turned and saw nothing but moonlit waves and towering limestone islands. “Look, there is no ship among the islands. No army hiding under the table. No Nicodemus bloody Weal about to fall out of a God-of-god’s damned coconut tree. I am here to purchase that prophetic spell, but that text seems to be giving you distressingly little information about the future. What is this danger? Shouldn’t your spell foresee what it will be?”
“This spell doesn’t work that way. It allows me to feel forward into time.”
She frowned. “That sounds … rather ungentlemanly.”
“I can sense the emotions of all the different men I might become in an hour.”
“And how many of these men are there?”
“A near infinite number. I’m not aware of them all, but when many of them experience anxiety, I grow wary.”
Leandra studied the smuggler’s face. “What could be frightening them?”
“You saw no ships amid the standing islands?”
“No dammed ships. And no other threats.”
“Very well …” He looked down at his mandana. “Perhaps it’s just apprehension.” He raised the cup to his lips.
Leandra put her head to one side. Even with a prophetic spell around his head, he was going to drink poison? Feeling forward in time, as wondrous as it sounded, seemed as useful as a boiling pot made of Lornish butter.
But then the smuggler froze. He peered into his liqueur and frowned. He lowered the cup, paused, raised it back toward his lips, lowered it again. He looked at her, eyes narrowed, put the cup down.
Leandra allowed herself a small laugh. “Is there a problem?”
“The closer I bring the mandana to my lips, the more of my future selves are writhing in terror. What in the Creator’s name did you put in here?”
She shrugged. “The extract of a puffer fish liver, just a few drops. The hydromancers call it tetrodotoxin; it’s an old recipe of the Sea People. Just a bit of local flavor.”
“And what flavor would that be?”
“The flavor of nothing,” she said airily. “But half an hour from now your mouth would tingle. Then your face and hands would go numb. All your muscles would slacken and you’d stop breathing. As a windfall, you would be perfectly aware as paralysis caused you to suffocate to death.”
“Antidote?”
“None.”
“You have a very trusting soul.”
“I do,” she admitted. “One day it’ll be the death of someone else. Likely several someone elses. But don’t be too upset; I now have evidence that your prophetic spell is genuine.”
“You could have tried the text.” He picked up a slim leather folio from the ground beside him.
She shook her head. “What’s to stop you from selling me a death sentence? I will purchase the text around your head or nothing at all.”
“Killing you would not be good business. There is more I would like to sell you and information I hope you will sell to me. On the next trip I could have more substantial texts.”
“Then let me increase your profit. I’ll double your price if you tell me where you get these spells.”
The man studied her but said nothing.
She pointed to his head. “A text that powerful couldn’t be written; it had to be part of a deity. I’m guessing you chopped one of the empire’s gods into sellable pieces.”
“You forget that imperial spellwrights have revolutionized composition. With Vivian’s metaspells, they are changing the rules.” He nodded toward the folio. “Inscribing brief godspells onto paper for example.” Previously, godspells could be imbued only into a deity’s ark stone.
Leandra shook her head. “Perhaps you had an imperial spellwright to set that godspell on paper, but no human mind could have composed it. Tell me where and how you are deconstructing deities. In return, I will investigate your Undivided Society. That or I could pay a large sum of jade.”
He studied her. “I wonder why you should want such information … and how much it is worth to you. Some information isn’t for sale to just anyone.”
“Then perhaps when our partnership is stronger?”
“Shall we meet again? Perhaps tomorrow … in the city?”
Leandra considered. “If this exchange proves satisfactory … tomorrow at dusk, my bodyguard will meet you by the Lesser Sacred Pool. You know where that is?”
He nodded.
“Come alone. If there is anyone else with you, you’ll never find us again. Understood?”
“Indeed. In the meantime, maybe you could tell me more about yourself?” he asked before seeing her blank expression and quickly adding, “Perhaps not your name or station, but—”
“If you discover my identity, then I will have to dispose of you in several large and bloody pieces deposited almost directly into a shark’s belly. I say ‘almost directly’ because the shark’s teeth would have to act as brief but effective intermediaries. And neither of us would want that.”
“Neither of us would.”
“Good, now for that godspell.” She gestured to her guard.
A moment later Dhrun placed two small chests next to the smuggler and opened them. One was filled with rough-cut jade and balls of opium. In the other chest lay plates of Lornish steel and lacquered Dralish wood, each imbued with black market magical language.
The smuggler sorted through the jade and then held his hands over the steel and wood, seemingly able to sense magical text. Only a spellwright using a synesthetic reaction could do so. That made him a rogue wizard perhaps? Or maybe a pyromancer? “It is good,” the smuggler said before holding out his folio.
“The godspell around your head,” Leandra said coldly.
“They’re identical, down to the last rune.”
She shook her head.
“How could I sell you this spell? I can’t remove this spell from my head.”
“My bodyguard will assist.”
The smuggler eyed Dhrun’s face, which presently was that of youthful Dhrunarman—light brown skin, aquiline nose, densely curled black hair, sparse beard. Dressed in a black lungi and a vest of scale armor, which showed to good advantage all four of his powerfully built arms, Dhrun looked every bit a young Ixonian divinity complex.
The smuggler looked back at Leandra. “Very well, but before I remove my headwrap, I will admit to being in disguise. I am not of the Lotus People.”
“You fill me with shock,” she said in deadpan before leaning forward. “What do most of your future selves feel an hour from now?”
“Some are satisfied … but some are agitated, a few very much so.”
“You still must smuggle your payments back into the city or out of the bay.”
He seemed to consider this and then removed his headwrap. His forehead was encircled by rubicund prose. Though Leandra was not fluent in the red language, her inheritance from her mother allowed her to visualize the divine text.
Then she realized that the smuggler’s hair consisted of silvering dreadlocks. “You’re Trillinonish,” she said and was struck by a sensation of familiarity. Had she seen this man before? No, it wasn’t possible. And yet … she couldn’t shake the feeling.
Dhrun put his upper hands to the back of the smuggler’s head. The radiant godspell slackened from his brow and then fell away.