by karlov, matt
“And what of you, my friend?” Isaias said, turning to address Arandras. “What happy need brings you to my shop this morning?”
Arandras took a breath. “I’m looking for a map.”
“A map!” Isaias cried. “Splendid! Truly, you have come to the right place. What form of map do you seek? Perhaps Anstice as it was in centuries past, when all fourteen redoubts still stood and the city stretched no further south than this very shop. Maybe a chart of distant lands: Pazia to the east, or Jervia to the north, or the far isle of Bel Henna. Or —”
“Nothing so remote as that,” Arandras said. “I have a set of Valdori coordinates I’m trying to place. Somewhere in the vicinity of Tienette Lake.”
Isaias beamed. “Of course, of course. If you would be so kind as to tell Isaias the numbers you seek, I will be delighted to scour my collection on your behalf.”
Arandras recited the coordinates, omitting the final, most specific numbers, and Isaias scurried away to the back room once more.
“Is that map going to be what I think it is?” Mara murmured.
“Never mind that now,” Arandras said. “What’s this idea?”
Mara shook her head. “Not here.” She headed for the stairs, glancing back at him over her shoulder. “I’ll wait outside. Don’t take too long.”
The shuffle of papers sounded from the next room, followed by a crash and shouted curse from Isaias. Don’t take too long, indeed. Like it depends on me. Arandras glanced around the shop, eyes lighting on the green armchair. That’ll do nicely.
Halfway to the chair his boot crunched on something hard. Frowning, he dropped to a crouch. Looks like fragments of glass. But where…? His gaze fell on a nearby display cabinet. An entire side of the windowed cabinet was bare, leaving its contents open to the shop.
The door to the back room banged open. “Arandras, I… Arandras?” Isaias glanced about, confusion filling his round face. “Ah, there you are. Captivated by the Kharjik spice jars, I see. Truly, a remarkable —”
“Do you know your cabinet is broken?” Arandras straightened, peered closer at Isaias. “Weeper’s breath, is that a bruise on your neck? What happened?”
“Ah, friend Arandras, ’tis nothing.” Isaias offered a game smile. “A result of some, shall we say, overenthusiastic enquiries, nothing more.”
Right. If by “overenthusiastic” you mean “hand around the throat”. “What were they after?”
“An urn, as it happens.” Isaias’s eyes narrowed in thought. “Now that Isaias thinks of it, did you not mention such a piece in your last visit? What does this urn —”
Arandras crossed the space between them in a single pace. “Who were they?”
“I, uh, well, Isaias had never seen them before. Fighting men, Isaias thought, though neither introduced himself.” He fingered his collar and swallowed. “Decidedly unfriendly, in truth, despite my most welcoming —”
“Did they say anything, or wear any identifying mark?”
“No, no.” Isaias shook his head. “Come, let us banish such unpleasant thoughts. I have just the map you’re looking for. Come and see!”
He knows it’s here. Somehow, the man he sought had learnt of the urn’s arrival in Anstice. Arandras’s hand went to the pouch on his belt. Weeper’s mercy, why is he always one step ahead?
“See, friend Arandras! A handsome piece, first drawn by the famed Valdori Cartographer’s Guild, reproduced from the original by the Weeping Brothers a mere six hundred years ago and copied only twice since then. Is it not perfect?”
A large sheet of parchment lay partially unrolled, showing the edge of a body of water — Tienette Lake, no doubt. Arandras leaned closer, peering at the tiny Valdori numerals adorning the border. Looks about right. If the Quill knew this was here, they’d likely be tearing the door down right now.
“How much?” Arandras said, though he could already tell it would be beyond what he had in his purse.
“Thirty-five luri,” Isaias said, and Arandras cursed inwardly. The sum was more than double what the shopkeeper had just paid out for Mara’s puzzle box. There was no way Arandras could scrape that much together, or at least not in Anstice. His savings back home would have covered it, but that money was locked away in a Spyridon bank and inaccessible until he returned. Why in the hells didn’t I take Damasus’s gold? The man was practically shoving it down my throat.
“Can I see the rest?” Arandras said.
“Ah, friend Arandras, you know I cannot. There are those who would use such a glimpse to gather what information they seek without compensating Isaias for the privilege!” Isaias blinked as though astonished that such perfidy could even be contemplated. “It is not that Isaias does not trust you, dear Arandras; yet I must treat all of my customers alike, or word will get out that Isaias has favourites — and though this may in your case be true, my dear friend, I nevertheless could not permit such a suspicion to darken the hearts of my other valued patrons.”
“Fine,” Arandras said. “A favour, then. From one friend to another.”
“But of course! If it is within Isaias’s power, it shall be done!”
“Hold this map for me,” Arandras said. “I need time to pull together the money. Don’t sell it to anyone in the meantime, all right? Don’t even let on that you have it. Especially…”
Isaias’s head cocked in the manner of an inquisitive dog. “Especially?”
“Especially to the Quill.”
“Ah.”
Arandras frowned. “Ah, what?”
“Dear Arandras, you know how much I treasure the confidence of my friends.” Isaias smiled magnanimously. “Discretion above all, that is Isaias’s watchword. Not a word of this shall I breathe to anyone save you and you alone. Truly, Isaias lives only to serve his honoured customers…” The shopkeeper trailed off, his face falling. “Yet it is not so simple as that. Are the Quill not customers too? Indeed, if the Quill sought to purchase this map, would they not in fact be the first and only customers? How then could Isaias deny their request for the sake of friendship, however boundless? If, in this matter, Arandras remains a friend and not a customer…”
“All right, all right.” For the Weeper’s sake, just stop talking. “I’ll put down a deposit.” He dug out his purse and rummaged inside. There wasn’t much left. “This is all I can spare,” he said at last, dumping a handful of coins on the counter. The rest would be enough to keep his belly full until his lease at the lodging house ran out, with a few meagre duri left over to buy a slow ride back to Spyridon on the back of a merchant’s wagon. “Will that suffice?”
Isaias beamed. “Completely, friend Arandras. Isaias will set this map aside for you until, shall we say, eight days hence? No other will hear a whisper of it within that time.”
A week. It was good enough, Arandras supposed. He’d be out on the street before then, anyway.
Time enough to figure something out.
•
Mara was chewing on a strip of dried meat when Arandras came down, her long pony-tail dancing from side to side in the breeze. “Any luck?” she asked, as a heavy, barrel-shaped wagon rumbled past, leaving a ripe scent of fermented apples in its wake.
Arandras scowled. “Perhaps.” For all the shopkeeper’s empty protestations of friendship, Arandras had never known him yet to renege on an actual deal. To Isaias, even a vow before all the priests in the Tri-God Pantheon would likely fare second best against the sacrament of coin. In any case, there was nothing more he could do. Sooner or later, the Quill would come knocking on Isaias’s door, and whatever happened next would be up to Isaias.
“Perhaps?” Mara snorted. “Do we have a location or don’t we?”
“Not yet,” Arandras said. “But neither do the Quill. I hope.” She raised an eyebrow, but he waved the look away. “Later. Tell me about this idea of yours.”
“Oh, that,” Mara said. “It’s simple, really. We go to the registrar’s office and ask.”
Arandras blinked at her. “W
e go where?”
“The city registrar,” Mara said, as if speaking to a child. “Where they keep all the records. Citizenship lists… minutes of Consulate meetings… who owns what buildings…”
He shook his head.
“That Quill librarian told you where they are, right? All the noteworthy sorcerers in Anstice. So we go to the registrar and get some names. Who runs those places. How many people work there. How promptly they pay their taxes.” She shrugged. “Maybe we’ll find something useful.”
It seemed a long shot to Arandras. Senisha had only mentioned two buildings. There were bound to be more sorcerers in Anstice than that.
Then again, what else did he have to do for the rest of the day?
Senisha had given him streets and landmarks, but not addresses. It took them the rest of the morning to locate the buildings, find the marker stones by the gates, and make a note of the lot numbers. Neither seemed likely to conceal a nest of sorcerers. Ornamental cannons aside, the building on the eastern thoroughfare looked like just another tenement, albeit a particularly unattractive one; and the crumbling facade of the Illith road building, supposedly home to a circle of Bel Hennese, stood in rough, depressing contrast to the soaring blue-roofed residence next door.
By the time Arandras and Mara arrived at the city chambers, the single hand on the tower clock had passed its zenith and was beginning its slow afternoon descent. A winged leopard crouched above the chambers’ wide entrance, caught by the sculptor in mid-prowl, the doorway below more than twice Arandras’s height. He reached out and touched one of the massive iron doors as he passed, running his finger over the abstract design cut into its surface. The sun-warmed metal was hot to the touch, its grooves deep enough to swallow his finger past the first knuckle.
They passed through the doors into a grand entrance hall. Massive stone pillars supported an ornate indigo-and-gold ceiling, each column sporting a ring of carved leopard heads at its crown. A pale marble staircase dominated one side of the room, curving gracefully out of sight to the upper levels, while the other side opened onto half a dozen different passageways, all unmarked.
Arandras studied the featureless passageways with narrowed eyes. “I assume you know where we’re going?”
“More or less.” Mara set off down a corridor, one hand at her waist to straighten the cutlass that wasn’t there. “This way.”
The passage led them through several turns before opening to a light and spacious part of the building, with none of the heavy pillars that marked the front. A sunny courtyard stretched to their right, decorated with boxed plants and timber benches, the flowers’ scent so delicate as to be barely perceptible. A painter stood at his board before one of the plants, arguing with an older, balding companion. The two fell silent as Arandras and Mara drew near, waiting until they were almost across the yard before resuming their fierce muttering.
The registrar’s office stood at the courtyard’s end, across from a softly playing fountain. A counter stretched from one wall to the other, bisecting the room. Cabinets, drawers, and shelves filled the space on the clerks’ side; on the other, a handful of waiting enquirers stood in a short queue. Indigo hangings adorned the walls, rich and heavy.
They joined the line, Arandras eyeing the jumble of furniture with a frown. “That one,” Mara said, her voice low and close to his ear.
“Huh? That one what?”
“Hush.” Mara nodded toward the edge of the room, where a stoop-shouldered clerk glared sullenly across the counter at a woman in a large scarlet hat. The man gave an exaggerated sigh and leaned forward in the manner of one forced to deal with an imbecile. “That one.”
“What, the clerk?”
She gave a half-grin. “Trust me.”
The line shuffled forward. Arandras glanced at the counter. Three clerks on duty. Two people ahead of us. If the sullen one were to remain occupied with the behatted woman for long enough —
“You shouldn’t have left, you know.”
Arandras blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Last night. The Quill,” Mara murmured. “What were you thinking?”
“Hey, it wasn’t my idea,” he said in a rough undertone. “Damasus kicked me out, remember?”
“And you argued the point with him, did you? Told him all the reasons why he should let you stay?”
Arandras fell silent. In fact, he’d done nothing of the sort. He’d lost his temper and marched out. Perhaps he’d expected it all along — that sooner or later, it would come to exactly that point. “They’re the Quill, Mara,” he said. “They’re so obsessed with their own interests that anything else is either a distraction or an obstacle. You can’t work with them, not really.”
“That’s the Quill you’re talking about, is it?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just that you seem to have a talent for burning bridges lately.” She gave him a measuring look. “Tell me, were Druce and Jensine obstacles or distractions?”
“Hey!” The word echoed in the quiet room and he caught himself, lowering his voice to a fierce whisper. “Weeper’s arse, Mara. They walked out on me!”
“Next, please.” The speaker was a clerk halfway along the counter.
Mara turned to the man behind them. “You go ahead,” she said with a forbearing smile. “We just need a moment.”
Arandras waited until the man was past. “Jensine and Druce chose to leave, Mara. Their choice, not mine.”
She tilted her head. “You don’t see it, do you? People don’t do things in a void, Arandras. They react to the people around them. To you.”
“Yeah, right. That must be why the Quill were so happy to follow my suggestions.”
“I’m serious,” Mara said. “You don’t much care what anyone thinks, I know. You just make up your mind, and you imagine everyone else must do the same. But that’s not how most people are. Deep down, most people just want to catch a ride with someone who looks like they know what they’re doing.”
But they shouldn’t! It was all he could do not to grab her by the shoulders and shout it in her face. “If so,” he grated, “then that is their choice.”
She stared back, her face unreadable.
“Their choice,” he repeated. “Not mine.”
“Who’s next?” The words came from behind him. Arandras looked around, and the stoop-shouldered clerk cast him a surly glare. “You waiting or not?”
“Yes,” Mara said. She strode past and he watched her go, still grasping after the thread of their argument. At the counter she glanced back, eyebrow cocked. Scowling, he marched over to join her.
Mara already had a scrap of paper on the counter, turned around so that the clerk could read it. “We’d like to inspect the ownership documents for these properties, please.”
The clerk sniffed. “Who are you, then?”
Mara smiled. “You don’t need to worry about who we are.”
“That’s precisely what I need to worry about, lady. Only citizens can view documents.” The clerk gave a tight grin. “And when they do, that gets added to the file too, so the rest of the city knows when someone’s been snooping around.”
Damn it! Arandras glared at the man’s fatuous smirk. Another Weeper-cursed dead end. The hells take Mara and her bright ideas.
“Of course,” Mara said, as though the clerk had just offered his sincerest regrets at being unable to help. There was a tap of something hard from the hand that rested on the counter, and Arandras caught a flash of silver between her fingers. “But there are always alternatives, yes?”
The memory of Yevin’s shop returned in force, of himself, probing and pushing, hunting for a way around the scribe’s clearly expressed will. No, that’s not me. That can’t be me. “Mara,” he began, but she turned and touched a finger to his lips.
“This is my choice,” she whispered.
“It’s not mine,” Arandras said; but this time he was interrupted by the clerk.
“No. Lady, I can’t just�
�� that is, we’re not…” He trailed off, staring at the partially concealed coin, his face twitching. “Much as I might want…”
“Sounds like there might be some room for discussion there,” Mara said.
The clerk gave a dry cough. “No. I’m not about to… no.” But his gaze remained fixed on the coin.
Mara smiled. “Forgive me. We want to see documents for two properties. But I’ve only offered you one… alternative.”
She flexed her wrist and produced another coin from somewhere up her sleeve. It joined the first with a soft clink.
The clerk moistened his lips. “Ah.” He glanced at Mara, at the queue of waiting enquirers, at the two silver pieces. Then, abruptly, he scooped the coins off the counter and slouched away.
“What are you doing?” Arandras hissed as soon as the clerk was out of earshot.
“Solving a problem.” Mara glanced sideways at the clerk, who was now rummaging through an open drawer. “This is how the world is, Arandras. People react.”
He stared at her. “You don’t.”
She opened her mouth to speak, then stopped. Closed it again. Turned away.
Arandras watched as the clerk closed the drawer, papers in hand, and moved off to another cabinet. I should leave. But his feet seemed rooted to the spot.
Damn you, Mara. And damn me, too.
The clerk returned, slapping two bundles of paper onto the counter. “Two properties,” he said to Mara, his eyes flicking around the room. “Be quick about it.”
A single glance was enough.
“This one,” Arandras said, pulling the papers toward him. He reached into a pocket, fished out the ransom note and unfolded it. The graceful loops, the hard downstrokes: all was the same.
Heart pounding, he scanned the page. A name. There had to be a name. His hand trembled as he set the first sheet aside, began on the second.
There it was.
Clade Alsere. Clade, a sorcerer of the Oculus.
Arandras rolled the name around his mouth. Clade.
Clade, the murderer of my wife.
His vision blurred. Somewhere nearby, someone drew a shuddering breath, but it couldn’t be him because this was not a moment for tears. This was a moment to savour.