Red Tide Read online

  “What does it matter? We got the job done.” He seemed anxious to change the subject. “It’s all arranged with the Whitecap. A bell or two to load up—”

  “We’re not leaving,” Amerel cut in. “Not yet.”

  “Oh? Some sights around the city you haven’t seen yet?”

  “We have another appointment with Talet—though he doesn’t know it yet.”

  “You’re going to kill him?”

  Amerel looked at him askance. “Careful with that intuition of yours. You might cut someone with it.”

  Noon’s expression hardened. “What’s the matter, Princess? Is condemning an entire city not enough that you need Talet’s blood on your hands as well?”

  “Blood washes off, I’ve found.” Sometimes it didn’t even leave a stain.

  The Breaker stared at some profanity carved into his bed’s headboard. Maybe he was seeking to draw wisdom from it. “Talet doesn’t have to die. If you’re worried about him talking, bring him back to Erin Elal with us. It isn’t as if he can do any more good here.”

  “And if Galantas is watching him? Or someone sees him leave with us? How far do you think we’ll get before we’re run down by that metal-hulled ship?” The darkness bordering her vision started to close in, and she blinked her eyes against it. “Talet has to die. You know it as well as I do.”

  “Maybe.” The Breaker looked like he’d swallowed something that disagreed with him. The truth, perhaps. “Doesn’t mean I have to like it, though.”

  “And you think I do?”

  “No, of course not. I’m sure those bags under your eyes came from you wrestling with your conscience all night.”

  “Ah, my conscience, is that what’s bothering you? Don’t worry, I try not to let it bother me.” It certainly hadn’t in Arap, or in Helin, or in a dozen other cities on a dozen other missions. In any case, how did conscience figure into it when you were doing the will of the emperor? What task could be less than honorable when it advanced the empire’s cause? “Talet has to die—you as good as admitted it. When he’s cold in the ground, do you think it’ll matter to him who put him there? Or whether we wrung our hands over his grave?”

  “It should matter to you, Princess.”

  Should it? Amerel wasn’t so sure. Maybe it had once, before she’d killed her first man on the road to Kerin, but after the second, or the third, or the tenth? “Next time there’s an Eremo to eliminate, who do you want lining him up in the crossbow’s sights? Someone who keeps their finger steady on the trigger? Or someone who hesitates and lets the moment pass?”

  “Right,” Noon said, “we can all sleep better knowing you’re the one who’s got our fate in your hands.”

  “And you’re cut from a superior cloth, are you?” Amerel held his gaze. “You know how it goes. You draw your line in the sand, you step over it a couple of times, but you tell yourself you had good reason. Then one day you find the line has blurred, or is somewhere else entirely—if it exists at all.”

  “And you’re okay with that?”

  The Guardian shrugged. It didn’t matter if she was or she wasn’t; it was too late to do anything about it. Much easier to slide down a slippery slope than to climb back up after. And Amerel didn’t think she had the strength to make the attempt.

  “Why do you do it if you don’t believe in the cause?” Noon asked. “Why haven’t you walked away before now?”

  Amerel spread her arms to take in the room with its peeling paint and its scuttling bloodroaches. “What, and give all this up?”

  The Breaker muttered something under his breath.

  A man’s yelp sounded from the room below, somewhere between pleasure and pain. Hard to tell the two apart sometimes. Then something caught Amerel’s eye, and she froze. Something under the door.

  A piece of parchment.

  Her skin prickled. A message? That hadn’t been there when Noon returned, meaning someone must have come and gone while she was talking to the Breaker. And overheard their conversation, perhaps?

  Noon picked up the note. The parchment had been sealed with wax. He broke the seal and unfolded the paper to read the message inside. His brows knitted. “It’s from Talet,” he said. “He wants to meet us at the third bell at his house in the Old Town. There’s a map showing how to get there.”

  “The message is genuine?”

  “Signature looks right. And there are no keywords to suggest anything amiss.”

  But the doubt in Noon’s voice said he wasn’t taking any comfort in that. A meeting in daylight, and at Talet’s home besides? Why not here at the brothel, where the spy’s presence could be easily explained? That was why he’d chosen this dump in the first place, wasn’t it? And why in four bells’ time instead of now?

  A mystery, then, but not one Amerel was minded to dwell on. If Dresk or Galantas knew she was here, they’d be breaking down her door, not setting a trap in the Old Town. Maybe Talet had something to share about what Dresk was planning to do next. Maybe the third bell was the soonest he could meet.

  If that was all there was to it, she should be grateful that he had spared her the trouble of tracking him down.

  * * *

  Standing beside the Spider, Romany watched Artagina pace along the far side of the temple courtyard. He was bellowing at a congregation of more than a hundred. The Olairians sat in silence amid a haze of heat, seemingly spellbound, and there must have been a certain sorcery to Artagina’s words that he could have duped so many with them. Were there ever times, Romany wondered, when the priest was bewitched by his own lie? Did a part of him believe in his imaginary Lord? Or was he no more than the fraud she took him for, prostituting his passion to sustain the rotten edifice he had built around him? His sermon today was about faith, fittingly. He was telling his flock not to be concerned if their prayers were met by silence, for it was only in silence that true belief could be tempered.

  True belief and true delusion both.

  Romany looked around the courtyard. The temple of the Lord of Hidden Faces bore no resemblance to the Spider’s temple in Mercerie. The shrine here was half derelict. Then there was the small matter of all the men cluttering up the place. The biggest difference, though, was in the absence of children. The Spider only ever took youngsters into her service. Adults could convert to the goddess’s faith, of course, but none of them ever became priestesses. Why? Because the Spider liked to guide her disciples from an early age—to mold them into tools that she could use in her various concerns.

  As Romany herself had been molded, perhaps?

  Never! No hand, however subtle, could have steered the priestess’s course without her knowledge.

  During a pause in Artagina’s speech, the Spider said, “The high priest has heard about your appointment as Mazana’s adviser. You can imagine how surprrrised he was at the news. His own priestess elevated to the emira’s right hand, and he the last to know about it. He has told one of his lieutenants to call on you at the palace later. But I don’t suppose that’s something you’ll have to worry about, considering where you’re going.”

  The goddess was smirking, fully aware of how much Romany detested sea travel. Mazana had arranged a crossing to Gilgamar, and her ship was due to leave in a bell’s time. Though Romany hadn’t completely abandoned the hope that she might find a way to miss it.

  “Strangely,” the Spider went on, “Artagina’s opposition to the emira has waned since he discovered he has a seat at the top table, albeit vicariously. This morning he had the gall to issue an edict in Mazana’s name, outlawing the practice of any religion other than his own.”

  “Thus usurping the same authority he was decrying only yesterday.”

  “The man’s presumption is truly humbling.”

  Romany thought she heard admiration in the Spider’s tone. “A presumption you have fueled by allowing him to remain in this temple.”

  The goddess appeared not to hear. “Did you know he has started making predictions? Apparently I need to clear my dia
ry for next week, because anyone caught worshiping another deity then will be struck down by the Lord himself.”

  “And what happens when his god fails to show?”

  The Spider looked at her as if she were simple. “Why, he makes a new prediction, obviously.”

  “And his followers simply forget about the first one?”

  “Of course. Since the alternative would mean questioning the high priest’s legitimacy, and thus the legitimacy of their own faith too.”

  That note of appreciation in the Spider’s voice was back—more appreciation, come to think of it, than Romany had ever received from the goddess. She glared at Artagina through her mask’s eye slits. Damned upstart! How would he react if he were ever to be confronted about his scam? What would he do if he heard his “Lord’s” voice demanding that he confess his deceit? In fact, the more Romany considered it …

  “Since we’re talking about predictions,” she said to the Spider, “what are your thoughts about Jambar’s? Are the stone-skins truly the threat he claims?”

  The goddess shrugged. “I am not a fortune-teller, nor would I wish to be. Can you imagine how borrring this game would be if I could foresee all the results?”

  “Even if it means you are winning?”

  “Especially then. What is winning, after all, without the occasional defeat to put it in context?”

  Funny, the Spider had never tired of beating Romany in their clashes over a hafters board. “Who are these stone-skins? What is their interest here?”

  The goddess shrugged a second time. “Truth be told, I’ve never bothered extending my web to their homeland. Many years back, they outlawed the worship of any member of the pantheon, which makes it rather difficult to enlist them to my cause.”

  “If that’s the case, you must be keen to stop them spreading to this continent.”

  The Spider’s fingers fluttered. “Empires rise, empires fall.”

  “This particular empire happens to be home to a great many of your temples. Temples the stone-skins would no doubt tear down if they got the chance.”

  “Temples like your own, you mean.”

  “My temple, is it now?”

  The goddess chuckled.

  That chuckle must have come at an inappropriate moment in Artagina’s sermon, for a number of sets of disapproving eyes turned in the Spider’s direction, including the high priest’s own. The goddess waved a hand at him as if inviting him to continue, and after a heartbeat’s silence he did as he was bid.

  Romany had waited long enough to discuss the events of last night. She told the Spider about what had happened in the cell. “The blade Mazana took from Darbonna … did you know it existed?”

  “No. I can’t be expected to keep track of all of Fume’s toys.”

  “And if you had known, you would have warned me, of course.”

  “There is that.”

  “Does blood extracted with the knife carry greater power than blood extracted with a normal blade?”

  “Darbonna evidently thought so. And if anyone should know, it was she.”

  “Our course seems clear, then. You wanted to know if Mazana was feeling Fume’s influence. From what happened last night, I’d say she is positively drunk on it.”

  The Spider looked at her. “I must say, you seem much more comfortable in condemning her now than you were when we last spoke.”

  “The woman’s a monster!”

  “Because she disposed of one of her enemies?”

  “She didn’t just dispose of her, she tortured her!”

  “Whereas a knife thrust to the heart would have been entirrrely ethical.”

  Romany sniffed. The Spider’s sermonizing was becoming as tiresome as Artagina’s. “Do you disagree with my conclusion, then, about the danger she poses? Are you going to wait until she starts pulling legs off spiders to act?”

  The goddess was a while in replying, and that pause left Romany feeling strangely uneasy. The Spider never had to think about a question. “No, I don’t disagree,” she said at last. “But as to the precise time that we move against her, I will leave that to you. The effect of Fume’s spirit should be slow to build, and it seems a shame to remove one of my own pieces from the board before I’ve had a chance to extract full value from it.” She smiled. “But we can discuss that in more detail another time. Don’t let me keep you any longer. Wouldn’t want you to miss that ship to Gilgamar, now, would we?”

  * * *

  Ebon followed Peg Foot down a mud track scarred by wagon ruts. Moments ago, they’d left the tree-lined main avenue running east to west through Gilgamar with its orderly traffic and its armed patrols. The stone buildings had been replaced by ones made from wood and mud bricks. Everywhere Ebon looked, there were men and women sprawled in the shadows, drunk or drugged, while redbeaks watched from the rooftops, waiting to see which of the sleepers did not wake.

  Peg Foot took a right turn into a road half blocked by the debris of a collapsed building. From the opposite direction came two women pulling a handcart piled with bodies as if the plague were in town. Beyond, an old man crooned to himself as he stirred up the dust with a broom of twigs. Ebon had to raise a sleeve to cover his nose and mouth. The smell of charcoal filled the air, along with the ever-present burned-sweet scent that Peg Foot had identified to him as tollen.

  The Gilgamarian halted outside a wooden building with a door studded with metal bolts. Inside, a dog yapped.

  “Here we are,” Peg Foot said, gesturing to the door.

  Ebon approached without hesitation. Perhaps he should have been more cautious, but overconfidence was the curse of the power he’d inherited—as dangerous, most likely, as whatever awaited him within. Besides, would nervousness serve him any better when he confronted “the man” Peg Foot had arranged this audience with?

  The door had a scuffed sill a handspan tall, and Ebon stepped over it. He found himself in a room with a bar to his left manned by a barman wearing a bloodstained apron. Three men stood at the bar hunched over their cups, while another man sat against the wall opposite, stroking a one-eared mongrel dog. Half a dozen battered tables were scattered about the room. At one sat a young woman in a corset, plaiting her hair into pigtails. At another was a huge man with a bald, egg-shaped head, wearing a waistcoat with bulging buttons. He was eating a slice of bread and butter with a knife and fork.

  Ebon drew up. Vale had entered behind him, but not Peg Foot, and no one inside the bar acknowledged his presence. So what next? He didn’t have a name or even a description to work with. He hesitated before crossing to the bald man’s table. The stranger’s fork stopped halfway to his lips. He stared at Ebon, then gave a half smile and opened his mouth to reveal a set of pristine white teeth … and no tongue.

  Great. This should be fun, trying to hold a conversation with a man who couldn’t talk.

  “Over here,” a female voice said, and it took Ebon a moment to register that the speaker was the woman in the corset. So she was his contact? Not what he’d been expecting, but perhaps that was the point.

  He sat across from her, putting his back to the bar. The woman had a heart-shaped face and wide brown eyes. Attractive in a way, though there was nothing of Lamella about her. She was young—maybe just a girl in truth—and the pigtails made her look younger still, yet there was a weariness to her expression that her makeup could not conceal.

  “So you’re ‘the man,’ are you?” Ebon said.

  The woman giggled. “Silly. Don’t you know what these are?” And she put her hands under her breasts and pushed them up.

  Ebon shifted in his chair. “I believe so. My escort may need educating, though.”

  Under the table the woman’s foot touched Ebon’s leg. “My name is Tia. And yours is?”

  There seemed no reason to withhold it. “Ebon.”

  “Ebon,” she repeated. “You’re a stranger to Gilgamar, yes? Your accent gives you away.”

  The prince kept his silence.

  The woman’s foot c
rept higher up his leg. “Our voices say so much about us,” she said. “Not just our accents, but also the way we use words, the precision of our diction. Our hands, too.” She took his right hand in hers and turned it to inspect the palm. “See? Your hand tells me you are accustomed to holding a sword, but that you’ve never pulled a plow or loosed a sail.”

  “Neither have you.”

  Tia’s foot stroked his thigh. “Ah, but that is where the similarities between us end. For you are a man of breeding, aren’t you? A man of refinement.”

  “So I keep trying to tell people.” Time to move the conversation on. “I need to get into the Upper City. I was told you could help.”

  Tia paid him no mind, still gazing at his palm. She traced the path of a barely perceptible line that ran down from his middle finger. “This is the fate line,” she said. “It tells me more about your life than all the other lines combined. A straight line is rare, for it shows someone who follows the course that fate has set for him. Boring. Where the line breaks up toward the top of the hand, as yours does, it shows a person who struggles against his destiny.”

  Ebon held her gaze, waiting. Her right hand had dropped beneath the table.

  “Your left hand will tell me more, of course”—she reached for it—“for while the right shows how your reality differs from your desires, the left shows—”

  Her right hand suddenly reappeared from under the table, driving something silver toward Ebon’s exposed left palm. There had been no tensing of her body, no tell in her eyes to reveal her intent. But the prince had been expecting the move, all the same. His right hand snapped out to seize her wrist. The knife she was holding stopped a short distance from his palm. Tia struggled against him for an instant, her teeth bared, the muscles in her forearm standing proud.

  Ebon’s strength was greater than hers, though, and he held her fast.

  From behind him came the whisper of steel as Tia’s men drew their swords. The tongueless man pushed himself to his feet. Vale moved up to flank Ebon.

  Ebon ignored them all. He tightened his grip on Tia’s wrist, digging his fingers into her flesh until she surrendered her hold on the knife. It clattered to the table. Ebon released the woman and scooped it up.