An Import of Intrigue

by Marshall Ryan Maresca

  She ignored him, leaning in and pulling his eyes open wide, looking deep at them. She muttered in Tsouljan. Then she slapped at his face.

  “Stop it!” he shouted, his voice suddenly coming back in full. That came with a fire of anger, which came surging out of his hands and lit up the entire hut.

  The fire flew out at the woman, but icy clouds surrounded her, which then ran up Minox’s arms. The clouds pinned him back down to the table. She spoke, more in the creaky tones of the Tsouljan language.

  “What are you saying?”

  “She said, ‘Hold still, fool,’” Rek-Yun said.

  “Who is she?” Minox shouted. “What is she doing to me?”

  “Sevqir Fel-Sed,” Rek-Yun said calmly. She then spoke, and Rek-Yun continued to translate. “All she’s doing to you is keeping you still. The rest of what is happening is your own doing.”

  “This isn’t me,” Minox said. The burning anger was now hot in his chest, like it had nowhere else to go. “It’s this place.”

  “It is you.” She tapped him on the chest as she spoke, Rek-Yun’s translation right on top of her. “You have the gift of ge-tan. But you are a child with that gift.”

  “Ge-tan? Do you mean magic?”

  She scoffed, stepping out of his line of sight. He noticed that Rek-Yun wasn’t translating back to her. She understood Druth Trade, but didn’t—or wouldn’t—speak it. “That is what the Druth call it. And this is how the Druth teach themselves how to use it. Terrible.”

  “No one taught me.”

  “That is obvious.”

  “Is this what happened to Hieljam ab Wefi?”

  “Who?”

  “The man who was killed here?” He snapped his words. Rage coming again. It ebbed and flowed now, almost like it was coming from outside of him.

  Fel-Sed came back into his line of sight. “I don’t know anything about that. You are unbalanced. Why is that?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “You don’t know. How is that?” She placed something on his chest. Minox couldn’t see what it was, but as soon as it touched him, the anger melted away.

  “Do you know?” he asked.

  “It is that you do not know.” She shook her head, now placing other things on his forehead and stomach. “How is it you Druth are so ignorant of the ge-tan?”

  “Plenty aren’t.”

  She leaned in close, her eyes piercing. “So why are you ignorant?”

  “Circumstance.”

  She placed two more of whatever she was putting on him on his hips. “Explain.”

  He really felt like he should be asking her the questions. “Education in magic only comes through being in a Circle. Which I’m not. I can’t be.”

  “Circle? Explain.”

  Minox thought about it for a moment, as he realized all the pulses of errant magic in his body were dropping down. Whatever Fel-Sed did had worked. “Circles are organizations of mages, for mutual legal protection and . . .”

  “No, no. Why does that affect you?”

  “No Circle would allow its members to be in the Constabulary.”

  “Ah!” She grinned maniacally, allowing Minox to see that several of her back teeth had symbols carved into them. “That is the imbalance. Who you are here.” She tapped in the center of his chest. “Very strange people, you Druth are.”

  “I don’t know if we have a monopoly on strangeness,” Minox said. “Can I . . . stand up now?”

  “You are fine for now.” She scooped up the things she had placed on his body; they seemed to be pebbles of some sort. “I cannot guarantee that you will stay that way. You are out of balance, and you seem to be insistent on unbalancing yourself further.”

  Minox sat up. “So, you are a mage? You . . . have the ge-tan?”

  “I have it and harness it.”

  He pointed to her blue hair. “Is that what that means? Your hair color seems to indicate different roles.”

  She turned to Rek-Yun, and the two had a brief exchange in their native tongue. Finally Rek-Yun responded.

  “Very strange, you Druth are. You see the mark of our linsol here, she tells you she is Fel, and yet you seem confused.”

  Blue is Fel. Which means the yellow is Rek, and the green is Rup. What those meant, though, Minox was still confused about.

  “So is your linsol, being Fel . . . that’s like your Circle?”

  She made a strange noise with her tongue. Then more Tsouljan, translated by Rek-Yun. “Attempt to maintain some balance. Especially here.” She held up his left arm, which was now completely limp. Minox could barely feel her hand against his. “Once you have proper questions, then return to me.”

  She left the hut.

  Rek-Yun then gave him a slight bow. “I apologize for your discomfort. I will allow you rest and take my leave.” He backed out of the hut.

  Minox stayed sitting on the table for some time, his thoughts far from the murder of Hieljam ab Wefi. What had happened to him just now? Was it tied to the rijetzh, the problems with his hand, or both? He flexed the fingers in his left hand. Now it felt almost normal again, just the slight tingle in his fingertips as the numbness faded. But he couldn’t ignore that something was definitely wrong with it.

  He would need to think of proper questions for Sevqir Fel-Sed, because it was clear that she might actually have something to teach him.

  Chapter 10

  “BLAZES, KELLMAN, what are you eating?” Mirrell couldn’t believe that his partner was actually eating that Imach junk.

  “I ain’t sure,” Kellman said, holding it up. It was in flatbread, like those wraps Jinx was always eating, but it definitely wasn’t meat in there. Mirrell couldn’t identify it at all, but it smelled like his son’s school shorts after a sweltering day like today. This whole part of town stank in ways Mirrell couldn’t even put words to.

  Kellman took another bite of the sewage. “Not too bad, actually.”

  “Not too bad, bah,” Mirrell said.

  “Hey, I’m hungry, and this is where we are,” Kellman said.

  “What are you, Jinx?” Mirrell asked. “Did that sewage-seller at least know anything?”

  “Beats me,” Kellman asked. “He knew about five words in Trade, mostly ‘crowns’ and ‘pay.’”

  “Not surprised.” Imachs were grubbers, that was for sure. Between grilling these bastards for any scrap of info, following around the blasted piries, and the infuriating tyzos yesterday, Mirrell had had his fill of the Little East for the rest of the blazing year. All these foreign tossers could drown in each other’s blood, as far as Mirrell cared.

  At least the machs stayed in their blasted blocks most of the time.

  Not these bloody piries, though. Once they came out of their fancy house, they were all over the area. Over to the docks, talking with folks in the Hodge, buying a few strange fruits, and now in a trinket shop in Machie.

  “They’re mucking with us, you know,” he said to Kellman. “Even if we weren’t in our vests, the two of us stand out like a fly in the soup around here. They know we’re trailing them, so they’re giving us a guided tour of nothing.”

  “Yeah,” Kellman said with his mouth half-filled with the junk. “I got a feeling, though.”

  “You got a feeling. Saints, you are turning into Jinx.”

  “Nah, listen,” Kellman said. “Like you said, they know we’re on their heels. So here’s what I think—there’s someplace that they want to go, but don’t want us to know about. So they do all sorts of wandering, figuring we’d get bored and leave them be, or if it’s one stop out of a dozen, think nothing of it when they go there.”

  “You may have something there,” Mirrell admitted. He glanced over to the trinket shop. The two of them were still clearly visible in the window. So they weren’t trying to ditch out the back or anything like that. “A
nd they might win this because I’ve got a mind to head back to the stationhouse and see if a real case popped up. Must have been something in the regular blocks that needs an inspector—”

  “Constables!” a heavily accented voice shouted. The throng of people suddenly opened up on the street, and nearly a dozen machs came through. Men and women combined, though the men were striding through in loose open shirts, long thick hair flowing, while the women had their hair and bodies covered in brightly colored cloth. Mirrell found the women far more disturbing, showing little more than their dark eyes, heavily accented with colored lining and shading. Those eyes looked angry as blazes.

  One man stood at the forefront of the group, eyes bright with almost maniacal glee, his shirt brighter and bluer than anyone else’s. “You have been searching for Assan Jabiudal. Here he is before you! What quarrel do you have with me?”

  A quarrel was definitely in the cards here. Each one of them had a knife prominently displayed on their belts. The same kind of crazy Imach knife that the Fuergan swell was killed with.

  A glance from Kellman, still with that sewage in his mouth, showed Mirrell this was his show. “You’re Jabiudal?”

  “I said as such.”

  “You can prove that?” Mirrell asked. “Papers of Transit, something like that?”

  Jabiudal cackled and said something Imach to his acolytes, who also laughed. “You ask for proof? I stand before you the man that God has made. The name Assan Jabiudal has been given, and you ask for proof. God’s fire does not burn me away, so I am clearly truthful.”

  “That’s hardly proof,” Mirrell said. “People lie all the blasted time.”

  “Yes. This is a city of lies, I know. Lies and filth.”

  “Hey, pal, you want to talk filth, Machie is the filthiest part,” Mirrell said.

  “And that is where you keep us, Constable. In the filth like the swine.”

  “That’s how you all live,” Mirrell said. This tosser was already on his nerve.

  “A reckoning is coming. Enlighten him, Dahar!”

  The man to his left, who was carrying a book, started to read from it in Imach.

  “What is that, some kind of threat?” Mirrell asked. He moved in closer to Dahar. “You threatening me, mach?”

  “Those are the holy words, nassat. Fire is coming, from God and his hosts.”

  Mirrell turned to Kellman, who had had the sense to get rid of his food by now. “This sounds like these boys are threatening me, don’t you think?” He turned back to Jabiudal, getting nose to nose with the man, despite the fact that he smelled like the worst parts of this street. “Are you and yours threatening officers of the law, Jabi?”

  Jabiudal grinned, wide with great, blackened teeth. “This is not for me to say, Constable. This is the word of God, which we must all submit to.”

  “You want to tell me—”

  Jabiudal raised his voice over Mirrell’s. “You tell me, Constable, why the faithful are locked in your cells in your stationhouse, why you and your friend are content to beat and harass anyone who might know who I am?”

  “Look, mach, we’ve got a dead body with one of your crazy knives in his chest, and are told that you had business with him. So you’re a fella we need to talk to.”

  “And here I appear.”

  “We got to bring him to Jinx,” Kellman said. “Or maybe the stationhouse.”

  “Are you arresting me?” Jabiudal asked. “You will refrain from sullying my person with your profane touch.”

  “We ain’t arresting you, but you’ve got to answer some questions. So come with us—just you, Jabby.” Mirrell waved at the clade of zealots surrounding Jabiudal. “And come easily, or there may have to be some sullying going on.”

  “I do not wish to come with you. The public will hear me when I speak.”

  “Blessed be the holy words!” Dahar shouted, holding his book up high. The crowd of Jabiudal’s followers all dropped to their knees, as did several others in the square.

  “Enough of that,” Mirrell said, grabbing Jabiudal’s arm. “Come along with us now.”

  Jabiudal started to release a shriek that was almost inhuman, but it was drowned out by several Constabulary whistles blaring through the air.

  “Good, backup,” Kellman said.

  Mirrell looked to the source of the whistles, but what he saw wasn’t going to relieve matters here. If anything, it would light up the oil jar.

  “Boots on, Welling!”

  Corrie popped up, completely confused for a moment. Once her eyes adjusted, she realized she wasn’t in her own bed, but one of the racks in the stationhouse bunkroom. Memory returned next: she stayed to work the double, get some daylight time in.

  “I’m up, tosser,” she said, though she wasn’t sure who she was talking to. It wasn’t the captain, so it didn’t matter. Even if it was her left or the sergeant, they wouldn’t give her any guff for that. She pulled herself onto her feet and stepped into the boots she had left next to the bunk. “Already time for saddle?”

  “Yeah.” It was Gassle, another one of the horsepatrol on the dark with her. “Something is going on, they want a cadre on horse to run escort.”

  “I thought we were patrolling in the East,” Corrie said, pushing past him to get to the water closet.

  “We are,” he said, raising his voice so she could still hear him. “The escort is going up to the East.”

  “You know what it’s about?”

  “Something fancy, I don’t know. That skirt spec told us we need to saddle up.”

  “Did she?” What the blazes was going on that Tricky was giving out orders to horsepatrol? “We don’t have to wear dress coats or some sewage like that?”

  “Not that I heard,” Gassle said.

  “All right,” Corrie said, coming out of the water closet and buckling her belt as she walked. “Let’s see what the noise is.”

  The noise had Tricky in the stables, lecturing some sewage to the rest of double-shifters.

  “I’m gathering they’re going to go at a deliberate pace, but we need to let them do that unmolested. That means you’re going to have to clear the path ahead of them so they never have to stop. You know how to do that, right?”

  “It’s called a rutting Cascade Ride, Trick,” Corrie said, strutting over to her brother’s partner. “How many of us are doing this blasted sewage?”

  “You can count, Corrie,” Trick said. “How many you got?”

  As much as Tricky set Corrie’s teeth on edge—she knew damn well why Nyla and most of the other skirts working the desks hated the woman—she had to admire that she didn’t give a goddamn inch of ground. Most of the stationhouse would just as well see her trampled in the streets, and she didn’t give one blazing rut about what they thought.

  Corrie glanced back at the double-shift volunteers. Ten of them, including herself. Mostly tadpoles, fresh out of cadet coats. The only one who had any real miles in the saddle besides her was Gassle, and she had several months on him. “Oh, rutting blazes, am I the ranking for this ride?”

  “No, I am,” Tricky said. “But it looks like you’ll be playing sergeant.”

  “Ter-rutting-riffic,” Corrie said. “All right, kids, you’ve all done a Cascade before, right?”

  They nodded half-heartedly.

  “All right, then. Saddle up and let’s get a move on. Where’s our package, Trick?”

  “Is that the term for who you’re escorting?”

  “Rutting yes, where are they?”

  “They’re getting ready in front of the main gates.”

  “So who are these swells?”

  “The niece of the Fuergan lord who was murdered. She’s . . . bringing his body home, and it’s some kind of specific rite for them.”

  A feek funeral, all the way back to the Little East. Just what Corrie needed. />
  “All right, boys,” Corrie snapped at her crew of volunteers, “you heard the skirt. Mount up, get up to the main gates.”

  She got on her horse—not one of her usual steeds, but an underfed chestnut. It was poor pickings right now, the increased patrols emptying the stables to the dregs. This nag was well past its best days, but it would do for a slow-paced Cascade, though.

  Corrie led the boys around to the front, where the feeks were already gathered. They had four glorious horses yoked to some vehicle that looked kind of like a wagon, but low to the ground with tiny wheels. The dead old man was laid out on the floor of the wagon, his body draped in furs. Four feeks—real sides of beef, these four—stood in pairs on each side of the vehicle. Each of them held a small bowl. One more stood at the front of the vehicle—clearly the driver. Finally the last feek—a lady, real regal type by the stuck up way she held her head—stood behind the contraption. She was a haughty skirt, no doubt, wrapped up in white furs.

  “Is this what we need to clear his way home?” she asked Tricky.

  “I believe so,” Tricky said. “Welling, make it happen.”

  With a few hand signals, Corrie let them know that she and Gassle would stay at pace with the procession, and the other eight would run the Cascade itself. Two of them raced up ahead, whistles on alert, opening up the path and blocking the upcoming intersection.

  “When you’re ready,” Corrie told them.

  The feek driver whistled, and the vehicle creeped forward. The horses were going at a very deliberate pace—at this rate it would take them an hour to reach the Little East.

  Corrie sighed. She got paid the same either way. The rest of the escort rode along at the same pace.

  Then the feek lady started to sing. Or wail. Or make some sort of racket.

  Corrie did not get paid enough for this.

  They slowly worked their way upstreet, and at each intersection the front pair of riders would race up and secure the next intersection, while the former lead pair fell to the back as they passed.