Chapter 22

Tristan began fiddling with his cabinet like there was a point to it, keeping his hands occupied so he wouldn’t have to think about what he had just walked away from.

When he saw her approaching from the corner of his eye, it was almost a relief. Shalini Goel was the shortest of all the trial-takers, barely five feet five by his guess, and though she was full-bodied the thief could tell it was not the result of idleness: there was muscle to her frame and calluses on her palms. The same kind Guardia sometimes got, those come from shooting regularly. Her black hair was long, kept in a braid going down her back, and she had a gold ring in her nose. The vivid shades of her clothes spoke of coin even for a Ramayan, a people whose love of colour was proverbial.

A green kurta – the collarless tunic in the Someshwar manner – ended above her knees, leading into striped trousers in white and yellow that were tucked into high boots. A blood red sash at her waist had two pistols tucked into while a leather bandoleer holding powder horns hung loose across her torso, connecting a shoulder to the opposite side. Shalini had the look of a soldier but did not hold herself like one, which spoke to Tristan of someone who had been trained but not taken to such a life.

And while he’d been studying her, he realized, she had studied him right back.

“Tristan, is it?” she smiled. “I don’t believe we have been properly introduced.”

She had an easy smile, he decided, but it was not false. Shalini Goel struck him instead as one of those strange people Vesper had blessed with a general enjoyment of life. It must make her easy to like.

“It felt like a long journey here, but it ended up being so little time hasn’t it?” Tristan smiled back, entirely practiced.

She offered her hand to shake, which he did. Her grip was firm.

“I am-”

“Shalini Goel,” he said, then shrugged at her raised eyebrow. “Word gets around.”

“I suppose it does,” she chuckled. “And you even pronounced it right. Do you-”

Shalini said something he did not understand in what he was pretty sure was Samratrava – the most common of the Someshwari languages. Tristan answered with the only sentence in that language he had ever learned.

“The brothels are down the canal with red lanterns,” he informed her.

A flicker of complete and utter surprise, then Shalini burst out laughing. It was contagious enough that he found himself smiling as she slapped her knee, holding her stomach.

“Oh gods,” the Ramayan wheezed. “I guess that’s an answer. How much did they pay you to tell the sailors?”

“Only three radizes a night, but it came with a meal,” Tristan said.

He saw her pause, count in her head as she translated from the currency Sacromonte and most of the Trebian Sea used to coinage she better knew. The Imperial Someshwar had a few but jala – sheshajala, in truth, but not even Someshwari used the full name – were the only one he’d ever seen used at the docks. The private currencies of the rajas were rarely accepted, given how regularly they got debased when the latest palace or campaign got a little too expensive.

“So not even two kupah,” she mused. “I hope it was a good meal.”

“I’ve had worse,” the thief shrugged.

And taking the coppers had given him a reason to hang around Caballo Canal at night, letting him track the coming and goings of a Meng-Xiaofan warehouse he had been sent by Abuela to rob.

“I expect you have,” Shalini said, mood losing some of the humour. “It seems to have hardened you in useful ways.”

It was his turn to cock an eyebrow at her. She was the one who had come to him, after all, so it was her who should make the pitch.

“Tredegar is being run by the infanzones,” Shalini Goel told him, “and we both know Xical’s worse than a snake. A Leopard Society man through and through.”

“I have never heard of them before,” the thief admitted.

“I wouldn’t expect a Sacromontan to have,” she said. “Izcalli name their societies after animals from their homeland that embody traits they want to emulate, Tristan, but there are no leopards in the Kingdom of Izcalli.”

Tristan blinked in surprise.

“They’re not a formal society,” Shalini said. “When forced to acknowledge their existence the Grasshopper King will say they’re charged with hunting criminals that flee outside Izcalli borders, but what they really do is raid.”

She spat to the side.

“They go out with the candle-priests, hit undefended villages out in the Someshwar or the Republics and bring them back like cattle,” Shalini said.

He grimaced in disgust, not faking it in the least.

“For the candles?”

She nodded and he almost spat as she had. The Kingdom of Izcalli had been one of the strongest nations to emerge from the fall of the Second Empire, with fertile heartlands full of Antediluvian wonders and its strong military bent, but its unification was a bloody business. Izcalli was hardly alone in that, but what set the kingdom apart was that it was heavily dependent on First Empire lights to live and almost all of them were on the ground instead of set in firmament. During the wars many were damaged, which had unbalanced the intricate system of devices regulating light in Izcalli. Entire regions had begun to go dark for weeks, months even.

Until the men now known as the candle-priests found their solution: feed the machines aether where they grew weak.

Nowadays Izcalli claimed the era of bloody sacrifices, of murdering men on altars to keep the lights from burning out, was long past. That it had been much exaggerated anyhow, a very rare happenstance, and that advances in modern understanding of aether now made such savagery obsolete. There were kinder ways to keep the ‘candles’ lit, needing no death and hardly any pain. It had not stopped flower wars from erupting at Izcalli borders, and such assurances from the Grasshopper Kings were taken with a heavy grain of salt. With good reason, if Shalini spoke the truth about the Leopard Society.

“They’re expendable,” the Ramayan said. “If they get caught, become an embarrassment, they will be called rogues or bandits and left to hang. Xical came by that ugliness honestly, whatever else may be said of him.”

“And there is much to be said,” Tristan drily replied.

“Figured you’d agree,” Shalini grinned. “You can see the same things I can: Ishaan and I, we’re your best bet.”

He smiled at her, saying nothing.

“That Yong comes with is another point in your favour,” she acknowledged, “but after the way Lady Ferranda talked you up I would have made an offer anyway.”

“You,” he said, “and not Lord Ishaan. I find that interesting.”

“It’s not a slight,” Shalini assured him, “it’s just that he’s a little scrambled at the moment. By now you’ll have heard we ran into the airavatan before you did.”

“And that a contract was used to buy enough time for your crew to escape,” Tristan said.

Ferranda Villazur had claimed that something stupefied the beast long enough for them to run away. That it was contract work was not in doubt and he had already suspected it was Ishaan, but to hear it confirmed made the guess solid.

“There was some backlash,” she said. “Hard not to, beating back a monster that large. But he’s nearly through it and will be back to form by tomorrow. He’s just, uh, going to get confused easily until then. It’s best for me to do the talking while he recovers.”

She paused.

“If your worry is that I make promises he won’t keep, there is no need,” Shalini reassured him. “He’s not insensate, it just takes a while for him to understand things – everything I say, I say with his approval.”

It was tempting to keep stringing her along, see if he could get any more information out of her, but that was greed talking. If he took too much before declining, he would be salting the grounds. Best to end this now and add a little sweetness so they remained on good terms.

“It is a tempting offer,” he said.

“But,” Shalini said.

“I won’t be going into the maze tomorrow,” Tristan said. “Not with anyone.”

She drummed her fingers against the side of a pistol.

“Hedging your bets is not unreasonable,” she grudgingly said. “And we have had longer to rest.”

But it was not the answer she had wanted – and perhaps even expected – so now for the sweetness.

“Yong will not refuse if you ask him again,” Tristan said. “He does not want to wait.”

Shalini eyed him with interest.

“Is that what you two were speaking about?”

“We are inclined to different strategies,” Tristan shrugged.

She would come out of it with another shot at a companion she had wanted more than he, but more important still she would come out of their conversation with the feeling that she had ‘won’. Getting her hands on a source of tension between he and Yong was worth more than some talk about a suspected contract and idle conversation about the Leopard Society. Their conversation remained genial and Tristan suspected she might have stayed longer if she had not caught sight of something: Brun was approaching Ishaan Nair. Shalini made her excuses quickly after that, going to join them.

That’s another one for their crew, then, the thief thought. Brun was fit, loyal – he had backed Tredegar against Tupoc – and came with no baggage attached. He was, in essence, a perfect replacement for Yaretzi. Like her the blond Sacromontan had made few waves and come out of the perils with a solid reputation. And that made Tristan uncomfortable, because Fortuna had called the god he was bound to loud. It did not necessarily follow that a contractor must be alike in nature with their contracted – he had little enough in common with Fortuna – but a loud god ought to be loud in their gifts yet no a single whisper had spread of Brun’s contract.

The other man had navigated the game of alliances with a deft hand: he’d gotten in with the infanzones when the getting was good through the more influential of Isabel Ruesta’s maids, then stuck closely to Tredegar. A woman who would bite her own arm off before raising a hand against a comrade, a category Brun had made certain to fit in. Now he was changing ship for the Ramayans, getting into a more stable crew, but carefully burning no bridges as he did.

“You are certain his god is the loud one?” Tristan murmured, feigning a yawn.

“Yes,” Fortuna flatly replied. “And he is being incredibly tasteless about it.”

She did not deign to elaborate further and he knew better than to ask. There’s something off about you, Brun, Tristan decided. No one genuinely following sentiment ended up making all the right choices all the time. The other man was running a game, had to be.

But which, and for what purpose?

No answers would be found standing here, the thief knew, so he tore his gaze away. Whatever it was Brun wanted, if his ambitions extended beyond survival, then it would be something to chase after later. Tristan had more pressing matters to worry about, three of them to be exact. Francho was the most likely to have other offers, but Tristan still sought out Vanesa first. It was she whose expertise would determine whether his intentions were at all feasible.

The old woman was sitting by herself in a corner, looking half-asleep. The Watch physician had her on poppy extract for the pain, but Tristan had checked the vials and the man was keeping the doses as low as he could. It was for the best: at her age, too strong a dose risked sending her into the kind of sleep she would not be waking from. Not much had been done about the shattered leg, aside from cleaning it and binding it, but that was not laziness on the man’s part. The airavatan had broken the limb beyond repair, bone shredding muscles and tendons as it shattered into pieces. Her kneecap was in three pieces and the swelling made it nearly impossible to operate and stem the internal bleeding. The physician had little choice but to recommend amputation.

“Either way,” the watchman had told her, “you won’t ever be using that leg again.”

Vanesa had… balked, at that. Tristan had spent long enough as a cutter’s assistant to know that was not an uncommon reaction, but it had been startlingly ferocious. She went hysterical for a time, needing to be restrained until she calmed, and had been subdued since. The one-eyed clockmaker was awake enough to notice when he came to sat by her side, though her face betrayed her exhaustion.

“Is it time for lunch?” Vanesa asked.

“Not for a few hours yet,” Tristan said.

No one would be leaving anytime soon, anyhow. He thought some of the crews might set out to have a look at the shrines later this afternoon but doubted anyone would begin the maze until tomorrow. First they would want to recover and organize.

“Ah,” she muttered. “Sorry. My mind, it has been wandering.”

“Common enough when taking poppy extract,” he assured her.

She nodded, looking thankful. As if he had not simply said the truth.

“A nice young woman from the Watch is making me crutches,” Vanesa told him. “From an old oar, I believe?”

He said nothing.

“Anyhow,” Vanesa continued, “when they are finished I will be able to have a look at this maze. It seems an interesting enough place.”

Sometimes, Tristan thought, the line between kindness and cruelty was thin as a breath.

“You know you won’t be doing that,” he quietly said.

“Perhaps not in one of these companies forming,” Vanesa said, “but surely-”

“If you go into that maze, you will die.”

He interrupted as gently as he could, but his voice did not waver. It was a statement of fact, not a guess. Tristan had little heard of the tests these gods of the maze would set, but a one-eyed old woman with a broken leg would be as meat on the table. Vanesa’s lips pursed, then she looked away. He saw the emotions flicker across her worn face – frustration, anger, fear. And at the end of the road, resignation.

“I am dead if I stay here,” she finally said. “The physician says I have two weeks at most, with the bleeding inside the leg.”

Much as he wanted to bring up the amputation again, it was not his place. Vanesa knew the costs of her decision; they had been made plain to her. If she thought a slow death better than losing her leg then it was her choice to make.

“There may be,” Tristan said, “another way.”

Her eye went to him, as if dragged by a hook. The hope he saw there burned, for there were no certainties in what he had to offer.

“Have you had a close look at the gate?” he asked.

“I have not,” she admitted.

“Then let us,” Tristan said. “I think you will find it interesting.”

He went about it methodically. First he took one the spare benches near the kitchen and moved it in front of the gate, then went back for Vanesa. She had to lean on him all the while, most of her weight carried for her, but he got her to the bench and helped her down. She was barely paying attention by the time he did, sole eye flittering across the span of the iron gate – or, more precisely, the intricate mechanisms covering it.

“I cannot tell where it begins,” she murmured. “Oh – and some parts go into the gate. Pistons, Tristan, see those? That will be aetheric machinery, unless they have a steam engine on the other side that can run forever.”

“Can you make any sense of it?” he asked.

“The grids are the key,” Vanesa told him, eye still on the gate. “See how the gears around them are all derivative? Those metal plaques are the functional equivalent of levers, or perhaps more accurately a combination lock.”

“Moving them would have an effect,” Tristan said.

Vanesa nodded.

“Absolutely,” she said. “Mind you, there are few distinguishing marks on them and I do not see how anyone could easily get up there to activate them, but-”

She paused, enthusiasm slowly bleeding out of her as she turned to him.

“It is an interesting puzzle,” Vanesa said, “but it will not get either of us through the maze. I do not need a distraction, Tristan.”

Yes you do, the thief thought. Else she would simply wither on the vine. Better yet that this was not a distraction at all.

“I disagree,” Tristan murmured. “I think that gate is exactly how we get through the maze.”

He gestured at the gate.

“The stone around it isn’t the same as the fort’s,” he said. “And the scale of the structure it i set in is absurd.”

While the stone the gate was set in a pillar, as it reached all the way to the distant ceiling of the cavern, it perhaps ought to be called a tower instead for the sheer size of it. It was at least a hundred feet long from side to side, at the apex of the curve.

“So perhaps it is a First Empire ruin,” Vanesa shrugged. “That is no surprise given the great machinery above our heads.”

“You are not paying attention to the right part,” Tristan chided her. “The pillar is in perfect state. This Old Fort, however, is falling apart.”

The old woman stared at him, still uncomprehending.

“It was built later, not by the Antediluvians,” the thief said. “And to guard what, a gate it would take ten batteries of cannons to break through? I doubt it. And that leaves only…”

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“The shrines,” Vanesa said. “The maze. You believe it is also a recent addition.”

“I do,” Tristan agreed. “And now that begs the question: what is that pillar for, then? Where does the gate lead?”

The clockmaker’s lone eye dipped upwards, at the pieces of gold slowly moving above them and giving out a ghostly golden glow.

“Even Antediluvians needed to maintain their machines,” Vanesa softly said. “However fine the make, they fell apart eventually.”

“And they would need a way to get up there,” Tristan murmured. “I believe we are looking at it.”

Vanesa hesitated.

“There is no guarantee that up there waits a path across the mountains,” she said.

Tristan could have said that even the Antediluvians must have brought the pieces in from somewhere, that if the maze of shrines was recent and a god bound to the gate on the other side then that very gate might be just as a recent an addition, but at the end of the day she was right: there was no guarantee.

“It is a bet,” Tristan admitted.

He met her eye squarely.

“But I believe in it enough to hold off on the maze,” he said.

Tristan was a rat: could there be a stronger endorsement from the likes of him than putting his own fortunes on the line? His life was the sole thing of worth he owned. He said nothing more, letting the silence do the talking. The Sacromontan knew she would agree, for as Lan had seen the truth was Vanesa did not truly want to die. She was resigned to it, perhaps, but if the choice was between the certain death of entering the maze as a lone cripple and rolling the dice on the gate they both knew what she would choose.

Tristan did not hurry her, letting her make the journey at her own pace until she was staring down at her ruin of a leg. There was a bitterness to the cast of her face that came to it more often these days.

“Well,” Vanesa said. “I suppose there is not much left for me to lose.”

She sighed.

“Only the two of us?” she asked.

“I want Francho as well,” the thief immediately replied. “And I have recruited outside helpers.”

“Of course you have,” the old woman tiredly smiled. “You may count me as part of your cabal, then. I look forward to seeing what comes of it.”

He would have stayed longer, sitting with her, but she dismissed him. Wanted to look at the gate without distractions, she said, but if he wanted to be a dear he could see about getting her ink and paper. That would have to wait, he decided, until he had spoken with Francho. The old professor was speaking with Lan when he found him, the blue-lipped dealer departing in a huff when she saw him. Francho cocked a brow at the thief but Tristan rolled his eyes.

“I will ask no questions, then,” the toothless old man drawled. “What may I do for you, young man?”

“Answer a few questions of mine, for one,” he said.

“Had I known all along that all it took was the threat of grisly death to seed curiosity in my students,” Francho smiled, “I might have dabbled in it at Reve.”

“It might have shortened your career,” the thief amusedly replied.

“Oh, murder is the least of the offences one can get away with after tenure,” Francho said. “The old Master of Music once – ah, but I am rambling again. Please, do ask away.”

Tristan was going to come back and get that story about the Master of Music later, for it promised to be most amusing, but it would have to wait.

“I expect Lan was approaching you on behalf of Tupoc Xical,” the thief leadingly said.