Blood of Empire

Chapter 16

Michel didn’t like the idea of leaving Greenfire Depths. Through some cruel corruption of the laws of nature and in defiance of common sense, it had become the safest spot for him in Landfall. He climbed out of its stinking, twisted embrace with reluctance and joined the morning traffic heading east across the plateau, wearing thick cotton laborer’s trousers, a vest, and a wide-brimmed straw farmer’s hat to shade – and hide – his face.

He let the crowd pull him along, nudging his own trajectory every couple of blocks until he’d navigated to Proctor, not far from where his mother had lived before she’d been whisked inland by Taniel’s agents. He wondered, not for the first time, where she was and how she was doing. He wondered if she’d forgiven him for all those years of making her think he was a Blackhat stooge.

Michel slipped down the basement stairs of a large tenement near the edge of the plateau, trudging the length of a musty hall until he reached the last door on the left. The lock had, by some miracle, not been smashed, and the door showed no signs of tampering. He let himself in with a key hidden behind a loose brick. The single-room apartment was lit by one rectangular window not much bigger than his head, and the air was thick and full of cobwebs.

It took him just a couple of minutes to move the mattress out of the corner, lift the dusty old rug beneath it, then find the knots in the floorboards that allowed him to pull them up, revealing a hidden cubby that could, in an emergency, fit a person. It currently contained a handful of Taniel’s old fake passports, a few thousand krana in cash, and a long map case that he’d stolen from the Yaret Household after the successful search of the Landfall catacombs.

He took some of the cash, ignored the passports, and then spent the next hour examining those old maps of the catacombs. Once he was satisfied, he copied down a bit of one of the maps and then stowed them back in their original spot, leaving the place exactly as he had found it.

He returned to Greenfire Depths and picked up Ichtracia from their shared apartment before heading to Meln-Dun’s quarry to meet his fellow hunters.

The crew was in good spirits and, at Michel’s orders, headed out into the Depths to spread around bribe money and listen for rumors. Michel pocketed a thick wad of petty cash and Dynize rations cards from Dahre. He led Ichtracia out into the street, down along the river, and then into one of the tenements that the two of them were meant to be searching. He waited inside for several minutes, watching the street behind them through a crack in the tenement wall.

“What are we doing?” Ichtracia asked.

“We’re making sure no one is following us.”

“You think they would?”

“I don’t,” Michel said reassuringly, “but better safe than sorry. Okay, I think we’re fine. Follow me.” They went up two levels and then left the tenement for the spiderweb of the Depths. Even with a working – if dated – map of the quarry in his head, Michel got them lost three times before he found their destination: a tall building, almost entirely still in one piece, near the very center of the Depths.

“We’re here,” Michel announced.

“What is here?” Ichtracia asked skeptically.

Michel rapped on the door. A peephole opened and a pair of eyes stared out at them. “Do you have an appointment?”

“I don’t,” Michel said, “but I do have this.” He counted off exactly eighty-three krana in Adran bills and held it up to the peephole. It was snatched quickly and the hole closed. “This,” he told Ichtracia quietly, “is the home of the most successful Palo arms dealer in Fatrasta. Don’t say anything. Just look menacing.” He held up one finger to qualify that statement. “But not too menacing.”

The door opened suddenly, and they were greeted by the smiling face of a Gurlish hunchback. The man bobbed his head twice. “Up the stairs,” he instructed, pointing them toward a narrow staircase. “All the way to the top.”

Michel frowned at the narrow lift beside the stairs. A sign on the lift door said, OUT OF ORDER. He shrugged and nodded to Ichtracia. They began their climb.

They were on the sixth floor when he heard the very distinctive hum of a steam-powered engine somewhere in the bowels of the building. They reached the eighth floor at almost the exact same moment as the lift. The hunchback doorman stepped out, gave them a cheeky smile and a bow, and opened the door for them. Michel paused to catch his breath, nodded, and stepped out into the sun.

The roof was a narrow bit of gently sloped shingling that rose higher than almost all the other buildings in the Depths – almost to the rim of Upper Landfall. A man lay out nude on a blanket, his face covered with a washcloth and the rest of him bared to the sun. His freckles were thick and dark, his skin as wrinkly as a prune. He might have been a hard-living forty-year-old or an exceptionally fit octogenarian. Michel did not know, nor did anyone else who worked with him. Their host raised the washcloth as they stepped onto his roof, then lowered it back over his eyes.

“Afternoon,” Michel said. “You’re Halifin?” He’d met Halifin on three different occasions, of course. But Halifin didn’t need to know that.

“Have we met before?” the supine figure asked.

“We haven’t,” Michel said. He didn’t bother introducing Ichtracia to the arms dealer or the arms dealer to Ichtracia. This was a business where names didn’t matter. “I need to put in an order.”

“If we’ve never met, how did you know where to find me?” Halifin muttered from beneath his washcloth.

Michel tensed involuntarily, stealing a glance over his shoulder at the hunchback. The fool still had that big grin on his face, but a pistol had appeared in his hand. He didn’t point it at anything; rather, just let it hang loosely there. Ichtracia’s eyes tightened, and Michel gave her a slight shake of his head. “I was recommended,” he offered.

“Of course you were,” Halifin said. “All my new friends are recommended.” The hunchback’s pistol disappeared as quickly as if it were a magic trick. “What can I do for you?” Halifin asked. Never once did he touch the washcloth over his face, or attempt to cover his nudity.

Michel produced the map he’d copied of a little corner of the Landfall catacombs from his pocket, then wrapped it in a wad of Adran krana. He handed it to the hunchback. “I need twelve crates of Hrusch rifles delivered to this spot by tomorrow night.”

“You’re sure I don’t know you?” The voice was almost playful.

“I’m sure,” Michel replied flatly. “Do I have an order?”

Halifin sniffed. “Hrusch rifles are in steep demand. The Dynize are buying them up like kids in a candy store. Trying to update their arms.”

Michel reached into his pocket and produced another thousand krana in a tight, folded clip. He handed it to the hunchback. “Does that cover it?”

No apparent signal passed between the hunchback and Halifin, but the latter yawned loudly. “Yes, I do believe so.” He waved his hand, and the hunchback gave him both the money and the map. Halifin lifted the corner of his washcloth with one hand, unfolded the map with the other. “Behind Meln-Dun’s quarry? Are you working for that old hawk?”

Michel gave him a shallow smile. “Is the delivery location a problem?”

“No, it shouldn’t be. Nobody likes going into the catacombs since the Dynize cleaned them out last month. It’ll be a good spot to stash the guns.”

“Wonderful.” Michel tipped his hat and wished Halifin a good afternoon. He refused a ride on the lift from the hunchback and waited until they were back down in the street – or what passed for a street in this neighborhood – before letting out a relieved sigh. He loosened his collar a little and wiped a bit of sweat from his brow.

“Did we just buy guns from a naked man?” Ichtracia asked, staring back toward the door.

“We did,” Michel confirmed, taking a mental inventory of how much money he still had left in his pocket.

“Why are we buying guns for Meln-Dun?” Ichtracia asked.

“Think about it,” Michel answered, his own thoughts already moving on to the next several steps of his plan.

“This is how you’re going to make him a martyr?”

“One part of it, yes.”

“Are you going to explain that?”

“No.” He saw her annoyed expression and spread his hands. “Compartmentalization. If you’re captured, I don’t need to worry about other parts of my plan coming apart.”

“If I’m captured, you’d be smart not to stick around for more than a few seconds,” Ichtracia pointed out.

“You’re probably right. But I haven’t survived this long without a little caution.” He shook his head. “Look, this may sound silly, but I do best not thinking too hard about my own plans.”

“You’re worried about someone overhearing your thoughts?”

“I keep myself” – he tapped his chest – “the real me, buried deep. When I worked for the Blackhats, I refused to even think Taniel’s name. It’s not about hiding my thoughts. It’s about being as much of the person others expect me to be as possible. There’s less room for screwups. We’re already working a hundred times faster than I would have preferred, with you learning to govern your accent on the fly.” He shook his head. “We better get back to our posts. Pretend we’ve gotten some work done.”

They returned to their canvassing area. Michel put Ichtracia just behind him so she could watch how he worked, and fixed a gentle smile on his face. Starting at one end of the street, he began to move down it at a leisurely pace. He slapped men on the shoulders as if they were old friends, gently touched women on the elbow, meeting everyone’s eyes with a pleasant smile and a quiet word. “Hey there, I’m looking for someone,” he’d say, slipping a two-krana note into a hand. “Someone who goes by ‘Mama Palo.’ Any idea where I can find her?”

“No,” came the answer. “I heard she was dead,” or “Not gonna find her anymore, she went up north.” Occasionally someone would turn away, or leave quickly after Michel passed. He’d note their face but keep moving.

Hours went by and Ichtracia had just begun to work the other side of the street on her own when Michel spotted a familiar face jumping through the crowd, waving at him. It was Couhila. The old man’s face was alight with a grin. “We found her!” he babbled before he’d even reached Michel. “Dahre has called a meeting. We have to head back!”

Michel forced a surprised smile onto his face and subtly waved off Ichtracia’s alarmed expression. “Shit, shit, shit, shit,” he muttered under his breath. Already? What kind of horribly rotten luck was this? His heart started thumping as worries shuffled through his head. What if they’d captured her already? Pit, what if they’d killed her? He widened his grin as Couhila got close. “That’s fantastic,” he forced himself to say, gesturing for Ichtracia to join them. “Let’s get back quickly!”

They followed Couhila back to Meln-Dun’s quarry and up to Dahre’s office, where the rest of the group had already gathered. There was a nervous energy in the room, and Dahre had the sort of well-earned smirk that Michel himself might have been wearing in the same situation. For a few moments he forgot where he was – for a few moments these were the good guys, his allies, celebrating an imminent victory. Michel held on to the feeling, accepting the comradeship, holding his gnawing fear at bay.

“All right, all right,” Dahre said, motioning for them to quiet down. “We haven’t caught her yet.”

Michel suppressed a sigh of relief.

Dahre continued, “But the canvassing has turned up the best lead we’ve had so far.” He crossed the room to pluck one of the sketches off the wall of Mama Palo’s known associates and waved it in the air. “This man, Kelinar, is a minor lieutenant of Mama Palo’s. Devin-Mezi found him today during her search. She was able to talk him down, feed him some cash, and offer him a fat reward for information. He took the bait.”

Devin-Mezi looked smug enough that you’d think she’d captured Mama Palo already. Michel did his best not to roll his eyes, and focused on the sketch. The name Kelinar was vaguely familiar in a distant way, as was the face. Perhaps they’d crossed paths briefly at some point, or maybe he’d spotted the face on a list of criminals wanted by the Blackhats. As far as Michel knew, he wasn’t someone very high up in Mama Palo’s organization – but that might have changed, or he might just be in the right position to offer up his employer.

“What does he know?” Michel asked.

“He knows where Mama Palo is, how many guards she has, and even the room she’s sleeping in.” Dahre grinned. “He says she’s about to change safe houses and that he can deliver us the location of the next one. If he does… we’ve as good as got her.”

“Good, good,” Michel said out loud. Inwardly he continued to swear. Beside him, Ichtracia wasn’t nearly as good at hiding her true feelings. She was forcing a smile but looked vaguely alarmed. He hoped no one noticed. He was working through options with that desperation that he’d only recently warned Ichtracia was a bad way to operate as a spy. He might have to find this turncoat and silence him, or dig out Mama Palo himself to warn her.

None of this was how things were supposed to go down.

“Do we have him in custody?” Michel asked.

Dahre shook his head. “We had to cut him loose or his friends would get suspicious. He’s going to report back tonight. At least, if he wants his money, he will.”

“Did he say where they are?”

“Not until he gets paid.”

Michel forced himself to breathe evenly. The turncoat might get cold feet and never come back. Or pit, he might be conning Dahre. He hoped it was one of these options. He wasn’t ready to move against Meln-Dun yet, and he certainly couldn’t afford to lose Mama Palo and her resources before he’d even made contact with her.

“How long until we move against her?”

“Our new friend said she’s going to move tonight and settle into her new safe house tomorrow. We give her a little bit of time to get complacent. Three days, I think.”

Michel tried to think of a good argument to delay their actions further, but came up with nothing. He nodded lamely. “When he comes back, we’ll want to give him a good interrogation. Nothing violent, mind, but put the screws to him. Make sure we’re getting exactly what we paid for.”

“Good call,” Dahre agreed. “Couhila, can you deal with that?”

“Of course,” the old man said.

Michel almost swore out loud. He’d meant for him to do the interrogation. Alone. Pit and damnation. Nothing to do now but go along with things – and move his own time line forward. He let the others talk, half listening as everyone suggested interrogation tactics, questions for the turncoat, and how best to surround and isolate Mama Palo’s position. At the first chance he got, he took Ichtracia off to one side.

“What the pit are we going to do?” she hissed. “If they kill her…”

“We’ll deal with that if we have to. In the meantime, I’ve got work to do. Don’t expect me back tonight.”

“Where are you going?”

“To Upper Landfall.” He didn’t offer any more information – if he told her the details she would definitely not let him go.