The Elusive Taste of Kolchoan Blue
by Patrick Honovich
Chapter 4: Such a Thing as Too Much Confidence
part 2
“You want them?” Cadzana asked. “What could you trade? What could you possibly have that I want?”
In truth, it was a good question. “A bottle of a very rare wine, a few more ancient books for your studies. And surely my skills could be of service—”
“You have no idea where my interests actually lie, Mr. Nosso, don’t presume to know what I will and won’t find valuable. But I’m intrigued, and you’re certainly in need. So bring a bottle tomorrow morning for my tests and give those gems to Sarah. Try to run, and I’ll have you killed.”
“Let me ask one question, then. What interest do you have with her?” I pointed at Sarah, who gave me the nastiest look I’ve ever seen.
Cadzana’s smile still seemed cold, but it was, bordering on genuine. “Attractive, isn’t she?” For a split second there was a flicker of warmth, but judging from the speed at which it vanished again, it was as much a pose as her calm. “Or don’t we share a similarity of taste? Yes? No?”
“What business of yours is it if I think she’s beautiful or not?” Sarah caught the shift in words, and seemed to hold back a small smile. The tag told me what she felt, and I took a small scrap of hope from the faint unseen response, the way she glowed but kept it hidden.
“Everyone should have a hobby, Mr. Nosso. Do we have a deal?”
Sarah blushed, and looked at Cadzana, then to me, waiting, the colors I could see through the tag whirling around each other as if in battle.
I offered my hand, hoping she would take it, and held it there for a few long moments in which Cadzana smiled again, then gently brushed my fingertips with her own.
“As you wish. I’ll bring a bottle. Sarah can have the gems.”
“And the notebooks?”
“I can’t give them up. But I can trade my time and expertise.”
“What skills would you have, then, o brave apprentice ?” This laugh seemed more genuine, almost familiar, controlled, but soft-edged. “You’re not a journeyman now, Mr. Nosso. I appreciate the effort, but, really, you’re not free yet.”
“Tomorrow I will be.”
“So you’ll gladly trade me your services tomorrow for a good review with your master tonight?”
I stared at Cadzana. She didn’t blink. The woman was well-made, I don’t deny it, but it was a cold symmetry, and her beauty gleamed like a profile carved out of ice. She had the same extra air Master Tellrus had perfected, a way of seeming to see more than should have been possible.
“What do you want, then?” Even the most thorough rogue has to play the occasional round straight-up, it’s how Correm works, and Auntighur was everything of my home city magnified, so the best stance I could take, despite the nasty looks I was getting from Div, was acceptance. I couldn’t risk showing blood to the predators who walked through these halls. Not even if Cadzana and Sarah Bailick had already torn out my hamstrings.
“Bring the notebooks tomorrow, and the bottle, and come prepared to offer your services, I have books to copy, infusions to brew, and research to be done.”
“Done,” I said, quickly, before she could add anything else. “Shake on it.”
As I took her hand, I heard a familiar cracking, like thin ice, in the back of my skull. She and Sarah felt the same, to me, with the same aura, or at least it seemed so. How much of the night had been a setup to this? I didn’t see much choice. She shook, and I felt the same crackle, magnified, as if part of her magics were trying to slip past my defenses. I gave her my best imitation of being charmed. I think she believed me.
“I might have uses for you yet, sir.” Her voice almost purred, thinking she’d taken hold of me, and it chilled me to the core.
“Whatever you want.” I tried to make it sound as taken, as bought, as possible. She turned to Sarah, nodded, and left.
“Mr. Nosso, you’ll regret this decision,” said Div by my side.
“Just hand over my gems, Div.”
“I have done my best to keep you from making a fool of yourself, and you have failed, in the end, despite my help.” With a snort he transferred the marked gemstones to Sarah’s purse. She smiled once, at me, then turned to keep her expression unreadable, and headed for the exit.
I checked my tag as she left. It told me she’d wanted me to agree, nothing more specific, and I thought about letting it dissipate, then, but stopped halfway through the motions. I might still need a little hold over Sarah; it might end up being useful later. I kept it.
Divezha cleared his throat and glared at me. He kept one hand on his staff, and snapped his fingers with the other to get my attention.
“What?”
Div rapped my shin with his cane. “Be respectful enough to pay attention when I’m talking to you.”
“I don’t give out my respect, you have to earn it. But I do have manners, so I’m sorry, I was trying to find a way to get out of whatever Cadzana is going to do to me. What?”
“Ghita Cadzana is not likely to harm you. To be fair, my objection to her is a personal one, a philosophic one. She will make you regret your decision, but past that I can’t say. Your lots, however... Mr. Nosso, if you will come with me, there is the matter of receipt, and arrangements to be made for delivery. And if I might make a suggestion, there is still time for you to salvage your arrangement with your master. Be thankful one of Auntighur’s regulars hasn’t crippled you by now and try to at least bring home what you’ve been sent for.”
I looked at Div, weighing all manner of nasty answers before speaking in an even tone. He knew how much? I couldn’t say. He knew enough to speak of my deal with my master. Was everyone in this place set against me before I arrived? It was a chilling thought, followed closely by the next question: If so, by whom?
“I have his lot—”
“Barely,” he spit, with the venom only an old man can show. “With strings attached.”
“And I have mine. I can do without the advice. Or the scorn.”
“Scorn?” The short chop of his laugh could’ve been used to split kindling. “Look around, Mr. Nosso. What do you see?”
I humored him and made a show of studying the other men and women of the Open House. I’d intended to glance around and drop some smart-mouth response, but as I looked I did notice a few things. I’d been too busy and too worried — and I wasn’t done worrying yet, I had no illusions I was clear of this mess — to catch it before, but while all of the members of Auntighur looked as if they were accustomed to being obeyed, on a second inspection they also had the half-tense bearing of people who take their orders from higher-ups.
The whole place — I was just seeing it, I should’ve seen it before, shouldn’t have been so caught up in my own head — was peopled with merchant princes instead of royalty, men of distinction but not of freedom or renown, more messengers than message-writers. I looked back at Div, who again appeared to be listening to one of his rings.
“Not as simple as you think, is it?” he said, satisfied that he’d made his point. Condescending. And in this case, like it or not, completely correct. I wasn’t seeing things clearly, and I still needed to find a way out of this trap.
I took a deep breath. Master Tellrus wouldn’t have sent me into a maddoc’s den without some reasonable hope I would come back with a satchel of claws and teeth to show for it. We hadn’t spoken of it directly; it wasn’t his humor on the day he gave the order, but these were tests I could pass. There is some truth to the adage that to reach for the sun, you must risk incineration, after all, and the tremendous possibility of doom was not unexpected, no matter how quickly the corkscrew of Auntighur chose to turn. I cracked my knuckles and stared hard back at my goad and guide. “Everyone here is someone else’s servant.”
For the first time Divezha allowed a smile. With one finger he tapped the side of his bony nose, and one tufted eyebrow bobbed up further against the wrinkles in his forehead. “Why do you think your master did not come himself, if the lot he wanted was so important? Look around you, Mr. Nosso. There is not a single person of real power here.”
“What about Ghita Cadzana? She seemed to be a few steps past—”
“Ms. Cadzana” — he said her name as if mere mention of her coated his tongue with rancid olive oil — “has made a career out of seeming more potent than she actually is. And even she is answerable to her fellows at Latidium, at the Sage’s College.”
I jabbed a finger at the old man. “You’re someone else’s underling, too, Div. Don’t forget it. You might be a more venerable servant, but you’re still a servant, same as me.”
He nodded. “Of course. You’ll have to forgive me, then, it must be my age that leaves me unimpressed by yet another overconfident protégé.”
Which explained a little more of Pausha’s humor. Watching this season’s new crop of acolytes as they jostled for position must have seemed to her very much like some sort of sport, like a bell-run on horseback, public follies, or dueling sabers. Entertainment for those who know better.
I looked at Cadzana from across the room and caught Sarah behind her stealing a glance my way before she began to climb the stairs. I didn’t know what to make of it, but she looked back, almost spoke, and turned to answer a question from Ghita Cadzana as they passed out of view.
The little bird of a woman hurried away, presumably to attend to other duties. There were a few rings desperately bidding out their last lots, but the room was dividing itself as I watched. Those who’d failed, those who’d lost, downcast and wearing failure like an over-application of perfume, were filtering towards the stairs to leave, while those with further business and deliveries to arrange fed towards the other side of the room and the stairs to descend deeper. I was heading downstairs, further down the turn of the screw.
Div persisted. “Answer me this, then, Mr. Nosso. You were sent here on an errand, correct?”
I nodded.
“And you were sent here as a test, yes?”
“The Verrin school—”
He cut me off. “And you have plans of your own.”
“Yes.” I took another glance at his staff, and made note of the fact the lowest foot was bound in coiled steel, the middle section carved into bands.
“Which you foolishly chose to pursue at the expense of your errand. You’ve mistaken this place, this halfway room, for the real theater. Which makes you a fool, and a short-sighted one, to boot.”
I wanted to strike, to lash with trained muscles and ink to knock the old man on his ass, but Master Tellrus had taught me to think first, and now was not the time, certainly not the place. I looked around the Open House again. “Take me to my things, Div, and keep your low opinion of me to yourself.”
Div looked at me for a long minute, seeming to study my set jaw and hard eyes, and nodded. “Come with me.”
So I followed the irascible old man through the crowds, listening under the rest of the sounds for the step-thunk of shoe and cane, keeping the back of his cloak in sight but thinking of other things. The others around me, the denizens of Auntighur, was it true they were all go-betweens, all middlemen? Div rapped me in the shins with his cane.
“Follow me, sir, and have a care I don’t decide to break one of your legs.” He turned slightly, and fixed me with a stare as even and steady as nature itself, unblinking, refusing to offer any clue as to motivations, intent, or emotion. Soes the grass in the rows between winter wheat smile, or laugh, or rage?
I knew better. Div held his staff not with a grip for support, palm-down, but with a readiness to swing and strike. His stride was the tiniest bit shorter. His free hand swung at his side in a carefully controlled arc, attempting to seem loose and nearly succeeding, but a touch too regular.
He turned his back on me to lead the way through the crowd, a gesture of disrespect, and a mistake on his part. If he continued to stare at the doorway, and showed no interest in whether I followed or not, I could study him without subterfuge. It became more and more apparent with each step that Div was in contact with my master, Adam Tellrus.
By extension, it stood to reason that Tellrus hadn’t told him everything about the way I work. If he knew I was Tellrus’ chief disciple, he knew enough to be wary of my ink, but he didn’t know everything. I could use these facts. The Verrin school was tied to the lost histories of Jakka, but few besides the master — Tellrus — and his chief acolyte — myself — knew more than a few of the details.
Onward, through the crowd. Div slowed his pace again as we passed by two of the last half-dozen active rings, and I kept my eye on him even as I turned an ear to the bidding.
“Forty-six, eight, nine, Majister Jukes; you, madam, in the blue gown, forty-nine, eight three to Antonia Gravec; you, sir, fifty-one, three, eight to Fyodor Tarrul, you again, sir.”
I looked at the item on the block, an elaborate chest, silver fittings with Lord Jaraud’s seal. Something in the back of my head where the ink tied in felt... queasy. They’d opened the chest.
“Those, Mr. Nosso, are the private tools of the Emperor’s Voice. I don’t know how they arrived here, so don’t ask.”
“Let’s move,” I said. The room seemed to shift. I heard the bidding, I tried not to listen, but Tellrus would want to know. I wanted to know.
“Seventy, nine, nine, to Antonia Gravec, sold, personal effects of Jaraud d’Silva, Voice of the Emperor.”
I turned away. The implications were stunning. If they were using the Voice’s full title on the auction block, something must’ve happened to him, because there was no way his toys would’ve been let out of the palace at Salyn Mawr.
As we walked to the edge of the floor, I put it out of my mind. I didn’t let Divezha lead the way; I walked beside him.
To be continued:...
Copyright © 2023 by Patrick Honovich
