The teenager stared at him. Something in that stare made Butterbelly uncomfortable. Something in that stare wasn’t natural, wasn’t healthy. It made him feel small and petty.
He wondered if maybe those rumors were true.
“My necklace isn’t for sale,” Rook repeated. “Five thousand thrones for the rest. I’ll take payment the usual way.” Without another word, he left.
Butterbelly cursed and stared after Rook, irritated with himself for letting the boy take advantage of him like that. Eventually he sighed and started to cover his work before closing shop. Soon he was singing to himself.
He had a vané tsali stone, and he had a buyer. Oh, did he ever have a buyer. He knew a man who’d burned a path through the Capital looking for vané jewelry-craft of all sorts, and money was no object. He would be interested in what Butterbelly offered.
Very interested indeed.
5: LEAVING KISHNA-FARRIGA
(Kihrin’s story)
Outside the auction house, a carriage squatted in the middle of the street like a rotted gourd. The theme continued with black lacquered enamel and matching metalwork. A long black fringe hung from the black undercarriage like a skirt. A black-robed figure (possibly Kalindra) sat up front, holding the reins of four impressive large horses.
They were black too.
“Don’t you ever grow tired of that color?” I asked.
“Get in,” Teraeth ordered.
There was no resisting. I pulled myself up into the carriage. Teraeth helped his mother follow me before entering the carriage himself.
“I thought that other woman was going to—”
“No one cares what you think,” Teraeth said.
The blood flowed to my face.
Six months prior, I would have done something, said something. I’d have cut him a little, verbally or otherwise, but six months ago—hell, two weeks ago—bah. I saw the silver hawk and chain wrapped around his wrist. He could say whatever he wanted, give me whatever order he wanted, as long as he held my gaesh.
He surprised me then by pulling up the flooring in the middle of the carriage and unfolding a rope ladder.
“Climb down,” he ordered.
I didn’t argue. The trapdoor didn’t exit to the street as I expected. Rather, the coach had been positioned over an open grating, which led to an ancient but still serviceable sewer system. The small tunnel led straight down with a ladder built into the side. With the grating open, we enjoyed free access to an escape route.
Only the sound of hands and feet on rungs above me let me know Teraeth followed. Someone closed the grate above us, and then I heard the staccato clap of hooves as the black-clad driver drove the carriage away.
I couldn’t tell how long I climbed or which way we went once we reached the bottom. My eyes adjusted to the inky blackness of the sewer tunnels, but for a long, long time my only operating sense was olfactory. I gagged on the stench. Seeing past the First Veil wouldn’t have helped either: the blurry auras of second sight wouldn’t have stopped me from tripping over a sodden branch and slamming face-first into rotting waste, as it drifted sluggishly past.
Teraeth tapped my side to signal when I should turn.
The sewer tunnel widened until I found myself able to stand. Here lichen glowed with phosphorescence, casting subtle shimmers over the otherwise disgusting walls. I couldn’t read by that light but it was bright enough to navigate.
I would have given anything for a smoky, badly made torch.
Eventually, I rounded a corner and saw sunlight. A sewer opening lay ahead at the end of the tunnel. The odor of saltwater and decaying fish—the charming perfume of the harbor—mingled with the stink of the sewer.
Teraeth brushed past me and grabbed the large metal grating. He yanked the bars without releasing them, preventing a clumsy, loud clank of metal. At this point, I realized his mother Khaemezra was still with us. Teraeth motioned for us to follow.
We exited into an alley by the harbor. No one noticed us. Any eyes that strayed in our direction didn’t seem to find our strange little group unusual at all.
Khaemezra had also tossed aside her robe. I’d already seen Teraeth, but this was my first chance to examine the frail “Mother” of the Black Brotherhood.
She was a surprise, as I had always thought the vané were ageless.
Khaemezra was so bent and shrunken from age she stood no taller than a Quuros woman. If her son Teraeth was the color of ink, she was the parchment upon which it had been spilled. Bone-white skin stretched thin and translucent over her face. Her fine hair, pale and powdery, showed the old woman’s spotted scalp. Her quicksilver eyes—with no irises and no visible whites—reminded me of the eyes of a demon. I couldn’t tell if she’d been ugly or beautiful in her youth: she was so wrinkled that any such speculation was impossible.
I fought the urge to ask if she kept a cottage in the darkest woods, and if she preferred rib or thigh meat on her roasted children. If she’d told me she was Cherthog’s hag wife, Suless, goddess of treachery and winter, I’d have believed her without question.
Khaemezra noticed my stare and smiled a ridiculous toothless grin. She winked, and that quickly she was no longer vané, but an old harridan fishwife. She wasn’t the only one who changed: Teraeth wasn’t vané either, but a swarthy Quuros, scarred of face and possessing a worn, whipped body.
I wondered what I looked like, since I was sure the illusion covered me as well.
Teraeth and the old woman stared at each other as though speaking without words. Teraeth sighed and grabbed my arm. “Let’s go.” His voice revealed the flaw in the illusion, and I hoped no one would notice that his voice originated from somewhere above the illusion’s “head.”
“Where are we going?” I asked.
Teraeth scowled at me. “We’re not out of danger yet.” The vané walked out into the main throng of the crowd. After a few steps, I realized the old woman, Khaemezra, hadn’t followed. I lost sight of her and wanted to ask if she would be coming along too, but I would have to ask Teraeth.
I hadn’t had a lot of luck with that so far.
Teraeth pulled me through the crowd at a dizzying speed. My sense of direction became fuddled, until I only knew we were heading to one of the ships. Teraeth shuttled me up a gangplank, past sailors and a row of chained slaves. I fought back the desire to kill the slave master leading them onboard—and I didn’t have a weapon, anyway.
Then I heard a familiar voice say, “What can I do for you?”
I turned toward it in angry surprise.