The lichkin’s head tilts down toward Loki’s key, held between us, pointing forward, my arm rigid and paralysed.
I glimpse some large and smoking object, past the lichkin’s head, rushing toward us. At the last moment I see it’s Snorri, dust rising from him with each pounding step. He’s empty-handed, as if he thinks to tear the creature apart by main force. The lichkin turns, faster than thought, and catches him by the shoulders. Despite its thinness the lichkin is rooted to the ground and absorbs all the momentum of the Viking’s charge, needing just a single sharp step backward.
I stand, still frozen in the moment. Edris Dean’s sword has fallen from the hand the lichkin released but not yet hit the ground. My eyes follow its progress and see that in stepping back the lichkin has driven itself against the black shaft of Loki’s key, the head of which has pushed an inch into the white flesh.
All I can do is turn it.
And as the key turns the blackness of it invades the lichkin’s alabaster, darting along its length in ebony threads, each in turn forking and branching, staining, corrupting. Gravity reaches for me and I’m falling, pulling the key clear, but even as I hit the ground and the dust rises all around, I see the lichkin start to come undone, as if it were a thousand strands, a thousand thin white tubes, now grey and putrefying, each peeling apart from the next, the whole thing opening, spreading, falling.
‘Vermillion!’ A banging on the carriage roof, the rough voice of whatever lout currently had the reins. I sat up with a jerk, soaked in sweat.
‘Oh thank Christ!’ Shudders ran through me. I looked at my wrist, expecting to see the scald mark of the lichkin’s hand still there. Lisa gave a sleepy murmur, face hidden by her hair, head in my lap. The old priest, Father Agor, narrowed pale eyes at me in disapproval.
‘Did he say Vermillion?’ I raised the shade and peered out, squinting against the brightness. The suburbs of Vermillion bumped past. ‘At last!’
‘We’re there?’ Lisa, blinking, face creased where she lay on me, strands of hair stuck in the corner of her mouth.
‘We’re here!’ My grin so broad it hurt my face.
Lisa gripped my hand and smiled back, and suddenly all was right in the world. At least until I remembered Maeres Allus.
Minutes later Lisa and I disembarked outside the courthouse on Gholloth Square and stood stiff and stretching, looking around with disbelief. Father Agor tossed a coin to a porter who received his luggage from atop the carriage and set off after the priest, a case under each arm. Our silent merchant friend departed, a boy with a mule carrying his trunk, leaving Lisa and me alone on a crowded street as the carriage rattled off to whatever stables would receive it.
On my journey south with Snorri I’d spent much of my waking day planning and anticipating my return to Vermillion. Travelling with Lisa, I had hardly spoken a word on the subject – perhaps fearing to jinx it, or unbelieving that after all I had endured our home would be waiting there to take us in once more as if nothing had changed. But here it was, busy, hot, wrapped around its own concerns and indifferent to our arrival. A large number of troops had been assembled on Adam Plaza, their supplies heaped against the side of the war academy.
‘Will you take me home, Jal?’ Lisa turned from the street and looked up at me.
‘Best not. I’ve met your eldest brother, and he doesn’t like me.’ Lord Gregori would have sliced me up himself if I hadn’t hidden behind my rank and made him goad Count Isen into doing the job for him.
‘I live at the palace now, Jal.’ She looked at her feet, head down.
‘Oh.’ I’d forgotten. She had meant the rooms in the Great Jon’s apartment in the guest wing. The ones she had shared with her husband. ‘I can’t. I’ve got something really important I need to do straight away.’
She looked up then, disappointed.
‘Look.’ I waved my hands as if there were something to look at that might actually explain it. ‘You don’t want me there. Not when you meet with Barras. And you’ll hardly come to grief between here and the palace gates.’ She kept those big eyes on me, saying nothing.
‘I would have married you, you know!’ The words took me by surprise but they were out now and words can’t be unsaid. Instead they hang between you, awkward and uncomfortable.
‘You’re not the marrying type, Jal.’ A tilt of the head, surprise touching her face.
‘I could be!’ Maybe I could. ‘You were … special … Lisa. We had a good thing.’
She smiled, making me want her all the more. ‘Mine wasn’t the only balcony you climbed, Jal. Not even within my father’s grounds.’ She took my hands. ‘Women like to have their fun too, you know. Especially women born to families like mine, who know they’re going to be married for their father’s convenience rather than by their own choice.’
‘Your father would have jumped at the chance of a prince for one of his daughters!’
Lisa gave my hands a squeeze. ‘Our brother did jump at the chance.’
‘Darin.’ His name tasted sour. The elder brother. The one not to be seen staggering drunkenly from bordellos in the predawn grey, or gambling away other men’s money. The one not past his eyes in debt to underworld criminals.
Suddenly I couldn’t stand her kindness a moment longer. ‘Look. I’ve got this matter to attend to. It can’t wait. I really have to do this. And—’ I rummaged in my jacket’s inner pocket. ‘I need your help.’ I withdrew Loki’s key, wrapped inside a thick velvet cloth bound tight with cord. ‘Keep this for me. Don’t open it. For God’s sake don’t touch it. Don’t show it to anyone.’ I folded her hands about the package. ‘If I don’t come to the palace within a day present it to the Red Queen and tell her it’s from me. Can you do that? It’s important.’ She nodded and I released her hands. And somehow, although that key was by far the single most valuable thing in the kingdom of Red March, something I had fought and bled for, literally walked across Hell to keep, I felt no pang at letting Lisa DeVeer take it. Only a sense of peace.
‘You’re scaring me, Jal.’
‘I’ve got to go and see Maeres Allus. I owe him a lot of money.’
‘Maeres Allus?’ A frown.
I remembered that to most of my circle Allus was a merchant, a rich one to be sure, but nothing more, and who has time to remember the names of merchants. ‘A dangerous man.’
‘Well … you should pay him.’ She took my hand in both of hers. ‘And be careful.’
The old Lisa might have laughed and told me to tell this Maeres fellow to wait – and if he had the temerity to lay a hand upon me, to draw my sword and have at him. The new Lisa was much better acquainted with the realities of swords meeting flesh. The new Lisa wanted me to swallow my pride and pay the man. There was a Jalan once who would have advised swinging the sword too – but that Jalan was eight and he and I had been strangers for many years.
I took myself first to the Guild of Trade, a great dome that may be entered by many archways about its circumference. Beneath the dome on a wide mosaicked floor merchants of a certain degree of wealth gather to make deals and swap the gossip that oils industry’s wheels. A gallery runs around the dome, several storeys above the trade floor and from it doors lead to offices that look out over the surrounding city.
I borrowed money on the trade floor first. I borrowed against my family name, leaving Edris Dean’s sword as additional security – whatever evils tainted it nobody could deny the quality of the steel, ancient stuff melted down from Builder ruins: no smith today has the skill to match its strength. Whether word of my incarceration for debt in Umbertide had reached Vermillion yet I didn’t enquire, but it seemed unlikely given that I walked out of the Guild with fifty pieces of crown gold.
With those monies and the remains of Omar’s Liban bars I purchased clothing of sufficient quality to match my station, along with a blood-gold chain, a ruby ring, and a diamond ear stud. The garments had to be tailored to my build rapidly, adjusted from the dimensions of their intended recipients, but I p
aid handsomely enough and forgave any failings in the cut.
To borrow a lot of money you have to look the part. A king in rags will win no credit no matter what collateral he may own.
Penniless again, I climbed the stair to the gallery where Vermillion’s richest moneylenders plied their trade. Maeres Allus would never be permitted an office in this circle, though he had the coin to sit among such men. Old money ruled here, merchant dynasties of good repute and long ties to the crown. I chose to approach Silas Marn, a merchant prince that Great-uncle Garyus had given good opinion of over the years.
The men at the door carried my petition inside and Silas had the manners not to keep me waiting. He saw me in person in his interview chamber, a vaulted room, marble-clad, with the busts of various long-dead Marns watching us from alcoves.
The old man, so ancient as to be practically creaking, rose from his chair as I entered, burdened by his velvet robes. I motioned for him to sit and he gave up on the effort before managing to fully straighten himself.
‘Thank you for seeing me on such short notice.’ I took the seat he gestured to and we sat opposite each other across a span of gleaming mahogany.
‘I would hardly turn away a prince of the realm, Prince Jalan.’ Silas Marn regarded me from murky brown eyes almost lost in the many folds of his face, his skin leathery and stained with age. I gave him a broad smile and he returned a more cautious one. Large ears and beak-like nose dominated his small head, though those seem to be the fate of any man who lives too long. ‘How may I help you?’
I pushed the relevant documentation across the desk. The crumpled parchment looked in no better state than old Silas, as stained and creased, the writing barely legible, the wax seal cracked.
‘It looks like it’s been through hell.’ Silas made no move to pick it up. ‘What is it?’
‘Deeds to thirteen twenty-fourth shares in the Crptipa salt-mine.’
‘I am aware of your … misfortunes in Umbertide, Prince Jalan. There have been charges laid against you of a very serious nature. A murderer of children would find it easier to get credit than a bankrupt charged with multiple counts of fraud. I am sure that these charges hold no substance, of course, but the mere fact of them is a terrible impediment to—’
‘I’m not seeking credit. I wish to sell. The Crptipa mine holds vast reserves of salt immediately adjacent to some of the largest markets and ports in the Broken Empire. It has the infrastructure in place to ramp up production now that the departure of Kelem has opened for exploitation areas that have for centuries been off-limits. Production from the mine could undercut the imported supply while still generating considerable profit on each ton. As a debtor I’m at liberty to conduct business in order to generate funds to cover my obligations.’
Silas laid a withered hand across the deed of sale. ‘I see that your great-uncle’s blood is not wholly absent from your veins, Prince Jalan.’
I felt a pang of guilt then. ‘Is he all right? I mean … three ships…’
Those old eyes narrowed in disapproval, dry lips a thin line. The merchant watched me for a moment then relaxed into the smallest smile. ‘It would take more than three ships to put much of a hole in your uncle’s concerns. Even so – and with the greatest of respect – it was not well done to lose them.’
‘How much will you give me?’ I tapped the table.
‘Direct.’ Silas’s smile broadened. ‘Perhaps you think a man of my years doesn’t have time to beat around the bush?’
‘Make me an offer. The place is worth a hundred thousand.’
‘I am aware of its value. The mines have been the subject of considerable speculation. The legalities of your claim however would take some considerable clearing up though and run the attendant risk that Umbertide’s duke might rule your assets forfeit given your unlicensed departure. I will give you ten thousand. Consider it a favour to your family.’
‘Give me five thousand, but allow me to buy it back for ten thousand within the month.’
The old man tilted his head, as if listening to the advice of some invisible counsellor. ‘Agreed.’
‘And I need to walk away with the gold within the hour.’
That raised his white eyebrows some considerable distance. ‘Can a man even carry five thousand in gold?’
‘I’ve done it before. Your arms ache the next day.’
And so it was that an hour later I left, carrying a small but extremely heavy coffer clutched to my chest. It took half a dozen senior underlings scuttling about beneath the dome of the Guild of Trade, calling in favours left and right, but Silas assembled the necessary coinage, and I handed over my controlling interest in the Broken Empire’s richest salt-mine.
I walked through main streets, wishing I’d taken Silas up on his offer of a porter, whilst at the same time still agreeing with my own argument that nobody should miss the opportunity to carry that much gold. My passage drew a few looks, but nobody would be foolish enough to think I would carry such riches unguarded, and even knowing it few would be foolish enough to try to rob me in the broad thoroughfares at the heart of the city. In any event my new outfit came with a small knife in an inner pocket just above the wrist, ready for quick release to stab any thieving hands.
By the time I reached the great slaughterhouse a third of a mile from the Guild of Trade headquarters my arms felt twice their usual length and made of jelly. I stared up at the impressive edifice. It seemed a lifetime since I had last been inside. Just over a year by calendar reckoning. Two thousand miles and more, by foot. Once a slaughterhouse for cattle, beef for the royal tables, and now a place where men carved man-flesh, the Blood Holes were one of Maeres Allus’s more popular haunts.
The bruisers on the door let me in without question. Rich men came every day to watch poor men die and bet on the outcome. The elder Terrif brother, Deckmon, he recognized me sure enough, looking up from his cash table. He put a finger to the skin beneath his left eye and pulled it down, letting me know my entrance had been marked.
The usual crowd circulated around the four big pits, the numbers men at the margins with the odds chalked above their stalls. I took a moment to breathe it in, the colour, the noise, the aristocrats dogged by their toadies, a loose halo of hangers on, and moving here and there, wine-men, poppy-men, ladies of negotiable affection.
The stink of blood ran through it all, an undercurrent. I’d not noticed it in those years I spent here, betting on carnage. The smell brought back memories, not of the Blood Holes but of the Aral Pass and the Black Fort. For a moment I felt the icy waters of the Slidr enfold me and the red berserker heat rise to meet it.
I crossed over to Long Will, a trainer and talent scout, a thin strip of a man, crowned by a grey shock of hair. ‘Maeres here?’
Long Will jerked his head toward Ochre. Of the four big pits it lay farthest from the main doors. I eased my way through the crowd, sweating, and not just from the strain of carrying my treasure. The thought of Maeres Allus put a chill in me, making my legs feel as weak as my trembling arms – though an unexpected anger came with that fear, a rising heat that had been there beneath the terror, keeping me company all the long and rattling ride up from Marsail.
A pretty girl trailed her fingers through my hair, an oily wine-man thrust a pewter goblet at me. I glanced pointedly at the coffer occupying both my hands.
‘Prince Jalan?’ Someone recognizing me, unsure.
‘Is that Jalan?’ A fat baron from the south. ‘Damned if it is.’
Underlings parted before me as I approached the tight knot of colour at the edge of Ochre. More than a year. Thousands of miles. Icy wastes to baking desert. I walked through Hell … and here I was again, back where it started. Fourteen months and they hardly knew me, here in the place where I’d spent so much time, and money, and other men’s blood.
A murmur grew about me now: even if the crowd weren’t sure of my name they recognized a man walking with intent toward the heart of things. The last few layers peeled back, m
en I knew by sight and name, Maeres’s associates, merchants in his pockets, minor lords courting loans or being courted for this or that advantage. The business of business while twenty feet below, two men fought, each doing his level best to beat the other to death with his fists.
Two narrow-faced Slovs stepped aside, and there, revealed between them, stood Maeres Allus, small, olive-skinned, his tunic unostentatious – to look at him you wouldn’t think he owned the place and much more besides. He registered neither surprise nor interest at my appearance.
‘Prince Jalan, you’ve been away too long.’ A roar of triumph rose from the pit behind him, but nobody seemed interested any more. I imagined the victorious brawler looking up, expecting cheering faces, and seeing nothing but the wooden guardrail and the back of the occasional head.
Jorg Ancrath, that prodigy about whom so many prophecies seemed to circulate, that vicious and victorious youth on whom my grandmother’s plans appeared to pivot, the young king who lit a Builders’ Sun in Gelleth and another on the doorstep of Hamada … he had given me his advice on dealing with Maeres Allus. He had spoken his words in the hot and drunken darkness of a Hamadan night, and now, with Allus before me at long last, those forgotten words started to bubble from the black depths of my memory. ‘I’ve come to settle our business, Maeres. Perhaps we could go somewhere private.’ I gestured with my eyes to the curtained alcoves where all manner of Blood Holes negotiations were conducted, from the carnal to the commercial, not that the former wasn’t the latter.
Maeres’s dark eyes rested on the coffer in my arms. ‘I think perhaps too much of our business has taken place behind closed doors, Prince Jalan. Let us settle our accounts here.’
‘Maeres, it’s hardly suitable—’
‘Here.’ A command. He meant to humble me before witnesses.
‘I really don’t—’
‘Here!’ Barked this time. I don’t recall Maeres Allus ever raising his voice before that. He glanced over his shoulder down into the pit. ‘A poor fight. Put the bear in.’
The Wheel of Osheim Page 13
