City of Lies

by Sam Hawke

  The prisoner spat and swore, pacing back and forth in the cell, and gave me no further responses. He seemed lost in his fury and frustration. Eventually, Tain steered me by the shoulder back out of the cell corridor.

  “He’s not going to say anything else for now, I don’t think,” he said. “I can’t believe the reaction you got, Lini. We’re obviously still missing something big about the Darfri. You’re sure you didn’t see who left it?”

  “No.” I remembered the flash of red in the shadows and blew out my breath. “Well, maybe for a moment. I think someone hid across the street and watched me pick it up. But I couldn’t even be sure it was a person, at the time.”

  “But they must want to talk,” Jov said. “So that means they’ll be in contact again.” He crossed his arms, his expression thoughtful. “Do you think it’s the Darfri in the caverns?”

  “Anyone being willing to talk is better than no one.” Tain sighed. “Speaking of which, are we ready to go talk to our other prisoners?” Jov nodded, and Tain raised his voice to address the guard at the opposite side of the room. “We’re going back to see the Councilor.”

  But as we started back down the corridor, a breathless cry followed us from the outer room. “Honored Chancellor!” Erel, Tain’s messenger, came running through and skidded to a stop in front of us. I smiled at the sight; he never seemed to move at any pace but a run. He flattened his hair nervously. “Honored Chancellor, I’m sorry to disturb you. But she came to the Manor and she said she needed to speak to you, and that it was important. She said she’d tried the Oromani residence but there was no one there.”

  “Who?” Tain asked, and for a moment I thought our Darfri messenger must have returned, but then I caught sight of the stone marker he held, bearing our Family sigil.

  “The sewer guard.” I took the stone. “I told her to bring this to us or to the Manor if she learned anything about someone trying to use the sewer to exit the city. Did she leave a message?”

  “She asked for someone to come and see her straightaway,” Erel said. “She said it was important, that she had information about a foreigner? She wouldn’t say more.”

  “Batbayer,” Tain said, squeezing my shoulder and smiling; the most genuine smile he’d given me in weeks. It felt like the sun on my face. “He’s panicking, maybe trying to get out. Well done, Lini.”

  Jov, too, looked delighted. “I thought he’d go underground—maybe literally—and we’d have no shot at finding him. We should go straightaway, before we lose the chance. And take help this time. I’m not letting him get away again.”

  “What about Varina and Hassan?”

  Tain shrugged. “They’re not going anywhere, and they can’t do any harm back there. They can wait a little longer.”

  “Maybe you should stay here and wait for us,” Jov began, and anger closed my throat for a moment so that I couldn’t even respond. Thankfully, Tain scoffed at my brother on my behalf.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. She’s the one the guard spoke to in the first place. You’re all right, aren’t you, Lini?”

  I nodded, but my gratitude to him for standing up for me was tinged with inescapable sadness. The one person who really saw me properly, not as a weak thing to be protected. Familiar loneliness made my heart hurt. “Of course.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  * * *

  The sewer guard met us in the Manor entrance hall. “Honored Chancellor, Credola, Credo,” she said, respectfully enough, but her chin jutted out as she quickly added, “You told me to come to you if I got a bribe.”

  “I told you I’d triple it, and I meant it,” I told her. “Tell us what happened.”

  The foreign man had approached her near her home that morning, with a murky story about escaping persecution in the city and returning home. He’d given her what amounted to half a year’s earnings on her regular job—repairing pots and other household items—to help him escape that night. “I told him if he wanted to go shit-swimmin’ I was happy to help,” she said. “He’s supposed to show up partway into my shift tonight.”

  Jov paced behind me, visibly excited. Tain, calmer, squeezed the woman’s shoulders. “Tonight, I want you to do everything you would have done if you were really helping someone get out of there. Unlock the grate, lower the sewer dam, whatever. We’ll be there, too, ready to take him in.”

  She shrugged. “I’d lower the sewer dam partway,” she said. “Drop the flow without too much risk of it all backing up.”

  “You’ve earned much honor for this,” Jov said. “This might make a real difference to the defense of the city. Who knows what he can tell us?”

  Relief filled me with renewed energy. We had the crooked Councilor—now we could take the poisoner, too, and perhaps learn how and why Doran had mobilized against us.

  And now we could finally use our own resources without fear they’d betray us.

  The afternoon was spent with Marco, several of our precious Order Guards temporarily borrowed from the sectors, and a sanitation worker from Eliska’s Guild. Batbayer had been elusive before; this was our one chance to catch him. We gathered information carefully and subtly, using diagrams, maps, and intelligence from recruited former servants from the Manor—we wouldn’t risk anyone prominent or identifiable near the site in case Batbayer was watching.

  The plan was simple: station ourselves in the surrounding buildings, both upper stories and ground level. Watchers would form a perimeter to alert us when he approached. Order Guards lay ready to block every exit. Once he attempted to enter the sewer, our men would close in, but use no blades or arrows or anything else that could risk harming him. We needed his knowledge, and we needed him alive and available to play off against Varina, if it came to it.

  I helped tie weights to the edges of fishing nets and Marco brought in some civilians who were competent hunters, capable of using a hunting tool consisting of rocks on the end of a short length of rope with surprising effectiveness. “You can take down a wild bindie in midflight, if you’ve a good eye,” one of them told me. “Feed a whole family hunting in the shallows around Green Bend.” Another bragged he could snag a kitsa on the prowl. When I tried, just for fun, the rope somehow came back at me and hit my own leg, causing great amusement among the hunters.

  I had been expecting an argument with Jov about my role, but fortunately Marco headed that off before it could start.

  “Credo Jovan, this man already knows you are looking for him. You are too well known in the city; he could easily have someone watching for your whereabouts to make sure this is not a trap.” When Jovan started to speak, Marco held up a hand. “I think you and the Chancellor should do something, visibly, at the other side of town tonight. Perhaps pay a public visit to inspect the sectors; visit the workers, boost morale?”

  Tain nodded. “You’re probably right,” he said reluctantly. “We don’t need to be there, Jov, and it could put the plan into jeopardy. We can’t lose this chance.”

  Then, even more unexpectedly, Marco turned to me. “Credola Kalina, would you be willing to come? I would keep you well away from any danger, but you have seen this man before, and your face is not so well known. I would value your presence if you are willing.”

  “Of course,” I said before my brother could speak.

  And so it was that I found myself wrapped in borrowed clothes, tattoos covered, in the attic space of a building near the sewer entrance. Marco removed a tile and propped the spyglass into the space, then showed me the points at which our watchers would flash a lamp if they saw someone approaching who looked like he could be our man. Oil rationing had meant giving up most of the street lamps, so the square below was dim, but the pool of light showed the grate and the guard standing watch to the side.

  “It could be a while, Credola,” Marco said. “Will you be comfortable enough?”

  I nodded. I was well practiced at holing up in strange places, observing from above. It felt strange, though, sitting there in the dark. To break the silenc
e, I asked, “How did he expect to make it out of the tunnel at the other end, do you think? What if the rebels just killed him on sight? They killed our first runners through the same place.” I remembered again the cloth-bound heads and suppressed a shudder, sorry I had brought it up.

  “He may have some way of signaling who he is at the other side.” Marco scratched his beard with a sigh. “Though I do not think this was a pre-planned exit, so perhaps he is merely taking his chances.”

  I peered through the glass again. Nothing. “You’ve fought Doranite tribes before,” I said. “Why do you think they’d do this? It can’t be all about a couple of mines.”

  He sighed again. “I do not know, Credola. Sjona has been largely a stabilizing force for good, and though it has profited from the trade route, so have its neighbors in both wealth and peace. Doran is more prosperous than it has ever been before. I suppose this has led to an increase in centralized power and organization—we thought that was a good thing, but perhaps they grew greedy.”

  Outside, a tiny light flashed in an upstairs window. Marco made room for me with the spyglass and I watched, breath held, waiting for the approaching figure to reach the light.

  Then I put down the spyglass and shook my head. “No,” I said, disappointed. The figure had not paused or even glanced toward the grate as they passed down the street.

  Marco patted my shoulder. “Patience, Credola,” he said, and I could hear the smile in his voice. “He will come soon enough. We are ready.”

  We sat there a while longer. I wondered about the big silent man beside me. While tensions ran high between locals and foreigners, he occupied a strange position, being both a trusted leader and yet obviously not a native Sjon. “Why did you leave Perest-Avana?” I asked him, curiosity getting the better of me. There was a long pause. Below, a chattering group walked past. One spat in the gutter, and I heard the faint sound of the guard giving him a warning to “move along.”

  Then Marco chuckled; it might have been the first time I’d heard him laugh. He immediately seemed smaller, less remote. “I followed a boy,” he said. “He wanted to go to the ‘center of civilization.’ Unfortunately, there were more exciting things in civilization than the unsophisticated soldier he brought with him to Silasta. His interest in me waned shortly after he discovered the curtained sections of the bathhouses.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.”

  He chuckled again. “It was a long time ago and I do not regret it. I was quite young, and he was quite beautiful.”

  “So you stayed?”

  “Oh, no. I went home, but I was never happy there again. Eventually I left the army and became a private guard for a merchant. We traveled all over the world. When I came here again, I found the city did not have so many bad memories after all.”

  “I’d like to travel the world,” I admitted. “I—” A blink of light from the west flickered on the outside of my field of vision. I grabbed the spyglass and peered down. The west entrance was through one of two alleyways, both dark; my magnified gaze switched between them swiftly, searching for movement. “There,” I whispered, making room for Marco.

  “Is it him?”

  I bit my lip. He moved slowly, quietly, and his head was covered. “Can’t tell.”

  Marco made a whistle that sounded like a gull, the signal for everyone to be ready to move. I shifted position, trying to get a glimpse of the figure’s face. He paused on the other side of the road to the guard, placing something on the ground. The payment?

  “Is it him, Credola?” Urgency in his tone. We didn’t want to spring the trap on the wrong person, but we couldn’t let him enter the sewer, either. But still my vision was obscured by the light and his clothing and our angle.

  Helpless, I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

  The man sauntered close to the grate and paused. I caught a glimpse of his face as he pivoted, checking around him with exaggerated casualness; still not enough, just a pale reflection of the lamplight. Then his foot edged out and stuck into the grate, tucking under a bar. Testing it.

  “Good enough,” Marco said, and blew the whistle again. This time there was immediate action; suddenly the yard below was full of sounds, and Marco had leaped up and was barreling down from the attic to assist. The man at the grate sprang away toward the nearest alley but someone from above dropped one of our weighted nets and it caught his head and one shoulder. Instead of slowing him, it seemed to spur him on; a bladed weapon appeared in his free hand and he charged fast at the exit, slashing out at whoever blocked his path there. It was all frantic moving shadows and shouts to me. Balls and ropes flying through the air. A flurry of bodies across the cobbles. Shouts and groans. I gripped the edge of the roof opening, throat tight.

  Then a loud curse. Marco? I squinted down; someone had lit a small lamp and the huddle of bodies was illuminated. “We need a physic!” someone cried, and another voice said, “No good.”

  Enough was enough; I abandoned my perch and scrambled down from the attic, the horrible tightness in my throat expanding through my chest and stomach as I skidded out, dreading what I would find.

  The worst outcome. “It’s too late,” someone said, and to the side the bribed guard stood, shaking, a bloody shortsword in her hand.

  “He ran at me,” she mumbled, looking dazed. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean … I’m so sorry.”

  No, I thought, no, we needed him alive. I slipped through the confused clutter of Order Guards and hunters to where Marco knelt beside the man, his hand searching for a pulse. He rocked back on his heels, shaking his head, even as I reeled back in horror.

  The lamp illuminated the man’s pale-skinned face.

  I had just enough time to spin around so that my sudden bitter vomit didn’t spill over the body. It wasn’t Batbayer. It was one of Ectar’s servants. We had the wrong man, and we’d killed him.

  Manita fungus

  DESCRIPTION: Fungus growing in damp, shaded, rocky areas with orote deposits, growing from a white fuzz to a series of slender, hollow-stemmed mushrooms at maturity. Poisonous if ingested or skin exposed to dried mushroom powder.

  SYMPTOMS: Weakness in limbs, intense abdominal discomfort, constipation, kidney and liver damage, confusion, restless sleep; large doses can cause collapse and heart failure.

  PROOFING CUES: Smell and taste of fresh or cooked mushrooms is mealy, earthy, and difficult to disguise. Dried powder becomes odorless but retains strong taste. Powder form reacts with naftate powder to reveal a blue residue.

  13

  Jovan

  In the course of only a few hours, everything had unraveled. We were supposed to have the connection to Doran as well as the chief conspirators behind bars, ready to turn on one another and give us the information we needed. Instead, we had a dead man from an entirely different country, with no idea how or if he fit into the broader plot, and no leverage over the imprisoned Councilor.

  Bradomir was around town rattling doors, trying to locate his missing cousin, and meeting only obstruction and misdirection. We had no idea what to do with him. Or with Ectar. And we now had a bunch of Order Guards and civilians we’d had to swear to secrecy without properly explaining ourselves.

  All in all, today had turned into a heap of shit, as Tain had put it.

  We’d left Varina and Hasan long enough. “We haven’t caught Batbayer, but nothing else has changed,” I tried to reassure my friend. “He might not have been trying to escape the city, but that just means he’s gone to ground here. He was still working with Varina, he was still at the lunch, and they were still making poison.” Even if I hadn’t managed to identify it yet.

  We passed by the guard at the entrance and descended the stairs to the cells below. The jail felt still and cold and empty. All but one warden had been pulled from guard duty after the Council released all the petty criminals to help defend the city. With the few remaining prisoners locked in their cells, there was no real reason for my apprehension as we passed through the dim corridor that
held our Darfri prisoner—silent and still, again—and, at the end, Hasan.

  We planned to speak to the musician Hasan first. He was a weak character; after a day and a night in a jail cell he ought to be suffering, afraid, and ready to talk.

  His singing greeted us before we could see his thin hands gripping the bars. A pitiful lament in his high, smooth voice, broken with tiny hitches that might have been sobs. The melodrama almost made me smile, before the seriousness of the situation hit me again. This was a man who might well have poisoned our uncles and perhaps been involved in inciting a war. No matter how pathetic he sounded, we couldn’t forget that.

  His song broke off when he heard our footsteps, and the pale-nailed fingers on the bars withdrew for a moment. Then, as we came up in line with the door, Hasan threw himself at the bars, pressing his face into them as if he hoped he might somehow force his head through the iron. “Honored Chancellor,” he croaked, blinking at us with eyes feverish and bloodshot. “Credo Jovan. I beg you. The indignity.”

  Tain took a step back, looking Hasan over with cool contempt. Uncorded, the tunic we’d put him in looked like a grimy sack. His skin dripped with sickly-smelling sweat. His long hair, usually intricately beaded and impeccable, hung about his cheeks and neck like sodden rope strands. He looked as if he’d been languishing down here for months.

  “We found poison in your rooms,” Tain said, and I watched for the man’s reaction. He winced, swallowed, opened his mouth as if to protest, then shook his head, pressing his lips back together. “Do you deny it?” Tain asked.

  “Yes, of course!” The words burst out, and Hasan let go his death grip on the bars for a moment to clutch at his face. “I mean, I know some people call it that. But it’s not … it’s not meant to hurt anyone.”

  Tain struggled to conceal his anger. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It … we don’t use it often, and it’s not for the compositions, I swear,” Hasan said. “Please, Honored Chancellor. We didn’t mean … Please don’t let anyone know about this. It just got out of control.”