Month: May 2023

Posted on

Twilight in Heaven: Chapter 17

Previous chapters in the text box on the right
Update schedule: Wednesdays and Sundays, noon Denver time (MDT)

Chapter 17

The gulls of the rookery screamed. The stone of the building rose quietly and placidly, while the shadows on its roof climbed and hopped. Under the cloudy sky, I could not see the Sun or stars, but the vague, directionless light told me that somewhere above, the Sun had risen.

My arm bled where the Drowning Breath of Ogden had cut through the belt. The red line ran shallowly from wrist to elbow and seemed to have missed all my really important piping. Still, it was a long, nasty cut. I’d picked up half a dozen others too. Little cuts, perhaps from leaping out the window, breaking down doors, stood out in red dots and scrapes on my arms and legs.

Without taking her eyes of me, the lady with the dragon blade turned her head suddenly. I didn’t take my eyes off her either.

“Sit down,” she said.

“Why? I’m leaving!” said Osret.

“No, you’re staying. You’re under arrest.”

“Why?” He sounded offended.

“Illegal left turn. Two weeks ago, corner of Markish and Seventh.”

“Are you serious?” he yelled.

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

There was a sort of thumping noise.

I thought of something and turned the blade slightly so I could see Osret’s reflection while keeping an eye on her. He’d sat down.

She waited. She was waiting for me.

Self, maybe she’s as scared of you as you are of her. They say that about dangerous animals.

Ha! No, self, she has a dragon sword. She’s just waiting for me to make a mistake.

Was the punishment for taking honey dew and nectar really death for a mortal?

Yes, as I thought about it. It was treason. Again.

Oh, blisters.

I initiated on her.

My lunge passed right through where she had been, for she swiveled her hips and let them pull her sideways. Her feet seemed to slide across the ground. My thrust shifted to a backhand, she parried, and her sword rippled as it moved. The air about it wavered like a heat mirage over the desert. When she stopped my swing, that ripple kept going, a wave that flowed through the air until it hit one of the rookery’s long, forward walls. The wall burst into flame.

As did the ground for she had struck again. I blocked and dodged, and the dragon sword sent waves of flame after me again.

She looked surprised. Not baffled and filled with wonder, but she frowned, mildly startled, like her coffee place had raised their prices overnight. I tried to capitalize, so I blitzed again.

I went for a head-cut, she blocked up, I slashed at her legs, she parried low, I threw lunges for her head, and she faded backwards between them, her sword deflecting mine outward. Then she swung forward, the blade moving in a circle described by a beautiful wrist-flick, and behind the flashing edge of the sword, she drew a red smear. It looked like the after-image fireworks leave on your eyes if you’re close enough to see them shooting upward or against a black sky when they burst. I did not try to parry, merely dodged, and her sword cut furrows in ground it did not touch. She feinted, but the feint cut open a wall behind my head. She lunged and blew the wall down. She blocked my riposte, launched her own, we came close enough to lock blades, and I kicked her in the knee.

We separated. She sniffed. I shrugged.

“Northshore?” she asked.

I shrugged again.

“I know their champions, but you aren’t one,” she added.

“Yeah, I know,” I said in a rush without thinking. “I keep blowing my oral exams.”

She said, “Huh,” in a way I couldn’t interpret.

I really should not have said anything. Two seconds late, self. Two seconds late.

Maybe it sounded like a quip. Yeah. I was so witty.

I closed again, we exchanged a murderously fast series attacks where both of us tried to force the issue into a winning pattern, but neither allowed ourselves to be taken. She tore up the ground. The Drowning Breath whispered to me of the wave-cutting stroke, something I didn’t know, but when I attacked again, the sword began to flow. It wanted to get her. The sword wanted to win.

Suddenly the lady in white had to retreat again. My blade went for her head, I tried to rake her shins, and she jumped, weapon clearing my overhand swing as she flew backwards. The shin strike ended with a stomp, leaving me unable to pursue, and once she was safe outside my range, she swung in a wide open cut at waist level. A plane of fire swept out in all directions. It beat against the rookery, sending the still crying birds to the air, and burning the short hairs on my legs and arms as I jumped over it.

I landed at the ready. She frowned and mouthed something. I think it was ‘the audacity.’

She cut the air between us and sent a wave of flame I had to dodge. Her next strike blew a canyon in the ground. She thrust, and at full extension, the images of dragons appeared over her shoulders, breathing fire. Gouts of it passed overhead while I dove into the canyon. She’d cut the ground so deeply she’d opened up one of the storm-drain pipes.

I jumped down.

This place must get a ton of rainfall, because this storm runoff was huge. I could run down here. I did.

Something crackled behind me, and echoes transformed the sound into meaningless noise.

Not far ahead, I found a drainage opening. The opening formed a wide square in the side of a road, and I shimmied up. It had a grate of silver steel, but I could look around by pushing my face against the bars.

A lightning bolt had fallen and landed by the woman in white. Now it slithered in place as she hoisted the fallen swordsman onto the lightning bolt’s back. It was so bright I could barely look at it, but I registered an impression of length, a long head, and curving tail. Memory suggested the shape of a dragon.

Of course. She was from Fate.

Once the swordsman was tied on the lightning dragon’s back, she spoke to someone out of sight. Osret walked into view and climbed onto the dragon. He hung his head and sat slumped over. His gym abs didn’t do him any good while he slouched.

She looked away and pursed her lips. She glanced back at the unconscious swordsman and reluctant Osret. She hesitated, looking out over the industrial part of the city. Few parks stood by the roads, those that did needed tending, and roses grew out of the gutters. Finally, she climbed onto the dragon. It shot skyward in a zig-zagging path as thunder echoed off the clouds.

I ran as quietly as I could in the opposite direction.

Posted on

Karesh Ni: Chapter 8

Fidays
Previous chapters on the right.

Chapter 8

Tel Viv made several odd faces. She was wonderfully expressive, and she kept squinting and wrinkling her face, unsquinting and unwrinkling her eyes, and glaring at me like a new and unpleasant bug. I get that a lot, so she unintentionally put me at ease. Maybe it was intentional. I doubt it. She didn’t look someone executing a master plan. She looked like she’d been constipated all week, and things were starting to move unexpectedly.

“You’re a wheat merchant?” she demanded.

“I don’t handle it myself. I connect buyers and sellers,” I said.

She kept squinting. She needed a little more.

I continued. “The winter crop is already gone. I’m sure the Celephians have some in storage, but they’re going to fleece you. They might not,” I admitted.

Tel Viv interrupted, “Might not what? Have wheat in storage or fleece us?”

“Technically either, but let’s be honest. We both know Celephians. They’ll fleece you even if they don’t have any wheat in storage.”

“You don’t know that!” Tel Viv snorted at me.

Which was also technically true. “Okay,” I agreed.

She squinted again. I could see her deciding if she really wanted to defend the Celephians from charges of fleecing a customer.

“Let’s put that aside,” she said. “You’re not a wheat grower. Who do you know who is?”

“I won’t answer that directly, because you’ll try to go to my supplier and cut me out,” I replied. “But I did just show you a contract from the Truis.”
She sat back and crossed her arms. Her face closed.

I pushed. “We need to talk a little bit. I did just show you my last contract, but there are many suppliers in the world. I can talk to people. What do you need?”

She exhaled, but I think she thawed a little. I pushed farther.

“What’s your timeline? Are people starving in the streets? The winter crop is growing, so most merchants will have found buyers already. The first summer crop is harvested around midsummer. Is that doable?”

She sighed again but definitely thawed. “By midsummer, you mean solstice?”

“Depends on where, but yeah.”

“I’m not under an executioner’s axe. Midsummer would be fine. I could push to autumn if the price was right.”

My knowledge of the wheat trade wasn’t too deep, but I had picked up a little. “Autumn is a little far. You can get a commitment cheaper that far out, but it’s risky. Weather, drought, dust-storms, bugs, anything could throw you off. You save some money if everything works out in your favor, more if you pay up front.”

Tel Viv did a side-to-side nod. She didn’t like the thought but wasn’t reflexively arguing me. I smiled. We had a little connection.

“So you’re looking for something in summer or autumn?” I asked again, trying to get her talking.

“I’m looking for stable trading partners away from the Ashirai. I, we, are looking for bilateral relations.”

“Why away from the Ashirai?”

“Because the Empire is leaning on its connections to cut our partners. They don’t want anyone to deal with us but them. Your contacts in Kageran won’t help. Citi Kageran is a small place, and once the Ashirai got in, they just creep. They’re like pythons, throwing a coil at a time over their prey.”

“They’ll deal with you themselves?” I asked. That sounded odd.

“Their terms are unacceptable.”

“Okay. Does it have to be wheat?”

She looked at me like she didn’t understand the question. “What?”

“Down south, away from the Ashirai, there’s a lot of rice.”

“You can’t make bread with rice.”

“No, you eat it straight.”

And we talked.

She wanted food. The people of Whitefire traditionally ate bread, so while she thought in terms of wheat and medium grains, she was willing to talk about rice. More than anything else, she seemed intent on not-from-Ashirak. The empire galled her. Her jaw clenched, and she scowled when she talked about them. She spoke in terms of deep grievances she wouldn’t clarify, old grudges she wouldn’t explain.

She didn’t have as much time as she said. She needed something done, and she couldn’t do it herself. The Hierophant and other eparchs would be involved. But Eparch Tel Viv wanted to present a full plan by herself, and money wasn’t the biggest sticking point.

It was a sticking point. Money always was. But she was willing to pay to get someone talking to her.

She didn’t know it, but she was talking about Celephians. They cared nothing for Ashirai threats or pressure. Threatening Celephias across the seas was a bad, bad idea. The Celephians wanted money, Tel Viv had some, and things could be arranged. But Tel Viv didn’t trust them either, for good reason, and that put her in a bind.

I needed time. My immediate contract was to find Kyria, and Tel Viv pretty firmly told me she was dead. That would take some unravelling.

“So, what are your transport and storage arrangements?” I asked, fishing for a delay.

“We have a port,” she said so idly and flippantly she was bragging.

“From…down there?” I asked.

“Of course.”

“Can I see it?”

“Easily.”

“And warehouses?” I added.

“Of course.”

“Can I see them too?”

“Will that take some time?” she asked.

“Days, at least.” It would take days, but I could pad a few days of spy work into there. “Maybe weeks.”

She nodded. “I’ll have someone show you around. For your stay, you are invited to take one of the guest rooms in the Sunset Basilica.”

“The Sunset Basilica?”

“This place.” She waved an arm around.

“Oh, I accept.”

“Good.”

“Am I still under arrest?”

“You mean bound and detained?”

“Yes.”

Tel Viv thought. “No, but you’ll have an escort. You aren’t detained provided you don’t leave,” she said finally.

I sorta expected that. “Food, drink, a bed?”

“We will provide all.”

“Oh, wonderful. I accept,” I said again.

“Good.”

They took me to a very nice white room that did have bars on the doors, but the guards didn’t lock them. I had a window, but it didn’t open. But I also had a bed, sheeted in silk, and several small cabinets and shelves. Eparch Tel Viv spoke with the hospitallers outside while I looked around and came in when they were done.

“You’re not detained,” she repeated. “But you may be here a while. Tell someone if you need to leave, and if possible, you’ll be escorted.”

Again, what I expected. “The necessary?”

She looked at me blankly.

“Out house? Hanging garret?”

“Oh, the water house. That door.” She pointed at a flat wall.

I looked at her, the wall, and her again.

She walked over, put one finger on several glowing red spots and pushed. A line of yellow lights appeared in the outline of a door, and the wall swung inwards.

“Just press any stars in the shape of the Door.” And then she frowned.

But I wasn’t paying attention. Through the hidden door was a bathroom. It had a sink. It had a toilet. It had a shower.

In awe, I examined the shower tap. Two little chains hung from a white bevel supporting a short, metal rod. I pulled the little rod down, and water fell from the ceiling. I twisted it, and the water steamed. They had hot, running water.

“Do you know how to use a rain closet?” asked Tel Viv condescendingly, but she didn’t bother me at all.

“Oh yes, Eparch. I do.”

And she left.

The guards outside smiled and shut me in. They didn’t lock the door, but I had no intention of leaving.

I took the first hot shower I’d had in years, and it felt like heaven.

Posted on

AI and jobs

A lot of the rhetoric around AI* is wildly off the mark.

When something becomes more efficient or cheaper, people want more of it. This is a law of economic nature.

Generative AI is making grunt-workers more efficient. There will be more people doing more of it. Now that isn’t an unequivocable good, as the form of this could be more paperwork since one paperwork-worker can do more. It does mean that a lot of paperwork that people want done will get assigned, and some of the restraining influences on the spread of paperwork before will be overcome.

Consider your TPS reports. You hate them. I hate them. The managers who assign them do understand this, mostly, and most of them are trying to reduce TPS reports. TPS reporting is expensive, takes time, and all that, so there’s a restraining force.

But people still want TPS reports, so when a manager discovers one admin-staffer can do twice the TPS-reporting, those TPS reports will be assigned. Unclogged, the TPS reporting will flow. There will be TPS reports everywhere. And efficiency is never as clean as one imagines, so more admin-staffers will be hired to do TPS reports with generative AI TPS reporting software, and the world will become a brown, stinkier place. But there will be more admin-staff jobs.

There will also be people who make generative AI models, tune them from TPS reports, and provide tech support. The admin-staffers will not be fixing their models.

There will be more jobs elsewhere too. Data labelling is going to be a big thing, and people need to do it. All these systems run on hardware. Hardware in the cloud is still hardware; it’s just hardware somewhere else. So that hardware will need sysadmins, manufacturers, supply chains, and developers.

If you want a paradigm, imagine the transition from horses to cars. Transportation became more efficient. Before mass-market cars, only a few people had horses. Vastly more people now have cars. Sure, a very few cars, fewer than horses, would provide the transportation needs for the few people who had horses, but that isn’t what happened.

We’re staring into a future of more jobs, more employment, more TPS reports documenting that employment, and generative AI.

*That name, AI, is wildly off the mark too, but I haven’t found a better one. Replace it with ‘computers doing math really quickly’ whenever you see it.

Posted on

Twilight in Heaven: Chapter 16

Previous chapters in the text box to the right.
New updated schedule: Wednesdays and Sundays, noon Denver time (MDT)

Chapter 16

I’d finally run down Osret and in the moment of triumph, hesitated. He wasn’t ready to fight me. It would be murder. He couldn’t breathe, even in the thick, seashore air. He was probably one of those guys who did five minutes of sprinting spread over an hour fairly regularly because it got him cut. Good for him, but it didn’t help him outrun a murderer.

And it would be murder. But he deserved it.

Self, you’re not here for him. You’re here for the saber. Osret is secondary.

Get the saber.

This was a good thought, I judged.

“Osret, where is my sword?” I asked and some other voice interrupted.

“Hold, mortal!”

Oh, biscuits. Who was that?

I turned around, and some fop in silk and boots came up the road behind me.

The birds overhead were going nuts. They’d never really shut up, even for the night, but now they were raising a din.

He wore a designer sword with emerald fabric woven through the belt and scabbard. It looked mid-length and straight, long enough to fence with but possibly edged. He looked proud of it. He ran up and drew while outside my range before stepping in. The blade fell into line with my neck.

“Mortal, you are guilty of crimes against Mallens, Honor Him,” he said.

“Which ones?” I demanded.

“Deadly ones.”

“Could you be more specific?”

“He tried to kill me!” interrupted Osret, but the interruption of his panic-breathing set him coughing.

“Not you,” said the fop. “Worse. Treason.”

Oh, sickness and death, everything was ruined. They found out about the killing, they had traced an assassin, I was going to Hell until they could stretch my life out no longer in pain and all I could say was, “Could you be more specific?”

The fop could. “You have eaten honeydew and nectar, and it is treason for a mortal to take the sustenance of the gods,” and he looked so pleased with himself.

I went slack jawed. I had to deliberately shut my mouth.

“But I caught you,” he continued. “I will–”

I took off my belt and wrapped it around my off-hand forearm.

“Mortal, are you high?”

I blitzed.

My left opened the gate, catching his blade on the belt and shoving forward and down. His sword cut through leather like butter. My right shot past the fop’s head. He juked to the side, swung the sword wide and around, but my left, no longer blocking, got him dead in the guts. I got inside his counterstroke and threw the boxing cross.

I didn’t catch him cleanly in the jaw. I got him at an angle, but up close like that, I had the hip action double dirty. He hit a wall and bounced.

I threw the left again, a wide, stupid shot that’s worthless if they see it coming. But the fop was having a religious experience, an epiphany, and seeing nothing but himself. He wasn’t fated to win. He was other people, and I hit him so hard he fell out from under the sword.

I chased.

He hit the ground, rolled, and the idiot had great reflexes. He came up with a knife. He jabbed, I pulled back, and we circled.

Then everything changed. Hands up near the face, palms back, pushing straight shots with the quickest recoil I could, I moved back and let him come. He slashed with the knife. The knife was everything. He might eat a dozen, three dozen punches and win if he got one clean cut.

I feinted, feinted, he leaned back and came forward. He slashed overhead, and I kicked him in the inside of the thigh, right in the meaty part of the muscle. He tried to stab my leg but aborted when I threw that jab again. He blitzed, I faded back, he swung twice and I dodged everything to kick him in the same leg, this time the outside.

He pressured. I retreated and fell back, giving up a dozen good chances to deny him any. Now he chased. My belt was in half, one end flapping, and not long enough to block. I kept a grip on the tail of it in my left. I could block one or two with the off hand, but he’d lay the arm open for sure.

Sickness, I wish I’d taken the sword instead of closing.

He lunged, I retreated, we circled, I went for the fallen blade but he blocked me, I got another good leg shot, and fell back. He stepped forward, almost over the sword.

He was going to try to kick it up into his hands. He wanted it. I could taste his hunger for it. As soon as he did, as soon as all his weight landed on one leg, I was going to blitz so hard I’d knock his tastebuds out his back door.

And he knew.

He dropped onto both feet, even stance, right in front of the sword.

I rose up onto my toes.

We both knew.

He tried to body fake me. I didn’t fall for it.

He moved his off-hand out behind him, ready.

I breathed.

He body faked again.

I breathed.

He stomped one side of the handguard, the sword pivoted up, and he hooked a toe under the handle.

From outside range, I went. My right fist shot forward; my left followed. He swung the knife, I swung my left palm out and open with the folded up belt, smacked the blade, and he only cut the heel of my hand. I cleared his knife-hand sideways.

He caught his sword.

I got him in the throat.

His whole body went rigid, he dropped the sword, and I followed-up to his head. The bells of his temple rang, and the gods left. He dropped.

I looked back.

Osret was staring at me like I was the devil.

I picked up the sword, and the moment my hand touched its handle, I knew its name and lineage. This was the Drowning Breath of Ogden, made by Thorophus the Weapon Maker in his Eighth Testament. It had been forged of eight lesser blades that killed Ogden. His son, Aelon, had ordered this one of their steel and used it to avenge his father. I heard the words Thorophus whispered as he made it, and the dire hatred Aelon had spoken when he used it. It had been made for revenge, it hungered for revenge, and when I held it, the sword yearned.

I knew of this sword. I had had filed paperwork on it. It was a blade of Fate.

The fop was from Fate.

“He was from Fate,” I said out loud.

“Is from Fate. The Bureau of Sanction,” said a new voice, and a woman stepped from shadow to the ground. “You have not slain him yet.”

I looked at her and held the Drowning Breath.

She was tall and beautiful, hard but curved. She’d pulled chestnut hair back, wore white armor of moonsilk, and her boots were tall, laced things that reached the midpoint of her shins. Her jacket and pants were tight enough to move, but with moonsilk that meant nothing. It flowed like liquid silver. I could see the creases where her hips met her pelvis, the tightness of fabric across her chest, and the tiny dimples of muscles flexing on her rump. She had bright red eyes.

Around her shoulders flew a red and gold dragon, long as a python. It had no wings, but flames danced on its hide. It and she shared an eye color, red, but the dragon had scales too. Tiny flames seemed to escape from its lips as it slithered through the air, climbing on invisible things like a serpent might climb the roots of a great tree.

I didn’t know her. We’d never met. I would have remembered a hot dragon lady.

Well, hot because fire is hot…but no, sexy-fire-dragon-lady was definitely a thing. I had not known sexy-fire-draon-lady was a thing, nor that I was into it. I was. I would have known if we’d met.

We stared at each other, and the red of her eyes leaked out like tears. But her tears burned, and they leaped for the sky like candle-flames freed of their wicks.

“You may take him and leave,” I said.

She considered a moment. “No.”

I held the Drowning Breath of Ogden, and she wore a fire dragon like a scarf.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” I asked.

She didn’t move her feet but pulled her head back as if my words splattered crazy in her direction. “You’re asking me that?”

“Yes. If you run, I won’t chase you.”

“No,” she said again.

I raised the sword point until the blade stood between us.

Her dragon spiraled in and out, and she reached for it from one hand. The serpent turned to liquid fire from which she drew a long, single edged sword that danced in her hand. The flames of the dragon vanished, or perhaps its essence was merely made steel.

She had a dragon blade. If I did not know her, I knew of her kind. She was from the Bureau of Sanction.

I said something which had been said to me. “You think you’ll win, and you might, but this will not go well for you if you do.”

She smiled like I had in the House of Hemlin, where Zenjin had said that to me. Things had not gone well for me, but they’d gone much worse for him.

Posted on

The Final Trial

If at the end of days I meet my maker and he judges me for my life, the prosecution may accuse, “Matthew, you’re terrible at paperwork.”

I’m not really going to have an answer for that.

Posted on

Twilight in Heaven: Chapter 15

Previous chapters here or on the text box on the right.

Chapter 15

The traitor dashed up two flights. His footsteps banged overhead. The stairs were folded and stacked, and he was only ten feet away if I could reach through the ceiling. But the fork wouldn’t go that far. I followed him up the first set of stairs, around a hallway to the next flight, and up the stairs again. At the top of this one, I saw him dive into a room, but I didn’t have time to throw anything.

By the time I crossed the little hallway, he’d slammed his door shut. It was one of those flimsy interior things. I went through it like paper, and Osret hadn’t even stayed to try to lock it. He was already running through a closet that opened into a bathroom.

The bedrooms on each floor shared a bathroom, and on the other side, he ran through an open doorway into a different bedroom. Again he tried to slam the door shut, but I threw the fork and stapled the door to the wall. Osret ran. I came after. He threw some suits off a rack and got back to the stairway. This time he ran down.

I jumped the stairs, hit him with both feet in the back, and knocked him across a wooden floor. He slid like the puck in a hammerslide game. Unfortunately, the stairs had been steep, and in jumping, I’d cracked my chin on the angled ceiling and landed on my rear end. He got up. I shook my head and rose. Footsteps pounded up the stairs below.

Osret turned to face me with his hands up in a boxing guard. I threw a straight right through his forearms, caught him dead on the chin, and lifted him off his feet. He did a backflip through the door behind him.

It was a little library, like a den or a workroom, and smelled like lemon cleaner. Stacks of wooden boxes collected dust in the corners, and the only light was the hall light coming through the door. It flickered as someone ran past.

I chased Osret, and as he tried to get up again, grabbed him by the expensive vest collar. The idiot wore a vest. I put my hip into it, threw him out a window, and he screamed as he broke the glass.

Apseto and Nurim appeared in the doorway. They’d got more knives, but they looked terrified. For a moment, they hesitated.

“He betrayed me and killed your friends. You have done me no harm. Good bye,” I said and jumped out the window.

We were only on the third floor. It was only twenty feet up. Osret wouldn’t have had a problem if he had jumped, not tumbled, but the tumbling and the broken glass fragments hurt. Still, he was up and running when I landed in a crouch. He fled, abandoning every pretense but speed, and raced along the street with his arms pumping. I ran after, my fingers clenched into fists.

#

He was a fit guy. He clearly ran for exercise, and everyone runs faster when they’re chased. But he ran wild, all adrenaline while gasping for air, not pacing himself, and while he nearly lost me in the first block, he had to slow down for the next. He missed a good opportunity to take a side street and maybe lose me. Then I had him in sight.

The streets were bizarrely empty. The day I’d arrived, there had been people on the roads and sidewalks. I’d slipped between them, trying to appear as an ‘other’ to everyone and had received no attention. Now no one else walked the sidewalks or waited at street corners. Even the people who worked outside, vendors, rickshaw cabbies, and buskers, all found other places to be. Osret and I had the city to ourselves. Clouds still filled the sky, and the thin light that made it through wasn’t strong enough to cast any shadows. If anything, the cloud cover was lower and boiled faster. More often lightning flashed without ever coming down.

The unnatural emptiness of the city lead to one moment I didn’t have the time to think about. While I chased Osret down a street with townhouses on each side, I noticed a figure standing on a rooftop, watching. Her long, black braids were pulled back, the braids showing the first hints of white hair. She wore one of those cape-things women liked. It looked like a long jacket without sleeves but with a thick collar.

Those cape-things are expensive. I don’t know why, but only luxury places make them.

Either way, she had no business standing on a rooftop, watching me chase Osret through the streets, and yet that’s what she did.

But chasing Osret took all of my attention, moreso when he realized he hadn’t lost me. He started taking fast turns, going right then left, cutting through alleys and hopping fences. I stayed on him but couldn’t close the gap.

Finally he tried to brute force out-distance me, skipping all the turns and shifts to head straight south, pounding out miles. If he hadn’t burned all that energy to begin with, he would have made it. But he’d never had a chance to catch his breath with the sprinting. While he stretched his lead as far as two blocks, I cut it in half and half again. When next he looked back, I was almost on him, less than a hundred feet behind.

He turned down some random road, and I don’t think he had a plan. The road lead to a blackstone rookery with basalt walls and limestone window sills. Gulls covered the roof. They’re noisy, chattering birds. Osret ran straight to the front door, tried it, and found it locked. He was gasping now. He pulled back to take it with his shoulder when I crashed into him from behind, kicked his feet out from under him, and he dropped.

He didn’t even flail when he hit the ground. He just breathed.

I was finally going to get my sword back.

Did I kill him?

I stood still for a moment, unprepared for the thought. He had betrayed and shot me, he’d killed his cousins, but he lay at my feet. He couldn’t fight. Did I kill him?