Fold Thunder

by Gregory Ashe

Chapter Thirty-one

  Joaquim sat in the darkened stairwell. He had stopped shaking, but he stayed in the corner, watching the ribbon of light slide across the room as the sun sank. There was one awful stretch when the light ran up the stairs and across Sipir’s vacant gaze, the light lending an illusion of life to his half-closed eyes. Then that razor’s edge of light, carried on in its interminable course, continued past the dead man. The blood stained stone was easier to watch.

  Necessity dragged him out of his torpor. When the light had arced up the wall, turning sunset-orange, Joaquim pushed himself to his feet. Daylight was wasting, and in the Gut, that meant that even more unsavory types were going to be out on the streets soon. It also meant that the good holing-up spots would be gone in an hour, perhaps less.

  As he pulled the door shut, his eyes fell again on Sipir’s body. Bloody rich bastard, Joaquim thought. His mind felt clearer than it had in days. As awful as it sounded, Joaquim admitted to himself that the murder had given him a baseline, something against which he could begin to evaluate himself. He still felt sick when he thought about what he had done to Sipir, and the feeling did not correspond at all to his memories of Viane. What does that bloody mean, then? I’m going bloody mad, most likely.

  Still, his mind was working again, and Joaquim had an idea as he stared at Sipir’s corpse. He reentered the building and scoured the floor for the key that had fallen from Sipir’s hand. Then, with the last light of day, he searched the dead man. More keys, a small purse full of heavy silver aps and quints. Lots of money to be carrying in the Gut, even for someone feared like Sipir.

  Joaquim’s belt was gone—he did not know where—so he clutched the keys and purse awkwardly in one hand as he shut and locked the door. He made his way up the stairs, cringing as he stepped on Sipir—the flesh giving way beneath his leather shoes. The stairwell was dark, but Joaquim had been here enough times that he could follow the wall up to the top floor.

  As he climbed the stairs, his thoughts swirled. Part of him prayed to the Day Sister that he would find Juiot or Nenis inside, or even Grits or Salo. Tip was dead, he was fairly certain. If those memories of the beach could be trusted at all. Still, one of the others might have survived. One might have answers. Of course, it’s just as likely they’d slit my throat as give me any help, he thought.

  The memories of the beach were the focal point, Joaquim decided. Some carried the normal blur of all memories—half-remembered sensations, odd particularities that stood out for no reason. The others, though, were painfully sharp, like the paintings that had been in fashion twenty or thirty years ago. Each one of those carried a packet of emotions that threatened to overwhelm him. The worst were the ones of Viane. They were the strangest, too; he had two memories of killing her—slight variations that he had not noticed until now, when he had felt his mind awaken somewhat. There was no answer, though, to his questions—what had happened on the beach really? Who were all the dead men there?

  After fumbling through the keys, Joaquim found one that would unlock the door. The suite of rooms looked undisturbed—worn furniture in its familiar places, the faintest coat of dust on the wooden arms of the chairs, an old shirt of Grits’s still hanging over the back of divan. Only the faintest light made its way through the heavily papered windows, but the rooms appeared abandoned.

  Joaquim shut the door behind him and made his way to the low table in front of the divan. He found the candle where he had expected and lit it. A quick survey of the rooms revealed nothing, although he left the door to his own room closed for the moment. The other rooms were just as empty; undisturbed, as far as Joaquim could tell, since he had left with Viane—whenever that had been. He even found a large pitcher of water in Grits’s room.

  He took the pitcher into the main room and took a basin and soap from Tip’s room. Joaquim stripped off his filth clothes and tossed them into the corner of the room. He did not want to see them again. He washed quickly, feeling strangely embarrassed about standing naked in the common room, even with everyone else gone. Then, chagrined at his own lack of foresight, he found himself compelled to go into his room, or else stand outside naked and wet.

  The first breath of air was the worst; he could still smell Viane, and it triggered both the memories of murdering her. Joaquim struggled to push them down. He doubted that he could retain a grip on his newfound alertness if he allowed himself to sink back into those terrifying memories, into the nauseating bliss that accompanied them. When the room no longer spun around him, he dried himself and dressed in another pair of clothes—leather trousers, a fine linen shirt, a tan cape with baby-blue embroidery. Bathed, wearing clean clothes, Joaquim began to feel somewhat human again, even if he doubted his own sanity. Still, he thought, I’ll trade sanity for regular baths and clean clothes.

  He was surprised at how hungry he was; Joaquim wondered how long it had been since he had eaten a real meal. He pushed down the memories of grubbing through the waste heaps although, he was grateful to realize, that they felt like his own—no sense of the strange, dissociated clarity that accompanied the others, as much as he might have wished it for that particular set of memories.

  Back in the main room he found a lantern, and he lit it with his candle. His search had turned up nothing edible, but there were taverns nearby where he could eat—perhaps even without being recognized. After one last sweep of the rooms, Joaquim grabbed a shortsword and a long-bladed dagger from Salo’s room—if the man were dead, he had no use for them—and headed back out onto the stairs.

  Joaquim gagged; the smell of death, of emptied bowels and blood, hung in the stairwell. Probably didn’t notice it with my own stink earlier, he thought. He went down the stairs and stopped at the second floor. Another set of rooms, unoccupied. That’s what Viane had told him. Joaquim wondered, now, if that were true.

  With an intensity that surprised Joaquim, curiosity swept over him. He was beginning to realize exactly how far gone he had been when he had assaulted Sipir. Mad. He could not keep the concern from surfacing. Still, he was better. For now.

  He fumbled through the keys and found one that fit the door. It opened without a creak. Well-oiled, Joaquim thought. Strange for a set of rooms that are never used. The lantern’s light revealed an opulent apartment with the same layout as the set of rooms above. The main room, where Joaquim stood, was filled with rich furnishings—dark wood inlaid with ivory and chalcedony that sparkled in the light, well padded leather cushioning; small, but fine, oil paintings in gilt frames hung on the walls. The tile—patterned in gold and brown—matched the thick Canian carpets.

  On top of a low wooden table, Joaquim saw a bottle, two glasses, and an envelope. He set the lantern down and picked up the envelope. The paper was thick and fine, nothing like the normal sheets that Joaquim’s father used in business, or like the threadbare pieces Joaquim had used when learning to write. He opened it with Salo’s dagger.

  Cream-colored parchment waited inside. Joaquim pulled it out and read it.

  Lord Fashim,

  I’m honored to serve you. A gift, to show my goodwill and my regrets about what happened upon your arrival, awaits in the room on the left. If I can be of any service, please do not hesitate to ask.

  Your faithful servant,

  Sipir as Haf

  The letter meant nothing to Joaquim, but it stirred something in the back of his mind. He dropped the card and examined the bottle. Wine. He recognized the label, one of the vintners out of south Cania. It would bloody cost me a silver aps to get a bottle of this stuff, Joaquim thought when he saw the date. Bloody Bel, whom did he think was coming?

  With Sipir dead on the stairs below, Joaquim saw little harm in helping himself to the wine. He popped the cork and poured himself a glass and drank it down quickly. With a second glass of wine in hand, Joaquim moved to examine the door on the left. If a bottle of wine that expensive was not even worth mentioning, then Joaquim wanted to see what the gift was that Sipir had mentioned.

  The
door was locked, but Joaquim found a key on Sipir’s keyring that opened it. The room was dark, but it reeked. Urine and excrement and fear. Joaquim gagged and tried not to vomit. This was the stench not of death, but of imprisonment.

  Movement in the shadows sent him stumbling back, drawing the shortsword as he went.

  “Please,” a voice said. “Water, please.”

  Joaquim set down the wine, hand shaking, and grabbed the lantern. He kept the sword out. Bel take me, why did I drink that wine? I’m bloody likely tip over. Easier to blame the wine than the fear that was boiling up inside him.

  “Who’s there?” Joaquim asked, stepping forward to shine light into the room.

  A small man dressed in fine clothes—silk, Joaquim thought, and with heavy embroidery, but soiled and wrinkled—crouched in the far corner of the room. Rough iron chains ran from the wall to the man’s wrists. He blinked furiously in the light, and Joaquim could see tears on his face. Bile rose in Joaquim’s throat; the man had been prisoner here for some time; the bucket containing his waste had overflowed and the man had clearly been using one corner of the room to the same purpose. What kind of person does this to someone? Joaquim thought. He had his answer, in the letter, but he did not like it. Sisters take me, how long has he been here?

  “Please,” he said again. “Water.”

  Joaquim set the lantern down and grabbed the glass of wine he handed it to the man, still keeping his sword out. The man drank greedily, the wine running down his face in red streams. He coughed once, the spray staining his shirt.

  There was something in the way the man held his head, tilted slightly to one side even as he drank, that tugged at Joaquim’s memory. He was balding, a thick fringe of graying hair on the sides of his head, and even though he must not have shaved for some time, he had little more than salt-and-pepper scruff on his face.

  “Thank you,” the man said. His voice was familiar. He straightened as far as the chains would allow. “Now, tell me what you want from me? Why are you keeping me here?”

  Then it struck Joaquim. “Bloody Bel,” he said. “I know you!”