She Who Waits (Low Town 3)

by Daniel Polansky

  ‘Uriel Carabajal, obviously.’

  The human mind is fabulously successful at recognizing patterns in the chaos of existence, piecing together seemingly random strands into a coherent whole. Sometimes it works too well – you get to forgetting that at bottom there is no grand conspiracy, no web tying everything together. Just an endless number of small, petty, foolish men, each grasping desperately for what they want and damn the rest.

  Carroll apparently recognized my surprise, because all of a sudden there was a sheen of grease on his forehead and plump beads of wet falling off his nose. ‘I remember you.’

  ‘I’m flattered.’

  ‘You don’t work for Black House – they threw you out!’

  ‘They did indeed.’

  He groaned rather theatrically. ‘I’m a dead man.’

  ‘It sounds like you dug your grave a long time ago.’

  ‘I can’t tell you anything. They’ll kill me if I tell you.’

  ‘Well, Carroll, here’s the thing about “them” – “they” are an abstract collection of agencies and interests. They don’t have a home that I’m sitting in, or a wife and children within reach of the knife in my boot.’

  ‘Śakra the Firstborn, who sits above, have mercy on a poor sinner,’ he intoned.

  ‘Given your history, I wouldn’t think you’d want to be calling the attention of any higher powers,’ I said, taking out the aforementioned knife and pointing it at him. ‘And if it’s mercy you want, you’re better off aiming your requests a sight lower.’

  It’s a narrow thing, breaking a man, especially one as weak as Carroll. You push them too fast and they’re likely to go catatonic, piss themselves, weep until they can’t speak. So I gave him a moment to regain some semblance of composure before asking my next question.

  ‘What happened to Coronet?’

  ‘They shut it down. They shut the whole project down, years ago, just after you left. Said there was some sort of leak, scrapped the whole thing.’

  ‘What happened to the test subjects?’

  Carroll looked away from me. ‘I can’t remember.’

  ‘Try harder.’ I said, and I put some edge on it.

  ‘I seem to recall something about the Children of Prachetas Sanctuary.’

  ‘So if Coronet is shut down, then how come you can buy it on half the street corners in the city?’

  ‘There were two parts to Coronet – implanting a command into a subject required use of the Art. But to get the subject into a receptive state we used a powerful narcotic, made in-house, no relation to any of the more common drugs. It induced a potent sensation of bliss.’

  ‘And occasionally drove the user violently insane.’

  ‘Not everyone,’ he insisted. ‘A fraction, a small fraction only.’

  ‘Does Uriel know?’

  ‘Of course he knows. The money he’s making, you think he cares about a few corpses?’

  ‘So then all of this – the murders in Low Town, the city ready to tear itself apart at the seams – all this has happened because you got into hock with the wrong people?’

  ‘The Unredeemed are savages. I had to give them something – this house, all my property, it’s in my wife’s name. They said they’d kill me if I didn’t make good, I had no other choice. It was all I could think of.’

  I’d seen enough men in his position to understand how it worked. You’re drowning, you grab on to whatever lifeline’s offered. You don’t worry about who threw it or where it leads. ‘Where you been cooking it?’

  ‘We’ve got a lab set up in Alledtown.’

  ‘What’s the address?’

  He ducked his head down into his shoulders, shook it back and forth.

  ‘There’s only so many times I can threaten you before I gotta make good, or lose all sense of self-respect,’ I said, wagging the knife at him. ‘We’re getting very close to that number.’

  ‘There’s a warehouse at the corner of Classon and Brand,’ he said. ‘In the basement.’

  ‘Must be slow going, just you there to oversee it. Uriel force an apprentice on to you?’

  He scoffed. ‘Do you have any idea how complex the process for creating the fever is? No ignorant black robe could pull that off. I’m the only one who knows how to do it.’

  ‘When did Black House come to see you?’

  ‘Three days ago.’

  After I’d told Guiscard about red fever. ‘And what did they say?’

  ‘That they knew what I was up to. That I was to keep going doing it, unless they told me otherwise.’

  Carroll ceased then to be of any interest to me, I turned my mind to what this new information indicated, tried to slot it into the picture as a whole. The reprieve I gave seemed to breathe some life into the half-man in front of me.

  ‘You’ve got some nerve coming in here, playing the hero.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘You know what they used to call you?’

  ‘Well-hung?’

  ‘The Old Man’s pet. You were in it as deep as I was, reading over those reports, licking your chops at the thought of what we were making. The collateral damage didn’t bother you then, you’d have traded a thousand lives if you thought it would get you what you wanted. How are you any different than me?’

  ‘I’m holding the knife.’ And I thought very much of using it just then, because Carroll deserved it and because what he’d said had gotten to me and because despite all the blood I’d shed so far that day I hadn’t yet quite had my fill. There was a second, standing in front of that sallow-faced monster, where it was a coin flip whether there would be two of us walking out of the study.

  But finally I put the blade back into my boot and stood. ‘You aren’t worth the clean-up,’ I said, and meant it. ‘If Uriel finds out that I’ve been here, he’s going to kill you. He’s going to kill you anyway, once he figures out your process, but he’ll kill you right off if he finds out I’ve been here.’

  ‘I’ll keep my mouth shut,’ he said. ‘I’m not a fool.’

  ‘You are the very definition of a fool, Carroll. If you had any brains in your head you’d off yourself tonight, rather than let things string out another month or two. Cause whether it’s Uriel or the Old Man, I can promise this much – when they come for you, you won’t die easy.’

  I closed the study door behind me, traipsed back through the kitchen. The kids were gone off somewhere, but Carroll’s wife remained, finishing off her next bottle of wine. If she had a wonder about what I’d done to her husband, she didn’t voice it to me.

  31

  Brother Hume picked me up at the Earl next day around noon, and he was back in his usual outfit. The brown cap which was the hallmark of his half-cult was too big for his skull. He was adjusting it constantly – it made him look more like a schoolboy than normal.

  We spent the walk in relative silence. If Wren was following the order I’d given upon waking him up rather brusquely a few hours earlier, he was dogging our steps. I knew I wouldn’t see him either way.

  The receptionist at headquarters sniffed when she saw us and crooked her neck to face the wall. She had a lovely neck, as Hume seemed to notice, staring at it with undisguised longing. They didn’t make me wait this time, just ushered me into the main office.

  Egmont was nowhere to be seen. His chair was though, and I thought about sitting in it just to needle Hume’s strict sense of propriety. But Hume seemed awkward enough as it was, standing in the doorway and not blinking. ‘The Director will be with you shortly,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll count the seconds.’

  Hume remained there a while longer, then said, ‘I’ll go look for him.’

  ‘Take your time. I think I’ll stretch out on the desk and take a nap.’

  The door closed. I waited about ten seconds, then stood quickly and started to rifle Egmont’s desk.

  Even before I’d been a professional snoop I’d been a pretty excellent amateur one. Still, I had my work cut out for me. The bureau was a big oak num
ber with enough drawers and chambers to lose a newborn in. I tried the big ones, found the first three locked and the fourth one open. Beneath a quarter-inch of seemingly meaningless notepaper, I caught a glimpse of an unlabeled leather folder.

  Inside were three pages, most of them written in some sort of code, lines of doggerel and unfamiliar acronyms. I didn’t bother with them. Didn’t need to in fact, because I figured I had a pretty good idea what I was looking at from the one section that wasn’t in cipher, a list of names towards the end of the document.

  Danie Cronje

  Torcvil Barclay

  Edward Corolinus

  Petier Maggins

  I’d never heard of the first three, but I knew the fourth well enough. It was hard to imagine my old subordinate shilling for the Steps, he was too dispassionate to throw in with their cause and too dull to succumb to any vice they could blackmail him with. But then, we hadn’t spoken to each other since I’d been stripped of my Eye, and things change.

  By all appearances, I had found the list of double-agents the Steps had planted into Black House. I memorized the names quickly – tried to at least. My mind isn’t as sharp as it once was, though it’s an open question whether drugs or time did more damage. Then I put the folder back into the drawer, the drawer back into the desk, and my ass back into my seat.

  Five minutes closer to the grave and the door handle jiggled loudly. Egmont was having a great deal of trouble getting into his office. He managed it, finally, though it took him longer than it should have.

  With the door at last open, Egmont entered briskly, took his seat at the opposite end of the table. Hume came in after him, but remained standing behind me.

  ‘It’s lovely to see you again Director, a real thrill. Thanks for providing it.’

  Egmont grunted. He did not seem to return my enthusiasm. ‘Brother Hume tells me the two of you had something of an … adventure yesterday.’

  ‘That’s one way to describe it.’

  ‘I appreciate you ensuring that he made it back to us safely.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. He’s kind of growing on me.’

  ‘Well,’ he said, pleasantries completed. ‘I’ve other duties to attend. Might we get straight into it?’

  I saw no point in doing that. From inside my duster I pulled out my tobacco and started rolling a cigarette. ‘I went ahead and earned those five hundred ochres.’

  ‘Did you now?’

  ‘Figured out who’s selling red fever, figured out why. Shaded in all the blanks and whatnot.’

  ‘Don’t leave me in suspense.’

  ‘Coronet was a two-part operation. First, the subject was given a specialized narcotic. While they were under, we’d have one of our practitioners implant a command into their brain – a kill order on a specific target. The subject would wake up and not remember any of it. Continue about their business as normal. Then, one day, we’d have a man walk over to them, whisper a few words in their ear …’ I snapped my fingers. ‘The perfect sleeper agent. You can appreciate the enthusiasm the project engendered in Black House.’ I lit my cigarette, took a draw. ‘Except that it never quite worked. Something about the narcotic drove a small but not insubstantial portion of our test subjects crazy. Not the chase-butterflies-around-a-park kind of crazy either. The cut-up-your-neighbor-and-bath-in-their-blood kind of crazy.’

  ‘I follow.’

  ‘So we shut it down. The long-term goal of Coronet was that it could be used on potential enemies of the state – foreign dignitaries, belligerent nobles, that kind of thing. But its side effects made that impossible. If the chief ambassador of Miradin kills his wife and kids, people are going to start asking questions.’

  ‘I suppose they would.’

  ‘A month and a half ago, a crime lord named Uriel Carabajal started selling something called the red fever through a series of small-time dealers and middlemen. It’s become quite the hit. So far, no one has made the connection between its arrival and the sudden uptick in violent crime. Or if they have, they don’t much care.’

  ‘Yes, Hume told me. So far, I’m not hearing anything I didn’t already know.’

  I ignored the rebuke. ‘Needless to say, this red fever is the same narcotic we were using for Coronet. So I took a meeting with Uriel, tried to rattle his cage a bit. It didn’t do much good – he’s not one to be rattled. But ever since I saw him I’ve had heat like you wouldn’t believe, Black House Agents stalking my every move.’

  ‘And you ascribe this attention to the inquiries you’ve made into red fever?’

  ‘Fits, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Not entirely. Why would Black House choose to put Coronet into the hands of this … black robe?’

  ‘I can only surmise.’

  ‘Have at it.’

  ‘We scrapped Coronet because we were losing too many test subjects. The Old Man’s not one to blink over a little collateral damage, but he loathes attention. Even Black House couldn’t keep a lid on it indefinitely.’

  ‘What changed?’

  ‘You all, if I had to take a guess. I imagine the Old Man started thinking that this would be an excellent time to have a secret weapon in his back pocket. So he thought it over, came up with an idea. There’s an entire population living south of the River Andel happy to pay for the privilege of consuming a substance that might kill them. No different than wyrm, or even breath, if you think about it. Why not offer them the opportunity to test out this exciting new narcotic? Once the great minds at Black House figure out a more stable version of the compound, they’ll stop selling it as a drug, and start using it as a weapon.’

  A thin sheen of sweat beaded on Egmont’s broad forehead. He wiped himself down with a folded handkerchief, then put the handkerchief back in his breast pocket. ‘That’s a very interesting hypothesis. But it hardly amounts to firm evidence.’

  ‘What do you want? A signed confession from the Old Man? Whispers and innuendo, that’s the way this works. You piece it all together as best you can. Or are you too new at the business to understand that?’

  ‘If your goal is to insult me, you’re wasting your time.’

  ‘My goal is to live as long as possible. I assume that’s your goal as well, in which case I have to say, you’re doing a shit job. Do you understand what will happen once they get a functioning version of Coronet?’

  ‘Yes, of course I do.’

  ‘No, you obviously don’t, because if you did, Director, you wouldn’t be sitting calmly in that chair answering my questions.’

  ‘I pride myself on my composure.’

  I turned my head and blew little circles of smoke over to Hume. ‘There’s a thin line between equanimity and torpor. Be careful not to straddle it. Coronet can turn anyone into an assassin.’ I pointed over at Hume. ‘A few drops of it in his drink, a whispered word from a cut-rate practitioner, he’d slit your throat and not stop smiling.’

  ‘I wouldn’t!’ Simeon protested, horrified even at the hypothetical.

  ‘You would. You’d hear the words, and you’d reach to your belt, and you’d pull out your dagger and you’d put it in the Director’s throat. Afterward, you’d look at the blood on your hands and on your shirt and you’d wonder, “how the hell did that get here?” You’d feel very, very bad about yourself, and the Director would still be very, very dead.’

  We sat silently while Egmont decided whether or not to buy my line. A lot of what I’d said wasn’t true, but it was all plausible. Most importantly, it played into his preconceptions – the dastardly Asher, the Old Man masterminding it all.

  Egmont started tapping a rhythm against the desk. His fingers were long, and his nails were polished. If all you’d seen were his fingers, you’d have thought him a woman, and a pretty one at that. ‘I’ll look into it,’ he said.

  ‘I looked into it. You should go ahead and do something about it.’

  ‘And what would you suggest I do?’

  ‘Fear,’ I said. ‘As a verb.’

  ‘That�
��s comforting.’

  ‘I’m not the Director of Security for the Sons of Śakra. I’m a man hired to find out a specific piece of information. You’re the man who determines how that information is best used. My job is all but completed – perhaps it’s time you start taking care of your own.’

  To judge by Egmont’s increasingly uneven beat, I’d shivered a little paranoia into him. I figured it was best to end on that note, hope that things played out the way I’d planned.

  Hume opened the door but didn’t say anything to me, didn’t even look at me, which I thought was a little odd. There it was, I’d just about saved his life not two days back, and now we were all but strangers. Of course, I’d been the one who’d put him into danger, but he didn’t know that.

  The receptionist sniffed and turned as I walked out. Either some of her anger at Hume’s fictitious transgressions had spilled over onto me, or she just had the good sense to recognize trouble when she saw it. I leaned against the desk until she finally deigned to notice me.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked.

  ‘I forgot to tell Brother Simeon – Joyanne keeps asking for him.’

  ‘You said his wife’s name was Sarah?’

  ‘His wife’s name is Sarah. Joyanne is his favorite whore.’

  The woman who would never speak to Hume again opened her mouth wide enough to trap a spider, then closed it rapidly.

  ‘Was his favorite whore, I mean. She’s missed him these last weeks, talks my ear off on the subject, if I’m being honest. Sure, he was paying for it, but a man comes to see her twice a day every day for a month, she gets to expect something.’

  ‘Twice a day?’ she asked, horrified or excited.

  ‘Three times on Sundays,’ I said, then nodded and left.

  Once you start tipping things over, it’s hard to stop.

  32

  The Step had been staring at me for about five minutes, trying to work up the nerve to approach. I was sitting on a bench near the docks, burning a twist of dreamvine and killing my way through the afternoon. It was chilly, turning towards cold, but what the sun refused in warmth it made up for by basking the wharfs in bright light, throwing every tiny detail into fine relief. Workers like ants marched off and on the anchored caravels and galleons. From a distance it gave the impression of happy industry, though that would have been dispelled at closer inspection. It was a fair enough substitute for my usual spot at the Earl, though Adolphus had a pretty strict no-proselytizing policy, which would mean the conversation I could see coming wouldn’t have happened.