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Chapter Nine


No windows overlooked the plaza where the Headless Took stood. What light there was shone down directly from the moon overhead, filling the center of the square, painting the statue and the well beneath its feet with a ghostly nimbus.

Beside the fountain stood two figures. Indrajit approached, followed by the other Protagonists.

“Remember to play stupid,” he whispered to Adakles.

The Wixit slumped further, melting over Indrajit’s shoulder.

Thoat stood beside the fountain. Slightly in front of and blocking access to the little tea merchant was a Fanchee woman in a toga. Under the light of the moon, the toga could have been red, purple, or even blue.

It had to be the same Fanchee. Which was to say, not a Fanchee at all, but a sorcerer or a shape-changer of some unknown race.

“You are Indrajit and Fix,” the Fanchee said. Her voice was high-pitched and rasping, and didn’t sound like a Fanchee’s at all. “And the dog-man.”

“We’re here to make a trade,” Fix said. “And to get your directions.”

The Fanchee handed Indrajit a folded sheet of paper. Indrajit took it, resisting the urge to tear it into shreds.

“Frozen hells, you too?” he muttered.

“They are the magicians’ guild,” Fix pointed out.

“Yes, magicians,” Indrajit snapped. “So they could send little talking images to tell us what we need to know. Or plant the ideas in our minds directly. Or cause the Headless Took to speak and address us.”

“The Headless Took has no mouth,” Fix said.

“It was just an example,” Indrajit grumbled.

“And paper is cheaper.”

“Paper is cheap,” Indrajit said. “But that rationale will cause it to replace everything, everywhere—paper houses, paper clothes, paper food, paper shoes.”

“Those things might serve perfectly well,” Fix pointed out.

“Do you two fight all the time?” the Fanchee asked.

“Sometimes we fight other people,” Indrajit said. “Not that it’s any business of yours.”

“The bracer.” The Fanchee held out her hand.

Indrajit drew the jewel-encrusted gold from his pocket.

“Bolt told us to warn you,” Fix said.

The Fanchee and Indrajit both paused.

“About what?” the Fanchee asked.

“He said that you absolutely should not try to wear or use this armband,” Fix said.

“Right,” Indrajit added. “Under no circumstances.”

“It might be dangerous,” Fix said.

“Dangerous . . . how?” the Fanchee asked.

“He didn’t say.” Fix shrugged. “He just said it was dangerous.”

“He said to bring it straight to him,” Indrajit said. “No delay.”

“His very words.” Fix nodded. “No delay.”

“I run all my errands without delay,” the Fanchee said. “Not that it’s any business of yours.”

“Good,” Indrajit said. “So hand over the Wixit.”

The Fanchee stood still.

“The Wixit,” Fix said. “Thoat.”

“Did he say anything else about the bracer?” the Fanchee asked.

“No,” Indrajit said.

“Nothing.” Fix shrugged.

“Do you know where it came from?”

“We stole it,” Fix said. “From a very powerful wizard.”

“A wealthy wizard,” Indrajit said, “more to the point. A wizard with large piles of gold and jewels.”

“Rich,” Fix said. “Hand over the Wixit.”

With a single motion, the Fanchee reached back, grabbed Thoat by his furry shoulder, and tossed him stumbling toward Fix, snatching the armband from Indrajit at the same time. Fix picked up the stupefied tea merchant.

“Good luck.” The Fanchee spun about and marched into the dark alley at the back of the plaza. At the last moment, the red toga rose and the Fanchee seem to inflate into something large and misshapen. Then she disappeared.

“You hope she tries the bracer on and it punishes her,” Indrajit said.

“Yes. I took the initiative mostly because it seemed like a good thing to do.”

“Yeah, I agree. What does the paper say?”

Indrajit lowered Adakles to the ground. The young Wixit examined his father, pinching his cheek, shaking him by the elbows, and shouting into his face. Thoat didn’t respond.

Fix unfolded the paper and read out loud. “‘We have bound a portal using the front door of Thoat’s tea shop. The portal opens into the hidden palace of Megistos, Lord Dean of the Collegium Arcanum. He expects your delivery of the bottle-imp.’”

“Unspoken,” Indrajit said, “we expect your delivery of the Dagger of Slaying.”

“I don’t like it,” Fix said, “but I don’t see how else we rescue Thoat here.”

Indrajit nodded. “Ironic that they’d use Thoat’s door.”

“It makes sense, maybe,” Fix said, “if the magicians needed to use a door that wasn’t going to be inadvertently opened by someone else. You wouldn’t want random street traffic just walking into the Lord Dean’s palace, and Thoat’s tea shop is closed.”

“What do we do with the Wixits?” Munahim added. “It’s not safe to bring them with us.”

“It’s not safe to leave them anywhere else, either,” Indrajit said. “Especially with Thoat in a stupor. I think we have to carry them with us and protect them.”

“I can walk, at least,” Adakles said.

“Safest if you don’t,” Fix said. “In case we’re observed. But we’ll set you down out of the way before any fighting starts.”

“If I have a choice,” Adakles said, “I want the Kyone to carry me. It’s nice to snuggle against his fur.”

“That’s what they all say,” Indrajit said.

“Like a mama Wixit,” Fix suggested.

The three Protagonists hoisted the two Wixits and they began their trudge toward the Spill. “You have the dagger?” Indrajit asked.

“I do,” Fix said. “You have the bottle?”

“I do, and I remember how to use it.”

With brief whispered coordination, they chose an indirect route. It allowed them to take smaller streets and even alleys—though alleys in the Crown were as wide as streets in the other quarters and as wide as a boulevard in the Dregs—to double back on their trail and watch for anyone following them. They saw jobbers on patrol as constables, very elegant streetwalkers, and even a second-story man, creeping across the peak of a high rooftop, but no tails.

The jobbers at the gate waved them through into the Spill without comment, not even asking about the apparently unconscious Wixits.

“If none of this is real,” Indrajit said, “if none of the events of the past day actually happened, but instead we imagined them in a drugged state . . . why is our client unconscious?”

“Our client is drugged,” Fix said. “If anything, that’s evidence that we might also have been drugged.”

“But who did it?” Indrajit asked. “Why would someone drug poor Thoat?”

“Remember what brought us here,” Fix said. “We were warned that young Adakles was in danger from the Collegium Arcanum. Which certainly seems to have been true. He had been kidnapped and drugged.”

“By the Bolt faction.”

“If the Bolt faction exists,” Fix said. “Put into a stupor by someone. Were you in a stupor, Adakles?”

“I was.”

“What was it like?” Indrajit asked. “Were you conscious of things around you? Were you conscious of standing on a clifftop when we found you, for instance?”

“I don’t remember that,” Adakles said. “I remember coming out of the stupor on Adunummu’s tower. That felt like waking up.”

“You felt as if you had been asleep,” Indrajit pressed.

“Yes.”

“See, I never felt as if I were asleep,” Indrajit said. “So whatever happened to me, I don’t think it’s the same thing that happened to Adakles. I’ve been awake and conscious. And, I think, in Hith.”

“Hmm,” Fix said. “Perhaps different drugs were used on us.”

“Perhaps no drugs,” Indrajit suggested.

“Perhaps no drugs,” Fix agreed. “But still, the bizarrely flexible nature of reality we’ve seen today suggests that reality might be something different from what we imagined.”

“How so?”

“Reality seems to be something like a stage. Actors walk on and walk off and most of the time we stay in scene, but once in a while, a director or stage manager whisks away all the furniture and scenery and moves us to a different stage.”

“Someone is in charge of reality and can just move us around at a whim,” Indrajit said.

“Yes.”

“The gods.”

“No, that’s not what I mean.” Fix considered. “I mean, what if the world really is like a play, but it isn’t the gods who manipulate us. We’re manipulated by more powerful men. Men who can apparently move us from one place to another at whim.”

“All you’re saying is magicians,” Indrajit said. “But again, you’re going to tell me, magicians who don’t have magic, they have devices. Or skill.”

“Yes.”

“You see gods and wizards at work in your own life, and you insist that it must be men. Who are just more powerful than you are, and you can’t explain how they effect their deeds.”

“And you just call those same men gods, and give up trying to explain how they do it.”

“Sometimes, I feel we’re at an impasse because we’re saying the same idea, but you insist on using entirely different words.”

Fix laughed. “I would say precisely the same thing.”

“I don’t care whether it was magic or craft or the gods,” Indrajit said. “Something has moved us around multiple times today. And it seems it’s going to happen to us at least once more.”

“Twice,” Fix said. “We’re going to come back from seeing the Lord Dean.”

“Twice,” Indrajit agreed.

“Maybe it’s too much,” Fix said. “Maybe we should cut our losses now. Leave Thoat to his son. Walk away from the money.”

“I don’t feel like I’m doing this for the money,” Indrajit said. “I don’t feel like I’m doing any of it for the money.”

“What for, then?” Fix asked. “Good client relations?”

“I don’t mind that at all,” Indrajit said. “I like that people find us reliable and competent. What bothers me is the part of our reputation according to which, apparently, we are patsies. I don’t want to be a patsy.”

“You aren’t a patsy,” Fix said. “You are a noble warrior and a poet, with the soul of a hero.”

“Well.” Indrajit felt suddenly embarrassed. “Well, yes. That is what I am trying to be. So I am going to save my client, but not because I need to get paid. Or not only because I need to get paid.”

“It’s nice to eat,” Fix said.

“I’m going to save him because that’s what a hero would do.”

“Have you guys not eaten?” Adakles asked.

“Ah . . . not recently,” Indrajit said. “We’ve been distracted.”

“I considered asking Adunummu for food,” Munahim said. “But I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to trust it.”

“Stop here,” Adakles said. They stood before a corner tavern. The smell of Pelthite spices on roasting lamb and fish wafted out. “Let’s eat.”

“But your father,” Indrajit said.

“He would want you to eat,” Adakles said, raising his head from Munahim’s shoulder. “You may need your strength tonight.”

Within the tavern, they sat Thoat upright between Fix and his son, on a dark wooden bench circling a booth in the back. Munahim and Indrajit sat on stools; with their larger frames, they shielded the Wixits from view, and between Munahim’s hearing and sense of smell and Indrajit’s peripheral vision, they could monitor the tavern pretty well. A droggerherd, a ship’s captain, and drovers from somewhere on the Endless Road dozed over their own meals, each leaving the others well enough alone.

Indrajit had never tasted more delicious roast lamb in his life. It came with crispy brown bread and root vegetables.

He was careful to restrain himself from overeating, knowing that he had a fight coming up, maybe within the hour.

Adakles paid for the food and bought a skin of wine to take with them.

“Okay.” Indrajit swallowed the last bit of bread, soaked in olive oil, lamb fat, and herbs. “Let’s go see the Lord Dean.”


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