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Ci
I sat in an engraved chair and hooked my wings over the low back. “How great a sense of hearing do the walls have?”
“It’s all right. We’re totally alone.” Ci
“Four years isn’t a long time to me.”
He creased into his chair. “By god, and you look Just The Same as you did when I first saw you, twenty years back.” He gave a little smile. “I thought you’d forgotten me, because I hadn’t heard any word since the Battle Of Awndyn.”
“So how is business?”
Ci
“Ci
His round shoulders sagged. He scooped a packet of cigarettes from the table, poked one out and lit it. “I’d been expecting this. So it’s finished? The game’s over?”
“If you continue and you’re caught, you can’t invoke my name; I won’t help you. If you keep selling contraband to Mist’s sailors and she complains to me, the next time you see an Eszai he’ll be with a fyrd guard to seize you.”
“Now, Jant, how disappointing after all this time!”
I shrugged. “I want you to go back to legitimate trade. Why not?”
Ci
“You know there’s a worthwhile cause. We need to break down the Insects’ Paperlands there.”
“Well, why can’t that kingdom look after itself?”
“For god’s sake, they’re doing all they can. Awia will repay its debts in full; you mortals just can’t see the long term.”
“Oh, I understand,” said Ci
“Look, you have to stop dealing. In Hacilith now, the punishment for pushing cat is death. I’ve seen dealers broken on the wheel. In Awia they just jail them for life.”
He nodded. “Well, ergot pastilles are all the kids want these days. They have no taste.” He wallowed over to a side table where there was a decanter of port and some crystal glasses. He poured one for me.
“To the Emperor,” I said, and drank.
He topped up my glass. “And another toast. To all the kids who ever sang protest songs against the old king’s draft.”
I put the glass down. “It’s the Empire’s war,” I said evenly. “Let’s talk business, not nostalgia. I know how you feel about the past but I have to obey the Emperor’s command.”
“You singled me out and saved me because I was an Independent, Deregulated Pharmaceutical Retailer,” he said. It was true; I wanted a dealer and I found Ci
I swirled beeswing in the glass, embarrassed on his behalf that he would rather hide than fight.
“You took my brother. He was killed at Lowespass. All they could find of him to bury was a handful of feathers; the Insects cemented the rest into their Wall.”
“Many people die in Lowespass.”
Ci
“As if I’d done it a thousand times before.”
“Yeah. It made me want to strangle you, and you looked so frail I was sure I could. My brother knew what I was thinking; he elbowed me in the ribs and said Comet’s Two Hundred Years Old! Knowing that I wouldn’t stand a chance. Then he climbed onto the cart bench with the rest of the stevedores and that was the last I ever saw of him. Taken away to the General Fyrd. Every one of the five hundred men in his morai were slaughtered.
“Well now I’ve witnessed Insects flatten Awndyn I can understand why we need to keep the Front-but back then I’d never seen one and it took me fifteen years to recover. Your frozen age is so misleading, it makes us mortals underestimate you. You can run faster than a deer, but you just looked like a Bloody College Kid.
“We know the effect scolopendium has on the people who trade it, let alone the users. I haven’t sought friendship or lovers-just money-thinking that at any second the governor’s fyrd could snatch me away.”
I glanced up from the mediocre port. Ci
“I’ve a quarter kilo of Galt White to sell, and that will be The Last Deal. Maybe.”
“Let me take it off your hands.”
“Oh ho!” He pointed a finger over the top of his wine glass. “I thought there was another reason for this visit! Once an addict, always an addict!”
“That’s not true, Ci
“Well, I don’t know anybody else who buys in quarter-k quantities. Not even Lady Lanare when she’s poisoning her whole family.”
“Are you selling or not?”
Ci
“It’ll be the last time I ever buy cat.”
Ci
He unlocked a panel in the wall and scooped out a large white paper envelope. He gave it a shake to settle its contents, then pushed it to me across the table.
I rubbed it, feeling the fine powder inside. “Go first,” I said.
He held his palms up. “You know I don’t do that. I can’t stand the hallucinations.”
“This time you do.”
He dipped his finger in it. “Damn you, Eszai.”
I knew that my tolerance would have decreased, so I took just the edge of a fingernail full and licked it. It spread on my tongue, tasted numb, slightly grassy with a crystalline metal-salt edge. This was snap-condensed. Fuck, it was good. I closed my eyes in shame as I realized what I’d done. It was five long years since I last tasted scolopendium.
“You look like the Archer tasting fine wines. It’s Pure As Darkling Snow,” he assured me, hands wide in a ham actor’s gesture. “We make it using your technique, no one else can match the quality.”