The Scarab Path

The Fisher lay there, attended by a quartet of young Khanaphir men serving her wine and grapes. She was spread out on a heap of cushions, wearing Spiderland silks that must cost a fortune to import here, and adorned with gold all over: armlets, anklets, rings, pendants, even a band of it across her forehead. She was compensating in some way, Petri suspected, for the Fisher was a halfbreed of mixed Khanaphir and Marsh people stock. Her skin was an oily greenish colour and, somewhere between the solid Beetle build and the slight grace of the estuary folk, she had turned out shapeless and baggy. Her eyes were yellow and unblinking as they regarded Petri. A servant handed her a long-stemmed lit pipe made from smoke-coloured glass, and she accepted it, wordlessly.

How did Kadro do this?

'I … er … I wish to do business,' Petri began, trying to keep her voice steady. Responding to a small tilt of the Fisher's head, abruptly one of the servants appeared by Petri's arm, offering her a shallow bowl of wine. Gratefully Petri took it and subsided on to the cushions. It was hot and airless in here, and the bittersweet pipe smoke made her head swim.

'Please …' she said, before she could stop herself.

The Fisher continued to regard her silently, waiting. Petri summoned all her reserves of strength.

'I wish you to find someone for me.' How would Kadro have put this? 'I know that, of all the knowledgeable people in the Marsh Alcaia, you are renowned as being the one who can locate anyone or anything.' Compliments were important in Khanaphes, she knew.

A slight nod revealed the Fisher's acceptance of Petri's clumsy offering. 'A friend of Kadro of Collegium is always my friend too, of course,' she replied. 'But a curious woman would wonder at the purpose of such a hunt. Perhaps some fool who has insulted you, and is therefore deserving of death? You should know that there is another who would be keenly interested in such dealings.'

Petri's mouth twitched. 'It is no such matter,' she stammered, 'only that a friend of mine has been … too long out of touch, so that I am now concerned for him.'

'Your sense of duty does you credit,' the Fisher told her, with a shallow smile. 'The path to my tent is not the worst that you might have chosen. Who is this ailing friend?'

Petri drained her wine for courage. The local stuff was strong, and she waited for a moment of dizziness to pass her. 'Ma … Kadro. I need you to find Kadro.' Never Master Kadro, not here. Here, the word had other meanings.

The Fisher's slight smile did not flicker, and its very fixed immobility told Petri that something was wrong. The halfbreed woman took a long puff of her pipe, then handed it back to one of her servants.

'Fisher?' Petri pressed, knowing that things had gone awry, but unable to see precisely how or why.

In a single movement the Fisher stood up, her face still devoid of expression. 'Alas, what you ask is impossible,' she declared. Her servants had moved closer to her, as though expecting attack. Petri stood up as well, mouth working silently, searching for words.

'But …' she got out finally. 'I have money!' It was unspeakably rude, by local standards, but the Fisher did not visibly react to it. Instead she simply retreated further and further. What had seemed a wall of cloth parted for her, and then she had vanished beyond it, her servants following silently. Petri was left in sole possession of the tent, deep within the Marsh Alcaia.

Her heart was beginning to pound. She had the sense of something chasing her. The Fisher had known something, had known enough not to want anything to do with this. Petri was fast running out of places to turn.

There was someone, though: there was the very person the Fisher had alluded to. The Khanaphir loved middlemen. Even in the business of seeking another's death there was someone to go to, who would then find someone else to wield the knife. Petri had never met the current holder of the office, but she knew the name from a casual mention by Kadro.

When she asked for the name of Harbir, people drew back from her, turned away, refused to speak. She persisted, and suspected that carrying the name before her made her proof against the petty robbers and killers that haunted the interior of the Alcaia. Somebody who had business with Harbir the Arranger, however they might seem, was not prey for smaller fish.

But it was Harbir who found her. After she had spent a half-hour wandering at random through the coloured maze of the Alcaia, and regularly dropping his name, a cowled Khanaphir woman approached her, tugged once at her sleeve, and then retreated deeper into the gloom. Petri followed meekly, again because she had nowhere else to go.

Harbir's tent was bigger than the Fisher's, and inside it hanging drapes cordoned off the man himself. Petri found herself in a surprisingly large space, empty save for overlapping rugs on the floor. Two men stood by the door, bare-chested Khanaphir Beetles with axes in their belts, whose stare did not admit to her presence or existence.

'You have bandied my name a hundred times beneath the roof of the Alcaia,' came a voice from the tent's hidden reaches. It was a male voice, but Petri could tell no more than that. Even if this was the Arranger's tent, it could have just been another servant speaking.

'I … give you my apologies if I have caused any difficulties.' She stumbled over the words, which was poor, knowing the Khanaphir valued eloquence.

'There are many who come to me seeking a final arrangement,' the man responded, with the unhurried measure of someone fond of his own voice. 'The wealthy speak to me of their rivals, the bitter regarding those who have wronged them, the desperate concerning those who have more than they. Honoured Foreigner, have you been in our lands so long that you would be prepared to take part in our pastimes?'

'No …' The word came out as a squeak, so she calmed herself and started again. 'I only wish to know, great Harbir, whether a friend of mine has been arranged … has had an arrangement made about him.'

She hoped she had remembered properly what little Kadro had said of the traditions here. Amongst some assassins, she was sure, such a direct question would transgress etiquette — perhaps fatally.

'You have not come empty-handed, expecting to bear away such a weighty answer?' the voice enquired, upon which she finally relaxed a little. She reached into her purse and came out with a fistful of currency: Helleron Standards, the local lozenges of metal stamped with weight and hallmark, even a few bulky and debased Imperial coins.

There was a slight sound that might have been a snigger. 'And who is it that is so fortunate as to have you solicitous after their health?'

'Kadro … Kadro of Collegium, the Fly-kinden,' she replied. The words dropped heavily into the tent and left a silence.

'Please …' she said again, before biting off the words. The locals never said 'please'. Their indefatigable politeness danced around the word.

'Go,' said the voice.

'Please tell me!' she managed, suddenly very aware of the two axemen by the tent-flap.

'His name has not been passed to me,' said the unseen voice. 'Now go.'

The axemen had subtly shifted their stance, and Petri was suddenly very afraid. She tripped on the rugs, stumbled, and was out of the tent before she realized it, into the stifling alleyways of the Marsh Alcaia.

She looked around her, having no idea what path might lead her out of this warren of fabric. She had known she was intruding too far, but somehow had envisaged, after a successful quest, that the way out would open before her. But her quest was not successful, and no clear exit was to be seen. The one thing she could not ask the locals was How do I get out of here?

Petri started walking. She tried to make her gait seem determined, as of someone who frequented the Marsh Alcaia every day. But she was a foreigner, dressed like a foreigner, wearing a head of hair like a foreigner. She no longer had any names of power to awe the locals. She passed through avenue after cloth-roofed avenue, each lined only with the openings of tents. People stopped to watch her pass, and eyes from within the shadows picked out her movements. She was aware of this scrutiny but did not stop, just kept walking to who-knows-where.

A man fell into step alongside her. He was a Khanaphir Beetle, short, shaven-headed, wearing a simple robe. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye and found he was not looking at her.

'Pardon this no doubt unwarranted observation but you look like one who is seeking the direction to where she should be,' he said, smiling out at the canvas sky.

'E-excuse me?' she stammered. She felt hope steal up on her, now, although she had no reason for it.