INTERLUDE 7B: CLOSE TO PLAN
“None listen to me! No one listens as I howl into the Void! Worship no gods! Not even me. By this shall you know my disciples. The emptiness within that longs for the Bringer’s kiss. We shall take it all back to the Mist from whence it came. Nothing shall more please the Queen than to see it all dissolve away.”
– from the Utenyan Creed
15th Mortifost, 998 NE
“What in Yane’s name is the tub o’ lard up to?”
“Uh… You mean Peltos, boss?”
Wyre sighed, and stared across his desk at his subordinate. “Course I mean Peltos. You not been listenin’, Jerle?”
“No, no, I ‘ave, boss, I swears, swears by Y-Yane.” Sweat broke out on Jerle’s brow almost instantly. “I was just checkin’, ya know, so as I didn’t stab-up the wrong guy.”
“We ain’t stabbin’ up Peltos or anyone, not yet,” Wyre corrected him. “First we need to find out what he’s up to. Looks like he’s outta product and he ain’t come beggin’ for more – you know wha’ that means.”
Lark, another of his ‘captains’, tried his hand. “Uh – he gots anudder supplier, boss?”
“Right!” Wyre pointed a congratulatory finger in Lark’s direction. “One of these Lowtown gangs is what I bet. Zandrina’s, I bet…”
His voice drifted off. He’d always wanted to meet Zandrina in person. The woman responsible for moving inkatra out of Rivertown. The woman who thought she could play in the big leagues.
Invading his territory? Stealing his generals away? He’d show her who was boss.
“So we supposed to keep an eye on ‘im?” Jerle asked.
“An’ on all his Gentlemen,” Wyre hissed. “They might swear they’re still Bertie Boys, but who knows?” He deliberately hardened his voice; it would inspire his soldiers. “It’s my job as to keep this family together.”
He waved a hand in dismissal, turning his head to the huge map of Sticktown hanging on the wall, and his sub-leaders filed out of the room.
He thumbed away the pink chalk covering Daggerden and grudgingly coloured the area green. Another neighbourhood taken by the great drug-queen. This time it was the Wallside Gang who’d paid the price, but next time…? He stared at the border with North Lowtown, the little images of houses and other buildings, each no bigger than an ant – and even then they were probably far too big for the scale of the map. Either way, it helped him focus. He could imagine Zandrina there in one of those green-chalked buildings. Imagine squashing her operations, just like he squashed ants… people… Peltos.
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Yes, Peltos would have to die. It was sad – not that he’d ever admit to feeling that way – but it would have to be done, once the exact consequences of his betrayal were understood. This was family. The Bertie Boys were so much more than an organisation.
With another sigh, he got up and left his desk, heading out of the room and down three flights of stairs until he reached the basement level, accepting the respectful head-nods of his boys he passed along the way.
It wasn’t them he needed to speak to; it was his real boy.
He didn’t knock. That would be a sign of weakness. He just threw open the door.
His son’s room stank of stale sweat and booze, the stench of weeks of immobility, night after night spent in fearful degeneracy. Empty ale casks and discarded tankards littered the room; clothes had been flung unwashed over every available surface, soiled not with mud but with perspiration and spilt beer. Orven was on top of the bed, in a drunken stupor – nothing new there – but the look on his face was unusually aware, contorted in alcohol-fuelled anguish.
“Da’!” he moaned, untwisting the quilts wrapped around him and sitting upright. “Da’, wha’s goin’ on?”
Wyre stared at his son, hard-eyed. This pathetic excuse for a Bertie Boy had sprung from his own loins, heir to a criminal empire that, while not excessive, would upon Wyre’s death make Orven one of the richest men in Sticktown.
But the stinking crown prince wasn’t worthy. He hadn’t earned anything. He’d never applied his mind to his problems, never stopped indulging in pleasures. He was twenty years old, and he’d never taken an interest in a single thing that didn’t wear a skirt or have foam dripping down the side.
It’s my own damn fault, Wyre cursed silently, regarding Orven. I should’ve been harsher. Should’ve made him a man instead of this puling infant.
“What’s goin’ on?” He repeated his son’s question back at him. “What are you doing, Orven? Are you still hiding?”
“Still hidin’!” the boy howled. “Da’, a mage stuck his hand inside me, what do you want me to do? I –“
“I want you to step up!” Wyre snapped. “I want you to be a man, be my son! Look at you! Listen to you! Smell you! You’re a disgustin’, degenerate excuse for a Bertie Boy!”
Orven shrank back onto his pillows.
“If you doan get the drop out of this dropping bed right now,” Wyre snarled, “I’ll do to you what I did to Toras.” He snapped his fingers. “Gone, just like that. For all the world to see.”
Orven sprang from the bedsheets, half-dressed, food smeared across his chest-hair. He knew his dad wasn’t messing around. Wyre had given up his own brother. It wasn’t a stretch to suggest he’d do the same with his son.
“B-b-but what do I do?” Orven gasped, panic in his eyes. “I c-can’t fight a m-mage and if he really is g-going to put his h-hand –”
“If you doan get over it and get back out there makin’ money, you’ll wish he pulled your heart out!” Wyre turned away to the door, breaking eye contact, and despite the candour of his words he heard Orven loosing his breath in relief. “At least it’d be fast – nothin’ like what I’ve got in store.”
“Alright, Da’. Alright.”
It better be.
He slammed the door behind him as he exited the room, and took a few gulps of the far-fresher air out in the corridor before continuing on his way.
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