"You'll want that back," Ghosh said. "Don't give it to me."
"No. Father had a lot of them made when he bought the grove. So no one will think it's stolen, either."
"Can I call you if I ever need a judge?" Ghosh pinned her turban. "Forget it. An honest judge is something I'm never going to need."
"Ghosh, I..."
They were at the bridge across the canal. Across it, the Levar's Park spread out to the right, the expensive houses fronting the Levar's Way to the left. "Not now, hey? You don't want people to think you know me, not this close to home."
The ais Ariom house was of gray stone with black ironwork, with decorative castings of sugarcane on the exterior walls. It had belonged to a sugar merchant, before Dyelam ais Ariom moved to Liavek and needed a fashionable old address. As Reed knocked, Ghosh slipped into the shadow cast by the doorframe. A Tichenese in eggshell-colored silk, carrying a butler's rod of black wood, answered the door. "Pleasant evening, Mistress Cadie."
"Hello, Xochan. Am I awfully, fearfully, dreadfully late?"
Xochan smiled. "Not so late as that, Mistress. The master your father has had business all this day, and a private guest for noon meal, and has had no time to notice your absence."
"Happy birthday, Reed," Ghosh muttered.
Xochan leaned forward. "Is that Mistress Ghologhosh?" She slapped her rod into her palm.
Ghosh moved out of the shadows. "Night breezes blow you sweetness, O Source of Order."
Xochan's grin showed polished white teeth. "And may the moon favor your labors with her darkness, O Mover of Property. I would shower you with riches for the safe return of my willow mistress, but sadly I am only a poor servant.... However, there is warm apple pie in the kitchen."
Reed said, "Why does she get apple pie?"
Xochan said, "Because it is not yet the mistress's dinnertime."
Ghosh slipped inside. "Tell her the truth, Xochan. If you rob the house of a person who's fed you, you spend ten thousand years of the afterlife as a plum tree."
Reed snorted in a most inelegant way and ran up the curving, carpeted staircase.
Ghosh said. "And with the pie, might there be cream?"
"There might be cream, for speakers of truth," Xochan said. "Was she truly with Master Korik?"
"I'm the only one you saw her with."
Xochan nodded. Her eyes narrowed. "A plum tree?"
"Liavekans," Ghosh said lightly, "will believe anything."
•
A twentieth-watch later, Ghologhosh sat in the outer sill of a shuttered window, licking pie crumbs from her fingers. She reached down and wiped her hand on night-damp grass, then dried it on her shirt. She took a pair of thin gloves from her pouch and tugged them on. She started to take off the kid slippers, then thought better of it; she could cross the rock garden wearing them, then slip them off and leave no track inside.
Her contractor wanted a small brass mask set with yellow opals. Junk by itself, he said, only valuable to a collector. That was what contractors usually said; sometimes it was true and sometimes it wasn't. Ghosh could almost always tell how much an object was really worth, but she was never tempted to scout for higher bids. Unlike Kory's businesses, her trade didn't have much room for private initiative.
She slipped to the ground. The earth was cool, the air quite crisp for late Wine. There was a little low fog, and almost no moon. Fine thieving weather.
Ghosh crossed the rock garden without any sound. The garden was poorly tended, overgrown, rocks turned over. It had been the hobby of the house's last owner. Dyelam ais Ariom didn't have time for such things, and as the garden was not visible from the street, there was no social reason to maintain it. Ghosh's foot stirred a pool of mist. She suddenly remembered a rumor that the prior owner, ruined in the sugar trade by some Ka Zhir intrigue, had gone into his garden and cut his wrists. Interesting story, she thought. When I get wealthy, I must remember not to keep a garden.
She came to another shuttered window, listened at it. Silence. She took a thin tool from her collar, slid it between the shutters, lifted the latch. No click. Very slowly, she opened the shutter. Only a whisper of sound. Praising fine craftsmanship, Ghosh examined the window beyond. There was no curtain. It was entirely dark within. Her contractor swore, whatever that was worth, that this storeroom had not been opened in years—perhaps not since Dyelam had moved in. It contained, he swore double, only some of the sugar trader's old trivia, not worth displaying or selling.
Ghosh wondered why he had told her that. Reassurance that the mask would not be missed? Or that she would not really be robbing ais Ariom? If it was starting to get around that she and Reed—well. She'd have to worry about that later. There was enough to do now.
She undid the window latch. The window swung inward with a faint groan. Stay dead, Sugarman, she thought, you can't spend it now. And then she was inside.
There was a faint rumble of conversation from the far side of the room, probably through a door, though it was too dark to see. That was just fine. If no light leaked through to this side, none would shine out. She took a tiny spirit lamp from her pouch, unfolded it, scratched flint on steel. The light was small but steady and sufficient.
She could see that the contractor was right: the room was cluttered with small objects on shelves, all of them dusty, untended. That meant the need to move carefully, not leave too much written in the dust. She kept her slippers on; they were less distinctive than footprints.
She saw the mask. It hung on the wall, on a strip of leather with several other items of oxidized brass. She reached gloved fingers around it. There was a simple hook. It came away easily, went into her pouch with no protest at all. She turned. One of the voices beyond the door was raised. She moved to go. Her business was over. Dyelam ais Ariom's voice said, "—kill the Regent." Ghosh stopped still. She moved to the door. Spying was, she reasoned, only another kind of stealing.
Dyelam was talking with another man. Ghosh did not know the voice. Dyelam said, "—but I don't want him dead. Only removed. He's a bad influence on the child."
"You mean Her Magnificence, the Levar," the other voice said. There was an accent, familiar, not quite placed.
"I mean a flighty child. impressionable, who in not many years is going to have outrageous responsibilities. But keep this quite clear, wizard"—Ghosh bit her lip—"this is not an attack upon the Levar. It is a measure to save her from a man with only his own ends, his own interests, in mind."
He could be talking about Kory and Reed, Ghosh thought.
The other man, the wizard, said, "It can be done without killing. And far safer to do it so, of course. I know certain...potent facts about His Scarlet Eminence, which can—"
"I don't want to know," Dyelam said.
"Customers so rarely do." There was a clink of porcelain. "It is necessary that it be done on the End of Wine, in Hrothvek."
"A magical reason?"
"You don't want to know." Ghosh knew the accent now: it was faint, but it was Hrothvekan. "The Regent may be reluctant to attend your celebration, but you will find a way to persuade him. After all," the man said, with acid irony, "his position isn't so very secure."
"His man, the Count—"
"Dashif will be elsewhere occupied. There is no extra charge. May I have some more tea?" The cups clinked again. "Oh, and speaking of which, I need to pay a chemist. One hundred levars will be sufficient."
"Do you think in amounts smaller than a hundred levars?" Dyelam said, frustration audible in his voice. There were heavy footsteps, a drawer being pulled open, the sound of coins. Ghosh could tell ten-levar gold by its clink.
The wizard said smoothly, "Have you never heard the aphorism, 'One must pay an assassin three times: once to come, once to kill, once to go away'? After all, merchant, if this scheme fails, you will have no further use for money. While if it succeeds..."
"If it succeeds no one will ever know!" Dyelam almost shouted. "I grew up in a warehouse. I know the price of doing busi
ness. If it succeeds, no one will—what's that?"
"This little light? One of the things your money goes to buy," the wizard's voice said calmly. "Protection from spies."
Ghosh had once been told that all trap spells contained a loophole: something about balance of luck. You always had one chance to escape.
She looked up and saw glowing eyes, suicide's eyes, staring at her from the window. She froze for an instant. And her chance slipped past.
The two points of light rushed at her from the mist. Ghosh held up a hand, reaching for her knife with the other. A moth-mote whirled around her wrist: it trailed a streak of blue-white light that tightened suddenly and hard. She felt it burn. The other light bound her knife hand to her side. The motes spun round her knees, pulling them together; she fell. The lights continued to whirl around her, wrapping, constricting, searing. She couldn't move. She couldn't breathe. She opened her mouth to gasp, and the traces gagged her tongue; she heard spit sizzle. She felt the wire wrap her throat, and then she felt nothing.
•
The midnight watch had gone by, and Kory was still awake, wondering about Ghosh. She often worked all night, but since she had asked for a place to stay, then presumably tonight...well. Ghosh was not the most predictable soul on earth.
Kory stood up, chewed on a piece of apple, walked from one end of his room to the other. It only took a few steps. It was a basement room in a ship chandler's, in Old Town near the docks. The only air came from a tiny window near the ceiling, but it was cheap and fairly private at night, and he had the off-hours' use of the shop to work on his landsailer, which was built of broken spars and odd brasses bought at cost. He wished he had the 'sailer now. He could work on the spring and hub. It would be better than pacing. He looked out the window, getting a rat's-eye view of the street: nothing.
Ghosh didn't want to be owed anything, she had a funny way about debts, but Kory felt he owed her something. Kory had been tempted toward thieving more than once; it seemed so easy, the overhead was so very low. But Ghosh was good at it, very good, and you couldn't call what she had a good living. It wasn't exactly a debt, but—
There was a tap at the door. "Ghosh?" Kory said. There was no answer. Kory went to the door. "Ghosh?" Still nothing. Kory loosened the broad-bladed knife that hung near the door frame. He opened the door.
There was no one there. A folded paper lay on the steps. Kory looked around; there were a few lights, a few walkers, that was all. He picked up the letter, shut and latched the door.
The room was furnished with a bed and a table and a chair and a lamp. Kory turned up the lamp and unfolded the paper, which was unsealed. He recognized Reed's handwriting at once, and as he read his hand began to shake.
Beloved Kory,
Father has finally done it. He plans to marry me off to some horrid Hrothvekan, so he can make sure he doesn't lose control of the old part of the business.
I am to have no say in this matter, of course. The Hrothvekan is, I am told, "not a horrid man." I suppose this means he is abominable.
I will not be property. But I will be yours, if you will have me, without goods or dowry. The wedding is to be announced at my father's celebration in Hrothvek, on the End of Wine. There is so little time. Please, tell me what we shall do.
I love you.
Reed
Kory read the letter, and read it again, and again. The merchant has finally done it, he thought, finally challenged me to a duel.
He did not sleep that night, and never noticed that Ghosh never came.
•
Ghologhosh hovered in darkness, immobile, feeling pressures against her bones. Her normal senses were all useless: she could not move, but did not know if she was bound, or held, or...
Then there was the clear touch of a hand to her face. "You're strong, dollikin," said a voice out of the nothing. It was the wizard's voice, the Hrothvekan—
The hand slapped her, hard. "Yes," the voice said. "I am that one. You don't know my name, though, do you? No. Good for you that you do not. Good for both of us. You can be of use to me, dollikin, but I have to lock some things up inside you for a while. And I couldn't take chances of something as potent as a name slipping out."
The hand stroked her face, then slid down her body, cold flesh on cold flesh. "What a misused little dollikin you are. All scars. All the pleasure used up. I could mend you, of course, and start all over—but there's no time. We must take such enjoyment as we can."
The hand brushed her hair back from her forehead. The fingers spread out on her brow.
The pain was like the edges of seashells scraping across her naked brain, the salt sea flooding in upon the wound. She did not scream. She did not cry. At least, she did not think so. The voice had said she would live. How? she thought. She wondered, if she did live, how she would ever again imagine hell.
Ghol, oh Ghol, make me a plum tree for ten thousand years—
Ghosh felt herself bathed in coolness. Her head hurt, and her wrists. She lay on something soft. Something struck her, but gently, gently. She opened her eyes.
There was a ball of spiky silvery filaments crouched a hands-breadth in front of her face, filling her whole vision. It stretched a pair of fibers toward her: on their ends were tiny, bright blue eyes. Ghosh smiled idiotically.
Then a foot kicked the dawn spook away and a hand touched her shoulder. She looked up at the sky and a figure dark against it: a broad-faced man with a strange fringe of white hair around his head. His blue head.
"What is it, Jagg?" another man's voice called, and the blue-gray man pulled Ghosh to a sitting position. Another wave washed around them. Ghosh looked around groggily: they were on the beach at Liavek's far southwest, down by the Sea Eagle Inn, almost to the Saltmarsh.
"Half-drowned lady," the blue man said in a weirdly flat voice. "Friend to the pair we met yesterday. Saw her with them at the drugsmith's barge."
Ghosh remembered him then, the one who had spoken to Kory. She turned to look at the other man. He was of average height, just passing middle age, with light hair and eyes. He wore a high-collared black tunic and rolled-up gray trousers; his feet were big and blue-veined and pale. He leaned on a black stick.
"However do you come to be here, mistress?" the blond man said, in a voice that said something else was on his mind.
Ghosh thought. She couldn't remember. She saw the blue-gray man, she walked Reed home, there was apple pie-then nothing but a feeling like pain that had passed by, the memory of an infected tooth. And she wasn't about to tell these two about it. "I sleep on the beach some nights," she said, which was no lie.
"Below the tide line?" the blond man said. "Careful you don't sleep too late.... Jagg, heIp the woman up. My name is Ciellon. Do I understand that you know Kory Li and Reed ais Ariom?"
"Yeah...yes."
"We met them upon the Hrothvek road yesterday. They were gathering—what was it, Jagg? Oh, yes, crabs, for the apothecary Thomorin Wiln. But Kory's windcar had a slight accident. We drove them home." Ciellon smiled. "Does that establish our acquaintance? I could show you the landsailer, but Kory came for it very early this morning."
"I...uh, pleased to meet you, Master Ciellon. Master Jagg. I'm...Ghologhosh. Call me Ghosh."
"Good morning to you, then. Ghosh. We were just going for a walk to the Saltmarsh edge to have a little breakfast. Pleased to have you share it with us, if you've nowhere better to go."
She didn't know whether she did or not. But it wasn't far. And she did know she was hungry. "Happy to join you, Master Ciellon."
"Splendid! You meet the nicest people by accident here."
They sat on the rocks, eating smoked fingerlings and spiced toast with kaf, tossing the scraps to the sea eagles, who caught them on the fly. Ciellon talked on, explaining that he was a wizard, born in Hrothvek but long gone from there. Ghosh was wary of all his talking. People who started off with so much talking usually thought they were paying in advance for something.
In one of the pau
ses, Ghosh said, "Ciellon isn't a Hrothvekan name," and was surprised at herself for saying such a dangerous thing.
"No. It comes from a Farlander myth. Ciellon is the herald who leads the Brightmetal Gods when they go forth at the end of time, for their last battle with the Gods of Rust and Sand. Bit pompous, I suppose. Ciellon isn't even very smart, for a god. He's the first to die, of a Rusty arrow through the heart…. Look, there's Crookneck Zal." He pointed at a cormorant, taking off from the reeds. "Our innkeeper's name. Excuse me; names are a hobby of mine, but I don't know yours. Can you tell me the meaning of 'Ghologhosh'?"
Ghosh blinked. She had been calling herself that ever since she was small, and no one had ever asked why. "He's a god too," she said. "The God of Throwaway Curses, the ones people don't really mean. He's not much of a god now, but every time someone says 'Kosker and Pharo!' or 'by the Red Faith, from pole to pole!' he gets stronger."
Ciellon's smile was absolutely joyful. Ghosh wondered suddenly if she had given up part of her soul to the magician, by giving up her name. "But that's wonderful!" the wizard said, and began to laugh. After a moment he stopped, wiping tears from his eyes, and looked across the Saltmarsh.
"Come walk with me a little while longer, Ghologhosh," Ciellon said, his voice again preoccupied and faraway. "Jagg, go on back. We'll be all right."
Jagg left. Ciellon stood up and gestured with his cane. Ghosh supposed they were headed for a nice sloppy tumble in the marsh. That was all right. She'd paid more for breakfast.
But all they did was walk, and talk. Ciellon seemed to know everything about the marsh: the names of fifty kinds of reeds, "all slender, all supple, like your friend Cadie"; where to turn over rocks to send outlandish creatures scuttling toward the safety of the sea, how to get seven skips from a flung flat stone.
Ghosh found herself forgetting the loss of last night. All she wanted to know was what she could not ask—what did Ciellon want?
She thought, just maybe, she knew. Maybe he just wanted to talk. Maydee Gai at the House of Blue Leaves had once told her that many of the customers wanted nothing more, and paid for nothing more. Ghosh had never met anyone like that. She had certainly never been touched by one.
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