Hell's Pawns

by Dave Gross

  Maccabus and I walk in through the single saloon door. With a jerk of his head he dismisses the young toughs who accompanied us. Four or five of them lounge just outside, while the rest drift away into the evening gloom.

  Inside, a slip I've never seen before stands on a crate behind the bar wiping mugs with a stained rag. A couple of my former colleagues huddle over their cups at the bar. Both were adults when I first fell in with the gang, and now the Goatherds call them the old men.

  "Crasus, Darruck," I say.

  They nod at Mac but say nothing to me before turning back to their drinks.

  "Come on," says Maccabus. We walk past the bar, and Mac pounds on the door. The guard cracks it for a peek at us before letting us pass. We descend a short flight of stone stairs and enter the lair of Zandros the Fair.

  On the far side is a tilting brick fireplace added after the Goatherds moved in. A boy of perhaps ten years turns a spit on which sizzles a carcass of indeterminate origin. To the left is a wide ramp leading up to wide doors with smaller portals cut out of each one, handy escape routes in the event of a raid. On the right are the old stables, each compartment covered with a dirty length of sailcloth to form a more-or-less private sleeping chamber. In the middle is the feast hall, a long horseshoe shape of low mismatched tables around the base on which a great turn wheel once rested. All around sit the youngest Goatherds, greedily devouring their master's feast and washing it down with watered wine. The only one I recognize is Gruck, seated at the nearest table to my left. I nod at him, but he looks away.

  Zandros sits before the fireplace on a mound of furs thrown over an oversized throne liberated from some playhouse storeroom. His last black locks have thrown up the white flag since I saw him a couple of years ago, and his hair has thinned so much that the horn-like tumors on his brow are more prominent than ever. His snowy beard makes a sharp point of his chin, and his buckteeth and flat pink nose complete the illusion of an ancient satyr rather than the reality of a scrofulous old Sczarni who should have known better than to cheat a Varisian witch.

  Whatever curse she spat at him, it hasn't touched his daughter, Anca, who sits at his feet. The family resemblance ends at her buckteeth, which lend her the oddly winsome appearance of a bunny. She wears more jewelry these days, most of it cheap gewgaws that attracted her attention in the market, but a couple of items look like the genuine article, probably gifts from suitors risking her father's wrath. One trinket in particular looks familiar.

  I follow Mac into the middle of the tables, the traditional spot for messengers and the accused.

  Zandros glowers at Maccabus. "What are you doing here?"

  Mac shrugs. "Finished early. Ran into the boys on the way back."

  Zandros thrusts out his meaty paw. His fingers have grown together into two thick rough digits with a stump of a thumb. "The money," he says. "Or the forfeit."

  Mac approaches the throne and hands Zandros a little sack of coins. Zandros hefts the pouch and says, "This isn't all." He pours out the coins and begins to count.

  Mac draws a dark handkerchief from his coat and lays it open on the table. Inside is a bloody, severed ear. Usually Zandros demands both on the final warning, but I see Mac has made an adjustment for partial payment.

  "This is less than half what he owes," growls Zandros. He's a stickler about correct amounts, at least when they're payable to him.

  Mac digs around in his coat pocket and drops a thumb-sized gobbet of flesh atop the handkerchief. Earlobe.

  One of the new recruits barks a hyena's laugh. One glance from Zandros, and the kid shuts up. Then the Old Goat chuckles, and all the boys join in, some of them sounding quite natural. He's still training this lot of sycophants. I steal a glance at Gruck. His wince tells me he hasn't yet learned to delight in cruelty. He picks at his meat.

  "Good work," Zandros says to Maccabus. He waves the veteran thug away with his deformed hand. "Take the rest of the night off."

  Mac hesitates and looks at me. Before he can say anything, the bar door bangs open and Ursio stomps down the steps trailed by a couple of bruisers. Someone has splinted his broken arm and bound it tightly to his chest. The dwarf looks ready to shout in triumph when he sees me standing in the ring, but he knows better than to interrupt Zandros when he's holding court. He shoulders a bald-headed boy aside and helps himself to the kid's wine. Mac murmurs a word that might be "luck" as he walks past me and up the stairs.

  "Now then," says Zandros, smiling, "to the matter of our long-absent friend, Radovan Copper-Tongue."

  You'd think Zandros was a Taldan for his love of stupid nicknames. When I was starting out with the Goatherds, I liked to try a few words before cracking heads to bring back overdue accounts. Whether it was my oratory or my fiendish good looks that did the trick, some of the old men started calling me their golden-tongued devil. Zandros corrected them, saying I hadn't yet earned my way to the big accounts.

  I consider four or five snappy rejoinders but decide to keep them to myself. Zandros's smile fades as he realizes I won't help him put on a show for the young Goatherds.

  "You should come when I call, boy," he says.

  "I'm here now, Zandros. What do you want?"

  "Perhaps I wished only to see how well you fare these days, beyond my protection," he says.

  "At the point of a crossbow?"

  "Ah," says Zandros. His gaze flicks toward Ursio, who raises his goblet to cover a guilty expression. His version of our encounter must differ in a few respects from mine. "You boys must learn to get along. Egorian is not yet so great that you will not cross paths from time to time."

  "Just tell me what you want, and I'll get back to work."

  "What sort of work?" says Zandros. He cocks his head like a dog who hears a distant noise. "Perhaps something with which my boys could help?"

  The prospect of tasking the Goatherds with ferreting out the story behind Einmarch Henderthane's dalliance at the Tall Tail has a certain appeal, but the boss would never stand for it. More importantly, we'd be as likely to end up with a dead doxy as with useful information.

  "Thanks all the same."

  Zandros frowns, disappointed but not entirely surprised. "Your current employment puts you in a unique position to be of help to your former comrades."

  I had a feeling this might be it. Once I started working for Count Jeggare, Zandros began sniffing around my feet. In the years since, I've learned to deflect the inquiries of my Cheapside contacts, or to feed misleading trifles to the barmaids who seem too friendly too fast. The boss prides himself on discretion in the cases of his peers, whose secrets would prove more than a little profitable to an avaricious soul like Zandros.

  I say, "Can you keep a secret?"

  "Yes," he hisses, leaning toward me.

  "Me, too," I say. He catches my meaning and flinches as if stung by a wasp. I worked for Zandros long enough that I could do him some harm with a few words in the right ears. He has to value my ability to keep my mouth shut, even if it's not for him.

  "Surely not every trifle you glean is precious to your new master, nor does everything you hear spill into your ear alone. I know you are investigating the Henderthane estate, for example. Old confidants should help each other."

  "I am not your confidant," I say. "I earned my way out, fair as day and night."

  "Is that so?" says Zandros. His eyes narrow as he peers around the feast hall, looking at each of his young recruits in order. "Does anyone here remember it so?"

  Only Ursio and Anca have been around since my days with the Goatherds. Ursio hates me, and she wouldn't dare cross her father. Both of them know he's Zandros the Fair only so long as it suits his purpose.

  "What's a broken arm between friends?"

  "I remember," calls a voice from the back of the room. I turn to see Crasus, one of the men who'd been drinking
upstairs.

  "So do I," says his companion, Darruck. I decide to buy them each a long line of ales later, somewhere else. Both men look straight at Zandros with the blank expressions of veterans who know what they have to lose but don't give a damn.

  Zandros stares at them a long moment before saying, "So be it." He smiles, but his hand trembles as he lifts his goblet, and he splashes wine on his beard. Anca raises a handkerchief to his chin, but he slaps her hand away.

  "I'll be on my way, then," I say.

  "Not so fast," says Zandros. "There is still the matter of Ursio's injury."

  "Occupational hazard," I say, but I know where he's going with it.

  "You have limited his earning capacity," says Zandros. "You have taken money out of my pocket."

  "That's Ursio's problem," I say. Whenever one of us fell sick or got hurt, Zandros insisted we double his cut until we had made up "his" losses.

  "Any outsider who harms a Goatherd must face my justice," says Zandros. "And, as you remind us, you are an outsider now."

  "An arm for an arm!" shouts Ursio.

  Zandros says, "That is just." He nods to the thugs who came in with Ursio, and they step toward me.

  "Wait," I say.

  Zandros lifts an eyebrow and settles back on his throne. "Well?"

  "Your man Rennie is a wererat."

  Zandros glances over his shoulder toward the meat roasting on the spit behind him. He laughs, "Old news."

  Ursio and a few of the tougher-looking boys join in his laughter, but Gruck bolts from his table and rushes out one of the escape doors. Before it can swing shut behind him, I hear the sounds of his retching in the alley.

  "That's the best you have?" says Zandros.

  The bruisers grab my arms and force me down to my knees. Ursio leaves his place to make a show of choosing from a stack of spiked clubs in the corner.

  If it's a choice between a broken arm and breaking the boss's confidence, then this is going to hurt. I wrack my brain for any scrap I can throw Zandros without compromising my livelihood when I notice Anca staring at me, her lips trembling. I can't decide whether she's eager or fearful to see me hurt.

  "That golden comb in Anca's hair," I say. "I know who gave it to her."

  Anca shoots me a desperate look. I don't like putting her on the hook, but weighed against the prospect of a broken arm, she comes up light.

  "Who?" Zandros is so incensed that he doesn't notice Ursio cried it out at the same time, and I know I have something. The dwarf has long pined for Anca. Ursio glares at me.

  "What is it worth to you?" I say. Zandros likes to haggle, so I add, "More than a hellspawn's arm, I reckon."

  "Bah!" spits Zandros. He makes a dismissive wave with his disfigured hand, but his head turns in a way that shows he is avoiding looking at Anca. At this moment, there's nothing he wants to know more than the identity of her secret lover.

  "Your daughter's virtue?" I say. One of Zandros's favorite Varisian songs comes to mind. "‘A treasure more than gold,' isn't that how it goes?"

  He leaps up. "Blast your eyes, who is it?"

  "This'll tip the scales. The way I reckon it, you'll owe me one beyond Ursio's cracked wing."

  "Yes, yes," says Zandros. "Just tell me, damn you."

  I turn to show Ursio all my long, sharp teeth. I can almost see steam coming off his reddened skin. He's tensed to deny any accusation I might make about him, and the prospect is tempting, but the truth is safer.

  "That comb was among the items stolen from the Porter Street pawn shop last month," I say. When the news broke, I nosed around a little in case the cheap shop owner came to his senses and offered a reward. It was no trick to learn who was fencing the goods. "Scipio, that big stevedore on the Bunyip Dock."

  Zandros turns on Anca, whose cringe is all the proof he needs that I've told the truth. He thrusts a finger toward one of the stable bedchambers, and she scurries away. Behind me, I hear Ursio muttering oaths of revenge.

  Seething, Zandros turns back to me. I say, "I can see you're busy here, so I'll be on my way."

  "One last thing," he says. "When next you visit the Henderthanes, let them know I look forward to the timely settling of Einmarch's estate, and repayment of all outstanding debts."

  "What debts?"

  Zandros looks smug. "Such details I share only with trusted friends, but that much should balance the scales between us. Don't you agree?"

  After a quick visit to my flat and a change of clothes, I head over to Trick Alley and spend the rest of the night angling for a word with the working girls at the Tall Tail. They're too busy for me to entice any of the hellspawn courtesans off site for a private conference, but at last I wangle a brief word with Velvet, Einmarch's regular indulgence. It takes a little charm and a lot of the boss's coin, but eventually she spills enough that I would bet she isn't so reckless as to extort a house as powerful as Henderthane. A few coins to the Madame of the house is enough to learn that Velvet suffered a brief spate of the prickles and could well have passed it to Einmarch, but that's nothing a man of his wealth couldn't solve with a discreet visit to the Temple of Asmodeus.

  By the time I'm finished with Velvet, I'm ready to hit the sack and hope for visions of Pavanna Henderthane as I first saw her in the Plaza of Flowers, her face clean and bright with purpose, not hidden behind some demure fan. But when the dreams do come, they bring images of goat-faced men with pitchforks hunting terrified rabbits through dim avenues. I run confused among them, never sure whether I'm among the hunters or the prey.

  The dawn wakes me, and I do my ablutions and say my silent daily thanks to Desna for the luck she's spread in my path, praying for help to tread on the good and avoid the bad. Then I head over to Greensteeples, where Malla feeds me breakfast and gives me her reading of the household weather. The boss was up late poring over his Pathfinder reports, so the servants are cheerful. While compiling the information from field agents to pass along to his superiors in the Society, he neglects to drink and smoke himself into a mournful stupor. The downside is that sometimes those field reports hold his interest more than paying cases, the ones I care about.

  When the butler announces the boss is out of bed, I visit the library and find him supervising the packing of various Mwangi artifacts. He has them sent down to the carriage and tells me we're off to the Scions Academy. I don't mention the Jeggare livery, which I "forgot" back in my flat, and he doesn't seem to notice its absence. Jeggare beckons me into the carriage to discuss what I learned at the Tall Tail. I hold off telling him about my encounter at the Goat Pen. Zandros's hint about a Henderthane debt is intriguing, but something tells me to talk with Pavanna before informing the boss. I weigh the benefit of his insight against my desire to deliver the whole story after interviewing Pavanna privately. Before I make up my mind, we reach the Academy.

  The building looks like any of a dozen other red-veined marble edifices housing guilds, government ministries, and social clubs, all thorny spires and gargoyles with tall narrow windows in stained glass. When the driver stops the carriage, I hop out to fetch the crate of artifacts. The door opens as the boss approaches, and I recognize the woman as Korva from House Henderthane. The nurse's bonnet I noticed before is once more pinned in her hair, but now she has an embroidered half-cloak draped over her shoulders. The stark red-and-black designs resemble those on the vestments of the clergy of Asmodeus.

  The boss introduces himself with his usual old-fashioned grace, and Korva responds with icy civility, introducing herself as "Matron of the Academy." When she looks at me, I stare straight ahead with the indifference of a proper servant. My skin itches where I feel her gaze upon me, and I suffer a perverse pang of regret at leaving the livery at my flat.

  Just as Korva frames a protest to Jeggare's unannounced visit, the boss breezes past her and orders me to bring in his specime
ns. She follows him as he walks into a long hall of oak-paneled walls and checkered tile floor. To either side are windows that remind me of the servants' area at House Henderthane, only these are spacious portals designed to display rather than just reveal the occupants of the other side. I see they are classrooms full of boys, perhaps fourteen or fifteen years old. All are garbed in fine uniforms of black, a few with red insignia of rank at the collar. Their instructors dress like priests of Asmodeus, only their clothing, like Korva's, seems more like military uniforms than clerical raiment.

  As I approach the first windowless door, which stands slightly open, Korva turns on her heel and points at me. "You stay right there," she commands. I obey, and she hurries off after the boss, who hasn't broken his stride.

  That's as good as an invitation, so I set down the crate of artifacts and ease open the door, beginning a slow count to twenty in my head. Inside is an immaculate office lined with cabinets. I note the keyhole on each one and test the nearest with a gentle tug. Locked tight. The drawers on the desk are similarly secured, but a ledger lies open on the blotter. As I walk over to the desk, I feel a difference in the floor beneath the rug. I lift it with a toe and see the corner of a trap door. I push the rug back into place and look at the ledger. The last page is recently dusted with sand. I know better than to disturb it, but beside a column of dates I make out the names of a half dozen noble families, including the Henderthanes, as my silent count reaches twenty seconds. Just before I go, I surrender to a whim and feel beneath the desk. There I feel a ring of three keys, which I slip into my sleeve pocket. When I step back out into the hall, I see Korva has managed to halt the boss and is speaking to him in urgent but hushed tones. When she glances back to look at me, it's clear she didn't notice my detour.

  It's a little too far to read their lips, but from their body language I can see that the boss, despite his century of practice, is losing the charm offensive. Korva takes his arm in a maneuver just shy of the bum's rush and tries to lead him back to the entrance, but Jeggare waves to someone in one of the nearer classrooms. Korva protests, but then Morvus Henderthane rushes out of the room and says, "Count Jeggare! You came so soon!"