Fire and Dust

by James Gardner

  Fortunately, the Harmonium was out in force that night: guards standing at every major corner, and others scurrying hither, thither, and yon on unknown errands. Speaking of guards, I noticed a burly dwarf woman (at least I think it was a woman; it's hard to tell with dwarves) dogging our heels about five lampposts back. She wasn't wearing the official neckerchief, but she had the unmistakable trudging walk that marked her as a Harmonium patroller. No doubt this dwarf was a plainclothes gift from my friend, the sergeant – someone to watch in case I gave Hezekiah the slip and ran off on an unbridled crime spree.

  The more I thought about it, however, the wiser it seemed to keep Hezekiah close at hand. He and I had witnessed a theft that might be part of a city-wide conspiracy. If I left him to his own devices, he'd soon find himself one of those «dens of iniquity» where he'd spill everything he knew to the assembled company of cross-traders and bawds. Word would travel through the seedy parts of Sigil, eventually reaching the ears of the thieves we'd seen that afternoon. Maybe they wouldn't care that they'd been spotted; but maybe they'd decide it was prudent to silence those who could identify them.

  Hezekiah would get his throat cut first. Then they'd come for me.

  When I looked at the situation in that light, Hezekiah had to be kept under wraps – for his own safety, as well as mine – and that meant I had to play his minder until I could shuck off the responsibility on someone else. Maybe when I spoke with Lady Erin later in the evening, I could persuade her to find a more willing babysitter.

  * * *

  With so many guards roaming the streets, we made it to the Festhall without incident… barring the half dozen times I had to pull Hezekiah away from draggle-tail ladies of the evening. Of course, the little Clueless didn't understand what they meant by, «Hey bloods, want a bit of lather?»; he grew more and more convinced that Sigil was filled with 24-hour public baths.

  Pulling Hezekiah through the outer approaches to the Festhall was even harder. Admittedly, I couldn't hold that against him; from conjurors to lutists to acrobats, the walkways of the Festhall are crammed with charming and talented performers, highly skilled in capturing a newcomer's attention. I noticed my companion dipping frequently into his purse to find coins to drop in the buskers' bowls – so frequently and with so many coins, I began to wonder how much money Hezekiah had. For that matter, I wondered how so much silver managed to come from such a slim little purse. Perhaps that was another bit of magic from the famed Uncle Toby.

  As we continued to pass singers and jugglers and contortionists, I began to feel guilty about hurrying the boy off to Lady Erin's office. This was Hezekiah's first visit to the Festhall; he should have a chance to experience everything he could… provided I found some way to keep him out of real trouble.

  Casting about for a solution to my quandary, I caught sight of a familiar face and waved her over to us. Lillian fa Liranill was thirty-two like me; but since she was an elf, she was still an adolescent and she gloried in it. The two of us had joined the Society of Sensation in the same group ceremony, and we had enjoyed a brother/sister relationship ever since.

  Lillian was more than just lively and delightful; she was infinitely delightable, taking bubbly pleasure even in the plainest, most humdrum aspects of existence. I once watched her write a letter to a friend, pausing every three seconds to ponder what color of ink to use for the next word… and no matter what color she chose, she always giggled at the effect. For a cherubically cheerful guide to the enticements of the Festhall, you couldn't do better than Lillian.

  She wasn't half bad as an artist's model either.

  «Lil,» I said, raising my voice to be heard above a pair of nearby drummers, «this is Hezekiah Virtue. He's just new to Sigil.»

  «Really!» Her eyes opened wide. «You're just new to Sigil?»

  «Yes ma'am,» the boy gulped, «I'm just new.»

  «Glad we've got that clear,» I said. «I was wondering, Lil, if you'd like to show Hezekiah some of the sights of the Festhall.»

  Her eyes opened even wider. «He'd like to see some of the sights?»

  «Yes ma'am,» Hezekiah assured her, «I've been really looking forward to seeing the sights.»

  «Perhaps you could show him around,» I suggested to Lillian.

  Her eyes opened wider still; Lillian's eyes had the gift of being infinitely expandable. «Would you like me to show you around?» she asked Hezekiah.

  «I'd love for you to show me around,» he answered.

  «Then it's settled,» I said. Drawing Lillian aside, I whispered, «Hezekiah went through a terrible ordeal this afternoon, and it would do him good to forget about the experience for a while. Can you make sure he doesn't dwell on what happened? Don't let him start talking about it, to you or anyone else. Keep his mind on other things.»

  «I can keep his mind on other things,» she promised with those wide open eyes of hers. Turning back to Hezekiah, she slipped her arm around his waist and snuggled in close to him. «What do you want to see first?» she asked. «There's so much we can do.»

  Trying not to chuckle, I headed off to Lady Erin's offices. Hezekiah would never know what hit him.

  * * *

  The factol's suite was tucked into the most inaccessible part of the Festhall, guarded by one of those irascible old men who never goes anywhere, yet seems to know everything. You know the type: think of that local tavern owner who never strays farther than the wine cellar… but if you witness some duel in the streets and race around to tell the news, he already knows the details, he can explain what started the quarrel in the first place, and he even tells you the prognosis from the surgeon attending the wounded.

  Lady Erin's steward, TeeMorgan, was like that. He was a bariaur – much like a centaur, but from the chest down he looked more like a ram than a horse, and he had curled ram's horns sprouting from his forehead. «So,» he said the moment he caught sight of me, «you were in the middle of that fiasco in the Courts today. You and that Clueless boy. Have you thrown him down a privy or what?»

  «Lillian has taken him under her wing,» I answered. «Do you have any food handy? I haven't eaten since lunch.»

  «Hmph,» he grumped. «Seems to me if a Sensate wants to experience everything in life, starvation is one of the first things on the list.»

  «I fasted for a month and a half the year I turned twenty-five,» I told him.

  «And the paintings you did then were your only ones worth looking at,» he retorted. «All these portraits and landscapes and still-lifes of yours… whatever happened to good old abstraction? Painting what you feel instead of what you see – that's what I call art. Where's the point of painting a bowl of grapes that just looks like a bowl of grapes? But put little screaming faces on each grape, and that's a statement.»

  «I wouldn't mind some grapes right about now,» I said.

  «Yeah, try to change the subject. But take your portrait of Factol Sarin hanging in the City Barracks… my four-year-old could understand it. You call that art?»

  «I call it my job. People pay me to paint pictures that look like pictures, TeeMorgan. They don't come to me for statements, they come for grapes you can recognize as grapes. Judging by the amount of gold they're willing to pay, they're happy with what they get.»

  «Oh yes, gold,» TeeMorgan growled. «You're a Sensate, Cavendish – you should acquire a taste for more than one mineral. What would your father think of a son who was content to be a mediocrity?»

  I caught my breath and bit back true anger. TeeMorgan and I frequently had these jousting matches about art, but mentioning my father was going too far. The look on my face must have told the bariaur he'd entered forbidden territory, because he turned away and made a gruff noise in his throat. «Pike all this arguing,» he said. «I'll check what we've got in the pantry.»

  His hoofs clacked loudly as he cantered into a back room; and I was left alone with thoughts of my father.

  My father, Niles Cavendish, was a hero: a champion swordsman, a dashing adventurer, a sav
ior of the downtrodden. A city like Sigil never lacks for heroes, of course – every night in every tavern, you'll hear some berk boasting how he slew the Five-Headed Monster of Whatsit or retrieved the Gold Talisman of Who-Cares. But Niles Cavendish was a real hero, a hero known for his exploits throughout the multiverse… ready to rush into the Abyss to rescue a kidnapped princess, or dive into the River Styx to save a drowning puppy.

  Twelve years had passed since he disappeared, and I still couldn't think about him without clenching my hands into fists.

  TeeMorgan stuck his head in from the pantry doorway. «We got some cold beef left over from dinner, and a new delicacy called swineberries. I assume you want some?»

  «Beef yes, berries no.»

  «And you call yourself a Sensate,» TeeMorgan muttered. He stomped off to get me a plate.

  * * *

  Lady Erin arrived just as a nearby clock chimed six in the morning. I had been dozing lightly on a couch in her office, an exotic piece of furniture upholstered with a hide I suspected had once been attached to a basilisk.

  «Don't be gettin' up,» she said as she bustled in and threw a stack of papers onto her desk. «I've only a few words to say, then I'll let you get back to sleep. You'll need all the rest you can get.»

  «May I ask why, my lady?»

  «Special duty in the service of our faction,» she replied. «I've convinced the other factols someone's systematically attacking all our faction headquarters. Naturally, it's too much to expect that we band together against a common foe…» She threw a rueful glance over her shoulder in the general direction of the Hall of Speakers. "But we've worked out a tiny cooperative effort.

  «Each faction,» she went on, «will protect its headquarters however it sees fit. Here at the Festhall, we'll have to hire mercenaries, and won't that add to the cheery atmosphere? But that's not your problem. The council also agreed to assemble cross-factional teams of observers outside each headquarters – not helpin' with protection but watchin' for suspicious activities. If an attack or disaster takes place, the teams are forbidden to involve themselves; we don't want them gettin' distracted by a showy diversion. Observer teams'll hold back and look smaller things… like a githyanki and githzerai runnin' out the back door of the building.»

  «I assume you want me on one of these teams?» I said.

  «Exactly,» she nodded. «You have a keen eye, and you've seen the thieves. That's an advantage I don't want to waste. Also, I understand you can take care of yourself if it comes to a fight… right?»

  She smiled at me as if that were a joke – as if we both knew that the son of Niles Cavendish had to be a formidable warrior. Surely my father taught me all his fighting tricks.

  No. He taught me nothing.

  For months, sometimes years at a time, the legendary adventurer simply wasn't home: off swashbuckling through the multiverse, leaving my mother and me to struggle through on our own. When he came home his pockets were full of gold; but after a brief splurge of gift-giving, he would spend the rest of his purse on equipment for his next foray, leaving us alone again with nothing. Yes, I did learn to use the rapier, but not from my father. I learned my skills, such as they are, from dearly hired swordmasters – in my youth, because I thought learning the sword would impress my father if he ever took the time to notice, then later because so many brash young bashers believed they could make their reputations by challenging a Cavendish.

  On the eve of my twentieth birthday, the survivors of my father's last expedition brought his rapier back and told us he was «lost»… not killed for certain, just lost. Vanished without a trace, one night in the Outlands. And even though we knew he had to be dead, my mother and I still couldn't shake off the slim hope he might one day show up on the doorstep, smiling, charming, full of stories. Year after year we hoped; until now, after twelve years, hope had become a tired thing that only occasionally returned to torment us, when a stranger's voice or walk suddenly brought to mind the great flamboyant Niles.

  Lost is worse than dead. But I had my father's rapier, and yes, I did know how to fight.

  «I can protect myself,» I told Lady Erin. «If it comes to that.»

  «We hope it doesn't,» she nodded. «If you catch sight of those thieves again, don't go tryin' anything brave; just follow them back to their base of operations. Once we know where they are… well, this group has killed people from four different factions, so we'll have no problem findin' volunteers to rip the berks to pieces.»

  «How much do the other factions know?» I asked. «Did you tell them the attack at the court building was just a diversion for the theft?»

  Lady Erin shook her head. «I didn't want to give away the dark in an open meeting. Not that I think any factol is behind this, but some of those berks have notoriously loose lips. They've agreed the observation teams should track suspicious persons, and that's enough. We'll make sure each team has a Sensate, Guvner, or Harmonium guard who knows the chant and is watchin' for the right things.»

  «So there won't be someone from each faction on every team?»

  «Heaven forbid!» she laughed grimly. «I'm aimin' for five or six people per team. With so much distrust between factions, it'll be hard enough to get a half dozen sods to work together without comin' to blows; representin' all fifteen factions would make the job impossible. I have firsthand experience – I've just come from a meetin' of all fifteen factions.» She gave a rueful grin.

  «So these teams…» I said. «You'll want us watching twenty-four hours a day?»

  She nodded. «Each faction'll set up an observation post for you, somewhere with a good close view of the headquarters building. Runners'll bring you regular meals – on the sly, of course, so the enemy doesn't notice. It'll be up to the teams to decide who sleeps when, but there should be at least two people peelin' an eye for trouble at all times.»

  «And we keep watching until something happens.»

  «You keep watchin' until you have to stop.» Lady Erin walked around to the well-padded chair behind her desk, and slumped into it wearily. «Joint efforts between factions never last long, Britlin. Minor differences become major squabbles, arguments become brawls, and eventually you get duels, fights, puttin' each other in the dead-book… the factols all promise to pick their most 'tolerant' people, but still I'd guess we have three days tops before the operation falls apart. If even one team gets out of hand, it'll spike our try at secrecy and the enemy'll know what we're up to. So,» she said, «you keep watching till you or some other team blows the dark. After that, there's no point.»

  Three days. Three days out of my schedule, with the deadline for Guvner Hashkar's commission coming up. Since the first painting had burned in the fire, I'd have to start again from scratch… but then, if Guvner Hashkar wanted a picture of the rotunda as it looked now, I could just smear black paint all over the canvas. There was a statement for you.

  Anyway, I had no choice – a man doesn't refuse a special assignment from his factol. In the morning, I'd ask Lady Erin to send a note to Hashkar, regretfully stating he'd have to find some other wedding present for his wife's cousin.

  There was, however, one more matter that had to be handled tonight. «What about Hezekiah?» I asked. «We can't let him rattle his bone-box all around the city if we're trying to keep this business dark.»

  «I've been thinkin' about that,» Lady Erin answered, «and it strikes me it's high time Outsiders were allowed to play a more active role in city politics. At the last census, they outnumbered every established faction in Sigil… includin' the Chaosmen who all filled out five census forms apiece. Such a hefty number of folks deserve representation in some way; and postin' Hezekiah to an observation team strikes me as the perfect first step.»

  I winced. «Whose team did you have in mind?»

  The factol just smiled.

  3. THREE DAYS WITH THE DEAD

  The sky had begun to brighten when I let myself into Cavendish Case – a two-storey flagstone house only a few blocks from the Festh
all. My father had bought this place the day I was born, as he never tired of telling me: one of the few topics of conversation between us that didn't dwindle into awkward silence.

  I had intended to slip inside quietly, pick up some things I would need for the next few days, then slip out again. Of course, I'd leave my mother a note explaining that I'd be gone for a while… and of course, I wouldn't tell her the truth. Something like, «Urgent commission for the Modron Ambassador – must stay at Mechanus embassy till finished.» That would please her and avoid the unpleasantness of lying to her face…

  …except that she was standing in the front hall as I slunk inside.

  «And did we make a special friend last night?» she asked sweetly.

  «No, Mother.»

  «Britlin,» she said, «a gentleman's only civilized excuse for staying out till dawn is if he spent the night with a lady. All other alternatives are dclass.»

  «Yes, Mother.»

  She gave me a winsome smile – Mother had somehow convinced herself I was accumulating a long string of romantic conquests. The truth was much more restrained: yes, there had been a handful of women (and one or two of those had been quite a handful!) but I was no dashing rake with my head on a different pillow every night. Some Sensates strive for quantity and others for quality; I preferred the second approach.

  «And what is the news on the street today?» she asked, a question that came up every morning. I rattled off juicy tidbits of rumor about the high and mighty – who was sleeping with whom, who had gone bankrupt in the latest financial scandal, whose souls had been collected overnight by baatezu calling in contractual obligations – a grab-bag of gossip related to me by TeeMorgan when he brought me breakfast at the Festhall. Mother had never met any of the people I talked about, but she nodded knowingly at each blunder and impropriety. The names were unimportant; she simply loved to hear about folly.