An Import of Intrigue

by Marshall Ryan Maresca

  “Eht’shahala,” he replied with a respectful nod of the head.

  Rainey was not the least bit subtle as she pulled Minox back out into the late morning sun.

  “That was a waste of time,” Minox said. “We may have to get a writ to further interview him.”

  “Hopefully that won’t be necessary,” Rainey said. “I think he was telling the truth.”

  “As do I,” Minox said. “And if his opinion of Jabiudal is accurate, then that’s the man we should seek out.”

  “But not right now,” Rainey said with an apprehensive sigh. “We have an appointment with the Lyranans.”

  Chapter 8

  “SO, IMACHAN IS NOT actually Imachan,” Minox said as they walked to Geinanj Ong—the Lyranan sector of the Little East colloquially referred to in conjunction with the Tsouljan section as Tyzoville. “How did I not know about this?”

  “Because you haven’t had a traditional education,” Rainey said. “Strictly speaking, what we consider to be ‘Imachan’ is actually—” She paused for a moment. “‘The Grand Confederated Nations of the Faithful to his High Holiness the Cehlat of Imachan.’”

  “That’s a mouthful.”

  “I’m well aware. But it’s essentially ten countries with the same national religion, to varying degrees. Strictly speaking, the Cehlat of Imachan isn’t a head of state in the same way the king is here.”

  “Inspector,” Minox said, stopping in their walk. “I know you’ve been well-trained as part of your earlier career. But how do you know things like this?”

  Rainey’s face dropped a bit. “I don’t always know what I know until I know it, frankly.”

  “That doesn’t make much sense.”

  “I don’t imagine,” she said. She stepped off the main walkway into an unoccupied alley. “When I took the place of the Waish quia, I had to have a traditional education to play the role. But there was hardly time to give me one.”

  Minox nodded, as both those points were reasonable, but he wasn’t seeing where she was going with the statement. “So you had to learn enough to fake your way at the beginning, I presume.”

  “Not even.” She hesitated, as if preparing herself for exertion. Her face took on the expression of someone who swallowed vinegar, and when she spoke, she seemed to only be able to manage a whisper. “Do you know what a . . . telepath is?”

  That was not a word he was familiar with.

  “You can do a lot of things with magic,” she said quietly. “But there are limits. Even the most skilled and powerful mages can’t get in here.” She tapped her forehead.

  “I had presumed that to be the case,” Minox said. There had been more than one time he had attempted to pull the truth out of a suspect’s mind, but he never was able to grab on to anything.

  “Telepaths are—blazes, I probably shouldn’t even tell you this, but—” She looked back out to the street, checking if anyone was paying them mind. She again spoke haltingly, almost as if she had to force the words to her mouth by sheer will. “They’re . . . something else. What they do isn’t magic, but they can look at your mind like the threads of a cloth. And in some cases, weave a whole new pattern into it.”

  Minox had no response for a moment, trying to process this information. Finally he managed to say, “How have I never heard of this?”

  “The people who have the capability are rare, far rarer than mages,” Rainey said. “And they—as well as Druth Intelligence—do their best to keep their talents generally unknown.”

  “But Druth Intelligence uses such people.”

  “Do they ever.”

  “We’re going to give you a choice, Trini.” The man—he wasn’t a stick, but he was definitely like a stick, all clean-faced and smooth chin—crouched down in front of her. “There are a few different ways we can do this, but the choice is yours.”

  “You’re a terrible liar,” Trini said. “You ain’t gonna let me choose nothing.”

  “We certainly are,” he said. “You decide you want nothing to do with this, we’ll put you back in the carriage and drive you back to your little corner on Jent and Tannen. You can go back to doing whatever it is you had going on.”

  Bastard made it sound so appealing. Truth was, she had little going on beyond planning what the blazes she was going to do to keep her throat together when Idre Hoffer got out of the Quarry.

  “And let’s just say I’m interested,” she said. “Then what?”

  He gave her a wink. “Then things get really interesting.” He pointed to the guy in the corner, with the one twitchy eye and crumbs in his half-grown beard. “That’s Oster.”

  “What’s he on? Phat? The White? Or that new stuff from the islands?”

  “None of them.” He shrugged. “I know, it’s hard to believe. Oster’s very special, though. He can touch you. Right here.” He poked Trini in her forehead.

  “Ouch,” she said. “So can you.”

  “He means your mind,” Oster said. “Satrine Carthas. Goes by Tricky Trini. You turned another girl over to the Constabulary so you could sleep in peace for a few months. And you’re afraid of birds.”

  “I ain’t afraid of them!” Trini snapped. “They’re just weird. Beaks and little eyes, it’s creepy.” She did a double take. “How you know that?”

  “Because your mind is a clear tapestry to me,” Oster said.

  “Here’s the way it goes,” Smooth Chin said. “You need to learn to be her. The quia.”

  “What’s the blazes is a key-ah?”

  “It’s like a princess, but in Waisholm.”

  “Where’s Waisholm?”

  “North of here,” Smooth Chin said. “It’s another country.”

  “Your dad was probably from there, by the looks of you,” Oster said. “What was he?”

  “Never knew,” Trini said. “Can’t you see that?”

  “I’m trying not to dig around too much. Got to save my strength.”

  “Why?” Trini asked.

  “That’s what I’m getting at,” Smooth Chin said. “You’re going to need to learn all sorts of things. Not just how to read and write . . .”

  “I can blazing read,” Trini said. She still had the poem book in her coat pocket.

  Smooth Chin looked to Oster for some confirmation, and got a lazy-eyed nod.

  “Good, that means you’re clever. So think hard about this, all right?”

  “About what, exactly?”

  “Oster doesn’t just see what you’re thinking, you see. He can touch it.”

  “You ever see weaving work done?” Oster asked.

  “Yeah,” Trini said.

  “Your mind, it’s kind of like a woven tapestry. I can see it, touch it . . . and I can weave new things into it.”

  “Blazing what?” Trini asked. “Like, change my head?”

  “Exactly,” Oster said.

  “So here’s how it can work,” Smooth Chin said. “There’s three choices here. The first is that Oster can just make you be the qui—the princess.”

  “Make me . . . the princess.”

  “You’ll be a perfect fake, in that you will completely believe that you are her. You’ll know what she needs to, will act like she would.”

  “But I’ll still be me?”

  “No,” Oster said. “The you that’s Trini Carthas will just be gone.”

  Just be gone. There was a strange appeal to that. Become a princess and never know about the life at the corner of Jent and Tannen. But something didn’t smell right.

  “So why don’t you just do that, huh? Why even ask me?”

  “Because that work is delicate,” Oster said. “It requires your utter compliance, or else your brain would be hopelessly ruined. Like newsprints in the rain.”

  She didn’t like the sound of that. “What are the other two choices?” she asked. />
  “First is Oster builds you . . . a mask, as it were. It’s sort of like the first choice, except the real you is always inside. The ‘princess’ will do whatever she needs to do, but you can step in and take the reins whenever you need to.”

  She looked over to Oster, and could see on his face he didn’t like that. “What’s the risk on that one?”

  “It’s tricky work. Do it wrong, and the lines between you and the mask get muddy. The mask—or you—or both, could go mad.”

  “No to that,” Trini said. “Not a chance. What’s your third idea?”

  “It’s the least risk to your mind, but will put you at the most risk when you’re out there.”

  “If I do this.”

  “If you do this,” Smooth Chin said. “You stay yourself, and Oster puts into your head the experience and education she would have had.”

  “So I’ll know fancy learning and how to dance at parties and sewage like that?”

  “Exactly.”

  “But I’ll still be me, just knowing more stuff.”

  “Essentially.”

  “Well, blazes, that’s the way to go.”

  “Let me remind you that you’ll have to fake being the quia by yourself with this method. You won’t have that constructed personality to protect you.”

  “I’m used to not being protected,” Trini said. “All right, let’s give it a go.”

  “You’re agreeing, then?” Oster asked.

  Trini put up her chin, giving her best tough face. “Sure, why not? Got nothing else planned.”

  “You heard the girl,” Smooth Chin said. “Might as well get started. We’ve got a long boat ride ahead.”

  “Boat?” Trini asked.

  “How else are we gonna get to Waisholm?” he asked. He looked to the rest of the boys in the outer room. “I’m going to make some arrangements, be about an hour. That good for you?” The question was to Oster.

  “For the first session,” Oster said. “It’s going to be quite a few.”

  “So what do I do?” Trini asked.

  “Sit down,” Oster said, pointing to the floor. He got down in front of her. “To be honest, I’m glad this was your choice. All three of these options, I need your explicit cooperation, and . . . none of them are easy on you. This one, though, there isn’t much risk of it wrecking you.”

  “I won’t be hurt, you’re saying?”

  “Hurt?” Oster said. “Not exactly. But it’s going to be hard on you. I’m sorry.”

  She shrugged. “I’m used to hard on me.”

  “Stay still, Satrine.” He reached out and put his hands on her temples. Instinctively she flinched away at his touch, but then forced herself to move back, allow him contact.

  “Let’s do this, boss,” she said.

  “Again,” he said quietly. “I apologize.”

  He took a deep breath, and then a whole year slammed into her skull.

  “They did that to you?” Minox asked. “That’s a thing that can be done?” The entire concept was boggling, especially the offers that she had passed on.

  “It is,” Rainey said. “So . . . to be clear, they didn’t give me the information of a classical education. They gave me the experience of it. Not a real memory, mind you, there’s little confusion in my head about what is really my life and what they gave me. But if you were to ask me about, say . . .”

  Realizing she was fishing for an example, Minox offered, “The lineage of Kieran dynasties in the High Imperial era?”

  “Then I would realize that I know them to be, in order: Kieran, First Luciex, Tanaphus, First Gelmin, Pomorious . . . see? I didn’t know that I knew that. But I know it. I could continue.”

  “Not necessary.”

  “Then let’s move on.”

  They pushed their way out of the Imach-occupied streets and worked their way over to the unimaginatively named Second Auxiliary Public House in Geinanj Ong. This part of the Little East was completely unrecognizable in comparison to the Imach sector. The streets were not only open and easily accessible, they were completely clean. Minox was used to seeing some degree of filth and rubbish scattered on the streets and gathered in the drainage ditches. There was none of that. The cobblestones almost shone.

  Here the buildings were painted shades of gray, and there was copious signage in multiple languages identifying streets, offices, and the Second Auxiliary Public House. Minox noted that they also passed the Primary Public House and the First Auxiliary Public House, which both looked exactly the same as the Second Auxiliary.

  Each Lyranan public house had a wide doorframe, though Minox noted no door actually hung in the frame. Instead there was a canvas sheet that could be lowered and tied off at the floor to prevent entry. Minox also noticed that the public house windows—indeed all the windows—had no glass. Instead they were filled with a thin cloth, drawn tight, allowing a diffuse light into the building. At the far end of the building, there was an empty stage, and between the stage and the entrance there were several long tables laid out in neat rows.

  Closest to the entrance was the kitchen line. A handful of Lyranans were queued up to receive their midday meal, all looking strangely similar. They all had the grayish skin pallor, and heads shaved bald, and wore coats that were either dark gray, dark blue, or dark brown. The only differentiation between any of them were the flairs of colored braiding at the collars and cuffs of the coats.

  No food was being served yet; the Lyranans were just queued up.

  “Is the heraldry of Lyranan clothing something you have in your brain?” he asked Inspector Rainey.

  “That is not something I know,” she said, sounding almost surprised. “I’m sure the people we’re meeting will recognize us, however. And we actually are a few minutes early.”

  Five Lyranans emerged from some unseen back room and took to the stage, each carrying musical instruments: two long-necked stringed instruments, similar in concept if not in appearance to the Druth guitar; another grand string instrument that needed to be rolled out; one that was flute-like, except much larger; finally something not quite unlike a drum. They took places on the stage, but stood in silence.

  Waiting like the queue for the kitchen.

  Rainey was about to say something when the church bells of Saint Interson rang noon. Then many things suddenly occurred. The players on the stage immediately began playing, slow and atonal, with an odd haunting quality to it. Someone behind the kitchen counter whistled, and the people at the front of the queue began giving orders, which the cooks behind the counter responded to with absurd rapidity. And there was a tap on Minox’s shoulder.

  “Punctuality is an admirable trait, Inspector Third Class Welling. We are gratified to find you in possession of it.”

  Minox turned to see three Lyranans standing before him. Like the rest of the line, they were gray-pallored, dark-eyed, and bald-headed. Their uniform jackets were blue, with the one in the center sporting significantly more braiding on his collar and cuffs. It took a moment for Minox to even realize that one of the three was a woman—the lack of hair and similar cut of their clothes threw off his usual signifiers of gender.

  “You must be Third Tier Supervisor Heizhan Taiz,” Minox said. He held out his hand. “Inspector Welling, as you have surmised.”

  Taiz took his hand after a moment of hesitation, as if he were conforming to Druth custom out of obligation.

  “Well placed, Inspector. It is also gratifying to see you, Inspector Third Class Rainey. My associates, Trade Notary First Class Fao Nengtaj—” He indicated the man to his left, and then the woman. “—Specialist First Class Pra Yikenj.” The two other Lyranans just bowed their heads. Taiz’s Trade was excellent, though he clearly spoke with a Lyranan accent, which gave his voice a strange tonal quality, like he was singing his words with a single note.

  “Glad to . . . meet you,”
Rainey said haltingly, her attention on Yikenj.

  “Let us not dally,” Taiz said. He stepped over to the kitchen line, and when he made a sharp whistling sound, the rest of the people in line immediately deferred to him. He made whispered comments to the kitchen staff, and then returned. “We will take our meal at the table farthest from the entertainment, so it will not distract us from our business.”

  As Minox followed the Lyranans to the table, he asked, “Is there always a band playing at lunch?”

  Taiz looked over to the musicians, and back to Minox, giving something almost resembling a smile. “In your country, we have made alterations to fit your clock schedule. Our day is broken into several sections, keyed to their purpose. In Lyrana, right now would be te-ungzhai. A rough translation would be ‘the hour of easement.’ It is when we eat, enjoy the artistic merits of music, and converse with our peers. Right now we are making an exception, honoring a Druth tradition of combining vocation with our meal.”

  “It’s less a tradition and more a habit,” Minox said.

  “Perhaps a poor one,” Taiz said. He sat down and indicated for the rest to do the same. “But there must be room for proper exceptions in order to achieve mutual goals. For example, the musicians and kitchen staff must work at this time so that others may have their ungzhai. But that is the nature of their position.”

  “This is fascinating,” Rainey said. “Should we discuss why you’ve invited us here?”

  “In due moment, Inspector Rainey,” Taiz said. He glanced over, noting the waitperson who came over with wooden bowls of food, all identical. The waitron silently placed a bowl in front of each of them and slipped off.

  “No one else is getting served to the table,” Minox noted.

  “There are privileges attached to rank,” Taiz said. He leaned in. “It actually has been years since I’ve come to a public house for ungzhai.” The look on his face was almost wicked, as if he had confessed a great transgression.

  “Sir,” Nengtaj said firmly.

  Taiz leaned back. “Please, Inspectors.”