Chapter 22

Chapter 22

Tristan began fiddling with his cabinet like there was a point to it, keeping his hands occupied so he wouldn’t have to think about what he had just walked away from.

When he saw her approaching from the corner of his eye, it was almost a relief. Shalini Goel was the shortest of all the trial-takers, barely five feet five by his guess, and though she was full-bodied the thief could tell it was not the result of idleness: there was muscle to her frame and calluses on her palms. The same kind Guardia sometimes got, those come from shooting regularly. Her black hair was long, kept in a braid going down her back, and she had a gold ring in her nose. The vivid shades of her clothes spoke of coin even for a Ramayan, a people whose love of colour was proverbial.

A green kurta – the collarless tunic in the Someshwar manner – ended above her knees, leading into striped trousers in white and yellow that were tucked into high boots. A blood red sash at her waist had two pistols tucked into while a leather bandoleer holding powder horns hung loose across her torso, connecting a shoulder to the opposite side. Shalini had the look of a soldier but did not hold herself like one, which spoke to Tristan of someone who had been trained but not taken to such a life.

And while he’d been studying her, he realized, she had studied him right back.

“Tristan, is it?” she smiled. “I don’t believe we have been properly introduced.”

She had an easy smile, he decided, but it was not false. Shalini Goel struck him instead as one of those strange people Vesper had blessed with a general enjoyment of life. It must make her easy to like.

“It felt like a long journey here, but it ended up being so little time hasn’t it?” Tristan smiled back, entirely practiced.

She offered her hand to shake, which he did. Her grip was firm.

“I am-”

“Shalini Goel,” he said, then shrugged at her raised eyebrow. “Word gets around.”

“I suppose it does,” she chuckled. “And you even pronounced it right. Do you-”

Shalini said something he did not understand in what he was pretty sure was Samratrava – the most common of the Someshwari languages. Tristan answered with the only sentence in that language he had ever learned.

“The brothels are down the canal with red lanterns,” he informed her.

A flicker of complete and utter surprise, then Shalini burst out laughing. It was contagious enough that he found himself smiling as she slapped her knee, holding her stomach.

“Oh gods,” the Ramayan wheezed. “I guess that’s an answer. How much did they pay you to tell the sailors?”

“Only three radizes a night, but it came with a meal,” Tristan said.

He saw her pause, count in her head as she translated from the currency Sacromonte and most of the Trebian Sea used to coinage she better knew. The Imperial Someshwar had a few but jala – sheshajala, in truth, but not even Someshwari used the full name - were the only one he’d ever seen used at the docks. The private currencies of the rajas were rarely accepted, given how regularly they got debased when the latest palace or campaign got a little too expensive.

“So not even two kupah,” she mused. “I hope it was a good meal.”

“I’ve had worse,” the thief shrugged.

And taking the coppers had given him a reason to hang around Caballo Canal at night, letting him track the coming and goings of a Meng-Xiaofan warehouse he had been sent by Abuela to rob.

“I expect you have,” Shalini said, mood losing some of the humour. “It seems to have hardened you in useful ways.”

It was his turn to cock an eyebrow at her. She was the one who had come to him, after all, so it was her who should make the pitch.

“Tredegar is being run by the infanzones,” Shalini Goel told him, “and we both know Xical’s worse than a snake. A Leopard Society man through and through.”

“I have never heard of them before,” the thief admitted.

“I wouldn’t expect a Sacromontan to have,” she said. “Izcalli name their societies after animals from their homeland that embody traits they want to emulate, Tristan, but there are no leopards in the Kingdom of Izcalli.”

Tristan blinked in surprise.

“They’re not a formal society,” Shalini said. “When forced to acknowledge their existence the Grasshopper King will say they’re charged with hunting criminals that flee outside Izcalli borders, but what they really do is raid.”

She spat to the side.

“They go out with the candle-priests, hit undefended villages out in the Someshwar or the Republics and bring them back like cattle,” Shalini said.

He grimaced in disgust, not faking it in the least.

“For the candles?”

She nodded and he almost spat as she had. The Kingdom of Izcalli had been one of the strongest nations to emerge from the fall of the Second Empire, with fertile heartlands full of Antediluvian wonders and its strong military bent, but its unification was a bloody business. Izcalli was hardly alone in that, but what set the kingdom apart was that it was heavily dependent on First Empire lights to live and almost all of them were on the ground instead of set in firmament. During the wars many were damaged, which had unbalanced the intricate system of devices regulating light in Izcalli. Entire regions had begun to go dark for weeks, months even.

Until the men now known as the candle-priests found their solution: feed the machines aether where they grew weak.

Nowadays Izcalli claimed the era of bloody sacrifices, of murdering men on altars to keep the lights from burning out, was long past. That it had been much exaggerated anyhow, a very rare happenstance, and that advances in modern understanding of aether now made such savagery obsolete. There were kinder ways to keep the ‘candles’ lit, needing no death and hardly any pain. It had not stopped flower wars from erupting at Izcalli borders, and such assurances from the Grasshopper Kings were taken with a heavy grain of salt. With good reason, if Shalini spoke the truth about the Leopard Society.

“They’re expendable,” the Ramayan said. “If they get caught, become an embarrassment, they will be called rogues or bandits and left to hang. Xical came by that ugliness honestly, whatever else may be said of him.”

“And there is much to be said,” Tristan drily replied.

“Figured you’d agree,” Shalini grinned. “You can see the same things I can: Ishaan and I, we’re your best bet.”

He smiled at her, saying nothing.

“That Yong comes with is another point in your favour,” she acknowledged, “but after the way Lady Ferranda talked you up I would have made an offer anyway.”

“You,” he said, “and not Lord Ishaan. I find that interesting.”

“It’s not a slight,” Shalini assured him, “it’s just that he’s a little scrambled at the moment. By now you’ll have heard we ran into the airavatan before you did.”

“And that a contract was used to buy enough time for your crew to escape,” Tristan said.

Ferranda Villazur had claimed that something stupefied the beast long enough for them to run away. That it was contract work was not in doubt and he had already suspected it was Ishaan, but to hear it confirmed made the guess solid.

“There was some backlash,” she said. “Hard not to, beating back a monster that large. But he’s nearly through it and will be back to form by tomorrow. He’s just, uh, going to get confused easily until then. It’s best for me to do the talking while he recovers.”

She paused.

“If your worry is that I make promises he won’t keep, there is no need,” Shalini reassured him. “He’s not insensate, it just takes a while for him to understand things – everything I say, I say with his approval.”

It was tempting to keep stringing her along, see if he could get any more information out of her, but that was greed talking. If he took too much before declining, he would be salting the grounds. Best to end this now and add a little sweetness so they remained on good terms.

“It is a tempting offer,” he said.

“But,” Shalini said.

“I won’t be going into the maze tomorrow,” Tristan said. “Not with anyone.”

She drummed her fingers against the side of a pistol.

“Hedging your bets is not unreasonable,” she grudgingly said. “And we have had longer to rest.”

But it was not the answer she had wanted – and perhaps even expected – so now for the sweetness.

“Yong will not refuse if you ask him again,” Tristan said. “He does not want to wait.”

Shalini eyed him with interest.

“Is that what you two were speaking about?”

“We are inclined to different strategies,” Tristan shrugged.

She would come out of it with another shot at a companion she had wanted more than he, but more important still she would come out of their conversation with the feeling that she had ‘won’. Getting her hands on a source of tension between he and Yong was worth more than some talk about a suspected contract and idle conversation about the Leopard Society. Their conversation remained genial and Tristan suspected she might have stayed longer if she had not caught sight of something: Brun was approaching Ishaan Nair. Shalini made her excuses quickly after that, going to join them.

That’s another one for their crew, then, the thief thought. Brun was fit, loyal – he had backed Tredegar against Tupoc - and came with no baggage attached. He was, in essence, a perfect replacement for Yaretzi. Like her the blond Sacromontan had made few waves and come out of the perils with a solid reputation. And that made Tristan uncomfortable, because Fortuna had called the god he was bound to loud. It did not necessarily follow that a contractor must be alike in nature with their contracted – he had little enough in common with Fortuna – but a loud god ought to be loud in their gifts yet no a single whisper had spread of Brun’s contract.

The other man had navigated the game of alliances with a deft hand: he’d gotten in with the infanzones when the getting was good through the more influential of Isabel Ruesta’s maids, then stuck closely to Tredegar. A woman who would bite her own arm off before raising a hand against a comrade, a category Brun had made certain to fit in. Now he was changing ship for the Ramayans, getting into a more stable crew, but carefully burning no bridges as he did.

“You are certain his god is the loud one?” Tristan murmured, feigning a yawn.

“Yes,” Fortuna flatly replied. “And he is being incredibly tasteless about it.”

She did not deign to elaborate further and he knew better than to ask. There’s something off about you, Brun, Tristan decided. No one genuinely following sentiment ended up making all the right choices all the time. The other man was running a game, had to be.

But which, and for what purpose?

No answers would be found standing here, the thief knew, so he tore his gaze away. Whatever it was Brun wanted, if his ambitions extended beyond survival, then it would be something to chase after later. Tristan had more pressing matters to worry about, three of them to be exact. Francho was the most likely to have other offers, but Tristan still sought out Vanesa first. It was she whose expertise would determine whether his intentions were at all feasible.

The old woman was sitting by herself in a corner, looking half-asleep. The Watch physician had her on poppy extract for the pain, but Tristan had checked the vials and the man was keeping the doses as low as he could. It was for the best: at her age, too strong a dose risked sending her into the kind of sleep she would not be waking from. Not much had been done about the shattered leg, aside from cleaning it and binding it, but that was not laziness on the man’s part. The airavatan had broken the limb beyond repair, bone shredding muscles and tendons as it shattered into pieces. Her kneecap was in three pieces and the swelling made it nearly impossible to operate and stem the internal bleeding. The physician had little choice but to recommend amputation.

“Either way,” the watchman had told her, “you won’t ever be using that leg again.”

Vanesa had... balked, at that. Tristan had spent long enough as a cutter’s assistant to know that was not an uncommon reaction, but it had been startlingly ferocious. She went hysterical for a time, needing to be restrained until she calmed, and had been subdued since. The one-eyed clockmaker was awake enough to notice when he came to sat by her side, though her face betrayed her exhaustion.

“Is it time for lunch?” Vanesa asked.

“Not for a few hours yet,” Tristan said.

No one would be leaving anytime soon, anyhow. He thought some of the crews might set out to have a look at the shrines later this afternoon but doubted anyone would begin the maze until tomorrow. First they would want to recover and organize.

“Ah,” she muttered. “Sorry. My mind, it has been wandering.”

“Common enough when taking poppy extract,” he assured her.

She nodded, looking thankful. As if he had not simply said the truth.

“A nice young woman from the Watch is making me crutches,” Vanesa told him. “From an old oar, I believe?”

He said nothing.

“Anyhow,” Vanesa continued, “when they are finished I will be able to have a look at this maze. It seems an interesting enough place.”

Sometimes, Tristan thought, the line between kindness and cruelty was thin as a breath.

“You know you won’t be doing that,” he quietly said.

“Perhaps not in one of these companies forming,” Vanesa said, “but surely-”

“If you go into that maze, you will die.”

He interrupted as gently as he could, but his voice did not waver. It was a statement of fact, not a guess. Tristan had little heard of the tests these gods of the maze would set, but a one-eyed old woman with a broken leg would be as meat on the table. Vanesa’s lips pursed, then she looked away. He saw the emotions flicker across her worn face – frustration, anger, fear. And at the end of the road, resignation.

“I am dead if I stay here,” she finally said. “The physician says I have two weeks at most, with the bleeding inside the leg.”

Much as he wanted to bring up the amputation again, it was not his place. Vanesa knew the costs of her decision; they had been made plain to her. If she thought a slow death better than losing her leg then it was her choice to make.

“There may be,” Tristan said, “another way.”

Her eye went to him, as if dragged by a hook. The hope he saw there burned, for there were no certainties in what he had to offer.

“Have you had a close look at the gate?” he asked.

“I have not,” she admitted.

“Then let us,” Tristan said. “I think you will find it interesting.”

She rolled her eyes.

“I’m not blind, Tristan,” she said. “You are about as interested in bedsport as I am in collecting butterflies.”

“A traditional hobby, if largely pointless,” he said.

He had not specified which he was talking about, which by the look of her grin she had absolutely noticed. Much as he disliked sobering the mood after such a pleasant start, he had not come here for the pleasure of her company. Seeing the change in his expression, Maryam’s own shed the mirth.

“And now I pay my dues, yes?” she said.

“I would not dig into your personal secrets,” Tristan said, “but I have questions and you answers.”

She dismissed his words with a wave.

“I made my choice out on the plains and will not walk it back now,” Maryam said. “There are limits to what I may speak of, but within them I will not balk.”

“You said,” Tristan murmured, “that this year was not like the others. That some of us were marked for more than simply joining the Watch.”

Maryam slowly nodded, she was considering her words – navigating promises, perhaps? – and ultimately it was with a question she answered.

“What strikes you as strange about the Bluebell passengers?”

He cocked his head to the side. He’d given that subject much thought, now that he had time to spare and more information to chew on.

“You and Leander Galatas could both use Signs,” he said. “And not the way some street witch would, the usual potions and curses. The real kind of Signs, those Navigators use. That is more than passing rare.”

She nodded encouragingly.

“There are also much too many people with contracts,” he added after a moment. “It seems like at least half the foreigners have one.”

Zenzele Duma did, and Ishaan Nair. The same was likely true of Tupoc Xical and Tristan sincerely doubted that even a mirror-dancer could be as quick as Angharad Tredegar without a little help. Throw in Song, Acanthe Phos, Isabel Ruesta, Brun and Francho - then on top of that the rumor that Remund Cerdan had one as well? The numbers were troubling. Even if no one else was hiding a contract, which he had doubts about, then out of the thirty-three people on the Bluebell there had been at least twelve with contracts, counting himself and Marzela. It was a staggering number even for individuals aiming to enter the Watch.

Someone might well go their entire life without meeting that many contractors, much less all of them in the same room.

“All the recommended are being evaluated to see if they qualify for special enrolment,” Maryam told him. “Yourself included.”

“Special enrolment?” he pressed.

“I cannot speak about it,” she admitted. “I skirt the edge of breaking an agreement by even telling you this much.”

As he’d thought, her foreknowledge had come with strings. It only reinforced that he was speaking to the right person to find the thread he must pull at, because the most likely suspect for Maryam’s interlocutor was the Watch or a least a member of it.

“You knew about this before coming here,” he decided, studying her face. “What is that makes this particular year different from the others?”

“Timing,” she quietly said. “An opportunity that will not come twice.”

Tristan passed a hand through his hair, frustrated at how vague she was being but half-sure it was not on purpose. She has called it an ‘agreement’, what stilled her tongue, and that implied someone on the other end of the bargain – it was not an oath, but a bargain struck with another. Someone who might care if she broke the terms.

“The Krypteia,” he said. “The Masks, you said they wanted something from me. Do you know what it is?”

There were a hundred name for the agents of the Krypteia, the most secretive of the Watch, and as many rumours for what their purpose might be. Spies and assassins, most said, though others claimed it was the watchmen themselves they watched over. Whatever the truth, their reputation for ruthlessness and secrecy was no lie. It might not be a good thing at all that he had somehow drawn their eye. Maryam studied him for a long moment, blue eyes searching, before she let out a startled breath.

“So you really don’t know,” she quietly said. “It’s not something they want, Tristan, it’s you. They are the Circle that recommended you.”

Did that mean everyone who’d been recommended had – no, that wasn’t as important as the fact that for some reason he had apparently caught the eye of the fucking Masks.

“You’re sure?” he got out.

Maryam leaned forward, openly worried.

“Tristan, the other recommended all had a name with them,” she said. “The person who gave the recommendation. All except you: yours was just a wax seal with the symbol of the Krypteia. I don’t know high up their ranks you must be to be able to use that, but it’s not low.”

She grimaced.

“You’re telling me you have no idea who did this?”

“I know who arranged for me to have a place on the Bluebell,” he admitted. “But I could never be sure she was part of the Watch. She has never claimed so and I have never seen her in a black cloak.”

But how likely was Abuela to put one of those on, if she was truly part of the Krypteia? The rest of the Watch announced themselves, the black cloaks like a banner reminding everyone of what they stood for, but the Masks were spies. The last thing they would want was to be announced.

“It could be she knows someone in the Krypteia,” Maryam said, be she sounded doubtful. “Maybe she called in an old favour.”

Old was the right word, for Abuela was at least nearing seventy for all that she remained spry. She could be retired, he thought. Could Masks retire? He did not know. Tristan could feel his mind beginning to go in circles, picking away at all the many unknowns he had no way to shed light on, so he forced himself to keep speaking.

“Tell me about Song Ren.”

It was half a guess, come of details he had noticed in that bracing debate about who should get lynched for Jun’s murder, but the rueful surprise on her face told him he’d struck true.

“I met her before the trials,” Maryam said. “She is here for the same reason I am.”

“And what is that?” he asked, knowing the answer he would get.

“Not something I can speak about without breaking my agreement,” she replied.

The special enrolment, he thought. That was the heart of the secret, for both she and Song. But in a way that was a disappointment for that was a particular, a temporary addition to the greater secret of the Dominion of Lost Things. It would not help him unearth the truth of this place.

“How much do you really know about these trials?” he quietly asked.

“More than I should,” Maryam said, then grimaced. “Less than you likely think. I can tell you that most people who contract with a maze god will get executed – I was specifically warned against it – and that the sanctuary past the ruins is a fort on the other side of the mountains.”

He raised an eyebrow, inviting her to continue.

“My source was vague on the Trial of Grass,” she admitted. “But it is meant to rid the Watch of the reckless and trouble cases.”

Tristan bit at his thumb, thoughtful. First the relative shallowness of what she had said, juxtaposed with the emphasis made on certain details. If he had to bet, someone with full information had given her a broad outline and emphasized dangers that might get her killed. Has to be the Watch, he thought. Infanzones wouldn’t know anything about the third trial, or care about keeping whatever its purpose was intact – the easy guess for why the information she’d been given was vague. Good enough to help craft strategy, but not much beyond that.

Second, he was now even more certain that the Trial of Ruins was the heart of this entire enterprise. Weeding out the reckless and the trouble cases? That sounded like filtering tacked on at the end of the road so that the blackcloaks would not be stuck with anyone they didn’t truly want to enter their ranks. Which means the parts that matter are here and within the Trial of Lines, he thought.

“You’re not interested in the maze at all, are you?” Maryam suddenly said. “I thought you might just be leveraging your reputation, holding out for a better offer by one of the groups, but it’s not them your eye is on.”

“I will have to go into the maze eventually,” Tristan acknowledged.

If nothing else, it would be the most expedient way to get rid of Cozme Aflor and the Cerdans. He was not worried about being able to join later, given that after casualties began to mount all the diving crews would be looking for fresh blood. It would not make him liked, but what did he care for that? Still, it was through the gate he intended to pass this maze – and not the one the Watch had told him to use.

“Yet keeping my attention on it strikes me as missing the canal for the barge,” he continued. “This place exists for a reason and this game is not it.”

“That will be Watch business,” she warned him.

“Mine as well, so long as the Watch demands I take part in this trial,” Tristan replied.

Maryam paced away, crossing her arms when she came to a halt. Light poured down from behind, gilding her silhouette as shadows obscured the lay of her face.

“You are not going to let this go.”

Neither of them pretended that had been a question. Through the shadows he met her eyes with his own, neither blinking.

“Are you?” he challenged. “What did the warnings help, when the airavatan hunted us? You’re in the same game as the rest of us, Maryam. Their secrets are just as likely to get you killed.”

For a long moment they remained that way, until finally she jerked her head to the side.

“There’s another aether machine around,” Maryam told him. “It can be used to look at parts of the island on great panels of gold – it’s how they make their reports, though supposedly there are limitations. We will have to be careful.”

We, she had said, and like that a weight left his shoulders. Maryam stepped away from the light, the gold sliding off her dress. It left the ghostly pit between them, painting the rubble. He saw the hesitation on her face but said nothing, letting her come to the decision to speak in her own time.

“Your surname,” Maryam said. “You keep it hidden for a reason.”

It was, he thought, gently done of her. If he simply answered yes the conversation would end there, but the door was opened if he wanted to say more. And it was tempting to simply put an end to it, but the thief held back on the impulse. She had, the day before their group tried the bridge, implied she might help him with his revenge. Tristan had just decided to dig at the Watch’s secrets because they might get him killed, which would make the hypocrisy of keeping Maryam in the dark here a large one to swallow. Not so much he could not, but he found he did not want to.

Not after all she had told him, even if those secrets were not her own.

“I cannot be certain,” Tristan said, “but I believe Cozme Aflor might recognize the name Abrascal.”

“It is uncommon?” Maryam asked.

“Only somewhat,” he said. “But while we only met a handful of times when I was a child, he knew my father for two years.”

The blue-eyed woman slowly nodded. She did not ask, which perversely enough made him want to say more.

“He is at the bottom of my list for a reason,” Tristan murmured. “He pulled the trigger, in the end, but they’d killed my father long before that.”

“House Cerdan,” she said.

He nodded.

“Sacromonte is,” he began, then halted.

It was hard to explain to someone not of the City.

“We do not have a king,” he said. “And the Six, they are not different from other houses in principle. Most of their privileges are ceremonial. Yet it is the Six who rule us, have for as long as anyone can remember, and every noble house in Sacromonte craves to sit where they sit.”

He passed a hand through his hair.

“Only a few come close,” Tristan said, “and the Cerdan are one of them. Only they can’t seem to break in. Their blood is the right amount of old, they own enough land and make enough coin, but they don’t have the something that lets the Six be on top – like contracts for the Arquer, or the feracity chambers for the Calzada.”

He thinly smiled.

“So they’ve been trying to bridge the gap,” he said. “Quietly, so the others don’t notice, but quiet is just about the only line they drew in the sand.”

“What did they do, Tristan?” she quietly asked.

He looked away, jaw clenching. Remembering how Father had seemed so grateful when Cozme pulled the trigger.

“Too much for me to forgive,” he said.

They left it at that.

--

Maryam snuck back ahead, at his suggestion, because Tristan was not yet done with the night. It was not back to his bedroll he went but instead into the shadows of the Old Fort. And there, patiently waiting as he watched the movements of the patrols, he found out two things of some import.

The first was Beatris, coming out of the Watch barracks and taking a short walk around the courtyard with an escort before returning within. Though she had a watchman with her, she did not seem a prisoner. Protection, Tristan thought. Unless he was quite wrong, Beatris had withdrawn from the trials and no one else yet knew of it.

The second came later, after he risked getting closer to the bastion with the astronomy equipment. It did not seem to be getting used, to his confusion, until his eye was drawn by a flash of lantern light. The bastion went slightly around the side of the great pillar, but it was high above that he saw the light: an opening in the stone, from which someone was lowered a rope ladder.

He’d just found the other lieutenant in command of the garrison, Tristan decided, and why Lieutenant Wen had been so convinced none of them would see her.

And with her he had found his first clue.