Hollow Empire

by Sam Hawke

  Down at the river, the horn sounded the beginning of the race. Tain gave me a reassuring smile over the cheers of the crowd. “We’ve got through it all so far. I know the thing with Bradomir was—”

  “You know I was right about Bradomir,” I said quietly, hovering to the back of the crowd as most of the group moved toward the open side of the marquee to watch the boats fly forward. I added sarcastically, “Since it wasn’t me who poisoned him, despite what certain others seem to think.”

  He looked at me sharply, then changed it to a pleasant smile as another Councilor moved nearer to us. Down on the Bright Lake, the athletes cut across the surface of the water with smooth precision, calling out with their powerful strokes. The red Talafar boat had taken an early lead. We watched for a moment before Tain murmured, “We can’t be sure about anything. Bradomir had plenty of enemies. Fortunes know I won’t miss him.”

  I shook my head, and fought to keep my irritation down. “It was the same man, Tain, the same one who’s been watching you. He’ll try again, I’m certain. I’ve talked with your Captain but think—”

  “Honored Chancellor, Credo Jovan, how pleasant.” Sjistevo Ash had slithered up without me realizing. There was no black left in his hair or beard but he wore more perfumed oil than a man half his age. “I’ve barely seen you this karodee. I suppose we don’t need to be worried about assassins in the rafters today?” His smirk left his cold eyes unchanged.

  “Let’s hope not,” I replied levelly. Honor-down, I was tired of this nonsense. “We’ve got a team to support down there.” Said boat was in a distant third; the Doranites’ inexorable rhythm had taken them past the Talafan boat and into what looked like an insurmountable lead, cutting the gleaming water of the Bright Lake like a gliding bird across still skies.

  “I heard your Tashen pulled out of the wrestling,” Tain said innocently. “That was a shame. But I suppose it’s for the best—he wouldn’t have come off that well against some of our international competitors, would he?”

  “He was injured,” Sjistevo retorted, nostrils flaring. “After some Darfri woman took offense at something he said, he supposedly slipped on the edge of the canal and broke his elbow. On a perfectly flat bit of ground, mind you.” He glanced around, eyes fixing on several of the Darfri Councilors. He didn’t trouble to lower his voice. “Doesn’t pay to offend the Darfri now, does it?” Sjistevo glared at me before striding away, and Tain sighed wearily. All of the Families had been required to pay reparations to the Darfri and other citizens of the estates they had mistreated, in addition to funding schooling and Guild sponsorships, but they had done so with various degrees of resentment. For all that the city had purportedly embraced its religious history—having that religion come dramatically to life by exploding the lake in our faces made it rather difficult to refute, after all—there remained factions ready and willing to blame Darfri magic for everything that went wrong in their lives.

  “They can’t seem to make up their minds, can they?” I took a sip of my kavcha and took my attention from the race to check on Dija. She was mid-mouthful, lines of concentration on her small brow. “Am I a paranoid recluse, seeing conspiracies that aren’t there, or am I some secret assassin behind everything they don’t like?”

  A grin. “I’ve always said you have many skills.”

  “Ha. Shame understanding Darfri magic isn’t one of them.” I hadn’t meant it to come out so sour, but Tain understood, as he always did. He put a comforting hand on my shoulder.

  “It’s a new world for all of us, but especially Hadrea,” he murmured, while the rest of the crowd oohed in appreciation at a particularly close passage through the final arch. “It’s been a lot for her to digest.”

  The Compact reached with the Darfri elders after the siege had guaranteed funding for fresken training of potential Speakers, including Hadrea, who had reached adulthood without being taught how to develop and use that potential. It was what Hadrea had wanted her whole life, but frustration with her teacher and the pace of her learning was apparent in her bristling defensiveness or sullen silences if the subject came up. “She’s having a hard time,” I agreed neutrally. I had no desire to talk about it, so I looked around instead. “Where’s Kalina? You said the Prince insulted her?” Hiukipi was watching the race with one of the western nobles but my sister wasn’t with him.

  Sudden applause erupted as the Doranite team sailed through the finish point. To my disquiet, as I turned to say something to Tain, the Darfri Speaker An-Ostada stood there instead as if we had summoned her.

  She was a large and impressive woman, a charismatic presence who commanded attention and respect without effort. She wore traditional Darfri-styled clothing, with layered skirts and a brightly embroidered scarf covering her speckled gray-and-black hair. Heavy decorative earrings pulled her lobes low and swung down near her shoulders, and her eyes, dark and bright in her wrinkled face, passed over me coolly.

  “Credo Jovan,” she said.

  “An-Ostada. That was … uh, a good race, don’t you think?”

  She shrugged one shoulder, as if to admonish me for my petty enjoyment of such trifles. “I need a word with you.”

  I blinked. “With me?”

  “Was I unclear?” An-Ostada had reached an age and level of power and influence that overwhelmed any instinct for politeness. As I hesitated, she clicked her tongue, visibly irritated. “Outside, please. I do not wish to be overheard.”

  I glanced around the marquee. Dija was still at Merenda’s side, listening to the older woman explain something about the race. Merenda had been something of an athlete, and had competed at the Games herself a few years back. An attractive Perest-Avani diplomat had waylaid Tain, but two blackstripes were within arm’s reach, alert. Still no sign of Kalina.

  An-Ostada clicked her tongue again. “All right,” I said awkwardly, and followed her outside the tent. Cries and cheers of the crowd, including large thickets of exultant Doranites, clattered around us. We’d never spoken privately before. In Council and in conversations with Tain and the Darfri Councilors, An-Ostada was reluctant to discuss any matters relating to the spirits or fresken and vocally opposed what she regarded as government interference in religious matters. My apprehension turned hopeful; perhaps this attempt at a private conversation meant she was finally ready to have a more candid discussion.

  “What can I do for you, An-Ostada? Is there more news from the estates?” For much of the year An-Ostada and her students had been traveling to the various regions of Sjona, learning to connect to the spirits of the land and educating the local populations about how to live harmoniously with these otherworldly beings. In the last few months, though, they had found regions where local spirits had vanished without explanation, and to the bafflement of locals. An-Ostada appeared to consider it an exclusively Darfri matter, but it seemed either a troubling sign our attempts at restoring balance and correcting our errors were failing, or something more sinister. “The Chancellor is taking it seriously, I hope you know, and so am I.”

  She fixed me with her stare, long enough to make me squirm uncomfortably like a child in trouble. “It is about An-Hadrea,” she said at last. “I have some concerns. Perhaps if you spoke to her about her attitude?”

  A laugh almost escaped me. I wanted to say, Have you met Hadrea? “Hadrea is her own woman,” I said warily. “I would not presume to interfere in Darfri business.”

  An-Ostada shook her head, sending her earrings rattling. “I had concerns about temperament in the beginning. There is an openness and a humility necessary in our practice that is the antithesis of stubbornness and ambition. This is why we begin teaching children when they are very young.”

  An ominous flutter in my chest. Hadrea might resent her teacher but she had always wanted to be a Speaker, had always known she was meant to be one. She’d saved the whole bloody city when An-Ostada and the rest of the elders had been powerless to stop Os-Woorin tearing it apart. Honor-down, she was a near-mythic figure in this
city; she couldn’t be denied her heritage, no matter how frustrating a student she might be. “You promised to teach her. That was part of the Compact. You haven’t forgotten what she did for everyone?”

  Her reply was drowned by a horn blast. Not too far from where we stood, the karodee committee were preparing to present the winners’ ribbon to the Doranite rowers, who were standing, strong arms raised and clasped, enormous grins on their faces. I was momentarily distracted looking over at the announcers. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch—” But then I broke off. Because I had seen, suddenly and with perfect clarity, a familiar face. A man walking in the opposite direction to the main press of bodies moving toward the winners, back toward the Council marquee. Ordinary, studied ordinariness, but no one is that ordinary.

  And he’d seen me, too.

  In a flash, he had changed direction and gone. I spared one quick look for my own guard, for a blackstripe, for Tain or Kalina or anyone of use, but there was nobody within immediate range and he was disappearing even now. Not this time, I decided, and with an apologetic shrug at An-Ostada, I sprang after him.

  My obsessive tendencies were sometimes useful. I’d pictured his face, his hair, the shape of him, so many times, gone over and over my brief glimpses, that I could follow his head and shoulders as he pushed through the crowd. His haircut wasn’t quite fashionable. He carried his right shoulder fractionally higher than his left. The press of people worked against both of us and it wasn’t until he had almost reached the pedestrian bridge—what had once been Bell’s Bridge, now the rebuilt and renamed Compact Bridge—that he could lengthen his stride and make any distance on me. This is stupid, he’s an assassin, what are you going to do if you catch him? But we had no chance of finding this nondescript man in a city bursting with visitors. If I didn’t track him now, the next time could be too late. My hands found the pouches Kalina had sewed inside my clothing. I wasn’t without my own defenses.

  He turned, then; a casual turn, just a man shielding his face from the sun, but his gaze swept over the crowd from which he’d emerged. I stepped swiftly behind a taller woman, whose headscarf had loosened in the breeze, shielding me, and held my breath. When I chanced a glance around my shelter he had moved on, striding toward the Compact Bridge steps in a less hurried fashion. Hopefully he assumed he’d lost me. I continued, taking extra care to keep several people between us.

  The docks were quieter than usual, with little trade taking place in these last few hectic days of karodee, and no boat traffic permitted because of the water events. Still, there were enough people moving about between boats, warehouses, and the harbormaster’s offices that I had to concentrate hard to keep my eyes on my quarry.

  He passed into the industrial district beyond the docks known as the Fives, striding unconcernedly, looking every inch an ordinary merchant. I kept my distance and stayed behind carts and pedestrians as much as possible. The clang of industry drowned out the distant rise and fall of the crowd at the rushuk ball game in the arena, the cries of hawking of un-Guilded street wares, the blessings called out from upper-story windows. I smelled oil, metal, and fire in the air. No ribbons or flags adorned the functional buildings in this area.

  Once, the man stepped swiftly into an alley, and from behind the cabbage-laden cart I was using as shelter I saw his profile as he backed in, his movements easy and deliberate. A certain calm, set look about his plain face chilled me. He hadn’t assumed I’d lost him, then. The various powders and phials in my pouches suddenly felt less than adequate. I silently cursed myself for having left without my own houseguard, or a blackstripe—someone, anyone, who could have helped, or at the very least witnessed that it was a real person, not a phantom. Coming alone had been foolish; going into that alley after him would be even more so.

  Before I could decide to abort the entire effort, though, the man emerged, a stick of janjan in his mouth, and strolled on with no obvious caution. Still, I waited for the next cart to rumble up the street before I followed behind it, my breath short. The assassin turned to the left, then to the left again, moving into quieter streets. Soon I had no wagon traffic to shelter me, only small carts and pedestrians. It was growing harder to find ways to stay out of sight but I dared not expose myself.

  Finally I saw him duck between two buildings into an alley shabby with graffiti and refuse, and when I drew level with it from the other side of the street I was just in time to see his dark head disappear into a doorway. Excitement pounded in my chest, and trepidation. After all this time, weeks spent worrying about this man, of wondering in weaker moments whether I really was cracking up, seeing dangers that weren’t there, now I had a location. We were deep in the Fives, on a street I couldn’t name, but I marked the graffiti on the bricks near the alley: a picture of a kitsa, a few Darfri symbols, a crown. I could find this again. I could leave, find an Order Guard on patrol at the docks, send for Chen. Or go straight to the blackstripes captain and leave it in their hands.

  But what if it’s too late? I crossed the street and sidled down the alley, trying to determine which door he’d entered. There were several, but no windows; most of these buildings were shared-wall workshops and storage facilities. I risked going closer. What if he’s only meeting someone here, or changing clothes, or what if he’s here to assassinate someone else? Leaving was a risk as well, a risk he would not be here when I came back with reinforcements, a risk there would be nothing in this dingy-looking place to identify or implicate him. But if I could get inside, confirm whether this was a place he was likely to return to …

  “’S the right place,” a voice sounded from the shadows, making me jump. My fingers had gripped a powder packet but released it as the speaker revealed themself: a child of no obvious gender with a face of baked-on grime and shrewd toughness. They’d been so still beside a heap of broken and discarded buckets, some oozing a mystery black oily substance, that they’d blended in with the surroundings.

  “What’s that?” I asked carefully. “What did you say just now?”

  The child stretched their arms out with threaded fingers and made a show of yawning. “Was just saying, it’s the right place. You look like you’re wondering if you’re at the right door, is all.”

  Scrambling for time, I slipped a hand inside my paluma to find my purse. Family chits were no good at most of the temporary karodee stalls and attractions, so even Credolen had taken to carrying coin. I flicked one down to the child, deciding the voice indicated a girl, and gave her a rueful smile. “Am I that obvious?”

  She inspected the coin then tucked it away with lightning fingers. “You got the look is all. Too rich and clean to be down here except for that.”

  Grateful my tattoos were hidden by my sleeves, I admitted, “First time,” and she grinned, her teeth yellow. I couldn’t resist adding, “Have you got somewhere warm to stay tonight, kid? It’s still cold at night.”

  She curled her lip. “You reckon I don’t know exactly how cold it is, mate?”

  Feeling stupid, and embarrassed, I dropped my smile. “I just meant, go to any of the Guildhalls, they’ll organize you a hot meal if you haven’t got anyone looking out for you.”

  “I got people,” she snapped back, her jaw hard and hands balled into fists, angry as an animal whose tail had been pulled. “I’m no kid. Don’t assume nothing about me, mate.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean—” But she had already grabbed her small bag of belongings and disappeared through a gap in a rickety fence. Regretfully, I turned back to the silent face of the building she’d indicated. If random strangers regularly entered the building, it likely wasn’t the assassin’s private lair; it might only be a thoroughfare, or a drop-off location. If I left now for help, the chances of finding him again would fall.

  I stepped across to the door and listened. Nothing: no voices, no movement. I tried the handle gently. It was bolted, but the door was a poorly fitted one with a reasonable crack, so a squirt of Malek’s acid made short work of the bolt. I opened the door a
handswidth, holding my breath, but there was no light and no shout of alarm from inside.

  Just as I was slipping into the darkness, a movement in the alley caught my eye. I could have sworn a small figure had ducked behind the debris to my right. Unsettling, perhaps, but not enough to deter me. Tain’s safety was at stake.

  It was unlit inside, but enough light crept in through cracks in the external door and the one on the far side to see the rough outlines of looming equipment and crates. A chair by the door, still warm to my touch, indicated someone had been keeping guard there until recently. I padded across the room to the other door. I just needed information, nothing more. A sense of what this place was, something to give me enough to find the assassin again.

  Voices filtered through, faint but audible. At least two or three. I crouched low, risked pushing the door an agonizingly gentle crack, and listened.

  It took some time to follow the conversation, but it became clear it was a business discussion of some kind. There were two men, one with a very deep, rumbling voice, and a woman who interjected occasionally; by the way the others immediately silenced at her words I surmised she was in charge. They were talking about selling something in various districts of the city. Something un-Guilded at least, illegal probably, but nothing about the Chancellor or assassinations. I sat back on my heels, suddenly uncertain I even had the right place.

  “… if he gives you some trouble,” the woman interjected slowly, her voice husky, strained, like a singer who’d performed too long, “then we’ll give him some trouble.”

  “He’ll come ’round,” the higher-voiced man said. “Everyone knows by now Void’s where the money is.”

  I realized, at last, what I was overhearing, and swore silently. This was nothing to do with an assassination. Void was the drug so prevalent in Silasta these days, and these must be drug dealers, probably part of the gang that had been giving Chen such trouble. The kid in the alley must have sent me in here thinking I was looking to buy. You got the look, she’d said. I felt like the worst kind of fool. It had been stupidly risky to follow him in the first place, but equally stupid to have lost him wasting my time eavesdropping on petty criminals.