undying legion 01 - unbound man (51 page)

Arandras grunted.
Serves him right for getting us all out here so early.

Mara switched the dirk to her other hand. “You ready for this?” she said, a hint of amusement in her tone.

“Sure,” Arandras said. “When Isaias opens up, I’ll just yawn at him.”

She chuckled. “I like you better when you’re half asleep.”

Huh?
Arandras gave her as sharp a glance as he could manage, but her attention was entirely focused on the dirk as she flicked its point out from beneath a nail. The remark had sounded like it meant something, but he was damned if he had the slightest idea what. Closing his eyes, he leaned his head against the wall.
Weeper’s breath, I hate mornings.

Fas stepped forward, hammering on the door with his fist. “You have customers, Isaias!” When the door failed to swing open he exhaled sharply, fists on his hips, and muttered something inaudible.

“‘Doesn’t he know who I am?’” Mara murmured, and Arandras coughed a laugh.

A loud rattle from the door jolted Arandras alert. It swung open to reveal Isaias caught in the middle of a prodigious yawn. “About time,” Fas said; but with eyes clenched and mouth agape, Isaias showed no sign of hearing.

The yawn ended. Isaias looked blearily at each of them in turn.

“Huh,” he said, the utterance as much a sigh as a word, and his expression shifted to a watery smile. “Welcome, friends. Come in, won’t you? Come, come.”

They climbed the stairs without speaking, Isaias breathing heavily as he led the way. On reaching the top he made a beeline for the green armchair in front of the hearth, collapsing into it with a loud exhalation as Arandras and the others filed into the room. Narvi and Fas cast uneasy glances at the narrow, anamnil-filled cabinet and found positions on the other side of the room, their Quill brooches catching the first rays of sunlight through the window above the counter. Mara sauntered past, unconcerned, as Ienn halted at the top of the stairs, his arms folded.

“My friends,” Isaias said, rubbing his drooping eyelids and smiling beatifically. The cat, Pinecone, slunk around the corner of the armchair and disappeared behind the counter.

“Hello, Isaias,” Arandras said. “Sorry to burst in on you like this.”

“Ah, Arandras, do not trouble yourself with such trifling considerations. Isaias is always delighted to welcome such dear friends as yourselves.”

Arandras glanced at Fas, who gestured impatiently but at least had the sense not to speak.
Thank the Weeper for small mercies.
He scratched his beard, trying to think past his own haze to find the appropriate opening. “We, uh, are here to purchase a map.”

“How wonderful!” Isaias said, the exclamation both enthusiastic and entirely devoid of recognition. “Isaias is already longing to hear more. Pray, continue.”

“Understand, please, that I’m here under my own auspices,” Arandras said. “As you can see, I have gathered some other, ah, associates in this venture, but I remain the sole holder of the project’s key asset.” It was not quite a lie.
The urn is the key asset, and it’s mine.
Never mind that the Quill no longer needed the physical object. “These gentlemen are here to supply funds, nothing more.”

Isaias blinked mildly. “I see. And now, perhaps, you would be so kind as to describe this map you wish to purchase?”

There was a coolness in the shopkeeper’s tone that Arandras knew from long experience.
The last thing I did was give him money and tell him not to reveal the map to the Quill. And now here I am, at an hour we both detest, shepherded in by no less than three of them.
Small wonder if the man thought something was up.

“It’s fine, Isaias,” Arandras said. “Really. Just fetch us the map I was looking at the other day.”

“Which map was that, friend Arandras?”

“The one that —” Arandras broke off. Isaias wasn’t budging.
And he’s not going to so long as the Quill are here.
Fas gave a loud harrumph, and Arandras raised a hand to forestall him. “I’m sorry,” Arandras said to Isaias. “We’re wasting your time. We’ll leave now.”

“No, we damn well won’t!” Fas shouldered Arandras aside and planted himself before Isaias. “You know what we’re here for. Bring out your maps, man, and don’t try to fob us off with the same rigmarole as last time.”

Isaias adopted a regretful expression. “Alas, friend Fas, my answer today is the same as it was on your prior visit. Believe me when I say I would be delighted to sell you the object you seek. Truly, such transactions are the heart’s blood of this humble shop. Yet Isaias must sorrowfully confess his inability to —”

“Enough!” Fas stepped closer. “There are five of us here. You are alone. One way or another, we’re getting what we came for.”

“What?” Arandras blinked at Fas. “No, that’s not how this works. If Isaias says he’s not selling, then he’s not selling.”

“The hells with that,” Fas said, glancing around the shop. “We’ll start here, then move to the private rooms. Narvi, check the shelves and drawers behind the counter. Mara, the cabinets. Ienn, you keep Isaias here company. Arandras, you can help Narvi —

“Are you mad?” Arandras stared in disbelief. “You can’t just ransack his shop! Weeper’s tears, we’re not thugs!”

“Seems like a good way to get on the wrong side of the city garrison,” Mara said, in a tone Arandras chose to interpret as agreement.

Fas waved a dismissive hand. “The garrison owes us more favours than I can count. This is worth at least a couple.”

“If I may,” Isaias said. He seemed calm, yet there was a hint of steel in his tone. “Isaias is exceedingly familiar, alas, with customers who allow their enthusiasm to override their judgement, which I am confident, in other circumstances, is truly exquisite.” He turned his head, lowering his collar to show the fading bruise on his neck. “Some others visited my shop just a few days ago with a similarly, uh, forthright approach to their negotiations. Nonetheless, they left empty-handed.”

Fas paused, and Arandras took advantage of his hesitation to drive home the point. “What you’re doing is contemptible,” he said. “And if that doesn’t mean anything to you, the fact that it’s not going to work should. Give me the money and leave. Let me talk with Isaias alone.”

“And let the two of you swindle us while we wait downstairs like mugs? Forget it.”

Gatherer take you!
Arandras clawed at his hair. “Gods, how can you be such a fool? Take your idiot pride outside and let me buy you the damn map!”

Yet as he said it, he felt a pang of doubt.
What if Isaias isn’t simply being stubborn?
Clade had been one step ahead of them the whole time. Could he have somehow prised the map from Isaias’s grasp? Arandras glanced across to where Mara lounged by the counter and saw the same thought in her expression.
Weeper, tell me we haven’t been gulled. Again.

“
My
idiot pride?” Fas planted himself a finger’s breadth from Arandras’s face. “Can you even hear yourself? The Emperor of Kharjus is less arrogant than you! No wonder the Quill booted you out the first time around. I wouldn’t be surprised if —”

“Excuse me,” Mara said, and something in her tone made them all turn around. Isaias gave a stifled hiss.

The shopkeeper’s cat hung from Mara’s hand by the scruff of its neck, its legs dangling in the air.

“Now, my dear Mara,” Isaias said, his voice no longer as calm as it had been a moment ago. “Pray do not do anything you will later regret. Put her down, if you would be so kind.”

Mara lifted the cat to a level with her face. “Pinecone, isn’t it?” It gave a plaintive meow. “Are you well, Pinecone? Does the big round man over there look after you?”

Isaias coughed. “Mara, my friend, please. Release my beautiful Pinecone.” The Quill looked on like a trio of mummers, Fas intent, Narvi pained, Ienn impassive.

Let her go, Mara,
Arandras wanted to say; yet somehow the words wouldn’t come. Without the map, there were no golems. Without the Quill, there was no luring Clade from the city. And without both of those, there was no vengeance for Tereisa.

And that was the most important thing of all.

Not like this, though. Not this.

Mara’s free hand drifted to the hilt of her dirk.

Isaias gave a sudden yelp. “No! Do not harm Pinecone, I beg you!”

She paused, her hand resting on the hilt, an enquiring expression on her face.

“Ah, my friends.” Isaias gulped, pressing his sleeve against his forehead. “I do believe I have just this moment remembered a collection of documents I purchased some time ago, from, ah, an eccentric old… well, no matter. As it happens, many of the papers do, in fact, show maps, including one in particular which I recently had cause to set aside. Perhaps I should fetch it, so that we might peruse it together?”

Mara lowered the cat to the counter, but kept hold of its scruff. “What an excellent suggestion,” she said.

Isaias heaved himself to his feet, shuffling behind the counter and reaching underneath. There was a click and the sound of something sliding. Swallowing hard, he drew out a long roll of paper wrapped in a soft leather cover.

“Is this, my friends, the object you seek?”

The Quill unfurled the map on the counter and began poring over it. Arandras turned away, retreating to the far corner of the room.
I had no part in this,
he thought, but even in the silence of his mind, the words rang hollow. He hugged his arms around his chest.
Weeper have mercy, what have I become? How do I find a way back?

A pouch of coins was upended onto the counter with a harsh jangle. Narvi gave Arandras an excited look, pointing at the map and nodding, his eyes bright. Isaias assembled the coins into stacks, smiling now, chattering on about something or other as though he and Fas had been friends for years; but when Mara offered a chuckling comment, the shopkeeper shot her so venomous a glance that even she could not sustain her smile.

Arandras heaved a shuddering breath and covered his face with his hands.

We did it. The Quill have the map, and I have the Quill. Soon, I will have my vengeance.

Weeper forgive me.

Part 3:
To Wake in Darkness

Chapter 20

There is a secret song in every man’s heart that says,
I am better.
I am better than my family. My family are better than my friends. My friends are better than my neighbours, and even my neighbours are better than others more distant to me.

My city may overflow with fools, yet it remains the greatest in the land. My land may hold scarce a handful as wise as me, yet beyond question it is greater than all others. And no matter how vile the men of other lands may be, even they cannot compare in barbarism to those who live across the sea.

What need has mankind of gods? Each one of us is a god unto himself.

— Kassa of Menefir
Solitude

They rode out at noon. As soon as they passed the gates Ienn established a brisk trot, and Arandras settled into the familiar one-two rhythm, relieved to be out of the city at last. The Lissil road was wide, and they rode in file two or three abreast, the rumble of half a hundred hooves sufficient warning for those ahead to clear a path.

Mara’s leathers blended well enough with the ochre and black worn by the Quill, but Arandras’s faded crimson tunic stood out among the others like old blood. The contrast was unintentional, but it pleased him nonetheless.
Blood, yes. I wore those colours too, but they are long gone now.

See what lies beneath the facade.

He rode alongside a rangy man with the pale skin of a Jervian and the sun-shy squint of one who rarely ventured outdoors. The man sat his horse with grim concentration, eyes focused on the back of the rider ahead, his lips moving in a silent mantra, or perhaps a prayer to whoever it was that he worshipped.

The incident in Isaias’s shop had left Arandras feeling soiled, as though he’d given up some part of himself by remaining silent while Isaias was coerced. Perhaps he had. He’d been more than just a chance bystander.
By my presence and my silence I endorsed their actions. Their shame is my shame, also.

Once, during his time in Chogon, the Quill had come across a gold serving platter bearing a faded inscription, apparently a gift from one Valdori noble to another. Inexplicably, the plate had been found in the ruins of a slaughterhouse, and it had fallen to Arandras to clean away its ancient coat of muck. He had set it to soak in the milky fluid the Quill used for such purposes, drying it each day and gently polishing it before returning it to a fresh bath.

Most of the grime fell away in the first few days, but a dark, finger-length stain along one side stubbornly resisted his efforts. After two weeks of continual soaking, he was forced to concede defeat. Somehow, the mark had blended with the gold to become part of the object; an amalgam that could no longer be washed away. Whatever had been inscribed in that place was there no longer. The plate had absorbed the stain into its being.