City of Blades (2 page)

“Well, you do have a funny way of following that dream,” says the woman, “since the second your foot falls on my property, the opposite is most likely to happen.”

There's a pause. The man with the unibrow whimpers again.

“Pitry,” says the woman.

“Yes?” says Pitry. As he's still facedown on the path, the word generates a lot of dust.

“Do you think you can get up and step over that idiot bleeding all over my road?”

Pitry stands, dusts himself off, and gingerly steps over the man with the unibrow, pausing to whisper, “Excuse me.”

“Gurudas?” asks the woman.

“Y-yes?” says the bearded man.

“Are you competent enough to come down here and pick up your friend and get his dumb ass back to your brother's shitshack of a tavern?”

The bearded man thinks about it. “Yes.”

“Good. Do it. Now. And if I ever see either of you again, I won't be so generous with where I stick you.”

The bearded man, careful to keep his hands visible, slowly walks down the path and gathers up his friend. The two of them hobble back down the path, though once they're about fifty yards away the man with the unibrow turns his head and bellows, “Fuck you, Mulaghesh! Fuck you and your mone—”

He shrieks as a bolt goes skittering across the rocks inches beside his feet, making him jump, which must be very painful considering the first bolt is still lodged above his knee. She reloads and keeps the sights on them until the bearded man has dragged his screaming friend out of sight.

Pitry says, “Gener—”

“Shut up,” she says.

She waits a little longer, not moving. After two minutes she relaxes, checks her bolt-shot, and sighs. She turns and looks him up and down.

“Damn it all, Pitry…” says General Turyin Mulaghesh. “What in the
hells
are you doing here?”

Pitry was not sure what to expect of Turyin Mulaghesh's living quarters, but he hardly anticipated the graveyard of wine bottles and filthy plates he meets when he steps through the door. There is also an abundance of threatening things: bolts, bolt-shots, swords, knives, and in one corner, a massive rifling—a firearm with a rifled barrel. It's a new innovation that's only just become commercially affordable, thanks to the recent increased production of gunpowder. The military, Pitry knows, possesses far more superior versions.

The worst of it all, though, is the smell: it seems General Turyin Mulaghesh has taken up fishing, but has yet to work out how to adequately dispose of the bones.

“Yeah, the smell,” says Mulaghesh. “I know about the smell. I just get used to it. Between the ocean and the house, it all smells alike.”

Pitry fervently disagrees, but is smart enough to not say so. “Thank you for rescuing me.”

“Don't mention it. It's a symbiotic relationship: those two excel at being idiots, and I excel at shooting idiots. Everyone gets what they want.”

“How did you know to be there?”

“I heard a rumor some Ghaladeshi was walking around the beaches asking for me, claiming he had a lot of money to hand off. One vendor at the market likes me, so he let me know.” She shakes her head as she sets a bottle of wine on the kitchen counter. “
Money,
Pitry. You should have just hung a ‘Please rob my stupid ass' sign on your forehead.”

“Yes, I realize now it was not…wise.”

“I thought I'd keep a lookout, and saw you walking up the hill to Haque's bar. Then I saw you leave, and Gurudas and his friend follow. It didn't take me long to work out what was about to happen. You
are
welcome, though. That was the most fun I've had in a while.” She produces a bottle of tea and a bottle of weak wine, and, to Pitry's amusement, goes about arranging a drink tray, a traditional gesture of welcome in Saypur with its own subtle messages: taking the tea would be an indication of business and social distance, and taking the wine would be an indication of intimacy and relaxation. Pitry watches her motions: she's become quite used to doing everything more or less one-handed.

She places the tray in front of Pitry. He bows slightly and selects the open bottle of tea. “My apologies,” he says. “Though I would be most grateful for the wine, General, I'm afraid I am here on business from the prime minister.”

“Yes,” says Mulaghesh, who opts for the wine. “I figured as much. There's only one thing could possibly put Pitry Suturashni in my backyard, and that's Shara Komayd's say-so. So what's the prime minister want? Does she want to drag me back into the military council? I quit about as loud as anyone could ever quit. I thought it was pretty final.”

“This is true,” Pitry says. “The sound of your resignation still echoes through Ghaladesh.”

“Shit, Pitry. That was downright poetic.”

“Thank you. I stole the line from Shara.”

“Of course you did.”

“I am, actually,
not
here to convince you to return to the military council. They found a substitute for your position.”

“Mm,” says Mulaghesh. “Gawali?”

Pitry nods.

“I thought as much. By the seas, that woman kisses so much ass it's a miracle she can find the breath to talk. How the hells she made general in the first place, I'll never know.”

“A solid point,” says Pitry. “But the real purpose of my visit is to share some information with you about your…pension.”

Mulaghesh chokes on her wine and bends double, coughing. “My
what
?” she says, standing back up. “My
pension
?”

Pitry nods, cringing.

“What the hell's wrong with it?” she asks.

“Well…You have heard, perhaps, of what is called the ‘duration of servitude'?”

“It sounds familiar….”

“The basic gist of it is that, when an officer of the Saypuri Military is promoted to a new rank,” Pitry says as he begins digging in his satchel, “their pay is automatically increased, but they must serve in that rank for a set duration of time before receiving the pension level associated with that rank. This was because twenty or some-odd years ago we had a series of officers get to a rank, and then promptly quit so they could live off the enhanced pension.”

“Wait. Yeah, I know all this. The rank of general requires four years of servitude, right? I was almost positive I was well past that….”

“You
have
served as a general for more than four years,” says Pitry, “but the duration of servitude begins when your paperwork is
processed
. And as you were stationed in the polis of Bulikov at the time of your promotion, the paperwork would have been processed there—but a good deal of Bulikov was destroyed as, um, you are well aware. This meant they were quite delayed with, well, anything and everything.”

“Okay. So. How long did it take Bulikov to process my paperwork?”

“There was a delay of a little under two months.”

“Meaning my duration of servitude was…”

Pitry produces a piece of paper and runs a finger down it as he searches for the precise amount. “Three years, ten months, and seventeen days.”

“Shit.”

“Yes.”

“Shit!”

“Yes. As your duration of servitude is not completed, when the fiscal year ends, your pension will revert to that of previous rank—that of colonel.”

“And how much is that?”

Pitry puts the piece of paper on the desk, slides it over to her, and points to one figure.

“Shit!”

“Yes.”

“Damn…I was going to buy a boat.” She shakes her head. “Now I'm not even sure if I'll be able to afford all this!” She waves her hand at her cottage.

Pitry glances around at the dark, crumbling cottage, which in some places is absolutely swarming with flies. “Ah, yes. Such a pity.”

“So what? Are you just here to tell me I'm getting the rug pulled out from under me, I'm off, see you later? Is there no option to, I don't know, appeal?”

“Well, this is actually a common occurrence. Some officers are forced to retire early due to their health, family, and so on. In these instances, the military council has the option of voting to ignore the remaining time, and award the pension anyway. Being as you, ah, did not leave on the best of terms, they have
not
opted to do that.”

“Those fuckers,” snarls Mulaghesh.

“Yes. But, we do have an option of recourse. When the officer in question has shown exemplary service to Saypur, they are often assigned to go on what I believe is magnanimously called the ‘touring shuffle.' ”

“Aw,
hells
. I remember this. I serve out the remainder of my time wandering around the Continent ‘reviewing fortifications.' Is that it?”

“That is it exactly,” says Pitry. “Administrative responsibilities only. No active or combat duty whatsoever. The prime minister has arranged it so that this opportunity is now being extended to you.”

Mulaghesh taps her wooden hand against the tabletop. While her attention's elsewhere Pitry glances at the prosthetic limb: it is strapped to a hinge at her elbow, which then buckles around her still-considerable bicep. She's wrapped her upper arm with a cotton sleeve, presumably to avoid chafing, and he can see more of what looks like a harness wrapped around her torso. It's clearly an extensive and complicated mechanism, and probably none too comfortable, which can't help General Mulaghesh's famously choleric moods.

“Eyes, Pitry,” says Mulaghesh calmly. “Or have you not been in a woman's presence for a while?”

Startled, Pitry resumes staring into the piece of paper on the table.

Mulaghesh is still for a long time. “Pitry, can I ask you something?”

“Certainly.”

“You are aware that I just shot a man?”

“I…am aware.”

“And you are aware that I shot him because he was on my property, and he was being an idiot.”

“I believe you have articulated this, yes.”

“So, why should I not do the same to you?”

“I…I beg your pa—”

“Pitry, you are a member of the prime minister's personal staff,” says Mulaghesh. “You're not her chief of staff or anything, but you're not just some damn clerk. And Shara Komayd would not send a member of her personal damn staff all the way out to Javrat to tell me my pension's getting reevaluated. That's why they invented the postal service. So why don't you stop dancing around and tell me what's
really
going on?”

Pitry takes a slow breath and nods. “It is quite possible that…that if you were to do this touring shuffle, it would provide an excellent cover story for another operation.”

“Ah. I see.” Mulaghesh screws up her mouth and loudly sucks her teeth. “And
who
would be performing this operation?”

Pitry stares very hard at the paper on the counter, as if somewhere in its figures he might stumble upon instructions on how to escape this awkward situation.

“Pitry?”

“You, General,” he says. “This operation would be performed by you.”

“Yeah,” says Mulaghesh. “Shit.”

“I mean, damn it all, Pitry,” snarls Mulaghesh. Her wooden hand makes a
thunk
as she brings both hands down on the countertop. “That's some dirty pool right there, holding an officer's pension hostage to make them go off and get themselves shot.”

“I am sympathetic to your position, General. But the nature of the oper—”

“I
retired,
damn it. I
resigned
. I said I was done, that I'd done what I needed to do, thanks, leave me alone. Can't I just be left alone? Mm? Is that so much to ask?”

“Well, the prime minister did suggest,” says Pitry slowly, “that this might be just the thing you need.”

“I
need
? What the hells does Shara know about what I
need
? What could I possibly need?”

Again, she waves her hand at her cottage, and again, Pitry looks at the reeking, filthy home, with carpets tacked up against the windows and one kitchen cabinet door askew, and the counters littered with wine bottles and fish bones and tangled, dirty clothes. Finally he looks at Mulaghesh herself, and thinks only one thing:

General Turyin Mulaghesh looks like shit. She's obviously still in tremendous shape for a woman her age, but it's been a long while since she bathed, there are rings under her eyes, and the clothes she's been wearing are in desperate need of a wash. This is a far cry from the officer he once knew, the woman whose uniform was so starched you could almost carve wood with the cuffs, the woman whose glance was so bright and piercing you almost wanted to check yourself for bruises after she looked at you.

Pitry has seen someone in such a state before: when a friend of his went through a rough divorce. But he can't imagine what Mulaghesh divorced herself from, except, of course, the Saypuri Military.

But though this explains
some
of what he's witnessing, Mulaghesh's complete and utter fall from grace is still confusing to him: because no one—not the press, not the military council, not Parliament itself—has any idea why Mulaghesh resigned in the first place. Almost a year ago now she telegraphed the
Continental Herald
fifteen words: “I, General Turyin Mulaghesh, resign from my position on the Saypuri Military Council, effective immediately.” And in one instant, her retirement papers were submitted, and she was gone. As with so many of Mulaghesh's actions, what she did is inconceivable to any ambitious, motivated Saypuri: how could someone just
walk away
from the position of vice-chairman of the Saypuri Military Council? The vice-chairman almost always becomes chief of armed forces, the second most powerful person in the world after the prime minister. People pored through her interactions in the weeks before her resignation, but no one could find any hint of what could have pushed her over the edge.