by Paula Guran
“I’m retired.”
“Sure, kid. Look, there’s a very old saying in my family: ‘Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is another wizard fucking with you.’ You never spent much time near Prosperity Street before, did you? Your apartments are on Hellendal. South of Tanglewing Street. Right?”
“About the location of my apartments, of course.”
“You’ve got iron in your spine, Amarelle, and I’m not here to prolong this or embarrass you. I’m just suggesting, to the room, if you like, that it would be a shame if any more unusual phenomena befell a part of Theradane that is of particular sentimental value to me. This is what your sanctuary money gets you. This is me being kind. Are you pretending to listen, or are you listening?”
“I’m listening.”
“Here’s a little something to further sharpen your hearing.” A burlap sack appeared in Jarrow’s hands and he threw it to her. It weighed about ten pounds, and the contents rattled. “The usual verification that I’m serious. You know how it works. Anyhow, in the best of all possible worlds, we never have to have a conversation like this again. What world do you want to live in, Amarelle Parathis?”
The air grew cold. The lights dimmed and receded into the corners of the room, vanishing like stars behind clouds. Amarelle’s stomach tumbled, and then her boots were on pavement, the sound of traffic was all around her, and Prayer-tree leaves brushed her face.
The sun was high and warm, and the black coach was nowhere in sight.
Amarelle shook the sack open and cursed as Shraplin’s head tumbled out. The edges of the pipes running out of his neck were burnt and bent.
“I don’t know what to say, boss.” His voice was steady but weak. “I’m embarrassed. I got jumped last night.”
“What the hell did they do?”
“Nothing technically illegal, boss. They left my head the contents intact. As for the rest, let’s just say I don’t expect to see it again.”
“I’m sorry, Shraplin. I’ll get you to Brandwin. I’m so sorry.”
“Quit apologizing, boss.” Something whirred and clunked behind the automaton’s eyes, and he gave a garbled moan. “But I have to say, my reverence for these high-level wizard types is speeding in what you might call a southerly direction.”
“We need more help,” whispered Amarelle. “If we’re going to put the boot to this mess, I think it’s high time we got the whole band back together.”
14. The Unretirement of Jadetongue Squirn
She was tall for a goblin, not that that meant anything to most other species. Her scales were like black glass, her eyes like the sudden plunge to blue depths beyond a continental shelf. Her pointed ears were pierced with silver rings, some of which held writing quills she could reach up and seize at leisure.
They all went together to see her in her shadowed cloister at the Theradane Ministry of Finance and Provision, a place that stank of steady habits, respectability, and workers who’d died at their desks with empty in-boxes. She was not best pleased to receive them.
“We’re not what we were!” Jade hissed when Amarelle had finished telling most of the story, safely inside the goblin’s office and Sophara’s sound-proof bubble. “Look at you! Look at the messes you’ve made! And look at me. How can I possibly help you? I’m an ink-stained functionary these days. I scribe ordinances and design engravings for bank notes.”
Amarelle stared at her, biting her lip. Jadetongue Squirn had been jailed six times and escaped six times. You could walk nearly around the world by setting foot only in nations that still sought her for trial. Smuggler, negotiator, procurer of bizarre supplies, she was also the finest forger Amarelle had ever met, capable of memorizing signatures at a glance and reproducing them with either hand.
“We’ve missed you at our drinking nights,” said Brandwin. “You were always welcome. You were always wanted.”
“I don’t belong anymore.” Amarelle’s voice was flat and she clung to her desk as though it could be a wall between herself and her old comrades. “I’m like a hermit crab that’s pulled an office over itself. Maybe the rest of you were only kidding yourselves about retiring, but I’m the real thing. I haven’t been coming out to see you because you’d expect Jadetongue Squirn, not this timid little person who wears her clothes.”
“We’re like a hand with a missing finger,” said Amarelle. “We’ve got half a year to make three hundred yards of street vanish and we need that slick green brain of yours. You said it yourself—look at what a mess we’ve made so far! Look what Jarrow did to Shraplin.”
Amarelle reached into a leather satchel. The automaton’s head bounced on Jadetongue’s desk a moment later, and she made a rattling noise in her throat.
“Ha ha! The look on your face!” said Shraplin.
”How about the look on yours, duncebucket?” she growled. “I ought to stuff you in a drawer for scaring me like that!”
”You see now why we have to have you back,” said Amarelle. “Shraplin’s the warning. Our next shot has to be for keeps.”
“Three funny bitches and a smart-ass automaton sans ass,” said Jade. “You think you can just walk in here, tug on my heartstrings, and snatch me out of my sad retirement.”
“Yes,” said Amarelle.
“We’re still not what we were.” She put a scaly hand on Shraplin’s face, then spun him like a top. “I’m definitely not what I was. But what the hell. Maybe you’re right, about needing help, at least.”
“So, are you going to take a leave of absence or something?” said Shraplin, when he’d stopped saying “Whaaaaargabaarrrrrgggh!”
“A leave of absence? Are you sure you didn’t damage the contents of your head?” Jadetongue glanced around at all the members of the crew. “Sweethearts, softskins, thimblewits, if you’re determined to see this thing through, the municipal bureaucracy of Theradane is the last asset you want to toss carelessly over your shoulder!”
15. Honest Business
“I haven’t asked you for anything to assist us in this whole affair,” said Amarelle. “Not once. Now that needs to change.”
“I’m not averse in theory to small favors,” said Ivovandas, “given that the potential reward for your ultimate success is so personally tantalizing. But do understand, most of my magical resources are currently committed. Nor will I do anything overt enough to harden Jarrow’s suspicions. He has the same authority to kill you outright that I do, if he can prove your violation of your sanctuary terms to our peers.”
“We’re starting a business,” said Amarelle. “The High Barrens Reclamation Consortium. We need you to sign on as the principal stakeholder.”
“Why?”
“Because nobody can sue you.” Amarelle pulled a packet of paper out of her coat and set them on Ivovandas’ desk. “We need a couple of wagons and about a dozen workers. We’ll provide those. We’re going to excavate wrecked mansions in the High Barrens on days when you and Jarrow aren’t blasting at each other.”
“Again, why?”
“There’s some things we need to take,” said Amarelle with a smile, “and some things we need to hide. If we do it in our names, the heirs of all the families that ran like hell when you settled here and started shooting at other wizards will line up in court to stop us. If you’re the one in charge, they can’t do a damned thing.”
“I will examine these papers,” said Ivovandas. “I will have them returned to you if I deem the arrangement suitable.”
Amarelle found herself on the lawn. But three days later, the papers appeared in her apartments, signed and notarized. The High Barrens Reclamation Consortium went to work.
The Parliament of Strife ruled Theradane absolutely but were profoundly disinterested in the mundane business of cleaning the streets and sorting the paperwork. That much they left to their city’s strangely feudal and secretive bureaucracy, who were essentially free to do as they pleased so long as the hedges were trimmed and the damage from the continual wizard feuding wa
s repaired. Jade worked efficiently from within this edifice. She pushed through all the requisite paperwork, forged or purchased the essential permits, swept all the mandated delays and hearings under the rug, and then stepped on the rug.
Brandwin hired their crew, a dozen stout men and women. They were paid the going wage for their work, that much again for the occasional danger of proximity to Ivovandas’ battles, and a triple portion for keeping their mouths shut. For a week or two they excavated carefully in the wreckage of once-mighty houses, concealing whatever they took from the ruins beneath tarps on their wagons.
Next, Brandwin and Shraplin spent a week refurbishing a trio of wagons as mobile vending carts. They extended wooden skirts around them to the ground, installed folding awnings and sturdy roofs, carved signs and painted them attractively. One of the wagons was kitted out as a book stall, the other two as food carts.
The labyrinth of bribes and permits needed to launch this sort of venture was even more daunting than the one that had preceded the excavation company. Jade outdid herself, weaving blackmail and intimidation into a tapestry of efficient palm-greasing. Whether the permit placards that hung from the vending carts were genuine articles or perfect copies was ultimately irrelevant. No procedural complication survived first contact with Jade’s attention.
With four months remaining, Amarelle and Sophara went into legitimate business for themselves. Amarelle peddled books on Prosperity Street until noon, while Sophara plied her precision sorcery for appreciative breakfast crowds on Galban Street. She cooked frosted walnut cakes into the shape of unicorns and cockatrices, caused fresh fruit to squeeze itself into juice glasses, and made her figs and dates give rude speeches while her customers tried to eat them and laugh at the same time. In the afternoon, she and Amarelle switched places.
Some days, Brandwin would operate the third vending cart, offering sweets and beer, but for some time she was absorbed in a number of demanding modifications to Shraplin’s body and limbs. These modifications remained hidden in the darkness of her workshop; Shraplin never went out in public wearing anything but one of his ordinary bodies.
One bright day on Prosperity Street, a stray breeze blew one of Amarelle’s books open and fluttered its pages. She moved to close it and was startled to find a detailed grayscale engraving of Scavius’ face staring up at her from the top page.
“Amarelle,” said the illustration. “You seem to have an unexpected literary sideline.”
“Can’t practice my former trade,” she said through gritted teeth. “Money’s getting tight.”
“So you’re exploring new avenues, eh? New avenues? Not even a smile? Well, fine, have it your way. I ought to snuff you, you realize. I don’t know who or what prompted the weirdness of the previous few months—“
Amarelle fanned the pages of the book vindictively. The illustration flashed past on each one, and continued talking smoothly when Amarelle gave up.
“ . . . but the wisest and cleverest thing would be to turn your bones to molten glass and take no chances. Alas, I need evidence of wrongdoing. Can’t just blast sanctuary tithers. People might stop giving us large piles of treasure for the privilege.”
“My business partners and I are engaged in boring, legitimate commerce,” said Amarelle.
“I know. I’ve been peeking up your skirts, as it were. Very boring. I thought we ought to have a final word, though. A little reminder that you should stay boring, or I can think of one story that won’t have a happy ending.”
The book slammed itself shut. Amarelle exhaled slowly, rubbed her eyes, and went back to work.
On the days wore, on the legitimate business went. The women began to move their vending carts more frequently, investing some of their profits in small mechanical equines to make this work easier.
With three months left in the contract, the carts that moved up and down Prosperity Street began to cross paths with carts from elsewhere in the city in a complicated dance that always ended with an unmarked High Barrens Reclamation Consortium wagon paying a quiet evening visit to one of the mansions they were excavating.
Another two months passed, and there was no spot on Prosperity Street that Amarelle or Sophara or Brandwin had not staked out at least temporarily, no merchant they hadn’t come to know by name, no constable they hadn’t thoroughly pacified with free food, good beer, and occasional gifts of books.
Three days before the contract was due to expire, a loud explosion shook the north end of Prosperity Street, breaking windows and knocking pedestrians to the curb. A mansion in a private court was found burning, already collapsing into itself. A huge black coach lay wrecked in the drive, its ghoul-cage wheels torn open, its roof smashed, its insides revealing nothing but well-upholstered seats and a carpeted floor.
The next day, Amarelle Parathis was politely summoned to the manse of the wizard Ivovandas.
16. Bottled Malady
“Am I satisfied? Satisfaction is a palliative,” said Ivovandas, gold-threaded teeth blazing with reflected light, butterflies fluttering furiously. “Satisfaction is mild wine. Satisfaction is a tiny fraction of what I feel. Delight and fulfillment pounding in my breast like triumphant chords! Seventy years of unprofitable disdain from this face-changing reprobate, and now his misery is mine to contemplate at leisure.”
“I’m so pleased you were able to crush him,” said Amarelle. “Did you manage to get home in time for your tea afterward?”
The golden wizard ignored her and kept staring at the glass cylinder on her desk. It was six inches tall and half as wide, capped with a ground-glass stopper and sealed with wax the color of dried blood. Inside it was wretched Jarrow, shrunken to a suitable proportion and clad in rags. He had reverted (or been forced into) the shape of a cadaverous pale man with a silver-black beard.
“Jarrow,” she sighed. “Jarrow. Oh, the laws of proportion and symmetry are restored to operation between us; my sustained pleasure balanced accurately against your lingering discomfort and demise.”
“So obviously,” said Amarelle, “you consider me to have stolen Prosperity Street in accordance with the contract?”
Jarrow pounded furiously against the glass.
“Oh, obviously, dear Amarelle, you’ve acquitted yourself splendidly! Yet the street is still there, is it not? Still carrying traffic, still hosting commerce. Before I retrieve your blue crystal, are you of a mind to indulge my former colleague and I with an explanation?”
“Delighted,” said Amarelle. “After all our other approaches failed, we decided to try the painstakingly literal. Prosperity Street is roughly three thousand, one hundred and seventy square yards of brick and stone surface. The question we asked ourselves was: who really looks at each brick and each stone?”
“Certainly not poor Jarrow,” said Ivovandas, “else he’d not find his bottle about to join my collection.”
“We resolved to physically steal every single square yard of Prosperity Street, every brick and stone,” said Amarelle. “Which yielded three problems. First, how to do so without anyone noticing the noise and tumult of our work? Second, how to do so without anyone objecting to the stripped and uneven mess made of the street in our wake? Third, how to provide the physical labor to handle the sheer volume and tedium of the task?”
“To answer the second point first, we used the High Barrens Restoration Consortium. They carefully fished through the mansions you two have destroyed in your feud to provide us with all the bricks and stones we could ever need.
“A large hollow space was constructed beneath each of our vending carts, which we first plied up and down assorted city streets, not just Prosperity, for an interminable length of time to allay suspicion that they were directly aimed at Jarrow’s locus.”
Jarrow banged his head repeatedly against the inside of his prison.
“Eventually we felt it was safe to proceed with our real business. The rest you must surely have guessed by now. The labor was provided by Shraplin, an automaton, whose meeting with Jarr
ow left him very eager to bear any trouble or tedium in the cause of his revenge. Shraplin utilized tool-arms custom-forged for him by Brandwin Miris to dig up the bricks and stones of the actual street, and to lay in their place the bricks and stones taken from the High Barrens mansions. At night, the detritus he’d scraped up by day was dumped into the ruins of those same mansions. As for why nobody ever heard Shraplin scraping or pounding away beneath our carts, all I can say is that our magician is highly adept at the production of sound-proof barriers to fit any space or need.
“All that was left to do,” said Amarelle, stretching and yawning, “was to spend the months necessary to carefully position our carts over every square foot of Prosperity Street. Nobody ever noticed that when we moved on, the patches of street beneath us had changed subtly from the hour or two before. Eventually, we pried up the last brick that was genuinely important, and Jarrow’s locus became just another city lane.”
“Help me!” Jarrow cried, his voice high and faint as a whisper in the wind. “Get me away from her! I can be him for you! I can be Scavius! I can be anyone you want!”
“Enough from you, I think.” Ivovandas slid his prison lovingly into a desk drawer, still smiling. She curled her fingers, and a familiar blue crystal appeared within them.
“You have suffered quite tenaciously for this,” said Ivovandas. “I give it to you now as my half of our bargain, fairly begun and fairly concluded.”
Amarelle took the glowing crystal and crushed it beneath her heel.
“Is that the end of it?” she said. “All restored to harmonious equipoise? I go on my way and leave you to your next few years of conversation with Jarrow?”
“In a manner of speaking,” said Ivovandas. “While I have dutifully disposed of the crystal recording from last year’s intemperate drunken visitation, I have just now secured an even more entertaining one in which you confess at length to crimes carried out in Theradane and implicate several of your friends by name.”
