A Thousand Glass Flowers (The Chronicles of Eirie 3) (20 page)

He hurried through the streets and folk glanced at him but as he passed, memory of him passed because he contrived it to
be so.
He strode into the maze of the souk and headed anywhere and nowhere, walking off his temper.

He could have mesmered her an
d had her paperweights by now.
He stopped, breathing hard.
So what is the problem?
He thought about it.
I don’t do it because I don’t want to di
sillusion her or distance her.
I want her to give me the paperweights of her own volition because it will show she
trusts me, maybe even likes me. Just a little.
He could hear Isolde’s voice
.
‘Desperate.’

A picture opened up in
his mind.
The scribe got up out of her chair and smiled, walking toward him through
an open door into the street.
As she took a step to stand in front of him she stumbled and fell forward as if
struck forcefully from behind.
He caught her as her eyes opened wide with pain,
a sharp cry cracking the air.
Then she was lifeless.

In his imagination he looked up and saw his grandmot
her watching the tragic scene.
In one claw-like hand fluttered a
washi
strip w
ith Færan script littering it.
He stood holding the scribe’s limp body in his arms, despairing as he saw every single pe
rson around him was also dead.
Animals were prostrate, birds fell from the sky and a black poisonous cloud
hovered over the death scene. Isolde laughed. ‘Two words, Finnian.’
She waved the strip again.

The shriek of a bat flying over the streets jerked
him from such fatal thoughts.
He glanced around and noticed the entrance to the alley that led to
the coffeeshop and Curiosa’s.
The blithe crowd flowed around him as he made his decision, reasoning the antiquarian would
be trading even at this hour.
The end of the week brought people out in droves at night and the merchant would want to pick up a piece of the trad
e if there was gelt to be had.
Finnian’s feet turned in the direction of emporium, anger shelved,
legitimate fear in its place.
He must find the other two paperweights –
before Isolde, before Lalita.
As paltry as the words might sound, this
was
a life and death struggle.

Perhaps Curiosa told an untruth, perhaps he did in fact have
the rest of the paperweights.
Time passe
d Finnian by and he knew with
certainty that with each tick of every clock in Ei
rie, Isolde was a step closer.
He had no time for Curiosa’s fabrications, he had n
o time for Lalita’s obstinacy.
He walked swiftly and with purpose to the antiquarian’s.

Chapter Fifteen

He decided to play the game with Curiosa as it unfolded.
Play it hard, play to win
.
Lamps lit the alleys and people passed him in good hum
our – joking, eating, calling.
Such artless a
nd easy levity.
Not for these mortals the thoughts that if the charms weren’t found, their world would be under a threat such as they could never imagine.
Two words, that’s all it will take.

He turned the corner
into Curiosa’s deserted alley.
The shop g
lowed in subtle glory. Unwilling to admit it, he never
theless knew the man had an eye
.
The collection was craftily arranged and lamps within the shop threw facets of light over all that was valuable an
d elegant from Eirish society.
In addition, the heavy door with its studs and mouldings and with torchères on either side smacked of wealth that the other traders in the s
ouk could never hope to match.
Perhaps then not such a surprise to find the alley quiet because who
could
afford the treasure from Curiosa’s?

Finnian stood at the entrance examining the collection but surreptit
iously sizing up his opponent.
The man stood angular and lean at a desk, raising a cut-crystal goblet to his lips and swallowing
the red wine in one mouthful.
He poured another from a decanter and the crystal edges collided in a crunch that Finnian swore would have goblet and flask on the grou
nd in shards.
Fortuitously, the man’s precious Venichese crystal survived and as he went to swallow again, Finnian stepped into the shop – polished and moneyed.

Curiosa raised bleary
eyes to his potential client.
As Finnian expected, the glass was placed with overt care on a tray by the side of the decanter and the cigar in the man’s skeletal hand was f
licked into a bin at his feet. It hit the enamel
ed
sides with a thump like a small warning.

Finnian walked around the shop, picking things up and putting them down, holding them to the light, opening and shutting caskets and drawers.

‘Can I help you, sir?’
Curiosa stood next to him as the lid of an inlaid musicbox was lifted and a dancer spun round on a spindle in front of mirrors.

‘Pretty,’ muttered Finnia
n. ‘What? Help me?’
He frowned, ladling a d
ose of indolence to his manner. ‘Not sure, old man.
I want something unique and they told me in Veniche that you’d be as like to have it as anyone.’

‘Who told you?’

‘Wife of Hobarto, major-domo to the Di Ac
cia’s.
She hasn’t seen
him in a while and is worried.
I seek paperweights you see, that he stole from my family.’

Curiosa paled, a sheen of sweat
appearing above his moustache.
‘You are a Di Accia?’

Finnian neither confirmed nor denied his position within the infamous family, just continued gazing at the antiquarian who fidgeted.

‘Hobarto, you say.’
Lips were licked and a stained finger moved along the mou
stache, removing the moisture.
‘I can’t say I know the man.’

‘And yet
he
knew you.’
Finnian relished t
he act of toying with the man.
‘His wife said this is where he intended to deliver the paperweights.’

‘Paperweights.’
Curiosa pulled at the
frogging on his smoking jacket.
‘And you say they are stolen?’

‘Indeed.
From my family… who aren’t at a
ll happy. Do you have
the goods?’

‘Ahem. Not… that is to say I did, but…
’ the man struggled.

‘I am not an unreasonable man,’ Finnian said, as he crossed his arms over his chest, his height intimidating even Curiosa who was not a short man
.
‘If you don’t wish me to bring the law on your head for the receipt of stolen goods, y
ou will show me what you have.
You will, won’t you?’

A lump in Curiosa’s long neck jumpe
d up and down as he swallowed.
And then as if he were tugged from behind, he swung around, walked to his desk and pulled out a carpetbag and sighed as he passed it over.
‘This is all I have left, sir. They have been popular.
If I had known they were stolen, I would never have sold them.’

‘You say,’ Finnian said sourly as he felt in the bag and his hand came out with a tissue-wrapped ball.

‘One? Only one?
Aine sir, I
will
have your hands cut off!’
The threat hovered as he unwrapped the tissue to behold
the nightsky, stars and moons. ‘And this is all?
Damn you, where is the set of four?’

Curiosa reached for a silk kerchief edged in fine Veniches
e lace and wiped his forehead.
‘One was brought by a
paper-merchant for his niece.
The lying little wretch came by this morning and stole anot
her whilst my back was turned.
As for the others, a lady purchased one some time ago, reserving another. She said somewhat ambiguously that she would collect it when the time was rig
ht and in fact she came today.
I tell
you, she gave me the shivers.’
He reached for his half-full goblet and su
cked a reviving dreg.
‘There was something about her, as if she could
see into my soul with glamour.
I reached to kiss her hand when she left and it felt odd, insubstantial, and all the time this feeling that I was being measured squashed me into the gro
und.’
The antiquarian turned hopeless eyes upon Finnian, the eyes of a man who has seen his future and knows he has been da
mned and must seek absolution.
Finnian mesmered and the man froze, staring into some nether distance, unaware of the casement clock striking the hour or Finnian pocketing the nightsky paperweight.

‘Tell me where she lives.’

‘As you say.’
The antiquarian
’s voice replied hypnotically.
‘An estate deep in Trevallyn.’

‘Its name?’

The eyes stared vacantly and the thin features showed no expression as Cur
iosa enunciated the syllables.
‘Killymoon.’

Finnian turned and left and as he did he erased the mesmer and the memory, leaving the carpet bag in the hands of a man who would no doubt wonder why he stood with it, worrying that he was losing his mind through the strain of dealing with strange w
omen who could see into souls.
There was no doubt he would quickly pour another drink for comfort.

Finnian threaded his way
through the gregarious crowd.
Unease and disappointment sat on his shoulder like lead-weights.
It
was you, Moonlady, wasn’t it?
You collected the paperweights. Why?  What despicable game are you playing? 
The quest was a farce – forever striding two steps for
ward, slipping ten steps back.
He could see his own prize in the far distance and his feet sank into the muck and mire of mortal life the further he tried to move.
Isolde secures more information
about the charms and about me with every second that passes. Even now, I can feel it.
Damn you to perdition, Moonlady.

He pushed around a corner, the crowd parting as he shouldered through and then closing behind, determinedly enjoyi
ng their end of week pleasure.
He crossed the square, stepping out of the way of a circle of dervishes who spun faster and faster, their white robes flicking out.  Conical hats swaying, the dervishes’ song ululated through the warm air, the bells on their hands and feet tinkling in unison so that t
he very surroundings vibrated.
From the bare feet of the dervishes, little clouds of dust stamped up until the hems of their white robes became tin
ted with the ochre of the soil.
Finnian paid them vague attentio
n as he puzzled his next move.
As ripples of malaise spread across his body he caught himself looking over his shoulder.
She’s not there
, he said to himself.
Yet,
said the voice of the child Finnian.

He strode on and as he passed into the darker, shadowy maze of alleys, a voice broke through his concentration.

‘Ah effendi.
It
is
you.
How good it is to se
e you again, so fresh and… moneyed.’
The harsh voice dragged at his memory, the grasping hand wafting a familiar acrid smell, a tantalizing odour – a fragrance filled with promises of dreams and ends to difficulties.

‘Effendi, do you wish to lie with the Black Madonna again?’

To leave the effort behind…

‘Effendi,’ the voice slid down Finnian’s spine like the finge
rs of a seductive whore. ‘She is waiting.
Beautiful, black as a night sky, cosseting you quicker than a hourie’s hands.’

Finnian looked down at the claw a
s it held out the ebony tablet.
‘Here,’ he quickly passed over a handful of gelt and curled the Black Madonna into his hand in return, savouring the coldness of the t
ablet against his sweaty palm.
He
had always longed for escape.
In the past, such exits had been the ticke
t that made his life bearable.
Nothing changed and choice was a fine thing.

He hurried away, anticipation and an ugly e
xcitement jangling his nerves.
If he took it before he went back to the inn, he may never get there but did that matter?
Haven’t I just made a choice that will give me instant freedom?

‘What about self-worth, Finnian?’
The Moonlady’s dreamlike words whispered as he rounded another corner, almost colliding with a muscular man who sported a distinctive moustache and smelled of fresh lemons.

‘Effendi, ah, effendi. You look much better.’
Ibn the tellak grasped Finnian
by the arm and smiled.
The kindness and warmth of the tellak’s expression spread through Finnian’s veins, the tablet alien and intrusive.

‘Ibn. How… fortuitous.’
He wondered if the gentle bath attendant with the face of a tragi-comedian would understand the irony.

‘I think so too, effendi.
For if I am not mistaken, the Madonnas begin to solicit.’

Finnian was taken aback, his
tone derisive as he responded.
‘Are you sure you aren’t Other?’

‘Wouldn’
t you know, effendi, if I was?’
Ibn’s face portrayed inscrutability and Finnian shifted his feet.

‘Why?’

‘You know the answer to that, I should not have to tell
you
of all people.’ Ibn cocked a heavy eyebrow. He held out his hand.
‘Is there anything you think I can help you with?’

Finnian looked down at the outstretched palm and then grasped Ibn by the arm and led him to a beverage
stall to purchase two juices.
‘Tell me Ibn, do you value yourself?’

‘Value?
What a stra
nge time for such philosophy.’
He examined Finnian’s face in detail, as if he search
ed for something.
Then with
the faintest nod he continued. ‘Value you ask? Not myself so much.
But I value what I have – my wife, my little c
hildren, my mother and father.
And because I value them
, I cherish and care for them.
So perhaps in a roundabout way
that places some value on me. Do you see what I say?
It is not how one views oneself but what one
does
that creates a self-worth.
Ah, but it is an ambiguous thing and for the scholars in the Academia
to argue, not Ibn the tellak.’
He raised his glass and tossed back the wine with a grimace, to then tap his mug against Finnian’s and continue, ‘I would not wish to offend you but it is a thin line
you think to cross this night.
Fortuitous
as you say, that Ibn is here.
Remember I said you would kn
ow if I was Other?
Well,’ he looked down at his mug, s
hifting it around in his hand.
‘I think
you
are different.
You don’t need the Madonnas to help you on w
hatever road it is you travel.
One of
your
kind does not n
eed mortal tools of self-harm.
You are above that.’