“What—” Neila began, then broke off as beneath and to the left of the plaque a door began to open in the wall.
It was low, the top of the opening beginning just a few feet off the ground, but it was wide enough for two people to walk abreast. In front of it, the cobbles of the sidewalk fell away in a metered cascade, creating a grand staircase leading down into the ground. In seconds, the whisper of oiled stone grew silent, and the humans were left staring down into a descending tunnel whose walls glowed with faint phosphorescence.
“After you,” Salim said, and bowed.
Neila looked from him to the tunnel and back, then nodded and stepped forward. Her hand went to the hilt of her sword, but Salim reached out and touched it.
“There’s no need,” he said. “Or at least, there shouldn’t be. Trust me.”
The dubious expression returning, Neila nevertheless removed her hand and stepped quickly down the stairs, shoulders squared and chin held high. Salim fell in behind her, and then they were off the street and descending steeply into the stone tunnel, the steps rising silently back into place behind them.
The stairs terminated in a wide brick landing. Before them was an archway that looked almost like the front doorway of a tavern, save that it lacked even the modest bat-wing doors that such establishments sometimes boasted. Above it, a mosaic of tiny colored tiles stretched several feet from the arch’s top to the ceiling, masterfully depicting a grinning, anthropomorphic rat counting out stacks of coins. An unfurled scroll beneath it read “The Clever Endeavor.”
Inside, the drinking house was dim, lit by wrought-iron lanterns along the walls which held not the normal flickering of flame but the same steady glow of the phosphorescence in the staircase. Against the far wall was a long wooden bar, clean but worn, and behind it rack upon rack of shelves which held bottles in a wide array of sizes and colors, some of them clear, others opaque, and a few jittering lightly in their niches as if their contents were struggling to get out. A thin man of dark hair and indeterminate age leaned against the inner side of the counter with a barman’s rag hung over his shoulder as naturally as if it had grown there. Though he faced the door, he didn’t appear to be looking at the newcomers. Yet he didn’t appear to be looking at anything else, either, simply gazing off toward the unadorned wall next to the doorway with a face that registered nothing except vague idleness.
The other patrons of the bar—though Salim thought “tenants” might be more appropriate—were practicing much the same skill, none of them doing much of anything yet somehow all managing to just miss looking at Salim and Neila. This was made all the more impressive by the fact that the bar’s layout placed tables in scalloped alcoves all around the walls, leaving the center empty and giving every table, no matter how deep and dark its corner, a clear view of the door where the two humans stood.
In the Clever Endeavor, every table came with a wall to put your back to, even if it meant bulging the walls out in ways no normal architect would advise. It was that sort of bar.
Salim returned the other drinkers the favor and studiously avoided looking directly at any of them as he led Neila across the floor and toward an open table in one of several back-left corners. As they passed close to the bar, he raised a hand to his brow and twitched it down in a little two-finger salute, thumb outstretched and last two fingers furled in.
Immediately, the bartender’s eyes focused on them both. “Welcome back, stranger,” the barman said, with a little smile that looked at once wry and good-natured.
“Lahan.” Salim met his gaze and held up two fingers again. “Something tame.”
The bartender’s eyes flicked to Neila and back. He nodded. “Soft as mother’s milk and smooth as the teat that made it. You got it.”
But Salim was already past him and pulling out a chair at the table. This he took for himself, leaving the wall bench with the view of the door for Neila, though he knew she wouldn’t catch the gesture. Nobles had all sorts of manners, but never the ones that actually mattered.
Neila took the seat without commenting. Instead, she looked at him levelly, her expression calculating.
“You know him. The bartender.” It was not a question.
“I used to spend some time here.”
Again that focused look, as if he’d presented her with a riddle and she was determined to figure out the answer for herself. At last she said, “You believe in playing all your cards close to your chest, don’t you? Regardless of what they are.”
Salim thought about asking her what a young merchant’s daughter in Thuvia would know about cards, but then Lahan was setting two mugs down in front of them, retreating as quickly as he’d appeared. The liquid in each was blood red and roiling with carbonation. Salim picked his up and sniffed at the vapors.
Neila eyed her own drink warily. “What is it?”
“Camel piss,” Salim responded, and drank deep. Then he smacked his lips and smiled.
Salim didn’t know why he’d said it, exactly, but something deep within him enjoyed the look of shock that flashed across her face at the crudity. As suddenly as it came, it was replaced by a scowl, and then she was lifting her own mug and drinking without hesitation. As she did, her expression changed to one of wonder.
“It’s cherries!” she said.
“Like none you’ve ever had,” Salim replied. “Hard cherry wine from the orchards of Axis. I don’t know what causes the bubbles, but they keep your head clear. No point in you getting sloppy when there’s work to be done.”
She ignored the jibe. “So what exactly are we doing here?”
“Waiting.”
Neila gave an exasperated sigh and clearly decided not to answer his ribbing. Instead she drank more of the wine, the mug leaving a thin line of red on the bridge of her nose. As she looked away from him, seeking something else to fix on, Salim touched her hand.
“Don’t look directly at them,” he said quietly. “It’s not polite.”
Neila grimaced as if to ask who he was to decide what was polite, but she still managed to affect a reasonable imitation of the bartender’s vacant, unfocused gaze, as if she were merely staring off into space over Salim’s shoulder.
Salim knew what she was actually looking at. He’d taken in the other patrons of the bar with a single glance as they’d entered, analyzed the faces and postures, and summarily dismissed them all as unrelated to his and Neila’s business. But then, he’d seen the freak show before.
Neila hadn’t, and even with the unfocused gaze, it showed on her face, the tension at the edges of her eyes and mouth as she attempted to keep from registering her amazement.
On the street, Axis’s motley menagerie of residents had been astounding, but that parade of wonders swept past as fast as you could recognize them, and anything presented in such brief glances could still manage to feel unreal, your brain accepting the input but not truly processing it. Salim had seen the same thing from soldiers in battle, unfazed by the slaughter all around them simply because of the speed at which it took place. A man was there, and then he was gone, and you were still moving—at a quick enough pace, the mind didn’t have time for anything more than that.
Here, however, there was time for Neila to focus and actually study individual creatures in depth. And despite the bar’s relative emptiness, there was plenty to see.
Near the door, at a special table built wide and low for their kind, sat two of the hive people, the red-brown carapaces of their ant bodies reflecting the torchlight as they dug into tureens of writhing, liquor-infused grubs, mandibles clacking. Though they both bore the claws and barbed stings of the warrior caste, and on the street would be impossible to tell from any others of their kind, Salim knew they must have gone rogue some time ago, likely deserting out of an addiction to those same grubs. Otherwise they would never have found a place like the Clever Endeavor.
Farther in, several axiomites sat deep in conversation across a table strewn with charts and diagrams, fingers flashing into glowing
symbols as they gestured to punctuate their arguments. Even had they been shouting rather than speaking in their low, earnest tones, it was unlikely that anyone else in the room would have been able to understand what they were discussing. Axiomite scholarship and politics—which were most often one and the same—were both esoteric to the point of indecipherable where members of other races were concerned. These particular specimens no doubt thought of themselves as revolutionaries, proponents of a theorem dismissed by the majority.
In the back-right corner, opposite Neila and Salim and shrouded deeper in darkness than was reasonable given the lit lamp just above it, squatted a d’ziriak, one of the inscrutable residents of the Plane of Shadow. A black-shelled cross between a man and a termite, it seemed to bend the light around itself while simultaneously emitting small flares of color from the sigils ranged across its torso and thorax. It drank deep, with both hands holding its oversized mug, not looking around with even the sidelong glances of the other patrons. But then, if the rumors about their telepathy were true, it didn’t have to.
And there were others—humanoid, mostly, but so swaddled in cloaks and other concealing clothing that it was sometimes impossible to tell whether a bulge between the shoulders meant a rucksack or a carefully folded set of wings. That was also unsurprising. The rule against staring or expressing obvious recognition in the Clever Endeavor wasn’t just a polite custom—it was key to avoiding bloodshed. With the exception of Lahan, who made a point of never using names unless it was absolutely vital, nobody came to the Clever Endeavor to make friends.
After several minutes, Neila finished her oblique survey of the room and turned back to Salim, just as he had set down his empty mug and was raising his hand to summon a second. She looked pointedly down at the dry vessel, then back up at him. This time her expression was serious.
“And is that your master plan, Mr. Ghadafar?”
Salim almost answered with another wisecrack, then decided he’d pushed her far enough for one day. He honestly wasn’t sure what about her made him feel at once so protective and so eager to rile her, but he thought it might be good to remember that this was still the girl who’d been willing to travel to the very gates of Death in order to save her father. Whether or not he’d asked her to come along, she deserved to know what they were doing.
He showed his hands, palms toward her. “Alright. The answer is that we’ve come as far as we can on our own, and now we need help. So we’re running up the flag and seeing who rallies.”
An arched eyebrow. “And how do we do that?”
“We already have.”
At that moment, Salim heard the solid thud of stone on wood, matched by the low creak of straining floorboards. Momentarily forgetting the rule about staring, Neila gawked open-mouthed, eyes fixed on the door. Salim didn’t bother turning around, merely sat with his hands folded in front of him as the rhythmic thumping grew louder, listening as well to the telltale quieting of the other voices in the bar that told him all he needed to know. A few feet behind his chair, the heavy footfalls ceased.
“Salim.” The voice was all bass, the rumble of a distant storm.
“It’s been a long time, Calabast.”
“Only by some definitions.”
Salim turned.
Before him, tall enough for its crested helmet to almost scrape the ceiling, stood a humanoid juggernaut of stone and armor. Thick plates of golden metal gleamed in the glow of the lanterns, and through the gaps between bracers and breastplate, skirt and greaves, Salim could see thick, corded muscle that moved like flesh, but was obviously not. No skin born of a woman had ever had that glossy stone finish, chipped and scarred by countless battles, and no giant—however robust—could match the knots of adamantine filaments that twitched and whispered through a broken patch in the stone of the newcomer’s right bicep.
Now those big onyx hands made fists, crossing in front of Calabast’s midsection. Where they touched, a play of blue and yellow sparks crackled along the bracers, and Salim felt every hair on his body struggle to stand up.
“Please,” Salim said, “be welcome. Have a seat.” He pulled out the third chair at their table—a comically man-sized furnishing that would support the stoutest human, but no doubt collapse to splinters at the first touch of the automaton’s bulk.
Calabast didn’t laugh—the residents of Axis were already a sober lot, and Calabast was a machine—but neither did he blast Salim into tiny, steaming gobbets for wasting his time. As always, Salim took that as a good sign.
Instead, the behemoth took two more of his room-shaking steps and squatted alongside their table, between Salim and Neila. As he moved, Salim caught a glimpse of the bar’s other tenants. This time they really were ignoring Salim and his friends, and with all their might. Several appeared to be trying to shrink back into the shadows, letting their hoods fall low. Not that it would do them any good, had Calabast come for them, but Salim doubted that any of them had anything to fear. The machine soldiers of Axis served many functions, but always within their distinct roles. Had one of the man-sized contract enforcement models entered, many of the customers would likely be justified in their fear. If it were one of the horse-bodied law keepers with arms like razor whips, sent to round up those who sought to evade legal punishment, Salim suspected that anyone present would make a fine catch. But Calabast—no. The fact that they hadn’t already been rent limb from limb meant that these men were safe. Safer than Salim himself.
Neila made a noise like a goose being throttled. Salim tore himself from his musings long enough to catch the big-eyed stare directed toward their guest, whose massive head peered down at her from three feet away with silent, unmoving interest.
“Forgive my manners,” Salim said. “Calabast, this is Neila. She’s helping me solve the Dark Lady’s latest issue.”
Beneath the golden helmet, blank black eyes didn’t blink. “Neila. May you run your full course, and end it well.”
“And—and you as well,” Neila managed, her voice wavering only a little.
“Don’t worry,” Salim said, somewhat apologetically. “Calabast is always like that. It’s part of his job.”
“What’s that?” she managed.
“My function is to enforce the laws and cycles of mortal existence, and to correct those who seek to defy or pervert them.” Though Calabast’s words and tone were courtly enough, the voice was still far from human, crackling up from deep within his throat like the roar of a blast furnace.
“Oh.”
“He means he hunts immortals,” Salim translated. “Calabast and I have worked together in the past. As you might expect, the lords of Axis share Pharasma’s desire to see the cycle of souls remain inviolate. Neither takes kindly to those mortals who would step outside that flow.”
There was a moment’s pause while Neila processed this, and then the panicked look returned, stronger than ever. She cast a glance at the gleaming war machine, who remained perfectly still in that unnerving way of his. “But—”
Salim had a good guess what she was about to say, and cut her off before she could. “Stealing souls from the Outer Courts is a violation of the natural order at the highest level. It’s in both planes’ interest for him to help us.”
And keep your mouth shut about the elixir, his eyes said. He stared hard at her to make sure she understood. Since Faldus hadn’t consumed the elixir yet, there was nothing to worry about. And even if they succeeded and the merchant managed to achieve his false youth, he’d still be small change compared to Calabast’s normal quarry—for the next thousand years, anyway. But that didn’t mean Salim was eager to muddy the waters any more than absolutely necessary.
Neila got the message. “Of course,” she said, forcibly regaining some of her usual composure. “That makes sense.”
“If you would present the facts,” Calabast put in, “we could begin.”
Salim grinned. “Always the sentimentalist, eh, Calabast? It’s good to see you too.”
As t
he armored giant listened patiently, hands still clasped in front of it, Salim gave a quick overview of the situation—or at least, as much of it as Calabast needed to know. How Neila’s father had died and joined the River of Souls, only to be stolen away at the last minute by an unknown force, which now sought to ransom Faldus’s soul back to his family. He left out the fact that the soul, once returned, would almost certainly opt for resurrection—a small sin in Calabast’s book—and the elixir, which was rather a larger one. No point complicating things. Calabast said nothing until Salim had been silent for several moments.
“You suspect a protean.” The machine’s voice was flat and cold.
Salim nodded. “It makes the most sense, given the sign we found.”
“Take us there.”
“Now?” Salim was momentarily surprised, and then mentally chided himself for it. It really had been a long time, if Calabast’s abruptness was catching him off guard.
“Delay favors the transgressor.”
Salim nodded slowly, then reached inside his robe and produced the amulet. With his right hand, he gripped the deep black spiral. The other he stuck out in the center of the table.
As soon as his palm touched the wood, the back of his hand was covered and enveloped by the massive palm of the construct, his stone skin cool against Salim’s. Though the touch was gentle, Salim still couldn’t help but think of the five-fingered stone slab as the head of a sledgehammer, dangling above his flesh on a thin thread of silk. He’d seen what those hands could do. If Calabast decided to bring his hand down, it would crush Salim’s hand the way a man crushes a moth, smashing through the table and likely continuing on through the floor. As usual, all this passed through Salim’s mind in a second, after which he circumvented the issue by steadfastly refusing to think about it.
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