Free The Scarab Path by Adrian Tchaikovsky Page A

closer
to her, as though expecting attack. Petri stood up as well, mouth working
silently, searching for words.
    ‘But …’
she got out finally. ‘I have money!’ It was unspeakably rude, by local
standards, but the Fisher did not visibly react to it. Instead she simply
retreated further and further. What had seemed a wall of cloth parted for her,
and then she had vanished beyond it, her servants following silently. Petri was
left in sole possession of the tent, deep within the Marsh Alcaia.
    Her
heart was beginning to pound. She had the sense of something chasing her. The
Fisher had known something, had known enough not to want anything to do with
this. Petri was fast running out of places to turn.
    There
was someone, though: there was the very person the Fisher had alluded to. The
Khanaphir loved middlemen. Even in the business of seeking another’s death
there was someone to go to, who would then find someone else to wield the
knife. Petri had never met the current holder of the office, but she knew the
name from a casual mention by Kadro.
    When she
asked for the name of Harbir, people drew back from her, turned away, refused
to speak. She persisted, and suspected that carrying the name before her made
her proof against the petty robbers and killers that haunted the interior of
the Alcaia. Somebody who had business with Harbir the Arranger, however they
might seem, was not prey for smaller fish.
    But it
was Harbir who found her . After she had spent a
half-hour wandering at random through the coloured maze of the Alcaia, and
regularly dropping his name, a cowled Khanaphir woman approached her, tugged
once at her sleeve, and then retreated deeper into the gloom. Petri followed
meekly, again because she had nowhere else to go.
    Harbir’s
tent was bigger than the Fisher’s, and inside it hanging drapes cordoned off
the man himself. Petri found herself in a surprisingly large space, empty save
for overlapping rugs on the floor. Two men stood by the door, bare-chested
Khanaphir Beetles with axes in their belts, whose stare did not admit to her
presence or existence.
    ‘You
have bandied my name a hundred times beneath the roof of the Alcaia,’ came a voice
from the tent’s hidden reaches. It was a male voice, but Petri could tell no
more than that. Even if this was the Arranger’s tent, it could have just been
another servant speaking.
    ‘I …
give you my apologies if I have caused any difficulties.’ She stumbled over the
words, which was poor, knowing the Khanaphir valued eloquence.
    ‘There
are many who come to me seeking a final arrangement,’ the man responded, with
the unhurried measure of someone fond of his own voice. ‘The wealthy speak to
me of their rivals, the bitter regarding those who have wronged them, the
desperate concerning those who have more than they. Honoured Foreigner, have
you been in our lands so long that you would be prepared to take part in our
pastimes?’
    ‘No …’
The word came out as a squeak, so she calmed herself and started again. ‘I only
wish to know, great Harbir, whether a friend of mine has been arranged … has
had an arrangement made about him.’
    She
hoped she had remembered properly what little Kadro had said of the traditions
here. Amongst some assassins, she was sure, such a direct question would
transgress etiquette – perhaps fatally.
    ‘You
have not come empty-handed, expecting to bear away such a weighty answer?’ the
voice enquired, upon which she finally relaxed a little. She reached into her
purse and came out with a fistful of currency: Helleron Standards, the local
lozenges of metal stamped with weight and hallmark, even a few bulky and
debased Imperial coins.
    There
was a slight sound that might have been a snigger. ‘And who is it that is so
fortunate as to have you solicitous after their health?’
    ‘Kadro …
Kadro of Collegium, the Fly-kinden,’ she replied. The words dropped heavily
into the tent and left a silence.
    ‘Please
…’ she