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Chapter Six

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Indrajit, Fix, and Munahim stood in the street a block away from the Shipwrights Collective. Munahim still held the Fanchee over one shoulder. Toru Zing moaned and wiggled, but didn’t try to escape.

“Marek Kotzin lied to us,” Indrajit said. “We were there to help him, and he lied to us. He warned Zing, his own blackmailer, so his blackmailer could escape.”

“Welcome to Kish?” Munahim asked.

“Welcome to Kish.” Fix looked up and down the street, clearly not focused on the conversation at hand.

“To be fair,” Indrajit said, “we didn’t tell him that we weren’t after him, too. He might have thought we were investigating the bank, and when we interrogated Zing, Zing would throw Kotzin to us.”

“So maybe even more honesty would have worked better,” Munahim said.

“We couldn’t very well say, ‘We work for the Lord Chamberlain, oh, and now we’re running an errand for one of the Gray Lords,’” Indrajit pointed out. “Our ability to be honest is sometimes constrained like that.”

“Welcome to Kish,” Munahim said.

“Maybe we shouldn’t say so much in front of the prisoner,” Indrajit suggested.

Zing stopped wiggling.

“If we’re not going to kill Zing,” Fix said, “we need to hide him somewhere. Somewhere he can’t get out, at least for the next three days.”

“If he gets out after that?” Indrajit probed.

“After three days, Alea is either safe, or gone forever. At that point, I don’t care what happens. And I don’t care if he hears that, either.”

“I care a little,” Indrajit said. “Let’s put this little weasel somewhere he can’t ever escape.”

“That isn’t our inn,” Munahim said. “The inn is cheap and convenient, but not secure.”

“The Lord Chamberlain’s palace.” Fix hadn’t finished speaking before he was in motion, charging toward Thrush’s residence.

As Grit Wopal had trained them, they didn’t approach directly. They took several turns designed to let them detect anyone who might be following, and then finally walked to the back of the Lord Chamberlain’s house.

They approached the secondary door of the palace, as they always had. The plain door with the iron peeping-panel was on a back street; where the front door of the palace was guarded by men in the livery of House Thrush, and a flag bearing the Horned Skull flew proudly, the tradesmen’s entrance was nondescript, sturdy, and quiet.

Fix had knocked by the time Indrajit and Munahim caught up, and the panel opened. A pale face with a horizontal strip of four eyes peered out.

“Chosk, let us in,” Fix said. “We need to talk to Wopal, if possible.”

Chosk, whose official title was understeward, and whose job was to watch the back door and manage traffic in and out, let them in. Once inside, they could see his noseless and toothless face and his florid purple robes. Where he usually filled out those robes with ebullience, he sagged. His belly was still large, but his limbs were stick-thin.

“I’ll summon Wopal. Do you need a physician?” the understeward asked.

“We could leave the arrow in,” Fix said. “It would give us a handle if we need one.” By way of demonstration, he grabbed the arrow and twisted it. The wounded Fanchee shrieked.

“Send a doctor,” Indrajit said. “We’ll be in one of the strong rooms.”

The Protagonists didn’t know their way around all of the Lord Chamberlain’s palace, but they had briefly been prisoners in it, so they knew their way to the holding cells. Two of the heavy-doored rooms were barred from the outside, suggesting that they currently held prisoners, but the rest were open. Munahim draped their prisoner facedown on the floor and yanked out the arrow with a single quick motion.

Toru Zing wept.

“The truth,” Indrajit said, “is that you’re probably going to get off light. We just need to hold you in here for a while.”

“I didn’t want to do it,” Zing whimpered. “They made me! They threatened my family!”

“Shut up!” Fix snapped.

A Zalapting with gauze and ointments came and treated Zing. The Zalapting was just leaving when Grit Wopal arrived.

Wopal habitually dressed like a cheap bazaar card-reader, in dirty yellow tunic and loincloth, with a faded purple turban. The look was effective as a disguise in part because Wopal was a Yifft, a race of man gifted with powerful spiritual vision when a Yifft opened the third eye situated in the center of his forehead. Wopal’s third eye was now shut, and he looked irritated.

“I really prefer it if you wait until I contact you,” the Yifft said. “I know you can’t be out of cash, because Fix is managing the money.”

“That’s a little rude,” Indrajit said.

“We need you to hold this guy,” Fix said.

Wopal grunted. “Well, let’s lock him in and go somewhere quiet so you can explain.”

Once Zing’s door was barred, Wopal took them to a room with high windows, puddles of warm sunlight on the floor and walls, and four reclining couches. They lay down, other than Fix, who sat on the edge of the couch and fidgeted as Wopal passed around a carafe of lightly alcoholic applejack.

“Tell me why I’m holding a prisoner.” The Yifft’s third eye opened. Its white was yellow and thick with mucus, its iris streaked red and gold.

“The woman I love is dead,” Fix said. “To raise her to life, I need a Druvash artifact that is held by one of the Gray Lords. Before he will negotiate with me, I have to prove my good faith by killing this Fanchee, who is a blackmailer in the service of a rival Gray Lord. Rather than actually kill the man, we hope you will hide him.”

“That is so succinct that it’s difficult to follow,” Wopal said. “But I can see you’re upset and telling me the truth. So tell me a little more detail.”

Fix gave Wopal the details. Grit Wopal was the Lord Chamberlain’s spymaster, head of his so-called Ears, and in that capacity often hired Indrajit and Fix and gave them instructions. He was master of an immense amount of information about Kish and its various powers.

Wopal listened intently, nodding all the while.

“What an excellent opportunity,” he said when Fix had finished.

“I swear by every god that Indrajit knows,” Fix said, “if you wreck this for me with your plotting, I will kill you.”

“I should advise you that I know a great many gods,” Indrajit said.

Wopal smiled. “What a delight to work in a high-trust environment.”

“You are a spy, after all,” Indrajit said.

“And, as a spy, I must take all opportunities to gather information that come my way. What a tremendous opportunity this is to gather information about a quarter of the city that I don’t know as well as I’d like. But we have a constraint: the Battle of Last Light is in two days.”

“The winter holy day?” Indrajit asked. “Where actors dress in black to represent winter and white to represent summer and they battle each other across the city?”

“Yes, more or less.”

“And throw candy to children?”

“The same.”

“I find it strange that winter is represented by black costumes,” Indrajit said. “But then, where I come from, it snows.”

“That is strange,” Munahim agreed.

“It’s really about the sun,” Fix explained. “It’s light versus darkness. It’s a holy and magical battle to bring back the sun.”

“Welcome to Kish?”

“No, I don’t think that’s quite right.” Indrajit shook his head. “You say ‘Welcome to Kish’ after a really cynical observation. Or bleak or defeatist. Throwing candy to represent the blessings of the sun isn’t bleak enough.”

“Eh.”

“What does that have to do with us?” Fix asked. “I read that the Lord Farrier won that contract.”

“So he provides security to sacred sites, yes.” Wopal steepled his fingers in front of him. “And the actors are volunteers from various guilds and associations across the city, all doing their civic duty.”

“I’m still waiting to hear why this matters.” Fix buried his face in his hands, grinding at his eyes with the meat at the base of his thumbs. “You know we have limited time.”

“There is a long tradition that the Lords of Kish participate in the battle,” Wopal said. “Indeed, the formal theology posits that the rite will have no effect unless the Lords participate. Not all the Lords are believers, but those who are put considerable pressure on the rest to be present. Costumed, and all on the side of spring and the sun, of course.”

“Does Orem Thrush want us to accompany him?” Indrajit leaped up from his couch. “I have a great deal of experience representing vigorous, manly battle during recitation.”

“Still waiting,” Fix said. “Time bleeds away by the second.”

“The Lord Chamberlain needs two men to join him in the Dawn Priest Procession,” Wopal said. “He wants you two, Indrajit and Fix. So, whether you solve your . . . problem or not, you are to meet him at dawn on Last Light Day, to march with him.”

“Was that so hard?” Fix asked.

Wopal spread his hands.

“Fine,” Indrajit said. “Two days is plenty of time. We basically have to be done by then, anyway, the Vin Dalu told us.”

Fix growled.

“I’m sorry for the inconvenience of it,” Wopal said. “I wish you success in raising your lady love, and will certainly hold this blackmailer as long as you want. But my first loyalty is to Orem Thrush, and we must protect him.”

Fix stared at his clenched fists.

“Yes,” Indrajit agreed.

“Fine,” Fix said. “Is that it? You hold Zing indefinitely, for now, and we go back to Sehama. We negotiate for the Girdle of Life, having, at this point, about two and a half days before we run out of time. We also prepare to put on funny clothes, fight a mock battle, and throw candy at children, because those things are just as important as Alea’s life and death.”

“Those things are important,” Wopal said, “and you’ll be paid well for doing them.”

Fix drained the last of his applejack and left.

“He’s determined,” Wopal said.

“We’re men on a mission,” Munahim said. He and Indrajit rushed down the hall after their friend.

Chosk let them out without a word, sagging in all his motions and smiling only weakly. Indrajit found himself working extra hard to stay caught up to the others with the big canvas bag under his arm.

Once they had reached the main avenue passing the Lord Chamberlain’s palace, Indrajit swept his head right to left to be sure they weren’t being followed. It wasn’t hard, with his peripheral vision, just a slight jiggle of the skull. The boulevard was crowded with late morning traffic. Given the cool winter air, braziers of coals stood at the major corners, and the food-kiosk vendors focused on hot offerings: roasted nuts, skewered meats, and hot drinks.

“Alea first,” he said in a low voice to his partner. “We go get the Girdle of Life right now, and take it to the Vin Dalu, and we can worry about the Dawn Priest Procession in due time.”

Fix shook his head so fiercely that his shoulders shuddered. “We can’t just laugh off that task, though. If we lose the Lord Chamberlain, we’re back to square one—no patron, our biggest connection and protection and source of contracts gone.”

“Of course. In due time. So we just need to help Alea . . . a little faster, that’s all.”

A young man in a pale green robe bounced into Indrajit’s view. He clutched a scrap of parchment that seemed to be painted with a wheel of shifting colors, though the robed man juddered so dramatically that Indrajit couldn’t get a clear look at the image. Behind him surged a mob of people in orange, yellow, and green robes, all with heads shaved but for a long forelock. They were flooding out of the open door of a low brick building—a shabby-looking, run-down structure, for the Crown.

“Did you know that you are already a god?” the man in green asked.

“Thank you,” Indrajit said. “I’m a god in a hurry, so step aside.”

He stepped sideways, but the man in green did, too, blocking his path. Fix struggled on ahead, into the crowd of robed initiates.

“No, really. If you haven’t read the Mirror Codex of the great Bonean philosopher Tassotolonga, you should start today. I can give you a copy—”

“Reading is a mistake,” Indrajit said. “Flattery won’t lure me into it. And, really, I have to go.”

He shoved the man in green with his shoulder, but the preacher was surprisingly nimble. He kept his feet, staggered again into Indrajit’s path, and raised the scrap of parchment. “That’s okay, Tassotolonga teaches that not all gods are to be awakened by the written word. In fact, the greater number come to the realization that this world is the world of the gods by contemplation of the Great Wheel. You will see that my color is green. If you will let me ask you a few simple questions, we can determine what color you are, which will help me know how to enlighten you.”

“Enlighten me?”

“Help you open your eyes to your own godly nature. So that you see that you are a god, living in the world of the gods, and that your actions reverberate across the cosmos into thousands of worlds of mortal men. Also, knowing your color will help us define what spiritual steps you need to take to ascend to the next color on the wheel.”

“If I’m already a god, what ascent remains?” Indrajit struggled to get past the young man, but only succeeded in dragging the mystic with him, several steps along the avenue. Fortunately, Fix had run into a solid wall of acolytes, which was slowing him down.

“Ah, you see, here is an important question. That you would ask that particular question suggests that you are orange, my friend. I’ll tell you that the answer is that ascent is a never-ending process, and it’s for this that we are called Ascendants, but me telling you the answer is not the same thing as you truly learning it. Can I invite you to come inside with me, just for an hour or so?”

“Frozen hells, enough.” Indrajit hooked his leg around behind the other man’s. Indrajit’s leg was longer, so he placed the long muscle of his calf behind the Ascendant’s knee, and then he pushed the man in the chest.

The Ascendant sat down on the cobblestones, abruptly.

Behind Indrajit, Munahim started barking. Indrajit was used to hearing growls and the occasional yip or whine from the dog-headed Kyone, but this was a full-blown, explosive sonic aggression, and it was followed by the sound of sandals slapping the pavement as the Ascendants scattered.

Indrajit turned to congratulate Munahim, and saw the man with the blowgun.

The assailant stood on the far side of a wheeled metal cart where a vendor sold roasted camber nuts. Nuts hopped and skidded about on a flat iron plate over a large oil lamp, and the vendor, a brown-skinned Kishi in a red cape and trousers, pushed them back and forth with a wide, flat scoop. The assailant wore a blue faux-toga, the sort that snapped on for ease of wear and only imitated the true toga of the upper classes, plus a blue hood that hid his face. As Indrajit looked, the person was in the process of raising a long cane to his lips, hidden in the shadows of the hood.

The cane pointed at Fix.

Indrajit knew blowguns because the Blaatshi used them. They were no good for hunting fish, both because it wasn’t wise to inject venom into food you intended to eat, and, more basically, because it was impossible to fire a blowgun dart into the water. But such darts could be used to kill predators that came from the land, or enemies. They were light and easy to carry in a boat, and the reeds to make them with grew abundantly in the inlets and bays where his people made their homes. Indrajit could craft a blowgun from such a reed, and make the darts to shoot with the gun. If a blowgun dart struck a man in the eye or behind the ear, it could seriously harm him.

And if it were dipped in venom, it could easily kill him.

Indrajit shouted a warning, but he knew Fix couldn’t evade the dart. Fix wouldn’t even have time to turn before he was struck.

Indrajit threw the canvas sack.

The man in blue fired his dart, and the dart and the sack intersected in midair.

“Protagonists!” Indrajit roared. He charged at the man in blue, but the would-be assassin was already turning and fading down an alley, and Indrajit found that the nut-seller’s cart was in his way. Indrajit skittered around the man to his right and managed to get Vacho from its sheath.

He ran a few steps into the alley.

“I have an arrow to the string,” Munahim growled behind him.

But Indrajit found no sign of the assailant. The alley quickly split into three, and Indrajit saw several means by which the man might have fled to the rooftops, as well: a trellis, a tall wagon beside a low building, a stack of crates.

“Can you smell the man?” Indrajit asked the Kyone. “The man in the blue false toga?”

“There are too many people here,” Munahim said. “If I had his toga, I could learn his scent and then follow, but otherwise . . . there are a hundred trails here. A thousand. I do not know which to follow.”

“It’s probably a stupid question to ask who might want to kill us,” Munahim said. “Or Fix in particular.”

Fix laughed grimly.

“Welcome to Kish,” Indrajit said. “Who doesn’t want to kill us?”

“We’ve stopped thieves and kidnappers and spies and assassins,” Fix said.

“Thwarted dark cults,” Indrajit added. “Thwarted not-so-dark cults.”

“Rival jobber companies,” Fix continued. “Magicians. Demons. Aspiring academics.”

“Not to mention the possibility that someone might attack us to make a name for himself,” Indrajit suggested.

“A client might prefer not to pay a bill.”

“So, lots of people.” Munahim sighed. “I’m glad you have a head like a fish, Indrajit. Otherwise we never would have stopped that assassin.”

Fix snickered. “Now you’ve got it.”

“I’m glad you’ve got a head like a dog,” Indrajit retorted.

Munahim nodded. “I do.”


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