Free Among Thieves by Douglas Hulick Page A

figure coming down the street. I poured the rest of the liquid out on the cobbles and handed the empty cup to Cosima. “Sorry,” I said, my eyes tracking Degan as he approached. “I have to go.”
    Cosima looked from the cup to me, and then followed my gaze down Echelon Way. I saw her shoulders tense.
    “I have to see to the girls, anyway,” she said, standing.
    I laid my hand on her forearm. “It’s all right,” I said. “He’s a friend.”
    “For you, maybe.” Cosima summoned a feeble smile and shuddered. “I’m sorry,” she said, and turned back toward the shop. Even after all this time, any other Kin besides me made Cosima nervous—shades of Clyther.
    I stepped out into Echelon Way and waited for Degan. Behind me, I heard the door shut.
    “You busy?” I asked as he came up.
    “Hello to you, too. And, no,” said Degan.
    The question was a courtesy on my part. You could always tell when Bronze Degan was working—he vanished. One day here, the next day gone. A week, two weeks, sometimes a month. And then, just as suddenly, he would be back, laughing, gambling, and wasting time as if nothing had happened. I had made some inquiries early on in our friendship, both of him and others, to find out where he disappeared to, what he was doing—and gotten nothing. I, the Nose, came up empty, and Degan had just smiled at my complaints.
    Damn his sense of humor, anyhow.
    “What did you have in mind?” asked Degan.
    “I need someone to watch my blinders tonight.”
    “ There’s a surprise.”
    “This is a bit tougher,” I said. Degan raised an eyebrow, still smiling.
    “I need to go into Ten Ways.”
    The smile faltered. “Ah.” He considered a moment. “Death wish?”
    “Hardly.”
    Degan nodded. “Just checking.”

Chapter Six
     
    “L ooks the same,” said Degan. “Smells worse.”
    “This is rose hips and perfume compared to the summer,” I said, “and we’re not even inside yet.”
    “Don’t remind me.”
    We stood at the edge of Ten Ways. Before us, the scarred archway that led into the cordon stood gaping, its doors long ago torn down and carted off. To either side, the walls of the cordon stretched off into the distance, separating Ten Ways from the city, or the city from Ten Ways, depending on your point of view.
    Ten Ways is an old cordon in an even older city. Ildrecca dates back more than a millennium, the center of kingdoms and empires long before the line of Dorminikos made it its own. It is a city of growing palaces and crumbling temples, worked stone and shattered ruins, where you can jump over a wall at street level and end up in a private sunken garden or on someone’s laundry-covered roof. Dig down and you find the broken fragments of history; look up, and you see the growing glory of the future.
    There are any number of stories about why Ten Ways is called Ten Ways: because on every block there are ten ways to die; because there are only ten safe ways out of the cordon; because every person in the cordon knows at least ten ways to rob you; and so on. The best one I’ve heard is that it was named after a whore who . . . Well, let’s just say she was imaginative when it came to keeping multiple clients pleased at the same time.
    Charming anecdotes aside, the cordon is one of the oldest of the old. Search through ancient maps and records of the city and you find incarnations of Ten Ways running back to the well before the reign of the Undying Dorminikos, when it was the cordon of choice for the wealthy and learned. Almost all of the buildings are much more recent, of course, but there were times late at night, in the cellars that passed for wine dens here, I’d have sworn I heard the voices of eight hundred years of history dripping from the walls. Maybe it was the cheap vintages combined with the smoke, but I can’t believe that so much time, and so many souls, can pass through a place and not leave bits and pieces of themselves behind.
    “Do you know where to find this