The Drowning City Read online

  Xinai slipped in, feet silent on marble. “I found Teoma. He frequents a tavern on the wharf called the Storm God’s Bride.” Izachar Teoma had made most of his wealth and notoriety smuggling along Imperial shores, but sailed north often enough to have encountered Kiril’s web of agents before. A ship quick and clever enough to escape harbor patrols would be useful if they had to flee the city.

  Xinai tossed a stack of cheap pulp paper onto the table. “News-scrawls, from the past decad or so. The criers will have stopped spreading those stories by now.”

  “Thanks.” Isyllt flipped through the stack—wrinkled and water-spotted, and the ink left gray smears on her fingers, but the looping Assari script was legible. The latest was three days old. She took a moment to adjust to the Assari calendar; today was Sekhmet seventh, not the twelfth of Janus; 1229 Sal Emperaturi, not 497 Ab Urbe Condita.

  She often found the pride of nations silly. Trade and treaties between Assar and Selafai had to be twice dated, because the founders of Selafai had abandoned all things Imperial when they fled north across the sea five hundred years ago. But if not for the pride of nations, she’d be out of a job.

  She sipped her drink again, watery now as the ice melted. Moisture slicked the curve of the cup. “Did you hear anything about the protest we saw?”

  “Not much. The guards ran them off not long after we arrived, it sounds like. There were arrests, but no real violence.” From Xinai’s tone, Isyllt couldn’t tell if she was disappointed in that or not.

  Adam rose, taking a slice of mango with him. “Finish your dinner, Lady Iskaldur.” The title dripped mockingly off his tongue. “We’ll leave when you’re ready.”

  Night draped the city like damp silk. Heat leaked from the stones, trapped between close walls; sweat prickled the back of Isyllt’s neck. The end of the dry season in Symir, but the Drowning City would never be truly dry. Insects droned overhead, avoiding the pungent lamp-smoke, and rats and roaches scuttled in the shadows. Charms hummed around them, soft shivers from doors and windows. Safe, some murmured, home. Others pulsed warnings—stay back, move on, look away.

  Shadows pooled between buildings, leaked from narrow alleys; the glow of streetlamps drowned the stars. Voices drifted from taverns, floated up from the canals as skiffs passed. Water lup-lup-lupped against stone and wind sighed over high bridges, rattling the chimes that hung on nearly all the buildings. Hollow tubes and octagonal bronze mirrors flashed and clattered—in Erisín, Selafai’s capital, no one left mirrors uncovered and even still puddles were avoided, but here it seemed they were lucky.

  The crowds had thinned after dusk, stores closed and shuttered, the last clerks and shopkeepers hurrying home. More than once they passed guard patrols, green uniforms edged with Imperial red—a whispered word kept the soldiers’ eyes off them.

  A cool draft wafted past Isyllt, and a whisper light and hollow as reeds. Her bare arms prickled and the diamond chilled on her finger. She smiled—the touch of death was comforting, made the city feel less foreign.

  She studied Adam’s easy stride, the roll of Xinai’s hips as she kept pace with him, the dangerous grace with which they moved. At home she worked alone more often than not—probably more often than she ought—but Kiril had insisted she bring backup this time. She could have brought someone familiar, but it was better this way. Too many people in Erisín knew her bitter history with Kiril, offered her sympathy and sad glances. She preferred the quiet solace of strangers. And, she admitted to herself, in this strange place she was glad of their presence.

  They crossed a wide canal into the dock district—Merrowgate, the map named it. The Phoenix lay in Saltlace, the tourist and market quarter. The night grew louder as they neared the docks, bare and sandaled feet slapping the stones, laughter and music echoing from taverns, bells tolling to guide ships in the dark. The cloying spice-sweetness of opium drifted out of an alley mouth.

  As they passed a narrow walkway along the water Isyllt heard a soft cry, like a child’s muffled sob. She paused, searching for the source. It sounded like it came from the water.

  Xinai laid a hand on her arm as she leaned toward the black offal-reek of the canal. “Don’t. It’s a nakh.”

  “A what?”

  “A water spirit. Like your sirens in the north. They mimic children to lure people close to the water, then pull them in.”

  Isyllt frowned down at the black water. “Then what?”

  Xinai shrugged. “Eat you. Drown you. I don’t know. I doubt you’d care once you were at the bottom of the bay. The inner canals are warded, but they slip in around the edges of the city sometimes.” She leaned over the railing and called out in Sivahran; the word shivered with a weight of magic. Something below them croaked, then splashed and was still. Xinai turned away and Adam and Isyllt fell in behind her.

  The Storm God’s Bride lay on the far side of the district, nestled between storehouses, with cheap rented rooms stacked above it like a child’s precarious block tower. The sound of flutes and drums drifted through the door and firelight fell from the windows in oily-gold streaks.

  Isyllt was glad to find the Bride little different from the disreputable dock taverns at home. Smoke and sweat and spilled beer thickened the air, and the tiles were cracked and sticky. Dried plants hung from warped rafters, wards or decoration or something else entirely.

  Xinai twisted through the crowd in search of the captain; Isyllt stayed close to Adam, careful not to foul his sword-arm. She ran a surreptitious hand over the hilt of her own knife, though the mood in the room seemed pleasant enough.

  Musicians played on a low wooden platform against the far wall, mostly ignored by the custom. Sailors and dockworkers, Isyllt guessed, watching the people slouched on low benches or gathered loudly around the gaming tables. Wiry men and women, scarred and wind-scoured and plainly dressed, bronze skin and ocher, shades of black and brown. Ninayans and Sivahri and Assari alike laughed and gambled and drank bowls of beer, and none seemed less welcome than the others. She even saw a few fairer heads, from Hallach or lands farther north.

  Xinai reappeared soon and led them across the room, toward a door beside the stage. As they moved down a narrow corridor, Isyllt heard the rattle of dice. They entered a cluttered storeroom and found a man sitting alone, rolling bones across a scarred table.

  She’d known Teoma was a dwarf, but the leather cuff that capped his missing left forearm was a surprise. Dark eyes gleamed under heavy black brows as he glanced up at them.

  “Good evening. Here for a game of chance?”

  Adam’s lips curled. “Since when is there chance in your games, Izzy?”

  The dwarf’s grin rearranged his creased face; lamplight winked off two gold teeth. “It’s dangerous to accuse a man of cheating.” He nodded toward his maimed arm. “Look what happened to me.”

  He turned his eyes to Isyllt. “But if you haven’t come for the bones, what can I do for you?”

  Isyllt twisted a red-gold ring off her finger and held it out. “Among blind men—” She gave the first half of the code in Selafaïn.

  “The one-eyed reigns,” he finished. He reached out to clasp her hand and palm the ring in one smooth gesture.

  As his calloused fingers touched hers, a shiver ran up her arm. Isyllt barely managed to keep her face still; no one had mentioned the man was a sorcerer. The sensation vanished so quickly she almost doubted her instinct, but his eyes narrowed as he studied her.

  “Well met, I hope. I’m Izachar Teoma.”

  “Isyllt Iskaldur.”

  His eyes flicked briefly toward her left hand. “What is it you wish of me, Lady?”

  “I want to hire your ship.”

  “The Rain Dog can take you anywhere you need to go.”

  “Actually, I want you to stay in port. We’ll be in Symir for perhaps a month—hopefully it will be a peaceful visit and we’ll leave quietly. But it may come to pass that we’ll need to leave the city very quickly, and we’ll need a fast ship we can trust.”
/>
  “Ah.” Izachar ran a hand over his curling beard. His chair creaked as he leaned back. “I understand. But a month…My crew have families to feed, and I’ll lose business.” A gold tooth gleamed with his smile. “And with the new import taxes, my business is booming.”

  “We’re prepared to compensate you.”

  Adam slid a purse across the table. Izachar hefted it, listened to the clatter of metal and stones. He loosened the ties and pulled out a coin. Silver gleamed smooth, unstamped.

  “I’ll keep the Dog in port for a decad,” he said at last. “My first mate’s daughter is sick, anyway, and she’d like to spend some time with the child. After ten days, find me again and we’ll negotiate further.”

  Isyllt nodded. She’d expected no better. “A pleasure doing business with you, Captain.”

  “The pleasure’s mine, Lady.” The money vanished off the table.

  The door swung open and a dark, scar-faced man leaned in. “Time to go,” he said. His hand moved against his thigh, a sign Isyllt didn’t recognize. Then he was gone.

  Izachar cursed softly. “A raid’s coming. Business is booming a little too well.” He pushed off his chair and crossed the room, quick enough for his short legs. “We’ll use the back door,” he said, motioning them on. “It’ll be clear for a few more minutes—Desh pays his bribes on time.”

  Isyllt and Adam exchanged a quick glance and followed the dwarf down the hall. From the main room she heard a door slam, then a flurry of curses and shouting and the clatter of an overturned table. They stepped outside into a dark alley, as empty as Izachar had promised; the last light caught his grin before the door shut behind them.

  “Welcome to Symir,” he called after them as they escaped into the sticky night.

  Xinai moved through her exercises by the light of one guttering lamp. The flame gleamed on her knives, shattered on their razored edges. Her breath hissed through clenched teeth as she thrust and spun and stretched. Normally she flowed like water from one stance to the next, but tonight tension trembled her limbs, made her movements too quick and jerky.

  The smell of the canals breathed across the casement: water and waste, eucalyptus and brine and citrus-sweet champa flowers. Beneath it her own sour salt sweat clogged her nose.

  She’d thought she could do it. She’d thought she could come home after twelve years gone. On the voyage she’d told herself that the city would have changed, that time would have made her memories bearable.

  She’d almost believed it.

  The exercise wasn’t calming her. She stopped, stretched, and put her blades away. Adam watched her from the shadows of the bed as she stripped off her vest and trousers. He’d asked if she could take the job, one of the rare times he acknowledged all the things she’d never told him about her past. In Erisín, spending the wizard’s money on food and wine, she’d said yes. Even the necromancer hadn’t deterred her, for all the woman’s magic made her skin crawl.

  She could do this. She didn’t have a choice.

  She threw herself down beside Adam and buried her face in a cushion. His familiar scent was a comfort—oil and leather, musk and iron. Nothing that reminded her of home.

  He propped himself up on one elbow. “Is it so bad?”

  “It’s—” Pillows muffled her sigh. “It’s the same. Things have changed, but it’s still the same.”

  He knelt over her, running his hands over her shoulders. She grunted softly as he pressed against knotted muscles.

  “They think they’re lions,” she muttered, thinking of the customs inspector with her expensive coat and hennaed hands, her perfect Assari. The Sivahri soldiers in their red-trimmed uniforms. “Only dogs licking their masters’ boots.” She gasped as Adam dug his thumbs into her back.

  He worked down, calloused hands strong and steady. She forced herself not to stiffen as he brushed the scars on her back. It had been a long time, even after they were lovers, before she let him touch them. Not until the nightmares faded and she didn’t wake up gasping, expecting to find her skin slick with blood.

  Years of partnership had left his touch as familiar as her own. By the time he reached the small of her back she could breathe easily again, the angry stiffness gone from her limbs.

  “It’s only a job.” He leaned down to kiss her shoulder. “When it’s over we’ll go somewhere else. Anywhere you like.” He caressed the unmarked skin on her sides and she shivered. “You want to be a pirate?”

  She chuckled and rolled over, stretching out the last of her tension. “You might be able to talk me into it.” But she pulled him down and kissed him before he could try.

  Chapter 2

  Isyllt and Adam crossed onto the mainland north of the Mir early the next morning and rented horses to carry them up the foothills to the Kurun Tam. Mount Haroun loomed above them, its shadow casting a false twilight over the western hills.

  The sun burned away the dawn mist, embroidered the mountain’s green skirts in gold and amber. Summer heat left leaves curled and drooping, baked the roads cracked and dusty and withered the ferns that grew in the shade.

  Ward-posts lined the road, simple charms to keep predators away and something else, a spell to hold the stones steady if the earth shook. Isyllt wasn’t sure she understood the intricacies of it, but the implication was unsettling. Far above the canopy, white smoke leaked from Haroun’s summit. Liquid fire still bubbled in the mountain, but it hadn’t erupted in the hundred and fifty years of Assari occupation. The mages of the Kurun Tam expressed nothing but confidence in their ability to keep the mountain quiet—since they’d be the first to burn if Haroun stirred, Isyllt tried to take comfort in their assurances.

  The trail turned sharply and she saw the sluggish waters of the Mir below them, and the broader, gentler slope of Mount Ashaya on the far side of the river. The South Bank was home to politicians and merchant moguls, mansions and plantations. Whatever native families had lived there were long gone, driven out or bought off and their lands divided up for gifts to those who pleased the Emperor. The North Bank was poorer, home to Sivahri who couldn’t afford to live in the city proper. From the ferry she’d seen clay and brick buildings, thatched roofs and packed-earth roads.

  And between the two banks and the bay, Symir shone in the morning light, all colorful roofs and gardens and glittering webs of water.

  Isyllt swallowed bitter dust and the smell of horse. This assignment was one others would have vied for, exotic and expensive. And important.

  They’d lost three agents in Assar—clever, well-trained spies. Two had simply vanished from their posts, and the body of the third was found dumped near the Selafaïn embassy in Ta’ashlan. And in Erisín, Kiril had caught two Assari agents already—one trying to seduce a Selafaïn inventor whose clever designs would make wonderful instruments of war, and the other worming his way into the palace bureaucracy. The latter had fallen on a blade before Kiril could question him, but his presence was story enough—the Emperor was growing bolder.

  In the five hundred years since refugees fleeing the al Sund dynasty’s armies had crossed the sea and founded Selafai, several Assari emperors had tried to take the younger kingdom. Assar had never established a solid presence on the northern continent, and every other generation some general-prince with dreams of fortune and glory thought to be the first to do so. And now Rahal al Seth sat the Lion Throne, young and greedy and itching to match his grandfather’s conquests—and backed by generals canny and greedy enough to give him a chance.

  She pressed the tip of her tongue between her teeth and tried not to scowl. What Kiril said was true—she was his best student, his most trusted agent. And what he didn’t say was true as well, that given a job as important as this she’d die before she disappointed him. He needed her here. But he’d sent her away, and it gnawed.

  She tried to relax, but the jolt of hooves stiffened her back and shoulders. Adam rode more easily beside her, his eyes on the trees. The jungle clamored around them, screeching and chirping a
nd rustling. Jewel-bright lizards and long-tailed monkeys watched them from tree branches, calmer than the birds that took flight whenever the clatter of hooves grew close. The trees hid all manner of exotic beasts.

  And bands of desperate men as well. She just had to find them. Trade gold and weapons for warriors to wield them. To die for them. Thousands of Sivahri lives in exchange for Selafaïn ones.

  She looked up and caught Adam watching her, pale eyes narrowed. She schooled her face and smiled at him. Then she shivered as they passed through a tingling web of wards. The trees fell away and they rode into the courtyard of the Kurun Tam.

  The Corundum Hall. A long building of crimson granite, pillared and domed in Assari style. Faces watched them from the wall, bound spirits staring through stone eyes. Neat green lawns stretched within the walls, shaded by slender trees and pruned topiaries—all the jungle’s wildness tamed.

  A young stablehand appeared to take charge of their horses, and Isyllt dismounted with a wince and brushed at the dust on her clothes. The gray-green linen hid the worst of it, at least. She breathed deep, tasted magic like spiced lightning in the back of her throat. It tingled down her limbs and prickled the nape of her neck.

  They climbed broad red steps and entered a columned courtyard. Isyllt sighed as cool air washed over them—a subtle witchery and a welcome one. A fountain played in the center of the yard and she worked her dry tongue against the roof of her mouth. The air smelled of flowers and incense and clean water.

  Isyllt washed her face and hands in the basin beside the door, and she and Adam added their boots and socks to the neat row of sandals and slippers. She didn’t hear the footsteps approach over the splash of the fountain until Adam spun around. She turned as a shadow fell across the stones at her feet.

  “Roshani,” the man said, bowing low. Light gleamed on the curve of his shaven head, set mahogany skin aglow. He wore robes of embroidered saffron silk, the hem brushing the tops of his bare feet. “Or should I say good morning?” he asked in Selafaïn. “You must be Lady Iskaldur.”