Salvation's Fire

by Justina Robson

  The innkeeper’s girls took it for lightness of heart and immediately began a flurry of nuptial chatter that swept all the rest of the day’s business temporarily out the window. They didn’t escape the excitement of preparations for a celebration dinner for another two hours. By the time they were on the way to the town they had fabricated two not entirely separate histories in which they met in the war, were battlefield sweethearts, attempted to be married but were thwarted by an invasion and had recently met again after months of searching. As neither of them had living relatives they were to wed in the nearest place where they could find a suitable minister. That had been a mistake, Tricky reluctantly thought, as the innkeeper’s wife had been only too happy to inform them that the Gracious One Hospice had lately reopened itself as a place of ministry and healing both and as her niece was an understudy there, she would be delighted to make all the arrangements.

  Ralas limped along at Tricky’s side as they walked in an embattled silence. “I never insulted your mother.”

  “You insulted someone’s mother.” Tricky waved him off. “At some point. It’s certain.”

  “What magic was that which you…” He had to pause and smile as they came around a corner and found themselves face to face with a woman coming the other way, a knapsack on her back and a heavy bag in her hand. Behind her the town gates rose, scaffolded but steady, against the sky. Guards were patrolling along the parts of the wall which had been restored.

  “It was one of the lesser charms of Luciba the Lazy,” Tricky said as though these were common knowledge and of no account. “She never looked the same twice. Bad gambling habit and a terrible loser but she was never arrested and had six husbands all in the same town. Now look. I’m going to do the talking. You stretch your repertoire and do the standing around looking like a tough guy.”

  Ralas was taken aback. “A cripple with a lute?”

  “Any musician that plays like you do has to be pretty tough.” She shrugged with a careless manner that made her seem winsomely vulnerable beneath a hard-won streetwise exterior.

  “Plays like… what do you mean?” He felt insulted to the core, even as he noted her acting abilities were a little on the nose somehow, as if she had something genuine to hide.

  “You know. All sincere ballads and things. Glory songs. Nothing funny. You need more… funny in your act. Like the Far… like bawdy songs. Songs for the common folk.”

  “What would you know about my ‘act’?” For a second he’d been sure she was going to name the ‘Farmers of Doubty’, the song he had sung to the Kinslayer just before he was killed for the first time, but she couldn’t know about that. Bawdy hadn’t really done well for him.

  She tutted. “Do you know ‘Cenella the Vampire’s Paramour’?”

  “I… is that a drinking song?” He would have bet a day without pain on the fact that he knew mostly every song that was hummed and bowdlerized and badly remembered between any two points on the map but this one didn’t ring a bell.

  “It’s more of a post-drinking song. He lived to suck blood and she lived to… The point is it’s very funny.”

  “You’ll have to teach me. But bawdy and roisterous,” he said, annoyed with how much he was trying to impress her, “I can do that.”

  “Good. Find ones with happy endings. People want to feel there’s some hope left.” She was fiddling with things in her pockets, he could see, looking preoccupied.

  As they neared the gate the number of people increased and the road became hemmed in with huts and shelters that had been built in the last few months as refugees gathered at the portside, hoping for news and lingering, still too fearful to attempt returning to wherever they had come from and finding comfort in numbers.

  They joined the group of people gathering for entry, and Tricky took out a small scroll from one pocket and undid the ribbon. She kept her travelling hood up, pushed back enough to show her face but also to keep it shaded.

  Ralas, in his sensible blue blending-in attire, felt nervous. The Cheriveni were sticklers for protocol, something which set his teeth on edge. In his youth he’d been had up by their magistrates for a failure to present the correct licences for performance within the city limits. Those were days when he’d thought it was a fine life to carry on as a street entertainer, before the war had got close enough to him that he could ignore it no longer. Being here was the strangest sensation for those days seemed very close but also untouchably far away. Memory was like that, it comforted, reliving old feelings, and then it hurt as the present compared to them and fell down flat on its face. In every person nearby he saw the same, resigned expression of expected disappointment, though this could have had something to do with the pedantry of the gate watch, whose lips moved steadily as they read everyone’s papers.

  One woman caught his eye unintentionally and was captured by the shocking bruising of his face, lingering with a moment of alarm that sent her looking all around and down the road for potential attackers even though she was next in line and the wall was policed by a steadily marching patrol who showed no care. He passed a few moments looking at all the Oerni faces around him from various trading families, thinking of Bukham and wondering how he was getting along.

  Meanwhile Tricky shuffled around and attempted some information-gathering small talk. When she turned back to him she opened her gloved palm and showed him some worn leather thongs with wooden rings on, a charm made from a mouse’s foot and two copper scits. She shook her head in disgust.

  “These people have nothing.”

  A moment and a few gliding moves later and she had replaced the treasures in their allocated pouches and pockets, or at least that was what he assumed she was doing. Then it was their turn at the gate and the guard poring over their scroll, holding it three inches from her face.

  Behind him he heard a muttering of surprises, quickly suppressed to levels below official eavesdropping, but he distinctly caught a woman whispering, “Look it I found inna pocket! A polly.” A flurry of “me too” followed and the air of despond was replaced by a subtle, silent mixture of glee and alarm, the luck astonishment and happiness vying with terror at the inexplicability of it all.

  Tricky, eyes fixed on the guards, had a curl to her mouth that was full of satisfaction. She caught him staring at her as they were pushed through the wicket gate and sent on to the open road into the town. “Polly pockets. It’s a good game, hm?”

  He nodded, genuinely surprised and briefly feeling something he could hardly name because it had been so long since he felt it: “It’s a great game.” Joy.

  The broad, muddy road led from the gate and then rapidly branched out. Tricky took them past the Hospice. “Let’s get the state of play, eh?” she said, as they neared the structure. Ruined by Heart Taker white fire, the stonework of the original building was still silvered and shattered, but within it a more modest wooden structure had been erected and painted in white and gold. The Gracious One Hospice was back in business. Ralas wondered what they’d make of him, was tempted to go ask, just in case there was someone who could offer him hope—but then again, it was more likely to get him killed if they discovered he was without remedy. They passed it, moving through places where much hard labour had made homes nearly grand again, the colours of the footmen and servants washed and bright against the awnings and bustle of the market streets. A terrible aching clawed at his heart and the lute banged his bony spine. As if she read his mind he found Tricky touching his arm in a conspiratorial fashion.

  They passed a man playing spoons and a woman twanging a simple harp made from a broom and a barrel. They were doing a fair version of ‘All The Fair Lads of Kheri’, and he longed to pitch up and join in, but his broken feet and his sore face told him it wasn’t a good idea.

  They passed food stalls and alcoves filled with tiny tea stands where people of all sizes and shapes bent close to each other to hear business and make deals under the guard of the general hubbub. Rats scampered through the rubbish and they were n
early barged over by a gang of children, each with two sticks—one sharp and pointed, the other heavy and bearing dangling rat bodies tied by the tails—as they chased these down with single-minded lust.

  “Good to see the nippers doing something fun and productive,” he ventured.

  “Indeed,” she said and turned into a much less crowded street where scaffolding was up against one in three buildings. Their destination was a small but tidy and notably whole house near the middle. He looked up and read the freshly painted lettering on the sign. Catt & Fisher, apothecaries, physicians, notaries of law, layers of note, dealers in the unusual.

  “I’ll do the talking,” she said. “You just keep an eye on everything and let me know if you see anything untoward.”

  “I know them,” he said. “Untoward is their middle name.”

  She cocked her head. “You know them?”

  “Met them at…”

  “Not now.” She put her finger to his lips. “Haven’t got time and don’t want to get caught talking here. Thing is that Fishy and I have a little bit of history and I need you there to act as a bodyguard.”

  “Me? You need someone like Nedlam, surely?”

  “No no. She’s a violence lodestone. Bringing her would be like asking for it. But you, they’ll never do anything to you. I mean, look at you. You just stay quiet and pay attention and if I should happen to hand you anything while we’re in there keep hold of it.”

  “Aw, you’re not going to steal—”

  She had her finger up against his mouth again. “Not now,” she said, and opened the door.

  A bell tinkled as they came into a room that managed to be both cluttered and dim, making him pause to adjust for safety’s sake amid low hanging bunches of herbage while Tricky slipped onwards like a smoothly sailing boat towards a glass countertop. Behind it a tall, old man with a face made grizzly by black stubble that contrasted nicely with his greying hair was fiddling with something laid out in bits on a cloth. All around him shelves were full of objects so diverse Ralas could not have said what most of them were. In spite of the shabbiness of most of them, there wasn’t a speck of dust anywhere.

  The old man looked up, his long face lengthening as his chin dropped briefly. An air of caution made him straighten up and widen his eyes as his hands quickly rolled up the mat and its knickknacks and stowed them quickly out of sight beneath the counter. His gaze never wavered from Tricky’s face and he swallowed a couple of times. “Ah. It’s you.”

  “Delighted to see you too, Fishy,” she said as the man sidled out swiftly and went to the door, sticking his head out to check the street before closing it, shooting the bolt and putting his back to it. “Catt about? I’ve got some interesting items I need an appraisal on. And by some I mean one.”

  Ralas put his scarf down from his face and peered more closely through the glass counter. “Is that an Oerni whistling pipe?”

  “Indeed it is, young man,” Fisher said. “Wait. I know your face. That black eye is most distinct—you’re the Slayer’s bard.” He peered at Ralas as though inspecting something for value. “How did you come to be in her—” he nodded at Tricky, “—possession?”

  “I’m not actually a possession,” Ralas began but was interrupted.

  “Fishy.” Tricky tapped her nails on the counter-top impatiently as Fisher came back from the door and began to slide the window blinds down one at a time. “I’ve brought him to ensure fair play. You’ve met him and clearly you trust him. I need a disinterested man of judgement involved. Such is the quality of the item.”

  “Such is the risk of it, you mean,” Fisher said. “And not forgetting the fact I vowed to kill you next time I saw you. So more of a witness. Though who he’s going to tattle to I don’t know. The Slayer, perhaps?” He gave her a withering look and Ralas felt queasy. During this talk Fisher had been moving towards to the back of the shop where another door was ajar to a dark hallway. He called through this with an effort not to sound urgent. “Catt! Catty! She’s ba-ack.”

  “Who?”

  “Yer mother!” Tricky called loudly enough to be heard on the street and laughed. “Favourite aunt. Love of your life. Bringer of all the lovely gifties. Director of Treasure Central.”

  There was a brief silence. Fisher looked up through a thick bush of eyebrow, his broad nostrils flaring. He glared at Tricky. “You’re only on remand because I can smell what you’ve got.”

  “Proof positive, I think, that there need be no bad blood over the loss of that special item.”

  His gaze became darker and Ralas thought the counter and various of the loose objects around the room shook slightly. “Only if you’re giving it away and I doubt that.” There was a brief pause. “Do you still have it?”

  Tricky grinned. “You’re not having it and neither is anyone else.”

  Some of the tension between them seemed to lessen. At that moment footsteps shuffled behind the door and it opened to reveal a second old man, slightly shorter and more rounded than the first, his jeweller’s lenses set high on his forehead holding back a shock of near white hair, his expression as affably concerned as Fisher’s was acid with disapproval.

  He glanced at them and then held out his arms in a dramatic display of welcome. “Oh, madam mischief, what fell wind has blown you back into our fortunate lives? And Ralas, the singer of fate, nightingale of Nydarrow. A rare privilege indeed, I feel. How very unusual to see the two of you conspiring together in our humble domicile, I do hope that you were not followed here by unkind men keen on pressing home their lawsuits against your light-fingered appreciation of certain heirlooms as per your last visit?” And with this he cast a meaningful look at Tricky, who was standing with her hand on her hip, grinning at him.

  “Hey Catty,” she said. “How’s the old hock shop?”

  “Let’s do this in the back,” Fisher said and made a gesture at Catt to shoo him back and usher them both through at once.

  The room at the back was smaller and curated with exacting care. It was quite full from floor to ceiling with labelled boxes and shelves groaning with the clutter of a huge number of small objects. Strings and pulleys held rolls of cloth and bulging sacks up close to the rafters. Bits of taxidermy in various states of repair twirled idly in the draft as the door was closed. Dry and warped, a stuffed parac bared its huge rodent teeth in a yellow rictus, defiantly resistant to any semblance of life but determined to carry on regardless. Ralas knew how it felt.

  He heard Fisher muttering about artefacts of making as Catt returned to his carved throne—a seat with eagle talon feet which twitched as he and Tricky made their entrance, and then reached out covetously to grip the rug the chair was set upon, as though they fully expected it to be stolen out from under them.

  “I know you’re sore about the thing,” Tricky said, taking a long breath as both the Doctors eyed her with deep suspicion from their position side by side. “I know I promised it to you, Fu-Fisher. But this thing I’ve got now is just as good. Well, nearly. It’s probably as good. It definitely held something that’s just as good. But it needs expert eyes on it to be sure. And in return for your esteemed and very valuable help here I’m willing to part with it. By my honour.”

  “Ha!” Fisher barked. “Let’s see it and believe it later once you’re long gone.”

  “Now then,” Catt put out a hand and gently touched Fisher on the arm. “Patience. Although, my dear, you do owe us a very large sum of money for the destruction of property, trespass with violence and representation of your good self in the Cherivell Court system by the esteemed lawyers you see before you.” He reached over to the table at his side where inkwells, pens and papers were scattered in vast piles and, with delicate precision, used thumb and forefinger to extract a leaf of paper from near the bottom of one pile. It was long and filled with rows of numbers and lines of minute writing. “Your bill, if I may.” He presented it to her with a little flourish of pride in his work. “Oh, and here at the bottom, the extra for the laundering of
Fisher’s second best pair of trews. I’m not charging you for the smashed Egg of Foreboding Visions although I think you’ll find there’s precedent for that. It did break after you left but it was definitely stressed beyond endurance by events surrounding your presence and I would think it deeply generous if you would consider making an offer for, let’s say, half its value in the current market.”

  “Yeah, thanks.” Tricky snatched the paper, screwed it up one-handed and stuffed it down the front of her shirt. “So.” She pushed her hood back and withdrew from her cloak a tiny bundle of unpleasant looking sackcloth. “Get your multifarious whatsits in order, and put up some wards,” she said. “I’ve got artefact stuff to unload.”

  Catt was leaning so far forwards he was nearly tumbling out of his chair. “Isn’t that the Wrap of…”

  “It is. So push the furniture back as well, because this thing is big.” She backed up and Ralas went with her, right to the bookshelf behind him.

  “Wait, wait good lady!” Dr Catt exclaimed, holding out a hand to forestall her undoing the parcel. “I must admit a slight sense of unease at what may be about to transpire. We have, it is true, held several objects of considerable power at our shop before but…”

  “But me no buts,” she said, although she stayed her hand as Dr Fisher worked hard to push the huge chair back to the wall, dragging the rug with it, Catt still in position. “I know very well what you’ve got squirreled away and as a fellow collector of antiquities and interests I’m telling you that you have to see this and you have to see it now. As a gesture of goodwill just for taking a looksie, I will be paying you a substantial sum, to whit—” and she slipped from her glove a large ruby which Ralas recognised as being from the dress of Lysandra. It had been on the bodice, over the heart, and aside from its remarkable size it shone with an inner fire that twisted and twirled idly, strong enough to lend a scarlet glow to the lower angles of both their faces.