered him on, even as the first overripe tomato splattered down just two feet from him. He was fortunate that the nobles had been drinking for at least an hour now and their aim had become truly terrible.

  As Dravus pushed forward, he could hear the others, who were not much more than a stride length behind him. The roofs were treacherous enough that he didn't dare to look back, not even when he was on a relatively straight section. There were too many chimneys and crenellations to jump over, or occasional arches to duck under, and too many people to watch. The lower class had staked out positions close to the race, and there was always the possibility that one of them would throw a wine bottle or decide to jump in, though nothing like that had happened so far. And because the races were not quite legal, there was always a chance that the guard would turn up.

  "Wait, you forgot your hat!" shouted Forus from half a step behind. This drew laughter from the crowd, and Dravus could imagine that Forus had a smile on his face, but it was the sort of useless pandering that he disliked in the races. If Forus could spare the breath for a joke, then he could use that breath on running faster.

  Dravus was on the second lap when there was a scream from behind him, and a sickening crash that was followed by a longer, more mournful wail of pain. The reaction of the audience was a collective gasp of disbelief and cries of terror, though Dravus could swear that he heard one or two of the nobles laughing from their balconies. He pressed on all the same, letting his feet guide him where he needed to be. It wasn't the first time that someone had taken a fall. Most of the roofs were three stories up, and the results of a misstep were never pretty.

  One of the spectators had decided to get too close to the action, and was wrestling one of Korata's sons on the rooftop, right in Dravus's path. He took a detour that required an enormous jump of nearly ten feet, which drew gasps and cheers from the crowd and gave him a comfortable lead when he stumbled into a landing. It had been a hard risk to take, especially following on the heels of hearing one of his friends be injured, but he'd done it almost without hesitation. He touched the flag on a balcony railing, and turned towards the next flag aft
er that.

  Halfway through the third lap, Dravus was two flags ahead of the next closest racer. He thought that it was Forus, based on one brief glimpse he'd gotten when taking a sharp corner, but either way it didn't seem like it mattered. The race was hard to focus on when victory was so assured, and when the relief of winning was building in him like a pot getting ready to boil over. An imminent win made Dravus almost delirious with joy, and that too was as it had been in the six races before. Sweat was dripping down his back, and he was radiating heat despite the breeze, but all was right with the world. That was when he saw Lexari hanging in the air.

  The enormous wings were made of a soft white light, and as far away as he was, that was nearly all that Dravus could see. The man between the massive wings was small in comparison, just an opaque figure binding the two glowing white wings together. As Dravus watched, Lexari flapped his wings like a bird, keeping himself suspended high up in the sky, higher than the tallest buildings in the city. It was easy for Dravus to think that he was seeing an angel.

  All it took was that one moment of losing focus.

  Dravus felt the tile slipping away beneath his foot even as he tried to push off from it, and an easy jump suddenly saw him pitched forward, staring at the alleyway three stories below him. He reached out blindly, and managed to grab onto the roof on the other side to prevent himself from falling. His stomach hit the edge and the wind was knocked from him, but he didn't slip down further. He tried to clamber back up as quickly as possible, but Forus and Rafaello had both leapt over him effortlessly in the time that it took Dravus to find his footing. He pushed himself harder than he ever had before, trying to close the distance before one of them reached the finish line, but it was too late.