Street Magic (20 page)

Briar looked behind him. Five more horsemen of the Watch rode out of a blind alley to cut off his retreat.

One of the men ahead rode forward until he was a yard from Briar. “Pahan Briar Moss of Winding Circle temple and Summersea in Emelan,” he intoned in a wooden voice. “You are invited to speak with Mutabir Kemit doen Polumri. At once.”

Old instinct and new learning fought bitterly in his head. Instinct told him to leap from his horse’s back and run, as far and as fast as he could. He clenched his teeth and fought it, sweating. He wasn’t a thief anymore, wasn’t a street kid, wasn’t meat for the Watch to grind up and spit out. He was a citizen, a pahan, not a criminal. Citizens didn’t run from the Watch.

Still, what did he do to get the notice of a mutabir, who governed the Watch and courts of Sotat? Unless they thought he was stirring up the gangs?

“Why?” Briar demanded. “I’m an eknub, just passing through.”

“The mutabir will explain, when you are presented to him,” replied the one who had spoken first. The pale white wall on either side of Attaneh Road now sported green crowns, as trees and vines stretched and grew over the top.

Rosevines snaked down the street side of the wall. Had the Watchmen noticed them?

Stop it, he told the plants, putting all of his will into the command. I’m fine. “Very well,” he said, wanting to get these men away before they noticed the greenery’s odd behavior and tried to do something about it. “But this had better be important.”

He nudged his horse forward; the Watchmen ahead wheeled their mounts and led the way. Briar glanced back to see if the rest followed: he might still escape if they didn’t. No, they were moving forward, all but one. That one was bent in the saddle, listening intently to two people. One was a woman dressed like a local servant, the other a man whose sand-colored clothes made him look like part of the walls or of the dirt underfoot. The woman finished first. Hoisting a large jar on her hip, she trotted up the road and out of sight around the bend. The man faded into the blind alley, and the Watchman they’d spoken to caught up with the rest.

Who are they watching on this street? Briar wondered as he faced front again. He knew the look of police informers and official stakeouts. The mutabir was looking at someone on Attaneh Road, looking hard.

The ride to the mutabir’s residence, at the base of Justice Rock, was a short one. Briar used the time to let the plants that grew along the way know he’d been there, in case Rosethorn had to come after him. There was nothing to distract him from talking to them - the Watchmen were as closemouthed as stones.

Ordinary folk got out of their way quickly. Briar wasn’t sure if that meant the Watch were respected and appreciated, or simply feared. Either way boded ill for a former street thief. He checked his hands often to reassure himself that his arrest tattoos had indeed been consumed by the green vines under his skin. As if they sensed his unease, the vines on his left hand sprouted gaudy blue and yellow blooms. The ones on the right sported tiny black roses.

Servants at the mutabir’s residence took Briar’s horse and donkey, while his escort led him on foot through an outer courtyard. On either side stood the Watch Commander and Justice Hall, crouched like guardian dogs, the shuttered windows staring blindly at one another. Both were massive structures of some kind of granite, rare stone for that part of the country. Briar shivered as he walked between them.

Passing through a gate on the far side of the courtyard, the Watchmen led him through a beautifully arranged desert garden. Briar felt a softening in his attitude - it was hard to dislike people who enjoyed gardens like the Chammurans did - and hardened his heart. Gardens or no, he didn’t like the way things were done here. Duke Vedris’s fair, if heavy, hand in such matters back in Emelan had soured Briar on Sotat law and courts.

From the garden he was shown into a sprawling house. Immediately to their right as they entered was a large and airy chamber, walled and floored in cool white marble, with green and red stone vine inlays along the ceiling and floors. The shutters were open, but the insides of the windows were covered with carved wooden screens to keep people from seeing into the house. Pillows were scattered on the floor, for supplicants, Briar supposed. At the far end of the room, bracketed by Watchmen who carried long spears, was a marble dais covered with long, flat cushions; other small, plump cushions were heaped on it.

A man sat there, sipping from a tiny coffee cup. As he did so, he turned papers over with his free hand. Papers and coffee pot were placed on two short wooden tables.

A second person - was it a man? - sat on the edge of the dais, legs crossed under him. He wore the head-to-toe veil of a Mohunite; only dark eyes showed through the slit left for them. Unlike the blue one Mai had worn to hide from the Gate Lords, this veil was dark gray. The wearer would be a Mohunite initiate - a mage.

A third person, a veiled scribe, sat at a full-sized table in the shadows at the rear of the dais. Briar could only see hands and painted eyelids: the scribe was a woman. She wrote busily, her work illuminated by a brass lamp.

The sight of her made Briar feel slightly more comfortable. He wondered if he would ever get used to the way that women east of the Pebbled Sea were expected to keep to homes and families. Few were encouraged to work in the larger world as the women he knew did. The mutabir must be all right, if he hired a woman for a sensitive job like this.

The head of the Watch detachment came to attention and said, “This youth, who our contact says is a pahan named Briar Moss, an eknub from Summersea, came to the house of Lady Zenadia doa Attaneh this morning, Lord Mutabir, as did the pahan Jebilu Stoneslicer. This youth was inside the house for a period of two hours, in the matter of a miniature tree. When he left the house, we followed our orders and conveyed him to you. Pahan Jebilu remains at the house.”

“Very well, Hedax Yoson.” The coffee-drinker’s voice was deep and melodic, a huge voice for a slender man. “You and your squad are dismissed.” The mutabir dressed simply for a Chammuran of power in loose breeches of dark green linen, a white shirt, black sash, and a long-sleeved, dark green overrobe. He had no jewelry or embroidery; no braids hung below his crisp, white turban. He watched the Watchmen file from the room and nodded to Briar. “You may approach.”

Right then Briar knew he’d been with Rosethorn, Sandry, and Tris for much too long. Their part of him demanded that he stay where he was, prop his fists on his hips, and demand to know what was going on before he went any further. They did that a lot, no matter how much trouble it caused. Against them Briar put his street rat self. He had survived ten years by smiling, bowing, agreeing, mouthing “your highnesses” to anyone and everyone, and running the moment a chance was offered.

The street rat won, in a way. “May it please your highness, I’d like to know what the charge is.” He smiled, trying for charm.

“Have you done anything worthy of a charge?” the mutabir inquired. He sat up, putting down both coffee cup and papers. Whites and blacks had crossed on his family map often, Briar decided. His face was very light brown and splattered with freckles. It was impossible to see his hair, covered as it was by his turban, but his moustache was dark brown and full.

“Never did anything lawless, never will, highness,” Briar answered.

The gray-veiled mage raised a small crystal orb in fingers painted with henna designs. Red light danced in the orb’s depths. “He lies, my lord.” The voice was female.

The mutabir raised his eyebrows. “Interesting,” he mused. “Would you like to answer the question a second time, young pahan?”

Briar glared at the mage. “I haven’t done anything recently,” he amended. The red lights in the crystal winked out. “I’m all respectable now.” Something shimmered in the depths of the stone and was gone. “Is there a truth spell on that thing?” he asked the mage. “How’d you put it on? Most truthsayers just look to tell if they’re lied to or not.”

The mage looked at the man on the dais, who nodded. She replied, “I purchased this device ready-made, from Jebilu Stoneslicer. The spells must be renewed every three years, but the procedure is simple enough.”

“Huh!” exclaimed Briar. “So the old pickle had some juice in him, once.”

“Why did you go to Lady Zenadia’s house?” asked the mutabir.

Briar looked at him. “I sold her a miniature larch - it’s a kind of pine, good for protecting against fire. I had to install it in a new dish and in the right place in her house.”

The mutabir searched through papers until he held one up. “According to our observers, you met the lady in the Golden House souk yesterday.”

“That’s when she bought the tree,” Briar explained.

“Did you see anything unusual in her house?” the mutibir wanted to know. “Hear anything, smell anything?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Briar pointed out. “I’ve never been there before, to know what was usual and what wasn’t.” The mutabir said nothing, but regarded him steadily. After a moment Briar added, “She has a good gardener.” The mutabir continued to stare.

Briar scratched his head. Surely the lady’s troubles, gang, or habits were no supper of his; the same was true of the mutabir’s concerns. He certainly wasn’t inclined to start tattling to the law in this stage of his life.

“Where are you from?” the mage asked, her voice breaking the silence so abruptly that Briar twitched.

“Summersea in Emelan,” he replied without looking away from the mutabir.

“Partially true,” the mage announced.

Briar glared at her. “Don’t that thing tell you when answers are complicated?” he demanded. “I was born in Hajra, but I went to Summersea when I was ten.”

The mage’s hand held up the crystal globe. “Stones are simple creations - rather direct, as most mages learn. You claim to be a true pahan. How can you not know this?”

Briar sighed. “I am a true pahan. You don’t know how true. Just not with stones.” He walked up to the mage, drawing his pendant out and holding it so she could see. As she leaned in to look at it, he showed her the far side as well. Without warning, she grabbed his hands and inspected them, tracing a vine with a hennaed fingertip. The vine moved under Briar’s skin, following her fingertip like a fascinated snake.

Freeing him, she made a noise that sounded a great deal like “hmpf.” She straightened and nodded at the mutabir.

With a flick of the hand the man sent everyone else, guards and scribe alike, from the room. Only when he, the mage, and Briar were alone did the mutabir tell Briar, “This is Pahan Turaba Guardsall. She is my aide.”

Briar nodded to the veiled woman. “I still don’t see why I’m here.”

“Lady Zenadia doa Attaneh is the amir’s aunt,” Turaba said. Her voice was curt and slightly muffled by her veil. “She bought our prince his first pony. She is godmother to his oldest son and daughter. There are Attanehs in the army, all three priesthoods, the amir’s council, and the council of nobles. She is even a distant cousin of the king who reigns from far Hajra.”

Briar, about to spit at the mention of the Sotaten king as he always did, thought the better of it. It was possible that they might like the monarch. Besides, Briar’s insides were prickling. These people wanted something from him. Whatever it was, he doubted he would like it.

“When so important a person is concerned, any attempt to discover the truth of ugly rumors must be handled with care,” the mutabir said, choosing his words slowly. “Any great family would be sure to renounce one of their own as criminal, should rumors be proved. Alas, a noble family would be quicker still to attack the Watch if it were to learn that the Watch is investigating one of them.”

“What rumors?” Briar asked, his voice sharp. “If you mean her taking up with a gang, I bet everyone from the Street of Wells to Triumph Road knows that.”

Turaba was shaking her head. “Deaths have been rumored, over the last ten years,” she replied. “Deaths and disappearances.”

“Our last four Watchers in that house have vanished,” the mutabir informed him. “We can find no trace of them.”

That was why Briar had noticed the spies reporting to the Watch when they picked him up - the house was being watched from the outside, if not from within. “So,” Briar said, inspecting the vines on his scarred hand, “would you have grabbed me at all if it hadn’t been four of your own gone missing? You haven’t exactly stopped her from giving weapons to a gang, have you?”

The mutabir raised his eyebrows. “Gangs have been at war since Mohun crafted the dark spaces within stone,” he told Briar. “If they kill one another, it is hardly of concern to me or mine.”

“She wants that street girl you found,” Turaba added as Briar thought longingly of punching the mutabir. “She offered the girl employment, suitable teachers, a place in her home. Why do you refuse such an opportunity for the child?”

Briar scowled. How close had some informer been to his booth yesterday, if they knew so much? “Do you also know how many times I get up in the night to make water?” he demanded crossly.

“Information is the key to order,” the mutabir replied, his mellow voice amused. “My people gather as much as they can. We would like some from you, pahan. Why does she want that girl?”

“Scry your own answers,” retorted Briar. “You must have seers in the Watch.”

Turaba shook her head. “House Attaneh has owned land in that part of the city for over six hundred years,” she informed Briar. “The outer walls and the houses themselves are protected with old and new spells from common nuisances like burglars and seers. Forgive me if I am the first to explain,” she added with mocking kindness, “but the wealthy like to keep their secrets. Will you please tell us why the girl is important to her?”

Briar shrugged. Of course he knew the wealthy bought magic to protect their homes: he’d dealt with plenty of it. There were always counter-magics available to negate such spells. On the other hand, layers of spells, laid down over centuries, could be much harder to beat.

“Lady Zenadia says she wants Evvy to run errands and keep her company, but really it’s for her toy gang, the Vipers,” Briar told them. “They’ll do better at thieving if they have a stone mage, and Evvy’s the only other stone mage in Chammur. The Vipers tried to get Evvy and failed, so Lady Zenadia tried going through me. I’m Evvy’s teacher for now.” Inspiration struck. “You could lock her up for criminal business,” he offered. “If she runs a gang, she benefits from the fights and the stealing, right?”