The Song of the Dead

by Carrie Patel

  The Flying Prison

  The inspector in Malone couldn’t help but admire the Glasauge. As a police officer, she realized that few prisons were more effective than one floating hundreds of feet above the ground. Even while her hosts insisted she wasn’t a prisoner, she had no place to go, and no choice but to trust them to bring her down safely.

  Yet while Malone the cop commended it, Malone the captive abhorred it. She hated knowing that she was suspended aloft by nothing more substantial than bags of air, and her knees wobbled every time she remembered that there was no solid ground under her feet, only wood and metal and a vast expanse of empty space. She hated the way her stomach lurched when she looked out the window, and she hated even more that everyone else on the Glasauge could read her weakness.

  But worse than being carried away from Recoletta in a floating prison was being stuck in it with Lady Lachesse.

  Yet to Malone’s astonishment, the old whitenail didn’t seem to mind the airship one bit. Malone would catch her sitting in the aft lounge – where metal-ribbed windows curved from the floor to the ceiling, angled down over the landscape – staring out as if she were regarding nothing more than a pretty picture.

  A couple of days had passed since her aborted execution, but she’d spent most of them in the cabin Geist had assigned to her, hiding from his men, from Lachesse, and from the oppressive reminder of her own vulnerability. Dominari Hall had been stifling, and the few days she’d been there as interim governor, she’d ached to get out, to bury herself in the investigative work she knew and loved. Here, however, she felt even more trapped, with nothing to do and nowhere to go.

  So when she roused herself and went to wash up, she gasped at what she saw in the mirror. The wound under her neck had puckered into a red, blistered scar. Her neck still ached, and the mark on it stood out on her pale skin like a brand. More surprising than that, though, was everything above the scar. Her hair was a tangle of greasy clumps, and her skin was pasty. Malone had never been vain about her appearance, but she hardly recognized herself.

  She poured some water into the basin and splashed it onto her face, combed it through her hair. After several minutes, she almost looked like herself again.

  When Malone opened the door, Lachesse was standing in front of it, waiting.

  “Finished?” she asked with an arch of her eyebrow.

  “All yours.” Malone shouldered past her and headed back down the hall.

  “I’m not talking about the washroom, Inspector,” Lachesse said. Malone kept going. “I’m talking about your moping. Hiding.”

  Malone stopped. Her hand was already on the door to her cabin, her mind on the rest she might squeeze from the hard cot.

  “You’ve been in there two days, Malone.”

  She turned the knob. “Then I’ll see you in another three.”

  Lachesse clucked. “I wouldn’t have thought the woman who survived her own hanging could be defeated so easily.”

  Malone knew it was bait, but it stirred her up all the same.

  “Have Geist dangle you over the side by your neck. Then we’ll see how you feel.”

  Lachesse fluttered a hand. “Yes, I know you’ve been recovering from your ordeal,” she said as though they were talking about a head cold rather than an interrupted execution. “And I’ve seen the way you clam up at the first sight of a window. But you’ve shut yourself in that room because you failed and you can’t stand to face it.”

  Malone had never punched anyone as old as Lachesse, but if she wasn’t still worried about Geist tossing her overboard, she would have been sorely tempted to do it now.

  “You left Recoletta almost as broken as you found it,” Lachesse said. “You were endowed with the governorship of the city…”

  The old woman lied as easily as most people breathed, but even for her, that was incredible. Malone took a step toward her. “You installed me because you needed a scapegoat.”

  The old woman laid a long-nailed, ring-bedecked hand over her chest. “A scapegoat for what? You brought trouble on yourself when you released a known traitor.”

  “I had to get Lin and Arnault out of the city as fast as possible. And without some farce of a trial.” The recent memory of her own stung more than she would have expected.

  Lachesse smirked. Malone realized her mistake.

  “Yes, well done,” the whitenail said. “Even after seeing the unrest that had built for months under Sato’s rule, you still couldn’t quell the dissent brewing right under your nose.”

  “I didn’t know Lin would publish that story!”

  A crewman flattened against the side of the corridor to squeeze past Malone, his too-tight uniform pressed against the wall so cleanly that he never touched her. Lachesse maintained a tranquil silence as she waited for the man to pass.

  “You might have if you’d talked with her,” Lachesse said as the crewman disappeared around a corner. “Instead, you used every excuse you could find to go sleuthing around the city, avoiding the political responsibilities with which you’d been entrusted.”

  “I never wanted to be a politician!” Malone said. Her voice felt loud and painful in her throat, but Lachesse was ignoring how little control she had actually had. And how much responsibility Lachesse herself had for engineering the situations that had led them both here. “I never claimed to be good at it. You foisted this on me because you needed a distraction. A spectacle.”

  Lachesse blinked back at her, as cool as ever. “So?”

  “So?” Anger burned in her aching throat. “How can you blame me for–”

  “Because it was your responsibility, Inspector Malone. You helped bring Sato to power. And then you helped topple him. You don’t get to walk away from either of those things just because the cleanup wasn’t on your terms. Of course I ‘installed’ you as governor. I told you – people look to you, whether you like it or not.” She scoffed. “And whether you deserve it or not.”

  Malone’s argument dried up on her tongue.

  Lachesse pressed on. “You make excuses for yourself as if you’re the first leader to ever take charge of an angry and broken people. Yes, your job was to distract and placate Recoletta while I made these deals you find so distasteful – deals like the one that kept the Qadi and her allies from invading. And perhaps if you’d worked with me instead of turning your nose up, you might not have failed.”

  Rage boiled up in Malone, as bracing as a steaming hot bath. “I failed?” she said. “I killed the madman who would have left Recoletta in ashes. I forged peace with the farmers who feed our city. I made your little deal with the Qadi and her allies possible.” She pulled at her collar to expose the scar on her neck. “I survived you. And I’m not done yet.”

  Without realizing it, she’d brought herself almost nose to nose with Lachesse.

  The older woman smiled with feline satisfaction.

  “That’s the spirit, Inspector.” Lachesse turned down the corridor, heading toward the observation lounge. “Now, if you’re ready to keep fighting, come with me.”

  Malone stifled her annoyance and followed. She was starting to realize that she wasn’t tired anyhow.

  Their deck – with cabins along either corridor, a mess at one end, and the lounge at the other – was fairly quiet most of the time, when the majority of the crew was on duty elsewhere.

  So Malone was glad that there was no one to see her tense up as she entered the lounge and laid eyes on the floor-to-ceiling windows, the glass spiderwebbed with black iron cames.

  “Sit, Malone.”

  She realized with a start that Lachesse was already across the room, nestled comfortably enough in a padded chair next to the center window.

  Another chair sat empty across from her.

  Malone clenched her hands into fists and began the long walk over to it.

  It felt like the slowest she’d ever walked in her life. As irrational as it was, she couldn’t stop imagining that the malevolent forces of gravity would reach through the
window and pull her out of the ship. And yet trying not to think about it only lodged the thought more firmly in her mind, so she focused on the one horror that, perhaps, disturbed her more: the idea of giving Lady Lachesse the satisfaction of her discomfort.

  By the time she sat down across from the whitenail, her clenched fists were clammy with sweat and her legs were shaking. Whether it was fear at the view or fury at Lachesse for forcing her to endure it, she didn’t know.

  And Lachesse herself only sat there in companionable silence, as unruffled as if they were back in her office in Recoletta.

  “It was never personal, you know,” the whitenail finally said. She was still gazing out the window – Malone wouldn’t have even been sure the woman was talking to her, except there was no one else in the room.

  “Easy to say when you were the one holding the rope,” Malone said.

  “I know you think I’m a corrupt, amoral, and heartless old crone with no love for anything but power.” She smiled thinly. “I suppose that must make it easier for you.”

  Malone knew the old woman was waiting for her to ask the follow-up, and while she didn’t want to play into her script, it gave her something to think about other than her fear.

  “Easier how?”

  Lachesse contemplated the view for several long seconds, making Malone wait for her answer.

  “Easier for you to see yourself as the hero.”

  Malone stared at the empty lounge. Her stiff bunk was starting to seem appealing once more.

  Lachesse sighed. “It’s just a picture, Malone. And you can make up any story you need about it.”

  It took Malone a second to realize that Lachesse was talking about the view again.

  “What’s yours?” Malone asked.

  “That I see farther than anyone in the history of humanity. And that this is all I will see if Roman Arnault falls into the wrong hands.”

  Malone steeled herself for a glance. What she saw surprised her so much that for a moment, she forgot her fear.

  A brown waste stretched out below them for miles. Malone couldn’t see a single patch of color – no trees, no grass, no water.

  “Where are we?” Malone asked.

  “South and west,” Lachesse said, as though that explained it. “Geist believes Roman would have fled this way, away from Recoletta and the allied cities.”

  “I told him it’s Lin he’s chasing,” Malone said. If it were up to Arnault, he’d likely have been holed up in some dive in the factory districts.

  “Perhaps you should remind him,” Lachesse said with a sidelong glance.

  The fear was creeping back, but it was of a different type. It was the fear an animal instinctually feels at seeing death, the frantic buzz that still crept into Malone’s mind whenever she saw a corpse.

  And this was a corpse of the land. Hills rose and fell like mounds of dead flesh, ruptured by craters like bullet holes. Rocks and blocks of carved stone – or something like it – littered the landscape like shattered bones.

  “What happened here?” Malone heard herself ask.

  Lachesse shrugged. “The Catastrophe.”

  At that moment, the stairwell just outside the lounge thundered with rushing feet. Lachesse glanced toward the commotion with disdain.

  “Flying ships and uniforms that look like badly fitting pajamas,” she said. “One wonders what the situation on the Continent is really like.”

  Malone realized she hadn’t been wondering about that enough. Nor had she been paying enough attention, because the old whitenail seemed entirely too pleased with herself.

  “You know something about the Continent,” Malone said. She might still be following Lachesse’s script, but it didn’t bother her as much now.

  Now, she had questions that needed answers.

  Lachesse, meanwhile was transforming into a different woman. A much smaller, younger one. “I thought they were just stories.”

  “Tell me,” Malone said.

  Lachesse took a deep breath, like a thousand troubled witnesses before her. “It was something I heard a long time ago, from a man who had recently arrived in Recoletta. At the time, anyway.” She licked her lips. “He mentioned someplace very far away, on the other side of the sea, where people lived very differently. In a way similar to how they had before the Catastrophe.”

  “Before the Catastrophe? What does that mean?”

  Lachesse shrugged with her eyebrows. “I wasn’t certain, and my companion didn’t offer to explain.” She paused. “There was a generous quantity of wine involved.”

  “Who was this companion?”

  “Augustus Ruthers.”

  It was the confession more than the fact that surprised Malone. After all, Lachesse and Ruthers had run in many of the same circles, and Ruthers had been a relation of Arnault’s. It seemed only natural the story would lead there. “How did he come to tell you something like that?”

  The whitenail gave her a mischievous smile. “We were intimate.”

  Malone hid her surprise behind pressed lips. Perhaps she should have seen that coming too.

  “As I said, this was long ago, when we were still young enough to boast to our lovers. He had arrived in Recoletta less than a year prior, and he quickly proved himself an ambitious man of uncommon means. At the time, I assumed he was simply eager to make and impress new connections.” Lachesse flashed a sly smile. “Not that I minded.”

  “But you said you didn’t believe him,” Malone said.

  “In my experience, the more impressive the tale, the less of it is true,” Lachesse said. “But he never raised the issue again, and I couldn’t coax another word of it from him. I made no assumptions about it until young Roman Arnault and his parents arrived amidst rumors they had also come from beyond the sea.”

  “And what did they say about it?” Malone asked.

  “Absolutely nothing. And they made no greater association with Ruthers than anyone else in our circles, so I hardly thought of the matter again.” Lachesse cast her eyes toward the door, as if expecting someone there. “People move between cities more often than one might think, but rarely without dire need. Yet when they arrive with the kind of resources that Ruthers and the Arnault family had, one learns not to ask questions.”

  It was a bare story, and hardly worth the time it took to hear it. Yet Lachesse had deemed it worth telling, and the woman’s restless movements and darting eyes told Malone she was afraid of something.

  And she was waiting for Malone to ask the right question.

  “What do you think we’ll find on the Continent?” Malone asked.

  Lachesse smiled again. “That’s what we’ve got to find out now. But first, we’ve got to help our host find his fugitives, or we may wear out our welcome.”

  Malone could agree with that much. Besides, Jane Lin would have to answer for what she’d done in Recoletta.

  She took a longer, steadier look out the window. She saw the dead landscape now without the fear sinking its claws into her heart.

  There was no way Jane Lin would have traveled out here.

  “Where are you going?” Lachesse asked.

  “To tell our host he’s chasing the wrong person.”

  * * *

  Malone was searching for Geist when she found Phelan – or rather, Phelan found her. Malone had found herself able to understand Geist and a few of the other crew members when they spoke slowly and carefully, but Phelan was still a blur of awkward smiles and syllables.

  Which was a shame, because Phelan seemed to be the one person on the Glasauge who didn’t press herself against the wall just to avoid contact with Malone.

  But Phelan understood her just fine, so when Malone asked for Geist, she found herself escorted to the mess hall and plied with caffee. Perhaps the one thing Phelan didn’t understand was how much Malone loathed the stuff.

  But Geist appeared a couple of minutes later, his oversized uniform rumpled. “You are coming aus of your cabine? Goot. You must be ameliorating.” He
gave Malone a professional smile and sat across from her, waiting.

  “Yes,” Malone said.

  “Goot. Because I am requiring your assistance. We voyage days, and yet.” He spread his hands in the direction of the window behind her and gave her an imploring frown. “I am stark hoping you are comprending something new.”

  For a man who barely found his way to the end of a sentence, there was nothing subtle about Geist.

  “That’s the tricky thing,” Malone said. “While we’re looking, Lin and Arnault are running. And the radius of places they could be grows wider.”

  Geist turned his caffee cup in one hand and stared back at Malone with hard, flat eyes. “Ya.”

  She was enjoying this more than she would have thought possible. “The problem is, I don’t know where they are.”

  Geist’s upper lip twitched, yanking his cheek and its crooked scar along with it.

  “But I can point you to someone who probably does.”

  He blew out a sigh of relief. Or maybe exasperation. “Recount it, please.”

  “We’ve got to go to the farms.” Jane had passed through them on her first clandestine trip from Recoletta. They’d be a natural and necessary place for the pair to rest up, resupply, and orient themselves. And if Jane and Roman had indeed made any stops, Salazar could almost certainly find out about it.

  Geist’s expression fell. “Farms?”

  Surely even the Continent had these. Malone tried to think of how to describe a farm to someone who didn’t know the word. “Big open spaces. Lots of surface land, big views of the sky. They provide our food and other raw materials.”

  Geist was clutching his hands together, his fingers quivering and wiggling like spiders’ legs. “Absolutely no.”

  “What?” Malone asked. Two days ago, he’d been willing to try anything, to fly untold distances just to find Roman.

  “These farms, they are seeming very insalube. Of mal hygiene.” He squirmed and wrung his hands as if he were trying to wash himself of the very idea.

  Oddly enough, his attitude wouldn’t have been at all out of place in Recoletta – or any of the underground cities – where grass-stained trousers or sunburnt arms ruined reputations. In Recoletta, the unsavoriness of the outdoors was something of a superstition, but with Geist, it was more.