Dangerous Gifts

by Gaie Sebold

  I got excited for a moment, but that wasn’t it, either. After what felt like a decade or so of more fidgeting, there was another crackle, and one of the spaces between the wires seemed to catch hold of the blue-purple light and hold it in a wavering, shuddery shape that did funny things to my eyes.

  Fain said, “Don’t look directly at it.”

  “All right.” I was quite glad to look at the wall instead, that wavering light made me queasy. Fain muttered a string of choppy syllables, and the light was suddenly, furiously bright, flinging our shadows stark on the wall, showing every crack and ripple in the ancient plaster.

  Fain said; “A swift rabbit isn’t a hare but still leaps the moon.”

  “...the moon under water snares the unwary fox...”

  Every hair on the back of my neck stood up straight as a soldier on parade. It was an ordinary voice, though faint and wavering in and out – the Scalentine accent was plain, I could even place it to within a few streets of King of Stone – but going through that device did something to it. It carried an uncanny freight, of all the distance it had been through; it had passed through realms of things that knew neither air nor light nor warmth, but lived. And they had heard it as it passed.

  I was still staring at our shadows on the wall, thinking they looked too dark, too solid, but Fain was speaking, calm and clear. “A message to Laney at the Red Lantern in Goldencat Street. Babylon, speak, they’ll pass it on.”

  I cleared my throat, which had locked cold. “Tell her... tell her the Mehrin brothers will have to wait. I need her here. And Enthemmerlee needs advice on her wardrobe.”

  Fain’s eyebrows almost took off from the top of his head at that, but he said, “Did you get all that?”

  The voice read the message back. The sound of my own words was somehow loathsome; I just wanted the voice to stop talking.

  “Thank you,” Fain said. “Is there any news from the Militia?”

  No, it couldn’t stop talking yet. I leaned close, looking away from that bruising light, not wanting to get near the thing, but desperate to hear.

  “...all as before. Chief Bitternut” – my hands clenched – “arrested several of the Builders... bail was paid.”

  “Very well. Thank you.” Fain flicked something on the base of the device. The light disappeared. The room sprang back into a much more comforting gloom, and Fain said, in an oddly tight voice, “Would you please let go?”

  I hadn’t even realised; I was gripping his shoulder so hard that my fingers creaked as I released him. “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sure I’ll be able to use it again eventually,” he said, rotating the joint. He looked up at me. “I hope you are feeling reassured?”

  “No.”

  “No, you’re not, are you?” He looked at me keenly.

  “What do you expect?” I said. “I’m not going to be reassured until whoever’s killing weres is safely caught, until I can get home and see with my own eyes that Bitternut’s all right.”

  “Is that all?”

  “If you want to know the truth, no. That device of yours... It’s...”

  “It’s what?”

  “Where did it come from?”

  “Does that matter? It’s what, Babylon?”

  “It’s making me think I’ll stick to messengers in future. There’s something wrong about it.”

  “You’re not the first to say so. But one would be foolish not to use such a useful tool, would one not?”

  “Tools can turn in the hand, Mr Fain.”

  “True. Which is why one uses them with due caution. And for this, twice in such a short time is more than enough.”

  “Why?”

  “One does feel somewhat fatigued afterwards.”

  I looked at it, a tight little bundle of dials and levers and a bare sketch of wires. It didn’t look dangerous. But then, neither does poison, most of the time.

  Neither does a competent assassin.

  CHAPTER

  TWELVE

  I SHOULD HAVE gone to bed, Rikkinnet had the duty, but I was too unsettled and miserable even to try and sleep. I took a lantern and started to explore the house. I told myself I was checking for risks I might have missed, but really, I was just trying to distract myself.

  Too many silent corridors, too many empty rooms. Dust motes dancing in my lantern’s light. Hargur’s lean face, the angle of his smile, the feel of his chest beneath my hand, his heart beating warm and strong.

  Fain, that perennial chessmaster, was worried enough about Hargur to keep his best magical defender at his back, instead of bringing them to Incandress.

  Or, at least, the best one he trusted. For a moment I almost felt sorry for Fain, surrounded as he was by those he couldn’t trust; but then I cursed his name again. If it wasn’t for him, I’d be there, with Hargur. No wonder my gut hadn’t wanted me to leave.

  My gut didn’t like the device either. But if it could get a message to Hargur... What message, though? He already knew he was under threat, he already knew weres were being targeted.

  There was really only one message I wanted to send him; and I doubted Fain would let me use the wretched device for it.

  I love you. Stay alive, for the All’s sake, until I can get home and tell you that.

  I rubbed tears from my eyes and went outside to scout the yard; cursing whoever had decided that bushes and statuary were a good thing to have near the house, but glad to be out of all that emptiness, I worked my way around to the servants’ quarters.

  Voices, laughter, an arrhythmic thudding that might be dancing. Above, a few windows sent out gleams here and there under the low eaves; below, around the kitchens, every window was aglow, shutters thrown open, yellow light gleaming in the puddles like melted butter.

  I poked my head in at the side door, to see a mass of bodies; it seemed as though every Ikinchli servant in the place, which was going on for forty of them, not counting those in the guard, were crammed into the kitchens and spilling into the hall, gabbling, drinking, dancing. Some were smoking long-handled, elaborately carved pipes, filling the air with a sweetish fug. Someone was playing an instrument, or at least I thought it was an instrument; it sounded to me like someone intermittently strangling a pig with a silver wire.

  “Itnunnacklish!” someone yelled, high and exulting. “Itnunnacklish!”

  Others took it up. “Itnunnacklish!” “Itnunnacklish!” “Itnunnacklish!” Pipes and mugs were waved in the air.

  One of them noticed me, and waved his pipe. His third eyelids were half-up, which meant he was either sick or so dosed on something he was about to fall over. “Join our worship,” he said.

  “Worship, right. Thanks, but... I was just...”

  “She doesn’t want to join our worship,” someone else said, and went off into a stream of Ikinchli.

  A few more people had noticed my presence, and had stopped to look at me. They didn’t look unfriendly, exactly; just watchful. The more sober of them, anyway.

  Another, sitting on a low table, leaned in, the lower halves of his eyes also sheened with the pearl-coloured inner eyelid. “Don’t have to believe in the Itnunnacklish,” he said. “Don’t have to believe in anything. Drink. Smoke. Tomorrow, everything be like it was, is just another party, okay? Good party.”

  “Is everyone here? How many of you are there?”

  But he just belched and slid off the table in a heap, sending a handful of metal tankards clanging to the floor, to laughter and shouts.

  If any of the servants weren’t feeling like celebrating the arrival of the Itnunnacklish, it was impossible to tell. Enthemmerlee had, on my insistence, given me a list; but I didn’t know all the faces. The only ones I could see were missing were a handful of the Ikinchli guard; I hoped they were on duty, and not tucked away plotting their mistress’ demise.

  Someone tried to thrust a tankard into my hand, but others were beginning to stare and mutter. Time I left, before they decided I was here to spy for their masters.

 
; I smiled as best I could and backed out, straight into the seneschal, who was staring at the partiers. His face was expressionless, but you could have played his spine like the string on a lute. He hissed something at those nearest. They pretended not to hear.

  “Madam Steel,” he said, with a frigid little bow.

  “Seneschal.”

  “I was looking for you.”

  “You were?”

  “There is someone at the door who insists upon seeing you,” he said.

  “Wha?” My first, insane thought was Laney. But even Fey magic wouldn’t transport her across the sea and through a portal at that speed. “Who is it?”

  “He says his name is Mokraine.”

  I stared at the seneschal, so deeply confused it felt like being drunk. I wondered if he was lying, or up to something, but I couldn’t imagine how he would even know of Mokraine’s existence. But he made me twitchy; he had the look of someone wound so tight that if the wrong pressure was applied, he would spring apart, with little cogwheels and nasty pointy bits flying in all directions.

  “Mokraine? Here?”

  “That is what he says he is called.”

  I followed the seneschal’s rigid back.

  At the door was the guard, Brodenay, and one bedraggled warlock, with a miserable-looking familiar at his heels.

  “Ah, Babylon,” Mokraine said. “An interesting place. So much emotion in the air.”

  “Mokraine, what are you doing here?”

  “Talking to this young man,” he said. “This is a decaying culture, sadly lacking in magical history. I’m wet.”

  “Yes. Mokraine. Why are you here? And how?”

  “I am here because...” For a moment he looked nothing more than an old man, confused, and at a loss. “Something drew me. A portal, I think.”

  “A portal? You mean Bealach?”

  “No. Yes. I don’t know. As to how...” He shrugged. “The usual way. A ship. Some sort of vehicle. That style of thing.”

  “But...” I didn’t finish. You don’t ask a warlock as powerful as Mokraine still possibly was, “Where the hells did you find the money?” At least, I didn’t feel like risking it.

  “You know him?” Brodenay said.

  “I’m never quite sure about that, actually,” I muttered. “Recognise him, yes. Well, he’s here. Seneschal, any chance you could find him a room? Or something?”

  “I cannot accept a guest without consulting the Family,” the seneschal said. “It is late. I should not wish to disturb them.”

  The fella even talked like a Gudain. I wondered how hard he’d had to work to rid himself of the usual lilting Ikinchli susurration. I took him by the elbow and drew him – perhaps slightly more firmly than necessary – to one side.

  “Look, chum,” I said. “That gentleman may look as though he just wandered in off the street, but he is in fact an extremely powerful if somewhat distracted warlock and I really, really would advise you not to risk annoying him, do you follow me?”

  “What is a warlock?”

  “Oh, for...”

  “Can I be of assistance?” a familiar and smooth-as-silk voice said behind me. “By the All, is that Mokraine?”

  Even Fain sounded slightly startled; he gave us both a What’s going on? stare, at which I shrugged and which I doubt Mokraine even noticed. He was staring at the seneschal with a disturbing intensity.

  “You know him, sir?” the seneschal said, flicking his gaze away from Mokraine’s stare.

  “Why yes, a most respected magical practitioner. Who should not – may I make this very clear – should not be upset or annoyed. Or touched. At all.”

  The seneschal blinked his third eyelids, the first time I’d seen him make that particularly Ikinchli gesture. “I see,” he said, backing away slightly. “Then please follow me, and I will find some accommodation for the gentleman.” He looked at the familiar as it lurched after Mokraine. “That... Is it likely to... Should I have some straw fetched?”

  “Oh, it doesn’t excrete matter,” Mokraine said, striding into the hall.

  “It doesn’t... What does it excrete?” I said.

  “The sensation you feel when it brushes against you? I believe that may be its version of the eliminatory process.”

  “So when it touches you it sh... eliminates on your soul?”

  Mokraine actually laughed. “Possibly. But I’m sure your soul can shrug off any such thing, Babylon.”

  I wasn’t at all sure about that.

  ONCE HE’D BEEN sent off with the seneschal, Fain said, “Was this your doing?”

  “Me? No!”

  “I really hope not. Introducing Mokraine into an already unstable situation would be an act of extraordinary foolishness.”

  “I didn’t bring him here! I had no idea he was planning to come here, and neither, from the sound of it, did he.”

  “Do you have any idea of the current extent of his abilities?” Fain said.

  “No. He’s been on Scalentine as long as I’ve known him.”

  “That, of course, is part of the problem. He is no longer in Scalentine.”

  “I know he’s no longer in Scalentine. If he was, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” I said.

  “Please endeavour to be serious. His power is no longer damped. This makes him, potentially, extremely dangerous.”

  “I know! What, exactly, do you suggest I do about it?”

  “I suggest that you keep a careful eye on him and inform me if you notice any changes.”

  “Fain, I can’t watch him and Enthemmerlee, and spy for you, and...” I managed, just, to stop myself mentioning the silk shipment. Which I had to do something about. Though what, I still had no idea.

  “True. Then I will watch him myself.”

  “And what will you do if you think he’s becoming a threat?” I said.

  “I shall take whatever measures I deem necessary,” Fain said.

  “Are any of them likely to work?” I said. “Because if you attempt to restrain him in some way, and fail, I don’t want to be you. Or anywhere near you, actually.”

  “I am aware of the risks. Now, unless you are on duty, I think you should try and get some sleep.”

  “Thank you, I’d never have thought of that,” I said.

  “Madam Steel...”

  “Goodnight, Mr Fain.”

  I wasn’t the only one up late; Bergast’s light was burning. I heard him muttering behind his door. I couldn’t make it out, but it sounded like the same set of phrases, over and over again, with occasional pauses for much more audible swearing.

  I MANAGED TO grab a couple of hours of uneasy sleep, darkness woven through with voices and a sense that things were moving around me that I couldn’t quite see. Then Rikkinnet was shaking my shoulder and telling me it was time to accompany the family to privaiya.

  Bergast and I went into the little chapel to check it out; inside, it was low and dim, the eaves of the tiled roof hanging half over the windows. An elaborate brazier of some darkly gleaming ceramic stuff stood at the front, a stone table behind it. The priest was an elderly Gudain male, in multi-coloured robes whose internal ruff was square, making him look like a small, mobile building until you got close enough to see that inside the boxy outline he was so wispy and frail that a strong wind would send him drifting over the roof of his own chapel like a kite. “It’s not quite ready,” he said. He was setting out various bowls and implements on the table with slow care; shuffling back to a recess in the rear of the chapel to fetch more items, bringing them back and laying them out. He couldn’t carry much at a time, and everything had its own place. A copper bowl, a knife, worn thin and shiny with use. Flint and tinder.

  I checked out the recess: nothing more than a shelf-lined cupboard, too small for anyone to lurk in. “Please don’t move anything!” the priest said.

  I looked at him as he tottered up, hands held out in distress. He hadn’t reacted to my non-Gudain appearance, or Bergast’s for that matter, and as he turned
yellowed eyes on me I realised he was nearly blind. He blinked slowly at me, looking vaguely puzzled. I had the right-shaped features, but was the wrong colour.

  “I won’t move anything,” I said. “I’m a guest of the family. Just having a look about.”

  That seemed to satisfy him.

  He took something else out, a lump of dark green stuff like mud, about the size of my fist. It smelled oversweet, sickly. Incense, probably. No wonder the child didn’t like it; I wasn’t looking forward to breathing that for long. He made his slow, painful way back to the table. That seemed to be the last thing. Bergast wandered about the chapel, making notes, his quill scritching like a mouse in the walls.

  “Bergast?”

  He looked at the stuff on the table, broke off a bit of the incense, and crumbled it under his nose.

  “Bergast. Anything?”

  “Oh, yes,” he said. “It’s very interesting. You know, there are some fascinating similarities...”

  “I meant, any threat?”

  He looked slightly miffed at being reminded of his actual purpose in being here. “Oh. No, nothing I can detect.”

  I nodded to the family waiting in the doorway. Enthemmerlee, Selinecree and Enboryay filed in, leaving Rikkinnet outside. Fain was nowhere to be seen, and I wondered, uneasily, what he was up to.

  Empty benches, great old polished stone things too heavy to move easily, lined the chapel. The little family, huddled at the front, looked like flotsam washed up on some rocky, hostile shore.

  The priest lit the brazier with agonising, arthritic slowness, and only after several tries and almost setting light to his own robe.

  “Burn down the bloody chapel one of these days,” Enboryay muttered, quite clearly, but the priest didn’t seem to hear him. Selinecree made a faint distressed noise.

  The priest hadn’t seemed to notice Enthemmerlee, sitting a few feet from his nose. He muttered almost inaudibly, with occasional, apparently random, outbursts.