Three Quarters

by Tanya Huff

  "Ah yes, there is nothing like a beautiful woman who appreciates a good blade." The stall's owner bustled around and laid a pudgy arm around Vree's shoulders. "That dagger is…" He paused. Swallowed. And started to sweat. "For a small woman, you have quite the grip."

  "I don't like to be touched."

  His smile wobbled and he snatched his arm back. "I'll remember that."

  "Probably."

  Bannon shook his head as they walked away, leaving the stall owner clutching his genitals and gasping like a landed fish. "I think you hurt his feelings."

  "At least I left them attached."

  Torches had been lit by the time they reached the carpet shop, but the narrow streets were still busy – probably because every second shop sold alcohol of some kind. Beer, wine, and the apparently popular something pink with a tiny spear stuck through a pineapple chunk. Although clothing ranged from kilts to sarongs to breeches, they were the only people in army blue.

  "We may need to buy a change of clothes," Bannon noted.

  "Something in black wouldn't hurt if we're going to be climbing around at night," Vree acknowledged.

  "Do you see anyone in black?"

  "That guard."

  Bannon leaned out and peered at the guard who was suddenly not looking their way. "Besides him?"

  Up and down the street, the clothing was as bright as the buildings, many of the tunics printed with birds or flowers or cats. "There is no slaughtering way…"

  "We could probably get something in silk."

  Silk. "Silk's a good strong fabric," Vree said slowly. "You can bend iron with it when it's wet. Useful."

  Bannon grinned. "Very."

  "I'm sorry, I couldn't help but overhear. You're looking for a silk carpet?"

  They turned together to face the middle-aged woman standing on the other side of the pile of rugs that nearly filled the front of the shop. She was pleasantly plump with dark hair and pale brown eyes and skin a little lighter than theirs.

  "We're looking for Ilagian carpets," Vree told her.

  She smiled broadly and spread her hands. "Excellent. We specialize in Ilagian carpets." Hands still spread, she beckoned them into the shop. "In fact, my employer, Hy Sa'lacvi, is Ilagian himself and imports only the most beautiful carpets from his homeland and although he isn't here tonight, he has taught me everything he knows. Now, this beauty…"

  At first Vree was impressed by the woman's knowledge. As time passed and every attempt they made to leave was somehow twisted into another examination of another stack of carpet, she began to grow annoyed. Although a variety of merchants intent on separating soldiers from their money surrounded the barracks and most camps, assassins were usually left to choose as they pleased. This woman almost had them convinced they needed a carpet. Bannon had gone so far as to give her the measurements of the area beside his bunk. Vree had her hand on her dagger hilt and had planned her strike – up under the ribs, slice through the heart, wrap the body in a red wool rug – when customers obviously carrying more coin entered the shop and saved them.

  "At least we found out Hy Sa'lacvi has the rooms upstairs." Bannon picked up the pace as they reached the street.

  "And that he isn't in them right now." Vree effortlessly slipped through a group of laughing matrons all dressed in shades of purple and fell into step with her brother. "Safer to search them when he's home though. A sorcerer would set up spells to protect his rooms when he's not in them." A man, sorcerer or not, could be avoided. Spells were a different matter.

  "Tomorrow then."

  He was thinking about full body massages, she could tell. "Tonight."

  "We should wait until we're a little less obvious."

  "Until we're less obvious?" Vree snorted as a pair of heavy-set men in a very short kilts, sleeveless tunics, and shell necklaces sauntered past. Fortunately, it was now full dark and the torchlight hid as much as it revealed. "Or were you referring to the guard watching us from over by the wineskin seller?" she sighed, trying not to listen to the fading sound of bare thighs slapping.

  "That too."

  "Think he's going to follow us all night?"

  "Seems likely."

  "People seem to be avoiding him," she noted as they changed direction slightly. The pattern of the street eddied around the guard, even the very drunk maintaining a careful distance of more than an arm's length.

  "Almost looks like they're scared of him," Bannon agreed.

  "Well, who isn't afraid of a great big guy dressed all in black and carrying a sword? Even if he's not likely to use it very well."

  A moment later they moved into the guard's personal space, the pattern of the street now ebbing around them as well.

  "You were on the gate when we arrived," Bannon said after sweeping a slow gaze up the guard's body from sandals to helm. "Didn't catch your name."

  "Keln." He looked confused; prompted to answer by fear, unsure of what he should be afraid of.

  "You were watching us, Keln," Vree purred by his ear. By the time he turned to face her, she'd moved to the other ear and was asking, "Why?" He whirled around but she was back beside Bannon when he stopped. "Why, Keln?" she repeated.

  Keln jerked forward then stopped when he realized they were suddenly flanking him. "Orin thinks you're troublemakers," he snarled.

  "Us?" Bannon grinned. "We're not troublemakers, Keln; we deal with troublemakers."

  "Not in this town."

  "Wherever we're sent, Keln."

  "Stop saying my name!" The big man pushed past them, shoving the rack of wineskins out of the way as he plunged into the crowd. Someone cried out in pain, someone else swore, and Vree caught the rack before it fell.

  "Can't say we didn't warn him," Bannon sighed.

  "It's easier when they know we're assassins."

  "People avoid us when they know we're assassins."

  "And that's easier." She frowned at a wineskin. "There's an image of a parrot burned onto this. Why would someone burn the image of a parrot into a wineskin?

  Bannon peered at the leather and shrugged. "I have no idea."

  *

  Shops and stalls that didn't sell alcohol closed up just before midnight. Hy Sa'lacvi returned just after. He was short, round, and wearing a long, bright orange sarong patterned with palm leaves. Half a dozen shell bracelets gleamed against one dark wrist. As a sorcerer, he made a believable carpet seller.

  Staggering a little, like everyone else on the streets, Vree and Bannon started back toward their inn, lost the pair of guards watching them – Keln and the remaining unnamed of the four – and ended up a few moments later at the top of the stairs that lead to Hy Sa'lacvi's second floor rooms.

  Moving silently to the open window, Vree tossed the Nighthawk moth she'd snagged by one of the sputtering torches in over the sill. No lights. No whistles. No moth suddenly aflame. It seemed this access, at least, had not been protected by sorcery.

  As they crouched inside the room, waiting for their eyes to adjust, the moth fluttered toward them. It was almost back to the window when an enormous pair of white paws came out of the darkness and brought it to the floor. The paws were more impressive than the cat they were attached to as the long-haired calico whacking the struggling insect across the painted wood was distinctly short in the leg.

  Vree caught Bannon's eye and made a face. No one had mentioned Hy Sa'lacvi had a pet. In their business, pets were more trouble than guards or servants combined.

  As the moth managed to get into the air and out of range, the cat bounded up onto the narrow table that ran down the center of the room. Vree heard glass containers chime. The cat whirled, leapt a stack of brass weights, raced past a row of bottles, and charged through a cluster of squat clay jugs.

  Vree caught the weights.

  Bannon caught the bottles.

  Neither of them could get to the jugs in time.

  The first one to topple hit the floor with a crack, spilling out a pile of yellow granules. The second hit the floor with
more of a thud, the viscous fluid in it adding a soft splat. When the fluid hit the granules, there was a high pitched whine, a loud bang, and a cloud of purple smoke.

  As the two assassins slipped back out the window, they heard the cat sneeze and Hy Sa'lacvi yelling in his own language. From the roof across the courtyard, they watched the smoke billowing up into the sky.

  "That's a lot of smoke without fire," Bannon murmured.

  Vree nodded. "We can assume the sorcerer part is correct anyway." She grinned as the cat raced down the stairs to the courtyard and disappeared in the shadows. Glittering with purple highlights, Hy Sa'lacvi stumbled out onto the landing.

  "Mirran!" He had a thin blanket wrapped around his waist. "Mirran! Get here! I not angry, I just need see if you all right!"

  Below, in the darkness, the cat sneezed.

  "Fine! You be hurt cat, I no care. I sleep now!" Pivoting on one bare heel, he stomped back into his rooms.

  "Definitely a sorcerer," Bannon snickered. "Any one else would've been told to shut his slaughtering hole." Pale faces had shown in a few of the other windows overlooking the courtyard but no one had protested being so rudely awakened. "I wonder why he called for Mirrin in Imperial?"

  "He probably got her here and figures that's what she understands. We're not going to find out anything else tonight," she added leading the way down to the alley. "We might as well go back to the inn and get some sleep."

  "You can go back to the inn, sister-mine. I've got other things to check out."

  *

  "You smell like…" Vree leaned closer and lifted her brother's arm to her nose. "Limes. And you're greasy."

  "Oily." He pushed his wrist through her grip and back again, the motion blatantly suggestive. "Harder for an enemy to get a grip."

  "I doubt it was enemies gripping you," she snorted, releasing him and stepping away from the bed. "I've done a bit of recon. Orin and his friends are lurking in front of the inn."

  "So? If they do anything more than lurk, we'll take them out."

  "Just like that?"

  "We're on target and they got in the way."

  "So now we're on target?"

  Bannon grinned, rolled out of bed and reached for his kilt. "Now, it's convenient. I'm starved, let's go eat."

  "It's almost noon."

  "Which is when things start happening in this town."

  *

  "You think they're going to arrest us?" Bannon wondered, as he worked his way along the inn's buffet table, piling food on his plate.

  Vree glanced out at the four guards in time to see Orin throwing a cup of liquid back in the face of a water-seller. "No. I think they want that letter of credit."

  "You think they'll take the first chance they get to jump us?"

  "Yeah."

  "Idiots."

  *

  "Do they think we haven't noticed them?" Vree wondered as Orin and crew nearly knocked over a sausage cart trying to keep them in sight.

  "I don't think they think." Bannon gestured at the nearest alley. "You want to lure them to their doom?"

  "No, let's see how long their attention span is."

  They lost the guards in a crowded ale house, slipping unseen out the back and up onto the roof. It was a simple matter to make their way to Hy Sa'lacvi's carpet shop without ever returning to the ground.

  "I can't believe how close together everything is." Bannon stepped from roof to roof, past a line of disinterested pigeons dozing in the sun.

  "And how much of it seems to be held together by paint," Vree added adjusting her stride as a board began to give underfoot. They had no fear of being heard for those who slept on the upper floors were out serving or servicing the visitors to the South Reaches and anyone still asleep wouldn't be staying so close to the harbor.

  Hy Sa'lacvi was sitting in the courtyard behind his shop; an abacus, stick of charcoal, and a pile of parchment seemed to indicate he was doing accounts. While they watched, Mirrin leapt up onto his lap desk and knocked a mug of steaming liquid over the pile.

  "I wish I understood Ilagian," Bannon murmured as the sorcerer screamed at the departing cat. "That sounds like some impressive swearing."

  As soon as it became obvious he was going to begin again with dry parchment, they dropped silently off the roof onto the landing and slipped into his rooms.

  "A considerate person would have a note or something lying around," Bannon grunted a short time later. "Yes, I am the vanguard of an Astoblite invasion. Kill me." He stared at the purple stain on the floor. "And it's no slaughtering fun going through a sorcerer's things; you never know when something might bite you on the ass."

  "I didn't find anything either," Vree sighed. "We're going to have to do this the hard way."

  "You mean the boring way," Bannon protested as they climbed back onto the roof. The soft click, click of the abacus drew his gaze down to the courtyard. "He's not going anywhere for a while, do we both have to stay?"

  "For the love of Jiir, Bannon, you're still greasy from your last body rub!"

  "Oily. And I was just thinking that now would be the perfect time for me to pick us out some clothing that would help us blend in a little better. It's what soldiers on leave do."

  Vree glanced down at the pile of blank parchment and compared it to the pile Hy Sa'lacvi had already covered with neat lines of tiny numbers. He was clearly going to be a while. "Fine." She couldn't understand why being on vacation suddenly made people wear clothing they wouldn't be caught dead in otherwise, but it was what soldiers on leave did and that was what they were supposed to be. Shonna had returned to barracks wearing a bright yellow tunic printed with purple flowers. "Do not," she warned her brother as he turned to leave, "bring me back anything printed with parrots, kittens, or palm trees. And don't take on Orin and his crew without me."

  Moving into the only available bit of shade, she sat and watched their target do his accounting. Except he wasn't exactly their target. Pity, she thought, fingers curled around the pommel of her dagger. We could have killed him last night and been on our way home by now.

  Maybe he's working out the numbers of Astobilite soliders he needs for the invasion. If he is, I can kill him now.

  Before she could move, the woman who'd tried so hard to sell them a carpet the night before emerged from the back of the shop and told him she'd sold the small red and gold rug. "Good. Good!" Hy Sa'lacvi added a note to one of the finished sheets and flashed a brilliant smile up at the woman. "Maybe this month we make enough to import more, yes?"

  Maybe import more was a euphemism for more soldiers.

  "Maybe you should import something that doesn't unravel when you move it," the woman snorted.

  Or not. Vree sighed. She'd never spent this much time on a target she could have taken out within moments of first marking him. Boring, boring, bor…

  Mirrin clambered into her lap and shoved her head under Vree's hand.

  Over the years, she'd had every type of insect imaginable climb over her while waiting to take out a target. There'd been half a dozen snakes, a few lizards, and on one memorable occasion a rat that'd had to be fatally discouraged from snacking on Bannon's foot. Dogs were avoided and, as a rule, cats avoided them.

  Mirrin demanded attention more insistently.

  When Bannon returned, Mirrin was napping with her head on Vree's dagger, and Hy Sa'lacvi was filling his last piece of parchment. The breeches Bannon had brought her were dark green silk that hung low on her hips and flowed over her legs like water. The sleeveless tunic had been block printed with large pale green fish.

  "You never said no fish," he protested, blocking her blow.

  He wore a similar style in dark red and gold – the vest lightly laced across his chest with with gold cord, the whole thing, fish free.

  *

  They ate in the ale house across the road from the carpet shop, Bannon having taking their letter of credit to a money-lender for some coin. As they ate, they watched Hy Sa'lacvi try to sell a carpet to a
middle-aged couple dressed in matching sleeveless tunics and short breeches.

  "Do they know how ridiculous they look?" Bannon wondered, eating a small onion off the point of his knife.

  Vree shrugged and peeled another shrimp.

  By the time they finished their meal – having switched their full tankards for the convenient empties of their neighbors, Hy Sa'lacvi had turned the shop over to his employee, pushed his way out into the milling crowds, and began walking toward the harbor.

  Vree and Bannon followed, careful not to be seen by either their quarry or Orin's people. Given both crowds and darkness, it wasn't hard. Eventually, after a short stop at a bakery and a slightly longer one at a wine merchant's, they found themselves at the harbor watching Hy Sa'lacvi go into a warehouse near the North Pier.

  "That's it, the Astobian ships are tied up at the North Pier. We can kill him."

  Vree stopped her brother's forward movement with a well placed elbow. "He could be seeing another trader about a carpet. We need to be sure."

  "Fine." He rolled his eyes. "We'll sneak into the warehouse, get close enough to find out exactly what Hy Sa'lacvi is up to and when we find out he's helping the Astobians invade, then we kill him."

  "That works."

  *

  There were four men and two women sprawled on cushions around a low table in an empty corner of the warehouse. One of the men and one of the women were definitely Astobian. Three of other four were South Reaches locals and the last was wearing the distinctive orange-on-blue parrot tunic of a visitor. When Hy Sa'lacvi joined them, money changed hands and tiles were slapped down on the table.

  Catching Bannon's eye, Vree signed, No kill.

  He nodded and signed, Stay?

  She signed back, Maybe kill later. Prospect cheered him up and they settled in to watch and wait for the tile game to become strategy and tactics. It never did.

  *

  "So tomorrow we tell the governor she was imagining things and head home," Bannon sighed as they headed back toward their inn. "Hy Sa'lacvi is no more planning a slaughtering invasion than I am. And he sucks at tiles."