Soon.
He wore what he thought of as "his working uniform" – the disguise he had created out of his own mind as the perfect woman and whom he had named "Keanani," which meant beauty in one of the slang tongues of the prisons of Fear. However, though he wore the body of a prostitute, there was little chance of anyone asking for his service at the moment. He wore a robe with a hood and a thick veil that covered all but his eyes, and even those were cast down much of the time.
Part of his choice of garb was simple convenience: this way he had to fight off the attentions of fewer drunks. Not to mention the fact that when he took off the robe and people saw the brand on his shoulder, he was inevitably propositioned – and had to come up with one excuse after another as to why he was actively not seeking clients.
Partly, though, was that dressing this way allowed him to watch the room. People dressed like this tended to be what he thought of as "the old crone variety." And no one garnered less attention in a bar than an old crone: too ugly to be of romantic interest, too poor to be a gambling partner, too old to be a possible threat during one of the many fights that broke out nightly in The Dancing Darks.
So Smoke sat in a corner. He bought just enough food and ale when he came in that he wasn't in danger of being thrown out as a freeloader, but not so much that he would be noticed as a big spender. He ate the bread slowly, and drank the ale even slower.
And then he saw him. The perfect mark, and his quarry for the night.
The officer was clearly out of his element: someone who had heard of this place and its many pleasures, but who hadn't yet had the chance to come sample them. He was fairly young. No gray hairs that bespoke either age-born wisdom or the self-control that came with years. A uniform with a gray stripe: someone who had been stationed in one of the garrisons that kept the outlands of Fear under control. Which meant he probably hadn't been born in or around Center – people born in Center tended to have the connections necessary to keep them away from such postings – so he was likely on the verge of being overcome by all the sights of the Capitol.
And he wore the triple-braid of a lieutenant colonel.
It's your lucky night, Smoke.
He had never seen someone with a rank higher than major in The Dancing Darks. Often the people he plied for information ended up being nothing but dead ends – useless wastes of time that left him exhausted, groped, and with no good intelligence to show for it.
But this man… young, of a rank that would actually know things. And the fact that he even had the rank at this age meant he was probably an ambitious egomaniac whose favorite conversational topic was himself.
Those were always the easiest to get information from. A drink, a fluttering of the eyes and heaving of a well-designed bosom… they talked about everything, as long as that everything touched on themselves.
For some reason, in that moment he thought about Sword. She was interesting. Different. Caught somewhere between the stolid silence of Cloud and Wind and the exuberant lack of inhibition that marked Rune's personality. She was, he thought, someone who had suffered much. But that suffering had not broken her. It had made her stronger. That strength shone in her eyes, it shone forth from her soul itself. His thought was not romantic – that part of him was, sadly, reserved for another – but he found himself glad she was among the Cursed Ones.
Smoke had practically grown up in prison. Starving as a youth, he had made the mistake of hunting from a rich man's flit-deer flock. When he was caught – without catching a single flit-deer – it was off for his first stay in a prison of Fear. It was years – and several more prisons – before he discovered his Gift, and simply walked out of the prison as one of the guards. More years before Brother Scieran found him and he somehow ended up with a new name and fighting in this crazy war – a hopeless fight, he often thought.
But in his years in prison he had seen many a man and woman broken by trials, shattered by the tribulations that had been their lot. And he knew the look of those rare people who took whatever life gave them and returned it not as bitterness, but strength.
Sword was such a one. And, he thought, that made her interesting. Possibly good.
He liked good things. He had somehow never lost his taste for them in his long years in prison. Goodness called to his soul.
It was why he was here in the first place.
And you've got a job to do, Smoke. So get to it.
He stood. In a practiced motion, he flipped back the hood and loosed the veil from his face. The robe dropped off his back and now he was dressed only in a short skirt with a hip scarf that ran across the top, a linked belt with an ornate buckle, and a beaded top that covered little while hinting at much.
A dozen pairs of eyes turned to stare at Smoke – or rather, at Keanani – and he beelined across the room to avoid being intercepted by any of the half-dozen or so men who were already shifting in their seats.
Smoke sidestepped one of the fastest of them – a man with the uniform of an Imperial air-car pilot who was already off his stool and stumbling drunkenly across the room – and then slid easily into the seat beside the lieutenant colonel, who seemed surprised to see him.
"Ale. Large," said Smoke.
"I'm sorry?" said the officer. He was so flustered that Smoke thought it likely the man had a wife at home – only married men got this nervous at The Dancing Darks.
"It's what you're buying me," said Smoke. He signaled to a barmaid, holding up two fingers and then crooking them: the sign for two ales. "And you'll be getting one for yourself as well, since I don't like to drink alone."
"I… well… I…."
Married. Definitely.
The ales came. Smoke pushed one across to the officer. He stared at it as though unsure. Smoke picked it up and motioned drinking. "You put it on your lips and tip it up. Surely you know how to use your lips, don't you?"
The officer managed somehow to grow even more flustered.
Got him.
Finally, Smoke pushed his own ale against the other man's lips. The officer seemed surprised, but took the drink and downed half of it in a gulp.
Yep. Guilty drinking. Married.
Pig.
Even though Keanani was just a pretense, a construct, when he wore this guise Smoke sometimes found himself thinking like her: he tried to live his disguises as much as possible.
And Keanani, being the storybook prostitute with a heart of gold, was disgusted that this man would cheat so freely on his wife.
That he planned to cheat on her was not in doubt. Smoke could sense the lust building in the man. He wore the look he had seen so many times, on so many men: the desire to have Keanani – not as a friend, not as a worthy companion, but as a possession, a conquest.
Sometimes it made Smoke ashamed of being a man.
The officer put down the first ale. Finished. Smoke handed him the other one and motioned for a third to be sent over.
"Besnik," said the officer.
"Bless you," said Smoke, and batted his eyes. He pretended to sip his drink as the officer took another huge slug of his ale.
"No. My name. It's Besnik. Lieutenant Colonel Besnik."
Smoke feigned surprise. "Is that important? I mean, is that better than, say, a private?"
"Yes. Much. And you can drop the naïve act. I haven't come here looking for innocence."
I'm really going to enjoy taking this guy for all he's got.
Smoke nodded. "Fine. What did you come here for?" he asked.
Besnik raised an eyebrow. "Depends. What are your rates?"
"To the point, are we?" Smoke took another pretend drink. "Let's finish our drinks, then I'll answer that question."
"Are you trying to get me drunk? You think I'll pay more?"
"Absolutely. And you'll pay whatever I ask, sweetie."
"Will I? Why's that?"
"Because I'm what you've been looking for all your life."
Besnik grinned at that, and Smoke smiled, too. Besnik motioned fo
r another round of drinks. And another. And two more.
Smoke started to admire the guy, if only because he had put away enough ale to cripple most people. Smoke was still on his first drink, and there was no way the guy could possibly be standing.
But he was. Standing, talking. Showing no sign of wanting to leave and go upstairs to one of the hourly rooms.
Fine by Smoke. As fun as it would be to bludgeon this self-involved twit to death, he was here for information. So far Besnik hadn't said anything valuable. A few small tidbits about troop movements, but nothing that Smoke could really bring back to the rest of the Cursed Ones.
"Gotta go," said Besnik. His words were finally starting to slur, to fall half-formed out of a mouth that was forgetting how to make proper sounds. "Gotta make wat… I mean…."
"Don't go yet, sweetie," said Smoke. "We haven't had any fun yet." He rolled a shoulder. "No real fun, I mean."
The officer grinned. "Not leaving. Jusht… jusht gotta… make water…." He stumbled away, leaving Smoke to wonder if he should help the guy. Not that he wanted to watch him piss, but Besnik looked drunk enough he probably only had about a ten percent chance of finding his way back to the table.
Would it matter if he did? Guy hasn't talked about anything very important.
Smoke sighed. If nothing else, he'd been undressed enough by Besnik's eyes to make it worth following the guy into the alley. Even if he was passed out in the middle of the filth out there, at least Smoke could rifle through his uniform. Maybe he'd have orders with something useful, or at least a few coins that could buy food for the refugees under the mountain.
He moved toward the back of the room. The common room of The Dancing Darks was littered with tables that seemed as though they had been placed specifically to keep anyone from moving between them. That plus the throngs of drunken, bawdy revelers was enough to make it impossible to move from one place to another in anything approaching a straight line.
Still, Smoke knew where Besnik would have gone. There was only one exit to the alleyway. Maybe he could cut the officer off, keep him inside for another question or two.
Smoke forced his way between a thin man dressed like he had just come off work from the sky-docks and a woman so huge it was a shock that she wore the brand of a prostitute – one from the House of Sixes, no less – and even more of a shock that she had two men fighting over her.
Takes all kinds, I guess.
Someone jostled him, bringing him back to task. He hadn't seen Besnik, which meant the lieutenant colonel was probably outside already. A fifty-fifty chance now: Smoke was going to end up either seeing the man puke or make water. Hard to say which would be worse.
The man who had collided with him reached out a steadying hand. "Sorry," he said. He was a large man, if not oddly so. The hand went all the way around Smoke's – Keanani's – forearm.
Suddenly, the hand wasn't steadying him. It was pulling him.
Smoke looked at the man. He had black hair, close-cropped in the way many military men wore. Blue eyes that seemed strangely out of place under the dark hair. Skin that was white as that of a nobleman.
A slim scar rode a lightning jag down his chin, disappearing below the neck of his shirt.
And the shirt hid something. Armor.
Black armor.
Smoke felt a thrill of fear. There was only one kind of soldier that wore armor like that: the Emperor's Guard.
The shirt the man wore shifted, and for a moment Smoke couldn't even be sure he had seen the armor. It was specially made, thin and lightweight so as to allow for maximum maneuverability, but rumor had it the plates were imbued by some magic that made them hard enough to stop a bullet at point-blank range.
The man still had his hand on Smoke's arm.
"Let go of me," said Smoke. His voice was low. Afraid.
"Run," said the man.
Smoke stared, utterly caught off guard by the matter-of-fact way the word had been uttered. It wasn't a challenge, it wasn't a threat. The man was simply telling him, as though the word were a command from a superior.
"Things are not as they seem," said the man, in words so quiet the din of the room almost winged them away before reaching Smoke's ears. Indeed, it was hard to convince himself he had heard the words.
Then the hand fell away and the man melted into the crowd and it was as though he had never been.
What was that?
A few moments stretched out in his mind. A few fractions of a second where Smoke stood still in the center of the room. Activities whirled all around, the motions of people desperate to drown their sorrows in food or drink or debauchery.
But Smoke stood still.
Who was that man? What did he mean? Can he be trusted? Was he friend, or foe?
And suddenly the tenor of the room changed. Nothing visible, but all was different. Smoke could have been imagining it, but where before he had seen only soldiers and thieves, barmaids and prostitutes, now he saw enemies and assassins on all sides.
The men and women seemed a bit too interested in what was going on in the room, and not quite enough in each other. The men gambling in the corner were hardly aware of the cards they played. The trio of cloaked strangers near the fire had strange bulges in their robes that could have been traveling packs… but also could be rifles or even some of the new guns Smoke had heard of – guns that spat forth bullets so fast they could not be counted.
He turned away. The lieutenant colonel would have to piss on his own.
He was on high alert now, his senses singing the same chorus – something is wrong, something is wrong, something is wrong – on an endless loop. He moved behind a column. Just for an instant, but when he came out Keanani was gone. In her place was the first face that had come to mind – the face with the thin scar, the close-cut black hair.
As he stepped back into the light, someone grabbed him. It was a man dressed like a side-farmer, but –
(But what side-farmer could afford this place?)
– with arms that bore the tattoos of a sergeant in the Imperial Army. "The place is closed," grunted the sergeant. Then his eyes widened as he saw who he spoke to. "M'Lord," he said. He put a fist against his head in quick salute. "I'm sorry, I –"
Smoke batted the man's fist aside. "Not here, idiot," he said. His voice came out as perfect a reproduction as his body was. If he heard or saw a person once, he could impersonate that person. And the impersonation would be fool-proof.
As long as they don't have a Reader in here.
"We're trying to be low-profile, remember?" he said, his tone lightening a bit.
"Surely, m'Lord," said the man. He looked like he wanted to salute again, but managed to quell the impulse.
"Have you seen anything?" said Smoke. He wanted to get out, every fiber of his being was singing out to flee. But he needed to find out what was going on. Whether they were looking for him, or for someone else, and how much this had to do with the Cursed Ones.
"No," said the sergeant. He looked around the room. "Not that we know what we're looking for." He shrugged. "I just do what I'm told."
Smoke nodded. "Carry on, sergeant," he said.
The man nodded. Then whispered, "M'Lord?"
Smoke had already turned away, intending to head for the door. He spun back around, keeping a vaguely irritated expression on his face. "Yes, sergeant?"
"Well, it's Master Sergeant, actually. Master Sergeant Kha." The man was staring at him. "Surprised you didn't call me that. Given who you are."
"What are you implying, Master Sergeant?" said Smoke. But his throat wanted to close on itself. He had to concentrate to keep from swallowing.
The other man stared. Then opened his mouth.
And screamed, "I found him! He's here!"
16
Brother Scieran and Rune accompanied Sword to Center. The air-car they chose wasn't the fastest they had, but it was the least conspicuous: an air-car stolen from a minor noble who had his holdings in the outer rim of Knowledge
. The crest would be known in Center, but only vaguely: something that would make them more or less immune to challenge, but would mark them as unworthy of fanfare or even much notice.
It was also fast. They made the trip from Faith to Center in under a day. Night still held sway, and that was good, too. They would be free to move without prying eyes.
"Though," Brother Scieran pointed out, "any who see us will know we are out of place." He sighed. "There is an opposite to every blessing, a trial for every grace." Then he smiled. "Which is what makes life so interesting, yes?"
Rune rolled her eyes. "If you say so, priest." She was flipping her knife in the air, catching it every time. Occasionally her outline would glimmer and Sword wondered if she was checking ahead to make sure she never missed. Probably. "Personally, I think life would be plenty interesting if I always got my way."
"Really?" He seemed surprised. "Sounds dreadfully dull to me."
She shimmered. Flipped the knife. Caught it. "Then you must have some dull dreams." She winked at Sword. "My dreams are well-muscled, plentiful, and anything but dull."
Brother Scieran made the sign of Faith and whispered something about "a special place in the Netherworlds," but he was smiling.
Sword's return smile was a small one. She was going to Center, and that pleased her little. What pleased her less, though, was the mission itself. For most of her life she had been a Dog. Then a Blessed One, and now it seemed she was a Cursed One. And the thing that all those identities had in common was that all had been given her.
Now, Brother Scieran seemed to truly believe that they could find the identity that simply was her. Not something forced on her, not something bestowed upon her. Simply the thing she had been born to.
And what if she did not like what she found? What if she did not like who she was?
Enough time to worry of that later. We probably won't find it anyway.
Rune suddenly looked her way, concern on her face. "Hey, don't worry," she said. "We probably won't find anything."
The Sword Chronicles: Child of the Empire Page 24
