Kal Moonheart Trilogy: Dragon Killer, Roll the Bones & Sirensbane (57 page)

Azul stared at her in befuddlement while his brain processed her words. ‘Damn me!’ he said, eventually. ‘You’re telling the truth too. I can always tell, you know.’

He tottered around the small room as Kal tried to usher him out. She had almost got him to the door, when his eyes alighted on Lula’s telescope, which Kal still had with her from their trip to the jungle.

‘Beautiful,’ he crooned, stroking the polished brass. ‘Where did you find such a fine specimen?’

‘Its not mine, it’s Lula’s,’ Kal said, putting it back on the shelf. ‘Now scram! Go and take a cold bath or something!’

And when you come looking for me again, I’ll be long gone!

* * *

Kal left through the back door to avoid rousing suspicion. The kitchens were empty and had been cleared up for the night. Only Che’s recipe book lay open on the counter, next to the copper cauldron of cold curry. As she helped herself to a spoonful of curry, Kal had a peek at the book to see if she could discover any culinary secrets, but the recipes all seemed to be written in half-sentences and undecipherable notes.

She moved on through the overgrown gardens and headed down Main Street, following the route she had approached the mansion from the previous night. Somewhere on that particular journey she had passed a store she now planned to visit on her way to the gaming house.

Marley Laveau’s Vudu Emporium.

Silver bells jingled as Kal pushed open the door, and dangling talismans swung in the warm gust of tropical air that followed her inside. A young man was stocking the shelves: filling glass jars with chicken paws and small obsidian scrying orbs. ‘Hello,’ he said when he noticed her. ‘We stock crushed nightshade for repelling zombies, before you ask. Or a rock salt necklace if you’re—ah—already infected …’

‘Do they come with a money-back guarantee?’ Kal asked him.

‘Of course,’ he said, ‘but no zombie has come back complaining yet. Although that might be because of the hex around the store.’

Kal laughed. ‘I actually came in looking for a powerful charm,’ she said. ‘For luck at cosmic racing. I saw you have game boards in the window, so I hoped …’

The assistant broke out into a grin, and reached into a drawer behind the counter. ‘I know what you need,’ he said, pulling out a handful of small items. ‘These are expensive, and we definitely don’t offer no money-back guarantee. Success isn’t certain, either; you’ll need to judge for yourself the best time to employ them. And you’ll need
four
of them …’

* * *

The name of the gaming house was the Cheating Parrot, which Kal thought was appropriate, considering what she expected to go down here tonight. Inside, it was like a furnace, hotter than even the hot night outside. Hundreds of tiny lanterns were strung in rows across the ceiling, and hundreds of people were packed around the tables. Kal could hardly hear their voices over the clack of counters and the rattle of dice.

One man sat alone amid the chaos, as if he occupied the eye of the hurricane. He commanded a small table, around which the crowds circled, but kept their distance. A defeated opponent was skulking away, and the railbirds cheered as Kal stepped up to take the empty chair.

‘I knew you would return, Dragon Killer,’ the Magician said in his sonorous voice. ‘I read it in the cards.’

The wiry black man was dressed in a hooded red robe, and tonight he had painted a silver mask around his eyes. But it was the same man Kal had encountered in his tent last night. ‘Did the cards also tell you who was going to win?’ Kal asked him.

‘Of course,’ the Magician replied, with just the faintest hint of a smile. He didn’t elaborate any further.

Kal tried to keep her cool and control her breathing. Tonight, the usual excitement of hitting the gambling tables was mixed with a trace of fear.
Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all!

II.vi

Midnight

Kal and the Magician set up their counters in silence. Kal took black; her opponent took red. They placed their pieces on the board, hands crossing and almost touching as they laid down the inch-wide, quarter-inch-thick wooden discs in their seemingly random starting positions, some on one side of the board, some on the other.

To win, though, Kal had to move
all
of her counters, no matter where they started, in an anticlockwise direction around the board, from the corner under the shadow of the Magician’s left shoulder, along the thin triangular
points
that divided the board, until they reached home, the quarter of the board on Kal’s right. Only then could she attempt to
bear off
her counters from the board and win the race. The Magician’s counters would move the in the opposite direction, and any solitary counters left isolated on the board were in danger of being captured as the two wooden armies crossed paths.

There was a pot of dice on the table, so Kal fished out a couple of pairs—a blue pair and a green pair—and gave the green pair to the Magician. He accepted them without comment. Kal hadn’t expected him to be so obvious as to cheat with loaded dice, anyway.

‘We will play for one hundred doubloons,’ the Magician stated. Kal nodded. It was a relatively small wager, but if the doubling cube were to make an appearance, then the stakes could easily escalate to two hundred, then four hundred … all the way up to six thousand and four hundred doubloons.

‘So you’re in charge of this town now,’ Kal said, conversationally, as play began.

The Magician gave her a quizzical look. ‘Port Black is ruled by a
conclave
of captains,’ he corrected her. ‘Not by me alone. Pirates and freebooters they may be, but first and foremost they are extremely wealthy, fair-minded and experienced traders. This town is more prosperous now than it has ever been.’

‘Oh, but they all rely on
you
, though, don’t they?’ Kal persisted, as she moved her counters along the points. ‘After all, it’s your magic that keeps the zombies at bay.’

The curious expression gave way to a wry smile as the Magician rolled a four and a six, capturing two of Kal’s counters and sending them to prison on the bar—the central hinge of the board. ‘My opponents do not usually interrogate me so hard,’ he said. ‘Tell me about yourself instead, Kalina Moonheart. What brings you to Port Black?’

‘Oh, come on,’ Kal said, rolling a double five and freeing her captured counters. ‘Surely you already know everything about me.’

‘I do,’ the Magician said, the two simple words slipping off his tongue like a threat. ‘But I still want to know if you will tell me truth, or if you will lie. That would gain me greater insight into your character then the cards ever could.’

What could Kal tell him?
Ben Godsword sent me here to investigate the governor’s finances. Lula asked me to save her from a zombie curse. And I suspect that you may be involved in both these things.

‘I came here looking for new opportunities,’ she said instead, which wasn’t exactly a lie. ‘My friends tell me that working for you can be very rewarding.’

The Magician didn’t answer at first. Kal noticed the noise of the crowd for the first time: they bristled in excitement as the Magician reached for the doubling cube and challenged Kal to raise the stakes. She studied the board carefully; her position was poor, so the right play was to decline the offer and forfeit the game.

‘I can cover your losses tonight if you pledge yourself to me,’ the Magician said. ‘I pay well, too … in cash, or in any other manner that might satiate your desires …’

Kal lifted her gaze from the board, and looked questioningly into the hooded man’s dark eyes.

‘I deal in vice and pleasure,’ he said. ‘You could say that I am a libertarian of sorts. I believe people should be free to indulge in whatever pursuits they wish, without interference from those in supposed
authority
. If your tastes run to those pleasures that civilisation frowns upon, then join my empire instead: everything is permitted here, and I can find you a role that suits your passions: gambling, drink, violence, sex or drugs.’

Kal’s first thought was,
Sirensbane!

‘We shall see,’ she answered. ‘The night is yet young. Ask me later. You win this game, so let’s play again!’

* * *

Kal got off to a good start on the second game. Her chosen strategy was to play a
running
game, and try and get her pieces across the board as fast as possible. And after a few good rolls of the dice, including some doubles, which allowed her to move her pieces twice as far again, Kal was looking at an easy—if slightly lucky—win. The Magician was playing a
priming
game, grouping his counters into walls to try and block Kal’s progress. It wasn’t working, but he just nodded when Kal offered the chance to double the stakes to two-hundred doubloons.

‘You don’t seem worried,’ Kal said. ‘It’s not looking good for you here.’

‘I have seen how this game turns out,’ he replied. ‘When the future is laid out before you, why worry about anything?’

Kal felt a flicker of irritation … and also a prickle of fear. The Magician’s confidence was unsettling. If he really could see the future then she was wasting her time here. Her plan depended on her working out
if
and
how
he was cheating. ‘You
must
worry about something,’ she said. ‘Aren’t you at least slightly bothered that the Republic will decide to put an end to your little operation here, and send a fleet to smash it?’

‘It’s hardly little,’ the Magician scoffed. ‘We were vulnerable at first, it is true, in the days following the overthrow of the governor. But the secret was kept safe by my loyal workforce. Even the crews I send to Amaranthium to sell Sirensbane, they would never talk, not even under the threat of torture.’

And not even to their closest friends
, Kal thought ruefully, thinking of Lula’s reticence during the voyage.

‘That’s some powerful hold you have over them,’ she said. ‘Perhaps they are more frightened of you than of the Republic.’

The Magician gave her a cool glare. Kal could feel the crowd around them draw breath. ‘Fear is something I save for my enemies,’ the Magician said. He raised a hand to Kal. The pale brown palm was tattooed with a baleful eye in bright blue ink. The Magician’s forearm was swallowed up by his voluminous sleeve, but Kal could see that it was covered with marks: glyphs, arcane script and other mysterious icons. After giving Kal a good look, the Magician reached over and turned the doubling cube to show the number four.

Kal was rattled. How could he offer to double the stakes again, when Kal was clearly winning?

She accepted the offer, and then proceeded to get herself in a series of awkward situations where her pieces were constantly being captured and sent to the bar, from where they would have to begin their journey all over again from the start.

They played the game out to its conclusion. Kal ended up losing the game, and four hundred doubloons.

* * *

Kal insisted on a break, but promised the Magician that she would return for at least one more game. She needed a drink. Actually, what she really needed was a hit of Sirensbane. In her pocket she had kept a small chunk of the black crystalline drug. She had seen some of Dead Leg’s crew shred it with a blade and sniff it up their nose for instant gratification. If she took some now, the rush of clarity and confidence might help her defeat her fear, play better, and beat the Magician …

If …

Kal dropped the crystal underfoot and crushed it with her boot. She ordered rum, with lots and lots of ice, and returned to the table. In her absence, the Magician had destroyed another hopeless challenger. Kal sat down without a word and began to set up her pieces.

This time she decided not to talk, but to concentrate on the game. Cosmic racing, like many other gambling games, involved a balance of risk and reward. Although the dice were random, you still had to choose which pieces to move. Striking out for home left your pieces vulnerable, but exactly how vulnerable was something you had to calculate in your head. The almost infinite combination of dice rolls and board positions made cosmic racing a deceptively simple game.

The Magician raised the stakes early on, but Kal redoubled after a hot streak with the dice. She was heading for a win, but fought to keep her focus on the counters, the board and the odds … and not the crowd, the heat or the intimidating stare of the man sitting opposite her.

When the silence between them got almost too much to bear, it was the Magician who cracked first. ‘Word reaches me that Amaro Azul is back in town,’ he said.

Kal’s eyes never left the board.
Word reaches you. So that is how you get your information. Not through the magic of the cards, but through a network of spies and gossip. No wonder you spend your nights here, in public, rather than running the town from behind closed doors.

‘He’s after the governor,’ Kal said. ‘And I doubt he will leave town without him. Maybe you should hand him over.’

‘I don’t think so,’ the Magician said. ‘The governor is far too useful to me alive. As far as the outside world is concerned, he is still running Port Black. I would keep the illusion alive for as long as possible. I will deal with Azul myself.’

The Magician put such heavy, threatening emphasis on these last words that Kal almost couldn’t help but look up at his face. But she managed to check herself just in time, and that was when she saw it … she saw the Magician cheat.

She had to refrain from cracking a smile. The man was shameless. Kal had never cheated at gambling in her life, but now that she had confirmation of what was being done to her, then all scruples and honour could happily be abandoned. She now had the go-ahead to pay her own tricks, and turn the tables on this fraud.

But first, she had to set him up for a big fall …

The Magician offered to double again, and Kal accepted. ‘Azul says his brother was innocent,’ Kal said, keeping the conversation going and acting like nothing was amiss. ‘Do you know what crime the governor accused him of?’