Maya had always thought she’d seen poverty. She and Jaedia had spent much of their time in villages where owning more than one metal pot was considered a sign of wealth, or towns where one failed harvest might mean disaster. Places like Bastion had their slums, where the poorest citizens were packed cheek by jowl into tiny apartments and the human waste overwhelmed their rudimentary sanitation. But this was something else entirely.
“This is as far as I can take you,” the driver called back. “No carriages from here on in. But the market’s just another block up—see the colored tents? Walk that way and you’ll find what you’re looking for.”
“Thank you,” Maya said, tearing her eyes away from the press of humanity.
She got down from the carriage and handed the man three thaler notes. Beq alighted beside her, and the cabbie whistled to his bird, which somehow managed to get turned around in spite of the crowd. They were in a sort of square, a junction of two tunnels crowded with small booths hawking food or liquor. Beq shuffled in close to Maya’s side, nervously, and Maya bent to whisper in her ear.
“You all right?”
“It’s just … a lot of people.” Beq took a deep breath. “I’ll be okay.”
At least no one seemed to be paying them special attention. Maya started moving in the direction the cabbie had indicated and immediately found she could only make progress by shoving. The locals didn’t seem to mind this, and before long she abandoned any pretense at dignity and simply bumped and elbowed her way through the press, checking over her shoulder to make sure Beq stayed with her.
The colored tents the cabbie had mentioned quickly came into sight. They were wedges of tattered cloth that fluttered gaily, like flags, marking the positions of various merchants. Men and women sat on a spread carpet, their wares laid out in front of them, while the crowd milled around and shouted questions.
Maya had seen a similar scene at town fairs across the Republic, but as they neared the first of the sellers she did a double take at the items on display. There were bits of unmetal, crystalline devices both shattered and intact, small globes that pulsed with weird, organic veins, and packets of mysterious powders. Dhak, in other words, a carpet full of dhak, dangerous relics from the Elder world. In the Republic, any one of the items on display would have been enough to justify arrest by the Auxiliaries. Here, it was just one merchant’s wares among many.
Maya had heard that dhak was traded openly in the Splinter Kingdoms—Grace was a notorious hub and base for smugglers—but she hadn’t expected to find a market for it here, on the doorstep of a Republic outpost. She’d been thinking in terms of a back-alley exchange, not a bazaar. No wonder the cabbie didn’t bat an eye when I asked him.
“Look!” Beq said. “That’s a piece of a linear motivator. And I think that one is a lightning conduit, but someone has bent it the wrong way round. And—”
“There’s so much of it,” Maya muttered.
“Even after four hundred years, this area is one of the richest scavenger sites around,” Beq said. “Especially for ghoul arcana, but there’s plenty of Chosen relics, too.”
“Isn’t Raskos supposed to put a stop to all this?”
“We’re outside his jurisdiction,” Beq said. “I suppose he just has to keep watch at the border.” She cocked her head. “My master back at the Forge told me that most of the components we use come from Deepfire. I didn’t understand why until now.”
Of course. The Order needed scavenged components so its arcanists could maintain the weapons and armor of the Legions and create sanctioned arcana. I suppose it has to come from somewhere. Still, the sight of the bustling market left Maya feeling shaken. If Tanax were here, he’d pull out his haken right now and try to detain everyone.
She touched the Thing, feeling its hard, familiar shape, and let out a breath. Stay on task. We need to find out if anyone knows anything about the Core Analytica. Her initial plan of just asking around seemed hopelessly naïve now. But someone must know something—
“—found it up by Green Crag,” the merchant was saying. “There’s a skyship wreck there, though it’s stripped pretty clean, and some tunnel entrances.”
“This definitely isn’t from a skyship,” Beq said. “I think it’s from a hexapod walker. Look, see how heavy the filament is? This had to move some serious weight. And the articulation is wrong for a crane-lift.”
Maya blinked and looked down. Left on her own for a moment, Beq had bent to examine the wares on display more closely and apparently fallen naturally into conversation with the proprietor. That merchant, an older woman with silver hair coiled in tight dreadlocks and elaborate earrings, was looking up at the arcanist with a mixture of puzzlement and respect.
“You know your stuff,” she said, grabbing another hunk of unmetal and crystal. “What about this? I’ve never been able to figure that out.”
Beq laughed. “Now that one is from a skyship. I recognize the design.”
“A weapon?” The merchant sounded eager. “Something to make it fly?”
“No, it’s part of a toilet.” Beq took the piece and turned it upside down. “See the tubes? This is a piece of a water filter.”
The merchant looked disappointed for a moment, then grinned. “Keep that to yourself, hey? I still might be able to find a buyer.”
“Of course,” Beq said. She started and looked back as Maya touched her shoulder. “Oh. Sorry, were you asking me something? I got distracted—”
Maya raised her eyebrows suggestively, jerking her head toward the merchant. Beq frowned in incomprehension, and Maya sighed and took her arm, bending low so the seller could hear.
“My friend had a question for you,” she said. “We’re looking for something.”
“What you see is what I have,” the merchant said. “Come back next week; there’s a few expeditions due in.”
“Have you ever heard of something called a Core Analytica?” Maya said. She pulled a couple of thalers out of her pocket. “I’d be interested in any information you’ve got.”
“A Core Analytica?” The woman frowned. “Just the name. But—” She held out her hand, and Maya handed her the money. “Gero Forktongue was talking about it. He’ll be at his stall just up the street, the green tent. Pay him a visit; maybe he’ll tell you what you need to know.”
“Thank you very much.”
“Thank you,” the merchant said to Beq, with a broad smile. She stared down at the thing in her hands and laughed. “A piece of toilet, eh?”
*
That conversation started a pattern that began to feel very familiar over the next hour. Maya pushed from one stall to the next, with Beq in tow, then let the arcanist start talking shop. Not every merchant was as fascinated as Beq by arcana, but with quite a few she formed the instant bond of fellow enthusiasts, which let Maya cut in to ask about the Core Analytica.
“You’re really good at this, you know?” Maya said as they left behind yet another vendor. “For someone who says they aren’t good with people.”
Beq’s face was flushed. “I’m just … Talking about arcana is easy.”