Back | Next
Contents


Chapter Two


“It isn’t fair that the Kyone has a better sense of smell and also a better sense of hearing than other men,” Indrajit said. “The gods should have been more evenhanded in distributing their gifts.”

“Well, a fish rots from the head,” Fix said.

“What does that mean?”

“Kish is rotten,” Fix explained. “Perhaps her gods are rotten, too.”

Indrajit and Fix crouched atop the ceiling of a tailor’s shop, two stories above a narrow, stone-cobbled lane. The lane ended in a square, in the center of which stood a statue of a headless man, dressed in a toga and wearing rings on all its fingers. Water bubbled up in a spring between the Headless Took’s feet, and the circular trough that caught the water was filled with flower petals.

Thoat stood beside the statue, a basket of flowers slung over one arm. He picked petals from the flowers and dropped them one by one into the water, murmuring what might have been prayers. Other pilgrims also threw flowers, or circumambulated about the statue, or did both.

Munahim sat on a stone bench in the corner of the square, slumped back against the wall and feigning sleep as he kept an eye on the Wixit. Indrajit had urged the Kyone to hold a wineskin and pretend to be drunk, but Munahim had protested that he wasn’t drunk. Wasn’t much of a drinker, in fact. Never had been.

“Now that I think of it,” Indrajit said, “the gods have notably deprived the Kyone of the ability to lie. Sight and hearing notwithstanding, I find it astonishing that the race still exists.”

“Not everyone is a liar,” Fix said.

“On the King of Thunder Steppes, perhaps not. In Kish . . . ?”

“In Kish, even the epic poets become liars.”

“We do not become liars,” Indrajit said. “We have always been the best liars.”

“I thought the purpose of the Blaatshi Epic was to tell important truths,” Fix said.

“Not just important truths. The important truths. All of them. The high and holy calling of a Blaatshi Recital Thane is to tell all the truths a young Blaatshi must know to understand his place in the universe and to pass successfully through life. Which he does, in a very important sense, by lying.”

“Look.” Fix pointed.

A Fanchee woman wearing a red toga cautiously entered the square from the far side. She was green-skinned, with the mass of noodle-like appendages hanging off the lower half of her face that gave all Fanchee, male and female alike, a vaguely bearded appearance.

“Fanchee shouldn’t wear red,” Indrajit said. “Their skin is such an uncompromising shade of green, it really doesn’t match.”

“The assault on the eye does make for an effective signal,” Fix pointed out.

Munahim was doing an admirable job of restraining himself. The guileless Kyone no doubt wanted to leap up and seize the Fanchee immediately, but he lay still with his mouth hanging slightly open, tongue lolling to one side. His role was just to observe, to hear what was said, and then, if necessary, to track.

Thoat dumped the flowers on the street and bounded to meet the Fanchee.

“He doesn’t look very pious,” Indrajit said.

“Let us hope the Took doesn’t punish him.”

The Wixit shook as he confronted the green woman. He leaped up and down, his arms waving. Indrajit could hear squeaking sounds, but couldn’t make out any words.

Then Thoat sprang up onto the Fanchee. His jaws were splayed wide, much wider than Indrajit would have guessed possible, and his teeth were large enough to be visible from here. He gripped the front of the Fanchee’s toga and sank his teeth into her neck.

Except then the Wixit fell to the ground. He shuddered violently, back arching, and foam boiled up from his throat.

Munahim leaped to his feet and drew his long sword in a single fluid motion. Cripplingly honest or not, the dog-headed man was an impressive, even a terrifying, sight. He bore down on the Fanchee, snarling and raising his weapon.

Then Munahim pitched forward and crashed to the cobblestones.

The other worshippers of the Headless Took scattered, melting into alleys and rushing away into the Crown. The Fanchee stripped off her toga, but when she did, she was no longer Fanchee. Or a woman. Her body took on a gelatinous, translucent appearance and an arachnoid shape. Six legs instead of eight, but she—it—resembled a see-through spider more than anything else.

Indrajit drew his famous sword Vacho, the Voice of Lightning.

Fix held him by the arm. “Wait.”

“While it kills Munahim?”

“I don’t think it will.”

The spider rolled Thoat toward itself with two limbs and then raised Thoat bodily, placing the Wixit on its back. Thoat remained there, arms and legs to his side, as if he had become sticky.

Then the translucent spider took up the toga again and skittered toward an exiting alley. As it reached the alley mouth, its steps became longer and taller and its body rose, and then it was bipedal and whitish and sprouted insectoid arms out its shoulders. It raised the red fabric of the toga and threw it over its own shoulders, concealing Thoat from sight, just as it disappeared from the square.

“Munahim!” Indrajit cried.

They had climbed to this rooftop by a lead pipe on the other side of the building, but Indrajit had no time for that now. Sheathing his sword again, he lowered himself over the side of the building. Stretched to his full height, his feet were only eight or nine cubits from the ground. He dropped, rolled, and then rushed to the Kyone.

Munahim lay facedown, not breathing. Indrajit flipped him over and found his face thick with a transparent slime that covered his eyes and filled his mouth. Indrajit was about to wipe the slime off with his hand, but stopped. Had the slime knocked Munahim unconscious? Had the same slime reduced Thoat to a shuddering wreck?

He pulled up the edge of Munahim’s tunic and wiped the Kyone’s face. Munahim still didn’t breathe.

Fix rushed to Indrajit’s side.

“He’s dead,” Indrajit said.

“Not yet, he isn’t.” Fix knelt and pounded the Kyone in the chest with his joined hands.

Munahim coughed, spat up translucent goo, and inhaled.

“What was that thing?” Fix asked.

“A Fanchee.” Munahim retched, fighting to get breath.

“It was no Fanchee.” Fix shook his head. “It was bigger. And it had too many arms.”

“It started as a Fanchee,” Indrajit said. “Then it became an invisible spider.”

“It was never invisible,” Fix said.

“Practically.” Indrajit stood, scanning the alleyways. “In dim light, we wouldn’t have seen it. Then it knocked out two men, transformed itself into a Gund, and walked away. Obviously, it was a sorcerer.”

“You can tell because of its sorcerous power of walking away,” Fix said.

“Unscathed!” Indrajit snapped. “It was attacked by two men, and walked away unscathed!”

Munahim dragged himself to his feet, leaning on Fix. “I never attacked it. Not for lack of trying, but I charged and then . . . that’s all I remember.” He stooped to pick up his long sword.

“We have to follow it,” Indrajit said, “sorcerer or no. On top of the threat to young Adakles, now Thoat is kidnapped. Still not a princess, but close enough.”

“Given that Thoat has the money, he is the princess.” Fix gripped Munahim by the elbow. “Can you track the creature?”

Munahim sniffed, making a thick, clotted, snorting sound. “One moment,” he said. “You might want to look away.”

Indrajit failed to take the warning. Munahim leaned forward, hands on his knees, and exhaled sharply through his nose. Streams of thick goo spattered on the cobblestones and then the Kyone staggered to the fountain, immersing his face in the water and scrubbing himself vigorously with both hands.

“Welcome to Kish,” Indrajit said. “Everyone here is disgusting.”

“Except the Recital Thane,” Fix countered. “He’s disgusted.”

“A man must have standards,” Indrajit said. “Or a poet must, in any case.”

Munahim shook himself, splashing water all over the two senior Protagonists. Then he leaned forward, sniffing at the cobblestones. “There’s no Fanchee smell here.”

“There was no Fanchee,” Fix said.

“There was,” Indrajit said. “But it changed shape.”

“I can smell the Wixit,” Munahim said. “He also smells strongly of lang-lang berry tea.”

“That will do,” Indrajit said. “Follow the spoor of Thoat.”

“And if there’s a consistent accompanying musk,” Fix suggested, “remember it. That’s the monster.”

“Sorcerer,” Indrajit said. “Who may also have the power of changing scents.”

Munahim loped quickly down one of the alleys. Indrajit held his head high as he followed, worried they’d round the corner and bump into the Gund-Fanchee-spider-sorcerer at a pace that wouldn’t permit Indrajit to arm himself. But as Munahim turned the corner and emerged from the alley, they entered the Avenue of Golden Chariots, and plunged into heavy traffic.

Chariots passed them. So did rickshaws and carts and carriages. A lord in lacquered wooden armor rode at the head of a train of ladies in silk, all mounted on horses. Three Zalaptings led a string of Droggers against the flow of traffic, cursing as the clumsy, six-legged beasts bumped their shoulders against wagons and knocked a pot-bellied man in green to the stones. Tea and coffee shops shouted prices to lure in customers—here in the Crown, Kish’s most expensive quarter, they sometimes shouted higher prices as lures. A princeling with a feather in his felt cap led a group of seven other children on some sort of hunt, ducking and dodging among the many vehicles and pointing their fingers like weapons. A choir of initiates of Salish-Bozar the White, god of useless knowledge, stood against one wall, reciting a long series of facts. “Fresh shipment today!” a jeweler cried. “Pearls from Malik! Very rare, exclusive to Zump’s!”

Munahim slowed. He took more deliberate steps now, and at each step he sniffed several times.

“Focus,” Fix murmured. “Find the smell of Thoat.”

“We should have asked for more money up front,” Indrajit said. “We could have eaten, at least.”

“One of us ate two cakes,” Fix said mildly.

“They were terrible, though.”

“Was the whole thing about Adakles a trick?” Fix asked.

“You mean, was the letter faked? Did the sender really just want to kidnap Thoat?”

“Perhaps Adakles didn’t join the Collegium Arcanum at all.” Fix shrugged. “Maybe he signed on as a rower on a trading vessel and now he’s diving for pearls off Malik.”

“You see now?” Indrajit shook his head. “You can’t trust a written document.”

Munahim stopped in front of a door. “Thoat and the sour-smelling thing that has him went into this doorway.”

Indrajit examined the entrance. It didn’t look . . . right, somehow. The wall was the side of a large palace, one of the big palaces dotting the Crown. Often, they belonged to a single family, or to a guild, and they could comprise an entire city block, as this one seemed to. Generally, the palaces had no windows on the ground floor, and one or two entrances at most. The entrances were usually big enough to drive a wagon into, and gave access to an inner courtyard, and passed the office of a doorman or some similar official.

This was a simple wooden door, just big enough to accommodate a stooping Gund.

“Tradesman’s entrance?” Fix suggested.

“Wouldn’t it be on a side street, then?” Indrajit gestured at a passing carriage, and at a tea vendor across the street who carried his supply of piping-hot drink in a tank strapped to his back. “Rather than the avenue?”

“You’re saying magicians are strange.” Fix tried the handle of the door and it turned.

“Do we draw our weapons?” Munahim asked.

Indrajit looked at Fix and they both shrugged.

“Be prepared to draw,” Fix said. He opened the door and entered.

Munahim followed.

Indrajit scanned the street once, looking for any sign of pursuit or observation, and he saw none. Gripping the hilt of Vacho with one hand, he stepped through the doorway.


Back | Next
Framed