Unfettered II: New Tales By Masters of Fantasy

by Shawn Speakman

  He suddenly wondered just how well Layth thought he was going to get on with this mystery, and Ezren, for that matter, and what would happen if he did make progress.

  “Did you see it happen?”

  “No.”

  “Know anyone who did? Saw it with their own eyes?”

  Hamid shook his head. He knew some who’d seen it, but he wouldn’t give up their names. Do that and he became a target. “Can I go now?”

  Dardzada nodded, and Hamid left, walking swiftly, then jogging along the street until he was lost around a gentle curve. When Dardzada finished his tea, he set a few khet beneath the tea saucer and left, heading north, toward Tsitsian Village, the place populated almost exclusively by Mirean immigrants. As he walked, the people changed from the dark-skinned Sharakhani to lighter-skinned Mireans. The facades became more bold—carved with the likenesses of dragons and kirin. The window decorations changed from the typical reds and yellows to more earthen colors. Even the smells changed. He’d been to the city of Tsitsian once, and this small piece of Sharakhai was as close as anything came to it outside of Mirea itself.

  When he reached the mouth of a narrow alleyway that would take him to his destination, he caught sign of a white uniform a few dozen paces behind him. Dardzada sighed. He supposed it had been too much to ask for Ezren to leave him alone. He just hoped he hadn’t seen his conversation at the teahouse. He suspected not, though. If Ezren had actually recognized the man accompanying Hamid, a full squad of Silver Spears would be here to collect him, not a lone guardsman.

  Dardzada reached the end of the shade-darkened alley, then beckoned to Ezren. “You may as well stop flitting about rain barrels.”

  Ezren stood from behind a large barrel, looking chagrined, and strode forward. “I spoke to Layth,” he said as he came alongside Dardzada. “He was ill-pleased to find I’d left you alone.”

  Dardzada shrugged and pointed to the little shop across the street, the facade of which was lit a brilliant orange by the lowering sun. “There’s a man in there I need to speak to,” he said, “but I’d ask that you let me go on my own.”

  “Layth’s instructions were clear.”

  “I’m sure they were, but Layth wants results as well, does he not? The man inside is Li Bai. He’s an apothecary, and a particularly surly one at that. You come with me, and he’s likely to tell me nothing, no matter what sort of pressure I apply. But he’s wiser by far than I am in Mirean traditions, so let me speak to him awhile.”

  Ezren chewed on this, his eyes darting between Dardzada and the shop. “Tell me why you think Gazi’s death is tied to Mirea.”

  “You don’t find it strange that he has fresh red marks in his qi points?”

  “It’s odd, I’ll admit.”

  “It may not be tied to Mirea, but it’s almost certainly tied to Mirean medicine, so we’ll follow this trail until it proves itself to be false. Well enough?”

  Ezren nodded. “I’ll accompany you and we’ll learn together.”

  “Tell me you aren’t as naive as you’re making yourself out to be.”

  Ezren bristled but said nothing.

  “The Spears aren’t shunned here,” Dardzada went on, “but neither are they welcome. We might as well be in Tsitsian for all they recognize the authority of the House of Kings.”

  Ezren’s face was turning red. “They’ll recognize what the Kings wish them to.”

  Dardzada bowed his head, granting him the point. “Of course they will, if it comes to that, but if you truly want information—honestly given with little to no fuss—then allow me to go and speak to him alone.”

  “I’m coming,” Ezren said, “but I’ll leave Li Bai to you.”

  Well, well, well, Dardzada thought, the pup has some fire in him after all. “Your decision . . .”

  Ezren nodded, and motioned for Dardzada to lead the way.

  Inside the shop, it was dim. Oil lamps burned black smoke that tainted the air with a heavy scent that reminded Dardzada of the humid forests of Mirea, a place he’d visited only twice in his life. “Good day to you,” Dardzada called as he stepped inside.

  Ezren came behind and wandered the aisles of shelves, looking at the endless array of ivory statues and dangling charms and vials of liquid and jars of ointments. On the opposite side of the room, a bent little man with a round face poked his head up from behind a desk piled high with bric-a-brac: carved ivory tusks, silk parasols, jewelry boxes made from lacquered wood the color of blood. Li Bai stared at him for a moment, glanced at Ezren’s receding form, then ducked back behind the mountain. “Who are you?” came his thin voice.

  Dardzada strode to a valley between the peaks to find Li Bai holding one billowing sleeve of his robes back while the other hand held a calligraphy brush over a rich sheet of vellum half-filled with complex Mirean script.

  “We met years ago,” Dardzada said, “at a function for Juvaan Xin-Lei when he first entered your queen’s service.”

  Li Bai finished one long, graceful stroke, then held his billowing sleeve and the brush away from the vellum. He stared up at Dardzada, as if memorizing his face. “Dardzada. You’re an apothecary.” His Sharakhani was heavily seasoned with Mirean accents, but it was also sharp and precise, like a dish of rice and desert lamb altered to appeal to lovers of both lands. He dipped the brush and began a new character. “Your shop is on Floret Row, and you have a passable understanding of healing agents.” He paused. “Or so I’ve heard.”

  “I’ve come to ask after a boy that’s gone missing.”

  “I know of no boys gone missing.”

  “It isn’t the boy himself I’ve come to speak about, but the marks on his body. Small red marks the likes of which I’ve seen only once before. The leechmen of Mirea use them to restore balance to one’s humors.”

  “I’m not a leechman.”

  “No, of course not. But you know much of what happens in Tsitsian Village. The marks were found along his armpits, the backs of his knees, inside his upper thighs, placed precisely over his qi points. Why?”

  Li Bai finished a character with an expert flourish. “Perhaps the boy was sick.”

  “He’d been abducted. And when he was found dead, he looked as though he’d aged years. Sunken eyes. Sallow skin.”

  “I told you, I’m no leechman.” Dardzada watched with growing annoyance as he finished inking the final character. After setting the brush carefully down in its holder, he picked the vellum up and blew on it, as clear a dismissal as if he’d ordered Dardzada to leave.

  Dardzada had come prepared to place coin on the table if he thought it might make a difference, but he could see that Li Bai would care little for money; it would likely only cement his opinion of Dardzada as an outsider, a man to be trusted with neither the secrets of Mirean medicine nor the rumors flitting about the streets of Tsitsian Village.

  “This involves children,” he finally said. “The boy was twelve, and if there was one, there are certainly more.”

  “That has nothing to do with me.”

  “You can’t be comfortable with it. Everyone in Sharakhai that’s dealt with Li Bai knows him to be an honorable man.”

  Li Bai’s resolve seemed to harden at this, as if he refused to turn back now that he’d committed to hiding what he knew. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

  “I’ve been sent by the Silver Spears,” Dardzada said casually, committing to a new path, one he hadn’t wished to travel.

  “So I see.” He set the vellum on a small table behind him to dry, then sat back in his chair and regarded Dardzada with an infuriating mixture of self-satisfaction and deference. “Invite more of them, if you wish. I’ve much that might interest the honorable men of the guard.”

  “His commander doesn’t run your district, but you may have heard of him. His name is Layth.” Li Bai’s smile faded just a bit. As much as Dardzada hated him, he had to admit Layth’s name traveled far in Sharakhai. “I’d like to tell you a story before we go any further. It might
save us both some time. Layth is my brother, if truth be told, so I hope you’ll believe me when I say I know a thing or two about the man.

  “When we were young, the two of us found a stray cat, a Mau, I found out much later. It was a skinny thing when we found it, but beautiful, with striking eyes the color of blue jasmine. I’ve never seen its like since. The two of us fed it scraps, and it came to our house often when we lived in Roseridge. It began to fatten up, and we both came to like it, perhaps even love it, and that angered Layth. He was not a boy who shared. One day I found him pulling its whiskers, a thing he continued to do even after I’d caught him. That cat yowled, and I pleaded for Layth to stop, but he didn’t; not until every last whisker had been pulled. My mother, who had a soft spot for animals, and no great love for Layth, who was only her stepson, named the cat mine and forbade Layth from caring for it.

  “I woke up the next morning with the cat’s tail lying across my blanket. Just the tail. He told me the same would happen to the tail between my legs if I ever told my mother of it. I was petrified, and said nothing, yet over the next week, more of the cat kept showing up. A paw in the tiny scrap of yard behind our home. A handful of its sharp teeth hidden in my shoe. A half-rotted leg in the box beneath my bed, the one I made sure to lock every night.

  “I was nine when this happened. Layth was twelve. And age has done nothing to mellow his twisted predilections. In fact, they’ve grown worse as he’s risen through the ranks of the Silver Spears.” Dardzada glanced back at Ezren—who was pointedly not looking in Li Bai’s direction—then leaned in and spoke low, “Gods help us if he’s ever named Lord Commander of the Guard.”

  Dardzada let this sink in a while. Li Bai was holding his gaze steady, but all the smug humor had vanished from his eyes.

  “Layth is not without his strengths, however,” Dardzada went on. “He’s a particularly tenacious man, for example, a quality that has served him well in his capacity as a protector of our fine city. When he wants something, he will stop at nothing to get it. Please believe me when I say that his rise to captain has only fueled this fire, given him more tools to exact what he wants from those who have decided, for whatever fool reason, to hide things from him.”

  Li Bai swallowed, and even though he couldn’t see from behind the mound sitting on the desk before him, he glanced nervously in Ezren’s direction.

  “Don’t allow me to leave here empty-handed,” Dardzada said softly. “It will go ill for us both, I fear.”

  When Li Bai spoke again, it was almost too soft to hear. “You cannot let them know I told you.”

  “You may consider this conversation private.”

  Li Bai nodded, timid as a hummingbird. “There are men who might use a particular kind of leech in the way you describe.”

  Dardzada smiled grimly. “Tell me of them.”

  Two nights after the talk with Li Bai, Dardzada strode with Ezren along the streets of Tsitsian Village. Golden lanterns lit the district, giving this place an otherworldly feel. Dardzada wore one of his robes-of-a-thousand-pockets—a fine khalat of green silk and thread-of-gold trim. Adorning his head was a high turban with a peacock feather held in place by an emerald brooch. His bejeweled slippers curled at the toes. Ezren wore a khalat as well, but nothing so fine as Dardzada’s, for he would pose as Dardzada’s nephew this night.

  “I still think this is risky,” Ezren said. “If they’re involved, I should call my brothers of the Guard and we should take them all now.”

  “Those in the Garden will mean little, Ezren. It’s those above them we want.” Dardzada broke away and headed for an intricately carved archway crowned with a lantern that cast a light similar to all the rest in Tsitsian Village, but with a subtly more orange hue.

  “We may risk the chance to take down one of their dens with a misstep.”

  “It isn’t the dens I care about,” Dardzada said, “but those responsible.”

  They made their way along the alley beyond the arch and found a set of stairs leading up. They climbed and came to the top to find two men and a lithe Mirean woman with the most brilliant green eyes Dardzada had ever seen. All three of them wore dark clothes with tasseled dao sheathed in leather scabbards. The woman took them in, a jeweler judging uncut stones, somehow making it seem both threatening and welcoming. “Are you lost?” she asked in passable Sharakhani, the first part of the passphrase to this place.

  Dardzada gave a flourish of his hand and a bow of his head, a thing more common in northern lands. “We’ve come to see the rise of the stars over the Garden,” he said, giving her the passphrase’s opposite half, a handful of words that had cost him a goodly amount of gold, and no small amount of effort, to obtain.

  The Garden was an elite drug den that moved from place to place about the city, often in Tsitsian Village, but sometimes elsewhere as need or whim dictated. New sites were chosen so that they made for an interesting setting for their clientele but, more importantly, so that they kept the operation free of scrutiny from the Silver Spears and other agents of the Kings. Dardzada knew very well that the Kings would not approve. Children were involved. The Kings might be cruel in many ways, but the trafficking of children was something they would never allow.

  “I’ve not seen you before,” the woman said.

  “Well, I’ve only just arrived in the Amber City!” Dardzada replied brashly, adding a healthy dollop of Malasan to his accent. “I’ve been in Samaril for over a decade, and now, after an arduous voyage over the sands, I’ve returned home for ten days. Ten days only! Even in the southern capital there are those who’ve spoken of the Garden, so you see, I knew when I returned home I would come. I would make the time, I told myself. After your audience with the Kings, with the highborn of Sharakhai, I would come to the Garden!”

  “Entry to the Garden is a gift given to few,” she said easily.

  From a pouch at his belt Dardzada retrieved a marker, a wooden chit with a lush fern carved into one face, a stylized sun on the other. He handed it to the woman, who took it easily and bowed her head. “You’re most welcome, my Lord.” She gave them a beckoning wave and strode further along the balcony.

  The marker had been another thing that had cost Dardzada much. Money was never exchanged here. The markers were purchased elsewhere, then presented at the Garden’s current location, where men and women who had little knowledge of the elixir’s origins would attend to those who wished to partake of it.

  Dardzada had no idea whether Layth would pay him back for these expenses, but he no longer cared. Like the Kings, this was something he wouldn’t allow in his city, not if there was anything he could do about it.

  When they came to a shoji door, the woman slid it wide. “My name is Tai Lin.” She bowed, waving Dardzada and Ezren inside. “You may call on me any time, but you are in good hands.” They were met inside by a silver-haired man, who led them down a hallway and up a set of stairs to an open-air deck, which was populated by a host of low tables with crimson lanterns, and patrons talking or lying on the mounds of pillows spread throughout. Their silver-haired host led Dardzada and Ezren to one of the empty tables, at which point he bowed and left.

  Dardzada looked to the richly dressed men and women around him. This was as much a drug den as the hovels in the west end that catered to those ensnared by black lotus, except no one here had glazed eyes or wasted expressions. Instead, they looked perfectly and profoundly aware—of themselves, of what was happening to them—and seemed eminently pleased by it. Some spoke softly while eating from small plates, but most in the room were lying on their pillows, eyes wide, staring up at the veil of stars.

  Dardzada and Ezren were soon brought rice wine, then dates stuffed with goat cheese and honeyed pistachios and spiced cakes and a sweet liqueur, all of it cast bloody by the lanterns at the center of their table. Finally their host glided to the table bearing a silver platter, upon which were set two flutes filled with a syrupy silver liquid. White diamond, it was sometimes called, or snowmelt. Most often
, though, it was referred to as brightwine. And Dardzada could see why. The stuff glowed as brilliantly as the firmament above.

  “Gentlemen,” the host said, bowing as he set one of the flutes before each of them. “What you have before you is an elixir that is best sipped. You’ll find the bouquet to have strong anise overtones, floral, a bit sharp on the tongue at first, but by the time the last drop is emptied from the glass, you’ll find it mellow as the sunrise.” He flourished to both glasses while taking a half step back. “Take your time. Enjoy your evening.” Then he spun and was off, down the stairs to the place where the food and drink was prepared.

  Dardzada looked to Ezren, who was staring intently at the glass of softly glowing liquid. He was clearly having second thoughts. The two of them had debated on whether to come, had debated on whether to imbibe the liquid. Dardzada had no wish to. Not really. But they had to determine whether it was true, what Li Bai had told him, and that those who ran this particular drug den were responsible for the missing children. This might all be a sham. If it was, and they sprung their trap too soon, they might have lost their chance to find the real perpetrators of this crime. And if it was the real Garden, he had to find the one in charge of this den, for only in that way could they be trailed back to their supplier.

  Apparently coming to some decision, Ezren nodded, then picked up the glass and sipped from it. After a pause in which he stared at the flute with something akin to awe, he downed the rest of the liqueur in one healthy swallow. His throat convulsed as he gently set the glass down. He licked his lips. Even in this dim light Dardzada could see how reddened his eyes had become.

  As Dardzada lifted his own flute and peered into the liquid, Li Bai’s words came back to him. “In the dens of Tsitsian,” he’d said, “leeches are placed carefully so that they draw blood from one’s qi points, places where our very souls can be touched. As the leeches feed, they secrete mucus, which is collected and mixed with a liqueur, often anise. In my country there are rituals where the old give of themselves to the young, a passing of their lives to their children or grandchildren. There are cases of those who give blood willingly for our Queen or, in rarer cases, others of noble blood. Some few dens in the larger cities pay those who offer up their blood, but rarely is it taken against one’s will. It is a grave dishonor to do so, for each time the leeches draw from you, they take something that is never replaced. One grows more frail from each application, an affliction that no amount of time or rest will restore, not completely.”