Fractured Loyalties Read online

  His head throbbed, but he forced himself to take a quick inventory of his body to find out what would work. Beginning with the extremities, he moved each section until he found out what he controlled, but the more he moved, the more he slipped. That was when he realized his head lay lower than his feet by a good fifteen to twenty degrees.

  He remembered speaking to the dead woman next to him while the platform lowered, then something happened, he couldn’t quite remember what. But he pushed himself up with his arms and found the lift platform precarious, dangerous, not somewhere he wanted to be. It didn’t take long for him to realize it had been knocked off the rails and hung by three of the four lift cables.

  Fires burned around him. He didn’t want to be suspended on a platform over the ground if the climbing flames reached the remaining lift cables. Spinning his body so his head pointed uphill, he used the holes that were blown into the platform by shrapnel as hand- and footholds.

  Every move made the platform shudder. He wasn’t the only one that survived the calamity but the only one currently moving. A few others still breathed as he crawled past, but he saw no way to save them. If he reached safety, he might devise a way to pull a few others off the tilting deathtrap. This was a time that he wished he wore his leathers instead of the linen robes. He found climbing in the long dressing extremely difficult.

  The platform dropped a foot. The Spy nearly lost his footing. The dead woman with the vacant eyes slipped through a hole and fell with a thud below. He didn’t have time to count how long it took her to land, but he estimated he hung at least one hundred feet in the air. More than enough to break his body like a swatted fly if he fell to the ground below.

  He reached the platform safety rail and found it mostly intact, but the metal guide rail beyond had warped from the stress of holding the platform at such a steep angle. With the help of the safety rail, he stood nearly upright and inspected the pillar of granite just out of reach. It didn’t take him long to decide no escape lay that way. But not far away to his left stood a column and a lintel carved into the granite for one of the most expensive homes in this neighborhood.

  The distance he needed to leap was farther than he could possibly make. Inspecting the makeup of the dangling platform, he came up with a plan. He reached for his dagger before he remembered he hadn’t brought any weapons to the wedding. He knew they would’ve been confiscated before he reached the summit, and he would’ve found himself in a cell for the festivities.

  He needed something sharp enough to cut one of the lift ropes to escape the situation. Off to his right, he found a guard struggling to climb the safety rails to join him at the apex of the platform. He watched in horror as the platform shuddered again, and his deliverance in the guise of a guard lost his grip and nearly plummeted to his death. With the agility of a cat burglar, he swung his way down to where the guard struggled to regain his footing.

  “Let me help you with this,” the Spy said before reaching down and stealing the man’s sword from its scabbard.

  The sentry reached for the Spy’s leg out of desperation. With one swift kick, the man’s grasp was kicked away with enough force to dislodge him from his precarious perch. The guard’s scream cut short when he bounced off the debris below the platform.

  Sword now in hand, the Spy scanned above and for the first time noticed he hung directly under the platform that held the oxen that provided the strength to raise and lower the lift. The platform above looked intact, but he did not want to wait to find out if the oxen above still lived or not.

  Holding tight with his left hand, he sliced the stolen sword at the lift line next to him. The added weight caused the severed line to shoot into the air like a bolt from a crossbow. Any unconscious survivors were pitched into the void and fell to their deaths below. The platform immediately swung in the direction the Spy needed to travel to remove himself from such a perilous position. He hung on for his life, while the platform bucked under him and spun like a crazed animal trying to dislodge him from its back.

  Halfway through his direction of travel, the man decided this may not have been the best course of action given the circumstances he found himself in. He couldn’t determine which would be the worst way to go: falling to his death with the platform or being crushed like a bug between where he dangled and the wall of granite he sped into.

  In desperation, he let go of the crashing wreckage, dropping the ten feet to the front landing of the house, well below the lintel he recently struggled to reach. Hitting the ground and rolling, he didn’t take time to judge the direction but instead allowed the momentum of the drop to propel him away from the crashing platform and to safety. Three somersaults later and his body careened off the solid granite wall that served as the front entrance and into a rather luxurious hallway.

  The noise of massive crashes reverberated through the stone walls as more and more of the lift platform mechanism came thundering down the cliffside. Suddenly all fell silent, except for the cries that rose from below the home he landed in. For the moment he felt the safety of the stone walls cocoon him in shade.

  His first impulse was to head deeper into the home and the perceived safety it offered. What happened? he thought. Plenty of time to worry about that later. Now that he didn’t have to worry about falling to his death or being crushed by falling oxen, he needed to assess the damage to his body and get to his safe house.

  In the dim light, he found his light blue wedding robes covered in blood. Holes peppered his robe, and under each rip he inspected, he found a piece of shrapnel, wood, or some other material. If he had not been in the center of the lift, he would probably be dead now. He found no life-threatening wounds, so it was time to move out of the area. Soon the authorities would begin rounding up witnesses and suspects.

  He’d been a guest of Zar’s hospitality before. The time spent in the holding cell after the coup attempt was long enough. He limped the few steps to the doorway. A quick glance above ensured no more of the lift mechanism would rain down on him. Before he went farther, he found most of the front platform for the home missing. The heavy machinery that cascaded down had torn a portion away, but to his right there stood partially intact stairs leading down to the next home.

  The wound to his left leg more severe than he first thought, it took a great deal of concentration to get it to work. His adrenaline no longer flooded his veins. The steps became as much an obstacle as escaping the platform.

  He wound his way around until he nearly reached the bottom. The path of the stairs took him back over the scene of the carnage. From above, he clearly spotted the center of the slaughter was the lift to the upper levels. From the blast pattern of destruction, he could see that the target lay under the rubble of the elevator that he helped bring down.

  This was no accident. Someone had used a sort of magic to attack the infrastructure of the ruling class. For a fleeting moment he felt remorse for the rescuers that had been trapped under the falling debris he helped to cause, then he shook it off. They would be lionized as fallen heroes, and he still lived to find out who did this and support the rulers of Zar as they exacted their own vengeance.

  His original concern about standing out slipped away once he reached the ground. Everywhere he turned, people were covered in blood. At the bottom of the mayor’s lift once stood a temporary market. Stalls of tents and poles were set up and torn down daily, bringing the needed foodstuffs and household articles to the doorsteps of the wealthy. This attack destroyed most of that market. The cloth shelters offered zero protection against the blast. Scattered about the scene lay small pieces of metal, shards of the device—or perhaps the weapon had been laced with objects to make it deadlier.

  His hobble helped him fit right in. He joined the line of wounded walking away from the scene. A trail of blood left in their wake. The stabbing pain intensified while he walked, but he had no choice. He needed to reach somewhere safe. Usually, he would take an indirect route to his lair, but he wasn’t sure if he’d make
it. Instead he trudged on past both inns where he held a room to a special little place, an unmarked building in the less prosperous part of town. That part of the isthmus that still contained standalone wooden structures.

  Unwilling to be seen walking in the front door, he slipped around back and used his remaining strength to climb up to a back balcony. Before he reached his goal, a pair of hands reached for his robes and pulled him to safety.

  “Lords in all, what have you gotten into?” The female voice sounded familiar to him. It was his favorite woman in Zar, and her name was Six. He reached the safety of the house where she worked. Now he relaxed and collapsed in her arms.

  Chapter 3, Six:

  Six heard a bizarre noise on her balcony. She’d grown accustomed to strange sounds coming from outside her room, but this was particularly outlandish. It sounded like someone practicing rough sex… with themselves. Too much grunting for her taste. Not impossible but improbable since she lived on the second floor. Given the creatures she discovered over her lifetime, she hesitated flinging open the glass double doors to investigate, besides it was hotter outside. She would open the doors later to let in the breeze.

  In the meantime, she peeked through the cheesecloth sheers to find a man she barely knew fighting his way up her railing. At first, she didn’t recognize him, his face covered in blood. If it had been dark, she might have screamed at the sight of his frame trying to gain access to her chambers.

  It was apparent he would swiftly lose the battle with gravity and, at any time, might fall to his death. Rather than risk his corpse at the foot of her window, she rushed out to help him climb the last few feet to safety. Once he sprawled out on the wood floor, she instantly recoiled. The blood that covered most of his body now covered her.

  She had heard the explosion on the far side of the reach, but it came from where the rich people lived. For various reasons she wanted as little to do with the event as possible. And here came this sorry shape of a man, bleeding all over her. She recognized him now that he lay at her feet, barely conscious.

  She scanned the area and decided no one watched him struggle his way to her room. She should push him back over the rail and be done with him. Forget he ever showed up. She looked down at him again. He had been nicer than most. If she helped him, he might pay her well.

  “Damn it all, you’d better not bleed all over my rugs.” When she first took the place, she installed reed blinds, so she could lower them to cut off people’s views from her room or the balcony. She enjoyed sitting out when it grew oppressively hot, and she often wanted to stroll about in the nude. With a pull of a string she dropped the covers, hiding the pair in muted light.

  She left him lying there while she stepped back into her room for the basin and pitcher she always kept on hand. Her line of work required constant cleaning up. Soap, water, and washcloths became as important as the clothes she dressed in and the primary tool of her trade: the oversized feather-stuffed bed. From under her pillow, she grabbed a straight razor honed to a fine edge.

  His robes ruined, she had no compunction about slicing them from his body, being careful not to cut anything significant in the process. She would keep the cloth removed from his body. Cleaned up she might be able to recycle it into something wearable.

  At first glance, shocked, she took a deep breath at the extensive damage. She found cuts and blood over most of the front half of his body. The most concerning was a splinter the size of her index finger lodged in his left knee. She glanced back to the room when she thought she heard a knock at the door but decided it was only her imagination.

  Her attention back on the man, she covered her mouth with both her hands, trying to decide where to start. She shook her head and stood. Pacing into the room, she went to the heavy door that led out and listened. She heard two of the other girls that lived down the hall fighting over a missing half of chicken. Not her problem unless they found out she ate it.

  She leaned her back against the door and looked out the double doors to the man’s body that lay just outside. The thought of what needed to be done grew too much for her.

  She turned away and stared into the mirror over the commode she’d taken the pitcher and basin from. The wrinkles around her eyes were still small, considering the nearly twenty years she had survived in this line of work. She hid the few crow’s feet with black eyeliner she’d learned to make long ago. It elongated her already almond eyes.

  She drew too close to forty years old for her liking. Only a few more good years left before she would need to find another occupation. The day would come when no more gentlemen came calling. As it was, most of her customers could barely get it up. She thought most of them were only lonely and wanted to spend time next to a warm body. She knew a few herbs that might help them rise to the occasion, but most simply wanted to talk. Those that showed up drunk rarely stayed awake long enough to perform.

  She was a whore that rarely slept with any customers. Except for this one, he came to her and gave her something she needed. Mostly, he listened to her and treated her like a human being. She ruffled her dark brown wavy hair and spoke to the face in the mirror. “Are we going to do this?”

  In a moment she decided, grabbed the nearly full bottle of grain alcohol on the table next to her, and went back outside. The cork popped, she took a good long swig off the bottle before she poured a cupful into the cloth she had brought out. Six whispered more to herself than the man out cold, “This might hurt.” The fact was it would burn like the hells, but she needed to clean his wounds and start pulling the more significant pieces out of his body.

  Strangely enough, he made no sound when she started wiping his body with the liquor-soaked rag. She felt the cloth snag over the different foreign objects lodged in his flesh. She began pulling them out one at a time. When she wasn’t strong enough to pull them out with her fingers, she found tools one of her customers had left that she never got around to throwing out.

  Her mind drifted while she worked. His body became a lump of flesh with things that needed to be done to it. She no longer recognized him as a human. In a zone, she worked and drank to steady her nerves.

  Her mind drifted to a different time when she went by Leo. So long ago, she was only a child, but she lived in a house not much different from this. Her master was much older, and not too bad for a woman, as owners go. She had since heard horror stories from other freed slaves, but she knew she would always be all right. She had always had a feeling things would work all right for her, and mostly they did.

  Six was only ten when her master died. On her deathbed she changed her will, freeing all her slaves and giving them a small portion of her estate. Her children were mortified. In the blink of an eye, they all became poor like the newly freed slaves. They tried to talk them all into staying, but none would.

  What is a ten-year-old former slave supposed to do with money, when she never had two coins to rub together? She kept hold of the money for about three days. She was conned out of her gold by the madam of her first house. She was technically a free woman, but the madam ran a scam where she ended up owing much more than she could ever pay. At ten years old, she stood too young to start playing the game, that would come later. Instead, she worked like a slave to pay off the invented debt. She kept working for the woman until she turned eighteen. She smiled, remembering the thought of the bitch’s death.

  The man gasped when her hand brushed over the shard embedded in his left knee. It had to be tender. Time to focus…

  She inspected the huge piece of wood and watched the flesh move when she touched it. The man cried out, as well. This had to be the longest piece yet. She looked over the tools at her disposal and pulled a pair of blacksmith tongs that took both of her hands to operate. She was concerned her arms were not strong enough to pull it out.

  She stood, latched on with the tongs, and pulled with all her might, her right foot braced on his knee to keep it steady. The wood made a sucking sound when it pulled free, and the man made a
grunting noise. She’d expected much worse from him. Six stumbled back at the recoil, lucky she didn’t fall or twist over the rail behind her. The blood did pool out of the wound though. She used a piece of the man’s tattered robes to staunch the flow, tying a portion of the makeshift bandage in place with a strip she tore off the sleeve.

  She knew a few tricks about the human body. It would be impossible to live in a brothel for twenty years and not learn medicine. If she’d been a man, she would be called a surgeon. If she advertised her abilities as a woman, she might be branded healer, or worse a witch. She would keep her herbs and potions to herself, only using them on people she trusted. This one would need a particular root she knew that, when used as a powder, would help to stop the bleeding. She had other herbs that would help keep the black pus away, or he might die. Although, in her experience, merely washing with the drink would typically keep the worst of the black pus at bay.

  She left him to prepare the compress for his wounds, it wasn’t much more than a spice shaker that would help the blood form a scab. She came back, and his eyes were open, watching her move about the room. Instinct moved her hands to pull her top together. Not that she was shy, she just felt like he spied on her. She released it quick enough when she realized she behaved foolishly. They had both explored each other’s nude bodies on many nights.

  “You’re awake.” She spoke the fact, not a question, unsure what else to say.

  “How long have I been out?” He raised his right hand to his face, gingerly testing the wounds left by the splinters.

  “Long enough to pull most of the worst bits out of you. Mind telling me what happened?” She kneeled and began applying the powder to the worst wound first, his knee.

  He cringed when she removed the wrap from around the gash. The blood still flowed freely, but as soon as she shook the powder over the hole, she watched as it began to subside.

  He let out a long sigh once she finished the treatment. “I’m not really sure. Can I have a drink of that?” He pointed to the bottle sitting just out of reach.