The Poison Master Page 3

  Once the saving jar had been dealt with, Alivet made her way around the long, narrow room, methodically watering the skeins and veils of growing plants. She used a wooden pole to carry the watering can to the highest corners of the room, scattering velivey and flowering sor with cool droplets. The plants that required the most warmth had been placed on the highest ledges of the room, just beneath the ceiling, with the small mosses tucked away by the skirting board where it was cooler. Alivet had become accustomed to working in cramped conditions and this place was not much smaller than her aunt's stilt-house in Edgewhere: plants in every last corner, breathing greenness into the air. The velivey chimed and rang as the water touched it, as if in gratitude, and Alivet smiled.

  When the watering was done, and the leaves of the delicate plants checked for fungus or rot, Alivet heard the chimes of her neighbor's water-clock. Only five o'clock, time enough to rest for a few minutes before she needed to prepare for the evening. She would be seeing a client tonight, one of Genever Thant's commissions. Alivet's thoughts turned to money. If the evening went well and the client was pleased, Genever might give her a bonus. It had happened before. The coins went into the pot beneath the floorboards and would then be sent back to her aunt, to be hoarded in Edge- where for Inki's unbonding.

  She poured herself a glass of thyme tea and carried it out onto the rickety balcony. The trees hummed with water- moths. Alivet laid her hands on the rail of the balcony, feeling burnished wood beneath her palms. Reaching out, she snapped a flower from the clematis that wandered up the walls of the rookery and tucked it into the last of the apprentice rings that banded her long plait. Thyme tea and a single blossom: a modest luxury, but Alivet was grateful.

  From this height, through the fronded leaves of sootwood, she could see all the way to the spires of the city center. The structure called Port Tree rose above the city in a series of anomalous bulbous domes: the Lords' architecture clashing with human buildings. Most of these were rookeries for the workers. (Alivet wondered idly, and not for the first time, what the word actually meant. The only rooks she knew of were the little chess pieces, and what had a house for lots of people to do with chess?)

  Beyond, too far away to be seen, lay the Lords' Quarter, the Isle of Silence, and the causeway that led to the western- most of the four Palaces of Night. From this distance, the spires of the city spun a lacy mesh across the sky, and the rising star that was neighboring Sephuri glittered on the horizon like a raindrop in a spider's web. She had been fortunate, Alivet thought, to find a room in this old rookery, with its staircases of antique wood and polished copper, its trailing veils of clematis. But while she was sipping thyme tea on this charming balcony, Inkirietta was somewhere in the depths of a Night Palace. Her twin's face turned to meet Alivet's mind's eye and Alivet bit her lip until she tasted blood.

  All this is for Inki, Alivet reminded herself. It did not quell the guilt. Her friends had been astounded when she had announced her intention to move to the outskirts, the liminal lands between the city and the expanse of the fens.

  “But what will you do out there?” Yzabet Spenser had cried, raising her hands in horror. “Darling, it's miles away. You might as well be dead! And what do Brother Genever and your other employers think about this mad plan?”

  “Genever won't care,” Alivet said, with truth. “As long as I turn up for work on time and make sure that his phials are in order, he couldn't care less where I was living. Anyway, it's cheaper, and it'll give me a bit of peace and quiet to work on the new fume formulations.”

  The money was, of course, the principal issue. The new rooms, which were only slightly cramped and damp, were half the cost of her dortoire fees in the city center. That meant more money to send back to her aunt every month, and more money meant that the time Inki would have to spend Enbonded would be diminished.

  “You're just feeling guilty because the Lords of Night didn't take you,” Yzabet had said, with a toss of her head. “So silly. That's the way the system works. It's always the prettiest who get chosen.” She glanced across at the portrait that stood on the dresser. Inki stared back: dark-eyed, oval-faced, smiling between the long braids of hair. Her face was Alivet's own. “Though I suppose that's not true in your case. Anyway, your sister will learn such a lot.”

  “Inki will learn, all right. About perversity.”

  “About life. She'll be associating with the highest levels of society. Who knows, perhaps she might catch some Unpriest's eye and become a mistress.”

  “That's what worries me.” Alivet sighed. “If only I'd been past my apprenticeship when the Enbonders came. Then we might have been able to afford to unbond her right away. As it is, I'll just have to save until I've got enough.” She did not add: Why her? Why did they take Inki, and not me? Yzabet was right, but she did not want to talk about the old guilt, of being the one left safely behind.

  “I'm sure Inki will be all right,” Yzabet assured her. “Whatever the Lords might be, look at all they've done for us. Helped us build our city, make sure law and order is maintained—and they protect us, too, from the beings of the worlds beyond. Without the Lords, what would happen to us? My father always used to say that taking a few hundred youngsters to be Enbonded was a small price to pay, really. And not that many Enbonded die.”

  “So they say. Maybe it's even true. But plenty wish they had. And the longer they're Enbonded, the worse they become. As for what the Lords do for us, I do not see it. It seems to me that the Lords rule the Nine Families, the Families govern the Unpriests, and the Unpriests control the rest of us. I even wonder how much the Lords would be able to achieve without human aid, rather than the other way round. And besides, I do not know why we should not all be permitted to make our own future, devise our own laws and principles. The ones espoused by the Unpriests don't seem very just to me.”

  “Hush, Alivet!” Yzabet had grown pale.

  “And this ‘protection’ that they grant us. Who tells us that there are people of the worlds beyond, who wish us ill? Why, the Unpriests themselves. Has anyone seen such a being? It seems to me that the Lords and their creatures are the ones from whom we need to be kept safe, not some vague outside threat,” Alivet said, but she lowered her voice all the same. “Anyway, what good has their justice done my sister? Inki was only seventeen. She's been incarcerated in a Night Palace for five years now. Whoever comes out at the end of the bonding, it won't be my twin.”

  Now, remembering this conversation, Alivet's hands tightened on the balcony rail. If Inki hadn't fallen prey to the Unpriests, Alivet might be standing on a veranda in Celestia or Shadow Town by now, a rising alchemical apothecary. She knew she was good at her work; she had only to look at the tattooed wheel on her palm to prove that. Most students took five years to make apprentice, not three. If she spent another few years with Genever and her other commissioning employers to pay off Inki's unbonding fees, then she could start saving for the rest of the family and herself. Set up shop in Shadow Town, perhaps; bring Inki and her aunt to a better place than Edgewhere.

  Her thoughts turned to her principal employer. At least Genever Thant, peculiar though he might be, left her alone. She had heard some horror stories from other apprentices: tales of sexual deviancy and torment, whispers of nightmare. Just because apothecaries supplied drugs, people seemed to expect them to supply other services as well. Alivet supposed that it was the price one paid for working in a not-veryrespectable profession.

  But apart from the scientific and alchemical arts, there weren't all that many openings for lower-class girls, except prostitution and perhaps a bit of tutoring. Cooking and science, held to be similar in their methods and applications, were considered reasonable professions for young ladies of ungenteel birth. The higher-born, should they develop an aptitude for such things, would become physicians or surgeons, but this kind of work was not open to lower-class girls. She had been lucky to have a talent for drug-making. Inki's interest, on the other hand, had always been in cookery. If sh
e had not been Enbonded—but there was no use thinking about that.

  It was also fortunate that Genever was too jaded to take any pleasure in—well, anything much anymore. On the one hand, this was good, as it spared Alivet from his possible excesses, but on the other, he was almost incapable of appreciating anything she produced. One sniff of a painstakingly created new perfume, and it would be, Very nice, Alivet. I'm sure they'll like it, pronounced in a tone so lackluster that he might as well have died.

  But sometimes she caught him staring at her and his gaze was no longer dry and old. Then she would wonder, uneasily, what he really felt.

  Compared with her sister's plight, however, these were small frustrations. Alivet set down the tea glass and went back inside, to prepare for the evening's client.

  Chapter IV

  CITY OF LEVANAH, MONTH OF DRAGONFLIES

  The sorbet was as black as night and as delicate as air. Alivet watched as Genever Thant took a spoonful and fed it wearily into the waiting, eager mouth of his companion, who strained against her bonds.

  “Can you taste it?” How many times had he whispered this over the course of the last month? Alivet wondered. Jaded he might have been, but Genever's sardonic face was fashionably powdered and he wore a velvet suit that must have cost a fortune; small wonder that he wanted to get his money's worth out of their aristocratic client tonight.

  She smiled encouragingly at the client, even though the blindfolded girl could not see her. Around them, the murmur of conversation rose and fell. Fellow diners cast surreptitious glances in the direction of Alivet and her companions. Good publicity, thought Alivet, if all goes well.

  Genever went on, “All the way from the palace kitchens of the Night Lords themselves, smuggled in for your delectation alone. The lamps over the Straits of Sesh; splint-lily and night-spice in the evening airs of the forests of Fem…A confection softer than kisses and more subtle than a lie.”

  He had a way with words, Alivet had to admit. She recognized the place names from a recent and fashionable play. The lips of Madimi Garland closed over the foaming dark froth. She gave a whimper of pleasure.

  “Told you so,” Genever said, with something close to satisfaction. “Well, my Lady, what's your wish now?” Alivet saw that a trace of sorbet was smeared across his palm. Fastidiously, Genever wiped his hands on a silken handkerchief. It had not been a rhetorical question, though at first glance Madimi Garland was hard-pressed to answer. Her hands were bound behind her with fronds of sup-briar, which had flowered in the heat of the restaurant and now put forth tiny, translucent blossoms, tinged with the Lady's blood. If she looked closely, Alivet knew, she would see each little thorn twisting around to prick the girl's flesh and drink. But Madimi squirmed with pleasure, chafing her hands to drive in the thorns. Her ankles, similarly bound, were crossed daintily beneath the tablecloth.

  Prior to the beginning of the meal, Alivet had inserted nose-plugs, so that the Lady's sole sense would be that of taste. Thus far, she seemed impressed, and this gratified Alivet, who had spent considerable time poring over possible menus. It might not be particularly respectable, but she took her work seriously, and as a partner of one of the oldest Experience firms in the city, Genever also had a reputation to maintain, not to mention Alivet's fee to pay.

  Alivet wondered again about the possibility of a bonus, and surveyed with professional detachment the edges of the Lady's metal corset: an intricate affair of rods and panels above her voluminous skirts. The sharp hem was digging into the girl's flesh and Alivet could see the reddening line across her breasts. Swiftly, and without warning, Genever leaned across and turned a small screw. The corset tightened and the Lady squeaked.

  Alivet winced, thankful that she was wearing her own comfortable and modest attire. Whilst she possessed a formal corset—a present from her aunt when she reached the marriageable age of seventeen—it was a simple confection of boned velvet, not this engineered construction. Aunt Elitta had given a corset to Inki, too, but Inki had never had the chance to wear it. Alivet felt her lips tighten as she looked at Madimi's rich clothes and she forced herself to smile.

  Genever dusted sugar-glaze from the narrow cuffs of his brocade jacket and sighed, evidently unmoved by the girl's sensual discomfort. Madimi Garland hardly presented a challenge, but at least the girl was prepared to pay. Alivet was well aware that as an expert in the palates of different senses for over thirty years, Genever preferred local clients who had long since become jaded by the many pleasures that the city of Levanah had to offer its aristocracy. She assumed that to stimulate such people—scions of the Nine Families, with the wealth to support their appetites, or Unpriests who made a fetish of hedonism—could occasionally lead to a flicker of feeling within himself. Sometimes Alivet could even see it, reflected in his sad black eyes like a lantern spark. Those who had devoted themselves to the Search could be interesting, too: the many folk who, like herself, had spent time and care on the sacramental use of the psychopompic drugs, seeking to travel into the world-soul to seek out humanity's lost origins.

  But the Lady was very young and her upbringing with the Sisters of Restriction had been traditionally confined. Three years ago a piece of seeded cake would have thrilled her, and a glass of wine would have been the ultimate in decadence. Now—divorced after a short formal marriage and disgustingly wealthy—Madimi Garland was evidently making up for lost time.

  Alivet understood that Genever himself had long since exhausted the possibilities of bondage: the tired politics of domination and submission. He found the corruption of purity to be merely clichéd, whereas Alivet found it distasteful. She would have taken more care in selecting her clientele if it had not been for Inki and the need for money. She wished that they could have interested the Lady in one of the paths of the Search, but Madimi Garland had informed them in no uncertain terms that she'd had quite enough of being preached at. All the Sisters of Restriction had ever talked about was the need to prepare oneself for devotion to the Night Lords, should one be so fortunate as to be selected for Enbonding. More fool them, Alivet thought, but she could not entirely blame Madimi. The sisters were a part of the Unchurch, after all, albeit a minor branch, and their allegiance was to their masters. Who knew what manner of lies they had passed on to their young acolytes, or what delights they might have promised once the chosen entered service? Not for the first time, Alivet wondered just what kind of mind-wash drugs could be employed by the Lords and those who served them. The thought that there might be those who entered that service of their own free will, however, was more unnerving yet.

  When the selection—of twenty girls of various ages—had finally been made, Madimi had not been among them. Now, therefore, she was ready for some fun—which, she reminded Alivet with all the sophistry of the conventually educated, was itself one of the paths to self-discipline, once one had exhausted all the possibilities. Asceticism always produced such tediously predictable results. Next, Madimi Garland would want to move on to drugs, and then, most probably, sexual congress with partners of varied gender and inclination. At least that wasn't a service Alivet herself would be expected to provide.

  Alivet was soon proved right. The Lady swallowed the last of her shadowy sorbet, and whispered with a vestige of primness, “Let's go into the fume room. Can we do that?”

  “Of course we can,” Genever said. “You, my Lady, can do anything you wish.” After all, Alivet forbore to add, you're the one who's paying.

  Quivering with barely suppressed excitement, Madimi Garland allowed them to help her rise. Her briar-bound feet took a tottering step forward. Genever put a hand on each shoulder and gently propelled her toward the fume room. No one looked up as they passed, but Alivet surveyed her fellow diners with interest. Mid-week, the restaurant was crowded and the best tables were full. Genever had chosen not to sit by the window, in order to concentrate on Madimi, but Alivet snatched a brief glance as they passed. Whenever she came into this building, the difference between human scales o
f architecture and those of the Lords always struck home. It was hard not to be awed, and Alivet could see why so many of her fellow citizens regarded the Lords and their Unpriest acolytes with such cringing envy and respect; why there were so many folk who wanted a piece of that power. But Alivet found it harder still not to hate.

  The windows were fifty feet high, bisected into arches that created the effect of an enormous cathedral. Through the glass, she could see the expanse of the city below: a sprawl of alleys and rookeries reaching as far as the fens. Latent Emanation's sun had already boiled away over the edge of the world, and the city was hazy in the damp evening air. Alivet knew that if she stepped across to the window and looked down, she would see the building curving like a carapace below her: a maze of fume bars and restaurants, dance halls and penitentials.

  The complex was popular, though mercifully not with the Lords themselves. Alivet noted all manner of patrons from elsewhere in the fens: Hepsborough genuflexives waving their dining implements in animated conversation; Moderated Wives beneath a group veil; and a single person reading an illegal political newspaper. Alivet's eyes widened: very few people dared to openly criticize the Lords and their Unpriests, and to sit reading such material in plain view seemed utter folly.

  Alivet knew that she should avert her gaze and have nothing to do with this dangerous individual, but her curiosity was piqued and she stared. She saw two long pale hands at the edges of the paper. Then, as if realizing that he was being watched, the person lowered the paper and smiled up at her. Alivet saw a narrow, handsome face, not quite human: ivory as a polished skull beneath sleek blue-black hair. His eyes, deep set in hollows of bone, were as dark as garnets. Alivet, remembering the red-eyed figure on the causeway, gasped. The smile was mocking, beguiling, holding all manner of promises. She took a step back. The man bowed his head in polite acknowledgment of her presence and disappeared behind his paper.