Logan turned to Solon. “Sorry about that, Master Tofusin. About all of it. Please call me Logan. You’ll stay for dinner, of course, but can I also have the servants prepare a room for you?”
“Yes,” Solon said. “I think I’d like that.”
8
E very time Vürdmeister Neph Dada met with Rat, it was in a different place. Rooms in inns, cellars of boat shops, bakeries, east side parks, and dead-end alleys in the Warrens. Ever since Neph had figured out that Rat was afraid of the dark, he’d made sure they always met at night.
Tonight, Neph watched Rat and his bodyguards enter the tiny old overfull graveyard. It wasn’t as dark as Neph would have hoped; taverns and game halls and whorehouses huddled not thirty paces away. Rat didn’t dismiss his bodyguards immediately. Like most parts of the Warrens, the graveyard was less than a foot above the waterline. The Rabbits, as the natives of the Warrens were called, buried their dead directly in the mud. If they had the money, they erected sarcophagi above ground, but ignorant immigrants had buried their dead in coffins after some riot or another years ago, and the ground had swollen above those graves as the coffins fought to float to the surface. Several had broken open, their contents devoured by feral dogs.
Rat and his bodyguards looked sick with fright. “Go on,” Rat finally said to his bigs, nonchalantly picking up a skull and tossing it at one of them. The boy stepped back quickly and the skull, weak with age or disease, shattered on a stone.
“Hello, child,” Neph rasped into Rat’s ear. Rat flinched and Neph smiled his gap-toothed smile, his long, sparse white hair falling in a greasy trickle to his shoulders. Neph stood so close the boy took a step back.
“What do you want? Why am I here?” Rat asked.
“Ah, petulance and philosophy all bound up in one.” Neph shuffled closer. He’d grown up in Lodricar, east of Khalidor. The Lodricari thought men who distanced themselves so much that you couldn’t even smell their breath were hiding something. Merchants in Cenaria who dealt with the Lodricari complained bitterly about it, but stood close eagerly enough when Lodricari coins were at stake. But Neph didn’t stand close for cultural reasons. He hadn’t lived in Lodricar for half a century. He stood close because he liked to see Rat’s discomfort.
“Ha!” Neph said, exhaling a gust of rotten air over Rat’s face.
“What?” Rat said, trying not to edge back.
“I haven’t given up on you yet, you great stupid boy. Sometimes you manage to learn despite yourself. But that’s not what I’m here for. Not what you’re here for, either. It’s time to move. Your enemies are arrayed against you but not yet organized.”
“How do you know that?”
“I know more than you think, Ratty Fatty.” Neph laughed again, and spittle flew onto Rat’s face. Rat almost struck him then, Neph could tell. Rat had become a guild Fist for a reason. But of course he’d never hit Neph. The old man knew he looked frail, but a Vürdmeister had other defenses.
“Do you know how many boys your father has whelped?” Neph asked.
Rat looked around the graveyard as if Neph hadn’t already checked for anyone eavesdropping. The boy was hopelessly stupid. Stupid, but capable of cunning, and utterly ruthless. Besides, Neph didn’t have many choices. When he’d come to Cenaria, he’d been placed in charge of four boys. The most promising one had eaten some bad meat in the first year and died before Neph had even known he was sick. This week, the second had been killed in territory fight between guilds. That left Neph with only two. “His Holiness has fathered one hundred and thirty-two boys the last time I counted. Most of those lacked Talent and were culled. You are one of forty-three who are his seed. I’ve told you this before. What I haven’t told you is that each of you is given a task, a test to prove your usefulness to your father. If you pass, you may one day become Godking yourself. Can you guess what your task is?”
Rat’s beady eyes glittered with visions of opulent splendor.
Neph slapped him. “Your task, boy.”
Rat rubbed his cheek, trembling with rage. “Become Shinga,” he said quietly.
Well, the boy aimed higher than Neph would have guessed. Good. “His Holiness has declared that Cenaria will fall, as will all the southlands. The Sa’kagé is the only real power in Cenaria, so, yes, you will become Shinga.