Sworn in Steel

by Douglas Hulick

  I looked back out over the vista. The pilgrims were near the top of the road now, the setting sun turning their saffron robes into red-orange points of light against the gray of the rock. Like flames climbing their way up to the fuel that fired them. I wondered how many would be snuffed out before they made it home.

  “I don’t see it,” I said. “Degan isn’t the kind to give up on something just because it didn’t work out.”

  Wolf nodded. “I agree.”

  “But I thought . . .”

  “You’re the one who suggested his going over to the despot; I merely said I could understand the reasoning behind such an action. I never said I thought he would.”

  Son of a . . .

  “Fine,” I said. “Then why do you think he might be in el-Beyad?”

  “Knowing Bronze, he’s looking for someone or something. Not something that will exonerate him—he’s not the kind to try to make excuses for his conscience—but something that will help give him a purpose, as we talked about. Or prove his point. He’s stubborn that way.”

  “So it’s not just him trying to put some distance between himself and the Order?”

  “It may be as simple as that, too.” Wolf shrugged. “Having never left the Order of the Degans, I can’t speak to what a man does in Bronze’s situation. But it’s not beyond him to take work with some minor noble or man of purpose.”

  “And men of purpose tend to gravitate to power,” I said.

  “Or make it for themselves. Either way, it’s best for me to ride to el-Beyad first, before attempting el-Qaddice.”

  Now it was my turn to look at him sidelong. I let a frown crease my mouth.

  “You have history in el-Qaddice, don’t you?” I said.

  “I’m a degan: I have history many places.”

  “Yes, but this place is special, isn’t it?” I said. “You said ‘attempt’; that you’d attempt the city. That tells me you think you may not be able to get in, that you may not be of any use to me in there.”

  “I will gain entry,” he said. “Do not doubt that, Kin. But it’ll take some arranging, and it’s better for me—and you—if I enter the city after you and your tribe of squabbling children are already inside. The less attention you draw to me, or I to you, the better.”

  My eyes narrowed. “What kind of attention?”

  “The kind that might keep us out of the city. Or make the padishah shy away from offering his patronage. Or attract the eyes or ears of the man we’re hunting.” Wolf corked the wine skin. “It’s the last I worry about the most: If he sees me before you find him, he may get the wrong idea. I don’t need him vanishing again. I don’t have the time.”

  “Have you considered Degan may get the wrong idea when he sees me, too?” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “You’re not a degan; he won’t assume you’re there to kill him. And even if he did, you’re not a threat.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  Wolf stood and showed me his teeth. “I expect you to be in the Old City of el-Qaddice within a week,” he said. “Two at the most.”

  “And if it takes longer? From what I hear, it’s not as if the padishah is sitting outside the gates, waiting for the next troupe to roll in from Ildrecca.”

  “You’re the Gray Prince,” he said. “Figure it out. Besides, the longer we take here, the longer you’re away from—and the greater the threat becomes to—your people back in Ildrecca.” Wolf gestured at the sinking sun. “Time is a friend to neither of us in this.”

  I didn’t move as Wolf sketched a brief bow and returned to camp; rather, I turned my eyes back to el-Qaddice. The pilgrims were gone from the road now, and the Lower City was already in the long shadows of evening. I sat there on the ground, watching the darkness creep up from the valley and wash over the walls and domes of the Old City, and wondered, again, just what exactly Wolf was up to.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Aadi el-Amah?” said the Djanese bravo feigning ignorance as he looked down at me. He stroked the twin braids of his beard. Neither had a brass ring at its end, which told me he was for hire, should I be so inclined. I wasn’t.

  We were standing off to the side of a busy side street in the Lower City, traffic jostling and passing us by in the dusty heat. I wiped at the sweat gathering below my kaffiyeh and waited for him to tell me if he knew the Zakur I was looking for. I suspected I already knew the answer I was going to get.

  “I know an Aadi,” said the mercenary slowly, “but his tribe name is Marud. Could that be who you mean?”

  “No,” I said, trying to keep my voice low. “It’s Amah.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  He nodded, then lifted his head and looked about the street. After a moment, he perked up. Then he yelled, “Hai, Daud!”

  Across the street and several yards down, an even larger man, clothed in the short linen vest, loose breeches, yellow stockings, and low red boots of a street mercenary turned his head our way—as did half the passing traffic. I winced.

  “Hai, Gilan!” Daud stopped but didn’t come over.

  “This little Imperial is looking for someone named Aadi el-Amah,” shouted my bravo, pointing at me. “Do you know him?”

  Numerous heads on the street pivoted to wait for Daud’s reply.

  “I know a Aadi el-Murad,” shouted Daud. “Is that who he means?”

  The heads pivoted back toward us.

  My man, Gilan, looked down at me. “You’re sure it’s not Murad?”

  I glared.

  “It’s not Murad,” yelled Gilan.

  “Have you tried asking Yusef ben—”

  I cursed and stormed away. Roars of deep, coarse laughter followed after me.

  A block later, I turned onto a twisting side street. Halfway down, I came to a teahouse. I stopped under the awning to catch my breath. And to smile.

  We’d been in the Lower City for six days now, and I’d been working the streets for five of them. It had been hard. I’d forgotten how slow, frustrating, and time-consuming it could be to step into a new town without any kind of connections or weight. The last time I’d been in a remotely similar situation was when I’d first come to Ildrecca with Christiana in tow. Back then, I’d been too naive, not to mention too busy trying to survive, to know when I was doing poorly: missing a cue, getting the brush-off, being fed a line of shit. Now, though, I was able to recognize when it was happening—the only problem was, I didn’t have the influence or reputation to do anything about it.

  As it was, I only had Aadi’s name because of my time spent with the caravan master and his drivers on the trail. Turned out that two of them were from el-Qaddice. After a week or so of sharing their fire, I’d started to learn something about the Lower City; after another several days, I’d begun to get hints and clues about its darker workings as well. I hadn’t known whether I would need them or not—the goal, after all, was to pass the audition so I could have full access to the entire city and look for Degan—but I’ve found that learning as much as you can about how the shadows of a place work before you get there is never a bad thing.

  That was the case now, especially since it looked as though we weren’t going to be getting our audition anytime soon. As it turned out, auditions for the padishah only happened once a month. The next set of auditions were in three days. Our place in line meant we wouldn’t be up for two months.

  I didn’t have the ready, or the time, to wait two months. Which was why I was working the street, looking for the one Zakur whose name kept coming up again and again whenever I talked to people about making arrangements to adjust our place in line. Aadi el-Amah was the man to talk to if you wanted the fix put in.

  He was also damn hard to find.

  I didn’t exactly think that was an accident. Local reticence aside, I was not only an Imperial in the middle of the Despotate; I was also a Kin among the Zakur. Just as we kept what passed for the Djanese underworld at arm’s len
gth back home, so they did the same to us here. Only, in el-Qaddice, my job was that much harder due to the lack of any kind of true Kin presence in the city. Oh, there were a few Imperial Prigs here and there, and even a couple of patchwork gangs in the Lower City, but none of them worked under any kind of higher authority. There was no one with status here, no one with any connections back home I could leverage. Here, among the Imperials, it was every cove for himself, which meant I didn’t have anyone to fall back on except myself.

  Naturally, Tobin and company had offered to fill in. The troupe master had suggested they play the streets or, if that failed, maybe try to pass themselves off as merchants or pilgrims or smugglers. Anything, he said, his eyebrows waggling conspiratorially, in hopes of catching a whisper or two for me.

  It was all I’d been able to do to convince them to stay in the caravansary and work on their audition piece. The last thing I needed was half my ticket in to the Old City either dead or locked away for some infraction or another.

  As for Fowler, she’d simply wanted to watch my blinders. And while I appreciated the offer, the idea of a tiny, angry blond woman following along in my wake in a city of dark-haired, deep-complexioned Djanese hadn’t exactly shouted subtlety to me. Better, I’d persuaded her, she stay behind and keep an eye on our Boardsmen. She hadn’t been pleased, but she’d agreed.

  Still, even with no one on my blinders, it felt good to be out. To stalk new streets for the first time; to puzzle out how rumors flowed in a different city; to not be weighed down by history or expectations or reputation. I’d long ago learned to read the tapestries of information that made up the street in Ildrecca, but here? Here, each pattern was fresh, each rumor a new test. Was it truth? Lies? Part of a greater piece, or something that could be cast aside? And was I paying a fair price for it?

  It was, in a word, exhilarating, and I ate it up.

  I glanced back the way I’d come to make sure the bravos hadn’t decided to follow, then took a seat at one of the low communal tables outside the tea shop. The three men who had been sitting there—two Djanese and a Rissuli horse priest—gave me an irate look, then pointedly picked up their tea bowls and moved to the next table, even though there were already two other men there. When one of the Djanese realized he’d left his plate of sweet wafers behind, he turned back, only to discover I’d already helped myself.

  “Mmm, almond,” I said in Djanese, holding one up before taking a bite.

  He eyed the sword at my hip, then Degan’s at my back, scowled some more, and turned back to his companions.

  “The wafers cost six supp,” said an uncertain voice behind me. I turned to find a nervous-looking girl at my back, her eyes purposely fixed on the table. She wore a simple shirt with embroidery fraying at both neck and sleeves, and a long underdress. Her feet were bare. She was maybe thirteen summers.

  “Really?” I said.

  She hesitated and glanced back over her shoulder. A dour, rotund, bearded face ducked back behind the curtain that hung across the door to the interior of the shop.

  “No, not really,” she admitted. Her eyes returned to the table. “My uncle said to tell you that.”

  “Why?”

  “I think he’s afraid to tell you to leave.”

  “Smart man. How much do you usually charge for the sweets?”

  “Two.”

  “Did the three who were just here already pay for them?”

  Pause. “Yes.”

  I sent a cool glance at the wavering curtain.

  I reached into my pocket and drew out a silver dharm, along with five copper supp. “The silver’s for you, for being brave,” I said, leaning forward so I could drop the square coins into her hand without it being visible from the shop’s doorway. She gasped, her eyes wide. “Hide it, then give your uncle the copper and tell him I want another plate of sweets and two pots of tea with honey. Tell him that if he tries to cheat me again, I’ll show him exactly why he should be afraid of me.”

  The girl put her hands on her waist, bobbed an enthusiastic thanks, and hurried back into the shop.

  I picked up another wafer.

  “That’s not a very good way to ingratiate yourself with the local Zakur,” said a voice off to my left.

  “I’m Imperial, and I’m Kin,” I said, pointedly keeping my eyes on the street. “I’m not exactly popular with your people as it is.”

  “Yes, but there’s unpopular, and then there’s stupid.” The man’s voice sounded as if it might have once been a mellow tenor; now it rattled like a dry riverbed. “A woman called ‘Act of Kindness’ runs this neighborhood. She doesn’t like people threatening the merchants under her protection.”

  I gave in and looked up at him. “‘Act of Kindness’?” I said. “You’ve got to be joking.”

  The gray-haired man standing beside my table shrugged. “She’s of the Sharkai,” he said, naming her tribe as if that were explanation enough. “What can you do?” He sat.

  Aside from his voice, he was unremarkable: shallow cheeks, sun-dark skin, a week’s worth of beard that could either be left to grow or shaved off, depending on whether or not he needed to change his appearance. The small green cap he wore atop his head did little to hide his vanishing hairline, while an ankle-length thobe concealed everything else.

  I pushed the plate with the last wafer over. He eyed it a moment, then nodded once and picked it up. A Djanese sharing my hospitality: No one was going to be killing anyone at the moment.

  “What you did with the Red Boots back there?” he said as he took a bite. “Getting them to start yelling my name across the street? Not bad.”

  “You liked that, did you?”

  “Like it?” said Aadi el-Amah. “I’ll have every street urchin within three districts knocking at my door, telling me there’s an Imperial hunting me and hoping for a coin for the trouble. If I’m lucky, the Zakur sheikhs won’t call me in to ask why someone was shouting my—and therefore, potentially their—business up and down the street. Any criminal of standing will be avoiding me for days, worried I’m becoming either too old to keep my business private or too well known to keep theirs secret. You’ve cost me at least a week’s worth of work, maybe more.”

  “Still, it got your attention.”

  “Pshh!” he said, a fine spray of wafer crumbs flying over the table. He wiped his mouth and took another bite. “Boy, you’ve had my attention ever since you started asking about me four days ago—”

  “Five.”

  “Only as of sundown today, and the sun’s still up. Don’t interrupt. I’ve known you’ve been after me since you started.”

  “And you let me linger on the street because . . . ?”

  “I don’t know you. And you’re Kin. And those actors you travel with give you too much room for you to be a simple Soft Palm or Winder. You don’t carry yourself like a typical footpad or highwayman, even when you’re working the streets in the Lower City.” He pushed the empty plate away. “Until you got those two fools braying like mules, I was inclined to ignore you; now, though, I’m curious. And more than a bit annoyed. Were it only one or the other, I could walk away, but together?” He shrugged. “I’m the kind of man who has to scratch his itches. And you, Imperial—you itch.”

  I regarded him as the tea arrived. The girl filled my bowl first, then Aadi’s, and proceeded to linger until I sampled it. It was good: deep and floral, with the faintest undertone of honey. Her hand might be light, but it was also deft. I nodded my approval and she fluttered away.

  Aadi sipped his own tea, added more honey, and sipped again. He nodded.

  “You know what I do?” he said.

  “You’re a Fixer,” I said.

  He smiled without looking up from his bowl. “An imperial term. What is one who is a Fixer?”

  “You put coves . . . criminals in touch with one another,” I said. “When someone’s putting a dodge or a con together, and they need, say, a Talker or a Fisherman, they come to you.”

  “And I bri
ng them together?”

  “For a price,” I said. “Or a cut. But only if you think both parties are on the straight. A good Fixer doesn’t let the people he fixes cross him—or one another.”

  Aadi took a sip of tea and smiled. “A Fixer. Yes. Very good. So, what would you have from me? Besides information on that big Imperial you’ve been asking about, of course.”

  I’d been expecting this at some point. Just as I’d been asking about after Aadi, I had also been quietly searching for leads on Degan. Nothing as obvious as dropping his name, of course—I had no idea what he might be calling himself now that he’d walked away from the Order—but enough to see if I could develop some early leads on a tall, fair-haired, pale-skinned Imperial who was more than handy with a sword. So far, Aadi’s comment was the only lead I’d had, if you wanted to even call it that. More likely, he was just repeating what he’d heard about me on the street.

  Still, if he actually knew something . . .

  “Do you—?” I began.

  “I know nothing about him; I just wanted to see how important he is to you. ‘Very’ would seem to be the answer.”

  “I have an interest.”

  “Pah. My third son has an ‘interest’ in the baker’s daughter at the end of my street. You want to find this man, maybe need to find him—it’s writ in your shoulders and across your face.” He set his tea bowl aside as more wafers arrived, took two at once. “Is he why you came looking for me?”

  It was tempting to say yes, to tap in to the network this man had spread across the Lower City, to put him on Degan’s trail. I knew firsthand what someone like Aadi could do in his hometown, who he could find, and how. But I also knew the price would be high: for Degan, or more likely, for me. I had too many marks against me to expect a fair offer, and even if it was, there was no guarantee that he wouldn’t lead me to a dead end, of several kinds.

  I looked in Aadi’s eyes. No, not today. Not from this one. Not about Degan.

  “I’m looking for something else right now,” I said. “Information, and maybe a favor.”