The Bishop installed himself in an immense cowhide swivel chair that he spun away from a writing hutch the size of a meat locker. He added some wrist-size logs to the grate and waved them alight, then gestured toward a horseshoe chair upholstered in knobby green brocade. “Please, Freeman Shade, be comfortable, ha-ha-hrm, yes. Before we proceed to the, er, the Atonement cells, there was that small matter. . ? That is, I was informed that you, ha-ha, wish to make an offering, yes?”
I barely heard him. The shutters were open. I drifted across the room to stand at the window, and I looked up into Hell.
Watchfires on the battlements cast orange smears up the sides of the Spire, pocked with yellow crosses where lamplight shone through arbalestinas. The light on the face of Hell was redder, just enough to make out ghosts of structure; cookfires and lamps and window-leaked hearth glow scattered sparks across its face. There, off to the right, just above the third bridge-hung now with age-greyed blankets and stained tunics, a sloppy-fat ogrillo bitch dozing beside a fire can on the ledge, while a couple pups sat naked, giving each other the occasional listless punch on the arm, near a gap where the retaining wall had collapsed-that was it.
That was the parapet. Right there. Where I had stood with the partners half my life ago, watching Black Knives run the badlands. Now it was ogrilloi in the vertical city and humanity below. I wondered if any of them had looked out over the river today. If any of them had watched the riverboat.
If any of them had seen me coming.
“Erm, ha-ha, Freeman Shade-? There was, erm, an amount discussed, yes? A hundred-?”
Hell above me. Hell behind and Hell ahead.
I turned aside from the window. “The vessel with the pestle,” I said in English, heavily, because this was Ma’elKoth’s sense of fucking humor and frankly it was just goddamn embarrassing, “has the brew that is true.”
The bishop’s face went blank and slack, shapeless as a mask carved in pudding.
I snapped my fingers. Bone structure developed within the bishop’s cheeks like a telescopic image being twisted into focus; his jaw firmed, and keen purpose drove the genial glaze from his eyes. He sat forward in the swivel chair and pushed his face sideways with one hand until a string of audible joint pops shot down his spine.
“Knowing how to do that buys you ten seconds to explain why I shouldn’t have you killed.”
I said, “You know me.”
A wave of clarity passed over the bishop’s face.
“Lord Caine.” He rose and extended a hand. “You’re expected. I have your equipment right here.”
I took the offered hand. “Caine.”
“Pardon?”
“Just Caine. Freeman Caine, if you want. I’m not Lord anything. Better you just call me Dominic Shade.”
The bishop shrugged. “I’d be honored if you’d call me Tourann.”
He dug a ring of keys out of his robe and unlocked one of the cupboards on his writing hutch, then muttered briefly under his breath and made a series of circular gestures with his left hand while with his right he reached in farther than the hutch was deep, and began briskly pulling out more objects than could have fit within it. “Sorry I can’t show you the rest of the station. Security. You understand.”
“Yeah, whatever. Are you the secondary or the primary?”
His eyebrows lifted. “You mean: Which came first, the bishop or the spy?”
“Something like that.”
“It’s more like we’re both secondary. He’s dominant unless I’m triggered-but I get all his memories, and he doesn’t have a clue I exist.”
“Huh. Creepy.”
“It’s not so bad. They say they can reintegrate me when I rotate out. Besides, I’m used to it by now.”
“Seems a little extreme.”
“You think it’s easy running an Eyes of God post where the unfriendlies have truthsense?” He pulled a mournful face. “The Knights of Khryl don’t do diplomatic immunity, and they are not to be fucked with.”
“I’ve heard rumors.”
“Rumors. Right.” He grimaced and shook his head. “Our last undoubled station chief got his arms pulled off.”
He finished laying out the items from the hutch: a flat leather pack the size of his palm, four matte-black knives-two guardless diamond-blade throwers and two of the Cold Steel Peacekeeper XXs that had been brought to Home by the Social Police Expeditionary Force that had invaded Ankhana three years before-a spring-loaded telescopic baton, a garrotte of thin black cable wrapped around grip-molded steel skeleton handles fixed to either end, and a huge stainless 12mm Automag with a custom barrel screw-fitted to receive the large black silencer beside it.
I checked the edge of each knife and scanned the garrotte’s cable for any signs of raveling. I picked up the Automag, popped the clip to eyeball the case-less tristack shatter slug rounds, then dropped the two spare clips into my purse before I tucked the gun into the leather holster patch sewn inside the rear waistband of my pants.
Tourann picked up the silencer. “What about this?”
“Keep it. Then when I miss, at least they duck.”
“We can blue the finish for you-”
“I like it bright. Nobody has to squint to figure out I’ve got a handful of Big Fucking Gun. Who else knows I was coming here?”
“I’m sorry?”
I picked up the throwing knives, rechecked the edges briefly, and slipped them into their holsters in my boots. “How do you make reports? Artan Mirror to Ankhana, right?”
“That’s need-to-know information-”
“So on this end, there’s you and the Mirror Speaker, at least; anybody else?”
“No-no, no, of course not-”
“Then there’s the Speaker on the other end. Reports with my name on them go straight to the Duke of Public Safety, right?”
“I, ah, I’m not allowed-”
“Don’t worry about it. So at least somebody’s told Deliann by now, I’m guessing.”
Tourann licked sweat off his upper lip. “I-what the Emperor may or may not know is beyond my-”
“Look, it’s all right. It’s not exactly a secret. Except from the Khryllians.”
“Purthin Khlaylock. Sure.” The bishop nodded wisely. “Want to bet he still remembers you?”
“Only when he looks in the mirror.”
“Um, yeah. Um. No wonder you’re incognito.” He coughed. “What about that non recognition magick of yours? It worked on me, and I am far from undefended-”
“It’s called the Eternal Forgetting, and it’s-complicated. It doesn’t erase personal experience. He’ll remember me, and what I did to him. And maybe to the Black Knives. He just won’t be able to put that Caine together with, say, the hero of Ceraeno-”
Tourann nodded. “Or the Prince of Chaos, or the Hand of Ma’elKoth-”
“Yeah, yeah. Drop it.”
“Nice.”
“Mostly useful in places where I don’t run into old friends.”
“Friends?”
“Or whatever.”
“What’d you get on Orbek?”
“Not a lot.” He looked like his stomach hurt. “Uh, I have some bad news about that-”
“I heard.”
“You did?”
“I guess it was some size of deal.”
“You could say that.” Tourann pulled some pages of handwritten notes from a hutch drawer, and passed them over. “Orbek Black Knife: Taykarget. Hit town three months ago, give or take. Maybe two or two and a half.”
“You’re not sure?”
“He came in illegally. No customs records, no employment documents, nothing. Nothing official until the, uh, incident.”
“You let these cock-knockers detain an Ankhanan freeman? What the fuck are you doing?”
“My job. Gathering information. Filing reports.”
“Shit.”
Tourann spread his hands. “No diplomatic relations, Caine.”
“Shade.”
“Yes. The Knights recognize no government beyond the Laws of Khryl. Break their Law and nobody cares if you’re the queen of Lipke. They were going to question him on another matter, but he refused submission. Then he just berserked and opened up.”