Authors: John Hornor Jacobs
Samantha grew still and her expression soured. ‘That’s not good.’
‘No. But – I’ve not told anyone of this – a stretcher appeared. Looked like he’d just dug himself out of the ground, from a grave, and he had on a woman’s dress. He called me “gynth” which means—’
‘Kindred.’ She nodded. ‘I am not wholly ignorant of the
Dvergar
language, Shoe. Like you, I was born here in the Territories and here I remain.’
‘Of course, Miss Samantha,’ I said. I should’ve known. Like most folks who make it to adulthood here in Occidentalia, those that do miss very few tricks. Very few. ‘And then the stretcher snatched up the guard leaping into the air and brought him crashing back down on the deck.’ I held my hands open, as if wondering and offering it to her all at once. ‘The damned thing saved me.’
‘That
is
bizarre. I remember you saying once that the
vaettir
would trade with
dvergar
, a long time ago.’
‘I have memories of
vaettir –
usually singly, but sometimes in pairs – coming to the outskirts of our village, carrying huge haunches of bloody meat. We would bring out knives, or old clothes or fabric, cheap baubles – and they would leave the meat and take what was given and bound off, like they do, without any mischief. But sometimes, they would kill or taunt or terrorize, as is their wont.’ I scratched my chin. ‘Though, thinking about it, I never saw those that traded with us commit any crimes against the
dvergar
.’
‘I am thinking,’ Samantha said, slowly, ‘that there are more than one stripe of
vaettir
and that some have enough intelligence to deny whatever dark nature churns within them and to work toward a goal. But what are those goals?’
‘Got me, Sam.’ It’s real easy to ignore that which you don’t understand. And the actions of Gynth had me stumped. He’d saved me twice now. ‘I think only time will tell. In the meantime, there’s Beleth to consider. Is there any way to determine his location? You know …’ I waved my hands about in the air and said, ‘Dominus ominous and all that.’
Sam laughed. ‘Dominus ominous? Uh, no, Shoe, summoning doesn’t work like that.’
‘You would know, I imagine.’ I picked up my glass and drained it of wine. ‘Truly, what do you think Beleth’s doing?’
She thought for only a moment. Then she nodded. ‘He won’t like the discomfort of war and he’s probably self-aware enough to realize that. He’s working to end the conflict as fast as possible, with the most clout, power, and wealth for himself when it’s all over.’
‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘But he can only do that if he remains a player here, in the Territories,’ I said.
‘Bingo,’ Sam said.
‘And that means eventually, he’s got only two places he can set up shop. New Damnation. Or here.’
I thought about it. ‘Won’t be New Damnation.’
‘Why not?’ Sam asked.
‘No places to bolt other than the river. You think Beleth is going to endure another midnight run like he did at Passasuego? No, the man will want a quick and easy escape, so times get desperate. He loves the integrity of his neck,’ I said.
‘Yes, you have the right of it, I think,’ she said.
‘And that means he’ll be here in Harbour Town, or nearby. It’s the seat of munitions industry in Occidentalia, there’s the port, and it’s got the Medieran stronghold of Chiba in the Gulf of Mageras and many people of Medieran descent in the population, sympathetic to their cause,’ I said. ‘He is
here.
’
‘That seems like a good working hypothesis.’
‘So,’ I said, reaching for the pitcher of wine. ‘How do I find him?’
‘He’ll need silver. Fisk and his companion, Winfried, have ridden east to investigate the rumours of a new silverlode near
Dvergar
. Beleth wants silver. Mediera wants silver. Even rumour of a new silverlode will draw him out of whatever hole he’s hiding in.’
I shook my head. ‘He’ll be wary.’
‘He’s always wary. Fisk told me he investigated in the city, but could not find hide nor hair of Beleth.’
I sucked my teeth. ‘Fisk is my bosom friend, Sam, but there’s one thing he ain’t – a snoop. Being an effective snoop requires an abject quality that highborn folk – even of Fisk’s stripe – don’t possess.’
Sam laughed again. ‘Shoe, now I remember how much I enjoy your company.’
‘I do what I can, ma’am.’
‘So, he’ll want for silver, that’s a given. People in our profession go through quite a bit of it and if he doesn’t have large amounts of cash—’
‘He’ll have to take it in other ways.’
‘Yes. And he’ll want for charcoal too, and a bellows, a small one, to melt the silver for whatever wardwork he’s doing.’
I frowned. ‘That’s too general and impossible to track.’
She raised a hand. ‘But Beleth trained in Tchinee, remember? And he picked up habits there.’
‘Please tell me that you’ve got something for me.’
She smiled. ‘In Kithai, all “fire gardening” is done with a very special salt – one that goes through a process of purification and bleaching and is mixed with the silver during smelting.’
‘And he’s kept up this practice even after leaving Kithai?’
‘He did while I was his assistant.’
A boon, then. A piece of luck. ‘And there’d be merchants selling this kind of salt here?’
She shrugged. ‘I have no clue. It is the first I have thought of it. There’s a small Tchinee neighbourhood near the wharfs. You could look there.’
I stood. ‘Thank you, Sam, you’ve been a huge help.’
‘Don’t try to confront him without Fisk or me. He’s far too dangerous.’
‘I can handle myself, Sam. Remember Agrippina?’
‘You can handle yourself, yes,’ she said. ‘But it’s debatable if you can handle Beleth.’ She rose, came around the table, and embraced me. ‘Good hunting. Send word to me when you find him. I still have the
daemon
hand and …’ A frosty glint came to her eyes. ‘I for one
know
how to handle him.’
14 Kalends of Sextilius, 2638 ex Ruma Immortalis
Goods came to Harbour Town one of three ways – from the sea, on vessels full of crates and barrels tended by dusky men and women from far shores, all kissed by sun and weathered by rain and wind; on paddleboats down the Big Rill, hauled by Brawley-speaking stevedores and riverfolk, thick-chested and randy and whiskey-bound, all willing to fight and fuck, in that order; and finally by wagons driven by sodbusters and merchant men and women who braved the west, the stretchers, and other hard men and
dvergar
and indigenous life itself to put down roots into the recalcitrant soil of the Territories when they weren’t rolling about on wagon wheels. The mechanized baggage trains never made it down far enough to bring in goods by rail, unlike Fort Brust and
Dvergar
.
Yet the curious thing about seamen and women, more than those other tradesfolk, they put down their roots like weeds seeking water in hardscrabble – every place they find port, a village springs up with the character and culture of the founder. In Harbour Town, there was a Tchinee quarter, a Little Mediera, a Higalle district. You could find dislocated Northmen in almost any tavern, Galls and Hellenes in every shop, Tuetons, Numidians, Ægyptians, and Bedoun in the markets and squares – some hawking goods, some acquiring them, some gathering intelligence for far-off governments, some in transport of taxable goods, some smuggling wares.
It was uncouth, hilarious, aggressive. Restless.
One helluva town.
The salt Sam told me about had a peculiar name, yófuyán – I had her write the word down on a handy scrap of parchment – and was known by the bluish tint of it. The blue – one of the most pristine of colours to the Tchinee, or so Sam told me – could be faked by a minuscule amount of dye added to a rolling drum of regular salt, or, for the real stuff, primatura, it came from the salt itself, carved in blocks from some secret deep cave wall deep inside a unknown mountain in Far Kithai. The blue salt of yófuyán was accreted in the making of the world, and ran like a sanguiduct down from the Tchinee cave where it was found into the heart of our earth.
So I toddled off to the widow Balvenus’ boarding house, made my introductions and dropped off my kit, strapped on my silver longknife and cinched up my gunbelt, and stabled Bess at the garrison, two streets down the way. The whole neighbourhood reeked of horse sweat and manure which, truth be told, are not bad smells. Not wholly.
I walked seaward, toward the Tchineetown. The closer to the shore, the louder the seagulls’ calls sounded in the steamy morning air, the fresher the wind. The clanging bell of a
daemon
-fired steamer as it lowered its swing-stages and came to pier. Cursing in Hellene, and Gallish. The smell of garlic and stewing meat coming from an open door. The bright carmine splashes of sacrificial blood and flowers on the crossroad stones outside a neighbourhood collegium, a brace of bully-boys, arms crossed, glowering at me as I passed. Feral dogs sniffing along alleyways, chased by hungry mongrel children, knives bright in their grubby hands.
I came to Tchineetown from the North, along the Via Maceda, and was welcomed by the ornately painted wooden dragon sign marking the entrance to the little community within a town, its lacquered face festooned with the bright Tchinee ideograms that pass for writing in their neck of the woods. Stopping in a small teashop filled with wizened Tchinee patrons, each one staring at me warily if not with some real animosity, I approached the shopkeep.
‘What do you want?’ the withered old man asked, cocking a jaundiced eye at me. He wore a long embroidered tunic with half-collar and we stood about the same height. As half-
dvergar
, I’m often greeted with some immediate dislike solely on account of my blood and stature, but with this old man, I sensed he disliked all of mankind equally and did not discriminate in his hatred. And that made it fine by me.
I withdrew the parchment and read the strange word. ‘Yófuyán? Blue salt?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘This is a tea shop. Green tea,’ he said, slapping the surface of his counter. ‘What do you want? Big or little?’
‘Trying to find where I can buy this here blue salt. You know where?’ I said.
He looked at his patrons, who were watching us parlay. He said something in the clanging, bizarre language of Tchinee and waved his hand viciously at those seated in the shop, sipping tea from small white cups. Eyes were hastily averted.
He leaned in close. ‘What do you want? Big or little?’
‘Big.’
‘Five sesties, gold.’
‘Five?’
He wagged his finger. ‘Good green tea. If you don’t want, there’s the door.’
‘Three.’
‘Pfui!’ He made brushing motions with his fingertip.
I coughed up the money and he chuckled. ‘Look for Mistress Jade. She keeps a shop round yonder corner with a painted sign.’ He held up his hand. ‘Open hand. One emerald in palm.’
‘A sign has an open hand with one emerald in the palm. Got it.’
He made the brushing movement again. ‘Make tracks, mister.’
‘Nothing doing. Where’s my tea?’
I made my way to Tchineetown. Sandwiched between the warehouse district and Little Mediera, the Tchinee neighbourhood possessed a copious amount of wagon traffic clattering down its narrow streets. Stone and wood buildings, built in the Ruman style – three stories tall and blocky, with no windows on the ground floor and spacious atriums inside – were placed close together in an airless mash. In Harbour Town, there were few squares and fewer parks. The town had grown by necessity, not intention, and the result was a congested snarl of streets and neighbourhoods – businesses stood alongside merchantmen’s houses, schools were placed alongside factories or counting-houses.
In Tchineetown itself, most of the storefronts had obscure signage I could not read, though some had Ruman numerals on them – more than likely for taxation purposes, because if there’s one thing I know about Rume it’s that no barrier of language has ever stopped it from collecting taxes – but most of them I could figure out by just looking. A butcher (cleaver), a baker (a rolling pin), a haberdasher (glove), a hat-maker (conical hat), a farrier (hammer: easy one, right next to the stables), a wheel-wright (a wheel), a barber or doctor (the sign displayed an intricately painted nude man with his heart displayed and focus points and strange current-like lines all about his person), a brothel (rooster crowing on a field of red – but it was the whores sitting in windows on the second floor and the strong scent of cheap perfume that clued me into the sign’s meaning), and many more.
Yet, of all these, Mistress Jade’s sign was the hardest to find and then discern. It was small, and half-hidden behind a flurry of signage for some services I couldn’t understand except for a seamstress – the needle and thread being nearly a universal emblem for that task. Mistress Jade’s was half the size of these other signs, all wooden, but hers was enamelled in some way, making it slick and bright in the morning light, as if it was wet. The sign bore a painted woman’s hand with long clawlike nails and in its palm was a large green gemstone.
I rapped at the door, it swung open swiftly and I was met by the sight of a large man who’d had his nose broken at least once a day for many years. His face had the knotted, lumpy look of sculpture created by an artist with little talent. He was large, but not overly so. He was fat, but still muscular. A man of appetite matched by exertion.
‘What duya want?’ he asked in a low grating voice. He looked me up and down and sneered.
‘Mistress Jade,’ I said. I didn’t intend on taxing him with the detail of my visit and I don’t think he would’ve understood anyway.
‘She ain’t here,’ he said. ‘Make tracks, dwarf.’
I pulled the piece of parchment. ‘I’ve got a task,’ I said. At the man’s dumb look, I said, ‘A task, man.
Work
.’
He nodded and snatched the parchment from my mitt. His brow furrowed as if he were extruding shite rather than discerning script. Obviously, the man was illiterate, at least in the writ of Latinum.
‘Blue salt. Yófuyán.’
The bruiser nodded and disappeared into the shadowy interior of the building, shutting and bolting the door when he left. I waited on the street as morning passers-by gave me curious glances, some smiling, some with menacing stares. The sun rose above the roof and coloured the street in bright light. The air became hazy.
The door rattled and I heard the bolt being thrown. The lumpy-faced Tchinee man opened the door and said, ‘She’ll see you now,’ and gestured for me to enter. I did, swiftly.
It was dark inside, and cluttered. The shop’s interior was filled with fragrant pots and urns, cups and vases and ornate boxes and chests. My eyes teared, the smell was so strong – sweet and acrid and sour and smoky and shitty all at once. There was very little light and what there was came from a high, near-ceiling grated window lining one wall, and a lantern on the other.
Lumpy led me through the warren of spice crates and casks of oils to a simple wooden door. He knocked, once, and threw it open. Inside was a sun-drenched little atrium, teeming with flora, ferns and oily leaved plants I’d never seen before, with great white blossoms with yellow centres. A fountain tinkled merrily and it was cool here. At a small table sat a woman, dressed in silk, her hair in a bun. She looked young – no more than twenty-five – and very pretty. On her left hand she wore sharp, silver claws. She beckoned and I approached.
‘Ah, a visitor!’ she said. The accent was there, but very faint. ‘I am Mistress Jade. And you are?’
‘Dveng Ilys, ma’am, man of the fifth legion.’
‘Mulo tells me you want yófuyán. Why would you want yófuyán? I do not know you, but I know you are not a man of fire.’
That was an interesting thing to call an engineer. But appropriate.
‘No, ma’am. I’m not. I don’t actually want any blue salt, but I would like to know if anyone else, any Rumans, have bought some from you recently.’
Her eyes narrowed and I revised my estimate on her age. She was very well-preserved but was more likely in her thirties than twenties.
‘I have had no Ruman customers recently. Only old ladies of Jiang wanting to put some iron back in their old husbands’ spines—’ She winked. It was glib, too glib, really, for such a short exchange.
‘You’ve had no one come inquiring about it?’
She shook her head and clicked her silver claws like a Medieran dancer clacking together castanets. They made a bright ringing sound above the tinkling of the fountain.
‘No, I am sorry,’ she said. ‘Mulo? See our friend out.’
Mulo came and stood beside me.
I didn’t intend to press my luck. I allowed Mulo – indeed there wasn’t much I could do to stop him if you didn’t count using Hellfire – to lead me out.
Once on the street, I made my way around the block and found the alley that ran behind the block of buildings that Mistress Jade’s shop was in. Yes,
dvergar
are short, but our hands are knotted and strong and climbing stone comes almost second nature to us. One of the buildings in the alley was built of rough-hewn granite, and it was an easy matter to climb up and settle myself on a ledge with a full view of the alley.
I didn’t have long to wait. After an hour, Mulo came into the alley, ducking his head through a small door and, despite the day’s sun and heat, drew a cowl over his face and tromped off, away from where I sat on the high ledge. I scrambled down and followed him.
He led me a merry chase through Tchineetown – though he didn’t know I was following him, I’m sure. We passed through wharfside, through warehouses and supply dumps for the fifth, past the shipyards and into a workman’s neighbourhood full of shanties and shacks and then into a rather well-to-do area where the houses turned to villas with walled gardens and guards. Mulo approached one, spoke with the guard there, and then handed him something – I must assume a note – and he turned and tromped back the way he came. I was, luckily, wary enough to have ensconced myself in a privet hedge near a villa wall before Mulo passed, but I could smell the man as he walked by.
When he was gone, I marked the house – 12 Via Dolorosa – and found a good vantage where I could watch the comings and goings easily without being spotted. Again, my
dvergar
heritage lends me abilities others have not. I ducked behind a row of bushes and dug myself into the mulch there. There wasn’t too much horse manure.
I watched the house. The sun grew high in the sky and then passed beyond the other villas, casting the street in shadow and finally went down. There was a breeze from the ocean, salty, and the cries of seagulls still filled the air and the clang of barges moving down the Big Rill to dock wharfside could be heard. The sound of hammers and sawing. The clopping and passage of horses and occasionally a wagon would pass with men and women chatting. No one left 12 Via Dolorosa.
My stomach was rumbling violently and night had fallen when the figure left the villa I watched. I started with surprise as a small donkey came from the courtyard with a cloaked rider on its back. Maybe it was the sensation of looking into a mirror and seeing myself reflected there. The rider was
dvergar
. Male, judging from the width of his shoulders, the square blockiness of his build.
I followed him out, down Via Dolorosa to the east, across the Pons Milletus, over the Big Rill and past the shanties and barges, dredges, scows cobbled together on the pilings below in a makeshift floating village that most folk in Harbour Town just called the Tethering, or some, Bargetown. The
dvergar
rider took his time, walking the donkey – indeed, most donkeys did not enjoy the spur and let you know it, as if the great umbrage of having a rider was enough. Urgency was crossing some asinine line.
The Pons Milletus is a wide stone bridge, standing quite high over the river, to allow for riverboats and sea vessels to pass underneath, coming in from the bay upstream. With the advent of
daemon-fired
ships, less draw is needed to let ships pass there, and so the drawbridge and towers near the middle of the pons had fallen in to some disrepair. Though occasionally a ship with a mast or tall stacks required the bridge to be raised.