by Jay Lake
Everyone in Port Defiance certainly got their exercise.
Like bailiffs, this lot wasn't much for talking. He still had plenty to consider from his trip to the swamps, especially the thought of that bad, bad news. Which in turn was quite possibly what this little jaunt was about.
The bluecoats took him through a little postern gate and into one of the many structures comprising the Flag Towers. It was a series of small keeps linked by bridges, with the river and the tides coursing beneath the foundation pillars. They went up a flight then across an open gallery over one of the channels. The tide slopped thirty feet below them, smelling of fish and seaweed.
The halls and bridges they crossed were quiet, devoid of people and ripe for dark deeds. He wasn't particularly concerned for his safety, despite Big Sister's warnings. That sort of trouble wasn't likely to come from the Harbormaster. Sevenships had much better ways to make his life difficult.
Up another winding stair, and into a small audience chamber. In other circumstances it might have been a conference room, but most conference rooms did not feature a throne at one end of the table.
If it wasn't a throne, it was a very oversized chair. Borold Sevenships sat before a spread of papers, looking grim. He was a broad-faced man with bulging eyes and pasty skin sheened with sweat. This lent him the appearance of a confused fish. He was flanked by several local dignitaries. They appeared to be spoiling for an argument. No one else was present except a slim, light-skinned full-woman in blue silks. She had chestnut hair and pale eyes.
"Ah, the dwarf," said the Harbormaster.
As if Onesiphorous were the only dwarf in Port Defiance. "At your service, sir."
"Hardly." Sevenships turned to the woman. "Here is your man. So to speak. He represents the City Imperishable."
As do you, thought Onesiphorous. He was mindful of Big Sister's warnings about the political currents. "In my own small way, you might say."
He hated the pointless jest, but it deflected some of the hostility. Several people smirked.
"Indeed." Sevenships stared blankly. "You have come to speak for the dwarfs here, and hurry them home. Strangely enough, this young woman has come with a message for your dwarfs. One which she was summarily expelled from the City Imperishable for daring to utter."
That didn't sound good.
The Harbormaster went on: "Your home's unceremonious inhospitality to such a talented and lovely stranger does not speak well of the continued decline in the civility and political support we have noted of late. This good lady Ashkoliiz has approached me for assistance. As this is a matter for you City folk, I thought you might aid her in taking up her cause among your fellow half-men."
Onesiphorous swept the woman a bow. "And what is this news not fit to speak on the streets of the City?"
"Glad tidings." Her voice was filled with anger. "I have a found a great and difficult truth which was rejected by a mad dwarf wizard who holds unholy sway in the City Imperishable."
"I . . . a mad dwarf wizard, you say?" He'd left the city less than a fortnight ago. This was an astonishing political development, if true.
"Bijaz by name."
Onesiphorous burst out laughing. "You cannot be serious."
Ashkoliiz's eyes darkened. "He is crazed with overweening power. Your Lord Mayor stands in his thrall."
"And so I had the right of it," said the Harbormaster. "I was certain you two would have much to discuss. This is not the business of Port Defiance. Perhaps you should take yourselves among your own people and work out your differences there?"
Onesiphorous could see the wisdom of that. The less said within Sevenships' hearing about the City's current troubles, the better. And whatever Bijaz his old friend and older enemy had gotten up to, this woman had a most peculiar interpretation of it. "Come," he told her, "we will repair to my offices and you can elucidate what became of you back in the City Imperishable."
"I must bring my bear."
Onesiphorous wondered what she could possibly mean by that. "Of course," he told her, anxious to move things along.
The bear was thirteen feet tall, white, and wearing a harness of bells. It was so massive that his office swayed when the creature stepped within. Onesiphorous experienced the most piercing look he had ever received from an animal.
Ashkoliiz smiled sweetly. "She is everything to me. The sea seems to make her ill, and so I wish to have her near." She looked Onesiphorous up and down. "Besides, she will defend me should anything untoward emerge."
A small, dark full-man with features unlike any Onesiphorous had ever before seen had followed the bear in. He settled next to the creature at the far end of the office and began to idly finger an ivory flute. His black eyes focused steadily on Onesiphorous.
"I see you are well protected," the dwarf said.
"After my experiences in your city, I must needs be."
It was an act, pure and simple. Onesiphorous was certain he was being played, but he didn't yet know what for. It was up to him to work the problem through. On the whole, he was just as glad this situation had fallen to him. At least this way he knew where the next eruption would be coming from.
Onesiphorous donned a bright smile. "Pray tell me what tidings you brought, and how it was this Bijaz caused you to be expelled in disarray?"
"A simple enough matter." Ashkoliiz smiled and smoothed her skirts across her thighs. "I have found evidence of the resting place of the Imperator Terminus. I only thought to bring the news of that wealth of history and treasure to the people of your city, as a boon."
"I see." This was a confidence game of epic proportions. No wonder she'd been run out. The political situation was far too unstable for the City Imperishable to afford a return to playing the game of Imperators. The last round had been a disaster, after all. "And this Bijaz fell upon you like Tokhari on a sheepfold?"
"Yes." Her eyes met his. Onesiphorous could see another kind of danger there. "He came to hear a speech I made. There he picked fights and performed magicks. Later he assaulted some blameless lumbermen, perhaps mistaking them for my associates. He transformed the unfortunates into plants. Their lungs choked on their growth. A riot ensued, with deaths. We were run out of the City under threat of more of the same." She shuddered artfully. "I meant bring your people a new future. Instead they treated me like a rabid dog."
Not so much, or they'd have shot her down in the street. "I have known this Bijaz a long time," Onesiphorous said, reflexively picking at the old scars upon his lips. "It is sadly true he has not been himself recently. Still, it is with great sorrow that I hear of your troubles." He wondered why in the brass hells Imago had not sent a letter warning him of this woman.
"And now I am barred from bringing my joyous news to those who would most wish to hear it." She smiled—a wan expression that proclaimed hope's last thread. "How shall I ever find the support to open the tomb and bring forth whatever great treasures which lie within? The glory of your City Imperishable would be restored, and all made wealthy."
Behind her the bear yawned. It showed a mouthful of teeth which could handily have closed over Onesiphorous' head. He found the view distracting, which saved him the effort of shrugging off her honeyed words.
"My good lady Ashkoliiz. I regret the inhospitality of my native city. But this is not a time when history is foremost in the minds of men. I take it you have a map? Or expedition notes? It might be best to sell those further down the coast, to wealthy collectors along the Sunward Sea."
Her smile grew harder. He recognized the expression—the game was on now, and she was playing for stakes. "Oh, Master Onesiphorous. If you read a map with the same perspicacity that you bring to understanding those around you, you would surely know that Port Defiance is itself the first of the cities of the Sunward Sea. It comes to my mind that there are many dwarfs here hungering for a renewed purpose which they have found absent in their distant home."
This woman had to be fresh into Port Defiance—otherwise he'd have heard about th
e bear before this. But she had good informants.
"As it may be, mistress. Nonetheless, the hunting is thin here." Onesiphorous let his smile grow lean and toothy. "You might best pursue your efforts elsewhere."
The ingénue was gone now. "You make one error in your reckonings." Ashkoliiz snapped her fingers.
The bear gathered itself to a sitting position, setting Onesiphorous' office to swaying once again. It tugged a bell from its harness and tossed the thing with a hard overhand throw so that the silver bauble rocketed across the room and bounced off the dwarf's chest. He grabbed the bell before it clattered to the floor.
This one was identical to the round, silver bell which the Alate had given him out upon Barlowe's Finger.
"You think I play a scam, fishing with a false lure." She leaned close to him. "What none of you seem to have considered is that I might be telling the truth."
"The truth, madam," Onesiphorous said slowly, rolling the bell in his hand, "is sometimes far more costly than any pretty lie." His curiosity overcame his good sense. "So long as we are being direct with one another, will you tell me what you have actually found? I promise no conjuring tricks or sudden riots."
She sighed. Considering odds, he could see. Thinking whether it helped or hurt her to tell him more.
Onesiphorous was able to be quite patient. Working under the old regime in the City Imperishable had taught him that particular virtue.
Ashkoliiz surprised him. "What I have found is the Imperator's last camp, on the slopes of the Rimerock Range. There is evidence there of a long stay by a large body of men, clearly from the City Imperishable. There were old papers in a chest, telling of the Imperator's death and how his party carried him away to a hidden tomb. They carried themselves away too, priests, gods, and treasure, to await his return in a cold cave beneath the hills.
"I came south to raise money and men in order to follow their line of march and open the tomb. I do not imagine an actual army in fighting array sleeps with their gods in some cavern, but they surely buried much around the Imperator Terminus." Her tone shifted from recall to supplication. "Think what lies beneath those stones—wealth, secrets. Your Terminus carried off the heart of the old empire with him, and he never brought it back. Together we might find it."
Despite himself, Onesiphorous was almost convinced. "You tell a story to make a grandmother cry," he said. "And I applaud you for delving into history. Curiosity is an emotion all men feel when they have the luxury of looking past tomorrow's meal. You may even have solved one of the great mysteries of the City's past. All the same, I implore you to take your story southward. The beys and doges of the Sunward Sea will be pleased by your tale, and might even grant you a lifetime pension simply for the pleasure of hearing you embroider upon it. Surely that is better than struggling to some frozen, northern hell in search of a lost cavern which might never have existed at all?"
The bear growled at his words. Ashkoliiz stiffened briefly, as if she heeded a distant voice. Then she gave Onesiphorous a look which approached pity. "So you forbid me to go among the City dwarfs here in Port Defiance?"
"I forbid you nothing." He spread his hands. "I have no power here. I merely offer counsel. The City dwarfs are in disarray, divided by troubles which have little to do with history and everything to do with the present. I doubt your message will find friendly ears."
He prayed that, actually.
"Fair enough. I have listened to your words." She stood. "I hope you have listened to mine. A thoughtful dwarf such as yourself might profit greatly from a part in the Northern Expedition."
"A thoughtful dwarf such as myself might profit greatly by not freezing off any of my appendages, either," he said. "I wish you luck, lady, and hope the sea bears you to better fortune."
"Fortune is where you find it, Master Onesiphorous."
She left, the bear lurching after her. Once again its weight made the office sway. The dark, little man was last. He paused on the doorstep to give Onesiphorous a long, slow stare.
"I don't know about you, friend," the dwarf said, "but I'm much too far from home. In my case that's only a few leagues up the river."
The man nodded, then was gone.
Onesiphorous waited a while at his desk, figuring that Big Sister would reappear soon. He suspected she had no one else to talk to, and was cursed with something of a social nature. He spent the time comparing the two bells. They might have been snapped from the same length of harness, they were so alike. He noticed faint engraving which read Civitas est.
"The city is"—the words of the City Imperishable.
He had no way to tell if the bells were genuine artifacts of the past, but it seemed reasonable. If these were fake, someone had gone to a fair amount of trouble. And to what end?
To what end the Alates, as well? Why bring him a bell?
He wondered if the bird-men were people who had climbed down a different tree, much as Boudin had suggested about the people of the old swamp woman's demesne. Something drew the Alates to the City Imperishable. They had attended the recent violence, possibly on both sides, even before one had tried to give him a clue as to what was coming.
Now he had to wonder how Ashkoliiz would bend the fate of the City. Could he stop her from gaining foothold among the dwarfs? On the other hand, her engaging the energy and financial support of the dwarf community might distract from the bloody passions running so high between Boxers and Openers.
He could argue this thought in circles all evening, Onesiphorous realized. And Big Sister was apparently not coming. He looked out to sea, wondering where she was. Three lean ships tacked in toward the city.
They flew no flag. No bells rang to welcome them to Port Defiance and call out the factors and syndics.
His heart felt cold. Corsairs? Perhaps this was the deal the Harbormaster had been making.
Onesiphorous realized that he had been safer back in the swamps, even amid his fear, than he was here. That feeling was underscored when three dwarfs burst through his door with axes and boathooks. They wore blue coats.
"You, City man!" one of them shouted. The other two brandished their weapons.
In that moment he knew what might have happened to Big Sister. A purge was a purge. Old instincts died hard. Onesiphorous scooped the bells off his desk and jumped out the window, windmilling his arms as the running water thirty feet below rushed up to slap him half-senseless.
Imago
Enero was back, looking worried. When Enero worried, Imago worried.
"One of the Northmen who was being with Ashkoliiz is to be sneaking into the City Imperishable," the freerider said.
"I thought she was gone."
"I am not knowing what is to be happening in the south, but she is being gone from here. Her servant is not."
"Has he done anything wrong?" There had been no writ of exile against Ashkoliiz—Imago hadn't wanted to draw so much attention to her cause.
"He is being down in the Sudgate districts. He is not to be making trouble so far."
Which only meant he was passing time in quiet basements or the back rooms of taverns. "Do we have Northmen living here in the City Imperishable? I'd never seen their like before."
Enero shrugged. "Again, I am not knowing. People are coming, people are going. The North is usually to be keeping to itself."
Imago supposed he could simply have the man arrested on suspicion. He didn't control the courts or the jails, though, which meant he'd either have to stash the Northman somewhere illegal, or turn him over to the Burgesses. Who would then likely ask inconvenient questions. "Let's keep an eye on him."
"I am not having so many eyes now," Enero said. "Soon enough the last of the tribes is to be leaving, and so my Winter Boys are to be leaving as well."
They'd had this argument before. No price could keep Enero here permanently—the freerider simply wasn't interested. He was almost certainly a high officer in the army of one of the cities of the Sunward Sea—sent here the previous autumn to keep t
abs on what had been a very dangerous situation. Enero and his men had been essential in the Trial of Flowers and the subsequent battle of Terminus Plaza, but now they wanted to go home.
It was scarcely the mercenary's fault that Imago couldn't raise a decent militia of his own.
He would have to apply to the First Counselor, and soon, about extending the bailiff's writ and having them resume policing the City. Imago was certain that Zaharias of Fallen Arch would be pleased to extend his aid, for a small financial consideration to offset the Burgesses' expense in the matter.
Not yet. He would postpone the old buggerer's moment of satisfaction as long as possible. "So we've found someone we'd prefer stay lost. What of Jason? Has he been located?"