“No.”
“You like art?” Kin picked up the sketchbook and pencil Ka-poel had brought for Taniel.
“Put those down.”
Kin dropped the sketchbook with a sigh. “You no have value. No money.”
Taniel checked the pockets of his coat. Nothing. He ran his fingers over the silver embroidery.
“How much for my coat?”
Kin sniffed and touched the fabric. “Tiny bit.”
“Give me that.” Taniel set his mala pipe on the table and wriggled out of the coat, handing it over to Kin.
“You’ll die of cold, and I won’t pay for funeral.”
“It’s the middle of summer. Give me the damned mala.”
Kin handed him a disappointingly small ball of the sticky black mala before disappearing up the stairs with Taniel’s coat. Taniel heard the creak of feet on the floorboards above him, and Kin’s voice speaking in Gurlish.
He settled back into his hammock and took a long draw at his mala pipe.
It was said that mala would make a man forget for hours at a time. Taniel tried to think back on the hours he’d lost. How long had he been down here? Days? Weeks? It didn’t seem like a long time.
He took the pipe out of his mouth and examined it in the dim light of the den’s candles. “Damned stuff doesn’t work,” he said to himself. He could still see Kresimir stepping out of that cloud after descending from the sky. A god! A real, live god. Taniel wondered what his childhood priest would have done had he known Taniel would one day grow up to shoot the god of the Nine.
Time hadn’t stopped when the ensorcelled bullet went through Kresimir’s eye, so it seemed the world could live without its god. But how many people had died trying to keep Kresimir from returning to the world? Hundreds of Adran. Friends. Allies. Thousands of Kez – hundreds by Taniel’s own hand.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw a new face. Sometimes it was a man or a woman he’d killed. Sometimes it was Tamas, or Vlora. And sometimes it was Ka-poel. Maybe it was the mala, but, by the pit, it made his heart beat faster when he saw the savage girl’s face.
The steps creaked. Taniel looked up. Through the haze he could see Ka-poel come down the stairs. She crossed the room to his side, frowned at him.
“What?” he said.
She tugged on his shirt, then pinched her own long duster.
Jacket.
Damn. First thing she noticed.
He wrapped his hand around his ball of mala protectively.
Quicker than he could see, her hand darted forward and snatched the mala pipe from between his teeth.
“You little bitch,” he hissed. “Give it back.”
She danced away from his grasping hands to stand in the middle of the room, grinning.
“Ka-poel, bring me that pipe.”
She shook her head.
His breathing came harder. He blinked against a sudden cloud in his vision, unable to tell if it was the mala or his own fury. After a moment of struggle, he sat up in the hammock.
“Give it back to me
now
.” He swung his legs over the edge of the hammock, but when he tried to stand up, a wave of nausea struck him harder than it ever had when he opened his third eye to see into the Else. He sank back into the hammock, his heart hammering in his ears.
“Pit,” he whispered, clutching at his temples. “I’m all sorts of buggered.”
Ka-poel set the mala pipe on a stool on the other side of the room.
“Don’t put that there,” Taniel said, his own voice now weak. “Bring it to me.”
She just shook her head and shrugged out of her duster. Before he could protest, she crossed to him and swept it up over his hammock and up to his shoulders.
He pushed it away. “You’ll get cold,” he said.
She pointed at him.
“It’s summer, damn it. I’m fine.”
She drew the duster back up over his chest.
Again, he gave it back to her. “I’m not a child.”
Something seemed to light in her eyes at that. She pulled the duster off him and threw it to the ground.
“Pole, what the…” His next words were lost in his own strangled cry as she lifted one leg over the hammock and straddled him, sitting directly on his lap. His heart beat a little faster as she wiggled her ass to get comfortable. In the closeness of the niche, their faces were almost touching. “Pole…,” he said, suddenly breathless. The mala pipe, and even the little ball of mala in his hands, were suddenly forgotten.
Her tongue darted out and wet her lips. She seemed poised, watchful – like an animal.
Taniel almost didn’t hear the sound of the door to the house upstairs being thrown open. Feet thumped on the floorboards. A woman began shouting in Gurlish.
Ka-poel lowered her head. Taniel’s shoulders flexed, pushing him toward her.
“Captain Taniel Two-Shot!” The stairs rattled under a pair of determined boots. A woman in a dress suit, hat in hand, entered the room. “Captain!” she said. “Captain, I…”
She froze when she saw Taniel with Ka-poel in his lap. Taniel felt the color rise in his cheeks. A quick glance at Ka-poel. She gave him a small, knowing smile, but annoyance flashed in her eyes. She rolled off of him and swept her duster off the floor and over her shoulders in one quick movement.
The woman turned to one side, staring at the far wall. “Sir, I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were indisposed.”
“She’s not undressed,” Taniel retorted. His voice cracked and he cleared his throat. “Who the pit are you?”
The woman gave a slight bow. “I am Fell Baker, undersecretary for the Holy Warriors of Labor.” Despite having found them in a compromising situation, she didn’t seem the least bit embarrassed.
“The union? How the pit did you find me?” Taniel pulled himself to a sitting position in the hammock, though it made his stomach turn something fierce. He wondered how long it had been since he ate.
“I’m Ricard Tumblar’s aide, sir. He sent me to find you. He would very much like to meet with you.”
“Tumblar? Don’t know the name.” He settled back into the hammock and eyed Ka-poel. She’d sat on the stool on the far side of the mala den, tapping his pipe against her palm as she studied the undersecretary.
Fell raised an eyebrow. “He’s the head of the union, sir.”
“I don’t care.”
“He’s asked me to extend to you an invitation to lunch.”
“Go away.”
“He says there’s a great deal of money at stake.”
“I don’t care.”
Fell examined him for a few moments before turning and heading up the creaking stairs just as abruptly as she’d arrived. The hushed sound of voices came down through the floor. They were speaking in Gurlish. Taniel glanced at Ka-poel. She returned his stare for a moment, then winked.
What the pit?
A few moments later the undersecretary came back downstairs.
“Sir, it appears you’re out of money.”
Taniel looked for his mala pipe. Oh. Ka-poel still had it. Right.
“Take that from her and give it to me, would you?” Taniel said to Fell.
Fell faced Ka-poel. The two women exchanged a glance that seemed full of meaning. Taniel didn’t like that at all.
The undersecretary clasped her hands together. “I will not, sir.” She crossed the room in two strides and grabbed Taniel by the chin, forcing his face toward her. Taniel grasped the woman’s wrist, but Fell was stronger than she looked. She examined his eyes.
“Let go of me, or I will bloody well kill you,” Taniel growled.
Fell took her hands away and stepped back. “How much have you smoked since you got here?”
“Don’t know,” Tamas grumbled. Ka-poel hadn’t so much as moved when the undersecretary had rushed him. Some help she was.
“Eight pounds of the stuff in four days. That’s what the owner told me.”
Taniel shrugged.
“That’s enough to kill a warhorse, sir.”
Taniel sniffed. “Didn’t seem to do much.”
A perplexed look crossed Fell’s face. She opened her mouth, shut it again, and then said, “Didn’t do much? I…” She grasped her hat and went back upstairs, only to return again after a few minutes.
“The owner,” Fell said, “insists he watched you smoke it himself. I examined your eyes. Not even a hint of mala poisoning. Pit, I’ve probably gotten mala poisoning just standing in the smoke and talking to you. You’re god-touched.”
Taniel surged to his feet. One moment he was in the hammock, and the next he had Fell by the lapels with both fists. His head spun, his vision warped, and his hands trembled with rage. “I am not god-touched,” Taniel said. “I’ve not… I’m…”
“Kindly unhand me, sir,” Fell said gently.
Taniel felt his hands drop to his sides. He took a step back and mumbled to himself.
“I’ll give you a moment to clean up,” Fell said. “We’ll get you a new jacket on the way to see Ricard.”
“I’m not going,” Taniel said weakly. He stumbled to the corner, grateful for a wall to lean against. It might be that he
couldn’t
go. He doubted he could walk more than twenty feet.
Fell sighed. “Mr. Tumblar offers the hospitality of his own mala den, sir. It is a much more comfortable location, and his den-keeper won’t take your jacket. If you refuse that invitation, we are instructed to bring you there by force.”
Taniel looked over to Ka-poel. She was cleaning her fingernails with what looked to be a sharpened knitting needle, almost as long as her forearm. She met his eyes briefly. Again that small, knowing smile. Again the annoyance in her eyes.
“Ricard’s den has significantly more privacy than this, sir,” Fell said, coughing once into her hand.
Taniel was not sure that whatever had just happened with Ka-poel was bound to repeat itself. “All right, Fell. But one thing.”
“Sir?”
“I don’t think I’ve eaten in two days. I could use some lunch.”
Two hours later, Taniel was in the Adopest docks. The docks traditionally ran Adran commerce, governing the transport of cargo from the Ad River and its tributaries in the north all the way down through Surkov’s Alley and across the Amber Expanse. With the war on, trade through Kez was at a standstill, and cargo that usually used the river was now sent over the mountains by mule and packhorse.
Despite the change in transportation, the docks were still the center of commerce in Adopest. Barges brought iron ore and raw lumber down the river to supply the Adran mills and gunsmiths, who turned out weapons and ammunition in the hundreds every day.
The docks stank of fish, sewage, and smoke, and Taniel was starting to miss the cool, sweet smell of mala in Kin’s den. His escort consisted of Fell Baker the undersecretary and a pair of wide-shouldered steelworkers. Taniel wondered if the steelworkers were there to carry him to the meeting with Ricard if he decided not to go.
Ka-poel trailed along behind the group. The steelworkers ignored her; Fell kept a wary eye on her at all times. She seemed to suspect that Ka-poel was more than just a mute savage, while Taniel had a hunch that Fell might be more than an undersecretary.
Fell stopped in front of a dockside warehouse within spitting distance of the water. Taniel looked out from between the alleyways and across the Adsea. Even during the day he could see a glow on the horizon, and the conspicuous absence of South Pike Mountain. The view made him want to hide beneath a rock. The death throes of a god had leveled a mountain, and he’d gotten away with a month-long coma. He wasn’t certain why he wasn’t dead, but he suspected it had to do with Ka-poel.
He wondered if everyone else had been so lucky. Where was Bo? Where were the men and women of the Mountainwatch he’d befriended during the defense of Shouldercrown?
An image flashed through his mind of clutching Ka-poel to his chest as Kresimir’s palace collapsed around him. Fire and stone, the burning heat of lava as the mountain collapsed.
“Hard to believe it’s gone, isn’t it,” Fell said, nodding across the water as she opened the door to the warehouse and gestured for Taniel to go in.
Taniel gave one last glance to the east and jerked his head toward Fell. “You first.”
“Fine,” Fell said. She looked to the steelworkers, offering them cigars from a gunmetal case in her vest pocket. “Back to work for you, boys.” The two men tipped their hats to Fell, took a light for their cigars and then headed back into the street. “Come on,” Fell said. Once they were all in, she closed the door behind Ka-poel. “Welcome to Ricard’s new offices.”
Taniel had to keep himself from whistling. On the outside, the building looked like an old warehouse. The windows were shuttered, the brick long in need of refacing. The inside was another matter.
The floors were of black marble, and the walls were whitewashed behind crimson satin curtains. The building appeared to have but one main room, an echoing chamber two stories high and at least two hundred paces long, lit by a half-dozen crystal chandeliers. At the near end of the room there was a long bar, complete with uniformed barman and well-endowed woman in nothing more than a petticoat.
“Your coat, sir,” the woman said.
Taniel handed her his new dark-blue uniform jacket. He felt his gaze rest on her a little longer than was proper. Without looking at Ka-poel, he turned to examine the room. Artwork adorned the walls, sculptures were set at even intervals inside shallow recesses. This was the kind of wealth displayed by the highest echelons of nobility, even that of the king. Taniel thought that Tamas had stamped out this kind of wealth when he slaughtered the nobility. A thought occurred that perhaps Tamas had just changed the very rich and powerful for a new set of the same.
A man crossed the marble floor toward them. He wore a white smoking jacket, a cigar clenched between his teeth. He looked to be about forty years old, with a hairline receding well past the middle of his head. He wore a long beard in the Fatrastan style, and the grin on his face reached his ears and even touched his eyes.
“Taniel Two-Shot,” the man said, holding out his hand. “Ricard Tumblar. I’m a great admirer of yours.”
Taniel took his hand with hesitation.
“Mr. Tumblar.”
“Mister? Bah, call me Ricard. I’m at your service. And this must be your ever-present companion. The Dynize. My lady?” Ricard swept into a deep bow and took Ka-poel’s hand in his, bending to kiss it gently. Despite his forward nature, he eyed her as one might something pretty but far from tame, something that might bite at any moment.