Watching walls. “I get to go with you?” Serib chased after Shay, her heavy steps ringing through the tunnel.
“You’ve come with me for a while so far; and I can’t leave you at the shop. I’m sure whoever Woid misdirected earlier will come back.”
“Yeah, a proper well-doer of Courtdom." Woid reappeared at the rusted mouth of a new turn in the underbelly. "Not my kind of humour. Come on, then… what’s the plan proper, so I can fit nicely in?”
“Firstly, we follow the route with least betting windows, so you don’t get distracted.”
“Shay, these new death matches! You should come to one, much better than the stale stuff those Dorns would put on.” Woid sighed, adjusting his collar. “You’d turn heads with your skill, if you dared fight in them…”
“Who’d look after you, eh?” Shay grunted in her new voice and Woid shuddered.
∞
Woid’s attempt at converting her having failed, Shay outlined the scheme, continuing to walk like this ‘Panzjrah The Killer’ Serib had never met:
“The disguises are the whole thing - looking like this I’ll be able to ease the next location of Entroprison out of someone. Then having intercepted Panzjrah, he’ll be totally fixated on me. There are a lot of outposts for us to choose from - the chances of him visiting the same one is too slim to worry about in this hurry of ours.”
Woid agreed:
“Alright, I’ll swipe the seeds from him. If it goes swell could we burgle him when all this is over? I’d swipe his pistols, adjust a few things… might affect, in my favour, the outcome of his next match.”
"Outposts?" Serib frowned, her lightning robes behind her stride.
"If you're not cool enough for The Dam'e, The Dorns will have you." Woid tutted. "They have plenty of scattered outposts instead of one proper club. Food's not worth the belly ache sort of places."
Shay nodded with a heavy head; she could feel uncomfortably that her last dose was wearing thin. Looking after Serib reminded her of family and all tenderness she wished to forget. The sofa. The candles. The sleep. She did not have long enough at the shop to top herself up and certainly now the opportunity for turning back was gone. If they did not intercept Panzjrah now, there would be little easy way into Entroprison.
∞
“And-sand-you-who…” Shay said woozily, blinking her eyes clearer under her goggles. “And you…” she repeated for Serib:
“You’re my bounty - follow my need-lead. Just keep your head down.”
Serib still could not keep up, lifting high her lightning robes as she ran through the tunnel. Doing so the sleeves remained too long and the rest strangely fit her perfectly, adjusting itself to her proper size.
“What’s that made of?" Woid noticed she didn't need to lift the robe higher any longer. He watched all hem, warp and weft shrink from beyond her toes to just over her ankles. "Anyway - I’ll clear the way a bit.” though much intrigued with the fabric, he disappeared from view.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
∞
Shay waited for whatever diversion Woid had planned. Moonlight shone down from a grate or drain above. When she heard a commotion of all sorts, she with Serib in hand climbed up a ladder through unto the moonlit streets of Lulled Imirka. Restaurants were aloud with shouted orders and cutlery hacking scrapes across dainty porcelain. Golden nobles and silvery guards here-there’d happily as a windy pipe music serenaded them, the notes taken from somewhere only Yore would know.
∞
Shay strode off by the crowd with her new posture and presence, almost dragging Serib by the shoulder staying in character. Woid was leaning against a double-statue titled ‘War and Freedom’, a marble-stone making of two souls triumphant over Courtdom’s enemies, while he played his pipe for the passing crowd.
“Marvellous rendition. Such vision.” One of them rejoiced.
“I’ve heard’t before in another township, unmistakable!”
So, with his sudden appearance and brilliant performance setting finer the evening mood, not one eye had seen Shay staggering in disguise dragging Serib from the tunnels below. Their underworld remained unknown, as is best.
∞
The Dam’e had her exclusive club, while The Dorns had throughout Courtdom’s space stations on The Accretion Cliffs, cities and smaller towns their guarded outposts, for ‘those’ sorts of jobs, Imirka being but one simpler township among The Nonillion.
“With any luck, this isn’t the outpost Panzjrah already visited for directions.” Shay said.
“Unlikely - plenty to choose from.” Woid had a moment, staring up at Nothing’s stars.
Serib jumped with fright, unsure if she would ever get used to his motions.
∞
Most of the Dorn’s outposts were sprawling no-questions-asked drinkeries and diners, and on full or emptier bellies the hunters and the killers would eye up old-fashioned job-and-bulletin boards, seeing what impossible occupations or tasks were advertised, most including pictures of the targets. ‘The Gift of Anything’ was one such posting Woid began eyeing up.
“That’s for the arena, if you win all eight death matches.” He said to Serib, and her eyes widened at such things in the dark. “Awarded by Greed themselves.”
Papers overlapped others posted on the board, the up-curled corners casting long shadows across other adverts closest-by. All the jobs pinned to these rickety bulb-lit planks appeared to be murder related, without much need for subtlety. It explained easily why Panzjrah had never been invited to The Club.
“Mindless stuff.” Woid dismissed the rest, clearly annoying some of those hunters that were keenly suited for such jobs and were enjoying their evening until he said that. One was about to pick a fight or two with him under the twinkling heavens, as Shay dragged Serib off through blue moonlight:
“Pretend.”
The little shaman had been thrown some distance to the dirty ground and looking up, there were two nicely tailored gangsters playing cards at a desk with a stumpy candle between them.
Shay was confident her disguise would work. It had to.