94 - This Basin Boy

This inn for foreigners was so new that the wood was still raw.  Shaidan sank down at the tiny desk under a roof window and rubbed his eyes.  It was likely that the Amir had found the boy and was talking him down off the mountain.  The older man was good at that kind of thing.

Why was the basinboy not falling on his knees in thankfulness that his connection with the highest, shiniest ass in all of Lainz had been discovered?  Instead the ungrateful snip had run away.  Not that the Amir had said anything directly but it was pretty obvious that the whole Talain line was conceived on the outside of the house veil.  To top it off he’d been left holding the empty bird bridle of a mess when the kid had set his warbird loose outside the Unity.

Washing torn down, cats terrorized, a toddler in his sandbox – thankfully – had only been shat upon instead of stepped on and ripped up.  He’d smiled and apologized and paid the fines thinking no diplomatic incidents, no diplomatic incidents...

He dipped his pen and carefully, in his best machine hand, wrote his report of the incident so that when he finally got this whole mysterious, covert, bakon-shit insane mission home he could be sure of his memory of every single coin he had to spend and every single thing he said, so that no one could accuse him of triggering the next war.

 The cough at the door was later than he’d hoped, but finally came.  “A moment,” he called and looped on his veil.   

“Come.”

When Ishfahsalar came in, it wasn’t with the jaunty step of someone whose mission has been accomplished, but with the deliberate motion of a man bearing a lot more weight than expected. “Naser,” he said.  “I found the boy.”

Shaidan raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything, waiting for the full weight to descend. 

“I also found Kyrus Talain,” he said.

“I heard you the first time, Amir,” Shaidan said, wondering at the odd phrasing.  “You needn’t repeat—“

“Senior.  Kyrus Talain, Senior.”

Shaidan stared at his Amir in silence for a full minute.  Kyrus Talain Senior.  Whose kid was the shiny one.  Who is, perforce the shinier one.  Seniority.  Endarkened champion my-shit-isn’t-acid hero of the last war devoured and defecated out by his honourable asshole General d’Molfe.  Alive.  Not dead.

He cleared his throat once.  Twice.  “It was my understanding the man was dead by the hand of the Milari surdeniliarch. There are a hundred songs about the man, and a thousand stories of his glorious last days.  You’re saying he’s alive?  Why here?  Why haunt his own damned grave?”

“He’s alive, Naser.”  Was it his imagination or were his Amir’s eyes actually amused over his veil?  “Apparently his death was faked by the surdeniliarch –“ Shaidan drew in breath to interrupt, found himself holding it as he continued.  “—who just married the man in front of all of the bloody, enlightened country of Milari.  He came out of death a month and a half ago.  We just hadn’t heard the news, Naser.  It was in the courier packet of the fellow we rescued.”

“Acid etched, alkaline scored Light and Dark.” Shaidan actually unbent enough to pinch the bridge of his nose with his fingers.  “You realize, Amir, that if this were a tale in a tavern... I’d leave.”

“A plot derived by a fourteen year old boy.”

“Why, why, why did this boy think to come here, to where his father died... to confront the one who he thought killed him?”

“To be able to confront the man, Naser, I’m certain.  It smacks of the thinking of fourteen year old boys with not much prospect.  And perhaps to be a dutiful son and tend his father’s grave like a good boy.”

“This is EnDarkened madness, Amir.”  How on earth can I kick this upstairs somehow? “I am hardly in good odour with his Radiance, Amir.”

The quirk of eyebrow, this time, was loaded with irony as if to comment on the fact that Ishfahsalar knew very well that the supposed disgrace was a load of war-bird quano.  “Naser.  The surdeniliarch was mentioning that he intended to attend his new ‘bride’ and step-son to Lainz.  A state visit.”

Shaidan suddenly wanted to tear out every hair upon his head.  “A State visit? How are the two of us expected to defend such a train from ‘bandits’?”  He needn’t say ‘supposed bandits’ since it was an open secret that anyone of the Imperial line had suffered from a mysterious case of death of one sort or another over the years.  “Don’t tell me that we’ll just sneak everyone past anyone’s notice fast or ‘incognito’.  The Unity will wail and bark over it for a lifetime, plenty of time to get word of this unusual request all the way to the city itself.  Not to mention that it is yet another cliché that would get this story tossed out of the story circle on the hapless teller’s ear.”

The Amir nodded.  “The listeners would, no doubt, ensure that the storyteller bounced more than twice on the way out, surely.”  For a moment the two of them thought of the absolute impossibility of this little problem when the Amir came to a decision, at least as far as Shaidan could see.  His posture changed slightly and he seemed resigned to something.  “Naser... should this lowly one have a means of inquiring... all discrete like... and impossible like... of his Radiance... should this one attempt it?”

Shaidan stared hard at his Amir, ideas and hints falling together in his head from weeks on the road.  “Amir.  Should the lowly one have such a recourse... then of course you should.  His Radiance would immediately wish to know.”

The Amir saluted and Shaidan could tell the bastard was smiling behind his veil.  “As my superior officer wishes.”  He wheeled smartly on his heel.

Once the door clicked shut behind him Shaidan ripped off his veil, hurled it with great force toward the opposite wall, where it fluttered gently to the floor like a lady’s neosilk handkerchief, and swore in every language he knew.