“And what will they do?” said Amarelle.
“They’ll become iterating work-enhancers,” said Sophara. “It’d take us years to manually adjust all the records we’re after. Enchanted with my spell to guide and empower them, we can send these little darlings out to do almost all of the work for us in one night.”
“How many do we need?” said Shraplin.
Nine nights later, from carefully selected points around the city, they loosed 3,449 of Sophara’s Adjustment Moths, each of which fluttered into the darkness and thence into libraries, archives, shop cupboards, private studies, and bedside cabinets. The 2,625 Adjustment Moths that were not eaten by bats or appropriated as cat toys located a total of 617,451 references to the name “Prosperity Street” and made one crucial change to each physical text. By sunrise they were all dead of exhaustion.
Amarelle and her crew replaced the forty-six street signs and sixteen business placards under cover of darkness, then pried up one of the (restored) ceremonial iron letters sunk into the pavement. PROSPERIT STREET, the survivors said. PROSPERIT, read the signs and placards. Prosperit Street read the name of the place in every guidebook, private journal, lease, assize, and tax record in the city, save for a few in magically guarded sanctums of the Parliament of Strife.
Overnight, Prosperity Street had been replaced by its very close cousin, Prosperit Street.
“Amarelle,” said Ivovandas, sipping daintily at a cup of molten gold she’d heated in a desk-side crucible, “I sympathize with your agitation at the failure of so original and far-ranging a scheme, but I really must stress the necessity of abandoning these fruitlessly metaphysical approaches. Don’t steal the street’s name, or its business, or its final ‘Y.’ Steal the street, wholly and physically!”
Amarelle groaned. “Back to the lawn?”
“Back to the lawn, my dear!”
11. After Amarelle, the Deluge
Twenty-seven days later, one of the natural storms of summer blew in from the west, a churning shroud of dark clouds looking for a brawl. As usual, the wizards of Parliament preserved their individual territories and let the rest of Theradane fend for itself. It was therefore theoretically plausible that the elevated aqueduct that crossed Prosperity Street just north of Limping Matron Lane would choose that night to break under the strain.
Prosperity Street was already contending with plugs of debris clogging its sewer grates (these plugs granted unusual thickness and persistence by the spells of Sophara Miris) and with its own valleylike position at the foot of several more elevated neighborhoods. The foaming rush from the broken aqueduct turned a boot-soaking stream into a rather more alarming waist-high river.
Amarelle and her crew lurked in artificial shadows on a high rooftop, dutifully watching to ensure that no one, particularly children and goblins, suffered more than a soaking from the flood. The city hydromancers would eventually show up to set things right, but they were no doubt having a busy night.
“This is still a touch metaphysical, if you ask me,” said Sophara.
“It’s something of a hybrid approach,” said Amarelle. “After all, how can it be a street if it’s been physically turned into a canal?”
12. No
“No,” said Ivovandas. Amarelle was returned to the lawn.
13. Instructive Measures
Half a year gone. Despite vandalism, riot, werejackals, clerical errors, and flood, Prosperity Street was more worthy of its name than ever. Amarelle strolled the pavement, feeling the autumn sun on her face, admiring the pale bronze leaves of Prayer-trees as they tumbled about in little clouds, inscribed with calligraphic benedictions for anyone whose path they crossed.
There was a stir in the crowds around her, a new cacophony of shouting and muttering and horse hooves and creaking wheels. Traffic parted to the north, making way for a rumbling coach, half again as high and wide as anything on the street. It was black as death’s asshole, windowless, trimmed with engraved silver and inlaid nacre. It had no horses and no driver; each of its four wheels was a circular steel cage in which a slavering red-eyed ghoul ran on four limbs, creating a forward impetus.
The singular coach moaned on its suspension as it swerved and lurched to a halt beside Amarelle. The ghouls leered at her, unbreathing, their flesh crisply necrotic like rice paper pressed over old oozing wounds. The black door flew open and a footstep fell into place. A velvet curtain still fluttered in the entrance to the coach, concealing whatever lay inside. A voice called out, cold as chloroform and old shame.
“Don’t you know an invitation when you see one, citizen Parathis?”
Running from wizards in broad daylight without preparation was not a skill Amarelle had ever cultivated, so she stepped boldly into the carriage, ducking her head.
She was startled to find herself in a warm gray space at least forty yards on a side, with a gently curving ceiling lit by floating silver lights. A vast mechanical apparatus was ticking and pulsing and shifting in the middle of the room, something along the lines of an orrery, but in place of moons and planets the thin arms held likenesses of men and women, likenesses carved with exaggerated features and comical flaws. Amarelle recognized one of them as Ivovandas by the gold eyes and butterfly hair.
There were thirteen figures, and they moved in complex interlocking patterns around a model of the city of Theradane.
The carriage door slammed shut behind her. There was no sensation of motion other than the almost-hypnotic sway and swing of the wizard-orrery.
“My peers,” said the cold voice, coming now from behind her. “Like celestial bodies, transiting in their orbits, exerting their influences. Like celestial bodies, not particularly difficult to track or predict in their motions.”
Amarelle turned and gasped. The man was short and lithe, his skin like ebony, his hair scrapped down to a reddish stubble. There was a scar on his chin and another on his jawline, each of them familiar to her fingers and lips. Only the eyes were wrong; they were poisoner’s eyes, dead as glass.
“You have no fucking right to that face,” said Amarelle, fighting not to shout.
“Scavius of Shadow Street, isn’t it? Or more like ‘wasn’t it?’ Came with you to Theradane, but we never got his sanctuary money. Blew it in some dramatic gesture, I recall.”
“He got drunk and lost it all on a dice throw,” she said, wetting her lips and forcing herself to say: “Jarrow.”
“Pleased to meet you, Amarelle Parathis.” The man wore a simple black jacket and breeches. He extended a hand, which she didn’t take. “Lost it all on one throw? That was stupid.”
“I’m not unacquainted with drunken mistakes myself,” said Amarelle.
“And then he went and did something even more stupid,” said Jarrow. “Earned a criminal’s apotheosis. Transfigured into a streetlamp.”
“Please … take some other form.”
“No.” Jarrow scratched his head, shook a finger at her. “That’s a fine starting point for the discussion I really brought you here for, Amarelle. Let’s talk about behavior that might get someone transfigured into a street decoration.”
“I’m retired.”
“Sure, kid. Look, there’s a very old saying in my family: ‘Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is another wizard fucking with you.’ You never spent much time near Prosperity Street before, did you? Your apartments are on Hellendal. South of Tanglewing Street. Right?”
“About the location of my apartments, of course.”
“You’ve got iron in your spine, Amarelle, and I’m not here to prolong this or embarrass you. I’m just suggesting, to the room, if you like, that it would be a shame if any more unusual phenomena befell a part of Theradane that is of particular sentimental value to me. This is what your sanctuary money gets you. This is me being kind. Are you pretending to listen, or are you listening?”
“I’m listening.”
“Here’s a little something to further sharpen your hearing.” A burlap sack appeared in
Jarrow’s hands and he threw it to her. It weighed about ten pounds, and the contents rattled. “The usual verification that I’m serious. You know how it works. Anyhow, in the best of all possible worlds, we never have to have a conversation like this again. What world do you want to live in, Amarelle Parathis?”
The air grew cold. The lights dimmed and receded into the corners of the room, vanishing like stars behind clouds. Amarelle’s stomach tumbled, and then her boots were on pavement, the sound of traffic was all around her, and Prayer-tree leaves brushed her face.
The sun was high and warm, and the black coach was nowhere in sight.
Amarelle shook the sack open and cursed as Shraplin’s head tumbled out. The edges of the pipes running out of his neck were burnt and bent.
“I don’t know what to say, boss.” His voice was steady but weak. “I’m embarrassed. I got jumped last night.”
“What the hell did they do?”
“Nothing technically illegal, boss. They left my head the contents intact. As for the rest, let’s just say I don’t expect to see it again.”
“I’m sorry, Shraplin. I’ll get you to Brandwin. I’m so sorry.”
“Quit apologizing, boss.” Something whirred and clunked behind the automaton’s eyes, and he gave a garbled moan. “But I have to say, my reverence for these high-level wizard types is speeding in what you might call a southerly direction.”
“We need more help,” whispered Amarelle. “If we’re going to put the boot to this mess, I think it’s high time we got the whole band back together.”
14. The Unretirement of Jadetongue Squirn
She was tall for a goblin, not that that meant anything to most other species. Her scales were like black glass, her eyes like the sudden plunge to blue depths beyond a continental shelf. Her pointed ears were pierced with silver rings, some of which held writing quills she could reach up and seize at leisure.
They all went together to see her in her shadowed cloister at the Theradane Ministry of Finance and Provision, a place that stank of steady habits, respectability, and workers who’d died at their desks with empty in-boxes. She was not best pleased to receive them.
“We’re not what we were!” Jade hissed when Amarelle had finished telling most of the story, safely inside the goblin’s office and Sophara’s soundproof bubble. “Look at you! Look at the messes you’ve made! And look at me. How can I possibly help you? I’m an ink-stained functionary these days. I scribe ordinances and design engravings for banknotes.”
Amarelle stared at her, biting her lip. Jadetongue Squirn had been jailed six times and escaped six times. You could walk nearly around the world by setting foot only in nations that still sought her for trial. Smuggler, negotiator, procurer of bizarre supplies, she was also the finest forger Amarelle had ever met, capable of memorizing signatures at a glance and reproducing them with either hand.
“We’ve missed you at our drinking nights,” said Brandwin. “You were always welcome. You were always wanted.”
“I don’t belong anymore.” Jade’s voice was flat and she clung to her desk as though it could be a wall between herself and her old comrades. “I’m like a hermit crab that’s pulled an office over itself. Maybe the rest of you were only kidding yourselves about retiring, but I’m the real thing. I haven’t been coming out to see you because you’d expect Jadetongue Squirn, not this timid little person who wears her clothes.”
“We’re like a hand with a missing finger,” said Amarelle. “We’ve got half a year to make three hundred yards of street vanish and we need that slick green brain of yours. You said it yourself—look at what a mess we’ve made so far! Look what Jarrow did to Shraplin.”
Amarelle reached into a leather satchel. The automaton’s head bounced on Jadetongue’s desk a moment later, and she made a rattling noise in her throat.
“Ha-ha! The look on your face!” said Shraplin.
“How about the look on yours, duncebucket?” she growled. “I ought to stuff you in a drawer for scaring me like that!”
“You see now why we have to have you back,” said Amarelle. “Shraplin’s the warning. Our next shot has to be for keeps.”
“Three funny bitches and a smart-ass automaton sans ass,” said Jade. “You think you can just walk in here, tug on my heartstrings, and snatch me out of my sad retirement”?”
“Yes,” said Amarelle.
“We’re still not what we were.” She put a scaly hand on Shraplin’s face, then spun him like a top. “I’m definitely not what I was. But what the hell. Maybe you’re right, about needing help, at least.”
“So, are you going to take a leave of absence or something?” said Shraplin, when he’d stopped saying “Whaaaaargabaarrrrrgggh!”
“A leave of absence? Are you sure you didn’t damage the contents of your head?” Jadetongue glanced around at all the members of the crew. “Sweethearts, softskins, thimblewits, if you’re determined to see this thing through, the municipal bureaucracy of Theradane is the last asset you want to toss carelessly over your shoulder!”
15. Honest Business
“I haven’t asked you for anything to assist us in this whole affair,” said Amarelle. “Not once. Now that needs to change.”
“I’m not averse in theory to small favors,” said Ivovandas, “given that the potential reward for your ultimate success is so personally tantalizing. But do understand, most of my magical resources are currently committed. Nor will I do anything overt enough to harden Jarrow’s suspicions. He has the same authority to kill you outright that I do if he can prove your violation of your sanctuary terms to our peers.”
“We’re starting a business,” said Amarelle. “The High Barrens Reclamation Consortium. We need you to sign on as the principal stakeholder.”
“Why?”
“Because nobody can sue you.” Amarelle pulled a packet of paper out of her coat and set them on Ivovandas’s desk. “We need a couple of wagons and about a dozen workers. We’ll provide those. We’re going to excavate wrecked mansions in the High Barrens on days when you and Jarrow aren’t blasting at each other.”
“Again, why?”
“There are some things we need to take,” said Amarelle with a smile, “and some things we need to hide. If we do it in our names, the heirs of all the families that ran like hell when you settled here and started shooting at other wizards will line up in court to stop us. If you’re the one in charge, they can’t do a damned thing.”
“I will examine these papers,” said Ivovandas. “I will have them returned to you if I deem the arrangement suitable.”
Amarelle found herself on the lawn. But three days later, the papers appeared in her apartments, signed and notarized. The High Barrens Reclamation Consortium went to work.
The Parliament of Strife ruled Theradane absolutely but were profoundly disinterested in the mundane business of cleaning the streets and sorting the paperwork. That much they left to their city’s strangely feudal and secretive bureaucracy, who were essentially free to do as they pleased so long as the hedges were trimmed and the damage from the continual wizard feuding was repaired. Jade worked efficiently from within this edifice. She pushed through all the requisite paperwork, forged or purchased the essential permits, swept all the mandated delays and hearings under the rug, and then stepped on the rug.
Brandwin hired their crew, a dozen stout men and women. They were paid the going wage for their work, that much again for the occasional danger of proximity to Ivovandas’s battles, and a triple portion for keeping their mouths shut. For a week or two they excavated carefully in the wreckage of once-mighty houses, concealing whatever they took from the ruins beneath tarps on their wagons.
Next, Brandwin and Shraplin spent a week refurbishing a trio of wagons as mobile vending carts. They extended wooden skirts around them to the ground, installed folding awnings and sturdy roofs, carved signs, and painted them attractively. One of the wagons was kitted out as a book stall, the other two as food carts.
&nb
sp; The labyrinth of bribes and permits needed to launch this sort of venture was even more daunting than the one that had preceded the excavation company. Jade outdid herself, weaving blackmail and intimidation into a tapestry of efficient palm-greasing. Whether the permit placards that hung from the vending carts were genuine articles or perfect copies was ultimately irrelevant. No procedural complication survived first contact with Jade’s attention.
With four months remaining, Amarelle and Sophara went into legitimate business for themselves. Amarelle peddled books on Prosperity Street until noon, while Sophara plied her precision sorcery for appreciative breakfast crowds on Galban Street. She cooked frosted walnut cakes into the shape of unicorns and cockatrices, caused fresh fruit to squeeze itself into juice glasses, and made her figs and dates give rude speeches while her customers tried to eat them and laugh at the same time. In the afternoon, she and Amarelle switched places.
Some days, Brandwin would operate the third vending cart, offering sweets and beer, but for some time she was absorbed in a number of demanding modifications to Shraplin’s body and limbs. These modifications remained hidden in the darkness of her workshop; Shraplin never went out in public wearing anything but one of his ordinary bodies.
One bright day on Prosperity Street, a stray breeze blew one of Amarelle’s books open and fluttered its pages. She moved to close it and was startled to find a detailed grayscale engraving of Scavius’s face staring up at her from the top page.
“Amarelle,” said the illustration. “You seem to have an unexpected literary sideline.”
“Can’t practice my former trade,” she said through gritted teeth. “Money’s getting tight.”
“So you’re exploring new avenues, eh? New avenues? Not even a smile? Well, fine, have it your way. I ought to snuff you, you realize. I don’t know who or what prompted the weirdness of the previous few months—”
Amarelle fanned the pages of the book vindictively. The illustration flashed past on each one, and continued talking smoothly when Amarelle gave up.
Rogues Page 30
