Fire and Dust

by James Gardner

  «What is it?»

  «Wheezle and me,» he gasped. «We've cornered the shooter.»

  5. THREE SWINGS OF THE GATE

  I followed Hezekiah, and as we jogged he explained what had happened. He and Wheezle had scoured the area around the front of the Mortuary in search of whoever set off the explosion – not an easy task, given that most of the buildings had burst into flames. The boy and the gnome found several hiding places where someone might have shot a fireball or flame arrow to ignite the oil-soaked giant; but all those spots had been empty. With each passing moment the search for other such locations became more difficult, as people from nearby houses began to fill the streets, screaming at the fires and trying to organize bucket brigades from the closest wells.

  In the middle of this growing confusion, Hezekiah had spotted a familiar face in the crowd. Leaning casually against a half-demolished stone wall stood one of the three men who participated in the fireball attack on the City Courts – the heavily-bearded basher with his hair bleached white. Tucked into his belt was a wand Hezekiah immediately recognized: bone-white ivory, speckled with glitters of red.

  The man (whom Hezekiah dubbed Bleach-Hair) had stayed for a few minutes to watch the mob's frantic response to the fire, then walked away into the Hive. Hezekiah and Wheezle had followed at a distance, hampered by the growing crowds who had come to gawk at the fires. Once, my teammates actually lost their quarry; but they tracked him down again by running toward the noise of a fight in the next street.

  By lucky chance (lucky for us, anyway), Bleach-Hair had turned a corner and run smack into the Parade of Dancing Ecstatics, as it wound its never-ending way through the byways of Sigil. Hezekiah only knew about them thanks to a brief explanation from Wheezle; but I was thoroughly familiar with the Ecstatics, having danced with them for three solid days several years earlier.

  The Ecstatic Parade has continued without stop for more than four centuries, a drunkenly riotous assemblage of anyone who wants to join, prancing through the city streets according to the whims of whoever happens to be at the head of the line. A short distance behind the leader is a group of ten people called The Carriers of the Cow. They do not actually carry a cow; all they have is an empty wooden platform which is, I might add from experience, bristling with sodding splinters. Perhaps when the parade started so many years ago, the platform actually sported a cow, whether a living animal or a statue. Sometime over the centuries, however, the cow disappeared, and now only the platform remains.

  Not even the Guvners remember what the parade is intended to celebrate, nor how it all started. The people who join it are simply people who want to dance and bub wine till they pass out in the street. Some dancers bring wine of their own to get themselves started, but that's seldom necessary; it's considered enormously good luck to donate drink to the parade if it passes you. When I danced in the parade elderly grandmothers begged me to take their hooch, in the belief that giving such a gift would help their arthritis. Who knows? Maybe it did. The women certainly seemed limber enough as they ran after me with their homemade moonshine.

  So Bleach-Hair the fireballer had accidentally run into the parade, jostling several Carriers of the Cow. The drunken revellers had reacted predictably; and after the flailing of many fists, Bleach-Hair was riding naked on the cow's platform, his clothes and other equipment tossed into the street and trampled by dozens of dancing drunks.

  «I hope you and Wheezle nabbed the firewand,» I said to Hezekiah.

  The boy's answer was yes, but it had been a near thing. All of this happened in the slum streets of the Hive… and nothing but dog dung can lie on the pavement there without someone trying to steal it. Eager hands quickly grabbed for Bleach-Hair's discarded goods; but Wheezle had whipped a little piece of wool from his pocket, gestured and chanted for a moment, and suddenly there was a squad of Harmonium guards coming around the corner with spoiling-for-a-fight looks on their faces. The cross-traders trying to bob Bleach-Hair's wand had vanished in a trice, giving Hezekiah free rein to collect what Bleach-Hair had dropped.

  «Did you get his clothes too?» I asked.

  «Everything,» Hezekiah laughed, «we got everything. And as soon as I had it in my hands, the guards just melted into the pavement. Wheezle's really very good.»

  «Gnomes are renowned as illusionists,» I agreed, then urged Hezekiah to continue his story.

  The Ecstatics carried Bleach-Hair on the cow's platform for several blocks before he managed to catch hold of a clothes-line strung across the street and swing into an open window on the second floor of a tenement building. Much cursing ensued; but when Bleach-Hair came running out the building's front door, he was carrying some pants he'd stolen from the clothes-line and wearing most of a bowl of noodles dumped over his head. He had dodged the stragglers of the Ecstatic Parade and run down an alley to put on the pants. Then Hezekiah and Wheezle followed him to, of all places, a dirt-crusted tattoo parlor where he had been ever since.

  «You think that's the enemy headquarters?» I asked.

  «No,» Hezekiah replied, «I think he's getting a tattoo.»

  * * *

  When we reached the parlor, our gnome colleague was nowhere in sight. Hezekiah led me to an alleyway which had a clear view of the shop, but also sufficient shadow to hide our presence. The moment we settled down to watch, a voice from thin air said, «He's still getting his tattoo.»

  My skin crinkled into goosebumps. «You're invisible, aren't you, Wheezle?»

  «Yes, honored Cavendish.»

  I couldn't see it, but I knew he was kowtowing to me.

  «So,» I said, «I assume you've been inside the shop for a peek at what's going on.»

  «Indeed. Mr. Bleach-Hair is obtaining a self-portrait on his right forearm.»

  «How odd.» Tattooing is fashionable with parts of the populace, inside Sigil and all through the Outer Planes; but I'd never seen people display tattooed pictures of themselves. Most folks preferred arcane symbols, or clan markings, or images celebrating things they had killed. Never their own faces. For that matter, I seldom saw any kind of face, since it took an expert tattoo artist to make anything more than a cartoonish likeness.

  «Tell me exactly what went on in there,» I said to the invisible Wheezle.

  «The man, Mr. Bleach-Hair, entered and spoke some words to the proprietor of the shop. The proprietor is a drow woman, sir – a dark elf. She is probably very good at her trade; elves always excel at crafts.»

  «I'm aware of that, Wheezle. Just get on with the story.»

  «Of course, honored Cavendish.» This time, I really did catch the faint swishing sound as Wheezle kowtowed. «Alas, I could not get close enough to hear what Mr. Bleach-Hair said to the woman, since I had not yet cast my invisibility spell. However, there seemed to be a great deal of negotiations before the tattooist got down to business.»

  «That's because we've got his money,» Hezekiah put in, holding up a bundle of clothing with dusty footprints all over it.

  «In the end,» Wheezle continued, «he had to give the woman a gold ring from his finger, a ring the Ecstatics had overlooked while stripping him down. The woman accepted that as payment and has been working on his arm ever since. When it became apparent this would be a lengthy process, Master Hezekiah volunteered to go back to the Mortuary to find whoever was still there.»

  Since we had the time, I gave the two of them my own report, telling about Oonah and Kiripao shadowing the two thieves while Yasmin and I dealt with the wights. Wheezle became very silent when I spoke of the undead creatures attacking his fellow Dustmen; I couldn't tell if he was shocked at wights breaking the Dead Truce, or grieving over the deaths of his fellows. Possibly he was rejoicing that his colleagues had finally reached the ultimate purity of death – I've never understood the thought processes of Dustmen.

  While Wheezle mourned or celebrated, I looked through Bleach-Hair's discarded belongings. The clothes were plain yet durable, of a cut that would attract no special notice
in the Hive. It didn't surprise me they were coated with dust, the same brown and white mixture I'd seen on the wights. Did that mean anything? Probably, but I couldn't guess what.

  The objects he carried were of greater interest. First, of course, was the firewand. I decided not to touch it with my bare hand, on the chance that it was booby-trapped. In fact, it seemed easiest to let Hezekiah keep it – perhaps his exalted Uncle Toby had taught him the care and handling of magic wands. Meanwhile, I went back to sorting through the rest of Bleach-Hair's possessions: a dagger with its blade coated in sticky green resin, no doubt some kind of poison; a platinum chain necklace that had been broken in the fight with the Ecstatics; and a stiff piece of card inside his money pouch, showing an ink drawing of Bleach-Hair himself.

  «Hmm,» I muttered, «this fellow must love his own face.» Seriously so – as soon as he lost the ink drawing, he went to the tattoo parlor to get a replacement. He was even willing to part with his gold ring to pay for the new picture. To me, this went beyond any conceivable narcissism; if I'd just lost most of my jink, I wouldn't immediately barter away my one remaining chunk of gold on mere vanity. Bleach-Hair must desperately need his own portrait for some reason… and that smacked of magic.

  «All right, you two mages,» I said to Hezekiah and Wheezle, «what kind of spell can only be cast if you're carrying a picture of yourself?»

  «An interesting question, sir,» Wheezle replied, «but I cannot provide a helpful answer. There are many schools of spellcasting and much variation within schools. Two people casting the same spell may use entirely different components, depending on their personal backgrounds. Sorcerers from Prime Material worlds tend to be particularly idiosyncratic.»

  I threw a glance at Hezekiah. «You've certainly got a point,» I told Wheezle.

  * * *

  Bleach-Hair left the parlor a few minutes after a nearby clock struck peak: midday. Wheezle had been watching the man invisibly, and had given us plenty of warning before he came out; therefore, Hezekiah and I were hidden well back in shadows when Bleach-Hair passed by on the street, gingerly dabbing a yellowish ointment onto his arm.

  The tenderness of his new tattoo made it easy for us to follow him through the teeming streets of the Hive. Bleach-Hair just couldn't leave the tattoo alone – constantly staring at it, brushing it timidly with a finger, and rolling his arm so he could see how it looked in various kinds of light. With his thoughts so preoccupied by his new acquisition, he paid no attention to the people around him. We stuck close as he passed all the sights of the slums: the dingy shops, the whiskey-soaked bubbers lying unconscious on the sidewalk, the children pretending to play tag in the streets as an excuse for dodging around people and picking their pockets.

  It took almost an hour for Bleach-Hair to weave through the labyrinth of streets to reach his destination, but I could see his goal long before we got there: a towering assemblage of glass vats, arranged in a haphazard corkscrew around a central wooden framework that rose twenty storeys into the sky. Each circular vat measured ten paces in diameter and at least twenty feet high, filled with murky water and stocked with fish that skimmed relentlessly past the glass walls.

  This was Sigil's famed Vertical Sea, a fish farm built long ago by a wizard named Churtellius: no doubt a master sorcerer in his day, but now only known for his love of seafood. He had painstakingly constructed each of the vats, strengthening the glass with magic so they could contain the weight of the water; he had personally supervised the raising of the support frame, designing the maze of ramps and trestles and catwalks so that the seemingly random arrangement of vats perfectly counterbalanced each other; and he had even laid out the complicated schedules for changing water in the vats, shoveling in fish food, and harvesting the catch for later sale at the Great Bazaar. Quite possibly, Churtellius had created the Sea in a spirit of purest charity, to ensure that Sigil had an abundant supply of fresh cod and salmon and scallops… but the chant on the street said Churtellius was just another barmy spellchucker who'd do anything to lock down a dependable supply of kippers.

  Bleach-Hair went straight to the base of the tower, spoke briefly to the guards who watched the entrance ramp, then began making his way up the tall corkscrew structure. «Stay with him, Wheezle,» I whispered, though I had no idea if our friend gnome was within earshot. Quite possibly, he was already dogging Bleach-Hair's footsteps while Hezekiah and I lingered in the shadows of nearby buildings.

  «Should we follow too?» Hezekiah asked.

  «We're only here to watch,» I replied. «If we see evidence this really is enemy headquarters, we report back to Lady Erin and let her give these berks the rope. I for one am not spoiling to face a bunch of bashers with firewands.»

  «Have you noticed,» the boy said, «when you get excited, you start to use words like berk and basher, the same as other folks in Sigil?»

  «Pike it, Clueless,» I told him.

  Hezekiah grinned from ear to ear.

  * * *

  Leaving the boy on watch near the base of the tower, I spent a few minutes roaming the neighborhood in search of a better view of the Vertical Sea. I found it at last in a tenement building across from the tower, much like the one we had used to observe the Mortuary, but with stairs leading up to the roof. Like most roofs in the Hive, it had a pathetically unproductive vegetable garden, several small chicken coops owned by various tenants of the building, and a crusty coat of bird droppings. I walked carefully across the guano, marking what an interesting squishy sound it made.

  The smell was interesting too.

  Crouching behind a chicken coop, I stared across the street toward the Vertical Sea. The tower was busy with people tending the vats – workers standing on catwalks above the water, netting up fish and dumping them into wheelbarrows, then trundling their loads down the ramps. Bleach-Hair pushed against the downward flow of wheelbarrows and continued to climb slowly. Since the last time I looked, he'd been joined by two familiar men: the other fireballers from the City Courts. Both of the newcomers held firewands in their hands.

  Where were the three of them going? I scanned up the tower looking for anything out of place… and there, just below the level of my rooftop, was Yasmin.

  Without the diligently developed eyes of a Sensate, I might not have recognized her. She wore drab work clothes now, and had smudged her face with soot. Nevertheless, her bony arm crests were clearly visible, and she still carried that sodding charcoal sketch I had drawn. In fact, she made a show of unrolling it from time to time, glancing at it, then rolling it up again, as if it was a scroll of instructions she was supposed to follow. The other fish-workers obviously accepted her pretense – they moved to and fro past her without a second glance.

  Once I had recognized Yasmin, it was easy to pick out Oonah and Kiripao close by her side. Oonah still had her staff and Brother Cipher his air of serene lethality, but they too were disguised as workers, dawdling about with an empty wheelbarrow. I could only conclude the githyanki and githzerai had led my teammates to the Vertical Sea… and sure enough, as I looked farther up the tower, I saw the two thieves ambling along a ramp almost level with my rooftop.

  They still wore their Dustmen robes, with hoods pulled down low. The clothes attracted attention from the regular workers, but probably not as much as the sight of a githyanki and githzerai walking amiably side by side. I watched as the two stepped off their ramp and onto a walkway over a vat of dogfish: scaled-down sharks averaging three feet long, with hungry looks in their eyes as they prowled behind the glass walls of their home.

  I could see no immediate reason why the thieves would be strolling along a dead-end catwalk over a vat of fish; but as I strained my eyes, I saw that the struts supporting the next vat above their heads formed a sort of archway… and the arch was glowing.

  «Well, I'll be piked,» I whispered. «It's a portal.»

  Not that I should have been surprised to see a gateway to another plane halfway up the Vertical Sea. Throughout the multiverse, S
igil is known as the City of Doors; the place probably has more portals than rats, and Sigil has a lot of rats. Walk down any street, and you're likely to see a portal lurking somewhere – in the door to a bakery, along the covered cloisters of a temple, or even in the angle made by a ladder leaning up against a wall. Any sort of arch, no matter how temporary, can suddenly sprout a portal… and who knows if the portal leads to the blissful meadows of Elysium or the 500th level of the Abyss?

  Of course, most portals are temperamental things; they refuse to work unless you're carrying the right «key». Suppose, for example, there's a portal anchored in the door of your neighborhood greengrocer: ninety-nine times out of a hundred, you could walk through and simply end up staring at the shop's supply of lettuce. However, if you happened to carry the particular class of object that activated the portal – a silver goblet, a triangular scrap of cloth, a rope with knots at both ends – the portal would magically wink open and deposit you somewhere else, a long way from home. If you passed through the doorway with a group of friends, they'd be sucked in too; open portals tend to be hungry.

  Sigil's portals, blossoming by the hundred, formed the heart of the city's economy… especially among the local practitioners of magic. Some wizards, for example, worked on diagnosis; they detected new portals, divined what kind of key would make the portal open, and predicted where you'd end up if you passed through. Other mages specialized in prevention – for a hefty fee, they'd weave spells around your home to make sure the door into Great-Aunt Effy's bedroom didn't suddenly become a gateway to the Elemental Plane of Fire. A third class of sorcerers devoted themselves to understanding the whole portal phenomenon: what created them, why they worked, and how they chose what kind of objects would serve as keys.

  That third bunch of sorcerers always went barmy in the end. There's no rational system to explain portals. They just do whatever they want… like anchoring themselves in an arch over a catwalk, ten storeys up the Vertical Sea.