The Agent of Xyanwer

Roisy laughed out loud. "Oh come now, Lady Darnizhy. You're playing with me. So long as Niklos Kosmoskolis remains in the Gallery he is under Their protection, and that would cause even the Hidden Hand of the Grand City to think twice."

"Only twice?"

"Good things come in twos, " said Roisy smoothly. "Like twins."

= = = = = = = = =

FOUR : The Artist of Canarwys

The Gallery was the largest single structures in the city. Not as tall as the high towers, nor as strange as the Houses, but of such a size that it was almost a citadel within the city. It was without doubt the finest repository of the arts in the known world, though it had few visitors.

That was why Niklos Kosmoskolis had come to Xyanwer.

Though born to one of the Hundred Families of Kandar Kul he had never become enmeshed in the tangled politics of the Grand City, and upon coming of age he had travelled to the renowned scholar city of Canarwys. Many of the finest artists in all of the Nine Cities came to Canarwys, to learn, to teach, to work and to study.

Niklos lived there for ten years, immersing himself in the arts and honing in particular his skills as a sculptor. By the end of his stay in Canarwys he had made his name as one of the finest in that city, and therefore in the world.

He could have parlayed that reputation into fame and wealth that would have entirely eclipsed that of his family line in Kandar Kul. Indeed his father had asked him -- no, begged him -- to come home and employ his talent to gain the support of allies among the Hundred Families, which they were greatly in need of at that time.

Instead he had taken a ship to Xyanwer, for he knew the Gallery was where, for centuries, the greatest artists in the world had worked in their many shadowed studios under the patronage of the Houses. He had heard all of the stories of the City of Nightmares, but he knew that it was there that he belonged.

It did not concern him that the Gallery had few visitors, save for a few scholars and those who came to Xyanwer looking to obtain works for their collections, or the collections of those they represented. Niklos had no interest in the admiration of others, only in the perfection of his art. Nothing else mattered to him.

Eventually he stopped even reading the letters his father and mother sent him. He was too busy.

That day he had a visitor.

He heard her long before he saw her. The huge halls of the Gallery were quiet places, save for the squat towers where musicians composed strange symphonies on stranger instruments. The few visitors Niklos was accustomed to were usually Thralls, who shuffled rather than walked, and brought him food, drink, fresh materials. The artists who worked in the Gallery had their usually few physical needs catered to assiduously, and Niklos had not stepped outside those dark halls for several years. He wasn't quite sure how long by now. It didn't matter. His work was here.

Niklos paused in his work and listened as the footsteps came closer. This was not the shuffle of a Thrall.

It was a confident tread, as of someone who walked freely and at their ease even a place like this. A woman's tread as well. She was wearing boots with low, square heels, slightly tapered. As she came closer the artist heard other sounds -- the jingle of metal, clasps on belts or boots most likely.

No sound of a sword sheath though. That was unusual. Niklos himself carried no weapons, but many did, especially here in Xyanwer.

When she finally stepped into one of the pools of light shed by the lamps high above them he noted her tattoos -- it was something he'd learned to look for, instinctively, like any inhabitant of the city -- and though he hadn't seen her for some time he took only a moment to recall her name.

"Darnizhy, " he said.

The agent nodded and inclined her head slightly. "Lord Kosmoskolis."

Niklos ignored the formality. He looked down at the agent from the small step ladder on which he was standing, next to his current work.

He was a tall man, slim but very strong in his arms and his hands. He was thirty four but looked much older, for he regarded his body as merely another tool of his craft, to be kept maintained and functional, but not of any great importance in itself.

"What do you want? I'm rather busy."

He had met the agent five years earlier, when he had first come to the city. She had acted for him, though he'd considered it a mere formality since his talent spoke for him more eloquently than any paid intermediary ever could.

Perhaps she had thought the same, as she had taken no commission.

He did not think much of Darnizhy. Oh she was pretty enough, in a boyish way, but too skinny by far. The artist appreciated a slender feminine figure, but the agent lacked, he felt, the curves that made for true beauty.

The agent did not answer immediately, but walked around the hall, looking over his most recent finished work. At least he assumed she was looking at them, though it was hard to tell with the dark lenses she wore over her eyes. Hardly necessary in Xyanwer, thought Niklos, particularly in the dimly lit halls of the Gallery.

There were five of them, arranged around him in a circle, on their plinths. In the centre of the circle stood a large, unfinished block of black stone, upon which Niklos had been working when h was interrupted.

The five finished statues were female, and each stood the height of a tall woman. Tall, but not unduly so. They were not entirely human, but had nails like razor talons, fangs partly visible through half parted lips, curved horns on their foreheads, long pointed tails, and broad, bat-like wings that extended from their shoulder blades.

They were not naked. Niklos had sculpted each in long gloves and hoof like boots, studded corsets around their torsos and spiked collars around their necks.

They were -- it wasn't even a boast to say it, merely simple truth -- perfect. Each was cut from a single piece of a pure black stone that came to the city from the dark lands. The stone always shone as if it were wet and was extremely difficult to work with, but the results were unarguable.

When Darnizhy reached out her left hand to touch one of them she seemed startled that it was in fact dry hard stone beneath her fingertips, and not slippery, yielding flesh. Niklos smirked. Everyone had the same reaction when they did that.

On each plinth there also stood a small statuette - a sketch in stone of the final work. No more a hand high, but just as perfect.

Darnizhy looked the five over, one by one, before finally turning back to Niklos.

"These are excellent, " she said. "A commission?"

Niklos sighed. He didn't know what she wanted and now he was going to have to talk to her until he found out and got her to go away and let him get on with his work. "I don't work from commissions, " he said impatiently. "I work from my dreams. They provide all the inspiration I need."

The agent muttered something under her breath that he didn't quite catch.

"Did you want something, Darnizhy?"

"I want a lot of things, " she said, rather distantly. Having completed her inspection of the statues she was now looking at the most recent trays of food and drink that the Thralls had brought to him. "You eat this?"

Niklos sat down on the top step of the ladder. "When I am hungry, I eat. When I am thirsty, I drink. When I am interrupted for no good reason I grow impatient."

"I have news. From Kandar Kul."

"I don't care. I'm never going back there."

"As you wish."

Darnizhy walked out of the circle of statues and started to pace around behind them, round and round, in and out of the pools of light cast by the lamps above, in a slow measured stride. Niklos watched her with an artist's eye for posture and it was his opinion that, for all the easy confidence she might project to inexpert eyes, she only kept walking because if she stopped doing so she might collapse.

She was pale and drawn, and her skin had an unhealthy tinge to it. It was not a natural colour. He suspected if she took off those dark glasses she would look even worse.

"When did you last sleep?"

That actually made her stop, clearly taken aback by a considerate question from an artist who was not known for his observance of social niceties, even in places considerably more social than Xyanwer.

"Seven nights ago, " she said. "Or was it eight. It doesn't matter. Sador sails tonight. I'll sleep then. Once I've concluded my business."

Niklos did not ask who Sador was. Despite his five years in Xyanwer he had only the vaguest understanding of what the agents actually did. It involved trade, he knew, and was therefore vulgar and nothing to do with his art.

He sighed. "Then perhaps you should be attending to that, rather than coming here to bother a hard working artist."

"I am attending to it."

She started pacing again. Slower now. Round and round. In and out of the light. "When did you last sleep, Niklos?"

"I sleep when I need to." The artist shrugged. "When I need inspiration."

"It comes to you then, in your dreams?"

Niklos looked from one statue to the next, to the next, to the next, all around the circle. Curiously, the agent seemed to keep perfect pace with his gaze. As she passed each one again she reached out and brushed her hand briefly over each perfectly curved black stone behind.

"They come to me, in my dreams."

Each time Darnizhy touched one of the statues the sculptor heard a faint clicking sound. It took him a moment to identify it. The ring she wore, tapping against each black stone body in turn until she completed her circuit of all five.

She continued to pace, but with her hands behind her back now, the fingers of her right hand absently turning the ring on her left hand.

"Lucky you." Darnizhy's smirked. "If they came to me in my dreams I might sleep more often."

"I'm fully aware of your unnatural lusts."

"Unnatural?" Darnizhy smirked again. "Now you sound like a nobleman of the Hundred Families. No tolerance for any liason that won't lead to marriage alliances and the production of heirs."

"If I am a citizen of any city it is not Kandar Kul, it is Canarwys. At least there my art was what mattered, not my lineage."

"Your lineage still matters, to some."

"Not to me. Now will you please tell me what you want with me so I can say no and then get back to my work."

"We have a debt to discuss."

She was still pacing. Niklos was starting to hate the sound of her heels. It was almost hypnotic. Ritualistic.

"You owe me nothing, agent."

"True. You owe me."

Niklos laughed. "I owe you nothing."

"I acted for you when you first came to Xyanwer."

"I did not need you to."

"Regardless."

Niklos flinched, suddenly angry. He almost stumbled as he descended the step ladder to face the agent. "Will you stop that accursed pacing!"

To his surprise she did.

"Remember where you are, " she said. "In Xyanwer nothing is free. Everything has a price."

She was still standing outside the circle of statues, half in shadow. The ring on her forefinger glinted oddly, though Niklos wasn't sure where the light was coming from for it do that.

"Darnizhy, for the very last time, what do you want?"

The agent didn't answer immediately. She reached up with her right hand and took off her dark glasses. Niklos looked into her eyes.

He did remember her eyes. Her golden eyes. Only they were not gold now. They shone, as if lit from inside her skull. Artist of genius as he was, Niklos could not identify the colour that burned in those eyes.

"I didn't take my commission five years ago, Niklos, " said the agent. She lifted her left hand and slowly curled her fingers into a fist around the black ring that, he now saw, was shining with the same unnameable colour as her eyes.

"I'm here now to complete our exchange, " she said.

Tendrils of un-light drifted out from the ring. It coiled through the air like lazy serpents, and as it touched each statue in turn Niklos saw them flex, and move, and step down from their plinths.

Red veins pulsed on the black stone, spreading rapidly as black flesh turned blood red. Stone wings now flexed like leather. Tongues flickered out and wetted lips that were already glossy but were now a darker red. Low and somehow sensual hisses emerged from throats which had never been sculpted.

Only the carved gloves and boots, corsets and collars retained their black sheen, though they too now flexed, like some silk-thin shining leather.

The five approached him slowly, circling him, surrounding him. When the first touched him he felt not stone, but flesh. Warm breath tickled his skin. A long tongue flickered out over his cheek.

The sculptor fell back willingly into the arms of his creations. He knew that to do so would be the end of him. No man could survive the reality of what he had, until now, experienced only in his dreams.

But he could not do otherwise. They were irresistable. They were perfect.

They were his greatest works of art, and all great art lived on long after the artist was no more.

= = = = = = = = =

FIVE : The Agent of Xyanwer

The twins were asleep. In Darnizhy's bed. The agent herself stood on the balcony. It was a warm night and she wore only a dark silk robe, drawn tight around her body.

She had been standing on the balcony for some time, watching as Sador Sal's ship left Xyanwer, perhaps for the last time. He had had another successful venture and now, with his holds filled with the goods of the dark lands, he would buy -- and, knowing Sador, murder -- his way to the title of a Lord of Jasjan.

Would he return after that? Perhaps not. Even for an experienced trader like Sador it was still dangerous to trade in the City of Nightmares, and as a Lord of his home city he would now have much more to lose. There were dangers that even Darnizhy could not ward him against.

Him, or anyone else.

Darnizhy poured herself some more of the Sothian wine. It was a rich, deep yellow, and prized by most connosieurs for the dreams it gave. If she drank enough, she thought, perhaps she wouldn't dream at all.

Her eyes flickered. Sador's ship was long gone but still she looked out onto the dark, still water. The narcotics that had sustained her through the days of meetings and negotations with the delegates of the Houses -- that had kept her awake, alert and sane -- were starting to wear off. Every time it took more. She wondered how Croy could possibly have done this for twice as long as Darnizhy had been alive.

She thought back to ten years before, when she had run excitedly all the way to his chambers, to tell the Lord Agent that she had been accepted as an agent and that she would receive her wards within a matter of days. She had stood there, in among his books and his cats, her fingers running over her skin, tracing the lines of as-yet uninscribed tattoos, and thanking him over and over again for his patronage.

Croy had walked over to her and clasped her hands in his and said the words of congratulation that he had known she needed to hear from him, but just for a moment he, always so composed, had looked so sad and she hadn't known why.

She knew now. She'd known for a long time.

She glanced back over her shoulder at the sleeping twins. They were hers now, and she was looking forward to teaching them. Training them. As she had said to the sculptor the Grand City was remarkably narrow minded about love -- or lust -- between women. The twins had already proven quick, if uncertain, studies, and it was that mix of eagerness and naivety that Darnizhy found distractingly new.

She felt no remorse for the death of the sculptor. He had died with a smile on his face. That was rare in itself, in Xyanwer.

Darnizhy turned back to look out again across the water, and poured more wine.

The lamps in the chamber flickered, but there was no wind. Darnizhy felt, as much as saw, her chambers darkening.

"Darnizhy."

The voice was quiet, coming from just behind her. Few in Xyanwer ever heard that voice and none who did ever forgot it. It was -- to Darnizhy at least - a soft, feminine voice, and seemed to slide directly into her, wrapping around her mind like silk chains and steel wire until there was nothing else in the world. Just the voice, and the Presence.

Darnizhy placed her wine cup down on the stone balustrade and looked straight ahead, focused on the dark water beyond the harbour. She felt the muscles of her neck, her shoulders, her arms, pull taut.

"My Lady."

"You took Our artist from Us."

"Yes, my Lady."

Darnizhy felt a touch on her shoulder. She did not turn around but in the corner of her eye, lit by a light of no colour and every colour, she saw a hand resting on her shoulder, though the rest of Them was out of sight. The hand was slender, elegant, perfect in every way. There was a ring on the forefinger. A gold ring, in the shape of a scorpion.

"Why?"

Darnizhy hesitated. If she chose the wrong words it would be the end of her. She did not fear death. Not anymore. She only feared that she would never be allowed to die.

"I made an exchange, my Lady."

There was a pause of immeasurable duration -- of seconds, or of an eternity -- followed by a soft laugh.

"You did well for Us. And for yourself."

"Yes, my Lady."

"We will enjoy them. In a season."

"Yes, my Lady."

The hand withdrew from her shoulder, and Darnizhy felt the light touch of fingertips tracing the arcs of her tattoos through the silk of her robe.

"Remember where you are. You are not warded from all that dwell in Xyanwer."

"Yes, my Lady."

The touch stilled for a moment, resting at the top of her spine.

"Do you dream of them often, Darnizhy?"

"Yes, my Lady."

"It pleases Us that you do."

The touch withdrew, and the Presence was gone.

It took some time for Darnizhy to summon the courage to turn around. When she did she saw her chambers were undisturbed. The twins still slept. Only one thing was different. On a small side table a statuette stood, no more than a hand high.

A sketch in black stone.

Darnizhy raised her cup to her lips, but the wine tasted of nothing now. She would not sleep that night, and would need another distraction than wine. Her gaze fell on the sleeping forms of her new slaves, and she walked over toward them, picking up her short, ebony handled whip as she approached.

She drew the black silk sheet down, uncovering them both. They were naked except for their new collars, and slept in each other's arms, breathing softly and lost in restful dreams. Darnizhy watched them for a moment longer, then flicked her whip across the nearest exposed behind with a firm, sharp crack that caused the slave girl to wake with a startled yelp.

"Wake up, both of you." Darnizhy flicked the whip back and forth, swishing the flat leather thongs across the bare breasts and behinds of the twins as they woke from their dreams with squeals and soft gasps.

"I don't want to sleep tonight, " she said, letting her robe fall to the floor of the chamber. "So neither will either of you."

She knew that she would sleep eventually, and that when she did she would see them all again. She would see Cas, and all the others who had been taken from her by Those Who Reign.

It was that, not what she saw in the Houses of the delegates of the dark lands, which caused her to so often scream in her sleep. The delegates were monsters, but Darnizhy lived in Xyanwer and monsters did not scare her.

Except in her dreams, when she looked into the eyes of all her lost lovers and saw herself reflected in them.