Thief Mage, Beggar Mage, page 8
A serving girl brought him wine, which he accepted, and food, which he declined. Tet wanted at least one hand free and no chance of crumbs or grease on his clothes. Magic crackled in the spaces of his bones, hummed through his blood. Behind the stone door inside him, the void hissed and seethed, a flood held behind a dam wall.
‘Ohtet Maynim?’ said a small portly man wearing a deep blue jacket and trousers. His head was smooth-shaven and tattooed with indigo swirls. A sash of emerald announced him as a city-speaker, one of the men who held council with the White Prince and offered him their guidance. A man close to the prince was too exposed to be seen conversing with, and Tet wanted no reasons for the house-guards and secret agents to start paying him careful attention. He would pretend distant civility and hope the bureaucrat moved on soon.
Tet bowed, his heart singing shrill, blood throbbing. He felt too bright, like a rare creature on display. The Monkey or any of his spies could be watching him now, and thinking that he made deals with royal cronies. That Ohtet Maynim was untrustworthy down to his bones. Which he was, but Tet didn’t need the Monkey to know that quite yet.
‘Ymat Shoom.’ The small man held out a hand. Inside his sleeve blinked two round eyes, coin-bright. A tiny monkey peered out, the golden tuft of its head like a fluff of winter grass seeds. ‘Saw your beast when you arrived. Marvellous thing. Have always wanted one myself.’
It was him. The promised sorcerer. The Monkey. Tet doused all his previous irritation – he needed to court the man. The Monkey was the key to his emancipation. He grasped the proffered hand, and the monkey scampered out the sleeve, running over their clasped hands to peer at Tet’s face before darting back to the safety of its owner’s robe. The dry skitter of its little hands and feet was oddly intimate. Tet wondered what it would be like to sit down and converse with it in mage speech.
He wasn’t here to have conversations with monkeys, and Shoom was more interested in Tet’s metal horse than his own fascinating pet. For now, Tet let him lead the conversation, deep in his pretence of being the rural merchant-prince with more money than sense. This was a dangerous game they played. Monkey or not, Tet still did not want to attract the attention of either gods or court spies.
‘It is a marvel,’ Tet said of his horse. ‘I had heard stories of the clockwork animals, and have always wanted to see them. When fate brought me to Pal-em-Rasha, I decided that fate must also have wanted me to own one.’ He shrugged as though the vast expense were only a trifle. ‘So it goes.’
‘Ah, fate. There’s a fickle bitch if ever there was one. Not a religious type, I take it?’
Tet shook his head. Tet-Nanak may have been a priest-mage, but it wouldn’t do to follow the wrong god in Pal-em-Rasha. There was only one true god as far as the White Prince was concerned. A god of war, a bloodthirsty image of fang and tawny fur. As Ohtet Maynim, Tet had forsaken his own gods. And he hoped desperately to never have to go back to them. ‘Not particularly,’ he said carefully, ‘though I begrudge no one their beliefs.’
Ymat snorted in amusement. ‘No need to pussy-foot here, this may be a temple city, but she is riddled with godless people.’ He was laughing, but his eyes were hard, careful.
‘And you, Sai Shoom, are you also godless?’
‘No sais, please, you can call me Ymat. Call me that fat bastard behind my back though, I find it hurtful when people use it to my face.’ He didn’t sound particularly hurt. ‘And no, I’m not. But parties are no place to discuss religion, unless we are celebrating the start of war, in which case it is the perfect venue.’
‘No war. I think we have had enough of that.’
‘Certainly.’ Ymat Shoom grabbed a pastry from a serving girl’s passing tray. A commotion had begun at the far side of the courtyard, an expectant hiss and chatter. ‘Ah, I wondered.’
‘What’s that?’
‘It looks like our elusive princess had deigned to come to this little shindig. Marghas will be crowing about it for weeks, the plebeian.’
The head servant’s strident tones announced her to the waiting nobles. ‘Princess Kani Roiyant of Sinal, and attendants.’
Tet couldn’t see the princess, not with the normally uninterested crowd suddenly discovering previously untapped wells of curiosity. Small groups clumped forward to get a better view of this guest. Tet told himself he was not interested in her spectacle. All he wanted was to speak to Ymat plainly, to make their plans for the ritual-oresh. However, Ohtet Maynim would have been most fascinated by a foreign princess. With a grimace on his face, Tet turned with the crowd to pretend interest in this new distraction.
From the centre of the circle of nobles rose six elaborate headdresses of red-dyed fur sculpted into obscene crests. The crowd parted for the entourage, and six men strode forward. They were taller and darker than anyone else in the room, and their robes were not the Pal-em-Rasha cut; they were longer, looser, with wide round necks heavily decorated with beading and mirrors. The men’s expressions were proud and grim: servants with the faces of emperors. The leading man gave the room a last disdainful glance, then turned and stepped aside so that the princess might walk forward.
Her arms were black, almost shadows against her side, until Tet realised she was wearing long leather gloves that disappeared under the wide sleeves of her dress. The gown was deep emerald, and unlike her servants’ clothing, it was cut in the current fashions with some minor changes; the sleeves were short and loose to display her long graceful arms, and instead of the baggy look of the short jackets and loose tunics that the women of Pal-em-Rasha currently favoured, she had belted her robe with a wide sash. Her black hair flowed loosely to her waist.
He took in these details – the donning of the city’s style, but repossessed to her individual taste; the unbound hair, scraped back with an assortment of foreign combs and jewels; the leather gloves; the amusement in her mask-white face – and found himself grinning. There was some uncanniness about her that charged the air, as though a mountain thunderstorm was about to tear the heavens apart.
She would certainly get the White Prince’s attention, but Tet wondered how long she would be able to keep it. The prince would endure the amusement of her individuality for only so long. And he liked young women, innocent little doves that he could claw at. As far as Tet could see, this princess had left her girlhood behind. She was still lean and coltish, but she would be harder for the White Prince to break. Whatever she offered him as a wife it wouldn’t be the same gifts he looked for in the flock of mistresses he kept. Her lean figure best come complimented by vast tracts of land and pits of yellow diamonds.
‘Don’t even think you’ll get the chance to talk to our mysterious princess of Sinal,’ said Ymat quietly at his side.
Tet turned from her. ‘Eh?’
‘So far she’s spoken to no one. She has a Voice – a man who talks for her, repeats whatever it was she whispers to him – but that’s all. And even then, she doesn’t exactly hold conversations with the likes of us.’
‘Perhaps her real voice is as hideous as her looks are not.’
Ymat laughed softly. ‘Perhaps. A flaw in our heartless diamond, yes, I should like that.’
‘You’re not impressed by her?’
‘Oh, I am very impressed.’ His fingers darted forward, pecking a handful of snacks off a passing tray. He popped one of the rice balls down his sleeve. ‘But, there is something a little unusual about our princess.’
Tet knew what he meant. That storm-prickle, that oily buzz that made the hairs on his skin stand up. He was familiar with it, coming as he did from the temples, but common people wouldn’t recognise it. Wouldn’t even realise it was there: the taint of heavy magery; of old, old power.
Ymat was a small round man, the type easily dismissed, but he was perceptive and smart, and with no little power despite his apparent status as a simple spokesperson, who would be forbidden by law to accumulate land or titles. He was a sorcerer of Utt Dih, however, or a student of one. Even so, he was not a mage. He would not feel what Tet did.
‘Unusual. Yes. Now that you mention it, I feel a certain...’ Tet narrowed his eyes. ‘Perhaps it is only my imagination.’
Ymat returned his thoughtful stare. ‘Imagination and magic. Funny how they should have such similar roots.’
‘Funny, yes.’
When they both looked at the princess again, Tet could almost see the threads of magery dancing about her, holding her together. What was she? Whatever her truth, she was like him, and the only ones who would recognise it were true mages. In Pal-em-Rasha the toymakers might be thicker than drifts of dirty feathers in a chicken coop and their Floating University might hold all the power, but they had no understanding of Temple magery.
She’s one of us, and I have never seen her before. How interesting, this sudden proliferation of mages who should have trained at my own temples, and who have sprung like cicadas from the ground, fully-formed and with no history.
Interesting, and a little unnerving.
The princess took a long-stemmed glass from a servant and her mouth crinkled in amusement. For a brief moment she looked Tet’s way, and he wondered if she could see in him the faint traces of his remaining power. Their gazes met, and there was a pull unlike any Tet had encountered before. It was like staring into a reflection and being trapped by his own eyes. Drowning in power.
In the west, they had a story of such a god who fell in love with himself, died staring at the one thing he could not have. And while the princess looked nothing like Tet there was something about her that made Tet think that they were two fictions shadowing each other. They stared because they could sense each other’s truths below, like ghost carp moving in flickers and flashes under the mud-dark surface of a mountain river.
Or a more reasonable explanation: Tet had finally and rather unexpectedly gone completely mad.
He stepped back, out of her sight, and wondered what to do – if anything – about this new development. The princess was a flame, and she drew him, but Tet had long ago had his fill of playing at being a moth. Singed wings and broken legs were not worth a dalliance.
‘Allow me to buy you a drink, Sai Ohtet,’ Ymat said.
Tet glanced around at the milling servants and their trays of wine. ‘Buy?’
Ymat snorted. ‘Not here. Come, I know a lovely quiet little bar not very far. I think you’ll like it. And we have much we should discuss.’
‘Do we?’ Finally, the way was clear.
When Ymat smiled, the monkey mimicked him, and the moon-sliver of its bared fangs flashed in the darkness of Ymat’s sleeve.
Tet glanced back once to the Princess Kani. She was watching him leave, her face cold and white, her magic rich and heavy as perfume around her. Even when the gates closed behind them, Tet could still feel her, prickling against his skin. She was a magnet and he was an iron filing, fighting to escape her pull. The longer he stayed in Pal-em-Rasha, the harder it would be to walk away. He needed to get this over with and leave the city as soon as possible.
She was a dangerous woman, and worse: a mystery.
BARGAINS AND MAGICS
The wine bar Ymat took them to was a small grotto tucked away down a winding little lane hemmed in with high buildings spilling ivy leaves and flowering vines down their walls like writhing waterfalls. The night air was damp and green and touched with ice.
The bar lay down a small flight of stairs. The masks of various minor Pal-em-Rasha house-gods lined the walls and spat water into stone bowls. The splashing followed them, echoing through the narrow pathways. The air was heavy with the smells of strong tea, wine and beer, and seven-petal.
A small boy in simple robes of sky blue led them to their table. The bar was a maze of nooks and sheltered crannies, separated by fountains and swinging paper lanterns in every colour one could think of. Between the dancing light and the competing shadows and the walls of greenery, each little table was given privacy. Conversations were kept secret under the laughter of the water.
‘An interesting place,’ Tet remarked as they took their seats.
‘It’s something of a hidden jewel. You can bring us a pipe, and a number-two selection, and tea,’ Ymat said to the boy, then raised an eyebrow at Tet. ‘You’ll take tea? Or something else.’
‘Tea suits.’
They waited in wary silence, marked only by the spill of water, the bubble of the pipes and the soft exhale of petal smoke.
The little tufted monkey finally braved its way out of Ymat’s sleeve and sat on the table, plucking dainties from the food trays and tasting them with tiny bites.
‘A strange pet,’ Tet said and thought of Ymat’s other pet. A mage. He did not intend to become another one in the Monkey’s menagerie.
Ymat took the proffered pipe from the server. ‘A thief,’ he said. ‘Like all my pets.’
‘Oh?’ The monkey had taken hold of one of Tet’s fingers, grasping with its tiny black hand. It looked up at him with owlish eyes that seemed both doleful and hopeful. The wizened face with its ruff of white and black fur was so oddly human in its expressions.
‘Don’t trust the little monster,’ said Ymat. ‘It will steal anything not nailed down.’ He set the pipe on the table, indicating to Tet that it was his turn. ‘Please, relax. Consider me a friend.’
Tet was careful to eat from the platters Ymat had ordered – little finger foods and oily breads peculiar to the city – so that he would not be completely overwhelmed by the drug. Contained like this, seven-petal worked in harmony with his magic, and he had never felt better. A false sense, if ever there was one. Tet was aware of this, and yet he found it hard to hold the thought; it beat between his fingers like a trapped moth, and he let it go. ‘So,’ Tet said after his mind had stretched comfortably, and the laziness peculiar to seven-petal had eased its way through his limbs. There was no more point in being circumspect. ‘The ritual-oresh.’
‘So plain-spoken.’ Ymat looked almost offended.
‘I was never one for the Grand Dance.’ Let Ymat think him a boor, it suited Tet to guide the man down a coiled path. And he had long since lost patience with Ymat’s manoeuvring. Either the man helped him soon, or Tet began to look once again for some other sorcerer. This time he would cross the border into Utt Dih, if he had to. Tet would have to make the choice to leave before he was forced to crawl all the way there.
‘I see.’ Ymat burbled on the pipe and blew two thoughtful lilies of smoke that drooped slowly above his eyebrows. ‘Fine. Then let me speak without veils. We have, I believe, something in common.’
‘Do we.’ Tet curled his hands into his sleeves and willed away the first faint tracing of pain growing in his knees.
The monkey, which had been dozily grooming itself, started at the small movement but Ymat continued as though he had not noticed. ‘The thing you want me to do is rare knowledge, and not to be attempted lightly. I have the means to help you, and in return, I ask for your promise that you will help me.’
Ah, we come to our price at last. ‘Speak,’ Tet said. ‘I would hear what you think you can do before I agree.’ A desperate voice railed at him, telling him to shut up and accept the offer. It was a voice borne of a decade of suffering and it took all his will to drown it out. Tet leaned forward. ‘Speak,’ he commanded again, louder, over the voice in his head, over the slow grating of stone, and the pulse of darkness.
‘There is something that the White Prince possesses – a treasure. And I wish to own it.’
‘A treasure.’ And Ymat wanted him to steal it from the demon himself.
The same damn task his own gods had set for him. He wanted to laugh. Or cry. This was madness. Everyone knew the prince’s coffers were guarded by his court toymaker’s beasts. There was no chance to get past them, even if his power was back in full force. Shoom’s price was as bad as Nanak’s. On the other hand, Tet could at least bargain with men. ‘You wish for me to steal from the prince?’
The Monkey nodded.
‘I think you’ve come to the wrong man. I am no thief.’ There, let him counter.
Ymat set the pipe down between them and steepled his fingers. Intensity made him lean forward, his eyes yellow gleams in the dancing lamplight. ‘Let me be as clear as I can. Your name is Tet-Nanak, your magic is ruined and you are a cripple. What your god has asked you to do, you cannot, and will never complete on your own. In a few years, maybe more if you are lucky, you will be a withered-up man crawling in the filth, screaming out his agony and shitting himself when the end comes. There is no magic that will keep you from death.’
The light flickered, and all Tet could hear in the following silence was the splash of the fountains. Even the murmur of conversations had died down. Either they were alone in the grotto, or everyone was trying to eavesdrop. A shout sounded from the distant kitchen, followed by a smash of crockery, and then the raised babble of an argument.
‘Unless...’ Ymat leaned back, and the corners of his mouth shifted minutely. ‘Unless I help you.’
Tet’s heart was racing and the sweat gathered along his back in slick rivulets.
Ymat pressed on. ‘You were once a mage of some considerable skill—’
‘No.’
He cocked his head. ‘No?’ Fat fingers darted forward to reclaim the abandoned pipe, and Ymat and Tet examined each other across the shifting haze of smoke.
One of us is the predator, the other the hunter. We are armed with gun and claw and cunning. We wait for the other to make their move.
A sigh escaped Ymat, like the soft whistle of air from a punctured lung. ‘Time is limited, Tet, and I am not a man prone to wasting it. Let me make this simple for you.’ He was not smiling. Instead, he looked almost saddened, as though this work pained him on a deep level. His monkey was also giving Tet mournful looks. ‘I can give you back your magic and free you from your curse. In return, you will give me your name, and your word as a mage that you will complete this one task for me. I am not unreasonable; I will not keep you tied to servitude.’
