“As I understand it, boss, the incident didn’t occur in a single night, but rather a single dice game that lasted for two and a half days.”
Vergun swallowed his food. “That’s very precise, Castor. Thank you. That’s why I always jump at the chance to hire disgraced members of the Horellian Guard—you’ve lost your moral bastion, but retained your eye for detail. What’s the saying about Horellians? Twice the size of a widow, and almost half as dangerous?”
The mention of Castor’s past made him cringe. “I don’t like comparing the two, boss.”
“Why not?”
Castor shrugged. “Never had much use for generalizations is all. I’ll leave the clever adages to the tavern dwellers who piss themselves at the sight of widows and Horellians both.”
“Mm.” Vergun smiled. He tapped the side of his temple with the dagger. “Continue.”
“There was a stranger who arrived earlier this week. Method and vessel unknown. There are reports that he spoke with a Balarian accent, but others say it was Ghalamarian. And others still insist it was Lysterian. The physical descriptions of the man are oddly varied as well—some say he was tall, others short. There are reports of a mole on his face that seems to travel from his chin to his forehead with alarming alacrity for a skin condition.”
“Skin condition,” Vergun repeated, as if the words were the key to some locked door in his mind. “What next?”
“Well, the rest is pretty simple, actually. The man was gambling with Balarian bank credits. He lost seven thousand gold to various patrons whilst playing dice over the course of many hours. At that point, he declared himself bankrupt and asked Tom for a loan that was twice the value of the coin he’d lost. The stranger even volunteered to eat a twenty-percent interest rate on repayment, should it become necessary. Tom was all too happy to agree to these terms, despite the fact that this put him in a position where his entire vault was leveraged.”
Vergun sucked on his teeth. “And I assume there was a winning streak in this stranger’s near future.”
“An unbroken one.” Castor took a breath. “And with dice, that only means one thing.”
“He was cheating.”
“Yes, boss.”
Vergun tapped his index finger against the massive knife. “Why didn’t someone kill him?”
“Things happened very quickly after the streak. It seems the man had a beast of burden ready to relieve Tom of his stores in such short order that nobody thought to murder the man before he was in and out of the vault.”
“And where is this man now?”
Castor cleared his throat. “He disappeared.”
Vergun continued tapping his knife for a few more seconds—staring at his meat.
“And the Papyrian?”
Castor shifted. That had been the crap icing on shit cake. A goatfuck within a goatfuck.
“He hanged himself in the vault sometime during the confusion.”
“How does a man who is fully restrained and in possession of less than half of his fingers procure and tie a noose, then strangle himself with it?”
The Papyrian man who’d been imprisoned within Tumbler Tom’s vault was an interesting piece of business. Apparently, he was some well-informed minister in the Papyrian government with a head full of state secrets and military intelligence. Vergun had bought him from a crew of corsairs with plans to torture him for information, then sell that intelligence to the highest bidder at an extreme markup. It was a complicated and indirect method of generating coin, but an extremely effective one. One of the reasons that Horellian guards and widows existed was to prevent this kind of thing from happening. But there were always occasional foul-ups.
“Dunno, boss. Tom was managing the situation.”
“Yes. Where is Tumbler Tom?” Vergun asked, voice soft with suppressed rage.
“Just outside. Figured you’d want a word.”
“No,” Vergun said. “Just cut his throat on your way out and dump him overboard.”
“Over fourteen thousand gold?”
“I don’t give a shit about the gold that Tom lost in his rat-infested establishment. But that Papyrian’s secrets were worth hundreds of thousands, and he lynched himself before turning over a single shred of a valuable information.” Vergun cursed. “Tom’s stupidity has spoiled a major investment, so I do not want to see Tom ever again. Kill him and get rid of his body.”
Castor’s stomach tightened. He’d learned the hard way that there was nothing to be gained from questioning Vallen Vergun once he’d decided to end a life. And voicing doubt over the decision’s wisdom was an easy way to lose one of your own fingers, ears, or even tongue.
“Understood, boss.”
He waited to be dismissed, but Vergun failed to give the perfunctory hand wave that meant he was finished. Instead, he looked out the small aft window, red eyes distant and unreadable.
“I am sick of this nonsense,” Vergun muttered.
“What nonsense?”
“Making investments. Idiots allowing those investments to hang themselves. The endless smuggling of opium into Burz-al-dun in exchange for the dregs of dragon oil. It’s … uninteresting.”
Vergun was one of the most powerful and wealthy men in Taggarstan, and he was bored? Castor didn’t know what to say to that, so he kept his trap shut.
“What about Silas Bershad?” Vergun asked. “Any information?”
Vergun always asked him about the legendary dragonslayer. Castor required every last drop of his soldier’s discipline to avoid glancing to his right, where the heads of Liofa and Devan sat in pickled jars. Castor had been in Taggarstan when Borgon—the drunk riverboat captain who’d taken the crippled Bershad into Balaria—had returned with the severed heads of Vergun’s lieutenants.
Apparently, Bershad hadn’t been quite so crippled as previously thought. He murdered Devan and Liofa, along with a large number of their smuggling contacts in Burz-al-dun. Then Bershad sent Borgon back with the heads and a message that he was coming for Vergun. No specifics on when that’d happen, though.
Vergun had been so angry that he set one of his own ships on fire while a large number of his crew were still inside. Most got out, but not everyone. Vergun had vowed to keep the heads while he waited for Bershad. Saying he would make him eat their pickled brains before killing him.
“Actually, yes.”
Vergun’s red eyes snapped back to Castor. “Why didn’t you start with that?”
“Word came in late last night. And with Tumbler Tom’s whole situation—”
“Forget it. Tell me.”
Castor blew out a breath. “The Madman sent word down the canal. Said that he had an … interaction with Bershad while he was in Balaria, and knows where he’ll turn up next.”
“Where?”
“Osyrus says that information has a price.”
“I see. And what does the royal engineer of Balaria want in exchange?”
“The three best killers you have sent up to Burz-al-dun for a wet job. Said that if it works out, he’ll come down and give you the information personally.”
Vergun was quiet for a moment.
“Send him Gyle and those Lysterian twins.”
“Rike and Wun.”
“Whatever.” Vergun smiled at Castor. “You’re my best, Castor, but you stay with me. Those three will suffice for whatever mischief the Madman has in mind.”
Castor agreed that those three weren’t as good as him. Nobody in Taggarstan was. But they were about as vicious and competent as Vergun had among his ranks of criminals and enforcers, which were growing by the day. Last Castor checked, Vergun had nine hundred and seven men on his payroll. Almost a proper legion. There were whispers that he was rebuilding Wormwrot, his old mercenary outfit. Just hadn’t said it out loud yet. Given his complaints of boredom, the rumors just might be true.
“I’m on it,” Castor said.
Vergun nodded. Finally dismissed him with a wave.
Castor drew his sword and went
to see about Tumbler Tom.
12
VERA
Balaria, Burz-al-dun, Imperial Palace
Vera had been attending the feasts and celebrations of royalty ever since she first came to Almira as an eighteen-year-old widow. She’d become accustomed to standing guard while enough food to feed an entire village of peasants for a week was served to a few scores of highborns. They’d eat their fill, then cast aside the ample leftovers so they could continue drinking and dancing and—in Almira, depending on the crowd and the moon phase—engage in a sweaty orgy.
But the galas that Ganon Domitian threw nearly every night in the name of Aeternita, the Balarian time god, put even the most opulent Almiran feast to shame.
There were three statues of Aeternita in the room, each one made from a different metal—gold, silver, copper. Each statue was packed with so many synchronized clocks that passing by them felt like listening to a metallic heartbeat. Where Almirans favored dark rooms and earthy smells, everything in this room was brightly lit by freshly polished dragon-oil lanterns. Strange contraptions shaped like massive beehives filled the corners of the room and wafted aromatic steam in different flavors. Pine. Lavender. Peach.
While the metal decorations were unfamiliar, the food was not. Vera recognized the pineapple, rice, and salted pork from the fields and harvests and slaughterhouses of Almira. So did Kira.
“It’s a disgrace,” she muttered.
“Empress?” Vera asked.
“They’ve taken it all for themselves,” Kira continued. “Every ship that came back from Almira brought their plunder directly to the palace, where it’s been stockpiled. No rations made it to the slums or the working districts, and half of what’s here won’t even be touched tonight.”
“This is what you expected, though. Correct?”
“I didn’t think there would be enough for all districts, but I did think they would at least attempt to feed the hungry. But to take it all for themselves. It’s unforgivable.”
“I agree.”
To their right, Ganon was pointing and laughing at a clockwork automaton spider that Osyrus had brought to the gala. Its metal limbs creaked and whined as it walked. Steam sprayed from a vent tube in the center of its body.
“A metal pest!” Ganon shouted, cheeks red and eyes full of drunken excitement. He motioned for a nearby Horellian guard to hand over his automatic crossbow. “And like all pests, it must be squished.”
Ganon squeezed the trigger. Held it down. Four bolts tore into the spider in rapid succession. One bounced off the automaton’s armor and skittered into the crowd, forcing a skinny minister who was wearing seven bracelets to duck for cover—his jewelry spraying across the floor. The other three bolts punctured the metal core. The spider limped and stumbled in a disturbingly natural series of death throes, then crashed onto the floor with a steel shudder.
The repeating crossbow was another one of Osyrus Ward’s inventions. Actus Thorn complained that they jammed too frequently to be used in combat, but apparently Osyrus had recently designed a new model that was far more reliable.
“The pest is slain!” Ganon shouted. People around him smiled and cheered. Applauded. “What do you think, my muddy wife? Shall I get a spider tattooed to my arm?”
“If you wish, my dearest husband.”
Kira kept a smile plastered on her face until Ganon’s attention was snatched away by a servant arriving with pork buns and another bottle of bubbled wine.
“I am married to a child,” Kira muttered in Almiran, low enough so that only Vera could hear. “A beautiful, fully grown infant. Gods.”
She glared out at the gala for a few moments in brooding silence. Then stood.
“Well, if my husband is going to drink and shoot automatons all night, then I will have to do the real work myself.”
“Which is?” Vera asked, standing as well.
Kira just smiled, then strode into the thick of the gala.
“Minister Ato,” she said, switching to Balarian and greeting the pudgy man with a warm smile. “How is your wife recovering from her illness?”
The minister bowed. “Quite well, Empress. I must thank you for the alchemist that you sent to us. But I am curious, how did you—”
“I spoke at great length with one of Lady Ato’s dear friends at a gala earlier this week, and she informed me of her ailment. I could not sit idly by and do nothing! I am so glad to hear that she is doing better.”
“Yes. Much better.”
Kira leaned in close. “Although, now that she’s recovered, I fear that your hobby may suffer.”
“My hobby?” Ato asked. “Whatever do you mean?”
“I’m referring to the orgies you secretly attend in the basement of Lochmoran Hall, Minister Ato. I believe you visited fifteen times last month. Certainly that level of attendance qualifies as a hobby.”
“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ato stammered.
Neither did Vera. She couldn’t watch Kira every hour of every day, but she was quite certain that the empress had not been to an orgy since she’d arrived in Balaria. She had certainly not been to fifteen of them in the last month.
“Oh, yes. I forget such things are taboo in Burz-al-dun. In my country, it’s the people who forgo such delights that become pariahs. Isn’t it strange how different two cultures can become just from the separation of a tiny little sea?”
Kira taunted Ato with a wriggling index finger. Ato looked like he was about to shit himself.
“Of course, from what I hear, there’s nothing tiny about you, Minister Ato.” Kira nibbled the tip of her finger. “I heard a rave review from Mistress Brazar.”
Vera wasn’t as good with Balarian socialites as Kira, but she knew Mistress Brazar because she was—according to the rumors—expected to be engaged to Actus Thorn within the month.
“Mistress Brazar? But I never—”
“She was the one in the red fox mask, last time. Tell me, do you always do that thing with your tongue, or is it only on special occasions? Don’t you get tired after a while having it all twisted up inside—”
“Empress! Please. Please stop talking.” Ato shook his head, jowls wriggling. “I beg you. I had no idea that was Mistress Brazar in the mask.”
“Relax, Ato. Relax. It’ll be our little secret.”
She put a hand on his chest, which caused Ato to jerk backward so fast he nearly fell over. Kira closed the distance again like a cat.
“But shared secrets are precious commodities. I would be foolish to keep such a big one for free.”
Ato’s face hardened. He was a minister, so he recognized Kira’s prelude to extortion. “Anything. Name it.”
“Velesar Nun is going to approach you tomorrow and ask for a seal permit for Fort Edgemar, with administrative access to all areas. You are going to give it to him.”
“Edgemar? On the Lysterian front? That is highly unusual—regulations do not permit that level of access to anyone except for Echelon One officials. Nun is Echelon Three. They’ll never approve—”
“They approve it, or Actus Thorn finds out where your tongue has been traveling.”
Ato’s left temple was pulsing. His cheeks were purple. “I’ll figure something out,” he croaked.
“I am confident that you will. Velesar will come to you first thing tomorrow, so you best leave and start the figuring-out right now.”
After Ato stumbled away, Vera grabbed Kira by the arm and pulled her close.
“Ki, how did you know all of that?”
“Oh. I found a chambermaid who shares a likeness with Mistress Brazar and paid her to attend their sad excuse for a proper orgy in a red fox mask. Apparently, she had a wonderful time, which surprised me. I’ve been screwing highborns my whole life, and I’ve never met one who wasn’t selfish in bed.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Not sure I believe you, Vera. But that’s a conversation for another night. Velesar Nun is right over there, and turning the corner o
n his third drink. The perfect time to strike.”
Before Vera had time to ask more questions or restrain her very young, bold charge, Kira had crossed the room and attracted Nun’s attention with a light touch to his forearm.
“Minister Nun, good evening. Are you enjoying yourself tonight?”
“Insomuch as one can enjoy a useless event,” the minister replied, keeping form with the military’s outlook on Ganon’s numerous and lavish celebrations.
“I know. My husband’s a fucking moron.”
Nun’s eyes widened. Suddenly, she had his attention.
“Are you surprised by my candor, Nun?”
“I suppose I shouldn’t be,” Nun replied, suppressing his momentary vulnerability. “Your people have a reputation for barbaric manners.”
“We do,” Kira agreed. “But having now spent time on both sides of the Soul Sea, I can say that surface-level manners are the only real difference. In your hearts, you Balarians are just as wild and devious as Almirans. You just cloak yourselves in false, polite skin.”
“Cloak ourselves,” Nun repeated. “What does that mean, exactly?”
“Where to start? You call us a country of muddy warlords, but a third of your empire is currently rebelling against you and forcing a bloody, vicious conflict. You say we live in the wilds and subsist like animals, and yet Balarians had to steal my homeland’s harvest last month in order to keep the so-called civilized lords fed. Meanwhile, the slum districts go hungry and more rebellion foments.” Kira paused. Lowered her voice. “And on a personal level, your spouse plays the part of pious, dutiful wife to you. But I know for a fact that she has been screwing Grakus Flay every Monday for the last three years.”
Nun’s jaw tightened. “Liar.”
“Monday at eleven thirty? Is she typically in your presence at that time?”
More jaw clenching.
“My wife has a standing appointment with her sister for tea on Mondays.”
“She has an appointment for something, but tea is not involved. Nor is her sister, to my knowledge. But who knows?”
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