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Chapter Twenty-Eight

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“I don’t know why you would call this odor a ‘stink,’” Munahim said.

“Because of the pungent reek,” Indrajit said. “The general foulness of the scent, the way the air creeps into your pockets and sticks there like tar. Because if you jumped, the smell itself would catch you midair and slow your fall.”

“It just smells like fish.”

“Yes,” Indrajit agreed.

“Aren’t your people fishers?”

“Is this a cannibalism joke you’re preparing?”

“No, I mean, of all the smells to dislike . . .”

“Yes, as it happens, I don’t love fish. I don’t love to eat it, I don’t love the smell. Oh, the irony.”

The East Flats rang with the sound of trumpets, drums, and bang harps. The ordinary activities of the quarter seemed to have been suspended, so the fishing boats sat beached and unengaged, and the nets hung unmended. The men mustering for the parade played their instruments and sang, a leaping melody that broke into recurring shouts, and the fishermen standing in their doorways sang along.

Men marshaled in groups of various sizes. Some units contained as few as three men, some as many as twenty. The Dawn Priests wore white tunics and leggings, and white cloaks, all made of linen. They wore white linen masks as well, like bags over their faces, with holes cut for the eyes and another cut for breathing. Their leather sandals were stained white. Some of the costumes were more elaborate than others, with gold trim, or with gold suns stitched into the linen. They marched under banners.

“This is the Stink Sook proper,” Indrajit said as they turned into the choked and winding road that led down to the water. “Look for anyone we know, or any sign of the Lord Chamberlain’s presence.”

“I will go out on a limb and say that’s them.” Munahim pointed.

At the eastern end of the Stink Sook, six banners flapped in the breeze. They hung from crossbars lashed to poles and each was carried by a man in white and gold, masked. Each man wore on his chest the blazon of one of the great houses: the flaming eye of the Lord Usher, the hammer and sword of the Lord Farrier, the leafless tree of the Lord Gardener, the rearing horse of the Lord Marshal, the noonday sun of the Lord Stargazer, and the true compass of the Lord Archer. The man wearing the Lord Stargazer’s sign and carrying his banner was thin and had transparent skin, showing the muscles of his hands and forearms; the man with the banner of the Lord Stargazer was tall and broad, with hands and forearms that were violet.

Each banner-bearing man was accompanied by two more men in Dawn Priest clothing.

“That’s the Lord Stargazer,” Indrajit muttered to Munahim. “And the Lord Archer.”

“I remember the Lord Archer.” Munahim frowned.

“But where is Orem Thrush?” Indrajit scanned the sky. Were there Kattak yet to attack? If so, how and where would they do it?

He felt a tugging at his elbow, and turned to find Grit Wopal. The Yifft was dressed, as always, like a bazaar fortune-teller. He clasped his hands in front of him and cleared his throat. “You’re late.”

“Barely,” Indrajit said. “Where’s the Lord Chamberlain?”

“Come with me.” Wopal turned and led the two Protagonists into a sagging hut with stone walls and a roof of brambles in knotted bundles, squatting beside the sook. Within, a fully covered Dawn Priest waited; Wopal shut the door. In one corner, a banner with a horned skull leaned against the wall. In another, a table carried two bundles of white linen and three pouches. “Today, you will be the Lord Chamberlain.”

“What?” Indrajit choked.

“If you’d come earlier, we would have explained at leisure.” Wopal shook his head. “And Fix?”

“Being tended by a healer,” Indrajit said. “That’s a long story.”

“The Kyone will do.” Wopal took the two linen bundles, tossing one to each Protagonist. “The Lords must participate. But the Lords prefer not to be targets. So you will carry the banner and wear the blazon, Indrajit. The public will take you to be the Lord Chamberlain, and you will act accordingly.”

“I don’t know the ritual battle,” Indrajit said.

“Follow the others,” the Dawn Priest said. “Follow me. I know it.”

Indrajit recognized the voice. “My lord.”

“Good,” Wopal said. “Every Lord has a double and also a second bodyguard. The Lord is present to see that the gods’ will is done, but a mummer holds the banner. Munahim will accompany as the bodyguard.”

“It’s the first time I’ll have been a priest,” Munahim said.

“Our priority is to protect the Lord Chamberlain,” Indrajit said.

“Obviously.” Wopal shook his head. “But you should complete the rite, too. The city expects it, and most of the city will be participating. It ought to be easy.”

“Except that we may be attacked,” Indrajit said. “By giant flying wasps.”

“I have many sources telling me of turmoil among the Gray Lords,” Wopal said.

“Yes,” Indrajit said. “The Sookwalkers have a new Gray Lord. I think. And . . . maybe there will be an eighth, but that doesn’t really matter right now.”

“Why do you expect giant wasps?” the Lord Chamberlain asked. “Is it an assassination plot?”

“Well, I think it’s more like an assault plot,” Indrajit said. “I don’t know that it’s targeted at you, but I think it is targeted at the Lords of Kish. There’s a burning embassy on the Street of Fallen Stars this morning because the assault has started, and we pushed to thwart it. Whether we’ve managed to fully—”

“What is the assault?” Thrush demanded. “What wasps?”

“Kattak,” Indrajit said. “Giant wasp-men. The rulers of the Paper Sultanates, it turns out.”

“I am aware of the Kattak,” Thrush said. “Have the Sultanates declared war?”

“I briefed him,” Wopal added.

Indrajit nodded. “We burned their nest, but many escaped; we’re not sure how many. They’re loose in the city, and they hate the city. I don’t know if they see it as war. Maybe they see it as revenge.”

“Fix is being seen by a healer . . . ?” Wopal prompted.

“He was injected with Kattak eggs,” Indrajit said. “That gave him access to their plan. Ah . . . because the eggs in his belly knew about the plan, I suppose, so he shared that awareness. It’s because of him that we knew to rally the Gray Lords and go burn out the Kattak.”

“We have to stop the Battle of Last Light,” Wopal said.

“The people expect it,” Thrush said. “The gods expect it.”

“Then I will go as the third Dawn Priest for House Thrush,” Wopal said. “You stay out of sight.”

“You can deceive the people, perhaps,” Thrush said, “but Spilkar the Binder will know that we did not fulfill our obligations.”

Indrajit was at a loss for words. The Lord Chamberlain had religious scruples?

“My Lord Chamberlain—” Wopal tried again.

“I insist,” Thrush said. “Get dressed, men.”

Indrajit pulled on the Dawn Priest garb and took the banner. Munahim struggled to get into his linens, which would have fit Fix well, but eventually got them pulled on. He had to hand his bow to Grit Wopal first, and strap his long sword awkwardly around his waist. His limbs showed to the knees and elbows, and a band of black fur was visible beneath the edge of the mask.

Once they were dressed, the Lord Chamberlain took one of the three pouches and handed one to each of the Protagonists. “The most important part is throwing candy to the children.”

The Lord Chamberlain had religious scruples, and he also felt strongly about throwing candy to children.

“What do we tell the other Lords?” Indrajit asked. “About the Kattak?”

“Leave that to me,” Thrush said. “I’ll warn them. You keep an eye out for Kattak.”

Wopal opened the door and Indrajit angled the banner down to pass through as he led the way out. “We go up through the Dregs, don’t we?” he murmured to the Lord Chamberlain.

“We walk the main thoroughfares until we get into the Crown,” Thrush said. “Then we followed designated paths. You will appreciate this—the routes we take are supposed to invite the sun back, but they’re believed to trace actual movements of an ancient Druvash battle that took place here.”

“That is fascinating,” Indrajit said. “I would also appreciate it if I could draw my sword without having to tear this robe off.”

“Watch out for attackers,” the Lord Chamberlain reminded him. “We begin the procession now.”

The man mumming the Lord Stargazer was shooing away two Zalaptings as Indrajit approached. The Lord Chamberlain came behind him and Munahim followed in the rear. The other Lords’ parties stood in formation; each banner-bearer was on the right, and Indrajit now saw, by looking at wrists and forearms, that the man in the center of each row matched the banner-bearer, while the man on the left might or might not.

He turned to glance at Orem Thrush’s hands and found them tinted mahogany with a hint of green, to match Indrajit’s complexion. The Lord Chamberlain was wary about appearing in public without a mask, because he was of a race of man that transmuted its appearance frequently. Indrajit had had only limited experience with the phenomenon—he and Fix mostly worked with Wopal—but Thrush seemed to metamorphose to resemble, at least somewhat, the person he stood nearest. Or perhaps it was the person he was concentrating on. Or, for that matter, perhaps it was a person he chose.

At this moment, he matched Indrajit.

“At the rear,” the Lord Chamberlain muttered.

Indrajit followed his direction and put himself at the back of the line. “If I caused us a loss of face by being late, so we’re in the back of the procession, I’m sorry. But I had an embassy to burn.”

“It is an honor to us to be in this line at all,” Thrush said. “We please the gods. I suspect we also please the gods when we burn embassies, I’ve never known any good to come out of them.”

A horn blew and the procession rumbled forward. The songs and the drumming continued, and the Lords and their companions fell quickly into a cadence. Their steps were slow and set to a length that let everyone in the group keep pace.

“Stand straight up,” Thrush said to Indrajit. “Everyone thinks you’re me.”

“I do stand straight up,” Indrajit objected.

“Then stand more heroically. Assume one of your poses.”

Indrajit considered, and entered the stance called Dagger Eyes. It was appropriate for moments in the Blaatshi Epic when a noble warrior rejected something unworthy of him, or refused to comply with a weak foe’s demand for surrender. He threw his shoulders back and his chest forward, and he raised his knees slightly higher as he stepped. He focused on the banner in front of him, and matched his own standard to the same angle and height.

“Better.” The Lord Chamberlain leaned forward. The man in front of him had to be Bolo Bit Sodani, the Lord Stargazer. Thrush murmured words Indrajit couldn’t hear.

He looked for signs of the Kattak. Searching the crowd, he didn’t see Kattak or their nymphs, but he started to spot faces he recognized. Grit Wopal was in the crowd, but so was Chosk, the Lord Chamberlain’s understeward and keeper of his palace’s back door. He thought he recognized Zalaptings from Thrush’s household guard, too, though Zalaptings were difficult to tell apart. The Lords had surrounded themselves with their household people, on top of having a double impersonate each of them and a bodyguard companion. Thrush might speak cavalierly about pleasing the gods, but he had taken precautions.

Indrajit took a deep breath. He felt a little more at ease.

He saw little hands waving, and he threw candy at them.

Chosk. Indrajit looked again. The pale man with four eyes wore his ordinary vivid purple, but he also shook a brass rattle in each hand. He mumbled along with the song, but his eyes shut as if he were fighting off sleep, and his face was twisted into a mask of pain.

His arms looked thinner than they should, and his belly was distended.

“My Lord Chamberlain,” Indrajit said, “I think your understeward has been implanted with Kattak eggs.”

“With what end?” Thrush asked. “Is he doomed? Should we kill him now, out of mercy?”

“Maybe he can be saved,” Indrajit said. “By the Vin Dalu. If we can get him there in time.”

“Where is ‘there’?”

Indrajit hesitated, then nodded at the city wall they were approaching. “In the Dregs, actually.”

“We’ll look for an opportunity,” Thrush suggested. “Maybe Wopal can take him. I must walk this path, and you must impersonate me.”

“Ironic, I suppose.”

“Oh?” The Lord Chamberlain’s voice was cold.

“Since you are impersonating me.” Indrajit immediately felt he had said something impolite. “I mean, you and I look alike . . . at the moment. We look similar.”

“How do we look similar, Blaatshi?” Thrush asked. “Have you become handsome?”

“We . . .” Indrajit coughed, trying not to disrupt his pose. He took the appearance of Fanchee children in leather kilts as an opportunity to interrupt the conversation, throw a fistful of candy, and catch his balance. “We are both Dawn Priests,” he said.

“We are both Dawn Priests,” Thrush agreed. “Only I am really a priest, as a Lord of Kish.”

Indrajit decided not to bring up the fact that his calling as Recital Thane was of a priestly nature. “Yes,” he said.

The gate drew near. The jobbers at the gate were probably still Gannon’s Handlers, but they wore gray-dyed linen over their livery now. A line of them stood perpendicular to the gate, each holding a long-stemmed flower in his hand.

The sun was slowly climbing toward zenith, but that moment was still hours away.

“These men must be defeated,” Thrush said.

“They only have flowers,” Indrajit said.

“Ritual combat,” Thrush reminded him. “By the time you reach the gate, only one will be standing. You will slap him in the face and shout, ‘House Thrush’!”

“How hard?” Indrajit asked.

“You must make a noise the gods can hear,” Thrush said. “Hard. Don’t worry, they’re part of the ritual, too, and they know it.”

Indrajit watched the front of his procession pass the line of men and enter the gate. The first two banner-bearers slapped Zalaptings loudly, and the lavender-skinned men spun and dropped. Surely, their rotation was exaggerated—it was drama rather than the result of a truly violent blow.

Indrajit threw candy at a crowd of Zalaptings that he thought included children. He looked to the sky as he rained sweets on them. “Go home,” he muttered. “Take the candy and go!”

He threw more their way to encourage them, but they just yelled louder.

The third man slapped was an Ildarian and the fourth a squinting, wind-burned Valkali. Indrajit hadn’t realized the Handlers included a Lost Northerner, but the man took his slap and went down instantly. The fifth was another Zalapting, the sixth a Yuchak, and only at the last minute did Indrajit realize who stood at the end of the line to take his slap.

It was a hulking, blue-skinned Luzzazza.

The Luzzazza whose arm Indrajit had caused to be yanked from its socket? Surely not.

“House Ne’eku!” The Zalapting struck by the Lord Archer’s surrogate spun three times on his heels and fell, to the cheer of the crowd. “House Sodani!” The Yuchak was smitten by the Lord Stargazer’s double and dropped backward like a felled tree, not bending until he struck the cobbles. Indrajit shifted his banner into his left hand, preparing to make the slap.

“Indrajit Twang,” the Luzzazza grunted.

Indrajit raised his hand almost as high as he could, and slapped the Luzzazza hard in the face.

The Luzzazza stood still.

Indrajit froze.

The front part of the procession kept moving, but the last three rows hesitated. The Lord Stargazer turned to see what had happened.

Thrush nudged Indrajit with an elbow.

“House Thrush!” Indrajit yelled.

The Luzzazza roared, real rage and humiliation in his voice. He stomped backward three steps, then sat down hard on the stone. The crowd cheered again.

Indrajit quickened his step to get through the gate.

The Dregs did not share the enthusiasm of the East Flats. Jobbers on the walls emitted perfunctory huzzahs, but the denizens of the Dregs seemed mostly to be ignoring the procession and its accompanying crowd. Jeers and catcalls cut through the ordinary hubbub of haggling and cursing to announce their arrival.

There were children here, too, in canvas smocks. They hefted balls of mud in their hands. “Give us candy!” they screamed.

“Well,” the Lord Chamberlain muttered, “most of Kish is participating. Each in his own fashion.”

Indrajit threw candy. One of the boys picked up sweets and then threw his mudball at Indrajit, anyway.

A whip cracked somewhere ahead of the procession. It cracked again twice more. Despite his height, Indrajit couldn’t see over the men in front of him. He tried standing on his toes, and all he saw was a jostling crowd.

“Drogger!” someone yelled. “Drogger stampede!”

The crowd before Indrajit didn’t part, it evaporated. Each person in the crowd took on energy and exploded, bouncing in random directions. The Dawn Priest Procession sagged to the right, onto a scrap of dirt that almost made a plaza in the angle where two alleys broke away from the street. A woman selling coal shrieked at them in rage and hurled several chunks of her wares; one struck Indrajit in the side of the head and he winced, but he stayed focused on the street ahead of him.

Three droggers came galumphing toward him. One had two humps, but they all had the long neck and the rubbery skin of their kind, and they all had panic in their eyes. One dragged a wagon, but its rear gate was open and casks fell, bouncing and cracking open on the gravel. The other two dragged shattered traces as if they too had borne loads, but they had shaken them off.

“Fire!” Indrajit heard. “Fire!”

Behind the droggers, flame and smoke licked around the corner into view. The flames were rushing toward them, drinking up the spilled liquid from the casks and growing taller and hotter.

The crowd around the procession screamed. Some fainted, others shivered where they stood, and many tried to flee. Curses and the sounds of fighting broke out at the gate.

“Do we have to walk it straight?” Indrajit asked Orem Thrush.

“What?” Thrush asked.

“Crossing the Dregs.” The flames raced in their direction. One of the droggers fell, tangled in his traces, and the fire overtook him. His squeals of panic became bellows of pain. “Do we have to stick to the main street and walk straight across? For the Battle of Last Light, to please the gods.”

Thrush shook his head. “We just have to get to the Dawn Gate.” He looked up at the sky. “In about an hour.”

“This way!” Indrajit waved his banner and headed to the nearest alley mouth.


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