by K. T. Davies
“Are you shot proof? Can you resist sorcery, or are you in any way trained to fight? I don’t give a shit how big you are, Jojo. If you don’t have the skills I need, you are no use.”
“I saved your life.”
“You did me a good turn, yes. And now I’m doing you one.” The suns were chasing each other to the heights of midday by now. “I have to go. I’ll see you soon. Follow me, and I’ll rip your wings off.” I patted him on the head and left via the same window through which I’d entered. I was not in a good mood. I did not enjoy running through the streets, I took no joy scaling walls or racing across rooftops and only felt relief rather than satisfaction when I fetched up near the seat of the government of the Empire. Like everything else this day, it was a disappointment.
The senate Forum rose above a grand plaza. A sickly crone of greying marble, it stood upon crumbling steps, its tarnished spires crowned by flocks of black-winged scarabs.
Perhaps there was a time when the Senate was regarded with respect, if not awe. The fine lines of elegant, imperial design could yet be seen beneath the grimy, rain stained rills, and bodged repairs. But the glory was gone, the shine tarnished as almost the whole square and the buildings within it seemed to cower in the shadow of the Empirifex’s scaffolding clad ziggurat.
I made my way along the avenue of crumbling marble heroes that flanked what had been a grand causeway over the Val. It was now banked on both sides by vendors selling everything from flesh to trinkets. Fine barges were moored beneath the bridge on the senate side, the slow highway being the preferred mode of transport for state functionaries. I had no such privilege and mugged along on foot with the common herd, feeling naked without handcannons or Volund’s blade on my hip. I hated to go unarmed, but trying to get a weapon, particularly a magical weapon into one of the most important buildings in the capital would get me dead quicker than taking a dump on the high altar of the Holy Eye. I was confident the tools of my trade were safe as I’d hidden them in the ruins of a house marked by the hex sign where apparently a blood witch had been burned. I wasn’t sure if I could say the same for myself as I walked into the judicial heart of the Court of the Day.
The other members of the sweaty herd on their way to the Imperial Senate were a disparate lot. There were weary petitioners clutching court documents, shoving past elders with nothing better to do than walk around the forum. Screaming hordes of tow-hair kinches were being herded by tutors into the great, imperial institutions. Scribes and factotums did their best to avoid the tired beggars seeking a few hours respite from the streets. Naturally, there were thieves and pickpockets swimming along beside the masses as close as scales on fish.
My plan was simple; I would follow Tobias, save him from the ambush, and if I was lucky and quick, get back to the Midnight Court in time to slot Ludo while he was celebrating. The timing would be tight, but as I’d saved a couple of worlds, I considered saving one cove and killing another well within my capabilities. At this point I’d forgotten that, back when I was saving those worlds, I’d also been a talented sorcerer.
The fresh crosswind blowing on the causeway gave way to the still, stone-baked heat of the Forum, where ill-humoured clanks cooking in their own sweat guarded the entrance with equally ill-tempered hounds chained beside them. We, the masses, were funneled through the grand arch, thieves rubbing up against peasant, against lawyer, against whore. There were all creeds and all races, pushing and shoving to get into the halls of power.
Beyond the arch, the outer court opened into a vast rotunda, the roof of which curved into shadow a hundred foot above. Dark shapes swarmed in the recesses of the dome, chittering, and scuttling and shedding silver hairs bright as pins upon those passing through. Senators garbed in white drifted through the crowded hall locked in animated discourse. I climbed on the first step of a plinth and scanned the throng. Some senators came and went accompanied by scribes and secretaries. Other members of the patrician class mingled with their own kind in the rotunda— some few even deigned to talk to the lowly petitioners come to offer bribes and plead their cases. Most rushed past the poor coves clamoring for their attention as though their eyes were made of glass. Tobias was not amongst them. I followed the drift of senators towards a passage beside the auditorium.
“Halt! The command was accompanied by a squad of stern looking clanks who strode from their stations and formed up; two behind me and two in front. “Where do you think you’re going?” I was about twenty paces from the passage.
“To see the senators’ meeting,” I answered the clank politely, respectful of the firelance she was cradling.
“The tert entrance is the last on the left.” She pointed to the entrance marked with the numeral for ‘three’.
“Now, see, I’m half-human, half-thoasa. Are you sure I should be—”
The one behind me gave me a nudge with the barrel of his lance. “Third Estate entrance. Wait for the bell to signal the beginning of the session, citizen.”
“Right you are.” I tugged a hair spine deferentially. I’d been a king’s advisor for too long. I’d forgotten the rules by which ordinary mortals lived. I wasn’t an imperious dragon; I wasn’t even a proper, fucking sorcerer. I was a tert, the lowest of the low in the world I’d helped shape. I had to remember what that was like and play my part accordingly no matter how much it galled.
The session bell rang. I allowed myself to be swept along to the tert entrance and up the curved walkway to the balcony above the auditorium where the senators would sit in session and orate. I elbowed my way to the front row and stood through what was possibly the dullest hour of speechifying I’d ever heard, and I’d listened to a lot of dull speechifying in my lifetimes. To alleviate my boredom, I lifted a purse from some cove who, it turned out, had more money than sense. I would have dipped a few more pockets, but a familiar voice froze me, and banished all such inclinations.
“Senator Vulsones has the floor.” The speaker’s creaking declaration elicited both boos and cheers from senators and the gallery. She ignored them and drew the cork from the antique clepsydra. Water began to flow from the anachronistic clock as Tobias strode onto the red and gold tiled floor. The senators who’d already spoken were sitting opposite the public gallery. Like us, they were seated according to rank. The highest of the three tiers had one seat. The second had twelve, and was occupied by warspawn, the lowest and largest with twenty-four seats was reserved for humans.
I shan’t bore you with details of Tobias’s speech. Suffice it to say, he was not how I remembered him. Not only did he speak with confidence, but he had a full complement of working limbs. He had a humanish hand with five digits, but also one with three, long fingers that curled and flexed like tentacles more than appendages formed of rigid bones. My cold heart swelled with pride. This Tobias seemed to be everything he should have always been. This Tobias had lived as he had been born, unmaimed. And he had flourished. His eyes shone; his voice was resonant and unwavering. Even when the other senators tried to bray his arguments for equality into the floor, his voice rose above the clamor and was heard by friends and enemies alike—which was probably why he’d been marked for death.
You can always tell when some cove has the right of it and speaks truth, not only to power but to all with ears, because that’s usually when some fucker kills ’em. Or, as in this case, tries to kill them, for there was no way any mangy cocksplatter was going to slot him while I drew breath.
When the water from the clepsydra ceased to flow, the speaker climbed to her feet and slammed the heel of her staff into the well-worn tiles. “Senator Vulsones will yield the floor.”
Still fired up with the passion of his speech, Tobias didn’t look like he wanted to yield to man nor gods, but he bowed to the speaker and took his place upon the third tier where his was the only seat. Most of his fellow senators chose to ignore him as he passed. Some of the warspawn, a thoasa amongst them, stood and applauded, but only one of the humans did the same. He was an old cove with long
, grey hair, but he was sprightly enough to catch Tobias on the way to his seat and shake him warmly by the hand. They exchanged a few words before the speaker demanded order. Having seen their champion speak, many of my fellow terts slowly drifted from the gallery. I stayed.
The voting when it began was devoted to frivolous rather than practical causes. It followed that some statues would be built. A new holiday in celebration of the Empirifex’s great grandmother was agreed upon. The commemoration of the imperial victory over the Shen fleet at the battle of Fen Yan would be included in Warriors’ Day rather than being given its own holiday. And so it went, until the final vote was announced, much to the consternation of Tobias, whose obvious frustration I could almost taste from across the chamber.
The speaker took a drink before standing and hammering the heel of her staff on the floor. “His Imperial Majesty, Empirifex Durstan the Seventh, Light of the Empire, Lord of All Beasts of Land, Sea, and Air, Champion of the Grand Order of the Thorn, and Supreme Ruler of the Ring Kingdoms requests a…” She drew breath and bit down on what I can only imagine would have been a colorful string of expletives. “Requests an inconsequential donation of forty-thousand crowns from the people of the Empire to complete The Great Ziggurat of Durstan, Arbiter of the Pantheon Beneath the Stars.”
The announcement drew astonished gasps from many of the senators and sickly, fake smiles from others. While the old dame was droning, a cove clad in imperial purple robes and wearing a stylized, gold mask entered the chamber. The newcomer was flanked by a pair of clanks carrying naked greatswords. The masked interloper sat down upon the first tier with the humans. He didn’t speak, he merely folding his hands in his lap. A hush fell over the gallery. I nudged one of my neighbors.
“Who’s that?”
The wench flinched. “’Tis the Empirifex’s Corrector.” The fear with which she whispered the title told me all I needed to know about the pan-faced fuck who’d come to lay the weight of bare steel upon the Empirifex’s demand.
“A show of hands,” the speaker asked sullenly, resigned it seemed to accept a foregone conclusion.
Only one fool didn’t raise his hand. I had to smile. Tobias Vulsones was once again ready to die for his principles, like the fucking idiot he always was. If I’d been nearer, I might have punched him. It wouldn’t have changed anything if he’d raised his hand like the rest of the sheep— indeed, he might have gained some allies instead of making enemies of the whole room.
Except me, of course.
When the vote was declared in favor of the Empirifex and the shamefaced self-servicators filed from the chamber, the masked cove inclined his head to Tobias. It wasn’t quite the kiss of death, it was more the polite nod. Before she left, I asked my neighbor if she knew where the Gilded Pear was. She blushed and gave hurried directions as if mere mention of the establishment reflected upon her good reputation.
I didn’t run from the Forum, that way lay sudden, violent death due to clanks’ itchy trigger fingers. I casually walked back to where I’d stashed my cutlery and headed to the senator’s gate, which was a much grander entrance than that which served the commoners. I approached a lookout and made the sign of the crown before dropping enough of my stolen coin in her beggar’s cup to earn a favor.
“Has Tobias Vulsones left yet?”
The beggar palmed the coins and shook her head. I settled myself in the shade of an ironwood tree. A grand, wedge-shaped, five-story building split the road behind me. One avenue continued between the buildings of state, while the other dipped downhill and away from the light in many ways.
The Holy Eye of the Pantheon gazed down upon me from a votive shrine on the wall of the building. I checked my handcannons, made sure they were primed and ready.
I’d surmised that, being a diligent cove, Tobias would attend to his duties as a senator before leaving the Senate. So it was lucky that I didn’t tarry because his diligence lasted less than forty minutes. My heart quickened when I saw him leave the gate and button up his brown doublet, which was painfully reminiscent of the priestly garb the other him had worn in another here.
This was so hard to comprehend; it made my noodle hurt. Tobias was dead, and yet here he was, albeit it about to be killed again. Sakura and Ludo would have to bide a while, for this pasty-faced, watery-eyed, snake-handed senator was now the whole of my concern.
I’d placed myself on the most direct route from the Forum to the brothel and my gamble paid off. As I’d hoped, Tobias walked right past me. I felt a queer stab of regret that he didn’t so much as glance in my direction. I wanted to step out, to call him. But what would I say? ‘Hello, you don’t know me, but I’m your friend from another life, and oh, by the way, you’re about to be murdered’. Aye, that’ll go down well. I drew a deep breath, captured his scent, and followed him into the city.
19
If there was a rogues’ heaven, the road to reach it would look a lot like the roofscape of Valen. A pity then that I wasn’t in the mood to enjoy running it today. I chose a route between the lowest and the highest rooftops and was mindful to stay out of sight of those lucky citizens who could sit on their caged balconies and enjoy cleaner air than the poor coves who dwelt in the near subterranean darkness of the lower city.
Naturally, in this orographic hierarchy, the wealthiest lived closest to the heavens in full sight of the suns. The many sumptuous rooftop gardens of nobles’ palaces and merchants’ mansions called to the youth within me who remembered a carefree past. It tried to tempt me away from my mission with the gleam of golden bait that was just lying around in plain sight, waiting to be stolen by an enterprising thief.
Off in the distance, the royal dragonettes sang as they circled the Empirifex’s soon to be old ziggurat in lazy, looping arcs. In the foreground, scaffolding surrounding the new folly stood black against the sky; an ugly, angular forest of spikes.
My route was straightforward enough. Given the proximity of the buildings I hardly needed to do more than step across the narrow defiles between eaves. Indeed, I was glad when I encountered a fire break and had to exert myself and actually jump over a gap. It soon became apparent that the brothels and hostelries which catered to the members of the Synod and the Senate were conveniently located within walking distance of the halls of power.
The Gilded Pear was an unobtrusive knocking shop, set back from the road, behind a wrought iron fence in a secluded, vine-draped corner. I’d run ahead and reached the street before Tobias in order that I might get the lay of the land. On opposite side of the street to the Gilded Pear— the same side I was on, there stood a tall tower of ancient design. It commanded an excellent view of the area, including the brothel. I approached it carefully because, as I suspected, there was an assassin lurking on the roof of the crenelated relic.
Nix was crouched behind a chimney stack with her foot in the stirrup of the heavy steel crossbow she was winding. If you ask me, it was overkill. The bow must have been a thousand pounds in draw weight, and over the short distance from roof to whorehouse gate could put a bolt through an urux, and it would make one hell of a noise. It was bad planning, but that’s what happens when you let a paradox-fucked, two-headed cocksnot take charge of your Guild. She finished spanning the bow and discarded the windlass before creeping to the edge of the roof.
I scanned the street as I moved up, but couldn’t see Tobias yet. The pale suns were heading west, almost directly opposite the roof where Nix and I were skulking, so there was no danger of my shadow betraying my presence. As she was human, there was also little chance she’d smell me, not with the smoke from a thousand chimneys fouling the air. Even so, I had to tread carefully. The roof tiles were solid underfoot, but I was mindful not to scrape my claws across the fired clay. As I inched forward, she drew a bolt from her case. I took a moment to gather myself while she propped the stock on a pad she’d laid across the parapet. Keeping one eye on the assassin and one on the road, I saw Tobias arrive. Nix dropped to one knee to get a better angle.
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br /> I made my move. The bow kicked as I leaped upon her. The bolt arched over the rooftops. She didn’t cry out or curse; that would have been a waste of breath. She dropped the bow and reached for a knife on her belt. It was a good effort but too late to stop me driving her down and bashing her head against the parapet until the tension left her body. When she slumped, I peered over the edge, saw an oblivious Tobias approach the gate. Tarby and Raiber poked their heads from around a doorway two houses down from the brothel. Tobias rang the bell, brushed something from his doublet, and rocked back on his heels, no doubt in happy anticipation of the pleasures that awaited him.
There to make sure of the kill, Raiber looked up at me. I waved. He scowled, and drew a knife. Tarby followed, the gleam of steel in her dainty mitts.
I vaulted the parapet, dropped to the windowsill of the floor below smashing pots of geraniums before dropping into the street. I landed in a crouch to absorb the impact, but slightly misjudged the distance and chinned myself with my knee. Somewhat deflated, I drew my sword and a barker.
“Oh, it’s you,” said Raiber. Momentarily relieved he smiled, which caused me to experience a slight twinge of guilt as I stabbed him in the meat of his thigh.
“Sorry, Rai.” I said and I meant it. The rogue yelled.
“What the…” Wide-eyed, Tobias stumbled back against the gate his tentacle hand groping desperately for the bell-rope. “Help! Murder! Help!”
Screaming a string of curses, Tarby rushed to the wounded Raiber. When she saw that he wasn’t dying, she flew at me in a towering fury. I flipped the handcannon, cracked her across the jaw. She spun away and landed on the cobbles in a befuddled heap. Meanwhile, Tobias was yanking on the bell like his life depended on it, which it very well might if I didn’t get this right.
“Open up! It’s me, Toby, Toby Vulsones!” He hammered on the gate.
Raiber was still standing, albeit unsteadily. “You ungrateful, spike-tongued mongrel.”