Ram had never set foot in Pazim’s, though he knew men who practically lived there. It didn’t surprise him that they had a secret back door; a brothel would have no shortage of customers who’d like to leave discreetly. Just like the Red Flute.
They came out in a damp cellar that stank of mold. It was dark, but Darun led them confidently up a creaky flight of stairs to a curtained doorway. The common room on the other side was likewise a large step down in quality from the one they’d left, but a good deal busier; blackbands could do some business on white day, but the sailors this place catered to were stuck idle until the following morning. None of the twenty-odd men and women crowded into the little room showed the slightest surprise at their appearance; the barkeeper nodded pleasantly at Darun. Thankfully, she’d changed out of the saffron nightie into something only mildly conspicuous—a sheer, low-cut, dark green gown with gold tasseled trim.
“Do you own anything that doesn’t make you look like you work here?” he muttered, as every head in the room turned to watch her pass. Not that he minded exactly, but she was awfully memorable, and there was a chance some of these men would remember him too.
“Oh, please,” she scoffed, not looking at all offended or troubling to keep her voice down. “You think I’d ever dress in the rags those girls are wearing? They’re all bonded. This dress cost me three gold. These bums couldn’t afford me.”
“Right.” He just knew nobody back home would wear anything like he’d ever seen on her. Even here, respectable women went for something a bit more loose, drab, and concealing. Not to mention a veil.
“It’s never been my job to not get looked at, Ram,” she said, pausing at the door that led onto the street. “I always did the sales. Important men don’t want to do business with frumpy old maids.“
“Hold it,” he said, grabbing her by the arm before she could open the door. “Don’t go out there.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know, but … ngh.” He clapped a hand to his forehead, shut his eyes to concentrate. “It feels wrong. There’s—I think there are flamekeepers out there. Two of them.”
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s see them, then.” She peeled his hand off and shoved him five paces back into the shadows, then opened the door and poked her head out. She made a show of looking back and forth, then shouted “Anybody knock?” She got no reply, and slammed the door with a theatrical scowl.
“I’ll be damned,” she said. “You’re right—or almost right, anyway. A flamekeeper and a handmaiden, just hanging out on the corner. The perfect spot to catch anyone headed for the docks.”
“A handmaiden?” Lookout duty was flamekeepers’ work, or militia’s; the Lugal had no authority over handmaidens. Was she there to burn Ram if he showed up? Possibly. But if the haranuu inside swords didn’t want to hurt him, would handmaidens’? Probably not. But then, would his sword—Kamenrag’s—want to hurt them either? They were brother spirits, after all, from the same pyre. In fact, that could explain some things; he thought he might have some idea what had happened at the bloom …
“Ram?” Darun was studying his face. “You want to maybe clue us in on what’s going on here?”
“Not here and now, no. Does this place have a back door, besides the way we came in?”
“Did you really just ask me that question, Rammash?”
They were en route to South Gate two minutes later. Between Darun’s flouncing in that dress, Bal stomping around with his dead-eyed stare and two heavy packs, and Ram carrying a suspiciously oblong object under his arm, they had to be the most conspicuous group on the streets. Fortunately, there wasn’t much competition for that title at present, and they were all familiar with the less popular routes.
South Gate was likewise subdued; Darun led them into a series of out-of-the-way shops, where she cajoled, threatened, or begged a succession of “loans” and “favors” out of their (mainly male) owners. Darun did most of the negotiations alone, in secluded back rooms where Ram couldn’t overhear, but somehow they left South Gate three hours later with three silver tanbirs and a third pack stuffed full of food and supplies.
An hour after that, they were ensconced in a room significantly better than the one he’d spent his first night in, but still far below the Red Flute’s standards. It was only the one room for the three of them, with faded paint on the walls, but decent-sized and fully furnished, with a proper locking wood door … and one narrow bed against the wall.
He was given no time to wonder who would get it. They had no sooner set foot inside and closed the door than Darun said, “All right, Ram. We’re alone. I’ve been good, we’re set up to go to your hearth in the morning if we need to. Here’s the part where you tell me why.” She sat down on the bed, crossed her legs, clasped her hands on her knee, and looked up at him with a smile.
Ram took a chair, and thought. One the one hand, he’d known since the day he met her that Darun was a liar and a thief. On the other, she hadn’t hurt him yet, he couldn’t think of a false explanation she’d find more credible than the real one, and she had to know that she was as disposable as Ram; turning him in would only turn her into another loose end to be tied up, one way or another.
So he said, slowly. “I think I’m indwelt.”
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“Mm-hmm. And how’d that happen?”
It took him half an hour to explain it all, counting all the questions, repetitions, and clarifications. She never expressed the slightest bit of surprise, disbelief—or sympathy. He got the impression she was only trying to get his story straight, without bothering for the moment over whether it was true or false. When they finally finished, she sighed, and flopped back on the bed.
“Well,” she said, staring up at the ceiling, “I don’t think you’re clever enough to make all that up, and I’m sure you’re a lousy actor anyway. Guess you’re telling the truth. Or think you are.”
“Thank you so much.”
“But you’ve got some big holes there. Who cares if you’re indwelt, anyway? Why would they bother? Indwelt boys are useless.”
“Yeah.” Every bloom, three separate acolytes independently inspected every single handmaiden candidate, to keep deranged or desperate mothers from trying to sneak or bribe boys in. There were persistent stories of male infants being castrated in an attempt to pass them off. But everyone knew that boys couldn’t be handmaidens.
Or could they? He concentrated on a spot two feet above Darun on the bed, willing it to light up and scare her. Nothing happened. “Something’s changed since the bloom, though, I know that. Here, Bal.” He unwrapped Kamenrag’s sword, and held it out to him hilt-first. “Try and hit me with this.”
The giant reached out cautiously, tapped the handle with one finger. “It’s fine,” he said confidently, knowing it was true. “If you have my permission, it won’t hurt you.”
Bal grunted, grasped the sword by sheath and hilt, and drew and cut with one motion. The blow should have cut Ram in half, but the sword abruptly jerked in mid-swing, knocking a chip out of the table instead. “See?”
“I still don’t get why you’re even carrying that thing around. Anything else?”
“You saw me sense the flamekeepers outside Pazim’s. And, uh—“ he shut his eyes tight, spun in circles for a few seconds, and pointed, “I’m pretty sure the pyre-light’s that way.”
“Yeah, that’s not really that hard to find. It’s like a mile tall, you know.”
“But I’m pointing the right way, aren’t I?” he said, opening his eyes to check. He was. It shone brightly through the window.
“Sure, it’s a neat trick,” she said. “But who cares? I don’t think the Lugal wants to kill you because you can’t be stabbed with special swords. There are plenty of the normal kind around, and I bet they still work. If you want, we can get Bal to check.”
Looking mildly interested, Bal reached down for one of the packs. “No, I’m good,” Ram said. Bal shrugged, then stood back up. There was another chair available for him, but he’d paid it no notice.
“Then is there anything else you can do? Because it looks like you really are just a waste of a haranu. A handmaiden would be way more useful. I’d rather have a dulsphere, even.”
Ram thought it over. “The white sun doesn’t really bother me anymore?” he tried.
“And? Same for handmaidens, I think. Didn’t your buddy in the Temple tell you anything about what you were supposed to do with this?”
“Go somewhere far away; he didn’t tell me any more than that. I think that was in case I blabbed. But he meant for you to help me, until Ushna—“
“Screwed you over, yeah. And us too. Between us losing countenance here, and the stink over Lashantu, we’ve pretty much thrown fifty blooms of Damadzu reputation right in the seep. Can’t do business anywhere.”
“Sorry.”
“Eh, whatever. I guess we’ll have to go find the brat after all, and see what she can do with all this.”
“The who?”
“Imbri. She’s a brat. But she understands this stuff way better than I do. She might know what you’re good for.”
“Imbri, huh?” He couldn’t imagine why Ushna’s blind daughter would be able to help him with this, if she was just their interpreter. “Did you guys have a fight? Where is she, anyway?”
“It’s not really a fight. We’re just trying different strategies, is all. I was here to try and get our countenance back, with Bal for muscle if I needed it. She and Shazru are off at Pilupura trying to see if they can find us another market, last I heard. Probably they’re not having any luck, either.”
“And why would she know what to do with me?”
“She was always our expert on all that creepy magic crap. She can speak bazu. Comes with being half Moonchild, you know?”
Ram couldn’t see why a Moonchild would know anything about pyre magic—they lived their whole lives as far from firelight as they could go—but it was a better lead than anything else they had. “Fine, we’ll all go see her, as long as we get my family first. Do you know anywhere we can hide them?”
“I think so. They do craft-work, right? They’ll probably have to hustle for their keep, but I know somebody.”
“Good.” Hopefully Father had learned how to do something useful one-handed; Ram wasn’t going to bring that up until they were all safely out of this pyre.
Darun didn’t say anything else, so he wandered over to the window. They were on the east end of the pyre, not far from the common hall. Not a fashionable district, but far from a slum. About midway between the two gates; they probably wouldn’t think to look for him here in the next few hours. He couldn’t sense indwelt spirits at more than two hundred feet or so, and hopefully the same was true of others. Possibly if anyone did spot him, they’d think he was only a dulsphere. There were a lot of dulspheres out there, and they couldn’t account for all of them. He was probably safe for the moment.
Possibly. Probably. Hopefully.
After a few minutes, Darun went to get them something to eat, and Bal sat down on the floor—still ignoring the chair—pulled several knives out of his pack, and set to work sharpening them. Ram couldn’t leave, or do anything else but sit there and listen to the shink, shink, over and over.
He waited for what felt like hours, but Darun didn’t return; if she hadn’t left Bal behind, Ram would have worried that she’d run off on him. Eventually Bal ran out of blades to sharpen, lay down, and went to sleep on the floor. Seeing nothing better to do, Ram threw himself down on the bed to get rest while it was still available. But he couldn’t sleep; he kept listening for urgent footsteps on the stairs, or conspiratorial whispers of men lined up in the hall with knives, planning to bust down the door and rush them.
He tried keeping the sword close to hand, but if anything that made him more anxious; if it came within two feet of his body, it would suggest all kinds of violent and unhelpful solutions to his current predicament, starting with killing the innkeepers to keep them from talking. At one point he caught himself arguing out loud with it, and threw it onto the floor before even Bal started thinking he was crazy. Unfortunately, he couldn’t think of anything more constructive for himself. He was at Darun’s mercy, or the God’s.
The white sun had finally set, and the pyre-light outside was definitely dimming, when the door banged open. He lunged for the sword on the floor, but it was only Darun, carrying a heaping tray full of hot rice and roast lamb with vegetables. Probably the best meal this place offered. The sword advised killing her anyway, for scaring him; he set it down again quickly.
“Sorry I’m late,” Darun announced, kicking the door shut behind her and slapping the tray down on the table, “but I was on a roll. There’s a sweet spot, you know that? And we’re in it. Poor places, you got your professional cheats and hustlers, can’t get a trick past them. But the swank joints are full of the high-rolling full-time gamblers, and they’ve got sharp eyes too. Right here? Full of people with money to spare, but not smart enough to keep it. I got eight silver. Eight silver for free!”
“Wait. You’ve been cheating at tiles this whole time? We’re supposed to be keeping a low profile here!”
Darun laughed. “You think they were watching my hands? All I had to do was lean over the table a little, and I could have just taken the tanbirs out of their pockets without them noticing. Idiots. I only had to stop when I ran out of suckers to shear. I already ate, so help yourselves, okay?” She frowned. “And get out of my bed, eating or not. I’m paying for this room.”
“If you’ve got eight silver, you could get a second room.“
“Could, but won’t. And I wasn’t planning to share, either. We’re not that close, you’re not that handsome, and the beer’s not that good here. Out. Now.”
“If you can make money this easily,” he grumbled as he hoisted himself off, “why do you need my help at all? Why are you even a blackband?”
“Word gets around quick, Ram. You can’t keep cleaning out the same places. I wouldn’t even do it here, but we’ll be leaving in the morning. Now stop whining and eat your free dinner, you ungrateful bum.”