Low Town: A Novel

by Daniel Polansky

  “I’d say divine justice, but I don’t have such a grim view of the Daevas.” I leaned in close enough that no one else could hear me. “The thing next to us is the shell of the man responsible for the last corpse we had a conversation over. As to what killed him, if it has a name I don’t know it. But if I was responsible, you wouldn’t have found his remains, nor would I have passed out next to the corpse.” I noted with a petty sort of joy that our contact had smeared a swath of sanguinary fluid on his duster.

  A crowd of heretics had gathered at the mouth of the cul-de-sac, chittering loudly, fear and anger in their eyes. The frost needed to cover up the body, and they needed to set up a decent perimeter, and they needed to do it quick. What the hell had happened to Black House since I’d left? It’s all well and good to engage in a little bit of casual violence against a suspect, but not at the expense of professionalism. Who did they think they were, the hoax?

  The years we had spent tracking the lowest scum of humanity through the general detritus of civilization were enough to convince Crispin of my reliability as a witness, but the guarantees of a disgraced ex-agent-cum-criminal wouldn’t be sufficient for the brass. “You have any proof?”

  “None whatsoever. But if you get his name and residence you’ll find a memento he kept, maybe a piece of her clothing. You’ll probably find a few of them.”

  “You don’t even know his name?”

  “I don’t have time for these trivialities, Crispin—I work in the private sector now.”

  The crowd was getting rowdy, shouting past the loose cordon of troops blocking off the alley, although about what I still couldn’t tell. Did they want my head for killing one of their kind? Had word somehow spread of the man’s crimes? Maybe it was just the contempt for police countenanced by all reasonable people. Regardless, this whole thing was starting to get ugly. I saw one of the guardsmen get into it with a member of the mob, stiff-arming him back into his fellows and shouting ethnic slurs.

  Crispin noticed what I had. “Agent Eingers, take Marat and stop those assholes from making this situation any worse. Tenneson, you’re in charge. Guiscard and I are taking the suspect to headquarters.” He turned back to me. “I’m putting you in irons,” he stated flatly. Not a shocking development, but I wasn’t thrilled with it either. I stood up straight and Crispin chained my hands firmly but without unnecessary cruelty. Guiscard took his place in front of me without comment. His characteristically unpleasant personality was mellowed, and I noted with some surprise that he hadn’t taken part in his comrades’ abuse.

  The pair of them frog-marched me to the mouth of the alley, where two of the agents were trying without success to placate the crowd. Guiscard, acting as point, made an attempt to clear a path for us, but the heretics, normally a docile race, were unresponsive. A standoff seemed imminent, and not one that would redound to my advantage. Not in handcuffs anyway.

  Crispin’s hand rested on the hilt of his blade, dangerous but not immediately threatening. “By the authority bequeathed to me as agent of the Crown, I order you to disperse or be considered outside the protections of the Throne.”

  The crowd was having none of it, the brutality of the hoax and the indignity shown to the corpse sufficient to drive them to uncharacteristic defiance. Though the heretics’ natural inclination toward obedience was sufficient to stop them from surging on us, they made no move to follow Crispin’s command.

  Crispin closed his hand around the gem hanging at his throat. He closed his eyes briefly, and the jewel glowed with a soft blue light that leaked out through his fist. This time his words allowed no challenge. “By the authority bequeathed to me as agent of the Crown, I order you to disburse or be considered outside the protections of the Throne. Make way or consider yourself an enemy of the Crown.” And although he hadn’t raised the volume at which he spoke, his voice echoed through the assemblage, and the crowd of Kirens broke, quieting respectfully and swamping against the walls.

  The Crown’s Eye was another thing I really missed about being an agent.

  Crispin nodded to a pair of guardsmen, who took up flanking positions as we continued back to the main street. Halfway around the block, out of sight of the Kirens, Crispin put his hand against the wall and broke down. “A moment,” he gasped, his mouth open, his lungs working desperately to take in air. The Eye draws its strength from its owner, and even an experienced agent like Crispin couldn’t use its power without exhausting himself.

  We waited nervously for Crispin to regain his wind. I was getting antsy—it would go ill if the crowd regrouped and fell on us in the narrow confines of the alley. Guiscard rested his hand on his superior’s shoulder. “We need to keep moving,” he said, and his eyes were hard. Crispin took one more breath and fell into line.

  They escorted me across half the city, like a dignitary with an honor guard, although in the past I’d never gotten the impression they were bound. It was the second time I had been brought to Black House in chains. It wasn’t nearly as unpleasant as the first.

  Black House is, frankly, less imposing than it probably should be. A squat, unattractive edifice, more like an oversize merchant house than the headquarters of the most dreaded police force on the face of the planet, it sits obtrusively but without grandeur at a busy intersection straddling the boundary between the Old City and Wormington’s Shingle. Three floors of a city block and a maze of warrens beneath the ground remind the populace that the unwavering gaze of the Crown is always upon them. There is little ornamentation, and from the outside the structure fails to inspire or intimidate.

  It is, however, mostly colored black. So there’s that.

  When we reached the grim entranceway Crispin sent the guardsmen back to the crime scene, then he and Guiscard walked me inside. We moved deeper into the building, past the unmarked door that led to the underground rooms where the real interrogations take place, and I breathed a quick sigh of relief. That was one experience I wasn’t eager to repeat, neither as participant nor victim. When we reached the main hallway Crispin broke off, presumably to report to the higher-ups, leaving Guiscard to continue as my escort. I braced myself for further abuse, but the Rouender showed no desire to rekindle our conflict. He opened the door to the holding area, a featureless stone room, empty save for a cheap wood table and a trio of uncomfortable chairs. He set me down in one of them. “Crispin will be back soon,” he said.

  Dried blood was caked below my nose. “Not interested in taking your turn?”

  “The dead man—he was responsible for the girl?”

  I nodded.

  “How did you know?”

  “Everybody knew,” I said. “We just weren’t telling you about it.”

  He rolled his eyes and stomped out.

  I spent about an hour and a half in the chair, wincing from the pain in my skull and trying to figure out how many of my ribs were broken. Three was my best guess, but without the use of my hands it was tough to be sure. I thought about slipping my chains as a fuck you to Crispin and the rest of his crew, but it seemed a petty sort of revenge and one likely to earn another beating.

  Eventually the door opened and Crispin entered, a dark look on his face. He took the seat opposite me.

  “They won’t touch it,” he said.

  If I was a little slow on the uptake, it was understandable given the circumstances. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “It means that as far as Black House is concerned, this matter is closed. Zhange Jue, mill worker and occasional hired thug, was the murderer of Tara Potgieter and several other girls, identities to be determined. He was killed by person or persons unknown in a manner that has yet to be established. You came across the person or persons engaged in the murder but were knocked unconscious before you could ascertain their identity or identities.”

  “Person or persons unknown? Are you out of your fucking mind? You think the Kiren was stabbed to death? You know as well as I do this reeks of the Art.”

  “I know.”

&nbs
p; “Even the brass can’t be so stupid as to think otherwise.”

  “They aren’t.”

  “Then what are you talking about, ‘the matter is closed’?”

  Crispin rubbed at his temples as if to alleviate some hidden pain. “You worked here long enough—do I have to spell it out for you? No one’s looking to get himself involved in something this ugly, not on the say-so of a drug dealer. The Kiren killed Tara, and now he’s dead. End of story.”

  It had been a long time since I’d come across an outrage I was insufficiently jaded to accept. “I get it—no one cares about the dead child. Why would they? She’s just another slum kid. But there’s something loose in Low Town that was spat out from the heart of the void. People need to know.”

  “No one’s ever going to know. They’ll burn the body and you’ll keep your mouth shut and after a while it’ll disappear.”

  “If you think this thing is done, then you’re as stupid as your superiors.”

  “You know so much?”

  “I knew enough to find Tara’s murderer while the rest of you were up here holding your dicks.”

  “And why don’t you tell me how exactly that happened—or am I to believe you were wandering through the back alleys of Kirentown and bumped into the man responsible for the body you found two days ago?”

  “No, Crispin, obviously I was tracking him down. I assumed that being a member of an elite investigative organization, you wouldn’t need the situation spelled out to you like a damn child.”

  His upper lip twitched below his beaked nose. “I told you not to go looking for him.”

  “I chose to ignore your suggestion.”

  “It wasn’t a suggestion, it was the command of a legally empowered representative of the Crown.”

  “Your orders didn’t mean much to me when I was an agent, and a half decade out of the service hasn’t led me to rate them any higher.”

  Crispin reached over the table and rapped me on the chin, almost casually but with enough force that I struggled to maintain balance on the chair. Damn, but the man was still quick.

  I rubbed at a loose tooth with my tongue, nursing the pain and hoping it wouldn’t fall out. “Fuck you. I don’t owe you a thing.”

  “I spent the last forty-five minutes convincing the captain to keep you out of the hands of Special Ops. If it wasn’t for me, they’d be taking you apart with a scalpel right now.” The sneer sat awkwardly on his face. Crispin was not by nature disposed to reveling in the misfortune of others. “You know how much those animals want you back under their care?”

  Quite badly, I imagined. I had been working for Special Operations toward the end of my time as an agent, the unit tasked with fixing issues that fell outside the normal purview of law enforcement. Their retirement package generally consisted of a violent death and an unmarked grave, and avoiding that unhappy fate had taken a good bit more luck than a wise man ought to count on twice. I owed Crispin for averting a reunion, and even my well-honed sense of ingratitude wasn’t sufficient to deny that.

  From inside his duster Crispin pulled out a document and sent it spinning across the table. “Here’s your statement. The illegal goods found in the alley are assumed to be Zhange Jue’s and will be destroyed according to official policy.” That was right; they must have found my satchel. I guess I owed Crispin for that too: ten ochres’ worth of breath will get you five years in a labor camp, three more than the average inmate survives. “Sign at the bottom,” he said, then leaned across the table and unlocked my cuffs.

  I spent a moment rubbing circulation back into my wrists. “Good to see the case wrapped up, justice pursued, righteousness restored and all that.”

  “I don’t like this any more than you do. If I had my way, we’d be tearing apart the Kiren’s house, and have half the force looking into your story. This …” He shook his head bitterly, and I saw the same young man I’d met ten years earlier, who fancied his service to the Crown was just that, service, and that what evil existed in the world could be defeated by the strong right arm of a virtuous man. “This isn’t justice.”

  For all his intellect and physical prowess, at the end of the day Crispin wasn’t very good at his job. His fantasies of what it should be blinded him to what it was, and that had doomed him to the middle ranks even though his family was one of the oldest in Rigus and his service to the Crown noble and distinguished. Justice? I almost laughed. An agent doesn’t pursue justice, he maintains order.

  Justice—by the Lost One, what can you say to that?

  I didn’t have the energy to give him another civics lesson, and anyway this was a long-standing argument. Growing up surrounded by tapestries depicting his ancestors leading doomed charges against invincible odds had made him a sucker for words that didn’t mean anything. I signed my name at the bottom of the document with a flourish.

  “The Kiren got his, and I leave justice to the Firstborn. At the moment I’m more concerned with what happens when the thing that killed him comes back.”

  “If I were you, I’d hope it doesn’t—as of right now, you’re the only link. So long as it stays gone, no one gives a shit about you, not anymore. But if it starts popping up again, Special Ops will set you a spot in the basement, and there won’t be anything I can do about it.”

  That was as pleasant a note as any to leave on. “Until that happy day comes,” I said, giving him a nod of farewell.

  He didn’t return it, his eyes downcast, fixed without purpose on the center of the table.

  I left Black House with all possible speed, hoping to avoid both the pull of memory and any former comrades intent on displaying dissatisfaction with my career path via physical assault. I was more successful with the second than the first, and by the time I hit the streets my mood had plunged into something approaching outright despair. I walked home wishing I still had my stash, and could take a quick dip into it.

  When I got back to the Earl I drank a flagon of ale and slept for about a day and a half, waking only to give Adolphus a quick blow-by-blow over a plate of eggs. I kept vague on what exactly had done the Kiren—the less anyone knew, the better for everyone. He was suitably impressed.

  For the next week I went about my business with a tight watch, backtracking and setting false trails in case anyone was shadowing me, but best as I could tell, I was on my own. No ethereal spirits, no dark apparitions hovering out the corners of my eye—just the boil on the ass of Rigus that is Low Town, stewing in all its fetid glory.

  So for a while I assumed that would be pretty much it. I had some long nights thinking about the monstrosity, but even had I been interested in tracking it down, I had nothing to work from. And, truth be told, I’d had my fill of playing detective—pretending I was an agent had turned out to be even less satisfying than actually being one.

  Then the Shattered Dagger Mob went to war with a clique of Islanders from near the docks, and I didn’t have time to think about anything other than the day-to-day survival of my enterprise. Spending my afternoons explaining to stone-faced heretics why I owed them no tax on my operations and my evenings convincing a crew of drug-addled rude boys that I was too crazy to muscle didn’t leave much room for extracurricular activities.

  As far as the rest of Rigus was concerned, the important people considered the matter forgotten, and the unimportant people didn’t count. The ice kept a pretty tight lid on the whole thing. There were rumors of black magic and demons hiding in the shadows, and for a while there was a boom in the sale of defensive charms of dubious effectiveness, especially among the Kiren, by nature a superstitious people. But Low Town is a busy place, and as autumn gave way to early winter, the murder of Tara Potgieter sunk into the realm of dim memory.

  I thought about heading back to the Aerie to clue the Crane in on what had happened; I figured I owed him that much. But then I figured I owed him a hell of a lot more, and since I’d never be able to repay the full amount, I decided to write off this last debt as well. He’d understand, even if Ce
lia wouldn’t. Scratch a scab long enough and it’ll start to run. That part of my life was over—as far as I was concerned our reunion was an isolated incident.

  Despite the best efforts of Adeline, Wren refused to spend a full night within the walls of the Earl. Like a half-trained version of his namesake, he’d flit in to snatch a few crumbs of food, then fly out again without a word. Once I caught him swiping something from a neighborhood stall, and he disappeared for a full week, leaving Adeline sick with worry and furious at me—but then he showed up again one evening, slipping through the back door like nothing had happened.

  Though reticient to take to settled life, he was there when I needed him and became an aid if not an asset to my operations. I kept him out of anything serious and never let him hold any weight, but his fresh legs were useful when I needed a message carried, and I found myself acclimatizing to his laconic presence, one of those few individuals unencumbered by the need to fill the air with rhetoric.

  Adolphus offered to teach the boy to box, and much as it galled him to admit there might be a skill he’d yet to master, he had the good sense to take the giant up on his offer. He showed a talent for it, and I enjoyed wasting the occasional hour watching the two spar, burning a twist of dreamvine while Adolphus demonstrated basic footwork with his gargantuan frame. It was this idle enterprise I was engaged in late one afternoon when Adeline unknowingly set my feet upon the path of ruin.

  “You can take five blows to the chest easier than one to your head,” Adolphus was saying, his fat face thick with sweat as his wife entered the courtyard. “Always keep your hands up,” he continued, Wren aping his actions in miniature beside him.

  So soft is Adeline’s voice that on those rare occasions when she magnifies it beyond a whisper it has the effect of a shriek. “Another girl’s gone missing.”

  I reminded myself to exhale a chest full of smoke. Adolphus dropped his hands to his sides, his voice low and guttural. “When? Who?”