“So we’re not actually playing characters at all, then?”
“Well, hell.” Locke cracked his knuckles and shrugged. “It’s one less detail for us to muck up. Anyway, Patience said these people would eat out of our hands. Let’s put that to the test.”
“Now then,” said Jean, turning back to the heavyset young man. “Start talking again.”
“I’m delighted to see you alive and well, gentlemen!” The stranger came closer, and Jean noted his round, ruddy features, the look of a man eager to please and be pleased. And yet his eyes, behind slender optics, were shrewd and measuring. His hair had failed to retain any sort of hold on the areas forward of his ears, but he had a thick and well-tended plait that hung, black as a raven’s wing, to the small of his back. “When we heard about the wreck, we were distraught. The Amathel is lately so mild, it’s hard to credit—”
“Wreck,” said Locke. “ Ah, yes, the wreck! Yes. The terrible, convenient wreck. What else could compel us to be here without decent clothing or purses? Well, I’m afraid everything happened in such a terrible rush, but I’m told that we survived.”
“Ha! Splendid. Fear nothing, gentlemen, I’m here to mend your situation in every particular. My name is Nikoros.”
“Sebastian Lazari.” Locke extended his hand. Nikoros shook it with a look of surprise on his face.
“Tavrin Callas,” said Jean. Nikoros’ grip was dry and firm.
“Well, I say, thank you, gentlemen, thank you! What an unexpected mark of confidence. I take it very kindly.”
“Mark of confidence?” said Locke. “Forgive us, Nikoros. We’re new to Karthain. I’m not sure we understand what we’ve done.”
“Oh,” said Nikoros. “Damned stupid of me. I apologize. It’s just that … well, you’ll probably think us such a pack of credulous ninnies, but I assure you … it’s tradition. Here in Karthain we’re close, extremelyclose, with our given names. On account of, you know, the Presence.”
It was easy enough for Jean to hear the capital “P” as Nikoros pronounced the word.
“You mean,” he said, “the Bonds—”
“Yes, the magi of the Isas Scholastica. When we speak of ‘the Presence,’ well—we’re just being polite. We’re quite used to them, really. They’re not the objects of, ah, curiosity they might be elsewhere. In fact, I can assure you they look almost like ordinary people. You’d be amazed!”
“I don’t doubt it,” said Locke. “Well, this is useful stuff. I take it we should withhold our given names when we’re introduced to Karthani?”
“Well, yes. It’s the hoariest old superstition, but it’s been our custom since the fall of the old Throne. Most of us use birth-order titles or nicknames. I’m called Nikoros Via Lupa, since my office is on the Avenue of the Wolves. But plain Nikoros suits as well.”
“We’re obliged to you,” said Jean. “Now, what is it that you do, exactly?”
“I’m a trade insurer. Ships and caravans. But, ah, more relevantly, I’m on the Deep Roots party standing committee. I’m sort of a shepherd for party business.”
“You have real authority over party affairs?”
“Oh, quite. Funds and operations, with some latitude. But, ah, when it comes to that, gentlemen, my most important duty is to carry out your instructions. Once I’ve helped you settle in, of course.”
“And you understand the nature of our employment,” said Locke. “The realnature of it, that is.”
“Oh, oh, quite.” Nikoros tapped the side of his nose with a finger several times and smiled. “Those of us at the top understand that half the fight is, well, unconventional. We’re all for it! After all, the Black Iris are out to do the same to us. We think they might even bring in specialists like yourselves.”
“Be assured they have,” said Locke. “How long have you been involved with all this?”
“Party business, you mean? Oh, ten years or so. It’s the biggest thing going, socially. More fun than billiards. I worked with our, ah, specialist last election. We pulled off nine seats, and nearly won! We have such hopes, this time around.”
“Well,” said Jean, “the sooner we’re settled in, the sooner we can nourish those hopes.”
“Right! To the carriage. We’ll get you two wrapped up in something more suitable.” He beckoned, and a slender blonde woman in a black velvet jacket met them halfway as they moved toward the carriage. “Allow me to present Seconddaughter Morenna, Morenna Clothiers.”
“Your servant.” She curtsied, and a brass-weighted measuring line appeared in her hands as swiftly as an assassin’s knife. “It seems you have a sartorial emergency.”
“Yes,” said Locke. “Circumstance has flung us down and danced upon us.”
“Clothes first,” said Nikoros as he hustled Locke and Jean into the enclosed carriage box, “then we’ll see to your funds.” Morenna came last. Nikoros drew the door shut and pounded on the underside of the carriage roof. As it rattled off, Morenna seized the collar of Locke’s slop jacket and pulled him firmly to a hunched-over standing position.
“I beg your deepest pardon,” she muttered, plying her measuring line around his neck and shoulders. “We usually keep a fellow on hand at the shop to take the measurements of our gentlemen customers, but he’s taken ill. I assure you that I make these intrusions as impersonally as a physiker.”
“It would never occur to me to be offended,” said Locke in a dazed voice.
“Marvelous. If you’ll excuse me, sir, we’ll just need to have your jacket off.” She somehow managed to fold, wrench, and twirl Locke within the confined space, removing his jacket at last and causing a small rain of twice-baked ship’s biscuits to patter around the carriage interior. “Oh my, I had no idea—”
“Not your fault,” said Locke with an embarrassed cough. “I, uh, like to feed birds.”
Under his arms, around his chest, along the outside of his legs—Morenna took measurements from Locke with the speed of a fencer scoring touches. Soon it was Jean’s turn.
“Same thing, sir,” she muttered while she fussed with his coat.
“There’s no need—If you’ll give me a moment—,” said Jean, but it was too late.
“Heavens,” said Morenna as she pulled his hatchets out of their makeshift hiding place at the small of his back. “These have seen some use.”
“I’ve had to settle the occasional misunderstanding.”
“Do you prefer to carry them tucked away like this under a coat or jacket?”
“There’s nowhere better.”
“Then I can show you several rigs that could be stitched into your coats. We’ve got leather harness, cloth straps, metal rings, all reliable and discreet. Tuck a whole arsenal into your breeches and waistcoats, if you like.”
“You’re my new favorite tailor,” said Jean, contentedly submitting to the darting play of the measuring line while the carriage rolled along.
3
THEIR JOURNEY took about ten minutes, while the sun rose and painted the walls and alleys around them with warm light. Jean took advantage of his window seat to form several impressions of Karthain along the way.
The first was that it was a city of tiered heights. As they moved inward from the waterfront, past the ship-filled lagoon, he saw that the more northerly sections of the city rose, hills and terraces alike, to a sort of plateau that must have been several hundred feet above the Ponta Corbessa. Nothing so extreme as Tal Verrar’s precipitous drops, but it did seems as though the gods or the Eldren had tilted the city about forty-five degrees toward the water after originally laying it out.
Furthermore, it seemed to be an unusually well-tended place. Perhaps Nikoros had chosen a route that would best flatter his city? Whatever the case, Jean couldn’t fail to note the swept streets, the clean white stone of the newer houses, the neatly trimmed trees, the smooth bubbling of every fountain and waterfall, or the decorative enamel mosaics on the cable cars sliding between the taller buildings.
Most striking was the character of the city’s Elderglass. Its bridges over the wide Karvanu (which poured down five separate white-foaming falls before it reached the heart of the city) were not solid arches, but rather suspension bridges made of thousands of panels of milky black Elderglass, connected by countless finger-thick lengths of glass cable to supporting towers like spindly caricatures of human temple spires.