The First Binding, page 53
“A life like this.” He shut the lid and whatever magic had held me bound to the glittering gold faded just as fast. “We’re here to make you an offer.”
Both of my brows rose, but I had no words to speak.
“I’m old. My kingdom isn’t the same as what you’re used to, and it’s old too. My mind is still sharp, but it is growing old as well. I would very much like to see what someone like you can do with me—for me.
“Ari, Bloodletter, King of Sparrows, Secret Seller of all that’s whispered under Keshum. I’ve heard of you. Many things. And I wanted to see and learn the truth of you. If you can do these things and muster the courage to rob me, I wonder what you could do with the right man behind you. The right resources?” He patted the box of gold. “The right teacher? I’d like to find out.”
And a part of me sorely would have liked the same. In fact, I burned for it in that moment. To hold that part back, then kill it, nearly broke me. A life of surety and safety beyond what I could imagine. A merchant king protecting me. A new land and the life that came with it. Travel, adventure, something of and for the stories.
And another temptation to take me away from everything that had led me here.
Not again. Never again.
“No.”
He tilted his head at me like he couldn’t believe what I’d said. I was sure a man like him didn’t hear that word often, if ever. “No?”
I repeated myself.
“Why?” he asked.
“I’ve told you. I have to go to the Ashram. And I will.” I met his stare with one sharper than the edge of his sword and far hotter than he could have ever wanted his tea to be.
“You’re speaking as if you have a choice, Ari.”
“Don’t I?” I rose to my feet.
He waggled a hand. “Of sorts. You tried to rob me. Your choices are death or working for me. Earn back the debt you’ve incurred by stealing from me.”
“But … I haven’t stolen from you.”
He smiled something full of mischief. “Haven’t you?” He pointed the sword at me, wobbling it a bit. “Do you know the problem with reputations, Ari? Sometimes a name, or names, aren’t just that. They’re curses. Bondage. I know this thing, and I know how to turn it on its head. And you along with it.
“But before I show you this thing, tell you of it, and the noose that comes with it, tell me this: Even now, would you choose death over working for me?”
I looked back at the sword, knowing he’d make good on the threat if it came to it. But I also knew that among the fears I’d come to nurse and experience, death cured the fear of itself. It was the only guarantee you could have in life. And I’d already subjected myself to a series of slow sad suicides by turning away from my ambitions and dreams.
I stepped closer to the sword. “Yes.”
The old man licked his lips and nodded. He sheathed his sword and fetched the box of gold in both hands. “I believe you would. Then I give you this choice to think on. You go to your Ashram, and before the end of one year from this day, finding your answers and magics or no, you come looking for me beyond the sands of Zibrath. Yes?” He reached out as if to pass me the box of gold.
My hands went for it almost on instinct. “If I take this and walk out of here, what’s to keep me honoring my word?”
He smiled as if he’d been hoping I’d ask. “Your reputation and mine. And the loss of a king’s wealth. You see, Ari, you have robbed me. When you take this gold—and it’s the only way you’ll leave alive—you will be bound to me. The word will spread, and I will make sure of it, that you, King of Sparrows, did steal from me. And I will leave it at that. No harm will befall you. But the word will spread. I will fan the fires of your name and deeds far and wide. And then, should you not return in that time, I’ll hang you with them.
“This is but a piece of all I own. A piece I can afford to gamble on with you. Remember that.” He passed me the box and took hold of one of the porcelain tea cups. “Do you know the cost of this?”
I shook my head, but I had an idea. And it was more than any sparrow would dare spend on nothing more than drink ware.
The cup fell from his hand, landing on the carpet to spill its tea. “This rug costs ten times that.” He nodded to the fallen porcelain. It crunched underfoot a second later. His eyes never left mine as he ground the former cup to smaller pieces still. Then he repeated the process with the rest of the tea set. Piece by piece. Each breaking. Each spilling more liquid into the carpet that cost more than any laborer would earn in a year.
“You wish to keep your sparrows safe? You will never do that by breaking your word. I can spend just as much and more to have you found wherever you go, and your family as well, and then have you all killed. And I’ll have my coin back then from their bodies and home. You will come to me one way or another. If not now, then later.
“Ikthab. It is written. It will be. This is nothing to me.” He inclined his head toward the box. “A man or boy with a spark of fire, with potential, is worth infinitely more than this sum … or less depending on how they turn out.”
I swallowed, knowing I didn’t have much choice, but it bought me time. One year at the Ashram was better than dying now. My family would be safe all the while, and, yes, my reputation would grow to include robbing a king.
At the time, it seemed like a fair trade for a child with stories filling his head.
“And if I prove to be anything less than this?” I mirrored his gesture at the box of gold.
A twinkle filled the man’s eyes. “Well, then I can write you off as that and afford the loss. But I am a keen gambler. One doesn’t become a merchant king without knowing what to bet on. I know which of my horses will win a race, and which ones are dumb enough to die of thirst by running themselves well past what they should. I’m hoping you’re to be the former.”
This was it. The money in hand promised me a way to the Ashram and my family’s safety. The sparrows would never go hungry again.
The box shook in my hands as I spoke. “Thank you. I’ll keep my word. I’ll be back. One year from now … I’ll see you again, and I’ll have done what you said can’t be done, as well.” My hands steadied and the weight of gold felt lighter. “I’ll perform the bindings and learn those magics. And I’ll show you them. I’ll show you what my name and reputation can and will be. And I’ll do just as much and more under you to pay this back.” I raised the box to make my point.
He grinned and reached into a pocket to pull out a slender rod of horn and silver inlay with a pointed tip. A folded sheet of parchment followed and he scrawled something along it. “I expect nothing less. Ikthab. It is written. It will be. Come find me in one year, Ari. My name is Arfan. Find me out there along the Golden Road, past Zibrath, on shifting dunes and singing sands. If you survive that trek, it’ll be the start to proving me and you right in your abilities. If not”—he shrugged—“I’ll have a good deal of gold to take back, and your story ends rather early.”
Like hell.
“Now go. Run. It doesn’t do thieves well to linger when they’ve robbed someone, and make no mistake, this is a robbery.” He still held that smile.
“I wonder who’s the one really being robbed.” I hadn’t realized I’d spoken my thoughts aloud. He was losing money; I, my freedom and time of life in the future.
I didn’t know it then, but there are some things gold cannot buy you, and it can serve to make a finer prison than bars of iron and walls of stone can ever do.
“I wonder the same, Ari.” He drew his sword. “Run.”
I did, and in doing so, brought his lie to life.
I’d robbed a merchant king, and the streets of Keshum would soon spread it to every ear willing to hear of it.
FORTY-SEVEN
LIES
There is no easy way to run with a small king’s fortune in your hands. Whatever fear I had stepping into the High Quarter, then into Arfan’s rooms, fell far short of that gripping my heart as I fled.
There is a certain safety in being penniless, not that it may seem like it at first. Few people see a sparrow and think to harm them for money. But put a box of gold in his hands and then watch his skin break into sweat and listen to his chest drum away.
I fought to keep my breath and body steady under the weight of coins and panic settling into me. The sight of me running did little to draw attention, fortunately, but I had no idea how long the peace would last with Arfan doing his best to raise a row behind me.
I’d nearly reached the pillars framing the entry into the quarter when I heard the cries behind me. Curses in a tongue I couldn’t understand peppered the air.
The two kuthri at the entrance turned to look at the source of commotion and I slowed my pace to a walk, hunching over to conceal much of the box under the folds of my shirt.
They looked past me in what I considered to be the last bit of luck I dared to trust that day. The men didn’t break into a run, falling just short of the pace as they took off in the direction of the noise.
Thanking Brahm and any other deity I could hope to remember, I made my way out of the High Quarter proper and hailed one of the nearby rickshaws. I gave the man no chance to speak and mutter the usual pleasantries. “Hard Quarter, now. Do you know where the glassmaker is on Dharum Street?”
He nodded, opening his mouth, but I cut him off again.
“No words. No nothing.” I thumbed the box’s lid partially open, just enough for me to sneak a coin out of it and into my palm.
The man bobbed his head, probably used to that level of treatment from other patrons out of the quarter.
I clambered onto the back and urged him go.
He did, and we traveled without exchanging a word until we reached the glassworks. The building stood not more than another half an hour from the House of Sparrows. It would be safer for me to stop here and walk. These streets had enough of my family patrolling them that no harm could befall me, and with the dissolution of Koli’s band of thugs, we were the only ones who traversed the back alleys.
But in the event Arfan’s words held true and people quickly came to know what I’d done, I didn’t want eyewitness accounts of people spotting me near my home.
“Five chips, sahm,” said the driver. His voice had cracked and it hadn’t come from fatigue. The way I’d spoken to him earlier had left an impression, and I got the feeling the kind of people that talked to him like that weren’t keen on paying their fair share for his services. His posture shrank and he looked like he expected me to swat at him.
I held my breath for a moment, praying my own heart would finally settle. Once it had, I hopped from the rickshaw and came to the man’s side. “Hold out your hand.”
He did, and his shook nearly as much as my own.
I placed the gold rupai into his palm, closing his fingers over it. The man didn’t let me go more than five steps before a series of choked-out words dribbled behind me.
“Sahm. This is…”
I waved him off without looking. “It’s enough.”
“No one will believe someone paid me in gold, sahm.”
I thought about what Arfan had said. If I was going to end up a thief no matter what, one with a reputation, I might as well be a famous one. A little slip of my own wouldn’t hurt to feed my story, I figured. “They will when you tell them this: Someone paid you to tell them about someone you’d carried earlier. You’ll tell anyone who asked that you rickshawed someone who’d stolen a king’s hand of gold. His name is Ari. And he robbed a merchant king. You carried him without knowing, and for telling the right people this truth, they gave you a gold rupai. That’s if anyone asks. Hopefully they won’t.”
“But, sahm, I never carried any such person?”
A crooked smile crossed my face. And the truth is, you did. That’s what makes this a great story. “But you did, and you tell yourself that until you believe it. And if anyone asks about me, you tell them you brought me here, to the glassworks on this street, ji-ah?”
“Ji.”
I made a dismissive gesture with a hand, not turning around until I heard the wheels of the cart rattle and roll away. It wasn’t long until I found myself passing through some of the alleys, box still tight in hand, and came across some of my family.
Two sparrows had just broken into view, running hard and each holding a small purse in hand.
Clutchers. They’d just plucked a fresh pick from someone.
Though, not smoothly enough to go unnoticed.
I whistled, drawing their attention and flagging them down.
Both hurried after me and I led them down another path.
“Ari?” asked one of them. She was younger than me by a year or two. Her hair had streaks of a rusty red through the muddled brown and it all hung in messy curls falling to her earlobes. Her eyes were just a shade lighter than her locks.
“What is it, Bippi?”
She ran a tongue over her front two teeth and chanced a look over her shoulder—more in fear of being chased, it seemed, than anything else. “We heard you’d left for the High Quarter. Didn’t think you’d be back.”
I smiled. “Well, I am.”
The other sparrow, a boy the same age as her, remained silent. He clutched his purse as if he expected someone to swoop down and snatch it away.
“Let’s get you both back home.”
“I pulled nine chips and a copper,” said the boy.
I clapped him on his shoulder. “That’s good. And, if I’m right about something, that’s the last time you’ll ever have to clutch again.”
The boy fixed me with an odd look, but I didn’t bother explaining. I led my brother and sister home instead.
* * *
I didn’t share the contents of the box with Bippi or any of the other fledgling sparrows, especially those who’d come so newly into our care. It would have brought so many of them a great deal of ease to know, but it also would have been a risk I couldn’t take. Some of the sparrows hadn’t quite learned when to keep their beaks shut and from cheep-cheeping. As much as we traded secrets, Arfan had shown me we needed to work on keeping our own tightly held.
That night, I called Nika and Juggi to Mithu’s old office.
“What’s this about, Ari? First you spend the morning keeping us worried you won’t make it out of the High Quarter, now you know what I’m hearing on the streets?” Nika leaned closer to me, somehow adopting a posture that made her look like she was looming instead. Her hands balled into fists and came to rest on her hips as she glared.
I didn’t answer her, knowing well enough it was a trick that would only buy me more trouble than I could afford. And considering I’d walked away with a box of gold, I could afford quite a bit, but still not as much as that.
Some troubles are simply not worth the price you pay for them. Angering a girl like Nika was one of those.
“I’m hearing whispers from some of our sparrows our boy-king managed to rob the merchant he’d only gone to snoop on. Did he do it quietly? Did he get away without a word or sound? No. The whole High Quarter knows of it. And they know your name, Ari!” She jabbed an index finger against my chest.
“Well, if they didn’t know it before, they do now. Especially with you shouting it like that,” said Juggi. He gave her a sideways look that he managed to keep just short of being reproachful. It did little to spare him a withering glare in return.
Nika turned her gaze back on me, waiting for an explanation. When it didn’t come, she let out a low growl that told me I should have spoken up sooner. “Well, did you?”
The best I could manage was a rakish smile that did little to improve her disposition. “You could say that.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I could, and most of Abhar will be saying it too within the set, which is the problem. Most of Keshum already knows. Or they believe. I’m not sure which is worse.”
“That depends on what answer I’m getting hit for saying.” I managed to straighten out my smile a bit, but still fell short of something honest.
“I don’t know if there’s a way for you to get out of that, Ari. But believe me, your best chance is giving me an answer.”
Juggi decided that the window had become the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen and turned his attention on it, taking several steps away from Nika and me.
Traitor.
I didn’t know what to tell the two of them. The whole truth is what they deserved, and it’s what I wanted to say. But doing so meant making them privy to Arfan’s deal, and that meant sharing my plan to go to the Ashram. I could tell you they weren’t ready for me to leave, that seeing me go would have broken their hearts.
And it was true. I knew that much.
But it was just as true that it would tear the same piece out of me to have told them, watched their faces, and then done the thing anyway. Sometimes, the lies we don’t tell spare us a greater pain than what we’d put on others.
It’s not the right thing, many will say. But I’m not sure I’ve seen any proof it’s quite so wrong either.
So I sucked a breath in through my teeth and gestured to the box I’d set atop Mithu’s desk. “You tell me.” I walked over to the container of gold and threw back the lid.
Every coin caught the candlelight, shimmering something sunlight-bright and then some. Maybe part of it had to do with a day spent with the rumor of my deed spreading. That kind of attention and questioning always leads to a bit more splendor in moments like this. Maybe a part of it had to do with the fact that, up until then, Nika and Juggi had never seen a piece of gold, much less a box of it.
“I told you I’d do it.” I left the lid open, leaving the contents to mesmerize my adoptive brother and sister. “Though, I wouldn’t say I robbed him so much as alleviated him of its weight.”
Juggi grinned, an uneven thing that could have matched the coins in brightness.
Nika’s mouth hung open in a perfect circle as she stared at the gold, then me. “How?”
“Haven’t you heard? I’m the King of Sparrows. Thief, tin taker, lie cobbler, problem maker. Steal your secrets, spin them proper, then sell the lot to king or a pauper. No one and nothing’s safe from my hands.” I waggled my fingers. “And nowhere’s safe to hide your goods in all these lands. For my—ow!” I stopped and rubbed a spot on my arm just under my shoulder.
