Brown River Queen

by Frank Tuttle

  Trumpets blew. The crowd, well-fueled by equal parts booze, surprise, and in many cases, terror, roared like the host of Hell.

  Beneath my feet, the Queen’s deck began to vibrate, and even though I couldn’t hear a thing over the din, I could feel her pistons wake and begin to move.

  Within moments we were underway. I couldn’t see the big red wheel turn. Some sorcery prevented us from hearing it churn the Brown’s muddy face, but I could see the metronomic splashes of water on the aft glass, and as these increased in volume and frequency I knew we were on the move and picking up speed.

  Give her this—she was a graceful lady, the Queen. Not a single wine glass fell. The deck never swayed. We might as well have been sitting in my office rather than thrashing our way to the middle of the Brown.

  Evis motioned with his hands. Bright red balloons fell from the Queen’s ceiling and exploded just as they neared the tops of our heads. A tiny shrieking dragon, glowing like an ember, flew from each balloon, darting to and fro overhead as the crowd shouted and cheered.

  The diminutive dragons vanished, one by one, with a loud pop and a puff of radiant vapor. Evis bowed and left the stage as a line of musicians took their places in chairs at the rear.

  Music sounded, loud and clear, though the musicians hadn’t sorted out their horns and harps, much less started playing. The music was strange, unearthly, and I couldn’t begin to even name the instruments, much less the melody.

  Around us, the crowd began to move. Most made their way to the gambling tables, eager to line Avalante’s pockets by betting on dice or wheels. A surprising number of couples took to the dance floor in front of the stage.

  I set off in that direction myself, Darla at my side. I found us a spot in the dim wash of light that crept from the stage and put my back to it before bowing and formally offering Darla my hand.

  She didn’t laugh. “I’d be honored,” she said as she slipped into my arms.

  “Keep an eye on the musicians,” I whispered into her ear.

  Around us, couples bowed and curtseyed and stepped and spun, all moving according to some ages-old custom that demanded all the precision of a military drill corps and promised roughly the equivalent measure of intimate contact with congenial womenfolk. I reflected upon the probability of imminent mayhem, put my arms around Darla’s waist, and just started swaying.

  She pretended to gasp. “Why, Mr. Markhat! The scandal!”

  “I’ll have Evis put it on my tab.” I pulled her closer, ignoring the curious stares of our fellow dancers, who still moved in their ever-changing hops, curtseys, and rounds.

  The music played, slow and suggestive. Something stringed made mournful notes while a deep bass drum beat like a weary heart.

  “I like this music,” I said. Darla leaned into me. “What the hell is it, and where is it coming from?”

  “Gertriss and I heard it earlier. It’s a recording made from music that Evis and his people found playing on that long-talking device they have hidden away under Avalante. Evis thinks it comes from another world.”

  “It might.” A woman began to sing with the music, her voice low and husky, her words foreign and incomprehensible, but her amorous intent crystal clear.

  We swayed. I moved my feet around a bit. The couple closest to us gave up their precise choreography for a halting but enthusiastic embrace.

  “Look, dear, we’re trendsetters,” I whispered.

  She smiled and moved with me. Before the foreign song faded away, and another began, half the dance floor was standing close and swaying in the dark, while the traditionalists glared and pranced and gave us room.

  I scanned the crowd for Evis or trouble and saw neither. I did catch a brief glimpse of Gertriss’s bright green gown and braided blonde hair, both of which were surrounded by smiling, eager young men hoping to outshine his fellows.

  We did a half-turn.

  “They’re wasting their charm,” said Darla. “Any sign of our toothy host?”

  “Not since he left the stage. I’m sure he’s got orders to give, boats to steer, brooding, dark looks to cast dramatically across shadowed, empty halls.”

  “Were we ever that confused?”

  “You never wavered in your quest to win my heart, oh first wife of mine.”

  She pinched me. “First wife? You have another?”

  “Not yet, but the night is young.”

  Gertriss slipped away from her bevy of suitors and I lost sight of her in the crowd.

  “What’s this?” Darla’s hand paused casually over the wax-sealed tortoise shell in my right jacket pocket.

  “A gift.” I recalled Stitches’s admonition that I tell no one of the false huldra, even Darla. I told Darla the whole story in whispers.

  “You should throw it in the river,” she said when I was done. Her eyes were somber. “I like Stitches. But I don’t trust her.”

  I dipped Darla and made her smile. “If I do, I might wish I hadn’t.”

  “Let me then.”

  “We’ll see.” The music faded away, and the spotlight flared to life, and a tall black woman in a long white gown took the stage as the musicians tapped out a rhythm and began to play.

  The Queen lurched—just a bit, but enough to cause the remaining pair of formal dancers to stumble and lose their place. The lights even flickered.

  And then it was over. The sounds of dice clattering and wheels spinning and gamblers shouting and cheering never faltered, not even for an instant.

  “Did you see that?”

  “I did.” I felt Darla’s heart beat faster. “Trouble?”

  “Don’t know.” We kept dancing. The black lady introduced herself as Lady Rondalee of Bel Loit and dedicated her first song to ‘all the lovers out there.’

  “Trouble,” she sang. “Trouble, bad trouble, been dogging me all my days…”

  “Well, that’s comforting,” whispered Darla.

  “Ain’t no comfort, ain’t no comfort, no comfort ever comin’ my ways…”

  “I think she can hear you,” I said.

  “I hear you, I hear you sayin’, sayin’ I needs to be changin’ my ways…”

  Darla stopped swaying. “You don’t think—”

  “I don’t. Coincidence. We’re on edge, that’s all. It’s just a song.”

  A waiter pushed his way through the crowd. His starched white shirt was stretched to near bursting by his muscular physique. A scar ran all the way down the right side of his face. Something under his black dinner jacket bulged, and I didn’t think it was a salt shaker.

  He bore down on us, mindful to keep his hands visible and open, palms toward me.

  He stopped a few paces short of us, and waited until I gently disengaged from Darla and moved to stand in front of her.

  He nodded, reached slowly in his jacket, and came out with a note. He held it up and I took it from him, and he vanished into the crowd—doubtlessly to employ those muscles in the precise pouring of any one of Rannit’s finer wines.

  I unfolded the note, just halfway, to make sure it didn’t bear hex signs. Instead, I recognized Gertriss’s tall plain hand, and opened it all the way.

  BOSS, it read. BY THE PORT STAIR. COME QUICK. IT’S BAD.

  Darla gasped, reading over my shoulder.

  “Don’t suppose I could convince you to wait here?”

  “Waste of time trying, dear.”

  And we were off, weaving through the dancers, plowing through the drunks and the gamblers and their noisy entourages.

  I caught one more stanza of Lady Rondalee’s song, before the din drowned her out.

  “One day soon, one day soon, trouble gonna be the death of me…”

  “Not tonight, I hope,” I muttered. Darla didn’t hear.

  I put my shoulder to the mob and charged toward the stairs.

  I wasn’t sure what I was expecting when I found Gertriss.

  Blood, maybe. Bodies, possibly. Mayhem, certainly.

  But what we found appeared to be a sh
apely, young, blonde woman locked in the throes of rather public affection with a young man deep in his cups.

  Gertriss and her companion had chosen a tiny table for two at the very back of the Queen’s casino deck. It was tucked into an alcove formed by the stairwell and the wall, and as such, it was deep in shadow and as well out of sight as any spot on the entire casino floor.

  The table had been pushed away from the wall. Gertriss sat in the man’s lap, his arms over her shoulders, her face pressed to his.

  Darla caught on fast. The man’s arms were too limp. His hands just flopped. The only reason his head wasn’t hanging down was because Gertriss was keeping it up with her simulated kisses.

  There aren’t many young women willing to get so intimate with a corpse that everyone nearby was fooled into thinking they were a couple.

  I eyed the crowd around us. Hell, nobody was doing more than glancing and grinning. Most eyes were on the wheel a half-dozen steps away, where a greying banker and a woman half his age were throwing away a fortune amid gales of laughter and demands for more drinks.

  Darla took a position behind me. I leaned down and spoke into Gertriss’s ear.

  “Is he dead?”

  “Yes, boss. I didn’t see who did it. He was laughing one minute and dead the next. There’s a knife in his chest. Boss, his eyes are gone. I put his head down on the table and wrote out a note and gave it to a waiter to give to security. I was afraid someone notice he wasn’t moving, so I pretended we were a couple. What do we do?”

  “We talk about giving you a raise.”

  “Now, boss. What do we do now? We can’t panic the guests. Evis. He’ll be ruined.”

  I laughed, long and loud, and pretended to pull Gertriss from her fellow. I let his face hang down before anyone nearby got a good look.

  His eyes were gone. There wasn’t much blood. Just two empty sockets, eyelids sunk in and hanging limp.

  “He’ll just have a headache in the morning,” I said for the benefit of anyone listening. “Here, let’s get him back to his room.”

  Gertriss stood and helped me block the view. I checked for a pulse in his neck, found none, dropped my hand down until I felt the wet spot on his shirt.

  “I pulled it out,” said Gertriss before I could ask. “Didn’t want anyone to see.”

  He was wearing a jacket. I fumbled with the buttons until I got it closed.

  “You don’t say,” I roared, laughing. “Well, no more brandy for you tonight!”

  “Is he drunk again?” said Darla, hands on her hips.

  “Dead drunk,” I replied. Gertriss got on his left, and I on his right, and together we hefted the dead man to his feet. As long as no one got inquisitive, he looked like any other passed-out drunk.

  Darla began a furious tirade that drew a few stares but kept them off the dead man. She kept it up the whole time Gertriss and I conveyed our limp friend through the casino and up the stairs. I waved off a pair of waiters, and they had the sense to turn and walk away.

  I was never so glad to find a dark and winding staircase. If we were attracting attention, it wasn’t much. I dared a single pause just before the ceiling cut off my view of the casino floor, and scanned the crowd to see if any one face was watching us go with more than casual attention.

  I saw nothing but a mob of Rannit’s elite throwing taxpayer money away by the fistful, so I hauled the dead man up the stairs while Darla pretended to chide us both for our lack of decorum and Gertriss fought back tears.

  The hall, when we reached it, was empty. Darla took Gertriss’s place under the corpse’s right arm.

  “Where are we taking him?”

  “Our room. I don’t like it either, but we’ve got to get out of sight.”

  She bit her lips and nodded. We headed for our door, mindful of voices and the sounds of approaching feet, but we managed to make the trip without meeting anyone.

  Darla got the door open and I shoved our quiet new acquaintance inside.

  “Blanket,” I said. Gertriss darted past me, found a linen closet, and threw a new white blanket upon the floor.

  I laid the dead man on it, as gently as my aching arms allowed. He hadn’t been a small man, or a light one.

  Darla knelt down at his eyeless head.

  “What did this?”

  “Someone wanting to make an impression.” I unbuttoned his coat, searched his pockets, laid the contents down in a pile.

  Eight hundred crowns, all of it paper. Two gold crowns in a leather case, inscribed “From Father, on the Day of Your Birth.“ A door key, numbered 233. A white hanky, two paper-wrapped peppermints, and a silver card case.

  I opened the case.

  “ROLLAR KIST,” read the stark white linen-paper card. Below that was a seal—two daggers crossed against a bed of roses.

  And that was all.

  I closed the case. I reached up to shut the dead man’s eyes until I remembered he didn’t have any to bother with.

  “Rollar Kist,” I said. “Anybody recognize the name? Gertriss?”

  She shook her head. She stopped crying, but not shaking. I gave Darla a glance and she rose and led Gertriss to a chair.

  “I hate to ask, but I have to. Tell me what you saw.”

  Gertriss sat, her hands clasped in her lap. She took a breath.

  “He sent me a drink. And a card. I couldn’t find Evis. So I went over to thank him. He was alive and smiling when I stood up, boss. Dead and… like that when I got there, maybe a quarter of a minute later. Just sitting there. Like that.”

  Darla got behind her and started rubbing her neck.

  “You see anybody near him? Anybody speak to him or hurry away?”

  Gertriss shook her head no.

  “It was dark. And loud. And there were so many people moving around. I’m sorry, boss. I didn’t see a thing.”

  “You weren’t meant to. Don’t beat yourself up. Whoever did this knew what they were doing.”

  Gertriss shivered. Not because I was right, but because she realized, as I did, that the killer could as easily have chosen her as his target, and might do so yet.

  “You think this man was killed because he sent Gertriss a drink, and she knows you?”

  “Could be me. Could be Evis the killer meant to rattle. Not sure yet. But someone is determined to make trouble.”

  Darla’s eyes fell. “So you don’t think this is a coincidence? A random killing?”

  “He was stabbed. Then his eyes were removed. They left a thousand crowns in his pockets.” I shook my head. “No. This was meant to touch off a panic. Say Gertriss had screamed and raised a ruckus. Dead man, knife in his heart, eyes in somebody’s pockets? Free drinks aren’t going to take the sting out of that.”

  A knock sounded at the door.

  “Markhat,” said Evis. “Is Gertriss in there? Open up!”

  I pulled the blanket over the dead man before rising and heading for the door.

  I checked the peephole before I unlocked it. Evis was there, flanked by a pair of Avalante halfdead in dark glasses.

  “She’s here,” I said, motioning them all inside. “Quick. We’ve got trouble.”

  “I heard. You left at a trot. What the hell?”

  He nudged the blanket aside with the toe of a finely polished boot.

  “What the hell?”

  He saw Gertriss then and rushed to her side. She stood, wiping at her smeared make-up.

  “I’m fine,” she said.

  “She’s certainly not fine,” said Darla, her arms crossed over her chest. “She pretended to embrace a mutilated corpse just so you wouldn’t have a panic on your hands.”

  “What the hell?”

  I pulled Darla aside. “Give him some room,” I said as Evis and Gertriss began a frantic whispered conversation. “He’s repeating himself. Sure sign of panicked contrition. What’s that?”

  Darla held up a short, wide dagger, using a napkin to keep from touching it. Blood stained the blade. “This is what she pulled out of t
he late Mr. Kist,” she said. “I’ve never seen one quite like it.”

  The hilt was as fat and short as the blade. Both were worked with symbols I couldn’t place, except to say they weren’t Kingdom or Old Kingdom or the tall straight script of the Church.

  “Let me have a look,” I said. Evis was beside me, though I never saw him move.

  “Dammit, Markhat, don’t—”

  Before he could finish, the knife was in my hand.

  I didn’t take it. Darla swears to this day she didn’t hand it to me. One instant my hand was empty, though, and the next I was gripping a fat silver dagger with a bloody sharp blade.

  It went cold—colder than Yule Eve ice. I tried to throw it down. I opened my fingers and threw, but it was stuck to my skin as surely as if it were glued.

  The hairs on the back of my neck tried to stand up and scamper away as the hex stored in the dagger settled over me like a blanket woven of frost.

  Markhat, said a faint hex-voice in an airy whisper. Markhat.

  Evis shouted. “Get Stitches up here now!” One of his halfdead soldiers darted out my door.

  The dagger moved and changed in my grasp, became a wine glass, a beer bottle, a vase I’d given Darla to keep her fireflowers in the day we moved into our new house.

  Darla, her eyes wide, tried to take the thing from my hand, but Evis grabbed her and pushed her back. “Damn me,” he said, fixing his gaze over my left shoulder. “Marcus. Kill it.”

  The remaining halfdead pulled a pair of short silver blades from beneath his dark coat and charged past me.

  I whirled. Marcus’s blades were slicing and gleaming, cutting through a thickening darkness in the air but spilling no blood.

  The shape solidified, took on the form of a hooded, cloaked figure so tall its hood scraped the ceiling.

  It raised a bony hand to point at me and began to speak in that hissing, dry whisper.

  Marcus dropped his blades, pulled a revolver, and emptied it into the dark form.

  It neither flinched nor faltered. A ringing began to sound in my ears and a tightness began to grow in my throat.

  Darla nearly managed to claw her way past Evis when I broke for the door.