Dragon Soul (2010)

by Jaida Jones

  “Go on,” I told him.

  He glanced at me and sighed. “I never imagined you would come to visit me, here of all places! I never imagined anyone would come, for that matter. As it happens, I might be able to offer you more aid now than if I’d remained in my former position, but the fact of the matter is…I currently spend the majority of my time sweating it out in the dunes. I dig up artifacts and sell them for money.”

  Thom’s eyes bugged out, and he actually paused in trying to cram an eighth stuffed grape leaf into his mouth. “You’re a grave robber?” he demanded.

  “Oh, no,” Geoffrey said, grimacing. “Please. I prefer…raider. It’s not as though I’m disturbing the bodies. No money in bones, you see. But it’s made me very familiar with the surrounding areas.”

  “You dig up dead people and sell their shit?” I didn’t know whether it made me respect him more or less. At least he wasn’t like most of the ’Versity kids, who respected and trusted dead things more than they paid attention to the present.

  Geoffrey Bless pulled a face. “In the most common of terms,” he began, sniffing, like I was the one who stank.

  “You dig up dead people and sell their shit,” Thom repeated, obviously not thinking about what he was saying.

  I took a long drink of water. I was hell-bent on enjoying myself with some of this.

  “Thomas, really,” Geoffrey Bless said, but he looked a little less round and a little more dangerous. “There’s theory and there’s practicable action. The desert is quite unforgiving. It’s why I wanted to warn you. Depending on where your search takes you, I’d warn you against traveling out into the dunes at all.”

  I was about to say something when Thom gulped down the last of his stuffed fig leaf and raised himself up to his full height—which wasn’t too impressive, because he was short anyway, and sitting on that damn couch wasn’t helping, either.

  “I’ll choose what I’m capable or incapable of,” he said.

  “Your preposition’s dangling,” Bless replied.

  “Yours is gonna be dangling, too,” I told him, “if you don’t fucking get down to business.”

  Geoffrey Bless straightened up and tugged at his collar—he was getting hot, finally, even with all his practice in the desert. Good. “All right,” he said. “If that’s the way you intend to play. Thom wrote that you were looking for information on magicians banished to the nearby surroundings, are you not?”

  “Not just any magicians,” I said.

  “Yes, I know that,” Bless said, looking a little keener. “Well, I know these deserts as well as any native by now, even if it’s not possible to have combed them over completely by myself. It just so happens, there are rumors.”

  “And?” I prompted.

  “As you know—well, as you might know—the Khevir dunes are a vastly unexplored wasteland,” Bless continued, clearing his throat as I leaned closer to him. Nothing like putting the pinch on a ’Versity boy, grave robber or not, to make him get to the point a little faster than he wanted to. “Not even the local nomadic peoples spend much time passing through there. It leads to nowhere; it’s in the middle of nowhere. It is nowhere, essentially, and not many wish to test their luck against a place like that. There’s almost no way to get out to it, either. The desert’s too cruel for that.”

  “So that’s the rumor?” I asked flatly. “There’s a desert? How fucking unexpected.”

  Geoffrey Bless gave me a dark look, like I was ruining all his fun and he didn’t realize that was my plan in the first place. “If your initial clue was that someone—like this magician you’re seeking—lives all the way out there, I can’t say that there’s any corroborating evidence,” he explained. “The rumor to which I was referring is actually one of legend, involving a mythical oasis from which ancient life in the desert is purported to have sprung. Fascinating stuff. But more to the point, whether or not there really is an oasis is all conjecture. I couldn’t count on the fingers of one hand people who’ve seen it for themselves because, to my knowledge, no one has.”

  “So what the fuck has this load of bedtime stories got to do with us?” I asked.

  Geoffrey Bless had the fucking gall to roll his eyes at that one. “Because if someone was actually living in the Khevir dunes…well, then, they’d be living there,” he said.

  Thom’s eyes were narrow, his tone thoughtful. “How common is the tale of this oasis?” he asked. “I mean…I’ve studied the desert to a minor extent, but outside of nomad mythology…Does anyone else speak of this?”

  “Not particularly,” Geoffrey admitted. “I was actually going to write my thesis on it…back when I was going to write my thesis. Unwritten mythologies and all that. But it’s so difficult to sit down with these nomads—ha-ha, a bit of desert humor, hope you forgive me.”

  “Someone lied to us,” Thom concluded, looking at me. It was like Geoffrey Fucking Bless wasn’t even in the room with us, and I took the expression for a gesture of friendliness. I grinned at him, showing some teeth.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll take care of that.”

  “Ahem,” Bless said.

  We both turned to him at once, like it was fucking choreographed or something, and gave him a look like—as he might’ve said—Do please go on. He shifted uncomfortably on his uncomfortable couch, tugging again at his collar before he took a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped the back of his neck with it.

  “Well, there is something more,” Bless said, “and it’s really quite fortuitous. You see…” He paused for a moment, then looked hopeful. “There is a mutually beneficial way we can both put this legend to rest. Aren’t you the least bit curious?”

  “No,” I said. I didn’t want to be mutually beneficial with anyone.

  “Rook,” said Thom.

  So much for thinking we were in this together.

  “Go ahead,” I said, not even looking at my brother. “Just make it quick.”

  “There has been some rumor of profit to be made in that area,” Bless went on, excited now. “Yet it is difficult to gather the appropriate—ah—manpower necessary to conduct an excavation. But if we were to kill two birds with one stone—that is, set out in the direction of the Khevir dunes, with me as your guide, I could translate for you the nomads’ information—see if there was anyone to be found relating to your quest—while in the meantime…”

  “…you dig up dead people,” I finished for him, because somebody had to spit it out.

  “Hm,” Geoffrey Bless said, but he didn’t exactly deny it.

  “Fortuitous. Exactly,” Thom said. “Is there anywhere we might be able to stay for the night?”

  “You can, of course, stay in my humble abode,” Bless began.

  “No thank you,” Thom said. “I think we’d rather be alone.”

  “Suit yourself,” Bless said, exhibiting a rare moment of darkness that let me know exactly what kind of a man he was. “I’ll go see to your lodgings.”

  “Most fucking kind,” I said.

  Geoffrey Bless stood up, smoothing out his authentic clothing or whatever weird hodgepodge he was wearing, just long enough to let us know we hadn’t rumpled him at all. I grinned at him a little cross-eyed to let him know that there was still plenty of time left for me to rumple him good. Then he left to go find us someplace to stay, all three of us in the room knowing who’d won that battle. As he left, I looked over at Thom, who was looking over at me. And for the first time in a long time I actually felt like I had a real, live, recognizable brother.

  It didn’t feel good and it didn’t feel bad, and I couldn’t look at it too long before we both looked elsewhere, just waiting for Bless to come back while we inspected the curtains.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  MALAHIDE

  Bearing in mind the Provost’s connections and his considerable success in cleaning up the three maiden districts since coming to the job, one might have expected his office to be slightly more ornate than, say, a common jail cell.

&nb
sp; It wasn’t.

  “Really, Dmitri,” I was saying, merely as one acquaintance concerned for another, without any intention of prying or involving myself in affairs that did not concern me. “A large painting, a nice thick rug…Even a desk can have personality if you choose the right one.”

  “Why would I want my desk to have a personality?” Dmitri asked, neither baffled nor intrigued, having missed the point entirely. He got his logical brain from his father, poor man. It was a pity his mother’s imagination had fallen by the wayside. I let the topic lie for the moment, folding my hands in my lap with a sigh.

  “You are the very definition of impossible,” I added for good measure, just so that I could be sure he knew how deeply he’d disappointed me.

  More than anything—though he was not aware of this himself—Provost Dmitri had difficulty dealing with disappointed women. It was a terrible flaw, one that was bound to get the better of him eventually. I’d point it out to him one day.

  “Oh come now, Malahide,” he said, tugging at his forelock in a gesture that was frustrated instead of subservient. “I’ve only just recovered from the shock of hearing you speak. Can’t a man be given reprieve once in a while?”

  “I am never given reprieve,” I reminded him, straightening my hat. I’d come here in my Molly-guise, since Molly was where I’d been spending the vast majority of my time. It wasn’t so bad, once you got used to the odor—which happened surprisingly quickly, which I supposed explained why anyone at all could live there without going completely mad—and Nor had taken quite a shine to me on top of that, as though I were the son he’d never had. One of the most important tasks in my line of work was building up esteem among the members of every group with which I came into contact. One could never tell who they were going to have to depend on in the future, and so it made sense to keep every line of communication open—just in case of trouble later on.

  It took some extra work, but that was what made me so good at my job. Of course, it also led to some minor inconveniences, like the wolves outside mistaking me for common gutter trash and manhandling me most severely before the little matter was cleared up, but that was a hazard of the trade. Fortunately for everyone, I’d run into Dmitri straight after that, and he’d taken me upstairs to his office, behaving like quite the hero. The one flaw in all my many disguises was that the Provost could always see through them. He took after his dear father in that regard.

  “I’m aware.” He sighed. He was looking very tired these days, too pale and slightly saggy about the eyes, in a way I didn’t like. I expected it was because he had no wife to take care of him at the end of a long day. Alone, a man could exhaust himself quite easily coming up against the unforgiving odds of Molly, without any respite. He was too stubborn for his own good, our young Provost, and far too determined to prove himself capable. I could have told him that he was wasting his efforts. Thremedon only cherished her heroes when the threat was foreign, and the hero wasn’t carting off someone’s husband for stealing or murder. He would never have listened, though.

  He’d been this stubborn when we were younger too.

  “You haven’t even said whether you like it or not,” I prompted, to let him know I was giving up on the idea of his office—for the time being, in any case.

  “What’s that?” Dmitri asked, looking suddenly puzzled.

  “My voice,” I told him. He truly was impossible sometimes, the way too many men tended to be impossible around a woman.

  “Oh,” Dmitri said, as though he would rather have been elsewhere at this precise moment in time. “Well, Malahide, it’s a little like a cat trying to do fractions. I’m not sure whether it’s a question of liking it. It’s very peculiar. Unexpected?”

  “You’ve no idea at all how to speak to a lady,” I muttered darkly.

  He knew enough to avoid the trap of trying to defend himself against that claim, at least. Instead he pressed his hands together, fingers steepled, and gazed at me over the top of them. He was so handsome that it made my heart hurt, and sometimes made me wish I’d thought to cut that out as well, alongside the tongue. If only it would have garnered me anything, yet there was no trade for that particular organ.

  “You’re here on business, I take it?” he said at last.

  “Ah,” I said, “and at last we arrive on the same page.”

  “What can I do for you?” he asked. “And please, don’t make me regret asking.”

  “Not at all,” I said, favoring him with a smile I knew to be completely unreassuring. “I simply need you to avert your eyes from a certain district in Molly for the time being. Not so long as to make you seem inept, of course; just long enough for me to seem very ept, indeed.”

  He raised his eyebrows, looking as though he had a mind to be disagreeable about things. When he didn’t protest outright, however, I took my opportunity to continue.

  “I need something,” I explained. He liked it when I spoke with brevity and remained concise. “Information, specifically, from the black market they’re running down by the piers.”

  Dmitri swore under his breath and let his hands fall against the desk. “I had a feeling you were going to say something like that,” he said. “Judging by the looks of you when you came in here…”

  “I just need to know where they’re getting their supplies from,” I continued. Dmitri was already on my side, I knew; he was merely looking to be convinced. “Or rather, I need to know if what they’ve told me is true. Once I know that, you can do whatever you’d like.”

  “Most of ’em brought their ‘supplies’ back with them, after the war,” Dmitri said, tilting his chair back on two legs. “Raided what they could from Ke-Han houses and brought it back here to sell, or trade, or what-have-you. Almost everyone running the market right now is a vet from the war. Makes me feel like an ass not to be able to grant them a little peace, after everything they’ve been through, but the second I do that is the second I lose all damn control, and it was a bitc—It wasn’t pretty trying to win it in the first place.”

  I shrugged. “Those who want peace don’t generally conduct grossly illegal acts,” I said—my womanly version of there, there. “In any case, Dmitri, I wasn’t talking about trinkets and incense, with all the proceeds of the transactions siphoned off to fund the Ke-Han’s economy at the expense of our own.”

  “Oh?” Dmitri asked. “I guess that makes sense, if you’re on the case. And I don’t suppose you’re at liberty to disclose what you are talking about, even if you do need my help.”

  “Essentially that’s it, yes,” I said. One of my own personal rules was always to err on the side of discretion, and the fewer people who knew about the true nature of my task, the less trouble I would encounter. And the less trouble they would encounter, as well, on my behalf. Perhaps shockingly, I wasn’t a secretive person by nature—I derived no joy from holding information back, as some might have done in my uncomfortable shoes—but it was simply one part of my duty and I preferred to be efficient above all else. Besides, to share information was to involve another party, and the nature of this assignment was too delicate for anyone but myself. “It’s all terribly dull, I’m afraid. It would bore you to tears even if I decided to share it.”

  “You always say that,” Dmitri said, as though he didn’t quite believe me. He sighed like a man with the weight of Thremedon on his shoulders—and the three maidens were a heavy lot—and cast a glance around his office. I didn’t know what there was to look at, only bare walls, a bare floor, and a ceiling with a crack in it shaped suspiciously like the Basquiat. Perhaps the office was like Dmitri himself: unadorned, but teeming with hidden depths. Or maybe he really did just prefer to have his office look as boring as was humanly possible. I shifted in my seat and let out a slight cough.

  “Look the other way,” Dmitri repeated, as though the words left a sour taste in his mouth. “That’s what you want.”

  “Just until I can confirm I’ve found the market’s road,” I said. “I know that it
’s south of Thremedon, but I’d hate to waste everyone’s time and money on a wild-goose chase.”

  “I hear wild goose is delicious, this time of year,” said Dmitri. “Very fat.”

  “Does that mean you’ll do it?” I countered. I could do this without him, of course, but it would mean risking the good opinion I’d worked so hard to build up. Contrary to what others thought of me, I did not enjoy spending my days in a room that smelled of mold and rot, and streets outside that smelled of worse. I hadn’t been so careful all this time only to have it go to waste just because Dmitri was feeling particularly stubborn this month.

  “I assume this is a job for, uh…” Dmitri trailed off. The words always made him uncomfortable. It was as though he couldn’t decide which ones to use, and being formal smacked of being pompous, and especially in front of me, since I knew the truth.

  “For the Esar,” I supplied helpfully. “Yes. How else would I have gotten this?” Even though I was dressed as a common guttersnipe, I couldn’t help the fluttery motion of my hand clasped to my throat.

  Dmitri cleared his throat, staring up at the crack in the ceiling. “Yes, that,” he said slowly. “I suppose that’s what tipped me off.”

  “I think, at present, the matter with which I am struggling, and in which I require the benefit of your assistance, is more important to him than street crime,” I said, pushing my advantage, though it did leave me feeling somewhat dissatisfied. It felt a little too much like rubbing his nose in the consequence of my job relative to his, which was never my intention at all. We were all necessary to the crown, but Dmitri’s trouble had always been found in differentiating that purpose from his usefulness as a son to his father.

  He wasn’t a prince—he wasn’t the Esarina’s son—and so that always had been a matter of some difficulty.

  Dmitri coughed. “I can give you thirteen hours,” he said finally.