Blood of the City

by Robin D. Laws

  "That is the trouble with your kind. You give voice to what should be left unsaid. Wait while I gather my gear."

  Chapter Sixteen

  Dockway

  The Basilisk's Eye sat in a depression on Sand Rope Way, on the landward fringe of the Dockway district. Luma found a corner table and sat down, assessing the clientele. Warehouses hemmed the place on all sides; as she expected, it catered to the laborers who worked in them. Why this would appeal to a renegade dwarf, she couldn't guess. Maybe that was it: if you were a renegade, you felt at home only among people you had nothing in common with.

  A flat-faced matron in a barmaid's apron approached her table, her expression like a gargoyle's. Luma wondered if she was the titular basilisk.

  "Double brandy," Luma said.

  "You in the right place?" the barmaid asked.

  "Good question," said Luma. "Does a dwarf named Thaubnis come here?"

  "Oh, her," the barmaid said. "Should be here any time now." She turned and headed for the bar.

  In fact, it took Luma several hours of pretending to drink her brandy before Thaubnis swung through the doors. Unbidden, the barmaid poured an ale and dished out a barley stew. Luma came over to pay for the meal and the drink.

  "What are you doing here?" Thaubnis asked.

  Luma gestured to her table. "Let's talk over there."

  "I suppose ..."

  Luma carried the bowl; Thaubnis, the flagon. As Luma sat, Thaubnis lingered near the table's edge. "How did you find me?" the dwarf asked.

  "When we met in the Hells," said Luma, "you said you'd be back here before moonrise."

  "You got a good memory. You haven't answered my first question."

  "So you turned in those poisoners you were talking about?"

  "Well," Thaubnis finally took her seat. "Funny, that."

  "Care to elaborate?"

  "I got out of the Hells thanks to a patron unknown. Someone put a key in the porridge. Since no one gives a fig for my fate but me, I reasoned the key was meant for you."

  "Me?"

  "Who else in that cell would anyone care about?" Thaubnis reached for the stew and spooned several gobs of it into her mouth. "So I owe you for getting out, and you're here to collect?"

  Luma sat back in her chair. "This is the first I've heard of it."

  "Your family didn't slip it to you?"

  "They got me out by other means."

  The dwarf ate with her mouth open. "A back-up plan, then."

  "They didn't mention it."

  "Maybe I owe someone else then."

  Now Luma remembered: while in there, she thought she'd glimpsed her distant watcher. With all that had happened since, she'd let that mystery slip from her mind.

  She'd always sensed the watcher as a threat. Was it instead a protector?

  Could it have been Melune? Her nurse had scarcely been a figure of furtive grace. But then, she did seem to be a put-on of some kind. A disguise.

  Thaubnis snapped her fingers. "It's rude, isn't it? To invite me to sit with you, and then go blank?"

  "The poisoners," Luma said.

  "Yes?"

  "You didn't turn them in, so they're still out there."

  "Oh," said the dwarf, as if the situation had finally clarified itself. "Who are you looking to poison?"

  "I'm tracking the purchaser of a particular toxin."

  "And to find him you have to find the seller."

  "That's right."

  "Mm," said Thaubnis. "And I'm helping you for what reason?"

  "You want that favor off your ledger sheet, don't you?"

  "Thought you said the key wasn't meant for you."

  "I've just now had a glimmer of who it might be, and yes, you got out using my key."

  Thaubnis cleaned porridge from her lips. "Good enough, I suppose. These poisoners, they're no friends of mine. I'll take you to them. But don't expect me to raise a hammer for you when it gets rough."

  "Wouldn't dream of it."

  "Just so the arrangement is understood."

  "I'll gather my forces and meet you. You tell me where."

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Thaubnis led them to a wooden tenement on Pacification Boulevard. The three-story structure resembled a crate that had been dropped on its side. Noole counted a dozen apartments and said to Luma, "You were wise to leave the fire magician behind."

  "These poisoners will lead us to the conspirators?" Priza asked. "The ones scapegoating us?"

  "They might," said Luma. "We can't say till we talk to them." She turned to Thaubnis. "Which apartment?"

  The dwarf pointed to the middle window on the third floor. Lantern light shone through its flimsy curtain. "The one with the window glass," Thaubnis said. Oilskin covered the tenement's other windows.

  "Ah, vanity," said Noole. "Despoiler of many a hideout."

  "Talk plainly, versifier," Priza said.

  "Glass panes are too expensive for this neighborhood," Luma explained. "A luxury. Whoever lives there earns more than their neighbors. Like many criminals, they can afford better but prefer the low profile of a shady district."

  "But at the same time they like to show the neighbors who they are," Noole said. "Or maybe they simply hate drafts."

  "It's a small detail, but also a giveaway to anyone who cares to look," Luma said. "Can anyone else here climb?"

  "Of course," said Priza.

  "Doors are no longer fashionable?" Noole asked.

  "With poisoners," Luma said, "you have to be prepared for traps. A while back we had a case where they rigged the hinges as a trigger mechanism. One of our retainers kicked in the door. A dart hit him and he died on the spot, his throat closed tight."

  "Clever," said Priza.

  "And a polite approach is out of the question?" Noole asked.

  "They're not running a market stall up there," said Thaubnis. "Knock on the door without someone to vouch for you, and you'll be choking on nightmare vapor before you have a chance to unsheathe your blade."

  Luma gazed up at the building. "Priza and I go in through the window. The two of you wait outside their door, in the hallway, ready to stop them if they bolt."

  Noole and Thaubnis headed off. Luma let the barbarian get halfway up the side of the tenement before reaching into her trickbag. She sacrificed another spider to the magic of the city and skittered up to pass him.

  Priza had his shield strapped to his back. When he reached the window, he told Luma to take it. He hung with one arm free, then the other, as she worked him clear of its straps. The barbarian folded himself precariously on the narrow outer sill. He gestured for her to hand him the shield, then used it to smash the window glass. Using it as protection against shards, he jumped into the apartment. By the time Luma was through, he had already landed on one man and was pummeling him viciously. Two others left him behind to flee for the door. Luma lunged for the closer of them, catching at his shoulder, but he spun out of her grasp.

  The fleeing men threw open the door, revealing Noole and Thaubnis. The dwarf lurched back, stunned; the door had struck her in the nose. The poisoners drew thin, elongated daggers, and an acrid odor permeated the air. Noole's rapier tip kept his man at bay. The other poisoner shrank from the swings of Thaubnis' hammer, which the close quarters circumscribed. As she dropped the hammer to draw her short sword, the poisoner feinted at her.

  It was a trick; he held a second dagger behind his back. She blocked the phony blow with her elbow, leaving her open to a strike with his true hand. Noole kicked his opponent into hers, so that the second poisoner took the blow meant for the dwarf. The stricken poisoner clutched his neck; though only nicked, the wound blackened and hissed.

  The man who'd cut him gasped: "Amun!" He dropped his own weapon and thrust his hands into the air. "Please, let me administer the antidote."

  Luma came up behind him. "We'll let you, and then you'll talk." She followed him into the apartment, sickle-tip at his shoulder blades. "Try anything and you're gone."

  "If I
try anything," said the poisoner, "my brother is gone." He rushed to a cabinet.

  "Open it slowly," said Luma.

  "Please don't delay me," he said, complying. "He has but moments left." He plucked a tiny red bottle from a shelf. Luma let him pass back to the hallway, where he poured the bottle's contents on Amun's neck, arresting the wound's growth. It had already spread enough to leave a gruesome lesion stretching from ear to collarbone. Thaubnis laid her hand on it; blood spurted up through the gaps between fingers. "You'd better be grateful for this." She spat out a terse prayer to her dwarven god. When she lifted the hand, the wound had closed, and a disconcerting smell of steamed mutton drifted through the hallway.

  Thaubnis manhandled her patient to a standing position. Noole moved to flank him, blocking him should he decide to make a run for it. The dwarf herded the stumbling poisoner into the apartment. Once inside, she hooked her ankle around his and pushed him onto a couch. He sprawled there, dazed.

  "You saved me," Thaubnis said to Noole, as if in disbelief.

  "Why, of course," replied Noole.

  Luma barked at the uninjured poisoner, who stood before her with hands raised in surrender. "Against the wall." He did as he was told. "What's your name?"

  "Nahi Laior Tzarla. My brother is Amun Zerdira Tzarla. That one," he said, indicating the man Priza had beaten, who lay unconscious near the window, "is Bela Zuskoan Gauldor, known also as Gauldor Cut-Freeze." Gauldor's face had been battered into an unrecognizable mess. Priza squatted over him, vigilant for signs of movement.

  Luma studied the faces of the two brothers. The Tzarlas were identical twins, distinguishable only by the fact that Amun had gone for a few days without shaving. They wore the same nondescript clothing: green tunics, brown leggings, black boots. Even the rings on their fingers matched.

  "I will tell you the symptoms of a poison," Luma told Nahi, "and you will tell me which toxin it is, and who you sold it to. I can hear your thoughts, if I want to. So if you are lying, the two of you will suffer what Gauldor has, and worse. Do you understand?"

  "You need not threaten me further," said Nahi.

  "This poison mimics the effects of a long illness, leaving few visible traces, save for a sallowing of the eyes, and purple flecks in the iris."

  "The flecks give it away. This is known as Hermit's Breath, or sometimes the Kiss of Barbatos, after the archdevil of that name. One uses it when the victim must seem to expire innocently."

  Priza rose, apparently satisfied that his vanquished enemy would not try anything, and opened the cabinet containing the poisoners' inventory.

  "Don't touch anything in there," Nahi said.

  Priza bristled. "You think me a fool?"

  "Many men who do not look to be fools nonetheless touch what they ought to leave alone," replied the poisoner.

  With thumb and forefinger, Luma pincered Nahi's chin, turning his face back to hers. "And to whom did you sell the Hermit's Breath?"

  "It is very rare, and dangerous to handle. We have never stocked it."

  "I find that difficult to credit. Thaubnis described you as big fish in the city's venom trade."

  Nahi glared at Thaubnis. "We should never have trusted you."

  "I never asked you to," the dwarf replied.

  "We do our humble best to supply a product many in this city demand," said Nahi. "But Hermit's Breath ill suits our clientele."

  "Why is that?" Luma asked.

  "Its use requires repeated doses, administered over a period of many weeks. Our customers tend to be in a hurry."

  "Who does sell it, then?"

  "I hesitate to say."

  "Priza," said Luma, "would you please break his brother's legs?"

  Priza moved toward the couch.

  "Todoban Boria!" Nahi blurted. "If anyone in the city could procure a venom so dear, it's he!"

  "And where do I find this Tobodan Boria?"

  "He operates a wine shop in Vista. Only the elect know of his special stock. When a grandee or council member dies from poison, it is surely Boria who profited from the transaction."

  "Where's this shop?"

  "On Lemnius Lane, same as all the other expensive wine sellers. It is not my neighborhood."

  Priza returned to the cabinet. "None of these are labeled."

  "A precaution against thieves," Nahi sneered. "Take all you wish, Shoanti, and good luck to you."

  Priza closed the cabinet and stalked away.

  "Is there an antidote?" Luma asked.

  "To Hermit's Breath? None that I've heard of," Nahi said. "But then we sell so few antidotes."

  "Those in that cabinet are strictly for your own use?"

  Nahi nodded. "When we have one, we always recommend it, at only a nominal price. Yet so often the buyer balks. We lose more customers that way ..."

  "Perhaps you should supply them gratis," Noole said, "in the interest of keeping your market alive."

  The poisoner laughed. "In this business, demand is the only thing that doesn't die."

  "Tie them up," Luma said. "So we don't depart in a hail of venomed darts."

  "A wise precaution," said the poisoner.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Vista

  Five stewards, each sporting the livery of a separate great house, milled in Todoban Boria's wine shop, exchanging hushed opinions on Kyonin vintages with the taverners of the Silken Bowl and Electrum Steps, and Madame Remeka Abantiir, proprietress of the city's most exclusive brothel. On soft-soled feet a half-dozen of Boria's attendants mingled with them, drawing attention to the rarest bottles. Boria himself stood behind the counter, perched on a widened footstool that lent him a majestic command over the commerce of his shop. A row of dyed spit curls accentuated the roundness of his pitted countenance. Behind him yawned an archway, its wooden frame decorated with carved grapes and vine leaves. It provided a view of a neatly appointed back room, featuring stacks of crates and a staircase leading down below floor level.

  Luma entered the shop, followed by the others. The faces of its inhabitants drained, a reaction that took Luma momentarily aback. Then she realized how they must look to these pampered creatures of the elevated serving class: a scarred and sinewy half-elf, a muscled Shoanti barbarian, a muttering, skeletal man covered in weird tattoos, and a stern dwarf woman dragging a heavy club. The closest her group came to ordinary was a foppish, rapier-toting gnome.

  The five stewards, two taverners, and one procurer exited with dignified haste. The attendants, clearly yearning to do the same, hesitated. Luma ordered them out with a curt motion of her head; Todoban Boria signaled for them to obey.

  The doors banged shut.

  "Hands on the counter," Luma commanded.

  Boria placed face-down palms on his counter of polished floatwood. He was framed on one side by a metal rack housing a quintet of bottles, and on the other by a delicate, uncharacteristically decorous ivory figurine of Cayden Cailean, the drunken god. "If this is a robbery," he said, in a voice both whiny and graveled, "I warn you, I am owed favors by many ruthless men."

  Luma interlaced her fingers and cracked the joints. "We're not here to steal."

  "I cannot guess what other business persons of your ilk would—"

  "Shut up," said Luma. "A few months ago, you sold a dose of Hermit's Breath. You will name your client, or my associates will dice to see which one of them earns the right to extract the information."

  Boria sweated. "You have mistaken me for—"

  "It's been ages," said Thaubnis, "since I last did an interrogation. I hear the knack never leaves you."

  "I can tell you little," said Boria.

  "You admit you sold a dose of it?" Luma asked.

  "If you are aware of my sideline, then surely you understand that a greater discretion attaches to it than the sale of brandies and rieslings."

  "Thaubnis, roll your die," Luma said.

  Boria showed her his palms. "It is not that I do not wish to cooperate. I am fond of this existence and am skeptical of th
e pleasures that might await me in the next. But I am unable to identify her for you."

  "Leave that aside for the moment. I'll repeat: you did sell a quantity of Hermit's Breath, also known as the Kiss of Barbatos. Correct?"

  "Were I rumored to have done so, that rumor might be true."

  "Did you also sell its antidote?"

  Boria clucked his tongue. "I cannot have done so, for no such mixture exists."

  "What if the doses cease?"

  "Has the victim passed permanently into a state halfway between sleep and trance?"

  "Yes," said Luma.

  "Then it is my sad occasion to tell you that this person will not recover."

  "Your client was a woman?" Luma asked.

  Boria sighed. "She was dressed in black, her features concealed by a silver mask."

  Luma felt her scars go hot. "Did she wear her hair in an elaborate pattern?"

  "She wore a hood. When my patrons choose to hide themselves, I do not make it my policy to peer too closely."

  "Slender build, and tall for a woman? About six feet, two inches, would you say?"

  Boria attempted a smile. "Again, you ask for a precision I strive to avoid."

  "Were I to find this mask, could you recall its details?"

  Perspiration soaked the linen ruffle at his throat. "To you, or the authorities?"

  "Both."

  "I am sad to say that it was quite plain, as silver masks go."

  "She spoke with a local accent?"

  Boria tilted his head from side to side. "She did not seem especially foreign."

  "And in a cultivated manner? Her words a little clipped, perhaps?"

  "To purchase from me, one must have means. As to the duration of her consonants, I might confirm it to you. In confidence."

  "Though not at the Pediment."

  The poisoner sucked air through his teeth. "Have we not dispensed with this talk of official action?" His hand shot out for the figurine.

  An arrow pierced his forearm, nailing it to his side of the counter. Boria screamed.

  Hendregan's hand burst into flame; Priza produced his sling and slipped a bullet into it. Luma signaled them to stand down.

  A figure both familiar and not emerged from the back room, a fresh arrow pointed at the back of Boria's head. She seemed taller than before, or at least held herself straighter. Her previous bulk was now revealed as padding. The limping gait was gone too, replaced by a still poise. Also absent was the kerchief; now the only adornment she wore on her head was a simple diadem consisting of a thin leather strap, with a clear crystal positioned in the middle of the forehead. The color of her cloak, tunic and leggings, white with a yellow undertone, would blend in perfectly against the city's marble. Her frowsy hair had straightened into a cut of utilitarian simplicity. Though still plain-featured, the woman's wrinkles had vanished, and the heavy brow now proclaimed a daunting confidence. "Stand back," she said, to Luma and the others.