“But—streets changing? Stepping into one street and out on another? That doesn’t seem possible.”
“If you a’nt going to believe me, why did you hire me?” Nacalia shouted.
Zerafine looked down at her small, angry head. “You’re right,” she said. “I’m sorry, Nacalia. Let me see if I understand. We were on the road to the Capitol, and then we were on the road to the market, yes?”
“I just said,” Nacalia muttered.
“I mean, you don’t see any changes? There’s no, I don’t know, ripple or fading or anything?”
The small head went back and forth in a ‘no’.
Zerafine looked at Gerrard. “Let’s see if I can do better. Guide me?”
He took hold of the back of her robe. “Let’s move on, whelp.”
Zerafine centered herself and opened her heart’s eye. She was aware of buildings as immaterial shapes, but people shimmered with a pale glow, spirits safely encased in bodies. Far to the left, mostly concealed by the press, she thought she saw the brighter knot of energy marking an apparition. She was barely conscious of the road as more than a pressure on the soles of her feet, and Gerrard’s hand at her back kept her from stumbling. “Tell us when the road changes again,” she said.
In just a few minutes, Nacalia turned a corner and said, “Right there,” but Zerafine knew before she spoke. The world pulsed, like a heartbeat, and the buildings and the stones of the street glowed briefly red. She opened her physical eyes. “Where are we now?” she asked.
“Three streets south of where we was before,” Nacalia said.
“It was like a pulse, or like a muscle flexing,” Zerafine told Gerrard. She turned to look back at the street they’d come from; it didn’t look any different. “And now, according to Nacalia, that street connects to one it didn’t before. What I don’t understand is how nobody else notices. I mean, suppose you were shopping at a stall and suddenly you’re five blocks away?”
“Only ever happens when we turn a corner,” Nacalia chimed in.
“That just means we haven’t seen it happen any other way yet.”
Gerrard shrugged. “Can you still get us to the Capitol?” he asked, scratching his beard.
Nacalia matched his shrug. “Streets keep changing.”
“But you know every street in this city,” Zerafine pointed out. “You must know every possible route to the Capitol, no matter what street you’re on. Could you assume you’re going to have to keep changing your route?”
Nacalia looked up. “I suppose,” she said, but she looked more hopeful. “Takes longer.”
“We’re not in a hurry.”
Nacalia led the way with more confidence. This time, Zerafine watched, not the buildings, but their fellow travelers. Most of them kept their heads down or conversed loudly with their companions. A pair of ghost hunters with a shiny new trap crossed the street to avoid her, unable to meet her eyes. A few people, however, would come around a corner toward them and look around in confusion, turning one way and another as if lost. Some even turned around and went back the way they’d come, muttering curses. So some people did notice. Why hadn’t anyone reported this weird occurrence?
They passed through a nearly empty market, stalls that should have been full of food empty and untended. One of the lone vendors, a woman selling turnips off a cart, gave them a look as empty as her neighbors’ booths. Zerafine took a look around at the quiet neighborhood. Unemployed men on the street corner gazed at her narrow-eyed as she passed. She could feel their eyes on her long after they’d fallen behind. It was a relief to reach the Capitol and duck into the coolness of the Rotunda.
Having reached their goal, however, Zerafine realized she didn’t know what to do next. After some discussion, she and Gerrard decided to try their luck with the hall that led to the Council chamber. Nacalia, already looking bored, followed in their wake; Zerafine still hadn’t forgotten the mystery man’s threat. After peeking into three or four rooms, badly startling their occupants, she found an office that contained Paola, a broad desk, and many piles of paper.
“Madama thelis,” Paola said, surprised. “Were you expected?”
“I’m here to look at the records on the apparitions,” Zerafine said. “I assume you’ve collected more since my first visit?”
“Certainly. Were they helpful?” Paola began to rummage through a stack of papers at least four inches tall.
“Very much so.” Zerafine put out a hand to stop the papers from sliding away. Paola murmured her thanks.
“Here they are,” she said, handing Zerafine a few sheets of paper. She scanned the top page, noting how the reports had been organized by district or hill, then by neighborhood, in an orderly fashion.
“What I’m actually interested in,” she said, “are the reports themselves. They can’t arrive at your office this neatly organized.”
“Well, no,” Paola said, “but we don’t keep those. There are so many. We collect them and then list them on this document. And not everything gets reported. The lists from our, um, more notable citizens are complete, but we’re certain that in some neighborhoods, people just can’t be bothered to tell us about the problem.”
“I’m not sure how you can tell that certain, um, notable citizens are making complete reports?” Zerafine said, and instantly felt sorry for mocking the young woman’s attempt not to say “the rich people who matter.” But Paola seemed not to notice. She was becoming enthusiastic about the topic. She was apparently one of those people who thrived on bureaucracy.
“We do keep track of multiple reports of the same sighting,” she said. “We’ve found that the more affluent the neighborhood, the more likely we are to hear about a sighting. But that makes sense, because—” She cut herself off, mid-sentence.
“Because?” Zerafine prompted her.
Paola looked around as if she expected some invisible person to take note of her words for her future punishment. “Because tokthelos Genedirou is more willing to come out for important people,” she said in a hushed voice. “So it’s to their advantage to report every apparition they see, because then the tokthelos will know to take care of it.”
“Thank you for your honesty,” Zerafine said. “Walk me through the process by which the reports arrive.”
Paola looked as though her desire to know why the emissary wanted such information was at war with her keen sense of self-preservation. Self-preservation won. “Someone sends a runner to bring the message,” she said. “The runner brings the message to the receiving office—you understand we get messages, requests for the Council and so forth, all day. A clerk puts the message about the apparition into the proper bin. And at the end of the day another clerk sorts through the messages and produces a list like the one you have there.”
“I’d like to talk to these clerks,” Zerafine said.
Paola opened her mouth to object, closed it, then said, “I think your presence might be a little...disturbing to their work.”
“They’ll have to deal with it. I promise I won’t take much of their time.”
Paola led them back down the hall and to a stairway leading down. Gerrard said, in a low voice, “You’re wondering about the chance one of them could be bribed.”
Zerafine nodded. “This setup sounds like a perfect way to obscure what’s really going on up on the hills.” She raised her hood. It was a calculated risk; either she’d need the intimidation factor of the red robes, or she’d make a handful of innocent clerks wet themselves in terror.
The low-ceilinged room they entered looked far less orderly even than Paola’s office. A handful of men and women were occupied with sorting paper of all sizes, from mere scraps to immense folio sheets. A middle-aged woman wearing spectacles and a frown came to meet them. Her collar bore the circle pin of one of Kalindi’s worshippers.
“Emissary,” she said coldly. Not madama or thelis. Interesting. “What can I do for you?”
“I’d like to see today’s apparition reports,” Zerafin
e said politely. The woman raised her eyebrows, but indicated a box on the deep shelf that circled the room. The other clerks had stopped their work and were eyeing her nervously.
Zerafine reached into the box and pulled out a scant handful of messages. Well, it was still early, despite their many detours in reaching the Capitol. She glanced through them quickly. Only one was signed, and she recognized the name of one of the people she’d been introduced to at the Council’s party. Another way to make sure the report got noticed, perhaps?
“Which of you received these messages?” she asked.
“Please direct your questions to me, emissary,” the woman said. It was Zerafine’s turn to raise her eyebrows in surprise.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“Cimelia Argest,” she replied as if daring Zerafine to doubt her.
“Are you the one who received the messages?”
“No, emissary.” She sounded as if Zerafine should know how beneath her the task was.
“Then I fail to see how you can answer my question. Again, which of you received these messages?” She could practically feel Gerrard struggling not to laugh.
“Madama thelis? We all take in messages. There’s no one person handles specific ones,” said a timid woman near the back of the room.
“Please stop wasting my people’s time, emissary,” Cimelia said. Paola made a sound like a gasp being suppressed. Zerafine was surprised to feel the god’s curse begin to roil inside her chest. The belligerent woman, she realized, wasn’t so much belligerent as genuinely angry at her. What in the known world does she think I did to her? And why does the god think she’s a threat?
“I’ll be the judge of what’s a waste of time,” she said, politely, swallowing the curse and ignoring the insult. If Cimelia’s anger was personal, Zerafine had no time available to figure out why. “Thank you for your help, madama,” she said to the timid woman in the back, and turned on her heel to leave, Gerrard and Nacalia close behind. Paola, her mouth agape, scrambled to catch up.
“I am so sorry, madama thelis. I apologize for Cimelia’s rudeness. I’ve never been so embarrassed,” she said when they were back in her office.
“You weren’t the rude one, and I took no offense,” Zerafine said. It was only a little bit of a lie. “Thank you for your time. You’ve been so helpful.”
“It’s my pleasure, madama,” Paola said. “Please, if you have any more questions, come by any time.” They exchanged salutes, and Zerafine led her little group through the Rotunda, sparing a glance for the gods on the dome high above. It was a pity they couldn’t tell her what they saw.
Chapter Fourteen
Out on the street, Zerafine said, “I wanted to punch that woman straight in the mouth.”
“Paola?”
“Very funny. I got the strangest feeling that that Cimelia person was angry at me personally and not at my intrusion into her fiefdom. And believe it or not, the god agreed with me.”
“I wouldn’t know. I was watching the clerks. You realize this was all inconclusive, right?”
Zerafine sighed. “Yes. Any one of them could be throwing away the reports he or she receives. That would account for the discrepancies in three of the estates, and we’d never be able to prove which one of the clerks it was.”
“Well, for what it’s worth, none of them showed the kind of fear I’d associate with guilt. Just the usual existential dread of the red robe.”
“What’s existential?” said Nacalia. She was practicing standing on one foot, the other folded across her chest.
“A really big word,” said Gerrard. “Much as it kills me to admit it, I don’t think Dakariou is involved with falsifying the reports. He’d either have to spend all his time running between the estates or he’d have to find a way to intercept those messages before they get to the Capitol. My instincts tell me the source is somewhere inside the five families. Someone has to generate those reports.”
“It would have to be someone operating behind the family heads’ backs,” Zerafine said.
“Well, someone like Castinidou Rodennos is too busy to deal with little details like that. He’d obviously delegate.”
“I’m really not looking forward to tackling Alita.”
“You think Gordou is a better target?”
“He’d be easier to get around, but he’s also our only unknown. At least with Alita we have some idea of what to look for.”
“So what’s your plan?”
Zerafine stretched. “I’ll have to put her in a position where she can’t refuse me an invitation to her home. I may have to leave you behind,” she warned, and Gerrard frowned.
Nacalia grabbed her sleeve. “Thelis, somebody just made this—” she mimed a warding gesture—“at you.”
“It’s okay, Nacalia, I’m used to it.”
Nacalia shook her head. “He looked angry, like he wanted to hit you. There are a lot of people giving you mean looks.”
Zerafine looked around. Most people, as usual, were avoiding eye contact with her. But Nacalia was right; there was a sizable percentage of passersby who were looking at her with angry glares. It was unnerving. “I think we should go home,” she said, “and look over this new information before we have to meet with Dakariou later.”
On the way home, Nacalia again taking any number of detours, it became obvious that nearly half the people they passed glared at Zerafine. One or two even jostled her in the street, which surprised rather than hurt her. Gerrard began making the noises, deep in his chest, that meant he was gearing up to fight someone, anyone, given half an opportunity. He switched his longstaff from his left hand to his right.
They came into a neighborhood market that Zerafine, after a moment, recognized as the half-empty market they’d passed through just hours earlier. What a difference those hours made. The place was alive with activity, and every stall was filled with produce or housewares. The only thing that remained the same was the small group of toughs on the corner, still giving her that narrow-eyed stare.
Zerafine stopped and bought some oranges for them at one stall. “I can’t believe how different this place looks. There was almost no one here when we passed through earlier,” she told the vendor.
The man was relaxed, inclined to chat, and thankfully didn’t seem to hate her. “What a day I’ve had,” he said, offering her a small knife to pare her orange with. “I’ve been coming to this market every day, barring the Last of the Old Year, for maybe fourteen years now. You can imagine how well I know my route, yes? And today I got lost. Found myself wheeling down a road I’d never seen before. I tell you, it was like being lost in my own house, that’s how unsettling it was.”
Zerafine glanced at Nacalia, who was up to her eyebrows in orange juice. “Told you,” she said in a muffled voice.
“It wasn’t just you, though, was it?” Gerrard asked.
“Goddess, aren’t you a big fellow. No, most all of us had the same problem. Strange thing was, didn’t see any of these others on the road with me. But all us got lost the same way. Piedrou!” he shouted to a man selling almonds across the way. “You want to tell the thelis what happened to you?”
“Ended up in a dead-end street near where I lived as a boy!” Piedrou, an elderly man with white hair and beard, shouted back. “Halfway across Portena! Took me most of an hour to get back here.”
“That is strange,” Zerafine said. “I’m glad you made it here safely.”
“Don’t know as it was dangerous, just strange,” he replied.
They went on, having found a fountain at which to wash Nacalia’s face. A few steps later, Gerrard took Zerafine’s arm. “We’re being followed,” he said in a low voice. “Those young men on the corner. Four or five of them.”
“Should I be worried?”
“It might come to blows. I don’t suppose Atenas is interested in delivering justice?”
She felt no gathering pressure in her chest or throat, no sense of the curse filling her. “No. What is wrong with ev
eryone today? I can’t remember the last time someone tried to attack us.”
“Fifth of last Ormuor.”
“I’m disturbed that you remember that so precisely.”
“I so rarely get to flex my muscles in your defense.”
“Bloodthirsty savage. Have you found a place to make a stand?”
“Alcove on the right, about twenty feet ahead.”
Something solid struck Zerafine in the center of her back. Not a rock, something softer...please, please let it be mud. The stink reached her nose. Not mud. Damn.
They weren’t quite to the alcove. Zerafine took a few more steps before turning. Sweet goddess of light, did that idiot actually pick up a turd with his bare hands? The five men—three of them were barely more than boys, really—stood several paces away, grinning the foolish grins of men who had started a fight they wouldn’t be able to finish.
“Do you have a problem?” Zerafine said coldly. There was always a chance they could walk away from this. No. There really wasn’t. Beside her, Gerrard was loosening up for battle. She didn’t need to look at him to know that he was grinning too, except his grin was that of a wolf who’d just seen the shepherd walk away from the flock.
“Don’t think you ought to be walking around in public like that,” said the shortest gang member. His hair was slicked down close to his head, parted in the middle and brilliant with oil. “Don’t think you ought to be so bold.”
Zerafine took a few steps backward, trying to look casual. “Walk away from this,” she commanded. She nearly tripped over Nacalia, who was clinging to her robe with both hands. Only a few more steps and she’d have the alcove at her back. Gerrard moved to put himself between her and the gang.
“Last chance,” she warned. One of the men pulled out a length of chain and snapped it between his hands, still grinning. Zerafine shrugged. “Just remember, this was all your idea,” she said, and scooped up Nacalia and got them both into the shelter of the alcove as the five men ran at them.
The one in the lead met Gerrard’s left fist coming the other way and dropped like a sack of grain. The other four had too much momentum to be able to react to this, and by the time they’d realized they’d lost a man, Gerrard’s staff had caught a second thug between his legs and assisted him down a nearby stairwell. The remaining three retreated a few steps, watching Gerrard warily. He stood, balanced neatly on the balls of his feet, twirling his longstaff in both hands, and said, “Come on, boys, who’s next?”
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