by Raven Bond
Jinhao laughed, touching his arm.
“Again with the light touch! Alright,” she said, smiling back, “fighting does leave one…hungry, I admit. Yes, certainly!”
Owen gave the cab man directions. They were both grateful to be getting out of the rain for a while. As they settled themselves, and the cab clattered along the streets, Owen suddenly sat bolt upright.
“Damn me,” he gasped.
Jinhao pulled back her hood with a look of concern.
“What is it? Are you injured?”
“No, no,” Owen reached into his vest pocket, pulling out a flask. “I completely forgot I had this with me. We could have had a drink way before now.”
Holding it up, he pronounced, “To victory!” He nodded towards her, speaking in Mandarin, “And to beloved comrades in arms!” He took a large drink.
She took the flask from him, and held it up with a soft smile.
“As you British say: hear, hear!” She knocked the fierce spirits back and looked at him.
“Why do you say that, by the way? What sort of agreement is it to say, ‘listen, listen’? Listen to what?”
“Well,” he replied taking the flask, “It all goes back to the old days, when they would start royal proclamations with it.”
“Yes, yes,” she said crossly, “I know what a proclamation is. But I am not proclaiming. You are.”
“Well—it doesn’t really mean listen,” Owen started.
“You don’t know, do you?” she interrupted him in triumph. “You English always start a sentence where you don’t know what you are talking about with ‘well’.”
“Well…” Owen caught himself. “Now see here, that’s hardly fair!”
The cab rolled on through the puddles and rivulets of water-soaked streets. The rain continued to drum down on the roof of the cab, adding to the noise of the carriage wheels and creaky springs.
Chapter 4
The woman turned onto the dilapidated street at a brisk walk. Her disguise as a freelance courier allowed her to blend in perfectly. No one noticed a courier with a message bag. The fact had served her as well in her previous exploits as it had tonight. She climbed the rickety stairs of the building at the end of the street and knocked on the door.
It was opened by an old man with a shock of white hair.
“So,” he said with a deep accent, “you have returned again. I trust that the gun worked well?”
She barged her way past him. “Not on the streets, you fool.” She pulled off her short-waisted jacket to reveal a tube strapped to her arm, with wires leading to a box on her belt.
“Yes, everything went according to the plan. As of tonight, Sir Stanley of the Trading Board is no more, and as efficiently as the others.” She thought back to how, disguised as a courier, she had come up to her targets and simply appeared to hold out her hand. The silent magnetic gun had fired the poison bullet so fast that there was no time for them to cry out.
She held up the arm with the tube.
“I need the gun reloaded for another shot.”
“Another…” the old man said absently. He unstrapped the tube from her forearm. He reached inside a small box covered in frost with a thin pair of pliers. Gingerly taking something from within, he placed it down the tube and handed it back to her.
“You know,” he said proudly, “no one has ever made such a thing as that which you hold. Death undetectable given by magnetic gun and frozen darts of poison is a new thing. Even General Hoffstein should be pleased.”
“Funny that you should mention the General,” she said, as she finished strapping the tube on her forearm. “He gave me the next target himself.” She raised her arm as if inviting the old man to shake hands. His eyes widened in fear. There was a barely audible hiss and the old man clutched his chest before falling over. She looked down at the corpse.
“Sorry, Hans, old boy,” she said. “The General and I both agree that you talk too freely. Besides, Alchemists are a penny a dozen in Austria, I hear.” She raised her arm. “They’ll re-create this.”
She looked around the makeshift laboratory. She would have to take the remaining frozen bullets, but otherwise there was nothing for her here. She glanced at the clock on the mantle place. She would just have time to return home and change for the funeral.
Chapter 5
Owen’s house lay in what was called the Yiban Fanshui District. Yiban Fanshui meant literally “halfway” in Mandarin.
Owen was never sure if it referred to the fact that it was halfway up the side of Government Hill, or that those who lived there were either halfway up to riches or halfway falling down into the poverty of the lower city. He suspected that all the meanings were true. The Chinese were never ones to waste a good metaphor, especially one so apt.
As the day was cloudless but cool, he had advised Barton that he would take breakfast on the terrace. Lounging in only a sky blue silk robe, he sipped the strong tea blend he preferred, and lit the first and best cigarette of the day.
He could see out over the lower city. It was a bewildering swarm of buildings, from the neat manor houses nearby, down to the dung fire haze of the crumbling slums that ringed the warehouses and establishments that served the Port that could be seen off in the distance. Hong Kong was a deep water port, through which flowed vast sums of goods and money, some of them even legal.
In the mid-day sun, the teeming city that had drawn fortune seekers from every corner of the globe for over three centuries, and continued to thrive with the bustle of modern seekers, looked so small from his vantage point above the city.
Far from giving him delusions of grandeur, the view always reminded him of the knife-edge dances of power and honor that were the city’s true lifeblood. He knew that from farther up the hill, his own modest dwelling would appear as little more than a dot to be covered by a thumb, and perhaps as easily crushed, should those who lived up the hill so wish it.
He wondered idly how it must all look to the Dragon, Lohan, who ruled the city as his own private territory, from the top of the hill.
Owen took another pull of the cigarette and lay back, lifting his tea cup. He would refuse his more somber meditations today. Last night had seen the victorious ending of a monster too obscene to live, not to mention the reunion of one of the most powerful men in Imperial China with his niece.
On a more personal note, Lily, from Mrs. Schmidt’s, had been both enthusiastic and skilled. His pleasure of the evening was followed by a marvelous breakfast from his housekeeper, Mrs. Han.
Judging from the sounds he’d heard upstairs, Jinhao was still enjoying her diverting company of the evening, though what she saw in those muscle-bound Norsemen, he would never know.
Yes, he thought, life was too good not to savor. He looked down at a small carved stone box on the table. Should he indulge? The Black Lotus gave opium-like dreams to Magians for hours. Perhaps later; he still wanted to talk to Jinhao whenever she emerged.
Barton, his majordomo and butler, wheeled out onto the terrace. Owen had kept the clank man since his childhood. Though the alchemical construct might be limited in its abilities, Barton was one of the few things he had held onto from home.
“There is someone here with an urgent message from home, Sir.” Barton’s voice sounded like a wheezing pipe organ as he made the announcement. Before Owen could respond, a dapper, finely dressed man with white hair and a trimmed beard breezed onto the terrace behind the mechanical. Owen froze. Sir Stephen Partridge was the last living man Owen wanted to see.
“Well, Owen, aren’t you going to invite an old man to sit with you?” Sir Stephen asked briskly. “Really, your manners have not improved.” The man looked at Owen while leaning on a wooden cane with an electrum handle. “Though as it’s nearly noon, I doubt that’s lunch you’ve just finished. Still keeping to your disgraceful ways, I see.”
Recovering himself, Owen waved at a chair across the low side table.
“I’d invite you to sit, but I doubt you’ll b
e here that long. As for my disgraceful ways, I thought it the height of rudeness to force your way into someone’s house uninvited.” Owen raised his eyebrow.
“Nonsense,” Sir Stephen retorted. “Barton here invited me in.”
“Barton,” Owen asked, his eyes never leaving Sir Stephen, “who is the person you just admitted?”
The clank man’s body shuddered as its internal gears turned. “He is a messenger with an urgent message from home,” Barton piped.
“I see,” Owen pursed his lips. “And did the messenger first announce himself?”
“He announced himself as Sir Stephen Partridge,” Barton finally said.
“And what are the standing rules about Sir Stephen Partridge?” Owen asked.
“Master is never at home to Sir Stephen Partridge,” the clank man replied with great firmness. The two men could hear the cogs turning at a furious pace. “A messenger with news from home is always to be admitted at once.” The gears ground so loudly, that for a moment it seemed as if the mechanical man would burst apart. “Master,” Barton finally asked, “is there a problem with my service?”
“Not at all, Barton,” Owen reassured the old tinplate. “Would you kindly get another cup for our guest?”
“Of course, Sir,” Barton replied. He turned his torso around on one wheel and rolled off.
“I would have been very perturbed if you had hurt him, you know,” Owen said as Sir Stephen sat in the chair.
“Really, Owen,” Sir Stephen protested. “I would never wish to do so. He’s much like the old family retainer, isn’t he? What do you take me for?”
“A liar, a thief, and a mass murderer,” Owen replied crisply.
Sir Stephen’s eyes flashed at that.
“Are your hands so clean, Strong?”
“You know they aren’t,” Owen said in a dead voice. “You made sure of that.”
Sir Stephen snorted, his eyes raking Owen up and down contemptuously.
“And look at you now, gone native, and wallowing in decadent waste and self-pity. You used to be one of the best. You took the markings of all five elements at a younger age than anyone in the history of the Order! And now, I doubt that you even know where you set your Focus down, gaudy thing that it is. I taught you better than this, I would have thought!”
A small aether gun appeared in Owen’s hand, its fluid tube glowing balefully in the sunlight.
“I happen to know exactly where my Focus is, Partridge. But, as you may remember, I am no longer a member of the Obsidian Order, and I do not follow your rules.”
Sir Stephen’s eyebrows shot up as he looked at Owen with disdain.
“An aether gun, Owen?” His lip curled slightly. “How positively plebian. Do you really think I have anything to be afraid of from that pop gun?”
Owen nodded towards the short-barreled gun in his hand, and fixed Partridge with a steely-eyed glare.
“This little beauty is called the Ferocious Ferret. If you knew how much it cost, I believe that even you would agree it is anything but plebian.” Owen’s eyes held those of his former mentor.
“I suspect it gets its name because its teeth are quite big for such a small thing.” Owen frowned at his unwelcome guest. “If you could correctly divine the elemental mix it’s charged with, you might deflect the blast before it blows a large hole in you. But as you are currently less than four feet from me, it would be an interesting challenge for your reflexes, don’t you think?” Owen’s smile was as chill as a frigid northern wind.
The two men stared at each other, unmoving. Then Sir Stephen chuckled, and slowly raised both hands in surrender. He tilted his head towards his cane, which was still in his right hand. At Owen’s silent nod, the old man carefully lowered his elemental focus to the floor, where it rested.
“My boy, I see you haven’t lost a thing,” he said, holding up his hands to show that they were empty. Owen kept the Ferret centered on his former mentor’s chest.
“You know,” Owen said casually, “I have often dreamed of a time like this, when I might end your life with a flick of the finger.” He was no longer smiling. “And do be careful, Sir Stephen. I am no longer ‘your boy’ or your anything else for that matter.”
“Do you still blame me for Balaclava?” Sir Stephen asked quietly. “I admitted to you then that it was a mistake.”
“I find your use of the term mistake interesting when referring to the slaughter of four thousand true Englishmen and Herne alone knows how many Russians and Persians,” Owen rasped.
“It ended the war,” Stephen insisted. “And not only did we obtain the super-weapon the Austrians had developed, but the carnage encouraged its inventor to defect to Britain.”
“Where he promptly built a weapon for you as the price of your friendship,” Owen shot back.
Sir Stephen lowered his hands, placing them flat on his thighs. “Of course he did,” he said irritably. “You know how the Game is played. The Lords of the Planes assured us that it would put the Austrians in check, as well as curtail any Persian expansion, which it has.”
“You know,” Owen said mildly, “you might not place so much faith in your spirit friends as you do.”
Stephen’s face colored red at this.
“The Lords have had guided the interests of Britain since the days of Elizabeth the First! When, I might remind you, the great Dee himself founded our Order. Are you now wiser than him?” he challenged.
“Oh, I make no such claim,” Owen said carelessly. “I simply point out to you that the Lords are, by their own admission, neither human nor Gods. You might consider that their goals are not Britain’s goals.”
“Nonsense,” Sir Stephen snapped. The old man peered at Owen. “What happened to you on that mission, Owen? After the dust settled, so to speak, you appeared with that gaudy electrum cane, and you simply left us.” Stephen wet his lips. “Where did you get that cane?”
“I received it from a chance acquaintance,” Owen replied.
Stephen’s brow furled. “And where did you meet this ‘acquaintance’?”
“Why, on the mission, as you so cleverly deduced,” Owen’s smile did not touch his eyes.
“Well, where is this ‘chance acquaintance’ now?” Stephen asked.
“I gathered that he’s something of a vagabond,” Owen shrugged, the gun rock-steady in his hand.
Stephen’s eyebrows rose again in disbelief. “Are you saying that some tattered vagabond just gave you an expensively crafted elemental focus?”
Owen shrugged again, “I didn’t say he was a poor vagabond.”
Stephen scowled. “Kill me then, rather than insult my intelligence.”
The gun vanished from Owen’s hand.
“Oh, I’m afraid that you do not go to the barrows that easily. Curiosity has rather gotten the better of me. You knew what reception you’d get from me, so now I want to know why you wanted to talk to me so badly.” He turned his head. “Besides, here comes Barton with your cup, and hopefully more tea.”
After the clank man was dismissed, Sir Stephen curtly refused Owen’s offer to pour. Sitting back, the younger Sorcerer looked at him over his tea cup.
“Well,” Owen said pointedly, “you can either tell me what you want to talk to me about, or I can kill you, I suppose.”
“After you left,” Sir Stephen began briskly, “we kept track of your whereabouts and your doings. There were those that wanted you removed permanently, you know. I argued against it, and it was agreed that you should simply be kept under watch. When I discovered that you had settled here in Hong Kong, and even taken a Chinese woman as a leman…”
“Yes, yes,” Owen interrupted, “I grant that the Order pays very efficient spies, and I am not ungrateful that you called off the dogs, as you probably need them alive. As for the ‘Chinese woman’ being my leman…” Owen, in turn, was interrupted by a voice from the entryway.
“Leman is one of your words for lover, is it not?” Jinhao flowed into the room, her long black hai
r loose to her waist. She was barefoot, and flashing plenty of thigh, as her patterned, silk robe was only fastened by a single tab at the waist. Owen had no doubt that she was armed in some way, though he couldn’t spot the weapons at first glance. She perched on the lounge next to Owen, reaching for the empty tea cup. “It is a most unusual word. Why do you not simply say lover?”
Owen shot her a glance that he hoped she would take as a warning to be careful what she said. The waters around Sir Stephen Partridge were always deep.
“In the old days,” Owen said mildly, “the Wise recognized ten kinds of formal relationship. As time passed, the forms evolved and changed. Leman indicates an ongoing intimate relationship, where the partner has no possibility of inheritance of title.”
Jinhao finished making her tea. “Ah, I see.” She flashed Owen a dazzling smile. “Thank you. And is the word used only for women, or is it used for both sexes?”
“The word for a male would be limen,” Owen replied weakly. He wondered what she playing at.
Jinhao looked at Sir Stephen and straightened her back like a spear.
“I am Jinhao.” She sipped, regarding the man impassively.
Sir Stephen smoothed his face and inclined his head. “Sir Stephen Partridge. Your servant, madam.”
Jinhao smiled at this.
“A pretty sentiment. Please to continue your conversation.” Sir Stephen shot Owen a pained expression. Watching him, Jinhao merely smiled, waiting for him to continue.
“You may either speak now,” she said, “or Owen will speak of it later.” She moved her shoulders in a manner that was half ironic shrug, and half challenge.
Owen kept his face carefully blank, and after a moment Sir Stephen began speaking again.
“Yes, well,” the old man recovered himself and turned his regard to Owen, giving him a thoughtful look.
“I am only here on a brief stopover, while on other business. My airship leaves tonight. While here, a situation has come to my attention that could be quite dire. Frankly, I am here asking for your help.”
“I no longer work for the Double-O,” Owen said crisply. “I believe that we are done here.”