An Import of Intrigue

by Marshall Ryan Maresca

  So she led her horse to Jent and Tannen, and the Brondar family butcher shop. The place was pretty quiet when she came in—two men who made Joshea look like a kid were sweeping up. The both of them were, like Josh, something of a cool drink—but she got the sense that they were in a dumb, beefy way, as opposed to Joshea’s cracky charm. They didn’t dissuade her of this opinion when they opened their mouths.

  “Hey, stick lady, you need something?” one said with a mouth that never closed all the way.

  “She needs some beef,” the other said. “Or a good portion of hard sausage?”

  “I don’t need any of your lip, steve,” she said. “You’re both Brondar boys?”

  “Name on the sign, stick lady.”

  “What happened to your eye, stick? You got a tony who likes to pop you?”

  “We could have a word with him.”

  “He wouldn’t give you no trouble if we had a word.”

  Saints, these two rutters. How the blazes was Joshea kin to them?

  “Is Joshea around?” she asked sharply.

  They both cooled in tone real smart. “He ain’t done nothing.”

  “You all need to stop hassling Joshie.”

  “He didn’t do it.”

  “Do what?” Corrie asked.

  “Whatever it is you’re thinking he did.” The taller one was agitated, turning to his brother. “Go tell Pop there’s another stick.”

  “On it,” the other said, and he bolted off.

  “I ain’t looking to iron or hassle Josh,” she said. “That ain’t it.”

  “What is it? Is he the tony who’s popping you?”

  “No, and if he tried he’d eat the rutting floor,” she said. She needed to stop being stupid with this one. “Look, I’m Corrie Welling. Minox is my brother.”

  “Oh!” he said. “Well, saints, girl, you should have said that.”

  The younger brother came back in with an old man who looked like a salted side of beef with a mustache. “What do these sticks want now?” he asked in a strong East Druthal accent.

  “She ain’t a stick, she’s Minox’s sister! She’s looking for Joshie!”

  “What do you know of Joshea?” the old man asked. “Do you know my son?”

  “Yeah, I know him,” Corrie said, biting her lip on the “rutting well” that was about to come out with that. Something about Joshea’s pop inspired clean talk.

  “And why are you people looking for him? He left here with your brother last night, and never came home!” The man closed the distance to Corrie, and he had a good foot of height over her, and his arm must have weighed as much as she did. Still she wasn’t going to let a steve like this push her around, even if he was Joshea’s pop.

  “Right,” Corrie said. “I don’t know everything, Mister Brondar. That’s why I’m here. Last night there were riots up in the East. You hear about them?”

  Mister Brondar only grunted in reply.

  “Joshea and Minox got caught up in that.”

  “How you know that?” a Brondar brother asked.

  “Because I was rutting caught up in it,” she said. Off of Mister Brondar’s glare, she added, “That’s how my eye got messed up. Some Imach slan was pounding on my face; Joshea pulled me out of there. But he got knocked about.”

  “What?” the father boomed. “How badly?”

  “Pop, let her talk.”

  Corrie wasn’t going to mince the truth. “He spent the night in Ironheart. But he was on his feet this morning.”

  “So where is he?”

  “I had hoped he was here, frankly.” Here she probably should tamp down on all the truth. The Brondars didn’t need to know all the particulars about Minox. Corrie’s gut told her this old man didn’t have a very keen opinion of magic or mages. “More trouble happened at the ward, and . . . my brother, he’s sick. Not thinking straight.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like he ran off from the rest of the Constabulary.”

  “Sounds sensible to me,” a brother joked.

  “Yeah, sure,” Corrie said. “Last I saw, Joshea had gone after him. Or with him. I hoped maybe he talked some sense into Minox, or managed to get him somewhere to cool off.”

  “So this is why the other sticks came asking? They were really looking for your brother.”

  “That’s right. Are they—”

  “Not here,” the old man said. “We have not seen him or your brother.”

  “Fine,” Corrie said. “If you do—”

  “I’ll leave your brother lying in the gutter outside the shop.” The old man returned to the back of the shop.

  “Pop’s just upset,” one of the brothers said.

  “I hardly rutting blame him,” Corrie said. “Look, if somehow you do see my brother, then—” She thought for a bit. There was no way they could get word to her, or anyone else in the family. What would be the safest thing they could rutting do for Minox? Especially in his condition. “Try to bring him to the stationhouse.”

  The brothers looked at each other and shrugged. The taller one spoke. “Do what we can, depending on what’s going on with Joshea. If your brother’s hurt him, I ain’t gonna protect him, hear?”

  Corrie didn’t have time to deal with this sort of sewage. If the Brondars hurt Minox, they’d get the full boot of every stick named Welling on their throats. But she bit her tongue again. No need to throw the color around right now.

  “I’ve got more places to look,” she said, heading out the door.

  “Hey, Welling!” the younger, dumber one said, coming up to her. “If you ever want to come back around, I wouldn’t complain.”

  “You got a thing for girls with their eyes all rutted up and their hair carved off?” she asked. “You poor steve.” She didn’t give him time to answer before she went back out and onto her horse.

  There was still one place he might be, though that was right in the thick of the East.

  Golden-skinned, blue-haired sinners and malefactors, that was what he was surrounded by. Minox felt all their hands pawing at him, words from their mouths that made no sense. He was fire and lightning, and they were killing him.

  How did he get here? Where was Joshea?

  “Joshea!” he screamed out. “Where are you?”

  “I’m here.” Minox craned his neck back to see, amid the Tsouljans surrounding him, Joshea was standing in the back of the room. Not just standing—two of the red-haired Tsouljans were holding him back. Not too forcefully, just enough to make it clear that more force could easily be applied if he made them.

  The Tsouljans around him spoke, all the while touching him with metal-pointed fingers, or placing stones on his body. Every time they did, lightning and fire leaped from his body.

  “You’re killing me!” he shouted. “Joshea, they’re—”

  Hands pinned him down. Hands pressed against his chest.

  Is this what happened to Hieljam ab Wefi Loriz? Is this what was done? Were they doing it to him now? Because they feared he would discover the truth?

  The truth—that was his mission.

  “Tell me what you’re doing!” Joshea yelled.

  “First the hand,” one of the blue-hairs said. Was it Fel-Sed? Minox couldn’t tell, couldn’t see clearly. “It is jen-val.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Minox tried to center his thoughts. The truth, justice, that was his mission. He had a murder to solve. Nothing else mattered.

  Hieljam ab Wefi Loriz was killed in a room just like this. Lying on a table like this. Perhaps surrounded by a ground of Tsouljans engaging in a mystical ritual.

  He needed to find the truth. He had found it. It was somewhere in the back of his brain. He just had to get it out.

  Sharp, piercing pain shot up his left arm. Were they doing something to his hand? Th
e arm was afire with pain, but the hand was dead numb. Nothing.

  “What are you doing?” he snarled.

  “Stillness,” a Tsouljan said to him, like it was a command.

  Minox would have none of that. One of them pressed a sharp metal finger to his temple, and the lightning and fire came again. This time he grabbed at it. He clutched that magic leaping out of him and sent it all over the room.

  All those hands fell away from him.

  “Minox!” Joshea rushed toward him, but the red-hairs grabbed him hard and threw him back.

  Minox was on his feet, and a red-haired Tsouljan grabbed at him. Minox, summoning strength he didn’t know he still had, pummeled the man in the chest and arm until he let go.

  “No more!” Minox said, and ran for the door.

  He sprinted across the garden through the Tsouljan enclave, toward the exit. A green-haired boy tried to get in his way.

  “Please, we did not mean—” he started, but Minox bowled over him. The two red-hairs at the entranceway did not get a chance to grab him as he ran out, nor did the regulars assigned to the gate.

  “Was that the Quin?” one of them asked as he ran into one of the alleys. If they said anything further, he didn’t hear.

  He careened down the alley, and fell into a rubbish bin.

  Where was he going?

  Where was he now?

  The Little East. He had escaped the Tsouljans. They were trying to kill him. So he wouldn’t learn the truth.

  But the truth was his mission. He would root it out.

  And he knew where he needed to go to find it.

  There were barricades where the Little East met the rest of Inemar, with regulars at attention. Satrine figured she should have expected that, given what’d been going on. What was strange was, it was impossible to tell what their objective was. There were small, riled crowds on both sides of the barricade. On one side, Imachs, Fuergans, Lyranans, Tsouljans, and who knew what else were united in shouting at the crowd on the other side.

  On the other side, “normal” Druth folk, ready with rocks and sticks, looking to start a fight, if only the constables would let them.

  Satrine couldn’t figure out if the barricades were to keep the Little East in, or keep everyone else out.

  “Should those folks be ironed up or something?” Hace asked as the lockwagon rolled to a stop.

  “Like we’ve got a place to put more lock-ups,” Satrine said.

  “Who would you iron?” Cheever asked. “None of these people are doing anything except assembling and expressing their voice.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Hilsom asked. “What sort of voice do you think they’re going to express with sticks and rocks?”

  Satrine hopped off the lockwagon runner and shot a few whistle blasts. “Clear it out, people. You’ve got better places to be.”

  “You gonna lock those booners up?” someone shouted. “Do your blasted job for once?”

  “Clear away!” Satrine shouted again. “We’ve got to get these wagons through!”

  This was met with shouts in two or three languages on the other side.

  “What’re you going to do?” Hace asked, now right at Satrine’s side.

  “I really did not want to have to knock any more skulls around today,” Satrine said. She called over to the driver. “Just push forward.”

  “Can’t do that,” the driver balked.

  “Just go,” she said. She gave a few more sharp trills of her whistle. “Clear a path!” she shouted.

  A few people started moving out of the way as the wagons rolled forward. “Hace, get the regulars to open the barricade for us.”

  “I’m not supposed to—”

  “Saints, Phillen,” Satrine said. “I’m still right here and I feel fine. I’ll be in your sight.”

  “All right, Inspector.”

  She did feel fine. But Leppin had spoken of the coming crash like it was inevitable. Back in the day when the kids on her block would dose out on effitte or hassper or phat, they would always feel great until the wall hit them. The main thing Satrine remembered from the one time she dropped a vial of ’fitte as a kid was the wall hitting her. She couldn’t even move for the whole night, soiling herself on the cold floor in the back of Henk’s cursed flop. It was the blessings of the saints that she didn’t end up dead or tranced.

  The regulars pulled the barricades open, all the while holding up their handsticks. Those boys looked like they expected the crowd—on either side—to rush them at any moment.

  “Bring it through!” she shouted to the wagon drivers, hopping back on to the runner with Hilsom and Cheever. Hard eyes met hers as they trundled along, from all parts of the road, but if any of the citizens or foreigners had any intention beyond glaring, none of them acted on it. The train of lockwagons passed through the blockade, and the regulars quickly closed it up behind them. Hace ran along and joined them on the runner.

  “What’s our first stop?” Hilsom asked. “This is your show, Inspector.”

  “Lyranans,” she said. “830 Dockview.”

  “Jolly good,” Hilsom said. “These are writs I’ve no issue with serving. I should go in with you.”

  “If you wish,” Satrine said.

  “Oh, I wish,” he said with a heated rumble in his throat. “Trust me, Inspector Rainey. You will need me.”

  The streets of the Lyranan sector were quiet, almost eerily empty, as they approached their destination. Engraved on a brass plaque it read clearly, “Bureau of Lyranan Expatriates and Descendants Thereof, Druthalian Division.” Satrine waited until the rest of the wagons were stopped and she had her regulars assembled. Hilsom was rifling through his valise, pulling out the relevant paperwork, while Cheever glanced about nervously.

  “Joining us, Mister Cheever?”

  “No,” he said, his voice almost cracking. “I think I will observe the activity from a distance.”

  “As you wish. Gentlemen.”

  Satrine strode into the office door with her small army at her back. Fresh youths, the lot of them, but a show of color nonetheless.

  A young, bald Lyranan woman stood at a rostrum in the antechamber, not showing an ounce of concern that a Constabulary force had descended upon the office. “May I be of assistance?” she asked in only slightly accented Trade.

  Satrine reached out to Hilsom, who took his cue with an actor’s timing, depositing the writs in her hand with a satisfying snap. “I have Writs of Search for these offices, Writs of Arrest for twenty folk known to these offices, including and especially Specialist First Class Pra Yikenj. We also have Writs of Compulsion for Third Tier Supervisor Heizhan Taiz and Trade Notary First Class Fao Nengtaj.”

  She nodded and took the papers from Satrine. “Excellent. I will have to confirm the validity of these writs before I can allow access—”

  “Zebram Hilsom, City Protector’s Office,” Hilsom said, dropping another document on her rostrum. “You will find everything is in order in terms of the validity of these writs, as they are signed by me.”

  “Excellent,” she said, glancing at the document he had given her. “However, I will need to—”

  “Confirm my credentials, of course,” Hilsom said, dropping another document in front of her. “You will find that is the seal of the Council of Alderman and the Duke of Maradaine.”

  “Excellent,” she said, though she had the slightest waver in her voice. “I must of course confirm the status—”

  “This office has a Level Four Status with the Lyranan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, thus it and its officers do not hold protected status in regard to local laws and statutes. Per Diplomatic Agreement 47-B between the Nation of Druthal and the Lyranan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, all city level statutes apply to each member of this bureau, though appeals for retroactive dismissal may be filed to the Lyranan Ministry w
ithin forty-five days of their being served. Until I receive said dismissal request from the Lyranan Ministry you and your superiors in this bureau are obliged to comply. The Inspector Third Class and her officers here are authorized to use whatever force they deem appropriate to gain your compliance.”

  The Lyranan woman blinked, and for a moment her face was blank. Then she returned the papers to Hilsom. “Excellent. If you will follow me.”

  Satrine let out a low whistle while Hilsom regrouped his papers.

  “Like I would be out-lawyered by a doorkeeping functionary,” Hilsom muttered.

  She led them through a hallway—all gray walls, with gray-on-muslin paintings hanging at even intervals—to a large office. As they walked, Satrine signaled to her regulars to check each door along their route.

  “Make sure everyone gets a list of the escaped Lyranans’ names,” Hilsom said to Hace. “And anyone who doesn’t identify themselves can be ironed.”

  Heizhan Taiz sat at a desk that was grand in scope but utterly lacking in adornment or aesthetics, with Fao Nengtaj at his right arm. The two of them looked like they had been waiting patiently for Satrine this whole time.

  “Inspector Third Class Rainey,” Taiz said. “We are gratified to have you visit us. How may the bureau aid you today?” While he said all this, the functionary from the door whispered in his ear.

  “First off, you can tell me where Pra Yikenj is,” Satrine said. “She is officially wanted for—how many charges, Mister Hilsom?”

  “Seventy-nine, Inspector,” Hilsom said. “Zebram Hilsom, City Protector.” He presented a handful of documents to Taiz.

  “Interesting,” Taiz said, dismissing the functionary with a wave of his hand. He glanced at the documents and passed them to Nengtaj. “I am afraid that you cannot charge Specialist Yikenj. While this office and my people here may not enjoy a protected status of diplomacy, Specialist Yikenj has dispensation that can be detailed for you at length. She cannot be charged by the City Protector’s Office.”

  “I thought that might be the case,” Hilsom said. “That’s why I included High Crimes of Espionage and Sabotage charges as well. That will go to the Grand Royal Court if needs be.”