Low Town lt-1

by Daniel Polansky

  Adelweid’s reverie broke momentarily. “Who-oh, my guardian. He’s dead.” The sorcerer turned flush toward me now, excitement in his voice, the closest to human I’d yet seen him. “But his sacrifice was not in vain! My mission was successful, and across this shattered plain I can feel my comrades were as well! You are doubly blessed, Lieutenant, for you are privileged to stand watch at the collapse of the Dren Commonwealth!”

  When I didn’t say anything, he turned back in the general direction of his creations, watching as the occasional burst of lightning illuminated the landscape. In the distance I could see waves of the things move steadily eastward. Adelweid was right-from far out there was something ethereal and even somehow beautiful about the things. But the memory of that horrible stench, and the sound Saavedra made as his heart went out, were still fresh, and I didn’t share Adelweid’s conceit that what I had seen was anything less than an abomination before the Oathkeeper and all the Daevas.

  Then the screams started-a chorus of them erupting from across the Dren line. In combat the sounds of death are mixed with those of battle, the shrieks of the wounded merging with the clash of steel and the eruption of cannon fire. But the final sounds of the Dren were undiluted by any other noise, and a thousand times more terrible for that fact. Adelweid’s smile widened.

  I knelt down beside Carolinus. He had done his duty, then bled out while the sorcerer performed horrors in the darkness nearby. His trench blade lay broken at his side and his eyes were open. I closed them and took his damaged weapon in my hand. “Once you’ve summoned these things your job is finished?”

  Adelweid was still staring east, at the terrible devastation his creature and its brethren were spreading, something between lust and pride on his face. “Once called, the creatures will complete their missions and then fade back to their world.” He was so engrossed in the carnage that he paid no attention as I took up a spot beside him, and scarcely more when I put Carolinus’s shattered weapon through his exquisitely tailored coat. His scream was subsumed in the sounds echoing off the Dren lines. I withdrew the blade and tossed it aside. Adelweid’s corpse rolled awkwardly down the hill.

  I figured somebody was owed for Saavedra and the rest, and if I couldn’t get any higher up the chain, Adelweid would do. And I figured the world would be better off without him.

  I slipped back to our lines and reported a successful mission, albeit one with a high casualty rate. The major was not concerned with our losses, neither my men nor the sorcerer. It was a big night, the eve before the final charge that would break the back of the Dren Republic, and there was much to prepare. At dawn I formed my platoon up as part of an all-out attack, the kind that should have taken us ten thousand men to pull off. But their defense was piecemeal, whole sectors of the enemy trenches containing nothing but dead men, bodies contorted horribly, the source of their demise uncertain in the full light of morning. The remaining Dren were too scattered and disheartened to muster much resistance.

  That afternoon General Bors accepted the capitulation of the capital city, and the next day he received the unconditional surrender of Wilhelm van Agt, last and greatest Steadholder of the United Dren Commonwealth.

  It ain’t the way they tell it on Remembrance Day, and I don’t imagine it’ll ever make the storybooks, but I was there and that was the way the war ended. I got a medal for it-the whole company did for being the first men into Donknacht, beaten gold with a pikeman standing over a Dren eagle. I sold it for a top-shelf bottle of rye and a night with a Nestriann whore. I still think I got the better end of the deal.

  When I finished relaying those parts of the story appropriate for public consumption, the Crane poured himself a glass of his noxious medicine and sipped from it slowly, shivering. I’d never seen the Crane frightened. It did not bode well for my immediate future. “You’re sure Adelweid’s monster was the same thing that killed the Kiren?”

  “It left a vivid impression.”

  “A creature from the outer emptiness, let loose on the streets of Low Town.” He threw the rest of the drink down his throat, then wiped at his lips with a bony arm. “By the Oathkeeper.”

  “What can you tell me about it?”

  “I’ve heard legends. It is said that Atrum Noctal, the false monk of Narcassi, could peer into the nothingness between the worlds, and that the things he saw there would answer when he called. Sixty years ago, my master, Roan the Grim, led the sorcerers of the realm against the Order of the Squared Circle, whose violations of the High Laws were so egregious that all records of their activities were destroyed. But as for direct experience”-he shrugged his narrow shoulders-“I have none. The study of the Art is a twisting path, and one with many branches. Before the creation of the Academy for the Furtherance of the Magical Arts, practitioners learned what their masters had to teach them and studied where their inclinations and talents led. Roan would have no truck with the dark, and though I left his service I have stayed true to his precepts.”

  He smiled then, his first since I’d entered. By the Oathkeeper, he was going fast. “For me the Art was never a path to power, or a way to delve into the secrets hidden where nothing living dwells.” His hands began to shimmer with a soft blue light, the glow gradually forming into a scintillating ball that swooped around his arms. He had performed this trick often for me and Celia when we were children, sending the sphere dashing under tables and over chairs, always just out of our reach. “My gifts were for healing and for protection, to shelter the weak and provide respite for the weary. I never wished to be capable of anything else.”

  Two sharp knocks rang out on the outer door and Celia entered. The illusions diminished, then disappeared. The Crane turned his eyes quickly toward her. “Celia, my dear-look who’s returned!” There was a strange note in his voice.

  Celia crossed the floor, her pale green dress swaying slightly with her movements. I leaned in and she kissed my cheek, her hands trailing against my face. Coiled around her index finger was a silver ring with a fat sapphire, the symbol of her ascension to Sorcerer First Rank.

  “What a pleasant surprise. The Master suspected that we wouldn’t see you again, that your last visit was a fluke. But I knew better.”

  “Yes, you were right, my dear! Right completely!” His grin was taut across his aged features. “And now we are all together again, as we used to be.” He spread his hands, one resting lightly on each of us. “As we were meant to be.”

  I was grateful when Celia broke away, allowing me to shrug off the Master’s grip. There was a slight arc to her mouth that looked like a smile. “Much as I would love to think this call is purely social, I can’t help but wonder about the hushed conversation the two of you were having before I entered the room.”

  I shot a look toward the Crane, hoping to keep the content of our discussion secret, but he either missed my signal or ignored it. “Our friend wants to know more about the creature that attacked him. He says he saw one in the war. I think he has notions of becoming another Guy the Pure, hunting down the enemies of Sakra with a sword of holy flame!” His forced laughter sputtered into a choking cough.

  Celia took the empty cup from his hands and refilled it from the green decanter before handing it back. “I would have thought you’d have had enough of playing hero. Few indeed survive an encounter with the void, and those who do are seldom anxious to repeat the experience.”

  “I’ve survived a few things in my time. Firstborn willing, I’ll survive a few more.”

  “Your bravery is inspiring. We’ll make sure to commission an epic poem when your body lies mangled in a coffin.”

  “See if you can’t have it set to music. I’ve always felt I merited an ode.”

  I thought that would at least get a chuckle, but Celia was having none of it and the Crane seemed not to be listening. “It might not be up to me,” I said. “Another girl has disappeared.”

  This broke the Crane out of his repose, and his anemic eyes darted across my face before resting against C
elia’s. “I hadn’t heard. I had thought that…” He stuttered his way into silence, then drank the remainder of his tumbler. Whatever was in that concoction, he’d be sleeping it off tomorrow.

  Celia put one hand on the Master’s back and escorted him into a chair. He flinched at her touch but allowed himself to be led, sinking down into the leather and staring off into space. She bent and patted his head, her wooden necklace hanging over the low cut of her dress, tightening against her skin as she stood erect. “That is ill news, but I don’t understand what it has to do with you.”

  “The Crown knows I was there for the last one. It’s only a matter of time before they come calling, and if I don’t have something to give them… it might go badly.”

  “But you have no skill with the Art! They have to understand that. You used to be an agent! They’ll have to listen to you!”

  “I didn’t retire from the Crown’s service with an honorable discharge-I was stripped of my rank. They’ll be happy to have something to pin on me just to wrap up a loose end.” What a strange conception the upper classes have of law enforcement. “These aren’t kind men.”

  When next Celia spoke it was with a firm self-seriousness. “All right, then. If you’re in it, we’re in it. What’s the next step?”

  “We?”

  “Much as it suits your vanity to play the lone wolf, you aren’t in fact the only one concerned with what happens to Low Town. And difficult as it may be to believe, time has passed inside the Aerie as well as out of it.” She held her hand up to the light, drawing attention to her ring. “Given the nature of your investigation, perhaps it isn’t altogether illogical to rely on the assistance of a First Mage of the Realm.”

  “Perhaps it isn’t,” I conceded.

  She pursed her lips in thought. I tried not to notice their ripeness. “Wait here. I have something that can help you.”

  I watched her leave, then turned to the Crane. “Your charge assumes her new responsibilities ably.”

  He answered without looking up. “She’s not the girl she was.”

  I was set to continue, but as I caught his face in the dying light, so frail that it seemed it might well fade into dust, I thought better of it and waited quietly until Celia returned.

  “Take off your shirt,” she told me.

  “I’m well aware of my overpowering allure, but I hardly think this is the time to succumb to it.” She rolled her eyes and made a hurrying gesture with her hand, and I tossed my coat on a nearby chair and pulled my tunic over my head. The room had a draft. I hoped Celia’s purpose wouldn’t be a waste of my time.

  She reached into a pocket of her dress and drew forth a sapphire, perfect blue and about the size of my thumbnail. “I have ensorcelled this-if it feels warm, or if it causes you pain, it means you are in the presence of dark magic, either the practitioner himself or a close associate.” She pressed the stone against my breast, just below the shoulder. I felt a burning sensation, and when she withdrew her digit the jewel was fixed to my body.

  I gave a quick yelp and rubbed the skin around the gem. “Why didn’t you warn me you were going to do that?”

  “I thought you’d take it better as a surprise.”

  “That was foolish,” I said.

  “I’ve just given you a powerful gift, one that might well save your life, and you complain over the bee sting required to implant it?”

  “You’re right. Thanks.” I felt like I ought to have said something more, but gratitude is an emotion I’m rarely called upon to display, and the reversal of our traditional positions left me unsteady. “Thanks,” I said again lamely.

  “You don’t need to say that. You know I’d do anything for you.” Her eyes fluttered down my naked chest. “Anything.”

  I pulled my shirt over my head and reached for my coat, the better to mask my inability to muster speech.

  “What’s next?” Celia asked, all business.

  “I’ve got a few ideas. I’ll come by in a day or two and let you know if anything’s panned out.”

  “Do that. I’ll sound out some people I know at the Bureau of Magical Affairs, see if they’ve got anything they can tell me.”

  The Crane broke his silence with another fit, and I decided it was time to take my leave. I thanked the Master, who threw me a quick wave between barks. Celia walked me to the door. “Pay attention to the jewel,” she said very gravely. “It’ll lead you to the culprit.”

  I took a look back as I descended the stairs. The Crane’s coughing echoed down the blue stone, and Celia watched me from the landing, her face worried, her eyes dark.

  Recent misadventures aside, I earn my meager living selling drugs, and it wouldn’t do much good to dodge the Crown if I lost my business in the process. Besides, after the day’s chaos, a simple spot of trafficking seemed just the thing to settle my mind. Yancey had asked me to show at the mansion of one of the nobles he spit for, said there was money in it. I stopped at an Islander cart near the docks and grabbed a quick plate of spiced chicken before beginning my trek.

  Head straight north from downtown and you’ll come to Kor’s Heights, where the old families and the nouveaux riches have erected a paradise out of sight of the masses. Clean air replaces the stench of the iron foundries and the rot of the harbor, while constricted alleyways and compact buildings give way to wide thoroughfares and beautifully maintained manors. I never liked going there, any hoax worth his bribe knew I didn’t belong, but then I couldn’t very well ask whatever patrician wanted ten ochres’ worth of brain loss to meet me outside the Earl. I shoved my hands into my pockets and doubled my pace, trying not to look like I was engaged in an errand of dubious legality.

  I stopped at the address Yancey had provided. Through a wrought-iron gate I could make out acres of manicured lawn, even the dim light of the evening sufficient to mark the dormant flower beds and groomed topiary. I followed the brick wall toward the back of the estate-gentlemen in my profession rarely go in through the front door. After a few hundred yards I came to the much smaller, much uglier servant’s entrance.

  The guard next to it was a ruddy-looking Tarasaihgn with shocks of flame-red hair, uncommon among the swamp dwellers, extending in a roughly even circle from scalp to chin. His uniform was worn but well kept, and so was the man beneath it, pushing fifty but with little more to show for it than a modest protuberance above his belt. “I’m a friend of Yancey the Rhymer,” I said. “I don’t have an invitation.”

  To my surprise he held his hand out in greeting. “Dunkan Ballantine, and I don’t have an invitation either.”

  I took his palm. “I guess it’s not a prerequisite to stand guard.”

  “It isn’t one to enter either, least not for someone Yancey’s vouched for.”

  “He inside already?”

  “Wouldn’t be a party without the Rhymer on hand to entertain the highborn.” He looked around with an exaggerated suggestion of secrecy. “Course between me and you, he saves his best stuff for between sets! You’ll probably find him outside, adding to the kitchen smoke.” He winked at me and I laughed.

  “Thanks, Dunkan.”

  “No problem, no problem. Maybe you’ll see me on the way out.”

  I followed a pebble-lined path through the verdant lawn toward the back of the mansion. I could make out the sound of music and the familiar scent of dreamvine on the chill evening breeze. The first I assumed came from the party, but the second I attributed to the small, dark-skinned figure leaning against the shadow of the three-story brick estate and mumbling rhythmically.

  Yancey passed me the twist he had been working on without interrupting his perfectly syncopated flow. The Rhymer’s vine was good, as always, a sticky blend but not unduly harsh, and I spiraled silvery indigo into the night.

  His final bar hammered home. “Safe living.”

  “And you, brother. Glad to see you made it out here. You’ve been a little shaky lately.”

  “I’ve been taking a lot of naps. Did I miss your set?” />
  “First one, got the band on now. Ma says hey. She wants to know why you haven’t been coming round lately. I told her it’s because she keeps trying to catch you a wife.”

  “Astute as always,” I said. “Who am I walking in on?”

  His eyes narrowed and he took the joint from my outstretched hand. “You don’t know?”

  “Your message just gave the address.”

  “This the king ape himself, brother. Rojar Calabbra the Third, Duke of Beaconfield.” He grinned, white teeth sharp against his skin and the night behind it. “The Smiling Blade.”

  I let out a low whistle, wishing now I hadn’t gotten high. The Smiling Blade-famed courtier, celebrated duelist, and enfant terrible. He was supposed to be strong with the Crown Prince, and he was supposed to be the deadliest swordsman since Caravollo the Untouched opened a vein after his boy lover died of the Red Fever twenty summers past. Mostly Yancey played for the younger sons of minor nobles and mid-level aristos slumming. He really was moving up in the world. “How’d you meet him?”

  “You know my skills. The man saw me rhyme something somewhere, made himself an opening for me to fill.” Yancey was not given to undue humility. He exhaled a stream of smoke through his nostrils, and it pooled about his face, wreathing his skull in a spectral, sterling aurora. “The question is, why does he want to meet you?”

  “I had assumed he wanted to buy some drugs, and you let him know I was the man to speak with. If he brought me up here for dancing lessons, I imagine he’ll be pissed with the both of us.”

  “I dropped you the line, but I didn’t put you into play-they asked for you in particular. Tell truth, if I didn’t know I was a genius, I might suspect I’d been hired for just that purpose.”

  This last revelation was enough to put paid to any good humor generated by the dreamvine. I didn’t know why the duke wanted to see me, didn’t know how he had even learned who I was-but if there was one thing thirty-five-odd years gripping the underbelly of Rigun society had taught me, it was never to draw the attention of the highborn. Best to remain another amid the uniform army of folk Sakra had birthed to serve their whims, a half-forgotten name supplied by another member of their anonymous coterie.