“You’re saying anyone can set up shop anywhere?”
“Not exactly like that. The nobles and the royalty and the wealthier merchants, they all have the resources to put down roots and defend their space. The rest of us, we kind of figure it out. Remember, this is first and foremost a fishing town. And every day the fisherman head out of the harbor and argue and maneuver over fishing spots. They bring that squabbling, scrounging attitude home every night. Shipping too, right? We handle a lot of freight, stuff too heavy and not valuable enough to attract your dragons at their ridiculous rates. From Porcenne, Castalan, even across the Sea of Colors to Celest. But shipping is volatile. One day a company needs six full warehouses down by the harbor. The next day they don’t need anything but three other companies need the warehouses. So the property turns over daily.”
“And there’s no landlord around to collect? To arrange rentals?”
“Some days there is, some days there isn’t. Probably most have an owner and usually he or she is interested in getting paid, but if you pester the companies too much, they just start using different warehouses where it isn’t so bothersome. It all gets done somehow, without all the fuss you northerners bring.”
Aaron laughed. “I’m not a northerner. I’m eastern. Corvale. I get it. I grew up on the plains. I’ve never owned property in my life.” He fell quiet for a moment, thinking about how he’d tried to build a house in New Wyelin. That endeavor hadn’t ended the way he’d wanted. “What you’re describing seems pretty chaotic for a major city though. Violent.”
“You think Delhonne is peaceful? Gangs fighting over every scrap of territory? Your Home Guard probably knows exactly where fifty bodies will fall every night. And they let them sort it out. They just send wheelbarrows around to pick up the dead in the morning.”
“True. So your gangs just roam around rather than staying confined to their particular neighborhoods?”
“Honestly, we’ve got a lot fewer. It’s too hot for all that.”
They fell quiet for a moment, sipping wine. No other customers had entered, the small bell above the door silent. Then the server came back through the swinging door to the kitchen. She had an oversized bowl in each hand. She placed one in front of Shay and one in front of Aaron, then headed back into the kitchen.
Shay’s bowl held a creamy soup that she stirred through, examining the small bits of chopped seafood in it. After a moment she gave a tentative taste and said, “Not bad.”
Aaron looked at his bowl. It was more challenging. There was a variety of seafood resting over a thin broth. He recognized some of the spiny and tentacle-laden creatures in front of him. Others he was mystified by. There were large shells floating in the bowl. He had no idea where to begin. His eyes were drawn to a dark, purplish shell, and he picked it up, peered inside to see a small boiled snail.
Across the table, Shay had frozen. “That’s poisonous,” she said sharply, reaching out to grab Aaron’s arm. “Don’t eat it.” She put the spoon in her other hand down, looking suspiciously at her own soup. She looked back towards the kitchen and, seeing nothing, began quickly digging through the bowl in front of Aaron. After a moment, she looked up. “That’s it. Just that one. It’s a cone snail. Let me see it.”
Aaron handed the purple shell to her. She peered into it, then picked up a fork and dug out a small snail, letting it fall to the table. “There’s something scratched on the inside,” she said, again looking into the shell.
From back in the kitchen, there came the soft sound of a door closing. Aaron stood and hurried back there. No one was in the kitchen. He found the back door and opened it. Nothing in the alley but trashpiles. He closed the door and looked around the kitchen. The lanterns and the oven were still lit but there was no one to tend them. Shay was in the doorway.
“There’s no one out front.”
“No one back here either,” Aaron replied. “They left all the candles burning.” He looked around. “Let me see that shell.”
He placed it next to one of the kitchen’s lanterns. Just past the curve of the shell’s interior, he could see a series of scratches. There were two small dots among a set of lines, a single wavy scratch underlining the small message. He looked up at Shay, then back down at the shell. After a long moment, he said, “I think it’s a map.”
Shay took the shell from him and began turning it in the light. “If that wavy line is the harbor, then the scratches are the streets. I’m guessing we are at one of the dots. The other is where we’re meant to go.” She began nodding. “If this one is Treves Street, and this long one is Waverly Canal, that means we’re this dot. If we go out the front, it’s a right, then a left two blocks later.”
Aaron looked around the eerie, abandoned restaurant. “Let’s go. I don’t think we’re getting dinner. I’m at least taking a bottle of wine though.”
…
They knocked on the door of a nondescript home which appeared to match the location of the other small dot in Locke’s message. After a long wait, a thin man poked his bony face out the door.
“What do you want?” he asked, voice slurred with drink.
“Locke sent us,” Aaron replied.
The man grunted in surprise, quickly looked up and down the dark street. “Get inside,” he barked. After hustling them into a small and dirty hall, he closed and threw a bolt on the door. “All right, what’s Locke want?”
“He didn’t tell you we were coming?”
“Nope.”
Aaron waited for the man to reveal anything that might help them, but he stayed quiet. I can show you a gate, Locke had said. “Show us the gate,” Aaron said.
The man studied both of them closely, suspicion in his eyes. “It’s nine gold pieces for me to show it to you. Each. Twenty if you want to go through.”
“Show us,” Aaron said. When the man didn’t start moving, he reached into his purse and counted out eighteen gold pieces. The man shoveled the gold into his pocket, then turned and led them deeper into the dirty house.
They walked down a long narrow hallway full of old, broken things. There was a thick door off the hallway. It was bolted from this side and had a wedge driven in at the bottom. The man kicked the wedge loose, undid the bolt, then led them through and down the stairs to the basement. Looking back behind them, Aaron noticed a small bell hanging by the door.
Once in the dark basement, the man lit a lantern, throwing light over the crowded space. Old bureaus and racks of clothing were haphazardly scattered around. The only clear area was a path deeper back amongst the clutter. He led them along it, eventually reaching a nondescript door hidden in the shadows. He gestured to Aaron. “After you.”
“My lady,” Aaron heard the man say in a mocking tone after he’d passed through.
“No, after you,” she replied. After a moment of grumbling, the man walked through the door. Once his lantern had passed through, Aaron could see he was at the top of a jagged staircase made from old foundation stones. It led down to a flat basement floor sublevel. There was a small pool of water at the far end of the floor. He carefully climbed down the stones.
Moments later, the three of them were gathered around the pool. The dark water was opaque, a black mirror reflecting the wavering light of the lantern. It was about six feet on each side, a clean square where the sublevel stones had been dug up. Aaron could see them piled in a nearby corner.
“There you go,” the man said. “It’s down there.” He gave Aaron a sideways glance. “You going through?”
“Give us a minute,” he said, drawing Shay to the side, ignoring the dark look from the man as they spoke in hushed tones. “I’m going through. But I don’t like the idea of this guy behind us. Can you head back and get Jon, tell him where this gate is?”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea. Going through.”
“We don’t have enough time. Just keep the way back open.”
Shay nodded and reached into her pocket. She handed Aaron the two hooks she’d recovered from
the Laurent House. “For good luck.”
Aaron turned to the gatekeeper. “I’m going through. She’s not. She’s going to run a couple errands while I’m gone. If I have any trouble getting back, she’ll be the one you get to deal with.”
The gatekeeper looked at her nervously as Shay calmly drew her dagger. “She can stay down here. That way she’ll see if you get stuck, it’s got nothing to do with me.”
And leave you and several locked doors between us and the surface and any hope of help, Aaron thought. “No. Tell me how to get through.” He looked at the dark hole in front of him, wondering if he was really going in. He hated swimming.
“You’ll need to go down about ten feet. The water’s dark, but you’ll see a glow around the gate. Pull yourself through, then swim back in this direction about another ten feet. You’ll find the start of a chamber with air down there.”
“What’s past the chamber?”
“I’ve never been past the chamber. Don’t know why anyone would want to. If Locke is looking for you, that’s where he’ll find you. Twenty gold. Before you go. And her word that if you don’t come back, she at least talks to Locke about why that happened instead of jumping to conclusions and crying foul.”
Aaron fished out the rest of his gold without comment. Shay added to the pile until they had twenty.
Aaron looked at the black water in front of him. He took off his swordbelt, shrugged off his shirt, and pulled off his boots. When he was barefoot and shirtless, he picked up a dagger from his clothes and tucked it into his pants. Then he picked up the bottle of wine he’d set down. “Always pays to be a courteous dinner guest,” he said to Shay. He turned back to the water, thinking about how much he truly hated swimming, then dove in and began stroking and kicking his legs, pulling himself deeper under Surdoore. He tried to ignore how much it reminded him of the night before, out on the plateau at the border, seeking entry into a place where he was deeply unwelcome.
Chapter 9. Wet Cards
“The game is Bastard Brag. Minimum opening bet of five gold pieces.” The voices of the dealers carried into the entryway, mingling with the sounds of dice rattling, coins clinking, and Surdoore’s upper crust prattling on about stupid shit.
Cal hated the room before he entered it. He gritted his teeth, lit a cigarette, and moved through the curtains separating the Club Diamond’s central parlor from the entry. The parlor was brimming with gold. Gold chains were twined into the ivy vines which wrapped the white columns. The guests were practically gilded, the fashion of the season being large fitted wraps of precious metals. Gold, platinum, silver. The women wore wide bracelets on their arms, thick chokers around their necks. The men wore large decorative medals on their chests. As if to accent the pale tones, the venue was all sharp colors. White columns, green plants, and striking red felt on the many gambling tables. Cal stood out in his dark shirt and the only jacket he’d been able to track down at Jon’s shop. But so long as he knew the rules of the games and had coin, no one would complain.
As he scanned the room, Cal let the ember of his cigarette stray too close to the curtains in the entryway, thinking for a moment how fine it would be if they caught fire. He only stopped when he realized he was drawing the gaze of a few alarmed servants. He approached one and casually dropped a handful of gold onto his tray, asking for casino chips. Money, the universal symbol of belonging. With the eyes of the servants, and presumably security, drawn off of him, Cal flicked his cigarette into a corner and spat on the carpet. Fuck Surdoore.
He’d been shaken awake just an hour before, Jon still moving a mile a minute in the search for the Queen’s daughter and near frantic to show some value after getting her spirit guide killed. A few not so subtle suggestions were thrown Cal’s way about carrying his weight, as if he weren’t fresh off managing a war followed by a flight across several kingdoms.
Cal snagged a drink from a passing tray and took it down. It wasn’t Jon he was pissed at. The ride to the club had been Cal’s first time both alone and conscious since leaving the Borhele front. And it had given him time to think about how badly he’d failed when they surrendered. He could have spent a week doing nothing but damage control. What he should be doing now. He should have been part of the retreat organization. He should have made sure the right officers escaped undue blame. Some had probably counted on that and were cursing his quick departure. He should be sending letters far and wide, putting out the fires on his flaming reputation. His asking price for employment under Conners and the SDC was no doubt cut in half which would be brutal on the revenues of Cal’s own organization, the Unflagged. Assuming the SDC didn’t just find it easier to pin the whole thing on him and publicly cut ties with Cal. Pretend that Aaron hadn’t been there and that they’d sent adequate support, instead of badly underestimating the prowess and numbers of the Borhele, something Cal had advised them of early and often. He should be spreading his own counternarrative. At minimum preserving a few critical alliances. His father for one.
Cal, distracted, saw he was in front of an open chair. He looked up at the dealer, who said, “The game is Bastard Brag. Minimum opening bet of five gold pieces.” Cal sat as the servant he’d changed coin with arrived and spread casino markers in front of him. He was dealt in.
The problem was the transition. He’d gone from the thick of a warfront, thousands of enemies sleeping just miles from him and rising every morning to advance east in complex battlelines only they understood and he’d landed in fucking Surdoore. A boring, decaying shithole full of old money.
Cal looked at his cards. He had a strong initial hand, but he’d have to break it up before knocking. When his turn came, he took one from the dealer. It set him up poorly but he had no chance to redraw as the first player knocked. They turned their cards over and Cal had the lowest set. According to house rules, he had to double the pot for the benefit of the winner. A proper starting hand to match his mood. He threw in a handful of markers and received a courteous nod from the well-dressed noble who raked it in.
After a few more hands, Cal leaned back in his chair, studying the crowd. Now that he was in the center of the club, the forced glamour was more apparent. The wet, rainy, fish-smelling city outside could have been in a different kingdom. Here was the money, the power. And its job was to remove the room’s players from the stink of the harbor, the circling of sharks. Cal saw generals from the largely ceremonial Camron Militia. Nobles from all the major families. Cal’s time running intelligence for Castalan was not so far in his past and the names and faces shifted and prioritized, forming into a report in his mind. He could give it to Jon or Aaron later if either decided they gave a shit.
There was a lack of dragonriders here, the new class of wealth that squatted on places like this in most of the other kingdoms, disrupting the pecking order with their rising fortunes. The gap in that population was further evidenced by the fact that no one had recognized Cal. At least that made his job a little easier.
Cal looked around his table. No one was talking. He was supposed to be taking the nobles’ temperature as it related to the Queen, but this group was quiet. He glanced up again and saw the pretty curly-haired girl who’d been out on the plateau, dolled up in a stunning black dress, floating near the bar across the room. He gave the dealer a signal to deal him out for a hand and rose to get a drink, positioning himself just past the woman.
The bartender had just poured him a whiskey and Cal had a lit cigarette in his mouth when he felt something at his shoulder.
“Oh,” Anders’ mistress said, “I didn’t see you there.”
Cal nodded, raised his hands as if to indicate he meant no harm. “Buy you a drink?” he asked.
She nodded, letting herself look a bit too eager. “Wait, but don’t I know you?” When Cal stared at her for a few moments, she smiled. “That’s it. You came in with the group? On the dragons?”
“That’s right. We’ve sure been meeting in some strange places.” He turned back to the bartender, who was a
lready pouring a drink for the woman.
“Oh,” she said. “It’s all so exciting. A girl can get overwhelmed.”
“Very exciting,” he said, staring into her blue eyes. She was about as sincere as a customs agent’s report, but he was enjoying the game. “And what brings you out tonight?”
“Anders is supposed to meet me here later. He likes the tables. Even though I don’t think he’s very good at gambling,” she said in a mock whisper, then giggled.
“So,” Cal said, “what’s your name?”
“Oh, I’m sorry! I’m Nalani. Nalani Chambers. And you are?”
“Cal Mast. But you knew that already. It’s nice to meet you, Nalani.” He leaned in closer. “So who do you work for?”
“Excuse me?” She laughed. “I don’t exactly, have a job, if that’s what you mean.”
“Sorry,” Cal said, sliding her drink into her hand. “What I mean to ask is, who is paying you to watch Anders Dentrick? Is he the target or is it all of CA?”
She laughed nervously. “I guess I don’t know what you mean.”
“Well, if you figure it out in the next hour or so, I’m going to be sitting right over there at that table, but I’d be happy to take a break and talk with you a little more. We could talk about all sorts of things. I could tell you about the SDC or the Unflagged. We could talk about potential challengers for the Camron Air contract. Or maybe you want to learn more about the Borhele or the Chalk. If I dug deep enough, I could probably tell you something that would make you or your employer really happy. I might have a question or two for you too while we’re at it. If that kind of talk sounds worth your while, I’ll be right over there. Might want to hurry up, though. Anders seems like the jealous type.”
He went back to the table and joined in another hand. The stakes had increased in his brief absence and he needed to flag down a servant for another set of markers.
“Pretty girl,” one of the men across the table said, smirk on his face, as Cal dropped his ante in the pot.
Alliance of the Sunken (Spies of Dragon and Chalk Book 3) Page 7