Charmcaster

by Sebastien de Castell

  I felt his little body relax against my chest. ‘Night. Skinbag.’

  ‘Goodnight, Reichis.’

  16

  Neither Straight Nor Narrow

  I couldn’t have been asleep for more than a couple of hours before I woke to the sound of someone calling my name and the itchy sensation of a squirrel cat’s tail smothering my face. I groggily pushed Reichis away and looked up to find Ferius in my room, saddlebags already packed.

  ‘We going somewhere?’

  She took a seat on the chair by the wall – the same one I’d wedged under the doorknob last night to keep anyone from breaking in. ‘Time to move on, kid. You’ve come out of that shadowblack nonsense of yours, the hyena and the squirrel cat are mostly recovered, and this place is a lot more expensive than it looks. I say we saddle up the horses and see where the road takes us.’

  I leaned up on my elbows. ‘What about Nephenia? Is she coming?’

  ‘Don’t know. Didn’t ask.’ The way Ferius said it, so completely unconcerned and almost dismissive, made me start to protest. Then I remembered that most times when Ferius gets my back up it’s because she’s trying to keep me from asking the right questions.

  ‘Who were those two Argosi last night?’

  ‘Argosi?’ Ferius made a show of glancing around the room. ‘Somebody let Argosi in this establishment? What’s the world coming to?’

  ‘I saw you trading cards back and forth with them. What did you learn?’

  She clasped her hands behind her head and leaned back in the chair, closing her eyes. ‘Boring stuff mostly. A trade dispute here, a new Daroman governor there. Oh, and some Jan’Tep clan or other decided to go to war with their neighbours.’

  ‘What? Which clan?’

  ‘Not yours,’ she said. ‘Come to think of it, I’m not sure which clans they were talking about. The cards aren’t always the most specific means of exchanging information.’

  ‘Then why use cards at all? Why not just—’

  ‘Cos that ain’t the Argosi way.’

  That was her reply to just about everything – especially this particular discussion. It always ended with Ferius telling me that words only let you describe the details of things, but not the deeper truths behind them. Somehow the cards let the Argosi express both what they understood and what they didn’t. In fact, it’s not just the cards they exchange or the sequence of the cards; the very means by which they pass them to each other is supposedly a way of conveying important aspects of the events or people involved.

  Yeah. It doesn’t make sense to me either.

  ‘That last card,’ I said, ‘the one they gave you right before they left – there’s no way you had time to give it back. What was it?’

  Ferius gave me a grin. ‘Not one in a thousand could’ve spotted that, kid. Seems like nothing gets by you.’

  Actually almost everything gets by me, but the compliment still brought a flush to my cheeks. I hate the fact that it makes me feel so good when she praises me. I suppose I should be grateful that it’s such a rare occurance – and one that only comes around when she’s trying to distract me. ‘Quit stalling. Show me the card.’

  She pulled her hands out from behind her head and made a bunch of odd gesticulations. ‘By the mighty power of iron and ember, of sand and silk, of blood and breath, let the truth be known!’ She clapped her hands together.

  Nothing happened.

  ‘Are you done making fun of me?’ I asked.

  ‘Look down, kid.’

  There, on the covers in front of me, sat a card, face down. ‘Is it like some Argosi law that you have to mock my people’s magic all the time?’

  ‘There ain’t much for entertainment on the long roads, kid. A body’s got to take what fun she can get.’

  Yeah, like the kind you get from drunken gambling and comfort girls.

  I picked up the card and examined it. The back was indistinct, the pattern not dissimilar to others I’d seen on Argosi decks. The painting on the front of the card though? That made me catch my breath.

  It was beautiful. The style was intricate. Delicate. Ferius is a skilled artist, but this was different. The colours were subtler, full of soft reds and blues and greens. You had to really look at the browns and greys to see how they were differentiated from the blacks. The paint strokes were elaborate too, the lines narrow and fluid as if the artist had simply let the brush flow wherever it wanted. At first I thought the card depicted a bird taking flight from a lush tree full of gold- and copper-coloured leaves growing from thin silver branches. But then I noticed that the leaves weren’t natural, but rather painted to be elaborately shaped pieces of metal. The same was true of the trunk and branches of the tree. When I peered closer, I saw that the bird itself was made from metal too, with perfectly articulated wings, feet and feathers.

  ‘A mechanical bird?’ I asked.

  Ferius nodded. ‘Seems to be.’

  There was a distinctive geometry to everything on the card – the tree, the bird, even the subtle pattern of the sky and clouds. It reminded me of the designs of certain rugs and porcelain plates that traders would sometimes bring to my city, which helped me finally connect the dots. ‘This is Gitabrian, isn’t it?’

  ‘Looks that way.’

  Gitabria was where we’d been headed when we got caught up in that mess with the Berabesq Faithful. We had a notebook taken from Dexan Videris with an entry for each person he’d infected with an obsidian worm. There wasn’t a name for the last entry, but the location was listed as Cazaran, the capital city of Gitabria. ‘During that poker game, you told the other two Argosi what we’d been doing and where we were headed next. That’s why they gave you this card?’

  Ferius didn’t bother confirming or denying it, but I was pretty sure I was right.

  ‘So now the Argosi have given you a separate mission in Gitabria as well.’ I held up the card. ‘Which means they must have either come from there themselves, or got this from another Argosi. I guess we’re supposed to go investigate what’s illustrated on the card?’

  Ferius closed her eyes again. ‘Do you need me for this conversation, kid? You seem to be doing fine all by yourself.’

  ‘But I thought the discordances represent people or events that could alter the course of history – that could change or even destroy entire civilisations.’

  ‘That’s the theory, kid.’

  ‘How is a mechanical bird supposed to do that?’

  Ferius, eyes still closed, gave me a smirk. ‘Welcome to the path of the Argosi, kid; neither straight nor narrow.’

  I stared back at the card, part of me admiring the sheer beauty of it, part of me frustrated by the incomprehensible tendency for obfuscation that seemed to be central to the Argosi ways. I got out of bed, glad that I’d remembered to sleep in my breeches to avoid repeating my embarrassment from the day before, and dressed just in time for Nephenia and her hyena to barge into the room.

  ‘Are you two still not ready? We’ve been standing out there with the horses for half an hour!’

  ‘I thought you said you hadn’t told her we were going?’ I asked Ferius.

  ‘Of course I’m coming,’ Nephenia said, taking the discordance card from my hand. ‘Ferius told me all about our mission in Gitabria. We’ve got to uncover the meaning of this mechanical bird. It’s nine days’ ride to the capital and we can’t lose even one of them if we want to get to the Grand Exhibition in time.’

  ‘The grand what now?’ I turned to Ferius. ‘Anything else you told Nephenia that you couldn’t be bothered to tell me?’

  ‘The charmcaster’s right,’ she said. ‘Best we get ourselves moving.’

  I was so furious it was all I could do to remember to grab my bag before I left the room.

  Reichis sauntered over with his little velvet bag of stolen trinkets in his mouth so I could pack it for him. ‘Should’ve played poker with you, Kellen. You really are a sucker sometimes.’

  ‘What? Why?’

  He didn’t a
nswer, but by then he didn’t need to. I’d forgotten the most important thing about Ferius Parfax: when she makes you angry, it’s always to keep you from asking the right questions. She’d done it twice to me this morning; clearly she didn’t want me enquiring about what those two Argosi had done to make her so upset.

  Fine, I thought, closing the door behind me. Keep your secrets, Ferius.

  I’ll find the answer myself.

  17

  The Eight Bridges

  Gitabria’s capital was unlike any other city I’d seen. Divided in two by a massive gorge, Cazaran’s spiralling towers and sprawling avenues flowed out to the very edge of the cliffs. Carved into the two-hundred-foot rock faces, beautifully sculpted homes – palaces, really – looked down upon a fleet of merchant ships in the waters below. Finely dressed couples stepped out from their stone verandas onto wooden platforms that floated up on a system of ropes, weights and pulleys, ending their journeys at one of the eight colossal bridges that spanned the gorge.

  ‘The Cazaran Arches,’ Ferius explained. ‘Foreign merchants travel a thousand miles just to cross them. The Gitabrians like to say that each bridge is so full of wonders that you could spend every day for a year exploring just one and every night you’d find your heart lighter. Course, that’s only because your purse wouldn’t be weighing you down. The lords mercantile pride themselves that no one gets across without spending a little coin.’

  ‘What do they sell?’

  She pointed to a huge wooden suspension bridge where tall ornate towers rose high above living trees that somehow took root within the deck itself. Dozens of little stalls between them displayed brightly coloured merchandise. ‘The Forest Bridge,’ Ferius said. ‘Exotic fruits and vegetables, delicacies from across the sea, and spices worth nearly their weight in gold.’

  The sheer spectacle of it all was enough to entice me, but Ferius turned our attention to a second bridge, this one simpler, more pristine, with marble railings atop its stone deck. Men and women in white robes each bearing a single blue stripe down one shoulder stood on small, individual platforms surrounded by clientele vying for their attention. ‘The Arch of Solace. Those folks in the fancy robes will diagnose your symptoms and peddle you a cure for any ailment you got, and probably a few you don’t.’

  Reichis tugged at my trouser leg. I looked down and saw he was entranced by the third bridge, this one packed with expensively dressed merchants hawking precious stones and jewellery. ‘Hey, Kellen? I’m gonna take a little walk, okay? You go find us another horse. Maybe a cart too? Make it a big one.’

  I shook him off. ‘You are not going thieving, Reichis.’

  Nephenia seemed to be having a similar problem with Ishak, because she was hanging on to the scruff of his neck to keep him from running off. Apparently hyenas and squirrel cats have at least one thing in common. ‘What about the other bridges?’ she asked Ferius.

  It seemed to me to be an innocuous question, but the Argosi gave her a knowing stare. ‘Pretty sure the one you’re looking for is over there.’ She gestured to a narrower bridge with silver-capped spans linking a complex arrangement of copper-banded ropes. Fewer customers walked along the curve of its arched deck, but those who did looked by far the wealthiest we’d seen thus far. ‘The Way of Wonders,’ Ferius said. ‘That’s why you tagged along, ain’t it?’

  ‘It’s not like I hid my intentions,’ Nephenia replied. ‘Neither of you bothered to ask me what my plans were.’

  ‘Wait,’ I said. ‘You were already coming here when you met up with us?’

  She nodded. ‘The Gitabrians like to bring charms with them on their trading voyages across the ocean. Warded locks, whisper catchers, anything small and intriguing that they can use to sweeten a deal. A charmcaster can make a good life for herself here.’ She watched my eyes, and I guess she must’ve seen something there because she put a hand on my arm. ‘I’m not abandoning you, Kellen. It’ll take me time to find a patron and secure a permit to set up shop on the Way of Wonders. Until then, I’ll do my best to help you and Ferius investigate this mechanical-bird business.’

  ‘Well, that’s where we have a problem,’ Ferius said, walking the horses along a wide avenue. At the far end stood a huge amphitheatre, the gates already crowded with people waiting to get in. ‘The Grand Exhibition is the most likely place we’ll find this bird contraption, but they won’t let us in without the right coin.’

  ‘Are you serious?’ I asked, suddenly irritated. ‘You were winning all night back at the travellers’ saloon. Now you’re saying you spent it all on that comfort artisan?’

  ‘I didn’t say money. I said coin. Only invited delegates are allowed inside. The lords mercantile give out special mintings to foreign dignitaries or as favours to their friends. Try to get in without one and you’ll get pinched by the Gitabrian secret police, and trust me, those folks? They make the Berabesq Faithful look like pacifists.’

  ‘So how were you planning on getting us in?’ Nephenia asked.

  ‘I’d hoped we’d get here early enough that I might find some over-eager merchant lords on the Bridge of Dice, make a few wagers and see if I couldn’t swindle a delegate’s coin from one of them.’ Again she looked ruefully up at the darkening sky. ‘No way I’ll find one in time now.’

  I smiled, because for once – just once – it turned out that I was the one with the solution to our problems. ‘Well, let’s see what a little Jan’Tep magic can do, shall we?’ I began gesticulating wildly in the air, bumping into Ferius in the process. ‘By the infinite might of sand and silk, of blood and breath, of iron and ember, let the answer be revealed!’

  ‘Kellen? Are you all right?’ Nephenia asked, looking at me intently, as though I were in the midst of some kind of seizure.

  Ferius, on the other hand, gave me a mildly amused smirk. ‘Not bad, kid, but next time see if you can do it without jostling the mark to distract them.’ She reached into the small front pocket of her waistcoat and removed the black and silver coin I’d placed there. She peered at the symbols of the lock on one side and the key on the other, her expression not at all what I’d expected. She seemed troubled by the coin rather than relieved.

  ‘Ferius? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—’

  She tossed the coin back to me. ‘Nice thought, kid, but this ain’t gonna do us any good.’

  ‘Wait, what?’ Then it hit me: of course the coin the old woman had given me wasn’t a delegate’s coin. Who ever heard of an Argosi making your life easier?

  ‘See those fellas over there?’ Ferius asked, pointing to a group of well-dressed Berabesq clerics pushing their way through the crowd in front of the amphitheatre, their leader holding up a coin for the guards at the gate. Even from this distance I could tell the coin was a lot larger than the one I held in my hand, and it gleamed in a way this one didn’t. ‘The Gitabrians make them from three separate rings,’ Ferius explained. ‘Each one minted from a different gold alloy that their ships bring back from voyages across the sea. Impossible to forge.’

  I felt claws sticking in my clothes as Reichis clambered up my back. Not content to stop at my shoulder, he perched himself on top of my head. His paws started kneading my scalp. ‘So … pretty. So very, very pretty.’

  ‘Get off me!’ I said, setting him back down on the ground.

  ‘What if we wait outside?’ Nephenia asked. ‘Maybe one of the delegates will leave early and we can trade for their coin. Maybe we’ll get lucky and—’

  ‘That’s what all them other folks hanging about are hoping, too. Trust me, I’ve been gambling my whole life and nobody’s going to deal you that particular inside straight.’

  ‘Then we try something else,’ Nephenia insisted. ‘When the exhibition ends later tonight we talk to the people leaving and find out what they saw.’

  ‘They’ll see what the Gitabrians want them to see. The presentations are just a bunch of smoke and mirrors to fool the delegates into bidding up the price for fancy new inventions nobody needs. I’
m telling you, girl, I need to be there when it happens.’

  The two of them argued back and forth for a while, Nephenia’s optimism somehow bringing out Ferius’s darker side. I just kept staring at the coin the old Argosi woman had given me. It felt odd in my hand. Whenever I tossed it in the air just so, it would start spinning, and seem to come back down slower than it should. I was so distracted by it that it wasn’t until a sudden uproar shook the crowds outside the amphitheatre and guardsmen started running all over the place that I realised something very, very bad: Reichis was missing.

  ‘Ishak?’ Nephenia called out.

  ‘They’re both gone?’ Ferius asked.

  Oh, crap. A squirrel cat and a hyena at large. That can’t be good.

  Crossbow bolts struck the pavement about thirty yards away, shot by guards perched in the high towers outside the amphitheatre. The crowds scattered, shouting and screaming as they knocked over food carts and the unfortunate boys and girls carrying trays of drinks for sale. A blur raced along the centre of the avenue, sending panicking citizens stumbling into each other. That’s when I saw the strangest sight of my entire life: a hyena, running like the wind, being ridden by a squirrel cat holding up a large, gleaming coin made from three gold rings.

  18

  The Thieves

  ‘Into the alley!’ Ferius whispered furiously, hauling on the horses to get them moving faster.

  ‘What about Ishak and Reichis?’ Nephenia asked.

  ‘We can’t be seen with them right now. If the secret police connect us with those two fools we’ll all spend the next five years in a Gitabrian jail debating whose fault it was. Now come on.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ I told Nephenia. ‘This isn’t the first time Reichis has pulled a stunt like this. He and Ishak will find us as soon as they’ve shaken their pursuers.’

  She hesitated, then nodded and followed Ferius into the alleyways. Evidently my confidence was more persuasive than I thought, which was good given that I really didn’t feel any. Reichis is an idiot who refuses to keep his paws off things that aren’t his and who severely overestimates his ability to get out of trouble.