Aethosphere Chronicles: The Rat Warrens (6 page)

Someone gave him a sharp kick to the ribs not
soon after it was all over, but that turned out be a rowdy bruiser.
“Move it off the stairs, boy, this ain’t a hotel, and you’re
getting blood all over the place,” he ordered.

Prompted by another sharp kick, this time to
the guts, Fen heaved himself up, coughing and sputtering and trying
not to bawl. He began stumbling up the stairs in retreat when
someone nearby shouted, “The boy was chockfull of tokens, mate,”
which was about all it took for the bruiser to reconsider his
leniency and seize Fen by the collar.

“Tokens? And full of them, you say?” inquired
the bruiser with harsh severity, jerking Fen around and holding him
dangling at arm’s length.

“A fortune’s find,” that someone relied back,
and when the bruiser spoke next it was to his captive. “And where
did a little rat pup like you scrounge up a ‘fortune’s find’ in
tokens, hmm?” His voice rumbled.

“They were mine,” Fen strained, choking on
his collar and filled everywhere with pain. He was about ready to
spill his stomach’s contents on the stairs too.

“As likely a story as the return of the
Enox
, there boy. Best we go to the clink to sort this one
out proper.” The brute turned to drag the boy away to the rat
lord’s prison when someone else interrupted. “No need there,
friend,” called out a soothing male voice, but Fen found it
difficult to locate the source through all the blood and tears.

“And why’s that, Time?” asked the bruiser
sharply.

“‘Cause the kids one of my trudgers; off on a
Barterman’s errand—”

“Said they were his though…” the bruiser
challenged. Fen could just make out a wavering ghost clacking its
way up the stairs after them.

“A misspoken word uttered in dazed stupidity.
Friend, just look at the pup, he’s a mess… probably thinks he’s the
boss of the Pinprick if you ask him.”

The bruiser took a moment to reason it out,
then asked. “Aye… So you vouch?” Fen felt the iron grip on his
collar relax, and he might have fallen had a pair of hands not come
to a rest on his shoulders and steadied him. The battered boy
flinched against the touch anyway, but when the grip turned out to
be loose, and the guiding direction it gave gentle, he relaxed. “I
got you,” this savior whispered very near to his ear. Then to the
bruiser he said, “of course I vouch for one of mine. Though the
bank he dropped’ll cost me a week’s profit for sure.”

“I could go-ahead and haul him off to the
sweaty for you, if you’d like.”

“No, no, so’t goes. I’ll handle him
personally…though he screws up again and he’s yours to tenderize
for sure.” Satisfied, the bruiser lumbered off on patrol again, and
this man took Fen and guided him away. “Come along,” he said,
“let’s get you cleaned up, kid.”

Fen was led back down the stairs, once more
into the Bartermen’s Exchange, but, beyond all the tears and sweat
and blood in his eyes, it was just a shimmering nebula pixelated by
points of light. The man easily guided them both however,
navigating with expert precision through the chattering crowds, and
Fen took comfort in the man’s strong perfume. It was something
spicy and sweet and just bold enough to be a statement, but not so
much as to be gagging and cloying. It reminded him of his father,
back before they were forcibly removed from their tenement, before
Art had started smelling sour; of booze sweated out through oily
pores.

Eventually Fen and his savior left the crowds
and when the noise tapered to a murmur the boy knew they’d entered
some sort of structure. By then his vision had cleared enough to
detect the color red surrounding him, and after a few minutes of
wiping at his eyes he could make out rows of shelves standing about
a head shorter than he. The stranger had disappeared, only to
reappear a moment later with a damp washcloth that he pushed into
Fen’s scraped-up hands.

“Go ahead and wipe the filth from your face,
kid. Certainly did a number to you, didn’t they? Seems to me you’re
a lucky one—bunch a feral rat pups. Didn’t shank or prick or cut
you at all though…near as I can tell anyway, and you got all your
teeth too it seems.”

“What happened,” mumbled Fen around a fat
lip. His voice sounded weird in his own ears, and when he reached
up and touched his face he found most of it swollen. His tongue
also hurt, and a little tender exploration revealed he’d bit near
clean on through it.

“Sit down first, kid, before you pass out on
my floor. Don’t need customers tripping over you.”

Once more the bloodied child found himself
being maneuvered around like some cart; the motion dizzying and
roiling his stomach, but he managed to catch more of his
surroundings. He was standing in a fabric stall fashioned of red
cloth…more of a piecemeal tent really, and filled with various
items for sale, most of which looked close to brand-spankin’ new.
But before he could reason out the details, the man was shoving him
into a corner chair tucked in the elbow of two taller shelves.

For the first time they came face to face.
“So you ask me, what happened to you?” the man reiterated. He
studied the boy closely while leaning on his haunches. “Well, how I
see it, what happened to you is what we call a good ol’ fashion pop
and rob, kid.” The man grinned, and the waxed corners of his
mustache came curling up. He’d a pleasant enough face, free of
blemish and wrinkles, and of which Lydia might have called
handsome. He wore his hair short and neatly swooped to the side in
a dramatic wave that both drew the eye and fascinated. To Fen, this
Hierarch leaning in his face and scrutinizing him with colorless
eyes looked old, but then being a child everyone looked old. At the
least, he figured the gent to be older than Lydia, and by a handful
of years—maybe more.

This merchant (as Fen came to think of him),
disappeared again a second later but was back almost as quick,
carrying a ceramic mug. He presented it to Fen in offering. “Here
kid, this’ll help ease the pain and swab out that mouth of
yours.”

Hesitant, Fen set the washcloth in his lap
and took the offered mug with a shaking hand.

“Drink it up,” encouraged the merchant,
putting two gloved fingers beneath its bottom and lifting the
pungent liquid up towards Fen’s battered lips. “Gotta say, you’re
the first rat pup I ever seen squeezed dry of so many tokens. Damn
near caused a riot when they all went scattering down the stairs
like that; though that’s probably what saved your life. Half the
boys who done jumped you went scampering after them and let you be;
so’t goes I guess, and lucky for you, I’d say.”

Fen took a draught from the mug and coughed
and sputtered at the liquid’s burn; but not from any heat, but from
the strength of its distillation. As it settled a riot in his gut,
Fen was sure it had to be gutter gin, the taste was unbearable and
the smell caustic.

“Good.” The merchant nodded in
satisfaction.

Fen dared another sip, which again set him to
coughing, and he felt close to being sick. “Which boys,” he spoke
hoarsely in distraction, staring down at the milky liquid in the
cup and grimacing through the pain of moving his mouth around the
words. His mind raced through the list of gangs running the
Pinprick.
Could have been the Prowlies looking for revenge or
the Maze Brawlers having some fun…?

“Which…?” The merchant shrugged. “Who knows?
Just another mischief gang causing trouble like always. Bet
you
know how that is.”

Fen snapped to anger, but found the
merchant’s thick and expressive eyebrows cocked and slanted in
quizzical regard. It robbed the boy of his fight, and instead he
went back to staring down at his drink. After all, this merchant of
the Exchange was the only man who’d taken pity on him this day, and
being mad at him for being right seemed a piss-poor repayment.

“Ah, don’t take offense, kid, you’re a
product of your environment is all. I get it; grew up in a slum
much like this one myself; might have ended up like you too had my
pops not been quick with the belt and high on the virtues of hard
work…bit of a social spitfire as well, so we got the old oppression
lecture ‘round the slab-table most every single night. So’t goes I
guess. You got a name, kid?”

Fen hesitated and then lied, “Gordon.”

The merchant stood straight and rubbed a hand
on his clean-shaven chin. “Don’t look like a Gordon, kid. I knew a
Gordon once, a fat sow of a man who looked like a mist grub and had
the temper of a one-winged drake, but guess we can’t pick the names
our parents give us, now can we? As for me, I go by Time, Conrad
Time, please to make your acquaintance.” He held out a gloved-hand,
and when Fen took it, he found the glove’s leather supple to the
touch, but the handshake beneath firm.

“So here’s a question I got for the ages.
Where did a pup like you get all that token?”

Fen waffled at any sort of reasonable answer
and was grateful when the plank door at the front of the room
groaned inward, setting a bell to jingling. Both snapped to
attention to find an older dark-skinned boy clomping in wearing
oversized boots.

“Guess you can answer that another time…if
you’re feeling inclined to do so that is.” Time turned back with
his face filled with concern. “You feeling better?” he asked.

“Aye,” Fen muttered back, though truth was
everything hurt. At the very least he felt more aware and less
queasy then he had when they’d first entered the shop.

“Good, take your time to gather your wits and
finish that drink. I gotta go take care of business as usual.
Got’cha, Gordon?”

“Got’cha.”

Fen sat for a while, sipping at his drink,
while Time attended to his customer, who was just some boney young
adult, shy of a draftable age, and who just couldn’t seem to decide
on what he wanted. So the merchant had to walk him around the
store, seemingly forever. A few times Conrad grew frustrated, but
Fen couldn’t hear the exchange over the ringing in his own ears,
and Time seemed to keep his voice to just above a whisper anyway.
Fen guessed it was so as not to disturb him, which amazed. Fen had
never known an adult to take an interest in a child’s wellbeing
before, at least not one they weren’t related to. In the Warrens
children were ghosts, and ghosts were best ignored, but here was
Time, nursing Fen back to health and humoring some idiot who
couldn’t make up his mind.

When the time came, and Fen had finished his
drink and wiping his face clean, he picked himself up to make the
long walk home. As he did Conrad Time said his goodbyes with a
friendly nod. “Now watch yourself out there, you hear? And if
you’ve got business in the Exchange,” he raised a thick, yet neatly
arranged eyebrow, “I’d suggest stopping on by the
Sin’s Devil
Cat
; it’s what I call this place. I’ll treat you fairly. But
don’t hesitant ether if you find yourself around these parts for no
particulars; just stop on by. I got some kids like you who do work
for me on the occasion; you might even enjoy their company; and I
could always use a hand for one thing or another, so’t goes.”

Fen limped his way back to the home, feeling
physically better than earlier, but also feeling as dejected and
morose as the rotted buildings that peeked out from the foundations
from time to time. He was plagued by the notion that he’d a fortune
in tokens not more than an hour past, and now he’d next to nothing
but a busted nose and some bruises and cuts, and a feeling of being
as far from the light as the old city that sat crushed beneath the
tiers overhead. Sure the stolen rucksack still sat hidden in pipe
on the Sister, filled with a whole bunch more notes, but he’d
traded with a fair number of Bartermen that day already, and the
spectacle of getting robbed would only make it more conspicuous
should he attempt trading more. Notes didn’t exactly fall from the
sky on the regular…unless you were fortunate enough to be a
wage-maker (like his mother had been before she’d run off), but
seeing as how he was just some rat pup, Fen knew he’d lost his
chance at riches in the Exchange. About all he had now was a pack
full of pretty paper, all-a-glitter with little portraits of the
first official Iron Emperor, Ludwig Wilhelm the Second.

After he slinked into the family hovel and
got caught on the ladder up to his room, he had to lie when Lydia
hopped up from their parent’s old mattress on the second floor and
struck a match. With the light held close to his face, Fen spun a
tale of dusting up with another mischief gang while she tilted his
head this way and that, brushing back his shaggy bangs, and making
a bigger fuss than need be. Examining his nose, she didn’t seem
convinced in the least of what he was telling her, and if not for
the lateness of the hour she might have kept on pressing him.
Fortune be she couldn’t stop yawning every couple minutes, and
eventually she collapsed back down in her bed out of sheer
exhaustion and waved him away to deal with later.

Fen finished his climb to the third floor and
felt his own hard-won relief when he dropped into the nested pile
of mildewed blankets that he called a bed. He laid there for some
time staring up at the various poster fragments he’d recovered over
the years, pieced together, plastered on the steel walls, and aglow
in the light from a tin can of burning rubbish.

He was nearly asleep when Lydia hollered from
below, “Starting after tomorrow you’re with me again, mister, back
like it used to be, and I won’t take no for an answer…even if I got
to drag you out by your ears.”

Fen’s initial reaction was rebellious, but as
the hours drifted by he began to reconsider. Maybe his sister was
right. Maybe he was better off following her around than running
with a mischief gang. They hadn’t exactly been all that successful,
and Nickle had sucked away all the fun with his excessive
territorialism as of late. Coupled with their takes getting smaller
and smaller, and the major thoroughfares being picked clean and
filled with rivals, these days gang life mostly involved fighting
or running from bruisers and whistlers. If he went back with his
sister he could at least count on some sort of take, hard found,
but honest.