from her mouth.
He’d read of that name before, somewhere. Calhalee. Founding Mother of Tume, her twenty starving children the progenitors of the city’s major blood clans.
Ché approached the open doorway and stepped inside. He descended a set of wooden steps and entered a long basement, barely large enough to hold the few hundred soldiers who filled it from wall to wall. The men were riotous drunk, all of them competing to see who could shout the loudest above the noise of the band playing on stage. He could taste the musty humidity of sweat in the air, amongst the smoke of hazii and tarweed that swirled thick as clouds.
Ché could hardly hear himself think here, and he was glad of that. He stepped towards the bar that ran along the left side of the long room. Officers had gathered there, lounging on stools or standing against it, a host of prostitutes amongst them. His foot slipped beneath him and he looked down at a puddle of dark liquid, and saw that he stood upon a section of floor made from glass. A large well lined with wood had been cut through the deep foundations of lakeweed beneath them. Between pairs of boots, he saw glimmers of ghost-light in the waters deep below.
It was a gambler’s instinct that caused Ché to push onwards until he reached the back of the room, where he saw a large oval table and a game of rash in play. The room was quieter at this end, the men intent on their cards.
He studied the game for a moment and saw that two players remained in the pot, a man in the purple robe of the Hoo and a short-haired girl in the black leathers of the Specials. The chairs were all taken, though one of the players sat with his head lolled back and his mouth open, soundly asleep. With a finger, Ché gently pushed his shoulder until he fell sideways off the chair.
A few chuckles arose as he slid into his place like a jockey settling into the saddle. Cards were shown; the girl in leathers watched her coins being scraped away from the centre of the table.
‘What’s the limit?’ he asked those around him.
‘Our souls,’ rumbled a voice from his side.
The man was dressed in civilian clothing and was large around the stomach. He had a mug of wine and a plate of meat skewers laid out before him, and he licked his greasy fingers as Ché offered him a nod.
‘High stakes,’ replied Ché, and took his money pouch from his pocket. He slid a handful of coins into his palm, and settled them in a column on the table. They were local currency, silvers and a few eagles; his emergency stash.
The dealer dealt out a fresh round of cards while each of the players threw a copper into the pot. Ché glanced at the girl sitting opposite him. Her eyes were closed now, but when the old soldier to her right looked at his cards and threw them away in disgust, she opened her eyes a fraction to study her own cards, her lips pouting as she did so.
A little young for a Special, thought Ché, before he noticed the white band of a medic around her arm.
Carefully, she took a silver coin and tossed it towards the pot.
The man on her left looked at her askance, threw his own cards away. The folds continued around the table. When it came to the fat man’s turn he matched the bet, then scribbled something on a notebook before him.
The girl met Ché’s gaze with her large, intoxicated blue eyes.
‘Are you playing or staring?’ she asked him.
‘A little of both,’ he told her, then looked down to study his own two cards; a three-armed black Monk and a white Foreigner.
Ché considered his position. He wasn’t bothered about winning tonight. He was content enough to sit in the familiar environment of the gaming table and forget everything else for a while. On a whim he matched the girl’s bet, then raised her by throwing in two more silvers, wanting to see her reaction.
The girl half closed her eyes again, and settled back in her chair while she waited her turn.
‘Your accent. You’re not from Khos, are you?’ It was the fat man again, sipping wine.
‘I come from all over,’ Ché answered casually.
The man wiped his hand on his woollen tunic and held it out to him. ‘Koolas,’ he said.
‘Ché.’ They shook, and Ché wondered if