undying legion 01 - unbound man (28 page)

The lid gave way with a sullen creak, revealing a packed layer of wood shavings. Qulah reached in and brushed the topmost shavings aside. Polished bronze glinted in the lamplight.

“Beautiful craftsmanship, is it not?” Qulah scooped another handful of shavings out of the crate, and the shape of the object was suddenly plain. “Tahisi cannon barrels. Not even the Jervians can produce finer.”

Eilwen managed a tight nod.
Cannons. Gods have mercy, what are we in the middle of?

“Have you decided on a form of payment?”

“Excuse me?”

“Payment. Yes?” Qulah frowned. “Perhaps Kieffe did not tell you.”

Eilwen shook her head, still staring at the cannon. “I’m sorry. Tell me what?”

“Kieffe enquired about a discount if he paid with Tahisi coin. I offered two and a half per cent.”

“Oh. Right. We’re, uh, still working out how much currency we can put together.” The gleaming metal drew her gaze like a lodestone. With an effort, Eilwen raised her head. “You said this was the first shipment. When should we expect the next?”

“These were nearby,” Qulah said. “I have small amounts of shot and powder on the way as well. They should be here within days. After that…” He spread his hands. “The second consignment will depart Tan Tahis as soon as my message is received. Even if Mother Sea smiles, it will be several weeks at least before those goods arrive. And the third consignment, of course, must first be produced.”

“Of course,” Eilwen said weakly.
Three consignments. Gods preserve us.

Qulah lifted his lamp. “Would you like a closer look?”

“Thank you, no,” Eilwen said. The warehouse air suddenly seemed stifling. “That will be fine. Thank you.”

“The pleasure is mine,” Qulah returned, bowing slightly. “I am honoured to be entrusted with your needs. The Woodtraders Guild has no better friend than Qulah.”

Maybe not,
Eilwen thought, shivering as Qulah replaced the shavings and began hammering the lid back down.
But we’ve sure as the Hundred Hells got some enemies.

If only I knew who the bastards were.

Chapter 11

Which of these three do you suppose amuses the gods most: your plans, your fears, or your convictions?

— Kassa of Menefir
Solitude

By the end of the day, Arandras felt as though his head had been stuffed full of damp wool and left in the sun to dry. He bent over one of the books Senisha had fetched from the library, trying and failing to make sense of the page before him. Near the windows, Narvi and Bannard debated some point of sorcery, Narvi’s calm insistence apparently not enough to persuade Bannard to the same opinion. Their conversation rose and fell, eating away at his concentration like water on sand.

It had been much the same all day: long periods of study interspersed with abstruse and sometimes vigorous discussions between Bannard and Narvi. Now and then Senisha would offer a comment, but mostly she seemed content to listen and read, and to ferry books back and forth between their room and the library. Only occasionally was Arandras asked to contribute to the discussion, and even then the questions were largely confined to the circumstances around the discovery of the urn. His talent as a linguist and his experience dealing with rare artefacts was neither called upon nor acknowledged by anyone.

The sky outside the narrow windows was orange gold when Narvi at last called a halt to the day’s efforts. Arandras collected the urn and left without a word, making his way down the curving hallways and out to the narrow strip of lawn and the blessed open air. A whisper of breeze caressed his face, its breath laced with the aromas of the city — beast and man, rotting food and delicate spices — but for once, Arandras didn’t care. He breathed deep, drinking in its refreshing coolness and releasing it with a sigh.

“That much fun, huh?”

Arandras’s eyes snapped open. Mara stood before him, one eyebrow raised in mock-query. He gave a half-chuckle. “I don’t know,” he said. “It wasn’t so bad, I suppose. I’m just…” He gestured vaguely, not sure how to finish the sentence.

“Tired?”

“That’ll do.”

“Having second thoughts?”

“Maybe.” He frowned. “No, not that. I just feel… I don’t know. Out of practice, perhaps.”

Mara hooked her thumb over her shoulder at the wide expanse of city. “Want to get away from here for a bit?”

“Weeper, yes.”

They strolled down the path between the swaying rows of saplings, Mara with her hands close to her thighs as though holding non-existent cutlasses in place.

“Say what you like about Anstice, you’ve got to agree they sell better blade oil here than anywhere else,” Mara said as they passed through the gate.

“Really?” Arandras said. “I wouldn’t know.”

“Of course you know.” Mara sounded affronted. “I just told you.”

“Well, yeah, but that wouldn’t be me agreeing with you, would it? That would be you agreeing with you.”

“Best approach all round, in my experience.”

“Hah.”

The breeze faded as they ventured further from the schoolhouse. Lamp-lighters manoeuvred their handcarts around street vendors and their customers, exchanging curses with those who stood in their way. The smell of hot pastry spilled into the street from a pie stand at one corner; further along, a lute player strolled back and forth with two small boys trailing behind. The song was unfamiliar to Arandras, but the tune was lively and the player’s voice clear. Someone tossed the musician some coppers and one of the boys darted forward, snatching them off the cobbles as the player grinned his thanks.

“Jasser and Peni are both out of town,” Mara said. “Thought I’d try Isaias before calling it a day.”

Still trying to sell that damn puzzle box.
“Suit yourself,” Arandras said. “I think I’ll head down to the river.” There would be bars and chocol houses there where he might find a game, if he wished. Or perhaps not. After the day’s exertion, he had little energy left for the
dilarj
board. What he really wanted was somewhere quiet and out of the way. Wherever that might be.

“I thought you’d want to come along.” Mara flicked a coin in the player’s direction and watched the boys scramble to pick it up. “Someone here is looking for that urn, right? So wouldn’t they start with the local dealers?”

“Would they? Think about the lengths they’ve gone to. Forged journals, for the Weeper’s sake! Seems to me they knew exactly where this thing was.”

“All right, maybe they did. But now they’ve lost it. They don’t know who’s got it or where it might turn up. How else are they going to find it again?”

It was a good point. He should have thought of it himself. Whatever the plan had been didn’t matter any more, now that the urn had slipped through their fingers. Whoever sought it would be improvising, and improvisation was invariably sloppy.

Assuming, of course, that they hadn’t simply given up.

“Isaias, huh?”

“For all we know, he might have the name of a buyer in his sleeve right now.”

“All right.” Arandras took a long breath. “Let’s find out.”

Isaias’s shop was on the southern edge of the old city, just inside the remains of the first city wall. Arandras had only visited the shop once before; most of his dealings with Isaias, and indeed with the other dealers here, took place during their visits to Spyridon, which in Isaias’s case occurred two or three times a year. The door was easy to miss, set back from the street between two glass-paned shopfronts. Arandras tried the handle and the door opened inward, revealing a narrow staircase. Lamplight from an unseen source bathed the wall at the top of the stairs.

“I guess he’s in,” Mara said.

The stairs creaked under their feet as they climbed, and as they neared the top Arandras heard the sounds of someone in the room above: a tuneless humming, the scrape of a chair, a loud sigh. Then a voice called out to them, genial and familiar. “Come in, friends, come in and be welcome! Isaias is delighted to make your acquaintance.”

Weeper save me.
Arandras reached the top and turned into the room, Mara at his heels. “Hello, Isaias.”

“Arandras! Maransheala!” Isaias beamed at them, his round face a picture of delight. “My dear friends! What a pleasure it is to see you, what an unexpected pleasure, and all the more pleasurable for the surprise! Look who it is, Pinecone!” He scooped up a striped cat with pale ears and pointed its head in their direction. It cast them a disinterested glance. “It’s our friends Arandras and Mara. Come all the way from Spyridon just to visit us.”

“How are you, Isaias?” Mara said as the cat squirmed free and slunk away.

“How am I? Ah, my dear, fortune is a fickle mistress, a fickle, fickle girl. One moment she lavishes me with bounty, such that I want for not the smallest whit. The next” — Isaias made a flinging gesture with his hands — “she deserts me, and her bounty vanishes as though it had never been.” He shook his head sorrowfully; then, like the sun breaking through clouds, the beaming smile returned. “But then, just when she seems to have utterly and finally turned against me, she brings you to my door, my dear friends! How can I hate her? I cannot.”

“Mm-hmm.” Arandras looked around the shop. Windowed cabinets filled the room, displaying an astonishing variety of objects: books, utensils, weapons, spices, jewellery — even, in a narrow case near the counter, pieces worked with what appeared to be anamnil, the strange, semi-metallic cloth that bore a unique resistance to the effects of sorcery. Below the shuttered windows on the far wall stretched a series of drawers, each sealed with a heavy lock. A green armchair sat in the centre of the room before a hearth, with a bottle of wine and an empty goblet on a small table alongside.

“Pinecone!” Isaias peered behind him, waggling his fingers at a shadowed corner, then straightening when it became apparent that the corner was empty and glancing about the shop. “Pinecone? Don’t you want the rest of your dinner?” No response was forthcoming, and Isaias heaved a sigh. “Ah, friends, a queen among cats is Pinecone. Such is her firm opinion on the matter, and I find that I am forced to agree. Yet I confess — and I say this only to you, my dear, trusted friends — that I find myself wondering on occasion whether her fastidious disposition, though entirely appropriate to one of her station, may at times get the better of her otherwise outstanding judgement. A trifling fault, to be sure; and yet, there it is.”

“Isaias,” Arandras said, and waited for Isaias to look up before continuing. “Could we talk a moment?”

“Certainly, my friend! Isaias would be happy to spend this whole evening in conversation with Arandras and Mara. We could —”

“A few moments should suffice.” He heard the impatience in his voice and scowled.
Damn it. Why couldn’t it have been Peni in town instead?
“I mean to say —”

“What he means,” Mara said smoothly, “is that our business, alas, is pressing. It was difficult for us to find even this time to visit, though of course there was no question that we should; but regrettably, we cannot stay long.”

“Of course, my dear. Isaias understands. Always at the beck and call of fickle fortune, are we not?” Isaias spread his hands. “So tell me, my friends, what can I do for you? Is it maps you seek? I have acquired some particularly fine specimens since last we spoke. Or perhaps you have items to sell? Something rare or unusual?”

“In fact, I do,” Mara said. She reached into a pocket and withdrew a flat copper box, small enough to fit in the palm of Arandras’s hand, its surface streaked with verdigris. “It’s a child’s puzzle box. I had word from Jasser of an interested buyer here in Anstice, but now Jasser is out of town. Perhaps fortune is smiling on you once again.”

Isaias took the box with a frown. “So heavy for a mere child’s toy,” he said. “I suppose the puzzle is how to open this tiny casket, yes? A clever way to hide something small. A scrap of paper, perhaps, or a small key. Tell me, dear Mara, do you know this riddle’s secret?”

Mara grinned. “Do you have a pair of thimbles? Or maybe some small spoons?”

“Well, I… let me see.” Isaias shuffled to the counter, depositing the small box on its polished surface and rummaging behind it. He emerged with a small wooden spoon and a matching two-pronged fork. “Will these do?”

Mara took the utensils, one in each hand, holding them by the bowl and prongs so that the stems extended outward. “You have to press in just the right places. On this side, just here, and on the other side…”

There was a click and a snap, and Isaias flinched back. At the side of the box where the spoon pressed, a short needle now protruded, a thin scratch in the spoon’s handle tracing its path. Arandras scowled and turned away.

A poisoner’s box. Weeper’s tears.

With the item’s function revealed, the haggling began, but Arandras was no longer listening. He halted before a display case, glaring sightlessly at its contents.
Who in the hells would want to buy something like that? And how can she sell it with no thought for where it might go?
But then, they’d found and sold dozens of knives and daggers over the years. Was selling a needled box really any different?

Yes,
he thought.
This is worse.
Yet try as he might, he couldn’t say why.

“Not enough,” Mara said from the other end of the shop. “Maybe I’ll wait until Jasser gets back.”

“Ah, my dear, I regret I can offer you no more.” There was a pause. “A thought occurs to me, dear Mara. Perhaps Isaias can speak to some people he knows, who can speak to some people they know, who could speak to yet other people in the hope of finding one who may, perchance, be interested in purchasing such a singular item. If such an individual exists, why, perhaps a price may be found that will satisfy Isaias’s friends as much as Isaias himself.”

Mara nodded. “I’ll give you three days before I start shopping it elsewhere. As a token of our friendship, of course.” She returned the box to her pocket. “Leave a message at the bar on the corner if you have anything for me.”