Daniel Polansky - Low Town

I watched her leave, then turned to the Crane. “Your charge assumes her new responsibilities ably.”

He answered without looking up. “She’s not the girl she was.”

I was set to continue, but as I caught his face in the dying light, so frail that it seemed it might well fade into dust, I thought better of it and waited quietly until Celia returned.

“Take off your shirt,” she told me.

“I’m well aware of my overpowering allure, but I hardly think this is the time to succumb to it.” She rolled her eyes and made a hurrying gesture with her hand, and I tossed my coat on a nearby chair and pulled my tunic over my head. The room had a draft. I hoped Celia’s purpose wouldn’t be a waste of my time.

She reached into a pocket of her dress and drew forth a sapphire, perfect blue and about the size of my thumbnail. “I have ensorcelled this-if it feels warm, or if it causes you pain, it means you are in the presence of dark magic, either the practitioner himself or a close associate.” She pressed the stone against my breast, just below the shoulder. I felt a burning sensation, and when she withdrew her digit the jewel was fixed to my body.

I gave a quick yelp and rubbed the skin around the gem. “Why didn’t you warn me you were going to do that?”

“I thought you’d take it better as a surprise.”

“That was foolish,” I said.

“I’ve just given you a powerful gift, one that might well save your life, and you complain over the bee sting required to implant it?”

“You’re right. Thanks.” I felt like I ought to have said something more, but gratitude is an emotion I’m rarely called upon to display, and the reversal of our traditional positions left me unsteady. “Thanks,” I said again lamely.

“You don’t need to say that. You know I’d do anything for you.” Her eyes fluttered down my naked chest. “Anything.”

I pulled my shirt over my head and reached for my coat, the better to mask my inability to muster speech.

“What’s next?” Celia asked, all business.

“I’ve got a few ideas. I’ll come by in a day or two and let you know if anything’s panned out.”

“Do that. I’ll sound out some people I know at the Bureau of Magical Affairs, see if they’ve got anything they can tell me.”

The Crane broke his silence with another fit, and I decided it was time to take my leave. I thanked the Master, who threw me a quick wave between barks. Celia walked me to the door. “Pay attention to the jewel,” she said very gravely. “It’ll lead you to the culprit.”

I took a look back as I descended the stairs. The Crane’s coughing echoed down the blue stone, and Celia watched me from the landing, her face worried, her eyes dark.

Recent misadventures aside, I earn my meager living selling drugs, and it wouldn’t do much good to dodge the Crown if I lost my business in the process. Besides, after the day’s chaos, a simple spot of trafficking seemed just the thing to settle my mind. Yancey had asked me to show at the mansion of one of the nobles he spit for, said there was money in it. I stopped at an Islander cart near the docks and grabbed a quick plate of spiced chicken before beginning my trek.

Head straight north from downtown and you’ll come to Kor’s Heights, where the old families and the nouveaux riches have erected a paradise out of sight of the masses. Clean air replaces the stench of the iron foundries and the rot of the harbor, while constricted alleyways and compact buildings give way to wide thoroughfares and beautifully maintained manors. I never liked going there, any hoax worth his bribe knew I didn’t belong, but then I couldn’t very well ask whatever patrician wanted ten ochres’ worth of brain loss to meet me outside the Earl. I shoved my hands into my pockets and doubled my pace, trying not to look like I was engaged in an errand of dubious legality.

I stopped at the address Yancey had provided. Through a wrought-iron gate I could make out acres of manicured lawn, even the dim light of the evening sufficient to mark the dormant flower beds and groomed topiary. I followed the brick wall toward the back of the estate-gentlemen in my profession rarely go in through the front door. After a few hundred yards I came to the much smaller, much uglier servant’s entrance.

The guard next to it was a ruddy-looking Tarasaihgn with shocks of flame-red hair, uncommon among the swamp dwellers, extending in a roughly even circle from scalp to chin. His uniform was worn but well kept, and so was the man beneath it, pushing fifty but with little more to show for it than a modest protuberance above his belt. “I’m a friend of Yancey the Rhymer,” I said. “I don’t have an invitation.”

To my surprise he held his hand out in greeting. “Dunkan Ballantine, and I don’t have an invitation either.”

I took his palm. “I guess it’s not a prerequisite to stand guard.”

“It isn’t one to enter either, least not for someone Yancey’s vouched for.”

“He inside already?”

“Wouldn’t be a party without the Rhymer on hand to entertain the highborn.” He looked around with an exaggerated suggestion of secrecy. “Course between me and you, he saves his best stuff for between sets! You’ll probably find him outside, adding to the kitchen smoke.” He winked at me and I laughed.

“Thanks, Dunkan.”

“No problem, no problem. Maybe you’ll see me on the way out.”

I followed a pebble-lined path through the verdant lawn toward the back of the mansion. I could make out the sound of music and the familiar scent of dreamvine on the chill evening breeze. The first I assumed came from the party, but the second I attributed to the small, dark-skinned figure leaning against the shadow of the three-story brick estate and mumbling rhythmically.

Yancey passed me the twist he had been working on without interrupting his perfectly syncopated flow. The Rhymer’s vine was good, as always, a sticky blend but not unduly harsh, and I spiraled silvery indigo into the night.

His final bar hammered home. “Safe living.”

“And you, brother. Glad to see you made it out here. You’ve been a little shaky lately.”

“I’ve been taking a lot of naps. Did I miss your set?”

“First one, got the band on now. Ma says hey. She wants to know why you haven’t been coming round lately. I told her it’s because she keeps trying to catch you a wife.”

“Astute as always,” I said. “Who am I walking in on?”

His eyes narrowed and he took the joint from my outstretched hand. “You don’t know?”

“Your message just gave the address.”

“This the king ape himself, brother. Rojar Calabbra the Third, Duke of Beaconfield.” He grinned, white teeth sharp against his skin and the night behind it. “The Smiling Blade.”

I let out a low whistle, wishing now I hadn’t gotten high. The Smiling Blade-famed courtier, celebrated duelist, and enfant terrible. He was supposed to be strong with the Crown Prince, and he was supposed to be the deadliest swordsman since Caravollo the Untouched opened a vein after his boy lover died of the Red Fever twenty summers past. Mostly Yancey played for the younger sons of minor nobles and mid-level aristos slumming. He really was moving up in the world. “How’d you meet him?”

“You know my skills. The man saw me rhyme something somewhere, made himself an opening for me to fill.” Yancey was not given to undue humility. He exhaled a stream of smoke through his nostrils, and it pooled about his face, wreathing his skull in a spectral, sterling aurora. “The question is, why does he want to meet you?”

“I had assumed he wanted to buy some drugs, and you let him know I was the man to speak with. If he brought me up here for dancing lessons, I imagine he’ll be pissed with the both of us.”