The bro­ken tile lay cold against his face.

Grit and sweat caked him. Run­ny red flowed from his ear. Smoke, thick over the freez­ing floor, dart­ed into his lungs. Com­bust­ed bal­lis­tite and kerosene. Bit­ter.

He made to stand, but, dis­ori­en­tat­ed, mere­ly smeared him­self over the floor. Sump­tu­ous diox­azine mauve tiles flaked under his cheeks, grat­ed under his teeth and bleed­ing lips.

Some­where near­by, the ham­mer-strike of a gun­spring shot split the smoky, fire­lit air. Some­thing fold­ed wet­ly to the floor, close by. He star­tled, sped by ter­ror, redou­bling his efforts to stand.

A crunch of foot­falls approached. Hob­nails over del­i­cate tile. The boy froze. One swollen eye flut­tered open: Down the ornate, smog­gy tile hall approached a rag­woman in jack­boots. She clinked as she walked, machine-linked maille shift­ing under her quilt­ed armor jack­et. Behind her, more armored fig­ures labored in the dim, turn­ing through lumps of cloth and flesh that still shed rib­bons of smol­der.

A deri­sive laugh in the dark. Wet, point­ed teeth glit­tered at him. “This one was only stunned,” she barked, eye­ing him.

“Which one?”

“Young kid. Red hair. Green­leaf.”

“Put him out of his mis­ery, Clyo.”.

“Per­haps,” said Clyo, crouch­ing. She crouched, lean­ing in at the boy. Tiny, spindly points showed on her fore­head, jut­ting under the cloth. * The young man whim­pered. Red goo stretched between his part­ing lips.

“This was­n’t your con­tract, Green­leaf. Bank owns this place,” whis­pered the rag­woman, pok­ing him with the snub bar­rel of a pock­et gun­spring. His eyes fixed on it. “There’s rules in this trade, d’ye ken? You and yours’ caught a grenade cause you did­n’t fol­low them.”

“D-did­n’t,” he stut­tered, heav­ing, cough­ing a gob­bet onto the floor. “Did­n’t know there was a con­tract.”

She smiled faint­ly, dis­play­ing an ani­mal-sharp canine.

“There’s always a con­tract; ye’d best assume that. Tiber and Fel­lowes owns every tomb and oubli­ette in the low­lands. And where they don’t, ye bet­ter count that anoth­er feck­ing bank does.” Speak­ing, she traced a gloved fin­ger through the red smear he’d left on the tile, lick­ing it pen­sive­ly.

“Damn you, can­ni­bal,” growled the young man, weak­ly. “And your banks!”

“ ‘Damn you,’ ” she mimed, gig­gling. “Avethan, hah? Can’t curse me with that; we don’t have souls, remem­ber?” ** She dis­played more crooked, long teeth. “Can still pop yours out yer body, though.” She nosed the gun at him. “Seems unfair.”

“You gloat­ing, Clyo? Fin­ish him off already. We’ll pick all the swag with­out you,” jeered a voice near­by.

“Soon, Fer­ring,” she shout­ed.

The young man hic­cupped, choked. A sob. He curled against the wall, tuck­ing his legs against his antique padded gambe­son. Flakes of ancient, shat­tered tile dust­ed him. “You would­n’t even give us a chance,” he mut­tered.

“Oh shut ye the feck up,” said Clyo. “Gonne cry when you get out-com­pet­ed? Play­ing at the most dan­ger­ous trade there is? Pah. Ven­ture with­out a con­tract: you risk meet­ing real cut­ters.” She ges­tured to her com­rades, bristling with steel.

“And even if yer licensed, there’s always the com­pe­ti­tion. I’ve tus­sled with more than a few Peri­dot Firm idiots who thought their boss owned the same feck­ing hole, I have. Risk rat­ings don’t account for them, but you pop ’em when you see ’em.”

At her feet, the green­leaf shud­dered, near sense­less. “Why’s it got­ta be that way? Why not even a chance to run?” he stam­mered, furi­ous and weep­ing.

“Because that’s the rules.” She sneered.

“Shoot me then, wretch. If those’re the rules, I lost.” He slumped, eyes screwed shut.

Clyo scowled, fab­ric brows crin­kling. “Feck­’s sake,” she mut­tered. “It would­n’t be good sport, Green­leaf. I don’t have a taste for you, and ye don’t even have a rival license to cash in. So,” she leaned close, press­ing the gun­spring muz­zle and her snag­gled teeth close to the green­leaf’s ear. “So if you’re qui­et, I’ll call this a catch and release.”

Swift­ly, she whipped him in the tem­ple with the gun­spring. Before he could col­lapse, she placed the nose of the weapon beside his ear, fac­ing the floor, and dis­charged it, crack­ing the already shat­tered and bloody tile with a lanc­ing flechette. The green­leaf crum­pled with a sigh, as if shot.

Clyo stood, look­ing covert­ly at her com­rades. She sneered at the green­leaf.

“There’s yer feck­ing chance.”

A live anchovy lan­guished in the glass. Dar­d­ennes beheld it, doubt­ful. A cig­a­r­il­lo hung from his lip. His eyes were red and sunken from drink and smoke. Around him sprawled low tables cov­ered in glass­ware and ash­trays, pop­u­lat­ed by young crea­tures flirt­ing, shout­ing, boast­ing, over­cast with smoke, dox­bells, and hiss­ing green lamps on vel­vet ropes. Over it all, a band clam­ored on; a rag­man in pep­per­mint-striped trap­pings slapped a bass in time with a snare drum. The drums them­selves, pop­u­lat­ed by a trio of mice, their shirt­sleeves rolled to fur­ry elbows, chop­ping wild­ly away. A Firl in a red dress jack­et chased her spi­dery hands over a piano, as if they were attempt­ing to flee her wrists. Dar­d­enes hunched over the table, boozy, com­pact­ed by the sur­round­ing club.

But in front of him, there was the anchovy, gasp­ing its last in a louche of ouzo and ice.

“Do I have to drink the fish?” he plead­ed.

“Yes, it’s lucky. It’s Rial­tan tra­di­tion,” said one of his table­mates, a mus­cled, scarred woman in too much rouge. She raised her own fish, swal­lowed it. “See? Noth­ing to it,” she said, gri­mac­ing fierce­ly, loos­ing fumes of ethanol and corian­der.

At that moment, a shag­gy head snapped up from the table, fol­lowed by the wide, gold-pierced ears of a mouse in a blue jack­et. The shag­gy man fanned his hands rapid­ly, shook his curly locks, face screwed up. The mouse wheezed, pained­ly. They had both snuffed a line of red-gold dust from a sil­ver saucer. “I, for one, feel extreme­ly lucky,” said the curly-haired man. “The fish must be work­ing.” He bent to con­sume anoth­er line.

“You want a sniff?” squealed the mouse, eyes water­ing.

“That the stuff with nitro pow­der mixed in?” said Dar­d­ennes, cring­ing. †

“Damn right it is,” exclaimed the shag­gy man. His pupils were ragged inkblots.

“Then no,” said Dar­d­ennes, grow­ing loud­er to cov­er the crash­ing drums. “I’d rather risk the fish.”

“Come on,” said the woman. “Bot­toms up. We all need the luck we can have, for the Under­croft.”

“Give my stom­ach a moment to col­lect its resolve.” Dar­d­ennes clum­si­ly stubbed out the cig­a­r­il­lo. A pair of dusty dox­bells launched them­selves from the ash­es, spi­raled into the flame of the lamp over­head to dis­in­te­grate into dust. As he strug­gled to light anoth­er, his arm jerked: Some­one clapped him on the shoul­der from behind.

“Dar­d­ennes, Raicourt, gang,” said the slap­per. He slapped Dar­d­ennes again. “You’ve got­ta meet these cats I met in the cloak­room.” Dar­d­ennes turned, met the eyes of the slap­per: A rag­man in leather strips, grin­ning broad­ly. “Cut­ters, you see?” Said the rag­man, indi­cat­ing two crea­tures beside him: One, a fel­low rag­man in green vel­vet. The oth­er, a tall woman in a flat­cap. Both wore expen­sive, glossy, stud­ded leather jack­ets with con­spic­u­ous, bulky sub­struc­ture and bits of met­al at the shoul­ders, elbows, and chest. Not unlike the vests and armored jacks that Dar­d­ennes’ crew wore even now, or had slung over their chairs.

“Cut­ters huh?” grinned the woman in rouge. “In Vis­tam­bique? Thought we were the only ones in town. I am called Raicourt.”

“Rogiera, and this is Pince,” said the woman in the flat­cap, indi­cat­ing her com­pan­ion. “Thought this town was flat of out good com­pa­ny, too, till we met your mate Saf­fi­ano here. He’s got very fine dust.”

“Very fine, very fine,” mugged Saf­fi­ano. “Sit with us! Let me get us anoth­er round of anchovies. Drum up some luck for our jobs.” He dashed off to the bar.

The cut­ters merged togeth­er at the table. The rag­man Pince squeezed next to Dar­d­ennes. He smelt of san­dal­wood, sweat, and tur­pen­tine gun clean­er. Idly, while trans­act­ing a vial of dust for some heavy gold­en pounds with the shag­gy man, Rogeira looked to Dar­d­ennes. “You got jobs here too?”

“Yeah,” slurred Dar­d­ennes. “Péri­dot Firm gig.”

Raiourt nod­ded, suck­ing on a piece of ice. “Yes indeed. We all sign on togeth­er. Been at it a few months now.”

“Very nice. We’re Peri­dot as well. You’re mak­ing returns, I see?” said Rogeira.

“Bloody right we make returns,” said the mouse in blue, squeal­ing over the music. “They let us in here, after all!”

“This place is swell. D’y­ou like jasm?” said Pince, lean­ing in, indi­cat­ing the band. ††

“Immense­ly!” pro­claimed the mouse.

They spoke of music awhile, while Rogeira and Raicourt dis­cussed the pol­i­tics of Rial­ta in their unique dialect, mak­ing faces and ges­tur­ing vio­lent­ly. Dar­d­ennes smoked pas­sive­ly, silent. Glazed, he watched the anchovy in his glass, dead and hang­ing in cloudy solu­tion amidst chips of ice, its eyes flat and waxy. Low over­head, the heavy green-cased lamp hissed. He ashed the cig­a­r­il­lo in a cof­fee saucer. Bod­ies and backs of chairs bumped inter­mit­tent­ly into Dar­d­en­ne’s own, and he stooped, reced­ing into the high col­lar of his jack­et, lids droop­ing over his red­dened, gib­bous eyes.

“Hey mate, no sleep­ing.” Saf­fi­ano slapped him on the back of the head. His oth­er hand waved for­ward a mouse, who held a plat­ter of tall, nar­row glass­es filled with ice, ouzo and a sin­gle anchovy each over­head.

Dar­d­ennes grunt­ed, wak­ened, eyes sticky. His fin­gers were light­ly burnt, cov­ered in ash.

The cut­ters, Dar­d­ennes’ gang and new­com­ers alike, took up the lit­tle glass­es, weep­ing con­den­sa­tion, and raised them in antic­i­pa­tion. Dar­d­ennes hur­ried­ly grabbed a fresh one and raised it. They grinned mad­ly.

“To good for­tune, and a fat pay­out!” Raicourt pro­claimed. There was a cho­rus of “for­tune” and “mon­ey!” They upturned their glass­es. The fish wrig­gled faint­ly, salty and awash in liquor, corian­der, and anise, down Dar­d­ennes’ throat. He gagged.

“So,” said Raicourt. “What hor­rid hole you lot off to? How’s the risk pro­file?”

Rogeira, wip­ing tears in her eyes from the volatile ouzo, spoke. “Mod­er­ate dan­ger, medi­um-high yield, long com­mit­ment. Decent, for an urban site. We’ve two more boys with us, on it. Out unwrap­ping the local rag­dolls, of course. Team of four should be suf­fi­cient.” ‡

Raicourt nod­ded appre­cia­tive­ly. “How about it; we’ve a gig with sim­i­lar stats. Love me a tomb under town; you can come up for hot sand­wich­es when it gets to be too much.”

“We must be around the same stand­ing, all of us,” said Rogeira. “May we wit­ness sim­i­lar­ly obscene pay­outs and swag, as well!”

Dar­d­ennes’ eyes focused, sud­den­ly. He straight­ened. “Where’s this hole you’re raid­ing, any­way?” he asked. “Urban ruin, yeah?”

“Oh,” put in Pince, look­ing over from his con­ver­sa­tion with the mouse. “Just some shit­ty under­croft is all.”

The table near-imme­di­ate­ly silenced. The cut­ters’ eyes did not meet once. Near­by, the band estab­lished the tumul­tuous end of a crescen­do they had been ad-lib­bing for some time. The club cried in delight. A tit­ter of applause. A new beat com­menced.

“The Old Con­vent Under­croft,” said Roge­ria, final­ly. Her tone was almost hope­ful.

“Aye,” said Dar­d­ennes. Rogeira’s face fell. Pince stood to leave, almost trip­ping.

“Why would Péri­dot do thi-” start­ed the mouse in blue, out­raged, before Saf­fi­ano silenced him.

“In that case,” said Rogeira. She stood. “We wish you very good luck indeed.”

Cut­ters do not abide the com­pe­ti­tion. It is not in their nature to coop­er­ate with oth­ers of their woe­ful caste. Not in the field—or in “the hole,” as they call it–the lim­i­nal realm where­in con­tracts social and moral are sus­pend­ed.

Should rival par­ties meet in pur­suit of the same goal, they are swift­ly bound to vio­lence. In the hole, a pair of cut­ters gangs will near-invari­ably set about each oth­er like lions. Cau­tious, skirt­ing diplo­ma­cy may some­times occur, rarely. But when it does, it is backed by a slow retreat, by hands left uneasy on gun-grips and axe han­dles. Either one gang stands down and aban­dons their aims, or they fall on each oth­er with all their plen­ti­ful tools of war.

Cut­ters joke often that, despite their close asso­ci­a­tion with banks, no finan­cial insti­tu­tion will ever sell them insur­ance on their lives, for dan­ger and death abound in the cut­ter’s trade. They delve into ancient sor­cer­er-tombs, trapped ruins, haunt­ed under­crofts, and mis­er­able oubli­ettes full-well pre­pared to risk life and limb. They equip them­selves, steel their minds at the prospect for bat­tle with grue­some plague, pig­men, chimeras, eidola, and oth­er­world­ly hor­rors. But in the uncom­mon event they, in some mis­er­able, dark hole, turn cor­ner in a dun­geon hall and meet fel­low cut­ters, crea­tures with whom they might rea­son and coop­er­ate with, they often enough throw them­selves into mutu­al slaugh­ter, as if they were mere­ly anoth­er brand of wan­der­ing mon­ster.

Why, then, do cut­ters oblige them­selves to such apa­thet­ic strife? These mer­ce­nar­ies, con­scious of their exploita­tion by patron-banks, should be tempt­ed to com­bine their strength. To dilute the ever-present dan­ger in their endeav­ors. These cut­ters, who are so eager to embrace fra­ter­ni­ty while in civ­i­liza­tion, to soak com­fort from their com­pa­tri­ots. Com­pa­tri­ots, who throw dice togeth­er, who throw them­selves in bed togeth­er, who throw up fan­tasies of how rich they will all be some­day over drinks togeth­er, should not so eas­i­ly draw knives and throw down the gaunt­let when they meet in the deep, dark places of the Coast.

The answers for this are as dire as they are dif­fi­cult to sup­pose, for they defy rea­son, and cut at the heart of the cut­ter’s con­di­tion, and their unfor­tu­nate niche in the mod­ern world.

Gold fever, that insid­i­ous afflic­tion rumored to haunt ancient trea­sure, may be the answer. Gold fever, that twists a delver’s mind, tempt­ing him to com­mit the most des­per­ate of actions in ser­vice to avarice and the acqui­si­tion of gold, may prompt a cut­ter to heinous trai­torism against their own ven­tur­ing caste. But some say gold fever isn’t real. Or, they say it is no more excep­tion­al than the com­mon addic­tions which often dri­ve cut­ters to fringe behav­ior, that it has no rea­son to exhib­it itself more strong­ly in the wilds or dark deeps than in civ­i­liza­tion.

The banks, the dri­vers of adven­ture cap­i­tal­ism itself, cut­ters’ face­less employ­ers, may be respon­si­ble. Not unknown are tales of cut­ters who arrive at the site of a ven­ture only to find it already cracked and filled with a rival bank’s min­ions; or even with cut­ters from the same bank, sent in a kind of care­less, delib­er­ate dou­ble-dip, or per­haps a logis­ti­cal mis­take, per­formed in an attempt to extract a tomb’s rich­es at any cost of life. Banks care not for the effect that com­pet­ing cut­ters have on each oth­er, so long as the vic­to­ri­ous ven­tur­ing par­ty, the one with rich­es in a sack, is one of theirs. Of course, few cut­ters will cease ser­vice to one bank if betrayed in such a way, so strong is the incen­tive pro­vid­ed by accu­mu­lat­ed stand­ing. Stand­ing, the sys­tem of ben­e­fits built over many hor­ri­fy­ing, labo­ri­ous mis­sions in ser­vice to one insti­tu­tion.

Or per­haps some­thing sim­pler. Per­haps cut­ters, espe­cial­ly hard­ened ones, are so thor­ough­ly changed by their expe­ri­ences, their vio­lent labors in the dark, that they real­ly do assume a preda­to­ry nature. When miles deep in the earth, per­haps so deep that they have slipped beyond the fold of the world entire­ly, per­haps they depart com­mon san­i­ty as well. The most vet­er­an cut­ters, grand­mas­ter intrud­ers and con­sum­mate killers as they often are, will often offer no expla­na­tion but this; that once one slips the civ­i­lized world and what­ev­er social con­tracts come with it, that they are free to play by dif­fer­ent rules.

Notes

Rival adven­tur­ing par­ties, in cut­ter style.

Read­ers can have a soupçon of edge, as a treat.

If you still fol­low this blog, I wel­come you back.

I have resumed the work. The site is still under con­struc­tion, but I want­ed to get a new arti­cle out to feel like things were alive inside. I rebuilt it with Oxy­gen Edi­tor after mov­ing to Word­Press from old Blog­ger, which I will miss. Need to fig­ure out if I want to con­tin­ue using images, as I am attract­ed to a text-only style. Old arti­cles are a lit­tle messy, for­mat­ting wise. I will sort them out. Please offer sug­ges­tions for things, if you have them.

Con­sid­er becom­ing a sup­port­er of Incunab­u­li on Patre­on.

⁂