58. The Labyrinth War

It was after half past three when I entered the Great Gallery, and there were already quite a few people there. I had come alone. I had left Little Wolf with my cronies, explaining that I didn’t know when I was coming home because I was going to volunteer to test the alchemist’s cure. That is if there was a cure, of course…

I moved forward, looking up at the faces, searching for a bearded Valean dressed as a fly. I looked for him for an infinite time, I went through the Gallery a dozen times… Nothing. Finally, I decided to ask a fly who was standing guard.

“Sir,” I said. Good mother, I couldn’t believe I was talking to a fly… I cleared my throat. “Sir, I’m looking for a fl… er… I mean, a bearded policeman. Kakzail Malaxalra. I was told he works here.”

The fly had his eyebrows furrowed. He glanced around, as if he expected to catch one of my accomplices picking the pockets of passers-by while he wasn’t looking… He coughed.

“And who are you?”

“His brother,” I said.

“Mmph.” He shrugged. “Kakzail, you say? He’s been drafted for a special operation. I don’t think he’ll be back tomorrow either.”

He continued his patrol, and I was left to brood over air and disappointment. Then I remembered something. Skelrog, the newly married brother, worked at the Pa… at the Passage School, he had said, hadn’t he? I breathed in and ran out of the Gallery. Half an hour later, I was in front of the school. Too late: the school was closed and silent.

Out of spite, I punched the big door. Then I stepped aside, hands in my pockets, and kicked a stone… And suddenly a ground floor window opened.

“Ashig?”

Skelrog’s incredulous voice made me turn around. I smiled broadly.

“Skelrog! Good to see you. I thought you’d already left. Since everything was so quiet… Blasthell,” I articulated. I had leapt closer and just saw children’s faces in the room through the window. “Are you still working?”

“There are a few minutes left,” my brother asserted. “Speak properly, will you? What exactly are you doing here? Quiet, everyone.”

Curiosity was too strong: instead of explaining the reason for my coming right away, I slipped through the window and landed inside with an expert jump.

“Ayo, everyone. Sorry to interrupt—”

“I hope you are,” Skelrog cut me off. “Don’t you know that civilized people come in through the doors? Anyway. Listen, sit here, next to Hishiwa, and we’ll talk after class, huh? Until then, not a word,” he warned me.

Obediently, I closed my mouth and gestured my agreement. Many in the class laughed quietly. My entrance seemed to have made quite an impression. I sat down next to Hishiwa, a human with brown hair, pale skin and blue eyes. He must have been about Samfen’s age. I stared at him in puzzlement. There was something about this guy that troubled me.

“Re-read it calmly,” Skelrog said.

The students read their sheets with great attention. Curious, I stretched my neck towards my companion’s paper.

“The ca…capturer?” I muttered, reading the first word.

Hishiwa laughed under his breath.

“Carpenter,” he whispered to me,

“Carpenter,” I repeated. “Well, of course. Your writing is kinda weird, you see. In newspapers, it’s much more regular. Because they do it with pre-made characters, you know. So everything looks always the same. What are you telling there?” I asked, gesturing to the text.

“I’m not telling anything,” Hishiwa replied, “It’s a dictation.”

A dictation, I repeated to myself mentally. I tilted my head, interested.

“And what is that?”

Hishiwa laughed louder, and suddenly, I understood why the appearance of that kid was bugging me, and I was left astonished.

“Ashig!” Skelrog protested as if I were the one making noise.

However, I could hardly hear him, for my discovery had struck me with such emotion that I raised my hands to heaven and cried out:

“Hey, I know you! You’re the one of the glass bird. The one with the glassmaker uncle. We travelled together in a cart to Estergat the spring before before. Good mother! You remember, don’t you…? Ouch,” I complained.

Skelrog had just given me a smack on the back of the neck. Hishiwa was looking at me with wide eyes. I smiled. He remembered! He only dared to nod, because my brother was glaring at us. I hastily put on an apologetic face, and despite the small laughter that could be heard in the room, I didn’t say a word for the rest of the class. I didn’t want a brother who looked so friendly to get angry with me. A bell suddenly rang and startled me. All the students got up, and after handing in their dictation, left the classroom, talking amongst themselves in a tumultuous way. Hishiwa glanced at me and the teacher curiously and then went out.

And, well, I was left alone with Skelrog.

My brother sat on his desk and waited for silence to return before saying:

“Your coming was quite a surprise, Ashig. And a good one,” he assured. “But… I’d rather you didn’t interrupt my classes again, huh?”

I nodded and stood up. It was the first time I had seen chairs attached to tables. What a strange invention! I walked over to the desk and pointed to the large square behind it against the wall. I remembered that a newspaper crier had explained to me that it was called a blackboard. It was not the first time I had seen one: at the police station there was one, and in some taverns they were used for writing menus. But the blackboards of the teachers were the biggest of all.

“Whoa. Can I try?” I asked.

Without waiting for his permission, I took a chalk and drew a line. I smiled broadly, drew another, and half-erased them with my hand. It was almost as much fun as painting on a wall.

“You said you could read,” Skelrog commented, amused. “Could you write your name?”

“Natural!” I assured him. And I wrote it down.

Skelrog cleared his throat with a grimace.

“Draen, I guess. Hmm. Well, the letters are a little… how shall I say, disjointed. Would you know how to spell ‘Ashig’?”

I scratched my head and said:

“Of course! I write even better than the Scribe of Parfalia. My cousin taught me. I’m an expert…”

“Well, write it down,” Skelrog invited me.

I coughed and beat my chest apologetically:

“Oh, sorry, it’s my chalk allergy!” I pretended to put it back on the desk, but actually put it in my pocket while adding, “Good mother! I’m in a hurry. The reason I came…” I coughed perfunctorily. “The reason I came, it’s because I’m looking for—”

“Teacher, teacher!” a voice suddenly called out. Hishiwa’s alarmed face appeared before the closed window. He shouted, “Teacher! Your brother had an accident at the workshop! A piece of glass got into his eye. Shabert says we have to take him to the hospital.”

“Spirits,” Skelrog gasped.

He rushed out of the room, and I followed him, trying to remember the name of that sixteen-year-old brother who worked at the glassworks next to the school… I could only find it, when once outside the workshop, Skelrog cried out:

“Skrindwar! By the Holy Patron Spirit, are you all right?”

Skrindwar’s face was sweating, and he was covering his eye with his hand.

“I’m fine,” he muttered.

“Take him to the hospital,” a worker advised. “He’s got shards of glass right in his face. I hope he doesn’t lose his eye. Above all, don’t rub your eye, boy.”

Skelrog took Skrindwar by the arm and said:

“Hishiwa, please, can you help me? Go warn Mr. Malaxalra, at his shop.”

“Right away, professor!” the boy replied.

“Ashig. Go with him, will you?” Skelrog added.

I nodded in shock, and as my two brothers sped away, Hishiwa took me by the sleeve, and we both set off at a run up the slope towards Tarmil Avenue.

“Don’t worry,” Hishiwa threw in when we were already near Sunset Street. “I don’t think it’s too bad. He wasn’t bleeding. My uncle, when it happened to him, he was bleeding all over.”

I swallowed.

“Did he pop off?”

“What?”

“I mean, did he die from it?”

“My uncle? No way. He became one-eyed. But he still works like ten men. Say, I can’t believe you’re the same wild kid who came to the village. Ah, I still remember your ‘thank you, Mama!’,” he laughed. “You used to repeat everything you heard.”

“You remember,” I said, glad.

“Pff, of course I remember,” Hishiwa affirmed, “I’ll never forget that trip. You didn’t even know what a hat was! I lost track of you after that. My uncle and I looked for you for a long time that night. You found your family, I guess.”

We reached Tarmil Square and stopped running. I gave him a comical pout.

“More than one family,” I assured him. And I pointed to the barber shop with my chin. “Do you mind going alone to tell what happened? Barbershops are just not my thing…”

Hishiwa looked surprised, but he shrugged and ran the last few steps. I saw him go into the room, and I leaned against the building at the corner overlooking the avenue, took out a leaf of smograss, and began to chew on it. If I had ever thought of being a glassmaker, that day the story made me forget it. I hoped that Skrindwar’s condition wasn’t anything too serious.

I was watching the comings and goings of the people on the avenue when three figures with school bags turned the corner. Two of them, Sarova and Mili, dashed towards the door of the barber’s shop without even glancing at me, while the third stopped dead in his tracks when he saw me. I smiled.

“Hey, bro, how you doing?”

Samfen approached, hesitant, still bewildered.

“Ashig,” he gasped. “What are you doing…? I mean, what are you…?” He opened his eyes wide, then looked beyond. “Hishiwa?”

I turned to see Hishiwa trotting out of the barber shop. He smiled broadly.

“Sam, mate!”

Surprised, I saw them shake hands as the glass apprentice explained to Samfen what had happened. They obviously knew each other. I learned that they had both gone to the same school when Hishiwa changed the subject and asked him how his exams had gone.

“Super hard,” Samfen admitted. “Elms School is not like Passage School, that’s for sure. If it wasn’t for my mom… I’d rather stay doing haircuts and shaving beards all day. When she sees my grades, she’s going to skin me alive,” he assured with a fatalistic little smile. And, glancing at me, he added, “Oh, by the way. This is Ashig. My eleven-year-old brother. I’ve told you about him before. He…”

He fell silent when Hishiwa laughed uproariously and explained that we already knew each other. The boy told him about our first meeting in detail, talking about the onion I had mistaken for a fruit, Mama, my rabbit skins, old Dirasho’s hat… I laughed with him. It was so obvious that Hishiwa was not laughing at me with ill intent that it was impossible to take it the wrong way.

In the end, I decided that it wasn’t worth it to keep looking for Kakzail that day. It was getting dark, and I hadn’t eaten anything. It was better to go home. I was sure my comrades would share something with me, even if it was little. We were comrades after all!

I was thinking about all this, no longer listening to Hishiwa and Samfen, when a shout startled me.

“Sharpy!”

I turned my head and saw Syrdio running up the Avenue. The gwak was only a few feet away when he called out to me:

“We’re in trouble, it’s urgent! Give me a hand.”

Syrdio wasn’t my favorite of the bunch, that’s for sure, but the urgency in his voice erased all my hesitation, made me forget about Samfen and Hishiwa, and I rushed behind my partner, up the street.

“What’s going on?”

“A mess of a thousand demons!” Syrdio explained. “The flies are entering the Labyrinth like brutes. That’s why there was an urgent meeting between the bands this afternoon. Anyway, in short, Swift quarrelled with the Braggart, and that fool says that he and his gang are going to blow up our house at eight o’clock and lynch Swift. We’ve got to get reinforcements.”

We looked for them. We gathered a good number of our companions on the Esplanade, including Manras and Dil, and led them back downhill. We ran as fast as the traffic would allow. I carried Little Wolf on my shoulders and arrived at the ruined house behind my cronies when the sky, still covered with ashes, was already almost dark. It was past six o’clock. As soon as I put Little Wolf on the ground, Diver put a dagger in my hands.

“Hide it.”

I promptly hid it under my sleeve and returned to the doorway of the house. We were all tense and silent. There was hardly a whisper. We did not even light a fire. We waited in almost complete darkness. Being sokwata had its advantages: as sokwatas, we could see better than anyone else at night. And there were seven of us in the band. No, eight, I corrected myself, smiling, when, at about seven o’clock, I saw Rogan appear with his “new” hat. It was I who had given it to him. Although I hadn’t bought it.

“There’s something going on here,” he guessed as he joined me near the entrance.

I explained:

“It’s the Braggart… I don’t know if you know him. He’s a dealer who sells in the Black Quarter. He’s one of those guys who’ll take out the chive because you tell them ayo, and he’ll bleed you dry without asking any questions. Now, you see who he is, right? Well, he wants to lynch Swift at eight o’clock.”

Rogan huffed.

“Blasthell. And why is that?”

It was Swift himself who answered:

“Because I refused to pay him tribute. This guy thinks he’s very clever. He says that, because we’re starting to be a real gang, we’re starting to be dangerous, and so he wants us to pay a living wage, because we’re bothering him. Bah. What really bothers him is that a few of the gang are selling for Frashluc and not for him.”

I grimaced. For the last two weeks, I’d been helping out Diver, for that second favor thing and… because selling dandepassion from customer to customer was more profitable and less stressful than diving around the Esplanade. Since then, we ate warm meals in taverns, we had dinner, and we even had lunch. And Little Wolf had gotten healthily colored, chubby cheeks thanks to living like a king. Wasn’t that wonderful? It was! And that damned Braggart wanted to take away our joy? Of course I wasn’t going to let him!

Swift sent out six lookouts. One on the left side of the street, towards Moon Square, two towards the Labyrinth, and three towards the Timid River, for, as far as we knew, the Braggart, who was a former Cat, had gone to live in the Black Quarter, on the other side of the river. As the saying goes: A renegade Cat is a rogue Cat.

A moment after our lookouts had moved away, we heard a:

“You! Stop right there!”

It was Lin’s voice. We turned our heads to the left and rushed towards the two figures who had just come running out of the corner of our house… We circled them, and I cast a light spell as one of our prey cried out:

“Please don’t hurt us! We’re leaving. We… we just wanted to… B-by my ancestors!” Hishiwa stammered.

“Good mother,” I said, stunned. I undid the light spell. “What are you two doing here?” And, as I could still feel tension on both sides—my comrades were holding their knives to Samfen and Hishiwa and the two boys were shaking like leaves—I added, “False alarm, comrades. These guys have nothing to do with Braggart. Really, Swift…” I protested, as he stepped into the circle.

Swift ignored me.

“What were you doing spying on our house?”

Hishiwa swallowed, and Samfen gasped:

“Nothing! We… we just wanted to know where my brother was going. We’re not spies, we hid and—”

“Your brother?” Swift interrupted.

“Ashig,” Samfen stammered.

“That’s me,” I interjected calmly. “Let them go, Swift—”

“You shut up, shyur,” the kap replied.

I shut up, and there was silence. Then Swift decided:

“Get them into the house. When this whole mess is over, they can leave. Not before.”

At first, I was upset, but as I thought about it, I said to myself that at least, if Braggart killed us all, maybe they would get out of there alive and take Little Wolf with them… Bah. I shook my head. To hell with the bad thoughts. Braggart wasn’t going to make a single scratch: he was going to run away as soon as he saw us armed!

We brought my brother and the glassmaker’s apprentice into our home, into the shelter, near Little Wolf and the younger ones. I was about to approach my brother to tell him not to worry, that nothing was going to happen to him, but Swift grabbed me by the sleeve.

“You’ll talk to them afterwards: for now, go and watch outside,” he ordered.

I went without saying a word. I left the house and walked down Sheer Cliff Street. I could see movement behind some of the open shutters. Obviously, the neighbors were as worried as we were. One of these days, they were going to take to the streets to evict us.

I walked along the low wall overlooking the precipice. Below me was Kamir Wood and the Hippodrome. And how beautiful it was in the morning, when the sun shone on the tree tops and the birds sang! At this hour, one could hardly make out the branches in the darkness.

I took out the chalk from the Passage School and played around drawing circles on the stone. The breeze had picked up and the ash was swirling silently. I took out a purple and black checked scarf that I had found in the street one day, blown away by the wind. I tied it up and covered my face to protect myself. I blinked and sighed. Sokwata, my foot. With the shadows and the ash, I wouldn’t have seen a dragon. If the Braggart and his band were really coming to slaughter us, we’d be stabbing each other and killing each other blindly.

I was dragging my feet, now drawing Daglat stars on the nearby doors with my chalk, when I heard a distant whistle. Someone relayed it. I lowered my scarf for a moment and gave the alarm with another whistle. Soon afterwards, I heard footsteps running towards me, and I thought I recognized Ragok, who was returning from the Timid River with two other companions. They passed me by without seeing me, and I joined them at the ruined house.

“There are at least twenty coming!” Ragok informed.

What, twenty! Only twenty? There were thirty-five of us! Well, eleven didn’t really belong to the band: they had come in solidarity. But they were allies, and that always made a bigger impression. The only problem was that most of the people from Braggart were fourteen years old or older. And, on our side, I was counting Little Mouse who was only five and Possu who was only six…

“Bah, we can beat them!” I asserted energetically. “Courage and bravery!”

I pretended to walk like a conqueror towards the battle, and Swift cut me off with his stick.

“Put some water in your wine, Sharpy. Before you bite them, you bark,” he explained.

I calmed down. We all calmed down. A few minutes later, we saw Braggart’s gang appear. There were more than twenty of them. All were masked. They stopped about ten yards from us, and finally a mocking voice among them broke the silence.

“Good evening, Swift. Did you change your mind about what I offered?”

“I ain’t workin’ for you,” our kap said. “Get the hell off my street.”

There was a silence. And then a:

“A shame. Have a nice trip to hell.”

In spite of the darkness, my eyes suddenly saw a round object in Braggart’s hands. It shot towards Swift. I didn’t know what it was; I just knew it was bad. I reacted with the speed of a squirrel. I reached out with my right hand and caught the ball in flight. It was charged with energy. Blasthell. It was a magara! Where could the Braggart have gotten such a magara from? Without a doubt, it should have exploded. If it didn’t… it must have been because of the mortic energy in my hand. Unless it was about to explode… When in doubt, as soon as I held it in my palm, I threw it over the cliff. A few seconds later, an explosion was heard. I turned deathly pale. The Braggart gave an incredulous grunt.

“How the blasthell…?”

His question was overwhelmed by our wild cries. We rushed at our enemies, dagger in hand, overcome by fear. Unconsciously, we did not really intend to kill, but we did intend to hurt. I punched one, slashed the arm of another and bit his wrist… Within seconds, it was total chaos. I received a terrible kick that threw me to the ground, I rolled to avoid being trampled, backed up to where my younger companions had remained, mouth agape, to watch the disaster… and I also remained mouth agape when I saw that several adults were now fighting on our side. Well, rather, they were trying to stop the bloodshed. It was not they who succeeded, though, but the shrill sounds of whistles that suddenly pierced the night.

“The flies!” Manras shouted.

I jumped up and rushed into the house. I grabbed the blanket, grabbed Little Wolf, and dashed out to find a surprisingly different scene than before: people were running around in a general stampede… I stopped dead in my tracks and turned my head back to the shelter. Where the hell were Samfen and Hishiwa? I turned back, my heart pounding.

“Samfen! Hishiwa!” I cried. “Where are you?” I looked around and around and whispered, “Good mother, they are gone.”

Who knows, maybe they were the ones who had called the flies… The thought horrified me, and I preferred to accept the hypothesis of the screams and the explosion. I ran out of the house. The street was already almost deserted, except for the lights of the lanterns which were approaching on both sides at a brisk pace, accompanied by the barking of dogs. I rushed to the nearest staircase that led to the Labyrinth, and one of the adults—Frashluc’s men, probably—turned around when he saw me and freed me from the weight of Little Wolf.

“Come on, run, kid!”

We ran, into the Labyrinth, pursued by the police. I didn’t know if we were leaving any dead behind. I didn’t care at that moment: the only thing that mattered was to run. To run and hide in a safe place.

We had no trouble losing those who pursued us. We were the kings of the Cats: we knew the secret passages. The problem was that the flies had also entered the Labyrinth. I spat on the ground as I ran. Vandals! Intruders! I kept glancing at every alley, at every crossroads, imagining that, suddenly, the flies were falling on us with a pack of dogs… I was tempted to climb on a roof, to huddle there and wait for the night to pass. But, as my strong companion was carrying Little Wolf, I had no other solution than to follow him.

He led me to the deepest part of the Labyrinth, to a covered courtyard, full of people. And what joy I felt when I saw that my companions were there too. Were these guys just friends of Swift’s? No. They were people from Frashluc, for sure. And they had come to get us out of trouble because… because we worked for them, perhaps?

I recovered Little Wolf at the same time as my breath, and removing the scarf in front of my face, I went to sit down with my cronies. The ancestors be praised, they were not hurt. As for me, I had scraped all my elbow, but other than that, I was fine. However, some of our comrades were bleeding. Diver had a cut on his shoulder. Lin’s face was covered in blood, but he said he was fine. And, well, some were sitting up, some were lying down, and none other than old Fieronilles from The Drawer was busy with bandages, tending to the injured. I smiled and walked over to him.

“Grandpa, let me know if there is anything I can help with,” I offered.

The old man squinted, recognized me, and huffed.

“Of course you can help, bard. Here, bring me the buckets.”

I brought them to him, and my cronies joined in. We did everything he asked us to do. It was tiring, but we felt like apprentice healers saving lives, and that was wonderful. Finally, when old Fieronilles had bandaged the last wounded gwak, I quietly asked:

“Is there any way you can swallow anything around here?”

The old man arched a mocking eyebrow, lifted his lantern, and patted me on the shoulder.

“I’ll get you something to eat. You’ve earned it.”

“Sure he has,” another voice interjected. Out of a doorway, Swift appeared. He stepped aside to let Fieronilles pass and approached me. He stopped and smiled at me, embarrassed. “You saved my life, namesake. Don’t know how you did it, but… thanks. It was amazing. You could have told me you were a real magician.”

I smiled broadly.

“It was a lucky break,” I confessed. “Besides, I saved my own life too. That thing exploded like beastly.”

“I see. Then it was a selfish act,” the redheaded elf scoffed.

“Quite so, namesake,” I said, showing all my teeth. And I looked him up and down. “You’re not hurt?”

“In the heart,” Swift replied. “I was just about to stab the Braggart when, all of a sudden, this guy… fell on me.”

He gestured with his chin to a man who had just come out into the covered courtyard. I recognized him and jumped for joy.

“Bo…! Sir! Good mother!” I exclaimed.

It was Le Bor. The ruffian cleared his throat, shoved his hands into his pockets, and sighed:

“Always in the middle of the action, Four-Hundred.”

I laughed, and in the face of Swift’s curious look, I whispered in his ear, by way of explanation:

“He and I are partners.”

I said this with obvious pride.