Matabar

Book II. Chapter 23 - Saint Eord

The time they spent waiting for Alexander and Din was not wasted. Milar continued his meticulous search of Oglanov’s office, while Ardi twisted a sheet of paper into a cone and gathered a small amount of the crystalline dust left on the threshold. It was unlikely that even Dagdag and his specialists could learn anything from it, but if there was even the slightest chance…

Then Ardan spent some time studying the door. The seal used by the Narikhman mage was, in essence, an active stationary shield. It had no external power source, only an activation condition, one that needed a specific set of events to trigger it. Ardi had used a similar approach with the shield he’d placed on the door of his and Tess’ apartment. And the door of their train compartment.

Again, this was nothing out of the ordinary.

If not for one small detail.

Ardan’s own seals enchanted an entire door at once, not a single component of it. But here, not only had the spell been confined to a remarkably small area, but it had also created an extraordinarily high-quality illusion. This meant that the mage had taken the time to physically remove the lock and handle from the door, and had then created a perfect copy of them. A single spell with three distinct functions, each one honed to a point of absolute perfection.

The young man glanced into the paper cone, where the bluish dust faintly shimmered.

The seal would require at least one ray from…

“It was a Yellow Star Mage,” Ardi said aloud.

“What?” Milar’s voice echoed from the back of the office. He was thoroughly inspecting the contents of Oglanov’s safe, but aside from empty whiskey bottles and a few boxes of cartridges, it seemed to hold nothing else of value.

“The seal on the door,” the young man clarified. “It was most likely placed there by a Yellow Star Mage.”

Milar straightened up and walked over to Ardi. For a time, he silently examined the door, then asked curtly, “You sure?”

Ardan only shrugged. Milar shot him a sidelong glance and, with a sigh, jotted a few notes down into his notebook.

“We’ll have Alice check the archives. There aren’t that many Yellow Mages in the country. Fewer than two thousand.”

“A little over seventeen hundred, to be precise,” Ard added.

“But that’s only those registered with the Mages’ Guild…”

“You think it’s possible to avoid registration?” Ardan asked, surprised.

Considering the sheer volume of laws, bureaucracy and regulations tied to Star Magic, it seemed impossible that any mage could escape the watchful eye of the state apparatus.

One could perhaps imagine a few hundred Red or Green Star Mages slipping through the inky, hooked fingers of the Guild’s officials, but a Yellow Star Mage… According to various estimates, there were no more than eight thousand of them in the entire world. And nearly a quarter of them resided in the Empire.

They were too large a target to miss—and this was coming from Ardan Egobar, a man who couldn’t hit anything but the sky with a revolver.

“The Narikhman could have gone to the trouble of securing a mage like that,” Milar said, closing his notebook and tucking it back into his jacket. He thought for a moment, then added, “Or one could have been… provided to them. But that’s speculation, not deduction or theory. In any case, one thing is clear, Ard. You signed up for Magical Boxing just in time.”

The young man wasn’t the least bit surprised by his partner’s awareness of his activities. It was likely that the Black House and the Guard Corps both monitored what their mages did in their free time with equal, scrupulous attention.

Their conversation was cut short by the easily-recognizable honk of a car horn. It was a long, screeching sound, like the howl of a wounded wolf caught in a trap.

Milar and Ardi exchanged a look and, after carefully closing the door behind them, left the office. The elevator ride down didn’t take long (though from Ardi’s perspective, to whom every creak and scrape of that iron box had sounded like a funeral march, it had taken close to a century), and they were soon back on the street.

Another old “Derks” was parked near the building. This one, if you looked closely, had a hood that seemed wider than its counterparts, its wheels were more massive, and the spokes of its inner rims were thicker. He and Milar had never discussed it, but it wasn’t hard to guess that the Second Chancery had held on to its “Derks” models because, some fifteen years ago, the manufacturer had produced a special batch of the cars just for the Black House.

“And here are our esteemed investigators now,” Corporal Din Arnson called out, waving a hand.

Despite his twenty-five years, Din sometimes acted like a carefree boy. He loved lollipops, talked endlessly, and adored his impossibly beautiful wife, Plamena (she was so gorgeous that, at their wedding, Ardi had spent a good while seriously “sniffing out” his colleague’s wife, suspecting he was tying the knot with a Fae), with whom he was madly and mutually in love. He was, by human standards, exceptionally tall—almost one hundred and eighty-five centimeters—with long arms and legs, a short torso, and was lean to the point that his thick veins seemed to creak like ropes. An aquiline nose completed his equally eagle-like gaze.

Din Arnson, back when he’d been a ranger in the Ral Mountains, had singlehandedly pulled Mshisty and his subordinates out of a jam in the Dead Lands. He was an excellent tracker and a master of knife fighting.

Ardi gladly shook his hand; for once, he didn’t have to lower his chin to his chest to hold a conversation with someone.

“Morning,” Alexander Ursky grunted, or perhaps rasped, not bothering to offer anything further.

He wore an inexpensive, black pigskin jacket and a cap that covered his bald head but didn’t hide the Armondo tribal tattoos on his neck. Exactly how Alexander had been captured by the nomads had never been explained. But he had escaped with flair, taking the heads of the chief and his son with him and…

Ardi stopped himself.

The stories of Din Arnson and Alexander Ursky were suspiciously similar to certain episodes from the life of Arcady Agrov.

Thoughts for another day, Ardan mused, brushing aside the unnecessary speculation.

Alexander was as silent and as invariably serious as Din was talkative and irreverent, a man who seemed to have stepped from the pages of a children’s book about gunslingers dispensing justice in the wild prairies of the Alcade foothills, where it was hard to tell a bandit from a sheriff. He could use either hand to shoot with immense skill and accuracy. And when the bullets ran out, his mastery of hand-to-hand combat, along with his massive brass knuckles, could persuade even a demon to cooperate. Ardi had seen it happen with his own eyes when Alexander had broken the spine of a bat demon in Baliero with a single punch.

Well into his late thirties at thirty-eight, he could still outdo any young operative when it came to physical fitness and was the proud father of five daughters, each of whose names began with the same letter.

Alexander’s handshake had a particular strength and firmness to it, as if you were trying to squeeze not a human hand, but one carved from stone.

Milar and Alexander lit cigarettes, while Din, opening a small tin box, took out a lemon drop. He reacted to Ardi’s refusal of the treat with a careless shrug and popped the childish sweet into his mouth.

“Do Matabar have trouble with sugar as well as flour?” He asked curiously.

“No,” Ardi replied. “It’s just bad for your teeth.”

“Oh? All right then.”

Alexander gave his partner and Ardi a disapproving look before turning to Milar.

“Oglanov?” He asked in his usual, terse manner.

“He’s probably still alive,” Milar answered after a moment, fumbling through his numerous signal medallions. After finding the right one, he cursed and pressed it. “Takes forever to sort through these damn discs… Alright, gentlemen. Here’s the plan. We show up at the port. If anyone objects, don’t go straight for the gunpowder. We’ll try to use words, but if it comes to it… we’ll play it by ear.”

“Captain, old man Eord has been out of the game for a long time,” Din interjected, rolling the candy over his tongue, his blond hair shimmering in the sun like the surface of water. “His former Enforcer is running things now. Big Mariandat.”

“Andat?” Ardi and Milar asked in unison.

Din and Alexander gave them a restrained nod.

“Well, shit,” Milar swore, and Ardan mentally agreed with his partner.

There was “Andat,” and also “Andad” and “Andrut”—the names of giants often ended in similar sounds. Outwardly, they were no different from ordinary people, except for their size. Three meters and eighty centimeters was considered an average height for them. Four meters and twenty centimeters was tall. All the other proportions, muscle mass, and strength depended on the same factors as in ordinary humans. Giants didn’t possess the innate genetic mutations of ogres or orcs that made them living war machines. Nevertheless, no orc in his right mind would ever pick a fight with a giant.

“I hope they don’t call him Big because he’s-”

“Milar,” Alexander cut in. “They call him Big because he’s almost four and a half meters tall, weighs more than half a ton, and once tied a rail into a knot on a bet.”

“Are you exaggerating?” The captain asked, a sliver of hope in his voice.

Alexander remained silent. It was a very meaningful silence, the kind only he could manage.

“Shiiiiiiit,” Milar repeated with a drawn-out groan. “Fine. We have a mage with us.”

Alexander and Din looked doubtfully at Ardi, who was barely standing. His whole body hummed with exhaustion, and his thighs trembled slightly, threatening to remind the young man of the physical limits of his not-yet-strong, not-yet-fully-healed body.

“Reassuring,” Din nodded, crunching his candy. “We can’t count too much on the mage.”

“In the worst-case scenario, we’ll call for backup,” Milar said, exhaling a cloud of smoke.

“The Colonel won’t be happy.”

“Alexander, have you ever seen him happy about anything at all?”

The Colonel had left them to face the Puppeteers alone. At least until they identified and dealt with the mole.

Receiving no answer, Milar waved a hand.

“Alright, officers, stick close. When we get to the port, keep your eyes open. If anyone gets hurt, they’re…”

“A Fatian,” Alexander and Din finished their department’s favorite saying in unison and returned to their car.

Milar and Ard climbed back into their own, and soon, two black “Derks” were rolling down Soldiers’ Brotherhood Avenue, heading for the port.

Ardi stared out the window, mulling over the events of the last few days. Were they really connected to the Saint’s gang, which controlled the Dockworkers’ Guild, or had it all been staged to make the Second Chancery focus its efforts on the port? But why? If the port gang really was responsible, the Black House would simply tighten its control over the enterprise.

“It’s unlikely that the events are connected,” Milar said, exhaling smoke as he smoothly took a turn and they veered toward the Crookedwater Canal. “You’re thinking the same thing I am, aren’t you?”

“That the attack on Little Viroeira and Oglanov’s message lead to the same people?” Ardi clarified.

The captain nodded.

“It’d be hard not to notice, Milar.”

“Or someone wants us to notice.”

Ardi frowned.

“What do you mean?”

Milar flicked the ash from his cigarette and drove in silence for a time, calmly and steadily weaving through the flow of traffic, passing one vehicle after another. Given the nature of his work, the captain could drive a car better than some people could walk on their own two feet.

“If these events aren’t connected, partner, I’ll bet my own reproductive organ that the Puppeteers will be fleeing the capital soon.”

Ardi’s frown deepened.

“Milar, I don’t understand…”

“Not surprising, Ard, not surprising,” the captain said, taking another drag. He glanced for a moment toward the canal, where the black water was greedily swallowing the rays of the summer sun. “They were looking for something here, Ard. Or they still are. And time is most likely not on their side. And you were right to note that they always pursue several goals at once. So think about it—what if the Spiders weren’t just distracting us from Aversky, but also…”

Milar fell meaningfully silent.

“Just distracting everyone in general?”

Milar nodded. “They wanted to confuse someone else to lure something out.”

It sounded… both logical and frightening.

“The Staff of Demons?”

“That’s one possibility.”

And then something clicked in Ardi’s mind.

“There’s something else I have to tell you, Milar.”

The captain jerked toward him so sharply he nearly pulled a muscle in his neck.

His encounter with Taisia Shpritz didn’t take long to retell. Listening to his partner’s cursing took much longer.

“And why did you decide to wait so long to share this, Ard?!” The captain nearly roared.

Ardan could just as easily have snapped back and declared that so much had happened to him lately that a fleeting encounter with a famous journalist didn’t even make the top ten of his astonishing events to recount.

“Alright, fine,” Milar exhaled, calming down instantly. “What you just told me is just another brick in the foundation of my theory… Now we just have to figure out why the Puppeteers need Tantov’s body.”

“And why they’re so sure one of the Six has it,” Ardi added.

“And if we follow that line of reasoning, then the Puppeteers might not have been involved in the attempt on your noble friend’s life, but…”

“They might have wanted to use it,” Ardan continued with a slow nod. “To sic us on Eord, adding the kidnapping of Peter Oglanov to the equation. That way, they can remove the port as a variable and narrow their search from six gangs down to five.”

Milar gave his companion a dark, sidelong look.

“Magister, what did I tell you about all that ‘equation this,’ ‘variable that’ of yours?”

“Sorry,” Ardi mumbled.

Milar turned back to the road and said curtly, “Forget it.” Then he added, “Maybe things will quiet down a bit now, after we deal with the port, Oglanov, and the mole. If I’m right and the Puppeteers’ plan involves the Emperor somehow, they’ll need more time. Pavel is too strong. He has a huge amount of support not only among the people, but in Parliament as well.”

“What about an assassination attempt?”

“They would have tried already,” Milar cut him off. “If they haven’t tried to kill the Emperor, it means they’re planning something else. The Shangra’Ar were just the first bell, Ard. When we’re done with our current tasks, you and I are going to sit down with the documents. And I’m afraid we’ll have to do some traveling around the country.”

“What do you mean?”

“I meant it in the most literal sense, partner,” Milar’s voice held a clear weariness and a note of disappointment. Not in Ardi, but in the situation itself. “While you were resting in the hospital, I took a quick look at the cases the Colonel gave us. Outbreaks of demonic activity, all sorts of illegal organizations, and other unpleasant scum all over the country. You know what it looks like?”

Ardi didn’t need long to answer.

“They’re looking for something.”

“And preparing something,” Milar nodded. “We’re heading into the calm before the storm, partner. The goddamn calm before an absolutely fucked-up storm.”

The partners remained silent for the rest of the drive.

The port was located at the mouth of the Niewa, where it flowed into the Swallow Ocean. Gradually, the high-rises of the New City gave way to the colorful, mansion-like houses of Old Town, and to mansions that resembled palaces. The streets narrowed, the roadway stretched into a long ribbon, and the sidewalks pressed against the building facades. But soon, even the familiar streets that had found a warm place in the young man’s heart also disappeared.

In their stead came fences, mostly wooden and occasionally iron, but invariably crowned with coils of barbed wire. The suffocating smell of diesel clung to one’s clothes and face like the viscous dust that had taken a liking to the car’s wheels and sides. That dust covered the high-quality asphalt roads—the kind you sometimes couldn’t even find in the New City—in a smooth layer. The stench of fish, the scents of fruit and flowers, the sharp tang of steel, and the dull, musty echo of wet wood… along with dozens, hundreds of other aromas, from pleasant to those that made a knot of vomit tighten in your throat, reigned supreme among the multitude of elongated, barn-like buildings. There was a complex web of tangled railway lines as well, whole forests of iron cranes perched on towers of thick logs, and the hubbub, the clamor, the discordant choir of hundreds of different voices, curses, and the occasional long, roaring blast coming from the horns of ships—gargantuan vessels of unimaginable weight held afloat on the weightless surface of the Swallow Ocean by the grace of human science.

They reminded him somewhat of the ogres—the kinsmen of Sergeant Boad—who hoisted crates on their shoulders that were so big you could easily hide a pony behind them. These swamp-skinned behemoths, with square jaws and faces vaguely reminiscent of toads, carried loads on their shoulders that were then transported to the port by trucks. And they lifted them with their bare hands. However, even these three-meter-tall hulks looked modest next to… the giants. And indeed, they were everything he’d expected them to be after listening to his great-grandfather’s stories and seeing the illustrations in his Star Magic textbooks.

Ardi, who’d lowered the car window slightly, watched as three-and-a-half-meter-tall men with perfectly proportioned bodies, weighing close to three hundred and fifty kilograms, moved among the cranes and wagons laden with materials and goods. They would hoist onto their backs the kind of loads that other workers had to lift with cranes, and then, holding them with mighty hands, they’d carry them off toward the warehouses or ships.

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It was suddenly easy to believe that just five hundred years ago, during the battles of Gales and Ectassus, squads of giants had smashed through the fortress walls of fortifications with enormous maces and that they could break a siege tower with a single punch. Though the latter, of course, was still an exaggeration.

But even so, the giants looked formidable enough that Ardan wondered if only the suicidal ever argued with them.

“You know what surprises me most, Ard,” Milar said, braking at the feet of one of the titans who was carrying… several spools of rolled sheet iron on his back. He looked out the window thoughtfully. “How these guys managed to have half-bloods.”

“What?”

“You know, half-breeds,” the captain clarified and shuddered slightly. With every step the behemoth took, the old “Derks” practically jumped in place. “I can understand having half-breeds of giants and ogres, but giants and humans…”

Ardan remained silent at first. You wouldn’t find scrolls like that in Atta’nha’s library, nor would you find them in the general section of the Grand’s library. However, with his special clearance and due to his interest in the topic of interspecies procreation, Ardi had read a couple of archival materials from this field of knowledge.

“For them, it was entertainment,” Ardan pressed himself a little deeper into the back of the seat. “Ectassus allowed the giants to take women from ravaged villages and principalities. They mostly chose the largest ones and made bets on which of them… would survive the night. Most of them died. Those who were luckier… met the Eternal Angels during childbirth.”

All the playfulness vanished from Milar’s gaze, and the mockery disappeared from his tone.

“That was a rhetorical question, Magister,” the captain ground out.

Before Ardi could apologize, Alexander and Din’s car pulled up beside them. Without a word, they all stepped out onto the street.

Ardi, who’d found himself in the cargo section of the Metropolis port for the first time, instinctively touched his grimoire. He wasn’t bothered by the clamoring sailors, the stevedores, the listlessly wandering guards, or the occasional soldiers. It was more… that it seemed to him like the ogres and giants, as they were passing by the Cloaks, kept turning in his direction. He was likely just catching Milar’s paranoia and-

“Is it just me, or are these big guys looking at our mage a little funny?” Alexander squinted, demonstratively unbuttoning his jacket to reveal two holsters, as well as some clearly unusual brass knuckles attached to two carabiners.

Or maybe it wasn’t paranoia…

Milar and Ardi exchanged a look. It would seem that the same thought had crossed both partners’ minds: Arkar’s words had not been far from the truth. The rumors of what had happened in Delpas had indeed reached the Metropolis before the culprit himself had returned.

The Firstborn knew about his Larr’rrak. Which meant that representatives of the Conclave would indeed be paying a visit to his apartment soon.

Well then…

With a gesture almost identical to Alexander’s, Ardan opened his grimoire slightly, and the gazes that had brazenly been clinging to his figure vanished from the horizon in an instant. As did some of the ogre and giant stevedores.

The four of them passed several warehouses, used a plank walkway covering a section of railway tracks, were nearly knocked off their feet by a small truck hauling bulging barrels that reeked of herring, and after a fifteen-minute journey through the port, they found themselves in front of… another warehouse. Only this one had no pallets, no crates bristling with splinters and nails awaiting their hour, not a single canvas sheet covering moisture-sensitive cargo.

Instead, workers were smoking on a bench and leaning against the building’s walls. They were men of different ages, different builds, and even different races, but all of them wore blue work overalls—pants with suspenders and a bib on the chest, but without a jacket. A shirt tucked inside it all served as their upper garment. Their heads were covered by simple, woven caps with stiff brims, into which thin plates of wood had been sewn to help them hold their shape longer.

And while Ardi had seen ogres smoking before, puffing on cigars the way Milar smoked simple cigarettes, the giants… When a thirty-centimeter, hand-rolled cigarette starts glowing scarlet in the hand of a four-meter man, the sight is somewhat unsettling.

“Good day, gentlemen,” a young man of about eighteen approached them from among the smokers, tossing his cigarette into a bin. The white armband of Eord’s men rested on his right sleeve. “Allow me to escort you.”

And, without waiting for a reply, the youth turned and headed for a door leading into the warehouse. A door… within another door. One was for humans, and the other, which was nearly half the size of the wall, for giants and ogres.

“They were expecting us,” Din whispered while discreetly drawing one of his knives. Reversing his grip, he hid the blade inside the sleeve of his jacket.

Ardi doubted that twenty centimeters of steel, even if it had been enchanted, could do any significant harm to the giants. Or to the ogres, for that matter. Their skin was so dense it could withstand a shot from a small-caliber revolver. Not at close range, perhaps, but still.

“Eord’s no fool,” Milar replied curtly. “Fools don’t last a year in this business, and Eord is almost seventy.”

Inside, the warehouse was much like its brethren. There were crates, barrels, neatly stacked pyramids of materials, and everything else one usually found in such places. Except that instead of a staircase at the far end leading to the superstructure where the office was, part of the warehouse was cordoned off by a makeshift wall of round timber. It hadn’t even been sawn into planks. A few “double” doors, clearly leading to different rooms, were set between the logs, and that was the extent of it.

The young man led them to a door and, with a calm expression, swung it wide open.

What Ardi saw inside would haunt him for quite some time. The relatively spacious nook suddenly became narrow and cramped, so much so that there wasn’t much room left for the walls to the right and left. It felt like you just needed to squeeze things together a bit more, and the heating pipes would be damaged. Apparently, there was a heated room in the warehouse.

The only piece of furniture here was a single table… which could have been used as a temporary fortification in Shamtur. Next to an ordinary person, it would have reached almost to their chin. But when it came the one sitting behind it currently, it barely reached his knees.

Wearing the same blue overalls as his colleagues, a giant sat at the table on a chair that had a frame of welded pipes. He truly deserved his nickname. The giant was bald, gray-haired, with a thick beard and mustache, a powerful jaw, a sharp nose, and perpetually furrowed brows. He was looking down at a clerk in a yellow vest. The clerk, craning his head and peering out from behind the table, seemed so small and insignificant compared to Mariandat.

On the right side of the table stood a lamp on a jointed leg, and on the left, a glass lantern sized for its owner’s hands.

Ardi was now certain that Mariandat could indeed twist a rail. Just as there were some humans who stood out due to their size, so, too, did Saint Eord’s Enforcer stand out among giants.

His shoulders didn’t just resemble boulders, they essentially were boulders. His fingers were thicker than a human forearm, his wrists had the circumference of a waist, and his chest was so broad that a truck would have likely shattered against it like it was a steel wall.

And even though Mariandat was hunched over and stooped, he still inspired that unpleasant feeling when the bones in your legs turn to cotton.

“We’ll finish later,” the giant had clearly tried to speak in a low tone, but it still struck their ears like a hammer blow.

Apparently, that was why they had put up the round timber walls and additionally lined said walls with paneling—to try to muffle that sound.

The clerk picked up a bulky folder of documents that lay next to the lantern and, walking past the Cloaks, went out the door. Their guide, meanwhile, stood to the side of the giant, leaning his shoulder against one of the panels.

Mariandat directed the gaze of his black saucers straight at his visitors, but Ardi couldn’t shake the feeling that he was looking specifically at him. Whether it was paranoia or just an illusion caused by the sheer size of his pupils, it was hard to say.

“We were not involved,” the giant got straight to the point.

Milar stepped forward, and for a time, he silently regarded the colossal figure. No one doubted that, if he so wished, Mariandat could not just kill the captain with a single blow, but simply flatten him altogether.

But, as Arthur Belsky, better known as the Dandy, would say, “Possessing the ability to do something does not imply immediate action.” Or something like that. Ardi had been thinking about something else during their conversation and hadn’t remembered the phrase verbatim. But he had grasped the meaning.

“In what, exactly?” Milar asked, feigning a casual air.

Mariandat paused briefly before his voice rumbled.

“In whatever you came here for.”

Due to the amount of air in the giant’s lungs and the size of his vocal cords, it was difficult for Ardi to discern the nuances of Mariandat’s voice and intonation. To “small” listeners, his voice sounded the same at all times—a booming, unnatural bass, one reminiscent of the clamor and roar of a mountain mudslide.

“Well, I’ll be… so there’s a big mind in that big head, too?” Ardi was sure that Milar had known beforehand that Mariandat, being the Enforcer of one of the Six, was far from stupid. “You don’t even know why we came here.”

The giant leaned back, making the metal frame of his chair creak.

“So it’s not because of Little Viroeira…” The steamship funnel that served as the Enforcer’s throat boomed.

Milar just waved a hand.

“We’re not the guards, you enormous hulk. We understand it wasn’t you. And I assume that we’re all equally interested in finding out why, and most importantly, who was trying to frame you.”

Mariandat opened a drawer built into the table and took out a cigarette. If, of course, you could call thirty-five centimeters of thick paper wrapped around nearly a hundred grams of tobacco that.

“Smoke?” The Enforcer offered amiably.

“I’m afraid that the first drag would have me meeting the Eternal Angels, and I’m not ready for that kind of rendezvous just yet,” Milar declined.

Mariandat grunted, snorted, or threatened them with immediate and brutal retribution in response. He took a fireplace match from the pocket of his bib… it looked comically tiny in his massive fingers. He struck it against his cheek and lit up.

The young guide standing a short distance away cranked a small flywheel, which in turn pulled gears and chains, and a heavy window opened up. It was situated close to the ceiling. Without it, all of them, except the giant, would have simply suffocated in there.

“We tried to find the ones who hired them, human, but we couldn’t.”

“Nothing at all?” Milar was clearly skeptical.

The giant smoked in silence for a time, then answered curtly.

“The Crimson Lady. Rumor has it that a girl disappeared from her establishment. In recent months, she was frequently visited by the same man.”

“Regular clients are nothing new for prostitutes, Mariandat.”

“Yeah,” the colossus nodded. “When it comes to humans.”

“A Firstborn?”

The giant gave him a crooked smile.

“A vampire.”

Alexander swore quietly through clenched teeth. Din… was, as always, rolling a candy over his tongue. And Ardi remembered the trio of undead who’d worked with the Spiders.

“How-”

“An ancient one,” the giant cut him off. “One of those who have walked the night since before the Empire.”

This time, even Din swore.

Ardi, thanks to the books from the restricted sections of the Grand’s library, knew that the idea that a vampire’s power increased with their age was merely a misunderstanding and nothing more.

In reality, a vampire’s power was always the same. It was just that the older they became, the better they learned to control and use it. That was why Yonatan Kornosskiy never parted with his special artifact, and why Cassara was not allowed to remove her enchanted bracelets. And that was also why the orc shaman had been unable to destroy her.

Cassara was likely so old that if not for the bracelets, then… Ardi didn’t even want to think about it. He also had no intention of finding out what kind of power had been required to put the bracelets on Cassara in the first place.

“We would already know about a vampire like that. So…” Milar broke off, and Mariandat smiled unpleasantly, revealing the one detail that distinguished the appearance of ordinary humans from giants, if one ignored the size difference.

The latter’s teeth did not look like human teeth, but rather like those of a fish. Diamond-shaped and pointed, they locked together in a tight seal.

“He is not registered with the Black House and does not wear your collars, Cloak,” the giant confirmed the suspicion. “And that is all we managed to find out.”

“What, are Saint Eord’s men afraid of a little undead?”

The giant’s smile widened. He ran his fingers over his right forearm, revealing deep scars.

“These marks were left by Cassara, Cloak. Ever heard of her?”

“I have…”

“Hah,” Mariandat grunted. “It’s a small world indeed.”

Din whispered almost inaudibly:

“For giants and ogres, everything is small…”

“Trust me, Cloak, if you had ever fought a vampire, a real, ancient vampire, you wouldn’t be talking such nonsense,” Mariandat rolled his sleeve back down. “I will not risk the lives of my men.”

“And are you sure you’re not risking them right now?” Milar, just like Alexander, pushed back the edge of his jacket.

“If you’d wanted to do something, Cloak, you would have done it already. And I don’t hear any cannonades, spells, or the roar of your engines,” the giant propped his head on his fist with a bored expression. “You came here, just the four of you. That means you want to talk. So here we are, talking. Thanks to my good will.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, you hulk,” Milar rapped his knuckles on the table. “We would be talking in any case. Whether you wanted to do so or not. Because if you make one wrong move, then here there really will be-”

“Whatever the case,” Mariandat interrupted him, waving a hand dismissively, the way one might wave away a bothersome fly. “I remember the Black House being very different, human. Fifty years ago, you would have razed this whole place to the ground, and my friends and I would be sitting in chains and shackles in your dungeons. But that time, I take it, has passed.”

“Care to test that?”

For a time, Milar and Mariandat stared into each other’s eyes. Ardi could hear the giant’s heart beating, steady and calm, a thunderous rhythm. He didn’t feel even a shred of fear from him. Which wasn’t surprising.

Not surprising at all.

But Milar’s heart, though one had to strain to distinguish its sound, was beating with equal imperturbability. Captain Pnev was not afraid of this colossus who could instantly take his life.

And Mariandat could see it.

“I’ve heard of you, Captain Pnev,” the giant exhaled. “The street respects you. I respect you. That’s why I’ll share-”

“This conversation is over,” a creaky, unpleasant voice declared.

The panel against which the young man had been leaning all this time slid aside, and from within, leaning on a cane, bent in half, an old man emerged. He clearly could have used the help of a strong hand to support his almost useless legs, but Eord (and there was no doubt as to who this old man was) would have refused. Despite his gray hair and skin covered in age spots, the flabby skin hanging in folds from his cheekbones, the sunken eyes under which one could hide several bitter memories of the past, which the old man had apparently done already… Eord still looked like a man whose body had long been yearning for the ground, but whose spirit remained strong and unbroken.

He wore a spacious caftan—clothing typical of the Al’Zafir desert. Not because he had any connection to the Eastern continent, but simply because it was the only garment he could put on by himself, without assistance.

Seventy years. A ripe old age for a human. Just a century ago, people didn’t even live to see sixty. And in the time of Gales, forty-year-olds were considered elders. So who knew—maybe in the future, people would be able to push back their meeting with the Eternal Angels even further.

“Eord-”

“I have no business with you, boy,” the old man waved Milar away. “You came here without arranging anything, without discussing anything, and now the whole Six will think the port is doing business with you. You’ve compromised us!”

Ardi had already heard from Arkar that Eord still hadn’t stepped down from his duties. He had always been an unbending man, and with age, his stubbornness had reached its zenith. And stubbornness, coupled with a failing memory and a weary mind, was not the best of company.

Eord still lived by the standards his worn-out body had grown accustomed to forty years ago. In the old man’s opinion, things had to be “done properly, like in the past,” and he himself could “still show that upstart Belsky a thing or two.”

Was it worth mentioning that it was from Eord himself that a then-young Arthur Belsky had taken the unofficial title of “King of the Metropolis Underworld” almost twenty years ago?

“No one compromised anyone, old man. Calm down.”

“Calm down? Calm down!” Eord slammed his cane on the floor… or tried to. It didn’t go well. It slipped and rattled like an untuned string. “It’s a good thing I came back here from my home… The moment I showed weakness, the vultures descended. And even if we had been involved on the Tiny… cough-cough…” Eord spat yellowish saliva onto the floor. “…Viroeira affair, you wouldn’t have learned anything from us. Tell everyone that. The port does not cooperate with the Crown! Never has, never will. We are decent thieves.”

Mariandat looked at Milar and surreptitiously made a gesture in the air with his fingers, one that could be interpreted in various ways.

Ardi wondered why the port didn’t simply change its leader given that Eord was clearly no longer fit for the role, and then, suddenly, he understood that they simply wouldn’t be allowed to. Neither by the Black House nor the Conclave. If a giant ever started leading the racketeers of the Dockworkers’ Guild, it would mean the Conclave would have a one-third stake in the Six. And no one wanted that. Especially not the Firstborn themselves.

Why would they hang a target on their own chests, one whose sheer size would make even Mariandat look like a toddler by comparison?

“Black curs… filthy Cloaks… brought a mage with them,” Eord, on barely bending legs, hobbled over to Ard. “I was having mages like you before your fathers were having your mothers. The port was and remains free and neutral. So get the hell out.”

“With all due respect to your age-”

“Shove that respect up the same place your Colonel keeps his cock, Captain,” the old man spat again. “And if you don’t get out, by the Eternal Angels, I’ll pop some pills and shove mine where yours hasn’t been in a long time. And in case you didn’t get it, I’m talking about your wife.”

Alexander and Din stepped forward, but Milar blocked their path.

“What?” Eord grimaced. “Going to threaten me? Try to scare me? I don’t give a shit. First, I’m old, and second, I’ve lived with honor. No wife. No children. No property. I have no weaknesses, unlike that little bastard Belsky. There’s nowhere to hit me. So I’ve fucked you, Captain, and your bosses, and the Colonel, and the Emperor, and all your filthy whores. Your wives and your children. In every orifice.”

The old man spat again.

Ardi listened to the hidden tale. Eord’s heart was beating in a rather amusing rhythm: it would speed up, then stumble, then race again with a brisk nimbleness… Just like an old mustang from the prairies trying to snatch one last victory from the wind in their eternal, unending race.

Eord was old, frail, stubborn, but… not stupid. He couldn’t not feel that the Eternal Angels were already hovering behind his shoulders, waiting. And he couldn’t not know that he was toying with an abyss within which revolvers, a saber, and knives awaited him.

But that was exactly what Eord was aiming for.

That was why he had come here from the Mansionhills.

To die in a blaze of glory. He wanted the entire underworld of the Metropolis to learn of his last words and how he had spat squarely in the face of the Crown. This was how Eord wanted to take revenge on Belsky. To go out in glorious fashion, saying what no one else could say, to the one with whom everyone was afraid to speak.

Legends of Saint Eord would be told for decades after.

Milar understood this already.

And now Ardan did, too.

“It’s pointless, Mr. Eord,” Ardi shook his head. “No one will allow you to become a martyr.”

The old man, who was clearly about to say something else vile and obscene, faltered and turned to Ardan. The mad glint in his eyes vanished, and he leaned a little more heavily on his cane.

“Worth a try, mage,” his dry voice rasped. “Get out. We’ve told you everything.”

His heart stumbled again. A quick, brief flutter, then it resumed its pace. His pupils narrowed, his eyes darted to the side, and the already suffocating smell of sweat and old age intensified.

“You’re lying,” Ardi countered, his tone firm and without a trace of doubt.

Eord came so close to Ardi that the young man could feel the foul breath from his almost toothless mouth, where a few yellow stumps still held their posts.

“Prove it, spawn of Aror,” Eord drew out the words slowly, with deliberate defiance. “A pity they didn’t deal with you on Tiny Viroeira, you freak. I would have pissed on your grave. Might have even shit on it. Lately, both processes have become as inseparable for me as your mother and-”

A thunderous crack echoed through the room.

At first, it might have seemed like a grenade had exploded, but in reality, it was Mariandat clapping his hands, drawing everyone’s attention and simultaneously causing Milar and Alexander to cock their hammers and Din to draw his knives.

“You cannot speak to him like that, Eord.”

The old man seemed even more surprised than everyone else there, including Ard.

“Don’t forget your place, giant,” the old gangster hissed. “Remember, you only hold this position as long as I’m alive. The Conclave will not allow…”

The giant rose to his feet, and only then did Ardi grasp the sheer enormity of him. Next to this man, even Arkar would seem like a first-grader facing a graduate. A university graduate. Stepping over his own table, Mariandat approached Eord and, crouching down, brought his face close to his. Amusingly, the giant’s nose alone was larger than the old man’s entire head.

“You are just a man, Eord. You were strong and sturdy. Fearless and harsh. Honest in your own way. We respected you. I respected you. But you are just a man. A gangster. You cannot speak to a Chief that way.”

“I-”

“Franz will take your place.”

Eord didn’t have time to say anything else. Mariandat raised his hand, pressed his index finger down with his thumb, and… flicked it. The nail struck a spot under Eord’s chin and tore the old man’s head from his neck. A short spurt of blood followed, then the dull thud of the head as it rolled across the floor.

“Dammit!”

“Don’t move!” Milar roared, pointing the barrel of his revolver at the giant’s eye. “Get on your knees and put your hands behind your head!”

Instead of obeying, Mariandat straightened up and, stepping over the table again, returned to his chair. And Ardi heard the tramp of heavy feet. He didn’t need to turn around to know that several ogres had entered the room, and behind the “palisade” were a dozen giants, ogres, and simple gangsters wearing Eord’s armbands.

“Mariandat, you-”

“I’ve had enough of talking with unpleasant people for one day,” the giant interrupted, waving a hand dismissively, and turned to Ardan. “Forgive me, Chief, for the fact that your ancestors were insulted in my house. I owe you. Ask for it, and I will repay my debt.”

“I am not a Chief,” Ardi ground out.

Mariandat tilted his head to the side.

“Was I mistaken? Did you not win the Larr’rrak in the battle of Chiefs?”

Ardan remained silent.

“Then I was not mistaken. You are a Chief. Even if it’s of a dead tribe. Funny… I had a similar conversation once before. I was digging trenches together with your father in the north of Shamtur.”

Ardan leaned forward slightly.

“You knew my father?”

“Me and a few of my friends,” the giant nodded and gestured with his palm toward the door. “We served together during the Fatian Massacre. Part of the Fanged Division was sent under the command of Major Abar, though I think he arranged that himself… You look like him. Only smaller. And not so…” Mariandat searched for the right word for a few moments. “Not so wild. To be honest, I still can’t understand how they didn’t see the Firstborn in him.”

Giants lived long lives. They grew for a long time and aged for a long time, only beginning to fade in the middle of their third century. Mariandat had likely passed his fifteenth decade by now.

“What was Peter Oglanov looking for here?”

“Franz, show him,” the giant nodded and turned to the young man who had been standing by the wall the entire time. He hadn’t even batted an eye when Mariandat had taken off Eord’s head. And with that same indifference, he now stepped over the old man’s bleeding body.

From an inner pocket of his work overalls, Franz, the future… or, well, now current nominal leader of Saint Eord’s gang, took out a note.

On it was an address in Tendari.

“He was asking around about missing children,” Franz said in a steady, soft tone. “A few of them turned out to be the offspring of some port workers. Oglanov, for some reason, was interested in one of them. An orphan boy. He worked here a while back. Until he disappeared, too. He was a handy kid. Had a good head on his shoulders. In a year, he managed to figure out how to handle the Ley-wiring. We liked him. Fed him. Helped him with clothes. He was an honest lad. Kind and funny. And then he vanished.”

“How old was he?” Milar asked.

Franz turned to Mariandat and, only after receiving a nod from the latter, answered:

“Fourteen.”

“It doesn’t add up…”

Ardan, after looking at the note, decided to trust his instincts.

“Ley-wiring pays well, so why did you help him with clothes and food?”

“He saved all his money. Didn’t spend a single kso on himself. Not out of greed. He had a good reason.”

Ardi’s heart skipped a beat.

He had never asked Arkar…

“He was saving up for his sister’s treatment?”

Franz was slightly taken aback.

“Y-yes,” the confidence vanished from his voice.

“And he had an older brother, right? One who worked with papers at the Mage Guild.”

“That’s r-right…” Franz took a respectful step back. “You are c-correct, Mr. Investigator.”

Franz probably thought that Ardan was reading his mind, but Ardan didn’t care. He couldn’t shake the memory of Baliero. Of how Alla-Lisa, who’d served the Puppeteers, had shot Andrew, who had tried to deceive Arkar and the Dandy to get money from both of them.

At the time, Ardi had thought Lisa had saved his life. And she probably had. But why kill Andrew? Why not just neutralize him?

The Puppeteers never did anything without a reason…

And Milar and Ardi still hadn’t figured out how exactly the Spiders and the Puppeteers behind them had managed to find Irigov, and who else from the upper echelons of power was involved in what had happened.

The unsigned order that had led to the guards trying to arrest Ardi in the winter had simply been set aside, but not forgotten.

Oglanov had really been onto something…

“Thank you,” Ardi said and, taking the slip of paper, turned to Milar.

Judging by his thoughtful gaze, he had come to the exact same conclusions. And he’d perhaps grasped even more than Ardan had managed to figure out.

“Let’s go, gentlemen,” the captain said, holstering his revolver and heading for the exit, completely ignoring the ogres, gangsters and giants. “We have things to discuss.”

Alexander and Din silently hurried after him. Ardi turned to follow them, but Mariandat’s words caught him before he could leave.

“We see the signs, Speaker,” he said in the language of the steppe orcs. “And we are waiting. Remember my name.”

Ardan did not look back.