Surus eyed the aftcastle up and down. There was an open window in the upper loft. A cable attached to a boat hold looped to the roof. Given that set up, getting to the roof, he realized, might prove feasible.

From the shelter he stood on, he jumped to another one beside the aftcastle. On the aftcastle wall he found a toe hold that allowed him a means to climb to a support panel.

On the panel he had to grip the plank boards and find make do juts and knots as he crossed tippy-toe until he reached an empty container.

After crawling through it, he squeezed into a space between it and the aftcastle. With his back pressed against the latter he made it to the top side of the container.

there, he made a running leap, grabbed an overhanging truss in mid-jump and pulled himself up on the roof.

Surus found the cable attached to a triset of cleat hooks holding another twin set of cables fastened to the back side of the boat. It was clearly there for hauling another vessel. At times excess luggage was carried upstream on small barges.

He surveilled for anyone who could catch his next set of motions. A couple walked the concourse of the second deck below. They were caught up in conversation and they would soon pass.

Surus caught sight of the stone giants, all standing in unison. The Oar Captain stood with his head bent over a book as the other Giants bowed their own heads. It was a liturgy in Imperial written in verse.

No shielding our souls,

Our skalds enthralled us

To an Abysmal succubus

triste most blesséd.

Our judgment, no miréd

jest of gods unmooréd.

The wretchéd we are so named,

on sorrowed soil claimed

By no Lord, but lost forever to all

and afflicted in curséd woe,

We crosséd purposed men of stone.

Those of us deposed

by a weird world turned All-Gloom.

We of the Granulate, we the Ground,

We the Soil.

What of us, the dispossessed,

by those of blood and flesh,

Those that be swept away, by air,

water and fire, drowned forever

in the accumulate mire.

Once, alas, we fall in maelstrom,

pulled down, made Coral

in the sand shoals of Domdaniel

As immortal statuary 'til Day Final.

He halted his actions out of respect for the stone giants in case a misstep occurred on his part. Once their prayer was complete, the Oar Captain gave a short sermon on a god obscure to Surus' reference called the Lord of Days.

After the service was complete the last man on the team began to hand out dinner in little individual pots.

Surus flipped over into the window using the taut cable as his hold. He twisted his body around, lowered himself in while hanging from his fingertips.

The only light he had to help him see bled through the loose boards two feet beneath his boots. It emitted from a room below. He dropped quietly.

A gentle draft fluttered at the back of his neck. He caught sight of the flutter of red tipped wings and he heard feathers ruffle. Surus peeked back.

He could see a perch set above the window. Another perch just behind him where the corvus hawk just had floated down to greet him. The bird calmly stared back into his eyes.

They must have found you… Copacetic.

A cherry wood box sat on a table below the corvus hawk's stoop. The odor of it made its purpose known. Surus opened it. Inside were strips of cured meat.

He took three of the strips out. The fell hawk tore into the meat, hungrily and it devoured the three strips within seconds. Appetite satiated it gave Surus a low squawk; it flew back to the high stoop.

Surus regarded the beast for a moment.

Fell creatures were never calm.

Surus's eyes adjusted well enough for him to make out a hatch down to the floor beneath. He looked around him, the top floor was spacious but far from bare. Pucè kept it well stocked with Jezde accoutrements.

Floral silkened scarves lined the walls decoratively. Engraved beads of bone, wood and ivory hung down from the rafters.

The skulls of large, Condor sized birds graced the four cardinal points. Between the west and North walls, glyphs of incandescent green marked their surfaces.

This area was set up for ritualistic auger.

He smelled the somniferum sympathique rising up from the floorboards. It was replete with a heavy floral spice similar in odor to sandalwood. This explained why the fell bird behaved calmly. Surus realized, as he glanced up into the flickering gold of its eyes, Pucè was staring back at him.

He crept down the ladder. The bottom floor of the loft within the aftcastle was also very much within the highly clustered and colorful style long associated with Jezde culture.

A kitchen and dining room set where aromatics - garlic, onions, shallots drooped down from netted baskets.

A sprawling bedroom spread with linens in bright scarlett's and light pinks hanging on dyed ropes.

A living space and a library consisting of four standing shelves with lamps of twisted glass held in grid latticed brass sat on top.

Her back towards him, she set nude with a hookah between her legs. Her prim hostess suit laid out neatly on a table nearby.

"My sieur, Feiçois, do you know the magic necessary to create the hybrid species, corvus hawk? Two proud aviarian families of ancient lineage.

"The Raider and the Hunter, purposed in nature's scheme most unmutual, but for the manipulations of vitaechemist, a matching of bride and groom quite impossible.

"Yet, there they are, on gracéd wings they glide in the air above as if blesséd by Mother Nature, herself."

Surus quietly crept up beside her and sat. Her eyes appeared vacant and she smiled slightly. Her lips creased at the ends most lovely.

Surus took the fold-out blade from his jacket cuff. With careful but deft attention, he selected a tangled strand of her wolf mane like hair from above her ear and snipped it.

He placed the blade back and placed the strands of hair in a handkerchief and tied the cloth in a twine.

"A fetish," she asked, her voice raised tight and curious.

"I will take great care that it does not land in the hands of any other practitioner of the Art. It will only be used to fulfill my own purposes."

She arched up with shoulders raised as she slowly exhaled smoke and blew it out through the thin arch of her lips.

"Is that payment for your silence, sieur Feiçois?"

He glanced down giving her a once over appraisal. Her body was hard and well-toned. Arms and legs built from limber, knotted muscles, likely she was used to a lot of climbing.

An upper-story cat burglar's body. She likely spent her early years in the guild as part of an entry crew.

His eyes settled on the bruise on her neck.

"Augers are an abomination, but I care not. That is the concern of ardants and beneath a man of the Guild. Your secrets will never part my lips."

"Perhaps then, it is a pity the price you exact could not have been higher."

Surus touched the bruise with his thumb with delicate care. She winced even at that.

"I certainly have no objection to the alternative payment you proffer. It is an exceptional bid you display. However, until there is a proper accounting, I am forced to decline."

She peered up into his eyes. His hand caressed her shoulders not without affection. She looked back down with a grimace.

"You believe I have other secrets very much not to your liking?"

He reached into his vest pocket producing the bag he had found.

"I am sure of it. The person who left that bruise is the same person I extracted this from."

"You must believe I am compromised?"

Surus did not answer.

"I assure you, sieur, all I do is entertain the thug for that somniferum in exchange. Nothing of guild business is ever discussed. He believes me to be nothing more than a gambling hall hostess and a lotus-eater."

Surus leaned back on his elbow trying to convince himself she was telling the truth. She reached over with a nimble hand and handed him a jade studded comb.

Her back arched divinely in the smooth purple hue flowing along her flesh. Her head turned to the side.

Surus was reminded that it was said the Jezde strongly resembled the humans of the far East who were rarely seen west of the D'jestre lands.

From her scalp down to the mid of her arched back he brushed out the tangles in her hair.

"Did you grow up with any sisters," she asked him. "Can you do a proper Midvries braid? No, start over then under, else you'll have me looking like a Ninci matron."

He did as she requested while trying to steer the conversation back to their profession.

"I once told a certain Sgoëthe acquaintance of mine," he began, "that the guild is the most incorruptible institution in the Imperium for a lord's coin was worthless to us unless it was taken from him by force.

"It matters to me a great deal that integrity is kept. So you say that all is happening between yourself and this thug of the Ko Laga is an exchange of rough and tumble for the somniferum?"

Pucè bit her lip. "When the majeur was forced to move his operation out of Nevespora and into Gareen, he overran the local smugglers. I have to get it from them now as it comes through the Nin before it ever reaches the markets of Nevespora where it costs twice as much."

Surus looked around the suite, trying to see it as the thug would have seen it. He looked around for ties to the guild. No counterfeit lenses, inks and tools, lock picks, poisons, stealth garments, frog tongue footwear, cryptographic equipment. Nothing stood out that would give away guild purpose.

She leaned into him to follow his gaze, hard nipples caressed just underneath his shoulder. Her bosom had been well hidden in the gambling den. Made to appear modest under jacket, vest, skirt and banded towel. Bare, they stood out ample and high.

Her eyelids arched evenly and hopefully as she followed his gaze.

"What are you thinking," she asked, her voice a broken tremolo.

"I'm looking for anything that would tie you to the guild. I honestly don't see anything." Surus pointed to the trapdoor. "Has he ever been up there?"

She held her breast between her elbows squeezing tightly. A nervous habit he had noticed before.

"No," she said, shaking her head.

He asked her a question to test her.

"Are there any other members of the guild aboard?"

Pucè hesitated and she looked away. Her eyes distant with desperate cruel thought.

"You are wondering if there is anyone on board with the means to have me truthsworn."

It had not occurred to him, but it was a reasonable deduction on her part.

"I said your secrets will never part my lips, Pucè. I've been truthsworn before, and I don't care much for the practice as it erodes trust. But, please answer my question."

"I'm involved in a guild matter at the moment. The matron in this regard -"

"Ereste?"

"-yes."

"You are pursuing members of the Obisvyrre? May I ask what is that about?"

Pucè was caught off guard by the questions.

"I can't say."

In a disappointed whisper, Surus shrugged.

"I have thought I met this eve a sister I could trust, one for whom secrets will not be necessary. I'll even share with her one more at no expense to her. You must wonder how I obtained that bag of somniferum sympathique.

"The thug was waiting for you, but I surprised him instead, and dropped him into the drink of the Kayili. So you need not worry about him any longer, and I have just trusted you with that admittance of murder. So you see, I am still hopeful I have met a sister this eve."

She gave him a wane smile.

"All right, then, sieur Feiçois. I could use friends in the guild from the other spheres as well." She chuckled and shook her head before continuing.

"To think I had paid Ereste a little fortune to take care of that thug for me. You are correct about our operation. That man you had lost your coin to in the gambling hall earlier this eve in spite of his manner and the look of him is a Ninci noble."

"So, that was Tereth Solugarr? Even as I heard his name, I only faintly made the connection."

"You know him?"

"Never met him until this evening. His daughter though was close in my orbit of friends before she died so very untimely. So, what is so intriguing about him?"

"He heads the Obisvyrre."

"That man?"

She nodded. "I am supposed to follow him when we make land in Gareen. Perhaps, you can help me, by distracting that companion of his. I believe even under all the grifter games she plays she just may very well be in love with you."

I would have never sought you out. Nor never come to know my own kindred brood …

"Pucè, I believe we can come to an arrangement, but I have to be back in Nevespora for a prior engagement."

"To meet with a certain Sgoëthe of your acquaintance?"

Surus tensed up. "How could you possibly know?"

Pucè laughed with glee. The manner in which she squinted made her face rounded in whole. It was a fetching sight unique of Jezde women.

"Relax, my friend, Feiçois. The certain Sgoëthe of your acquaintance, she was in Gareen a few weeks ago, stirring up a fret of talk. Did she send you here to retrieve something for her?"

His back stood up straight.

"You are looking quite stern at the moment. Care to draw on my hookah?"

He shook his head. Pucè continued.

"Look in that desk drawer by the cupboard and you will have your answer. Go on."

As he stood up, she kept speaking. "Mind you, the premium the Ko Laga thugs charge for the somniferum sympathique has me quite miffed, so the last time I made purchase of it in Gareen I looked around the warehouse for a price to extract in return. Guess what I found?"

"An obsidian Usuper's Ducat," he whispered as he lifted it out of the drawer.

"Is that what a certain Sgoëthe of your acquaintance sent you here to retrieve?"

He nodded. He turned the coin over and over. On one side was the image of Izdun. The other side bore the familiar tarot icon of The Groom, but with the addition of a bride who curtsied at his side. It was a Sgoëthe of his acquaintance.

"I'll make you a deal, sieur Feiçois. We'll send that by wingéd courrier to the Sgoëthe of your acquaintance. My Jacinta can find anyone, and you stay with me for the next few weeks and help me sort a few matters out."

She leaned into him and kissed him upon the neck as he nodded along still speechless.

"Help me get dressed. We'll need to meet later this evening. You'll likely be needing a place to stay this evening anyhow. But for now, I need to get back to the gambling hall."

"Back up a moment, I would like very much to redeem your offer, but . . . Need?"

She tapped the back of her collar with her fingers; he straightened the indented cloth to align with a decorative clip with a broach of a damselfly fastened to it.

He chortled as he examined it.

"I am brother to a Damselfly."

"That you are. There is a matter concerning Manny Veering that it surprises me that you don't know."

"I've only heard of that name this very night."

The Jezde tilted her head as she studied him. She then lifted her pants up over her haunches, and motioned for Sulus to button the back folds.

"Yes, and that is what surprises me. Perhaps he goes by another name in your circles, but there is something you need to know that will put a few things in perspective . . ."