by Glen Cook
"Me."
"I bring messages." He presented a large leather courier's wallet. It bore no seal. "And our wishes for your success. Prayers will be offered."
"Thank you. Do keep us in your prayers." A formula he was just now learning to use automatically.
"And the Brotherhood in yours." The man bowed his head slightly, in the manner of those who grew up inside the Grail Empire.
"And so shall it be." Hecht returned the nod. He took the Brotherhood deadly serious. They were scarce in Firaldia but wielded power beyond their numbers.
There were few checks on the Brotherhood. They accepted none. They did not hesitate to enforce their prejudices.
"How and where to deliver that is all in here." The Brother handed Hecht another smaller case, then returned to his mount.
Hecht considered the anonymous courier's wallet. He began rubbing his left wrist.
Ghort muttered, "There's a Special Office thug if I ever saw one. He don't even try to cover the smell."
"You're right."
"So's the other one."
The Special Office was a sub-cult inside the warrior order made up of sorcerers sworn to destroy the Instrumentalities of the Night. Using the Instrumentalities as their principal tool.
"So what did he bring you, Pipe?"
"Let's wait till we're moving."
"Gotcha." Ghort stared after the two riders in black. "I think I know who the other one was."
"Uhm?"
"Parthen Lorica. The Witchfinder."
Hecht started. Parthen Lorica? Not possible. Parthen Lorica was dead. "I don't think so. Unless there's more than one Parthen Lorica. Him and Bugo Armiene died in our hospital camp at al-Khazen. Special Office guys came in and snatched the bodies."
"I missed all that. I heard, but not the names. But them two was definitely Special Office. And that one was definitely a Witchfinder. So. Hey. Time to go." A smuggler-or coastal trader-beckoned them. Two others began casting off.
Hecht hoisted his bag to his shoulder. "I wonder what they really wanted."
"To give you a courier packet. Unless they were looking for witches." In the context of the Special Office a witch would be anybody who consorted with the Instrumentalities of the Night absent the blessing of the Church.
That troubled Hecht. It was vague. The Special Office could make anyone fit. Even the most devout Episcopal Chaldareans bought small charms and invocations against the malice of the Night.
"What you got?" Ghort asked as Lumberer cleared the mouth of the Teragi, after creeping past dredges valiantly trying to keep the channel navigable. The craft rode the evening ebb tide. Lights in Remale-on-Teragi shone to their left. Hecht was, at last, allowing himself to examine the contents of the anonymous courier wallet by the light of a storm lantern. A crewman stood by lest the landlubbers did something stupid and set the ship on fire.
Fire was the fiercest terror of sailors.
"What've we got, Pipe?"
"Other than this letter telling me to take the big packet to somebody named Montes Alina, who'll be using the name Beomond, and how to find the guy, there's nothing here."
"Turning us into mail carriers, eh?"
"Possibly." Paranoia suggested the possibility that the packet would finger him for another assassin.
The Special Office owed him some pain. But they should not know that. He hoped they did not know that.
Ghort said, "That's right. They got their fanatic asses roasted and kicked out up there, a couple years ago. That's where Drocker got himself all crippled."
"Yes. Something about them trying to wipe out the Sonsan Deves."
"You ask me, they were just gonna rob them. But the damned Unbelievers had the balls to fight back."
"So then the ruling families got their tails all twisted because that would cost them their clerical class."
"Yep. Ran the Brotherhood out of town. Too late, the way I heard. The Deves packed up and left."
Hecht knew that story from the inside.
Only Anna Mozilla and a few Deves knew.
"We should be careful," Ghort said. "Till we know who wants to kill you."
"I plan on that. I'm going to hang around just long enough to steal enough to set myself up with a commercial farm. So Anna and I can spend our old age raising grapes and making babies." He was half serious. He did not expect to return to Dreanger while er-Rashal al-Dhulquarnen remained the power behind Gordimer the Lion, who was the power behind the Kaif.
That Lumberer did not always operate inside the law was borne out by the skills of her crew. After crossing the bar they turned north and sailed on into the night, navigating by the light of a quarter moon. In often treacherous seas. There were a million little islands out there. More shoals appeared regularly as sea levels fell.
Near as Hecht could tell, more permanent ice lingering in the high mountain regions meant less water in the rivers feeding into the Mother Sea.
There were dredges working the channel of the Sawn River, up to Sonsa. Lumberer had a shallow draft and, of course, rode in on a flood tide. That was basic, common sense seamanship, old as the trade itself.
Hecht was surprised by Sonsa's quays. Today's highest high water was three feet lower than at his last arrival.
He said, "I want out of Sonsa as fast as possible. So we deliver the courier case and scoot." Though he had no reason to think anyone would recognize him now.
"I'm with you. This place is so quiet, it's creepy."
The waterfront was unnaturally sedate. Two dozen large ships tied up at the family quays looked like they had not moved in a long time. The rigging on some had gone ragged.
"The place is dying," Hecht said. He slung his bag, stepped up to the quay from Lumberer's rail, using a main stay for leverage.
A dozen men and boys surrounded him. Each tried to out-shout the others. All offered to help carry his possessions, to guide him wherever he wanted to go, to take him to a willing sister or daughter. There had been none of this desperation last time Hecht came through.
"This is worse than back home," Ghort murmured. "Except around where the squatters are. You." Ghort grabbed a little weasel with a swift, bright smile, maybe eight or nine. "Where we headed, Matt?"
At the moment Piper Hecht was Mathis Schlink from Schonthal and Ghort was Buck Fantil.
"It's a great name," he had told Hecht aboard Lumberer. "I always wished I had one of them names like Dirk or Steele or Rock. Pinkus Ghort. My momma ought to be spanked. What the hell kind of name is Pinkus Ghort?"
"You tell me," Hecht had responded. "You made it up."
"You want to know the sick, sad truth, my friend? I didn't. It really is the one my momma hung on me. Though nobody never believes me when I tell them."
Hecht remained firmly established in that class. He was sure that Pinkus Ghort would be wanted in more than one principality farther north, under other names.
About the boy, he asked, "What are you doing, Buck?"
"You know your way around this dump? I don't. Besides, the kid reminds me of me in my better days. What's your handle, Shorty?"
"Pella, Your Honor. Pella Versulius."
Pella's competitors laughed. One advised, "Don't turn your back on the little turd, Outlander. He'll steal the hair off your ass."
"He's got shorter legs than me. I can run him down and break his neck."
Hecht caught a flicker of admiration from the urchin. "We need to come to a place called the House of the Ten Gallons in Karagos Middle Street. You know where that is?"
The boy lied easily and glibly. "Absolutely, Your Honors. My own mam was born in Cuttlebone Close an' that's practically next door. Just follow me, Your Honors."
Ghort murmured, "As long as he's out front my butt hairs are safe."
"I'd still keep an eye on our back trail. And not follow him into any place that's narrow or dark."
"You don't need to teach me how to dance. I told you, I used to be this kid. Watch how he gets just far ahead enough so we can'
t hear him ask people how to get to Karagos Middle Street."
"And how they eyeball us before they decide to help him fleece us."
"Yeah. You feel like there ain't much love for foreigners going on here?"
There was anger under Sonsa's thick despair. The waterfront was moribund. Many of its warehouses appeared abandoned.
Hecht shuddered suddenly.
"What?"
"I don't know. I got one of those feelings like you get when some night creature is watching you."
The truth, though, was that the boy had led him past a site where two friends had been killed by sorcery during his previous visit.
"Yeah? What did you think of the kid's name?"
"Sounds a little classical."
"A little, huh? He insulted us, you know."
"How so?"
"Basically, he told us we're too damned unlettered to recognize the name of the poet who wrote The Lay of Ihrian."
"You know what? He's right. In my case."
"You are ignorant and unlettered up there in the Grand Marshes, aren't you?"
"I never denied it. That's why I left."
'There's a damned lie if I ever heard one. Nobody runs away from home on account of… Anyways, if I was honest, I'd admit that the only reason I know is because life around Doneto's dump is so damned dull there that there ain't nothing else to do but read. Because you got me hooked on that shit when we was locked up in Plemenza."
"You don't need to make excuses. Reading isn't a bad thing."
"Now you sound like the Principate. Hey! Kid! Pellapront. How's Alma?"
The boy froze in place, eyes big. He stared at Ghort, bewildered. "Your Honor?"
"Never mind. Go on. And stay on the paved streets. I don't care if it is longer that way." To Hecht, he said, "The Lay of Ihrian is this long-ass comic poem about a guy who goes on a tour of the Holy Lands. But only in his dreams. Guided by a ghost who lies about his name all the time."
"I can see where you'd be amused by that." Hecht eyed his surroundings uneasily. This was a different Sonsa. Too many surly men stood around doing nothing. Blaming their ill fortune on anybody but themselves.
"Ain't we all? Anyway, all the names the ghost gives are names of gods that had something to do with the Wells of Ihrian. Very blasphemous. Toward the end, this guy- whose name in the story is the same as the name of the poet-he gets into a big romp with a whore who turns out to be his sister, Alma. It's pretty funny. But The Lay of Ihrian was banned by the Church. Though nobody probably pays any attention except in Brothe. Principate Doneto says there's probably only four or five copies in the city but the story is famous up north. Like around here, I guess."
"I think we're close."
"Keep an eye out. This could be the tricky part."
Pella let them catch up. "That's Karagos Middle Street up ahead, Your Honors. Cutting across. But I never heard of no House of the Ten Gallons."
Ask around," Hecht suggested.
Yes, Your Honors. Right away. What did you mean about Alma, Your Honor?" he asked Ghort.
Nothing, really. There's a poem with a Pellapront Versulius in it. He has a sister named Alma."
The boy gulped some air.
"Shit," Ghort said. "You got a sister named Alma?"
Pella nodded. He was a gaunt little thing, small for his age. His eyes seemed exaggeratedly large.
"Find out about the house," Hecht urged.
"That's spooky," Ghort said when the boy was out of earshot.
"It is unusual," Hecht conceded. "But not a mystery we need to solve."
"No. Hey. Somebody knows where the place is."
"Good. It's late. We need to get off the street."
Pella came back. "Your Honors didn't have it right. It's the House of the Ten Galleons."
"That makes more sense. Here."
"My sister would make you a better deal."
Hecht recalled the boy offering his sister on the quayside. "Another tie to the poem. I take it the House of the Ten Galleons is a sporting house."
Pella nodded, not conceding the possibility that his charges would be unaware of that fact.
Ghort observed, "An interesting place to find our friend."
"Indeed." Members of the Brotherhood took the same vow of celibacy as less warlike priests. But the Brotherhood tried to observe its vows. All of them. Which was a source of frequent and abiding friction with the rest of the Church.
"We'll think about your sister later," Hecht said. "We need to see a man who lives at the House of the Ten Galleons."
"Really? He must be a eunuch, Your Honor."
"Show us where."
Pella showed. Ghort gave him a coin and told him to wait. "We'll be right back out. We'll need you some more." Once they were away, he asked, "We will be right back out, won't we? You didn't get any special instructions in that mess, did you?"
"Just to give the packet to a man named Beomond. Using a set of signs and countersigns."
"What's he look like?"
"Six and a half feet tall, almost as wide, with a big scar on his face. Plus a wine stain birthmark that starts on his left cheek and runs down his throat and under his shirt."
"Sounds like a beauty. Good evening, sir," Ghort told the man who responded to their knock.
Hecht offered, "We came from Heber," which was the formula included in his instructions.
"Confuckinggratulations. Show me some silver."
That was not the appropriate response.
A small, high voice piped, "Out of the way, Tiny."
Tiny moved. A truly tiny, wrinkled old woman whose coloring suggested origins far to the east stepped forward. "Where are you from?" Her Firaldian was flawless, with a Sonsan accent. She must be a Chaldarean refugee from the Kaifate of Qasr al-Zed. There were countless pockets of non-Episcopal Chaldareans scattered around the Realm of Peace.
"Heber."
"Welcome, countrymen. Come in. Can I offer you refreshments?"
"Coffee, perhaps." All part of the sign-countersign, but here the old woman broke the rhythm. "We can't afford coffee anymore. Business has been bad lately."
"I'm sorry to hear that." Hecht knew that was the sort of complaint an eavesdropper would expect to hear. "Whatever's convenient, then."
"Wine would hit the spot," Ghort said.
Hecht scowled. Ghort was far too fond of wine. But to say so would be dangerous. All westerners drank wine, many to excess.
Hecht asked, "Is my cousin Beomond here? My uncle wanted us to bring him his birthday gift."
Tiny held out a hand. Hecht ignored it. The old woman told him, "Go wake him up." She continued a frank examination of the visitors. "You're finally catching on how to look like regular people."
Hecht did not understand. Ghort replied, "It's a gift. Some got it. Some don't. Me an' Matt, we're natural-born talents. In fact, Matt really was regular people, once upon a time."
A great, sloppy, jiggling mountain of a man appeared, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. He was naked to the waist. The wine stain birthmark extended down his chest to the level of his heart.
Ghort said, "Cousin Beo has been living large since we seen him last."
Hecht released a blurt of nervous laughter. Because what Ghort said was true. The man had gotten fatter since last Hecht had seen him, in Runch, working as a porter in the Sonsan factor house. He had lacked the scar, then. And the birthmark had not been obvious in the poor light of the factor house. His name was Goydar back then.
He was drunk. He squinted at Hecht. "I seen you somewhere before."
"I'm your cousin, Mathis. Matt. I brought a birthday present from your father. I wanted to hand it over. We're in kind of a hurry. We have other business."
Mention of a present pierced the fog in the giant's mind. Dad remembered? I was beginning to wonder. You have any trouble out there? In the street?"
Puzzled, Hecht said, "No. We hired a boy off the quay. He brought us straight here." He indicated the possessions they had dropped af
ter being admitted. "The city almost seems deserted."
The fat man asked, "You didn't get stopped by any Family patrols?"
"No."
"You will. There'll be rumors about strangers out by now. That'll turn into spies from the Brotherhood or agents of the Deves. They really want to get even with somebody. Sonsa is dying. And they claim it's all our fault. Not the damned Deves. They're gonna need passes. Good ones. Brothers, when they stop you, forget who you are. Just show your passes. Do what they say. Don't give them any excuse to strip you down. They do, you'll be lucky to end up just having your stuff taken and your ass seriously kicked. They killed a Deve last week. And he was under the protection of Don Alsano."
Ghort chirped, "Matt, you want to remind me why I had to come with you?"
"Stupidity?"
"Yeah. That's the one."
Tiny offered what was, likely, the only profound statement ever to escape his mouth. "You can't fix stupid."
"Shit. Man. I like that," Ghort said. "I'm gonna use that."
The old woman yelled in from the next room, "Will you see who the hell is at the door, Tiny? Hey! You girls get back where you belong." Hecht spotted several girls trying to get a look at the visitors. They seemed awfully young for denizens of a joy house. "You two from Heber. Come in here. That should be a customer. I don't like my customers to see each other."
"Really?"
Voices at the door. Ghort said, "That's Pella. I better see what's up." He went.
Beomond asked Hecht, "You been involved for long?"
"Only a few years."
"Been to Runch?"
Hecht considered admitting that he had. But that might start Ghort asking questions.
He was doing fine with his Duarnenian past. "I hope to go someday. To the Holy Lands, too. To walk the roads the Founders walked, among the Wells of Ihrian… I have to make the pilgrimage. But the traffic all seems to be headed this way these days. Those who sent the packet were Special Office."
"You talk too much. These walls have ears."
"Point taken. Apologies." He had let too much thought leak through while he concentrated on Ghort's conversation with Pella.
Old Bit had gone into a corner. She rummaged through a pile of what looked like refuse, came up with passes bearing ihe Durandanti family crest. "These will do. As long as you stay away from Durandanti patrols. If you don't act like what you are and piss somebody off. These make you agents of Don Alsano Durandanti. The Three Families are trying to get along. Them against the world. Don Alsano has a plan to bring Sonsa back."