The Penitent Damned(3)

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"Always try to think like the target," the Old Man had told her, that morning. "Be the target, as close as you can. Whatever you're trying to steal, hold it close to your heart, and think what you might do if you heard a bad man like me was going to come and take it from you."

He laughed, his ancient, wheezing laugh that showed off empty gums. Once upon a time he'd been a legend, the master thief Metzing, scourge of the burghers of Hamvelt and merchant houses all across the League cities. By the time Alex had met him, he was seventy years old if he was a day, and while he remained surprisingly spry his thieving days were done.

Alex had heard it all before. She was more interested in breakfast, which was steak and eggs done with some kind of runny cheese you didn't get in the League cities. Vordanai cuisine had some odd eccentricities, she'd discovered in her brief time in the city, but for the most part it was delicious. Except for the sausages. She taken a bite of one she'd bought from a street vendor and sworn off ground meat for the duration.

The Old Man glared at her, and she realized she'd forgotten to offer the proper attentive noises. Her mouth was full of egg, so all she could do was nod vigorously, to show she'd understood. He snorted and waved a dismissive hand.

"You don't listen," he said. "But you never did, so why should I be surprised?"

Alex swallowed. "I'm listening. I'm listening!"

"Fine, then you listen but you don't hear." He sighed and sank back in his chair. "We should never have come here."

"What, to this inn?"

It was quite a nice one, in fact, on the eastern end of the Island, as the Vordanai termed their most fashionable district. The Old Man always said that people expected to find thieves in low dives and cheap flophouses, so any thief who cared to avoid attention would avoid such places at all costs. Alex secretly thought that he'd simply acquired a taste for luxury during his illustrious career, but she wasn't complaining. They sat at their own table in the well-appointed common room, with leather chairs and well-dressed waiters bowing whenever Alex raised a finger. Beside them was a window made of real glass, with an excellent view of the spires of the Island and the bridges that connected it to the Exchange.

"To this city!" the Old Man said, rapping the table with his knuckles. "I swore I'd never come back. I knew it would be the death of me."

"It's only for a few days," Alex said. "And the money's good."

"Too good," the Old Man muttered.

"What do you expect? The Concordat has everyone scared stiff. I imagine the client had to up his price to attract any interest."

"So more fools we, to take an interest."

Alex sighed. "Come on. I'll do the job tonight. We'll be out of the city by morning. In two weeks we'll be back in Desland, and we can spend a year living like merchant princes if we like."

She'd dreamed of Desland, asleep in the soft feather-bed upstairs. It was the closest thing she had to a home, the place where she'd spent her formative years, and she was fond of it. It was a quiet, orderly city, building and citizenry both decked out in bright colors, framed against a bay so blue it made your eyes water to look at for too long.

More specifically, she'd dreamed of a rather nice young man who lived there, who she had allowed to kiss her on several occasions and, on the night before she'd left, to slip a hand inside her blouse for a few minutes of inexpert but enthusiastic fumbling. Thinking about him brought a flush to her cheeks, and she bent closer to her plate in case the Old Man noticed.

She needn't have worried. He was staring out the window at the tallest building in the skyline, a great ancient hunk of stone with two tall, pointed towers connected by a fragile-looking rope bridge. This was the Sworn Cathedral of Saint Ligamenti, a relic of a by-gone age that she had been mildly curious to go and visit. There were no cathedrals left in the League cities; angry mobs and self-righteous city councils, drunk on their new power, had razed them during the Schism, mostly to be replaced by allegorical statues of Truth and Freedom triumphing over Tyranny.

"It was always a bad place," the Old Man said, and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "For people like you. Not a mile from this spot, the Pontifex of the Black ripped out the tongues of heretics with hot pliers."

"That was two hundred years ago," Alex protested. "There hasn't even been a Pontifex of the Black since before the Schism. And Vordan is as much Free Church as the League, these days."

"Elysium has a long memory. And everyone knows the Last Duke is close with the Church." He jerked his head at the window and the Cathedral. "They're holding services in that great damn abattoir again, you know."