Deadhouse Gates

'They are … for the dead. The poor stay poor in Aren.'

Keneb asked, 'How close are we to the garrison?'

'Three thousand paces,' Kalam replied, unwinding the scarf from his face.

'We need to wash,' Minala said.

'I'm thirsty,' Vaneb said, still astride his horse.

'Hungry,' added Kesen.

Kalam sighed, then nodded.

'I hope,' added Minala, 'a walk through dead streets isn't an omen.'

'The necropolis is ringed by mourners' taverns,' the assassin muttered. 'We won't have much of a walk.'

Squall Inn claimed to have seen better days, but Kalam suspected it never had. The floor of the main room sagged like an enormous bowl, tilting every wall inward until angled wooden posts were needed to keep them upright. Rotting food and dead rats had with inert patience migrated to the floor's centre, creating a mouldering, redolent heap like an offering to some dissolute god.

Chairs and tables stood on creatively sawed legs in a ring around the pit, only one still occupied by a denizen not yet drunk into senselessness. A back room no less disreputable provided the more privileged customers with some privacy, and it was there that Kalam had deposited his group to eat while a washtub was being prepared in the tangled garden. The assassin had then made his way to the main room and sat himself down opposite the solitary conscious customer.

'It's the food, isn't it?' the grizzled Napan said as soon as the assassin took his seat.

'Best in the city.'

'Or so voted the council of cockroaches.'

Kalam watched the blue-skinned man raise the mug to his lips, watched his large Adam's apple bob. 'Looks like you'll have another one.'

'Easily.'

The assassin twisted slightly in his chair, caught the drooped gaze of the old woman leaning against a support post beside the ale keg, raised two fingers. She sighed, pushed herself upright, paused to adjust the rat-cleaver tucked through her apron belt, then went off in search of two tankards.

'She'll break your arm if you paw,' the stranger said.

Kalam leaned back and regarded the man. He could have been anywhere between thirty and sixty, depending on his life's toll. Deeply weathered skin was visible beneath the iron-streaked snarl of beard. The dark eyes roved restlessly and had yet to fix on the assassin. The man was dressed in baggy, threadbare rags. 'You force the question,' the assassin said. 'Who are you and what's your story?'

The man straightened up. 'You think I tell that to just anyone?'

Kalam waited.

'Well,' the man continued. 'Not everyone. Some people get rude and stop listening.'

An unconscious patron at a nearby table toppled from his chair, his head crunching as it struck the flagstones. Kalam, the stranger and the serving woman — who had just reappeared with two tin mugs — all watched as the drunk slid down on grease and vomit to join the central heap.

It turned out one of the rats had been just playing at being dead, and it popped free and clambered onto the patron's body, nose twitching.

The stranger opposite the assassin grunted. 'Everyone's a philosopher.'

The serving woman delivered the drinks, her peculiar shuffle to their table displaying long familiarity with the pitched floor. Eyeing Kalam, she spoke in Dhebral. 'Your friends in the back have asked for soap.'

'Aye, I imagine they have.'

'We got no soap.'

'I have just realized that.'

She wandered away.

'Newly arrived, I take it,' the stranger said. 'North gate?'

'Aye.'

'That's quite a climb, with horses yet.'

'Meaning the north gate's locked.'

'Sealed, along with all the others. Maybe you arrived by the harbourside.'

'Maybe.'

'Harbour's closed.'

'How do you close Aren Harbour?'

'All right, it's not closed.'

Kalam took a mouthful of ale, swallowed it down and went perfectly still.

'Gets even worse after a few,' the stranger said.

The assassin set the tankard back down on the table. He struggled a moment to find his voice. 'Tell me some news.'

'Why should I?'

'I've bought you a drink.'

'And I should be grateful? Hood's breath, man, you've tasted it!'

'I'm not usually this patient.'

'Oh, very well, why didn't you say so?' He finished the first tankard, picked up the new one. 'Some ales grow on you. Some grow in you. To your health, sir.' He quaffed the ale down.

'I have slit uglier throats than yours,' the assassin said.

The man paused, his eyes flicking for the briefest of moments to skitter over Kalam, then he set his tankard down. 'Kornobol's wives locked him out last night — the poor bastard was left wandering the streets till one of the High Fist's patrols picked him up for breaking curfew. It's becoming common practice. Wives all over the city are having revelations. What else? Can't get a decent fillet without paying an arm and a leg for it — there's more maimed beggars than ever crowding the streets where the markets used to be. Can't buy a reading without Hood's Herald poking up on the field — tell me, do you think it's even possible that the High Fist is casting someone else's shadow like they say? Of course, who can cast a shadow hiding in the palace wardrobe? Fish ain't the only slippery things in this city, let me tell you. Why, I've been arrested four times in the last two days, had to identify myself and show my Imperial charter, if you can believe it. Turned out lucky, though, since I found my crew in one of those gaols. With Oponn's smile I'll have them out come tomorrow — got a deck to scrub and believe you me, those drunken louts will be scrubbing till the Abyss swallows the world. What's worse is the way some people step right around that charter, make demands of a person so he's left with an aching head delivering messages beneath common words, as if life's not complicated enough — any idea how a hold groans when it's full of gold? And now you're going to say, "Well, Captain, it just so happens that I'm looking to buy passage back to Unta," and I'll say, "The gods are smiling upon you, sir! It just so happens that I'm sailing in two days' time, with twenty marines, the High Fist's treasurer and half of Aren's riches on board — but we've room, sir, oh, yes indeed. Welcome aboard!"'

Kalam was silent for a dozen heartbeats, then he said, 'The gods are smiling indeed.'

The captain's head bobbed. 'Smooth and beguiling, them smiles.'

'Who do I thank for this arrangement?'

'Says he's a friend of yours, though you've never met — though you will aboard my ship, Ragstopper, in two days.'

'His name?'

'Salk Elan, he called himself. Says he's been waiting for you.'

'And how did he know I would come to this inn? I did not know of its existence an hour ago.'

'A guess, but an informed one. Something about this being the first one you come to down from the gate in the necropolis. Too bad you weren't here last night, friend, it was even quieter, at least until the wench fished a drowned rat out of that keg over yonder. Too bad you and your friends missed this morning's breakfast.'

Kalam slammed the rickety door behind him, pausing to regain control. Quick Ben's arrangements? Not likely. Impossible, in fact-

'What's wrong?' Minala was sitting at the table, a wedge of melon in one hand. Voices from the garden indicated parents bathing reluctant children.

The assassin closed his eyes for a long moment, then opened them with a sigh. 'You've been delivered to Aren — and now we must go our separate ways. Tell Keneb to go out until he finds a patrol or one finds him, and then make his report to the City Guard's commander — leaving me entirely out of that report-'

'And how does he explain us getting into the city?'

'A fisherman brought you in. Keep it simple.'