Black Sun (Between Earth and Sky, #1)(72)

“A commemorative ribbon?”

Naranpa turned to find a woman, clearly a shopkeeper, asking. She held out a narrow band of red string. The same one that half the market was wearing. On a whim, Naranpa took it. She tied it to her arm and then reached into her bag to retrieve a handful of cacao for payment.

“Only one,” the shopkeeper said with a smile as she plucked the desired number of beans from her palm.

“I’m looking for someone,” Naranpa ventured. “Perhaps you can help me?”

The woman looked doubtful, but she glanced at Naranpa’s plain but clearly expensive clothing and nodded.

“A local boss. He may go by Denaochi.”

The woman had looked amused before, mildly indulgent, but now her expression went flat. “I don’t want any trouble,” she said, taking a step back.

Naranpa hastily reached into her bag and pulled out more cacao. “I don’t, either. He’s a… relative,” she said, improvising. “And I’m visiting from out of town. My mother promised his mother that I’d call on him.”

The shopkeeper gaped. “He’s got a mother?” She made the sign to ward off evil. “No, sir. You seem kind enough, but I wouldn’t go seeking him out.” Her mouth seemed to twist, as if she purposefully was avoiding saying his name. “He’s not who your family thinks he is.”

Sir? It took a moment for Naranpa to remember how she was dressed. She grabbed the woman’s hand before she could move away. She pressed the cacao into it. The shopkeeper’s eyes widened. It was probably more than she made in a season.

“I promised.”

Finally, the woman nodded. “Second level, gambling house called the Lupine. He’s known to frequent it. Has his ringers fleecing gulls at the patol table.” She flushed. “You go, and if he wants to be found, he’ll find you.”

Naranpa nodded.

“Don’t mention my name, or this shop!” she added hastily. “I don’t want his eye on me.”

“Of course not,” Naranpa murmured.

Now she had a lead, and a solid one at that. Iktan was right; it wasn’t hard to find her brother if someone wanted to look. Had she really been that naive to think she was so severed from her past? The thought both comforted her and depressed her as she made her way down the winding path to the switchback that led to the second level.

She found the Lupine easily enough. A windowless roundhouse built into the cliff wall, only the front half of the circle visible from the street. On its whitewashed wall was the painting of the eponymous tiered purple desert flower. Patrons had to ascend a ladder to enter from a trapdoor in the roof, much like the ceremonial roundhouses of the districts, but this one in the Maw was decidedly secular. A large man squatted at the entrance, a war club resting in one meaty hand. He eyed Naranpa as she climbed the ladder.

Here was the test. The reason she had chosen to dress in a masculine style. She knew the gaming houses were often segregated and hoped she had made enough of an effort to pass. As she reached the roof, she kept her head down and lifted her purse to show that it was heavy with cacao.

The man took in her disguise, and his mouth turned down, unimpressed. But then his gaze traveled to her full purse. With a half-hearted grunt, he opened the trapdoor to let her pass.

She peered inside but couldn’t see much. A powerful waft of rich tobacco and fermented cactus beer hit her full force, and she swayed. She caught the big man grinning and steeled herself to the task at hand.

She took the ladder rungs one by one until her feet hit the stairs that circled the inside wall. She stopped a moment to orient herself. Below were male voices raised in conversation. Already there were crowds gathered at the gaming tables. Boys, and she suspected a fair number of girls dressed like boys, ran between tables, carrying food and drink and wagers back to the bosses. The bosses sat on a balcony overlooking the whole room hidden behind a cloud of smoke.

The balcony was where she would find her brother, but she wouldn’t get up there without an invitation. She needed to draw some attention, and the best way to do that was to start winning. She knew the game favored in here and in every gambling house in Tova was patol. She hadn’t played patol since she was a dedicant playing for chore duty, but she remembered the rules well enough. It was a game of luck, and risk, and she’d always had both on her side.

She took a deep breath, straightened her spine, and sauntered down the steps of the Lupine.

She had to pick a table, and one that answered to the right boss. But which would be her brother Denaochi’s in this place? She weaved through the room, looking for something that would give it away. And then she spotted it, and knew it for her brother’s domain immediately. A table marked by a rough drawing of an eagle hanging from a noose, its eyes turned into crude X marks. It was crass, and no doubt controversial, which sounded like Denaochi, too.

She picked the dead-eagle table closest to the center, the resin lamps bright around the board. Two men played, one pale-skinned and chestnut-haired, a foreigner, no doubt, likely from the trade cities to the north. Her old skills for spotting gulls came back to her as she sized him up. His clothes were a few seasons out of style. His hair was too long around the ears compared to the others in the hall. She guessed that he was a tourist, or a tradesman in town for some business, come to the gaming house to catch some local color. Naranpa imagined that the man had planned to drink a few rounds of beer, try his luck at the gaming tables, and, after losing a little cacao, probably head topside to a moderate but respectable travelers’ inn to sleep off his adventure.