Ule-Tourann, the Family Bishop of Purthin’s Ford, moved up one of the sanctum’s ramped aisles in a loose-jointed shamble. From under the Bishop’s biretta straggled curls of oiled hair the same color as the grease spot on his surplice. He moved like a man who’d heard of exercise but had never actually seen it done. And he yapped. Ruthlessly. Yap yap yap yap: a stupefyingly endless river of content-free noise.
“. . . if only more Beloved Children would make Atonement their first order of business when they arrive in a new city. If only. Though the final boat came in, er, well, I would suppose—that is to say, usually the last of the steamers arrives no later than the end of fourth watch—”
“I got held up in customs.”
“Ah.” He blinked and nodded like he actually understood. “Well then, it’s as it may be, eh? If it is Willed, it Shall be So. Ma’elKoth is Supreme, yes?”
“So they tell me.”
The sanctum resembled that of the Cathedral of the Assumption in Ankhana: a bowl of benches surrounding a walled expanse of floor, like stadium seating around an arena. But here the sanctum was floored with rose-veined marble, and lovely runners of scarlet and gold led from each radial aisle to the broad altar in the center. Astride the altar stood a colossal bronze nude of God Himself, resembling the one that stood in the Great Hall of the Colhari Palace—double-sided, so that the face of Ma’elKoth looked out before and behind, and bearing stylized representations of both male and female genitals—though where the original stood with arms akimbo, this Ma’elKoth had arms outstretched above, forming pillars that supported a domed ceiling of colored glass. All the dazzling blues of a clear noonday sky at its apex, the dome shaded into cloud-swirls of sunset reds and golds near its base.
The Bishop continued to chatter in an amiably mindless way as we threaded among the acolytes and underpriests who roamed the sanctum brushing carpets, polishing the altar, clambering up and down the cunning collapsible scaffold that let them burnish the bronze Ma’elKoth. The current of his yap-river carried us beyond the sanctum, through the administrative wing, and all the way to his office.
The Bishop installed himself in an immense cowhide swivel chair that he spun away from a writing hutch the size of a meat locker. He added some wrist-size logs to the grate and waved them alight, then gestured toward a horseshoe chair upholstered in knobby green brocade. “Please, Freeman Shade, be comfortable, ha-ha—hrm, yes. Before we proceed to the, er, the Atonement cells, there was that small matter . . . ? That is, I was informed that you, ha-ha, wish to make an offering, yes?”
I barely heard him. The shutters were open. I drifted across the room to stand at the window, and I looked up into Hell.
Watchfires on the battlements cast orange smears up the sides of the Spire, pocked with yellow crosses where lamplight shone through arbalestinas. The light on the face of Hell was redder, just enough to make out ghosts of structure; cookfires and lamps and window-leaked hearth glow scattered sparks across its face. There, off to the right, just above the third bridge—hung now with age-greyed blankets and stained tunics, a sloppy-fat ogrillo bitch dozing beside a fire can on the ledge, while a couple pups sat naked, giving each other the occasional listless punch on the arm, near a gap where the retaining wall had collapsed—that was it.
That was the parapet. Right there. Where I had stood with the partners half my life ago, watching Black Knives run the badlands. Now it was ogrilloi in the vertical city and humanity below. I wondered if any of them had looked out over the river today. If any of them had watched the riverboat.
If any of them had seen me coming.
“Erm, ha-ha, Freeman Shade—? There was, erm, an amount discussed, yes? A hundred—?”
Hell above me. Hell behind and Hell ahead.
I turned aside from the window. “The vessel with the pestle,” I said in English, heavily, because this was Ma’elKoth’s sense of fucking humor and frankly it was just goddamn embarrassing, “has the brew that is true.”
The bishop’s face went blank and slack, shapeless as a mask carved in pudding.
I snapped my fingers. Bone structure developed within the bishop’s cheeks like a telescopic image being twisted into focus; his jaw firmed, and keen purpose drove the genial glaze from his eyes. He sat forward in the swivel chair and pushed his face sideways with one hand until a string of audible joint pops shot down his spine.
“Knowing how to do that buys you ten seconds to explain why I shouldn’t have you killed.”
I said, “You know me.”
A wave of clarity passed over the bishop’s face.
“Lord Caine.” He rose and extended a hand. “You’re expected. I have your equipment right here.”
I took the offered hand. “Caine.”
“Pardon?”
“Just Caine. Freeman Caine, if you want. I’m not Lord anything. Better you just call me Dominic Shade.”
The bishop shrugged. “I’d be honored if you’d call me Tourann.”
He dug a ring of keys out of his robe and unlocked one of the cupboards on his writing hutch, then muttered briefly under his breath and made a series of circular gestures with his left hand while with his right he reached in farther than the hutch was deep, and began briskly pulling out more objects than could have fit within it. “Sorry I can’t show you the rest of the station. Security. You understand.”
“Yeah, whatever. Are you the secondary or the primary?”
His eyebrows lifted. “You mean: Which came first, the bishop or the spy?”
“Something like that.”
“It’s more like we’re both secondary. He’s dominant unless I’m triggered—but I get all his memories, and he doesn’t have a clue I exist.”
“Huh. Creepy.”
“It’s not so bad. They say they can reintegrate me when I rotate out. Besides, I’m used to it by now.”
“Seems a little extreme.”
“You think it’s easy running an Eyes of God post where the unfriendlies have truthsense?” He pulled a mournful face. “The Knights of Khryl don’t do diplomatic immunity, and they are not to be fucked with.”
“I’ve heard rumors.”
“Rumors. Right.” He grimaced and shook his head. “Our last undoubled station chief got his arms pulled off.”
He finished laying out the items from the hutch: a flat leather pack the size of his palm, four matte-black knives—two guardless diamond-blade throwers and two of the Cold Steel Peacekeeper XXs that had been brought to Home by the Social Police Expeditionary Force that had invaded Ankhana three years before—a spring-loaded telescopic baton, a garrotte of thin black cable wrapped around grip-molded steel skeleton handles fixed to either end, and a huge stainless 12mm Automag with a custom barrel screw-fitted to receive the large black silencer beside it.
I checked the edge of each knife and scanned the garrotte’s cable for any signs of raveling. I picked up the Automag, popped the clip to eyeball the case-less tristack shatter slug rounds, then dropped the two spare clips into my purse before I tucked the gun into the leather holster patch sewn inside the rear waistband of my pants.
Tourann picked up the silencer. “What about this?”
“Keep it. Then when I miss, at least they duck.”
“We can blue the finish for you—”
“I like it bright. Nobody has to squint to figure out I’ve got a handful of Big Fucking Gun. Who else knows I was coming here?”
“I’m sorry?”
I picked up the throwing knives, rechecked the edges briefly, and slipped them into their holsters in my boots. “How do you make reports? Artan Mirror to Ankhana, right?”
“That’s need-to-know information—”
“So on this end, there’s you and the Mirror Speaker, at least; anybody else?”
“No—no, no, of course not—”
“Then there’s the Speaker on the other end. Reports with my name on them go straight to the Duke of Public Safety, right?”
“I, ah, I’m not allo
wed—”
“Don’t worry about it. So at least somebody’s told Deliann by now, I’m guessing.”
Tourann licked sweat off his upper lip. “I—what the Emperor may or may not know is beyond my—”
“Look, it’s all right. It’s not exactly a secret. Except from the Khryllians.”
“Purthin Khlaylock. Sure.” The bishop nodded wisely. “Want to bet he still remembers you?”
“Only when he looks in the mirror.”
“Um, yeah. Um. No wonder you’re incognito.” He coughed. “What about that non recognition magick of yours? It worked on me, and I am far from undefended—”
“It’s called the Eternal Forgetting, and it’s—complicated. It doesn’t erase personal experience. He’ll remember me, and what I did to him. And maybe to the Black Knives. He just won’t be able to put that Caine together with, say, the hero of Ceraeno—”
Tourann nodded. “Or the Prince of Chaos, or the Hand of Ma’elKoth—”
“Yeah, yeah. Drop it.”
“Nice.”
“Mostly useful in places where I don’t run into old friends.”
“Friends?”
“Or whatever.”
“What’d you get on Orbek?”
“Not a lot.” He looked like his stomach hurt. “Uh, I have some bad news about that—”
“I heard.”
“You did?”
“I guess it was some size of deal.”
“You could say that.” Tourann pulled some pages of handwritten notes from a hutch drawer, and passed them over. “Orbek Black Knife: Taykarget. Hit town three months ago, give or take. Maybe two or two and a half.”
“You’re not sure?”
“He came in illegally. No customs records, no employment documents, nothing. Nothing official until the, uh, incident.”
“You let these cock-knockers detain an Ankhanan freeman? What the fuck are you doing?”
“My job. Gathering information. Filing reports.”
“Shit.”
Tourann spread his hands. “No diplomatic relations, Caine.”
“Shade.”
“Yes. The Knights recognize no government beyond the Laws of Khryl. Break their Law and nobody cares if you’re the queen of Lipke. They were going to question him on another matter, but he refused submission. Then he just berserked and opened up.”
“Another matter?”
“A murder. A grill, up in Hell. Shot.”
I only grunted, reading ahead.
“You don’t look surprised.”
“You’re not my only source,” I muttered, still reading. “The Knight Accusor—Angvasse Khlaylock—”
“Niece.”
“I heard. What do you have on her?”
Tourann lowered himself back into the swivel chair. “I’d stay clear if I were you.”
“It’s not up to me.”
“No?”
I didn’t explain.
The bishop shrugged. “She’s the old man all over again. Doubled. Only twenty-seven, and Khryl’s Champion for three years now.”
“First since Pintelle, right?”
“Odds-on to be the first female Justiciar since Pintelle, too, when the old man cashes out. The grills call her Vasse Khrylget, and it’s only half a joke.”
“Any leverage?”
“Leverage. Sure.” The bishop snorted. “She’s so clean you have to brush your teeth before you kiss her ass. Incorruptible. Which I know because we’ve been trying for about ten years.”
“Yeah?”
“Each new chief takes a swing at her. It’s like a rite of passage. I wouldn’t mind landing one on her myself.”
“You better have long fucking arms. What’s Orbek doing up here in the first place?”
Tourann shrugged again. “At a guess? He might have been in with Freedom’s Face—they smuggle the worst kinds of Ankhanan thugs over the mountains—”
“Thug, shit. He’s just a kid.”
“A kid who managed to compost two Knights of Khryl. You have any idea how hard it is to kill a Knight of Khryl?”
I looked up from the page. Just looked.
“Oh, right.” The bishop reddened. “Right. Sorry.”
“What the fuck is Freedom’s Face, really?”
“Officially? Renegade Folk terrorists. Ruthless, bloodthirsty psychotics out to destroy the worship of Khryl.”
“I said really.”
He shrugged. “They’re mostly Ankhanan kids who thought it’d be a thrill to ride over the mountains and Strike a Blow for Ogrillo Freedom. Mixed in with a few pretty hard-core Warrens and Alientown operatives supplied by an old friend of yours from the safety of her—”
“We’re not friends,” I muttered. “Why haven’t you stepped on these idiots?”
“It’s not exactly our job. And the Empire isn’t exactly anti-Ogrillo-Freedom, either, when you get to the bone.”
“What’s this got to do with Orbek?”
“Maybe nothing. It’s also possible he was in with the Smoke Hunt.”
I nodded. “Talk to me about the Smoke Hunt.”
Tourann gave me a sidelong look. “What’s your interest?”
“It was the reason for a major ass-whipping I took today,” I said evenly, “and might be the reason for a couple I might deliver.”
Tourann flinched, just a little. “Bad news is what it is. Every so often some ogrilloi get cracked on booze and rith and go wilding. Just fist and claw stuff, but that’s serious enough.”
“I remember.”
“People get hurt; a lot of them die. Including the grills. The Knights see to that. That’s the official story.”
“All right, sure. And unofficially?”
“They’re organized. And it’s getting out of hand. The activity jumped roughly the same time Orbek hit town. The Knights are trying to keep a lid on it, but they’re starting to see Smoke Hunters once or twice a week. Even a solo can do serious damage before he’s put down, and often it’s a pack. Sometimes more than one. And there’s a handful of Knights Attendant—nine so far—who have supposedly been promoted and gone On Venture—”
“Supposedly.”
“Two confirmed kills, three more probable. Maybe all of them.”
“Nine dead? Nine? Without firearms? Shit, even with guns . . .” I shook my head blankly. “The name?”
“They shout, ‘Dizhrati golzinn Ekk.’ It’s like their motto or something.”
“Sure. A fucking hint, huh?”
“You don’t speak Etk Dag?”
“In my day nobody did. Nobody human.”
“Huh. I suppose not.” Tourann rolled a hand a couple times. “Translates as ‘I am the Smoke Hunt.’ ”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“How should I know?”
“You could try maybe asking a grill.”
“Caine, come on; you know what it’s like with slave culture.” The bishop affected a thick Boedecken accent. “N’buddy know nudd’n. Nevva do.”
“Slave culture,” I echoed, chewing the inside of my lip. Again. “Great.”
“You say that like you disapprove.”
“Not my business.” I bit down hard enough to make an eyelid flicker. “What’s the connection to Orbek?”
“More than the coincidence of timing? We’re looking into it, but I can’t make any promises. This past month or so, all my tame sources have dried up and blown away. And I might not have gotten much regardless; the Smoke Hunters all seem to be intacts.”
“Intacts—?”
“You know, unaltered.” The bishop rolled that hand a couple more times. “Ungelded.”
I tasted blood.
“Don’t look like that.” Tourann shifted as though the swivel chair hurt his ass. “It’s not what you think. The Knights don’t just go around clipping balls. It’s voluntary.”
“Voluntary.”
“Sure. Geldings and fem neuters are eligible for better jobs down here in the city. Jobs with human con
tact. Jobs that require social skills, a little education, learning to read, that kind of stuff. Intacts are pretty much stuck with stoop labor on the estates, maybe some dock work or light hauling if they’re lucky. Or in the mines. You’d be surprised how many volunteer.”
“No, I wouldn’t.” The smart ones. The ambitious ones. Negative selection: breeding out dangerous traits.
I bit down and swallowed. “So?”
“So my sources were all eligibles. Intacts and eligibles are almost like separate cultures. Like, I don’t know, castes—”
“I get how it works.” I looked back out the window, up at the fat bitch lolling in the sunset, high on the parapet. “That’s what they’re all whipped up about, huh? These Freedom’s Face cocksmokes?”
“In the Empire, grills’re full citizens.” Tourann turned a hand toward the view. “Here, they’re—”
“Tame.” I stared toward the fat bitch on the parapet, but it was other bitches I was really seeing. Dancing in firelight below my cross. Again.
I’ll be seeing that for the rest of my life.
“Ask me if it breaks my fucking heart.”
“Hey, I’m not political. I gather information and I write reports, and a year and a half from now I’ll be one person again. In Ankhana. Where Knights of Khryl are the ones who are tame.”
“Sure they are.” I tossed the papers back on the desk and started gathering up the rest of my equipment. The spring-loaded baton came in a small holster; I pushed up my left sleeve and laid it along the outside of my forearm. “What about Disciples?”
“You mean Cainists?”
I made a face. “Whatever.”
“Outlawed. You can probably understand why.”
“I can guess.”
“The Khryllians wouldn’t tolerate the Church itself if Ma’elKoth hadn’t reaffirmed Toa-Phelathon’s land grant after the First Succession War. And, y’know, there’s the Spire—”
“Yeah.”
“So, y’know, they like elKothans here. But even so, we have to play by their rules, if you see what I mean. The Cainists, though—they have, ahh, what you might call a, ah, complex relationship, I suppose, with the whole concept of rules . . .”
“Tell me about it,” I said, fastening the last buckle on the baton’s holster straps.