Chapter Twenty-Three
The Protagonists cooperated and were led from Underkish. The Huachao consulted neither a map nor their bound-and-gagged forger, but stooped to sniff at the ground from time to time.
“Are they smelling Jaxter Boom from here?” Indrajit mused out loud.
“I don’t know what Jaxter Boom smells like,” Munahim grumbled, “but I think they’re retracing their steps. I smell frequent markings with cat urine on the path we’ve been walking.”
“You don’t do that,” Indrajit pointed out.
Munahim was silent for a moment. “As you are not really a fish,” he eventually said, “I am not really a dog.”
“Should I stop saying ‘good boy’ to you?”
“I don’t mind it,” the Kyone said. “But maybe it’s causing you to think about me in the wrong light.”
“Okay,” Indrajit agreed, “not a dog. A fierce swordsman, a rapid and accurate archer, and a man who happens to have extraordinarily sharp smell and hearing.”
“A Kyone.”
They emerged climbing narrow clay-brick stairs that ended in a ragged green curtain at the bottom of a long, narrow alley. Budhrriao urged Indrajit to lead the way; at the mouth of the alley stood two Huachao in linothorax and leather, one with two long-handled axes and the other holding a heavy mace.
Indrajit grinned and the Huachao growled.
Indrajit recognized that they were back in the Dregs. One cramped plaza after another were strung in a line through this district, connected by tight alleys. All the buildings leaned forward, and the sky was reduced to a purple sliver.
The purple of evening. The Conclave was coming on, and in the morning, the Battle of Last Light. The wool cloaks they had purchased in the morning served well against the cool evening air.
“We know Jaxter,” he said brightly. “His place is still around the corner from here, is it?”
“Work for him?” Budhrriao asked. “Or did you work against him?”
“In the event, it was more of the latter,” Indrajit said. “He wanted to punish a thief. But her father had hired us to rescue her.”
“How did it end?” the Huachao asked.
“As I recall,” Indrajit said, “we had to swim home.”
He left out the fact that he had personally stabbed Boom in the eye, as well as inflicted various wounds on Boom’s men.
Budhrriao laughed.
“But the girl lived,” Fix said. “That was a princess we rescued.”
“Ah, I knew there had to be one,” Indrajit said.
Budhrriao took them through a right-hand turn and down a short alley. Overhead hung drying pelts on thick cables, and a vicious odor choked the air. They exited onto a tiny plaza surrounded by tall buildings, and the purple sky was quickly turning black. At a broad, unmarked door stood a familiar figure. He wore a black cloak with a deep hood. From the hood emerged a long nose, curling like an elephant’s proboscis, and surrounded by shaggy black hair. This was Boom’s doorman, and the Protagonists had had more than one prior interaction with him.
“We’ve met,” Indrajit said. “Remind me of your name.”
“Hastin Gink.” The doorman laughed, a long, shuddering sound. “My last sight of you was your sandal, kicking me in the face.”
“To be fair,” Indrajit said, “that was only because you were trying to stop me from rescuing the Lord Chamberlain’s daughter.”
“That doesn’t mean I forgive you.”
“I wasn’t asking for forgiveness.”
Gink chuckled. “Boom is waiting for you.”
They descended steep stairs under a low ceiling into the reception chamber of Jaxter Boom. The room was wide, with arches on both sides. A tank of churning water faced them along the broad opposite wall, a pedestal standing outside the tank at each corner. A young man in a plain gray loincloth stood on each pedestal; the youths stared vacantly, as if drugged or brain-damaged. Indrajit knew that the truth was worse, and he looked away, bracing himself.
Men with cudgels and knives crowded in through the arches on either side of the room. They grumbled, and held each other back.
“The welcoming committee,” Indrajit said.
“Some of us remember you,” said a short man with long arms and scarred knuckles.
“And I remember some of you,” Indrajit said, smiling pleasantly. “Not you in particular, as it happens. You’re quite forgettable.”
Then a mass of pink flesh pressed itself against the wall of the tank from the inside and a single massive blue eye opened. Tentacles snaked from the dark waters and lowered themselves, easing forward and then pressing into the backs of the skulls of the two young men.
The young men were the Voices of Jaxter Boom. To any god who might be listening, Indrajit prayed that their minds were gone and they felt no pain.
The two young men spoke in tandem. “Indrajit, Fix,” the Voices of Jaxter Boom said, “and friends. Jobbers. Rescuers of princesses, poets, spies of the Lord Chamberlain.”
“Jaxter Boom,” Indrajit said. “Gangster lord. Puppeteer of helpless young people. Fence, leg breaker, extortionist, drug dealer, and general purveyor of misery. Octopuslike fellow whose eye appears, to my great delight, to have healed. What do you want?”
“What any other man wants,” Boom said through the Voices. “Wealth and power.”
“Oh, good,” Indrajit said. “I was afraid you were going to say ‘love.’”
The waters in the tank bubbled into sudden froth and the blue eye blinked repeatedly. The Voices engaged in a spastic rattling of knees and elbows, which looked like an interpretive dance trying to visually represent a manic laugh.
“This isn’t disturbing at all,” Philastes said.
“Hey, you’re the guy who was working for wasp-men when we found you,” Fix said.
“You want to talk about disturbing?” Indrajit nodded at the tank. “Fix and I once swam through that.”
“You have obstructed my goals once or twice,” Boom’s Voices said. “And once or twice, I have obstructed yours.”
“Okay,” Indrajit said. “Do we get to be friends now? That will make our Pelthite happy. He really likes making friends.”
“Most recently, of course, you caused a little disturbance in one of my territories.”
“We recovered something that had been stolen from us,” Indrajit said.
“Avchat said you had in turn stolen it from someone else,” Budhrriao said.
“Him?” Indrajit jerked a thumb at the scribe, still bound and gagged and standing surrounded by Huachao at the foot of the stairs. “If he says such interesting things, why do you keep his mouth tied shut?”
“We didn’t want him to warn you.”
“He’s on my side now, is he?”
“I’m prepared to forgive,” the Voices said.
“Here it comes,” Fix murmured.
“Indeed,” Boom continued, “I’ll give you something of great value in addition.”
Indrajit sighed. “This has to do with the Conclave, right? You heard there’s a Conclave of the Gray Lords tonight, you heard a rumor that we’ve been invited, and you want us to get you in, too.”
“Unless the Conclave is aboard a ship,” the Voices said, “I shall of course be sending emissaries rather than attending in person.”
“These . . . ?” Indrajit gestured at the Voices. “These . . . people? Can they talk when you’re not inside them? Or will you . . . detach your . . . tentacles?”
“Hastin Gink,” Boom said, “and the Huachao pridechief.”
“Nice enough fellows,” Indrajit said. “That’s not really the problem.”
“You’re going to tell me that the problem is we’re not invited,” Boom said.
“For starters,” Indrajit said. “Also, I don’t have the power to invite anyone. I think maybe I’m invited as a witness.”
“Fine,” Boom said through the Voices. “Just tell us where it is and we’ll let ourselves in.”
“Not a good idea,” Indrajit said. “We have a tenuous relationship at best with all the Gray Lords, and I don’t want to jeopardize that. And Yammilku here, he’s Zac Betel’s man. He’s fiercely loyal, don’t even suggest that he betray his leader. He’ll get enraged.”
“Yammilku has already betrayed his leader,” the Voices said. “We all know it. What’s going to happen at the Conclave tonight, Yammilku?”
“I don’t know,” the Heru said.
“Are you Zac Betel’s man?” the Voices asked. “Or do you want to be a Gray Lord?”
“You want to be a Gray Lord,” Yammilku said.
“I’m not sure I’m really part of this conversation,” Indrajit said. “Maybe we should just leave.”
“I am a Gray Lord,” the Voices said. “I should be acknowledged as one.”
“Why do you think I have any influence on the outcome of that question?” Yammilku asked.
“You would . . . if you were Gray Lord of the Sootfaces.”
“What do you have in mind?” Yammilku asked.
Fix stood beside Indrajit. Indrajit couldn’t remember whether he’d always been standing there, or had sneaked gradually to that spot during the conversation. “We’re going to become unnecessary,” Fix murmured. “Or maybe even highly inconvenient, but either way, disposable. Get in there.”
“Why me?”
“You’re the talker. You and the Pelthite, but he’s in over his head.”
Indrajit cleared his throat. “Listen. We’ll get you an invitation. We’ll ask Betel. We’ll talk to the Conclave itself. What’s the request, just that there should be eight Gray Lords, and your territory is, what, the Dregs?”
But Boom and Yammilku both ignored him.
“I assume you have allies,” the Voices said. “Perhaps Betel expects them, perhaps he doesn’t. Surely, he doesn’t anticipate the involvement of me and my men.”
“Perhaps Betel doesn’t make it to the Conclave,” Yammilku said. “Perhaps Hastin and I go instead.”
Indrajit could see exactly where this conversation was heading, and he hated it. “Stop!” he yelled, thrusting himself between Yammilku and Boom.
Yammilku made an impatient chirp in the back of his throat. The Voices shuffled their feet.
“Look,” Indrajit said, “I know you two are both feeling very excited. We’re not really part of your plans, but we like you both.”
“You’ve been a thorn in my side,” Boom said.
“To be fair,” Fix said, “you’re a gangster.”
“So are you,” the Voices said. “Your gang is just smaller, and has purchased a license from the Lord Chamberlain. Who is the biggest gangster of all.”
“I accept the criticism,” Indrajit said. “Here’s the thing: We’ll happily help you, if you think that’s valuable. If you need skills, or a couple of extra swords, or a copy of the map. But we must get on our way, because it turns out there’s a city to save.”
“This is true,” Fix said.
The big blue eye focused on Yammilku. “What are they talking about, Gray Lord?”
Yammilku shrugged. “I don’t know, and I don’t think they know, either. The Kyone and the Kishi were both injected with Kattak eggs.”
“Kattak eggs?” The muscles around the big eye contracted, giving the strange impression of a circular squint. “Kattak, from the Paper Sultanates?”
“Yes. The Kyone has been cured by the Vin Dalu, probably. The Kishi has not.” Yammilku’s voice had a hard edge to it. “They believe that bearing the eggs in their bellies gives them a shared mind with the wasp-men.”
“Yes,” Boom said. “Everyone knows that’s how the Kattak pass down their memories. No books, like the degenerate Lords of Kish, no chanting like the shrinking poets of the sea. With elegant simplicity, they inherit the mind of all who went before them. Including those in whose bellies they rode. It is an admirable species.”
“We’re not shrinking,” Indrajit said. “We’re on the tall side.”
“You dwindle, you diminish,” Boom said. “If your entire race came to the Dregs, you are so few that no one would notice you. There are not enough of you to make a sizable Rover caravan. At the Racetrack, you would not fill a single section. In the Hall of Guesses, you could all attend the same lecture and be marked absent because you were so easy to miss.”
“Now you’re just hurting my feelings,” Indrajit said.
“The Kishi says the Kattak are planning a great evil,” Yammilku said.
The giant blue eye pivoted and came to rest on Fix. “What is the evil?”
Fix shook his head. “I don’t know yet.”
Boom was silent for the space of several long breaths. Jets of fine bubbles burst from two deep crevices in his pale flesh, above his eye, in gentle, alternating rhythm.
“You will need scapegoats,” Boom said.
“Yes,” Yammilku agreed.
Indrajit drew his sword but men were already tackling him. He staggered forward, feeling Huachao dewclaws across his back, and both hands of a short, squat Kishi gripping him by the wrist of his sword arm.
“Resist and die!” Budhrriao shrieked into his ear.
Indrajit leaped toward the glass and pivoted, moving forward and down. He slammed the Huachao pridechief into the glass of the tank right in front of the big blue eye. Then he fell to the floor, wrestling with the short Kishi for his sword.
He saw Munahim, sword out, cut down first a Huachao warrior and then a Shamb in a dirty yellow cloak. He saw Philastes picked up by two men half again his size and slammed repeatedly against the brick wall, as he shouted in various languages Indrajit didn’t know.
Indrajit heard a thick whoosh of water. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw one of the tentacles pull away from the head of the Voice it inhabited. What remained behind was a puckered white opening like a badly healed wound, and then the young man crashed forward.
The other Voice hit the floor at the same moment.
Budhrriao bit Indrajit on the shoulder, and Indrajit slammed his head sideways, slapping the Huachao awkwardly on the top of his skull. He lurched to his feet but the Kishi came with him, and chortled as he got both his hands on Vacho’s hilt.
Indrajit poked the man with four fingers split into his two eyes, and he screamed.
Philastes lay unmoving on the floor. Munahim had lost his sword and someone had wrapped a cape around his head, blinding him. He held an arrow in each hand and stabbed, fighting as if with two daggers. A Zalapting hit him in the back of his knee with a club, and Munahim fell.
Where was Fix?
Indrajit kicked himself back against the tank wall again, and this time Budhrriao let go. Vacho cleared its scabbard, singing its quavering song of war, and Indrajit leaped into the fray in earnest. He cut the arm off one Zalapting, slashed a one-eyed Xiba’albi across the stomach, stepped on a Shamb’s tail, and punched Hastin Gink—or some man who looked just like him—in his hooded face.
Then he saw Fix. His partner lay on his belly. His face was red, which might be because Yammilku knelt with one knee on the back of his head and pressed his long straight sword against Fix’s cheek. Also, he was vomiting black bile.
Indrajit leaped forward to knock Yammilku away, and something hard struck Indrajit in the throat.
He landed on his back on the floor, no wind in his lungs. Staring up, he saw Budhrriao holding the thick shaft of a spear. The Huachao stepped on Indrajit’s chest, and another Huachao picked up Vacho.
“Do I kill him?” Yammilku asked. “Are the wasps birthing?”
Through wobbly vision, Indrajit saw Jaxter Boom swim back into view from the depths of his tank. Gink knelt over each Voice in turn, but they were still and unresponsive. Boom thrashed the water with his tentacles and then returned into darkness.
“Don’t kill him,” Indrajit gasped. “The Kattak nymphs aren’t coming out yet.”
Gink leaned low over Indrajit. Indrajit saw a faint glimmer deep in the hood—did Gink’s eyes actually shine? The proboscis rested on Indrajit’s neck, bouncing as Gink talked.
“How will we know when the wasps are being born?” Gink asked.
“His belly will be distended.” Indrajit found tears stinging his eyes as he explained. “He’ll vomit. Also, the men we’ve seen die this way . . . I think the pain must be very great. They beg for help in the end. Beg for death, even.”
“That’s very helpful.” Gink rose. “Stand the three of them up and tie them. Carry the egg-bearer into a cell. Throw the forger in with him.”
Indrajit, Munahim, and Philastes were pulled to their feet as Fix was dragged away under one of the arches. All three had their hands tied tightly behind their backs, and then they were dropped to the floor.
“Is Boom mute now?” Yammilku asked.
“I’m Hastin Gink,” Gink said. “I am the Doorman and the Wandering Eye and the Voice that Thinks.”
That all sounded priestly. Indrajit bit his tongue.
“Is now a good time for a private conversation?” Yammilku asked.
Gink raised his arm. “Everyone, out. You too, pridechief.”
Jaxter Boom’s thieves all slunk away through the arches.
“We got distracted by this evil-plan talk,” Yammilku said, lowering his voice to a bare whisper. Indrajit lay on the floor, an arm’s length away, and could just barely hear. “Boom was saying we’d need scapegoats.”
Gink shrugged. “Obviously, if the Paper Sultanates have some sorcerous plan to overthrow the city, that concerns us all. We’ll hold Fix and listen to him. If we can figure out what this great menace is, then we can decide what to do about it. Above all, business must continue.”
“Scapegoats,” Yammilku said again. “I assume the idea is that you and your men and I will kill Betel. Then we’ll kill these three and leave their bodies on the scene. We’ll tell the other Gray Lords that the Protagonists here killed Zac Betel and that you helped avenge Betel’s death.”
That was little more than a repeat of Yammilku’s earlier plan, and Indrajit bit back a quip about the Heru’s lack of imagination. Then he remembered that once again, he was intended to be the dead man blamed for the crime.
“Will that make you the next Gray Lord of the Sootfaces?” Gink asked.
“There’ll be a vote. I have allies in the Conclave. I’ll win it.”
“And then you’ll announce that you’re in favor of Jaxter Boom becoming the eighth Gray Lord, invited to the Conclave.” Gink’s proboscis quivered with excitement.
“We’ll win that vote, too.” Yammilku’s voice was hard.
Gink nodded. “Time to march these poor bastards out.”