by D. J. Butler
No one looked up.
Above the stage, a square iron catwalk hung suspended from the ceiling by thick ropes. The catwalk gave access to all the hooks, lashings, weights, loops, and rods that hung and worked the curtains below, as well as painted canvases that could be raised and dropped to provide background imagery to whatever was onstage. Three men, one a Zalapting and the other two stocky Kishi who might have been Fix’s cousins except for his hawklike beak, stood on the other end of the rigging, staring at Indrajit and Fix. They must have been the men who worked the curtains; they wore only kilts, and their hands and bare feet were powdered with chalk.
Fix pointed at a doorway, and they both ran.
“I guess any idea I ever had about starting a jobber company is out the window.” Before ducking through the doorway and into the hall beyond, Indrajit took one last look back. The three catwalk-hands were still staring at them.
“Really?” Fix asked. “I would have said the opposite.”
“Well, anytime some lord of one of the great families, or risk-merchant, or whoever, wants to hire a company for a discreet job, they’ll look at us and say, Oh, aren’t you the guys who got into a fight onstage at the Palace of Shadow and Joy, and knocked a mountain over onto the footlings? And then someone else will get the job.”
They found a staircase and dropped down one level.
“I think it was a pyramid,” Fix said. “A Bonean Moon-Tower.”
“You could guess that from the backside?”
“No, I’ve seen the play. But think of it this way, instead. Anytime some risk-merchant or lord wants to hire someone for a task that requires courage, boldness to the point of recklessness, they’ll look at us and say, Oh, you guys are the ones who had a hand-to-hand battle onstage at the opera. And we’ll say, Anything for our clients. And then we’ll get the job.”
“That does sound better,” Indrajit admitted. “So what do you think?”
They looked both ways down the hall. To their right, the chaos onstage continued. To their left, shouting and darkness.
“About forming a company with you? Oh, you’re clever, Indrajit Twang, and you’re brave, and you’re a smooth talker. I guess that makes up for you being a strictly mediocre swordsman.”
“So…maybe?”
“Right now, I’m focused on surviving the night.”
They scooted across the hall and tried the handle to Ilsa’s dressing room. The door didn’t open. They knocked, and got no response.
“Ilsa?” Indrajit called. “Ilsa!”
Still nothing.
“I don’t like this at all,” Fix said.
Indrajit took a deep breath and a step back. Launching himself forward, he cracked into the door with his shoulder and ripped the bolt of the lock right through the wood. The door opened, and the two jobbers stepped inside.
There was no sign of Ilsa without Peer.
Holy-Pot Diaphernes, on the other hand, lay on the floor in the center of the room. His veil was gone, and for the first time, Indrajit saw his second face clearly. It was a mirror image of his unveiled face, only about two thirds the size, and with curiously feminine features—fuller lips, longer lashes, a slightly softer jawline, a receding chin. If Holy-Pot had had a younger sister or a daughter, that might have been her face.
But both faces were frozen with their eyes staring open at the ceiling.
Holy-Pot’s throat was cut. It wasn’t a neat cut, either; he’d been hacked open with a series of blows that left his windpipe—two windpipes, actually—exposed, and revealed flashes of white bone where the killer had cut all the way to the risk-merchant’s spinal column.
Indrajit’s mind raced. “Shut the door.”
The shouting outside was getting closer.
Chapter Fifteen
Fix shut the door. “Well, there goes our first client testimonial.”
Indrajit laughed, and then had a hard time stopping. “Testimonial? There goes our client! There goes our pay!”
“Ilsa could pay us,” Fix suggested.
“Good, that’s right.” Indrajit struggled and managed to get his laughter under control. “We need to find Ilsa, protect her, get her out of town, get paid.” He thought a moment. “Unless that was in fact her dead, in the chest.”
“Nonsense.” Fix snorted. “Ilsa asks us to get the chest, sends us out, and then immediately someone kills her, puts her in the chest before we can get there, and kills Holy-Pot?”
“Or Holibot.”
“I guess we’ll never find out now.”
“Could have been sorcery.”
“You have no experience with sorcery, I take it.”
“None. I mean, I’ve seen the big lights at parades, and there are lots of stories in the Epic. You?”
Fix hesitated. “Very little. I was healed by a Druvash artifact, but I was a child at the time, and my memory is vague.”
“Was it one of the Vin Dalu?”
Fix nodded. “This door has no lock.”
Indrajit looked around. “Well, if she went into hiding from whoever killed Holy-Pot, she isn’t hiding in here.” His eyes fell on the Courting Flower. Just in case, he broke off several large sprigs and tucked them into the pocket in his kilt.
“Either she climbed out the window or she went into the building.”
The commotion got louder.
“Well, if she’s in disguise in there,” Indrajit said, “someone will find her, and it won’t be us. The whole city, or at least all the rich people, just saw us. We need to get out of here.”
“That leaves the window.” Fix abandoned the door, crossed the door decisively, and climbed out onto the ledge. “The Rover’s wagon is gone.”
“Of course, it is. Once trouble broke out, why would Virti stick around? Best to be happy with the Imperial in his pocket and go back to mending horseshoes.”
Indrajit’s head whirled. Why had Ilsa sent them the long way around? Who had killed Holy-Pot Diaphernes? Who wanted Ilsa dead? Was Orem Thrush to be trusted, or not? Where had Ilsa without Peer gone?
Feeling slightly dizzy, he climbed out onto the ledge.
“Careful,” Fix said. “You’re swaying.”
“Our company is known for our boldness,” Indrajit said.
“If you’re going to jump, try to lower yourself as far as you can, first. Lessen the distance.”
Indrajit took a deep breath and sat. Fix sat beside him.
Behind them, the door opened.
“The body’s still here,” said a voice Indrajit recognized. Pink Face? “But who broke the lock?”
“On the window ledge!” someone else shouted.
Indrajit pushed off from the ledge and dropped.
He managed to roll in his landing and stood without injury. Fix hit harder and flatter, and when he stood up, he winced.
“Ankle?” Indrajit asked.
Fix nodded.
“It’s them!” a voice above them shouted. Indrajit looked up and saw the Luzzazza with invisible extra arms, the green-skinned assassin, Pink Face, and the man in the gold robes.
“They tried to kill Ilsa without Peer last night!” Green Skin shouted, turning to face back into the building as he yelled.
“Tonight they succeeded!” the Luzzazza bellowed.
For whose benefit were they shouting?
Indrajit fled. Fix hobbled, so Indrajit threw an arm across his shoulders and dragged him.
They staggered together at half-speed down the street. At the corner of the Palace of Shadow and Joy, Indrajit turned, just in time to see Green Skin and the spear-wielding Zalapting drop to the paving stones and climb to their feet.
The Luzzazza was nowhere in sight, but that mystical bastard was probably teleporting somewhere to get ahead of them.
“You can outrun them without me,” Fix grunted. “And I can take those two.”
Indrajit’s eye fell on a small placard screwed to the wall of a building across the street. “We’re going to outrun them together.”
&
nbsp; He dragged Fix, accelerating slightly despite the shorter man’s grunts of pain, and got around the corner out of the Handler’s sight.
Then he pushed left and down an alley, in the direction indicated by the sign.
At the back of the alley, the street took a sharp right, and there was the destination Indrajit was looking for: a latrine.
A man in a simple, but clean and well-cut, kilt stood with his feet apart, preparing to avail himself. “Oh, you don’t want to do that,” Indrajit said. He pulled Fix into an upright posture and they both smiled.
The man looked Kishi, dark and sturdy. No truly wealthy person would use the public latrine, even up here in the Crown, so this must be a merchant, or someone passing through for the evening, or a servant. His fashionable haircut, thick and shaped like a mushroom cap, suggested the first.
“It’s not broken, is it?” the Kishi sneered.
Indrajit shook his head. “Rapeworm infestation.”
The Kishi paled and took a long step away from the latrine. “You’re jobbers?”
Indrajit nodded. “Got the sewers contract, and we’re here to investigate.”
“You’ll want fire.” The Kishi backed away. “Oil. And block off the tunnels so the flame doesn’t spread.”
“You sound like you know what you’re talking about, and we’re kind of short-handed.” Indrajit grinned. “You looking for a job?”
The Kishi ran.
“Don’t complain,” Indrajit said promptly to Fix. “This is how we’re going to survive.”
Fix lifted the latrine seat with an effort that produced a grunt. The seat here was made of marble, whereas in the Spill, the seats were of cheap wood. “I’m not complaining. I’m just wondering if there might really be rapeworm down in here.”
“There certainly might. In which case, you and I might both be giving birth in a few weeks.”
Fix climbed in first, then Indrajit after, and Indrajit lowered the seat above them. They crouched in a space not quite as tall as Indrajit, and only slightly wider—in a pinch, four ordinary-sized men could have stood inside, but no more. Flowing liquid trickled in at one side of their feet and out at the other, through red clay pipes that might indeed accommodate worms, but wouldn’t give access to Indrajit or Fix.
“Well,” Fix said. “No more running.”
Indrajit tried to breathe through his mouth, and quietly. “This sort of gives the lie to the idea that underneath the whole city’s bums, there’s an immense world of strange creatures and lost treasure, waiting to be found.”
“I never said anything about treasure.”
“Yeah, but others say it.”
Fix nodded, a gesture barely visible in the gloom. “Yes, but remember where you are. This is the Crown. If there’s any part of Kish where you would want to wall off all the latrines from each other and from the ruins below, to protect the local bottoms from unwanted viewing and pinching, it would be here.”
“True…” Indrajit said slowly.
“Just try not to think of what might be lurking on the other side of these bricks.”
“And watch out for bums.” Indrajit scooted as close to the wall as he could without actually touching it. The air reeked of dead things and filth, and the humidity that made the spring evening air on the streets above cool and pleasant made the inside of the latrine feel like a cooking pot.
Torchlight above. A shadow loomed over the latrine seat, and Indrajit saw a bright lavender-colored Zalapting face, with its slightly elongated muzzle and its wide nostrils. Hanging from the Zalapting’s shoulders was a gray tunic with circular glyph marking the man as one of Gannon’s Handlers. Had the Zalapting seen Indrajit, by the light of the torch?
The Zalapting leaned forward and lanced down through the latrine seat with a bronze-headed spear. The weapon stabbed only empty air, but Indrajit couldn’t take the chance that they’d been seen.
He grabbed the spear with his left hand and yanked it down.
The Zalapting had a firm grip on his spear and came forward with it. At the same moment, Indrajit shot his right hand up through the deluxe, Crown-sized latrine opening and grabbed the Zalapting’s arm, pulling the Handler, head and shoulders, into the latrine.
“Don’t scream,” Indrajit warned the jobber.
The Zalapting kicked and squirmed, but didn’t yell. Indrajit dragged the man down into the sewer with them; the spear was too long to fit, until Fix snapped a third off with a sharp blow of his elbow, and then again knocked off another third. He stacked the shattered spear bits in the corner.
Indrajit threw the Zalapting against the wall. “We’re going to talk,” he whispered. “Keep your voice down and your answers to the point, and you’ll go home tonight.”
“You won’t,” the Zalapting said.
Fix scooted into the corner of the sewer, keeping an eye out through the latrine seats for approaching lights.
“You think you’re so important that we’ll get in trouble for…what? Breaking your spear? The Lord Stargazer’s going to have us hanged for that?”
The Zalapting laughed. “Nobody cares about me. But you killed Ilsa without Peer. And some very powerful people care a lot about her.”
“We didn’t kill her,” Indrajit said.
“That’s not what the witnesses will say.”
“She’s not even dead.” Indrajit wanted to test the Zalapting’s reaction. He wished he had better light for it.
The Zalapting snorted. “After killing her, you threw her body at my colleague, Pozzi, in an attempt to distract him so you could make your escape.”
“That’s not Ilsa,” Indrajit said.
“That’s not what witnesses will say.” The Zalapting chuckled. “Don’t you get it? You were going to go down for this from the start, Indrajit Twang. No matter how it happened, you were going to end up burned.”
Fix interjected himself into the interrogation. “What are you talking about? Why would anyone care about Indrajit?”
“Feeling envious?” Indrajit asked.
“You too, Fix the Trivial.” The Zalapting laughed.
Indrajit rocked back on his heels. Did this add up to anything rational? Was the job—were both jobs—nothing but a setup, to have him killed? But that made no sense at all. In the first place, the only person he owed was Holy-Pot Diaphernes, and Holy-Pot had hired him, paid him money. In the second, if the risk-merchant had wanted Indrajit dead, he could have had Yashta Hossarian execute him at the Blind Surgeon.
Still, the Zalapting knew their names.
“Who employed you?” Indrajit asked.
“Mote Gannon.”
Indrajit sighed. “You know, powerful people might want to kill us, as you say, but you should think about your answers carefully. There are three of us down in this hole, and you are the smallest, and unarmed. Let’s try this again: Who hired Gannon’s Handlers?”
The Zalapting hesitated, then answered. “The risk-merchant Frodilo Choot.”
“And what was your task?”
The Zalapting hesitated again. “To protect the singer, of course. Ilsa without Peer.” Then he chuckled. “From you two.”
Indrajit had planned to make another threat at this point, but Fix grabbed the Zalapting by the neck. He cracked the lavender-skinned man’s skull against the bricks, softly, and then pressed his cheek against the slime.
“You’re a liar,” Fix said gently. “Your job was to kill her, and make it look like we did it.”
The Zalapting trembled. “My job was to stand guard. Others were going to kill her.”
“And blame us?” Fix clarified.
“Yes.”
The Zalapting tried to nod, but couldn’t, because his face was smushed against the wall. “You weren’t supposed to leave the Palace of Shadow and Joy alive.”
“You’re not very good at your job,” Fix said.
“I guess not,” the Zalapting admitted.
“Probably Mote Gannon wouldn’t miss you,” Fix suggested. “I mean, he mi
ght kill you himself if you showed up. For abandoning your post.”
“Dereliction of duty,” Indrajit added. “We should just break your neck. Leave you down here. It’d be the best end for you, really.”
Head pinned to the brick, the Zalapting’s body trembled.
Fix shook the captive. “Unless, of course, you had more to tell us.”
“Like what?” the Zalapting whimpered.
“Like, what does Frodilo Choot have against us?” Indrajit suggested.
The Zalapting shrugged awkwardly. “I don’t know. As far as I can tell, it’s just business.”
“You ever have any business with Frodilo Choot before today, Fix?”
“No,” Fix said. “You?”
“Never,” Indrajit said. “Never heard the name.”
“I don’t know anything!” the Zalapting squealed.
“There was a body,” Fix said. “It looked like Ilsa, but it wasn’t Ilsa. Someone with a dark sense of humor had stashed it in Ilsa’s things. I think someone wanted everyone else to believe Ilsa was dead, so they could kidnap her.”
“Who would do that?” Indrajit put his question to the Zalapting. “A different opera house?”
“One of the other lords?” Fix suggested.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the Zalapting said. “We were trying to kill you and the singer both.”
“Regardless of the extra body,” Indrajit said, “Frodilo Choot hired these thugs. Frodilo Choot must have wanted Ilsa dead.”
“Is Frodilo Choot an opera fan?” Fix asked. “Does she own a rival opera company? Or is she shorting shares of the Palace of Shadow and Joy at the Paper Sook?”
“Wait,” Indrajit said. “What was that last bit of gibberish?”
“Oh, it’s just…Paper Sook talk.”
“More risk-merchantry?”
“No. Joint-stock companies. Trading ownership, moving capital around, placing bets on the future.”
“Placing bets on the future sounds like risk-merchantry.”
