by Jay Lake
"Our problems are more, well, immediate."
"Got problems here, too." The needles stopped again. The old woman glared at him. "That fool Sevenships make too many deals south, new people come with big swords, bigger ideas. They cut down our trees, our forest become big plantation, what we got?
"You come down river, you solve problems, bring the little people home to the stone house city. Good, maybe you solve our problem, too. She no like slugs in their farms and their holes-in-the-ground, but they twin people, ah? Corsairs, Sunward sailors, no twins at all. People of the Sea King maybe. She no want no more change."
"You don't want change." Onesiphorous was on more familiar ground. "Neither do I. Not completely. I want my people to come home, not to tear themselves apart."
"Not set themselves on fire, ah." She laughed, a reedy whispering cackle.
He winced. "Right. We need the City Imperishable, the City Imperishable needs us. If dwarf money and dwarf discontent go back up the river, things here might be more normal. I can't replace Borold Sevenships, I don't have that power. But I can take away some of the fuel that drives the engine of his ambitions."
"You talk pretty, little man. Benny dwarf, ah. I tell you this thing, no argue. The river, she bring bad, bad news now. Maybe you make it good news. She no say, I no say. But them corsairs, you no want them, we no want them, she no want them. Take you troubles home to the stone house, little man, and leave us ours. We know how to live with our own worries."
"Believe me, I'd love nothing more." He wondered what news the river was bringing. Had someone important died, setting the City Imperishable into disarray? Was Imago safe?
At that thought, the old woman sank into her chair, which folded like a fist and slithered into the muddy ground.
Chilled to the bone, Onesiphorous stared at the dimple in the soil for a moment. He backed toward the bushes. What in Dorgau's ninth hell had that been?
"Come." Boudin tugged at his elbow.
They lurched back to the boat. She'd just collapsed, like the rubbery crust from a wine vat being sucked through an enormous pair of lips.
He sat shivering as Boudin poled them back out into the channels leading to the open swamps.
"Who was that?" Onesiphorous finally asked.
"She us."
"What?"
Boudin paddled, looked thoughtful. "Not every monkey fall out of same tree, ah? Not every people spring from same mother. She us. Swamp people mother."
"Mother to you all?" He couldn't figure whether to be horrified or amazed.
"Yea. Wife to Sea King, one time back in the long ago. All the swamp her house, all the animals and people her children."
Her pets, maybe. Onesiphorous sat in silence, thinking about drowned cities and what kind of news could come down the river to worry an old swamp goddess with green lungs a hundred miles across.
He was never so glad to see sunlight as when Boudin finally broke out from under the trees.
Imago
The Lord Mayor and Biggest Sister were alone in the map room. Morning reflected in through the narrow windows, but the lamps were lit as well, in order to banish shadows from the table. The harvest from Whitetowers archives was spread out along the map's southern edge, carelessly stretching across the Sunward Sea and the pocks of the tributary cities.
He'd flipped through a few pages, but lacked the inclination to buckle down yet. Imago knew how to do that work—for years his livelihood had depended on clever readings of obscurities in the law, a pursuit available only to a dedicated researcher. Today, even after a rough night's sleep, he was still taken up with a sense of what could or should have been.
Something threatened his city. This was his work—riot and marching armies, not sewers and acreage under till.
"The Tokhari woman has been behaving strangely." Biggest Sister trailed her hand across his shoulders.
They'd spent a memorable night together, back before the Trial of Flowers when he was still a full-man. He'd been told he might service other members of the Tribade. They'd never come his way since.
"How so?" Imago suppressed a shiver.
"Inquiring in the markets and taverns after Northerners. From the real North, not just farm boys and lumbermen down from the foothills of the Silver Ridges. People who came over the passes."
"The North." They both stared at the map. "Why would a Tokhari, even an adoptive one from the City Imperishable, care about the North?"
She shrugged. "Why would a foreigner come through town claiming to know the secrets of the North?"
"Kalliope is a sandwalker. The real thing. Not a confidence woman like that Ashkoliiz. As for Bijaz, I am worried."
"He committed deep noumenal violence on three men."
"Yes." Imago chewed on that thought some more. "I did not want him to confess last night. He seemed to require unburdening at a moment when moving on was the best counsel."
"He becomes dangerous," she warned.
When the Tribade thought you were dangerous, you were either becoming a great deal of trouble, or already in a great deal of trouble. Both, Imago imagined. "He is the City's luck."
Another shrug, another pass of the hand across his shoulder. "Luck is good or bad, you know."
"She is gone. And we do have Bijaz to thank."
"Thank away. Nonetheless, he is your problem. If he becomes our problem, we will solve him."
"I appreciate your honesty." Imago circled the table, poking at the books. "Have you looked at these?"
She followed. "No. I can deliver a few pliant clerks to sort through them if you find that needful."
"Thank you. However, I am pleased to report that I already have an abundance of clerks, both pliant and otherwise." He opened a leather-bound volume entitled Beyond the Passes: An History of the Civic Empire in the True North. Maps were bound in the front, but he would need a knife to slit them open. Imago idly thumbed through the pages.
"What will you do if that Ashkoliiz returns?" asked Biggest Sister.
"Have her killed if I can. If that's not practical, have her run out again. She can go peddle her stories down along the Sunward Sea."
"The bear concerns us."
He recalled the creature tossing him the bell. "It's an ice bear. Extremely well-trained, I'll give you, but I doubt anyone else could manage the bear in her absence."
"Hmm. I'll leave you with this. Does she seem the sort who would trouble to raise and train a bear cub?"
Imago searched Biggest Sister's eyes for some hint. "No, I suppose not. Perhaps one of those Northmen brought the bear."
"There is more behind those eyes than a beast, my friend." She stroked his hair. "I should send one of my sisters to you soon. It would be a shame to lose your blood."
At that, she left him with his book.
He spent more time leafing through the material while considering the enormous map. The most popular story about the Imperator Terminus, the one believed by people who'd never thought it through, was that he'd marched downriver with his armies and his priests, searching for the limits of empire.
Imago knew Terminus had left to draw off the bloodiest of the Old Gods. That had given the City Imperishable back to itself, granting a chance to grow and prosper. In that sense, his direction and stated purpose were irrelevant. But obviously he hadn't marched downriver. That road became impassable somewhere between the Sudgate and the Jade Coast, and had been so for many centuries.
The simple response was that he'd taken the water road, but that didn't make much sense either. Where would he go? West along the coast was a hundred leagues of empty jungle. Beyond that loomed the ironbound cliffs where the Yellow Mountains met the sea. Then, well, who knew? The world was broad, and wide.
East and south were the cities of the Sunward Sea, tributaries in Terminus' time. Why invade again? Overland beyond them lay the Tokhari deserts. South of the Sunward Sea was a limitless ocean. Again, who knew what was beyond that?
That was the way of the world. Each man
knew his neighbor; every city knew its neighbor. No one could see past every horizon.
So north made sense, as did east. Neither of which jibed with the popular imagination. If Terminus had really wanted to bury his troublesome gods and their priests in great, deep holes, the Imperator could hardly have done better than some ice crevasse past the Rimerock Range. No one would come back from there until time itself had wound down.
East would have taken him across the Rose Downs and into a country of high plains and hills which had long since lain fallow. Nothing to conquer there, and too easy to return from.
It had to be north. The so-called True North, to be precise.
He also learned, in flipping through the books, that there had been garrison towns in the upland deserts beyond the Silver Ridges. They provided supply lines and support for the fortresses defending high passes in the Rimerocks. Imago tried to imagine some City-born full-man enlisting in the Imperatorial army, marching a thousand leagues north, and living out his life inside some frozen rockpile far past the edge of the world.
Then he tried to imagine what force could push through passes a thousand leagues distant and harry forward in sufficient strength to threaten the City Imperishable at the height of its imperial power.
If Terminus were anywhere to be found again, it had to be the upland desert country between the Silver Ridges and the Rimerocks. Imago wasn't so sure the legendary Imperator hadn't simply set sail with his money and his women and found a villa off the coast of a decadent city far to the south.
There were days when he had no trouble understanding that choice.
He closed the book and went looking for whatever trouble this new day had brought him.
"If you do not by Friday present a viable solution which represents the interests of my clients, I shall carry the suit before the Burgesses."
Imago stared at the lawyer—Roncelvas Fidelo. The bastard was a full-man, scion of some great family judging by his schooled accent, though still young. Young enough to have his arse warmed by the flat of a sword, Imago thought.
Marelle hovered behind the lawyer with a worried expression. She should be worried, he realized, as he found himself considering the distance from his open window to the pavement below.
Old habits. Refute the case, counterargue, keep the momentum going.
"First of all . . . " Imago held up one finger. "By your own admission the decedents assaulted Bijaz prior to his taking action. Any reasonable observer would conclude this releases Bijaz from his culpability. A simple case of self-defense." Another finger. "Second, he was unconscious at the time the assault began, and was forced to respond to attack as he was gaining consciousness. Here your charges against him fail a test-of-reasonableness." A third finger. "Finally, he is not employed by the City Imperishable or the office of the Lord Mayor in any capacity. He is a private citizen, and I cannot answer for his actions."
Fidelo smiled. "One does not strip a man of his hands, then of his life, simply for cocking a fist. This Bijaz now presents a clear danger. He disrupts public order and creates a climate of fear through his extreme actions."
"I myself can do nothing for you." Imago's eyes narrowed as his voice tightened. "And I can scarcely keep you from laying a complaint before the Burgesses. But better that you let this matter lie quietly. There are affairs of state close to these issues. If those are opened up for public examination, you and your clients will be placed in a very bad position."
Marelle bobbed behind the attorney again, miming hands closing across her throat. Imago nodded slightly. "Good day to you, Counselor."
"Indeed." Fidelo stepped around Marelle as if she were something distasteful.
"If you can do something," Imago said after his door had shut, "do it quickly and discreetly."
Marelle nodded. "Yes, sir."
"And non-fatally," he added reluctantly.
She slipped out.
How in the brass hells was he going to keep this whole Northern business from becoming a nine days' wonder? Especially if it went before the Burgesses. Anger and mockery had sloughed off Ashkoliiz's efforts to rally support for her little game, but if this became a matter of writ and testimony and endless witness lists—which he had no doubt young Counselor Fidelo was capable of generating—then the Terminus scam would come out regardless.
And who was really paying for Fidelo? Surely not the aggrieved families of a few dead lumbermen. It was possible, barely possible, that the syndics who controlled the northern lumber trade were sufficiently outraged.
More was afoot.
Marelle slipped back in the door. "Onesiphorous was a thorough dwarf. You lost much when you sent him south."
"How so?" asked Imago. "Or do I want to know?"
"Let's just say he was master of both contingency planning and the unsavory connection. Counselor Fidelo is going to arrive home to find a paternity complaint against him being dumped upon his mother. A trap Onesiphorous had arranged in the event of you being bothered by any young highborns. He won't be before the Burgesses in the immediate future." She almost giggled.
It was a shame that his taste had never run to dwarfesses. This was a woman he could admire, but she did not move his blood. "Whoever is behind him can always hire another attorney." Lawyers in the City Imperishable were thick on the ground as linden leaves.
"One problem at a time," she said.
"Still, this points to something else. People have taken note of what Bijaz did at the Ripsaw. Enero is there today, inspecting the place. It was one thing when Bijaz wandered around town farting butterflies, being a hero of the recent revolution. It's another thing if he spits fire and turns people into rosebushes."
Theogeny was a distinctly uncomfortable process for all concerned.
"Perhaps you should send him south to aid Onesiphorous."
"Is Onesiphorous in need of aid?"
"Bijaz may soon be in need of some air outside the City."
"There are more problems in the City dwarf community down there," Imago said. "Recent reports are not encouraging. If Slashed and Sewn were seen working together, that might be to the good."
"I do not think it is a matter of Slashed and Sewn, sir." Marelle frowned. "There are rumors of boxes being broken in Port Defiance."
"Broken boxes." Imago sighed and rubbed his eyes. "I need them to come home. That's why I sent Onesiphorous. By the ninth hell, he was the one piling them on southbound ships last year. Surely they can settle their affairs and make their way back?"
"Perhaps." She pulled a sheaf of memoranda. "On the good side, the last of the tribal encampments outside the River Gate appear to be saddling their ponies for a long journey."
"Hardly that good. Their presence was all that has kept Enero and his Winter Boys here. Once they ride west, he departs for the south. Then we're back to bailiffs and what few City Men we've been able to piece together." Damn the old Inner Chamber for the hash they'd made of his city.
"You'll have to speak with Fallen Arch about the bailiffs," Marelle said. "His debt is strong enough that he should be moved to aid you."
Zaharias of Fallen Arch was now First Counselor of the Inner Chamber. The new Provost was a backbencher from the Assemblage of Burgesses, a chair warmer named Jarrod Selsmark. Imago still wasn't sure where Selsmark took his orders from. Zaharias, on the other hand, was a known quantity.
"I lack for a chamberlain in Onesiphorous' absence," Imago said with a sudden urge. "Not that his job was ever official. Will you take that role?" Marelle was secretary to the Lord Mayor's office, but had not been a part of the executive.
"There has never been a woman sworn to office in the City Imperishable," she said. "Let alone a dwarfess."
"Be sure and mention that to Biggest Sister. The Tribade will be thrilled to hear it. Besides, I wasn't going to cry your accession through the streets. Just accord you the dignity of the post you already fill."
"I—I cannot, sir." She stared down at the floor.
"Why not?"
"I should never have ever . . . " She looked up at him. "I have other responsi-bilities."
Imago felt a cold stab of betrayal in his heart, until he realized what she must mean. "The archives?"
"Yes. I never should have come to work here, but during this past winter when the situation was so bleak, I thought I might help the City."
"You can still help. That's what I'm telling you. You're capable, and I need someone who can see to all that detail."
"You don't know anything about me."