Chapter 8 - Call a Lockbreaker
“This part of Szem’s the oldest,” Hearn explained to Ostok. The pair stepped around a standing pool of scummy water where the street had collapsed into the drainage tunnels running unseen beneath their feet. “Some say the Pylaemaens laid the foundations along the Exadan river when they wandered down the Mantes mountain range, far back in the early Themic Age. Of course the muira reject this theory.”
Ostok cast a musing frown on the crumbling walls of a house abutting the sinkhole. “My kinsmen have an alternative?”
“They say Szem was one of the original enclaves of Wraith Witch Agamede and her Tians.”
“Old though they are, none of these houses looks - what? Nine hundred years?”
“South Szem was the part of the city worst hit during the Great Szem Fire. Forty years or so back. Not long after they’d started reconstruction, the worst mountain runoff the town’s ever seen flowed through south Szem. Ruined most of the foundations.”
Ostok rubbed the toe of his left boot against the crumbling stone of a house. He let his eyes wander up the side, over the flaking paint and cracked pine exterior, to the drooping eaves. “Pass me the description which the dear mell Sipeth had the good grace to write out for us.”
Hearn handed a folded sheet of parchment over to Ostok. In common Leegesspeech (for muiric had no written component) was written, in compact, crisp script: Follow the Szuts road until you reach an intersection with an alleyway, where the second-floor window of one of the houses facing the road can be seen to have been broken outward. The wall underneath is cracked and buckling. Turn down this alley to the east, in the direction of the Southway. After a hundred paces you will reach a stoop with four steps. There may be two old wine jars to the left of the stoop; at the very least there will be broken bits of ceramic and two rings of mud where the wine jars stood. The hearth to which this stoop gives access is abandoned. The door is made of three large vertical boards, the top of the middle one being split.
“Are we close to this Szuts Road?” asked Ostok.
“I think so,” Hearn replied. He stepped carefully over a field of broken glass, glinting pink in the light of the red sun.
“You must do more than ‘think’. I distinctly recall you telling Mell Sipeth that you knew the house.”
“I meant I knew the road.” Hearn, leading the pair, craned his head around the corner of one rotting dwelling as they came to a crossroad with an alley. “Besides, we’ve entered south Szem by the back ways.”
“For what reason?”
“It’s safer.”
Ostok was about to ask for clarification when they noticed a trio of young muira men - early twenties, all with blue tattooing around their wrists and necks - coming up the road behind them at a sprint. Though the street was open to all at the present time of day, Ostok felt it sensible to hold silent until the trio passed out of earshot. The young men were racing, he realized. They ran right through the field of broken glass, their sandals crunching over the glittering debris. As the trio passed, one tall and lanky boy, with golden eyes to match his golden veins, ducked his face towards Ostok like a striking snake. The bountyman flinched instinctively. The youth barked a laugh and ran, panting, past.
“My faithful guide, safer in what matter?” Ostok asked when the group were out of earshot.
“Don’t touch that wall,” said Hearn as Ostok went to run his fingers along the moss coating the exterior of one home. “Goatsmold. The Builder’s Guild tries to eradicate it, but the stuff grows abundantly here. It’ll eat through your skin just as easily as the wood.”
“I knew a wind priest in Bruna who used to warn me about the same thing. He said it grew only underneath the wine racks - hem - in the northeasternmost sepulcher beneath the nave. He called it ‘The Bile of the Cylinder’. Said it grew right through the wax and the corks. ‘Imagine my repulsion,’ he told me, ‘when I poured the wine to my lay priests for the Festival of Midsun, and we swallowed all together the stinging Bile of the Cylinder which had infected our fermentation.’ But my own business with him was something else. I don’t recall the temple’s trouble.”
From some nearby street the two could hear the footsteps and the enthusiastic exchanges of civilians. They heard a pair of young women arguing over the best player of the moon harp in the nation of Ahn. They heard the tink of a single ring hitting the surface of the road, followed by shouting and a fight. They heard a shopkeep, or perhaps a pawnbroker, or the keeper of a house of vice, repeating over and over the refrain: “Wealth and Paradise. Wander by the Blue Bristof.”
“If the only danger is that you fear we’ll run into some unscrupulous fellow,” Ostok began, “you needn’t take us through zigzags on my account. I’ve always had an affinity for blending in with the seedier parts of the towns I visit. People don’t bother fat and balding men.”
“There’s a muira-only club that runs in this part of Szem,” Hearn explained. “The Bond Mates.”
“What do they do?”
“Not sure. Probably just backstreet smokethistle and goldneedle products. I have heard each member carries a bone-handled zipper whip tied about his waist.”
“So why travel by back ways? I would prefer the main road, for the safety of public scrutiny. And your admission that you’re uncertain of our way is not reassuring.”
Hearn rubbed his mouth and looked behind at Ostok. “We can show our faces if you want, setter.”
“Are you worried these ‘Bond Mates’ would harass a human in their part of the city?”
Before Hearn could answer a voice called, “Bless my Star-guarded soul,. Is that the dear boy Hearn I see?”
The pair looked up and to their left, just in time to see a head disappear inside the shadow of a window. Thumping footsteps succeeded this salutation, and told them that whoever had spoken was descending a set of creaky wooden stairs in a hurry. “Great,” Hearn muttered.
“An old familiar someone?” asked Ostok.
“We’ll see.”
A termite-chewed door hanging on one hinge swung open on the nearest hearth. A muira woman shambled from the dark chambers within. Her long grey dress swayed around her knees and shoulders as she hunched, descending step by careful step down a flight of rotting wooden stairs - they groaned under even her thin weight. While her hunched, ambling gait kept her thinning black hair draped over her face, her wrinkled black eyes beamed on them from the sockets on her face.
“Dear, dear, dear Hearn,” said the woman. “It’s been seasons - years even - since this old mother saw your noble face. It weren’t so bruised and battered then. Look at that cheek and eye. Been scuffling with the other children?”
Ostok looked between them; the thin muira woman with her arms held wide for an embrace, her dress splaying out like the grey wings of some bird of prey; and Hearn standing tall and stock still, grimacing as the woman’s wings folded around him, and returning an awkward pat on her shoulder. “Your mother is she?” Ostok asked with a smile in his voice.
“A pleasure, Mell Vimienn,” said Hearn. “Setter Ostok, this is Vimienn - I’m sorry mell, I’ve forgotten your hearth.”
“No hearth, sweet one.” the woman laughed dryly. “No hearth. Just mother Vimienn.”
Ostok said, “And how does the Wind blow today, mell?”
“Fair enough.” Vimienn pushed her hair from her face and spread a smile toward Ostok. “Who’s your company, good lad Hearn?”
Hearn glanced at Ostok. Ostok nodded. “This is Ostok Horksog. He’s a bountyman for The Kingdom of Ahn.”
“Bountyman for the Kingdom! This sweet mother is honored.”
Hearn was about to reply, but Ostok jumped in first. “Good woman, how is it that my faithful guide through the city knows you?”
Vimienn sucked in a long breath. “Gods’ bones! Hearn and I met when he first came to our mountain settlement.”
“Old friends then.”
“Must have been five summers ago at least.”
“Mell Vimienn makes herself known to new visitors,” Hearn explained. At his side the fingers of his left hand tangled and untangled themselves.
“Girls and boys need their medicine from someone.” Vimienn cast a sly look at Ostok. “Just you ask if I got a license, bountyman Ostok.”
“We have other business,” said Hearn. He scanned the length of the alley.
“Wait,” said Ostok. “This kind woman may be able to direct us.”
“Gods. I might,” said Vimienn.
“And I’d like to see this license.”
Hearn pulled his pocket clock from under his tunic and flicked the lid. In a like manner Vimienn brought one of her long-fingered hands towards the low-cut opening of her thin dress. She drew forth with ponderous slowness a yellow scroll of parchment wrapped tightly in a frayed strand of red ribbon. Ostok took the paper without reservation. He struggled with the ribbon’s knot for a moment, finally untying it and unfurling the long scroll. The leegesspeech written upon it looked roughly official in nature.
“It assigns me this territory as a medicine healer,” said Vimienn with pride.
“I see,” said Ostok. He squinted. “Certified provisioner of goldneedle product for cases of extreme pain or malaise.”
“Issued by Third Archon Arelanthe herself, you see.”
“Issued 3388 DA. Thirteen years old.”
Vimienn snatched the paper back from Ostok. As she did so a sackcloth doll fell from the folds of her robe and clattered against the road. It was a sorry looking container for her gods’ bones, having been dropped before and had its head crushed under some bystander’s boot or some livestock’s hoof. “No Tyrant’s Law says it expires,” Vimienn said softly. She squinted. “No law of Tyrants or of Ahn, sweet elderly bountyman.”
“And it must be the lawkeepers of your wonderful Aster-Szem who supply you with your goldneedle. Yes, mell Vimienn?”
“Must be.”
“We’re doing a lot of standing,” said Hearn. He folded his arms across his chest.
“Don’t linger on my account dearies,” said Vimienn. She seemed all at once eager to cut off the discourse. She shuffled back unconsciously toward the door, bobbing her already bent head down in a kind of half-curtsy. “This poor mother’s just happy to learn how her sweet Hearn is moving up in the company he keeps.”
“Just one more thing,” said Ostok. He caught Vimienn in a friendly grasp by the shoulder.
Vimienn stopped, shivering. “Well?”
“We’re looking for a specific home. My guide here has taken us through a roundabout path of your south Szem roads that has misdirected us. Can you tell how we might arrive at the door described on this sheet of parchment?”
Ostok held the piece of paper out to Vimienn. She took it grudgingly at first. She scanned the page for a moment, then laughed. “Little ducklings. You’re only one street over.” By gesture and a little direction, Vimienn described a route to the desired doorstep.
“Thanks,” said Hearn.
“Take care, sweet boys,” Vimienn added as she withdrew to the door. “Don’t know who or what lives in that house. Could be wraith-cursed for all I’ve heard. Farewell.”
When the muira woman had gone the two began to march in the direction Vimienn had given. Ostok turned to Hearn. “How did you ever become acquainted with such a scoundrelous sort of woman?”
“As I said,” Hearn explained, “she introduces herself to all newcomers.”
“You seem to know many of the poor in this town. Beggars like that Theogenes fellow you told me about. Now this drug seller. She does it illegally, I presume?”
“Absolutely.”
“Her license had the original name scraped out, and her own written in.”
“The license itself is probably a forgery.”
The two walked on without speaking for perhaps a hundred paces, around the squalor and ruin of the south Szem streets. Taking a left at the next intersection, crossing quickly over the Szuts road, following the instruction in the note; they reached a long, wide furrow. This was a sunken tract of earth - like a ditch, but dry and full of huge old stones - which had been the foundation of the former city wall. Directly on their left Hearn spied the two old wine jars beside the stoop of the abandoned house.
“No trouble with your Bond Mates,” said Ostok cheerily.
“Yet,” said Hearn.
Ostok moved around to the front and stepped up to the old door. He tried the handle. It would not turn under his wrist. Nor would the heavy door open under the pressure of his shoulder. “Come here and give it a try, my youthful guide,” said Ostok.
Hearn stepped up to the door and tried the same procedure. The veins on his forearm stood out as he twisted at the handle, and he rammed his shoulder thrice against the door. No budge. Hearn bent down and looked at the heavy iron door plate, and the hexagonal keyhole under the handle. “Locked tight,” he said. “Complicated mechanisms, looks like. Golani make. Lots of these old houses have them.”
“Is there a chimney we can climb down?”
“It’s not only tumblers in these Tormillar locks. They’re golani-make alright. The head of each tumbler is shaped into a special divet first of all. Until that divet is depressed the tumbler won’t move or fall… There we go, that’s the second one done. Nobody coming still?”
“Nobody,” said Hearn. He raised his hand toward Irenna’s shoulder - bare and pale under the plain summer dress she wore - intending to give a reassuring squeeze.
“Don’t touch me,” Irenna said. She had seen the hand’s shadow, caught in the midday sun, moving over the empty wine jar beside the stoop.
“My mistake.”
“It’s the tools,” she explained. “One of my hands has to hold position and pressure while I fix this probe so that it holds its place after I let go. Otherwise The tumbler will just fall again.”
“Mell Irenna,” said Ostok in a tone of good humor, standing a few arms away at the corner of the alley. “I’m no locksmith - which is a shame, as I’d have saved the kingdom a few silver rings paid to men and women of your profession - but why not twist the cylinder as you maneuver each pin into its proper place? It seems clunky to have probe upon probe stuck in the keyhole, tangling up with each other.”
“Golani engineer their mechanisms tight. No rickets. The lock won’t move so much as a caterpillar’s hair until every single tumbler is in its place, with the tumbler heads depressed. And there are eight tumblers. This lock isn’t even the twisting kind.”
“What do you mean?”
“This handle on the exterior of the door? For show. It does nothing. At the back of this keyhole is a button, just like the buttons on the head of each pin. When that activator switch is depressed and all the pins are in the open position, this door is weighted to swing open. The door armorer who designed this will also have shaped the activator switch into a custom shape. I keep a pin in my kit small enough to fit into any of the shapes they design.”
Ostok waved a hand over the top of his balding scalp. “Never understood the academic trades. Mechanics. Kinetics. Chanting. The learned skills show me for the dullard I am.”
Irenna said nothing. Chink by chink, through the pins, fixing her probes in place, she cracked through the lock. One of her tools began to bend under the pressure of her fingers. She ignored the bead of sweat trickling down her white nose. She released one probe with her right hand, took up the bent probe in it, carefully removed her left, reached to the bag at her side, and drew out one of her disc-shaped clamps which she used to fix the bent probe in place.
“One more,” said Irenna. She reached into her bag for another probe. “How’s my time?”
Hearn opened and checked his pocket clock. “Four measures and seventeen beats,” he said.
“Slower than I used to be.”
“It’s the heat, dear widow.” Hearn spoke in Teironian.
Ostok threw out the tails of his summer coat behind him and shoved his hands into his trouser-pockets. “Mell Vabdas,” he said in muiric, “I have something else I want to ask. If you’re not too focused.”
“Ask and we’ll find out,” said Irenna. She kept her eyes fixed on the lock as her fingers added another probe to the porcupine of steel jutting from the lock.
“Here’s my useful guide Hearn. The sculpture of an upstanding citizen. Skilled in tongues. Good with directions, calendars, buyers and sellers.”
“Seems you’ve won the bountyman’s esteem,” said Irenna in Teironian.
“What I want to know is this: where does this man meet so many people of ill - or at least curious - repute? I’ll be up front by telling you that I raised the same question to Hearn himself just a while ago. I found his answer didn’t quite satisfy. For one instance there’s the beggar I saw him speaking with outside of the teahouse on Valinton road. I only saw his body, and plenty of that, for he wore little more than a cloth around his waist. What I saw, however, looked nothing like the company I’d expect a man like Hearn to keep.”
“Theogenes is harmless,” said Hearn.
“And then there’s this ‘Mother Vimienn’. She pointed the way to this house. Hem, I’ll grant that was useful. But I can’t fathom what use a man in Hearn’s profession has for a dealer in goldneedle. He’s not an addict, mell?”
“He’s not,” Hearn answered for himself. Irenna was smiling over the lock as she worked, but kept herself from laughing and making her hands shift.
“Then for what? Don’t tell me it’s because she introduces herself to everyone. That’s a cheap excuse. And then there’s you, mell Vabdas.”
“What a distinguished class you place me in,” said Irenna. Her knuckles whitened around the tip of the probe. She prepared to lock it into place.
“I mean no offense,” Ostok went on cheerily. “But what does a diplomatic attaché need with a lockbreaker? You’re not opening ledger locks, are you?”
“I must have some other use to him.”
“Hearn’s an enigma to me,” Ostok concluded. “But I suppose you’re too close an accomplice to reveal his secrets.”
“Any that I know.”
Ostok noticed Hearn’s fixed jaw then, and the hand the latter had tightened over his lips, and the furrow of his swollen eye. “Hearn, I’m only pulling on your drawstrings,” said Ostok. “You mustn’t take anything I say at face value.”
“Done,” said Irenna. Without a click or a clang or thud to herald the success, the lock released. The door swung inward with a soft and gentle squeal. The space beyond the door was dark and silent. Long floorboards, cracked and dry, ran like wooden rivulets into a cavern-like hall. One cobweb swayed from the rafters just inside the door, caught in the slanting red sunlight. Otherwise, the hall appeared clean.
“Six measures and twenty-two beats,” said Hearn, putting his clock away.
“Outstanding, good lady,” said Ostok. He glanced between Irenna and Hearn. “Do you… wish to accompany us inside?”
“I’ll wait out here,” said Irenna.
“Stay near the door,” said Hearn. He squeezed Irenna’s shoulder. “If anyone comes, shout.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to see behind the door you’ve cracked?” asked Ostok.
Irenna smiled. “I’ve seen the insides of old town abodes before. No chance I’m going inside this wraith hearth.”
“What are you looking for?” Hearn asked as they moved into the dark entry hall.
“Take the multicandle from the wall and strike it up,” Ostok instructed. Hearn set to the job. “Our intended quarry would perhaps be too wishful of thinking. Just in case: Hello? Is anyone in this domicile?”
The silent breath of a seemingly empty home was all the reply the bountyman received.
“Seems empty,” said Hearn. The wick of the multicandle took flame under his application of oil and quickstriker. It cast a haunting yellow gleam on walls of peeling paint and an unfinished ceiling replete with shadows. The hall ended in a stair at the far end, but there were two open doorways on their left. Hearn gestured to the nearest door. Ostok proceeded ahead.
Both that first room they entered, and the next one beside it, were empty. Any furnishings had been sold or stolen long ago. The space appeared as if the house had been left open, and only recently been made ready for a fresh occupant by a sweeping of the floors and the addition of the perversely-secure exterior door. Splinters and broken glass had been pushed into two huge dust piles, one in the corner of each room. Each room had one window, facing the front and back streets respectively; both were boarded over with wood panels. The sconces for the multicandles were empty, excepting the multicandle Hearn had taken from beside the entrance. Were it not for the yellow globes of light issuing from the tall wick pole in Hearn’s hand, the space would have been pitch dark.
“Look here,” said Ostok. He bent down over the floorboards when they had entered the second room, and motioned for Hearn to hold the light lower. Hearn did. Ostok rubbed a finger down a wide crack between two boards and came back with a layer of dust. He opened his mouth and touched the dust to his tongue. His small black eyes flashed as he glanced at Hearn. “What do you think it tastes of?”
“Age?”
Ostok shook his head. “Ginger.”
“Not uncommon. Some spread it on the floor rather than the threshold. Especially in the city.”
Ostok shook his head. “I know it wards ill spirits. That isn’t my point. If this place had sat long empty, then the ants and spiders, and the little mice that can squeeze through cracks of smaller size than this house has; they would have feasted on any such residue long ago.”
Hearn shrugged. Ostok rose. “Let us check upstairs,” the bountyman went on.
As the pair approached the end of the hall with the stairs, they noticed a smaller half-door which had at first slipped their notice, set in the same wall as the other two rooms. “Cellar,” Hearn explained. “There may have been a basement-access once. They were boarded and ironed over and the new street rolled overtop, just two years ago.
A cellar was exactly what the two discovered. As they stepped down a narrow passage, they came into a wide, long space, with walls of bare earth. There was a square of timbers in the ceiling near the corner of one wall which must have once opened to the surface. The broken beam of a crane lay split at an angle below the former street hatch. Several huge jars like the ones outside stood next to the crane. Most were open and empty. One of them had the lid on with an unbroken seal.
“Pass me a knife,” said Ostok. Hearn did so. The bountyman broke the seal on the jar while Hearn held the multicandle light. When the seal came open and the lid was pulled back, a reek assailed their noses. Ostok bent over the cask, but quickly withdrew his head. “Nothing but a reservoir of sour wine.”
“Hold the light a minute,” said Hearn. Handing the multicandle to Ostok, he rolled up his sleeve. He pinched his nose with one hand and squeezed his eyes shut, bent over the jar, and dipped his fingers into the blackness. The fluid within felt cold and slimy against Hearn’s fingertips. He dipped his whole arm into the opening, bending down to his knee until he felt the sediment and rough grain of the jar’s bottom. He rubbed his hand around in the silt at the bottom for a moment, then drew it out and shook it off.
“It has been sitting in this cellar for many seasons,” said Ostok.
“Probably before the fire and flood,” Hearn said. He rolled down his short sleeve and took his multicandle back from the bountyman.
“We know at least that whoever has done… Forgive me, I thought I heard a noise upstairs. We know that whoever has cleaned in here took no interest in the building due to its background as a wine shop, at least. Had they, this whole place would have stunk like that pot. Let me put this lid back. There. Now upstairs.”
“Have you noticed,” Hearn said as they stepped back up the narrow, groaning cellar passage, “there seems to float in the air a thin sort of mist? It hangs over the floor like a peat bog.”
“I have.”
“Such vapors it is said linger after in a space when black prayers are made there.”
“You’re buying into this haunted hearth wraith idea now?”
“Nevermind.”
“What vices or guilts would some contagious windborne wraith prey upon in your own blood, my dear guide? Don’t sigh so. I’m only jesting again.”
Hearn continued up the steps. “It’s no trouble.”
“The truth is, I wondered about this haze as well. The moment we entered. I assumed it was my eyes, they get blurry sometimes.”
Hearn held the pipe of his multicandle so that the light crawled up the stairs as they returned to the main hall and began to ascend. He glanced back at the front door. He couldn’t see Irenna. He said, “When I’m normally taking merchants around town, they’re visiting airier, brighter places. The Arcade. The Wind Temple. The Mayoral Theater. Not much call for south Szem abandoned house tours.”
“Look at this,” said Ostok. He ran his hand along the banister of the stairs and turned it so that his palm shone in Hearn’s light.
“Dustless?” Hearn asked.
“Mmm. Do you ever think to yourself, when you run your hand along a wall or railing in some public building: ‘I wonder whose hand last touched this before me. What kind of person are they, the warmth of whose hand I can almost feel? Is their palm soft, or scarred?’”
The pair stepped into a common sitting room. A motheaten armchair and a knee-high breakfast table made of stone sat in one corner. A turned-over cup and a piece of paper lay on top of the table. Ostok walked over and picked up the paper. “Leegesspeech at last,” he said. “I really must learn the spoken component of it someday.”
Ostok began to read in silence. Hearn said, “What does it say?”
“It’s part of a siren’s newsbook. From Teiron. Hmm. Here, read for yourself.”
Hearn glanced over the paper and skimmed the first paragraph:
Declaration between the Volon Counties of Thiges and Teiron respecting the island of Selmon.
The Royal Tyrant, First Citizen Kratocles of Teiron, issues this edict that he has no desire for altering the political or military situation of Selmon. The Tyrants’ Council of Independent Thiges, agrees not to disrupt the activities of Teironian trade and mercantilism in that region. In return, Kratocles of Teiron recognizes that it may continue to entrust Thiges with the preservation of order and the application of all administrative and military reform which the island of Selmon may require.
The Thigan Chanter’s Academy in Selmon shall continue to enjoy the-
Hearn stopped reading. “A copy of the ‘82 Treaty?”
Ostok took the paper back from Hearn. He flipped it over, scanned its surface, then set it back on the stone table. “Notable only in that the agreement between Thiges and Teiron pushed muira influence out of the island.”
“Radicals among the Teironian commonfolk treat it like Themic scripture.”
Ostok gave Hearn a look. “Anything else?”
“No.”
“There’s seven rude beds of straw over here. Blankets turned up on only three though. Now what do you think that means? Perhaps there were seven people staying in this house, and three of them were careless about keeping their beds. Or perhaps the three who slept here last counted on four additional members to their party. Or perhaps they were overambitious as to the number of their party. Or perhaps it doesn’t signify any of those.”
“Strong evidence,” Hearn remarked. He nudged the roadcloth coverlet of a bed with his sandal.
“No, but this is.” Ostok bent and picked up a small metal case. He had seen it lying under one of the ruffled bedspreads. He opened it with a click. “Copper daguerreotypes. Four. Exclusively women. Well-dressed to have their likenesses captured on a rare medium. One older, three younger mells. All notably human I think, though I find it hard to tell sometimes when the colors are all shades of rust.”
Hearn looked at the plates as Ostok passed them to him, one by one. “None that look familiar,” he said.
Ostok scratched the grey rear tufts of hair on his scalp, then shrugged. He swept his hand to the door. “As my old fort captain used to say to me, ‘We shall continue, gentlemen.’”
Room by room the two pressed on through the house. They first explored the second, then the third floor. Hardly any furniture was to be found in the space, and few belongings beyond that. The place had been almost entirely emptied, with only a few of the chambers filled and showing the minimal comforts necessary for occupation. Even searching the floorboards as on the first floor, Ostok could turn up not so much as a breadcrumb.
The pair found one door on the third floor shut. Ostok reached for the handle, but Hearn caught him by the arm. “Wait,” he said. He bent down to the base of the door. Holding his light up to the seam, he carefully noted then pulled out a small piece of parchment.
“I should have been the one to notice that,” said Ostok appreciatively. “How did you know to look for a passage marker?”
“I didn’t. I thought it might be tripwired. The muira used them in the war to trigger chimes.”
“Let us see what they wished to mark.”
The room beyond proved nearly as empty as the previous ones. Two lonely skeletal chairs made out of wood stood facing roughly towards each other. There was one small round table between them, over which a black cloth had been laid. The cloth had been stitched with three icons in differently-colored thread: a red footprint, a dark green cloak, and a white jawbone split in two. Atop this cloth another multicandle stood, tall and unlit, in a pewter basin.
Hearn looked down upon the cloth. He brought his hand to his mouth and squeezed his lower lip between his fingers. Ostok glanced at the border agent. “Look familiar?” he asked.
“No,” said Hearn.
“I’d never leap to a conclusion. It’s bad practice in the bountyman profession. But that green cloak matches the description we received from your beggar man, Theogenes. He said there were suspicious people in green cloaks nearby when Srik was assassinated.”
“They might be linked. You’re the expert.”
Ostok picked up the unlit multicandle and the pewter bowl and set them on the floor. He bent down and looked beneath the table, then pulled away the embroidered tablecloth. Something fluttered to the floor as he pulled. “Aha,” said the bountyman. “More papers. Hem, this is Teironian handwriting though. Or one of the volon scripts, I can’t say. Read it aloud for me.”
Hearn looked at the paper, then back at Ostok. “It’s leegesspeech,” he said.
“Is it!” Ostok glanced over the paper. “Miserable handwriting though, and we muira have never been as keen as your own race on the written word. It all looks the same to me. Read it anyway, if you don’t mind.”
“Your instruction: Meet with a new member in a quiet and secluded place, lit by one multicandle. In the center of the room arrange a table, chairs, and your order cloth. Recite for them the laws, ambitions, and dangers for all members of the order. Ask if he or she is ready. When he or she says, ‘Yes’, call in your own handler from an adjoining room. In both your presences, make the candidate recite our oath-”
“Careful,” Ostok interrupted. “Such oaths are sacred under the sight of gods.”
“What would you have your border agent do?” Hearn asked.
“Hmm. My own father won’t speak.” Ostok shook the smallbone bag at his hip; it made no sound as he kept it stuffed with wool to muffle his father’s bones. “Say this to begin, just in case: ‘I recite this oath in the mode of a translator. To no ears of gods or men shall my words be taken as a faithful pledge.’”
Hearn spoke as instructed then resumed his reading:
“I, candidate, in joining the organization ‘Footsteps in Red,’ Swear by the stars that look down on me, by the cylinder beneath my feet, by Theman’s Wounded Sun, before the windborne souls of my forebears, on my human birthright, that I will never waver in my service to the organization, and that I will make any sacrifice to further its cause, until my body dies.
“I swear before the windborne souls of my forebears, on my human birthright, that I will execute every labor with full zeal.
“I swear before the windborne souls of my forebears, on my human birthright, that I will never divulge the secrets of this order; neither in my life, nor after.
“May the stars burn my spirit if, knowingly or not, I should break this oath.”
At the conclusion of the reading Ostok said, “A strictly human club, these ‘Footsteps in Red’. You read it well.”
Hearn folded the sheet and returned it to Ostok. “A pity it doesn’t tell us what their laws and goals are. Or where they might have gone.”
“Ah, but I have the last answer already.”
Hearn held the multicandle up to catch Ostok’s face. “How?”
“On the back of that paper downstairs, that page from the 82 Treaty.”
“I didn’t look at the back.”
Ostok met Hearns eye. “Of course you didn’t, faithful guide. Fortunately for the both of us, I did. On it was written the single word: ‘Siltstacks’.”
Hearn took this in with a breath through his nose, and a pinch of his mouth. “There are two siltstacks in town,” he said finally. “A decommissioned one in the old industrial side of Szem, and the new siltstack of Aster.”
“Why was the Szem side shut down?”
“I don’t think they could compete. It’s cheaper for an owner on the Aster side to buy raw silt grain from the farms and fields of Teiron than it is to cart it over the mountains of Ahn. And a business on the Szem side can’t buy raw agricultural product from Teiron - city law. It’s been closed for years.”
“And I suppose they also save on having to pay keepers for the smallbones of the muira workers.”
Hearn said nothing in reply. Ostok rubbed his pale fingers through his grey tonsure. At length the bountyman said, “Either way I think there’s too much conspiracy in these documents not to follow up with them. This afternoon and evening - if it doesn’t inconvenience you my good border agent - I’d like to take a tour of both the stacks.”
“We don’t need to,” said Hearn as Ostok set everything back on the table exactly as he’d found it. Ostok paused and looked for an explanation. Hearn went on, “The men and women who work in the siltstacks know each other. If there were any new faces, they’d recognize them at once.”
“Then it makes our jobs an easy one of asking them that question.”
“If you were a member of these Footsteps in Red, a discreet order, what would you gain by making yourself familiar to the locals? I’m suggesting that we’d be better off looking through the old Szem stack first.”
Ostok stared at Hearn for a minute. He shrugged. “Time presses. What you say makes sense in my ears, so we’ll do as you suggest. What can you tell me about this abandoned siltstack?” Ostok asked as he stood back from the table.
Hearn was about to speak, when he was interrupted. Distantly, from somewhere outside the open door below, there wandered into the silent house a faint shout.
“The sisters of a hearth should keep to that hearth. Not bother the hearths and bones of other people.”
The muira man who spoke rubbed a palm through his sideburns, slowly, so that the long, dark grey bristles snapped back into place hair by hair. The other man standing beside him - a dairyman most likely, for he was dressed in a plain, clean brown summer shirt, but smelled like the breath of an elk sow - added his own thoughts. “Oldwall knows its hearthmates. It knows this mell isn’t one.”
Irenna stood with her back to the wall beside the abandoned hearth’s open door. “Hearn,” she called again, louder than before.
“Who’s Hearn?” asked the man who smelled of elk.
“Sounds like he isn’t home,” the man with the sideburns suggested. He glanced toward the empty house. He slid onto the first ledge of the cracked stone stoop, preventing Irenna from shifting toward the door, pinning her between himself and his clean comrade. “Looks like he hasn’t kept this hearth respectable.”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” said Irenna with an affected roll of her eyes. “It’s not his.”
“She admits it,” said the muira man with the whiskers. He nudged his companion’s shoulder. “Now the mell has no excuse. Eh, Vilm?”
“She’ll pay,” said Vilm of the elk smell. “She’ll hand over a shiny rounder, as a token of her appreciation. For we’ve show good manners in letting her tour our neighborhood. Unguarded. Especially when some unguarded, suspicious stranger just butchered one of ours not long ago.”
Vimienn pressed herself flush against the wall. It was hot and slimy from the mold creeping up its face and Theman’s baking, bloody sun. She kept the gaze of the whiskered man, matching his eye with a contemptuous look. “By accident you’ve landed on our purpose. Srik’s killer would-”
The whiskered man smacked Irenna across her cheek. “Keep the name of that species traitor off our streets,” he said.
Vilm caught her by the shoulder as she tried to squirm aside. “He was a wraith-possessed, southerner-loving enemy in the heart of Ahn. Doesn’t mean we’ll cheer his killing.”
“Hearn!” Irenna tried to cry again. The word had only half-escaped her lips when Vilm clapped a hand which smelled of elk over her mouth. He grunted, “Stop screaming you silly cow. Chard, check her sack for a rounder. Don’t act like some pathetic-”
Vilm’s words - hot and breathy on Irenna’s cheek - were disrupted. Thunder of footsteps. He glanced to the sprung door just in time to see Hearn.
Hearn’s lean frame shot from the shadows of the abandoned hearth. Vilm had only a beat to release Irenna and spin to face the human charging him. He braced, but Hearn came in low at the last moment. His shoulder slammed Vilm in the middle of his plain brown shirt. The two fell backward, sprawling in the rough dirt alley where the old Szem wall had once stood. All the air in Vilm’s lungs released in a single gasp. His eyes popped wide. He tried to bring an arm up in defense. Before he could, Hearn’s knuckles smacked into his temple. Day changed to night as blackness and stars flashed in the muira man’s vision.
“Hearn don’t!” came a soft shout from the door. Ostok ran out. At the same instant some other bystander further down the road raised the alarm. Still at the same instant, Chard (the muira with the bristly face) punched Irenna once in the hip, forcing her to double over (and bending one of her lockbreaking probes where he struck). He sprang at Hearn. He tackled the human border agent, and both went rolling sideways over Vilm.
Hearn’s left side scraped over one of the gritty and ancient pieces of the old wall foundation. His teeth clapped together hard as Chard smacked his face with an elbow. Hearn pushed the muira man’s arm aside; the latter collapsed against Hearn’s chest. He tried to bite Hearn on his arm but only managed a mouthful of shirt. Meanwhile Hearn caught him in a chokehold. He began to pummel the muira’s chest with his fist. At the same time however he caught sight of a bag of smallbones dangling from the man’s neck. He took care not to strike the man’s household god. His knuckles did crack happily the living man’s ribs. In retaliation Chard reached up and pressed a thumb into Hearn’s blackened eyebrow. Hearn thrashed his head aside and yelled in pain.
The two fought in the dirt for a while, kicking up dust clouds. A whole mass of muira streetgoers had filtered towards the scene of the fight. Some were cheering. One husky voice cried, “Call the vigil!” Someone threw a wooden cup from within the crowd. It flew wide of Ostok’s head and cracked against the side of the abandoned house.
“Don’t call the vigil,” Ostok said in a milder tone. He waved his hands in the air to try and get the crowd’s attention. At the same time he skirted around the wrestling pair on the ground, unsure where to intervene, shouting at Hearn, “Leave him, agent! We’ll go.”
The other thug, Vilm, had begun to shake the stars from his eyes. He caught his breath in huge gasps, pushing himself up. He turned towards Hearn and bared his teeth.
In a moment Irenna was beside him. She held the handle of a switchknife in her white knuckles, with the point extended and pressing into Vilm’s neck, under his chin. He held motionless. “Don’t even try,” Irenna warned, noticing his eyes searching the ground for a stone.
“A blade,” someone in the crowd shouted. Someone else screamed. Someone broke away from the back of the gathering crowd. The cry for vigil soldiers was repeated. Someone else yelled, “Fetch one of the Mates.”
“Hearn, Irenna’s got a knife,” said Ostok. He reached down and pulled at Hearn’s shoulder, as the latter still squeezed at Chard’s throat. Hearn glanced at Ostok, and after a pause the words seemed to puncture through the adrenaline. He released his arm. Chard fell away and doubled over, coughing.
Ostok clasped Hearn’s hand and tugged the agent to his feet. Irenna rose swiftly too. She stepped back from Vilm while still holding the knife as a ward. Hearn immediately took a step towards her, but Ostok caught him by the shoulder and leaned in to Hearn’s ear. “We can’t afford this,” he hissed.
Hearn jerked his shoulder free. “They attacked her,” he said with a sharp wave of his hand at the two muira men. He marched to Irenna. “Are you alright?” he asked as he took her by the shoulder.
“Fine,” she replied. She lowered the knife. She tried setting it back inside her toolkit, but her hands shook. Hearn grasped them and pried the blade from her hand.
“Bloody Teironian,” Vilm spat. He tried helping his whiskered comrade to his feet, but Chard’s face was bloody and his eyes unfocused. Raising his voice Vilm added, “These soulcursed invaders think they’re free to break into hearths. Thrash working muira.”
The civilians booed. Three muira men stepped forward, rolling up their sleeves. Hearn, who had been about to tuck the switchknife away, instead held it firm.
The mood seemed about to turn violent, except that just then Ostok whipped a scroll of parchment out from the leather bag he carried. “I am a Royal Bountyman in the service of her majesty, Queen Anastasia Balgah,” he declared in a loud and clear voice. “This is my Royal license. Any person who troubles me or this man or this muira woman any further, or implores their household gods to follow us upon the wind and bring us ill fortune, betrays the greater bond of our kingdom. They defile King’s Law, Muira Law, and Divine Law all at once.”
The men who had been stepping to stand beside Vilm and Chard stopped. The pair of assailants cast a hateful eye at Hearn, but Ostok waved the license higher. “It’s not right for strangers to break into our hearths,” said Chard. He rubbed blood from his whiskers.
“We’re just leaving,” said Ostok. He grabbed Hearn by the shirtsleeve. He added in a hiss, “Now.”
Hearn, Irenna, and the bountyman stepped carefully back from the mob, toward the alley adjoining the open tract of the old Szem wall. As they did, Hearn said to Ostok, “You’re people attacked f-”
“MY people?” The bounty positively spat. “Oh Hearn, how can you be so upsettingly stupid? You’re normally much sharper. Do you think the well-being of men such as those two matter to me a dollop? Whatever their race?”
“You want peace. So do I. But some men learn best violently.”
“Their education isn’t my concern. Porridgehead! Think of the image this presents; to a city already tense, terrified, burning possessions in the street by night. This city has just seen a prominent diplomat murdered. How will it alter the moods of common men and women when they hear that a Teironian - attached to a public agency - was seen battering two poor muira?”
Hearn said nothing. They walked quietly, until the last raised voices and watching eyes of south Szem were lost in the alley maze behind them. At last Irenna broke the silence. “So you didn’t find the assassin?”