Liavek 1 (3 page)

"It was pretty easy, that specific and that short a time. Call it a half-levar."

Snake pulled out the pouch and counted a half-levar plus a little, which she knew Silvertop wouldn't notice, into his hand. "Can you bring the glove back when you're done?' he asked her at the door.

"I wouldn't think of keeping it," Snake said fervently. "Oh, and—" he said, and stopped.

"Yes?"

"Um, tell Thyan that the...um, the spell didn't work. And I guess you should tell her she was right, too."

Snake laughed. "If I don't, she'll say it herself."

"And it's okay if she wants to come back." He looked embarrassed.

"I'll tell her."

"Thanks, Snake. G'bye." And he shut the door behind her. Out in the street, she steeled herself and tucked the obnoxious glove in her sash. Late afternoon pedestrians eddied past her. Food cart owners hawked meat rolls, fruit tarts and stuffed dates to tide their patrons over until dinner. From somewhere around the corner she heard street musicians, fiddle and baghorn and drums. A redheaded woman selling half-copper scandal sheets shouted her tease, which mentioned the names of a famous nobleman and a notorious artist in interesting conjunction. There was something encouraging, Snake found, in the way that Liavek ignored her incipient crisis. She strode back to the Tiger's Eye feeling strengthened.

The shop door opened to her pull, and she felt a sudden fear. Badu hadn't barred it behind her. She stepped forward—and thumped painfully against a barricade of perfect transparency and Badulike contrivance. "Ouch," Snake said. "It's me."

The barrier began to change at once, from iron to pudding to air, under Snake's hand. She rubbed her nose and went in. Badu was in the parlor upstairs. The room occupied most of the front half of the second floor, which made it more or less square. The walls were paneled in scrubbed pale pine to about hip height; above that was rough whitewashed plaster, relieved by a very few carefully chosen woven hangings and other bits of art. Badu sat on the red patterned rug at a low table, setting out sausage, golden cheese, and two of the peaches. "The last of the travel food," she said with a wave at it. "Have you any bread?"

Snake fetched it from its box in the little kitchen and settled down across from Badu for a hasty picnic. "Anyone come calling while I was out?"

"Either two people, or the same one twice. The first very nearly did what you did, at the front door. The second tried the latch on the back."

"You didn't get a look either time?"

"It didn't seem prudent to stick my head out the window."

"Mmm." Snake gathered up a second helping of everything to take downstairs. "Here's my plan. I assume you'd be better able to do what you were hired for if you didn't have to dodge assassins while you did it."

Badu nodded.

"Then I'm going downstairs and opening the shop. I can't catch the fellow if we barricade him out."

Snake had made sure to say this when Badu's mouth was full, and she ignored the resulting strangling noises that followed her down the stairs.

As she nailed the revolting glove to the lintel next to the bells, she considered her chances. She was not as confident as she had given Badu to think; still, the assassin would very likely underestimate her and her preparations when he found she'd opened the shop. If she simply kept him out for the night, he would make another attempt on Badu's life soon after, and Snake did not care to live with the burden of unpaid debt that would be hers if he succeeded.

Reasoned arguments aside, she felt a stubborn unwillingness to bar the doors and hide in her own house. Had she wanted to live as a cloistered woman, she would have moved to Ka Zhir and bought a veil.

When she stopped hammering, the noise continued. Someone was pounding on the door. Her whip was still over her shoulder, and she judged the hammer in her hand a nice touch. She unbarred the door.

"Your pardon, sir," she said to the man on the other side, and dipped him a shallow but formal bow. "I was closed for...repairs. Be pleased to honor my shop."

He was shorter than she was, but if he found her height disconcerting, he showed no sign. His features, as well as Snake could see, were Liavekan. He had a thin, high-bridged nose, prominent cheekbones, and clear, penetrating black eyes; in combination they reminded Snake of the eagles that swept down on occasion from the Silverspine. The lower half of his face was hidden by a short black beard that looked, somehow, unintentional, as if its owner were not quite aware it was there, or hadn't yet decided what to do with it. He was deeply tanned, and creases fanned from the outer comers of his eyes. Snake found him handsome and immediately suspect.

He wore a high-necked, long-sleeved blouse and loose trousers the color of sand, and over these a sleeveless coat that reached to midcalf made of black felt richly embroidered. Snake recognized the clothing as bits and pieces from several nomadic tribes in the Great Waste. She speculated on the weapons that could hang from his belt under the coat.

His step over the threshold managed to convey disdain. Snake wondered what he would think if he looked up and saw the abominable glove. "I wish to see Badu nolo Vashu," he said in tones of polite command.

Snake heard the little clock on a shelf behind her chime midhour, and realized it was half-past four.

She tilted her head to one side. "I beg your pardon?"

"Badu nolo Vashu," he repeated, and frowned at her. Snake had the irksome feeling that she was being taken for a servant.

"Very sorry. She's not here."

He raised one eyebrow. "I'm afraid I don't believe you." His voice was chilly.

"What a pity."

"I'm prepared to see for myself, Madame..."

"Snake," she said with a polite smile and a little nod. "And you, sir?" She was suddenly and perversely reminded of her presentation party at the age of fifteen.

His eyes narrowed, and he seemed to study her face. She returned the stare. "Koseth," he said at last. Snake smiled in what she hoped was a skeptical fashion. It was a fairly common surname. "May I sit down?" he added.

"I thought you were about to push past me and search the house."

"I changed my mind."

"Good." She stepped aside, and he went to the hearth and sat in one of the wicker chairs.

"Can I help you find something?" Snake asked, gesturing vaguely toward the merchandise.

Koseth, narrow-eyed and smiling, leaned back in the chair until the wicker creaked. "So, you say Badu nolo Vashu is not here?"

"I said that."

"Does that mean you're here alone?" he said softly.

"Why do you ask?" At half-past four, Badu had begun the rite of investiture. Could magicians sense these things? Was Koseth a magician? Snake wished mightily that she could ask Badu.

His reply, however, was simply, "To find out how you'd answer. The reason behind any question. And I think I shall be satisfied with 'Why do you ask?'"

Snake wished that he would do something decisive, if he was indeed Badu's nemesis. If he wasn't, she wished he'd quit behaving suspiciously and go away. "I'm sorry, sir, but if you've come neither to look nor buy, you can go to a cafe to sit. I've work to do."

"No doubt." Clearly, he was not easily provoked.

But she was so startled by his next words that she almost forgot Badu. "Did you know Siosh Desoron, before he died? He had three sons and two daughters. The sons learned their father's trade, the outfitting and managing of caravans, out of duty. But he taught his youngest daughter, Galeme, as well. It was said that she could bring a 'van through the Waste in midsummer, with robbers thick as flies in a barn, and never so much as a broken goblet in all the load.

"Now all that is said of someone named Snake, and the Desorons claim that Siosh had only one daughter. Are you, perhaps,
that
Snake?"

Snake replied, with corrosive emphasis on every word, "What business is it of yours?"

He shrugged.

"There's no secret of it, however much my mother may wish there was. But Snake is quicker to say, so for your convenience, you may leave the Desorons out of it."

He rose and made her a bow. There was a great deal of self-congratulation in his smile, and she felt a surge of anger, at him and at herself. Why had she taken his bait, and what possible good could he get out of it?

She stepped out into the aisle, placing herself where he had to confront her or turn toward the door. He chose the latter. So they both saw the flash of gilded red swoop toward the opening. It was a finch, one of the multitude that lived half-tame on the city's accidental bounty, bright fluttering ornaments on roof peaks and windowsills. It was nearly within the door frame before it beat its wings furiously, veered, and was gone upward and out of sight.

The face that Koseth turned to her was bland and unreadable; but she had caught a glimpse of it before he'd turned, and his look had been black as the bottom of the sea.

After he left, the shop had a breathless quiet about it. The finch, Snake knew, could have been quite ordinary. She'd had to catch birds before that had gotten in a door or open window and forgotten how to get out. Its sudden change of direction might have come when it saw the two humans blocking the doorway.

Or it might have been a magician, wearing bird-shape to enter the Tiger's Eye, who'd discovered the effect of Silvertop's glove. (Which made her wonder, what was the glove's effect? Was it a barrier, like the one Badu had made? Did it return a disguised magician to true shape? Snake wished she'd asked.) If it was a magician, was it an ally Koseth had summoned, or was it the true danger, and Koseth no threat at all?

The third possibility Snake liked even less: that Badu had two enemies.

It was Snake's custom to keep the Tiger's Eye open until seven o'clock on business days. She managed to hold to that, though seven had never seemed so late. The traffic was lively as people came in to browse before continuing on to their dinners. Many ascended to the status of customer: A young man with curly black hair bought a coverlet woven in a rare antique pattern called Palm Leaf Shadows known only to an old woman who lived on the Street of Trees; an elegant-looking man in his thirties knocked over a fat little brass bowl and bought it by way of apology; and a shaven-headed ship's captain, who laughed often and without humor, bought herself a large copper earring.

The little clock chimed seven times, and Snake slumped forward over the counter. Her vigil, she knew, was far from finished. But now she could bar the door and make the Tiger's Eye a fortress. She felt a fleeting longing for previous visits from Badu, when at seven o'clock Snake and Thyan would go upstairs and make dinner, and Badu would entertain them with Ombayan gossip.

Or further back, when Snake was sixteen, and she and Badu had been herd guards one summer in Ombaya....It was dangerous work, and the two of them had worked and fought well together. Snake wished Badu could be at her back now.

She had just slid the bar home when she heard a sound behind her. She turned.

The elegant man, the one who had knocked over the bowl, stepped from behind a tall mahogany cupboard. In his hand was a flintlock pistol, its single barrel pointed unwavering at Snake. He cocked it ostentatiously.

"And now," said Snake, "I suppose you're going to tell me all about how you did it."

He flung back his head and laughed. "I confess, that was my intention. Would you prefer me reticent?"

"Not at all," said Snake. She leaned against the door, trying to look off balance. "Would you mind starting with who you work for?"

"Ah, no," he said sadly, "I cannot oblige. If you knew that, I would have to kill you. As it is, if you will stay sensibly out of the way, you need take no harm from this at all. My business is with the Ombayan woman upstairs."

"I'm nothing if not sensible," Snake nodded. The whip was heavy on her left shoulder. "So, how did you get in?"

"Just as you saw, when I came in as a customer. Your spell kept me out in bird-form—yes, that was I, and quite a setback you gave me then, too." Snake looked at his red-and-gold patterned half-robe. The finch had been a reasonable match. "I made other, more subtle attempts, and found that the spell was proof against them all. I was driven at last to make a dangerous experiment. I came in and, after a suitable time, knocked down the charming brass bowl. Your attention was drawn away from me for barely long enough. I was able to duck behind the cupboard and leave an illusion of myself in my place, which then went through the motions of buying the bowl and left the shop. Had that most excellent spell worked both ways, allowing no magic to cross the boundaries of the house, my illusion would have melted in the doorway, and my last hope for subtlety and stealth would have been gone."

"At the very least, an aesthetic defeat," murmured Snake.

"Now I must ask you to unbar your door, if you please. A representative of...my employer will be along presently to verify the fulfillment of my commission." He spoke as if the words tasted bad. "Those without honor assume everyone else to be without it, as well."

"How true," said Snake absently. Inwardly, she rejoiced. The man who stood before her was only the arrow; the archer was on the way. And it was the one who drew the bow that she wanted to trap. She turned and pulled the bar back, keeping her hands always in sight of the man with the flintlock.

"I don't believe we've introduced ourselves," she said when she turned back.

He looked startled, but made her a sketchy bow. "You may call me Yamodas, Madame, if it please you."

"Not your real name, I assume."

"Alas, no."

"My name is Snake," she said, and began to uncoil the whip from her shoulder.

He frowned. "Madame—Snake—as I told you, you have nothing to gain and your life to lose by opposing me."

Snake smiled and flicked the whip hissing along the floorboards.

Yamodas pulled the trigger.

Into the silence that resulted, Snake said, "I once lost a valuable piece of porcelain in an accident involving a drunken Scarlet Guard and a pistol. I then found that a spell can be bought that will prevent small quantities of gunpowder from igniting. It takes a long time to prepare and only works in an enclosed space, but the cost is really quite reasonable. I have it renewed annually."