by B.Y. Yan
shadow of the Long Wall. Outside of that ancient bulwark, the dead sentinel of a bygone age, the carriage came to a stop for a quick bite before properly leaving the city premises. The page was swiftly dispatched for sandwiches, and a good, hardy drink was shared between the driver and his two fares before the campaign resumed, moving onwards into the country.
As the remains of the Long Wall fast receded away behind the carriage and the heavy congestion of city traffic soon gave way to the commonplace riders and pedestrians of the urban countryside, Bailey stuck his head out of the cab window, managing a last long glance at the shambles of broken mortar and half ruined battlements which had for hundreds of years before kept out the enemies of the nation. He returned to the cabin with a complacent, considerate look.
“So that is where he strings them up,” he said to Breakerfast, seated opposite of him.
“Who, my lord?”
“Your Lynchman’s Owl.”
Breakerfast’s face reddened visibly and he blew out the side of his mouth. “There was a mark on our record, sir! I will give you for that black year when the fiend roamed free and unchecked through our neighborhoods no one was at ease, and it seemed disaster was to be found at every turn. Why, he nearly gave the old chief of police hernia, and our Lord Viceroy and Governor-General turned to the drink—even more than usual—on his account. It was then that he started his opium habit, or dug himself deeper into it, I forget which, becoming an even greater beast than he was already, all just to relieve of the stress caused by his nemesis.”
Bailey leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped thoughtfully before him.
“But I understand some of your people have come to regard him as something of a beacon of hope in their misery.”
“Ah! In that you are mistaken, my lord,” Breakerfast replied. “For though it is true some have forgiven him for his ways, they are far fewer in number that you know. Mostly northerners such as yourself or others living far away from our fair metropolis, having only second hand stories and outright heresy to go on, have been quick to lionize him as a folklore hero. In truth he is nothing of that sort. His methods are brutal, his judgment questionable, and his actions barely more defensible than those he has maimed in the name of his own justice. At its barest he is a murderer, and you will find it difficult to sympathize with that sort. We do not know why he did most of the things he did, only that the pieces he has left behind in his wake have led to as much sorrow as vindication for his misplaced efforts. Everyone here, my lord, is more afraid of him than they are grateful, and you will find it a hard sell indeed for anyone to convince them otherwise.”
“I thought he was a supernatural creature, your bought of bad luck from providence for the sins of men.”
Breakerfast laughed, “So you have learned something in those alehouse inquisitions, my lord. But I do not subscribe to that line of thinking myself. It was nothing more than a madman, a deranged creature of ill-humors and misdirected wrath. But he must have been only a man in the end, a mortal soul and nothing more.”
“And no one has ever come close to learning who he was?” asked Bailey of him.
“Three chiefs of police have tried, and House Mandalin spared no effort, for it was as much of a stain on his reputation as a public official as it was an attack on his immense pride and ego. He who was a tyrant to his family and subjects was rendered so impotent by a lunatic prowling about rooftops. But in the end they all came up short.”
“And this hunt, this feud lasted for years?”
“Just one as I have said, my lord. But it was a black one indeed, for the city drew tight around itself like a man bracing against a blow he was not prepared to withstand, and every morning people awoke to gruesome news.” Breakerfast leaned forward in his seat with a squeal of leather beneath him. “Just between us, sir, he set us back a decade in the span of fifteen months. From the outside looking in it may have seemed like domestic troubles, but the alarm was raised over the entire region all along the coast, and there was real talk of emptying the city to get to the bottom of it by New Year’s.”
“You are certain this was the work of one person?” Bailey asked skeptically.
“Well it should not have been, for the matter was much too large for any one man to shoulder. Truly what began as vandalism might have grown soon into something approaching a movement in its own right, and nobody could properly say how many there were by the end of the year, or for the years after. It’s only that we have no more people hanging from the Long Wall we have come to associate with the end of his prowling. And as that occasion is marked by the fire and sinking of the Olgessian it became the running hypothesis that it was the Owl’s last mischief. If you ask me it could not have come sooner, my lord, for by then the city was suppressed in suspicion, and the only out is to shoot everybody on sight and let a higher power than ours dictate who is to be redeemed and raised afterwards a Saint, and who is to be irrevocably condemned as a Sinner.”
It was a bad joke to make, but one which, having done a marvelous round in the late days of the Owl’s reign, swiftly became commonplace as an outlet for the people’s frustrations. Bailey sat grim faced in deep thought while the patrolman laughed at his own affront to Church and the Gods, until the sullen silence of the former penetrated the desensitized ears of the latter, and Breakerfast’s chortling fell away into false coughs to mask his embarrassment. Thankfully by then they had arrived at their destination.
Such was the reach of the city that even an hour’s drive outside its old walls could not properly distance them from its vast holdings. They were like travelers trying to escape the insides of a monstrous dragon which had swallowed them whole, and having finally made the long journey from its gullets they now stood leaning against one of its teeth as it yawned, offering but a fleeting look at the wider world outside while being washed in its scents with every labored breath. They could see what would have been parklands and hunting preserves years past, taking in at a glance regal old farmsteads dotting the once verdant hills, but also the scores of shanties which had sprung up between them like tenacious moss and fungi between the branches of a tree. It resembled mostly rural slums, if such a term can ever be applied, with a great square located at the center filled at the moment with colorful tents of all shapes and sizes. The carriage drew up alongside the entrance.
The door was opened and held by the page scampering eagerly from the back of the cabin as the horses were being reined in. Bailey was led out on Breakerfast’s arm. The man awaiting them there approached briskly, stuck out his hand and introduced himself as du Gale, who was in charge of the ongoing investigation. He wrung the hand of his illustrious guest most graciously, but paid little importance to Breakerfast by his side and neglected at all to greet him.
“It is a personal honor to receive you, my lord,” said he to Bailey, “though I’m afraid I cannot welcome you, for this is the dark underbelly of our city that you have found yourself in, and I am loath to show you around if not for your specific request to be present.”
The patrolman gave his man away, and Bailey took hold of the inspector’s offered elbow. They walked together arm in arm with Breakerfast nipping at their heels like a loyal hound, stepping lightly around sleeping beggars laid out like misshapen logs against the corners of dilapidated houses. Crossing over a police line into the square, with the unseen eyes of voyeurs trained on them at every step from the darkened narrow space between window shutters, the situation was much explained along the way.
“I’m sorry your journey takes you to Eaves,” du Gale was saying to Bailey with a hint of embarrassment. “It is a low place, and a forgotten county of the glittering metropolis spires you have left behind. Our wealth lies in the east, our noble heritage in the west, but it is in the poor north and especially the trampy south that we may find some answers if you are looking into the works of criminals. We may have our man already, and that is why I have called you here.”
“Who was he then?” Bailey asked.
“His name is Gasper Palm. I have him as an employee of the Circle of Wonders. For you see we have in abundance our shares of vagabonds and drifters, in addition to a class of serfs in the Eaves who derive their entertainment from jugglers, magicians and acrobats of the lowest order. The Circle, which is widely travelled up and down the Coal Coast, has been in town for months and our man apparently a strongman of some repute in its employment. I would have had the whole truth of the matter on a plate, but in deference to your interest, sir, I wired down the line immediately once the investigation bore fruit, and we will question the manager of the troupe together. Normally this is a bustling hive of villainy that men of higher birth or better knowledge seldom visits, but today I have arrived with a contingent of riflemen on loan from the 2-26th, where my brother is a senior sergeant, and we shall have total dominance over the place. Here we are, my lord. Here we are.”
Inside this forest of tents there was one that was by measures larger and more colorful than the rest. And it was to this place that du Gale led Bailey, holding aloft a flap for him to enter before following inside after him. The flap was