Chapter 10

It was a half-hour walk, most of it following the road to Scholomance.

Angharad had paid little attention to the path once they left the paved avenue, busy quietly seething at the fact they had been robbed. Sebastian Camaron had not lied. When they’d returned to their room at the Rainsparrow Hostel they found it just as empty as he had said. Even the clothes she had acquired yesterday gone.

Once more, she owned nothing but what she wore.

Incomprehensibly, Angharad was not allowed to kill the man responsible for this even though she knew his name, face and he had confessed to the crime. It made her blood boil. This was what honor duels were for – burning out evil, reminding the nobly born that their station was not only a privilege. That it came with rules of conduct.

Only beginning to taste blood forced her to stop biting at the inside of her cheek, though mercifully distraction was offered soon after.

“This is it,” Tristan announced. “Never saw it from below before, but there’s nowhere else like that in the city.”

When the Sacromontan had spoken of a hidden cottage, Angharad had expected some charming but worn-down building tucked away in an alley between larger ruins. Instead she was looking at… well, there wasn’t exactly a word for this as far as she knew. In a way it reminded her of the Trial of Ruins, the way devils had stacked temple over temple until the pile became something it its own. This was humbler work in scale, she thought, and more… architectural. Not a mere pile haphazardly grown.

The edifice was three city blocks long and three wide with matching height, roughly a cube, but it was not a single entity. Someone had stacked small rectangular residences one atop another to fill the cube, though the work was imperfect. Like with poorly lair bricks there were empty spaces between the residences, forming alcoves and makeshift halls. Some of these were filled with stairs, some kept empty as corridors and pits. The structure went so high she could not see what the roofs looked like, but even from down here she could see they were of differing heights.

There were no doubt many things to look at in there, Angharad thought, but glaringly missing was the reason they had come here in the first place.

“The cottage,” she tried, “must be well-hidden indeed.”

Tristan threw her an amused glance. Perhaps her attempt at diplomacy had been a tad transparent.

“There’s something here,” Maryam announced. “I could not tell you what, it is far beyond anything I have ever seen, but the aether around here is too smooth. Like something is keeping it from having ripples.”

The Triglau inspected thin air, until suddenly wincing and rubbing the bridge of her nose. Some Navigator trick, no doubt.

“The archbishop’s trick still works, then,” Tristan said. “That’s good news should we get past it. I’ve never come up from the bottom, but I expect if we enter through that opening-”

Angharad followed his finger, then frowned. There was nothing but a rampart of walls, windows and doors.

“What opening?”

“I do not see it either,” Maryam admitted.

All their eyes went to Song, who was frowning.

“I see it,” she said. “Like a crack in the facade, two stories high. Only I do not think-”

The Tianxi winced.

“I try to think of passing through and,” she began, then paused for a long heartbeat.

She suddenly flinched, then cursed.

“I can think of finding a path,” Song slowly said. “And see the opening is there. But I cannot think the two things put together.”

Angharad shivered. Only madmen wove in Gloam, and madder still those who trifled with their works.

“Lucky for us,” Maryam assured them. “It means we’re dealing with an Acumenal Sign – that is to say, one that affects senses or perception. The archbishop laid an illusion, not a curse.”

“Tell that to my migraine,” Song sighed.

“Tristan,” Maryam replied without batting an eye, “this is an illusion and not a curse.”

Angharad coughed into her fist to hide the amused twitch of her lips. The gray-eyed man put a hand to his heart, affecting a wound.

“That was most unwarranted,” Tristan said.

“That is true,” Song noted. “As you’ve already been detained, the warrant has been served.”

Angharad would have liked to add something – making sport of Tristan was most enjoyable, and he ever took it in stride – but for the life of her could not think of something clever to add. Served, something about lowborn service? No, that was clumsy. Wincing at her own gracelessness, Angharad cleared her throat.

“Have any of you a notion of how we are to enter that veiled opening?” she asked.

Eyes went to Maryam, who shrugged.

“Like Ilija’s brothers in the woods, only without the man-eating monster,” she said.

There was a brief heartbeat of silence as the three of them shared glances. Ah, so she was not the only one lost. Reassuring. Tristan cleared his throat.

“Pretend I’ve never heard of this Ilija,” he said.

Maryam squinted at them.

“Ilija and his seven brothers are sent to cross woods by a witch, every night for seven nights,” she tried.

At the lack of reaction, she pressed on with a frown.

“Only Ilija knows the way so they walk in line holding the belt of the brother in front, that way they cannot get lost and the monster cannot grab them?” she continued, increasingly desperate. “Only then the monster starts eating the last in line and pretending to be them until only Ilija survives?”

“Horrifying,” Tristan cheerfully replied. “But in a refreshingly novel way, as I have never heard this tale before.”

“I could swear hearing Lierganen have the same story with the names changed,” Maryam muttered. “Or was it Izcalli?”

She shook her head.

“Regardless,” she said, “in the absence of belt simply holding each other’s clothes in a line should suffice. We need to focus on the act of holding the cloak, not the movement, while Tristan guides us to the right place.”

“And once we have been in that cottage, we will have broken the illusion on our minds if Abrascal is to be believed,” Song said. “That seems feasible, if everything goes as said.”

“Even if the Sign still works on you after and we can’t use it as a hideout, we could still use the place as a stash for things we need kept safe,” Tristan noted. “It won’t be a wasted trip.”

It was somewhat undignified, but they gathered behind the Sacromontan like ducklings. Maryam behind him, Song behind her and Angharad herself at the rearguard.

The journey that followed was strange, but not unpleasant.

The noblewoman knew that she was walking forward, headed somewhere, but the only time she let the thought fully form she was brusquely jolted out of her reverie by Song tugging at her coat. Even considering the ground beneath their feet, whether it was pavement or rubble or rust, seemed to get her lost inside her own mind. Angharad learned to focus her mind on holding the back of Song’s uniform, letting her feet move without direction.

“This is close enough. We are on the grounds.”

Angharad allowed herself to see the ground beneath her feet, overgrown grass, and let go of Song’s uniform. A glance back showed she was barely past a wide set of stairs, stone and rust descending into the dark, and then she was staring at what the others were.

Tristan had not lied, for amidst the garden – half wildly overgrown weeds, half dead earth – stood a charming cottage. And a rather large one, the cobblestone structure two stories high and rising into a turret. It was larger than the cottages in the countryside by Llanw Hall, and considering the stone walls and tiled roof it was also much better built.

“That is larger than I expected,” she said.

“Don’t flatter him,” Maryam laughed.

Angharad choked, wise to the implication, but of all things Tristan shot them a puzzled look. He was a man and a common birth, so surely he would understand bawdy humor.

“Come,” Song said. “Let us have a better look.”

The door was unlocked, which seemed to relieve Tristan. The inside of the cottage was, well, dusty. Their boots left footsteps as if walking in soot, and Song sneezed. But aside from the ravages of time, the cottage seemed quite pleasant. The bottom floor was the entrance, a drawing room by beautiful glass windows overlooking the garden and to the side a kitchen of respectable size.

They found stairs by the kitchen, leading up, and five rooms waiting there. Two dilapidated bedrooms, a locked and barred door that would require some ingenuity to get open, a reading room stocked with rows of books and a small storage. Within the storage was a ladder going up, which after climbing Tristan informed them led to a small stargazing room inside the turret.

“It will take some effort to make livable,” Song said, “but the space is there, at least.”

“I vote in favor,” Maryam announced, leaning against a wall.

She strung out the word vote teasingly.

“My opinion should be clear,” Tristan said, dusting off his shoulders.

The room up in the turret must have been no less dusty, for he was quite filthy.

“Angharad?”

The Pereduri wrenched her gaze away from the disaster and cleared her throat.

“It is a fine enough place,” she said. “I have no objection.”

Song nodded.

“It is settled, then,” the captain said. “Which leaves us to begin the work.”

She glanced at Tristan.

“Abrascal, take stock of the kitchen,” she said. “Do we have plates, cutlery, pans? Everything necessary to cook.”

The gaze moved to Maryam.

“Find out if there’s a broom in this house or anything to clean. If not, we will need to buy necessities – and find a source of water, if you can. I cannot believe a man of the rank of archbishop would have built a house without one.”

The Triglau nodded. Angharad stood at attention, waiting for her turn. She got it.

“Angharad, find out how much of the furniture is broken or rotten,” Song said. “We will likely need to replace parts of it.”

Song glanced at them, eyebrow cocked.

“I will make a list and look for a key to our mystery room,” she said. “Let’s get to it.”

It took them about half an hour to get the answers, to mixed results. The kitchen was still stocked on everything but food, though a shelf had collapsed when Tristan touched it and would need repair. They would need fuel for the cookpot, too. Most of the larger furniture had kept well, Angharad reported, and there was not a trace of rot or insects in the house. On the other hand, the chairs were either collapsed or about to and testing a bedframe with her boot had resulted in the thing coming apart at the seams.

Maryam found a broom and a mop as well as several copper buckets, but only the buckets were fit to use. There was a water well behind the house, she revealed, but it would need new rope and bucket to be of any use. Song, to the Tianxi’s visible irritation, did not find a key.

“It isn’t as bad as I expected,” Song opined, adding the last note to her list. “It is mostly the bedding that will be expensive. And if we organize properly, we should get most of what we need here in a single journey.”

Angharad cleared her throat.

“Can our brigade funds cover the expenses?” she asked.

“I do not know,” Song admitted. “Nor am I too versed in the prices for the food and supplies sold on Regnant Avenue. I need to visit the brigade vaults and find out the sum at our disposal.”

“We all have business in town,” Tristan noted. “Though in different places. Shall we split up and meet at the Rainsparrow Hostel when done?”

That seemed sensible enough, Angharad thought, until she considered the details. Both she and Maryam were headed to the farrago warehouse, so should the cabal be split… She opened her mouth to suggest a different arrangement, but she had been too slow.

“Agreed,” Song said. “Abrascal, with me. You two can pick up your affairs.”

Angharad’s eyes strayed to Maryam, who was looking back at her with the same lack of enthusiasm at the prospect of the common journey.

And to think the day had been looking up.

—

The poets liked comparing cities to living things, to beasts.

Only the pretty ones, mind you: leopards and wolves and eagles, the kind of creature some noble might proudly use as heraldry. Sacromonte tended to get the griffin, owing to old statues and a popular epic by Salivares that waxed on about the ‘lion-blooded city rising on eagle’s wings, twice-noble’. Pretty beasts, griffins. Tristan had once read they were so territorial they sometimes drove themselves to extinction by smashing the eggs of their own kind, so despite his best efforts Salivares might have stumbled onto some deeper truth.

Tristan was no poet, but he’d come to agree with them in a broad sense if not in the specifics. There was something alive about a city, be it sick or hale, and you could follow that pumping blood to the heart of the creature. Here in Port Allazei, he was finding that the vital center lay in a rough triangle of streets of which Hostel Street was the bottom. But it was on another side of the triangle that Song led him, after they parted ways with the others.

To the west of Hostel Street, past a narrow lane, lay Regnant Avenue. Paved and wide, it cut from southwest to northeast. On the bottom end lay the barracks and fort of the Port Allazei garrison, while along its length were nestled a multitude of shops and trades. Butchers and bakers, greenmongers of all kinds, but also proper tradesmen like smiths and tailors. There was even a shop that could only be called an armory, selling firearms of all kinds and powder by the barrel.

“Hard to believe they’re selling soldier’s arms out in the open like this,” Tristan noted as they passed by. “It is against the law in Sacromonte.”

Pistols could be bought by anyone with the coin, and even muskets so long as they were fowlers – hunting guns, better at killing birds than men – but the kind of muskets that might be used in war were not to be found. The Six strictly controlled their make and distribution and had banned their sale in the city by foreign traders. It was one of the rare laws the Guardia was heavy-handed in enforcing, and every year would-be smugglers got strung up for having tried their luck.

Sometimes the Six received complaints from other powers, but everyone knew they’d rather have those than face confederales armed with more than butcher’s knives.

“Sale is legal in Tianxia, usually,” Song told him. “It is owning them that is restricted. Most of the Republics have decreed that there should be no more than one such musket per household.”

“That’s still a lot more gun than infanzones would ever be comfortable us having,” Tristan said.

“That is because they are yiwu trash,” the Tianxi replied in the casual tone of someone stating a commonly known fact. “A people armed are answerable to, and the only answer to affronted dignity is uprising.”

The thief eyed her with surprise.

“I thought you a moderate, as far as these things go,” he said.

She had certainly wasted no time cozying up to nobles on the Bluebell. The silver-eyed woman snorted.

“I am no Yellow Earth fanatic, arguing that we must liberate all Vesper by powder and sword, but I am certainly no royalist,” Song sneered, speaking the word with utter disdain. “Jigong spent most of the Cathayan Wars either under the Imperial Someshwar’s boot or being sacked by it. We have seen the true face of kings, Tristan, and care little for it.”

Song shrugged.

“Still, most of Vesper keeps nobles,” she said. “In time all will be free under Heaven, but until then we must keep to what is instead of what will be.”

“Practical,” Tristan conceded.

“The northern republics have to be,” she said. “Unlike the Sanxing, we do not have the luxury of sharing borders only with each other and the sea.”

The Three Stars, that word meant. The three southernmost republics of Tianxia, which also happened to be the largest and most powerful of the lot. They were the victors of the Cathayan Wars, as much as anyone could be called that, and had led the liberation of what was now Tianxia from Izcalli and the Someshwar. He flicked a glance her way, having caught the faint distaste at their mention. She did not elaborate, however, and he did not ask.

It had been a surprisingly cordial conversation and Song had grown more congenial since the cottage – and a demonstration of him being useful – but Tristan was under no illusion that the nature of their rapport had changed.

Having come to Regnant Street from further west and gone up its length to the northeast the pair had begun to approach the junction to the last third of the triangle: Templeward Street. They were not to go all the way, as their destination was the brigade vaults somewhere ‘inside’ the triangle, so he asked the Tianxi about it. Song laid it out for him, precise and methodical.

This narrative has been purloined without the author’s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

If Regnant Avenue had been concerned with practical goods like food and supplies, she said, then Templeward was concerned with the thoroughly impractical. In a word, luxuries. Song elaborated when pressed, listing a teashop with a garden terrace, a draper of silks and velvet, a clockmaker and no less than three launderers. And that was not even the whole of it, she assured him.

“There was a shop of curios and antiquities,” Song said, the two of them finally leaving Regnant for a side street. “And more structures further south the street I did not take the time to inspect.”

“That is an extravagant amount of extravagance,” Tristan flatly replied. “Even accounting for the presence of Watch princelings with coin to spend.”

Even assuming, generously, that a tenth of the four hundred students and change attending Scholomance were wealthy and feckless enough to buy silks and clocks for their quarters on the island, that was a mere forty souls. There were much too many shops catering to the wealthy for the wealth actually present. The garrison might indulge as well, he adjusted as a moment. But only the officers would be able to afford it, and there cannot be that many.

“It might not be as excessive as you think,” the Tianxi said. “For one, I expect the clockmaker will do brisk business with Umuthi students. It may be that some of these shops have similar uses.”

Tristan hummed, considering that. If covenant classes gave their students assignments requiring to dip into the luxury shops the entire affair might be sustainable, barely. Maybe. He’d have to get his hands on ledgers to be sure and he suspected those fine shopkeepers would not simply hand them over if asked.

“Seems thin on the ground,” he finally said.

He kept a careful eye on Song, wondering if offense would be taken. Instead she sighed, nodding.

“My guess is that it is an investment on the part of the owners,” she said. “Next year more students will come to Scholomance. We may be too few for them to truly profit now, but…”

Tristan picked up where she trailed off.

“In a few years, they will have the numbers and be established with students in a manner that would be difficult for latecoming competition to overcome,” he mused. “There is sense to that. So Port Allazei feels empty because it is as boots were are not yet filling, so to speak.”

“It is only a guess,” Song said. “We know unfortunately little of this place.”

And Song more than he, Tristan thought as he followed the Tianxi turning a corner to the right. She had guided them without once getting lost, not familiar with the streets but having clearly found landmarks to orient herself by. It was cleverly done, he thought, and he could only be glad one of their cabal had taken the opportunity to get the lay of the land.

“You should mark this neighborhood well,” the Tianxi said gesturing around them. “It is empty at this hour, but last evening many of the houses were full.”

Tristan cocked his head to the side, eyed sliding over the winding rows of stone houses with faded red tiles for roof. There were precious few ruins and collapsed buildings here, he had noticed, and many houses had wooden shutters or drapes. A sign they were inhabited.

“The shopkeepers live here,” he said. “Some officers from the garrison as well, I wager.”

“Their families as well, for both,” Song told him. “I have seen no young children, but some older ones were afoot playing in the street.”

“Rich living, having both a shop and home,” Tristan said. “Enough I doubt they own either.”

“I do not know if the Watch charges rent, in truth,” Song told him. “Regardless, I came across more than one student taking a look at empty houses last night. I imagine many brigades will be moving into the neighborhood over the coming week as the hostels begin to cost coin.”

The conversation petered out as they turned another corner and came in sight of what could only be the brigade vaults. He was mildly amused to see the blackcloaks had appropriated an old temple for their treasury: the tall house of yellowing stone still had alcoves on the sides where worn pedestals for statues stood. A pair of watchmen flanked the front gate, eyeing them as they approached, and demanded to be shown their brigade plaque before allowing them entry.

After they did one of the guards hit the great wooden gate with the pommel of his sword, thrice, and after a moment Tristan heard the sound of a metal latch being pulled up. The pair of them were ushered into the building without further ceremony.

Within a heartbeat of entering his footsteps stuttered, as did Song’s.

Every wall and ceiling of the once temple’s antechamber was covered with bas-relief of human skulls. Not an inch was spared, not a nook or cranny. The blackcloak who had gestured for them to enter let out a happy little laugh, grinning at their faces.

“I’ll never get tired of that,” she said. “Come on, kids. Coin’s inside.”

Song obeyed, face already a smooth mask of calm, and Tristan followed. Except for the same unfortunate taste in relief, the room past the antechamber was nothing remarkable. It had been filled with four desks, each of which was manned by a blackcloak clerk, and chairs had been set down for them to fill. Song asked a bored-looking Someshwari clerk about the Thirteenth’s funds while he sat by her side, learning that the vault currently held twenty-five gold ramas and that the same sum would be added on the first of the following month so long as they remained four members.

Tristan stared at the brown-skinned clerk, stunned. Twenty-five gold a month? For four of us, the thief reminded himself. It was still a significant sum, but not as large as it would be for a single man.

“I will withdraw five ramas,” Song said. “Three in kind, one in silver arboles and for the last two thirds in coppers.”

Song had to show her plaque again and to sign for the withdrawal, but there were no other formalities to go through. A watchman headed out back, and after some wait they were handed a fat pouch of coin. Tristan frowned. The brigade vaults would be difficult to burgle, given that there appeared to be only one way in and out of the old temple and a similar bottleneck to access the back of the building where they were keeping the funds, but fooling the clerks did not seem overly difficult.

All you needed was a plaque from that brigade, a name – the clerk had checked for Song’s on a list after she gave it – and some care. Biting his tongue, he waited until they were out of the temple and then out of earshot to speak.

“I would recommend we get our coin out of there as quickly as possible,” he bluntly said. “It is much too easy to steal from.”

Song frowned.

“You exaggerate,” she said.

He took it as the invitation to contradict her that it was.

“I don’t,” Tristan replied. “With about ten coppers’ worth of cosmetics, a change of clothes and your face I could empty one of the vaults today.”

He had expected for his words to be dismissed, or perhaps an argument to follow, but what Tristan got instead was Song Ren stopping so she could face him full and turn that unsettling silver stare on him. He cocked an eyebrow at her.

“Whose?”

“Pardon?” he asked.