Fortune's Fool (Eterean Empire Book 1)

by Angela Boord

  “Just information.” I dart Razi a glance and then add, “I’m tracking somebody.”

  “In that temple?” Razi frowns vaguely and gestures toward the statue of Erelf with his head. “That complicates things, doesn’t it?”

  Nibas looks at my arm. “No offense, Kyris, but if I were you, I’d think twice about that job.”

  I have thought twice about the job since this morning, and now I’m even more determined to blow a few holes in Cassis—at least one of them for Vadz. I haven’t told them about Vadz yet, and it doesn’t look like they know. The smoke has loosened my tongue, but instead of talking, I stick the pipe in my mouth and inhale deeply.

  Blowing smoke, I say, “Somebody doesn’t want me to find the person I’ve been hired to track.”

  “Somebody from the temple?”

  “Somebody maybe using magic. I don’t know if they were from the temple or not. Does the temple hire Qalfans?”

  Razi frowns. “Not that I know of. You were attacked by a Qalfan? The Qalfan from the Lady?”

  “I’m not sure it’s the same person. I caught him in a silk warehouse but he got away. I think he used magic to do it.” I tap out my ashes. “I know you’ve been asking around, Razi. Did you find out anything?”

  Razi arches his eyebrow. “You told me it was your business.”

  “He wore his cutlasses Dakkaran-style. And fought like one of your brothers.”

  “A Nezar?” Razi looks surprised. He smokes for a moment, thinking, then says, “Well, lucky for you I did ask around. And I might know someone like the man you’re talking about. But he didn’t come up through the Quarter, and I don’t think he’s working for the Sere. All I’ve heard are rumors, really.”

  I lean forward. “What kind of rumors?”

  “You’re talking about that Prinze guardsman,” Nibas says suddenly.

  Prinze guardsman?

  Fucking hells.

  I bring my arm down on the table too hard and it clanks against the wood. Both Nibas and Razi look at me.

  “Ah,” Nibas says. “You’ve got a grudge against the Prinze, don’t you?”

  “Tell me the rumors,” I say.

  Razi shrugs. “A couple of my brothers were working a job providing protection for a kacin merchant. One of them intercepted information that the cargo was being targeted by Amoran smugglers. The merchant passed the information on to the Prinze, and they loaned him a man. He was veiled and wore cutlasses, fought like the very spirit of a sword, but at the end of the night…”

  Razi turns toward the big statue of Erelf, looking troubled.

  Nibas puts down his own pipe. “Razi. Brother. You know those men like to tell stories. It gets bigger in the telling. Like Kyris’s arm.”

  “I appreciate you bringing my arm into it, Nibas. It’s got nothing to do with my arm.”

  “It’s the same as your arm. The first time I saw you use that arm, it was terrifying. But not so much the second time. By the third fight, Tirello had made it part of our regular strategy, and by the fourth, we were using you to win bets.”

  “What in all the hells did that Prinze guard do?”

  Razi taps more of the sweetweed mixture into his pipe. “Things went bad. The Amorans had some kind of potion, gave off a poisonous smoke. The Prinze fighter, whoever he was, made a sign with the sword and…”

  Razi looks a little sick. He’s had a lot of sweetweed, but I don’t think that’s the reason for his expression.

  “And?”

  He faces me, all the handsome good humor erased from his face. “The poison became a rain of knives. May the Magnificent Sun witness every word I am telling you, this is what my brothers said. It can’t be true and yet they said it. The knives rained down on the Amorans and shredded them, head to toe.”

  I don’t know what kind of Fixer could turn poison into a rain of knives, but if he’s chasing me because he’s on the Prinze payroll, I need that magicked weapon even more.

  I pump Nibas and Razi for more information on the Prinze before I lay my pipe down and stand up. The world has an extra spin to it and I put my hands back down on the table, trying to make sure the wine I’ve drunk is going to stay put.

  Watching me hesitate, Nibas says, “Having second thoughts about going to see that god?”

  I’ve got third and fourth thoughts about going anywhere near that god, but I’m not going to get caught out again, especially when I go to meet Jon tomorrow. I give Nibas a short, cynical laugh to pass it off. “I’ve got to piss. When I see you two again, I’ll have so much coin, we’ll be able to melt it down and smoke it if we want to.”

  Razi rises unsteadily. “We’ve got nothing to do tonight, Nibas. Why don’t we go with him?”

  “Into Erelf’s temple?” Nibas looks skeptical.

  “What, are you two my bodyguards now?”

  “I’m just thinking I’ve never had a magician. Can they use magic in bed?” Razi grins. “I think I need my cock Fixed.”

  “By all the gods, Razi, can’t you ever keep it in your pants? I’m on a job.”

  “I’m on a job too,” he says. “It’s just for myself. I’m back on duty in two days.”

  Nibas sighs. “I guess if Razi’s going, I have to see his sorry ass back home.”

  Damn. All I wanted was information, not for them to come with me. This is why I didn’t tell them about Vadz.

  “I don’t need help.”

  Razi leans toward me, looking serious but not more sober. “I want to see this Qalfan who’s following you,” he says. “If he’s one of my brothers, I want to know about it. Tell him to lay off.” He flips one of my curls and gives me his grin.

  A smoked Razi has no preference for gender. I found that out some months ago. He has no idea if I’m male or female and he doesn’t care.

  I shove him backward. “I can take care of myself, Razi.”

  “I know that. But if he’s a Nezar using magic…that’s not the same as one of your magicians in the marketplace, selling truthtelling. That’s poison knives, Kyris. That’s why our magicians were bound long ago.”

  He has no idea who he’s talking to. But it’s like Arsenault used to say: people see what they want to see.

  And the smoke and the wine are making me dizzy. All I want is to get in and out, and maybe if Nibas and Razi come with me, it will hide me better. Maybe I can get them set with lovers for the night and out of my way and safe.

  “All right. But we’re in and out. Just to the market, not to the altar. If that Qalfan shows up, we’re not engaging to kill, because I want to talk to him, all right?”

  “I heard the first part of that…” Razi says.

  “Shut up,” Nibas says, smacking him in the back of the head. “Let’s go.”

  It’s somehow colder inside Erelf’s temple, as if the marble had concentrated all the chill of the spring air inside it. We skirt the statue and stumble through the courtyard, avoiding the pens where sacrificial fawns bleat after their missing mothers. The sound makes me shiver. Unthinking, I lay my hand on the hilt of my sword.

  “Kyris,” Nibas murmurs at my shoulder. “Your sword.”

  I look down. The hilt has picked up a soft white glow, just from the brief touch of my gloved hand in this temple.

  Cursing, I snatch it back.

  “Give me the coin and let me do it,” Nibas says.

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Because your arm is going to give you away. You’re trying to stay hidden, aren’t you?”

  “Fucking magicians will probably try to cut it off and sell it,” Razi offers, his voice muffled behind his urqa, which he has pulled up all the way to the bottom of his eyes. I find myself wishing I could wear urqa and allaq, too.

  “I’ll do it,” I growl. “You two just watch out, let me know if anyone seems to be following us.”

  “I’ll watch out,” Nibas says. “At least one of us is competent.”

  “For an archer, you mean,” Razi says.

  I ignore them. I ca
n feel little questing fingers around the edges of my consciousness, like hands trying to nudge aside draperies for a peek inside. I concentrate on finding the staircase that winds down to the lower level, tucked inside the hill of old Eterean ruins upon which this new temple is built.

  It seems to yawn down into the darkness without a bottom, and suddenly the smoke and the wine make the stairwell feel too close, too confining, like the shaft of a tomb sunk into the earth.

  I tug at my collar to loosen it. I’m having trouble breathing.

  Razi curses softly when he bumps his head on a low roof beam. “Don’t your northern gods believe in candles?”

  “He’d like everything to be sleight of hand,” I say, and somewhere, in a far corner of my mind, I hear chuckling.

  Hello, little bird…

  No, no. I push away from the voice and stumble down the rest of the stairs, nearly tackling the acolyte who stands at the bottom, waiting to greet us.

  “Oh,” she says, and pushes me back upright. I look up into a pale face, with hair that glints red-gold in the flickering light spilling into the bottom of the stairwell from the room beyond. Her eyes are a light green.

  “What can I do for you?” she says with a soft smile.

  Dagmari. Or maybe…from somewhere even farther north. Somewhere closer to Arsenault’s home.

  Nibas and Razi come to flank me.

  I straighten up and smooth my tunic. “Show me to the weapons table.”

  Half a turn of the clock later, I’m the proud owner of a magic-forged throwing knife set with a brilliant tear drop of lapis lazuli Shaped to turn black in the presence of magic.

  My arm works as a divining rod only imperfectly. It sings for all sorts of reasons, many of them internal. But if the stone in the knife turns black…then I’ll know.

  Not to mention I need a weapon I can use in situations where I can’t draw my sword, which is also magic-forged but much, much more distinctive.

  Nibas and Razi stumble out into the clear air of the backdoor temple portico behind me. Razi pulls his urqa down slightly so I can see him flash his smile in the lantern light. “That wasn’t so bad,” he says. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many Dagmari in one place.”

  “You’ve got a problem if you think the Dagmari are exotic, brother,” Nibas says. “You’ve never seen one get mutton stew in his beard.”

  “Eh,” Razi says. “They should braid their beards. But the women, Nibas.”

  “You’ve never seen a Dagmari woman get mutton stew in her beard,” I say. “I thank the both of you, but I think I can handle—”

  A jolt twangs through my arm and I clutch it to my side. Suddenly, I feel dizzy, as if the effects of the smoke and wine have grown worse, not better with time.

  “They’re not going to like it if you puke on their patio,” Razi says, coming to stand next to me.

  “I’m not—” I begin, but then I realize that he’s not paying attention to me anymore. Instead, he’s standing up, pulling his urqa back up over his nose.

  Nibas comes immediately to attention. “Razi,” he says.

  “There’s your Nezar,” Razi says in a quiet voice, and bolts for the low wall that edges the garden.

  No, I think, Vadz uppermost in my thoughts. But what if Razi kills the assassin before I can question him? “Razi!” I shout, and run after him, and Nibas follows us both, swearing.

  Razi seems to throw off the effects of the smoke as he runs. Watching a real Nezar fight—when he’s not attacking you—is a sight. He vaults the wall with his long legs and lands on his feet like a cat on the other side. Before he starts running again, his swords are in his hands.

  I’m too short to vault the wall. I heft myself up on top and jump to the ground. Nibas lands beside me.

  “Just the one?” Nibas asks.

  “One,” I confirm.

  By unspoken agreement, we fan out to either side of Razi as we run to catch up with him, in case my gavaro veers left or right. We’re running through another temple garden, lit mostly by moonlight. Pathways veer through dark, spiky lumps of bushes and the bare spaces of winter-dead flower beds.

  “Shit,” I say, breathing hard. “Shit, shit, shit—”

  Razi steps into the darkness under a tree, and the gavaro who’s been following me explodes out of it.

  Metal clangs and blades flash, throwing sparks when they bind. Both these men are tall, quick, and lethal. Razi shouts at him in Qalfan.

  “L’ilq za Nezari dik allin!”

  But he doesn’t answer. Instead, he slams his sword hilt into Razi’s jaw from underneath. Razi staggers backward, getting his own swords in front of him purely by practiced instinct.

  My sword, when I pull it, flares bright blue.

  The gavaro fighting Razi stumbles and stares at it. Razi comes around with a slash to his side, and the gavaro jumps out of the way. Razi follows with a downward slash using his other sword…

  A sharp crack, accompanied by a bright orange flash and a cloud of white smoke, splits the night.

  Razi stands still for a moment. The sword drops from his hand. Then his knees buckle and he goes down.

  He’s been shot.

  The gavaro’s a godsdamned Prinze.

  “Razi!” Nibas yells, and catches him before he can hit the ground.

  A sound rips its way out of my mouth. Nothing human, more like an animal in rage. And for a moment, rage blinds me. I swing Arsenault’s sword out in a great flaring stroke of blue, aiming for the gavaro’s neck. He stumbles backward, and I press my advantage of anger, making him defend. But I’m too full of smoke and wine to be a fitting tool for Ires’s rage. The God of War leaves me alone, and the gavaro gets one sword thrust straight through the fabric of my cloak.

  When I step back to make sure I’m still whole, his empty hand—the hand that must have held the gun—lifts, starts to make a sign.

  I yank my new knife from its sheath on my side and hurl it at him.

  It has a good weight and I throw true. The blade slices through the urqa, past his cheek. He hurls himself out of the way but not before I see the dark streak bloom on the fabric of the urqa.

  He disappears into the trees. I start to give chase, and then I realize Nibas is shouting my name.

  “Kyris! Kyris, damn you, we have to get him back to the Quarter!”

  I stop and bend in half, hands on my knees, dragging in the cold night air in big breaths that feel like daggers slicing my lungs.

  I look down and my knife is lying there.

  The stone is as black as the remains of last year’s frost-killed leaves.

  Chapter 14

  “A boat!” I shout, running down from the garden and waving my arm at all the ferrymen moored on the other side of Cythia’s temple—which owns the garden where Razi lies, Nibas staunching his wound with his cloak. But in my plain clothes, none of the ferrymen will look at me.

  I shove a couple dressed in velvet out of the way and push myself up in front of a ferryman with a larger, canopied boat. “I need a ferry to the Quarter,” I say, out of breath. “Urgently. I have a man who’s hurt.”

  The ferryman darts a glance at the velvet-clad couple and then at me. “I don’t get involved in trouble—” he begins, at the same time that the man I pushed says, “We were in line for that boat first, what do you think you’re doing—”

  I propel him backward with my right hand in his collarbone, and then I grab the ferryman by the collar. “I said, I have a man who’s hurt. I’ll pay you well enough to make it worth your while, but I am not going to take no for an answer.”

  “Si, si,” the ferryman says. “The boat is yours; where’s your man?”

  I let go of him and fish in my purse for a coin. I press the astra into his hand, and when he sees the gold, he gasps. “Hold the boat,” I say, already starting to run the other way. “If you leave, I will find you!”

  Back in the garden, Nibas is still holding Razi with his cloak wrapped tight around Razi’s left arm. Razi is
shaking, the sheen of sweat on his face glistening in the moonlight.

  “We’ve got to get him down to the canal,” I say.

  “Razi,” Nibas says. “Do you hear that? We’re getting you back to the Quarter. But you have to move. You have to stand.”

  “I’m not important enough for them to come to me?” he says shakily.

  I bend to take Razi's other arm, one hand on his forearm, the other curled around his bicep. “Your ability to joke badly is still intact, I see." Nibas eases himself out from under Razi and places himself on Razi’s other side. “It’s going to hurt, but we’ve got you.”

  Razi closes his eyes and nods. “On three,” Nibas says, and we haul Razi upright.

  He exclaims breathlessly in pain and sags against us. “No!” I say. “No, Razi, don’t faint.”

  “My arm. It’s—by the Sun, it’s like it’s on fire.”

  “You’re going to make it,” Nibas tells him firmly. “Now lean on us and let’s get out of here.”

  When the ferryman sees Razi, dressed in his Nezar’s robes and covered in blood, he looks as if he’ll be the one to pass out. I revive him by sliding him another astra once we get Razi lowered into the boat and partially hidden by the canopy. “Keep quiet after we’re done and I’ll give you another one.”

  “The blood—”

  “I’ll clean it up. Just move now. As fast as we can.”

  The ferryman turns his back to me and shoves off from the canal side with his long pole. He expertly guides his boat through the others glutting the edgewater into the center lane, open for emergencies. Mostly, it’s used on a daily basis by important people, but I’ve paid him enough that we’ve suddenly become important.

  The way he shoots us sick glances every now and then makes me think what he really wants is to just to get us out of his boat.

  I crouch underneath the canopy beside Razi. He shivers, his teeth chattering, and with every involuntary movement, he moans in pain. I untie my cloak and sling it down on top of him. I’ve seen men die of these chills on the battlefield.