Chapter 31

Black-cloaked watchmen carried away Felis’ body.

What remained of it, anyway: musket balls had turned the man into red rags.

Tristan felt no grief at the sight. If there was a tragedy in Felis it was in who he had been, not who he’d become. Dust, fear and poverty had worn away the good and left the bad in sharp relief. What remained had not endeared him to the thief, though neither had it been deserving of scorn. It did not matter whether a stone was marble or gravel: if you left it at the bottom of the canal long enough it would all be ground into nothing. The Law of Rats was not like the halo of Glare bestowed upon the great estates of the infanzones, some unblinking and unceasing stare. It lived in the spaces between, let in by the lamplights of the Murk growing worn and flickering. Letting in the dark a little further every year.

It was easy to be virtuous when the lights never went out.

The same souls that’d left the Old Fort as three crews returned now as a single crowd, though seemingly twice as wary of each other as before. Tristan had counted them coming in and found only one missing: Aines. There his heart had clenched, if only for a moment. Just another dead rat, he told himself. The same eulogy he would get when his end found him, an unmarked grave made into words.

“Something happened,” Maryam quietly said from his left. “They wouldn’t be like this if Aines had died in a test.”

She was right, Tristan thought. Felis getting dropped had shattered the last remnant of solidarity in the returning crowd, the lot of them scattering in small trusted pockets as if they’d never gone through the trouble of gathering larger crews in the first place. Pressure to come apart, Tristan thought, but there had always been that. That it was now working implied there was no longer stronger pressure for them to stay together. Given the timing and context, one answer stood above the rest.

“They found a path to end of the maze,” Tristan guessed.

“That doesn’t explain why they’re looking at each other like someone’s about to pull a knife,” Maryam replied.

He hummed.

“You think there was a fight?” he asked.

“I think Jun’s been sent company down in Nav,” Maryam said.

The thief cocked an eyebrow at her. The implication he caught – she believed the killer had struck again – but the last word was unfamiliar.

“The place where the dead go,” she said.

“Graves, if they’re lucky,” he said. “Dogs if they’re not.”

“Grim,” she praised.

“I try,” he humbly replied, lips twitching.

Even as they shared smiles, though, his mind raced. Why Aines? The middle-aged woman had been physically weak, but there were others just as vulnerable and she’d rarely been alone. Unless, of course, Felis’ proximity had been the point. To frame the man as an attempt had been made to frame Tristan. That would require, however, some very specific knowledge. Who else knew about the red games, knew there was something to frame Felis for? Lan did and he’d himself told Yong. Probably Tupoc, Tristan figured, and that likely meant Ocotlan. Maryam, of course. None of these fit the shadow on the wall.

“What are you thinking?” Maryam asked.

“That the Watch just shot our best lead,” Tristan replied. “We’re going to have ask about how they reacted after the kill – they didn’t hang anyone for it, but did they investigate?”

If they had, there was a chance that at least one person had been clever enough to ask Felis who else knew about the red games. It’s not necessarily him, the thief then corrected. Tristan himself had come into suspicions that Felis was out to kill his wife through hearing about Aines’ half of the puzzle. Someone else could have done the same. And Lan could have sold the information, he tacked on. Felis had still been the best lead, however. He needed to find out if someone had thought to try that avenue. His eyes flicked to Maryam.

“Can you find out if Lan told anyone about the red game around those two?” he asked.

He could not do so himself, having publicly feigned falling out with the twin. Maryam nodded.

“You really think you can find out who the killer us?” she asked.

“Not enough to prove it,” he said. “But then I’m not angling for a hanging.”

Forcing a truce, keeping the killer away from anyone he was conspiring with, would be more than enough. He wouldn’t mind killing them if he could, given their actions against him, but he already had more than enough revenge on his plate.

“If I can out them, I will,” Maryam warned him.

He grimaced but eventually conceded with a nod. It was not his right to dictate otherwise to her, much as he would prefer otherwise. So long as she was aware he was disinclined to play the savior at her side. Tristan pushed off the wall, wasting no time in seeking out Yong. The Tianxi veteran had carelessly dropped his affairs on the courtyards floor, put his sword on the table and was now pouring himself a drink in a kitchen cup from his own flask. Even from across the table, where Tristan slid into a seat, the smell of the rotgut was biting to the nostrils.

“Thought you’d show up,” Yong said, tone not yet slurred.

Though not for long, Tristan thought as the Tianxi knocked back his cup before filling it anew. The other man’s fingers were shaking, however subtly, and he looked haggard.

“What happened out there?” the thief asked, voice coming out softer than he’d thought it would.

“Someone cut Aines’ throat,” Yong bluntly said. “It went to shit after that. Lots of arguing, everything came apart and then we chose three people to look into it.”

Tredegar was a given, but with Tupoc’s group having lost two – Augusto and Aines – the situation would have been fluid.

“Tredegar and Tupoc and me,” Yong specified, brushing back a loosened bang.

Despite Vanesa’s best efforts, the former soldier’s hair refused to be tame now that the topknot was lost.

“What did you find?” Tristan asked.

Yong leaned over the table, grabbing a second cup from the loose pile of plates and cutlery the Watch left there for trial-takers to use, and set it down in front of the thief. He tipped his flask over it.

“I don’t drink,” Tristan said.

Yong only stopped when the cup was two-third full. The smell of that Watch rotgut was genuinely foul, the grey-eyed man thought.

“Drink anyways,” Yong flatly replied.

Tristan gauged the other man’s expression and found it all too serious. His lips thinned, but he nodded and took the cup in hand. He didn’t actually drink, of course – liquor was a poison worse than nightshade or arsenic, which only ever hurt those who drank it – but he wetted his lips and pretended. Yong downed his cup again, and the thief hoped he would either slow his consumption or quicken his report. He’d soon end up waiting on an unconscious man otherwise.

“Fuck all,” the Tianxi said. “Fuck all is what I found. Lan says Nair and Goel are sleeping together and that Lady Ferranda was up to something shady, but it wasn’t any of them. I got no closer to figuring out who did it.”

Tristan grimaced.

“Felis, did you interrogate him?” he asked.

“Everyone did,” Yong shrugged. “Even Tupoc, though I think that was more about sitting tight on him. He stayed too long for anything else.”

Tupoc Xical. Of course it had to be the inconvenient bastard who figured out the right trail to follow. This did not surprise Tristan, for he had long known fortune to be a disagreeable creature by virtue of having been saddled with the divine equivalent of the concept’s drunken aunt.

“And after?” he pressed.

“We followed the path to some great temple-fortress,” Yong said. “Once we pass that, it’s a straight line to the end of the maze.”

“With tests on it?” the thief frowned.

“Presumably,” Yong shrugged.

The Tianxi poured himself another cup. This would serve as a bare bones report, but learning a fuller picture would have to wait until Maryam got it out of Lan or he found an opportunity to speak with Isabel Ruesta. Tristan studied the other man, wondering what it was about the recent deaths that’d shaken him so. He’d not been like this when Sanale died, or the other deaths since. And he must have presented sober enough to be picked by the others after Aines died, so it shouldn’t be that either.

“Was Felis on dust for the way back?” he tried.

The older man laughed at him, the sound slightly slurred.

“You think I see myself in him?” Yong said. “You’re still young, Tristan. The need, it’s not a coterie or a regiment – you don’t feel for the others who have it. It’s just as selfish as any other hunger.”

The thief’s face tightened.

“Then what is it about his death that pulled out your seams?” he asked.

Yong breathed out slowly, shallowly.

“What’s the most muskets you’ve ever heard fired at once, Tristan?” he asked.

“Just now,” he replied without hesitation.

Blackpowder was hardly unheard of in the Murk, but no coterie cared to wield muskets carelessly. A shot in the back once in a while drew little attention, but thirty men unloading down a street? That was the sort of thing the Guardia would make a point of stamping out, Murk or not. Yong filled his cup to the brim.

“Past a certain number of muskets it doesn’t really matter how many were fired,” the older man said. “It all sounds the same to our ears – we’re only so good at picking out sounds, you see.”

Tristan’s belly clenched.

“It sounded like a volley.”

“It’d been a long time since I heard that,” Yong softly said. “Gods, but I wish it had been longer.”

The thief had meant to ask more of him, to make his offer, but it could wait. At this rate the Tianxi would collapse into bed soon anyway. If he could even get back to it. Tristan feigned drinking again, lips burning from the strength of the rotgut. He was planning how to take his leave when Yong cut through.

“My turn to ask questions,” he said. “There’s a rope ladder out there, one leading into the pillar. What happened?”

The thief laid it all out from the beginning, all the way to the god waiting behind the broken lock and the existence of the lift he had confirmed.

“And you think it’ll lead to a way past the maze?” Yong asked.

“It has to,” Tristan said. “The devils got all these shrines in here somehow, and it was not the way the Watch is using. Besides, the Antediluvians would have wanted a way to access their ceiling device without needing to go the long way around every time.”

“Don’t assume that,” Yong warned. “There’s no way to reach the Luminaries back in Tianxia.”

“Those are set in firmament,” Tristan argued. “This is much smaller in scale.”

Yong hummed, then after a long time nodded.

“All right,” he said. “Who are you thinking of taking in? We’ll need muskets, unless you want to rely on the Watch to get rid of the god for you.”

“I don’t believe we need to kill the god,” Tristan said. “Only drive it off. We don’t need a regiment, we need a good shot and salt munitions. Between that and Sarai’s Signs, we should be able to get to the lift safely even if it’s lying in wait.”

“And I’m your good shot,” Yong said.

When sober, yes, Tristan thought.

“How are you going to get salt munitions?”

“I am going to ask politely,” he replied with a pleasant smile.

The Tianxi snorted.

“Fine, keep it close to your chest,” he said. “And you’re certain the Watch will let us try for the lift?”

“Yes.”

His suspicion was that Lieutenant Vasanti wouldn’t let him go in with a crew, only alone, because she was greedy for the knowledge inside. How fortunate for him that Lieutenant Vasanti was not the only officer in the Old Fort. That bargain would cost him, but he had arranged to make it later tonight anyway.

“This might be riskier than heading into the maze again,” Yong finally said.

Tristan mustered arguments in his mind, but held back. He would let the Tianxi think it through first at least.

“But then the tests are getting nastier and I’m not a victor yet,” the older man said, stroking his beard. “Not to mention there’s a chance I’ll get a visit in the night.”

His face tightened.

“One musket is little,” Yong finally said. “Let me try to rope Lady Ferranda into this.”

Ferrand Villazur, despite her deplorable birth, had proved reliable. He could live with the mild discomfort of relying on an infanzona, should she accept.

“So long as she swears secrecy first,” Tristan replied.

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

The other man nodded.

“And if Ferranda declines?” the thief pressed.

“You are still the better horse,” Yong said, passing a hand through his hair.

The former soldier tried to rise, but his limbs were numb. Tristan half-rose himself, helping him back down onto the bench.

“You can talk to Lady Ferranda later, at dinner,” he said. “Maybe take a nap first.”

“Maybe,” Yong said.

But his eyes were back on the flask and his cup empty once more. The thief had no intention of staying to see what would come that.

“We will talk later,” he said.

Yong dismissed him with a wave of the hand, which was no longer trembling. Tristan grimaced. It was not his place to pass judgement. He left in haste, though, and was relieved when Maryam caught his eye from where she sat at Lan’s side. The pale-skinned woman shook her head. So Lan had not sold information about Aines and Felis. That cut down on the possibilities. Who else had been in Tupoc’s crew aside from the now-dead pair? Ocotlan, Lan, Augusto. It could not be Augusto, who had not been present for the second killing, and Ocotlan would not have been so discreet. As for Lan, she would not have murdered her own sister.

Her grief after had been too raw to be false.

It must have been someone from another crew, then. Chasing every face, every possibility, would be a waste of time. Besides, there were too many secrets still being kept for him to be able to figure out a culprit from what he knew. He had to follow the secret he did know about, which meant it all went back to Felis and Aines. If Felis had been the source of the leak, Tupoc should know. That meant the Izcalli’s whereabouts were worth a second look. And, interestingly enough, when Tristan had said look the Aztlan was missing. As was Yaretzi.

Asking around would have drawn attention, been too telling, so instead the thief chased them on his own. There were only so many places for them to go, here in the Old Fort, which led him to the answer soon enough: they were not in the Old Fort.

They had gone back out of the walls to have a look at the rope ladder and the new opening in the pillar, the two of them standing out in the open. Tristan did not try to hide from the blackcloaks as he passed through the breach, but after that kept to the shadows of the rampart as he snuck closer to the pair. They were talking, and the conversation did not look to be pleasant. Yaretzi, for all that her expression was calm, held herself tensely. Her hand was not far from her long knife. Tupoc, on the other hand circled around her like a vulture while grinning. The man’s good moods were rarely an indication of pleasantness for anyone else.

“-of you working for free?” Tupoc was saying. “Bad for business, Turquoise.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the other Izcalli evenly replied. “If you want to accuse me of being the killer, Tupoc, do it in front of everyone.”

She gave him a hard look.

“Only you won’t, because you’re fishing,” she said. “You’re just another warrior society prick trying to get a flinch out of people because that’s the only thing that still gets you off.”

Fuck, Tristan thought. Tupoc doesn’t know who it was. He wouldn’t be pressing someone without proof like this if he did. Which meant Felis had not been the one to talk, it’d been Aines. That would be a much harder trail to follow, if it was possible at all. He’d not kept all that close an eye on Aines, and could not think of anyone who might have. The thief had what he’d come for, but lingered in the shadows nonetheless. This talk had the sound of a secret to it, and you could never have too many of those.

“Oh, I don’t have enough to strangle you with,” Tupoc cheerfully admitted. “But I know one thing: that wasn’t the omacaliztli stance in the labyrinth. When your life is on the line, you don’t fight like a diplomat.”

“You’re-”

Tupoc, thought listening to the other Aztlan, suddenly took a wary look around. It gave Yaretzi pause. Time to go, Tristan thought. He had no intention of being caught eavesdropping.

The moment Tupoc looked away, he retreated.

—

There was no need to find a way to talk to Isabel Ruesta because she found it for him.

A whisper transitioned into playacting, the infanzona sitting on the bench closest to his bedroll as he went to fetch his medicine cabinet. Some parts of it, anyway. He’d obtained pure alcohol and some bandages from the Watch physician a few days back – the man had been adamantly against opening his stocks for anything more – so the thief found himself kneeling before the dark-haired noblewoman and cleaning her ‘wound’ with a liquor-drenched cloth. It was but a small cut on the back of the hand, not nearly enough to warrant the garrison doctor’s attentions and so a decent excuse to go to him instead. Had she done it herself?

He did not care enough to speculate.

“I told Remund that his hovering would make me uncomfortable,” Isabel murmured, “but we only have so long.”

Tristan smiled, nodded.

“I expect the day after tomorrow we might reach the end of the maze,” she said. “Now is the time to act.”

“Can you get me into your crew?” he asked.

“I will tell Angharad you asked if her invitation still stood,” Isabel said. “It will be more than enough.”

There was no doubt at all in her voice. She sat there, comfortably looking down on him as he swiped across the wound one last time and reached for bandages. He was surprised the infanzona had not flinched at the sensation of alcohol on an open cut, however slight. Tristan had thought her mettle strictly of the scheming kind.

“How will you do it?” she asked.

“Is there a room where it will be easy to split up the group?”

She nodded as he wrapped the bandages around her hand.

“Before the mirror hall there is a room with a wheel and three gates, it is certain we will get separated there,” Isabel said.