Old Castle had its wealthy quarters, its poor quarters and the places in between inhabited by the larger population. At one time, I would’ve said that I belonged to the lower-middle, but now I didn’t know which subset could claim me. Perhaps I really was unique, straddling the blurred line that weaved between social structures, where I often frequented the secretive pockets in the west of the city where the Magicians dwelt.
One such place was a tavern in Tinman Market that stood on the corner of Levee Street, where gangs marked their territories and pickpockets were sharp. It was an unassuming sort of place, nameless, easy to miss and very unlike Piper’s. Its tinted windows prevented passers-by from seeing in but allowed customers to see out. Yet entrance to this tavern was reserved for a select type of clientele.
I sat at one of its tables drinking strong coffee and smoking a dark brown cigarette. Candles burned and dripped wax on tabletops and from wall-mounted holders. Naked flames crackled in musky air that smelled of age. No one manned the small bar. Dyonne sat opposite me, wearing her usual plain, dusky gown and an unimpressed expression as she stared into the open case lying on the table between us. The crossbow inside didn’t look so threatening now.
‘Do you know what happened at Alexria?’ I asked.
‘No,’ Dyonne said, not looking up from the weapon. ‘Wendal, is this really all you could find?’
I stared out of the window at the busy market.
Eden once told me that an object couldn’t define its existence no matter the purpose for its creation. She said a fork, for example, could no more choose to put food in a mouth than it could choose to stab a throat. Only humans made those decisions. We defined an object’s essence. We were culpable for its every action. My wife used to say lots of things like that.
Dyonne huffed.
At the centre of my head, a dull ache pulsed. My stomach hadn’t settled after eating my first meal in more than two days. Guilt and anger lingered like a bad memory. This was the hangover from reaching yet another dead end: my paltry reward for being Sycamore’s object. I longed to feel nothing for what he made me do.
‘Wendal, you’ve brought some shit to me in your time, but this?’ Dyonne shook her head.
An amused snort came from behind her. At a separate table, Dyonne’s bodyguard Tamara sat glaring at me. As big and ugly as ever, he was covered in old scars, his hair unruly and streaked with grey. His meaty hands were clasped before him and one of his thumbs was missing, a scarred stump where it used to be. Tamara never spoke, never acted unless Dyonne issued an order, but he’d never had trouble conveying that he wouldn’t forget that I’d bitten off one of his digits for trying to steal the rings hanging from a chain around my neck.
Dyonne looked up from the crossbow. ‘Honestly, this is all you’re bringing me today?’
I stubbed out the cigarette and gave her a withering look. ‘Just make me an offer.’
‘All right. I’ll give you thirty bits for it.’
‘The case alone is worth five times that.’
‘You think so?’ Dyonne pulled a dubious face. ‘Sure, it’s real wood but not so rare. As for the crossbow, it’s made from plain old Dust. Nothing special about it.’
I sipped my coffee. ‘What about the bolt?’
‘A worthless retirement gift – it has the owner’s name engraved on the head. I could bring a lot of trouble to my doorstep by trying to sell the stolen property of a recently deceased war veteran.’ She grimaced into the case. ‘Did you use it to kill Mr Martal’s wife?’
I rolled another cigarette, lit it from the table candle and blew out a long, slow line of smoke. She didn’t need me to answer the question. The bolt still had Agtha Martal’s dried blood on it.
Dyonne rocked her head from side to side. ‘I suppose I could stretch to forty. As a favour. From me to you.’
Dyonne loved to haggle. I didn’t. ‘I’ll take a hundred for the lot.’
‘By the ether in the sky!’ she said in Salabese. ‘You offend me, Wendal. That’s not even close to a friend price.’
Her voice sounded like sunshine, her words scented like flowers in summer. Dyonne mostly kept herself mysterious and unknowable, but after three months of working for her, I’d learned a thing or two about this Magician. Along with the scars on her hands, glyphs and spells had been cut into the inside of her mouth and on her tongue; every word she spoke, every breath she took was laced with magic. She could coerce most people into seeing her way of thinking, most especially me.
‘I tell you what,’ Dyonne said sweetly. ‘For you, I’ll split the difference. Let’s say seventy bits.’
‘Fine,’ I muttered, flicking ash.
‘I knew you’d see sense!’ Dyonne clapped her hands in delight. ‘Tamara, my purse please.’
The big bodyguard rose and placed a cloth purse on the table with a chink. He smirked at me, clearly satisfied that his master had ripped me off yet again. Dyonne opened the purse and counted out seventy bits in a short stack of black glassy disks, each stamped with a white number one, five or ten. As Dyonne cinched the purse closed, I scooped up my payment and put it in my jacket pocket.
‘Get rid of the crossbow and bolt,’ Dyonne told Tamara as she closed and locked the lid. ‘Be careful with the case – it’s real wood, don’t you know. Easily worth five times what I paid for it.’ She gave me a wink. ‘Take it down to the old monster.’
Tamara did as he was told, carrying the case to the back of the tavern and disappearing through a door.
The old monster, Dyonne’s name for Mr Sebastian, her boss – the boss of most Magicians, in fact. There were five Grand Adepts in Old Castle, collectively known as the Salem. There was no higher rank to which a Magician could ascend, and the members of the Salem were older than anyone else in the city, but unnatural long life and years of magic poisoning had rendered them barely human.
I’d not laid eyes on Mr Sebastian since the day I met Dyonne. He dwelt somewhere beneath the tavern, a place I’d not been summoned to again, where Magicians gathered and did whatever it was Magicians liked to do. He remained the only Grand Adept I’d ever been allowed to meet, which suited me just fine. I wondered if the old monster cared that I, the host for his asset, still existed.
Dyonne grinned at me. ‘You are perilously close to becoming a good citizen, Wendal.’
I finished my coffee and took a drag of the cigarette. ‘How do you figure that?’
‘Mrs Martal has no next of kin. Everything she and her husband owned now passes to Old Castle. Today, my friend, you have made the Scientists a little bit richer.’
‘And you.’ Because Dyonne never used Sycamore unless it benefitted the Magicians in some way. Mr and Mrs Martal’s fishing business was most likely being passed to someone more sympathetic to the Salem’s needs even as we spoke … or her death simply meant that the Scientists had lost an influential ally. Only the Grand Adepts could answer that for sure.
‘What can I say?’ Dyonne opened her arms in a helpless gesture. ‘I take what opportunities the Gardeners leave before me.’
The Scientists would tell you that kind of sentiment was a whole lot of shit. So would Sycamore.
Crushing the cigarette into the ashtray, I offered a wan smile. ‘Do you have anything new for me?’
‘Actually, yes.’ Dyonne regarded me. ‘Do you know the Garden near Public Square?’
She knew damn well that I did. I had been there often enough in the last few months. ‘What about it?’
‘Go there this afternoon. Someone would like to meet you.’
‘Someone?’
‘She says she has information.’
‘That’s what you said about Jon Johnny.’
‘Ah, yes – an unfortunate outcome,’ Dyonne said as if there was nothing unfortunate about it. ‘But there’s always a silver lining, Wendal. You have helped to provide the Magicians with a solid contact in Reaper Town, which is not to be sniffed at. As for this new lead, I sincerely hope it works out better for you.’
I stared into those hazel eyes so packed full of secrets, holding them until Dyonne groaned.
‘You’re always so cynical, Wendal, but …’ Dyonne gave an exaggerated shrug. ‘I am no more than a messenger in this quest of yours. Do only charlatans and the insane boast of communing with the dead? The Garden near Public Square – go there this afternoon and find out for yourself.’
I grabbed my tobacco pouch and stuffed it into my pocket. ‘Then I suppose I’ll get going.’
‘Good luck, Wendal.’ Dyonne rose and made her way to the door at the back of the tavern. ‘Take care of Sycamore. We will be needing him again soon.’