Babylon Steel (5 page)

“Happens.”

“Yeah.”

I took the drinks and made for Mokraine’s corner table. Actually, they’re pretty much all corner tables. It’s that kind of place.

I sat there for a while, waiting for him to come to. Someone nearby was having their tarot read. Both reader and supplicant were hooded, but I could see that the reader had long, very pale fingers, with no fingernails.

Tarot’s one of those things that seems to crop up everywhere, like chess. Sometimes the minor arcana are different, sometimes even one or two of the major ones, but, somewhere, on every plane I’ve ever visited, there are cards, and readers, and people asking questions.

A long nailless finger, or possibly tentacle, emerged from a sleeve and tapped one of the cards. “The High King, reversed.” The finger withdrew.

The other figure hissed something.

“The failure of mortal endeavour,” the reader replied. “Overweening pride. A reach beyond one’s grasp. Upright, the High King indicates triumph, a coming into one’s own. But reversed...”

The other figure reached out, with a gloved hand, and with a snap of its wrist, turned the card the other way up. The reader gave a low, whispering laugh. “It is not so simple.”

The other figure hissed again, threw some coins on the table, and left.

It roused Mokraine, who raised his head, blinked, and focused on me.

“Babylon.”

“Mokraine. How are you?”

“I’m...” he laughed. “I’m bathed in splendour, Babylon. Twomoon is coming, and this is a
special
Twomoon, a time of intensity, a syzygy of syzygies. How are
you?”
His eyes were avid, weary, pouched in greyish flesh. He’d been a handsome man, once; still was, if you liked them seriously ravaged, but he’d lost all interest in the pleasures of the flesh long ago.

“In need of information. What’s a syzygy?”

“A time when things fall into line. Planets. Planes. Portals.”

He reached for his glass. I kept my hand out of the way. Touching Mokraine isn’t a good idea.

He’s a vampire, of sorts. But what he feeds on isn’t blood; it’s the stuff of spirit. Memories. Emotions. It doesn’t kill, but the effects can be disconcerting to say the least.

He wasn’t born that way. It’s to do with that creature that walks with him; we call it his familiar, but only because there’s no other word for it. Don’t mess with arcane magic when you live on a planar conjunction, that’s my advice. You never know what’s going to leap through the small but perfectly formed portal you just opened and latch onto your soul.

Because Mokraine had been powerful, once. A First Adept Doctor of the Arcane; students had come from all over to hear his lectures. Apparently he’d known the names and properties of every type of talisman, amulet and phylactery in the Perindi Empire. But his real obsession was portals, and at the time, there was a lot of prestige to be had from studying them. After all, we all live with the things, but understand almost nothing about how they work, why they appear, why some seem permanent and others not. And no-one knew how to create one. Mokraine found a way, but afterwards he couldn’t remember how he’d done it, had lost all his notes, and didn’t care a jot anymore.

“Since when are you interested in such things, Babylon?”

“It’s not important. That’s not what I wanted to ask you about. A girl disappeared, from the Hall of Mirrors.”

I showed him the picture. He glanced at it, then stared into the distance, taking the information in, savouring it. “Ah, this city,” he said, like a man describing a favourite meal... or a favourite whore.

“Mokraine?”

“Yes, Babylon, my bright-burning one?”

“I just want to know if anyone’s seen or heard anything. I don’t want anyone damaged.”

“Oh, my darling, you know me.”

“Yes, I do. I think. But overstep, and... well, you know
me,
too.”

“I’ll listen, Babylon. It’s what I do.”

I left feeling thoroughly low. Mokraine has that effect on me; so does Glinchen, these days, and the two of them in one evening were more than enough.

But you can’t save everyone, I know that.

TIRESANA

I
WAS SIXTEEN,
and we were home in time for the Choosing.

Kyrl called on various gods when she was playing, and if she knew there was a fight coming up, she’d kiss her blade and mutter a prayer to Babaska. Radan and Sesh both did likewise, without the kissing. I picked up the habit, but what or who I was praying to, I never thought about; it was just what you did.

We passed whorehouses in the towns, and Sesh sometimes visited; they were dedicated to Babaska, too. There were often little statues of her outside, with bare breasts and a sword.

And though the gods no longer manifested, their Avatars did. I’d never seen one, but everyone knew someone who had or claimed to have; someone who’d been to a festival at one of the major temples, to ask a special favour, or who’d seen one pick out an acolyte at a Choosing.

The Avatars were divine beings. Like genies, they were the stuff of gods, and through them and through the priests the will of the gods was made manifest. And since it just might be the will of the gods that you got picked to be an acolyte, and thus made for life, you went to the Choosing.

Odd, how people can believe two things at once. Everyone knew that it was the children of the rich and influential who got Chosen; more often than not, someone from the family of whichever temple priest was doing the Choosing. And yet the story was that anyone might be Chosen. There were legends hundreds of years old, of simple peasants who went on to become High Priests.

No-one knew anyone it had actually
happened
to, of course.

It’s a good way to make people behave. Promise them that if they keep worshipping they, or their son, or their granddaughter, may be one of the gods’ Chosen, and kept in luxury.

Promise them if they help some merchant fatten on their sweat, one day everyone’ll be rich.

Promise them paradise after a life of toil.

Promise them that if they just keep betting, one day, they’ll beat the house.

CHAPTER FOUR

I
HAVE MY
own private bathroom; boss’s privilege. I always like to bathe before I take clients.

I put my rings on the side of the bath and sank back. Hot scented water, decent alcohol, and food someone else has cooked – the three basics of civilization, if you ask me. I can cook for myself, if I have to, though it’s likely to be soldier’s cooking (whatever I can find, raw or shoved on a spit and scorched) or courtesan’s cooking; which tends to be small expensive items bought ready-made, not too heavy on the stomach, and without need of cutlery.

There were a few people waiting in the Punter’s Parlour when I went down. Some people prefer to make such arrangements in private, and we have waiting rooms for them; others are quite happy to sit around and chat while they make their choice or wait for their choice to become available.

There was Maritel Lothley, a warm-blooded, loud, jolly woman who ran half the crockery stalls in the Upper South. She’s handsome and generous, but something of a thug between the sheets and besides, generally I prefer men. Next to her was a thin, nervous young man who looked the type to take his pleasure fast and worry about it for a week.

Then there was a genteel commotion at the door and someone said, “Babylon. Princess of the pleasures.”

A bald, high-nosed chap strode up to me in a rustle of scarlet silks, and bowed over my hand.

“My lord Antheran, how lovely to see you.”

Antheran had gone from impoverished younger son of a fading noble line, to a merchant prince who provided the nobility of the Empire with the finest of jewelled fripperies to hang upon themselves, their favourites and their pets. He always popped in to see us when he was in Scalentine.

“My son, Antheranis,” he said, with a flourish, drawing forward a younger, softer version of himself.

My heart sank. The boy was about fifteen, pretty but with a pouty look. I didn’t want to offend the prince, but I wasn’t in the mood to soothe a sulky lad out of a bad temper.

Antheran gestured the boy back to his seat, and whispered in my ear. “I think, for his first time, you would be a little strong for his blood. Could you recommend someone?”

“Of course,” I said, and sent for Essie.

Antheran gave me the ghost of a wink. “Perhaps you would do me the honour?”

“I would be delighted,” I said.

I would, too. Antheran was courteous, responsive, and always clean; not one of those clients who one has to persuade to wash first. We insist, or they leave. It’s simple courtesy.

Antheran liked to be undressed, slowly, and to be stroked and massaged. He was smoothly and completely hairless, with neat, expert fingers and an odd aversion to having his neck touched.

He had a thing for silk, perhaps because it was the first stuff he’d made serious money with. Or maybe he’d made money dealing it because he loved it. I kept some scarves for his visits, but as I was taking them out of the chest, he said, “No, look, I have some new ones.” He drew out the first from his bag. It was very handsome – pink embroidered with gold – and I looked at it regretfully, thinking how much better that colour would look on Laney. The second... the second was a rich tawny banded with dark amber. Colours I’d once loved. Fortunately he was looking at it, not at me, and I had my face under control before he turned around.

He liked to draw the silk across my skin, and have it wrapped around his cock and his thighs; sometimes he liked to have his hands or ankles tied with it. Luckily, he never asked to tie
me
up; I don’t do that.

It was obvious he had something on his mind, so I took things slowly, but not so slowly he’d have time to start thinking again. I licked and nibbled and generally teased him gently out of his reverie until he lay back, his eyes shut, biting his lip as I stroked his shivering cock through the pink-and-gold silk (I’d got the tawny out of sight as soon as he was beyond noticing, so as not to distract myself.) I flicked the silk away from him, rolled on the snakeskin sheath he prefers and eased myself on top. He slid home. The sensation made me smile, as it always does. I tightened up and grinned when he gasped.

One thing about keeping in fight training, it’s good for the thigh muscles. I was able to keep him on the blissful edge for some time; feeling his tight, hard plunge, holding myself back too, then when it felt right, speeding up, pushing him on.

I felt him strain upwards, and he clasped my hips and shuddered, his eyes clenched tight, making a little moan in the back of his throat. I pressed down hard against him, leaning forward, feeling the sweet jab of my own pleasure spiral up through me.

It doesn’t always happen, with clients; some are too much work, or too nervous, or too quick. Some just don’t have the touch. And sometimes, it just doesn’t happen. But it’s always nice when it does.

We both sighed, let our breath out together.

After a decent interval, I put on a robe, and poured us both a glass of delicate pale yellow wine from the Lathar mountains; his own gift last visit, and very good.

“Ah. Thank you.” He raised the glass. “That was, as always, a delight.”

“I’m glad,” I said. “I thought, when you arrived, that perhaps something was troubling you, but I’m glad to see I was wrong.” I hadn’t actually guessed, until we were in bed, but it’s never wise to suggest to a client (or anyone else) that their performance is off.

He gave me a quizzical look. “You were right, I was a little distracted. Children, sometimes, are a worry.”

“Your son?”

“He is a very moody young man,” Antheran said. “He says he is not interested in trade. Over and again, I tell him, without trade there will be no silk robes, no servants, no books. And no clean pretty girls, or boys, in a nice safe house where one will not be robbed. Only an old castle, very draughty, and all the effort of maintaining the appearance of nobility with nothing beneath it; like those painted scenes in the theatre.”

“And it’s necessary to maintain the appearance?”

“In the Empire, yes. It is a relief, sometimes, to come to Scalentine. Here one may be what one wishes, without people caring whether one was born in a mud hut or a palace.”

“Some care.”

“Oh, yes; this is true. I dine with them. This is not always a pleasure. But then I must on occasion do business with those who I do not necessarily like. Or trust.”

“Perhaps, my lord, you should take a long spoon.”

“A long...?” He looked bemused.

“There’s an old saying; ‘If you dine with the devil, you should take a long spoon,’” I said. “As in, keep your wits about you when doing business with those you don’t trust.”

“Indeed. But here, I know I can be at ease.”

I smiled. “And what does your son think of it all?”

“He wants to be a poet!” Antheran shook his head, making the little crystals hanging from his ears spark in the lamplight.

“A lot of youngsters catch poetry, my lord; like a cold. Most of them get over it.”

“I hope so. The world is kinder to accountants than poets.” I tried not to pull a face at the mention of accounts. “He says he is weary of appearance, and wishes to speak the Truth.”

“Oh, dear. One can only hope he will grow out of that, too.”

I sounded rather cynical even to my own ears, but Antheran was nodding. “Among Empire nobility, to speak the truth to the wrong audience can be unhealthy at best.”

“Not only there,” I said. “Many people find the truth unpleasant.”

“True.” he gestured at his robes, hanging beside the bed. “Tesserane silk. Before I could afford it, I wore the finest linens I could get, though often it meant a thin diet. Because unless I
looked
prosperous, I could never
become
prosperous. Among the nobles, appearance is everything. Truth is seldom more than an inconvenient detail.” He sighed. “If one does not have breeding, one must have wealth. If one has neither, one must strive for the appearance. But beneath it all, it is best to have knowledge. However unpleasant the knowledge, it is the... what is the word... you know how a tent, a pavilion, is constructed?”