She peered through the open door. “You brought all your stuff.”
“Yeah. Well.”
She seemed to understand without me having to say anything, because she stepped away, her knife disappearing. Benny and Sereh had probably been expecting this day for a long time. No point in feeling humiliated about it. I had plenty of other things to feel humiliated about.
I waved the carter and his assistant to start carrying things in. Sereh watched closely until they were done.
When they were gone, I turned to Sereh. “I think I’ve got a lead. Why don’t you tag along?” I could hardly leave her here when Benny thought she was safe at Mica’s, and I didn’t have any way to force her to go back. In the day, in public, and in the better parts of town, we should be safe. Well, as long as I didn’t bump into the City Watch or Captain Gale, but what was I going to do? I couldn’t hide forever.
It took us almost three quarters of an hour to walk from Benny’s house to the Estimable Sunstone’s office, keeping away from patrols and to the safety of crowds, and I filled Sereh in on the connection I had found between Sunstone and Silkstar on our way over. By the time we reached the office, the city was in full swing and the streets were crowded, noisy, and already hot.
This part of Agatos, not far from the Sunstone house, was dominated by office buildings and banks. The big deals that made and broke fortunes might take place in Nuil’s coffee house, and most merchants employed factotums down by the docks, but this was the dry paper heart of Agatos, where scribes and clerks controlled trading empires with the scratch of their long pens. The Estimable Sunstone’s office was far from the most imposing, but it held its own, like an aggressive terrier in a pack of elegant sheepdogs. Bright red shutters and door and a golden ram’s head jutting out over the street made it unmissable. It was the same ram’s head I had seen over the doors in the Sunstone house and as a doorknocker on the entrance.
Sereh and I settled at a table under the eaves of the coffee house opposite Sunstone’s office. I ordered an overpriced, spiced coffee to keep me awake and milk for Sereh, and waited.
A steady stream of clerks flowed in and out of the office throughout the morning in a state of controlled anxiety, like honeybees that had woken a month too early and discovered the snow hadn’t yet melted. Although, in this case, if Elosyn’s information was correct, they were too late, and Sunstone’s business was long gone. These clerks would be looking for new jobs before Missos was done. If the murder-ghosts had been Sunstone’s plan to get his contracts back, I had done away with it in a spectacular act of exorcism. I couldn’t bring myself to feel guilty, and Depths, the Sunstones had been the ones to employ me. Sunstone was almost killed by that thing himself, I reminded myself. But how close was he to the real person behind this, and what was his role in the set-up, exactly? Why was that thing in his house at all?
The morning wore on. I treated myself to more coffee and both of us to pastries that looked better than they tasted. They weren’t a patch on what Elosyn had given me that morning.
“What exactly are we doing, Uncle Nik?” Sereh asked, as we finished our pastries. She wasn’t the kind of kid who fiddled and fidgeted, but I could see the tension in her body.
“Waiting to see what he gets up to,” I said.
“Why don’t we just go in and ask him?” she said, fingers playing over her blade.
“Because he won’t tell us, and even if he does, you can never be sure that what he tells you when you use … that … will be the truth.” Sunstone could be both entirely innocent and ignorant, even if he was an obnoxious bastard.
Sereh sighed and slumped forwards onto her violin case on the table. “This is boring.”
“That’s what this job is,” I said. “A whole lot of boring and a tiny bit of occasional terror.”
“Dad says his job isn’t boring.”
“Yeah, well. I don’t suppose it is.” And look where it had got us all.
I didn’t know if it was too much coffee or my awareness of how my time was slipping away, but I was growing increasingly nervous as I waited. Perhaps it was the chair. Rather like the pastries, it looked better than it actually was, and my arse was getting sore. I squirmed and worried and drank coffee, while Sereh sat unnaturally still, fingers resting on her knife.
Sometime just before lunch, when I was seriously contemplating getting up, going over to the office, and smashing shit up, like Sereh had suggested — but with more destruction and less torture — the Estimable Sunstone emerged. He glanced nervously around, totally failing to spot us, like a complete amateur, then turned down the Royal Highway towards the docks. I let him get twenty yards ahead, until he had almost disappeared into the press of bodies, carts, and caravan trains, then got up and followed.
Sunstone hurried along until we came within sight of Matra’s Needle, the jutting pillar that rose a hundred and fifty feet above Paravar Square and which, the Senate had been forced to proclaim officially several times, was in absolutely no way phallic. I had guessed that Sunstone was heading to the docks, maybe to drum up some desperately needed business, but before he reached them, he took a left on Long Step Avenue into the Grey City.
Now, this was interesting. I couldn’t think of a single legitimate reason for someone like the Estimable Sunstone to visit the Grey City. Those of us who made their home there (until this morning, at least) didn’t do it for the great view or the delightful company. We did it because it was affordable and, hey, at least it wasn’t the Warrens. When, five years ago, I had realised my funds would only stretch to an office and apartment in the Grey City, I had been careful to choose Feldspar Plaza, which abutted the Royal Highway, so that potential clients wouldn’t be scared off by having to come too far into the neighbourhood. There was certainly no profit to be made here for the likes of Sunstone. So, why was he here?
“And where the Depths am I going to meet my clients now?” I muttered.
“Not really your biggest problem at the moment,” I replied.
“Are you talking to yourself, Uncle Nik?”
“No.” I blushed. I had never had this problem when I wasn’t being accompanied by eleven-year-old kids.
Sunstone was up to something, and he didn’t want to be seen.
Too late. I’m on to you. On to what exactly, well, we would find that out.
He was growing nervous, glancing over his shoulder to see if anyone was following, but he had no idea what he was doing, and I had trailed enough people in my time. He didn’t see us.
Even more oddly, his destination didn’t seem to be the Grey City, either. Once we had crossed the Tide Bridge over the Erastes River and passed through the eastern half of the Grey City, the valley wall rose quickly, and we entered the part of Agatos known as the Stacks. Here, the whitewashed houses piled almost on top of each other, like miniature, squared-off mountains, a geometrical echo of the Ependhos range behind them. Brightly painted doors and shutters dotted the plain white walls.
I had always felt at home in the Stacks. Agatos was a port. Immigrants from across the Yttradian Sea and from the northern cities — white skinned Brythanii refugees, sailors, merchants, and travellers from Corithia, Myceda, Tor, Dhaja, and Malaru, or Khorasan, Rannoni, and Pentatha — found themselves ensnared in the fine net that was Agatos. Those who couldn’t afford the Upper City but managed to avoid the Warrens ended up in the Stacks.
I hadn’t known my father, and my mother coldly refused to tell me anything about him, but I could see my own face in the mirror. I knew he must have been from somewhere like Secellia or Tor. Maybe he had been someone who had lived in the Stacks. Certainly, I had a face that fit in better here than in the rest of Agatos. Sometimes I thought I was drawn to the Stacks because that part of my heritage was such a blank, as though I could become more me by a simple process of osmosis. It was hard to explain if you hadn’t been in that situation.
Sunstone wasn’t here to explore some lost part of his ancestry, though. He was Agatos through and throu
gh, with forebears right back to before the time of Agate Blackspear.
I let myself fall back another dozen yards. There were fewer people on the steep, switchback streets, it was easier to be spotted, and Sunstone couldn’t be far from his destination. The only place beyond the Stacks was High Karraka, and I was damned sure he wasn’t going there. I watched him carefully, ready to step into the shadows if he showed any signs of turning around. I wasn’t worried about Sereh being seen. No one ever noticed her if she didn’t want them to. Bearing in mind that she had all the magical power of a rock, that kind of pissed me off.
We continued like this for several blocks, Sunstone panting his heavy way up, me limping behind on my sore ankle, twitchy as a rock squirrel, and Sereh sliding anonymously beside me, as unnoticed as smoke at midnight.
We followed another switchback between tall, white houses, and then I heard a quiet whistle ahead. If I hadn’t been on edge, I properly wouldn’t have picked it out from the noises of the city, but stalking a target through the streets left me coiled tight enough to explode. I would make a terrible assassin. It was a good thing I was so alert, though, because I was already stepping out of sight when Sunstone looked around.
With the blazing sun and all these white walls, it was difficult to see anyone in the shadows. Behind a small potted cypress tree, I was essentially invisible.
When Sunstone thought he wasn’t being watched, he hurried across to a narrow passageway between two houses.
And now the sun’s glare was working against me.
Sunstone stopped in the entrance to the passageway. I could see there was someone waiting there, someone — presumably — he had come here to meet, but I couldn’t make them out.
“Can you see who that is?” I whispered. Maybe Sereh’s younger eyes could pierce the gloom. But no such luck. She shook her head.
Whoever it was, Sunstone wasn’t happy with them. The more they talked, the more animated he became, throwing his arms in the air, jabbing his finger at the hidden figure. The other person didn’t seem intimidated.
After a couple of minutes, Sunstone threw his arms up again, spun on his heel, and strode back down the hill. I reached out a hand to hold back Sereh, who clearly wasn’t intending to go anywhere, anyway. It made me feel like I was in charge here.
Sunstone strode past our hiding place without glancing our way. His face had darkened, more from anger than exertion, I thought.
“Should we follow him?” Sereh asked.
“No. We can find him any time. I want to see who he was meeting.”
A couple of minutes passed, and I was starting to wonder if whoever it was had slipped away down the passageway, when a figure stepped out from the dark.
The first thing I recognised was the mage’s cloak. Must be fucking hot, I thought, randomly. Then, as the figure turned our way, I saw her face. I took an involuntary step back. I knew that woman. Depths, she had kicked the shit out of me twice.
Mother’s pet mage, Enne Lowriver.
I swore, then seeing Sereh peering up at me with those expressionless blue eyes, added, “Sorry.”
“Is she the one to blame for what’s happening to my dad?”
I grimaced. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
The knife was in Sereh’s hand again. I still didn’t know how she did that.
“Shall we kill her?”
“What? Depths. Sorry. No. We need to know if she’s really responsible.”
If Lowriver was involved, if she was the power controlling the ghost-beast, and she was also the Countess’s acolyte, then that led to a much more disturbing question, for me at least: had I been set up by my own Depths-cursed mother?
Chapter Twenty-One
I had always known that if I got in the Countess’s way she would crush me, but I had never imagined she would make it her mission. Setting me and Benny up had taken effort. The Countess might feel nothing but contempt for me, but to go out of her way like this? Why? Was I genuinely that much of an embarrassment? And if she really were behind it, wouldn’t Mica know? Mica would never let it happen. We might have grown apart, but you didn’t turn on your siblings. You just didn’t.
Unless Mica’s position in the Countess’s household was less secure than I had imagined. Was Enne Lowriver edging Mica out as heir? It wasn’t like my mother didn’t have a history of that with her kids.
I indicated to Sereh to follow the mage, then hung back. I might have been able to follow Sunstone without being noticed, but I didn’t know enough about this mage to risk doing the same with her. She wouldn’t spot Sereh, though. I waited until Sereh was almost out of sight, then followed in her wake.
Lowriver didn’t head back down to the city. She moved further into the Stacks, turning into the maze of side streets. I lost sight of her almost immediately, but I was sure Sereh wouldn’t.
I came around another corner and almost walked into Sereh. Her hand grabbed me, and she pulled me into a doorway. Up ahead, Lowriver had stopped at the door of a rundown house. The whitewash on the walls hadn’t been refreshed for a couple of years at least, and the blue paint was peeling from the shutters and door. All of the houses on this street were in similar states of disrepair.
Why would one of the Countess’s mages be up here?
Lowriver removed a key from a pocket under her cloak and, with a glance around, fitted it into the lock and let herself in.
I tried to exchange a look with Sereh, but her gaze was fixed unwaveringly on the house.
Was this where Lowriver lived? It couldn’t be. She was a mage — a favoured one. There was only one mage in Agatos stupid enough to exist in poverty, and that was me. Lowriver should live in a mansion, or a grand townhouse, at least. New mages, or the Countess’s lower ranked acolytes, were given apartments in her palace.
We waited five minutes, but the mage didn’t emerge, and eventually we were going to be noticed here.
With a touch, I indicated to Sereh that we should slip away. There was something very odd about this, and I only knew one person who would give me the answers I needed without demanding some ridiculous price or trying to kill me: my little sister, Mica.
It was finally time to pay her a visit.
Mica owned a large house that took up a third of one side of Highstar Plaza, complete with square columns along the front and two statues of dogs in the Mycedan-tat style flanking an entrance big enough to drive a couple of carts through, side by side, if you could get them up the marble steps. It was tacky, there were no two ways about it, and, no, I wasn’t jealous. I did have to admit that it fitted in with the rest of the properties of the wealthy in this part of Agatos. It certainly put the Sunstones’ house to shame.
I had never visited Mica here; when I had left, she had still been living with the Countess. But I had ‘accidentally’ passed it by a few times to check it out and think envious thoughts.
If I had proved one thing over the last five years, it was that making a living as a mage was a crappy job. Maybe in another city or country, without the Ash Guard breathing down their backs, mages could hire themselves out to kill people or just blast their way into banks and help themselves. All you would have to do was be some untouchable motherfucker with no conscience, and you could have your own dark tower or evil lair. Everyone would have to do whatever you wanted. I had heard stories like that from across the Yttradian Sea. But then, you shouldn’t believe everything you read in the newspapers.
Whatever the truth of it, in Agatos, mages had to be more circumspect if they wanted to make a living. Making money was tough.
For most.
I guessed no one had told the Wren, Carnelian Silkstar, or my blessed mother.
The Wren’s model was the simplest. Anything crooked, dirty, or sleazy went through him. You either worked for him directly or you paid a tithe, like Benny and my former landlord. No one was going to challenge a high mage for King of the Underworld.
Silkstar was more legitimate. He dealt in commerce, contracts, and trade. There
was no particular reason why a high mage should dominate trade … except there were storms on the Yttradian Sea, bandits on the Lidharan Road, and plenty of enterprising gentlemen and women in Agatos ready to help themselves to cargo from ship or caravan. If you wanted to be absolutely certain your goods got through, you gave the contract to Silkstar. It was a gamble: take Silkstar’s deal and his guarantee, or save money and take the risk. The Estimable Sunstone wasn’t the first merchant to find themselves shouldered out. And I wasn’t the only person to wonder if some of those bandits and ocean storms originated in Thousand Walls.
And then there was my mother, the Countess, the esteemed Senator Coldrock. Mother had entered politics, and it hadn’t taken her long to dominate the Agatos Senate. More than crime and more than commerce, politics was dominated by favours, greed, and self-enriching deals. A high mage could offer the kind of favours no one else could, and soon city contracts were flowing the Countess’s way. Need a new quarry opening up? A powerful enough mage — or a team of more ordinary mages — could bring a good chunk of mountainside down in conveniently sized blocks in a single afternoon. Powerful wards on a Senate building or half a hundred private palaces? Who would you turn to but the woman who, in effect, ran the Senate?
It was all as corrupt as fuck. Mica, as one of the Countess’s most powerful mages, found a good chunk of that work and money flowing her way.
There was a reason one of us lived in a palace, while the other had been kicked out of his shitty apartment.
Ah, well. I had — kind of — known what I was choosing, and I had no one to blame but myself. I straightened, tried to look confident, and strode across the plaza.
My little sister was too important to answer her own door, but once we’d got past a couple of footmen and a nervous but belligerent apprentice mage, Sereh and I were shown to Mica in a small, shaded courtyard draped with more honeysuckle and jasmine than was strictly necessary. A small pool with a half-hearted fountain dribbled in the centre.
Shadow of a Dead God: A Mennik Thorn Novel Page 25
