Silverdun listened. There were at least four sets of boots. "We're to avoid notice at all costs," he said. "We go up."
They hurried up the stairs as quickly as possible, past Tye Benesile's floor and higher. The stairs continued above the fourth floor, but instead of terminating on the roof, they opened onto a low, narrow attic that stretched the entire length of the building. It was hot and close, smelling of dust and mouse droppings, and was cluttered with odd bits of lumber, broken furniture, and the like.
There were voices down below, but Silverdun couldn't make them out. Assuming that the men were after them, they'd be at Tye Benesile's door by now. Tye would do his best to protect Ironfoot, but he was drunk and not particularly bright. It wouldn't take long for them to realize where Silverdun and Ironfoot had gone.
"Now what?" said Ironfoot. It was one thing to have the Gift of Leadership, Silverdun noted, but quite a different thing to lead. Not that Silverdun was much of a leader on his best day. Why had they been picked for this assignment, exactly?
"We want to get out of this building without being seen," said Silverdun, quietly shutting the door to the attic behind him.
There was a small window at the far end of the attic. Weak light dribbled through it and pooled on the floor. "Let's have a look."
Downstairs there was a crash and another shout, this time of someone in pain. Tye Benesile?
Silverdun and Ironfoot moved carefully, picking their way through the tiny attic. Batlike creatures slept in the exposed rafters. They wriggled when Silverdun brushed up against them. The going was painfully slow as they wove their way through the narrow space, trying to be as silent as possible.
Now there was more noise on the stairs, and pounding from beneath them. The men were knocking on doors. Silverdun and Ironfoot were nearly to the window now.
The door to the attic crashed open. A pair of Annwni guardsmen peered into the attic. They were armed with short swords, and wore dark blue uniforms with black leather helmets and boots. Silverdun and Ironfoot crouched down, but there was nowhere to hide.
"There!" shouted one. He ran toward them, shoving a broken chair aside.
Silverdun ran toward the window and tried it. It was locked, but the lock gave with a hard shove. He opened the window and looked out. It opened directly onto the cul-de-sac below, a forty-foot drop with nothing to break the fall. On the street, five more guardsmen stood at the entrance to the building.
"I think doing this silently is going to be quite a lot more difficult now," he said, turning back around.
Ironfoot already had a knife out. He hurled it at the guardsman in front, and the point found its mark in the Annwni's throat. The man dropped without taking another step. Silverdun bent, took a knife from his boot, and heaved it at the remaining guard. The man raised his hand reflexively, and the knife lodged in his palm. He screamed, but it was more a scream of rage than pain, and he kept coming.
Ironfoot was already moving, running toward the guardsman. He reached the other one first, the one he'd killed with his thrown knife. Rather than jump over the man, however, he bent down and removed his knife from the guard's neck with a fluid motion, then raised it just as the second watchman leapt at him, Silverdun's knife still lodged in his palm. Ironfoot made a brutal upward jerking motion and the second watchman went over his shoulder and crashed into the wall.
All of this happened in the moment it took Silverdun to catch up to him. By the time he reached Ironfoot, both watchmen were dead. Ironfoot wiped his knife on the leg of one of the dead men and handed Silverdun's back to him, still slick with blood.
"I imagine someone heard that," said Silverdun. He looked down at the fallen watchmen. "To hell with Jedron and his advice on swords," he said, taking the closest one's blade. It was light and unbalanced, but it was sharp. That was fine; there wasn't going to be a lot of finesse required in the next few minutes.
"Suit yourself," said Ironfoot. He held onto his knife.
Now there was more noise on the stairs. Silverdun led the way out of the attic, his heart thudding in his chest. It had been a long time since he'd last killed anyone. The Battle of Sylvan, in fact. Over a year ago. His heart was pounding and his palms were beginning to sweat, but it was also familiar and, frankly, a bit of a relief to be in action.
There were four men on the landing, and they ran straight at Silverdun and Ironfoot without preamble. As soon as Silverdun engaged the first of them, he realized his mistake. It was difficult to swing a sword in such a narrow space, and he was forced to resort to jabbing with it like a tiny spear. His opponent had the same problem, of course, but his opponent also had three friends.
Ironfoot, however, did not have this problem. He flitted past Silverdun and took the second man on the stairs, dodging his blade. Once Ironfoot was inside the man's guard, he was able to use his knife freely. His opponent was down in an instant, and Ironfoot shoved him roughly backward, tripping up the man behind him.
Meanwhile Silverdun managed to take out his own opponent with a lucky thrust. He pushed his man aside and followed Ironfoot. Against the two of them, the last of the guardsmen didn't last long.
The noise of the fight, however, had drawn the attention of others, and now three more appeared below.
"Why so many?" asked Silverdun. "Two upstairs, the four we just did, five on the street, and now these fellows?"
"Worry about it later!" called Ironfoot. He lunged at the man closest to him, who appeared to be in charge. But this one had apparently earned his promotion, because he sidestepped Ironfoot's lunge and smashed him hard on the back of the neck with the hilt of his sword as he went past. The men behind him grabbed Ironfoot but didn't kill him. Interesting.
Silverdun turned to run back upstairs, but there was a man above him as well. Well, one was better than three, even if fighting from below. He jumped up and immediately tripped on one of the men he'd just killed. As he fell forward, his opponent chopped down, flailing.
And lopped Silverdun's sword hand off at the wrist.
Silverdun watched it happen, trying to reel backward, moving as if through water. There was no pain at first, just shock. Blood, deep deep red, flowed thickly from his wrist. Silverdun couldn't remember ever having seen blood so thick.
Without thinking, Silverdun reached with his left hand and lashed out with witchfire, the simplest bit of Elements he could muster. He hoped, at best, to blind his attacker momentarily with a flash of flame.
Instead, the narrow stairwell exploded with heat and light. The man in front of him was incinerated. He fell, twisting and smoking, in front of Silverdun.
Silverdun turned and looked down. The watchmen's leader hesitated on the landing below him, his sword at the ready. Silverdun let the re well up in him again, but there was none. He'd used it all in that one burst. Impossible. Using every bit of essence in his body in an instant ought to have killed him.
The pain from his wrist finally figured out how to reach his mind and he gasped in agony. He stumbled, fell, tried to stand. A fist connected with his skull and he dropped, unable to move. He was still awake, but his arms and legs wouldn't respond. There was quite a lot of swearing; Annwni had interesting swears, thought Silverdun.
In mounted combat, it is preferable to shoot the rider out of the saddle. Sometimes, however, it is easier to put your arrow in the horse, and just as effective.
-CmdrTae Filarete, Observations on Battle
ela had her maid Ecara dress her in a simple gown; today she fancied herself a free-spirited girl, waiting-maid to a Duchess, perhaps, or a guildsman's daughter. Regardless of how she felt about Lord Tanen, he had certainly taught her many things, and one of them was how to fit in just about anywhere. It didn't matter if she didn't know a thing about the kind of woman she was pretending to be. It all came to her as she went along. She watched the dance of the colored threads that spread among those around her and simply danced among them.
Life in Lord Everess's household was both more and less pleasant th
an she might have imagined. Everess was rarely at home, and that was fine with Sela; she found the man's company ever less pleasant the more she knew him. But she was lonely. For so long she'd been used to her fellow residents at Copperine House. They were strange and damaged, but they were known. Her only regular company was Ecara, and Ecara wanted only to please her, and so had begun to grate on Sela's nerves.
After that first night at Blackstone House, she'd assumed that her new life was starting, finally. The air smelled of possibility as she rode in the open carriage back to Lord Everess's apartments. But that had been days ago. And in the interim, she'd heard nothing except for Everess's assurances that she ought to enjoy the peace and quiet because it wouldn't last.
To occupy herself, she thought about the ways in which she could kill Lord Everess using only the objects readily to hand in the apartments. He was so fat and soft that there were a plenitude of options. The quickest way: silver filigree letter-opener plunged deep into the eye socket. Instantaneous. The most painful: tie him down in the parlor, start a nice fire, heat the poker just the perfect shade of red. Eyeballs, then tongue, then anus. She had learned that one when she was thirteen. And then there was the way that she'd killed Milla. And the doctor.
Oh, Milla. But she wasn't real. No, Milla wasn't real. The doctor wasn't real. It was all pretend. All pretend.
Take a deep breath. Don't think. Good girls don't think: They respond.
Anyway. She much preferred Paet to Everess, and wished that she could live with him instead; he was simple and straightforward. He had known pain, deep pain, and that connected them by a thin black thread, even if Paet didn't realize it. She'd asked Everess whether she could move in with Paet, and Everess had laughed as though she'd told a funny joke.
It was all so confusing sometimes.
And Silverdun. Oh, my.
At Copperine House there had been a very wealthy actress named Starlight, who'd been the recipient of a bad Ageless treatment. She never aged, true, but her mind was lost in time, and she never seemed to know what day it was. In one of her more lucid moments, she'd talked to Sela about love. Love was what made everything else worthwhile, she said. Passion, romance. To hold and to be held by a strong, handsome man, to be enveloped in him: That was the best thing in life.
Sela hadn't had the faintest idea what Starlight had been talking about. She knew about love, of course. She saw the threads of love spun between others; those threads were bright, bright colors: red and orange and gold, sometimes fiery, sometimes only glowing. But Sela had never experienced that sort of love herself. The only person she'd ever loved had been Milla. And that had been something different altogether.
When she came downstairs, Paet was waiting for her in the parlor. Lord Everess was nowhere to be seen.
"I have a task for you," he said.
"Oh, thank you," said Sela.
Lord Tanen has a gift for Sela. She is ten years old and cannot remember ever having received one. It is small, wrapped in cotton paper, tied with a real silk ribbon. He sits her down in her bedroom and puts the box on her dressing table.
"Open it," he says. "Today is a special day."
But she doesn't want to open it. The wrapping is so beautiful and the suspense so exquisite. She looks at Tanen, but his expression is, as always, impossible to read. He simply stares at her until her fingers reach for the bow.
"Is it my birthday?" she asks.
"No. You do not have a birthday."
Inside, her heart is swelling. Is this how it feels to be cared for? She remembers her parents, but she's been warned many times never to think of them, so she puts them out of her mind. She pulls delicately on the bow, and it comes undone with a soft slipping noise, barely audible.
The paper is smooth, its folds perfectly straight. Once the ribbon comes off, the paper unfolds itself and lies flat on the table, revealing a silver box.
"Open it," says Tanen. With trembling hands, she does.
Inside is a tiny figure of a swan, made of tin, painted blue. There's an even smaller tin key. She picks up the swan, holding it gingerly in both hands, turning it over.
"Oh, it's lovely," she whispers. Should she give him a kiss on the cheek? In books, when a father brings a daughter a lovely gift, she kisses his cheek. But Tanen is not her father and has told her so many times.
There's an opening in the swan's back. Tanen points to it. "Put the key in there and turn it. Hold the wings down while you do so."
The key fits perfectly in the swan's back and she turns it, the wrong way at first, then properly. As it goes around it clicks, the way the clock in the hall does when the maid turns it. She is not allowed to wind the clock, and she has always wondered how the clicking must feel. It's even better than she imagined; the mechanism inside the swan offers the perfect amount of resistance to her touch.
"Don't overwind it," scolds Tanen. "You'll break it." She stops, nearly letting go.
"Now place it on the table and watch."
When she lets go, the swan begins to flutter its wings. It bounces on the table, once, twice. Then it takes flight, shaky at first, then more certain, turning in wide, lazy circles near the ceiling.
Sela laughs and claps her hands. She watches, rapt, as the swan dips and sways and finally comes to rest on the dressing table, just where it started. Its wings flutter a few times more and then stop.
"May I do it again?" she says, reaching for the key.
Tanen places his hand on hers. His touch is cool, his skin dry. He takes the swan and drops it on the floor, crushing it under his boot. He points. "Pick up the pieces," he says.
Sela wants to cry, but knows that if she does then one of the crones will punish her. So she kneels and picks up the swan's remains: impossibly small gears and springs and a spiral of metal that burns to the touch.
She places the pieces gently on the table before her. She should have known. She should never have let herself believe that there would be kindness. Only Oca was kind, and then only when no one else was around.
"Some people," says Tanen, "are like this swan. They are not real. Not elves, but machines. Carefully crafted, they appear to be just like us. They speak and cry and bleed, and their insides are not gears and springs but flesh and bone, ingeniously created by our enemies."
"How will I know which is which?" asks Sela, breathless.
"I will tell you. I will point them out to you."
"And then what?" Do not cry. Do not cry.
"And then you will stop them, just as I have stopped your swan. The swan feels nothing. It is nothing. It is only a clever machine."
"Some people are clever machines," says Sela.
"Yes," says Tanen. "And nothing more."
"You said today was a special day," say Sela, remembering.
"Yes, indeed I did. The crones tell me that today is very important."
The crones have told her about this. They have told her that it is the beginning of a great change, that she will have to be ready. They feel her fore head several times a day. They place strange instruments on her belly and back and listen intently to them. This morning, she remembers, one of them lifted her head and said, "It's time."
"Stand up and come with me," says Tanen. "I want to have the crones examine you again."
She stands and realizes that it is warm and wet between her legs. Something thick is running down the inside of her thigh. She steps back, nearly tripping over the leg of her chair. On the floor are three drops of blood in a perfect triangle.
She feels dizzy. "What's happening?" she asks. "Am I dying?"
Tanen smiles, the first time she has ever seen him do so. His smile makes her more nervous, not less. "Quite the contrary, Sela."
He takes her face in his hands and looks hungrily at her. "Today your life has finally begun."
The city at night, after a rainstorm, was a glittering wonderland. Kerosene lamps and witchlights twinkled on rain-glazed cobblestones. Distant thunder from the retreating storm rattled beneath t
he tip-tip dripping from eaves and the muted slap of boots on wet stone. Here in the alley, earthy smells and human smells and dank smells and chimney smells mingled into an aroma different from all of the others, the after-rain smell.
The dress Paet had given her was constricting and uncomfortable. He'd given her scented powders for her skin and hair, and painted red circles on her cheeks. She hated it.
She knocked on the door at the end of the alley. "What do you want?" came a muffled voice from inside."
"Bryla sent me, she did," said Sela. She was talking in Ecara's accent, the way common city Fae talked.
The door was opened by a sullen stump of a man with thick arms and legs and silver tips on the points of his ears.
Midwinter 02: The Office of Shadow Page 21