In the Palace of Shadow and Joy

by D. J. Butler

  And was it that late in the day? What time was it?

  Beside Thrush came Ilsa, squat in the body and long of limbs, wrapped in armor that was lacquered the same red. Her head was uncovered, but in her hands she held a helmet. The helmet looked like a horned skull, and was the one piece of her garb that was colored a bone-white. She wore a straight sword and two long knives at her belt. The costume resembled, slightly, the costume she’d worn onstage during the opera, and at the same time it made her appear as the living incarnation of the Lord Chamberlain’s heraldic icon.

  Cold relief poured through Indrajit’s heart.

  “This is not Ilsa,” the Lord Chamberlain said. “This is Lysta.”

  The relief turned into icy dread. Indrajit stared.

  “She looks like Ilsa,” he said stupidly.

  Thrush nodded.

  The light seemed to fade from Indrajit’s vision. His breath came tight in his lungs and his head swam. “Is she like…like you?” he asked. “She takes on someone else’s form?” Did Thrush intend to send a mock replacement to the Palace of Shadow and Joy, to continue being paid? But surely, no replacement would sing like Ilsa without Peer.

  But Orem Thrush might be able to sell the risk of Ilsa losing her voice, and then collect under the agreement when it turned out that, naturally, the impostor couldn’t sing like the real thing.

  Frozen hells, he was beginning to think in terms of risk-merchantry.

  Fix stared, his eyes narrowed.

  Thrush glowered, as if Indrajit had said something deeply rude. “Lysta is of Ilsa’s race.”

  Things were not adding up to Indrajit. He wasn’t sure whether he had too little information or too much, but the images of the last two days flashed through his mind in changing and repeating sequence, and wouldn’t come to rest: Ilsa on stage, Ilsa in the Fountain, Ilsa in Frodilo Choot’s office, Ilsa beneath the Paper Sook, Ilsa Two springing from the blue chest. What sense did all of this make?

  “Ilsa told us she was the last of her kind,” Indrajit said.

  “She believed she was.” Thrush nodded a slow acknowledgement. “For many years, I believed she was, too.”

  “Was there some other community of her people, then?” Indrajit asked. “A village of astounding singers? This is going to be big news for the opera world. I can see the recruiters now, riding out to some remote high valley with letters of credit and promises of hiring bonuses and glorious salaries to be made to young singers. There is wealth in a golden voice.”

  He did not say, though he was imagining it, that those riders would have to wear sprigs of the Courting Flower. Assuming they were males.

  “The lure of wealth is indeed great, for singers and promoters alike.” Lysta smiled at Indrajit grotesquely as she croaked. “They are only men, after all.”

  Indrajit nodded. Something unknown nagged at his mind. “Ilsa was a shockingly good singer. If she was in fact, not without peer, if you can sing like she did, then the Lord Chamberlain and the Palace of Shadow and Joy are both very lucky.”

  Orem Thrush shook his head. “Her people are destroyed now. There is no community of them left in the world.”

  “Lysta without Peer?” Fix murmured.

  The singer smiled, an expression that was both trollish and gentle.

  “What were they called, while they lived?” Indrajit asked.

  “Idle curiosity?” Thrush asked.

  Fix smiled. “My colleague has a responsibility to produce an epic. I believe he wants to include Ilsa and her kind.”

  “And Lysta,” said Orem Thrush.

  Fix tipped his head. “And Lysta.”

  “I never knew their name.” Thrush turned to look at the singer.

  “Nor I,” she said, with a voice like a sack full of pebbles being ground together, a rumbling croak that sounded just like Ilsa’s. “I survived the massacre of my youth and have lived as a beggar and a slave ever since. If you could learn the name of my people and tell me, I’d be grateful.”

  “You’ll need epithets, too.” Indrajit thought a moment, then translated his syllables into Kishite. “Golden of voice, women commanding, mercy at all times to men who are favored.”

  He thought Lysta looked touched at his words. Sad, perhaps.

  “They rhyme in Blaatshi,” he hastened to add.

  “So there were only three survivors, I guess,” Fix said.

  Grit Wopal stood against the wall and surveyed the others with his eyes in a deep squint.

  “I don’t know the third,” Thrush said. “There was Ilsa. Then, recently, I found Lysta.”

  “What, back in the same village?” Indrajit asked. “Was she living there alone, all these years?”

  “For a race that was supposed to be extinct,” Fix observed, “there are an awful lot of these people.”

  Lysta’s nictitating membranes fluttered. “Sadly, I do not know any others. When my people were destroyed, I wandered alone for days. When I was finally rescued, it was by a caravan of merchants bound for the Endless Road. I was sold as a slave in Thûl, and have moved from port to port in the service of different masters, or begging for scraps when between masters.”

  “Were you rebellious?” Indrajit asked. He was imagining himself in her place. “Was that why no one wanted to keep you long?”

  Lysta curtseyed. “The contrary. All wanted to keep me, and the price to purchase me rose and rose, until it became a prince’s ransom, and only very few could even make a reasonable offer. When possible, I bought my freedom, or I fled.”

  “Runaway slaves get harsh punishments,” Fix said softly.

  Lysta nodded. “I was far too valuable to punish. I was a beggar, but I could bring wealth to kings. I languished in Pelth, until the Lord Chamberlain heard of me and made an offer the size of which caused my former owner to swoon.”

  “You exaggerate,” Thrush said. “But the lady was happy with the price.”

  “Do you sing like Ilsa?” Fix asked mildly. “Did all the women of your race have that gift?”

  Lysta nodded, a gesture which made her look like a toadstool retracting its cap into itself several times in quick succession. “We all do, I think. We all did.”

  “Ilsa, I was deeply saddened to learn, died in the Palace of Shadow and Joy.” Orem Thrush frowned. His face was subtly changing again, looking more and more like Lysta’s. It was a shocking look on the Lord Chamberlain.

  “Who killed her?” Indrajit asked.

  “I believe it was someone you know.” Thrush met Indrajit’s gaze; he looked like a duskier, taller Ilsa. Or Lysta, rather. “Yashta Hossarian.”

  “Hossarian?” Indrajit and Fix spoke at the same moment.

  “He’s a jobber,” Thrush said. “He has no arms, and a bird’s legs, and he’s black as obsidian.”

  “His claws are orange,” Fix said glumly.

  “We know him,” Indrajit said. He wasn’t sure he could piece the information in with what he knew already—once Holy-Pot died, Hossarian had indeed been looking for Ilsa, but why would the jobber want to kill the singer?

  Or why would Holy-Pot want the singer killed? And what sense did it make that he would want the singer killed in the event that he himself died?

  “I saw the killing,” Lysta sang.

  Indrajit’s confusion faded, replaced by a deep sense of tranquility, and he believed her. He nodded. “It makes sense.”

  “It makes sense,” Fix agreed.

  “I hope that you will remain in my employment,” Orem Thrush said, “answering to Grit Wopal. Perhaps one of the tasks you might undertake is finding Yashta Hossarian and inflicting the appropriate consequence.”

  A wave of warm feeling washed over Indrajit. He felt well-being, contentment, happiness, and a desire to be cooperative. But his feeling wasn’t directed at Orem Thrush—it was directed at Lysta. He would do what Thrush asked, because Lysta wanted it.

  But then Lysta asked it, too.

  “Please stay,” she sang, her voice full and operatic and gorge
ous. “Enter the Lord Chamberlain’s service with me.”

  “Of course,” Indrajit said.

  “Of course,” Fix added.

  “Yes,” Grit Wopal said, after a moment’s hesitation.

  Orem Thrush nodded. “I want you to stay in here for the day. Food and water will be brought to you. I’ll pay you for your work—say, ten Imperials? Tonight, I will certainly have work for you to do.”

  Indrajit and Fix nodded. Wopal followed suit.

  “Be careful.” Indrajit struggled to find the words, his sense of well-being taking away his ability to think out loud. “Be careful of Hossarian.”

  “Of course,” Thrush said.

  “He will…he will think Lysta is Ilsa. And try to kill her again.” Indrajit’s speech was slow, but he thought he avoided slurring his words. “Because they look…”

  “Yes,” the Lord Chamberlain said, “I understand. Don’t worry, we’ll travel protected.” He raised a yellow blossom at his breast up to his nose and breathed deeply through it.

  Blossom. The Courting Flower.

  A dim light pierced a dark vault somewhere in the back of Indrajit’s consciousness, but the shaft didn’t seem to touch on anything. It moved through the darkness, looking for a connection it couldn’t find.

  Orem Thrush and Lysta without Peer left, the door shutting behind them. Indrajit didn’t hear the sound of a lock turning or a bar being placed into brackets, but Grit Wopal remained in the room with them. The Yifft sat, back against the wall, and hummed.

  Indrajit felt as if he was swimming in warm milk.

  “Flower,” he croaked, a few minutes later. The shaft of light in his mind was shining on a small bush in his memory.

  “The Courting Flower.” Fix had somehow ended up facedown on the floor, and he spoke without raising his head. “It didn’t work.”

  “Jog,” Grit Wopal said dreamily.

  Indrajit patted himself on the chest and found the sprig, still in place. It hadn’t protected him—was Lysta more powerful than Ilsa? Or did she have her magical power set on a higher setting?

  “Jog,” Wopal said again.

  Indrajit shook the flower, but that had no obvious effect.

  Fix laughed.

  “No,” the Yifft said. “Stand up and run.”

  Indrajit floated in warmth again for a time he couldn’t measure, and then found himself pulled to his feet. Fix steadied him upright, and then pushed him.

  “Run,” Fix muttered.

  They staggered around the room. The first two circuits were painful, as they rebounded off the walls repeatedly, missing every turn.

  But then, just a little, Indrajit’s head started to clear.

  “You know,” Indrajit panted to the Yifft, who still sat slumped on the floor. “You studied…Ilsa.”

  “Jog,” Wopal groaned.

  “The Courting Flower…stopped protecting us,” Fix grunted.

  “Maybe Lysta is…too powerful,” Indrajit suggested.

  “Maybe the plant…withered,” Fix countered, voice still thick and slow.

  Indrajit stopped. He needed fresh Courting Flower.

  “Jog!” Wopal tried to climb to his own feet and failed, sinking back to the ground.

  Fix grabbed Indrajit and tried to drag him, but the Recital Thane pushed his friend away. “No,” Indrajit said. “Wait. I have more. Where did I put it?”

  Fix leaned over, resting his elbows on his knees and breathing deeply.

  “In my pocket.” Fix dug into the pocket of his kilt and found what he only vaguely remembered putting there…what, a day earlier? Several bunches of the Courting Flower, leaves still bright green, petals still yellow as egg yolks.

  It wasn’t fresh, but it was fresher than what he was currently wearing. Was it fresh enough? He placed a sprig to his nose and inhaled deeply.

  And his thoughts cleared.

  “Frozen hells.” He clapped a second bunch into Fix’s hand and then pressed it to Fix’s nose. While his partner was still inhaling, he did the same thing to Grit Wopal.

  The Yifft recovered immediately, springing to his feet. “That was Ilsa without Peer!” he snapped.

  Indrajit threw away the old sprig and pinned the new one to his tunic as Fix did the same. “I don’t know,” he said. “They look pretty similar, but we saw another one of their kind. She was dead and in a trunk, but she looked pretty much identical to Ilsa, too.”

  Fix furrowed his brow in thought.

  “You said three,” Wopal pressed. “Tell me what three women of Ilsa’s race you have seen.”

  “Ilsa,” Indrajit said.

  “Then a dead one in a box,” Fix continued. “Then…who did we just see now?”

  “Lysta,” Indrajit said.

  Wopal shook his head. “Ilsa.”

  Indrajit’s head felt hollowed out by fatigue and hunger. “It’s possible. But I don’t see any reason to think it’s actually true.”

  “They are only men, after all,” Wopal said.

  Fix nodded. “Ilsa said that. Several times, while we were together.”

  “I heard her say it, too,” Wopal said. “In the Fountain, and here in the Lord Chamberlain’s palace.”

  “So…” Fix said, the struggle to think visible on his face.

  “Lysta said it, too,” Indrajit said. “Tonight. Just a few minutes ago. Or an hour. Or however long that was. Only she wasn’t Lysta. She was Ilsa without Peer.”

  “She faked her own death,” Fix said. “That’s why she had the corpse in her trunk, it wasn’t some kind of strange species power—she needed a body.”

  “Where did she get it?” Indrajit asked.

  “Lysta came to House Thrush a couple of months ago,” Grit Wopal said. “Ilsa had been expressing discontent with her…work, and the Lord Chamberlain was preparing to replace her with Lysta. But then Lysta disappeared.”

  “Ilsa killed Lysta,” Indrajit said. “And she was going to use her body to fake her own death, so she could run away, to escape Orem Thrush and her work at the opera, which she had grown sick of.”

  “But Thrush knew there were two of them,” Fix said. “Surely, she would have to expect him to come after her.”

  Lights flashed in Indrajit’s mind. “Yes, which is why she needed to fake her death, and make a lot of money from it. She would use the cash to flee and start a new life.” It made a terrible sense. “But why blame her death on Yashta Hossarian?”

  “Because there was a dead man’s switch,” Grit Wopal said. “Which can only mean that Holy-Pot Diaphernes thought that Ilsa without Peer would likely kill him. So he hired Hossarian to take revenge, in the event of his death.”

  “That only really makes sense if he also told Ilsa about the dead man’s switch,” Fix said thoughtfully.

  “Which is how she knows that Hossarian is after her,” Wopal added.

  “It also only really makes sense if Holy-Pot and Ilsa were in league.” Indrajit felt as if his head was exploding. “He was going to help her disappear, and get paid in the bargain. Thinkum Tosh was their go-between—we know how easy that would have been for her. They’d collect under the risk-contract with Frodilo Choot, who was picked as the mark because she jilted Mote Gannon. Holy-Pot would pay back some of that money under his risk repurchasing agreement, they’d split it, and Ilsa would flee, believed dead by most but in fact alive and wealthy.”

  “Only Ilsa got wary of her help. She killed Tosh, and then she killed Holy-Pot. He didn’t trust her, if he had a dead man’s switch, so why go into the Palace with us? Maybe he thought he needed to, to help her go through with the plan of faking her death. Or to make her do it.” Fix shook his head, a gesture of admiration. “And she killed him. Figuring she could pose as Lysta, get Orem Thrush to kill Hossarian, and then keep all the money for herself. Why kill Tosh?”

  “To cover her tracks?” Indrajit could only guess. “He knew too much. Or maybe Tosh got greedy. Gannon’s Handlers were hired to kill Ilsa and blame us, killing us in the process to
make sure we wouldn’t object. But if Ilsa was behind the scheme, she didn’t want to die, which means that she thought she could outwit the Handlers. Using her magical power, no doubt she stood a good chance.”

  “But some of the Handlers came wearing the Courting Flower!” Fix snapped. “Which might mean that Tosh betrayed Ilsa from the start, planning to collect on the contract that was, after all, in his name, when Ilsa died. She figured it out and killed him, but not before the Handlers were warned. Or at least, some of them.”

  “We have to warn Choot,” Indrajit said. “And the bank.”

  “What bank?” Wopal asked.

  “Goldsmiths United Depository,” Fix said.

  “I’ll send couriers to both.” Grit Wopal jolted into action, flinging the door open. Indrajit and Fix followed him into the larger palace; Indrajit noted the gray light of early dawn peeping in through windows as the three men headed for an exit.

  “I’m astounded, though,” Indrajit said, thinking out loud. “All this to escape the opera. I mean, I understand committing crimes to get wealth, but it seems that, with her magical gift, there would be an easier way.”

  “Ilsa isn’t trying to escape the opera,” Grit Wopal said. “If all that was at stake here was the opera, no one would have died in the first place, and Ilsa would simply have left when she grew tired of singing.”

  “I don’t understand,” Indrajit said. “You told me she was tired of her work.”

  Wopal stopped and spun to face the other two men. They stood in a room with a single wide table, on which rested Indrajit’s and Fix’s possessions. “The opera house is where Ilsa diverts herself.”

  “The Auction,” Fix said. “Her work is at the Auction, ensuring that Orem Thrush gets exactly what he wants, every time. No wonder he wouldn’t let her leave.”

  “Oh, no,” Indrajit said. “Without the money, and trapped again, Ilsa has only one move left. She’s going to kill him.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “Maybe gather up a squad of Zalaptings?” Indrajit buckled his sword belt over his kilt and headed for the palace’s back door on Wopal’s heels. Fix followed two steps behind, given the larger number of weapons he had to collect.