Bad Little Girls Die Horrible Deaths: And Other Tales Of Dark Fantasy
Contents
The One Thing You Can Never Trust
Bad Little Girls Die Horrible Deaths
Lord of Reavers
Beyond The Game
Don't Chew Your Food
Hounds and Moonlight
Eating Venom
Cargo Johnny
The Yellow Mark
Preservation
The Home Made Mask
Copyright © 2014 Harry Connolly
All rights reserved.
For all the readers who share their enthusiasm for the books they love. Thank you.
The One Thing You Can Never Trust
If there's such a thing as a "quintessential Harry Connolly story," this would be it: there's a crime in a fantasy setting, a twisty plot, and a resolution that doesn't rely on brute force.
This particular story originally appeared in the first Tales Of The Emerald Serpent anthology, a shared-world setting about a faux Meso-American city that suffers a sudden and mysterious catastrophe overnight: every living person in it vanishes, leaving nothing but abandoned buildings--which are quickly resettled by people from all over the world. What happened to the original inhabitants? Could it happen again? Mystery!
Also appearing in the anthology: Julie Czerneda, Juliet McKenna, Martha Wells, and many more terrific writers. Check it out.
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Emil Lacosta expected Mama Serene to be unhappy about his new prices, but he did not think she would actually swear at him. She did. Being Mama Serene, she did it startlingly well. "I am terribly sorry," he said, carefully keeping his voice mild. "Acquiring the materials I require has become quite difficult and..."
"Spare me the apologies of a Zimbolay scholar," she interrupted. "Every learned word makes my purse lighter." She wrote out a bank note, signed it, and handed it to him. It was for the old price. "Next time, I will pay your new, even more outrageous, fee."
Emil nodded and handed the note to Mariella. He turned to the three young consorts sitting on Mama Serene's ornate couch. "Do you accept this spell without coercion, of your own will?"
The consorts said "Yes," in deeply bored tones. One of them added: "because it's making me rich!" They all laughed at him. He had asked them last time, too, and would ask next time. It didn't matter if they thought him fussy. He held out a small vial to the first consort and, after she had spit into the golden liquid, allowed her to take it. He did the same for the others.
They were love potions all. A select few of Mama Serene's clients paid a high premium to be genuinely (or at least magically) adored, even if it was just for a few days.
Their business concluded, Emil and Mama Serene nodded politely to each other. Mariella opened the office door and led Emil swiftly and quietly down the side stair and through the lounge. Emil hated coming to the House of the Silk Purse, hated delivering his product in person, hated knowing the consorts would drink the potion when he was not there to watch over them. But the money was good. Very, very good. With luck, he--
Two men rose out of their chairs and moved toward him. They seemed to have been waiting for him, and Emil stopped immediately and drew back. Mariella stepped around him, her hand on the ribbon tying down her sword. There was an odd expression on her face.
"No no!" the taller man said, his empty hands raised. "We mean only to talk."
He was near thirty, blue-eyed and deeply tanned. His clothes were satin and leather, and his black hair and long mustache was oiled into curls. He dressed like a dandy, but the amount of sun he'd gotten and the corded muscles in his wrists suggested pirate or merchant, not that there was always much difference.
His companion was small and slender, and his skin was as black as Emil's--darker, even, because Emil spent long hours in his basement lab. The tattoos on the man's face marked him as a dock thug or cut purse from Zimbolay. Emil felt a pang of homesickness at the sight of him, but of course he had nothing in common with such a person. "If you want to talk to me," Emil said mildly as he tried to move around them, "come to my shop during shop hours."
"That is impossible," The merchant said. "Please, let me buy you a drink and I will explain why I am so desperate."
"Shop hours," Emil said, moving slowly and carefully around him. "Thank you."
"My friend," the merchant said. His tone was still light, but there was an undercurrent of threat. "I am trying to handle this respectfully."
Emil stopped heading toward the door. Mariella had skill with her blade, but she was no duelist and certainly no bodyguard. Besides, she was burdened with his tome. Emil, of course, had no weapon. "I don't need your respect," Emil answered.
"What about my money? Eh? Aha! I see that got your attention."
"I already have more clients than I can accommodate."
"I will double your price."
"You don't even know what my prices are."
"I am desperate," the merchant said again, although he managed to include a trace of condescension in his voice as he said it. "And you are insulting me."
Emil sighed. Mariella and the cut purse had their hands on their blades, but this merchant, whoever he was, had not tied off his own rapier with a ribbon. Since he was clearly not stupid, it meant he was not afraid to be challenged in the street by a duelist. That meant he was very, very good.
Getting killed was bad for business. Emil turned to Mariella: "You'll have to complete your errand without me today. I will meet you back at the shop."
"As you say, sir." She left.
"Let me introduce myself," the merchant said as he led Emil into a booth near the back wall. The lamplight was dim there. "I am Rene LeCroix, captain of Broadbelly and Tide Dancer, merchant, trader, shipper, and bearer of tidings good and ill."
"Good day to you, sir. My name is Emil Lacosta."
"That is a Portuvan name, is it not? But you are Zimbolay, like my friend here."
"It's true," Emil said. "It's what my people call a "public name." We have private names which are just that."
"It is good for you that you are a scholar of obvious breeding," Rene answered, smoothing his mustache, "or no one would do business with you. When my friend here gives his name, the sturgeons accuse him of using an alias."
The cutpurse smiled, making the knife scars around his mouth turn grey. "I am called Increase Coin," he said.
"An auspicious choice," Emil said politely, inclining his head slightly. It was common for men of low class to choose such names.
Rene continued. "Still, it must be difficult for a black man in Taux, yes? Even for a man of privilege like yourself."
Emil nodded to acknowledge the comment, then turned the conversation to business. "There is something you should know from the first, sir: I will not sell a potion or powder to make some unsuspecting person fall in love with you. What's more, do not think you can purchase a potion under some pretense and use it on an unsuspecting person. The magic will work on one person only and be directed toward one person only, and I will not cast such a spell without the express permission of the person it will be used upon, not even under pain of torture."
"You misunderstand me, sir. I do not wish to make someone else fall in love with me. I want you to make me fall in love with my wife."
A young girl came to the table carrying three wooden cups and a red clay jug of wine. Increase poured their portions, but only he and Rene drank.
Emil waited until the waitress had left before he spoke again. "That is an unusual request. So unusual that I'm tempted to refuse your custom outright."
Rene gave him a crooked smile. He wa
s really quite a handsome man, and he knew how to use his charm. "Hear me out first, please. I beg you. I am in your hands." Emil could tell he was trying to sound sincere, but he was too arrogant to excise all of the sarcasm from his tone. "Three years ago, I married. I did not love her, but what difference did that make? I was a captain, good with a sword and doing quite well for myself. She was young--but not too young--and impressionable. Also, her family is tremendously wealthy. How perfect, yes? She wanted me, and I wanted her money. Do you recognize me now? Surely you have heard the gossip."
"I have not," Emil admitted. "I spend much of my time in my laboratory, trying to keep up with my client's requests."
Rene laughed and turned to Increase. "By the Saints, the first man that I hoped would recognize me is the first who does not."
Increase laughed hoarsely. Emil could see that Rene felt slighted in some strange way. "Please accept my apologies," Emil said mildly. "Affairs of the heart do not hold my interest." Judging by her expression, Mariella must have recognized him immediately. Perhaps he would ask her at the end of the day.
Rene waved his hand as though brushing away a fly. "It does not matter, my friend. In any event, things have changed. My bride no longer blushes when I look at her. In fact, she sneers. I fear we are about to divorce, which will ruin me."
"In what way?"
Rene drained his cup, then slammed it onto the table. He noticed that Emil had not touched his own drink, and his grin became crooked. "There were certain... contracts I was obliged to sign. We had eloped, you see, and when we returned that great fat fart Daddy Oswald--my beloved bride's father is Oswald Burgunzi, so you see what I mean about wealth--had me dragged from my own wedding bed and brought to him in chains. You see, I had convinced my precious little one that I loved her with all my soul, but her father was not so easily fooled. So, with a knife at my throat, I signed. I am pledged to adore her in all things for her long life. If I do not, we divorce and she will get half of everything that is mine. Half! If that meant she would take just one of my ships, I would consider it, but she has told me she intends to collect half of each ship. She would have them cut down the middle. I would be ruined. You see, she hates me because I am a man, with all the appetites of a man."
"Why not just set sail, then? Isn't it the privilege of the man of the sea to venture onto the ocean and leave his troubles behind?"
Rene shook his head, his lips pursed in distaste. "Were I to leave the city, her father would call it abandonment--a petition for divorce, essentially--and I could never again do business in a port where the Bergunzi family are established, else they have my ships seized. In truth, I can not even take on cargo and ply my trade upon the waters! Even discussing a trading voyage that would see me back in her bed in a mere six-month brings talk of 'abandonment.' You see, Taux is a free city for everyone but me. I am trapped."
Increase spoke suddenly and urgently: "We can not remain."
Rene gestured toward him. "You see? My own crew--the greatest friends a man could ever hope for--long to abandon me and my ships. I still pay their wages and ask nothing in return, but they do not want to linger."
"Only a madman would live in this city of ghosts," Increase said. "Only a fool would stay here when the doom that befell Taux might return at any time."
Rene pointed to his companion as though he was a proof of a complex philosophical theory. "You see? My time in this city is short. However, I have a plan: Were my wife to request this divorce herself, as I'm told she is close to doing, I could refuse. I am her husband, after all. The matter would go to the court."
"The Burgunzi family has many friends among the magistrates," Emil said.
"True! But if I truly loved my wife, if I protested against this separation openly, before the bench, I believe they would dissolve the marriage--and the contract--in my favor. The agreement states that she can take half if I spurn her love, not if she spurns mine. I would keep my ships and regain my freedom."
Emil shook his head. "You do not need magic for this. Just profess your love in court."
"I could never pull it off," Rene said, leaning back and sighing. "I would have to perform for days, and my nature is too ironical. I must convince everyone, even the most skeptical, that I love her."
"... More than himself," Increase said. Both men laughed.
"Yes, you see? Exactly." Rene gestured to his own face as though presenting a work of art. "I am a prideful man; I am not ashamed to admit it. It is my great flaw. At some point in the trial, I would smile sardonically, or make a snide remark under my breath, or roll my eyes. It is not just the magistrate I need to convince, it is also her whole cursed family. I am a great man capable of many things, but wooing a woman in front of her mother, father, and a whole room full of strangers? After I've already bedded her? I could never manage it."
"No one would be hurt," Increase said.
"He is right. No one would be hurt," Rene said, his voice low. "You would only be helping me out of a bad spot. And now you know why I could not come to your shop, where anyone might see. Do you understand my predicament, my friend?"
Emil was silent a moment. "In my time, I have made a few potions that would save a marriage, but none that would save a divorce."
Rene got a canny look. "Does that mean you will do it?"
"Will I have to deliver the potion to you here?"
"Yes, absolutely."
"Then the price will be two and a half times normal, payable by a bank note. I will not carry coins out of the ullamalitzli."
Rene turned to Increase. "That... can be arranged. I am told the writ will be delivered soon but do not know exactly when. If your potion works for three days as rumored, I will need two dozen doses."
Emil shook his head. "That's not necessary. The short-term doses are for the consorts who work here. For you I would create a different formulation that would have longer effects. The price would also be much lower than twenty-four doses."
"Ah! That is good news! How long would it last."
"It depends on the person. The average time is about two years, but some people with a weak will or a powerful sense of self-hatred can feel the effects for the rest of their lives."
"So, in Rene's case," Increase said. "It will last a month." He and Rene laughed again.
"No," Emil said. "Even for a man with a great pride, the spell should persist for longer than a year. I should warn you, though: The one thing you can never trust is love. People in love can be unpredictable. Your heartbreak, when the object of your devotion rejects you, will feel entirely real because it will be real. Your pain will be great."
"My friend, I am counting on it. You need a lock of her hair, do you not? I cut it myself while she slept." He passed a folded square of red velvet across the table. Emil opened it, saw three times as many straw-colored strands as he would need, and pocketed it.
Then Emil wrote a price on a scrap of paper and passed it across the table. Rene seemed almost delighted by it. They made arrangements to meet the next day to complete the transaction. Emil and Rene shook hands on it, clicked their cups, and drank.
"We have, of course, been seen here," Rene said. "If asked, I intend to say that I wanted a potion for my lovely bride."
Emil nodded. "I will neither confirm nor deny anything. Discretion is part of the service. Be aware that the potion will make your body temperature run high for a day, while your spark seeks a new balance and that might give you away. Is our business concluded?"
"I must ask you something, my friend. Forgive me if I seem to pry. Can you really stay in business when you operate in this way? One man to another, are there really so many people longing to fall in love--at these prices--that you can afford such fine cloth and bracelets of gold?"
"No," Emil answered after a slight hesitation. "No, there isn't. It's a common misconception, though. Along with the ability to create love comes the ability to destroy it. The great bulk of my business involves purging people of painful infatuation and heartbreak."
"Is that so? I had not realized. You destroy love? That sounds terrible. Isn't it a great tragedy to take love out of the world?"
"Perhaps. But it is not just the money that keeps me in my lab, working long hours into the night. When a young wife comes to my shop, weeping over her unfaithful husband, and her mother shows me the knife scars on her wrist--"
Rene quirked his head at this.
"--and the young woman swears she will try again," Emil continued. "I can not help but feel I perform a great service. Because truly, this happens more often that I can say."
Rene and Increase looked at each other in a strange way, as though recalculating their price. Finally, Rene said: "You are more honorable than I expected."
Emil slid out of the booth and bowed to the two men. In his mildest, most polite tone, he said: "I do not need your respect."
Then he went through the doors of the House of the Silk Purse into the blazing day.
* * *
Emil climbed the stone stairs that lead to the walkways above the ullamalitzli. The walls along the stairs were carved with horrifying images of murder and human sacrifice, but above the court the limestone walkways were mostly bare. The only company he had was the neglected corpse of a duelist, bloating in the sun. The new residents of the city killed as often as the old ones. They just didn't record the deeds in stone.
The ball court was empty for the moment, and there seemed to be fewer people milling about by the Black Gate. Emil made his way down another flight of stairs, hurried through the gate and turned south, away from the tombs of the city.
The unexpected meeting had delayed him so much that the midday sun was already high and hot. He was a madman to live here in this so-called free city; Increase was correct. Every building he passed was covered with images of war and bloody ritual, and the doom that had come to this city, the one that had left it an empty shell to be ransacked by vicious white traders... Whatever it was, it would come again. He was sure of it.
By then he hoped to be back home with his wife and daughter, living on his family's hilltop stone estate, trading gold, fur, and ivory. He only needed a little more money. Just a little more.