‘This is the second flaw,’ Janucha said, taking the bird back from Nephenia. ‘Even if the errors in my designs were found, there simply aren’t enough of the raw materials to make more than a few tiny miracles like this one.’ She kissed the top of the bird’s head. ‘You are certainly no cause for war, little one.’ She began to place it back in her pocket. Reichis’s claws scraped against my shoulder as he launched himself at the bird.
‘Stop!’ Altariste shouted, horrified, but by then it was over. Janucha had swiftly placed both her hands over the bird and successfully kept it from Reichis’s claws. The squirrel cat slid inelegantly down the stiff leather of her coat.
‘Reichis! What the hell are you doing?’ I demanded.
Without explanation or a trace of shame, the squirrel cat sauntered out of the room.
‘I suppose he is a predator,’ Janucha said, her expression curious as she watched him leave.
‘Credara Janucha, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what came over him.’
‘No harm was done,’ she said, secreting the bird away in her pocket. ‘You understand now why my work is no threat to anyone. Tell me, is it worth offering those who are tormenting my daughter that which they secretly covet?’
‘Neither the lords mercantile nor the secret police would allow it,’ Altariste warned. ‘Nor will they tolerate the murder of a child of Gitabria by those who would extort from us that which we do not wish to sell.’
‘Forgive me, Credaro,’ Nephenia began. ‘I mean no offence, but would your government truly risk war over the life of one girl?’
Both the inventors were silent for a moment, as if Nephenia’s question had crossed some line into the political affairs that separated us from them. ‘My husband is correct,’ Janucha said. ‘We are a nation of traders, not soldiers. But we are also a nation of mothers and fathers.’ Her expression turned grim as her eyes sought mine. ‘The very instant my daughter dies, Gitabria goes to war.’
28
The Painted Card
All right. This isn’t so complicated.
Somewhere, likely thousands of miles away, a cabal of mages was slowly killing Cressia. I just had to find them, knock them around a bit and break the onyx bracelet they were using to control the obsidian worm. Oh, and preferably before she died and two nations went to war.
Easy. You can do this.
No, you can’t. Where the hell is Ferius?
I spent the better part of an hour looking for my Argosi mentor, only to find her outside on the stone veranda overlooking the gorge. She stood with her back to me, a thin brush in hand and Reichis on her shoulder. The two of them were peering down at an easel.
‘You’re painting?’ I asked incredulously.
Neither of them so much as spared me a glance. ‘Shh,’ Reichis hissed. ‘Busy.’
It said something about my life that being shushed by a squirrel cat wasn’t even the most embarrassing thing that had happened to me that day. I ignored him and focused my ire on Ferius. ‘I can’t remove the obsidian worm from Cressia’s eye,’ I informed her. ‘Whoever’s controlling it is threatening to—’
‘Lemme take a wild guess,’ she interrupted. ‘Those Jan’Tep mages will do all kinds of terrible things to the girl unless you do equally terrible things to the inventor. Meanwhile the lords high whatever of Gitabria are thinking up ways to make a bad situation worse.’
Here’s what I hate about Ferius Parfax: one day she lectures you about not being kind enough to other people, the next it’s as if she barely notices they exist.
She dipped her brush into a tiny jar of paint. ‘You try askin’ Suzy to find them mages for us?’
‘She can’t. The black threads only appear when the obsidian worm is awake and I don’t think Cressia will survive another attack.’
‘Which will force the Gitabrians to declare war.’ Ferius sighed even as she continued her painting. ‘Some days I really do believe this whole world is determined to destroy itself just to spite me.’
‘So what are we going to do about it?’ I asked, approaching the easel to see what was so much more important than murder and warfare. Reichis glared at me as if it were his work I was interrupting. Ferius ran her brush in quick, light strokes across the surface of a playing card held in place with small wooden clips. There wasn’t room for me to get close enough to see the whole card, but when her brush passed along the edges, I saw the colour change from indigo to a deep azure. The effect was almost hypnotic. After a few more strokes, she set down the brush and took another from inside her waistcoat, this one even smaller – the size of a toothpick with no more than a dozen short strands of what looked like clipped horsehair glued to the end. She reached over to the veranda’s flat stone railing where the rest of her little jars were arranged and unsealed one that was black as night. Reichis had to readjust himself to keep from falling off her shoulder. After dipping the little brush inside, Ferius returned to the card. Her strokes were quicker now, tiny flickers near the bottom edge as she wrote words I couldn’t see.
‘Why are you making another discordance card?’ I asked.
‘Because my gut tells me that little metal bird isn’t the real danger here.’ She took a step back to survey her handiwork. ‘Well, it’s rough and rushed, but Momma always did say that vanity was a chain that bound the truth in illusion.’
I tried to wrap myself around that – both the unintelligible sentiment and the notion of Ferius having a mother. ‘Show me,’ I said.
She moved aside and what she revealed took my breath away. The lines on the card were fluid and graceful – achingly so. The figure depicted wasn’t pretty, yet the rendering made her arresting. The colours of her tools, the subtle shadows cast by the golds and pinks of the sky in the background, all of it was perfect. Even the clothing seemed to take on the textures of linen and leather, of copper buttons and a brass buckle on the belt. The title of the card, written in a script both elegant and dramatic, was ‘The Contraptioneer’.
‘You think Janucha herself is the discordance?’
Ferius nodded, still carefully assessing her work.
‘And this is your idea of “rough and rushed”?’
She turned to me, her expression concerned. ‘You think it’s no good? I could start again, but that would—’
‘You used too much blue if you ask me,’ Reichis offered sagely.
‘Are you mad?’ I asked Ferius. ‘It’s a work of art! I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything more beautifully done.’
Something very strange happened then. Ferius Parfax, Argosi wanderer, gambler and inveterate braggart, blushed. ‘It ain’t all that.’ Before I could comment on this odd behaviour, she picked up the card by the edges, blew on it, and held it out to me.
‘What am I supposed to do with it?’
‘Make your way to the Bridge of Dice. Towards the northern side of the bridge there’s a tent with an all-night card game. Play for a while, and when you spot an Argosi, slip them the card.’
‘How would I even recognise them?’ I asked.
She raised one eyebrow at me. ‘All this time around me and you still can’t spot an Argosi?’
‘In case you’ve forgotten, you’re the only Argosi I know, except for Rosie, I guess, and the two of you have nothing in common. I don’t know anything about those other two from the travellers’ saloon, but then, they don’t look or act like you either.’
That seemed to annoy her. ‘Then just stand around until one of them recognises you.’
‘What about Cressia?’ I demanded. ‘If she dies—’
‘If the Argosi have any information on those mages, they’ll give you a card in return.’
‘And if they don’t?’
‘Then this whole place goes to hell.’ She pressed the card into my hand. The paints were already dry, but they felt oddly warm to the touch. Ferius looked tired. Weary. I realised then that she still hadn’t fully recovered from the wounds she’d taken in the desert. ‘Kid, there’s a lot going on here
that we don’t understand. I can’t deal with that and find somebody to spread the word of what we already know. If things go south … Just take the card, okay?’
It wasn’t a command, nor even an instruction, really. It was more like a plea, and not once in all our travels have I seen Ferius Parfax beg for anything from anyone. ‘Okay,’ I said, sliding the card into my shirt pocket and putting my hat back on. ‘Come on, Reichis. Looks like we’re going gambling.’
29
The Bridge of Dice
We arrived at the Bridge of Dice early that evening to discover that gambling wasn’t its only enticement. Reichis and I walked past all kinds of entertainments, from musicians and dancers to troupes of actors performing outrageous plays. Some of these involved very little clothing and would’ve been grounds for arrest in the Jan’Tep territories. Reichis took one look and decided that humans were even uglier when naked.
The bright colours all around us were mesmerising. Ingeniously designed lanterns hung from poles along the bridge, their light shining down on hundreds of metal discs embedded in the deck that made you feel as though you were walking on stars.
Crowds of revellers strolled, danced and caroused with each other as they travelled from one end of the bridge to the other and back again. Sometimes they gave money to the beggars who juggled or performed tricks with swords or torches to attract attention. We passed one old fellow who flipped coins high up into the air, sending more and more of them spinning after each other without ever letting a single one fall. When he caught me watching, he smiled, but a second later his eyes narrowed. He let the coins come tumbling down into his hand, one by one. Something about his stare made me uncomfortable.
‘Hoi, castradazi!’ he called after me as Reichis and I walked away. A quick glance back told me he was following us.
‘I don’t speak Gitabrian,’ I apologised, picking up my pace.
‘Castradazi! Hoi, castradazi!’ he repeated. A few steps later I felt his hand grip my arm. I spun around to give him my most threatening glare. He was depressingly unperturbed.
‘You’re doing it wrong,’ Reichis said, opening one eye unnaturally wide and snarling at the man, flecks of spit dripping from his lips.
‘Castradazi,’ the beggar said again. Apparently even Reichis wasn’t sufficiently intimidating.
‘I don’t speak your language,’ I said in Daroman. ‘I don’t know what that word …’
Wait a second, where have I heard it before? Then I remembered back at the prison when Zavera had taken my coin from me. One of the words she’d used to describe it had stuck with me. ‘Castradazi,’ I said out loud.
‘Zia, zia! Castradazi,’ the beggar repeated. He was as thin as a rake but his brown toga-like garments were clean and he certainly didn’t look like he suffered from any of the ailments that often afflicted those forced to beg in the streets. Still, he seemed awfully concerned with getting something from me.
‘I can’t help you,’ I said, holding up my hands to show I didn’t have what he wanted. ‘No castradazi.’
In response, he folded his arms across his chest and stared at me as if he knew I was a liar.
‘Look,’ I said, ‘I had a castradazi, but I don’t any more. A crazy person from the secret police took it from me, and then when I asked for it back Janucha grabbed it and … Why am I rambling on at you in Daroman when you clearly don’t understand a thing I’m saying?’
The man glanced around as if to make sure no one was watching, then reached into the folds of his toga. His hand came back with a small coin, silver and black with the symbol of a lock on one side and a key on the other – just like the one Zavera and later Janucha had taken from me. The old man pinched it between his two fingers and held it up to me. ‘Castradazi.’
I began to get annoyed. I doubted this guy was Argosi, which meant he couldn’t help me find the mages responsible for Cressia’s torment. ‘Look, I swear to you, I don’t have any—’
The man waved his coin in front of me in a lazy figure-of-eight pattern, his eyes searching me all the while. Suddenly he stopped, and held his coin up to Reichis’s face – his left cheek, to be precise. ‘Castradazi,’ he said confidently.
It took me a second to work out what had happened. I sometimes forget that squirrel cats are incorrigible thieves. ‘Reichis?’ I asked quietly. ‘Is it possible that you only pretended to jump at the mechanical bird in Janucha’s hand when in fact you were using it as a distraction to pick her pockets?’
‘What? Of course not. You know me, Kellen – honest as the day is long. I’m so honest it’s almost criminal.’
I stared unblinking into the squirrel cat’s eyes. For some reason this always throws him. Reichis’s composure lasted about three seconds before he started giggling. ‘Okay, fine.’ He reached a paw inside his jowls and pulled out the little silver and black coin. ‘Saw the inventor playin’ with it. Then that Altariste guy asked where she got it and she told him she’d taken it from you. I figured it was only fair that I take it back.’
‘And return the coin to me when, exactly?’
He scrunched up his muzzle. ‘Return it?’
I held my hand out and again stared into Reichis’s eyes until he dropped the coin in my palm.
‘Castradazi,’ the man in the toga said with what sounded like considerable relief. He put a hand on my shoulder.
‘You want my coin?’
‘My coin,’ Reichis corrected.
The thing had caused me nothing but trouble. I had half a mind to give it away, when a voice behind me said, ‘Castradazi ain’t what the fool wants. It’s what he thinks you are.’
Even the man in the toga jumped. ‘Argosi,’ he muttered afterwards, sounding more irritated than anxious. I turned and found myself face to face with the old man who’d come to the travellers’ saloon to give Ferius the mechanical bird card. He’d replaced his rough travelling clothes with a long brocade coat trimmed in dark blue over a silk shirt with the same elaborate inlay I’d seen on the wealthier Gitabrian lords strolling along the bridge.
‘Are you in disguise?’ I asked, glancing around.
‘Why, didn’t you recognise me?’
‘Well, yes, but—’
‘Then I guess I ain’t wearin’ a disguise. Idjit.’ This was the second time he’d called me that. I was fairly sure he meant ‘idiot’.
Reichis chuckled. ‘Heh. Idjit. I like that. Idjit.’
‘Durral, don’t you start on the boy now,’ a female voice called out. Over on the other side of the bridge, the woman who’d been with him at the saloon leaned against the railing, looking out at the gorge. She wore a long black coat embroidered with delicate silver leaves over a green pleated dress. With her hair pinned up so elegantly she fitted right in with the Gitabrian ladies walking by.
Durral took her injunction as a reason to glare at me. ‘Enna’s got a soft spot for strays. Runs in the family. I see you’ve met Savire.’
The man in the toga shook his head. ‘Castradazi Savire.’
‘Whatever,’ the old man shot back. ‘Don’t know why Gitabrians need to hear their job title every time you say their name.’
‘At least he doesn’t refer to himself as the Path of the Rambling Thistle,’ I pointed out.
‘He’s got you there, Durral,’ his partner added, still looking out over the gorge.
‘Just you keep watch for them secret police and leave me to my business, Enna.’ He turned back to me. ‘Castradazi means coin dancer, in case you’re so thick you haven’t figured that out yet.’
‘Durral …’
He glanced back at the woman at the railing. ‘You wanna scold me all night or maybe keep us from gettin’ arrested this time?’
The man in the toga – Savire – rolled his eyes at me. ‘Argosi,’ he said.
‘Argosi,’ I replied back.
He laughed and clapped me on the shoulder.
‘If you two comedians are done,’ Durral said, ‘then maybe we can get on with this.’
Savire – who’d been remarkably patient up till now – took this as a sign it was time to resume our one-word conversation. ‘Castradazi,’ he corrected, and again flipped the coin in the air, his eyes going all foggy as it spun on its own for a few seconds before falling back into his palm.
‘That coin he’s holding is a sotocastra,’ Durral explained. He tapped the one in my hand. ‘Just like yours.’
‘The one you gave me outside the saloon,’ I pointed out. ‘Why?’
‘So you’d end up here of course.’
‘Here?’
He sighed. ‘Sands and sorrow, give me strength. Here. On this bridge. In this city. On this night.’ He pointed to Savire. ‘To meet him.’
‘I came here because Ferius … Wait, back at the saloon while you and her were playing cards, did you tell her to send me here tonight?’
Durral gave me the sort of smile you put on when the impression you’re going for is the exact opposite of what a smile is supposed to mean. ‘You’re a genius, kid. Now, can we get to business?’
‘Fine.’ I reached into my pocket for the card Ferius had given me.
Durral grabbed my wrist and squeezed it hard. ‘Not here, idjit. Not yet.’
I tried to pull away, but the old man had a strong grip. Reichis gave him a growl.
The woman – I guess Enna was her name – came and put a hand on Durral’s shoulder. ‘Don’t push the poor boy. Look in his eyes. He’s carrying the weight of the world in there.’ She gently prised his hand from my wrist and then looked up at me. ‘They won’t kill the girl just yet, Kellen.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because you don’t torture someone to cause pain. You do it to create fear. They’re trying to terrify the girl’s mother into giving them what they want.’
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