by Jay Lake
Enero whistled. The horsemen rode out onto the quay. At Imago's nod, they used the flats of their swords to clear a path to the base of the lowering gangplank. "Aboard," Imago shouted. The freeriders reined their horses up the plank one by one. The crowd cheered behind them.
The horses jostled nervously together on the foredeck of the steamer, facing a crowd of full-men. Imago was pleased to see they were an assortment: young and old, thin and fat. Not likely a corsair raiding party. Traders and clerks from Port Defiance, rather. About a dozen carried instruments—her band, ready to march.
Ashkoliiz appeared in an expanding circle of silence, followed by her bear and two of her Northmen. "I do not believe we have had the pleasure." She approached his horse from the left and lifted her hand.
Imago leaned down, took her fingers in his grip and brushed his lips across the back of her hand. "Lord Mayor Imago, of the City Imperishable."
The mountebank glanced at Bijaz, whose expression was dark enough to concern Imago. "I have met your creature before. You are entirely different." Her blue-white eyes sparkled with the swell of the moment. The crowd ashore continued to cheer. "I'm afraid that I must show myself to my public now," she added, winking.
Imago tried to bow without falling off the saddle. "Would my lady do me the honor of presenting herself at the Rugmaker's Cupola when it is convenient?"
"Why, you seem worried." A big smile. "Surely you don't think the old fossils at the Assemblage would be any use to me? A few hours, perhaps."
The band struck up a jaunty march. Ashkoliiz walked down the gangplank. Her ice bear followed, the creature bending low to clear the overhead. The Northmen gave Imago long looks as they followed the bear. Most of the rest of her men trailed the blare of the music.
Imago was left looking at a handful of sailors. "Are you all of Port Defiance?" he asked.
One answered, his face drawn. "Some are City men, taking the chance to come home. The dwarfs paid for this circus, but Harbormaster's men wouldn't let none of them board the steamer. Neither wives nor children."
Imago lowered his voice. "How stands the port?"
The man shook his head. "Poorly. But I cannot say more."
"Why not?"
"My wife—" He broke off and glanced around nervously. "Leave off. Please do not speak to me."
Moments later the horses picked their way back down the gangplank. Ashkoliiz and her procession were already moving up Palatine Street, away from the waterfront. Her band tootled merrily in the spring sunlight.
Imago couldn't actually see Imperatrix Park from his office, but he could spot the tops of the poplars that grew there. He could certainly hear it, even from halfway across the City. Ashkoliiz, her voice projector, and her marching band were making quite a stir.
At least Enero had agreed to hold his forces here in the City Imperishable until the woman had departed once more.
"Sir." It was Stockwell, the clerk. Acting acting chamberlain, as it were. Though he might well have one more "acting" on his nonexistent title than that. Imago had lost track.
"Yes?"
"There's a . . . person. Here to see you."
"One of the Northmen? Tell me it's not that dancing bear."
"No, I'm afraid this is one of ours. Says you know him well." Robert's pursed lips gave his opinion of that statement. "A fellow by the name of Saltfingers."
"Ah." Imago felt a mixed flood of relief and guilt. Saltfingers, dwarf and chief dunny diver to the City Imperishable. He worked for the Water Captain, but through that office the dwarf was responsible to the Lord Mayor.
More to the point, without Saltfingers' help Imago would have been dead half a dozen ways, and never met the Old Gods in their tombs beneath the City.
Yet he hadn't seen the old dwarf since the battle at Terminus Plaza.
"Send him in, please."
Stockwell looked as if he wanted to question the order, but withdrew. Saltfingers entered a moment later. The dunnyman was a strange one—the only albino dwarf Imago knew of. His skin was pebbled and shiny from some disease.
He was also one of the bravest, most resolute human beings the Lord Mayor had ever known.
"Hello," Imago said, rising to greet his visitor.
Saltfingers hung back, hands clasped behind. "Your worship."
Imago veered away from a more personal greeting. "May I offer you a drink?"
"Begging your pardon, no. I'm a-working soon, and with that ruckus down at Imperatrix Park the Old Twins will be running thick this evening. The boys'll need me."
"It's always a pleasure to see you." Imago paused, then forged on. "My debt to you is bottomless. Whatever your need, just ask. If that is within my power to grant it, it is yours."
"Ain't got no needs, your worship." Saltfingers grinned, teeth broken and rotted as Imago remembered. He held out a hand. "Got this instead."
Imago took the withered green mess from the dunny diver's hand. "A water lily?"
"'S right."
He went to his chair again. "It's, well, green."
"'S right."
Why had the old dwarf felt the need to bring this to him? "And you found it in the sewers somewhere."
"Quality will out, I'm always saying. Usually when cleaning the grates up on Heliograph Hill, mind you, where most of the quality's let out, if you take my meaning." He cackled. "Glad to see your worship's still sharp as a crocodile gaff."
Imago was starting to remember what a conversation with Saltfingers could be like. All he could do was press ahead. "Not a lot of light in the sewers as I recall."
"That's what I was thinking. I says to myself, Saltfingers, here's a thing to see. A whole lake of water lilies in the number four stormwater catchment, here sixty feet and more beneath the cobbles. Dark as a whore's cootch down there, and don't smell much better. No light but me little lantern, but there they is, pretty as a spring sunrise."
"Yes," said Imago. "I can see why that would be puzzling."
"Especially since there was hundreds of the bastards, some the size of barrow wheels, yet a week gone by I'd swear on your sister's thighs there weren't nothing there but black water and mossy stones."
The Green Man of spring walked somewhere beneath the City Imperishable. That thought gave him great comfort. "I believe I know who did this," he said. "You won't be needing your steam gun just now."
"Well, and that's what I figgered. Ask his worship, get an answer. If you'd looked at me and the lily and said it was crazy, I'd call out the boys and be hunting something with a green thumb and a black heart."
"Green thumb, yes. Black heart, no. And Saltfingers . . . "
"Yes, your worship?"
"If you see him, or a dwarf woman with him, give them every courtesy. They deserve it."
"Yes'r." The dunny diver turned to go, then stopped. "One more thing, your worship."
"Mmm?" Imago looked up from the withered water lily.
"It's no mind to me whether the crazy woman down in the park is crooked as last year's blackberries or right as rainwater, but you might give thought to the fact that himself, the last Imperator—" Saltfingers paused for a moment. "Excuse me," he said, interrupting himself. "I tells a lie. The last true Imperator I meant to say. Himself, when he went off, was headed north beyond the Silver Ridges. Through Endres Pass. He wasn't in no mood for trees though, whatever that might mean to you."
"And you are certain of this?" Imago asked, though he knew better than to question Saltfingers.
The old dwarf laid a finger beside his nose. "We got our own histories down beneath the stones. You of all people knows that. The dunnyman remembers everything, because he never knows what will save him."
"I understand. Is there anything you need, old friend?"
"Only to get to me work. And not to have another run of freshwater squid 'd be favorite, too." The dunny diver bowed and saw himself out.
"Jason," Imago said, looking at the lily. "Maybe you're doing her some good down there. I hope you come back soon. B
oth of you."
Imago spent most of the afternoon staring out the window toward Imperatrix Park. Music erupted from time to time. Flights of birds were released twice.
Ashkoliiz was making a show of things.
She was certainly closer to the Limerock Palace than to the Rugmaker's Cupola, but he couldn't force her next direction. Not when she moved with a brass band, a dancing bear, and the company of hundreds.
He could only hope the Burgesses were disinclined to invite her into an Assemblage session. Zaharias of Fallen Arch was no fool, but he was surrounded by them.
The telelocutor failed to jangle as well, further sign that this latest riot was beneath the notice of the Burgesses.
Just after the evening bell erupted above his office—nearly deafening Imago for a few moments as always—the affair at the park ended in a burst of fireworks. What had she brought on that damnable steamer?
Insurance, he realized. She would not be run out again, not after such a huge display. The band commenced a marching tune. They were coming up Orogene Avenue toward Lame Burgess Bridge.
Coming to him as she'd said. Imago found himself quite surprised.
He resolved not to meet the mountebank in the street. He had no desire to compete with her musicians and a rowdy crowd of cheering drunks. Instead he rang for Stockwell.
"Please bring a selection of the better wines. Borrow from the rugmakers next door if need be. Also, ask their kitchen for a tray of food. Not the special dishes, rather the usual fare." The Tokhari idea of delicacies did not always sit well with a city-bred palate. Though Imago had the feeling Ashkoliiz would cheerfully eat raw scorpions to face down a confrontation, he didn't mean to spar with her over food.
"As you request, sir." Stockwell scuttled off.
It was time to wait. Imago swept his paperwork into the wicker baskets next to his desk. The bare surface made him look unengaged, so he fished the papers out again. Then he made himself cease fidgeting.
Eventually Stockwell returned with the tray and a statement that the procession had arrived at the Rugmaker's Cupola. That was clear enough from the racket coming through the window.
"The wine, then, and show her in," Imago told him. "While you're at it, tell Enero to make sure she comes without her hangers-on."
"Sir." He bowed his way out.
Imago listened, refusing to be seen leaning out the window like some overeager child. The voices died to a mutter.
There were arguing tones.
A flat blast from some horn in the band, quickly hushed.
More argument.
Crowd noise.
The self-satisfied hum of agreement.
It was a discussion of terms, obviously. He wondered how much he'd given up.
Stockwell threw open the door again and drew a deep breath. "The Right Honorable Imago of Lockwood, Lord Mayor of the City Imperishable, bids welcome to one Ashkoliiz, gentlewoman-adventurer from Northern lands, and invites her to speak of affairs of moment to City and citizen alike. She attends with her closest advisors."
Ashkoliiz entered. She was wrapped in her fur-trimmed cloak once more, presumably to ward against the chill of the evening. As she shook it off into Stockwell's waiting hands, Imago saw the mountebank wore a blue silk dress the same shade as her eyes. A frosted gem hung at her neck, pale and cloudy like winter ice stored too long.
Her closest advisors turned out to be one of the dark-complected Northmen along with that ice bear. The creature had to bend low to fit into Imago's office, and seemed to occupy half the space. In such an enclosed area, its musk was powerful enough to make him want to sneeze.
The bear slumped to the floor. It crushed a bookcase to kindling, spreading its contents like so much stable bedding. The Northman stood by the door with arms crossed tight. Ashkoliiz took a chair before Imago's desk.
She did not offer her hand this time.
"Welcome to my humble office," he said.
"Indeed." She made a show of looking around. "So this is where the City Imperishable takes its direction."
"Or at least leaves notice of where it seems to have lately gone."
Stockwell turned on the electricks, then withdrew.
Imago launched himself into the silence that followed. "I see that you have raised interest and funds for your expedition to the North."
"Yes. We have been most privileged. The consideration extended to me in Port Defiance was far more favorable than my previous reception here in the City Imperishable."
"Strange, that," murmured Imago. "An unfortunate oversight on our part."
"I am certain." Her smile dropped away. "I think we understand each other, my Lord Mayor. Despite your efforts to the contrary, my expedition is already well subscribed. It is secret to no one with ears."
"I can see that. Though I continue to believe that Bijaz was correct. You might have been better off peddling your maps down the coast, where no one would be in a position to verify them." Saltfingers' words about the Imperator Terminus, spoken just a few hours ago in this same office, haunted him now.
"Perhaps. Nonetheless, we will take Slackwater Princess upriver to the cliff cities. From there we plan to cross Endres Pass into the high countries, and follow the routes which I have discovered."
Imago was grateful for a decade's experience running grifts before suspicious judges, else he would have started at the mention of the name of the pass. A part of him was eager to ask her about trees and why the Imperator Terminus would have been moved to avoid them. He settled for something far more noncommittal: "It sounds a wondrous plan."
"Wondrous indeed. I am here to raise additional funds and hire swords. Would you object to me recruiting the last of the tribesmen lingering beyond your River Gate?"
That took him by surprise. Imago had rather expected her to try to draw off some of the City Men. "Not that they are mine, but may you have the joy of them." That solved some of his other difficulties in the face of Enero's imminent departure.
"Excellent." She rubbed her hands together, then glanced back at the ice bear for a moment. "I shall not trouble you for gold from your City coffers, but there is one favor I would ask."
And here is the rub, Imago thought. She didn't need him except for this segment of the con. "What favor would that be?"
"There will quite possibly be old magick or restless spirits from another age of this city when we find the Imperator." Ashkoliiz looked uncomfortable. Imago found it interesting that her poise slipped, especially now. She continued: "I would take it as a great display of confidence if you could send someone well-versed in the City's lore. Ideally they should have some role or station of birth which places them in the City's heart."
"Lest you meet an angry ghost?" He didn't bother to hide his smile.
She became deadly serious. "The North is stranger than you think, Lord Mayor. Do not smirk. You of all people should understand how curious the world can be."
Dorgau only knew what gods Terminus had hauled off to dump into the frozen crevasse. The City Imperishable had made a point of forgetting as thoroughly as possible, even to razing the old Temple District and burying it under the New Hill all those centuries ago. He should not mock her fears.
"That you even express such concern does much to convince me of your genuineness," Imago said slowly, lying with his old courtroom grace. "And while I am not especially inclined to extend support to your venture, I have an idea. When do you depart?"
"We would like to cast off at dawn," she said with another glance at the bear.
"Of course you would." Then they'd be a nine days' wonder, talk of the City. The easy money had already flowed in. Leaving so soon would make the reluctant regretful, and the contributors smug. Staying risked some flaw in the plan becoming all too evident. "My deputy will meet you in the last hour of the night."
"Thank you." Ashkoliiz departed. Her bear and her Northman followed. The tray of chickpeas and flatbread and olives remained untouched.
Bijaz, thought Imago. You w
ill travel further from the writ of the Burgesses than you ever imagined. Work your miracles in the empty North. Who better to contest with the lost gods of yore than the City's own burgeoning godling?
It was a terrible idea. But the very thought made him smile.
Imago went to look at the wine selection.
Bijaz
He was angry.
Livid.
Wrathful.
Sparks spewed from his fingertips, setting Imago's office carpets to smoldering.