Скотт Чинчин - The Night Parade

“Is Cardoc your only name?” she asked.

“No,” he said softly. “I am called Lucius.”

“Humph,” Burke muttered. “I didn’t know that.”

Cardoc looked over to the man. “You never asked.”

Ord stared at his plate and mumbled, “So that’s where that damned piece of sweetbread with honeyed jam went.”

Burke hugged his wife and rose from the floor. The blond woman took his hand for support and sprang to her feet, too. “We should split off into teams if we want to make the most of our time here. We need to learn all we can about this Kracauer gentleman. Varina will come with me. Ord, you go with Reisz. Cardoc—Lucius—if you would accompany Myrmeen, I would appreciate it.”

“Perhaps you should still call me Cardoc,” the mage said to Burke, then he turned to Myrmeen. “You may call me whatever you like, gentle lady.”

Varina whispered, “I have never heard that many words come out of that man’s mouth at one time, ever.”

“Maybe he’s in love,” Burke said jokingly.

His wife observed the manner in which the usually solemn mage regarded Myrmeen and said, “Perhaps you’re right at that.”

Reisz, who was close enough to hear their hushed conversation, hissed, “Come on, boy. Let’s go!”

Ord glanced at Burke, then nodded and dutifully followed the swarthy-skinned man from the room.

An hour later, Myrmeen had learned little more about Lucius Cardoc than she had known before they had left her chamber. His silence did not bother her and she found his presence strangely appealing. She had never felt comforted, particularly, by the proximity of a man. The men she had been with normally had a single agenda that they were pursuing when they were in her company. Their attempts at bravery or merely jovial entertainment led back to their painfully obvious desire to land her in bed. Cardoc had not seemed the least bit interested in achieving any goal but the one he had promised to aid her with, and she found his old-fashioned gallantry enormously appealing.

They had set off to find what he had described as the “rat traps,” the establishments favored by the city’s criminals. Soon they discovered what they had been looking for in the darkened gambling rooms of a pub known as the Two-Headed Mare. Myrmeen had asked Cardoc about the tavern’s unusual name, and he had told her that it related to the time of Arrival, when magic and nature had produced many such oddities. The bar’s owner had been a simple man with very little to his credit but his mare, which had been transformed into a freak by the strange magic unleashed during the arrival of the gods. A rich man in Calimport learned of the creature and paid an exorbitant amount for the horse. The man who had sold it used his newfound fortune to open the tavern. His daughter had been quite fond of the mare, and to appease her, he named the tavern after the horse.

“What a wonderful story,” Myrmeen said, though she was taken more with Cardoc’s graceful delivery than with the story’s content. Myrmeen sighed. She liked Cardoc, but she had a more important agenda to keep her thoughts trained on. The time had come to start asking questions of the lowlifes who populated the establishment. “Lucius, I’m going to—”

She stopped suddenly. The mage had vanished, leaving her alone. Covering her mouth as if she were yawning, she said, “You are still here, aren’t you?”

There was no reply.

Myrmeen was taken back by his abrupt disappearance and decided that he was a powerful man who could certainly take care of himself. For that matter, she was capable of the same. Sauntering up to a group of men in the midst of an intense game of chance, Myrmeen set her hand on the back of a chair occupied by an enormous, red-haired man dressed in a single boot and a strapped-on codpiece. His body was perfectly sculpted, without a trace of fat. The pile of clothing that rested at the next table obviously belonged to him and to three others seated at the table. The man who was still dressed in full mails and leathers was the evening’s winner. Myrmeen had no interest in him.

“Dragon’s teeth!” the nearly naked man howled as he threw down the strangely marked cards in his hand. He shoved his chair back with little regard for Myrmeen, who darted out of the way. Unlacing his last boot, he threw it on the pile, then looked down at his final remaining item of clothing.

“I’m out,” he said sullenly.

Myrmeen cleared her throat. The attention of all six men was suddenly directed to the luminous, dark-haired woman who stood before them. The man who had been winning, a younger man with straggly blond hair and hazel eyes—which burned with sudden desire—reached to the next table and dragged a chair over.

“Would you like to join us?” he asked lasciviously. “The game is not difficult. The stakes, well,” he said as he examined her from top to bottom with an eager gaze, “I’d say you have much that interests us.”

Myrmeen smiled and patted the shoulder of the red-haired, nearly nude man whose chair she stood beside. She leaned down and said, “I’ll buy back all you’ve lost if you’re willing to answer a few questions.”

The red-haired man raised an eyebrow. He was intrigued. “Depends on what kind of questions you have, now doesn’t it?”

“I’m trying to find a man,” she said.

An instant too late, she realized that her phrasing had been a bit too general. The other players rolled with laughter. Nearly every man at the table volunteered his services. Their comments became increasingly vulgar and surprisingly creative. The red-haired man was the only one who had simply laughed and not bragged about his qualifications for the job. Myrmeen reached down and placed her hand on his breast.

“A bit cold in here, wouldn’t you say?” she asked.

The man’s companions shifted the aim of their taunts and focused fully on his unfortunate condition.

“Come with me,” he growled and dragged her by the wrist to a table at the back room’s far end, where they could speak without being disturbed. “All right. Show me your gold. Prove to me that you can buy back my clothes.”

Myrmeen removed a single token. With it he would be able to purchase new leathers and boots at the marketplace and still have enough to cover his lodgings for a week.

“So tell me why I shouldn’t just take it from you, along with whatever else I want,” he said in a growling voice.

“To begin with, I’m not alone,” she said, wishing that Cardoc, if he were present, would do something to help her make her case. Nothing happened. “I’m here with friends. Besides that, I’m very good with a knife. If you tried to take any more than I was willing to offer, I’d hack off that piece of equipment you seemed so proud of just a few minutes ago. I hope my position is dear.”

“Indeed,” he said with a broad smile as he rubbed at his clean-shaven face. “You know, I even lost my beard in that game. They made me shave it off right there at the table!”

“I don’t have all night,” Myrmeen said as she slipped the token back into her pocket. “Will you help me?”

“All business, are you? Well, ask your questions,” he said, his smile fading.

“I’m looking for a man named Kracauer. He’s a—”

“I know him. I know where to find him. What else do you want to know?”

Myrmeen thought of the first words that she had heard from Dak after ten years of separation: The Night Parade is real. Every night after she had slain Dak, she had been unable to force away the nightmares from her childhood. When she closed her eyes she dreamt of monsters coming to take her soul. She knew it was unwise, but she also knew that if she did not ask about the nightmare people, she would regret it.