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Chapter Four

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“I don’t understand why this is so distressing,” Munahim said.

The Vin Dalu had hooded the three of them, led them through a long series of turns and steps, including stairs both up and down, and finally removed their hoods to reveal that they were in the Spill. In the Spill, a few steps from the Crooked Mile, and only a few more steps than that from the nameless inn where the three lived.

“Because the Gray Lords in general are not people to be trifled with,” Indrajit explained.

“But we work for one of the Gray Lords,” Munahim said. “Orem Thrush, the Lord Chamberlain. That makes us people not to be trifled with, doesn’t it?”

Fix leaned against the stucco wall of a chandler’s shop, bracing himself with both hands. In the shadows around them, Indrajit heard the slithering and tapping sounds of a small crowd of beggars, warily circling.

“Orem Thrush is a powerful man,” Indrajit agreed. “But he’s one of the Lords of Kish, head of one of the seven great families.”

“Yes,” Munahim said.

“I forget how new you are to the city,” Indrajit said. “The Gray Lords are an entirely different group of men.”

“Also said to be seven in number,” Fix said. The muscles in his back were knotted as if he were trying to push the chandlery he leaned against to the ground.

“Perhaps coincidence,” Indrajit said. “Perhaps deliberate mirroring of the city’s official power structure. For legend-making purposes. Swagger.”

“Propaganda,” Fix added.

“The Lords of Kish bid for contracts in the Auction House, and then they carry out the contracts, administering the government of the city.” Munahim said the words deliberately, as if the concepts were still somewhat abstract for him, despite the fact that he made a living fulfilling those very contracts for the Lord Chamberlain. “What do the Gray Lords do?”

“They carry out other contracts,” Indrajit said. “Not the kind of contracts you win by bidding at the Auction House.”

“Though it’s said that they are sometimes hired by the Lords.” Fix shook his head. “Welcome to Kish.”

“Robbery,” Indrajit said. “Extortion. Bribery. Arson. Kidnapping. Protection rackets. Risk-merchantry fraud.”

“They are a thieves’ guild.” Munahim nodded. Constables marched past in thick leather armor, rapping the cobblestones of the Crooked Mile with the butts of their spears, and the beggars faded into an alley. “Ildarion has a thieves’ guild.”

“They are seven thieves’ guilds,” Indrajit said. “The seven Gray Houses. They divide the city among themselves, by quarter but also by industry. Arash Sehama is . . . a name we’ve heard before.”

“He’s the Gray Lord who rules the northern half of the Spill.” Fix turned. Stray lamplight from a nearby tavern illuminated his face, which was taut. His mouth was flat, his eyebrows furrowed. “Including the Paper Sook.”

“We police the Paper Sook on behalf of the Lord Chamberlain,” Munahim murmured.

“‘Police’ is a strong word,” Indrajit said. “But it’s not wrong.”

“So this is fortuitous,” Munahim pointed out. “He must know who we are.”

“On the other hand,” Fix said, “I have a terrible uneasy feeling.”

“Why is that?” the Kyone asked.

Because he must know who we are.” Fix marched off down the Crooked Mile, toward the Paper Sook.

Indrajit followed. Munahim shook off two beggars with rags for clothing and tentacles rather than arms, then came on Indrajit’s heels.

“What’s your plan?” Indrajit asked. He worried that Fix’s ordinarily sharp, quick-thinking mind might be clouded by his emotions.

“Frodilo Choot,” Fix said.

Choot was a risk-merchant. She had been involved in the scam that had originally brought Indrajit and Fix together, but, like them, she had been a victim. She had also posted the bond that had allowed them to form a registered jobber company. In a way—a way that Indrajit didn’t fully understand or feel comfortable with—that made her a sort of partner of the Protagonists.

“She’ll have a contact,” Indrajit agreed.

“Or she’ll know who’s crooked, and is paying protection.”

The sun was beginning to rise, sending exploratory tendrils of pink light down through the longest streets of the Spill, when they reached Choot’s office. The shouting at the Paper Sook, a couple of blocks away, had not yet begun, and the smell of frying meats and bread tinged the smoke in the air.

Fix hammered on Choot’s door.

“We may have to wait,” Indrajit suggested. “You know, for her to feel out her contact, or to negotiate putting us in touch with Sehama.”

“We have no time,” Fix said.

The door opened. Choot’s doorman, Yozak, who was enormous and covered in purple scales and had no visible eyes, stood on the other side. He stooped, and still stood too tall to walk through the door.

“The Punching Bags,” Yozak rumbled.

“Today is not the right day to remind me that I owe you a beating,” Fix growled. “Get Choot. Now.”

Yozak snorted, slit nostrils opening in his fistlike face for the purpose. Then he turned and passed through a bead-filled doorway at the back.

“We’re all friends here,” Indrajit assured Munahim. “You know how men talk to each other when they’re friends.”

“I know how they talk when they’re enemies, too,” Munahim said. “Should I . . . watch the street? Be the backup?”

“No one’s after us right now,” Indrajit said. “Let’s get inside and close the door.”

They stepped inside and shut out the traffic that was just beginning to fill the street, flowing at this hour mostly toward the square where the Paper Sook merchants would shortly begin their daily feeding frenzy.

Frodilo Choot emerged promptly from the back room and stepped up to her counter. She was a squarish women wrapped in rune-inscribed and green-dyed leather bands, and she held a glazed bowl containing a steaming hot liquid. Her tongue flickered between her lips to taste the air as she appeared.

“You better not be here to tell me I’m losing my bond,” she said.

“Nothing that dire,” Fix said. “Tell us how to get in touch with Arash Sehama.”

Choot took a sip from her cup. “Funny. If I had woken up this morning with a strong urge to contact the Gray Lord of the Paper Sook, I would have reached out to you two to ask how.”

Fix pounded the counter with a fist. “How can you not know?”

“How can you not know?” she shot back, calmly. “You’ve meddled enough in his business! He’s behind half the frauds you’ve uncovered. I assumed that at this point you would know him personally.”

“Maybe there is no Gray Lord,” Munahim said.

“Shh,” Indrajit told him.

“Has Sehama not tried to bribe or subvert you?” Fix demanded. “To approve a fraudulent claim, to overvalue some asset, to pay him a cut?”

“Yes,” Choot said, “and I have told him no. And occasionally his goons have messed with me as a result. Broken things on which I owned the risk, to cause me to lose money.”

“So how did you contact them?” Fix asked.

“I didn’t. I don’t. I never have. They have always contacted me.”

Fix gave a strangled cry and banged his forehead on the counter.

“Do you know anyone who’s working with Sehama?” Indrajit asked.

Choot took another sip. “Many people here. So if you go around and put the word out, and Arash Sehama wants to hear what you have to say, I’m sure you’ll get an audience. You might not like it when you do, though.”

“Or maybe we should stop another fraud,” Indrajit suggested. “Something easy, like a falsified bell of loading.”

“Bill of lading,” Fix said.

“And then offer to let it go through,” Indrajit said, “but only if the scoundrels introduce us to Arash Sehama first.”

Fix threw open the door and left. Indrajit and Munahim rushed after him and overtook him prowling back and forth in the street.

“She’s lying,” Fix said.

“How do you know?” Munahim asked.

“She knows how to find him. They all do. They must. She’s afraid.”

“Maybe she’ll pass him the message, then,” Indrajit said.

“I can’t wait and find out.” Fix broke into a trot, heading toward the Paper Sook.

“I know that look,” Indrajit said. “You have a plan. But if your plan is what I think it is, it’s not a good plan.”

“My plan is a great plan,” Fix said.

“We don’t really have the power to arrest anyone,” Indrajit said. “Not without a warrant from the Lords, anyway. And interrogation always boils down to threats and beating people up and demanding information that you’re not even sure they really have, so it’s very . . . distasteful. Unreliable. Unsatisfying.”

“I agree,” Fix said.

They came to the edge of the Paper Sook proper. Men milled about in an unstructured mob, shouting. “Buying Ildarian River! Ildarian River, buying at seventeen! Seventeen! Seventeen and a quarter!” “Selling Wheel and Hook at twelve! Selling at twelve! Eleven and a half!” They flashed fingers in exotic combinations at one another and then jotted down notes with bits of charcoal on scraps of paper.

Indrajit stopped several paces from the crowd. He knew they were selling companies and things like companies to each other, but that was the limit of his understanding. Munahim stopped beside him, making a soft growling sound in his throat.

Fix waded in. “Buying contact to Arash Sehama, five! Buying a meeting with Arash Sehama, six! Buying at seven!”

Traders stared at him. Some kept up their own hurricane of shouts and finger flashes with each other, but others watched and fell silent. A few slunk away, or turned their backs on Fix to continue their business.

“You know me, damn your eyes!” Fix roared. “I’m good for it. Buying a meeting with Arash Sehama, eight!”

Indrajit was pretty sure that the numbers were prices stated in Imperials, the basic coin of Kish. Eight and rising was already a significant amount of money; perhaps he shouldn’t have surrendered to Fix’s insistence that he, Fix, should be the one to handle all their coin. At least Indrajit still had the purse that Ubandar Hakko had given them.

But Indrajit had always been much better at spending money than at making or saving it.

“Buying Arash Sehama, nine!” Fix yelled.

“Selling Arash Sehama, fifty!” roared a surprisingly tall Zalapting. Or maybe he wasn’t a Zalapting after all, since his skin was closer to pink than to lavender, and his snout was half again as long as any Zalapting’s Indrajit had ever seen.

“Fifty, you louse-ridden sack of ylakka fodder, you must be joking!” Fix was manic, waving his arms and jumping up and down. “Buying Arash Sehama, ten!”

Ten Imperials was a lot. They’d done jobs for less than ten Imperials.

“Selling Arash Sehama, fifty!” the tall Zalapting yelled.

Fix emitted a strangled cry. “Fifty?”

“Selling, fifty!” The Zalapting looked smug.

Fix pulled at his own hair. “You all know the bastard! Half of you must be on his payroll! Does no one else here want to make easy money? I don’t mean him any harm, I just want a meeting!”

A copper-skinned Xiba’albi in a wool tunic raised his hand. “Selling Arash Sehama, forty-eight!”

A Fanchee woman, green-skinned and with a mass of tentacles covering her lower face, shouted, “Selling Arash Sehama, forty-five!”

“Buying Arash Sehama, eleven!” Fix howled.

Munahim leaned in to whisper in Indrajit’s ear. “Sometimes, I fear I have come to live in an insane place.”

Indrajit could only laugh.

“Buying, thirteen!” “Selling, forty!” The buying and selling of other things continued, but the knot of sellers around Fix captured Indrajit’s attention. With their enthusiasm, they were yelling the loudest, and finally, the Xiba’albi seller shouted, “Selling Arash Sehama, twenty-three!” and Fix answered, “Buying, twenty-three!”

The Xiba’albi emerged from the crowd and Fix followed him. Fix was sweating and his arms shook.

“It’s a good thing you didn’t become a risk-merchant like you once intended,” Indrajit told his partner. “I think the stress would kill you.”

Fix ignored him and counted out coins to the Xiba’albi. “Take us.”

“I honor all my contracts,” the Xiba’albi said. “Come with me.”

Indrajit cast an eye at the crowd of traders as they walked away. Most resumed their yelling of company and commodity names, but the tall Zalapting crept away, looking over his shoulder at Fix and the Xiba’albi.

The Xiba’albi led them down a single short alley to a tavern. The signboard overhead bore the chipped painted image of a standing Kishi fowl plunging a long talon into the heart of a prone bird. Through the doorway was a common room with broad flagstones comprising the floor and brick walls. Half a dozen tables filled the space and Indrajit smelled eggs frying in butter.

The man behind the counter had a swarthy Yuchak complexion and a beardless Yuchak face, but his sleeveless tunic and kilt were all Kishi, and he was a head taller than the average Yuchak tribesman. The Xiba’albi whispered something to him across the bar, passed him several coins, and left.

“Arash Sehama,” Fix said.

“I’m Yuto Harlee, lowly proprietor of the Fighting Fowl.” The barkeep smiled. “I’ll take you to Sehama in just a minute. My job is to screen out any potential unwanted visitors.”

“We’re not here to harm him,” Indrajit said. “We want to discuss business.”

“We’re here to make an offer,” Fix added.

Harlee leaned forward, resting his elbows on the counter. “An offer . . . from the Lord Chamberlain?”

“He knows who we are,” Munahim said.

“Shh,” Indrajit told him.

“We know who you are,” Harlee said. “The Protagonists. The most unlikely jobber company in Kish, and the one the Lord Chamberlain sends to watch the traders. Now including a dog.”

“A Kyone,” Munahim said.

“Shh,” Indrajit said again. “This is why you are usually backup.”

“I’m just correcting him.”

“You don’t need to say everything you think,” Indrajit said. “Just say things that will actually help us.”

“If you’re here selling protection, I don’t think Sehama is buying.” Harlee smiled blandly. “Or maybe you want to buy some protection.”

“He has something we want,” Fix said. “We’ll pay the fair price.”

“Huh.” Harlee reached below the bar and pulled up three eyeless hoods. “What is this marvelous thing which the servants of the Lord Chamberlain are unable to find on their own, driving them to turn to the notorious Arash Sehama?”

“It’s an object.” Fix pulled one of the hoods on. “It’s of no value to him.”

“That’s clearly not true,” Harlee said. “It’s worth at least as much as you’re willing to pay. And maybe more.”

“Welcome to Kish?” Munahim said. “Is this where I say, ‘Welcome to Kish’?”

“You can,” Indrajit said, “but it’s not especially helpful.” He sighed. “And again, we go somewhere we must enter blind. Why is that?”

Munahim pulled on a hood, and then so did Indrajit.

“I expect it means you go to interesting places,” Harlee said. “I’m going to press a line into your hands. Hold onto it, and we’ll stick together.”

Indrajit felt a knot in a length of rope pressed into his palm and he gripped it. When the cord tugged gently forward, he followed.

He heard a door creak, then stumbled awkwardly down steps. He learned that Munahim was in front of him when the Kyone, who was as tall as Indrajit, smacked his head into a low-hanging ceiling and grunted in pain. Sadly, the distance between them was short enough that Indrajit wasn’t able to take advantage of the warning, and struck his face as well.

“Hey, there are tall men back here,” he grumbled. “Give us a warning, Harlee.”

“Watch out,” Harlee said. “There are more low ceilings ahead.”

Indrajit raised one hand before his face and slowed his pace. He tugged a little on the rope and slowed them down, but he was able to feel the other dangers coming and avoided being struck again.

They descended twice more. Kish was an old city, built on succeeding layers of ruins that dated back thousands of years, with no former incarnation of the city ever having been swept away. That meant that, wherever one traveled in Kish, one stood atop a many-leveled warren of ruins, caves, sewers, tunnels, and forgotten buildings. The whole was sometimes referred to as Underkish. In the Paper Sook in particular, Indrajit and Fix had more than once had occasion to use shortcuts through Underkish, or through the Undersook, devised by the Sook merchants themselves, which cut across the uppermost of those buried levels. Those shortcuts, which allowed the traders to do business, visit banks, or escape annoying creditors quickly and secretly, connected many of the Sook’s businesses at the basement level.

Indrajit hadn’t counted the steps—which he regretted as soon as it occurred to him—but he thought they were roughly two levels below the basement level.

He heard running water. “Am I going to step into a pond?”

“Not if you walk straight forward,” Harlee said.

He stopped when Munahim stopped, banging his nose against the back of the Kyone’s head. Unseen hands patted him down and then took away Vacho.

“I’m letting them take my sword and bow,” Munahim announced.

“We’re cooperating,” Indrajit agreed. “We’re all friends.”

They walked forward again, crossing a low arch that felt like a bridge. A damp, cold breeze blasted them briefly, and then they were standing still again. “Go ahead and remove the hoods,” Harlee said.

They stood in a long, narrow hall. A brick arcade ran up each long side of the hall, to their left and right. Ahead of them, five steps on the left climbed up to a low brick platform. In the center of the platform, with a blazing multiarmed candlestick to either side, sat a heavy throne.

Behind him, Indrajit heard breathing and the shifting of feet. With his excellent peripheral vision, and turning his head only very slightly, he could see that the hall behind him was in shadow, and contained many men in cloaks, with their hoods up.

Sprawled on the throne was another cloaked and hooded figure. The skin of his hands and forearms, and the tip of a long snout poking out of the cloak’s hood, were all that showed of the figure, and they were all bright yellow. The cloak, as well as the figure’s tunic, trousers, and soft boots, were all a mousy gray color. A plain iron disk hung from an iron chain around the figure’s neck.

“I’m Arash Sehama,” the man on the throne said. “What do you want? More to the point, why shouldn’t I save myself a lot of trouble and just kill you now?”


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