Thief Mage, Beggar Mage, page 29
‘Remarkable,’ Tet said. ‘Like all dragons.’
She stared. ‘You have met many?’
‘I used to share beer and songs, and play games of maket with one in the mountains, but there have been others.’
‘You did not,’ the girl said. ‘Liar. Dragons don’t drink beer.’
Tet settled into the chair that stood in the corner of the room. It was soft as an old mushroom, and he sighed. ‘That one did, but I concede that not all dragons have the taste for it.’ He tipped his head back and closed his eyes to a grey shot through with spasms of colours. ‘But all of them enjoy strategy games.’
‘Hah,’ said the girl. A moment later, the door clicked shut, and Tet sank into half-dreams while he waited for her return. It seemed only seconds had passed when a hand shook him awake and the girl pushed her pugnacious face close. ‘Here, mage.’ She drew back. ‘You were snoring.’
‘Was I?’ Tet shook the sleep from his head. Everything felt blurry; his limbs too leaden and stiff to move.
‘Like a great dog,’ she said. ‘Here. I have brought smoked fish in mustard, and fried bread.’
She was as good as her word and the rich and pungent aromas of Deniahn cooking filled the room. The girl set bowls and utensils down on a small table surrounded by four chairs. There was enough on her tray to feed a legion of starving beggar-men, as well as generous carafes of water and wine to satisfy an inebriate soldier. Everything was precious; carefully blown glass of silvery blue, the bone-white porcelain of the bowl gilded. A peasant’s meal served on the plates of kings. Mountain water in priceless patterned crystal.
‘I’m grateful,’ Tet said. ‘This is a feast.’
‘It’s not just for you,’ she pointed out. Then more grudgingly, ‘You’re most welcome.’ She finished setting the last of the dishes – places for two – and Tet wondered if she was to dine with him, if she was another spy, although a slight and sweet one.
He was about to ask her when the door to the room swung open smooth and silent, and Dozha walked in, commanding and sure of himself as any prince. The girl squeaked, then bowed hurriedly before slipping out of the room like a nervous kitten.
‘Fish,’ said Dozha. ‘Good.’ He took a seat at the table and gestured for Tet to join him. ‘Come, old man, I can see the hunger in your face. You look like a gnawed bone.’ Although he was joking, Tet thought Dozha spoke as much about himself as he did his guest. Dozha was wearing his magery thin, using it all the time, and it was beginning to show in the waxiness of his skin, the hollow darkness around his eyes. If he carried on using great amounts of magic, he would soon have none. Burned out with mage-fever, like an empty oil candle.
‘She left you a pretty hand,’ Dozha said, with a nod at Tet’s transformed limb. ‘I hope this means the meeting was all you could have dreamed of.’
Merithym. And the shades of people he did not remember from life. ‘It was both more and less.’ Let Dozha make of that what he would. ‘I thought you had much to attend tonight,’ Tet said. ‘Certainly, you let Sinastrillia think so.’
Dozha chewed on fried bread that was puffed up as a frog’s throat. ‘I didn’t lie.’
‘Working on stealing the breastplate for Shoom?’
He closed his eyes. ‘Yes.’
‘You are not so great a thief if it’s giving you so much trouble. Surely you could wrap yourself in shadows and stalk kitten-pawed through his ridiculous tower and slip the damned thing off him before he so much as knows you’re there?’ Even though Tet knew it was impossible, he was curious to hear Dozha’s thoughts. He ladled helpings of the fish and rice into a bowl and poured himself wine instead of water. ‘And likewise you should be able to steal a pretty bead from the neck of a vain princess.’ He would not, because Dozha and Kani were on the same side, both doing as Sinastrillia commanded.
‘Vain?’ Dozha laughed, eyes still closed. He looked exhausted. Finally, he pushed up out of his slouch and opened his eyes. In the warm glow of the lamps, they were mottled through with the browny-blues and blacks of forests at night. ‘The White Prince has a court toymaker.’
Tet dragged his thoughts away from Dozha’s night-forest eyes, his drowning dark eyes, and back to the clockwork beasts sent to hunt him. ‘I know this. A clockwork mage – the only kind he trusts. But how can a toymaker stop one such as yourself?’
Dozha took more food with the resigned air of a man who had gone past hunger and was only forcing himself to eat because he knew he must, or die. ‘They are a very good clockwork mage.’
That was no lie. Tet had seen their trinkets up close—so perfect and detailed they were more than mere metal simulacrum but had the sheen of life. Even with the protection currently afforded by the flint-pouch dogs, the prince's damn toymaker was turning into more of a problem than Tet had anticipated. No wonder the prince kept them leashed to his courts. They were a symbol of his power, and another weapon. At every turn, their veiled shade blocked Tet's way.
'They’ve made all kinds of creatures to protect the prince, and the rooms surrounding his suite are mazes defended by traps and monsters. If they were true animals, I could turn them aside, but they're not. Their toys can see through magery and they only answer their maker’s command.
Tet knew this but pretended to consider the problem. ‘So, it’s a matter of getting past these and into his chambers?’
‘No.’ Dozha poured himself wine, leaving his half-eaten meal, then leaned forward to top up Tet’s drink. The pink wine splashed softly, a sound like fish dancing between air and water. Firelight played over his skin, decorating him with shadows of olive green. ‘I have a way in. I even have a way to strip the prince of his armour by his own consent. What I don’t have,’ he drained his glass and slumped back in his seat, ‘is a way out again.’ The tiredness had settled under the parchment of his face, drawing histories that Tet wanted to erase with his newly-white palm. He wanted to trace the paths Dozha had taken, a one-finger journey.
Instead, he held his wine glass firmly with both hands and pretended that his thoughts were sane, sensible. Concentrate on the problem of the clockworker, on the problem of the White Prince and the gods hunting you down. There’s no time for this. ‘You can’t use the same route that took you in?’
‘Let’s pretend it’s a path I can walk only once.’ He laughed hollowly. ‘Leave it. I’ll think of something.’
Did Dozha not know what Ymat had wanted Tet for – what the city-speaker knew Tet could do and what Sinastrillia knew likewise? Perhaps the dragon did not tell her precious son everything. ‘Ymat is paying you for this contract?’
Dozha leaned forward and rested his left arm on the table. His right, or what there was of it, was hidden under the long sleeve of his gold and blue-striped jacket, the end of the sleeve pinned neatly. ‘Yes. And no.’
‘And what does that mean?’
He laughed. ‘It means exactly what it means. That Shoom pays me for some services, and not for others.’
‘You serve two masters?’ The wine burned down Tet’s throat, tracing a route of bitter-sweet flame, pooling warm as blood in his belly.
‘I am, always, for hire, and I serve many masters. Haven’t you yourself paid me to get back your little necklace.’ It was not a question. He raised one eyebrow and Tet was reminded of Laketri. It was an expression she’d thrown his way – a combination of exasperation and mocking humour.
‘But it was Ymat who hired you to retrieve the breastplate.’ Tet pressed on, certain that if he simply kept asking questions eventually he’d find the right one and the intricate box of secrets that was Dozha would open, like finding the hidden spring and pressing just so. The thought of Dozha opening made Tet’s skin heat with feverish aches. It was past time to put down the wine, go to sleep.
Instead, Tet poured himself more wine and pretended that his hands were not trembling, that he was not aroused by that lingering scent of incense, of the drug, of the trace of honey that had followed Dozha into the room. That smell, almost like magic, oily-sweet.
‘Shoom has hired me before, as you know.’ A small smile pulled at Dozha’s mouth, and he gave Tet a sidelong look. It was, despite the black rings, the fever-cast to his skin, a look that strayed too long and too deliberately.
Perhaps I’m simply a thing to amuse him. Tet was certain he had near a decade on Dozha, and probably looked even older. He can smell my arousal, my desperation, and he thinks he will toy with me. I think that this time I might not care. That I would only hate him for a little while after he is done and cast me aside. It had been so long since Tet had let himself fall, and now there was hardly time enough left to him. He should take what scraps he could before it was too late. It didn’t need to be love, just a moment’s romance.
What did a priest-mage know of seduction? Tet’s time in the army as their mapmaker spy had kept him constantly on the move, never tied to a unit, bonding with others. There had been little space for dalliance. Perhaps he was seeing the shadows of things that weren’t there, catching the tail end of wishes. His delusion was that he and Dozha were speaking the same language and heading for the same conclusion.
Leave this path now, Merithym. Tet’s newly-retrieved name brought him back to himself. It was nothing more than the workings of spells and skin-deep enchantments. Tet had no time to get caught up in these games.
‘And what about Kani?’ Tet settled back and pushed his thoughts away from where they had been heading. ‘Have you any luck there? As you have pointed out, you have other masters, and I have paid well for the privilege of being one of them.’
Guilt – sudden and unexpected – danced over Dozha’s face. ‘I should never have taken that contract from you,’ he admitted.
‘She was too powerful for you after all?’ Tet crystallised all his sublimated desire into anger, let it sharpen his voice. He wanted to be angry with Dozha, to hate him for his half-truths. It was marginally safer than the alternative. Less humiliating.
‘Not that.’ Dozha shook his head, and passed his hand over his face, wiping away the momentary tell of his contrition. ‘Kani is working for Shoom, whatever the man may tell you. And so am I.’
‘I had gathered as much,’ Tet said dryly.
‘It’s a problem. What Sinastrillia calls a conflict of interest.’ Dozha smiled thinly. ‘Do you want the truth?’
‘A version of it would be acceptable. Not that I’m accustomed to candour from mages.’ Under Tet’s breastbone, wariness flickered its forked tongue. Neither of them were men with any measure of honesty and Tet would be a fool to expect it.
‘Perhaps I serve too many masters,’ Dozha said. ‘All of them connected in ways I do not like.’
‘Perhaps.’ Did this mean he was in Kani’s employ too? It wouldn’t be beyond the realm of possibility that she had also hired Dozha to steal the breastplate. Mages and thieves and thieves and mages, all tangled up in a mess of deceits. What a game, what a Grand Dance, the greatest ever played. ‘Maybe it’s time to choose one master only.’
‘Ha.’ Dozha swallowed the last of the wine straight from the carafe, his head thrown back, throat long. He set it down and grinned, teeth sharp, eyes narrow-sly. ‘I like the money, and I like the game. After all, life is shit, life is short, and life is nothing if you don’t enjoy the little things that make it worthwhile.’
Tet jerked forward in his seat. The sudden movement set a wrenching pain through his knee, and he winced. His mind was fogged with wine and lack of sleep, but pain could cut even through that. It obliterated the moment of recognition. Words he’d heard before, somewhere else, spoken by a different tongue.
‘Your legs, they still hurt.’
He nodded warily. ‘They do. I have curse scars from Nanak and Vitash that twist the flesh all the way from the skin to the bone, that bite into the bones themselves. Since Ymat took my soul, they have at least not grown worse. A blessing.’
‘Such strange and vicious little dog gods you follow,’ Dozha said.
‘And yours is any better?’ Tet gestured vaguely at the door, and thought of the huge dragon lying coiled deep underground, what she knew, what she offered. What she asked.
‘A fair point,’ Dozha conceded, and some of his tiredness seemed to lift as he smiled with one side of his mouth. ‘But I’d still trust her further than yours.’
‘Why?’
Dozha paused, as though he’d never considered the question before. ‘Because,’ he said softly, ‘she gave me purpose.’
‘Is that all?’
‘Sometimes,’ Dozha said. The moment slipped, and the mask of a prince-mage was back. He grinned. ‘And perhaps she promised me the world and I thought it sounded like a pretty prize.’
‘Are you that interested in crowns and thrones?’ It was disappointing to think Dozha was so much like the White Prince himself, but Dozha answered the question with a one shouldered shrug.
‘Hardly,’ he said. ‘But what’s the point of a game if there’s no pot to win?’
‘A game.’ Tet snorted, but the movement made him wince, and Dozha’s expression drew concerned, his brow furrowing.
‘I’m no good with healing spells, but there are other ways to help. Lie down and I’ll do what I can.’ Dozha went to a woven cord near the door and tugged at it a few times; long tugs and short in some arcane order.
The food and wine had left Tet sated and sleepy, and it seemed easiest just to obey Dozha. He unbuckled his battered leather boots, washed his feet in a bowl of cold water put aside for this, and changed into the pyjamas the girl had left for him. With a quick glance to be certain that Dozha wasn’t watching, Tet carefully wrapped his flint-pouch, striker, and coin bag deep in the heart of his discarded clothes before sinking down onto the wide bed. It was firmer than expected – just the right amount of give without being too soft. Tet twisted his shoulders and welcomed the crack of aching bone and muscle. His eyelids were heavy, and with each exhale it was harder to keep them open, to not let his body grow leaden.
A clatter of wooden drawers, a clink of metal and bone, but Tet was too lazy to raise his head. Only when Dozha seated himself beside Tet and pulled up the hems of the sleep trousers to reveal the twisted knees, did Tet force himself up on his elbows to watch. Tet didn’t make a habit of showing strangers his scars, only the paid masseurs had that right. This was too intimate and his heartbeat skittered. Why am I here, letting Dozha treat me like a pet?
Because I need him? Because he was wrapped in secrets and Tet wanted to find a way to unravel them. That seemed right. A good story to tell himself.
Dozha knelt alongside him. ‘I’ll need your help for this part,’ he said with a half-smile, and cupped his palm. ‘Pour from the bottles, only as many drops as I say. From that largest, enough to fill a rich man’s soup spoon.’
Tet leaned forward to do as Dozha asked. Massage might not heal the flesh but it did help, and Tet was grateful for anything that would bring him some relief. While he was counting out the drops of a second oil that smelled like sharp winter berries and dry leaves, the door opened and the girl from before entered with a water pipe which she set down to fill and light.
The heat of the small coal resting on the metal plate over the leaf-bowl seemed out of proportion, as though it were a fallen sun. The girl blew at it, turning it with her brass tongs. She did not pay any attention to the two mages, merely frowned as she sucked at the pipe. The thick smell of seven-petal. Want unfurled through Tet, closing up his throat.
His attention was turned by the sudden feeling of heat against his knee, like a brand marking. Tet jerked, shuddering at the unexpected slip into pleasure-pain. Dozha pretended not to notice, his fingers pressing into skin, easing the tightness. Tet willed the girl to work faster, and leave.
As if in answer to a silent command, she blew a deep grey cloud from her nostrils. ‘I’ll see you later,’ she said to Dozha. He nodded in response, and then she was gone, her arms full of dishes, clattering like clay cymbals.
Tet’s fingers fumbled for the pipe, and he grasped it blindly. The taste of chalk and visions was flat against his tongue, like licking a half-remembered dream. His inners began to unwind. The room was silent except for the sound of the pipe, and there was no need to talk and fill it up. Tet wanted this silence. It was safe. He could lose himself in the dream of seven-petal, imagine a heaven instead of his current hell. Imagine a universe not bound to the gods and their fickle games of chance.
Dozha worked on Tet’s right knee first, where the scar was older, the curse deeper. His hand crunched and prodded, smoothed and stroked.
The room filled with the fragrance of seven-petal while Tet lay back and lost himself in the rhythm of Dozha’s hand and the burble of smoke. He stared at the darkened ceiling and watched the play of shadows. He wanted – no, needed – to sink into a thoughtless drifting state. He had to empty his mind of Dozha’s long fingers, the supple wrist, the slender arm, the curious fragility of his collar bone. He was just another human, nothing more than a bone cage that held his soul in place. This could be anyone Tet had employed to massage the pain out of his legs. He took a long pull on the stem of the pipe.
Empty your head, think of nothing. Dream of a world where you are the right-hand mage to a benevolent emperor. The thought was seductive. Himself, wrapped in power, healed, strong. A proud man, with no Nanak, Vitash, or Epsi holding their chains about his throat. And at his side, the shining Emperor that Sinastrillia predicted, a man who held the world in his grasp.
The thought stuttered, and he took another deep drag. What would make any emperors better than the White Prince? Even if that was the future Sinastrillia saw and wanted, it sat ill.
There was a better world than that, than kings of kings and mages of mages. A world where time was stitched in place, and where the gods were chaff, dream-things. Powerless. That was a vision that burned fiercer, that conflagrated in the chambers of his heart.
How do you kill gods, if they could even die?
Consume them, the thought came, clear and sweet as a lover’s whisper in the dark.
