Free Low Town by Daniel Polansky

chi! Kisvas
good!” I bellowed, and rubbed my stomach.
    Their suspicions assuaged, they returned my grin, happy to see a white man play the jester. They chattered back and forth, too rapidly for me to decipher.
    My target didn’t share their amusement or fall for my ploy. I didn’t want him to. I dropped myself onto a spot on the bench across from him and repeated my mantra.
“Kisvas hao chi!”
I continued, broadening my smile to the point of imbecility. “
Nu ren
[young girl]
hao chi ma?
” I asked. Desperation sweated through his sallow skin. I spoke louder.
“Kisvas hao chi! Nu ren hao hao chi!”
    The giant Kiren stood abruptly, sliding through a narrow opening in the long row of tables. I rose and blocked his path, getting in close enough to smell the sour stink of his unwashed body, close enough that he could hear me drop the drunkard act and condemn him in my awkward but decipherable Kiren.
“I know what you did to the girl. You’ll be dead within the hour.”
    He shoved his paw against my chest and I tumbled onto the table. The crowd laughed and I joined them, chortling uproariously, enjoying my theatrics, enjoying the entire enterprise. I remained supine, listening to the ridicule of the heretics, watching him run off through the broad windows that flanked the door. Once he was out of sight, I slid myself off the table and moved quickly out the back exit, stumbling through a dirty kitchen and muttering something about the evils of drink. I pushed my way outside and started at a dead sprint, hoping to cut him off where the side street met the main thoroughfare.
    I made it to the intersection and slumped against the alley wall casually, like I’d been there all day. The Kiren rounded the corner with his head turned over his shoulder, and when he saw me, his skin went so white he could have passed for a Rouender. I bit my tongue to keep from laughing, his fear potent as a stiff drink. Śakra’s cock, I had missed this—there are pleasures the life of a criminal cannot provide.
    I bowed as he went past me, then peeled myself off the stone. He was almost broken now, guilt and terror overpowering him. Unsure whether to walk or run, he adopted a method of locomotion that was at once lacking in speed and subtlety. I followed at an even pace, gliding past the occasional pedestrian but not making an effort to catch up.
    After a few blocks he twisted down an alley and I had him. He had taken one of those curious thoroughfares common to Kirentown that terminate within the center of the block, and provide no egress savebacktracking to the entrance. A smile crept across my face. With days to plan, and all the resources of the Crown at my disposal, I couldn’t have run it any better. I slowed my pace and thought about how I would take him.
    He was big, as tall as Adolphus though nowhere as broad. But like a lot of big men, I bet he never really learned to fight, to anticipate an opponent’s reaction, to recognize a weakness and seize on it, which parts of a man’s body hold firm and which parts the Creator botched in forming. Still, his lack of technique wouldn’t matter if he got those monstrous hands near my throat. I’d need to put him down fast. He had favored his right leg—I’d work with that.
    When I turned the last corner the Kiren was looking around frantically for a means of escape. Like most folk with his inclinations he was terrified of danger, despite his size only inclined to enter combat when all other options had been exhausted. He swiveled back toward me and I could see his fingerhold on sanity slipping. Beads of spittle pitched from his lips as he shouted something vicious and beat one thick fist against his chest. I felt a sense of certainty wash over me, the bloom of warmth that came whenever I bowed to the inevitability of coming violence. There was no retreat now for either of us. I set my guard in front of my face and came toward him, circling left to throw off his balance.
    Suddenly from