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Authors: Daniel Polansky
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enjoying our business any more than he was. The longer the search continued, the more absurd it seemed to have trusted the outcome of the investigation to my olfactory sense, and I was starting to remember that one of the virtues of my adopted trade was that people came looking for me and not the other way around. But the memory of a dead girl and my innate obstinacy drove me onward, hoping against the better dictates of reason that I’d get a lucky break.
At a worn counter sat an equally worn grandmother, her gray face not changing a fraction of an inch throughout the entire interview.No, none of her workers had been absent the last three days. There are only two of them, they are both women, and they work six days a week between sunup and midnight. On the merits, it was not a story sufficiently interesting to warrant the coppers I gave her.
I stepped out of the tiny shop and into the afternoon light, thinking it was time to call it off, head back to the Earl to regroup, when the wind changed direction and brought with it a familiar scent. A smile stretched the corners of my mouth. Wren saw it and cocked his head curiously. “What is it?” he asked, but I ignored him and set myself against the breeze.
Two blocks farther on and the acrid scent had grown stronger. A few more steps and it was almost overpowering, and a few steps past that I realized why. In front of us stood a massive glue factory, a stone gatehouse leading to a wide work yard where a small army of Kirens submerged bone and marrow in boiling vats. I was close. I opened the door and headed inside, Wren a half step behind me.
A quick flash of my fake papers and the manager was the very picture of amicable obsequiousness. I spoke in worse Kiren than I was capable of. “Workers, all here last three day? Any no?” I put an argent on the table and his eyes lit up. “Important info, big price.” A half second for his conscience to justify selling out a member of his race to a foreigner, and the coin disappeared and he pointed discreetly to a man in the work yard.
He was bigger than me, bigger than almost any Kiren I’d ever seen, the heretics tending toward short and wiry. He carried a huge sack of powder toward one of the tanks in the courtyard, and there was a dull, plodding quality to his movements. The right side of his face bore some light bruising, the kind that could have been made by a young girl trying frantically to defend herself against a man bent on her despoliation. Of course it could have been made by any of a thousand other things.
But it hadn’t been.
And I felt that old thrill buzzing up from my groin, filtering through my chest and into my extremities. This was the one—dead eyes only vaguely reminiscent of his fellows, the set of his face betraying his crimes even at this distance. A peculiar grin crept across my face, one I hadn’t worn since before I had been stripped of the Crown’s authority. I breathed deep of the poisoned air and bit back a chuckle.
“Boy, go back to the Earl. You’re done for the night.”
Having spent so much time on the pursuit, Wren understandably wanted to be in on the payoff. “I’ll stay.”
The Kiren was looking back at me now, and I spoke without taking my eyes off him. “This ain’t an equal partnership, you’re my lackey. If I tell you to swallow a hot coal, you’ll sprint to the nearest fire, and if I tell you to head out, you’ll disappear. Now … disappear.”
Wren held his ground for a moment before turning away. I wondered if he’d head back to the bar or fade off into the streets to repay my insult. I figured the latter but wasn’t much concerned either way.
The Kiren was trying to decipher the origins of my interest. Now his crimes were running through his memory unbidden, his mind trying to convince his nerves that my attentions were innocent, that they had to be, that there was no way I could know.
I put another argent down on the table and said to the owner in pidgin,
At a worn counter sat an equally worn grandmother, her gray face not changing a fraction of an inch throughout the entire interview.No, none of her workers had been absent the last three days. There are only two of them, they are both women, and they work six days a week between sunup and midnight. On the merits, it was not a story sufficiently interesting to warrant the coppers I gave her.
I stepped out of the tiny shop and into the afternoon light, thinking it was time to call it off, head back to the Earl to regroup, when the wind changed direction and brought with it a familiar scent. A smile stretched the corners of my mouth. Wren saw it and cocked his head curiously. “What is it?” he asked, but I ignored him and set myself against the breeze.
Two blocks farther on and the acrid scent had grown stronger. A few more steps and it was almost overpowering, and a few steps past that I realized why. In front of us stood a massive glue factory, a stone gatehouse leading to a wide work yard where a small army of Kirens submerged bone and marrow in boiling vats. I was close. I opened the door and headed inside, Wren a half step behind me.
A quick flash of my fake papers and the manager was the very picture of amicable obsequiousness. I spoke in worse Kiren than I was capable of. “Workers, all here last three day? Any no?” I put an argent on the table and his eyes lit up. “Important info, big price.” A half second for his conscience to justify selling out a member of his race to a foreigner, and the coin disappeared and he pointed discreetly to a man in the work yard.
He was bigger than me, bigger than almost any Kiren I’d ever seen, the heretics tending toward short and wiry. He carried a huge sack of powder toward one of the tanks in the courtyard, and there was a dull, plodding quality to his movements. The right side of his face bore some light bruising, the kind that could have been made by a young girl trying frantically to defend herself against a man bent on her despoliation. Of course it could have been made by any of a thousand other things.
But it hadn’t been.
And I felt that old thrill buzzing up from my groin, filtering through my chest and into my extremities. This was the one—dead eyes only vaguely reminiscent of his fellows, the set of his face betraying his crimes even at this distance. A peculiar grin crept across my face, one I hadn’t worn since before I had been stripped of the Crown’s authority. I breathed deep of the poisoned air and bit back a chuckle.
“Boy, go back to the Earl. You’re done for the night.”
Having spent so much time on the pursuit, Wren understandably wanted to be in on the payoff. “I’ll stay.”
The Kiren was looking back at me now, and I spoke without taking my eyes off him. “This ain’t an equal partnership, you’re my lackey. If I tell you to swallow a hot coal, you’ll sprint to the nearest fire, and if I tell you to head out, you’ll disappear. Now … disappear.”
Wren held his ground for a moment before turning away. I wondered if he’d head back to the bar or fade off into the streets to repay my insult. I figured the latter but wasn’t much concerned either way.
The Kiren was trying to decipher the origins of my interest. Now his crimes were running through his memory unbidden, his mind trying to convince his nerves that my attentions were innocent, that they had to be, that there was no way I could know.
I put another argent down on the table and said to the owner in pidgin,
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