CHAPTER 4: A Man of Action

Arihant Adhikari Iyer
Day 1

Arihant Adhikari Iyer, the lord mayor of Katakot, straightened in his wooden saddle and gazed with envy at General Vasu Touhma Tirimiry. The general sat on his razor-horned military utaha like a rider born, swaying comfortably in time to its loping gait. Arihant had chosen a smaller, gentler beast for himself, its horns blunted and covered with gleaming copper caps.

At least, Arihant consoled himself, I’m better-dressed. Tirimiry’s battered armor, pieced together out of leather, horn, and salvaged steel, gave no indication of his rank, although the sleek black honormarks coiling across the general’s face and hands indicated that he was a man to be reckoned with. Arihant, on the other hand, wore his best plum-colored sherwani coat, bone-colored paijama trousers, and a splendid new pair of embroidered riding boots. The colors set off his golden honormarks, which were, if he dared be so bold, far more prominent and eye-catching than Tirimiry’s.

…Although, he acknowledged as he shifted in the saddle, the body bearing those golden ’marks was no longer quite as young and athletic as Tirimiry’s. The general set a smart pace, and utahi saddles had become noticeably smaller and harder in the thirty-odd years since Arihant had been Tirimiry’s age. Moreover, it was late afternoon, and dressing for this excursion had meant missing his afternoon tiffin. Arihant’s generously proportioned stomach rumbled in protest. Alas, General Tirimiry had refused to discuss politics in the comfort of the palace.

He shifted in the saddle again, looking askance at the posters and pamphlets papering the walls, their corners curling in the heat and humidity. Bold print decried the Lord Shivrant’s arrest, damned the raja’s closure of the Sovereign Assembly, and predicted the return of the old Kaniyar royal germline.

What the general didn’t realize, Arihant mused, was that politics were inescapable, inside the palace or out.

“I don’t understand why you permit such dissent, Lord Mayor,” Tirimiry said, his sharp eyes following Arihant’s gaze. “You must know this propaganda doesn’t please the raja.”

“Well, it is illegal to hang a poster without a ministry stamp,” Arihant replied defensively. “But the dissenters don’t care, and it’s a terrible waste of civic resources to keep tearing the posters down. They just get replaced an hour later.”

“Then close the print shops.”

“That seems like a rather draconian measure, General.” Arihant nervously reached up to stroke his pet dhampala, Mahir. The green-and-yellow striped reptile was perched on his shoulders, its long tail draped down his back. “The people are already too agitated as it is.”

“As is the court. Is it true that you actively oppose the raja, my Lord Mayor?”

“What? Me? I — that’s — never, not at all!” Arihant was aghast. “I don’t — ah — my stance isn’t, er, it isn’t so much a matter of opposition as of, er, respectful disagreement.”

“Well, the raja isn’t happy with you, no matter what you call it. You do realize he sees treason everywhere he looks, don’t you?”

Arihant swallowed his stuttering objections and drew himself up.

“I am not a traitor.”

Tirimiry snorted, giving him an inscrutable look.

“I didn’t say you were, my lord. I know you’ve run this city for thirty years —”

“Thirty-eight.”

“Thirty-eight, then. And I’ve never heard the faintest hint of financial or political scandal attached to your name. You’re either very honest or very careful.”

“I beg your pardon,” Arihant huffed. As if you’ve lived long enough to hear anything about me at all, he thought with affront. Why, Tirimiry hadn’t even been crawling when Arihant had taken office. The general had an ego as broad as his admirable shoulders.

“Until now.” Tirimiry fixed him with a stern gaze. “How many people have you talked to about Shivrant’s sentence?”

“Er…” Arihant hesitated. “Well, I did speak to Magister Gerent and a few members of the Privy Council, but….”

“But they refused to work with you. And now you think I’m going to help you defy the raja.”

“Not defy, General; persuade. We all know that Shivrant’s sentence isn’t just … and the people love him. He’s a war hero. They’ve written songs about him — not just about his archaeological expeditions into the Wastes or the Battle of Montiku, but about the, um, about the Gares uprising, too.”

Tirimiry’s lip curled.

“The Gares uprising. I wish I knew what the hell Shivrant was thinking, refusing to collect taxes, pardoning revolutionaries, allowing seditious literature to be printed in his province — pro-Kaniyar literature, even. And then he had the balls to speak up against the raja in the Sovereign Assembly and suggest it’s time for an edict. Of course Bhattacharyya shut down the Assembly and arrested him — the man was about to challenge for right of rule!”

“Er, well … he never actually said that. Not in so many words. I mean, there had been speculation…..”

“The raja had just lost his sons. He was grieving and in no mood to be questioned. Did Shivrant really think he could carry off a coup while Bhattacharyya was distracted?” Tirimiry shook his head. “He underestimated his enemy.”

“I — well, I don’t know the Lord Shivrant personally, of course.” Arihant fidgeted, twisting a topaz ring around one golden-scaled finger. “And I don’t know whether he considered the raja an enemy. I suppose he just considered the raja to be … increasingly unpredictable.”

“I thought the raja’s reaction was completely predictable.”

“Yes, well … nevertheless, I can’t help but think Raja Bhattacharyya acted rather, ah, rather precipitously. It’s not illegal to call for an edict. And, well, with all the public discontent, the kind of things they’re saying on the pirate stations about his, the raja’s, er, his mental state … well, it might be wise if he changed Shivrant’s sentence to something less inflammatory. Perhaps he could levy a steep fine….”

The general snorted.

“Or exile?” Arihant ventured.

“Too dangerous. I hear Shivrant’s related to the raja — some kind of distant cousin, I think. That’d make him very attractive to foreign interests looking to put a new raja on si’Urai’s throne in exchange for political favors.”

“Yes, but turning him into a martyr….”

“Martyrs die like heroes, Lord Iyer. I assure you, there won’t be anything heroic about Shivrant’s execution.”

“I see.” Arihant bit his lip, wondering what sort of macabre spectacle his city was in for. Katakot hadn’t seen an execution for high treason since his father’s time.

“I admit, I’ll be sorry to lose him,” Tirimiry added nonchalantly. “Shivrant was a good commander. He deserved ‘The Champion of Montiku.’ But palaces are more dangerous than battlefields, and Shivrant wasn’t smart enough to keep his mouth shut. I am.”

“And by extension, I am not…?”

“You’ve chosen a bad time to be insufficiently diplomatic, my Lord Mayor. Don’t mistake me: I admire a man of action. A man who stands up for his principles. We need more of that in si’Urai. But a clever soldier knows when to attack and when to withdraw. In my opinion, it’s high time you withdrew. Who were you going to approach next?”

Arihant blinked. “Er, the duke?”

“Makut Bhattacharyya can’t afford to disagree with his brother. He’s a fine rider and a good soldier; took a bullet at Montiku, himself, but kept fighting to the end, right alongside Shivrant. Damn near lost his arm to infection afterwards, too. But at home….” Tirimiry shook his head. “Too much gambling and too much drinking. Some men should be kept in the field for their own good. But the raja covers his debts and keeps him out of trouble, so it doesn’t matter how much the duke might like Shivrant — he’ll never speak against his brother’s decision.”

“And that’s why you think I should withdraw?”

“I need to work with you, and I can’t if Bhattacharyya throws you into the Diamond Keep for being a pain in his ass.”

Arihant rubbed a hand over his bald head. This conversation wasn’t going in the direction he’d anticipated.

“Why do you need to work with me?” he asked, deciding to ignore the ‘pain in his ass’ remark.

“I’m responsible for protecting si’Urai. You’re responsible for protecting Katakot. That means our interests run in tandem, especially with Shivrant’s execution ahead of us. And there will be an execution, Lord Iyer. Resign yourself to it.”

Arihant took a deep breath, then let it out, his shoulders falling. Mahir shifted to keep his balance, his long tail sliding across Arihant’s back.

Tirimiry is right, he thought as he reached up to pet Mahir. The dhampala cocked his head, helping Arihant reach a patch of dry scales. I’d just be wasting my time, talking to the duke.

“Very well, General,” he conceded. He hadn’t kept Katakot running for thirty-eight years by resisting the inevitable. “Then tell me what we can do together to, um, minimize the damage this execution will do to my city. Because I warn you,” he said, indicating the posters around them, “there will be protests. I feel it in the air.”

Tirimiry smiled, an expression that made his sharp-featured face almost handsome.

“Good man. Let’s discuss civic defense.”

They rode down to the Jagi district, reaching Lamentation Square and its ominous, vine- and skull-covered arches. As they rode through the square, Tirimiry began to gesture.

“The tumbril will come up along Silent Street, so we’ll line up guards along this intersection and at the midway point between the Keep and Lamentation Square. My goal is to break any attempt to rush the execution party and free Shivrant. It’s unlikely anybody will make a rescue attempt in the square itself, but I’ll station a rifle corps on the ground around the scaffold, just in case.”

“What about snipers?” Arihant asked.

“I don’t expect to need any.”

“I mean, what if there are snipers among the protesters? Not every soldier returns their firearms when they muster out. And J — er, Grinner’s people have been known to sell guns on the black market. I don’t imagine he gives a fig about the Lord Shivrant, per se, but….”

“Grinner?” Tirimiry’s expression darkened. The black scales that ran down the sides of his face and fanned out over his cheekbones looked particularly threatening when he frowned. “That old bastard’s still around?”

Arihant cleared his throat, a little piqued. ‘That old bastard’ was only a year older than he was.

“Yes, I believe he is. He doesn’t, ah, usually try to rescue prisoners or disrupt executions, but he’s not above turning a profit on potential conflict. And he’s been known to sell black-market firearms.”

“I see.” Tirimiry looked around the intersection with a fresh eye, examining the overhanging roofs and narrow alleys to each side. “All right. I’ll put some rifles on the roofs of the bigger buildings.”

Arihant beamed, pleased to have contributed something useful. Perhaps he could be a ‘man of action,’ after all.

Tirimiry continued to ride through the neighborhood, pointing out places where he was stationing his soldiers. He quizzed Arihant about alleys and sewers and the people who lived around each area. Arihant couldn’t help feeling chuffed; he knew Katakot inside and out, but this was the first time anybody important had ever needed that knowledge.

“What we want to do is contain protests quickly and efficiently,” Tirimiry said as they turned and rode along a narrow side street flanking one of the river canals. A foul stench rose from the algae-coated waterway. Refuse and oily sewage was piled in mounds along each hard ceracrete bank, and scrawny, ragged-collared dhampali hissed as they challenged fat, sharp-toothed sewer varani over the best scraps.

Arihant tsked. Was he the only person in the city who remembered the cholera epidemic thirty years ago? Some district bureaucrat owes Katakot a sanitation fine, he decided. He’d put his secretary on it as soon as he returned to the office.

The general was also looking at the canal, his dark eyes narrowed. “Tell me about the sewers.”

Arihant perked up.

“Katakot has the best pumping and drainage system in si’Urai,” he boasted. “We began modifying it and extending it through the old shelter tunnels after the original tech began failing last century. Engineers from other protectorates visit us regularly just to study how it works. The new system is much more efficient and sustainable…” he glanced at the piles of slop on the river banks, “…when people bother to use it.”

“Do the tunnels drain outside the city?”

“Well, first they move the sewage down to the treatment plants in Adhisa, where the waste is filtered, treated, and recycled. You know, a rather large percentage of Katakot’s electrical needs is supplied by the population’s, er, natural processes — an endlessly renewable resource.” Arihant gave the general a fleeting smile. “But yes, what little byproduct our plants can’t reclaim is ultimately pumped out of the city to a secondary plant, where I believe it’s processed as fertilizer for the rice fields.”

“So, dissidents could sneak into the city through the sewers, or use the sewers to move around unseen?”

“Er, well, most of the pipes are too narrow for anything larger than varani to slip through. And the bigger tunnel lines aren’t exactly conducive to traffic anymore — I can’t imagine anybody voluntarily using them to get around the city.”

“They’re still a security risk,” Tirimiry insisted. Arihant pursed his lips, then shrugged. The general’s job was, he supposed, to be paranoid. If he wanted to station soldiers at Jagi’s sewer entrances, that was his business. The military budget was separate from the civic budget.

They crossed an arching bridge to the higher neighborhood of Manda. Arihant’s mild-mannered utaha flapped its vestigial wings and pranced with pleasure as they turned onto the Processional. He smiled, patting the well-buffed scales on its neck. The broad street, built by the last rani for her fiftieth birthday and wide enough for Caretaker Nathapala to stroll through when xe left xes lair, formed a pretty picture in the late afternoon sun. Trees and flowering bushes lined each side of the road, and benches were set at regular intervals so wealthy citizens could rest and admire each others’ clothing. Riders and pedestrians moved slowly down the way, exchanging greetings, gossip, and compliments.

“Lord Mayor,” one of the dismounted elites called out. “General Tirimiry.” He made a bow.

“My lord Warud.” Arihant’s curious glance skipped over Warud’s wide, homely face to inspect the man’s striking companion. She was honormarked in a becoming lace-like pattern of copper and green that was set off by her russet sari and cinnamon skin. “Madam.”

The young lady greeted them with a bow, her delicate hands lifted to her forehead. Her utaha was tied to the tree behind them, a lovely black-scaled saur with floral garlands hanging from its capped horns. Mahir’s talons dug into Arihant’s shoulders as he perked up and whistled a greeting. The young woman gave Arihant a delighted smile.

“Oh, is that a real Green Opal? What’s its name?”

Arihant beamed. She was clearly a lady of taste and discernment.

“His name is Mahir, Madam, and you’re absolutely correct — he’s a purebred Imperial Green Opal.”

“I knew it!” she exclaimed. “What lovely markings!”

“He’s won first place twice in the national show,” Arihant boasted.

“My lords, please allow me to present Miss Mariya Mitra,” Warud said with obvious reluctance. “Miss Mitra, the general Lord Tirimiry and the mayor Lord Iyer.”

“Miss Mitra.” Tirimiry tapped his utaha into a crouch so he could slide out of his saddle to greet her. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I don’t believe I’ve seen you in court.”

“Oh! I’m only a soldier’s daughter, my lord,” she said, tearing her gaze from Mahir to peer shyly at the general from beneath her long lashes. “You wouldn’t have had any reason to notice me.”

“So, Warud,” Arihant said, grabbing a strap of Mahir’s painted harness before the cheeky little saur could decide to leap off his shoulder. Mahir chirped in protest. “I assume you’ll be attending the execution?”

“The entire court will be attending.” Warud gave Arihant a dark look. “I trust you don’t plan to irritate the raja with more seditious protests.”

“Seditious protests!” Arihant recoiled. “I’ve never said anything seditious!”

“The raja knows you’ve been skulking around behind his back.” Warud glanced at Lord Tirimiry, who seemed captivated by Miss Mitra. She laughed at something he said. “So, you finally found an ally? I thought Tirimiry was a Loyalist.”

“He is loyal, and so am I. I’m most certainly not skulking behind the raja’s back.” Arihant released Mahir’s harness to pull out a handkerchief and mop his brow. He suddenly felt very warm. “Nobody believes that, do they?”

“Are you all right, Lord Iyer?” asked Miss Mitra, breaking off her conversation with Tirimiry. Arihant mustered a weak smile.

“Er, quite.”

“The lord mayor needs to be moving on,” Warud said sternly. “As do we, my dear.”

“Indeed,” Tirimiry said, drawing out the word with reluctance. “The Lord Iyer and I still haven’t toured Chatri.”

“Chatri’s a long way away from Lamentation Square,” Arihant protested as he tucked his handkerchief back into his sleeve.

“Maybe, but I want to remind those liberal young hotheads at the university that they’ll be trading more than words with me if they decide to cause any trouble.”

“Ah. Yes, of course.” Arihant noted Miss Mitra gazing at the general with open interest. How attractive bravado can be, he thought. He appreciated it, too — in others.

“I hope we have a chance to meet again, Miss Mitra.” Tirimiry bowed to the young woman, then straightened and bowed again to her escort. “I will see you at the execution, Lord Warud.”

The man’s expression was sour as he bowed back. General Tirimiry hoisted himself into his utaha’s saddle with an enviable grace.

If I lost another twenty pounds, I could do that, too, Arihant thought. He glanced down at the dignified swell of his stomach. Well. Maybe thirty.

“Farewell, Miss Mitra. Warud.” Arihant inclined his head, and then he and Tirimiry rode off, heading west. Mahir’s tail brushed Arihant’s shoulder as the dhampala settled back down with a disconsolate whistle.

“I’ll never understand how such ugly men attract such lovely ladies,” Tirimiry said after they were around the corner. “I wonder what she sees in him.”

“A robust source of income, I imagine.”

“You’re a cynic, my lord.”

“I’m experienced, General. A reliable, income-producing household is the only thing my wife ever wanted from me. And she got it, too; I wouldn’t return to the family estate to save my life. The woman broods over the land like a human caretaker.”

Tirimiry chuckled. “Do you have any children, Lord Mayor?”

“A daughter.” Arihant brightened. “Karishma’s sixteen and, if I say so myself, the smartest, most beautiful young lady in si’Urai. Yourself?”

“No spouse, no child, and no rush. My brother already has three children, so our germline’s secure.”

“Lucky man. I was the only one of my line left, or I might have waited to have children, too.” Forever, most likely, although his daughter was the one outcome of his marriage that Arihant had never regretted.

Their route looped around to Chatri, the most westerly of Katakot’s administrative districts. A long time ago, Chatri had been a fashionable neighborhood built around Sarnat University, but after Katakot’s protective dome had been dismantled and the new palace built, the aristocracy had moved upward to enjoy the fresher air of Sikara district. The pre-Stillness mansions they’d left behind, fanciful old smarts long since frozen into one shape, had either been purchased by the University or subdivided into cheap flats.

Now the low sun meant that Chatri’s narrow streets were already in shadow. Arihant and Tirimiry rode through crowds of students and professors wearing dark kurtas; tradesmen and artisans in sedate dhoti or bright lungi; and prostitutes and actors dressed in threadbare secondhand finery. The taverns were crowded and radios buzzed and crackled as people searched for pirate ’casts to fill the time before the official evening news report. Here and there brightly painted shrines decorated with small oil lamps and wreathed with flowers provided spots of illumination in the poorly lit streets, and incense wafted through the air. Arihant had lit incense himself at some of those shrines … usually to expunge the bad karma of some shameful deed or another his old college roommate had dragged him into.

“You attended Sarnat, didn’t you, Lord Iyer?” Tirimiry asked as they rode past one of the university’s ancient halls. Its pre-Stillness architecture was covered with old vines and fresh political posters.

“Yes; I was a university student for several years until my father died. Then I left to take up his position as mayor.”

“Did you like it? University, I mean.”

Arihant nodded, then realized the general couldn’t see him. Tirimiry was scanning the street and alleys as if he were entering a battlefield.

“I did,” he said aloud. “I would have enjoyed academia if things had gone differently. Perhaps I would have become a professor. …I never have time to read for pleasure anymore.”

Tirimiry grunted. “I read a military history once, when I was in the hospital. It wasn’t very useful.”

“Well, ah, you’re a, um, a busy man,” Arihant stammered. Surely the general didn’t mean he’d only ever read one book?

“The army didn’t get many university students in the last war.” Tirimiry scowled. “Most of them stayed here, hiding behind the caretaker and whining about the taxes that were paying the soldiers defending them.” He leaned over in his saddle and spat. “A lot of good people died to keep a bunch of book-reading cowards safe.”

“Er, the Lord Shivrant earned a university degree, didn’t he? He worked closely with Sarnat University during the Kala archaeological expeditions.”

“And look where that got him.” Tirimiry didn’t sound impressed.

“Yes, well….” Arihant let his voice trail off as they passed under a foot bridge. He glanced up, remembering the many nights he’d stood on one of those overhead walkways, dead drunk, pissing on the travelers who’d passed beneath. Tirimiry seemed unconcerned by the bridges, focused instead on giving the students around them hard looks. Most shied away from the honormarked general and his battle-scarred utaha, but Arihant spotted one young lady making a rude gesture when she thought they weren’t looking. He hid a smile and began telling Tirimiry about the most interesting scandals in the quarter. Thanks to his old roommate, he’d been involved in a number of them.

As he talked, they crossed into the theater district. The sun moved lower and tiny, four-winged gui began darting through the crisscrossing electrical cables, hunting insects. Lamplighters strolled from lamp to lamp, checking oil levels and striking flames.

“What’s that?” Tirimiry asked, pointing to a set of ornate iron gates. Light flashed behind the metal bars.

“A southern-style burial ground.” Arihant wrinkled his nose. “Southerners don’t cremate.”

Tirimiry stopped and forced his utaha to crouch so he could slide from the saddle.

“Where are you going?” Arihant reined in.

“To investigate that light.”

“It’s probably just a, ah, a funeral.”

“This late?”

“I suppose….” Arihant didn’t know much about southern funeral customs. “It’s all a bit disgusting, if you ask me — tombs, I mean. The whole idea. Why would you put a corpse in a box instead of cremating it, or leaving it out for the mahakala to eat? Still, I can’t complain; at least they’re always punctual about paying their property taxes to house all those … those boxes full of rotting relatives.”

“It could be a group of insurrectionists,” Tirimiry speculated, not seeming to hear him.

“I’m sure any reasonable revolutionary will be enjoying supper and a bottle of chhaang at this time of the evening.” Seeing that his protests had no effect, Arihant sighed and dismounted, tying his utaha’s reins to a lamppost. “Mahir, stay.”

Next to him, a smirking Tirimiry let his reins fall loose to the ground.

“General, you’re going to get your mount stolen that way.”

“I’d like to see someone try,” Tirimiry replied. “I train my saurs myself.” He raised an eyebrow. “Maybe you’d like me to teach your pet some tricks.”

“Mahir is perfectly well-behaved,” Arihant sniffed. His stomach growled again. Revolutionaries weren’t the only ones who ought to be sitting down to dinner by now.

Tirimiry crept to the metal gates and crouched. Arihant did the same, craning his neck to peer through. Three men were prying open a tomb, carelessly stepping on the half-wilted flowers that had fallen to the ground around them. In the faint glow from the grave robbers’ lantern, Arihant saw a tight smile play over Tirimiry’s face.

Oh, may the gods give me strength — the general is a thrill-seeker. Arihant nervously patted the breast of his sherwani, touching the slender knife sewn into its lining. Never leave home unarmed, his old roommate had advised him a long time ago. And he hadn’t, although he didn’t think a knife would do him much good against two desperate men.

After a whispered conference, the robbers reached into the tomb and lifted out a body. Arihant looked at Tirimiry, half-expecting the man to leap forward to confront them. Instead, the general tugged on his sleeve, tilting his head back toward their utahi.

“Should we inform the constabulary?” Arihant inquired as they picked up their reins. “I don’t know much about southern customs, but I’m confident their funerals don’t involve removing bodies from a tomb.”

“No. I want to follow them,” Tirimiry replied.

“B-but … there’s a police station just a few blocks away.”

“Where’s the glory in that?”

“I fail to see any glory at all in doing the constabulary’s work for them,” Arihant retorted. “I pay taxes so I don’t have to chase down criminals.”

“Nonsense. Think of how impressed your constituency will be when their own lord mayor apprehends a group of body snatchers.”

“Well,” Arihant made a show of patting his belt and looking around, “as inviting as that sounds, General, I seem to have left my sidearm at home.”

“A man should always carry a weapon, Lord Iyer.” Tirimiry sounded as disapproving as Arihant’s old roommate. “Here, borrow my dagger.” He pulled a knife from a horizontal sheath strapped to the back of his belt and handed it over. Arihant begrudgingly accepted the foot-long weapon. It was bigger than the blade hidden in his sherwani, he supposed, but all things considered, he would have preferred to hold Tirimiry’s pistol. With a marked lack of enthusiasm, he followed the general into an alley to await the grave robbers’ passage.

The men rode past in a rickety wagon pulled by a sway-backed ceradha whose ragged skull-frill seemed to be infected with scale rot. Tirimiry kept a hand on Arihant’s arm as if to hold him back. Arihant appreciated the gesture, although at sixty-four he was no longer inclined toward youthful heroics. Truth be told, he hadn’t been all that inclined toward them in his twenties, either.

At last Tirimiry gestured that they should follow. Despite himself, Arihant couldn’t help but feel a little thrill as they mounted and rode down the street, keeping a good distance between themselves and the wagon. Pursuing criminals as the shadows lengthened — he’d have to tell Karishma about it later. Perhaps his daughter would be impressed, even if the rest of Katakot wasn’t.

The wagon pulled up next to a large gate set in a stone wall that was nearly obscured by vertical-garden planters and bamboo water pipes. More tax dollars at work, Arihant thought with a touch of pride. He and the Devoted had worked hard to implement Caretaker Nathapala’s community crop-gardening plan thirty years ago, and it had been very successful.

Tirimiry reined in, lifting a hand, and Arihant stopped his utaha. As they watched, one of the men dismounted and unlocked the gates. The wagon started forward.

“Now,” Tirimiry hissed, sliding out of his saddle and drawing his revolver. Before Arihant could argue, the general was on his feet and running. “Stop! You’re under arrest!”

Arihant grimaced as he dismounted and slapped his reins around the nearest lamp-post. “Mahir, stay!” Tirimiry was already halfway down the street.

The wagon had cleared the gates by the time Arihant trundled up to them. The two remaining grave robbers leaped off the wagon seat, and the one who’d opened the gates darted into the house beyond.

“You take those two!” Tirimiry ordered, dashing after the fleeing figure. Arihant, sweating and panting, swiftly calculated the odds of his successfully chasing down two younger men, spun, and slammed the gate shut. He threw the bolt and turned toward them.

The grave robbers drew short, wicked-looking blades. Arihant waved his borrowed dagger back at them, gratified to observe that his was longer than theirs.

“You may get flogged for grave robbery,” he gasped, “but if you kill the lord mayor, I guarantee your death will make, er, will make Lord Shivrant’s execution look like a, uh, a New Moon picnic. Now, if you’ll kindly drop your weapons, I’ll tell the justices you surrendered peacefully.”

The two men hesitated, their gaze shifting from his golden honormarks to his dagger to their knives to the plant-covered wall.

“General Tirimiry’s soldiers are waiting outside,” Arihant lied. “And they won’t offer terms.”

“Shit.” One of the grave robbers tossed his knife into the dirt. “I don’t know nothing about this. I was just driving the wagon.”

“Me, too!” The other one tossed his dagger next to his companion’s. “We’re just the drivers!”

“Down on your stomachs, then,” Arihant blustered. “Yes, like that. Very good.” He edged forward and snatched up both knives, feeling infinitely better once they were in his hands.

“Good work!” Tirimiry roared, reappearing a few minutes later. He held his pistol in one hand and a fat man’s collar in the other. He gave his captive a rough shake. “I caught this bastard, but someone inside the house escaped through the window.”

“What was he doing?”

“Didn’t get a chance to find out. Why don’t you go take a look around while I take care of this rabble?”

“You want me to go in there?” Arihant’s eyes widened as Tirimiry collected the men’s daggers from him.

“I caught this one in the second flat to the left,” Tirimiry said cheerfully. “Make sure nobody disturbs the evidence. I’ll tie up these rags and call the constables.”

Arihant thought it would have made much more sense to have called the constables before they’d entered the criminals’ lair, but it was too late now. Mustering a weak smile, he turned toward the house.

The small courtyard’s cobblestones were broken and overgrown, with shattered glass glittering between them. Arihant tsked; broken glass was supposed to be collected and recycled. Frayed electrical cables sagged overhead, running from a street pole to the house. The boarding house itself was just as dilapidated as its courtyard, with creaking floorboards and sagging ceilings. This building hadn’t been one of Chatri’s pre-Stillness smarts. It had probably been constructed in the housing boom after the dome had come down.

Arihant walked through a short, stale-smelling hall to the back, where he found the room Tirimiry had mentioned, its door hanging half off the hinges. All but one of the room’s windows were shuttered; that one hung open, clearly the escape route Tirimiry had mentioned. A bare incandescent bulb — new, not salvage — dangled from a hook embedded in a smoke-darkened ceiling beam, its unsteady yellow glow casting ominous shadows in the corners. A heavy table dominated the center of an old parlor, a set of gleaming saws and scalpels laid out upon it. Several placo-oil lanterns burned on the table, apparently intended to augment the dim electrical lighting. The flat’s air was warm and smelled vaguely unwholesome.

Arihant picked up a sheaf of papers from the table, wrinkling his nose at the sketches. Well, well. Illegal anatomization was distasteful, but not so very unusual this close to the university. Corpses were hard to come by, and the last few public executions had all been immolations. He supposed it was quite frustrating for medical students.

Setting the sketches down, he peered into the other rooms. A bedroom with unprepossessing charpoy bed and a woven chest, and another room that seemed to be a study of some kind. More anatomical sketches were pinned to the walls — technically well executed, he noted, although not his sort of subject matter.

Walking back into the main room, Arihant noticed a smaller door half-hidden by the paneling and wallpaper. It stood ajar and looked, he thought with consternation, like a useful place for somebody to hide while their flat were being raided.

Perhaps he could simply ignore it until the constables showed up. …Or perhaps not, he rebuked himself. Tirimiry had called him a man of action, hadn’t he?

Standing to one side, Arihant eased the door open with one hand, gripping his borrowed dagger in the other. Nobody rushed out at him. He picked up a lantern from the table and thrust it through the doorway. A narrow flight of stairs led down to a cellar and, he guessed from the smell, to the sewer below.

“Blast it.” Tirimiry’s warnings about criminals in the sewerage system danced through his head. Had there been more than one anatomist in the room? Somebody could, conceivably, have fled into the cellar instead of out of the window. He glanced over his shoulder. No sign of Lord Tirimiry or the constabulary, and if anyone else lived in the flats around them, they were keeping to themselves.

“This is not a job for the lord mayor,” he muttered. Surely it wouldn’t do any harm to stay here and send the constables downstairs when they arrived. Except …

Except, what would Tirimiry think if he let a criminal escape right under his nose?

Muttering imprecations to himself, Arihant edged down the stairs, holding the anatomists’ lantern in one trembling hand and Tirimiry’s long dagger in the other.

The cellar was dark and deep. Here, close to the stairs, he found a scuttle for cooking charcoal. Deeper in, the lamplight revealed a few rickety woven-mat walls portioning off part of the cellar. Light glimmered through a man-sized gap between them.

Arihant froze, breathing through his mouth to avoid the dank sewer stink. Was that light some renegade anatomist? And if it was, did he really want to surprise him?

“Er, hello?” he called out. The light vanished.

That can’t be a good sign, he thought with a sinking heart. Squeezing the hilt of Tirimiry’s dagger in his hand, he forced himself to take a step forward, and then another.

“The constables are upstairs, searching the house,” he lied. “We only want to ask you some questions.”

A clank, metal on metal. Yes, there was definitely somebody back there. Steeling himself, Arihant pushed forward through the gap between the two flimsy walls, holding his lantern high.

Its swinging circle of light revealed tables covered with electronic equipment and notebooks, and a set of shelves crammed with baskets and jars. Some sort of opaque glass pail with monitors surrounding it sat on the central table, connected by a brass pipe to a large metal box on the floor. Wires ran from the monitors down to a large chemical battery behind the table.

Odd kind of anatomical lab, he thought, looking around with a frown. Maybe it was just some kind of … hobby room. He edged closer. The battery looked old enough to be pre-Stillness salvage. He searched for inspection labels on its corroded casing. Nothing. Scavenge, then, not salvage — something bought off the black market. Didn’t anybody know how many people died each year in accidents caused by illegal scavenge? It wasn’t as though the Wastes were clean yet, he thought with exasperation; this sort of thing could be carrying any number of toxins, phages, or nanos. He made a note to let the Devoted know; Caretaker Nathapala was very strict about scavenged technology within xes protectorate. …Goodness, he was finding all sorts of violations down here in Chatri. Clearly it was time to have a word with its civic inspectors —

Scrrtch.

He whipped around and thrust out his lantern. Nobody else was in the room, although he couldn’t see into the darkness behind the rickety walls.

Scrrtch.

He cocked his head. The noise was close — yes, it was coming from inside the metal box on the floor. He eyed it. The container looked too small for a person — well, for an adult, anyway. He supposed a child might fit into it.

Scrrtch.

But it couldn’t be a child, could it? He set his lantern on the table. Surely, he reasoned, a child would call out for help. Or wail, if nothing else.

The container’s lid was held on with a simple sliding clamp, and a brass pipe rose from one of its sides, bending at an elbow joint and ending over the table. An air pipe? Or … a gas pipe? He thought about the anatomical sketches upstairs. The box couldn’t be some sort of … of electrified killing jar, could it?

Scrrtch.

No, it couldn’t be … but now he felt obliged to check, just in case. Grimacing, he reached forward and slid off the clamp, just as something large and white slipped through the walls beside him.

Yelping, Arihant threw himself to one side, landing in an ungraceful sprawl. A crowbar slammed into the metal container, missing him by centimeters. The masked, white-suited figure wielding it gave a muffled oath as the box’s lid bent under the impact and slid off.

With an angry hiss, two sets of sharp claws hooked around the top of the box walls. A two-foot-long sewer varana pulled itself upward, its blunt head whipping back and forth between the suited figure and Arihant. Heart pounding, Arihant slashed at the verminous beast with Tirimiry’s dagger at the same time the suited figure leaned over and reached for the reptile with one gloved hand. Arihant’s blade tore through the suit’s canvas sleeve. The figure recoiled, lanternlight flashing off the lenses of the figure’s safety goggles, and it clutched its arm to its chest as if the rent in the fabric had torn flesh.

The varana opened its mouth, revealing a bright blue tongue and a row of serrated teeth, and gave another threatening hiss before scrambling over the edge of the box. It dropped heavily onto the cellar floor, landing less than a foot away from Arihant’s boots.

“Shoo! Shoo!” Arihant backpedaled in alarm, bumping the equipment-laden table. The table tilted, the monitors on its surface toppling and his lantern sliding toward the edge. He instinctively grabbed for the lantern with his free hand, then flinched as hot glass burned his fingertips. The lantern shattered as it hit the floor with the rest of the electronic equipment, and the cellar was plunged into darkness.

Arihant turned blindly, his boots crunching against broken metal and glass, and swung Tirimiry’s dagger back in forth in front of him. Something toppled — one of the bamboo-and-matting walls? He edged away from the sound, slashing left and right.

“Hello?” A voice sounded from above. “Hello? Chatri constabulary! Is anybody there?”

“Here!” Arihant shouted back, his heart leaping. “It’s me — Arihant Iyer! Bring a light — there’s someone here with me!”

Or perhaps not, anymore. Much to his relief, he heard footsteps running away. For a moment he entertained the wild thought that he should do something about it — give pursuit, perhaps — but then he came to his senses.

I have done quite enough for a man of action, he told himself firmly. It was time to leave the rest of the investigation to Lord Tirimiry and the constables. That was, after all, why he paid his taxes.