by D. P. Prior
“Shog,” Buck said, extricating himself from Albert’s embrace, “you’re in there.”
“Yes,” Albert said, “I believe I am.”
“But you’re dead meat, all the same.”
“I am?”
Buck leaned himself against the counter and puffed out his cheeks. “Chef was well liked by the guild. Right up Dozier’s arse, he was.”
“Dozier?”
“Guildmaster of the Night Hawks. Top dogs around here, ’cept maybe for the Dybbuks, and they don’t play by the rules.”
Albert chuckled at that. What a concept! “No honor among thieves, eh?”
Buck scoffed. “They ain’t thieves. They’re more like merchants, only they ain’t exactly got the blessing of the senate.”
“With one or two exceptions, no doubt. Like our friend Rollingfield?”
“I don’t know all the ins and outs of it,” Buck said, “but they dine together, him and Dozier. Reckon they talk more’n they eat. That’s the thing of it. They always moan about Chef’s cooking, but they keep coming back.”
Albert put a hand on Buck’s shoulder and injected as much sincerity as he could into his voice. “You’re a shrewd man, Buck Fargin. Thank goodness I ran into you when I did.” He started toward the swinging doors and cast over his shoulder, “Time for a few changes around here, don’t you think?” When Buck frowned, Albert added, “Just remember, anything that happens, anything you see me doing is for our mutual benefit. I haven’t forgotten I owe you a back-scratching. When it comes to maneuvering, I’ve a lifetime of practice. Keep your wits about you, be patient, and question nothing. Do that, and in a few short months, there’ll be a new king on the throne.”
“King? Throne?”
“You, Buck. How do you think this Dozier rose to become guildmaster? Hard work and fair play?”
Before Buck could answer, Albert pushed through the doors into the restaurant.
Rugbeard was still there, propping up the bar. Actually, he seemed to be sleeping, drool soaking into his beard, a half-empty flagon clutched in a limp hand.
The dining area was half-full but growing emptier by the second as a handful of soldiers muscled the clientele outside. The soldiers were somewhat classical in style: leather kilts, bronze cuirasses, greaves and vambraces. They each had a shortsword hanging from a belt with a golden eagle buckle.
Complaints about unfinished meals fell on deaf ears, and Albert couldn’t help feeling aggrieved his cooking was being discarded in the name of this thuggery. Worse still, considering his plans to run the establishment, these were patrons who were unlikely to come back.
Rollingfield was eyeing him above the rim of a wine glass.
“Forgive my legionaries,” he said, running his wine-stained tongue around his plump lips. “They are somewhat unimaginative in carrying out my orders. I thought it best, however, that we talked alone.” He gestured for Albert to take the seat opposite.
A soldier tapped Rugbeard on the shoulder, eliciting a loud snore.
“Leave him,” Rollingfield said. “Even if he heard anything over his own din, his booze-sozzled brain would forget it in an instant.” He rolled his eyes at Albert. “Odious heap of dung. Still, he has his uses. Puts the fear of the plague in the punters, what.”
The last of the customers was slung unceremoniously out into the street, and the soldiers locked the doors and closed the blinds. Albert’s hand strayed to his pocket, seeking the reassurance of his cheese-cutter and finding only fluff.
Rollingfield guzzled down the dregs of his wine and slid the glass onto the table. He plumped up his belly and wriggled back into the chair, one eyelid drooping shut, the other hanging half-open like a sagging curtain. The exposed bloodshot eye roved around the tomato-smeared bread crusts he’d obviously used to mop up the sauce on the plate. Of the terrine, there was nothing left, which Albert took as a compliment.
“And what about me, Albert?” the senator said, languidly peering up at him. “Are they going to find me face down on the table covered in my own vomit?” He shook his head and gave a low, gurgling chuckle.
“Senator?”
Rollingfield’s eyes snapped fully open, and a thin smile slashed through his puffed pillow-cheeks. “Don’t worry, my friend, I feel quite safe with you. Quite safe. At least for the time being.” He leaned forward, nudging the table with his belly. “I’ve been in this game a long time, Albert. Long time. And I’m sure you have, too. These kinds of meetings, between people such as you and I, are not uncommon now, are they?”
Straight to the point, then. Well, if that’s how he wanted to play it. Albert interlaced his fingers and pursed his lips. “No, Senator. No, they are not.”
“I knew it!” Rollingfield clapped his pudgy hands. “Good man, Albert. Good man. No mincing,”—he raised an eyebrow at that, and Albert felt someone had just bathed him in sewage—“no beating around the bush.”
“Perish the thought, Senator.”
“So, what is it, then?” Rollingfield asked. “The Dybbuks? The Catterwauls? No, no, let me guess. Man with your culinary skills, your bearing, your evident education… has to be with…”
“The Veneficis, senator,” one of the soldiers ventured.
“I was about to say that, Corporal.” Rollingfield sighed and narrowed his eyes. “Well, Albert?”
“Sicarii, Senator. You’ve probably never heard of them. Not from New Jerusalem. Long way off.”
“I see. Brink? Portis? Surely not Malfen?”
Albert relaxed back in his chair and gave a sheepish smile.
Rollingfield tapped the side of his nose. “Say no more, my friend. Now, no one can blame you for not knowing, seeing as you’re from out of town, but Dwan Dozier is not going to be happy about this. You see, Albert, the Night Hawks have their territory, as do the Dybbuks and the smaller guilds. Chef Dougan might have been a turgid little fart serving swill to clients who wouldn’t know a ratatouille from a rat’s arse, but he paid his dues.”
“Protection?”
Rollingfield refilled his wine glass and proffered the carafe to Albert. Albert hesitated for a second then took it.
“It’s the way of the world,” Rollingfield said. “You know that. Dougan paid the Night Hawks to keep the Dybbuks away. Nasty crew, the Dybbuks, not the sort you’d want to be dealing with. Leader’s some kind of sorcerer, and his second’s a shapeshifting bitch who’s a devil in a knife fight. Dozier liked this place for meetings, too. Probably because no one of any note would be seen dead here.”
“Surely not?” Albert said.
“It wouldn’t be good for me to be observed meeting with the guilds,” Rollingfield said, “so what better place to come? Anonymity is everything in the subtler aspects of my profession.”
“Quite so, Senator. Quite so.”
“Every profession has its subtler regions, Albert. Am I right?”
Albert said nothing, happy to let the senator lay it all out for him.
“I, for one, would rather this establishment served decent food, if I’m to be forced to meet here. I’m something of a gastronome.” He jiggled his gut for emphasis. “And I know talent when I see it. But let’s come clean, Albert, shall we? I’ve exposed myself to you,”—that eyebrow raise again, accompanied by the feeling of falling into a nest of cockroaches—“now you do the same for me. Let me make it easy for you. You dabble in herbs and the like.”
“It’s more than that, Senator.”
“Yes, yes. You have, shall we say, expertise in the pharmaceutical arts.”
“Poisons, Senator. It’s something of a passion.”
Rollingfield’s smile was broad, wet, and full of unsavory promise. “Excellent. You are exactly the man I’d hoped you were, Albert. You’ll appreciate, in my trade, from time to time it is necessary for truculent politicians to take a turn for the worse.”
“It’s the way of the world, Senator.”
Rollingfield’s laugh was coupled with a release of gas that caused him to shift hi
s weight onto one buttock. “Pardon me. Must have been the terrine.”
“My apologies, Senator.”
“The way I see it, Albert,” Rollingfield said, “meetings at Dougan’s Diner would be far more bearable if the food was edible. You pick up here, and I’ll see to it that the guild leaves you alone. I’ll have my legal man switch the deeds. I don’t think Dougan had any living relatives, and even if he did, leave it to me. We’ll take care of that. For your part, just keep paying Dozier and you’ll have no trouble. Play your cards right, and keep serving this quality of food, and I’ll consider moving my offices here. Just joshing, of course, but you get my meaning. And from time to time, I may have special work for you. How does that sound?”
Like a dream come true.
“Can I change the name?”
“Please do.” Rollingfield stood and dusted the crumbs from his toga. “How’s the weather now?”
The corporal peeked through the blinds. “Sky’s turned mauve, Senator. Must be a storm coming. Twister, I’d say.”
“Maybe,” Rollingfield said. “All the same, best be off. I’ll be seeing you, Albert. Oh, and congratulations on becoming the new owner of… what are you going to call it?”
“Queenie’s, Senator. After my dear old mama.”
“Queenie’s? Like it. Very good.”
A soldier unlocked the door and held it open for Rollingfield to squeeze through, and the others filed out after him.
Buck slid out from the kitchen, absently wiping at a glass with a dish towel. “That seemed to go well.”
Eavesdropping little dog turd. “Ah, Buck. Glad you were listening in. This Dozier you mentioned, can you set up a meeting?”
“Uh, well…”
“Thought you were a big man in the guild. Shouldn’t be too much trouble for you.”
Buck’s face took on the semblance of a constipated donkey. “Well, you see, I’m kind of freelance. I do a bit of this, bit of that.”
“You’re a dogsbody?” Thought as much. “You don’t really know Dozier, do you?”
“Yeah, I do. I see him when he comes in here.”
“But you don’t actually know him.”
Buck dropped his chin to his chest and shook his head.
“You might at least recall what he likes to eat.”
“Pie and chips, but he never eats more’n a bite. Says it tastes like shite.”
“Well,” Albert said, surveying his new acquisition and already planning the wall coverings, “that’s all about to change.”
THE TOWER OF IVORY
“Bit cramped, isn’t it?” Rhiannon turned her nose up at the white-walled room—although white would have been stretching it. It had more the look of yellow-stained teeth about it, or old bones. “There’s not enough room to swing a cat in here.”
Aristodeus riffled through some papers on a desk, scribbled a note on one of them, and reached for a chain hanging from the ceiling.
“Then it’s a good job I don’t have a cat.” When he pulled the chain, a trap opened, and a ladder extended in sections.
It was a cat Rhiannon likened him to, though, when he lithely bounded up the rungs. For an old codger, he certainly was agile.
“And besides,” Aristodeus called from above, “what it lacks in length and breadth, it more than makes up for in height.”
“That’s what they all say.”
Rhiannon heard him stomp around upstairs, dragging things across the floor, cursing and muttering. She took hold of the ladder and peered up, half-inclined to go see for herself what he was up to, but something about the stark light lancing down the opening unsettled her. It didn’t seem quite natural.
Same as how they’d arrived here, quick as a flash. No bells and smells, no nothing, save for a green glow and a gut-curdling feeling of wrongness. The mere recollection made her retch, and she fell back against the ladder in a swoon.
“I’ll be right with you,” Aristodeus said. “Soon as I find the… Ah, there it is!”
Rhiannon pushed herself away from the ladder, blinking to clear her head as she took in the room. It must’ve been ten, maybe twelve feet square, and most of that was taken up with clutter: stacks of ancient-looking books on the floor, wooden crates, a scatter of boxes. The desk was intricately fashioned from what looked like walnut, its top inlaid with leather and gold leaf. It was piled high with notebooks and loose sheets of paper, but she couldn’t make head nor tail of what was written on them. Looked like Aeternam, but her Aeternam was about as good as useless. Not much better than her knowledge of Nousianism, despite the hours of painstaking catechesis at the hands of Soror Agna. Bit of a joke, really, if you asked her. Rhiannon Kwane, a consecrated religious! Sad thing was, she’d really believed it was possible, really thought she’d had a vocation. Right up until she watched Mom and Dad murdered by those… those… Nous all bloody mighty, they were her friends once, even Gaston.
She shook the memories out of her head, and her eyes alighted on a wall chart. It depicted four interlocking circles, one atop the other, and within each was a diagram. She edged closer to see better: ten smaller circles arranged in a pattern of three columns, and there were connecting lines between them. Cursive lettering crowned the larger circles, and there were blockish symbols inside the smaller ones. Just looking at them made her head hurt, and she turned away, spotting a door on the adjacent wall. It was the same off-white as the walls, ceiling and floor, yet it had a gleaming brass doorknob that just begged to be turned.
She reached for it and drew back, feeling suddenly guilty, like the sisters and brothers at the Templum of the Knot had just seen her innermost thoughts, witnessed her depravity for themselves. She extended her hand again. This time, her fingers tingled, and she could swear there was heat—intense heat—coming from the other side of the door. She licked her lips, and a ripple ran up her spine to her neck. It seemed to come from Callixus’s sword. Her mind flashed back to Soror Agna telling her the story of Jose and Carmella, their disobedience of Ain when they’d opened the Box of All Ways. She had to know what was beyond the door. Had to—
“No! Don’t touch that!”
Rhiannon’s heart bounced into her throat and she whirled round.
Aristodeus slung a knotted mess of tubes to the floor and clambered down the ladder with dozens of clear packets tucked under his arm.
“I’m feeling sick,” she said. It wasn’t exactly a lie. “Just needed to get some air.”
“Nothing wrong with the air in here,” Aristodeus said as he shot back up the ladder to grab a crate. It rattled as he once more descended. Catching her look, he set the crate down and squinted at some print on one of the slats. “Nutrition. Marvelous stuff, and keeps forever. Now, where did I put the cannulae?” He rummaged around in some boxes beneath his desk. “Or would you say cannulas? It’s so easy to forget who I’m speaking to.”
Rhiannon didn’t have a clue what he was talking about and really didn’t care. The air felt stifling, and she could’ve sworn the walls were closing in. “Don’t you have a window or something? I can’t breathe.”
“Ah, here they are!” Aristodeus held up a see-through packet backed with white.
Rhiannon’s vision blurred, and a wave of nausea washed over her. She put out a hand to steady herself on the desk. “Door,” she gasped. “Open the door.”
Aristodeus set the packet down. He touched a palm to her forehead then pressed two fingers to her neck. “Febrile and fibrillating. Here, sit down.” He pulled out the chair for her, and she collapsed into it. Callixus’s scabbarded sword caught on the backrest. She cursed and shifted it over to one side.
“I’m fine. I just need some air, is all.” Rhiannon put her head in her hands and leaned her elbows on the desk.
“Not pregnant, are you?”
“What?” Surely not. Her guts churned as her mind flashed back to Gaston’s grunting and thrusting. She sat bolt upright, hands finding their way to her belly. “No! What do you think I am?” She couldn’t be a
nyway, she told herself. She’d had the menses since, hadn’t she? Yes, at the Templum of the Knot, so she couldn’t be. She let out a long breath and shook her head.
Aristodeus patted her on the shoulder, gave a gentle squeeze. “It’s the effect of the transition. Don’t worry, it’ll wear off.”
“Wear off a bloody sight sooner if I could just get some air, take a walk. Or am I a prisoner?” She cocked her head and narrowed her eyes. She could almost feel the black sword pulsating on her back, eager for the fight, thirsty for blood. A thrill coursed through her veins, and she shuddered, suddenly sickened by what she’d just felt.
“You wouldn’t want to open that door,” Aristodeus said. “Believe me.”
“Why not? Where the Abyss are we?”
He gave a tight smile and rolled his eyes. “It’s just not ready yet. I have a hard enough time maintaining the vertical, never mind the horizontal.”
Rhiannon followed his gaze to the ceiling and the open trapdoor. “How many stories? How high’s it go?”
“Last time I counted, seventy-two, but it’s never enough. Now listen. I don’t expect you to understand, but I do need you to obey a few simple rules. Go nowhere, touch nothing, without my express permission. Understood?”
Rhiannon wrinkled her nose at him. “How long you planning on staying? Thought we were just grabbing some junk and heading for this New Jerusalem before the dwarf starves to death.”
“We are, Rhiannon. We are. But first things first. There are matters I want to discuss with you.”
“Let me guess. Shader?”
Aristodeus frowned and perched on the edge of the desk. “He’s not quite what I’d hoped for.”
“Tell me about it.” She knew she was being unfair, that she expected too much from Shader, but if he didn’t grow some balls soon, work out who and what he was, she’d… Well, she didn’t know what she’d do. It wasn’t like they were an item. Huntsman had seen to that, and he was only acting on the advice of Aristodeus, in any case. She ground her teeth and felt a rush of heat beneath her skin. “What are you up to? What have you done to him?”