They were polite but professional. She’d been called there many times, after all. Another servant in a long white robe waited for her, and when she was judged safe, he led her through stone halls, past frescoes depicting ships on stormy seas, and warriors fighting atop walls at the edge of an abyss, past basins of clear water on small tables, and the slow-running fountains from which they had been filled, past busy servants and nervous supplicants, past the quiet strumming of harp music and the loud clash of wooden practice swords.
Culzatik awaited her on one of the many verandas of this hillside home. It was not a large space, but it did connect to the family library, and the Safroy heir had turned it into an office of sorts, working from a small skywood desk. At the moment, he was covered with sweat, and there was an iron practice sword leaning against the wall. The pommel of the pretend sword, the skywood desk, and the lintel above the entrance to the library were all marked with the Safroy bull.
“Oh, good,” Culzatik said. “We have much to cover, so I’m glad you’re early.”
Of course, Onderishta was exactly on time. “I live to serve, your virtue.”
Aziatil glanced at her, then looked away, her hands far from her knives. The only other person on the veranda was a soft-bellied young man with long hair hanging in his face. His attention was fixed on a book, and he did not seem to notice her.
“Selsarim Lost, Ulfender,” Culzatik said to him. “Wake up.”
The pudgy young man raised his eyes. “Sorry. Hello.”
“Good day, your virtue,” Onderishta replied. Ulfender admir-Shelti hold-Shelti had been Culzatik’s lover since he was old enough to take one, but Onderishta did not understand the appeal. If an overstuffed couch cushion could squint, that would have been Ulfender.
“We still have a bit of time, I think,” Culzatik said. He stood. “Would you like to see the family glitterkind?”
CHAPTER NINE
Riliska had seen Kyrioc when he was sad or quiet, but she had never seen him like this. He looked as though she had snitched on him to the cosh.
“Good sir!” the constable called. “If you would, please?”
Riliska looked again at his expression and dared to hope he would come for her anyway.
He didn’t. Kyrioc turned on his heel and slipped between two buildings without a backward glance.
“Good sir? Good sir, are you…” The constable turned toward Riliska. “Is that your father?”
Riliska looked down at the deck again so she would not have to look the grownups in the face. She expected another slap, but it didn’t come. The woman said, “Send this one downcity where she belongs.” Then she seized her son’s elbow and dragged him down the street.
The thought that the cosh might drag Riliska off to Mudside brought up a wave of panic. It wasn’t fair! She and her mother had lived in Woodgarden for three whole years. She didn’t even know anyone down there!
But how could she prove it? She couldn’t lead the cosh to her mother. They might collar her. Then Riliska would be truly alone, just another orphan in a city full of them.
Time to run. But simply thinking that thought made the cosh behind her seize her arm roughly. How did he know what she was thinking?
“Don’t bother.” The first ironshirt took off her helmet and scratched at her shaved scalp. She glanced at the spot where Kyrioc had vanished, then shrugged. “The bitch walks away, we get to walk away.” Laying her hand on her truncheon, she looked down at Riliska. There was no kindness in her expression. “I suspect we’ll be seeing more of you in the coming years.”
The ironshirt didn’t just release Riliska, he shoved her. She stumbled and nearly fell onto the dirty planks. The cosh strolled off, not seeming to give her another thought.
A terrible anger welled up inside her. The way that horrible woman had treated her, just because she’d picked up that tablet. The way the cosh had shoved her, as if she was nothing. The way Kyrioc…the Broken Man…
She stood and clenched her fists, wishing she had something to throw or smash. She wanted to stamp her foot and shatter the plankways beneath her. She wanted to swing a gigantic axe and cut Yth’s ribs like paintbrush bristles. She wished she was an immortal warrior like one of the ghostkind, so she could draw a gigantic sword and cut down everyone who had ever been unfair to her.
Wishes and fantasies ran through her head like rushing water, and they did nothing but make her feel helpless. She was just a little girl in a dark city with no one to protect her.
For a moment, Riliska was tempted to follow Kyrioc into that narrow space between the buildings, even though it was gang space. There was nothing back there but one of Yth’s abandoned temples, anyway. What was he going to do, pray to dead gods?
A white-haired man leaned on the post of his vegetable stall, staring down at something in his hand. Should she grab something from him and run? Even though midday had passed, she hadn’t eaten yet, and the whistle she’d gotten for her chimes lay hidden in her room. She couldn’t go home. She would almost rather be grabbed by the cosh again than hear more of those sounds from her mother.
But that white-haired man knew her name. He could set the cosh on her mother if he wanted to.
I suspect we’ll be seeing more of you in the coming years.
She moved close, tempted to do it anyway. Just grab something, anything, and get in trouble. Real trouble. It would be a relief to get it over with.
She suddenly realized Kyrioc was beside her. He’d appeared out of nowhere like a ghost.
“Riliska, do you think I’m a bad person?”
The scar on his cheek was bloodless and ugly. It was the ugliest thing she’d ever seen. It was so horrible that she couldn’t speak, and she felt slightly ill that she’d ever eaten a meal with that face right across the table.
There was something in his expression that she didn’t like.
He said, “You said you wouldn’t steal anymore.”
She snatched a pair of carrots off a shelf and ran.
* * *
Culzatik couldn’t help it. He got a childish satisfaction at the look of surprise on Onderishta’s face. Maybe it was unworthy of the heir of a noble house that dated back to Lost Selsarim, but he took his pleasures where he could. Besides, he suspected she didn’t think much of him. This might raise her esteem.
Or not. It didn’t really matter.
When Ulfender heard Culzatik offer a tour of the family wards, he did something Culzatik had never seen him do before. He snapped his book shut and sat upright in one fluid motion.
“Oh, I’m sorry, baby,” Culzatik said to him. “This is business.”
Ulfender looked as though he might protest, but instead, he shrugged and returned to his book.
Culzatik led Onderishta into the library, then pushed aside a bookcase to reveal a secret door. There was no handle. He knocked three times, then two, then four. A moment later, a guard wearing the Safroy bull on his breastplate pulled the door open and allowed them entry.
Before them lay the southern atrium. Trees grew comfortably in the rich soil of the hill, and short grasses grew between them. A small pile of artfully arranged stones disguised the spout of a fountain, and a thin trickle flowed down a rock-lined gully into a small artificial pond.
But it wasn’t the atrium that seized Onderishta’s attention. It was the glitterkind within it.
There were three of them. In some ways, they looked very much like humankind. They lay upon the grass as if sleeping—their eyes were shut and their mouths open as if they were about to snore—although of course they were utterly breathless and soundless.
They were also naked, sexless, and white-fleshed—but not with the pinkish white of the Katr barbarians. This was a bluish white, like the marble of his mother’s favorite table. Nothing about their breasts, shoulders, or hips suggested gender. To Culzatik, they looked like slender, spindly children of five or six.
Except for one thing—two were over ten feet from heel to crown, and the other w
as just above fourteen long.
But the most striking thing about them was the trait that gave them their name. Where daylight touched their skin, tiny facets in their flesh threw off sparks of color. They glittered in every color of the rainbow.
Onderishta said nothing. She simply gaped. And why not?
Culzatik touched her arm and led her toward a stone bench at the southern end of the atrium. Aziatil stayed close. “There’s no need to trim the trees or cut the grass,” he said. “The glitterkind themselves keep the plants from overgrowing. It’s been theorized that they siphon off a certain amount of the plants’ vitality to sustain themselves. They thrive only when left outside among greenery, where the sun and the rain can touch them.”
She lifted her head toward the arching bars overhead. “That’s why the bars are in place?”
“They’re not really bars, just painted to look like dull steel. We used to have an iron cage overhead to protect our wards from thievery, but it turned out that it attracted lighting strikes. This new cage is skywood. It’s not cheap, but it’s as hard as stone and it won’t burn.”
“And you paint it to resemble iron so potential thieves will bring the wrong tools.”
Culzatik smiled. “Exactly so.”
Onderishta stared at the creatures. “They’re beautiful.”
“I’m glad I can show them on a sunny day.”
“Thank you, your virtue. Seeing this delights me, but I assume I’m here so I will recognize glitterkind flesh in the future.”
Culzatik raised one ink-stained finger toward the far corner. “Do you see the wood and canvas rigging? Those are the scales the bureaucrats use to weigh our wards, to be sure we don’t sell healing magic on the black market. You see, glitterkind are like water. When a portion has been slivered, it does not show.”
“What do you mean, your virtue?”
He held up his left hand. “If I were to cut off the last joint of my pinky finger, it would be gone forever. Anyone who looked at my hand would see the scars and the missing joints. It could only be restored through magic.”
“Are you saying the glitterkind can grow back missing limbs?”
“Not precisely. As I said, they are like water. This shape you see before you—” He gestured toward the sleeping figures. “This is the shape the creature assumes. It is always this shape, and if some outside force acts on it, the ward returns to this. If you cut one ounce of glitterkind flesh from the end of their small finger or from that mass atop their heads that’s shaped like hair, the severed part would keep its shape, but before the day was out, the ward would be whole again. The creature’s flesh would have—and I apologize, but this is the best way to describe it—would have slowly flowed into that space so the ward would appear whole again.”
Onderishta nodded. “But the glitterkind itself would still be one ounce lighter.”
“Yes. The change to the creature as a whole might be imperceptible, but if you weighed it on one of those scales, it would be one ounce less than before. As long as the portions are slivered in very small increments and iron never touches the creature’s body—just the touch of iron will burn and scar them—they remain hardy and strong. Our main task is to sliver them more slowly than they naturally grow.”
Onderishta’s voice became quiet. “Is that what you suspect that package contained? Did you send me out to recover an ounce of stolen glitterkind flesh before the theft became public?”
“No!” Culzatik said. “Our security is excellent, and all three of our wards are weighed weekly. We’re very careful.”
“Have you been accused of selling black-market magic?”
Culzatik sighed. “Not yet.” There was a commotion from the front of the house. “I think that’s our cue,” Culzatik said. “Let’s move quickly.”
The guard opened the door for them and they hurried back into the library.
“I still don’t quite understand what you are asking, your virtue. If you thought there was a handover of—and I can’t believe I’m saying this—of black-market glitterkind flesh—”
“Suspected,” Culzatik interjected. “I only had a vague suspicion.”
“Even so, we’re talking about a crime on a par with treason. If you had shared your suspicion about the exchange—”
“Yes, of course, you’re correct. I had my reasons for withholding that information, but I can see now that I was wrong. I apologize.”
That seemed to mollify her. In truth, Culzatik had two reasons to keep his suspicions to himself. First, he was afraid Onderishta would overplay her hand, bringing in so much security to acquire the package that she would spook the courier and lose their only chance at it.
The other was that he was afraid to be wrong. The other noble families might have voted his mother out of the High Watch, but she was still widely respected. If Culzatik earned a reputation for being impulsive or unreliable, Safroy stitches would move to more stable sails, and his mother’s political faction would restrict him to a role as an advisor or aide. In short, it would weaken his—and his family’s—position.
The incident at Kyrionik’s Mourning Day service was embarrassing enough.
They returned to the veranda just in time to receive Essatreska admir-Phillien, Culzatik’s future wife.
* * *
Only years of discipline kept Onderishta from rolling her eyes when Essatreska admir-Phillien swept into the room.
Her jet-black hair had been pinned to a small wooden frame to make it point upward with the characteristic bulge and curl of a candle flame. Set within were several rings of multifaceted glass beads, which reflected the daylight in a pale imitation of glitterkind flesh. Her frilled white robe was pinned with an assortment of golden brooches. One, above her left breast, bore the leaping fish of the Phillien family. The others were decorative but nondescript.
Her face had been carefully painted, with white lines radiating from her eyes like sunbeams, and a tiny red fish on her right cheek. The hand she extended to Culzatik had been painted with intricate, dizzying designs, and her nails were a bright yellow. The color did not complement her, but Onderishta knew it was rare, new, and expensive, and fashion had always valued those things above merely looking good.
This wasn’t the first time Onderishta and Essatreska had met, not that the young woman would remember. A year before, Culzatik had requested a dossier on her, and Onderishta had followed the girl for a month. In an unlucky coincidence, they’d engaged in an extended conversation about the location of a certain shop in Low Market.
The job, and the dossier, had been rather dull, but Culzatik had been pleased and nothing further was said on the matter. Essatreska glanced at Onderishta without any sign of recognition.
Then, as now, Onderishta felt an unaccustomed stirring when she saw the young woman. Betraying any sort of interest in her would be absurd, but beneath all that paint and artifice was a woman who was as beautiful as a goddess. And she knew it.
Entering with her was Bedler of Koh-Alzij, her bodyguard. He was just over six feet tall, broad as a temple door and almost as solid. He was rumored to have once been a bard—a rumor he started himself, which was carefully noted in the dossier—before entering the tournaments, but now he followed the eldest Phillien daughter from one shop to the next, scowling and laying his hand on his maul when the Wrong People got too close.
Culzatik’s bodyguard, Aziatil, had entered the tournaments in the same year as Bedler. Aziatil had placed almost at the bottom, ranked seventeenth, while Bedler had earned third place. Nevertheless, when it was Culzatik’s turn to hire a bodyguard, he had chosen from the bottom of the list.
Aziatil remained stoic, but Bedler allowed himself a contemptuous grin when he saw the slender young woman.
Essatreska curtsied, her painted hand extended. “Thank you for receiving us, my betrothed.”
“Thank you for visiting,” Culzatik replied, clasping her offered hand and bending over slightly. “I’m sorry you missed the Mourning Day servic
e.”
“Too painful,” she said, her expression miming a show of grief that was undercut by every other thing about her. “Kyrionik was important to me. Losing him… I cared deeply for him.”
Kyrionik’s betrothal to Essatreska was more of a business deal than a love match and everyone knew it. When he failed to return from his First Labor, the Safroy and Phillien families had reassigned the contract to the new Safroy heir, and the bride-to-be did not hide her displeasure about this new arrangement. Kyrionik had been an athlete, a fighter, and a bit of a daredevil. Frankly, Onderishta thought he was a brash young idiot. But girls made excuses to be near him and boys looked up to him. He had magnetism.
Culzatik didn’t.
“So many times,” she said, “I dreamed of being his wife. I’m afraid I might have run out of the service in tears. As you did.”
If this remark stung Culzatik, he didn’t show it. “Of course,” he said, smiling sympathetically. “You’re a very sensitive person.”
Essatreska’s delicate nose wrinkled slightly at this, as though she was not sure if she’d just been insulted. “I must also ask you to delay the remainder of your bride price until the fall. It just seems…disrespectful, somehow.”
That was a surprise. Even Aziatil blinked double-time. But all Culzatik said was, “If it would make you happy, my betrothed, I am pleased to do so.”
“Hmm. I did not expect you to agree so readily. Is the Safroy family having money troubles? I hear so many rumors.”
This time, Culzatik did not respond at all. He simply smiled, holding Essatreska’s gaze in his, and let the silence play out.
“Hello, Ulfender,” she said, her voice chilly, “what have you been up to?”
He looked up. “Studying the text of The Lai of Shulss and His Dragon to help Culza find evidence that it shares an author with—”
“I don’t care about that,” Essatreska interrupted.
Ulfender turned his attention back to his book. “And yet you asked.”
A frosty silence fell again. After a short while, Essatreska shifted uncomfortably, then glanced around the room. “You Safroys stick a bull’s head on everything, don’t you?”
One Man Page 10
