by O. J. Lowe
“Truce?” she asked, grinning despite the guilt. He could see the unease in the way she stood glancing all around them. There was a woozy look in her eyes, he wondered if it was mirrored in his own. Some of the smells emanating from the stalls were intoxicating, more food than he’d ever seen in one place before. There was a place selling duck coated in sweet-bean spread which had a pair of Burykian natives working feverishly behind a giant skillet, five Premesoirans each with burgers the size of pillows that required buzz saws for the cutting, even a few Serranians cooking something into the meat that he was pretty sure was illegal due to the hallucinogenic properties it reportedly bore as a side-effect. There were meats and fishes and vegetables that Belderhampton hadn’t seen for months on show here, more than that there were plenty of runners floating around with samples to hand out, small trays balanced on the flats of their hands. There wouldn’t be any of this when they got into Graham’s Field but for now, it was a clash of cultures screaming for dominance amidst rivals and culinary foes. Someone somewhere was cooking pepperitos, garlic and basil and chilli powder all mixed in with firepeppers and wild chicken wrapped in flatbread, he could smell it in the air and it was making his mouth water.
“Truce,” he said. “Look at whatever you want. It’s that time of the year.”
“You ever seen anything like him before,” she said, glancing back towards the departing giant. “I haven’t.”
Nick shrugged. “Sometimes you get people that big. Not often. Think we’re grateful for that. I don’t think there’s anything special about him.”
She wrinkled her nose, she’d caught the scent of the pepperitos by the looks of it. She wasn’t a fan. Had called it a bastardisation of two different meals in the past and not a particularly good one. She didn’t care much for heavily spiced food. Each to their own. It’d be a boring world if everyone liked the same thing, even if perhaps it would be a little more agreeable if that was the case. “Perhaps. Come on.”
He managed to avail himself of one of the samples before being dragged along, bit into the greasy meat, felt the spices hit his tongue and a moan slipped his lips. Those were good. Really good. He saw the look Sharon was giving him as she heard the moan, decided to pointedly ignore it. He didn’t complain about what she put into her body. He wished he’d managed to get his hands on more of them before they’d head closer to the park, licking the last of the sauce off his fingers with glee.
Sharon said nothing, just made a show of perusing some of the closer stalls. They’d moved from the food and onto what he always personally referred to as the crap that people wouldn’t buy the rest of the year. Still someone’s junk was usually someone else’s treasure. Just because he didn’t want any of the hideous jewellery or carnival mementos didn’t mean that someone else couldn’t be conned into buying it. Mug mats and t-shirts, the sort of thing nobody really needed to buy here yet they did regardless. Past that, there were several stalls of ornamentations that ranged from poor in quality, such as the first that they came to. Most of them were made of peeling wood and chipped pottery. Then there were the ones that were moderately well made but still not worth the credits the craftsman wanted for them. Amidst all these, there were maybe two or three amongst dozens that would be worth purchasing. Then came the ones that were worth every credit, the best of the best. Belderhampton had always produced talented artisans, Nick noted, even if some of the earlier efforts didn’t exactly highlight that in the best possible way. Everyone had to start somewhere, and trying to pass off sub-par work to gullible carnival visitors was a rite of passage amongst said artisans.
Some were even sacrilegious upon one stall, an assortment of sculptures and stoneworks regarding the Divines in various poses. There was Gilgarus, the All-Father of Creation stood with his leonine head bent back with a proud roar, Melarius the Kind, the pink tigress with the lengthy, twisted tail, her head bowed in submission both the most prominent of all, their children, Dainal the Always, Pellysria the Ever-Present, the stag and the leopard, and their half-sister the serpentine Griselle the Wrathful all there, and even some of the less well-worshipped Divines. In some areas of different kingdoms, the penalty here could have ranged from a heavy fine, to imprisonment to even mutilation. Here, people were buying them. Quite a few of them were wanting the collection, putting in orders to pick them up at later dates. The workmanship was outstanding, Nick had to admit. Even a zent might have to admit that, no matter how much they might denounce the idols themselves.
His eyes fell on a wooden carving of Farenix, the rainbow phoenix and probably the Divine closest associated with health and healing. Normally in renditions of the phoenix, the eyes were the hardest bit to make out, the huge beak and the magnificent plumage taking most of the attention. Not here. They might be small, but he could see the intensity in them. The sort of look you might get from a huge bird. He felt like them were staring back at him. He might get one, send it to Lysa. It might not do much good but the intent behind it was pure. That had to count for something if some cosmic being was watching out for them all.
He shelled out three hundred credits, gave the guy behind the stall the instructions and the address of the hospital, explained the circumstances. He’d already noticed the name on the stall and where the guy worked. Should it not wind up with Lysa, he’d be straight over there to break his legs. You didn’t profit from the sick.
It wouldn’t come to that. He was a professional, that much could be seen in his work. If he didn’t do it, his reputation would be damaged irrevocably. Nick would see to that.
Sharon said nothing as she watched him break away from the stall, raised an eyebrow curiously in inquiry. “What did you order?” she asked.
“Something for a sick friend,” he said. He didn’t want to go into detail. Not more than he had to. “Figure she’s going to need all the help she can get.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
He squeezed her hand. “It’s okay. She’s a fighter. She’ll pull through.”
Even as the words left his mouth, Nick wished that he could convince himself half as much as he could convince his voice that it would be the case. He still hadn’t heard anything as to whether she’d be fine or not.
The VIP’s were starting to arrive now, Hobb noticed. You could tell them apart from the common man. They walked like they owned the ground beneath their feet, it wasn’t something they did consciously, he imagined, but still all that wealth had left them with a sense of entitlement that they wore like a fine cloak that separated them from the rest of the populace. They had bodyguards and security, none of which would save them from him should he desire to end their life.
Any sort of security detail hated snipers. Their existence was made so much harder by the existence of men like Hobb. The life of a sniper was a solitary one, you might be a part of an attacking force, but you were always apart from the rest of them. You didn’t fight at their side, you covered them from far, far away. They were the first to die while you inevitably survived. He’d heard it all before, he’d seen it all before. After he’d shot Zaha, had his team not been wiped out in a culling rage of his forces? Hobb had been the only survivor. The ire from his command had been tremendous.
Thinking of the past would not do him any favours. He put memories of Cubla Cezri out of his mind, focused on the scope of his Femble. Somewhere out there, his target awaited their inevitable fate, even if they didn’t yet know what was in store for them.
He did so hate the idea of disappointment.
Chapter Five.
“Let’s talk a little about the travelling folk. What you have to remember is that these people came to Canterage from Serran many decades ago to escape persecution. People didn’t like having them around. They originally came from the Roumani province, an area notorious for violence and theft. King Luca del Hernandez-Torres wanted them to be gone during his reign. He hated that there was a little section of his kingdom who refused to acknowledge his authority. Suffice to say, when he wanted them gone, so
me were killed, all were hounded, some got away. Half of them came to Belderhampton and regard the city as their spiritual home. The other half went to Guypsia and we call them guypsians now. That’s why the carnival is put on in Belderhampton every year. It celebrates the day they arrived here. They’re a proud folk. They won’t ever forget an insult or an injury you offer them. They’ll take retribution against you. Hard. You cross them, you need to watch your back.”
Sociologist and political historian, Constantin Tabacaru on the travelling folk and their history.
They’d had their hands stamped to enter Graham’s Field, had to hand over twenty credits each to one of the ticket vendors, a weasel-like man flanked by one of the wrench-hefting mechanics. He was a big bastard, Nick had to note, a thick beard and a bald head slick with sweat and grease. The wrench was a little theatrical for his tastes, not a bad weapon to intimidate but perhaps not as useful as you might think as a weapon. The weight of it meant more effort than normal was required on the backswing, any sort of blow would be seen coming from a distance away. Didn’t mean it wouldn’t hurt if it caught you. Just that any sort of competent fighter wouldn’t get tagged with it.
The closer they’d gotten to the park, the more he’d noticed the changes in the environment around them. There was a large warehouse or something like that looming down over the park, the tallest building around the area. He wondered if Carling had checked it out. With Sharon distracted, he’d made a covert attempt to get in touch on his earpiece. Nothing. That worried him. He’d tried several times, had no joy. He should have been able to get him. The frequencies were right, he’d checked them more than a dozen times before leaving. He wasn’t forgetting those numbers.
More than that, he’d not seen any Unisco agents on sight. They could have been operating plainclothes, the job didn’t have a uniform as such but at times like this, agents policing large scale events did have jackets to mark them out, black jackets with the letters on the back to state where they’d come from. He hadn’t seen any of them either. This was starting to feel unsettling, he felt the stir in the pit of his stomach that told him something wasn’t right. Whenever he started to get this feeling, things started to devolve into a bad situation shortly after. It wasn’t any sort of precognition, it was experience. Experience developed over years of having the shit hit the fan on you. You learned to spot the signs. Secret operation with no sign of backup? That was a pretty big sign right there.
Until he saw something, he was on his own. Sharon was looking at the three witches, the first thing anyone saw upon entering the carnival and the mantra written on the board beneath them. They were ugly things, huge with green and brown faces, billowing black capes covering squat bodies. Their faces liked like the corner edges of an exceptionally weather-worn building, all jagged edges and sharp parts that didn’t belong on human features. The mantra was always the same year to year. Buy stuff and hurry. Most of the time, the travelling folk didn’t care for flowery language, they told it like it was. This one night of the year, they made the effort, just so that you didn’t feel like they were aiming solely for your pockets.
Nick stepped back, put his finger to his ear, rummaged about the earpiece in hopes of adjustment. There had to be something not right. He was sure he’d turned it on. He’d heard the empty frequencies. Carling just wasn’t replying to him, even assuming he could hear him at all.
“Where are you, you son of a bitch?” he muttered, tapping at his earlobe. It didn’t make any difference, he was trying to make the action look innocuous. Oh look, there’s a man with an itchy ear. Nothing to see. Move along.
They had to have checked that huge building. If they were worried about a sniper, it would have been irresponsible not to. It was short distance for someone rumoured to be as good as Hobb was. With a clear line of sight into Graham’s Field, he could hit whoever he wanted, when he wanted. Nick turned, leaned up against the back of a place selling lemon-flavoured ice and craned his neck at the building. By the looks of things, one of the top windows was out. Broken. Kids with rocks. He and Mark Meadow had done the same long ago. Broken stuff for the sake of it. It had felt funny back then. Vandalism for the sake of it. They’d been bored. It was something they’d both grown out of as they’d gotten older. Things that were funny once grew into tiresomeness. He hadn’t seen Meadow for months, they’d always tried to meet up at least once every three months to have a catch-up. It had slowly turned to four months. Then to six. Then to eight. Longest they’d been without seeing each other was thirteen months.
Priorities changed as you grew older. They changed a lot. You met different people, those who you used to know changed themselves just as you did. It didn’t mean anything. It was just the way of life.
The back of his neck itched. He elected not to scratch it, just hung there amidst the crowds and focused on the sensation for a long moment. All other thoughts fell from his head, he just found himself thinking about that itch. Probably nothing. Just like all his other bad feelings. Maybe the reason he couldn’t get Carling was they’d already apprehended Hobb and they didn’t need him. Maybe. It wasn’t an unreasonable to think that. Unrealistic perhaps. Carling had given the impression he couldn’t catch a stray fart in a locked booth, but he might have a competent agent underneath him who could have conceivably done it.
He wasn’t fooling himself. Not even in the slightest. He couldn’t even bring himself to think it for longer than he had to.
The VIP area was towards the back of the stage, closest to the exits, not fenced off from the rest of the carnival as such but there was a very noticeable divide between them. It was only a thin rope barrier, but it might as well have been a ten-foot high steel fence with an electric current running through it and automated blaster cannons across their peak. Carnival security took this area security more seriously than the rest of it. A VIP got harassed, conned or injured, it’d be more negative publicity than if it the same happened to a hundred regulars outside the area.
Hobb had to smile at the hypocrisy of that. By the time he was finished, the carnival would probably have to close for good. The sort of negative publicity he was about to inflict on them would be irreparable. The measure of the fuck he did not give didn’t cross his thoughts.
Through his scope, he went through some of the faces that he recognised, the prince of Serran, a well-known holovid actor and actress who both looked like they’d imbibed a little too freely already, the wealthiest woman in Canterage who was appearing less and less in public these days and her daughter. Even from a distance they looked like neither of them wanted to be there. He could see a few of the more recognisable first ministers of Canterage but not Adam Abbot, the prime minister himself, although he could see Ronald Ritellia and Thomas Jerome looking thick as thieves and altogether too pleased with themselves, the head of the International Competitive Calling Committee and his right-hand man, a group of four, one of whom he recognised as a well-known spirit dancer… Those were the ones he could place. There were plenty he couldn’t. He guessed they were either rich or famous. One of the two. He’d already spotted the target.
Hobb fiddled with his summoner, slid a container crystal into the projector. He needed to get this timing right. Take too long and someone might realise what was happening. Take it too quickly and you ran the risk of missing.
The spirit dancers got up as a group and trailed away. They were an odd-looking bunch. Two women. Two men. Not important to him. His target remained in the kill zone. Still seated. Not really moving.
It was perfect.
The craziest idea had been floating through his head ever since he’d returned to Belderhampton, an idea just too ridiculous to consider speaking aloud. Yet it didn’t stop him from considering it. Weighing up all the possibilities if he pulled it off. There was no reason to see why he couldn’t. He was talented. He was the master of an opportunity when it came up. He knew how to improvise.
It was pricey, but it was a statement. It was a statement that he beli
eved in the future. That he believed everything would be okay. No matter what happened, he would make it through. Unisco didn’t matter. Hells, spirit calling didn’t matter if the plan came off. This was the sort of operation he could run without any sort of assistance. It’d all be on him. Nobody else.
The most important of all.
So many justifications. None of them felt like they needed to be repeated aloud. In his head he knew it was the right thing to do. In his heart, he couldn’t find any sort of argument. In his being, he knew he didn’t want to argue with it.
A thousand credits. Not insubstantial but he could spare it. There would no doubt be some tournaments coming up. He could enter, make his credits back in a few weeks. He needed to look at the Canterage schedule. Nick felt surprise at that. He’d been back so short a time and already it felt like he was ready to stay for a while. He’d always assumed he’d go back to Serran after his suspension was lifted, now he wasn’t so sure.
He glanced at his summoner as the vendor grinned at him, a huge traveller woman missing her front teeth, went to package up his purchase. A sign up on the side of the stall proclaimed that it was all genuine stuff. No fakes here. The very best, it assured him in its wooden silence. They always said what couldn’t speak couldn’t lie. He’d heard the jewellery of the travelling folk was in high regard, very expensive to sell to those not a part of their culture. They considered it too precious to sell for anything less than the maximum they could get for them. He’d known what he was doing when he’d set out on this venture. No hesitation.