The Gage shrugged. “After a fashion.”
The Dead Man stared. The Gage did not move. “Well,” said the Dead Man at last. “Let us then obtain wine.”
THEY CHOSE A tavern on the other side of the block that faced on the Blue Stone, where its unnerving light did not wash in through the high narrow windows. The floor was gritty with sand spread to sop up spilled wine, and the air was thick with its vinegar sourness. The Dead Man tested the first step carefully, until he determined that what lay under the sand was flagstone. As they settled themselves—the Dead Man with his back to the wall, the Gage with his back to the room—the Gage said, “Did it do that when the poet died?”
“His name was Anah.”
“Did it do that when Anah died?”
The Dead Man raised one hand in summons to the serving girl. “It seems to like blood.”
“And yet we don’t know what they built it for.”
“Or who built it,” the Dead Man said. “But you believe those things do not matter.”
The girl who brought them wine was young, her blue-black hair in a wrist-thick braid of seven strands. The plait hung down her back in a spiral, twisted like the Blue Stone. She took the Dead Man’s copper and withdrew.
The Dead Man said, “I always wondered how your sort sustained yourselves.”
In answer, the Gage cupped his bronze fingers loosely around the stem of the cup and let them lie on the table.
“I was hired by the poet’s... by Anah’s lover.” The Dead Man lifted his cup and swirled it. Fumes rose from the warmed wine. He lifted his veil and touched his mouth to the rim. The wine was raw, rough stuff, more fruit than alcohol.
The Gage said, “We seek the same villain.”
“I am afraid I cannot relinquish my interest in the case. I... need the money.” The Dead Man lifted his veil to drink again. The edge lapped wine and grew stained.
The Gage might have been regarding him. He might have been staring at the wall behind his head. Slowly, he passed a brazen hand over the table. It left behind a scaled track of silver. “I will pay you as well as your other client. And I will help you bring her the Wizard’s head.”
“Wizard!”
The Gage shrugged.
“You think you know who it is that I hunt.”
“Oh yes,” the Gage said. Scratched silver glittered dully on the table. “I can tell you that.”
The Dead Man regarded his cup, and the Gage regarded... whatever it was.
Finally, the Gage broke the impasse to say, “Would you rather go after a Wizard alone, or in company?”
Under his veil, the Dead Man nibbled a thumbnail. “Which Wizard?”
“Attar the Enchanter. Do you know where to find him?”
“Everyone in Messaline knows where to find a Wizard. Or, belike, how to avoid him.” The Dead Man tapped the nearest coin. “Why would he kill a poet? Gut him? In a public square?”
“He’s a ghost-maker,” the Gage said. “He kills for the pleasure it affords him. He kills artists, in particular. He likes to own them. To possess their creativity.”
“Huh,” said the Dead Man. “Anah was not the first, then.”
“Ghost-makers... some people say they’re soulless themselves. That they’re empty, and so they drink the souls of the dead. And they’re always hungry for another.”
“People say a lot of shit,” the Dead Man said.
“When I heard the manner of the poet’s death, and that Attar was in Messaline...” The Gage shrugged. “I came at once. To catch up with him before he moves on again.”
“You have not come about Anah in particular.”
“I’m here for Anah. And the other Anahs. Future and past.”
“I see,” said the Dead Man.
His hand passed across the table. When it vanished, no silver remained. “Is it true that darkness cannot cloud your vision?”
“I can see,” said the faceless man. “In dark or day, whether I turn my head aside or no. What has no eyes cannot be blinded.”
“That must be awful,” the Dead Man said.
The lamplight flickered against the side of the Gage’s mask.
“So,” said the Gage, motionless. “When the Caliph’s service left you, you chose a mercenary life?”
“Not mercenary,” the Dead Man said. “I have had sufficient of soldiering. I’m a hired investigator.”
“An... investigator.”
The corners of the Dead Man’s eyes folded into eagle-tracks. “We have a legacy of detective stories in the Caliphate. Tales of clever men, and of one who is cleverer. They are mostly told by women.”
“Aren’t most of your storytellers women?”
The Dead Man moved to drink and found his cup empty. “They are the living embodiment of the Scholar-God.”
“And you keep them in cages.”
“We keep God in temples. Is that so different?”
After a while, the Dead Man said, “You have some plan for fighting a Wizard? A Wizard who... killed your maker?”
“My maker was Cog the Deviser. That’s not how she died. But I thought perhaps a priest of Kaalha would know what to do about a ghost-maker.”
“Ask the Death God. You are a clever automaton.”
The Gage shrugged.
“If you won’t drink that, I will.”
“Drink it?” the Gage asked. He drew his hands back from where they had embraced the foot of his cup.
The Dead Man reached across the table, eyebrows questioning, and waited until the Gage gestured him in to tilt the cup and peer inside.
If there had been wine within, it was gone.
WHEN THE LION-SUN of Messaline rose, haloed in its mane, the Gage and the Dead Man were waiting below the lintel inscribed, In my house there is an end to pain. The door stood open, admitting the transient chill of a desert morning. No one barred the way. But no one had come to admit them, either.
“We should go in?” the Dead Man said.
“After you,” said the Gage.
The Dead Man huffed, but stepped forward, the Gage following with silent precision. His joints made no more sound than the massive gears of the gates of Messaline. Wizards, when they chose to wreak, wrought well.
Beyond the doorway lay a white marble hall, shadowed and cool. Within the hall, a masked figure enveloped in undyed linen robes stood, hands folded into sleeves. The mask was silver, featureless, divided by a line—a join—down the center. The robe was long enough to puddle on the floor.
Behind the mask, one side of the priest’s face would be pitted, furrowed: acid-burned. And one side would be untouched, in homage—in sacrifice—to the masked goddess they served, whose face was the heavy, half-scarred moon of Messaline. The Gage and the Dead Man drew up, two concealed faces regarding one.
Unless the figure was a statue.
But then the head lifted. Hands emerged from the sleeves—long and dark, elegant, with nails sliced short for labor. The voice that spoke was fluting, feminine.
“Welcome to the House of Mercy,” the priestess said. “All must come to Kaalha of the Ruins in the end. Why do you seek her prematurely?”
They hesitated for a moment, but then the Dead Man stepped forward. “We seek her blessing. And perhaps her aid, Child of the Night.”
By her voice, perhaps her mirrors hid a smile. “A pair of excommunicates. Wolf’s-heads, are you not? Masterless ones?”
The supplicants held their silence, or perhaps neither one of them knew how to answer.
When the priestess turned to the Gage, their visages reflected one another—reflected distorted reflections—endlessly. “What have you to live for?”
“Duty, art, and love.”
“You? A Faceless Man?”
The Gage shrugged. “We prefer the term Gage.”
“So,” she said. She turned to the Dead Man. “What have you to live for?”
“Me? I am dead already.”