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Chapter Five

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“I’m Fix,” Fix said.

“I didn’t ask, because I know who you are already,” Sehama said. “You’re the Protagonists. You’re the small and ineffectual jobber company that the Lord Chamberlain employs to engage in the charade of keeping order in the Paper Sook.”

“Charade?” Indrajit harrumphed. “If we’re small and ineffectual, why are you irritated with us? How would you even have noticed us?”

Sehama waved one hand in a desultory gesture of dismissal. “You aren’t here to keep order, not really. You stop the odd fraud, you deliver the occasional scape-debt up to his creditors, and the Lord Chamberlain can say to his peers that he has done his work. That’s your function.”

“We also collect fees and fines,” Indrajit pointed out.

“Don’t misunderstand me.” Sehama coughed weakly against the back of one hand. “No other part of the city is patrolled or policed with any more vigor than this one. It is all a charade and a shakedown and a swindle. You are merely the part of the swindle that relates to the Paper Sook.”

“I didn’t come to banter.” Fix’s voice had a hard edge to it.

“True order in the city is kept by the Gray Lords,” Sehama said. “Only the Gray Lords understand the full size and scope of the city’s economy. Only we truly know all the business that is done, and only we can impose true and accurate taxes. The city’s merchants know that, if their shop is burned down, we’re the only force truly able to exact justice, as an alliance with us is the only talisman truly able to ward off the arson in the first place. I myself am the cake of order, children. You are mere raisins.”

The assembled thieves laughed.

Sehama was putting on a show. Was he demonstrating his greatness to his men? His ability to be cavalier with the servants of the Lord Chamberlain? And what else might he do to the Protagonists in order to impress his own men?

“What an unexpected metaphor,” Indrajit said.

“Yes,” Fix agreed. Indrajit could hear his teeth grind. “You are the true powers of the city. And we came because you have something in your possession that we want. You are rich. We are supplicants.”

So Fix also understood the show.

“Are you asking on behalf of Orem Thrush, the Lord Chamberlain?” Sehama asked. “On behalf of the Lords of the Auction House?”

The men in cloaks seemed to be holding their breath. Indrajit thought he could hear drops of water trickling down the brick walls.

“No,” Fix said.

“We’re his men,” Indrajit said. “We’re under his protection.” He wasn’t actually sure that Thrush would do anything to avenge their deaths, but he certainly wanted Sehama’s men to think he would.

“But we’re here on our own errand,” Fix said. “You have the Girdle of Life. You found it and chose not to sell it to the Vin Dalu.”

“Very interesting, blah blah blah,” Sehama said. A low chuckle ran through the assembled men in cloaks.

“We’ll buy it from you,” Fix said.

Sehama raised a hand palm out, dismissively.

“It can’t be worth anything to you, except to sell it,” Indrajit said. He wasn’t sure that was true, but he thought it was unlikely that the Gray Lord was a master of Druvash sorcery. “So name a price.”

“I won’t discuss it with you,” Sehama said.

“Would you discuss it with Orem Thrush?” Fix asked. His shoulders were twitching. Indrajit was glad his partner had been disarmed; otherwise, he might already have attacked the thieves’ guild leader.

“Or his chief ear, Grit Wopal? Hmmm.” Sehama shifted his posture from one slouched position to another. “Maybe. But that’s not the world we’re in. I would also discuss it with one of my own men.”

“You mean Harlee or someone,” Indrajit said.

“Anyone who was an initiated Sookwalker.”

“What’s a Sookwalker?” Munahim piped up.

Sehama said nothing. A buzzing murmur spread through the crowd.

“How does one become initiated?” Fix asked.

“The first step is to find one’s way into the Undersook Palace,” Sehama said. “You’ve done that.”

“Everything is a palace here,” Indrajit muttered.

“What next?” Fix pressed.

“Though you made rather more noise about it than I could have wished,” Sehama griped.

“I didn’t have a choice,” Fix said. “I have no time. What do I have to do next to become a Sookwalker? Dues? A tattoo?”

“You have to show your commitment.” Sehama sat up and leaned forward.

“What do you want?”

“He wants us to commit a crime,” Munahim said.

“Ah, the dog is smarter than it looks.” Sehama applauded gently.

“He’s not a dog,” Indrajit grumbled.

“It can’t be that easy,” Fix said. “I commit three crimes by breakfast, most days.”

Which wasn’t strictly true. But being a jobber, even in the service of the Lord Chamberlain, did involve a fair amount of stealth, trickery, breaking and entering, trespassing, and punching people.

“He wants us to commit a crime against one of the other Gray Lords,” Munahim said.

“Good boy,” Indrajit murmured. He hoped Munahim was right. The logical alternative was that Sehama would order them to commit a crime against the Lord Chamberlain.

“Is that right?” Fix asked.

“Every Sookwalker here has done it,” Sehama said.

“I have no time,” Fix said. “Tell me what you want done. It has to be now.”

“It’s no big deal,” Sehama said. “We have a client named Marek Kotzin.”

“‘Client’?” Indrajit asked.

“He pays us for protection.”

“I know him,” Fix said. “He’s a Wixit banker. Shipwrights Collective.”

Sehama nodded. “An employee of his at the bank is blackmailing Kotzin. Threatening to tell depositors about the protection payments Kotzin makes to us, unless Kotzin pays the employee as well. Naturally, we must act, because this is the kind of thing Kotzin pays us to be protected against.”

“That seems a little circular,” Fix said. “But yes.”

“And what is the involvement of the other Gray Lord?” Indrajit asked. “Is this blackmailer one of his . . . initiates?”

“That’s correct.”

“Which Gray Lord?”

“Does it matter?”

“I like to know my enemies,” Indrajit said.

“Zac Betel,” Sehama said. “He owns smiths, carpenters, and similar craftsmen. Specializes in arson, burglary, and blackmail.”

“So we deal with the blackmailer,” Fix said.

“Kill the blackmailer, and you’re a Sookwalker. Then we can talk about this Belt of Death.”

“Girdle of Life,” Fix said.

“Ah, yes.”

“I’ll do this thing,” Fix said. “But I warn you, Sehama, that I’m not a man to be trifled with.”

“Nor am I, Fix.” Sehama stood. “I know you’re pressed for time. The blackmailer is a Fanchee named Toru Zing.”

“Show us the way out,” Fix said.

Sehama gestured to one of his men and the blinding hoods were dropped over the Protagonists’ faces again.

Indrajit raised his hand to protect his head proactively this time as they were led out, clutching the same knotted rope. The path out wasn’t the same as the path in, because they climbed only two flights of stairs before he could feel the cool morning sea breeze on his skin, and the tepid warmth of the winter sun. Once outside, still blindfolded, they were led a few hundred steps, including several turns, and then the hoods were removed.

They stood beneath an awning, among stacked pots and baskets. A stone’s throw away, a city gate opened on the Shelf, one of the three fishing quarters. They were at the bottom of the Spill, ten minutes’ brisk walk or more from the Paper Sook.

Yuto Harlee stood with them. He pocketed the hoods and then handed a large canvas sack to Munahim. “All your weapons are in the bag. I trust your business went well? Well enough that you emerged alive, at any rate.” He grinned.

Munahim stared away past the basketseller’s shop and the ropemaker’s adjacent stall at the mouth of an alley, where a one-legged Kishi beggar sat on a ragged blanket, importuning passersby. His muzzle twitched slightly.

“No time to talk, Harlee,” Fix said. “We’re at the wrong end of the Spill for what we need to do.”

He set out southward, uphill, toward the Crown, not waiting for his weapons. Indrajit and Munahim followed, leaving Yuto Harlee chuckling in their wake. As they walked, Indrajit and Munahim resheathed their swords. The Kyone held on to Fix’s armory, still in the canvas bag.

Fix made a beeline for the Crown, which meant eschewing the gentle, zigzagging ascent of the Crooked Mile in favor of the narrow side streets, alleys, and stairs that climbed directly up the hollow, rotting hill on which Kish rested.

“That man Harlee,” Munahim said as they fought their way past a string of camels emerging from a gap in a plastered wall. “He’s not merely a tavernkeeper.”

Fix charged ahead with purpose.

“Well, he must be a member of the Sookwalkers,” Indrajit said. “At least, a gatekeeper of sorts. He blindfolded us and led us in. And I suppose he led us out as well.”

“He led us in and out.” Munahim nodded. “But there’s more than that. The throne room . . . what did Sehama call it? The Undersook Palace? His smell was strong down there.”

“What do you mean? Do you mean he was there?” Indrajit didn’t quite follow Munahim’s thinking.

“More than that. I mean, he must go there often. And . . . perhaps he lives down there. And . . . I can’t be certain, but I think his scent was on the throne platform.”

“But you can’t be certain,” Indrajit pressed.

“It didn’t seem like a good time to go sniffing about the bricks,” Munahim said. “But I think so.”

The gate between the Spill and the Crown had a line of people, slowly passing through under the eyes of Gannon’s Handlers. Fix bounced anxiously on the balls of his feet, but took back his weapons from Munahim and hung them on his belt. Indrajit continued to hold the canvas sack.

“We can’t kill this guy Zing,” Indrajit said.

Fix shook himself, like an animal shedding water.

“We’ve invested a lot in who we are,” Indrajit said. “We’re heroes. You’re a hero, Fix, and you’re not going to throw that away.”

“I’m in love,” Fix said. “I’m not going to throw that away, either.”

“Why are we going to the Crown?” Munahim asked. “I thought the banks were in the Paper Sook.”

“Many of them, yes,” Fix said. “Many of them are located in the Crown, for the convenience of the great families, and the city’s big institutions. The Hall of Guesses and the Palace of Shadow and Joy, for instance, want access to a bank without walking all the way down to the Paper Sook. Many banks have a filial in both places.”

“And the Shippers Collection?” Munahim asked.

“The Shipwrights Collective,” Fix said. “I know them. They started as ship owners, pooling their cash to merchant their shared risk. Then they used the surplus to start building ships, and they were so successful, they eventually had to go into banking, to have something to do with the money.”

“And they’re only on Bank Street?” Indrajit asked.

“They closed their Paper Sook filial years ago. I think to try to communicate that they were a strictly upper-class bank. No more work for mere merchants.”

“They sound pleasant,” Munahim said.

Fix shrugged. “They’re bankers.”

They reached the front of the line and were waved through by a pack of Zalaptings in Handler colors. Fix ignored them, but Indrajit gave them his best collegial nod.

Moisture struck him on the cheek. He paused, wiping his face.

“Did one of you just spit on me?” he asked.

The Zalaptings grinned and shrugged.

“Winter rains,” one of them said. “Unpredictable.”

“Welcome to Kish,” said another.

They all cackled.

Indrajit rushed to catch his comrades.

“What’s the plan?” Munahim asked. “If we’re going to go in fighting, I think I should come along.”

“We could light the bank on fire,” Indrajit said. “When they all come running out, we grab the Fanchee.”

“The bank is stone and won’t easily light,” Fix said. “And the guards will come running out, too. And what if it did catch fire? The Lord Chamberlain’s palace is five minutes’ walk from the bank. We might burn down the houses of some really important people.”

“Also, it would be arson,” Munahim said.

They turned on to Bank Street. Not all the buildings here were banks, but the banks were many, prominent, and large, with their names (Indrajit presumed) spelled out in banners at their front doors, or in metal lettering overhead.

“We don’t need to break into the bank,” Munahim said. “We don’t want the vaults or the money, all we want is for one guy to come out . . . right?”

“Just one guy,” Fix agreed.

“So what if we said we had a message from Zing’s wife?” Indrajit said. “Or we said he had won a prize. What if we said we owed him money, and we’d come to pay?”

Fix shook his head. “These sound like ridiculous ruses. I don’t believe anyone would fall for them. I suppose our backup plan is that we wait for the bank to close and follow him out. But we’ll lose most of the day that way.”

“Also, don’t bankers go in and out of their banks through passages in Underkish, to avoid being mobbed at the doors?” Indrajit asked. “The filials down around the Paper Sook do that, at least. So we might wait here all day and then never see him. Or maybe he’s not even at work today, and we wouldn’t find that out until the day was over.”

“We could tell the truth,” Munahim said.

Indrajit and Fix looked at the Kyone.

“I don’t mean to Zing, necessarily.” Munahim cleared his throat, a low, growling sound. “But we can say to the bank that we’re a jobber company with the contract to regulate the Paper Sook, including all the banks.”

“Which is true,” Indrajit said.

“Although Sehama is right,” Fix said. “We’re pretty lightly staffed to really regulate such much activity.”

“Go on,” Indrajit said.

“We also say to the bank that we’re here to grab Toru Zing, who is a member of one of the Gray Houses,” Munahim said. “He works for the Gray Lord Zac Betel, all of which is true.”

“The bank might ask for a witness,” Fix said, “or a written warrant, or proof.”

“Then we’ll have to bluff,” Indrajit told him. “We know how. Maybe we involve Marek Kotzin at that point. Probably better if we don’t have to.”

Fix nodded, and stopped walking. They stood in front of a two-story stone building with an extremely steep rooftop suggesting a capacious attic floor. The walls were of gleaming, polished stone, and two horizontal flags flapped in the sea breeze, one to each side of the front door. Banner script marched in two rows down each side of each flag, and at the bottom of each was embroidered an image of a lateen-rigged ship over an immense anchor.

“Munahim,” Indrajit said. “It’s your plan, and it’s a good one, and you deserve to be the one who goes in and implements it.”

Munahim cocked his head to one side.

Indrajit cleared his throat. “However.”

Munahim sighed. “The Fanchee might run.”

“The Fanchee might run,” Indrajit said, “and you have a bow.”

“We don’t want to kill Zing,” Munahim said.

“Right,” Indrajit said. “So if you see a Fanchee come running out of the bank, shoot him in the buttock.”

Indrajit and Fix marched into the stone lobby of the bank. A line of customers stood waiting to take their turn with bank clerks sitting behind a thick glass wall. A pale Gund hulked in the corner, watching the lobby. Four of its six eyes were scratched out to prevent madness, which marked the Gund as civilized. It held a huge ax in one of its arms, and the mass of insectoid limbs sprouting from its shoulders flexed and rustled.

Fix approached the Gund. “We’re the Protagonists, under contract with the Lord Chamberlain. We need to talk to whoever is in charge of this filial—the president, the manager, the head notary, the boss, whoever.”

The Gund groaned, nodded, and shuffled back into the corner of the lobby. A pull-rope hung down from the ceiling there, and it tugged on the line, to no apparent effect.

“Wait,” it growled.

They had only been waiting a minute when the door opened and a Wixit emerged. He was two cubits tall and covered with fur; going on all fours, he might be mistaken for an animal. He rubbed his knuckles and giggled.

“What’s this about the Lord Chamberlain?” the Wixit asked.

Was this Marek Kotzin? Indrajit met Fix’s eyes and they both nodded.

“We’re the Protagonists,” Fix said. “We have the contracts for banks and the Paper Sook under the Lord Chamberlain, and we’re here investigating thieves’ guild activity.”

“Oh?” The Wixit’s voice jumped an octave. “We’re a clean bank, gentlemen.”

This was Kotzin.

“I’m sure you are,” Indrajit said. “One of your employees has been identified as a follower of the Gray Lord Zac Betel. We’re here to take him into custody.”

“And do what with him?” The Wixit’s voice had taken on a manic tone.

“Torture, maybe,” Fix said. “Certainly some beatings and interrogations. Eventually, maybe branding and release, maybe exile. It depends on what he’s willing to tell us.”

“Not killed?”

“Maybe,” Indrajit said. “Maybe not.”

“Who . . . what scoundrel, may I ask . . . would be so brazen as to follow a Gray Lord while working at a bank?” the Wixit asked.

“He’s a Fanchee,” Fix said. “Named Toru Zing.”

“I know the fellow.” The short manager seemed relieved. “Yes, of course, I’ll go summon him.” The Wixit disappeared back into his door, shutting it behind him.

“He seems cooperative,” Indrajit said. “When he brings the Fanchee out here, we need to decide what to do with him. We’re not going to kill him, right?”

“He does seem cooperative.” Fix’s eyes narrowed.

“We’re not going to kill him, right?”

But Fix was lost in thought.

Indrajit snorted and took to pacing. He had been walking back and forth for only a minute or so when the Wixit returned. He had a look of alarm on his furry snout and he wrung his hands over and over.

“It seems that Zing has disappeared,” the Wixit said.

“Was he here this morning?” Fix’s voice cracked with sudden, barely restrained anger.

“Tell us where he lives,” Indrajit said.

“Of course! I’ll find that information right away, but I’m afraid if he realized you were coming for him, he might go elsewhere. Might he flee Kish altogether?” The banker sounded relieved at the thought. “I’ll get you his street and number.” He went back into his door.

“We don’t have the time for this.” Fix ground his teeth and clenched his fists.

“The time for what?” Munahim asked.

The Kyone stood in the bank door. He had a green-skinned, tentacle-faced man slung over one shoulder, and held his bow in his hand. The green man was whimpering and shuddering, and had a long arrow protruding from his buttock.


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