Where the Pratt & Redhorn had once stood, there stood a building that looked exactly like the Pratt & Redhorn.
He stopped in the street, frowning, blinking, unable at first to comprehend … until he saw the woman sitting on the boardwalk in front of the door.
She was on the high side of middle age, body thick and as square as her jaw, hair clipped short around a hand-size swipe of burn scar where she should have had a right ear. She sat calmly, even stolidly, a thick walking stick across her knees, and she was staring at him with no expression at all.
“Holy shit.” He had to stop himself from running across the street and gathering her into his arms. “Holy shit, t’Passe! I’d kiss you, except you’d clock me for it. You are absolutely the last fucking thing I expected to find here. You saved the place.”
“Not alone,” she said tonelessly. “You are nigh upon the last thing I expected as well. I thought you were dead.”
“Lots of people do. Where are the Pratts? Where’s Kravmik?”
“Inside. It’s worth noting that also inside are several Khryllian firearms, of which at least two are aimed at you right now, by persons who know how to use them and who have no stake in your continued health. They have no idea who you are.”
He stopped. “Okay.”
“I don’t know who you are either.”
“T’Passe, for fuck’s sake—”
“Kravmik said Lord Tarkanen killed you and carried away your corpse.”
“He was fucking close to right.”
“You seem well.”
“It’s complicated.”
“Of course.”
He spread his hands. “Look, t’Passe, I don’t care. I came back here thinking there’d be nothing left but cinders and burned corpses. There’s some equipment I thought—”
“Like this?” She lifted a hand, and out from the sleeve of her robe appeared the Automag.
“Well, yeah, actually. Those are hard to come by.”
“Yes.” She pointed it at him. “I prefer that you keep your distance.”
He raised his hands. “Shit, you can have it. I’m just glad the Pratts are safe.”
“Safe enough. Lasser took a fighting claw to the chest that punctured his lung, and Kravmik’s legs are broken. Yttral and the twins are fine. There are some others wounded, but no one you know. Nothing Tyrklld can’t fix.”
“You’ve seen Tyrklld? He’s functional?”
“Yes.” She seemed disinclined to elaborate.
“Look, I need him. Can you find him for me?”
“Yes.” She tilted the pistol and righted it again. “The question is, will I?”
She was welcome to her Cainist crap this time. Shit, maybe every time. He was still astonished to be standing before an intact Pratt & Redhorn. “Wow. I mean, seriously. Wow and thank you, t’Passe. Really. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” Her tone remained neutral. “Why are you thanking me?”
“You called out your Cainist cavalry and rode to the fucking rescue.” He still couldn’t believe it. “I mean, shit, how’d you even know?”
“Ah, I see the misunderstanding.” Her expression softened, coming as close to a smile as he’d ever seen on her face. “Our defense of this establishment had nothing to do with your stay here. Lasser Pratt is a friend.”
“You have friends?”
“He and Yttrall—and Kravmik, for that matter—are fellow Disciples.”
“Right, right. Sure. I’d forgotten.”
“In the two hours since you learned it?”
He waved this off. “I’m just glad they’ll be okay.”
“We gratefully accept the protection of the Order of Khryl, but we don’t rely on it. The Pratt and Redhorn is our local emergency rally point. This city being what it is, emergencies are usually Smoke Hunts. Here we call roll, organize retrieval of the missing, bind our wounds, and stand to defend ourselves.”
“Here?”
“It’s sturdier than it looks. It housed the parish vigilry for decades, until the current Riverdock facility was built. And—” She shrugged. “—it’s the best pub on the Battleground.”
He nodded. “Okay if I sit?”
“Over there.” She kept the Automag centered on his chest. “Then perhaps you can tell me who you are.”
He lowered himself to the boardwalk a few feet away. “Jonathan Fist.”
“Ah. And you are somehow distinct from, say, Dominic Shade?”
“It’s complicated.”
“To be sure. I am, ah, reliably informed that—ah, Dominic Shade, or his body, or yours—was taken by Artan soldiers, presumably to Arta—as you say, your Earth.”
“You have a source inside BlackStone?”
“More than one. You seem surprised.”
“The Eyes of God haven’t managed to even pry open a window there.”
“Eyes of God. Please.” She snorted. “We’re the Monasteries. We’ve been in this business five hundred years. Not all our instruments are blunt as yourself.”
“Would any of your not-so-blunt types have details on their internal security?”
“It’s possible. Such matters can be discussed after I become confident of your identity and intentions. Now: your escape.”
He sighed. “I didn’t escape. Haven’t. Probably won’t. That’s kind of what I’m doing here: arranging my escape. Sort of. And a couple other things.”
She sat very still, moving only her eyes. They flitted back and forth as though she was reading text inside her head.
Finally: “An Intervention.”
“You would have found out pretty soon anyway.”
“How, ah, how long ago is this night, for you?”
“There’s no meaningful answer for that.”
“Are you actively serving the Intervening Power?”
“One of them. More or less. But also not really. Look, once we get through this, I’ll answer your questions. Any questions. Hell, t’Passe, you can interview me for your fucking book.”
“Just not tonight.”
“Yeah.” He found himself smiling at her. “I’m grateful. Really. I owe you one. I owe you a dozen.”
“I didn’t do any of it for you.”
“I owe you anyway.”
“For what?”
“For reminding me that sometimes I’m wrong. That sometimes people are better than I expect. That sometimes shit comes out better than I even hope.”
“Flattery.”
“Why would I waste the breath to flatter you?”
“Cogent.” She nodded thoughtfully. “And persuasive.”
“You and I,” he said, “will never get along. You aggravate the crap out of me, and my fucking existence is a constant embarrassment to you and your whole outlook on life. So, yeah, we can’t stand each other. But you should know that I am your friend.”
She blinked, blinked again, and then closed her eyes with a tiny shake of her head as though doubting he’d still be there when she opened them again.
“I mean it,” he said. “I have profound respect for your intellect, your integrity, and your capability. And even more for your courage. If you need me, ever, the Eyes of God can find me, and the Monasteries usually know where I am. If I am alive, I will help when you call. I know you won’t abuse the privilege.”
Meaning she understood all too well how cataclysmic his help can be, and so wouldn’t ask unless all alternatives were worse. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Just don’t expect me to be nice to you.”
“I lack the imagination.”
“See? Aggravate the crap out of me. Listen, I told the Pratts to get out of town.”
“I know.”
“You can’t protect them. I’d tell you to get out of town if you would. Since you won’t, keep your fucking head down.”
“How far down?”
“Purthin Khlaylock was behind the Smoke Hunt. So is Markham Tarkanen. I don’t know who else on the Khryllian side, but there have to be ot
hers.”
She nodded thoughtfully.
“You don’t seem surprised.”
“My sources speculate that the whole of the Lords Legendary are involved, and possibly the Champion herself.”
“She’s not in it.”
“How can you be sure?”
He looked at her. Just looked. After a moment she looked away and sighed.
“The Monasteries have no official interest in how the Knights of Khryl maintains order among its slaves and civilians.”
“The Monasteries should fucking reconsider. The Smoke Hunt isn’t thaumaturgy. It’s theurgy. Always has been.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Then—”
“Fucking right, then. It’s not riot control, it’s a fucking crusade.”
“Impossible.”
“Just like it’s impossible I’m here talking to you.”
She let her eyes slip closed, and lifted a hand to massage her forehead. “I noted the verb tense you used in referring to the Justiciar.”
“Yeah. And before you ask, it was me.”
She coughed. She tried to say something but instead coughed again.
“Take your time.”
She said, “You’ll forgive me for restating, but I need to confirm you’re telling me you intervened in a holy war by assassinating the head of the most powerful militant religious order in the history of Home?”
“It wasn’t like that,” he said, a little stung. “It was a fair fight. More than fair. He was fully armed and armored and at the height of his strength. I was naked, shackled, and had just woken up from a skull fracture.”
“You caught him with a sucker punch.”
“You say it your way, I’ll say it mine.”
“It’s an overt act of war—!”
“In more ways than one.”
“You have committed the Monasteries to open war with the Order of Khryl!”
“You mentioned that already.”
“Do you have any idea how catastrophic this is?”
“Relax. You think I’d start a war without knowing how to end it?”
“Of course you would! You’ve done it at least three times I know of!”
Oh, sure, bring up the truth. “T’Passe, seriously. Take it easy. I’ve never seen you like this. You’re almost, well, hysterical.”
“Hysterical? Hysterical?” She finally registered the shrill edge to her tone. She sagged, then set the pistol on the boardwalk and rubbed her eyes with both hands.
“Yes,” she said quietly. “I apologize. I have, ah, invested considerable … personal energy … in my position here; open war will be … unfortunate. For me. Personally.”
“Personally? So like, what, you’re banging a Khryllian?”
She only sighed.
He stared. Good thing he was already sitting down. “Um … you do know that was a joke, right?”
“Not for me.” Again she sighed, then twisted to call softly toward the Pratt & Redhorn’s front door. “Somebody tell the fat man I need him out here.”
He frowned. The fat man? Was he dreaming Casablanca again?
His bemusement lasted only a second or two, at which point the doorway disgorged the bloodstained steel and dockhand’s amble of Tyrkilld, Knight Aeddhar, who was very likely the only man alive who could amble nonchalantly while clanking like a steam boiler. “And here I am as ever, old girl, aleap at m’lady’s faintest whim. Shall I dismember yon dire ill-favored apparition forthwith, or might I first occupy a board or two beside my fondest dream of paradise, that being the hope of brushing ’gainst the hem of m’lady’s cloak?”
“Oh, my sweet suffering pigfucking god.”
Tyrkilld managed an unstable sketch of a bow. “And up your Monass-dick, fuck you very much.”
Fist could only shake his head. “You’re still drunk.”
“No honest man would deny it. But come the morrow I’ll be sober, and you’ll still be an assassassbite.”
“It’s the morrow already,” t’Passe said sternly.
“Ah, fairly struck. If I might beseat myself to tend the wound—?”
“Christ, you’re like a couple of teenagers.”
He looked from him to her and back again, and some rusted-shut part of his brain kicked open. He felt like he should either cry or kill somebody. “That’s how you knew me. You didn’t know me when I kicked your ass at the customs lockup, but by the time I saw you in the Spire, you did—along with some half-assed story I didn’t pay attention to. And you,” he said to t’Pass, “sure, you were expecting me ever since you arrived in Purthin’s Ford. Sure you were. Son of a bitch. It’s a good thing I don’t have to make a living by figuring shit out.”
“A more generous man than my poor self might imply, in your defense, that your day has leaned a bit windward of eventful to be overconcerned with one’s powers of deduction.”
“I guess you probably heard that story of mine just now, huh?”
“Among the variety of tales to cross paths within my ear this night.”
“Do you have to take me in?”
Tyrkilld gave a shrug that sounded like slipping gears. “No sane man would maintain the Lord Justiciar of the Order of Khryl might be struck down by your miserable assassassitude. Having, as I do, some passing acquaintance with the bewildering webwork of lies bewoven by your dishonest Monassbiteness, I can truthfully aver that I have no slightest cause to suspect the Justiciar enjoys anything other than his customary perfect health. Perfect saving peripheral vision, if you’ll forgive. And depth perception, but nonetheless—”
Fist nodded. “And there’s not a blessed thing wrong with the service of Khryl, saving only the company.”
“Ah, you must be quoting a man of far greater wit than your pitiful—”
“Yeah yeah, okay, drop it. Look, what t’Passe said about me and starting wars … well, it’s true. But this one’s different. You can win it. You personally. Get with Kierendal and let her know the balloon goes up tomorrow at sundown.”
“Sundown?”
“That’s when Khryl’s Justice ends, right? If Angvasse doesn’t show?”
T’Passe frowned at him. “A Khlaylock fail to appear for Khryl’s Justice? You have the wrong family, my friend. Not even the death of her closest living relation—”
“It might not be just a relation.”
T’Passe and Tyrkilld traded grim looks.
“My distaste for the Justiciar does not extend to his bloodline. The Lady Champion’s cut of different cloth entire,” Tyrkilld said. “I will with all available force resist any endeavor to do herself the slightest hurt.”
Jonathan Fist nodded. “I get it. I even agree. My source says she’s not going to be there. Something’s going to stop her. Maybe not me.”
“And this unlikely source that whispers to your dishonest self is some variety of prophet?”
“Close enough. Look, Orbek versus Angvasse to the death is a pretty big show, even for the Battlground, yes? Living Fist of Khyl against the Last Kwatcharr of the Black Knife Nation? It’s set for noon. If she doesn’t show, the crowd will keep growing the later it gets. By sundown, everybody will be there—to either see the fight, or see Orbek go free. That’s when Freedom’s Face has to move on BlackStone.”
“Your people,” t’Passe said. “You want Freedom’s Face to attack your own people?”
“Not exactly. We just need to hold the compound.”
“Thus you asked about their internal security.”
“Yeah. Tyrkilld, I need you to lead the assault.”
“I? Still hoping to engineer my bloody demise, are you?”
“It’s not a fort. It’s not even military. It’s just a fucking mining operation. Sure, they’ll have some guys with advanced weapons, but it’s all small-arms shit. Not much different from those riot guns your armsmen carry.”
“Are they not a griffinstone producer? Belike to encounter ferocious magickal defenses.”
“Yeah, and you have Kierendal. I know who my mon
ey’s on.” He leaned forward, resting forearms on knees. “Look, we need to control the dil. The gate to the True Hell, right? We need good guys in charge of this side, because otherwise bad guys will be coming from the other side, you follow? Very bad guys. Ask your girlfriend here about the Artan Invasion. Anyway, it has to look like a Khryllian operation. Win or lose.”
“And why, prithee, would the Knights of Khryl undertake the seizure by violence of BlackStone, which is under Our Order’s own protection by not only law and treaty, but the explicit command of the Justiciar himelf?”
“Well, let’s see. Would this Justiciar be the same one who was murdered in the BlackStone governor’s office? Would this BlackStone be the same place where the murder was covered up and the assassin, still dripping the Justiciar’s blood and brains, was whisked away beyond the reach of Khryl’s Law altogether? Hell, you don’t even have to use the whisked away part—play dumb on that. Dumber. Because there’s no reason you’d know about the gate … which means you can pretend the Artans are harboring the assassin. It’s even true. They’re just harboring me—him—somewhere else.”
Tyrkilld looked thoughtful. T’Passe scowled into the distance.
“No need to involve the Monasteries at all, right? Where I come from,” Fist said to t’Passe, “we call this ‘Let’s you and him fight.’ Besides, I told Markham he was facing war with Earth. Wouldn’t want to make me a liar, would you?”
“Hard to deny the scent of a certain rascally foxlike cunning,” Tyrkilld admitted. “But for what gain? War with Arta—I make no pretense of being a Knight of notable honor, but to instigate a calamity of such proportion—”
“Which will never happen. If I pull this off, the war will end before midnight tomorrow, and the Artans will never trouble you again. If I don’t, well, give them back their compound and apologize for the misunderstanding. Pay for the damages. That kind of shit.”
“If you pull this off,” t’Passe muttered darkly. “I hate when you say that. Pull what off?”
“I was telling you about the Butcher’s Fist—ahh, Hand of Peace, whatever.”
“How you thought it might be in the Spire.”
“Yeah, except no. It’s not in the Spire. But I know where it is.”