“Yes,” Irion lied.

  The archbishop retrieved his chasuble from a coat hook, smiling. “Then we owe you a worthy percentage.”

  *

  That same morning, as the head of the Chapwyn church departed Irion’s graces in an armed carriage, Seasmil entered for the first time in many years the dirt and grime of the Thunder Bustle.

  “I wish you didn’t look like a raccoon.” Niera took her eyes off her father’s face. It brightened her spirits a bit he was taking her on this adventure. New streets. Tall buildings. People who peeked through windows like elves. Seasmil held her tight by the hand, touching the bruises around his eyes as she asked him again: “Where are we going?”

  “To see a man.”

  Despite his injuries and mission, Seasmil couldn’t take his mind off the brothel they’d passed right before officially stepping foot into the district. Niera’s mother was far from amused when he’d announced the day’s itinerary. Her silence would have been all the more painful if she’d known about his many sojourns to that whorehouse.

  Staid had her passions. A favorite was rubbing Seasmil’s back. He would lay still, his mind not. The secret hurt him. He didn’t want to betray Staidilia, but he also didn’t want to feel the nothingness he so often did. He hated keeping his private arrangements the caustic, painful, hidden note that would crush his wife. But he also hated that he became relieved whenever she’d leave the room, or their dreary home. More, Seasmil had found that stronger than love is the desire to be loved. Faces change, names are replaced, and, in the end, regardless, the need is met.

  “Daddy, are you daydreaming?”

  Seasmil stared at the blank wall of a dead-end alley. “Sorry, honey.” He led them out, back onto the road toward Little Pelat.

  “Dreaming about what?”

  “Grown-up stuff. Excited to see Little Pelat?”

  Indeed she was. Her father had spent the better part of breakfast explaining how the little people from faraway islands had made a veritable village. There was no way last night was a coincidence. What he omitted from the day’s outing was word at the brothel had shed a potentially useful light. There was a magic user among the Pelats, one not connected in any way to the House of Ordrid. Irion had sent those men to the vault, for whatever reason, and Irion would not know Seasmil’s newest move.

  “What kind of man?” Niera asked as she skipped.

  One who can show me what that old hag said to you. “You believe in magic?”

  “Of course I do, Daddy. It’s all around.”

  “Someone who knows how to use it, love.”

  Due to the incessant harassment from longtime locals, Little Pelat had erected walls and palisades, allowing these days but one clear way in and out. Just before this entrance, a stone’s toss from the first row of Pelati shops, milling about a stoop, stared a group of foul-faced men, barring Seasmil’s way.

  Where once he’d walked with impunity, he instead now took full consideration of his delicate cargo. No doubt he still appeared menacing. Despite walking with an attentive sprite in a frilled yellow dress, his scowl kept the miscreants at bay. Except, of course, for an especially drunk one.

  “Looks like she gave you a wallopin’,” the snarly, short drunkard said. Seasmil counted five, but that didn’t take into account those who may have been watching from the concealment of near-noon shade.

  “He don’t look to be from around here,” spoke another.

  “On the contrary,” Seasmil said after swallowing with some success the coal burning in his throat. “Used to live right here in the Bustle.”

  “Is that so,” the drunkard said, dislodging himself from the stoop. “And then what, Your Grace? Struck it rich and moved to the Morgeltine? Come back to show the kiddy what humble starts ya rose from?”

  “Daddy?” Niera tugged at his arm.

  “It’s all right, sweetheart—fellahs, it’s busy day for us.” He’d seen kidnappers before. He’d once alluded them in times that, to his daughter, he would never tell. These men looked to be of the sort, lounging after a night’s work. They’d be fools to try anything in the light of day, but fools were abundant. He reaffirmed his grip. “Excuse us, please.”

  “So that be it,” one said. None moved. “Make a little visit to the little brownies takin’ our jobs, cloggin’ our streets with their smell and squealin’ damn pigs.”

  “Come on then,” the drunk said, wheeling his fists, scanning his audience for approval. “You’re a big lad. Best me an pass. All in Nilghordian fun.”

  Seasmil sighed. “I’d rather not,” he said, envisioning his dagger.

  “Porpho,” said another, seeing Seasmil’s eyes. “Maybe put down the punchers and let ’em pass. It’s early for—”

  “Shut up, coward!” cried swaying Porpho. Enraged by his colleague’s gutlessness, Porpho sent forward a glob of spit.

  Seasmil saw the knives. He saw the one in the back unspooling a rope. He wiped the phlegm from his cheek and broke the drunkard’s jaw.

  “Get ’em!” a voice yelled, prompting a flimsy ring. Niera stood like an ivory statue; her hand vanished from Seasmil’s grasp as he slammed an assailant to the stones.

  “Stop that!” A strange voice burned through the crowd.

  Seasmil had unsheathed his dagger, causing Niera to let out an ear-ripping wail.

  “Stop that!” the voice said again, this time much nearer. “Stupid Rehleians.”

  A tiny man jumped into the melee. Swinging the bulbous end of his club, the Pelat opened up the ring. One slow-mover took a thud in the stomach, met after with the sharp smack of wood meeting a weak arm bone. The Pelat looked up and past Seasmil. As quickly as he’d joined the fight, like a brown spider, the little man jumped out of the crowd and hid his club behind his back.

  “What goes on here?” yet another voice now said, this one condescending upon the whole lot.

  Seasmil tried to catch his breath. As he tried to calm Niera’s explosion, he couldn’t help but notice the nerved murmuring that was still spreading amongst his attackers. Spackled in Porpho’s blood, Seasmil turned to see he was eye-level with the black nostrils of an armored horse. He continued his eyes up. The clean-shaven Wardsman leaned forward, overtly thumbing the hilt of his primary sword.

  Seasmil sheathed his blade, but it was the Pelat who spoke. “They fight all time, sir. Bat for business.” Seasmil and Niera both watched as he pointed his club at the first of the Pelati shops just beyond the ruffian’s precious stoop.

  “I see,” said the Wardsman. “Quite a mess we have.” He paused to scan the crowd. “Porpho!” he delighted. “You wish to go on another ride with me?”

  But Porpho couldn’t respond—could hardly walk. The slug mumbled as best he could his rebellious obscenities as his men lifted him onto his feet.

  “What we have here,” declared the Wardsman, “is a clear case of civil disobedience.”

  “Daddy, is he a good guy or bad?”

  The lone member of the Metropolitan Ward swung a whistle around his finger. “One blast. Just one and the wagons, they will come.”

  The scene dispersed after every single man, including Seasmil and the Pelat, lined up to move a coin from their pocket to a municipal saddlebag.

  The Pelat waved his club and yelled curses in a foreign tongue at the departing, laughing rider.

  “I sorry,” said the Pelat as Seasmil ducked to enter his shop. The shop was as Seasmil heard it would be: an unclean floor below primal cuts of hung pork. The butcher went in and out of a backroom, cursing and grumbling.

  “Don’t touch,” Seasmil laughed, slapping Niera’s hand when she tried to finger the lips of a shrunken human head.

  Several shrunken heads later, the Pelat reappeared. “Here you are,” he said, handing Seasmil a piece of vellum. Seasmil looked at the directions written on it. “Sorry took so long, couldn’t find ink—you want to buy some meat? Maybe precious loin chops for you precious girl?”

  Seasmil had asked for information. Word was a defrocked priest, a Chapwyn deserter, had sought protection amongst the Pelats. “No thank you,” he said kindly, parting with another coin he’d intended for this mysterious religious rogue.

  Soon Seasmil and Niera were again treading the streets of the Thunder Bustle. He hadn’t been exposed much to the ways of Nilghorde’s newest citizens, but as the two followed the butcher’s landmarks and scribbled lefts and rights, he walked a bit easier. Compulsion to hold onto Niera like a chest among pirates lessened as they parted the sweet smokes of the sidewalk fires, skirted around colorful stations, and bopped past throngs of ever-singing chimes. The onset of a headache had moved from his black eyes to the base of his skull. All the walking. All the damn fighting. That butcher had every reason to think he’d saved a potential customer from a righteous beating.

  “I’m getting old,” Seasmil grieved after they’d stopped to buy Niera a Pelati doll. The seller bowed graciously, confirming by her gestures that they were indeed very close. From there they took the final right and soon, surrounded by high walls of buildings the Pelats were busy gutting, he stood outside the locked door of a derelict shack.

  “Is this someone’s house?” Niera asked, running her palm over her doll’s pig hair.

  When Seasmil knocked, a man paler than he emerged.

  “Hi,” said Niera.

  Glancing at the child before lifting his eyes to scrutinize Seasmil, the man, dressed in a filthy robe that had once matched his complexion, softly placed his hands on his hips. “I must say,” he said, “those eyes are a bandit’s mask of sorts, one could say. But if you are an assassin, I doubt you’d have brought your daughter.”

  What followed was a talk, a petition, no less uncomfortable to Seasmil than his earlier chat with Irion. It was a blessing Niera was there. He hadn’t considered the disarming power a six-year-old could bring to a cold introduction. She was there for other reasons. Nevertheless, before long they were invited into a candlelit room.

  “Priest Bonaveere,” the man said, shutting and relocking the door. “At least that was my name. They just call me Bone around here.” He smiled. “Here, sweetheart,” he then said, guiding Niera to the only stool. When she was seated he turned squarely to her father and said, “This is a most unusual request.”

  “I, I’m sorry. I don’t know where else to turn. If you have something that can help, this pouch is yours.” Seasmil of course was referring to the pouch of coins he’d brought, now three light, which he jingled in a way that made Bone roll his eyes.

  “I am no petty soothsayer,” the once-priest said. “But,” studying the silver Seasmil insisted on spreading out onto a bare table, “you say Ansul’s True took part?”

  Seasmil placed a hand on Niera’s shoulder. “Honey, what did those other men look like?”

  “They were in white—and had swords. I don’t think they were very nice.”

  “That’s them, all right,” Bone chuckled, crossing his arms. He then took a breath and finished explaining his plight. He had been in hiding ever since his vocal condemnation over the church’s move toward irreligious tyranny. There was a price on his head, though the church was keeping the manhunt under wraps as best their haughty declarations had been able.

  “I’m not sure what your old church is up to, but they’re rubbing elbows with some shady folk.”

  “And that,” Bone said, sliding the coins off the table into a pouch of his own, “is why I think I shall help you, Seasmil. Please, sit down.”

  Soon the esoteric works of the church were on full display. Coming out of sacks were odd garments, components, and a large bronze bowl. Seasmil had no issue leaving Niera in the shack when he’d been asked to fetch a bucket of water from a nearby well. Niera had taken a delight in the setup, distracting its architect with excited questions about spirits and the afterlife.

  When Seasmil returned, an acrid odor was filling the room. Bone sat over the bowl, tending to a small flame that burned within. He ushered Seasmil over, who then carefully poured the water, resulting instantly in a tongued flume of white smoke.

  A strand of Niera’s hair, a pearl ground to powder, smaller bowls of crushed this and that, the feathers of an owl—all went into the broth at their prescribed times as the severe man repeated a chant that reminded Seasmil of the ones Somyellia used to sing. Before long, the smoke engulfed the once-priest so that not even the bright blue biretta he’d capped his head with could be seen as he spoke into the pops and gurgles.

  Bone waved the smoke away. “It’s time.”

  At his directive, Seasmil sat Niera beside him. “Just do as the man says.”

  Bone first spoke to Niera much like Seasmil did, referring to her pretty dress and pretty new doll. Then Seasmil watched his words change. Sounds of a secret sect put his child into something like a trance. Her head swayed. Her eyes drearily shut. Then they reopened, her neck stiff. She looked not at but through Bone. He looked up at Seasmil, who gave him a nod.

  He slipped one of Niera’s hands down into the bowl, making sure her fingers sank below the calmed surface. Her other hand he placed in his own, and here he said a final word.

  All at once the bowl became a glistening mirror. In it, from vague hues, were emerging the forms and borders of a familiar scene. Having witnessed Somyellia’s work, Seasmil still almost toppled over with dizziness when words wisped up from the figures in the broth:

  “Lean closer, Niera.” An old woman—the old woman—said to his daughter from down in the vault. Niera, dressed as she’d been, did as the wicked woman said. “Good, that’s good. The fates are kind to an old woman. Oh, Niera. How I have a little tale for you.”

  “Is it a happy story?”

  “Oh, I am afraid not, dear thing. The best stories are usually sad. You must promise me, little girl, that you will run home and tell your father this tale.”

  “Yes, and he will get a rope.”

  “Yes, quite. Now, there was once a cruel, wicked man—a man named Irion. Have you ever heard of him? No? Well, this cruel and wicked man had a cruel and wicked son. And to this son he once said: Somyellia, a loose and low Ordrid whom you never had to meet, she sacrificed her life for our House. Though she didn’t know it. A means to an end, Morden. Weaved us a mighty curse, she did. One that cost her her very life. This is why you must take serious your studies, be you the hammer or a useful nail. Perhaps if she’d proven better she’d still be with us. No bother. May her sulking, hulking lover—what was his name?—Seasmil. Seasmil of the House of Oleugsby. A face you wouldn’t soon forget. A real madman, that one. May he shed a tear for the rest of us over our dearest departed. One who didn’t take serious her studies. Now get back to your tinctures.”

  *

  “And now,” Archbishop Drot said to his gleaming audience. “We officiate the brand-new Ansul of Chapwyn Home for Orphans.” The crowd cheered. The archbishop handed Irion the ceremonial shears; who then cut the ribbon hanging across the orphanage’s polished doors.

  “As the sun shines above us,” said Irion, calming the packed gathering of parishioners and parents eager to sign away their obligations. “So do shine the good graces of the church.”

  As the people cried and cheered, one face did not smile. Shouldering through the crowd, Seasmil kept his eyes on his target. Like a zealot marching toward martyrdom, he made his way past priest and parishioner and armed members of the Metropolitan Ward. He hated his concentration being disrupted, but thoughts of the past few hours still plagued him.

  He had no reason not to trust that defrocked priest. Bone’s eyes had worn the concern of a man watching another learn of ill and unwanted news. More, he had drawn Seasmil a new set of directions: the route he himself slithered when needing to avoid the Porphos of the world and breathe beyond the confines of Little Pelat. This had gotten them home, and in the wee hours, after his daughter—who remembered nothing—and her mother—who demanded to know everything—had both gone to bed, he’d made up his mind that something had to be done.

  “Where do you think you’re goin’, black eyes?” one of the black-sashed guards said, putting a hand on Seasmil’s chest, stopping that something in its tracks.

  “To pay homage.”

  “Then do so at the tithing box, like the rest.”

  Seasmil sent the man to the ground without a thought in his helmet. At first only an old codger had seen, but his shriek at the sight of the second hewn guard sent the place into a whirl.

  “Get him!” someone cried. Seasmil shot forward, taking a swing at Irion with a closed fist. Irion ducked, far faster than Seasmil had seen men do.

  “You,” Irion sneered.

  Seasmil cocked back to try another, but the archbishop had already bellowed. The attending Ward had snapped out of their complacency, and the crowd now descended.

  Seasmil gritted his teeth, pushing and shoving and tripping and knocking senseless the shocked mob. Heads were cracked and a third mansion guard got a mangling under his boot before the Ward broke through the thickening ring.

  Seasmil had brought his dagger, but he had, perhaps foolishly, hoped for something other than murder. Now a member of the Ward buried a blade into Seasmil’s hide. His scream alone parted the crowd.

  He had no way of knowing, in the moments after, who he attacked or what damage he’d done. Blinded by blood and pain, he burst through and was once again free. He had escaped, though, once home and tending an egregious but non-lethal wound, he could only surmise he was now a wanted man.

  *

  Nothing is avenged

  My despair a raven

  One who perches laughingly

  On wearisome shoulder

  While I wither slow to dirt