by Holly Lisle
They dickered back and forth about price then. The Dragons passed their wish list of artifacts to Hasmal. Kait kept her head down and her ears open, and started on the first of her tarts, savoring each bite.
She sipped her ale.
The negotiators agreed on a price for the outfitting of the expedition.
The talkative man seated beside her began regaling the man beside him with a blow-by-blow account of a challenge that had taken place a week before. His loud tones got louder, and drowned out much of what was being said by the Dragons, even to her inhumanly sensitive ears.
She took tiny sips of her ale, stretching out her meal as much as she could without being obvious about it. Hurry up, she thought, but she didn’t allow her body to display any of the impatience her mind felt.
Then it began.
Dùghall shouted to one of the tavern girls, his accent heavy, his words slurred by drunkenness. “Girlie! Hey. You wit’ the honkin’ big jugs. Bring me s’more ale!”
One of the girls hurried to his side, shaking her head. She murmured something, and his face twisted with rage.
“Whatcha mean I’ve had enough? I got money. I can pay, damn you!” He lurched to his feet and stared at her wildly, his mouth gaping, his clothes disarranged, his face flushed. He slapped a coin on the table and said, “See! I got the money. Bring me some more goddamned ale!”
She shook her head again. Murmured something intended to be calming, in a low voice. Rested a hand lightly on his arm.
The majority of the people in the room were watching the scene by then.
“No? No!” He made a grab for her, and she jumped out of his way. He lunged again. “I’m thirsty! A thirsty man with money deserves another drink!”
“You need to leave now,” the girl said, this time loudly enough that everyone could hear.
At the taps, the barkeep had already fished out his peacemaker—a large cudgel with a brass-bound head—and was moving calmly toward the cause of the disturbance.
Dùghall stood there for a moment, swaying as heavily as a tree in a gale. Then he launched himself at the girl again, and missed. He staggered, and veered wildly to his right, and tripped on the leg of a chair, and fell into Crispin Sabir. He toppled to the floor, and lay cursing loudly. Then he grabbed the bench seat upon which the three investors sat, pawed Grita’s back, and as he pulled himself to his feet, slapped Domagar on the shoulder with beery camaraderie. He said, “Pigballs. You know a man deserves a drink when he’s thirsty, don’t you? Hells-all! I’ll sit wit’ you people an’ buy you all drinks, and they can bring me a goddamn drink, too.”
Kait waited for Crispin or Grita to demand that Dùghall be killed. They would be within their rights, being Family, and touched by one who was not Family without having given their permission. Dùghall was ready, too. But the two of them only looked at each other while the rest of those in the inn held their breath, waiting for the explosion.
It didn’t come.
The tavern girls and the barkeep were on him by that time, though. “Have you anything you want us to do with him, Parat? Parata?” the bouncer asked.
“Send him on his way,” Grita said.
Not a first for Family—Kait had been bumped on occasion and had never requested punishment for the poor cowering person shuddering at her feet, and she knew of other Family members who had also waived their privileges for the goodwill that it won them. But many didn’t, and this act of forbearance won a round of applause from the inn’s diners and staff.
The bouncer and two of the tavern girls dragged kicking, swearing Dùghall to the front door and launched him out. Kait could hear him raging at them until the doors swung shut. The noise died and the inn returned to relative calm.
Hasmal and Ian rose, apologizing profusely for the incident, for their poor choice of eating places, for their shame in exposing their guests, even unintentionally, to such appalling behavior. They bowed, cringed, and even mentioned a discount on their price—though only a small one—as a way of making amends.
“You have no need for shame or guilt,” Grita said. “Such men are everywhere. But they won’t be once we’ve made things better.”
Kait’s eyebrows rose when she heard that. She wondered how the Dragons intended to rid the city of drunks.
Hasmal called their tavern girl over and said he wanted to pay, telling her how displeased he was with the atmosphere provided by an inn he had only heard praised, and how poorly his guests had been treated. The girl grew flustered and called the owner out from the back. He looked at the people the drunk had been pawing, paled, and told them that not only was the meal they were eating free, but that he begged them to return on any other occasion for complimentary service.
Interesting way to get free food, Kait thought.
Hasmal waited until the innkeeper had gone back to his office. Then he told the Dragons, “We know what to look for. We’ll check our warehouse to see if we have any of the artifacts you seek in our possession yet. And we’ll notify our other partners that they should also watch their stores and shipments for these things. In return, you’ll have your messenger bring your investment money to our ship three weeks from today. No sooner, no later. Once we receive the money, we’ll finish outfitting for the trip out.”
“Why can’t you leave sooner?” Crispin asked.
Hasmal said, “We have business to attend to in the city. I assure you we’ll work as quickly as we can, but some dates are unchangeable. We’ll be ready to begin outfitting in three weeks, and our ship will be back in the same length of time.”
“Your ship isn’t here?”
“No,” Ian said. “It’s taking the rest of our cargo to Costan Selvira. It will be here when we need it.”
The three Dragons looked at each other and nodded.
Hasmal said, “I must ask you—do you have other traders who are also searching for the same things?”
The three Dragons looked at each other again.
“Yes,” Crispin said. “Is that a problem?”
“Do you agree to buy the artifacts we bring back, even if some other trader has already brought you similar artifacts?”
Crispin nodded. “If you find duplicates of any of the things on our list, acquire all of them. We’ll pay our agreed-on price for every one you can get.”
“That, then, is all the assurance we need.”
In Hmoth fashion, Hasmal kissed the backs of his hands, then pressed them to the top of his head while bowing. Ian followed suit.
After the briefest of pauses, Crispin copied the Hmoth parting salute. Domagar also imitated it. Grita turned and, smiling, stepped over the bench. She turned back to face the two faux Hmoth traders, kissed the back of one hand and pressed it to her forehead, and at the same time tucked her right foot behind her left one and bent both knees sharply. “Tah heh hmer,” she said. It was in Hmago, the Hmoth tongue, and it meant, “Walk in goodness.” The feminine version of the salute, and nicely executed.
Kait, picking at the last of her tart and watching the exchange through the fringe of her eyelashes, experienced a transitory flash of pride in her cousin’s grasp of the Hmoth customs. The Galweighs required all their young people entering the trade and diplomatic branches of the Family to take classes on customs, cultures, and languages. Those classes were grueling. But like Grita, Kait could have done the salute in her sleep.
“Tah heh entho nohmara,” Hasmal and Ian responded. “In goodness breathe forever.”
The blessing given, the Dragons headed for the door, Domagar glanced over at her table briefly, and for just an instant their eyes met. She almost panicked. Then she remembered that she was shielded, and that her shield would keep him from noticing her even though he could see her. She relaxed and looked down at her food, and when she glanced up again, all the Dragons were gone. Ian and Hasmal left a sizable tip for the tavern girl. Then they, too, left.
She realized the chatty man had been watching them as they walked out the door. The instant the
door closed behind them, he stopped his conversation in midsentence, rose, and walked out after them, leaving food uneaten on the table and a stack of bronze coins in the middle of his plate to pay his bill.
Kait almost laughed. Him, eh? She should have known immediately. She had, after all, picked the perfect spot for spying on the room. What was perfect for her turned out to be perfect for another secret observer. Her fellow spy pretended to be rudely interested in everything but the table. A bit different from her method, but effective.
She didn’t go after him immediately. She waited; after all, she had the benefit of knowing where Hasmal and Ian were going. They had agreed to amble when they left the inn. She would travel parallel to them, taking the inside track they’d planned in advance, and moving faster. When she picked them up a block before their destination, she would fall in and follow their follower back to his lair. She wanted to be sure, though, that the Dragons didn’t have another tier of watchers waiting to see if someone like her was keeping track of their spy.
Those levels of paranoia could nest indefinitely—followers of followers, spies spying on the spies who spied on spies. But one of the three Dragons had made a slight gesture toward a table across the room as they left, and Kait had seen one of the two men at that table nod acknowledgment. So Kait waited. She had a little time, and she wanted to know what they were up to back there in the darkness.
When no one followed the Dragons out of the inn, both of them rose and walked toward the front door. “Home, or watch their backs, then?” the one said.
“Watch their backs. I didn’t see anyone, but they might have been waiting outside.”
So they’d been planted to find anyone who was following the Dragons. Kait’s job, but in reverse.
She smiled. They were going to fail. Dùghall had planted telltales on Grita, Crispin, and Domagar when he fell. The telltales were tiny Falcon talismans that he’d made and shielded—when they touched the skin of their targets, they were absorbed, and for the next week—or two—they would connect the three Dragons to three viewing glasses that Dùghall had fashioned. Ry and his lieutenants could watch the glasses, see where their targets were going, and trail them without ever coming near them. Their targets would lead them to the Mirror—or to people who would lead them to the Mirror. Either way, they moved closer to their objective. And neither the Dragons nor the people they’d hired to guard them would know that they were being watched. Not even magic would betray the presence of the talismans—created with only the energy of their creator, formed with pure intent to cause neither pain nor harm but merely to report their location and surroundings, they would leave no trace of their presence for even the most sensitive of observers.
Kait handed a bronze coin to the tavern girl as a tip and strolled out of the doors. She turned left, heading for Three Monkey Road and the Furmian Quarter down by the harbor. The air smelled especially sweet, the sun welcomed and comforted, the whole of the world offered her a joyous embrace. She was on the hunt, and her heart beat faster and her breath came quicker and life felt better than it did at any other time.
She caught up with Ian and Hasmal near the harbor, as they were entering the Merry Captain, which was a hostel frequented by well-off travelers and seamen from some of the richer ships. She spotted her target leaning against the wall across the street from them. She found her own hiding place and watched him. The spy waited until they were inside, then crossed the street, stepped into the Merry Captain, and moments later came back out, a satisfied smile on his face. So he’d checked to see that they were registered there, and had discovered that they were. A room had also been reserved there for Kait, in the name of Chait-eveni, in case the spy had the presence of mind to ask after her. She had never been in her room and never would be, but it was there all the same. Paid through the next three weeks.
He scurried right by her, head up but eyes forward instead of searching the crowd. He never caught a glimpse of her. She fell in behind him, staying well back. He was clearly in a hurry, but she kept pace while still managing to appear that she wasn’t hurrying. Longer steps, a slower stride, and a studied air of relaxed interest in everything that went on around her.
He led her by the shortest route straight to the gates of Sabir House. He gave his name and was promptly admitted. She decided to wait for a while, mingling with the street vendors that sold their wares just outside the gates and with the customers that bought them. Maybe he would come back out again and she could track him further, to a place that would tell her something she hadn’t already known—because now she knew only what she had known all her life: Trouble came from Sabir House.
Chapter 29
Danya fought back the scream. Pain turned the world red; she closed her eyes tightly and locked her muscles and held her breath, but that only made it worse. The baby felt like it was ripping its way out of her with teeth and claws, fighting to birth itself. She could see the little animal in her mind. It would be a monster like her, scaly, with a mouth full of fangs, with hideous spikes at its joints—a nightmare, a beast that would devour her entrails, then claw her belly open and swallow the two midwives who crouched beside her, holding her back up and helping her to squat.
“Gathalorra,” one of the midwives shouted to Danya, “you must not fight the birthing. Breathe, and let the baby come. Shejhan, pull her forward. She’s leaning too much on her tail and it’s blocking her.” The senior midwife, whose name was Aykree, turned away from Danya and did something at the hearth. She said, “I’m making a steaming potion for you that will ease your labor. It will be ready in a few moments, and then the pain will not be so severe.”
The pains had started two stations earlier. Danya, prepared by the midwives for what would happen, had not been frightened. They’d told her she would hurt, and she had hurt. They’d told her that her belly would tighten, and it had tightened. They’d shown her how to breathe, and they’d taught her the mind exercises they used to control pain, and she had used them, and she thought she was doing well. The pain had been bad, but not as bad as the torture of the Sabirs; she had controlled it, and she had been proud.
But in the last half a station it had gotten worse. She hadn’t been able to keep it under control. She had cried out, had wept, had growled and begged for relief. And now—
Now she hoped only that she would die quickly, before the monster inside exploded out of her, flinging the tattered remains of her body in all directions. She prayed for quick death, but the gods who had abandoned her to the Sabir Wolves did not listen to these prayers, either. She sobbed and shouted and swore, and the pain battered her, then receded briefly, then battered her again, each time getting worse, each time leaving her more frantic and more frightened and more hopeless. It would not quit, and she could not make it quit, and the only way to be through with it was to have the baby. And now she knew that having the baby would kill her. Nothing survivable could hurt so much.
The touches of a thousand strangers reached inside her head and tried to offer her comfort, tried to assure her that she would survive and that her baby would be special and that she was not alone—but they were the same strangers who had bound their spirits to the damned unborn creature months earlier, and who had tried to invade her mind as well with their false kindness and their platitudes. She’d shielded herself away from them, but now she was too weak and in too much pain to maintain a shield. So they were all over her.
The midwives were doing something that she couldn’t see. They were rattling things, and poking at a fire. She could hear water boiling.
Then Aykree was at her side. She sounded like she was speaking through a tunnel when she said, “That contraction has stopped. I want you to move on your hands and knees, and put your face near this.” Aykree and Shejhan pulled Danya onto her knees and dragged her face toward a steaming cauldron that they’d moved onto the board floor in front of her. The steam stank of herbs and rotted meat and the bitter musk of civets. “Breathe deeply,” Aykree said. They dr
aped a blanket over her head and the cauldron, and the steam filled her nostrils and she gagged.
“Keep breathing it. It numbs the pain.”
Abruptly, she vomited, which left her feeling better. She inhaled more of the steam, and her anguish receded a bit further. So she sucked in the stinking steam greedily, and felt a delicious lassitude invade her entire body. She started to let herself fall backward, but the two midwives pulled her onto all fours again. “Don’t quit. Keep breathing it. Deep. Deep! Deep breaths.”
Deep breaths? Why? The pain was gone. She didn’t want to expend the effort. She suddenly felt wonderful—her mind was clear of the red haze of pain, and her muscles no longer fought against each other. She didn’t need any more of the wonderful steam.
“Did we give it to her too soon?” Shejhan asked. She sounded like she was half a world away. “Did we stop her labor?”
“No. She’ll keep going. This will just relax her enough that she’ll leave off fighting her own body and let the child be born.”
Then the next labor pain began. That ripping, tearing anguish started at the top of her belly and seared its way downward, and she sucked in the steam with the desperation of a drowning woman offered air. She wanted to yell again, but she couldn’t do that and draw the steam into her lungs at the same time. She gasped, and trembled, and only at the height of the contraction, when the pain overwhelmed even the numbing drug she breathed, did she cry out.
Then that contraction subsided, and once again she felt good.
“How close is the baby?” Aykree asked.
Danya listened with disconnected interest; she felt as if the two midwives were discussing someone she might have known once. Shejhan said, “I can see the top of the head. We have to tie Gathalorra’s tail out of the way, though, or I’ll never be able to guide the baby out. She nearly killed me with it that time, thrashing the way she was. Here . . .”
