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Chapter Twelve

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Kish in general gave the impression that it strained to rise. Buildings were vertical, and became more vertical in wealthier quarters. The wealthiest quarter, the Crown, stood atop a literal hill, comprised of the ruins of centuries of successive cities, heaped atop one another. The walls separating the quarters from each other bounded them, forcing Kish’s development to be vertical. The palaces—both those long subdivided into apartments and those still owned by wealthy individuals, such as the Lord Chamberlain—occupied city blocks and climbed into the sky.

Within the wall surrounding the Sultanates’ Embassy, that general impression was reversed. The old mansion spread to fill its grounds, throwing out side buildings, a fountain, a pool, two groves, and a garden.

“We could knock on the front door and ask for the Girdle of Life,” Munahim said.

“Yes,” Fix said. “How do you think that would go?”

“We just need to borrow it,” Indrajit said.

“Do you know that for sure?” Fix asked.

“No,” Indrajit admitted. “Probably, Archegos Minor Philastes Larch would deny that he had purchased any such thing from the Gray Lord Zac Betel. And he wouldn’t lend it to us, or sell it to us, or rent it to us, even if he did admit it. Should we try first, though?”

“If I had a week,” Fix said, “or no time constraints at all, maybe. If I thought I could have an open negotiation that wouldn’t render my backup plan impossible, maybe.”

“Your backup plan of burglary,” Indrajit said.

“Yes. But since neither of those things is true, my backup plan is going to be my main plan. Are you with me, or am I doing this alone?”

“We’re with you,” Indrajit said. “We just needed to think out loud for a minute.”

Munahim nodded.

“It’s a big manor,” Fix said. “The Girdle could be anywhere.”

“Our best bet is that Larch knows where it is,” Indrajit said. “There will be servants awake. We grab one, ask if he happens to know where the Girdle of Life is. Probably he doesn’t, so then fine, tell us where to find Philastes Larch, and the buyer himself gives us the answer.”

“If we’d thought this out a little more, maybe we could have brought rope,” Munahim said.

“We should hire another Protagonist to carry supplies around for us,” Indrajit said. “Rope and lamps and things like that. Food. It’s hard to plan for everything in advance.”

“That would need to be someone big,” Munahim said. “A Gund, a Luzzazza, a Grokonk.”

“A female Grokonk,” Indrajit said. “They’re the big ones.”

“We borrow the Girdle of Life,” Fix said. “If we can. We plan to give it back.”

“If the Girdle can be returned,” Indrajit pointed, “and also assuming that the Vin Dalu let us give it back. So let’s just accept that we’re committing a crime, we know we’re committing a crime, but we’re doing it because we can’t think of a better option.”

“More than one crime,” Munahim said. “Burglary and assault and maybe kidnapping.”

“For love,” Fix said.

“Too much talking,” Indrajit said. He shimmied out along the heavy branch he sat on, then let himself down on the other side of the fence.

Fix and Munahim followed.

They crouched low and tried to stay in the shadows. The outbuildings and the groves helped, creating great swathes of the thick green grass that were cloaked in darkness. They pushed into a cluster of thamber oaks and cut through it in nearly a straight line toward the main house. The space between the oaks was groomed of weeds and planted with a carpet of grass. The garden gave the impression of wild disorder from far away, but close up, it was clear that it was the product of art.

They crouched at the edge of the thamber oaks. The wind bore moisture on it, and in the distance, thunder rumbled. The main building was a short sprint away, but a large oil lamp burned in a raised niche at the corner of the house, throwing light across the entire space. To their right, by contrast, a single-story building lay in darkness. Curtains bouncing in the windows suggested that they weren’t shielded by glass, and that the Protagonists could step inside those darkened rooms and use them to make their way forward to a point where the two buildings nearly touched.

Fix went first, stepping from the shadow of a thamber oak through a low, wide, open window and then pressing himself against the wall, disappearing. Munahim followed and Indrajit came last, scanning for any sign that they were detected or followed.

Two men with spears and shields marched around the inside of the fence a stone’s throw away, but their regular pace and the soft buzz of their shared conversation suggested that they hadn’t seen anything.

“What is that smell?” Munahim wrinkled his face in disgust.

They stood in a room like a veranda, running the length of the outbuilding. Multiple doorways led deeper into the structure, and at the far end, an arch opened into a shadowed space between this building and the main house.

Indrajit shrugged. “I don’t smell anything.”

“I don’t either,” Fix said. “You tell us, Munahim.”

The Kyone walked in a small circle, sniffing. “It’s coming from underground. There’s rot, but something else, too. A dry smell. Something . . . something is much bigger than it should be. Much bigger than the ones I’ve seen before. Something smells wrong.”

He shook his head, as if confused.

“Well, rot is a pretty normal smell to be coming from Underkish,” Indrajit said. “Sewage?”

“Corpses,” Munahim said.

Without meaning to, Indrajit drew his sword. The map in his kilt pocket rustled as he did so. “Under this building specifically?”

“Under this building,” Munahim said. “Maybe not only under this building.”

“We’re not here to investigate the smell of corpses,” Fix said.

“Also, something else,” Munahim said.

“Understood,” Fix acknowledged. “We’re here looking for the Archegos and the Druvash girdle he bought.”

“But a big pile of corpses might mean there’s something in here that threatens us,” Indrajit said.

“We’ll tell Grit Wopal about it, and maybe come back later.” Fix turned to lead them toward the main house.

“Let’s at least look at the map,” Indrajit said. “If it maps Underkish, you yourself said it might show more than just passages. You said treasure rooms and banks, but maybe the map shows where there’s a big pile of corpses. Maybe the map explains why.”

“We can’t read the map without heating it up. Do you want to light a lamp here and now?” Fix wasn’t waiting. He had reached the archway and was pressing himself into it, examining the shadowed space beyond.

Indrajit felt like a fool. He said nothing, and he and Munahim followed Fix into the shadow.

They stood in a small courtyard. Pressing their backs to the main building, they could look right and see onto the main lawn, bounded by the thamber oak grove and the corner lamp and the fence. Looking left, they saw a portico before a door. Dim light leaked from the door, and two men with spears and shields stood in the portico.

Indrajit looked up. A second story rose over just a portion of the main building, and it was near them. Directly over their heads, red clay tiles covering a narrow strip of rooftop peeped down at them.

“A trellis right here would have been convenient,” Indrajit said.

“But architecturally strange,” Fix pointed out. “You don’t grow vines in a stone courtyard. Push me up.”

Indrajit put away his sword. He and Munahim together easily hoisted Fix into the air, each lifting him by one leg. Fix disappeared from view, and then, moments later, whispered down to them, “Come up.”

“You next,” Munahim said. “I can jump.”

He crouched, and Indrajit stepped off his back, raising himself onto the rooftop. A few paces away across the red tiles lay a balcony with a stone balustrade. A door with curtains blowing from it opened upon dark spaces within.

The rooftop was nearly flat. Indrajit lay on his belly and extended an arm. Munahim stepped back and then ran at the wall. He was surprisingly silent as he leaped, kicked against the plaster with his sandaled foot, and pushed himself into the air. He caught Indrajit’s arm with one hand and the lip of the rooftop with the other, and within moments, he lay on the red tiles beside Indrajit.

Lightning flashed north of the city, over the sea, and cold rain began to fall. The three men took shelter on the balcony, which was protected by a narrow slip of tiled roof. Indrajit took one of the flapping curtains in his fingers.

“Is this . . . made of paper?” he asked.

“The strange smell is here,” Munahim said.

“I’d be more inclined to worry about that if you could tell me something about the smell beyond its being ‘strange,’” Fix said.

“I don’t know,” Indrajit said. “I feel pretty unsettled.”

“It’s . . . parched,” Munahim said.

Fix shook his head and passed through the door. Indrajit followed, with Munahim on his heels. They entered a room that was shaped wrong. The building’s exterior had tall, straight walls and slightly sloped terra-cotta roofs, but the room was a misshapen sphere. Dim light from deeper within the building showed a knobby path at their feet and they moved forward.

“My sandals are sticking,” Munahim said.

“Look for a servant,” Fix said. “Really, any person.”

“I have a flask of oil,” Indrajit reminded them. “If we find even an empty lamp, we can light it.”

They passed through paper curtains into a second room. It was similarly roughly rounded, and Munahim sniffed repeatedly.

“When you have a specific observation, feel free to make it,” Fix said.

Munahim said nothing.

One exit led into darkness; the space beyond the other was gray-brown with distant light. They moved toward the light, and Indrajit kicked something with his foot.

“It’s a stick,” he murmured. “We could wrap some of the hanging paper around one end and make a torch.”

He stooped to pick the stick up, and found that it was no stick at all.

It was a man’s thigh bone, or something very like one.

“Stop,” Munahim said. “Is that . . . ?”

Indrajit squinted to see clearly in the gloom, and his eyes took a moment to adjust. Bones lay scattered about the floor. The bones of men: skulls, rib cages, arms and legs. The skeletons were of different sizes, and of many different races of man, and they were all jumbled together in a heap.

“Is this an embassy?” Munahim asked.

“We can make explanations for this,” Indrajit said, “but I’d rather just get what we came for and get out.”

He lay the bone gently on the floor.

They took careful, quiet steps.

They passed next into a length of hall. At its end, Indrajit saw stairs descending, and beside the top of the stairs, a burning lamp in a niche. Before the stairs and to the right stood an arch that probably led into an adjoining room, but was blocked with paper. By the light of the lamp, Indrajit got his first good glimpse of the paper itself and was puzzled.

“Fix,” he murmured. “Doesn’t this paper look strange? It’s . . . rough. It’s flaking. You’re the paper expert. What do you make of it?”

“I write on paper,” Fix said softly. “I don’t make the stuff. But this seems very crude. Maybe it’s cheap paper?”

“The smell is strong here,” Munahim said.

“Help . . . me . . .”

The three men froze.

“You heard that,” Munahim said.

Fix drew his falchion. “It came from the other side of the paper.”

Indrajit drew Vacho. “You sure this isn’t distracting us from finding the Girdle?”

“We don’t know who the person on the other side of this paper is,” Fix said. “But it’s probably someone who knows the embassy, and can help us find Philastes Larch.”

“Good enough for me.” Indrajit sliced a great vertical slash through the paper, and then a second, and then a horizontal slash above the level of his head. He pressed with his foot, and a door-sized panel of paper curled away and inward, opening an entrance. Indrajit stepped inside, sword in a defensive position and senses focused.

Fix took the lamp and followed.

“I think I smell it,” Indrajit said. “It’s musty and stale. Flat.” He heard the roll of thunder outside the building. “Shine that light around, I don’t see anything.”

He heard rustling sounds, away in the darkness.

Fix raised the lamp. This room, too, was roughly spherical, and by the lamp’s light, Indrajit could see that that was because paper filled the corners of the room. Layers of paper, affixed to the walls at the edges and layered. One shape covered by paper, standing on one side of the room, might have been a reclining couch. On the other side, a different, masked object might have been a covered table. A wide arch, wrapped in paper, led through the far wall into a room beyond. The far room was utterly dark.

From the ceiling, in this room, hung an oblong object.

“Help . . . me . . .”

“The voice is coming from that bundle.” Munahim had his bow in his hands, an arrow on the string.

“It’s coming from near the ceiling.” Indrajit circled slowly, moving around to the other side of the hanging object while keeping it tightly in focus. He prodded the bundle with the tip of his sword, causing it to swing back and forth slightly.

“Kill . . . them . . . they will . . . kill . . . everyone . . .”

Indrajit stood in the corner of the room. He was loath to put his back squarely to the dark void of the next room, and even having it to his side and just slightly behind him made the skin on the back of his neck crawl. He kept an eye on the darkness with his peripheral vision and stared up at the hanging bundle.

He saw indeterminate movement, a writhing near the top.

It was a man’s face.

“Help . . . me . . .”

“Fix,” Indrajit said. “Watch the entrance and give me a knife. Munahim, keep an eye on the next room.”

“Stop . . . murders . . .”

He took a knife from his partner and dragged the reclining couch across the floor, leaving it beneath the hanging man. He sliced into the paper wrapping the couch, freeing the flat surface of it to use as a step. The paper was dry as dust, but when he cut it a wave of trapped moisture and a sticky-sweet smell rose from the couch.

“Too . . . late . . .”

Munahim shifted from one foot to the other, growling.

Indrajit climbed onto the couch. The man hung from a thick cord of wrapped paper, almost like the stem of a pear. Indrajit wedged his body beneath the bundle, cut through the cord, and then brought the bundle down in a guided slide so that it came to rest on the couch.

The face at the top of the bundle trembled. It was emaciated, as if sucked dry of blood, and a thin paper film covered it. Indrajit peeled away the film, an uncomfortable tickling in his stomach.

“The parties . . .” The man groaned. “Everyone . . . will die.”

“I’ll get you out,” Indrajit murmured.

“It may be . . . too late . . .” The man’s voice cracked.

Indrajit sliced at the paper, peeling it away in scraps and sheets. The man wore only a loincloth, and when the paper was removed, his skin was covered in sticky patches. His ribs showed in the lamplight, and the bones of his wrists and shoulders. His belly was inflated; he looked as if he were starving.

Indrajit was deeply bothered. He felt the sensation that Munahim had been describing a few minutes earlier—something was wrong, badly wrong, and he couldn’t put his finger on quite what it was.

Other than a man wrapped in paper, of course.

“Keep talking,” he said.

“I’m the archegos minor . . . Lysander Frick.”

“Ah, archegos.” Indrajit pulled away the paper and tried to help the man stand. He was wobbly on his feet and could not balance without leaning on Indrajit. His sagging belly swayed left and right as if it had a mind of its own. “What is that, exactly?”

“A junior . . . member of the embassy.” The archegos leaned forward on Indrajit’s arm and retched, nothing coming up. “Below an archegos . . . major. And below the . . . hyperarchegoi.”

“So you know Philastes Larch,” Indrajit said, trying to keep his voice disinterested.

“My counterpart.” The archegos retched drily again, and began to shudder. His entire body trembled. “Can you get me . . . to a healer?”

“What’s wrong?” Fix asked, coming closer. “Why were you attached to the ceiling? Who bundled you up like this?”

“The . . . birthing,” Frick said. “I don’t want it . . . never wanted it. Can you . . . get me . . . a healer? I didn’t know . . .”

“We can try,” Indrajit said.

“We should burn this place to the ground right now,” Munahim said.

“You must . . . stop them . . .”

“Stop who?” Indrajit asked. “Stop the healers?” That didn’t feel right.

“Stop . . . the parties . . .”

The archegos lurched forward a third time, leaning heavily on Indrajit’s arm. He retched, and this time as he retched, matter emerged from his mouth.

But it wasn’t bile. An insect, wasplike, the length of Indrajit’s hand, wet, and lacking wings, fell from his lips to the floor.

He retched again, and another wingless wasp dropped.

Munahim growled and Fix gasped. Indrajit scooted back to avoid the insects now crawling on the floor.

“No,” Frick groaned. He clamped both hands over his mouth and tightened his jaw. He staggered away from Indrajit and threw himself against the wall. He stood alone, writhing.

A nodule of flesh the size of a pomegranate bulged out from his windpipe—and then burst.

In a shower of blood, another wasp fell to the floor.

Frick staggered away from the wall and sank to his knees. Two more nodules of flesh swelled up in his belly and then burst, and wasps crawled from the flesh.

“Kill them,” Fix grunted. He stepped forward and smashed one insect, grinding it under his heel, and then a second.

Indrajit managed to smash two of the insects, and then the archegos minor’s belly exploded, and more swarmed forth. Ten, a dozen, twenty?

Frick toppled forward and hit the floor.

“Fire!” Munahim spat.

Fix raised his hand to throw the lamp, but in the corner of his eye, Indrajit saw movement in the adjoining room. He caught Fix’s wrist and they turned together, both men raising their swords.

Emerging from the darkness in the next room came two wasps the size of horses.


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