“Lucky for you that’s the cheap one,” Kana said, holding her hand out for the bill of lading. She passed her eyes over it, clicked the beads on her figuring board, and wrote a number at the bottom of the bill. She looked up at Damond and pointed three fingers at the Dartinae. It was the motion she was supposed to use so he’d know it was time.
“Thumb, please,” he said, and the Dartinae held out his hand. Damon pricked it, squeezed out a single drop of blood, and wiped it with the white cloth. The smear of red was unremarkable, as they always were. “Pass,” Damond said.
“Well thank God for that,” Dabid Sinnitlong said dryly. “How much are you dunning me for today, Kana?”
“Same as I ever do,” the inspector said. “Now pay it and get out. I’ve a line behind you.”
This was the banter, the human voices, that Damond would have been without if he’d followed the rules too close. His whole day would have been spent in silence, watching people come through the doorway, seeing their mouths move, watching the papers go back and forth from Kana’s desk. Then three fingers up, and he could hear his own voice traveling through his flesh rather than the air. Thumb, please, like he was underwater. Like he was one of the Drowned. The prick, the dot of blood, the swipe with the white cloth. Though by midday the cloth would get to looking pretty gory itself.
As it was, Qort arrived in the middle morning, wandering in and out of the station at odd intervals so that Damond had to pretend he couldn’t hear the whole time. Still, listening was more diverting than the isolation of temporary deafness, even if he couldn’t say anything himself. Most of the morning was dull. A Yemmu woman coming up from the western Keshet to take up house with her cousin. A Tralgu man hauling poppy seeds for the cunning men’s shops. A Firstblood woman sneaking Timzinae goods out of Inentai for refugee families living in Lôdi. The river trades were more interesting for Damond because they spoke of the southern lands. He didn’t have much interest in anyplace with winters colder or darker than Borja.
The Firstblood man came in just before the station shut for midday. He wore a robe the colorless brown of sparrows and stood before Kana with a patient smile, like there was a joke that only he was in on. Damond’s experience of Firstbloods was that a lot of them were smug like that, so he didn’t think much of it. Not at first.
“State your name.”
“Kirmizi rol Gomlek,” the man said.
“What’s your business?”
“I have come to take audience before your Regos.”
Kana widened her eyes and bared her teeth. “Audience with the Regos, ah? The Regos know about that yet?”
“She will,” the Firstblood said. “And from my words shall she profit greatly. There is a darkness that has fallen upon the world. Even now, it walks the streets of your city unfettered and free. I have come to cleanse it.”
“Ah,” Kana said. Even if he had been deaf, Damond thought he would have recognized the tension and unease in her shoulders. He took a tighter grip on his blade. “How many in your party, then?”
“We are seven,” the man said.
“Coming from?”
“Sarakal.”
Kana nodded. “Where in Sarakal?”
“Outside Inentai.”
“Not inside it?”
“We have been traveling among the towns for some time,” the man said.
“Carrying anything for trade?”
“Only truth, and that we give freely to all who listen.”
“Right,” Kana said. “No papers, then? It’s ten lengths of silver for entrance.”
The man took a purse from his belt, counted out ten coins, and placed them on the table before her, each one making a sharp tap as he placed it. Kana took them, looked to Damond, and lifted three fingers together.
“Thumb, please,” Damond said. His heart was beating fast. It wasn’t possible, was it? It couldn’t be truth.
The Firstblood scowled deeply. He turned his gaze to the blade, the bloodied cloth, and shook his head. “We will not need to do this. You would be foolish to insist.”
“It’s a… it’s needed. Protocol,” Damond said, but in truth he did feel a bit silly. The Firstblood shook his head.
“Listen to my voice, friend. There is no need. It would be foolish to insist. Better that we let this go. Better for you, and for me, and for your people. Nothing good can come from insisting. Better to let it go.”
Damon’s throat thickened and he nodded, lowering the thin blade. A kind of deep embarrassment was spreading through him. Here he was, a guard of the city, poking strangers at the word of God alone knew who. Qort was likely having him do it just as a show of contempt.
“Listen to my voice,” the Firstblood said again. “There is no—”
The door opened and Ammu Qort came in. The Firstblood turned to him, anger in his eyes.
“What’s the matter here, inspector?” the prime demanded.
“Nothing, sir,” Kana said, sounding dazed. “It’s just this man—”
“Is he processed?” Qort said.
“He’s paid,” Damond said, not realizing that he was proving he hadn’t taken the wax. “But the blood… it seems like we should just—”
Qort scooped the blade from Damond’s hand and grabbed the Firstblood’s wrist, and before any of them could speak, a tiny drop of crimson was on a corner of the white cloth. And in it, skittering wildly, a tiny black spider.
“Fucking hell!” Qort shouted, jumping back.
“Drop your weapons,” the Firstblood shouted. “You cannot win against me. You have already lost—”
“His voice’s poison!” Qort shouted. “Don’t listen to him! Don’t hear him!”
Some part of Damond understood and he screamed. It was wordless at first, but loud. And then, as he pushed the Firstblood back through the door to the quay, he added syllables. MA-LA-LAL-BAY-AB-ABA! ZA-MAM-BABA! Nonsense gabbling like a bored child singing in a yard, but it drowned out whatever the Firstblood was saying. His own blood seemed to rush white-hot in his veins as he pushed the Firstblood back. Kana was scrambling toward the loaders and dock guards, shouting at them, but Damond couldn’t hear her over his own screaming any more than he could hear the spider-infected thing.
The Firstblood was trying to yell at him, but Damond’s voice was louder, and he shoved the man back, and back, and back again. BA-BA-YA-BA-MA-BABA! YE-BE-YE-BEY-BE! And Qort had a rope around the Firstblood man’s neck. The Firstblood reached for the noose, clawing at it. Damond stopped shouting.
“Come on, you bastard!” Qort shouted. “Help me with this!”
The rope around the man’s neck was tied on the other end to a stone anchor weight. Together, Damond and Qort pushed it to the river’s edge, and then into it. To their right the guards under Kana’s direction were throwing lit lanterns onto a boat that was trying to throw off its moorings. The anchor weight sank, hauling the Firstblood down behind it. Damond watched until all he could see were the soles of the Firstblood’s shoes, kicking in the gloom, then going still.
Qort lay on the quay beside him, breathing hard. The prime’s expression was one of rage and triumph. Damond tried a smile.
“Forgot the wax, sir. Sorry.”
Marcus
Marcus swung hard and low, but the blow didn’t connect. Yardem danced back just outside the arc of the attack and brought his own sword down. Marcus shifted, parrying with a hard clack of wood against wood. The impact stung his fingers. He stepped back as Yardem pressed his advantage. Marcus blocked, blocked again, dodged, and tried to slip under an attack. Yardem’s sword caught him just above the temple, and the world went a little quiet for a moment. He felt his mind willing his body to shift away, to raise his own blade in reply, but nothing happened. His hands and feet had gone sluggish, and he stumbled to the icy brickwork of the pit.