Halcyon est-1

by Joseph Robert Lewis

  “Why would you think I was dead?” Shifrah glanced at the black-robed guards in the corners. There was no guessing what weapons they might have in the folds of their clothing. If the waitresses had guns, then anyone might, which was strange. Guns had always been rare in the Empire. “After all, you’ve been sending me jobs and collecting my commissions for the last eight years or so, haven’t you?”

  Zahra nodded. “But as I recall, the last job you did for me was more than a year ago. Rui Faleiro, wasn’t it? And then you disappeared. I assumed the Espani had caught you and dropped you into a prison or a nunnery or whatever it is that people like them do with people like us.”

  “I’ve been in Marrakesh.”

  “Really? Because we still have a drop in Arafez, but I haven’t heard from you.”

  “I’ve been in Tingis, keeping quiet and working local.”

  Zahra raised an eyebrow. “Local work for local money? That’s not my Shifrah.”

  “I was never your Shifrah. I was Omar’s. And I thought I still was until two days ago.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize it was my job to keep you up to date with the latest gossip. I’ve been a little busy running this city and half the Middle Sea.” Zahra picked up her wine, her rings clinking against the glass.

  “Running this city?” Shifrah smiled. “I wonder what Master Rashaken would say if he heard that.”

  Zahra rolled her eyes. “Don’t be thick. You know what I mean. You saw what I have to deal with out there in The Cat’s Eye. Over two hundred gangs and syndicates all looking for a piece of Alexandria and your precious Omar left me to keep it under control. It’s a madhouse on a good day.”

  “And a war zone on a bad one. I remember,” Shifrah said. She glanced at Kenan. With the entire conversation in Eranian, the Mazigh wasn’t even trying to pay attention. He seemed to be having a staring contest with one of the guards. “So I suppose you were the one who set me up with the job for Lady Sade? What was the master plan there?”

  “Oh nothing important, just a retirement plan, really,” Zahra said. “Topple the new government and put the old aristocracy back in charge. Maybe spark a war or two with the Songhai so the Mazighs would need a little support from Alexandria. Eventually I planned to ingratiate myself with Sade and the new Mazigh royal court so I could move to Orossa and live out my days in the palace. It’s a fortress on top of a mountain where they import luxuries by airship from all over the world. It sounded heavenly.” Zahra narrowed her eyes and flared her nostrils. “But that’s all gone now.”

  “I heard Sade got herself killed by the palace guards.”

  “I heard you got your eye gouged out by an old woman.” Zahra smiled. “And I see that part, at least, is true. But that’s all in the past now. Business is business, as Omar used to say.”

  “Yes, he did. Speaking of Omar, I’m surprised that he turned over his responsibilities to you. I never knew you two were very close.”

  “I didn’t say we were. Omar never wanted to run the bottom half of Alexandria, but he was the only person Rashaken could trust not to turn into a petty warlord and ruin the big plan. You know Omar. All he cared about was finding more sun-steel.”

  Aetherium. It keeps coming back to aetherium.

  “So is that why you came back?” Zahra sipped her wine. “You finally came back after all this time just to see why Omar hasn’t written you?”

  “No. I came back because a friend of ours killed a famous Espani in downtown Tingis two days again and then had the brilliant idea of leading the police straight to my door.” Shifrah crossed her arms so that the tips of her fingers could just barely touch the butts of her knives inside her jacket.

  “Aker?”

  “Aker.”

  The Aegyptian woman frowned into her empty glass. “Ever since he got that damn sword, he’s been a pain in all our sides. Even Master Khai is annoyed with him these days.”

  “That I can believe. He came to Marrakesh to steal a bit of sun-steel for himself. The westerners have finally discovered it, by the way. They call it aetherium.”

  Zahra laughed and set her glass down a bit clumsily. A warm flush crept up into her cheeks. “I bet their clever scientists are all scratching their heads and wondering why it’s so rare in their part of the world, too. Idiots.” She waved for the boy at the end of the table to pour her another glass of the red. “So, Aker ruined your fun in Marrakesh. This must be a souvenir, then. A Mazigh gunslinger. Is he any good? Can he shoot a coin out of the air?” She laughed and rested her full glass on her knee.

  “He has his uses.” Shifrah glanced at Kenan and saw he had shifted his humorless gaze to Zahra herself.

  Don’t antagonize her. This isn’t Tingis!

  She turned back to the woman at the table. “I won’t take up much of your time. I can see you’re a busy woman these days. I just came to find out where Omar went.”

  “Where he went? He went into the ground, Shifrah. Or he fell on his own sword, in which case that’s exactly where he still is, trapped in his own seireiken.”

  For a moment, Shifrah wondered if that might be true.

  Would he have killed himself? Would he really have chosen to become one with all the others he had claimed in his sword?

  Like the others of his fraternity, Omar had been fascinated by his soul-stealing blade, but not with Aker’s desire for power over other men. Omar had been one of the inner circle, one of the mystics obsessed with understanding the soul and the nature of the sun-steel, and the meaning of life, and all sorts of high-minded mumbling that had sent a younger Shifrah running off into the streets to practice sneaking, surprising, and slaying.

  Looking back, it almost seemed like a contradiction in the man. His passion for knowledge about immortality and his proficiency for killing. At the time, though, it had seemed so natural. They were, after all, one and the same thing. The study of life, the study of death, and the sudden transition from the one to the other. The younger Shifrah had never seen a conflict in her mentor’s nature. And the older Shifrah knew that now was not the time to contemplate it.

  “Obviously he didn’t die here in the city, or you would know for certain,” Shifrah said. “So where did he go?”

  “I don’t know and I don’t care.” Zahra closed her eyes and slipped her hand up into her thick black hair to gently massage the side of her head as the stone-faced waitress re-entered the room and circled around the table. She leaned down to whisper in Zahra’s ear, and suddenly the Aegyptian woman stopped massaging her scalp and she bared her teeth in a cruel snarl. She waved the waitress away and opened her eyes. “Shifrah, I can have my people ask around about Omar for you. But in return I’m going to need a small favor from you.”

  “Such as?”

  “Apparently, a few minutes ago, our dear friend Aker challenged a Bantu mercenary to a duel in my dining room. Caused a bit of a row, pulled a few bystanders into the fray, you know how it goes.” Zahra stood and hurled her wine glass at the wall. She stood very still for a long moment, and then slowly straightened up. “My people threw them out, but now there is a small street war in progress between our little circle, the Bantu, and an opium cartel that was sitting at the table next to the Bantu.” Her companions all looked up sharply from their various occupations, except for the priest who continued to peruse his illustrated manuscript. “I have to go deal with the Bantu and the cartel, but apparently Aker has scampered away. If you want to know where Omar is, bring me Aker’s head. Attached, if you like. And quickly please. It may help to smooth things over with the Bantu.”

  Shifrah glanced at the door that led back to the dining room. “Are you sure? I didn’t hear anything.”

  “The walls are insulated so no one can hear what is discussed in here,” Zahra snapped as she knocked her chair over and marched toward the door. “The offer expires when I leave this room.”

  “I accept.” Shifrah blinked. There wasn’t time to think or consider. She needed help. She also needed to be in Za
hra’s good graces, considering the casual display of power that was The Cat’s Eye. Shifrah nodded. “I’ll find him.”

  “Just be quick about it.” And Zahra swept out of the room with her guards and clerks close behind.

  Chapter 12. Qhora

  They stood in the street, squinting at the boarded-up shop. Through the gaps in the boards, Qhora could see the broken windows and the shattered lock on the door. Everything was coated in rust, grime, and a dark mossy growth.

  “I think they’re closed,” Qhora said dully.

  Salvator shrugged. “Not every informant is as honest as one would hope. But it’s a new day, and everyone else is open for business. Let’s find the smiths.”

  Qhora let Salvator lead the way to the open markets that lined one of the broad central avenues of the city, but once there she shouldered past him and marched as swiftly as she could through the sluggish crowds and around the stalls, hunting for the clang of metal and the gleam of steel.

  On her arm, Turi was already feeling heavy and her shoulder had been aching since dawn from carrying him the day before, so Qhora whispered to her harpy and then sent him flying up high over the street. The eagle soared effortlessly overhead for a few minutes, and then came to roost on a bell tower overlooking the market street. Qhora marked his dark outline against the pale blue of the sky, and then continued her hunt for the ironmongers. She found cloth and leather, live animals and butchered meat, glass and clay, boots and hats, belts and gloves, and even new Italian pocket watches and an ancient Mazigh arquebus. But no swords.

  At the next intersection, there was a flash of metal as the sun played over copper plates and silver spoons and forks, but no swords. She asked the sellers where she might try next, and using one of her own knives as a translation tool, and was pointed down a southern boulevard. The air grew hotter and every inhalation burned her nostrils with coppery and ferrous tangs. She heard hammers ringing and forges roaring, and finally up ahead she spotted the stalls and shops and foundries of the Aegyptian smiths.

  There were curved Aegyptian khopeshes, straight Italian rapiers, triangular daggers from Rajasthan, and tiny blades hung on chains from nations even more remote. Qhora found gray iron, white steel, and blades covered in strange patterns from Damascus. There were dark copper blades shaped like leaves and matte black blades as straight as spears. Weapons from the Songhai Empire to the west, from the Kanem Empire to the south, and from the Bantu nations at the bottom of the world. But she didn’t find any obsidian blades like the one her old bodyguard Xiuhcoatl had brought with him from the Aztec provinces. And she didn’t find any that glowed like orange fire.

  Salvator drifted from stall to stall, chatting up the young boys and the old men in Eranian, pointing here and there at their wares, and sometimes drawing his own rapier to show off. Mirari hovered just behind Qhora, her face unreadable and unknowable behind her white mask.

  Qhora crossed the street to pace along the other shop fronts, her arms crossed, her whole face beginning to hurt from the strain of frowning and studying and squinting at the reflecting sunlight on all that polished metal.

  At the next stall there was a tall man and his small son haggling with the smith and Qhora was about to move on past them when she realized they were haggling in Hellan and not in Eranian. And she recognized their dark red cloaks as Hellan as well. She paused to listen, wondering if her poor grasp of the language would help her to learn anything at all.

  The tall man wanted a sword, of that she was certain. He was saying the same words over and over again, each time with a slightly different inflection, sometimes mashing them together to form longer words. And then she recognized one of the Hellan’s phrases. It was something Salvator had said in Carthage.

  “Seireiken?” She touched the Hellan’s shoulder and he turned to stare down at her with watery green eyes under pale gray brows. “Did you say seireiken?”

  He looked baffled for a moment, but then a look of clarity came into his eyes. With a heavy accent he said, “You are Espani? I speak Espani. You know seireiken? You can show me?” He gestured around them at the other shops.

  Show him?

  She glanced around and then realized his meaning. “You’re looking for a seireiken? For the person who makes them?” Qhora nodded. “So am I. I’m sorry, I can’t help you find them. I assume you’ve had no luck here either.” She sighed and glanced at Mirari.

  “No, none at all,” said a deeper voice in a more fluent Espani.

  Qhora glanced down and nearly stepped back when she saw that the elderly Hellan’s companion was no child at all but a dwarf. He had a handsome, striking face with sharp cheekbones and a strong chin, with black curling locks and piercing blue eyes. Qhora recalled having seen a dwarf once when she was very young, long ago in Cusco. The little maid had had a barrel chest and crooked legs, and had died one night struggling to breathe. But the young man before her now stood quite straight and steady, and at the neck and cuffs of his white shirt she saw the edges of hard tanned muscles.

  “I’m Tycho, by the way,” the dwarf continued. “And this is Philo. Of Constantia, by way of Sparta, if you weren’t quite sure.” He smiled and shook the side of his red cloak. “A pleasure to meet you.”

  “Qhora and Mirari.” She nodded politely. “Why are you looking for a seireiken?”

  Tycho glanced back at old Philo and held a brief exchange in Hellan before the younger man said, “I apologize, but my master’s Espani is very poor and I didn’t wish to speak out of turn. To answer you, we have been sent to buy a seireiken as a gift. We’re special envoys of the Lady Nerissa of Constantia.”

  “A gift.” Qhora nodded slowly. “Do you know much about them? Do you know what these swords can do?”

  “Do?” Tycho shrugged. “I suppose they can kill a man if you use the pointed end in the usual way.”

  “Hellas is on the northern edge of the Middle Sea, like Italia and Espana,” Qhora said. “So I’m sure you’re familiar with ghosts.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “And aether.”

  “Naturally.”

  “Then you should know that these seireiken blades can drink aether and steal…” She swallowed and steadied her voice. “They can steal a person’s soul and trap it in the blade.”

  Tycho glanced from one lady to the other with an uncertain look. And then he smiled. “Yes, we know. After all, why would they send us a thousand miles for just any sword?” He shook his head and his smile faded. “What a hell of a present to give a man. But, if I may ask, why are you looking for these soul-swords?”

  Qhora shook her head. “It’s a private matter. Good day, gentlemen. And good luck to you.”

  “And to you. I’ll be sure to let you know if we find anything.”

  Qhora nodded and turned away, leading Mirari on to the next shop and the next table of common steel swords. She was about to engage a bearded smith about a certain sword of his that almost resembled the shape of the seireiken when she felt Mirari’s hand on her arm. Qhora looked up to see six men in green and black robes advancing down the street. Short swords, single-shot pistols, and mismatched daggers crowded their belts.

  “Same as the ones at the pier in Carthage,” she muttered.

  “We should leave, my lady,” Mirari said quietly.

  Qhora glanced over at Salvator across the street and saw him looking thoughtfully at the six men marching toward them. “Our Italian friend doesn’t seem concerned. I wonder why he…oh.”

  The six men veered to one side and encircled the two red-cloaked Hellans.

  “Maybe our questions attracted the wrong attention,” Mirari said.

  “Or the right attention.” Qhora started forward, one slow shuffling step at a time. She reached for her Songhai dirk and found it gone, and she panicked a moment before remembering that she had traded it away. From her sleeve she drew a straight-edged dagger.

  “My lady, no. We are out-numbered, alone, on strange ground. Think of your husband. Think of
your son!” Mirari whispered.

  Qhora paused, squeezing her knife.

  She’s right. This isn’t my concern. They’re grown men. They can take care of themselves. And perhaps the wisest course would be to follow the ones in green back to wherever they came from. Yes, that would be the smart thing to do.

  One of the six drew his aging pistol and grabbed the elderly Philo. Another man in green reached down to grab Tycho and yanked him forward off balance. A patter of laughter ran through the other four fighters.

  Qhora stared at the young Hellan, surrounded and armed only with a small knife, and his old master armed with nothing at all.

  Someone’s son. Someone’s husband.

  When another of the fighters drew his pistol, Qhora moved. She ran. She raised her knife. And as the men in green suddenly turned to face her, she screamed, “TURI!” And she hurled her dagger.

  The blade whistled as it spun and then buried itself in the neck of the man holding Tycho. The dwarf leapt free and drew his own knife as the men in green raised their pistols and reached for their short swords. And then a curtain of gray feathers fell screaming from the sky.

  The harpy eagle shrieked like an angel enraged and flew into the first man, crashing bodily into the fighter’s head and sinking his long black talons into the man’s shoulder and face before snapping his curved beak at the man’s ear. The man screamed and the eagle leapt into the air, and two pistols barked but neither shot touched the huge bird.

  And then Qhora plunged in among them, whirling to yank their own knives from their belts and whirling again to plunge their knives back into their flesh. She didn’t look or think, she simply pushed and pulled and felt the warm blood on her hands. Mirari crashed into the men like a faceless doll and swung her small hatchet at their short swords. As Philo fell over a table, Tycho darted into the fray, slashing expertly at knees and ankles and groins, and in a moment three of the green men were on the ground clutching their wounds and hollering in Eranian while the other three stumbled back, their faces splashed with blood and dust.