Daniel Polansky - Low Town

It would intrigue the Blade that I’d asked for a spot on the guest list after he had sent men to murder me, and curiosity alone is often enough to get in with a noble, desperate as they are for anything that breaks up the monotony of profligate hedonism. If his instinct for melodrama wasn’t enough, self-interest might be. Though he had pushed us into open warfare, I didn’t figure he had the steel to play at it for long. He would hope that my message signaled a desire for reconciliation, and would leap at any hint of a truce.

That being said, it was one of the several potential hitches within my plan that I had not, in fact, been invited to the Duke of Beaconfield’s Midwinter party. It would be a chilly walk home if I’d played this wrong.

But I hadn’t. The doorman waved me onward, and I brushed past him and headed down the hallway.

Whatever else you wanted to say about the Blade, he knew how to throw a soiree. A cunningly wrought cage of filigreed silver hid the ceiling, giving the impression that we were carousing in the belly of some great beast. Baubles of glass and semiprecious stones trailed beneath it, drawing the eye with their cunning design. Closer inspection revealed every third of these was a tray of joints wrapped in brightly colored paper. The floor had been covered with glistening drifts of fake snow, ingeniously mimicking the genuine article. In the center of the room was a ten-foot-high ice sculpture of Sakra, his hand outstretched to bless the revelers below. The core of the sculpture had been filled with some sort of liquid light that permeated the chamber, reflecting off the ornaments and bathing everyone in a scintillating iris of color.

If Beaconfield was broke, you couldn’t tell it from the spread.

The decor was matched by the opulence of the guests, who filled the room with a low hum of festivity and amusement. Next to me a pudgy noble with bad skin and a cloak made of peacock feathers gestured flamboyantly to an anemic youth dressed in skintight, gold-threaded pants. To my left a middle-aged woman who might have been comely if she weren’t so desperate to appear youthful was wearing a choker with an emerald the size of a baby’s fist.

A server came by, shockingly beautiful in a silver costume that exaggerated more than it concealed. On her tray were flutes of champagne and the vials of pixie’s breath I had sold to Beaconfield the day of the duel. She accompanied these two with a look that suggested there was a third option on offer. I took a glass of bubbly and declined the rest, and the vixen cycled onward. The champagne was very good, as would be expected.

The woman with the choker slid over, inspecting me with all the subtlety of a dog in heat-it seemed she had no better taste in men than jewelry. Up close she looked like someone better seen from farther away. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure,” she began.

“Are you mad? I had you last year at Lord Addington’s spring formal! We went behind his pagoda and I took you from the rear. You said I was the best you’d ever had!”

The color drained from her face-clearly she didn’t find my scenario entirely implausible. Stammering an explanation she hurried off, leaving me to watch the celebration solo. I grabbed another glass of bubbly the next time a waitress came by.

Beaconfield was standing across from the statue of Sakra, as befitted his status as host and his general self-importance. He waved me over as if he’d just noticed my presence, though in fact he’d been watching me since I’d come in.

Up close the light was blinding, vivid orange-yellow washing away detail and nuance. The Blade had his arm tight around a perfect-looking Mirad woman, and smiled at me like we shared a joke. No reason to allow my slaughter of his associates to color our burgeoning friendship.

“Darling, this is the man I was telling you about.” He made no move to introduce us.

“Charmed,” I said, without taking my eyes off Beaconfield. “This is quite a party. It must have set you back a copper or two.”

Beaconfield leaned toward me, champagne overrunning the lip of his glass. “What’s money?”

“Nothing, if you got it. Wake up broke and you’ll start refiguring your scales.”

He swallowed the rest of his drink. “I have to admit, I was surprised to hear you’d be joining us. I didn’t think you went in for this sort of tomfoolery.” His hand ran down the nape of the girl’s neck, her pleasant docility unaltered.

“I couldn’t let the evening slip by without paying you the compliments of the season.”

“I love Midwinter-the promise of rebirth and renewal, the past year forgotten, the new one yet ahead.”

“If that’s how you look at it.”

“And how do you look at it?”

“As a distraction from the cold,” I said.

The Blade turned hard. “The cold came early this year.”

“Yes, it did.”

Beaconfield’s woman broke the silence. “Do you have a resolution?”

“I’m resolving to make it to next Midwinter,”

I said. “That doesn’t sound too challenging.”

“Some of us will have trouble with it.”

I took the approach of another guest as an opportunity to make my exit. “Far be it for me to monopolize the attentions of our host,” I said. “And I’m afraid I need to find the powder room.” I bowed to Beaconfield and the slattern and made for an exit.

A guard slumped against the main stairway, clearly not ecstatic about manning a post four rooms away from a budding orgy. I built a roll into my gait. “Say brother, which way to the head? I’m about to drain down my pants.” While he decided whether household security took priority over service to the master’s guests I brushed past him. He offered my back a belated grunt of agreement, and I took a side corridor and found my way to the servant’s entrance.

Getting onto the mansion’s grounds wouldn’t be difficult for Kendrick, the defenses little more than a dozen acres of greenery protected by a tall hedge. Nor did I imagine he’d have much trouble with the lock, although it was new and well designed. But I’d been doing this too long to pass up an advantage, and I slid open the bolt and unfastened the bottom catch before heading back the way I’d come.

The party was in full swing, the conviviality of the early evening giving way to an outright bacchanal. Multicolored clouds of smoke hovered above the congregation, and the once immaculate counterfeit snow drifts had been scattered about haphazardly. The hanging trays of dreamvine were distinctly depleted, a far cry from the cornucopia of narcotic delights they had once offered. Off in the corner I could see a fat man doing something with one of the servers which I understood to be frowned upon in polite society. The magical light emanating from the statue of Sakra had faded from a bright orange to a duller violet, rendering the proceedings at once malefic and chimerical.

I’m not sure what it was that possessed me to speak to Brightfellow, our previous interactions not being so enjoyable as to strongly warrant sequel. When I’d seen him slip in earlier in the evening I was worried he’d attach himself to me, and I’d be stuck trading barbs all night. Instead he’d taken a seat in the back and downed every glass of booze that came within reach, supplementing it with frequent sips from a pocket flask.

It made all the sense in the world to leave him alone. If Kendrick came through, and if Celia’s working was right, there was no point in shaking him down, not that the sorcerer had shown himself easily susceptible to intimidation. Maybe it was my innate drive toward making trouble. Maybe I just felt like killing time.

But I think the truth was I relished the opportunity to give him a few solid kicks now that he was on the ground. He was an easy man to hate; indeed he almost seemed to cultivate it. It’s better not to feel that way about whoever you’re going up against, personal enmity clouds the mind-but then self-control was never my strong suit. I thought about the children, and Crispin, and then I was on my feet and heading over.