Now Skrit was taking them to see the two Spider-kinden who had journeyed so far north for the auction.
‘They must have started travelling within a tenday of Scyla getting here,’ Tynisa said. ‘How could they even have got word so soon? Unless Scyla herself sent out airship couriers or something.’
‘Magicians have always been able to talk at a distance,’ said Tisamon, in a tone suggesting that everyone would know this, and therefore she should have learnt it as a child, ‘and also know something of the future.’
Perhaps, if I had been brought up a Mantis, I would indeed have known that.
Tisamon’s attitude to magic confused her. He accepted it unconditionally, whilst she still found the whole idea strange and unlikely, despite any proofs that had been shown to her. Moreover, he was distinctly wary of it. Even Achaeos inspired his respect, and there seemed to be a fear in him beyond that, deeply incised in him by his heritage and his blood.
And now we’re in a town crammed full of magicians – or so I’m supposed to believe.
The two Spider-kinden were not hard to find, or shy of attention. They had taken over a guesthouse in its entirety, and had their servants deck the place out in silks of bright colours, reds and golds and azure blues. The whole front of the building had been thrown open to the fickle sun that morning, and Tisamon and Tynisa were thus able to watch the two of them holding court, one reclining at either end.
‘They are good at hating each other,’ Skrit remarked enthusiastically. ‘Always hating, so they keep eyes on each other at all times.’
‘Very wise,’ Tisamon granted. Earlier he had named the two as ‘Manipuli’, using a word which to Tynisa meant an intelligencer or spymaster, but apparently also meant a magician of a particularly Spiderish kind.
‘We should have a watch set on these two,’ Tynisa suggested. ‘Still, I’m sure they’ll be able to vanish away when the time comes.’
‘You want to see big man who pay the boss? Living just over there now. Moved his house yesterday.’ Skrit was reaching for Tisamon’s sleeve, but he held it out of her reach, irritated.
‘That would be this Founder Bellowern,’ he noted.
‘What was wrong with his old house?’ Tynisa asked.
‘House was fine, he just not liked it where it was, had it moved,’ Skrit explained, in a jumble of words. There was nothing for it but to follow her until she had led them to a two-storey wooden construction that was nothing like the rest of the local architecture: square-based, but widening as it rose, so that the roof was the broadest part of it, dotted with round glass-paned windows, and edged in metal besides.
Tisamon stared at it blankly, and it took Tynisa a while to recognize it. ‘An airship gondola,’ she said. ‘Like ours, but a whole lot bigger.’
‘Had it out on the water,’ Skrit explained. ‘Now he wants it inland. Put up his big float and just move it over, then float comes down and pulled down into the roof. Lot of work, that, no one knows why.’
They digested this curiously, but neither could make any sense of it.
‘Who’s next on the list?’ Tynisa asked.
‘Not found yet. All hiding. You have all there are,’ said Skrit, sounding oddly proud of it.
‘Well, they’ll all know whatever there is to be known about the auction,’ Tynisa said. ‘We need to speak to one of them: who’s our best wager?’
Tisamon looked back over his shoulder towards the big guesthouse but she knew that matters would go very badly for all concerned if he tried cutting the information out of those Spiders, whether they were magicians or not.
‘This one,’ she decided. ‘Bellowern.’
‘Why?’
‘He was the man who hired Nivit, and that shows initiative and open-mindedness. He won’t be a magician, because he’s Beetle-kinden. He’s imperial but not army, not actually a Wasp.’ She shrugged. ‘And also I want to know what made him move his house.’
Tynisa had not seen a gondola quite so grand since the Sky Without. Founder Bellowern’s temporary home was now virtually the most sumptuous building in Jerez, larger in all dimensions than the genuine houses around it. It was also apparently impregnable. There was a hatch, but it was ten feet off the ground and looked firmly closed. The windows were too small for even a Fly to get through. Conceivably there must be hatches on the deck above, but she would have to wait until dark before climbing up there.
She realized she did not even know whether Tisamon possessed the Art to climb a sheer surface like this. It was always a social awkwardness, asking questions about another’s Art, but she already knew that he could not take to the air as some Mantids did. His Art seemed concentrated in the spines on his arms and in the honed skill gifted to the Mantis-kinden in the simple business of killing people.
After they had been scouting out Bellowern’s place for about ten minutes, a Skater-kinden child approached them. Tynisa stared at the creature without affection, for the locals’ children were even less appealing than they were. The starved-looking thing, who could equally have been a boy or a girl, began a brief conversation with Skrit and then handed over a scroll. It was only after a moment that Tynisa spotted the relevance: the locals never used paper.
‘It’s from the man in the house,’ Skrit announced, for all the world as though she had just performed some public service. She held the rolled document out to them and Tynisa took it, breaking the neat seal and reading.
‘To Master Mantis and Madam Spider: I shall be taking my ease shortly at the taverna delightfully known as the Bag of Leeches and you are cordially invited to join me in the open where we can both be assured of a minimum of surprises.’ Her mouth twisted wryly. ‘This is getting to be a habit,’ she noted.
‘Bellowern,’ Tisamon said, and she nodded.
‘We’re on Skater-kinden ground, Tisamon. He’s wise enough to have some local eyes minding his business. If we do meet him, is this going to get messy?’
Tisamon’s expression worried her. He did not understand what was going on, and that made him jumpy, therefore dangerous. ‘We’ll meet him,’ he decided. ‘If the Beetle does want a fight then I’ve no objections. But eat nothing, drink nothing while in his company.’
‘He’s not going to be impressed with that.’
‘Good.’
Skrit guided them to the place mentioned: there was a large leather bag hanging over the low doorway, but Tynisa was not going to prod it to test the claim. Like most of the Skater buildings, the front was composed just of poles, shutter panels taken away each morning to let the dank air in, with all the rot and fish smells of Lake Limnia riding on it. They chose a large, uneven-legged table with a good view of the street and sat waiting, but not for long.
The affluent-looking Beetle-kinden that arrived after them, only a minute away from being on their heels, was identified by Skrit as Bellowern. He had a retinue with him, and Tynisa felt Tisamon tense at the sight: a dozen Wasp soldiers out of uniform, but surely army men seconded to the Consortium, plus at least half a dozen servants. Tisamon’s hand gestured briefly upwards, and she saw a Fly-kinden keeping watch up there, between the roofs and the cloud-hung sky.
‘Trusting sort, isn’t he?’ the Mantis murmured, as Founder Bellowern passed beneath the suspect leather bag and spotted them at their table. He was lean for a Beetle, but his dark skin and the receding grey hair cropped close to his skull were oddly reminiscent of Stenwold. He wore clothes in drab colours – black breeches, grey tunic and a dun shirt – but the cloth was all of the finest. Tynisa guessed from the way the tunic hung that he had armour beneath it, at least a leather vest and possibly more. At his belt there was a dagger that was almost a shortsword, mostly hidden by a plate-sized buckler shield. As a result he looked less the merchant lord and more the successful mercenary captain.