Book Two - Chapter Seven

The sky was dark when Lusya and Ander left the inn later that day. With no clouds in sight, countless stars twinkled overhead, and the moon joined the oil lampposts in illuminating the city streets. With their goal already set, there was no need for hesitation or discussion, and they started toward their destination. According to the thief, the leader favored a particular abandoned building in one of Larsev’s poorer neighborhoods. She questioned the wisdom of that, but she supposed he wasn’t swimming in choices. At least it made her job easier.

“Do you have a plan?” Lusya asked. Ander had yet to articulate how he planned to topple this thieving ring.

Ander chuckled. “Well, not exactly. I figure I can talk him down. Probably.”

“Perhaps,” she said.

Without knowing anything about this leader, it was impossible to say how high Ander’s chances of success were. It mattered little, in the end. If he failed, that only meant they had to resort to force, which was certain to be of trivial ease. They would need to find some way to convince him to the leader to dissolve his association, as she doubted Ander would be willing to kill the leader, but that seemed doable with a show of strength and a threat.

“Thanks for coming with me, by the way,” he said.

“Ariya would have been upset if I did not.”

He laughed again. “She really has you wrapped around her finger.”

“It serves my purposes well enough,” she said.

Ander shrugged, and they continued walking through Larsev’s crowds. A city like this did not slumber when night fell. They did not pass through any entertainment or red-light districts, areas that almost became more alive in the dark, but the streets did not want for activity. Residents and travelers moved about the city by carriage and on foot.

For that matter, it was not even truly dark. Lampposts posted every dozen or so feet kept the streets well-lit enough to see clear as day, and more light filtered out from doors and windows.

Many were likely on their way to those livelier districts. Others, it was plain to see, were on their way back, bearing the marks of their merriment. Some simply spoke to their fellows much too loudly, in the way of those who had had just a bit too much to drink. Others wobbled and stumbled as they walked. Nobody paid either much mind. They were just part of Larsev—any city, really—at night.

The crowd began to thin as they neared the district they wanted, near the city’s eastern edge. It was subtle at first, people taking abrupt turns or stopping someplace, leaving fewer in the road. Then, the streets were empty. Not a soul to be seen, though there were plenty of mortals nearby. The sole remnant of the crowd was a babbling drunken man who had walked ahead of Lusya and Ander most of the way there. He lurched and staggered into an alley, where he slumped against a wall and made clear with thunderous snoring that he had fallen asleep. Whether he lived in the area or was exceptionally drunk and lost, Lusya could not say.

Traffic was not the only way this area was a stark contrast with other parts of the city. Most of Larsev was pristine, the picture of a city that had undergone updates and construction to comply with its shifting populace. The buildings here were not old. Many bore the same signs of tiransa-inclusive design that characterized much of the city. Yet they were dilapidated, almost seeming abandoned at a glance—which some may well have been—and little care seemed to have been put into security or maintenance. Few windows glowed with lamp or candlelight. The lampposts lining the street had not been lit. Building facades were cracked or dirty.

The transition was gradual. Each home a little more damaged than the last, flamelights growing farther and farther apart. By the time they were near their ultimate destination, walls were crumbling, and the streets would have been in total darkness if not for the moon and stars.

Guards were absent as well. Lusya had seen several patrolling elsewhere, but not a single one here. It was an odd sort of circular logic that drove these things. The area was too dangerous and crime-ridden, its residents too unimportant, to be worth risking a patrol. In turn, the lack of guard presence allowed crime to flourish, made the place into a perfect hiding place for particularly enterprising offenders, and made it more difficult for law-abiding citizens to survive and remain law-abiding.

“I think that’s it,” Ander whispered, pointing to a building at the corner of two streets.

Compared to its surroundings, it was in good shape. A one floor building of tiransa-inclusive design, it was intact, with little visible damage. The door looked to be hanging loose on its hinges, and one window was covered with wooden boards, but everything else looked good as new from the outside. Lusya could sense four people within, though she could not tell what they might have been doing. She could not hear any noise, and even the undamaged window was covered by curtains, hiding the inside.

“It matches the description,” she said. There was one missing detail, but that was expected.

Ander nodded. “Well, nothing to do but walk in.”

Indeed, he walked up to the door and entered without preamble. The door creaked and seemed about to fall as it opened. Lusya followed him. Such a blatant entrance did not seem the wisest approach, but she did not sense any significant threats within. She doubted anybody here would be able to so much as scratch Ander, let alone her, through their motomancy durability enhancements.

With no sign of lanterns or candles, it would have been dark inside the building, were it not for the bold, diagonal shaft of moonlight shooting in from the ceiling. The thief had mentioned there was a hole in the roof not visible from the front entrance. With that, the room was bright enough to see most of it in detail, not that there was much to see. There were no furnishings or decorations to speak of, save for a tarp and some poles sitting in a haphazard heap beneath the hole. Perhaps they were used to cover it in case of rain.

A bit behind that, the four mortals she had sensed sat near the wall. Two had their backs right up against it, while the other two sat in front of them, facing the wall. They seemed to have been playing some kind of game, each of them holding a hand of cards, with a pile in the middle of their group. Now, however, all eyes were on Lusya and Ander.

“Who are you?” one of them, a stocky human man with a black beard asked, as he threw down his cards and stood.

“Are you Oto?” Ander asked.

The other three followed the man’s lead in discarding their cards and standing. Two humans, one a man and the other a woman, and a tiransa woman, around eight feet tall.

“Yeah, who’s asking?” the stocky man said. His eyes ran over Lusya and Ander, assessing them. “What, you two down on your luck and looking to join up?”

“Well, actually, we’re here to ask you to stop,” Ander said as he scratched the back of his head, nervous laughter tinging his voice. “See, stealing kind of hurts people, and even your thieves are starting to complain you take too big a cut of what they take. If we put our heads together, I’m sure we can think of a more productive way to—”

Oto burst into derisive laughter, cutting Ander off. “What, are you two guards or something?”

“Not exactly,” Ander said. “But I do think it would be in your best interest to cooperate.”

“Sorry, kid, but I’m not stopping until I’m dead or behind bars,” Oto said. “What do I care about the rest of this city if my belly’s not full? At least the network I made keeps a few people from starving.”

“That’s why I’m saying—”

“Enough.” Oto spat to the side in a show of disdain. “Get out before I make you. You’re lucky I haven’t already gutted you like a fish.”

Ander sighed. “Backup plan time.” He looked to Lusya. “Help me scare them a little. Just scare them.”

“Very well,” she replied.

“I warned you,” Oto said. “Alerbud, rough ‘em up, and get them out of here.”

The tiransa woman glowered, cracked her knuckles, and stalked forward. Before she could make it half the distance needed, Lusya surged forward and shoved back on the woman’s belly. The push took the tiransa woman off her feet and launched her back against the wall, which cracked on impact. The tiransa slumped to the ground, groaning in pain as she clutched at her stomach. The human man other than Oto, taller but scrawnier, rushed at Lusya, a dagger in hand, and stabbed at her face.

She stood still and allowed him to strike her, the blade coming to a dead stop against her flesh. Face strikes may have been unpleasant, but she hoped it would get the point across. It seemed it had. The man trembled and dropped the dagger, letting it fall to the wooden floor with a dull thunk. He tried to pull back his hand, but she grabbed his wrist and squeezed, shattering it in an instant. He screamed in pain and flailed wildly, striking at her and wrenching at his arm to free it. None of his efforts had any effect, but she released him in short order anyway. He stumbled away and collapsed to the ground, clutching his ruined limb and weeping.

The human woman tried to rush toward Ander, but he easily stepped aside and tripped her. He did not attack beyond that, but the woman made the wise choice not to try again. Oto ran for the window, perhaps trying to escape, but Lusya caught up to him, grabbed him by the back of the neck, and threw him to the ground. She created a small barrier over his chest, preventing him from standing. He tried to rise and struggled against the unseen object, grunting and huffing, eyes wide and bewildered, before finally sighing and simply lying back, staring up at the ceiling.

“Now, can we negotiate again?” Ander asked as he approached.

Oto looked at him. Rather than glaring in anger, Oto shook in fear.

“You two,” he said. “Are you…?”

“That’s right,” Ander said. “I’m a Sacred Knight from the nearest stronghold. I happened to hear about what you were up to while I was passing through. Now, if you stop, this is where it ends. If you keep going, and I hear about it, I’ll make sure the higher ups make shutting you down a priority, got it? Remember: thievery speeds up the cycle too, and that’s not good for anyone.”

Lusya doubted this ring would have had much impact on the Demon King cycle. Then again, from a mortal perspective, she supposed it was still worth considering. Enough drops in the bucket could add up to an ocean, and there were bound to be similar examples of minor strife all throughout the land. That may have been normal, but that did not mean it did not need to be kept in check, and complacency was dangerous.

She refrained from voicing any of those considerations. There was no need to undermine Ander’s argument. Inaccuracy annoyed her, but she preferred to see this matter resolved than to correct it.

“A-All right,” Oto said. “Fine, we’ll stop.” He grimaced. “I suppose you’re going to hand us over to the guards now either way, though.”

Ander hummed in thought, then grinned. “Nope, I believe you. Lusya, can you let him up?”

“I suppose,” Lusya said, releasing the barrier.

“Here,” Ander said. He pulled out a gold coin and tossed it down onto Oto’s chest. “If you’re really out here trying to survive and help others like you, split that with them. There’s no guarantee it’ll get you back on your feet…but it’s a chance. Don’t waste it.”

Oto picked up the coin as he sat up. He turned it over in his hand, examining it with wide, disbelieving eyes, then looked up at Ander, then at the coin again, saying nothing. Lusya blinked twice and cocked her head at the display.

Ander turned and started to walk away, then stopped. “Oh, actually.” He pulled out two more silver coins and walked back to hand them to Oto. “Since you’ll need to pay for some healing too.”

Oto wordlessly took the coins, staring at Ander with his mouth agape.

“Well, we’ll be going then,” Ander said. “Come on, Lusya.”

They walked toward the door. Only as Ander opened it did Oto speak.

“Thanks, kid,” he said.

Ander just smiled and walked out the door. With that, they started the long walk back toward the inn.

“I had no idea you were at the level of making barriers, though,” Ander said. “Have you ever been to the Academy, by any chance?”

“No,” she said. “My training was done elsewhere.”

“Well, it seems like it worked,” he said. “Where was it?”

“Home.”

He chuckled. “Wow, I’m jealous. My teacher wouldn’t show me anything that advanced. ‘That’s what the Academy’s for,’ he’d say. Of course—never mind, not important.”

“I see,” she said.

They walked through the darkened city streets, until eventually they moved back into less rundown, more populated parts of Larsev. The streets were once again bathed in pale orange glows, people walking to and fro. Although it had only gotten later, the crowds had grown thicker. More of them seemed to be drunk as well.

“Why did you do that?” Lusya asked, tilting her head and blinking twice.

Ander blinked. “Do what? Did I do something weird?”

“Why did you give him that coin?” she clarified. “You did the same thing earlier. I do not understand the purpose.”

He scratched his head and looked skyward, as if the answers lied in the stars. “I’m not sure what’s not to understand.”

“Was your goal not to see them punished for their crimes?” she asked. “You rewarded them instead.”

“I’m not sure the guy whose wrist your broke is feeling rewarded right about now,” he said, frowning. “I didn’t want to argue during the confrontation, but you kind of overdid it back there.”

She cocked her head and blinked. “You asked me to frighten them.”

“You did a lot more than that…”

“Their injuries are reparable.”

He sighed and shook his head. “Whatever, it’s fine. Anyway, I see where you’re coming from. Well, I wouldn’t say I wanted to see them punished. I just wanted them to stop hurting others. If they wouldn’t, I guess more extreme action would need to be taken, but the less we can hurt them, the better.”

“That still does not explain the reward,” she said.

“To me it’s not a reward,” he said. “It’s just a chance.” He looked up at the stars again, almost wistful. “This might be me being naive, but not many people want to be thieves. Or killers, or any kind of criminal. People, for the most part, want to be good. But things don’t always work out that way. I figure some money is a chance to find a better way to live.

“It’s probably not a perfect solution, and maybe I would have chosen differently if I knew more of their stories. Maybe I would have done more, or maybe I would have decided they were beyond help. But under the circumstances, it was the best I could do. That’s really all there is to it.”

“I see,” she said. “So, you believe they will be able to live comfortably with this money long enough to find a way other than crime to survive.”

“Hopefully,” he said. “Or maybe they’ll be able to directly put it toward something that’ll help.”

It was possible it would work out that way. It was also possible the thieves would try and fall short. If that happened, they would no doubt turn to crime again. On the other hand, they may not have tried at all. They may have continued as they had, perhaps even putting the money to use in their activities somehow.

People could be stubborn like that. Just in this journey, she had encountered multiple individuals who refused to stray from their chosen path, no matter how self-destructive it was or how many chances to change they were offered. The leader did seem like the gesture had made an impression on him, but who knew if that would last?

Ander and Lusya walked on in silence for about another minute, before Lusya spoke again.

“What is your explanation for Malice?” she asked. “How does that fit with your inherent goodness theory?”

Priests and philosophers debated whether all sources of Malice were evil, but most agreed that many were. And those sources, along with Malice itself, were an intrinsic part of the mortal races, just as much as they were for demons.

Ander seemed taken aback by the question and stared at her blankly as he composed himself, before taking a heavy breath, in then out. “People want to be good. That doesn’t mean they don’t have some bad in them, or that it never wins.”

“That makes sense,” she said. “People do not always get what they want.”

“Exactly. Even under the best of circumstances, things can go wrong.”