Diablo 3: The Reaper of Souls (15 page)

The vendor's cart and grill were built against an open kitchen, connected to its soot-stained walls and ceiling by a complicated array of chains and gears; it looked as though the entire contraption could be pulled back in a hurry so that the slab of iron over the cart would swing down and seal the shop. Jia caught up just as Covetous Shen nudged apologetically through the small line of people waiting their turn. He then ordered everything on the grill.

"Everything, grandfather?" the vendor said, his brow crinkling beneath a wide straw hat with upturned edges. He ignored the grumbling crowd; selling everything at once meant he could go to bed early with a pouch full of gold.

"Absolutely!" Shen said. "My young friend and I have a hard climb ahead of us and—"

"We were here first, old man," growled a middle-aged woman with tired eyes and a heavy, clucking bag over her shoulder.

"Were you? Impossible!" Shen said. "I would have noticed such a beautiful woman in line before me. But no one should go hungry!

"Vendor!" he shouted, slamming his hand down. "Meat for all my friends!"

Jia pushed past the faintly smiling woman and a street performer with a huge eighteen-stringed matar on his back.

"What are you doing?" she hissed.

"Preparing for our secret mission," Shen said in a whisper that was probably heard across the street. There was a sizzling sound.

"You're making a scene!"

"Ah. You may be right," Shen said. "I will proceed more subtly."

"Grandfather," the vendor said, his eyes wide. "Your—your hand!"

Shen looked at him. He looked at the hand he'd slammed down… on the red-hot grill.

"No harm done!" the old man said, leaning onto the grill with his other hand. "I am quite resistant to burns, and it is chilly tonight. Now, where is my meat?"

"Money first," the vendor said, wincing at the continued sizzle.

"Oh, of course. My apologies." Shen straightened and sorted through his pouches with both hands, muttering. Finally, he brightened and brandished a ruby. His palms were unburned.

"Will this do?"

Eyes moved from the hands to the ruby, then to Shen's wrinkled face. Someone whispered, "Jeweler," then, "Zei," and this time, even Jia was… uncertain. The jewel. The unblemished skin that should be scorched. The poison. The magic. Who was he?

Still, she was young, and her natural cynicism bounced back hard.

"You call this subtle?" she said.

"It's not the largest one I have," Shen said, looking concerned.

"It could buy this street!" Jia said. "And you're spending it on a cart's worth of beef?"

"Can't you smell it? A ruby is hardly a fair bargain for such delicious meat!"

"You're a fool," Jia said.

"Beauty makes fools of the best of men," Shen said, winking at the woman with the sack of chickens. She blushed like a priestess. "But you have a good point.

"Vendor, include that wondrous hat, and this paltry ruby is yours," he said, waving the gem above his head. The vendor's eyes were locked to it.

"Stop flashing it around," Jia said. "Do you want to get killed?"

"By these fine people?" Shen said, handing over the ruby and shoving his new hat onto his head. "They seem trustworthy to me. Besides, who would kill someone over my jewels?"

"Only most of the city," Jia said. "Stop shouting about your damn jewels."

"I am more than happy to share," Shen said, adjusting his hat. "I have plenty."

On cue, three scrawny thugs swaggered from a nearby alleyway. Jia moved one foot softly behind her and let a dagger slip silently into her hand, concealed by the nervous crowd. These idiots weren't wearing the mark of the Tenth, which meant that they were unauthorized freelancers6 and unlikely to go away because she asked. In fact, they would probably try to kill her. She would just have to kill them f—

A wandering patrol of the advisor's city watch was approaching from the opposite direction. Perfect. And here she was in her inconspicuous assassin's armor.

The vendor could apparently see the future as well. He hauled the cart backward, and the iron roof began to swing closed.

Covetous Shen caught it with one hand and lifted it back up without any sign of effort.

"Is that," he said, "ginger wine I spy on the shelf behind you?"

Pulling desperately on the unyielding handle, the vendor nodded.

"I will pay you an opal for each bottle," Shen said. His voice echoed off the high buildings above.

The vendor froze. The bald thug dropped his cudgel.

"Really, an opal for each bottle?" Jia said.

"I haven't drunk nearly enough ginger wine in my life," Shen said solemnly. "It is one of my greatest regrets."

Gambling his life for opals, the vendor passed Shen a bottle. Shen tossed it to the bald thug without looking.

"Wine for my friends!" the old man declared. "And now that we have an audience, we will need music!"

An audience? Jia looked up. People leaned out of their open windows, trying to see what was going on. This never happened. At night, Zhou was a city of locked doors and closed shutters. You didn't try to find out what all the noise was about unless you wanted it to come upstairs and introduce itself.

"May I borrow your matar, young man?" Shen said to the street performer.

"May I have some wine?"

"A fair bargain!" Wine and instrument were exchanged. Shen staggered under the weight of the matar. "These are heavier than I remember. I will need both hands.

"You there!" he said to the bald thug. "Help our vendor friend pass the wine around. Everyone else, sing along if you know the words!"

Everyone knew the words, especially since they were dirty ones. Not many songs about Zei were clean. When he got to the part where the peacock queen found Zei in the tree with her three sisters, the woman with the chickens and the bald thug were holding each other and howling laughter.

More and more people spilled into the street only to have bottles shoved at them. The city watch arrived, blowing whistles to summon guards to handle the chaos. Reunited with his matar and blessed with Shen's hat, the street performer strummed maniacally and sang along with his new friends. The vendor shouted for his wife to wake up, then told her to hide the bag of opals and bring more ginger wine and raw meat from the cellar…

Several blocks away and ten minutes later, Jia and Covetous Shen stood at the edge of the courtyard surrounding the Tower of the Advisor. As they watched, the last of the foot patrols left in the direction of the impromptu street festival.

"You cunning old devil," Jia said. "You did all of that on purp—wait, you brought a bottle of wine?"

"I get thirsty on long climbs," Shen said, flicking the cork free with a practiced thumb and draining the bottle halfway in three gulps.

Irritated that a man at least four times her age was forcing her to be the adult in the situation, Jia said, "You can't go up that tower drunk, old man."

"Why not?" Shen said. "I've ascended thousands of towers. Sobriety has never improved the experience."

"You'll fall!"

"Oh no, no. I am too frail to fall. Though I haven't tested the theory, I am certain I would float gently to the ground."

"Fine," Jia said, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Let's go. When I give the sign—"

Shen was already scampering across the courtyard. She cursed and followed, expecting the cry of a guard at any moment. None came, though there had to be archers on neighboring roofs. Shen's luck appeared to be rubbing off on her.

He reached the tower, tucked the bottle into his vast network of pouches, and scrambled up the first ten feet of sheer wall like a rabid monkey. Jia had to use every trick of leverage and muscle to stay with him.

Zhou fell away beneath them. Darkness ruled the sleeping city, except for the miniature Festival of Zei7 Shen had created and the radiant clusters of torchlight and lanterns marking the Eternal Market to the east.

Eventually, Jia noticed that Shen was more or less going straight up the wall. Paying attention now, she saw irregular notches cut cleverly into the polished stone, invisible from below.

"Someone else has been climbing this tower," she said.

"Oh yes," Shen said, not even slightly out of breath. "My son comes here quite often."

"Son?" Jia said. "But you keep insinuating you're a—"

"Celibate? Never. Women would flip mountains into the sea before they allowed that."

"No, a god. And please don't talk about s—about celibacy," Jia said, blushing.

"Why not?" Shen said innocently, pausing to scratch his bearded chin, one bony hand wedged in a crevice.

"Because you're…"

"Immensely handsome? Pleasantly scented?"

"Old."

"That is true," Shen said, nodding regretfully. "I am old. Too old, in fact, to carry this heavy bottle of wine any farther. Catch."

He dropped the bottle, and she barely caught it before it would have plummeted past her to smash against the cobbles far, far below.

"What am I supposed to do with this?"

"Drink it," Shen said. A gust of wind sent his robes rippling as he braced a sandaled foot against a tiny crevice. "Then, you smash the bottle to scare away hangovers!"

"I'm not going to... All right, does that really work?"

"Possibly," Shen said. "Personally, I enjoy hangovers. They remind me of…"

He trailed off. The silence was so unexpected that Jia felt driven to fill it.

"Remind you of…?"

"Oh, memories," Shen said, grinning down at her.

For the first time, Jia really looked at him. Beneath that oddly familiar beard and the easy smile, she'd seen the briefest glimpse of… sadness, locked behind high walls and a fortified gate. A gate that was closed again.

"You were talking about your son," she said, tucking the bottle into her padded armor.

"Oh, yes. He races up this tower more often than he should. You see, he and Liang are secret lovers."

Jia's hand froze in midair.

"Jagged Liang? The advisor whose tower we're hanging from? That Liang?"

"Absolutely," Shen said happily. "They've been in love for many years. Decades, at least."

"That's impossible," Jia said. Songs had been written of the advisor's lack of interest in romance. Liang had turned down a hundred proposals from various members of the Great Families; it was, Jia thought, one of her only redeeming qualities.

"Not impossible. Just surprising. You may wish to whisper at this point," Shen added. The advisor's window loomed above.

"And this son of yours," Jia said, certain Shen was playing with her. "Is he also a famous seducer of women? A god in disguise?"

"Oh, didn't I say?" Shen said. "You know him as the Broken Man."

Jia slipped. Faster than falling lightning, Shen reached down and caught her wrist with a grunt. Her boots dangled in open space, hundreds of feet in the howling air.