Empire of Debts

Chapter 1: The Debtor's Bargain

The rats in Korvaine's debtor cells were fat and fearless. They'd grown accustomed to the men who shared their corridors—broken merchants, failed speculators, petty thieves who'd borrowed against futures that never materialized. The rats knew these men wouldn't fight back. They'd lost the instinct for it.

Tench Ostvald was not one of those men. Not yet.

He sat on the stone ledge that served as his bed, his back against the damp wall, watching a rat the size of his fist navigate the gutter that ran along the cell floor. It paused, whiskers twitching, and regarded him with the kind of calm appraisal that suggested it was deciding whether he was food or furniture. Tench flicked a pebble at it. The rat didn't flinch.

"Fair enough," he muttered.

Three months. That's how long he'd been in the Kefford Street Debtor's Hold, a squat, windowless building wedged between a tannery and a canal that smelled worse than the tannery. Three months since the magistrate had read the charges—outstanding debts to the Korvaine Commerce Authority totaling fourteen thousand marks, accumulated interest, failure to appear for two prior hearings—and sentenced him to indefinite confinement until the balance was settled or a patron stepped forward.

No patron had stepped forward. Tench had burned through patrons the way Korvaine burned through foreign trade agreements: enthusiastically and without regard for consequences.

He was thirty-four years old. He had a scar that ran from his left ear to the corner of his mouth, a souvenir from a dockside dispute six years ago. He had broad shoulders that were starting to narrow from the prison diet. He had a reputation—former lieutenant of the Sable Ring, one of Korvaine's more efficient criminal enterprises—that meant exactly nothing inside these walls. In the debtor's hold, the only currency was currency, and Tench had none.

The cell door opened.

Tench didn't move. The guards brought food twice a day—a thin porridge in the morning, bread and salt fish in the evening. It was too early for either. That meant a visitor, which meant trouble, because nobody visited Tench Ostvald without wanting something.

The guard was a thick-necked man named Borric who'd been running the debtor's hold long enough to have developed a philosophical attitude toward his charges. He stepped aside, and a woman entered the cell.

She was perhaps fifty, tall and angular, dressed in the dark wool and silver clasps of Korvaine's merchant class. Her hair was iron-gray, pulled back severely. She carried no bag, no documents. Her hands were bare—no rings, which in Korvaine was its own kind of statement. In a city where wealth was displayed like plumage, bare hands meant either poverty or the kind of wealth that didn't need advertising.

She looked at the cell—the stained walls, the gutter, the rat—with an expression of mild distaste, the way one might regard a restaurant that had been recommended by an unreliable friend.

"Tench Ostvald," she said. Not a question.

"Depends who's asking."

"My name is Halda Semyon. I represent interests that would prefer to remain unnamed."

"Unnamed interests. My favorite kind." Tench didn't stand. "If you're here to collect on a debt, you'll need to get in line. The queue starts at the magistrate's office and wraps around the block twice."

Halda Semyon did not smile. She turned to Borric. "Leave us."

Borric hesitated—debtor's hold regulations required a guard present during all visits—but something in the woman's bearing, or perhaps something she'd already placed in his palm on the way in, changed his mind. He stepped out and pulled the door shut behind him.

Halda produced a small wooden stool from beside the door—Tench hadn't even noticed it there—and sat down with the careful precision of someone accustomed to making herself comfortable in uncomfortable places.

"I'll be direct," she said. "I'm here to offer you your freedom."

"My debts are fourteen thousand marks. You don't look like charity."

"I'm not. Your debts will be settled in full, your record expunged, and you'll receive an additional five thousand marks upon completion of a task."

Tench studied her. In the Sable Ring, he'd learned to read people the way a navigator reads currents—not just what they said, but what they held back, what they were afraid of, what they wanted you to see. Halda Semyon was showing him competence and control. What she was hiding, he couldn't yet tell.

"What task?"

"You will assemble a crew of specialists. You will break into the Ashkelon. You will extract a prisoner named Alexei Durren."

The silence that followed was so complete that Tench could hear the rat scratching in the gutter.

The Ashkelon.

Every city had its monuments to power. Korvaine had its Grand Exchange, its Council Spire, its famous canal bridges with their gilded arches. But the Ashkelon was something else entirely. It sat in the middle of the harbor like a stone fist rising from the water—a fortress-prison built on an artificial island two hundred yards from the nearest dock. It held Korvaine's most dangerous prisoners: political dissidents, enemy agents, criminals whose offenses were too severe or too embarrassing for the regular courts. No one had ever escaped from the Ashkelon. The few who'd tried had been recovered from the harbor in pieces.

"You're insane," Tench said.

"Possibly. But I'm also well-funded."

"Who is Alexei Durren?"

"A chemist. Formerly employed by the Korvaine War Ministry. He was arrested eight months ago on charges of treason and sedition. He holds knowledge of a weapon—a chemical formula capable of leveling entire city districts. The people I represent want that formula kept out of the Council's hands."

"And into yours instead."

Halda's expression didn't change. "Durren is scheduled for execution in twelve days. After that, the formula dies with him, and the question becomes moot. But my clients believe the formula's existence represents a threat that must be managed, not buried."

Twelve days. Tench ran the math in his head—scouting, planning, recruitment, execution. It was barely enough time to case the exterior of the Ashkelon, let alone plan a breach.

"Why me?" he asked. "I ran street operations for the Sable Ring. Smuggling, extortion, the occasional warehouse job. I've never broken into a military installation."

"You're resourceful. You're available. And you have connections to people with very specific skills." Halda reached into her coat and produced a thin leather folder. She opened it and laid four photographs on the stone ledge beside him. "These are the people you'll need."

Tench looked at the photographs. He recognized all four faces.

"Dina Murovic," Halda said, touching the first photograph. A dark-haired woman with sharp features and burn scars on her neck. "Demolitions. Currently working salvage operations on the southern waterfront. She has a personal history with the Ashkelon's warden that makes her highly motivated."

The second photograph: a thin, nervous-looking man with spectacles. "Jonah Petrik. Forger. He can replicate any document, any uniform, any official seal in Korvaine. He's expensive, but he's the best."

Third: a young woman with close-cropped hair and the lean build of a climber. "Vesper Almasi. Cat burglar. She's been inside the Ashkelon once before—visiting her brother. He died there six months ago. She knows the interior layout better than anyone outside the prison staff."

Fourth: a massive man with a shaved head and a jaw like a ship's prow. "Gren Morvec. Muscle. I understand he owes you a life debt."

Tench picked up Gren's photograph. He hadn't seen Gren in two years—not since the night on the Vostok Bridge, when a deal with a rival gang had gone sideways and Tench had pulled Gren out of the canal with a knife wound in his side and two men trying to finish the job. Tench had killed one and crippled the other. Gren had sworn he'd repay the debt. Tench had assumed it was the kind of promise men made when they were bleeding and afraid, the kind that evaporated with the morning light.

"And if I say no?" Tench asked.

"Then you stay here. Your debts accrue interest at eight percent per annum. In approximately eleven years, assuming you survive the conditions, you'll be released as an indigent with no prospects, no connections, and no future. Korvaine is not kind to aging debtors, Mr. Ostvald."

Tench looked at the photographs again. Four people, twelve days, and a fortress that had never been breached.

He thought about the rat in the gutter, growing fat on the scraps of broken men.

"I'll need operational funds," he said. "Equipment, bribes, transport. And I'll need them today."

Halda Semyon reached into her coat again and produced a heavy purse. She set it on the ledge beside the photographs.

"Your release papers are being processed as we speak. You'll be out by noon." She stood, folding the stool and replacing it by the door. "There's a safehouse at 14 Milliner's Passage, near the old fish market. You'll find everything you need there—maps, schedules, equipment lists. I'll check in every two days for progress reports."

"And if the job goes wrong? If we're killed or captured?"

"Then my clients will deny any involvement, and your names will be added to the long list of people who underestimated the Ashkelon." She paused at the door. "But I don't think you'll fail, Mr. Ostvald. You have a talent for surviving situations that should kill you. It's why you're still alive."

She knocked twice. Borric opened the door, and she was gone.

Tench sat in the silence of his cell, the purse heavy in his hand, the photographs spread before him like a hand of cards in a game he hadn't agreed to play.

Twelve days.

He picked up Dina Murovic's photograph first. If he was going to break into hell, he'd need someone who knew how to make things burn.