Blood of the City

by Robin D. Laws

  "Honor is restored," Priza said, "to both of us."

  "Well," said Luma, massaging her hand, "what else have we?"

  Priza retied the laces of his workman's tunic. "We have inquired into the part of this conspiracy that concerns you. I accepted this: we must be aware of immediate threats. Now I have a question of my own."

  "Go on."

  "What of the false emblem? That is what endangers my people."

  "What of it?"

  "It has been troubling me." He reached into his pack for the plaster cast. "This was made from a mold. The mold would be made from an original model, yes?"

  "Right."

  "You can see from the carving marks that the original was made from wood, as a real emblem would be. And that the carver was well-practiced. He skillfully cut the clan sigils, but made mistakes. I showed this to the elders, and they thought as I did."

  "Which was what?"

  "One of ours made the original. The mistakes are not mistakes, but were signs, put there on purpose for those capable of perception. Any oldblood would see that they are wrong."

  "As you did, the moment you examined it," said Luma.

  Priza nodded. "But you were fooled, as you were meant to be. Who would carve this, betraying us to the weakbloods, while telling himself that he was not?"

  "I take it you can answer your own question."

  "His name is Dehhak. Finding him will be a task."

  "Why?" asked Thaubnis.

  "He drowns his misdeeds in wine. And wherever he drinks, he soon wears out his welcome."

  "This Dehhak won't be in a Varisian wagontown?" Luma asked.

  "The fiddlers have no more use for him than we do," said Priza.

  They began walking again. "Tell me of these misdeeds," Thaubnis said.

  "It is not a seemly subject."

  "Yet may be of use," countered the dwarf.

  Priza ran an absent hand over his bruising chest. "Dehhak joined in adultery, with his father's wife. She performed the proper expiation, but he would not, and so was declared an outcast."

  "Should I ask what the proper expiation would have been?" Luma said.

  "The aggrieved party chooses. Dehhak's father chose an old custom. One enters a pit, unarmed and unclothed, in which a wild boar is trapped."

  "You did not throw Dehhak in?"

  "Honor cannot be restored by involuntary action."

  They headed to Rag's End, where Magnimar's lowest drinking holes clustered. On the way, Luma's vivid dream of the night before returned to waking memory. The faces of each person she passed took on a numinous, otherworldly quality. They cried out from the citysong, their quirks and particularities searing themselves into her. She saw below the surface, through skin to the muscle structures below, and through that again to each individual skull. Some of the faces, she thought, had appeared in the dream, correct to the last line and wrinkle.

  As she walked, her awareness of Thaubnis and Priza fell to one side. The faces she saw on the street began to blur and shift. In Lowcleft, they passed a procession of tumbling masquers, their true faces concealed behind visages of painted porcelain. This too resounded with portent, of a connection forged between her and some kind of universal meaning. But the masquers disappeared into a theater, banging drums and blatting on trumpets, and the burgeoning insight dimmed. She tried to recapture it, but it had fled. No matter how she worked to focus on each face as she passed, they blinked back at her from a realm of humdrum reality.

  By the time the three of them reached the Founder's Processional and crossed into Rag's End, it was as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened at all.

  They toured the district's hardscrabble bars, few of which warranted names. At one place the barman said he'd thrown Dehhak out three months back, after he'd exhausted a purse of coins and assaulted a regular. The victim, a woman named Bissyoni, invited them to cut off his ears when they saw him. She showed them her earlobe, which he'd sliced partially off.

  The three trudged along a hovel-lined street. It stank of cabbage and rotting garbage.

  "This Dehhak," said Thaubnis, "he's an outcast from a group of outcasts."

  "We are the true people of this land, falsely set aside."

  "I'm an outcast," said Thaubnis. "One who once belonged somewhere, and now belongs nowhere. Why has Dehhak fallen into dissolution?"

  "Because he is scum."

  "Because shame has gnawed him from the moment you tossed him out. How do you propose to get him to talk?"

  "I will beat him like a dog, until he whines."

  "You will go to him, and tell him he has betrayed your people again, and then you will smash him with your fists?"

  "He deserves worse."

  "And you are considered a hero of your people?" Thaubnis asked.

  Priza growled. "You're getting at something, dwarf, but I cannot see what it might be."

  "This Dehhak," she said. "I haven't met him, but I understand him. He'll tell you nothing."

  "He is a coward and a worm. A few sharp blows and he'll be pleading for his life."

  "He'll let you whip him all day long," Thaubnis said. "He'll take it, because he agrees with you."

  Priza spat in the road. "Nonsense!"

  "He agrees that he deserves it. Mark my words, Shoanti. He might admit what he's done, but not to you."

  "You aim to seduce him with pleasing talk?"

  "No," said Thaubnis.

  At a spot referred to as the Pig, where abattoir workers drank in a condemned former slaughterhouse, they heard that Dehhak now soused himself in a new establishment named for its owner, Feirges.

  Feirges's shack looked like it would blow down in a stiff wind. Rats scurried openly across its porch, which had been banged together from salvaged boards.

  "Wait here," Thaubnis told Priza. Luma took the plaster emblem from him and followed her in.

  Of the four patrons weaving on Feirges's misshapen stools, only one looked Shoanti. He looked up, saw the dwarf and sickle-toting half-elf coming his way, and bolted for a back entrance. Luma picked up a stool and bowled it at him. It rolled under his legs, sending him flying into a stack of barrels. As the other drinkers, and the aproned man who had to be Feirges himself, slunk away, Luma grabbed the Shoanti's collar and shoved him to his knees. Thaubnis dragged a table toward him, then took a series of items from a pouch at her belt, not unlike Luma's trickbag. Like a sleight-of-hand artist performing for Dehhak's benefit, she flourished each of them in turn: a silvery hammer, an assortment of nails, a leather wristlet and five very small straps made of the same material. She displayed and then set aside various other implements: hooks, rasps, and oddly serrated blades.

  "Place his arm on the table," Thaubnis said.

  "What do you want from me?" Dehhak asked, jowls wobbling. Unkempt hair streamed from his head and dripped into a patchy beard.

  Luma followed Thaubnis' instructions, overpowering his attempt to squirm free. The dwarf laid the largest of the straps across his wrist. "Hold this in place," she told Luma. She nailed the strap to the table.

  "Who sent you?" Dehhak wailed. "If it's Heiteleyyo, I don't have the money. I don't have the money!"

  "We've never heard of Heiteleyyo," said Thaubnis. She splayed out his thumb and forefinger.

  "What do you want, then?"

  "We hear you made a carving for some weakbloods a while back. You'll tell us who they were."

  "A carving? You heard wrong."

  Using one of the tiny straps and smaller nails, she fixed his thumb in place.

  "What are you going to do to me?" Dehhak asked.

  "Depends on how quickly you tell us. They asked you to fashion a war emblem for them. Your people consider those sacred, don't they?"

  "Not sacred. A matter of honor. That's why I would never—"

  "Honor no longer applies to you, Dehhak. Not since they threw you out." She nailed a strap around his forefinger.

  "Oh no—in the name of the Spire, not my hands!"

&nbs
p; "Still, you couldn't quite betray the people who despise you, who tossed you aside. You carved a sigil that shouldn't have been there, and incised another of them backward."

  "How do you know ...?" Dehhak cut himself short.

  Thaubnis cupped a gloved hand around the back of his head. "See? You've all but admitted it. Tell us the rest."

  "I didn't do anything wrong."

  "Who did you make it for?"

  "I tell you, it wasn't me!"

  Thaubnis picked up the hammer in one hand and one of the curved blades in another, weighing them in her hands. She turned to Luma. "Which do you think? Crushing, or cutting?"

  "I made the carving!" Dehhak exclaimed.

  "Who for?"

  "I only dealt with a servant!"

  "Describe his livery," Luma said.

  "His what?"

  "The colors and decorations of his outfit."

  "He didn't wear one. I mean, not a fancy servant's clothes. He dressed like a common drudge. Otherwise he'd have stood out as a mark, here in Rag's End."

  "And he came to pick up the carving?"

  "No, no. He gave me an address."

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  They returned to the hideout at the Arvensoar to tell the others.

  "The Alabaster District will be well patrolled," said Noole.

  "Yes," said Luma. "If it goes awry, I'll need the rest of you to cover my retreat."

  "I can throw balls of flame," Hendregan offered.

  "Those may be needed," said Luma, "though I hope they won't."

  The fire magician's face fell.

  "And you've heard of this woman, this Cheiskaia Nirodin?" Melune asked.

  "The name's familiar but little else. She's a member of the Council of Ushers—as my father was. As my brother Arrus will be, now."

  "I've met her," said Noole. "Fancies herself a patron of the arts. Her taste is frankly wretched, but she doles out the gold to stay in fashion."

  "What are her politics?" Thaubnis asked.

  "Politics?" said Noole.

  "I can't be the only one to see that we deal with a political conspiracy," said the dwarf. "They killed Luma's father to put the brother on the council. And tried to kill her, because they feared she'd catch on. Now we discover that this Cheiskaia Nirodin is assisting with this related scheme to frame the Shoanti for something. Just as the Derexhi have framed Luma for Khonderian's murder. Khonderian, who was looking into the warriors with the fake emblem. Have I missed anything, Luma?"

  "We've nothing to link Nirodin to Father's murder."

  "That might be a family affair," Thaubnis said, "but we have her on the emblem."

  Luma leaned against the wall. "All we can say is that Dehhak's original emblem was delivered to her manor. She could have taken possession of the item as an innocent favor."

  "Still," said Thaubnis, "it would be useful to learn what faction she supports. And what they stand to gain from Arrus's elevation."

  Noole noticed some dirt on his cloak and brushed it off. "Her factional instincts are as deep as her appreciation for the arts—which is to say not at all. Nirodin's all surfaces and prestige. She used to be glued to Amarai Burda's side. Since she shuffled off the scene, Nirodin's allegiances might go anywhere."

  "What gossip surrounds her?" asked Luma.

  "A cold fish, I'm afraid. Scarcely an interesting tryst on her resume. She's an abstainer, too." Noole shuddered. "My lady friend Khedre is an intimate, or a rival, depending on what phase the moon is in. Through her, I might be able to secure an invitation."

  "Invitation to what?"

  "Cheiskaia hosts regular soirees. In the afternoon, of course, so the absence of tipple will not seem so miserly. They talk foolishness about second-rate versifiers and occasionally bring a minstrel in."

  "How exclusive are her guest lists? Is it always the same people?" Luma asked.

  "Like any good party, there's always a few new lambs to throw to the old lions."

  "Where do these lambs come from?"

  "Cheiskaia and her lot are vehement snobs," Noole said. "And what's the point of that, with no one to condescend to?"

  "So it's not only old families, then."

  "What do old families need? Money. So they invite the pretty daughters and stupid sons of gold-burdened merchants, hoping to make lucrative matches for their own useless children."

  "That's who I'll be, then," said Luma. "A cluck-headed beauty, reeking of trader coin."

  "Who you'll be?" Noole asked.

  "A daylight infiltration will teach us more than a burglary. The two of us will attend the next soiree, and see what we see."

  "Should it be you who goes?" Melune asked.

  "Yes," said Luma.

  "I'm off to see Khedre, then," said Noole, moving aside the hideout's false window boards.

  "Imposture is no easy matter," said Melune.

  "No, I imagine not," said Luma.

  "You'll need a way to disguise yourself." Melune reached up for her leather diadem. "I'll lend you the device I use to change my appearance."

  "That will not be necessary, Melune." Luma recalled the dream of faces, and her near-epiphany out on the streets. As she did, a power came from somewhere else to nest in her heart. It convulsed through her, sent her pitching drunkenly. She recovered her balance, steadying herself against a support pillar. The others stared at her as the skin on her face crawled, the muscles writhing beneath it, her skull softening, altering, and hardening again.

  She stood before them in the weatherbeaten face of a carter—head bald, brow furrowed, eyes milky.

  It was not limited to faces, she realized. Her body trembled, blurred, and transformed: now it was that of a hunched, thick-limbed man, calluses on his hands and moles on his arms.

  She changed again, becoming a buxom barmaid, a limber acrobat, a rotund cook, a weathered drudge. She transformed herself into a Shoanti maiden, a dwarf warrior, a gnome scullery maid, a sunburned crone, and an elven mountebank.

  Luma had worked out the dream of faces, and what the city meant when it said it was about to give her a gift. The annals were right: a cobblestone druid could wear as many forms as there were people on Magnimar's streets.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Fishball Way

  Luma first heard the voices while asleep and still dreaming. In the dream she was hungry and seeking food on a street that was and wasn't Fishball Way, in the Bazaar of Sails. The food stalls that lined the real street arrayed themselves before her, but their proprietors had all gone. Smells lingered: of grilled sardines, kelp rolls, ginger soup, mulled wine. Luma lifted pot lids, rummaged under food cart shelves. Of the meals themselves, nothing remained, save for a few pot pie pastry crumbs and a smeared cup of hot sauce.

  Then the voices, familiar yet not, from a direction she could not discern. Was it her family, come to get her? At first she caught only disconnected phrases:

  "—forgotten what this is like—"

  "—is it enough?"

  "—watch that you don't—"

  "—prying versifiers—"

  "—see better—moon passes from behind that cloud."

  Luma awoke into the dark of the abandoned barracks. Her stomach panged, explaining the simple meaning of her dream. The hushed voices continued, on just the other side of the garrison wall.

  The first speaker was Thaubnis. "If more were left unspoken, the world would be much improved."

  Then Noole: "A dwarven sentiment if ever there was one."

  "Leave me out of your chronicle, or epic, or whatever you choose to call it."

  "Politeness would lead me to comply."

  "Meaning," said Thaubnis, her inflection turning inquisitorial, "that you will not."

  "A poet's first duty is to the truth."

  "Posterity and I want nothing to do with each other."

  "I will alter that, never fear. But do you not want your higher truth to be accurately portrayed?"

  Thaubnis groaned. "What could be worse?"

 
"Is it because you once belonged, were cast out, and now belong again? Why, after saying you wouldn't, you've thrown in with—"

  "There's light enough now," Thaubnis interrupted. "Let's get this in there, before the soldiers change shift."

  The window boards shifted and bumped. Luma rose to help move them from their place. A long rectangular item thrust its way through the opening. Luma grappled with the object, which had been wrapped in a blanket and was nearly three feet wide. As it came through the opening, she saw that it extended to over six feet in length. It ended in a set of wooden legs, stained and finished. Luma placed it upright on these as the dwarf and gnome clambered in through the opening. When he was through, Noole replaced its cover.

  Hendregan snored in the corner.

  "Where have Priza and Melune got off to?" Noole asked.

  "I didn't ask," said Luma. "Priza, to the camp and his wife and people, I guess. As to Melune ..." she shrugged.

  "A shabby lot of comrades we are," the gnome said.

  "Only one of us noses in on others' business," said Thaubnis, contemplating the newly introduced object. Loops of twine held its protective blanket in place; she got to work untying the knots. "That makes us as fine a war band as I care to join."

  The blanket fell away, revealing a full-length mirror in a once-fine frame.

  "In that spirit, I won't ask where you got this," said Luma. "But what's it for?"

  Noole reached up and place his hands on Luma's forearms, guiding her, still facing the mirror, to a spot about six feet away from it. "We have some sculpting ahead of us," he said.

  Luma moved out of the spot he'd picked for her, to examine her face up close. She was still not used to the scars. How much control did the city's new gift grant?

  The thought was all it took: the scars vanished, leaving the rest of her new, hard visage behind. Another act of will, and the scars faded back into sight. Without them, Luma decided, she no longer looked herself.

  "Not only the face," said Noole. "The body must transform, too."

  Luma stepped back, studying herself from head to toe.

  Thaubnis smelled the blanket at the mirror's feet, then picked it up, wrapped it around her shoulders, and propped herself against a far corner.