The Elusive Taste of Kolchoan Blue

by Patrick Honovich

Table of Contents

Chapter 4: Such a Thing as Too Much Confidence

part 1

In the balconied Open House, in shifting light, we waited in a short line, presented our papers and proofs, then walked down a flight of velvet-covered stairs to the floor. Hanging on black chains and iron rings, enormous brass oil lamps cast light to lend definition to what, all colors aside, looked like an actual riot. The seething mass looked even to my trained eyes like the birth of some new near-human race. The men and women shrugging out of flowing clothes like enormous gaudy insects shedding skin or shell, they seemed to be dressing for each other rather than for practicality, and I have not seen its like since.

Div led me farther into the room, with Sarah and Pausha behind us quietly discussing something I wasn’t meant to hear. Over the sound of the crowd, the bids and counter-bids, curses and laughter, fury and delight, I couldn’t catch their words, and I had too much else to keep track of.

I checked my tag. Sarah heard something she didn’t want to, but it didn’t seem to lean my way. The last traces of the smoke from the Silent House were gone, leaving nothing more than a slight tremble that seemed to be subsiding.

“Can you risk a drink?” Sarah asked.

“Only if there’s a bar here.” I tried to give her a rakish grin, but I felt it didn’t come off that way, and I suspect I just looked deranged.

Div wasn’t going to be swayed. “Mr. Nosso,” said Div, “it’ll be quick. Just a sip.”

“A quick sip is still a bad idea. You’d do well to listen to me—” Pausha pointed, eyes still twinkling. “Right over there.”

Div muttered something nasty under his breath as we all turned.

This bar wasn’t like the first one, and not like any other bar I’d seen, and I’d seen some of the worst, or strangest, bars Correm and Jearnum could offer. I wondered if Pausha was playing some angle and wondered whether it would be something that might immediately turn around and gnaw off my leg.

I checked my tag on Sarah. By its colors, she was doing fine, but I knew without a doubt, if she’d been able to check her tag on me, I would’ve looked a wreck. I was holding my own, holding together, but barely. Old habit, bad habit, but things would have felt a lot better if I’d had a drink in hand.

We pressed through the crowd, my fevered little brain trying to run analyses on everything at once, paying attention most to the simple sway of Sarah’s hips as she walked, stepping in time to the clunk of our two guides’ canes.

Tellrus had taught me to stay focused, to keep my faculties at the ready. Even in the Open House, where it was more difficult than any other place I’d visited, the training held, for the most part. We walked towards a spray of foliage, large broad leaves and trailing vines, Pausha had called it the bar, but it looked more like an avid gardener had dabbed the frame with glue and thrown up some noblewoman’s clippings.

This bartender moving around behind the foliage wore a simple grey cloak, grey pants, and grey tunic with shortened sleeves, sharp contrast with the members of Auntighur. Pointedly nondescript. He smiled, which I didn’t expect, and tossed out a quick, “Help ya?” that was almost a chirp.

Usually I drink whatever’s cheap, but I needed something bracing, so I told him, “Double whiskey. Something from west of the Tier.”

“Make mine a triple.” Sarah sounded as if she wanted to do me one better.

As before, there was no charge. I lifted my glass, tossed back half, and raised the rest in a toast. “To good luck.”

“If luck’s all you’re counting on, you’re doomed.” Sarah smiled, clacked the lip of her glass against mine, and downed it, placing the empty cup mouth-down on the bar, and rapping the bottom with her knuckle. It’s a Corremantean tradition: if you’re leaving a few drops in the bottom of the glass, you tap them out on the bar to keep somebody else from having them.

“What are you after, really?”

“Research materials. And power. Same as you.”

“Who said I was looking for power?” I smiled.

“You’re here.” She waved her hands to indicate the whole place. “Proof enough.”

I shook my head. “Don’t think so. I—”

She cut me off. “Maybe not all of it, but I know some of what you’re after. Now shut up and drink your drink.”

I wasn’t going to let it show, or be fooled into some revelation. I gave her a shake of my head. “So then, what am I after?”

“Your school wants all the relics of Jakka it can find. I know what that means. I have a master, same as you.”

Pausha spoke up. “Miss Bailick, we really should con-sider” — she split the word into two pieces as she said it — “the bidding on the second set of lots will begin soon.”

Sarah looked me in the eye before turning to her guide, and said, “If you’ll work with me instead of trying to thwart me, you and I might both survive.”

I didn’t — couldn’t afford to — give her an answer.

Div interrupted. “If you’re done, I must insist you actually reach the bidding ring you’re after. It’s part of my job. Stop batting your eyelids at each other, and come with me.”

He laid a hand on the curl of my arm, careful to keep his fingertips on my sleeve, away from the inked portions of my skin, and tried to steer me towards the far corner of the room. She gave me a smile, then turned away.

I followed Div. Sarah and Pausha went to her business, and I could follow the tag as she went to another ring on the other side of the room, but I couldn’t see her through the crowd. Her words... How much did she know?

Div murmured something to one of the guards standing outside the circle. The man checked a scroll tucked into his belt and answered: “Two to clear first; shouldn’t be long.”

From the tag, I could tell Sarah had tossed back another drink. I couldn’t see her from where we stood. My skin and my freedom depended upon it; like it or not, I had to let her attend to her business, even if her business was somehow to screw me over. It was my turn to utter an impossible curse as I checked the tag again. Nothing new. She hadn’t started bidding.

Around me I heard pieces and parts of the rest of the business of Auntighur: an auctioneer for every circle, bids and acknowledgements, the clatter of gemstones onto metal trays. I heard someone utter the words: “My manor, for a month,” but I couldn’t see enough to tell whether it was worth it.

I couldn’t afford the competition, and I didn’t have much to offer on top of the gems in my pouch to sweeten a deal. We seemed to be waiting for a knot of merchants to finish arguing over something in a long gold box, so I sighed, and offered a prayer to Orewyn for luck and mercy. I’d known there was something off about the way Sarah had been answering me. At the moment, I couldn’t do a blessed thing about it.

Div and I stepped into an empty space on the edge, waiting for the argument to finish up.

“For three, seven, twelve, to Mr. Van del Cennini, now three, eight, twelve to Mr. Bader Alianell, four, two, and twelve Mr. Cennini. Mr. Alianell? No? To you, sir? Four, two, and twelve by Mister Cennini. Once... Twice... Gone, to Mr. Cennini, number seventy-five, dueling saber of Aamon Van Hoeven.” A small wood block clacked against a metal plate, and the crowd bled away with congratulations and commiserations while the Auntighur guards brought out the next item.

Div spoke up. “Mr. Nosso, you will report your bids to me. I will place your gems onto a tray, which will relay them to a higher authority for verification, and they will be announced by the auctioneer. You are permitted to make side-arrangements between bids, but I... do not recommend it.”

Judging by the thinning of the crowd, this lot wasn’t of much interest to anyone. There were others bidding: the woman from earlier, Cadzana, was on the other side of the circle, but she hardly looked at the crate, she was looking at me, ignoring the other two bidders. In the crowd between us I felt, then saw, Sarah return with her guide.

The lot I had damned well better get was a set of masks: oval in shape, inlaid with stained hardwoods and ivory, the masks of three Khesataan lords. I couldn’t guess how they’d been smuggled into the Empire or how Tellrus knew they were going to be at auction, but he wanted them. What for? He pointedly hadn’t told me, so there was no way to answer the question, even if my life and freedom might depend on it. How much did Cadzana know? I had to assume she knew almost everything. I started to sweat freely, and worry, and curse under my breath.

With another clack of wood block onto metal plate, the bidding started. I hung in through the first few rounds without trouble, dropping in a bid here and there, riding the rise. The other man didn’t want the lot badly, or couldn’t afford it, because he dropped out after the bidding made it to three, eight, and two. I handed gems to Div, who relayed the bids and, for a moment, it looked like I would take it through Cadzana’s lack of interest, but with one move she raised the bidding just out of my reach.

I turned to look for Sarah, but Sarah was on the other side of the circle, blocked by the crowd. I looked at Div, who stared back with a smug “told you so” on his old face. I wanted then to grab his beard and split his skull.

“Offer a side-bid. My services after I return from the Sage’s College.” It was a gamble, at best, but I hoped it might bring in enough extra to take the lot.

Div sent word downstairs, and the auctioneer waited for a moment to see the response — the men downstairs had little faith in my abilities. The few extra coins the guard placed in my tray weren’t enough.

I added them to my bid and knew I’d lost. I watched Ghita Cadzana smile, the very nerves of my hands strumming in sick anticipation, my belly full of liquid fire, and she yanked success out of my grasp. Once, twice, with a final click of the wood clapper on metal, my fate was sealed.

I stood there, stunned. Div asked me something, but I didn’t catch it, all I could think of was the fact Tellrus would have me horsewhipped. Despite my training and my wits, I’d failed. I’d been outspent, and so easily. Everything I’d worked so hard for seemed to boil away to nothing. I haven’t failed quite so spectacularly since, and it was the kind of disappointment that wads you up into a ball and tosses you out with the kitchen scraps. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t speak. My whole world was encompassed in one losing moment, and Cadzana’s cold half-smile. Would Master Tellrus be satisfied with a substitute? Could I salvage my skin and my chances of leaving his service? Trying to figure out some slick way to get something else to offer in place of the masks, I turned to Div, who stared me down with nothing but scorn in his eyes.

“What else of Khesataan origin is up in this house?”

Divezha raised one silver eyebrow. “You don’t honestly believe I can rattle off the entire list, do you? There are more than fifty lots. I can’t recite them from memory.”

“I need to know, I have to...” I wasn’t ready to panic, not quite, but the fear of what my master would do to me set my limbs trembling.

Without compassion or mercy, Div stared me down. Every word from his mouth sounded like the a pronouncement of doom. “Patience, Mr. Nosso. I don’t think you’re as lost as you believe. Look there.” He pointed.

Sarah and Pausha had reappeared and were talking to Cadzana. The sick feeling in my gut got worse. I needed a moment to reconsider. I desperately wanted another drink. I looked at the three women, and the way they were ignoring us. He might’ve been right.

“What—” I stopped. Div wouldn’t have given me any advice I couldn’t figure out myself; the question was useless.

“Mr. Nosso, I believe, if this lot is important enough to you, you will be able to take it. It is up to you to decide whether you will be better served by loss or by sacrifice.”

Sarah turned to look my way, casually flipped her hand into the slang sign for “follow” and answered a question from her guide. I checked the tag. It gave inconclusive answers, she could’ve been dismayed or determined, but it did tell me whatever this woman, Ghita Cadzana, was after, she wasn’t trying to enchant her way to it. The only spellwork in evidence was my own.

“What was your name again?” asked Cadzana, although I was certain she knew it, that she’d known it before I even joined that morning’s line.

“Satet.”

Cadzana turned to Sarah Bailick. “You said, what, again?”

“He can be convinced.”

Div grumbled. “This is unwise, Mr. Nosso.” I ignored him. The lot was my sole concern.

Cadzana looked my way again, her eyes cold and hard as the marble floors.

I tried not to sound as desperate as I felt, and asked, “What do you want for the lot you just took?”

She raised an eyebrow, cool and collected. “What lot?”

I waved at the crate, which the Auntighur men were re-sealing, getting ready to carry it away. “The masks. I can—”

“Sadly, you strike me, in this situation, as being particularly unable to make an offer. Good day, Mr. Nosso.” She turned to go. Sarah spoke a few words, which made the older woman hesitate.

“Wait!” I couldn’t let the masks slip out of my grasp, I couldn’t return to my master without both lots. “Wait,” I said again, slowly, and she did stop, turn, and look at me.

“The gems in my pouch will make back most of what you spent. I want the masks. I’ll offer my services as a journeyman of the Verrin school, for a fortnight, to make up the difference.”

Cadzana looked at Sarah Bailick again. They must have been in it together. My question, then, again, was how much of “all of it” they knew. I could be lost, in a single moment, or I could buy myself at least a few more hours.

Proceed to part 2...

Copyright © 2023 by Patrick Honovich