by D. J. Butler
She reached down and grabbed his unresisting hand, then hoisted him to his feet. “Hold this,” she said to him in a rasping voice in the low bass range, and she pressed the bundle of flowers into his palm. “Sniff it.”
Warm waves, warm air. And he felt an irresistible urge to do as Ilsa had told him.
Indrajit sniffed the flowers, and his head cleared. Where was Fix?
“There’s a trap door,” the singer growled. “We can get beneath the stage.”
Indrajit shook his head. “Time to get you out of here,” he said. “I think these guys are trying to kill you.”
“They are only men, after all.” She shrugged, nictitating membrane fluttering, the tops of her eyes just visible from this angle through the ruins of her singing mask. “Did Orem send you?”
“No, I work for the risk-seller. Or the reseller, rather. Repurchaser? I think.”
Ilsa without Peer laughed, and her golden vocal tones returned.
The Luzzazza and the Grokonk female were trying to climb each other to stand, and getting in each other’s way, instead.
“This way!” Indrajit whispered, and dragged Ilsa with him.
“Beneath the stage,” she said again. “There’s an exit that only I know.”
Indrajit had already picked his way out, and didn’t want to risk getting lost. He dragged the singer along by main force. “There’s an exit this way!”
“To my dressing room, then!” She pointed.
“No time!” He panted.
“If you want to hide me,” she rasped, “I can’t go outside looking like this.”
Good point.
Indrajit stood in the door of her dressing room for just ten seconds while she tore off her stage helmet and glittering train and threw on a black hooded robe. He noted a pair of windows, open and facing out onto the street. Cool night air, painted yellow by torches and oil lanterns, drifted in from the Crown.
“I hope you’re good with that sword,” she croaked. “I’m unarmed.”
“I’m excellent,” he lied. “Positively heroic.”
He also had no idea where to go. The shared garret where he’d been sleeping on a pile of rags in the corner? Though he was in arrears there, and the landlady, a three-legged woman with a bloblike, trembling knob of flesh on a long stalk that hung before her like an esca, might not let him in. The Blind Surgeon, where apparently his credit had been restored? Holy-Pot’s office?
The last idea seemed to be the most commonsensical—Holy-Pot had resources and knowledge—but he wouldn’t be in his office at night, would he? And Indrajit had no idea where the risk-merchant lived.
“This way!” He grabbed her hand again and they ran down the stairs. He was leading their charge toward the tradesman’s entrance when a man in a gray tunic leaped into his path. He emerged from a hall that reached the door at right angles to Indrajit’s. He was the fair-skinned man—Ukeling or Karthing, or maybe Ildarian, since those river-valley dwellers of Ildarion had northern blood in their veins—and he held a long, straight sword in each hand.
Pink Face the doorman shrieked and ran.
A Sword Brother, indeed. Indrajit groaned.
The Sword Brotherhood’s name made it sound like a monastic order, but in fact it was a martial art. The warriors who mastered it were sworn to ancient ideals of justice and poverty, or maybe they had secret masters directing them from an underground kingdom, or perhaps they were mere mercenaries.
Sword Brother or not, the pale man standing in front of the door looked grimly competent in his stance, and he wasn’t budging.
The Sword Brother growled. Lowering his chin to his own sternum, he inhaled deeply, and Indrajit saw a sprig of the same flower he held in his hand, pinned to the top of the man’s linothorax like a blotch of yellow and green paint.
Ilsa without Peer dropped her hood.
The Sword Brother flinched and Indrajit attacked.
For a moment, he had the upper hand. He knew his own limitations as a fighter, and kept to strictly utilitarian strokes, aiming for the center of the man’s mass, putting his weight behind blows that would, if he landed them, be fatal.
But the Sword Brother twisted aside, so the blow that should have stabbed him to the heart skidded along his ribs instead, and then he battered aside Indrajit’s second attack, and then suddenly both longs swords were flashing for Indrajit’s head.
Indrajit stepped in front of Ilsa. After a couple of deflected slashes, he found he barely had the speed and energy to parry the blows that came at him and keep his body between Ilsa and the Sword Brother, and no capacity to attack.
It was a matter of time before one of the Sword Brother’s blows got through.
And then the Sword Brother caught Indrajit’s leaf-shaped blade between his two swords. Stepping forward and cranking his blades in a circular motion, he ripped Indrajit’s sword from his hand and to the ground.
Then the Sword Brother lunged forward—
And a spear hit him in the side.
The spear was thrust, not thrown, and Fix followed through his attack. The short brown Kishi emerged from the same hallway from which the Sword Brother had come, at a full sprint.
A man with slower reflexes would have been impaled through the gut and died horribly. The Sword Brother, caught by surprise, still managed to turn and avoid the worst of Fix’s blow. Still, Fix’s onslaught was so fierce that it knocked him to the ground and tore both his weapons from his hands. As the Sword Brother fell, Fix kneed him in the groin, elbowed him in the throat, and then punched him repeatedly in the face.
The Sword Brother groaned and passed out.
Indrajit picked up his leaf-bladed sword.
“Where did you leave Ilsa?” Fix asked.
“I’m Ilsa,” Ilsa croaked.
Fix frowned and cocked his head quizzically.
“I’m Ilsa,” Ilsa sang in her golden voice, and Fix’s eyes grew wide.
Indrajit snatched the sprig of flowers from the Sword Brother’s linothorax and clapped it over Fix’s mouth. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”
Chapter Six
“I guess one of the things you studied that got you thrown out of the Trivials was martial arts,” Indrajit said.
They stood looking around the corner of a building, back at the Palace of Shadow and Joy. In any other district of Kish, the street they stood on, passing between two tall, square buildings, would have been a filth-flooded alley, ringing with the calls of prostitutes and the heavy steps of footpads. Here in the Crown, it was a lane paved with cobblestones and wide enough for a carriage. The buildings were both residences, three stories tall, with the upper stories reveling in a profusion of balconies and broad windows. From one of those balconies, a narrow arch leaped over the lane, fusing with a balcony on the other side.
Ilsa without Peer looked intently at both men. Her hood was up and Indrajit and Fix each had a sprig of the Handlers’ flower pinned at the top of his tunic, so it was easy to think of the short, cloaked figure with extra-long fingers and gleaming eyes like pools of ice shining from the depths of her hood as a goblin.
But Indrajit couldn’t shake the memory of her haunting singing voice, or of the strange effect she’d had on him, evoking memories of his childhood.
Or of the strong desire he’d felt to obey her.
“I wasn’t thrown out.” Fix’s voice was gruff. “I quit.”
“What the Sword Brothers do is all based around bladed weapons. The Boneans have unarmed fighting styles.” Indrajit considered. “And I’ve heard that at the end of the Endless Road, there are strange kingdoms where no one uses any weapons at all, and they even fight their wars with kicks and punches.”
“You know what I’ve heard is at the end of the Endless Road?” Fix countered.
“What?”
“Nothing. It’s endless.”
Indrajit scanned the street. Men in gray tunics had come running out of the Palace, but they had all run in wrong directions. He was wait
ing just a few moments more to be certain they weren’t followed, and then he’d lead them off.
Really, the jobber company couldn’t be named the Fixers.
“So what do you call your fighting style?” he pressed.
“I call it knock them down and kick them. Advantages of reach and size go away when the other fellow is lying on the ground.”
“I’m glad you arrived in time.” Indrajit was teasing, but he was grateful. “How long did it take you to go turn in your chit and get your spear back?”
Fix grunted and hefted the weapon in question. “The Handlers were armed. I took the spear from one of them, Little Hort.”
Ilsa without Peer spoke in her grinding voice. “I’m grateful for the rescue. Can I know your names?”
“I’m Indrajit Twang. This is Fiximon Nasoprominentus Fascicular.”
“Oh, a literate man?” the singer asked.
“Fix,” Fix said. “Just Fix.”
“Fix, then. And Indrajit. But if we stand here in the street, sooner or later someone is going to find us.”
Indrajit and Fix looked at each other.
“I’m not sure who attacked me,” she continued, “but if they knew where to find me on the stage, they might just as easily know where to find me at home. So I’d like a safe place to spend the night.”
“The thing is,” Fix started to say.
“Yes.” Indrajit cut him off.
He led them directly away from the Palace of Shadow and Joy in a straight line, as fast as they could walk. He didn’t want to hail a sedan or a carriage, for fear of who might already be inside. Ideally, he’d have liked to walk toward the Spill, and hide somewhere near Holy-Pot Diaphernes’s office, but that would have required passing the Palace again, and the thought made him nervous.
So instead, they went the opposite direction, toward the Lee. The Lee housed the city’s second-tier wealthy, as well as some of its more popular civic institutions—racetracks, ball courts, and markets. Beyond its gates lay the Caravanserai, the great bazaar facing the landward side of Kish, where horses and camels were traded and provisioned, and where the most exotic goods were bought and sold.
Not too bad. Much better the Lee than the Dregs, given the chance.
They passed under the Spike, with its five temples. Indrajit didn’t love the silence, so he broke it. “Which of the five gods shall we pray to, then?”
“There are far more than five gods,” Fix said.
“Pedant. I know that. Ten thousand or a hundred thousand, depending on how you like your proverbs. But of those five,” he pointed at the temples clinging to the Spike, “which?”
“I grew up singing the songs of Machak,” Ilsa growled.
“So did I,” Indrajit agreed. “He is Blaat’s favorite consort. But we’re about as far from the sea as we can get and still be in Kish. I was thinking maybe Hort Stormrider?”
“Or Spilkar the Binder,” Fix countered.
“Ah, that’s the one. May the Lord of Contracts ensure that we poor contract-men may fulfill our obligations tonight.”
“You said you work for a risk-merchant,” Ilsa reminded him.
“True. Holy-Pot Diaphernes, though there’s probably no reason you should know who he is.”
“I do not.”
“Do you know Mote Gannon?” Fix asked.
“I’ve heard the name. Were those his men, the jobbers in gray? The men who attacked me?”
“Yes.”
“What kind of name is Mote, anyway?” Indrajit snorted. “What, is he tiny?”
“I understand that it means something different in his race’s tongue,” Fix said.
“Oh? You learn languages from your fascicle, too?”
Fix was silent.
“What’s a fascicle?” Ilsa asked.
“Go on, impress us, what does it mean?” Indrajit was relieved to see the city’s wall and gate leading into the Lee rising out of the darkness ahead of them.
Fix shrugged. “Throw, I believe. Also perhaps vomit.”
“That sounds like a delightful language,” Indrajit said.
At the gate, three squads of bravos waited. They didn’t wear uniforms as such, but instead were dressed in consistent colors of clothing that was elegant and stylish, without getting in the way of practicality. There was a squad in blue, and one in white, and a third dressed in fuchsia. The men waiting at this gate hired themselves out as bodyguards to residents of the Crown who had business in other districts, especially at night.
The three companies here stood in a loose line, waiting more or less politely together for potential clients.
They said nothing to Indrajit and his companions—unsurprising, given how they were dressed. The leader of the first company, a man with blue puffed sleeves, a completely bald head, and skin the color of copper, hesitated as if he might speak to Ilsa, but then said nothing.
“Would you feel more comfortable if we hired a company of these men?” Ilsa croaked. “I have the money, and they are only men, after all.”
“Would you feel more comfortable?” Indrajit asked.
The singer looked at Fix. “No.”
The buildings on the far side of the gate were shorter, two stories tall at most. This street was lined with shops now closing for the evening.
“Speaking of delightful language,” Indrajit continued, “you seem to have two voices.”
“And one of them is delightful.” Ilsa threw her head back, her mouth opening unnaturally wide, and guffawed.
Indrajit was grateful for the darkness, which hid his blush. “My observation was more to the point that they are very different.”
“A scholar from the Hall of Guesses claims I have two voiceboxes. One works when I speak, and the other when I laugh or sing.”
“In your…throat?” Indrajit ventured.
“She’s not Grokonk,” Fix muttered.
“Yes,” she said.
“And they’re both…supposed to be voiceboxes?”
Ilsa fixed him with a cold stare. “What else would they be?”
Indrajit shrugged. “Just asking. Do all your race have two voiceboxes like you do?”
Ilsa was silent for a moment. “I don’t know anyone else of my people. They all died when I was a baby, and I alone was saved.”
In their short time together, Ilsa without Peer had led Indrajit to feel many things. Her words now added a deep and poignant sorrow to the list. “Rescued by whom? By the Palace of Shadow and Joy?”
“Yes,” Fix said. “Because in the off-season, opera house employees and unemployed actors wander the wild, trying to perform good deeds.”
“Why not?” Indrajit asked. “That’s exactly what Recital Thanes of the Blaatshi Epic do.”
Fix snorted.
“By Orem Thrush,” Ilsa said. “Who is one of the Palace’s more generous patrons, so you are not entirely wrong. He was a younger man then, a hunter and a warrior, and not yet Lord Chamberlain.”
“Interesting that he should be your rescuer, and also a patron of your art,” Fix said.
“My people were killed by a folk I had never seen before. Tall men, with thick hides and tusks like elephants. They were on the move, a race that had lost its own home and was intent on stealing someone else’s.”
“They stole yours.” Indrajit tried not to think of his own people.
“We lived in a valley above the sea. Hidden, we thought, from all other peoples, drinking fresh water from our rivers and eating the fish that swam in them. The attack came by night, and with fire, and in the morning my people were dead. I alone survived—my mother tossed me out the back window of our hut and then made a great commotion at the hut’s front door to draw attention. She was impaled with a spear, and then hurled, still alive, into the flames. I ran.”
Indrajit imagined the river valley of his own people, burning. He touched the sprig of yellow flower to make sure it was still in place and wiped a tear from one eye.
“Orem Thrush found me in the morning
. He was returning from a journey to Ildarion, or perhaps he had some business on the steppes of the Yuchak, and he saw the smoke. He and his men killed the tuskers, but I was the only survivor.”
“You were a child,” Fix said. “How old were you?”
Ilsa shrugged. “Too young to remember, and my people did not use the Kishite calendar, in any case. We counted seasons. I am in my thirties now.”
“Ilsa without Peer,” Indrajit murmured. “Unique in the world.”
“Destruction is one way to render a thing unique,” Ilsa said.
“Not our way, happily,” Indrajit said. “We are men of letters.”
“Only one of us can actually read, of course,” Fix said.
“Fine. Men of ideas.” He hesitated, because he had heard rumors, and didn’t want to give away the fact that he had heard them. “Is the Lord Chamberlain still involved in your…is he your patron?”
Ilsa chuckled, a sound like chains being dragged over a sheet of iron. “What have you heard? That I am his lover? His daughter? That I myself am in fact Orem Thrush, who secretly sings opera, but can only do it wearing a mask?”
“Well…” Indrajit said. “Yes.”
“This morning, if I had gotten lost on my way to the Palace of Shadow and Joy and you had offered to take me to the Lord Chamberlain, I would have accepted with gratitude. But tonight, someone tried to kill me, and I don’t know who.”
“And you can’t be certain it isn’t the Lord Chamberlain himself,” Fix added. “Do you have some cause of disagreement with him?”
“I have told him I will retire after this season.” The singer’s voice was hollow.
“He’s that attached to your singing on stage?” Fix pressed.
“He has an interest. He acts as my patron socially, but he is also my…you might call him my business manager. He and I share in the proceeds of ticket sales. When I quit singing, he will lose money. The Lord Chamberlain is very good at making money, and he is very attached to the money he makes.”
“You think he’d kill you?”
“I’d kill him,” Ilsa rasped. “If I had to.”
“Whoa.” Indrajit had not expected to have to unravel any mysteries, but he couldn’t protect Ilsa if he didn’t know whom to trust. “The Palace of Shadow and Joy also wouldn’t want you to quit, for much the same reason.”