Child of a Hidden Sea (19 page)

“So?” But her flesh crawled, just a bit.
They need the whole name to scrip you. Does that mean they can magic me up any which way they want?

“I expect whoever created those mezmers used slaves, or convicts,” he said, affecting carelessness. “But perhaps not.”

“What you did to those people was sick.” Saying it brought back the memory of the blade, of herself slicing through the monster's shackle-scarred wrist.

“My people believe room remains in this supposedly tame world for wilder things. For blood debts and vengeance,” the man said.

“And grenades?”

“I admit nothing, but you should consider: Perhaps those mezmers angered whoever inscribed them. There's a fate to be feared, wouldn't you agree?”

She glared at him. “Where did you get my name?”

“The sea offers up many forms of bounty.”

Lais Dariach knew my middle name
, she thought.
And some of the people from the salvage ship, the
Estrel.
Captain Dracy. They saw the shell.

“If you've hurt someone else—”

He interrupted: “As you're from the outlands, girl, perhaps you haven't realized how many terrible intentions I might lay upon you. Do you want to find out?”

He tore the sponge in half, threw the vendor a coin, and sauntered away into the crowd. Sophie pushed after him, keeping him in sight, tracking him with the camera. He seemed unaware of her pursuit, or indifferent to it. She caught a shot of him at edge of the market, and then …

That guy!
Coine was moving toward his partner in crime, the guy whose face she'd smashed with the camera case, all those days ago in Beatrice's San Francisco neighborhood. His nose still bore the remains of a bruise.

Coine's eyes met those of the other man, and he shook his head slightly. They veered from each other, taking different directions into the crowd.

Interesting
, she thought, zooming in on the second man.
They don't want me to see them together.

“Sophie?” Parrish, suddenly, was right beside her.

“What's wrong with you? Didn't you see me chatting with the pirate? And look, his friend there? The one slipping off into the crowd? The two of them are the pirates, Goldens, whatever you call them, who stabbed Gale in San Francisco.”

“Are you certain?”

“Oh! I am going to start pulling your hair every time you ask me that. Look at his nose—I did that.”

“The gentleman slinking off toward the docks?” Tonio said. “He's not from Isle of Gold.”

“No?” Parrish asked, surprised.

“No, Kirs. He's with the Ualtar Diplomatic Mission.”

CHAPTER
14

“What's Ualtar?” Sophie said. Parrish, at the same moment, asked Tonio, “Are you sure?”

“Of course.” Tonio chose to answer his captain. “He was trailing the Low Priest of the Embassy like a kicked dog just yesterday, both of them wearing that put-upon look they get in free nations, when they have to carry their own possessions and wipe their own asses. I remember the bruise on his face. Your work, Kir Hansa? Good for you!”

“Call me Sophie,” she said. “I hit him with a shockproof, waterproof camera case.”

He broke out a dazzling smile. “I wish I'd seen that. Sophie.”

Tonio hadn't struck her as the bloodthirsty type. She was about to ask about Ualtar again when shouts rose around a beribboned ring at the heart of the mercato.

“Speaking of fisticuffs…” Parrish turned.

“Is it Verena?” Tonio said, shading his eyes against the sun.

Was it? Sophie squinted into the whirl of activity. “Holy—she's fighting?”

Parrish, to her surprise, brightened. It was the first time he'd looked anything but miserable or offended since Gale died. “Come on.”

They pushed closer, sidestepping through an increasingly dense crowd of onlookers.

As soon as they arrived it became apparent the … fight?… duel?… was a friendly one. Verena's teeth were set in a fierce half-smile. The sword she was wielding—against a wiry, unarmed man who had spellscrip lettering branded into both of his arms—was made of wood.

“The usual wager?” Tonio said, and Parrish shook his hand. Neither man looked away from the ring.

Sophie steadied her back against a heavy-looking light sconce, centering the ring in the video camera's frame.

She was just in time: The whippy guy brought his hands together and suddenly he was covered in a flowing coat of sparks.

The mezmers who killed Gale had been a mishmash of bestial traits in scabby, thistle-barbed armor.
Dirty,
Sophie thought, remembering the slime, grit and unclean gunk in their eyes. They'd seemed foul, wrong. This man had no such aura. He was an ordinary-looking fellow, clad in fiery motes that emerged from those spellscrip brands on his arms. Crackled and popping, the motes launched themselves at Verena, who parried them with the wooden sword. One got past her guard and she dodged, stomping it as it hit the mat. Another she simply blew out.

She wheeled past the corner of the ring, snatching up a dripping rag hung on its corner post.

“They're old rivals,” Parrish explained. “Many nations run a dueling league—for sport, primarily, though the best of them sometimes go to the law. It's something of a practice for visiting fighters to spar with the local champion. Verena's been trying to defeat Incindio since she was thirteen.”

“Unsuccessfully,” Tonio put in.

“It's only a matter of time,” Parrish said.

“You say,” Tonio said, “but tonight you're buying my wine, Garland.”

“Hands off my purse; she hasn't lost yet.”

Verena feinted with her toy sword and then brought the rag around with a slap; there was a hiss of steam and the sparks along the duelist's right forearm and hand were snuffed out. The crowd roared its approval as the rag burst into flame.

Shaking the burning shreds aside, Incindio tucked the right arm behind his back and continued circling.

“Point for Verena,” said Parrish.

“She has been practicing,” Tonio conceded.

“She's grown a little, too. Longer reach.”

“What is she now, seventeen?”

She wanted to duel me,
Sophie thought uneasily. There was no chance she'd last more than seconds in a ring like this.
Would I get to pick the weapon? Shockproof camera cases at fifty paces?

Dueling, slaves. Stormwrack's landscapes were so vibrant, she thought. She could lose herself in them, just sink into finding and filming the flora and fauna forever. But there was something about the people … Would one call them uncivilized?

The judgment sat uncomfortably; it was culture shock and ethnocentrism, she knew, that sense that always came to a traveler at some point, the idea that home was better. There was plenty wrong in the good old U.S. of A., she reminded herself, lots of violence, plenty of people making bad money for hard work. Shootouts and meth labs and all the modern ills. A couple people with swords and magical sparks could only hurt each other; contrast that with someone letting loose with a machine gun in a crowd.

Don't get on your high horse, Sofe.
That was what Bram would probably say.

Okay, fair enough. She would do her best to observe and not judge.

With another shower of sparks, Incindio leapt to the upper rope of the fighting ring, flipping up and out of range of the sword, bouncing on the rope as if it were a trampoline, and cartwheeling in midair. Verena took the opportunity to lunge after another wet rag, but she misguessed her opponent's direction; he came down behind her, kicking her ankle out from under her.

There was a whoosh as flames ran up Verena's leg. She rolled out of Incindio's reach, apparently unburned, coming up on the other leg. Hopping, clutching the rag, she swept her sword out defensively before he could follow up his advantage.

“She's not hurt?”

“In a fight like this, if you're tagged you must approximate the injury. It's an honor system.”

“Care to double?” Tonio said, with extravagantly pantomimed carelessness. Parrish laughed, a gleeful, boyish trill, infectious and surprising from someone so sober, and nodded.

The two combatants seemed more in earnest now. Incindio lashed out with the left arm; Verena, still hopping, managed to parry. She had the wet rag balled like a softball, ready to fly. A fierce, concentrated expression, like happiness, like Bram on the hunt for the answer to a puzzle, suffused her face.

“Look, Kir! She's drawn out the Conto's nephew,” Tonio murmured. “He loves a good fight.”

Leaving her camera fixed on the ring, Sophie followed his gaze. The boy watching the mock duel from across the piazza was maybe eighteen, with curly auburn hair and a face right out of a Dante Gabriel Rosetti painting—big eyes, expressive mouth, skin smooth as soap. He was surrounded by a bevy of expensively dressed teens who were chattering and exchanging coins—bets, Sophie guessed—but he was rapt, entirely absorbed in the blow-by-blow between Verena and the flaming man.

“A true sports fan,” she mumbled, taking a second to pan the group, getting everyone in the entourage.

“What is that object, Kir?” Tonio asked as she returned her attention to the fight. Verena seemed to be tiring.

Before Sophie could frame a reply Parrish interrupted. “Erstwhile mummery.”

“Ah, like Kir Gale's phono?” His curiosity vanished.

She found herself nettled by the exchange, as if Parrish had said, “Quaint garbage from the Nation of Stupid.”

Verena ducked under a blow, dropping to her knees and then doing an odd martial-arts pivot from that position, to escape another. She slashed her sword across Incindio's face and, as he recoiled, threw the rag at his heart—and the cluster of sparks gathered there—as hard as she could.

It seemed an impossible move to counter, but the flame man threw himself back against the ropes, catching the rag left-handed. As his arm smoked and guttered out, he blew a stream of flames at Verena. She couldn't bring her sword back around in time to keep them from enveloping her head.

Bowing, Verena threw the wooden sword straight upward. The sparks followed, bursting into full-blown flames and immolating it as it whirled in midair. The crowd bellowed and cheered.

“Well fought!” Tonio bellowed, applauding madly. “Brava, brava!”

“She did lose, right?” Sophie said.

“Barely,” Parrish said. “She's catching up with Incindio.”

If Verena was disappointed by this result, it didn't show. The sparks on her leg and around her head winked out, but for a crown of winking motes in her hair. Her opponent, an ordinary-looking man again, drenched in sweat and soot, offered her a hand up and then pulled her into a hug.

“That was amazing,” Sophie said, as her half sister joined them.

Verena acknowledged this with a nod, but she was waiting for Parrish's reaction.

“It was close,” he said, voice warm. “I'd say you're about evenly matched now.”

She colored, seeming pleased. “'Cindio said that too, but he's such a flatterer.”

“How'd it go with the Verdanii?” Sophie asked.

“Sorting the inheritance is on hold until we find out something about Gale's death. And, you know, I've been asking around and I'm not sure I think the Conto's nephew was involved, anymore. I wasn't expecting the whole island to go into mourning…”

“Kir Gale was beloved here,” Tonio said.

“Yeah. So I'm thinking…” She dropped a short bow in the direction of the pre-Raphaelite prince, who acknowledged it with a mere flutter of his long lashes. “Terzo's too canny to risk being vilified for getting rid of her. It's bad politics.”

“We may have another line of inquiry,” Parrish said, turning to Sophie. “You are sure … I apologize. What I meant to say was—you say the Ualtarite we saw was involved in the attack against Gale?”

“I'm good with faces,” Sophie said. “Especially the only one I've ever bashed in. Anyway, his pirate friend, John Coine, said they wanted the item we talked about before … heart of
Temperance
? Yacoura?”

“The heart is lost,” said Verena and Tonio, almost at once, almost in the same tone.

Parrish seemed to ignore this. “Was Convenor Gracechild on the ship from Verdanii, Verena?”

Verena shook her head. “They knew the Conto would give Gale to the Fiumofoco. I'd say Annela sent a small, slow ship on purpose. The family saved face by showing up, but managed to let Gale have what she wanted. I have a formal protest to deliver. It's kind of perfunctory.”

“Then they don't mind that the Conto cremated her,” Parrish said, with obvious relief.

“Tell me about it. All we need is Erinth and the Allmother at each other's throats.”

She's feeling a little better,
Sophie thought.

“You're saying the men who attacked Gale near Mom's were from Ualtar?” Verena said.

“Tonio says the guy I recognized is from their embassy,” Sophie said.

“That makes no sense,” Verena said. “What would the Temple of Ualtar want with defanging
Temperance
?”

“Can we go and find out?” Sophie asked.

“Go where? To the embassy?”

“Well … or to Ualtar, I guess.”

“We could do that, if you wished,” Parrish said.

He was obeying her, because she was the boss. “I'm asking if it's a good idea.”

“I can't help thinking we may have learned all we can here,” Parrish said. He was, tacitly, addressing Verena. “The Conto will assess whether there is, in fact, any connection between his nephew and the murder. It's in his best interest.”

“And he loved Gale,” Tonio put in.

“Yes. We can rely on him to send us a message if he learns of any link.”