Chapter 39
Trade it to an honest man
trade it fast, in kind
but never sell a confidence
go deaf, go dumb, go blind
—Glimmer’s skelf-song
Fallon walks on, his pace a little brisker, back a little stiffer, hiding the worst of it, prideful sod.
He pauses as they pass a darkened arcade.
The latticed roof thick with bird-shit and the scorched walls lined with sheets of dusty glass, clouded with spiders.
Hints of broken furniture behind the panes, split chairs and shattered tables.
A memory of shouting voices, torches, an evening of flame.
He notices Shipwright watching him. ‘You remember what this used to be?’
She shakes her head, running a critical eye over the soot-blacked stone.
‘The Street of Small Saviours.’
Shipwright turns an eye to him, shrugs blankly.
Fallon sighs. ‘Little traders. Curios. Antiques. And one host. A banker. A securities man. Styled himself the Gutgod.’
Shipwright grimaces. ‘That doesn’t sound good.’
‘Could store anything for you. Seal it away inside himself. Uncrackable, incorruptible. Expensive as sin. A little wet, a little sticky on extraction, but that was a small price to pay.’ He smiles grimly.
‘Time was he must have had half the secrets of the guilds and captains tucked up under his ribs.’
Fallon picks at his stubble, flicks something into the street. ‘A principled entrepreneur, they’d thought. Using the powers of his god for good. Slicing himself open with barely a hissed complaint, letting its gold light stitch him back together, with his latest commissions safely stowed inside.’
He scrapes idly at some blistered paint.
‘Of course, when the south burnt, we discovered his … storage system. Screams coming up from the cellar. And down there, all these street kids, linked together. Flesh to bone. Must have been a king’s ransom inside them, and suddenly they could feel it all, every coin, every gem, every secret cutting into them.
All the pain flooding back in as his god died. ’
His face pales. ‘We should have realised sooner. Should have figured there was no way one man could hold the secrets of a city inside himself. But he was easy. Convenient. We would never have known, if it wasn’t for Crowkisser. I suppose I owe her for that.’
Shipwright’s eyes are wide, her voice thick with horror. ‘What happened to him? To the Gutgod?’
Fallon’s eyes go flat, as he glances at a series of dark scars on his knuckles.
‘I beat him bloody myself when I found out. Right there in the street.’ He looks down at the blackened stones.
‘And all through it, he was so startled to be feeling. So surprised his body wasn’t pulling itself back together.
That his god had left him.’ He laughs. ‘Prick.’
Shipwright twists her mouth in disgust. ‘Declan … what did you do with him?’
He shrugs. ‘I gave what was left to the guilds, after they’d razed the street to ash. They treated him pretty much as I expected.’
Shipwright raises an eyebrow.
Declan grins. ‘As far as I know, the Gutgod’s currently on display in seven different gilded cases around the city. If the gods ever return, he’s going to have a very harsh awakening.’
Shipwright chokes down bile as she surveys the wreckage of the arcade.
Fallon claps her on the shoulder. ‘Anyway, wasn’t I supposed to be taking you shopping?’
Shipwright rolls her eyes. ‘You’re a monster, Fallon.’
He shoots a glance at the broken street over her shoulder. ‘Mm, when I need to be.’
His eyes linger on the hollow windows for a moment longer. ‘Where’s your better half meeting us?’
‘Down by the lock. He said he had some errands to run first.’
The city thickens up as they fall out of the curves of Bitterhaven into Mirestem. Lines of clothes stretch over rat-ways built of planks and rigging slung to and fro, houses raised high above the canals, the streets ringing with voices and the water pocked with detritus falling from above.
Gangs of urchins swing from roof to roof, feet light on the tiles, arcing above the hubbub on long poles that bend precariously. Shipwright watches them with delight.
Shuttered windows are flung open, heads hollering at Fallon. An old man with an eye patch tosses a velvet sack which he catches with aplomb.
‘For you and the Grey Lady.’
Behind his stooped back, a cacophony of birds sing in small, mismatched cages.
Shroudweaver waits for them by the lock that lowers the water down into Peacock’s Rest. He’s barefoot, sandals at his side, hood pushed back and the sleeves of his robes unwound to the shoulder. Head tipped, at peace for a moment, enjoying the sun on his skin, a hand trailing in the water.
Shipwright points him out to Fallon. He winks back at her. ‘You’ll rot your fingers off if you do that,’ he yells.
Shroudweaver leaps like a scalded cat, teetering on the edge. A gaggle of boatmen yell warnings.
Fallon catches his wrist and pulls him steady, just about hiding a grimace of pain. ‘Morning, skinny. Sightseeing?’
Shroudweaver dusts himself off. ‘That was earlier, I was just warming my bones. In peace.’
Fallon nods, oblivious. ‘Warm them later. We’ve got things to do.’ He slings an arm around them both. ‘Does it feel good to be home?’ He sees their expressions. ‘Well, as near to home as you two get.’ The big man pulls Shroudweaver’s cheeks. ‘We’re going to have some fun. Remember that?’
Shroudweaver yawns. ‘Well, this is the place for it.’
They walk onwards and downwards as the business of pleasure carries on in Peacock’s Rest, in its shaded courtyards, with their cobbled stones crowded with patterns and their fountains thick with lilies. Geckos on the porticos, scuttling between the tiled tables and the softly steaming urns of tea.
Heads turn to watch them pass; hooded figures in rich robes, others with hats like the chewed ear of a rat. Fallon sees Shipwright following their stares.
‘Guildsmen. Squabbling like gulls every morning. It’s guilds all the way down, these days. Got their hands in all the important trade. For better or worse.’
‘Are they a problem?’ Shroudweaver asks.
‘Not yet,’ Fallon replies. ‘Wait until the war bites. Then we’ll see.’
Past another courtyard, another clutch of lidded stares. A tall, dark-skinned woman lingers in an archway, a massive hat pulled low over eyes, a single long feather sprouting from the band. She tugs it respectfully as Fallon passes, flashing an eerily bright smile.
‘Morning, Brim,’ Fallon says.
She smiles wider, sparkling. ‘Nice to see the old gang back together, Declan.’
He hustles them past. ‘It’s a delight. Can’t stop though. We’ve got appointments.’
They round a corner, taking a set of small, staggered steps to the bottom of the loop, stepping over fruit peel and broken glass.
‘Can’t stop, eh, Declan?’ Shroudweaver’s face is sceptical.
Fallon leans on the edge of a water fountain, rubs his stitches. ‘Partially true. Truer that we don’t have time for Brim.’
‘Don’t fuss with those,’ Shipwright cuts in. ‘Why not?’ She splashes her face, wipes grit from her eyes. ‘She’s still a great-ship captain, right?’
Fallon nods, gargles, spits. ‘One of the best. And one of the last, of course. Sailed with us at Luss, if you remember. Not a captain then. The old one had to die first.’
‘That didn’t take long once we were through the gates,’ Shipwright mutters, glancing over her shoulder.
‘What’s with her teeth these days?’ Shroudweaver asks.
Fallon grins. ‘Sharp eyes. Filed them down herself. Capped them off with little shards of pearl.’ He shivers. ‘Spooky bitch.’
‘I always liked her hat,’ Shipwright says, drying her hands on the edge of her shirt. ‘Can I get a hat, Declan?’
She leans across to Shroudweaver. ‘Maybe that’s our appointment? A nice new hat.’ She smiles sweetly at Fallon, ‘Is it?’
He rolls his eyes, and leads them downslope through a maze of alleys that press one against the other. They can still hear the canals, distantly, but even the light is muted here, coloured awnings strung across the close-leaning streets, cutting the shadow into stripes of red, orange, purple.
‘Two places we’re due today,’ Fallon says.
‘Anything look familiar?’ Shroudweaver scans the street more closely, takes in the swinging signs, the windows fronted with wooden boards that doubled as stall fronts arrayed with curios, some strung out with quiet precision, others in heaps of indiscriminate value. Metal and bone and chain and gem.
‘Thriftglow,’ he says. ‘The Ghostmarket.’
He remembers it more clearly now. It’s not much changed from his first time there, with its doorways hung with bunches of herbs, its slowly rattling chimes moving in the dust spirals and heat.
The stallholders impassive behind their wares, their eyes bright as hunting hawks.
The customers quiet – sifting through their offerings, judging by touch as much as sight.
Declan grins as they look around. ‘You need supplies, right?’
Shipwright frowns. ‘Ropecharmer’ll take care of all that stuff, Dec.’
He waves a hand dismissively, narrowly missing a delicate charm of hanging arrowheads. ‘Not that dull shit. Hard tack and rope and crab tar, or whatever the hell you sailors use. I’m talking the real deal. Brass and copper. Thread and powder. Magic, dipshits.’
Shroudweaver laughs. ‘Is that our new codename? He’s right, Ship. I’m almost dry. Thread’s near burnt through and my powders are just dust and spit at this point. And you said yourself the spinners are stressed.’
Shipwright rubs the bridge of her nose. ‘Me and the spinners both. Declan, do we have time for shopping trips?’
The grin on his face steadies. ‘Ship, I don’t know magic.
I don’t want to know it. How you do what you do can die with you.
And certainly Shroud’s kit gives me the crawling shivers.
’ He picks up a bowl, turns it critically, sets it down.
‘But I know war. And you don’t send anyone off to war without kit.
Get your kit. Do this right. Stay safe.’
The other shoppers melt away as unobtrusively as possible, clocking the Lord of the Towers rolling down the street.
A few brief, furtive exchanges follow, gloved hands brushing silk and the barest glimmer of coin.
The proprietors adjust their wares and wait patiently.
The street quietens to the yowl of cats, the chirping of the bright-plumed birds which fret in their stall-side cages.
Shipwright feels curiosity light in her like it hasn’t for years, but tries to play it cool. ‘How do you even know they’ll have what we need, Declan?’
Fallon taps his nose. ‘I’ve got a woman. She scoped it out. These guys have everything. This is where the weirdness of the city ends up. All the artefacts, the charms, the occult bits and bollocks; it all sifts down to Thriftglow eventually.’
If he notices the stallholders bristle slightly, he says nothing.
He sighs. ‘Just … let someone else handle it, for once, OK? You control freak.’
Shipwright beams at him, smiles wider still at Shroudweaver’s laugh. ‘Fine, fine. You got me. Fine.’ Holds her hands up in surrender.
‘Good,’ Fallon grins. ‘You need to head four doors down, talk to that man there, the one that looks like a snake in a fur wrap.’ He points to a man who watches flatly, eyes lizard-lidded, fingers adjusting a belt hung with thin, sharp tools.
‘They all love me down here.’ He turns. ‘Shroud, come with me, we’re going to see Smokesister.’
Shroudweaver starts. ‘She’s still alive?’
Fallon laughs. ‘I think she’s too mean to die.’ He pulls Shroud in close. ‘Why, do you still have a crush on her?’