Company of Strangers, #1

by Melissa McShane

  “Yes, and that’s what it can do when it isn’t fully functional,” Master Fontanna said, a little smugly. He put the stylus back and took the box from Alaric. “Excellent work. You’ve more than earned the rest of your pay, and the bonus.”

  More pay? Sienne was about to protest when she remembered the day she’d met Dianthe and Alaric, how Alaric had objected to Sienne receiving fifty lari up front, and guessed if Dianthe hadn’t taken pity on her obvious impecuniousness, she’d only have gotten twenty-five.

  Master Fontanna pulled a rope hanging near one of the ladders. “May I ask if you found anything else?”

  “A few things,” Dianthe said. “Some coins. We stumbled across a hidden cache with what appear to be six lenses, some of them still magical. A pendant.”

  “I’m interested in anything that came from that keep. I can make it worth your while.”

  “Sorry, these are spoken for. But if our buyer doesn’t want them, we’ll come to you.”

  “I think, as your sponsor, I have right of first refusal on your salvage.”

  “That’s not in the contract,” Alaric said. “We’re sorry, but we’ve given our word.”

  “I see.” Master Fontanna’s demeanor grew cold, but his voice, when he spoke next, was as warm and rich as ever. “Hermia will see to your payment. Good day to you.”

  “Good day,” Alaric said. Master Fontanna smiled pleasantly at Sienne, then left the room.

  “Wonderful. He’s upset,” Dianthe said. “Maybe we should have sold him the artifacts.”

  “We need Neoma’s goodwill more than his,” Alaric said. “He’s not the only person we work for.”

  “Yes, but he’s our best client.”

  “We can’t afford to be exclusive.” Alaric let out a deep sigh. “Maybe we can offer half of the artifacts to Neoma and bring the rest to him.”

  The door opened. A short, gray-haired woman wearing half-moon spectacles rimmed in gold entered, carrying a carved wooden box about the size of the artifact they’d given Master Fontanna. She set the box on one of the chairs and opened it, revealing several white bags of varying sizes. “Your payment,” she said. “One hundred fifty lari, plus one hundred for the artifact.”

  She handed Dianthe two fist-sized bags and one about half their size. Dianthe tucked them away in the pack she wore slung over her shoulder. “Don’t you want to count it?” the woman said.

  “You’ve always been honest with me before,” Dianthe said.

  The woman nodded and shut the box. “Good luck to you.” She held the door open for them.

  Outside the manor, Sienne said, “Will we go to…Neoma…now?”

  “Yes, and if she buys everything, we can divide the proceeds, you can take your share, and then you’re free to find another contract,” Alaric said.

  Sienne hoped she didn’t look disappointed. “Good.”

  Neoma’s shop was in a quiet, run-down part of Fioretti. It wasn’t quite a slum, but it had the air of a neighborhood that was headed that way. Still, it was clean, and lacked the loitering, aimless, hard-eyed men of the streets surrounding the pub where they’d met Perrin. It seemed like ages ago they’d ventured there. Only six days. No wonder Alaric and the others didn’t feel compelled to stick together. Six days wasn’t enough to build those kinds of bonds, even if they did include facing danger together.

  Bells jangled as Dianthe pushed the freshly-scrubbed door of the shop open. Sienne gaped. Tall wooden bookcases, their shelves filled with all manner of items, blocked her view of the store’s interior, giving it a claustrophobic feel. It took her a moment to realize there was organization to the mess. One shelf held nothing but boxes, mostly carved wood, but also metal and ivory and even a couple made of stone. Another shelf was filled with toys, some of them artifacts that worked on their own. Trinkets Sienne had no name for cluttered a low trunk that might be valuable all by itself.

  “She’s not a…fence, is she?” Sienne said in a low voice.

  Alaric shook his head. “Just a dealer in miscellaneous goods from all over the world. Neoma has a good eye for what will sell.”

  “She needs to relocate, find someplace where the foot traffic is better,” Dianthe said, “but she likes this area.”

  “That’s right,” a deep voice said. “And I notice you never have any trouble finding me.”

  A tall, broad-shouldered woman came around the end of a shelf containing old-fashioned scroll cases decorated with bronze and copper studs. She had hair as short as Alaric’s, but dyed bright crimson, and her arms looked as if she could lift one of the shelves without breaking a sweat. She smiled at Sienne. “Who’s the babe in arms?”

  “Sienne,” Sienne said. “I’m a wizard.”

  Neoma’s eyebrows went nearly to her hairline. “You are not. And in company with the Ansorjan Mountain?”

  “Times change,” Alaric said, in a tone of voice that suggested that line of conversation was a dead end. “We have some things for you to look at.”

  Neoma gave him a narrow-eyed stare. “Oh, I think I want to hear the story first.”

  “We needed a wizard to access our last scrapping job,” Dianthe said. “That’s all the story there is.”

  “I’m sure it’s not, but you’re entitled to your privacy.” Neoma shrugged and turned away. “Come on back to my office, and let’s see what you have.”

  Neoma’s “office” was a small space divided from the rest of the store by three bookcases, their shelves full of miscellaneous items that weren’t organized at all. A tall table made of ash and an equally tall stool were wedged into one corner. The table held a brass lamp with bright white magical lights illuminating its surface and a magnifying glass on a matching brass frame that screwed into the table top. Neoma settled herself on the stool and crooked a finger at Dianthe. Dianthe opened her pack and removed one of the glass and metal artifacts, setting it in the precise center of the table.

  “Interesting,” Neoma said, prodding it with one long finger. “What does it do?”

  “We don’t know. It has a little magic still on it, but not enough to make it work properly. At least, we assume not. If you press the gems, some of them move.”

  Dianthe had cleaned all the artifacts free of soot, with Sienne’s assistance creating water. They hadn’t wanted to submerge the things, so they’d used the ends of Dianthe’s lock picks to get at the crevices where the gems were attached to the metal cuffs. Neoma picked up this one, studded with round, smooth lapis lazuli stones. She pressed one of them, and it made a tiny click. White light ran across the engraving. Neoma drew in a startled breath and raised it to her eye to look through. “Interesting,” she said again. She held it out to Alaric. “Recognize this?”

  Sienne craned her head to look over Alaric’s arm. A tiny picture of a grass hummock surrounded by worn flagstones, its detail as fine as if they were actually there, showed in the circle of the glass. A squirrel loped across the middle distance from left to right and disappeared.

  “That’s the ruin where we found these,” Alaric said. “Looks like…the view from the northwest tower.”

  “Some kind of watching device,” Neoma said. “Keep an eye on the place while you’re gone. You found more of these?”

  Dianthe laid them out on the table. Three of them were dark. One, studded with pearls, showed darkness that shivered when the gems were pressed. The fifth showed a view none of them recognized. “These three might be really valuable,” Neoma said, nudging the ones that still worked, more or less. “If they can be reset to show new locations, they might be very valuable indeed. The other three are pretty enough, so a collector who doesn’t care about the condition of his artifacts might want them. I’ll give you a hundred for the lot.”

  “Ninety for five. I think we’ll keep this one. Our client expressed an interest, and we’d like his goodwill,” Alaric said, plucking the partially-working one from the lineup.

  “Eighty-five, then. I have to make a profit.”

  “Done.”<
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  Dianthe shook the coins out onto the table. “Very good condition,” Neoma said. “They’re not uncommon, but the condition should make up for that. Fifteen for the set.”

  Sienne felt more excited about this than she had about the lenses. Her first find! True, it wasn’t worth much, but that only made her feel less guilty about defacing one of them as a keepsake.

  “Then there’s this,” Dianthe said, removing the bluestone pendant. It glittered brilliantly in the lamp’s light. “It’s not magical, just pretty.”

  “And big. The shape’s odd.”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “I doubt it. Makes it unique. I know a couple of people who’d pay well for this. Pair it with the right chain, and it will make quite the statement.” Neoma held it up to the light to watch it glitter. “Sixty.”

  “That’s acceptable.” Dianthe pushed the coins into a little pile and slung her pack over her shoulder.

  Neoma reached beneath the table and brought out a locked box about the length of her intimidating forearm. It flexed alarmingly as she set it down. Sienne had never seen a wooden box treated with invulnerability before. It looked deceptively flimsy. Neoma leaned down and breathed heavily on the lock, humming a low note as she did so. It clicked open, and the lid popped up.

  Inside were a couple of white sacks, much larger than the ones Master Fontanna’s steward had given them, and some loose faceted gems, and a diamond necklace that made Sienne gasp. Neoma grinned. “Don’t get any ideas, young wizard,” she said. “This box can’t be gotten into by anyone but me.”

  “I wouldn’t steal from anyone,” Sienne said, lifting her chin in defiance.

  “Don’t make promises your scrapping jobs won’t let you keep,” Neoma said. She opened one of the sacks and dug around in it, counting out gold and silver coins into piles. Finally she pushed the piles toward Dianthe. “All square and proper.”

  “Our thanks,” Dianthe said. “Business doing well?”

  “As well as ever.” Neoma tossed the bluestone pendant a couple of times, then dropped it into the box and closed it. The lock clicked shut. “Had an attempted break-in the other day.”

  “You ought to move uptown,” Alaric said. “You won’t always be around to fend off burglars.”

  “I have protection. And my family’s been at this location for three generations. But thanks for your concern.”

  “Scrappers have to stand by one another, don’t they?” Alaric saluted her in a funny way, right hand to left shoulder in a resounding smack. Neoma returned it, grinning again.

  On the street, Sienne said, “Is she a scrapper?”

  “Was,” Dianthe said. “One of the best. She took me and Alaric under her protection back when we first came to Fioretti, six years ago. Taught us how to keep from being cheated by clients and other scrappers. Then her father died, and she retired to run the shop. It’s some of why we take our finds to her first. We owe her more than we can repay.”

  “She’s a firm believer in helping others without looking to profit,” Alaric said. “Says there’s better coin in goodwill and favors.”

  “And speaking of coin, there’s fifty-two lari coming to you,” Dianthe said. “We’ll divide it up back at the hostel. It’s a bad idea to show your money on the street corner.”

  “I’m in no hurry,” Sienne said, then regretted it. Suppose they took that to mean she was desperate for their company? “In fact, could we walk by the jobs board on the way back?”

  “Sure,” said Alaric, “but you can do better than that. The best jobs are had from word of mouth. I’m sure we can find you something.”

  Dianthe shot him a sharp glance Sienne was sure she wasn’t supposed to have witnessed. “We should be looking for something ourselves,” she said. “Those lari won’t last forever.”

  Alaric shrugged. “Plenty of time for that.”

  The jobs board was as unpromising as the last several times Sienne had looked at it. Alaric regarded it with the stern appraisal of a man sizing up his daughter’s latest suitor. “Don’t ever work for this woman. She’s notoriously slow to pay out, and requires all salvage to be turned over to her for sale—and you get a bare commission, not full value. Oh, by Sisyletus, is this man still hiring? He’s been trying to wring salvage out of that site east of town for two years and hasn’t found anything.”

  “What about this one? The pay is good,” Sienne said.

  “The pay is good because it’s dangerous. That place might as well be the Empty Lands for all it’s crawling with monsters. I don’t recommend taking jobs like that unless you know and trust your companions.”

  “Oh.” Sienne wished Alaric and Dianthe weren’t along for this. True, she appreciated Alaric’s guidance, but it felt like cheating on them to be looking for a different team. Though apparently she was the only one who thought so.

  None of the jobs passed Alaric’s scrutiny. Sienne tried not to feel relieved at this. “Don’t worry,” Alaric said, “we’ll ask around, see what we can find.”

  “Thanks, but you don’t have to—”

  “Helping others without looking to profit, remember?” Alaric smiled and squeezed her shoulder. “Who knows? We might need a favor from you someday.”

  They strolled back to the hostel in the late afternoon sun, which was doing its best to burn away the water that still slicked the cobbles. The air was clean and fresh, if a bit muggy, and the distant sound of the surf made a soothing counterpoint to the rumble of the city as thousands of people went about their business. Sienne trailed behind Alaric and Dianthe, content to let the big man break the crowds. She needed more work, and so what if it wasn’t with them? She needed not to let sentimentality rule her life.

  Traffic increased as they neared Master Tersus’s neighborhood until the street was thronged with people no doubt headed home to their dinners. The idea cheered Sienne. Leofus was taciturn, but he was a good cook, and since he disliked preparing more than one meal for dinner, the scrappers got the same thing he prepared for Master Tersus. She’d had one of these dinners already and it had been excellent.

  They turned the corner and trudged up the slope toward Master Tersus’s house. Sienne felt a shiver of fear at remembering how she’d run up this street in terror only hours before. She’d almost forgotten the greasy man. Now she glanced around, wishing there weren’t so many shrubs and trees giving cover to any madman who might happen by. There, by Master Tersus’s side door. If she didn’t know better, she’d swear—

  Sienne grabbed Dianthe’s arm. “There’s someone by the door.”

  Alaric strode ahead, accelerating until he was running. Dianthe and Sienne followed more slowly. “You!” Alaric shouted. “What are you doing—”

  The figure stepped out of the shadow provided by the bushes sheltering the door. It was Kalanath. A streak of blood ran down his face, his red hair was a mess, and his clothes looked as if he’d gone to the harbor and rolled around on the docks. He gripped his staff in both hands, preparing to fight, but relaxed when he recognized Alaric. “By Kitane’s right arm, what happened to you?” Dianthe exclaimed.

  “I was attacked,” Kalanath said. “By someone who followed me far too well. I beat him off, and he fled. When I gathered my senses, I realized I was close to where you said is Master Tersus’s house, and I came to you.”

  “Why here?” Alaric said.

  “Are you badly hurt?” Dianthe asked.

  Kalanath shook his head. “It is not much. I do not know why here, except…” He shrugged. “It did not feel like a normal attack, and I wished to tell someone. I did not think the city guard would care. I am a foreigner, and suspect.”

  Sienne’s uneasy feeling at seeing Kalanath had grown. “What did he look like? Your attacker?”

  “He was Rafellish. Very short. Wearing wet clothes as if he had not had the sense to come in from the rain.” Kalanath blotted his face and looked surprised to find blood. “Small eyes, a blunt nose…and long black hair that shone with grease.
”

  16

  “But that sounds like the man who chased me!” Sienne exclaimed.

  Kalanath looked her over. “You were not hurt?”

  “I outran him. Barely. When was this?”

  “Some fifteen minutes ago.” Kalanath touched his head again. “He looks much worse than I. He got in one lucky blow before I make him realize attacking is a bad idea.”

  “Come inside,” Dianthe said. “You can clean yourself up, and we can talk about what to do.”

  She showed Kalanath the bath house door. He hesitated before it, then extended his staff to her. “You will watch it?”

  “Of course.” Dianthe took it gingerly, as if it might come to life and attack people of its own volition. When the door was shut, Alaric said, “What’s there to talk about? Kalanath scared the man off.”

  “You don’t think it’s suspicious that Kalanath was attacked by the same man who chased Sienne?”

  “We don’t know that it’s the same person. We shouldn’t jump to conclusions.” But he looked uncertain.

  “It’s a little much for coincidence,” Dianthe said. “And if Kalanath only scared him off instead of killing him—”

  “You think Kalanath should have killed him?” Sienne said.

  “No. It’s like he said—he’s a foreigner, and as cosmopolitan a city as Fioretti is, the guard looks more closely at Ansorjans and Omeirans when it comes to crime. That Kalanath was defending himself might not matter to them. My point is, if the man is still out there, he might still be a threat.”

  The door opened. “I wish to know why this man attacked me and also Sienne,” Kalanath said. He’d washed the blood off his face and finger-combed his hair into a semblance of order. “That is also not good for coincidence.”

  Alaric sighed. “Let’s go into the kitchen,” he suggested.

  Leofus looked up when they all tramped in. “I don’t feed extras,” he said, waving his spoon in Kalanath’s direction.