Shadows of the Capital: The Orphan Fleet, #4

By Brendan Detzner

Shanala has never had time to be a hero. Growing up on the streets of the Capital of the Dragot Empire, she's spent her entire life scrambling to keep her brothers and sisters fed by any means necessary. Sometimes that's meant honest work. Other times, she's had to get creative. When one of Shanala's side hustles gets her mixed up with a murder investigation and an espionage ring, she isn't sure if her luck has run out or if she's just tripped over her ticket to the big time. Little does she suspect just how complicated her life is about to get. Outsmarting lowlifes and spies is one thing. Pulling a fast one on a god is something else entirely.

Brendan Detzner's work has appeared in Podcastle, Chizine, Pseudopod, One Buck Horror, Bizarrocast, Edge of Propinquity, Untied Shoelaces of the Mind, and many other venues. He is the author of the short story collections "Scarce Resources" and "Beasts", and of the novels "Millersville" and "White Rabbit Society". "Shadows of the Capital" is the fourth installment of the Orphan Fleet series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brendan Detzner
• Release date: Oct 23, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393990741

Book preview

1

Lady Joana’s handwoman crossed into the alleys from the Museum Quarter and weaved through them, glancing up at the guard towers whenever she thought she might have gotten lost. The sun had only just gone down and the streetlamps weren’t yet lit. A breeze pushed through the narrow spaces between the buildings; it changed directions, bringing with it first the odor of spilled beer and then something worse, something that the handwoman didn’t want to identify. She heard the sound of men drinking and carousing. The City Guard was supposed to be on patrol, but the handwoman didn’t see them. They were probably among the ones drinking. Badges and cutthroats, slapping each other’s backs and buying their beer in tall clay pitchers.

Another corner and her destination was in sight. The Fine Reliable arcade was a squat stone building, standing out among the shacks surrounding it. It might have been a post office or a warehouse in a previous life, but that was a long time ago. The two front doors were propped wide open and even from a distance the handwoman could hear bells ringing and see lights flashing. There were two candles in the window, one blue and one white, both lit. Safe passage. She crossed over and went inside.

The machines rattled and spun around her and blurred together like watercolors as she hurried past them. There was an attendant sitting in one of the dark rear corners of the arcade. His desk was made from wooden planks nailed to the top of a barrel. She had never seen him stand up. She knew that he’d recognize her; there was a password but it was a formality at this point. He saw her, nodded his head, and reached for a switch somewhere behind him. The floor under her feet began to vibrate, on and off and on again like something was spinning. Faster and faster. It stopped with a loud click.

On the far wall of the arcade, near the attendant, between a dart board and a Pilgrimage of a Whore machine, was a long ramp ending in a series of tubes with a rack of wooden balls next to it. The ramp folded up smoothly into the wall like a guest bed. There was a flight of stairs behind it.

The handwoman heard hushed conversation as she descended. The air was warm and stuffy, and the smell of perfumed smoke was like a wall she had to push through. She turned a corner.

2

The Exchange was a state of mind as much as it was any particular location, but it had been held in the Fine Reliable’s basement for the last few months, an undivided dark brick box with a ceiling just tall enough to clear a medium-sized man’s head. It was crowded, a ballroom folded into a broom closet. Business would have been better served by the separate rooms of a restaurant or a theater or even a church, but there was no such place anywhere in the Capital that was free from the hidden eyes of the Crown, not anymore, and so the guests forced their way past one another’s shoulders and whispered. Languages faded into one another and frayed at the edges; slang and code words were borrowed and twisted. For all the trading that was taking place, it was one of the few marketplaces where not much Trade was spoken. It was a way to keep secrets. Even better, it was a way to show that you were the person you said you were, and that you had come from the place that you claimed to be from.

Shanala hadn’t spoken much at all that night. She leaned against a wall in the far corner of the basement and waited for Lady Joana’s handwoman. Sales had been dismal, as she’d expected. If not for this one appointment, Shanala might not have bothered to show up at all. She watched the people around her, peered through the gaps in their bodies as they slid past each other. The people she expected to see, buying and selling what she expected them to be buying and selling. The basics, the fundamentals. Teas, pills, and tonics in every color of the rainbow. Political pamphlets in another, more serious corner, with the accompanying university boys in their black coats having over-inflated conversations. The preachers and the shamans and the prophets in suits or rags or brightly colored robes depending on their style, ready to pounce on anyone who dared a moment’s eye contact and mostly ignored by everyone who came here to do business.

One of them was wearing a white mask. It was almost featureless, a ceramic oval strapped to the front of the wearer’s face with two slender eyeholes that you couldn’t quite see into. Shanala hadn’t seen this person before, didn’t know what their racket was. She’d figure it out later, if she cared to.

Closest to the door was another man in a suit, but he was no preacher. If you took away the eyepatch and the pink cloth around his collar, you could mistake him for a Parliament representative, but he wasn’t that. The only product he’d brought with him today was an appointment book. Shanala saw Lady Joana’s handwoman came down the stairs and freeze for a moment at the sight of the pink cloth around the man’s neck. He was still for a moment too, considering the handwoman with a lewd smile, and Shanala prepared herself to intervene if she had to. But he didn’t say a word, and only acknowledged the handwoman with a slight nod of his head. Patronizing but not threatening.

The handwoman moved past him and made her way through the packed crowd, politely waiting for the gaps and opportunities that would let her move forward. Shanala locked eyes with her as she moved, projecting a message. She made herself a lighthouse. I will keep you safe, I will protect you. Shanala was not being kind. People spent money when they felt safe, and even more when they were grateful.

The handwoman made it to Shanala’s corner, and Shanala closed the distance so that they were almost touching. She was young for a handwoman, and pretty, with skin like soft, expensive soap. They whispered to each other, and Shanala found herself enjoying the closeness. She steeled herself against it. She didn’t want to give her customer the wrong idea. Even on the slim chance that the handwoman might be receptive, that wasn’t what Shanala was here for tonight.

I wasn’t sure if you were going to make it, the handwoman said, a bit breathlessly. Shanala had another surge of imagination, and again beat it back.

I wouldn’t miss you, Shanala said. You know how much I value your business, and that of your mistress. A bit of flattery in even suggesting that the handwoman’s business and that of her mistress were not essentially the same. Overkill, probably. It was shopping time now.

Shanala took off her jacket with a careful shrug, using both hands to handle the weight. There was a pair of nails sticking out of the wall near the ceiling and Shanala hung a shoulder from each of them. The inside of Shanala’s jacket was lined with pockets, one on top of