An Import of Intrigue

by Marshall Ryan Maresca

  Imach lady jumped her and grabbed her hair.

  Corrie’s hands shot to the back of her head. Bandages covered everything, and she started clawing at them.

  “Corrie, Corrie, easy, easy.” Beliah’s hands took a firm grip on Corrie’s. “Just stay calm.”

  “Did that crazy Machie slan chop off my hair?”

  “Shush now, child,” Beliah said fiercely. “No need for talk like that.”

  “Auntie,” Corrie said, reverting to a term she hadn’t used since she was a child. “I need this off my head. Please.”

  “Let me get one of the doctors, all right? Just be calm for a few minutes.” Her hard shoes snapped away in a hurry.

  “Is that what my sisters are to you, constable woman?” a harshly accented voice hissed. “You call them ‘Machie slans’?”

  “Who the blazes are you?” Corrie snarled back. “You one of those who tasted my boot out there?”

  The voice came closer; Corrie could feel his presence as he approached, the earthy sweat wafting off of him. “I felt the constable boot, as did my brothers and sisters. Now we are here, those who are not jailed at your house.”

  “Animals, the lot of you,” Corrie said. “You think because I can’t rutting see you, I won’t knock your teeth out?”

  “I know you would try.”

  “Back the blazes off, bilge.” Corrie shoved at him, forcing herself off the cot despite the pain. She could make out a vague shape in the light coming through the gauze. Tall and dark.

  “Always ready to fight us!” he shouted.

  Another mach voice called out, this one harsh and strained, but still able to wail in despair.

  “Dahar?” the mach confronting her said. He shouted in his language, and then charged away. Other Imach voices—at least three—started calling, feet pounding.

  This was no rutting good. Corrie wasn’t going to wait for Beliah or a doctor, tearing the bandage off her good eye and head. That confirmed it—her hair had been cut off, leaving her with just a savage inch on the top.

  The machs were converging around one of the beds in the ward room—one in the back behind a curtain. Corrie knew enough to know the curtain meant whoever was in that bed wasn’t going to make it.

  Shouts, cries, and laments in Imach. Corrie limped her way over there, fearing that some form of authority was going to be necessary shortly. There were other sticks in beds in this ward room, but from the looks of things, most of them were worse off than her.

  Blazes, there was Kenty. They had already taken one of his legs.

  Corrie pulled the curtain aside. Four Imachs—three blokes and a skirt—were surrounding a bed where a fifth Imach was at the end. His skull was half caved in, and he was wailing nonsense. Corrie figured even if she understood the balalalas of the Imach language, it would still be rutting nonsense.

  And then it stopped.

  “You all get back in your beds before I give you better reason to be in this place,” she said.

  One of the Imachs turned to her. He was the one who had confronted her before, from his voice and smell, and the same one who was the leader in the trouble at the procession—Jabiudal, was that his name? He wept and pointed at the dying man. “This man, my friend, was killed by your people, and yet we are to be beaten and locked away?”

  “You’re to step the blazes away,” Corrie said.

  “Corrianna!” Beliah came running over. “You need to—”

  That was all she managed to say. Jabiudal, despite having one arm in a sling, struck like a snake, grabbing Beliah by the throat. Corrie couldn’t do anything before he had her aunt in a lock, his hand pressing against her head.

  “What are you—” Beliah wailed.

  “You let her rutting go, or saints help me—”

  “I will kill her!” Jabiudal said. He hissed at his people, who leaped onto the beds of other infirm patients—all injured sticks—grabbing whatever makeshift weapon they could. “I will kill her, and all of them, and everyone I see, unless all of my people are freed from this place and your jails.”

  “You just—”

  “All my people, Constable! I do not have much patience. Go tell your superiors.”

  There was no rutting chance Corrie was walking out of that room without Aunt Beliah.

  She glanced over to the beds by the entrance to the ward room. There was a kid—maybe a cadet or a brand-new regular, who looked like he was just a little banged up. “You,” she snapped. “Beat your feet and tell the news.” The kid pulled himself out of bed and ran.

  When she looked back at Jabiudal and Beliah, he had managed to get a razor in his hand, now pressed against Beliah’s cheek.

  “Do not doubt my commitment, Constable,” he said. “A dear friend of mine has gone to God. Take care, or he will not be alone.”

  If he was stuck working the paperwork, he’d do it properly. Minox wouldn’t let himself do anything less than that. He cleared off one portion of the slateboard and went to work.

  The documents were the usual minutiae of shipping and import business. Inflow, schedules, inventories, tariffs, customs. Nothing that, individually, stood out as unusual or suspicious, from Kenorax, Hieljam, Hajan, or Jabiudal.

  Of course, Minox didn’t care about things that stood out individually. It was a matter of patterns. Patterns were the secret. Find what the connections were. Five separate innocuous purchases months apart added to a greater whole. Recurring shipments of usual weight. Imach goods coming into Maradaine via Fuergan ships, other goods leaving in Kenorax caravans to the northeast, toward Kieran.

  A perfect image formed on the edge on Minox’s mind, like a church’s colored glass fresco. It was almost clear. Everything fit. Dates lined up, weights matched, and of course it tied back to all those—

  “Minox?”

  A hand on his shoulder broke the reverie, the image shattered. Minox found himself in front of the slateboard, chalk in his hand—his bad hand—tapping at the board in rapid staccato.

  Nyla was at his side, terror in her eyes. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m—” He paused. Everything that was just in his thoughts had floated off like so much tobacco smoke. He still had a vague sense of the idea of what he was just thinking . . . but that was all. “I was going over the records Hilsom procured.”

  “You were—” She gasped, tears forming. Then she swallowed. “No, Minox, that’s not what you were doing. You . . . just look.”

  Minox glanced around. The desks were a disaster—more so than usual. The pile of records was now strewn around the entire area. Some pages ripped up, some blotched with ink, everything in complete disorder. What was now on the slateboard was even stranger. Half of it was just dots and squiggles, nothing even remotely resembling cohesive thoughts. The rest were random words: “sweet tar,” “what provides?” “Shaleton purchase,” and so forth.

  He had no memory of any of this.

  “For how long, Nyla?” Minox asked, not even bothering to hide the fear in his voice. “I don’t . . . I couldn’t have done this in just a few minutes. . . .”

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  This was how it started with Grandfather. This was how it started with Evoy.

  His hand—the good one—was trembling.

  “No more of this,” she said. “We need to get you home, now.”

  “Home?” Minox asked. “I can’t go home. Work to do.”

  “Something is wrong with you,” she said quietly. “Your hand, the trembles, the fever? And now this? You have to rest. See a doctor.”

  “Doctor can’t help me,” he said. “Does this look like something—”

  “I don’t know!” Nyla shouted. “God damn it, Minox, how can you be so smart and so rutting stupid?”

  That was surprising. Minox could not recall any time when Nyla spoke profanely.<
br />
  “I just . . .” He was too shocked to even properly respond. He looked back at the board. “I think I almost solved this.”

  “What?”

  “I was . . . Just on the edge of something . . .”

  “Minox,” she said firmly, grabbing both shoulders and pulling him down to force him to look her in the eyes. “Do not fall into madness. No. No.”

  “I don’t think I get to decide that, Nyla.”

  That earned him a slap.

  “You are not going to do this to me,” Nyla said.

  Any vestiges of the ideas his mind had been touching at were gone now. “You may be right,” he said. “But . . . I can’t leave this mess. I promised Inspector Rainey—”

  “I don’t care,” she said. “Look at me. You go home. I’m going to call on Ferah . . .”

  “I don’t need Ferah to—”

  “And she is going to make sure you are taken care of.”

  Minox gestured to the desk. “My work . . . I can’t . . .”

  “You will. Now. I’ll tell the captain. I’ll clean this mess, and saints preserve me, I will let Inspector Rainey know that you left.”

  Minox sighed. “As you wish, Nyla.”

  He took up his coat, laying it over his bad arm. Now it felt strange in an entirely new way. Numb and cold, but yet like something hot was being flushed through it. He couldn’t quite describe it any other way.

  Nyla hovered over him until he got to the stairs, and watched him as he made his way down. He had no doubt she would keep an eye on him until he was in the street, and did not dally further.

  As he stepped out into the sweltering sunlight, he realized that he hadn’t been hungry, not for the entire morning. That felt significant. He couldn’t remember a time—even since he started using the rijetzh—when he hadn’t felt hunger for so long. Was this his hand, the sickness, or something else? He really had no idea.

  He flexed the hand under the coat. Now, despite everything, it still functioned. He hadn’t lost strength or motion.

  Whistle calls pierced the air, and several uniformed footpatrol went running out of the stationhouse. A page came running toward the station, whistle in his mouth blowing wildly. Minox moved to intercept him.

  “What’s the ruckus?” he asked.

  “Ironheart!” the page shouted. “Four Imachs have taken hostages on one of the ward floors. Patients and nurses!”

  Corrie was a patient at Ironheart right now, and Beliah was working.

  Promises to Nyla would have to wait.

  Minox drew out his handstick and ran to Ironheart Ward.

  Chapter 16

  “REPORT!” Minox shouted at the first group of Constabulary he came across when he entered Ironheart. “What are we dealing with?”

  “Inspector?” the sergeant at the center of the group asked. “Are you taking situation command?”

  “For the moment,” Minox said. “Until we receive further support from the stationhouse. What’s happening?”

  “Third floor west ward, several of the injured from the riot were placed there. A mix of our folks and civilians. Some of the Imach patients have taken control of the room, holding the rest at knifepoint.”

  “Were they all patients in the same ward room?” Minox asked.

  “Apparently so.”

  “Why?”

  “That was our decision.” One of the doctors came over, wearing the traditional heavy gray apron over his suit. “We were organizing the patients to their medical needs first, and we were overwhelmed. We couldn’t even think of other potential considerations.”

  “Fair enough,” Minox said. “I presume they’ve secured the room, and there’s no obvious way to storm them.”

  “Not without injuring the hostages.”

  “Which we don’t want.” Minox was putting up a strong front, but his head was swimming, his bad hand felt like it was both numb and on fire. He wasn’t sure how long he could maintain the pretense of being capable of leading this situation. “Do we have a list of the hostages?”

  The doctor passed a notebook with a list of names. “These are the patients who were housed in there. And we know one doctor—Doctor Ilton—and two nurses—Serrick and Frain—were in there as well.”

  “Serrick?” Minox confirmed. “That would be Beliah Serrick?”

  “Yes, do you—”

  “My aunt,” Minox said. He glanced at the names of the patients. Two jumped out immediately. One, Assan Jabiudal. Most likely the one who started this, and was in charge now.

  The other was Corrie.

  “Blast and blazes,” he muttered. With the count of doctors and nurses, minus the five Imach names on the list, that meant seventeen hostages. “Let’s to the third floor, then.”

  He charged up the stairs—truly punishing his weak body, but he was being fueled by rage and fear, pushing through the pain over everything else.

  “Have they made any demands?” Minox asked as he reached the designated floor. More Constabulary were gathered in the hallway, some ready with crossbows. Certainly no one would get out of the ward room without being shot. Minox also noted half the Constabulary were bandaged and wounded. They probably were patients and went right to their duty when called.

  “You in command, Inspector?” someone asked.

  “So it would seem,” Minox said. Surely someone else would arrive to take proper charge in a matter of minutes. “Have we heard from them?”

  “They said they wanted all their ‘brothers and sisters’ released from holding at the stationhouse. And ‘blood for their dead.’”

  “Is that all?” Minox asked.

  “And food.”

  “Of course,” Minox said. He approached the ward room door. “This is Inspector Minox Welling! May I presume that Assan Jabiudal is in charge in there?”

  After a moment an accented voice called back. “God and justice are in charge in here, Inspector. But I am the voice of both.”

  “I understand you have some demands, Mister Jabiudal,” Minox said. “Can we discuss them?”

  “Stand in the doorway. Unarmed, hands raised.”

  Minox passed his crossbow and handstick to one of the regulars. “I don’t suppose anyone has a heavy vest?”

  “They don’t have crossbows, sir,” the regular said. “Though maybe they can throw their knives well.”

  Minox took no comfort in that. Raising his hands up, crossing them behind his head to hide the way his left hand was looking sickly, he stepped into the doorframe.

  Jabiudal was standing twenty paces away, Beliah held in front of him, knife at her throat. She looked terrified. The rest of the patients had been gathered in a far corner, well away from the door, and the three other Imach brandished makeshift weapons at them all. Corrie was sitting at the foot of one of the beds, her face horribly bruised. Minox wasn’t sure if that was from last night, or fresh injuries from Jabiudal and his people.

  Rage was now roiling the magic in Minox’s stomach.

  “Mister Jabiudal,” he said calmly, forcing himself to maintain the face he needed. “I want these people set free, unharmed.”

  “Very good, Inspector,” Jabiudal said coolly. “I respect that you make your needs clear and plain. I have things I want as well. If I receive them, then yours will be granted.”

  “Tell me,” Minox said. “But I make no promises.”

  “I need all the faithful sons and daughters of God released from your holding cells. One of them will come here and tell me that they were the last to leave.”

  “That can’t be easily done,” Minox said.

  “I need the killer of my dear friend Dahar brought before us, so we can have blood for his death.”

  “Who is Dahar, and how can we bring his killer here?” Minox asked. “We hardly know who did what last night.”

 
“His killer is that giant brute of an inspector. Your friend. He struck Dahar with a stone.”

  They meant Kellman. “When Mister Dahar threw a stone at him.”

  “There will be blood for the dead,” Jabiudal said. “If not the killer, then another.”

  “If you hurt the people in here—”

  “We are at an impasse, Inspector,” Jabiudal said. “But I am the water, not the stone. I can be reasonable. As this will take some time, we will need food. We will need chamber pots cleared. I will give you . . . five of the innocents in here, in exchange for those things.”

  “I can arrange that,” Minox said. Five released was a start.

  “It will not be a member of your Constabulary to deliver the food and take the pots,” Jabiudal said. “Try to trick me, and there will be a death. Likely this nurse, who you clearly care deeply about.”

  Beliah whimpered.

  “No tricks,” Minox said. Raising up his hands, he stepped backward out of the room.

  “We’ll bring food in,” Minox told the regulars around him. “Arrange with the ward commissary.”

  “You want a couple of us to remove their coats, dress like ward workers?” a sergeant asked.

  That was Minox’s first thought, but he feared that Jabiudal would see right through that. The man was perceptive. “That might be dangerous.”

  “Sir, we can’t ask the actual ward staff to go in there!”

  “No, we can’t,” Minox said. His gut churned, his head swam. He shouldn’t be the one doing this, he was in no condition . . . but he also couldn’t walk away while Corrie and Beliah were in danger.

  “Sounds like you need a volunteer, then.”

  Minox turned to see who had spoken, though he knew the voice perfectly well.

  “After all, I’m not Constabulary,” Joshea said.

  Satrine and Kellman found Cinellan in the middle of the inspectors’ floor, surrounded by a dozen people, each of them shouting at him, and him giving as much in return. Hilsom was among the group, as were a few of the stationhouse lieutenants. The rest were civilians, in suits ranging from cheap and threadbare to resplendent.