Strangleroot Tarantella #2
He pops open a jar of confiture. “No. Expecting a ride?”
“Sooner or later.”
“Right. Want some grease-beetle?” As Mallory pulls open a drawer and removes a knife, Aster watches the faded band appear from under his sleeve.
He doesn’t carry himself like a Tiliarder, and his accent is better than any fake she could conjure from cricket-wing and Dagdrun black plum.
Then again, he fries his grease-beetle just like they do in the undercity, in the shell and with legs still attached.
“Your dad teach you to cook a beetle?” she asks.
“God, no. He was a wealthy man. Much fonder of pheasant.”
“And it’s not something you learn in military academy, I take it.”
He removes the bug from the frying pan. “No. Though in the leaner months we could scrounge up a decent rat casserole. Dee’s was especially good.”
Aster smiles, narrows her eyes. “You learn embroidery in Mongfestun, too?”
“They taught us all the manly arts. A little swordplay, a little sewing.”
“So when are you going to get to the part where you worked in the undercity?”
She expects him to freeze, to raise his hackles, to give her, at least, some sort of look. He only sets out some bread on the table. “Sure. I’m not entirely the stranger come to town. More of a prodigal son.”
“So, who did you work for? What did you do?”
“I was—well, you could say I was an exterminator. Brief career. I left during the Revival.”
Aster watches him smear his beetle over a slice of bread. He had to have been so young then, within spitting distance of childhood—a foolish kid looking for a cause, a rebellious son of a rich man, an orphan desperate for the easy money. “Mal,” she starts. “Is this really your father’s house?”
“Yes—well, he … wasn’t really my father. More of a spiritual one. I was a bit of a … foundling.”
“A bit of a foundling.” Aster laughs. “I assumed he pulled you from the Catoptric, fully formed, like the wizard in Fleeting Lodestar?”
He shrugs. “Close enough.”
“And is vant Passand your real name?”
“As far as I’ve been told.”
He hands her a piece of bread, and she looks it over. “Why are you here, really?”
“I told you. Loose threads.”
“Answer me, Mallory.”
His pause is dark. When he speaks again, Aster dares to think she’s whittled him down to the truth. “I lost someone. Someone I loved. During the Revival.”
There we go. “Oh, Mal.” She deflates. “That’s a familiar story. We all lost someone. To BGS, or the Marshal Exultant, or just bad luck. Whoever was spared by one side was killed by the other. There’s no use bearing a grudge over them.”
“They’re not dead, vralen. Just badly misplaced.”
“Well—” She hesitates. She can’t bring herself to tell him the only thing worse than losing someone to those clouds of ecdytoxin is finding them again—especially years later, when their petrified remains have more or less grown into the backdrop of Tiliarder statuary.
At least, she thinks guiltily, his chances of success are mercifully dim. “Well. If I can help…”
“Appreciated, vralen. Oh—before I forget.” He sets down his bread and pulls his handkerchief from his pocket. “I washed it. I figured you needed it more than I do. It’ll hold until I make you a new one.”
Her heart turns as he lays the cloth in her hand. “What about Demetrius?”
“What about him?”
“He was wearing your embroidery. Right at his throat.”
“You could tell? From that distance?”
“It’s got very striking patterns. A unique—” Before she can finish, a resounding crack jolts through the room.
A shout echoes from the portico. Aster curses, pulls her robe tighter and trots to the foyer.
The slab of amber shakes as a boot pounds it from the other side.
She recognizes the rhythm of the kicks, the hoarse grunts of the silhouette behind the door.
“Is that your ride?” Mallory asks. “Should I open it for him?”
“Absolutely not,” Aster says. “Let him figure it out.”
The shadows hunch beyond the doorway, then disappear. A pin clicks, and an acrid cloud hisses through the cracks. The amber melts into sap, pooling in a slumped pile under the doorway.
Seven men step into the room—or six men and a boy dressed as one. Florian marches at the front of his Tender Guard unit, preceded by his perfume; too tall in his stark white uniform, his jaw darkened as if he has shaved something that morning—but still, despite Aster’s best efforts, unbearded.
“You must be Florian,” Mallory says.
“What the fuck is this, Aster?” His eyes move across the rotting foyer, from the cobwebs to the stairs to Mallory. “Who is this?”
“He’s … a friend,” she answers. “From out of town.”
“Quite the lodgings.” Florian’s hand crosses to his hilt.
“Don’t,” Aster starts, but he draws anyway.
His blade bends the light, shimmering as he points the tip toward Mal’s head, then his hands, as if calculating the best position to pin him up in his Palas display case.
A smile crosses his face when Mallory tenses, tapping the bread knife against his thumb.
“Don’t do it, Mal,” Aster growls. “Don’t let him goad you into a fight.”
“Of course not, vralen,” Mallory says. “If I did, who would drive you home?”
Florian’s eyes widen—with rage, or pleasure, or both. She recognizes his look; he is envisioning wings of splayed skin, trinkets of bone, little tokens of Mallory he might send to Elspeth in a sad attempt to woo her.
“Is El okay?” Aster asks quickly.
Florian softens at the name. He stares at his opponent a moment longer, then sheathes his blade. “She’s fine. Shaken up. Worried about you.”
“I should go, then.” Aster turns and offers Mallory a trembling hand. Don’t fucking kiss it. Hold it like a friend. “Eir vant Passand.”
Obediently, he gives her fingers a platonic squeeze. “Vralen Vost. Please visit when you can.” His eyes flit to the melted amber. “As you can see, my door’s open.”
“I’ll see you again,” she says, and she hopes it sounds, at least vaguely, like a credible threat. “Good luck with your loose threads, Eir Mallory.”
“Thank you. Truly, vralen. You’ve already brought me more luck than I could ask for.”
Borisch & Sons’ offices, like those of Sreckt and Metaldrip Defense Industries and other entities whose business brings them frequently between the roots and Tiliard’s stump-face, span the height of the city.
Not a skyscraper so much as the hollow imprint of one, the headquarters is reclaimed from the ancient shafts stretching from the base of Joyous Healing all the way to Fifth Street.
Elevator cars rattle along its tubules, harlequined in glass and large enough to accommodate several ballistae in the event of an apocalyptic infestation—or, in the rare event of a Boris visiting the barracks, a buffet big enough to amuse him on the way down.
Guy leans against the glass, watching the hollow landscape of the midcity.
Manufactories spill sludge from huge wooden pipes, piles of ancient machinery decay under blankets of albino vines.
His foul breath steams his reflection, blurring his stubble and grimy jacket, the exhausted purple ringing his honey-brown eyes.
The elevator deposits him at overcity headquarters. He traverses the atrium just as morning burns the dew from the windows. He feels upside-down under the chandeliers and arching skylights, too used to his light radiating from below, reflected in silver water.
Out of the hundreds of floors of company headquarters, a dozen are occupied, and only three of these are aboveground.
What they lack in number they make up for in height.
Built during the company’s glory days, the halls are carved with Manual entries, from erosion roaches to Bacher’s dragonfly.
Guy climbs past ubiquitous pests and extinct species of mythical size, past the Mammoth Stag and the Old Bailey Worm.
At the end of the highest hall, where the spear of Boris III pierces the Worm’s abdomen, stands the president’s door.
Guy hesitates at the threshold. He swallows, condemned to fall into this trap, whatever it is—firing, imprisonment, Dr. Nic with her utensils, ready to remove his thumbs to ensure he’ll never find honest work again.
He takes a deep breath, and for the first time in his career, enters Eir Borisch’s office.
A jungle of leather and wood yawns over him.
Wide-leafed plants spill from golden pots, and a large window gazes out onto Fifth.
A dozen portraits line the west wall, the largest of which depicts Boris I, buck’s antler in one fist and hunting rifle in the other.
Framed next to him is his nearly identical son, and then his slightly less identical grandson and great-grandson—a pure, uninterrupted patrilineage of Boris Borisches stretching over three centuries of business.
The man who greets Guy is not the man who occupies the newest portrait.
He is sleeker and darker, sporting a goatee that seems more at home in a men’s magazine than on a real face.
Guy supposes he is a cousin of some sort, a black sheep herded toward the unsavory tasks thought beneath the main Borisch flock.
“They’re drab, aren’t they?” the man says, nodding at the paintings. “For being so committed to portraiture you’d think they’d have better taste.”
Guy’s voice is nothing but a rasp. “Are you not…”
“One of them? No, thank God. Though we have our similarities. While their line is all sons, ours is somehow comprised entirely of nephews.” His laugh is softer than Guy expects. “At the very least, we’ve all got our own names.” He extends his hand. “Bertram.”
Guy takes it, trying to sort this man into his managerial taxonomy. Not thuggish enough for security, not earnest enough for Quality Improvement. Some species of lawyer, or a debt agent. “Guylag,” he says.
“Ah—as in Saint Guylag and the Dragon?”
He blinks. “Yes.”