Sworn in Steel

by Douglas Hulick

He nodded. “That’s easier, then. Information doesn’t run away and doesn’t fight back. As for favors?” He shrugged. “Tell me what you have in mind, and I’ll tell you if it’s worth my time to help an Imperial.”

  “I want to know what I can do about this,” I said as I pulled out the clay chit Tobin had collected when he’d put our troupe on the padishah’s list of hopefuls. “About changing our place in line and maybe looking into putting in a fix.”

  Aadi look from the chit to me. Then he began to laugh. I ground my teeth and waited until he was done.

  “Well?” I said.

  “Thank you for the tea,” he said. “And for these.” He took the last three wafers and slipped them into his sleeve as he prepared to stand.

  “Wait,” I said. I reached out but stopped short of grabbing his arm. This was still his city, and I needed him.

  “No,” he said, returning to his knees and leaning toward me. “No ‘wait.’” He pointed at the round of fired clay in my fingers. “You don’t fix the auditions for the Sixth Son of the Most High. Ever. The last Zakur who tried was a sheikh with three—three!—belts of merit to his name. They say on a quiet night you can still hear his screams coming from the cells beneath the palace. I may arrange many things, but my own death isn’t one of them.”

  “I’d heard anything was possible in Djan, among the Zakur.”

  “Anything is, but fixing the result of one of the padishah’s auditions isn’t something either of us can afford.”

  “Fine,” I said. I leaned forward slightly myself, using the illusion of intimacy to keep Aadi from walking away. “Then how about just adjusting our order in line? Moving the audition up a bit?”

  Aadi’s eyes narrowed. “That I can do.”

  I began to smile.

  “But not for you.”

  The smile died. “What? Why not?”

  “Because you are Kin, because you have inconvenienced me, and because, even were I inclined, I don’t want to risk getting on the bad side of the factors at this time. They are the ones you should be talking to.”

  I grunted. The factors were the local trade monopoly that operated in the district of the Lower City known as the Coop. All aspiring acts were required to lodge there and charged accordingly, with a corresponding percentage going to the padishah’s ministers. I’d put us up in a caravansary at a price that made blackmail look cheap. “I tried,” I said.

  “And?”

  “They’re not interested.”

  “Ah. So you already knew this was futile.”

  “I knew they said no to me. That doesn’t mean they’d say no to someone who approaches them on my behalf. Someone with local weight.”

  The flicker of a smile crossed his lips. He inclined his head. “I appreciate your confidence in me, but the answer is still no.”

  “There has to be a way—”

  “There isn’t.” Aadi sat back on his heels. “Not for you. Better to wait your turn and use the time to rehearse. The padishah’s wazir had high standards, and while His Excellency may be inclined to favor players this season, the wazir is not. The extra time could end up being a boon for you.”

  I muttered and looked away.

  Aadi grunted as he rose to his feet. “I’ll ask you to refrain from seeking me out again.”

  “Can’t promise that. Yours is the only name I have in el-Qaddice.”

  “Then I suggest you either learn more or forget the one you know.” He salaamed a formal farewell, thanked me for my hospitality, and left.

  Well, shit.

  I tilted my head back and looked up at the carved cliffs and white walls of the Old City. They were visible from almost every street down here, sitting on the western skyline like a promise of splendor that would never be fulfilled, or, in my case, like a failure I couldn’t afford.

  Two weeks, Wolf had said. I didn’t know what he would do if I didn’t make it into the Old City by then, but considering what he’d done to get my attention in Ildrecca, I wasn’t anxious to find out. Visions of myself being led into the Old City in chains, only to be broken out by the degan and let loose on foreign streets as a fugitive, flitted through my head. It wasn’t a pleasant thought.

  The thing was, I did have another name, and not just the name of a Zakur or a factor or some other street runner in the Lower City. I had the name of a yazani up in the Old City that Jelem had given me when he handed over his packet of letters. A name that, once I was inside, I could hopefully use to open doors and hunt for Degan—assuming people were willing and the price wasn’t too high. But to contact that yazani, I needed to get into the Old City first.

  “More tea or wafers?” said the girl, coming up beside me.

  I blinked and looked over at her. “No, thank you.”

  She nodded, then looked up to where my gaze had been lingering. “Have you been?”

  “No.”

  “You should. There’s an old woman in a market in the third ring that has the most wonderful candied fruits. Lemons and apricots and, sometimes, mangoes. They’re wonderful.”

  “They sound it.”

  “They are,” she affirmed solemnly. “Sweet and sour and delightful. They’re costly, though, and I rarely get to have them. But now . . .” She glanced at me shyly and touched her tunic where she’d secreted my dharm. “Well, I think I’ll be saying a prayer of thanks for you the next time I go up.”

  “I’m glad I could . . . wait.” I sat up straight. “You’ve been to the Old City?”

  “Of course.”

  I stared at her in disbelief. “You mean you have patronage?”

  “Patronage?” she said, her mouth twisting in puzzlement. “No. Why would I need—ooh!” She raised a hand to her lips and blushed furiously. “Oh, that’s right: You’re not of Djan. You need it to get in. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel—”

  “No,” I said quickly, throwing a smile on my lips. I could feel the beginnings of an idea, and more important, an opportunity, tugging at me. “No, it’s all right: I just forgot that you don’t have to have a patron to get up there. It’s a holy place for Djanese, after all.”

  “Um, yes, it is.” She tugged her tunic straight, telling me exactly how often she went to the Old City for religious reasons.

  “And it has wonderful candied fruit,” I added.

  A quick smile. “That, too.”

  “Tell me,” I said as I took a last drink of tea and set the bowl aside. When my hand moved away, three silver dharm glinted among the dregs. “Do you think you could get some of that fruit for me? Talking about it has made me hungry.”

  Her eyes flicked from the coins to the curtained doorway. “I don’t . . .”

  “I could come back tomorrow if it would be easier.”

  She swallowed, nodded. “Tomorrow would be easier, yes.”

  “And even more so if I left a few supp for your uncle as well?”

  A long, relieved breath out. “Yes.”

  “Good.” I moved to stand, then paused, my hand at my purse. “Oh, one more thing. As long as you’re up there, I was wondering if you could deliver a message for me? Just a word to a friend, really.”

  She shied away a bit, a willow bending in the breeze. “A friend?”

  “Not to worry,” I said. “He’s a scholar.” All right, he was a yazani—the one Jelem had mentioned to me—but I didn’t want to scare her off. “I’d simply need to deliver a note for me. You can just take it to his door.”

  She looked down at the silver rectangles in the cup and pushed at the carpet with her toes. “Just a note?”

  “Just a note.”

  More pushing, more looking. She bit her lower lip, then nodded. “All right.”

  “Excellent,” I said. “Now, all I need is to find a scribe’s stall. Is there one nearby . . . ?”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Three days later, as promised, I found the yazani squatting in the shade of a wall in the Lower City, making shadow puppets dance and perform on the street. A group o
f children and teens were gathered around, shouting and laughing at the spectacle. The fact that the silhouettes moved and pranced on their own, with his only input being the occasional word and gesture with a thin olive branch, didn’t seem to bother anyone. As we came up, he tucked the branch under his arm, reached both hands out into the sunlight, and formed the shadow of a rooster on the dusty bricks. A few mumbled words, and the shadow-rooster hopped away from the confines of his shadow to join the dark dog, elephant, dragon, and man in their silent street performance.

  The crowd hooted and applauded, and the man smiled. Then he looked up and saw Fowler and me.

  “And that is all for now, my friends,” he said as he stood up. The teens made nasty, sulking sounds while the younger children pleaded, but the man shook his head. “No,” he said. “I’ve work to do. Go plague someone else for a while.”

  The crowd dispersed, with one or two of the older boys casting us accusatory glances. I returned the looks, making sure to keep my eyes hard but my face neutral. Pups and young wolves, yes, but they could take you down if you didn’t handle them right, especially if you were unknown.

  The man chuckled to himself as he brushed the dust from his pants. He was dressed in what I was coming to think of as the “urban” style here, with bloused pants, a knee-length tunic, and a short vest. The coloring was all rust and red, with a creamy kaffiyeh wrapped turban-style around his head. Matching pale tassels hung from the bottom edges of his sleeves and vest—used, I’d been informed gravely by our caravan master on the trip here, to distract the djinn that supposedly lived throughout, and wandered in from, the desert.

  As for the Mouth—or yazani—himself, he was smooth and wily as his shadow puppets. When he bowed to me, it was dutiful; when he bowed to Fowler, it was something more. And she blushed.

  Hmm.

  “Your Grace,” he began in accented Imperial.

  “Excuse me?” I said.

  Confusion passed over his easy features. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You’re an emir—a prince—of your kind, yes? Is there some other honorific you’d prefer?”

  Fowler snorted.

  “‘Drothe’ is fine,” I said.

  “‘Drothe,’” he said, playing with the sounds and accent in his mouth. I knew Jelem had mentioned me in the letter he’d sent ahead, but that didn’t mean what I said matched the sounds he’d read. “Drothe. Yes. Excellent. I have the pleasure of being Rassan ibn Asim bé-Mahlak, cousin to Jelem bar-Djan, formerly named Jelem ibn Abu Jhibbar el-Tazan el-Qaddice.” He paused, then added, “But you can call me Raaz.”

  I was opening my mouth when Fowler gave me a quick elbow to the ribs. I looked down. She arched an eyebrow at me and nodded toward Raaz.

  “This is Fowler Jess,” I said.

  Another bow, another lingering look. “My apologies for my Imperial being too imperfect to do your ears justice, Fowler Jess.”

  Another blush from Fowler.

  I cleared my throat. “Jelem’s cousin, you say?” I said, remembering what Jelem had said about his family; about how they’d be happy to see him only if it meant seeing him dead. My left hand drifted down to hang at my side, ready to be filled with steel at the flick of a wrist. I wondered which would be faster, my hand or his mouth, if it came down to it.

  “On his wife Ahnya’s side,” said Raaz, turning back to me. “Via her sister’s husband’s uncle. I am cousin, at best, by name and law, but not by blood. Unlike his own people, my tribe has had no reason to disown Jelem, even after his banishment.” He glanced down at my arm. “Or want him dead.”

  “But you still call him family,” I said. “I didn’t think Djanese called anyone family after they’d been cast out.”

  “It’s tribal,” he said, waving a hand. “Very complex. Some of my own people would agree with you; others would not. Jelem helped me gain admittance to the wajik-tal in el-Qaddice, so I had a great deal of respect for him even before he married Ahnya and became a distant relative. When his own people cast him out, I chose to continue calling him family. As for the Tazan . . .” He turned his head aside and spit casually in what I was sure was not a casual gesture. “They are petty fools. Their tribal elders have no say over what I hold in my heart.”

  Fowler and I exchanged a look. She lifted her shoulders, clearly saying, Hey, you’re the boss; you make the call.

  From what little I knew through my conversations with Jelem, Djanese society was a confusing tapestry of blood ties and social strictures, the two not infrequently at odds with one another. Extending vertically through society were the tribal affiliations, with each Djanese calling one group his home and family. There could be clans and other groups within a tribe, but at the end of the day, it was the loyalty to the tribe that defined which way a Djanese was supposed to jump when it came to political interests. Meanwhile, extending across those tribal lines were the various castes that existed within society. These defined the day-to-day reality of most Djanese, determining everything from how a person earned a living to where you lived and who you interacted with. A man was born into a caste, lived his whole life there, and died in the same place. The only exceptions were the two learned castes—the Path of the Pen and the Path of the Light—scribes and magicians. Anyone with enough talent and dedication could theoretically enter into these castes and improve their station through diligence and patronage. But it was a hard road according to Jelem, and one guarded by the elite against incursion from below.

  If Jelem had helped Raaz get into the wajik-tal—the magician’s academy—in el-Qaddice, I expected there was a sizable debt there. And Jelem was never one to forget, or forgive, a debt.

  I crossed my arms, making sure as I did so that my hands were visibly well away from my blades. Raaz smiled.

  “Now come,” he said. “Your meeting is already arranged.”

  “Meeting?” I said. “But the message said to meet you here.”

  “I’m merely the messenger. I don’t have the rank or status to negotiate what you desire. You will need to speak to my elders if you wish to talk of influencing an audition and its price. Now, come.”

  Raaz headed off into the twisting streets, and we dutifully followed. After a few turns, I said, “Tell me: How does the Despotate feel about what you were doing back there?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The glimmered shadows,” I said.

  Raaz looked at me for a moment, then laughed. “Glimmer? You mean the magic?” He clapped his hands. “Wonderful! I must remember that: ‘glimmer.’ Very good.” He shook his head, smiling. “I was trained in the wajik-tals. Like all yazani, my magic is pledged to the despot.” He held up his left arm and pushed back his sleeve, revealing an iron shackle fixed around his wrist. “This signifies my obligation to the despot in all things. It is his patronage that makes the academies possible. By using my gifts to entertain his people, I’m doing a service for him—repaying my debt, to some small degree.”

  “And what does the despot get in return?” I said.

  “He gets to call upon the wajik-tals and its students, of course.”

  “For anything?”

  “For most things.”

  I nodded. It made for one hell of a power base. “And how does the despot feel about it if you use more permanent magic? Or more powerful?”

  “One does what’s necessary and needed. There are proscribed limits set forth by the High Magi of the Fifteen Splendid Wajiks, in consultation with the despot and his wazirs, of course, but a fair amount is left to the discretion of the practitioner; otherwise, how could we fulfill our pledge to the despot?” Raaz looked at me sidelong. “Is it not the same in your empire?”

  I chuckled. “Not quite. Oh, there’s street mages that mend pots and put on a bit of a show here and there, but the better-trained Mouths—the ones who know their stuff, like Jelem and you—walk a narrow path. You can speak spells just fine in Ildrecca, for a price, but crafting anything more permanent or powerful will get the empire after you.” Which was w
hy the trade in things like portable glimmer and the most potent spoken spells were the province of the Kin. The magical black market was what had made the Kin, and its first and only king, Isidore, possible.

  Raaz shook his head. “But your Imperial Magi—your Paragons—are feared across Djan, and beyond. How can an empire that so closely limits magic produce such potent magi?”

  “Paragons are different,” I said. “They’re the emperor’s personal magicians. They know the spells no one else knows, have access to the kinds of knowledge that would get any normal Mouth killed.” Or Nose, or Gray Prince, for that matter. “From what I understand, the kind of magic they tap is beyond what other Mouths can reach.”

  “Are you speaking of your Angels?” said Raaz, sounding politely dubious. “Saying they somehow help your Paragons achieve their power?”

  “That’s the imperial line on it,” I said.

  “And?”

  “Do I look like a priest to you?”

  We fell silent after that, but I caught Raaz studying me from time to time as we walked. I knew the truth behind the power of the Paragons, knew the truth about Imperial magic: about how the men and women who used it used their very souls to focus and control the power, and how it scarred and ate those souls in the process. I’d read it in an ancient journal, but I wasn’t about to tell a Djanese Mouth about that.

  Raaz led us along the curving, twisting side streets that seemed to be the standard for most Djanese cities. Clean or dirty, crowded or empty, they were the common thread that ran through all the towns of Djan I had visited. The exceptions—the broad, straight boulevards that led from one public space to another, be they temples or parks or markets or communal ovens and more—were all the more notable because of their seeming uniqueness.

  Straight and true in public, turning and subtle in private: That certainly seemed to fit the Djanese way.

  We ended at a small doorway set partway below street level. An iron key and a string of muttered words gained us access. Three steps down, five forward, then four up. Another door, this one only needing a key. A large Djanese man wearing a curved sword stood there. He nodded to Raaz as he opened the door, glaring at me and Fowler. Beyond, there were spiral stairs going down.