Heart of Veridon

by Tim Akers

  I thought about my little encounter. If Lady Tomb knew my purpose, knew I was there on behalf of Valentine, she might have just been trying my steel. Testing the limits of Valentine’s broken monster. Then again, if she was just being a bitch. Well. Maybe I should have thrown her friend off the balcony.

  I finished my drink and went to get another. The sky was changing, clouds stealing away the stars, getting dark.

  THE ZEPLINER BROUGHT the girl, riding hard against the gathering storm. They docked at the same mooring gate we had used and hurried her down the cobble walkway while the zep jerked and bobbed. She was beautiful in the non-specific way common to engram-singers. She was wrapped tight in a black shawl and dress, surrounded by the blue tunics of the Artificer’s Guild.

  Tonight’s performance was to be The Summer Girl. It was an old song, a favorite of the Corps. The original performance had been at the christening of the first zepliner, the awkwardly-named Lady of the Summer Skies. The later exploits of this vessel, nearmyth in the Corps circles, had solidified the song’s place as the unofficial anthem of the Corps. That it was also one of the oldest recorded engram-songs, performed at the earliest cusp of that still-shady technology, added to the mystique.

  From the balcony I watched the zep flee the Heights. Most everyone else had already moved inside. The coming weather gave the air a heavy dampness tinged with electric fire. I went inside before the real rain started. I only had the one suit to my name, and didn’t want it ruined. Behind me the zep dropped rapidly into the valley.

  There was a crowd of Corpsmen at the bar. Their conversation was boisterous, full of laughter and stern opinions. A few of them eyed me, probably because of my earlier outburst with the Commodore. I eyed them back, peaceful-like. When I sat at the bar they made room but ignored me. I got my drink and looked around. Maybe I could find this Prescott guy, or have a word with the Lady that wasn’t quite so full of confrontation. One of the young tight uniforms beside me set his glass carefully on the bar and, just as carefully, knocked it over with his elbow.

  It was clumsy. A clumsy way to start a fight, like he was trying to be clever with his pals. The liquor slithered across the wood, towards me. He turned in mock surprise.

  “What was that about?” I asked.

  “Oh, oh. So sorry, sir.” The boy feigned shock. Just a boy, his Ensign clasp very shiny. “I hope no offense…”

  “Push someone else, kid.” I stood up before the spill got to me, let it cascade onto the empty stool and picked up my glass. “You’ve messed up the Lady’s furniture. Go get a mop and put that Academy training to some use.”

  I went somewhere else, across the room. Heavy walls of water were beating against the glass, the rain mixed with lightning and a hammering wind. I stood by the fireplace and warmed up. My lungs got cold in this kind of weather, I could feel the pistons creaking, the metal chill where it touched bone and skin. I flexed my hands, alternating as I switched the glass from one hand to the next, trying to burn off the anger. I had lost my temper with the Commodore, and that was stupid. I couldn’t afford stupid out here, in this territory.

  “Don’t mind them,” a voice said near me. I turned to find an officer, OverMate, leaning comfortably on the hearth near me. Gray dusted his temples, and his fingers were exceptionally bony. “The young. They’re full of wine and blinded by the polish of their shoes.”

  I shrugged. “You shouldn’t be talking to me.”

  “Pardon?” He became even more casual, almost sleepy.

  I looked him over close. The careful ease of his stance, the remarkable nonchalance of his character.

  “Register Prescott, right?” I asked. He seemed a little surprised, but covered it well. “You shouldn’t be talking to me. Stupid chance.”

  “Like picking a fight with the Commodore. That kind of stupid?” He hissed, keeping his face perfectly neutral. “Stupid, like arranging the meet here?” He waved a hand at the hall of Corpsmen, as though talking about the weather or the crowds. “Half the people here are Corps. The other half are Councilors or the instruments of some. Is that,” he smiled coldly, “the sort of stupid you mean?”

  I looked at him squarely. “I didn’t arrange this.”

  “What?”

  “I didn’t arrange this. It wasn’t my idea.” I took a drink, looked out over the uniforms and evening dresses. “I assumed it was your idea. My contact said you were more comfortable on such neutral ground.”

  “My idea?” He leaned forward, for a moment letting his cool mask slip. “My contact insisted it be here. Said it was the only place you could make the exchange.”

  I snorted. “Fascinating. You probably don’t want to exchange contact names?” He shook his head sharply. “No, I didn’t think so. Finish your drink, Register. Get another and don’t talk to me again.” I met his eyes for a breath. “I’ll let you know when and where.”

  He straightened up, finished his drink and walked away. His face looked like he’d been drinking piss. Maybe that was an act, so he could ignore me the rest of the evening. Maybe he just didn’t like the situation. I didn’t like it, that’s for sure.

  Emily seemed plenty clear that this meet came from outside. Whether that meant from higher in Valentine’s organization, or from someone on Prescott’s side of the deal didn’t matter. It was a bad meet, but it was the meet we had to make. But now I knew it wasn’t the client. Prescott had been forced into this, not by his people but by Valentine’s. And they had told me it was on Prescott’s side. Meaning someone wasn’t being honest, someone didn’t trust. I was being put in a bad position, and I didn’t like it.

  I drank and I waited, either for the show to start or some other part of this increasingly strange deal to fall into place. The show came first. A butler with high, thin hair and immaculate cuffs gathered us up and led us through a stone archway in the hall to the estate’s private theater.

  The place wasn’t big enough. Most estates had a theater, at least the good ones, but they were made for extended families getting together for drinks and a light opera. We were crowded in, the air was hot and even the quiet whisper of such a crowd was nearly a roar in the pure acoustics of the theater. The concert hall was a tight circle, concentric rings of velvet seats terraced around a polished wooden stage. They led her to the center, the frictionlamps bright on her white dress, then several of the attendants busied themselves with the equipment that had been set up next to the stage. There was a young man seated next to me, a child really, the son of some Admiral. He leaned against me, straining to see.

  “What are they doing? Is that the Summer Girl?”

  I looked down at the thin white girl, alone on stage. “No, but it will be. You’ll see.”

  The boy’s mother patted his arm. “His first social affair,” she whispered. “He’s very excited.”

  I nodded. “He understands, right? He won’t be frightened?”

  The boy looked at me with hot green eyes. He shook his head firmly. His mother smiled.

  “Oh,” said the boy, his attention on the stage below. It had gotten quiet around us. “Oh.”

  I turned to see. The Artificers approached the girl with a jar. I leaned forward. The jar was glass, and the dark contents seemed to squirm. The girl closed her eyes and opened her mouth. I could see the furtive coiling of her machine. She had beautiful lips, full and shiny like glass, and they were quivering. I wondered if she was afraid.

  The Master Artificer was a tall man with arms that moved fluidly, like they were nothing but joints. He dipped his hands into the jar and brought out something shiny. The queen foetus. He placed it on the girl’s tongue and then stepped back, along with the rest of the Guildsmen. The girl’s hands fluttered to her throat and she opened her eyes, wide and white. A second later she made a coughing, gasping sound. The boy’s mother tutted and turned her face. The rest of the audience shifted uncomfortably.

  It happened suddenly. The Artificers set down the jar and tipped it over. The swarm spilled out like gli
ttering, jeweled honey, their tiny legs clicking against the wood as they washed across the stage. They climbed the girl and began to nest with her, become her, entering the secret machines that made up the engram. They were seeking their queen and her pattern, the song stitched into her shell and her memory, awaiting birth and creation. The girl shivered, and she became.

  She straightened up, looking out across the audience. I hadn’t seen The Summer Girl performed in some time, since my Academy days, in fact. But there she was, unmistakable. She stood in front of the audience like she ruled it, like these people didn’t exist when she wasn’t on stage, and when she was on stage they existed only to appreciate her. The girl had that stance, her back and chin and shoulders laying claim to the Manor Tomb. The swarm fed on her, rebuilt her before our quiet eyes. Her skin leaked white, her cheekbones flattened and rose, the perfect lips became more, writhing as they changed. She stood taller, her hair shimmered and changed color, cascaded down her shoulders. She was older now, fuller, her hips and breasts those of a woman. The audience was silent, stunned.

  The Summer Girl stood before us, more perfect than she had actually been on that long distant day. She raised an arm to us, nodded to the Lady Tomb in her seat of honor, and then she sang. Perfectly, beautifully, her voice was a warm hammer in my head. This tiny hall could not contain her, the very bones of the mountain around us thrummed with her song. I remember nothing of words or themes, as it always is with The Summer Girl. Just warm glory and peace remaking my heart, flowing through my bones, filling the cramped metal of my heart like slow lightning in my blood.

  When it was over, there was silence. I imagine we would have clapped if she had left anything in us, if we hadn’t been drained by the beauty of her voice. The Girl nodded, again, content with our awe. And then she fell apart, her hair and face crumbling and tumbling down the girl, bits and pieces clattering against the wooden stage. The girl collapsed, trailing thin lines of blood from her proxy body as the shell of the Summer Girl left her. The Guildsmen scurried forward, sweeping up the scraps of miracle, the slowly squirming remnants of the Maker Beetles, helping the girl to her feet. They escorted her off the stage, her hand to her head, her legs dragging between two strong Artificers. Only when she was gone, when the last bit of the Summer Girl had been swept away, could we bring ourselves to stand and applaud the empty stage.

  In standing, my eyes slid across the stage and settled on the darkness, where they had led the girl. There was a man standing there, dressed in the deep blue of the Artificers, though he was paying no attention to the other Guildsmen busy in their art all around him. He had his arms crossed, and seemed to hover in the shadow of the bright lights. His head turned slowly, looking out at the audience. As his gaze passed me I felt a deep shiver of recognition. Cold eyes, the lightest blue, like snow over water. He looked beyond me, paused, then turned his face towards me again.

  He looked right at me. His face was empty, completely slack. Without a word he disappeared from the stage.

  Around me the crowd was still applauding. Just a moment earlier I had been sweating in the close heat of the theater. Now that sweat froze against my skin. I looked around for an exit.

  Lady Tomb was waiting at the end of my row. She was looking directly at me. She nodded and disappeared among the unending ovation. I turned and left the hall.

  Chapter Three

  Words in Metal

  A MAN WAS waiting for me, one of the servants. He introduced himself as Harold, personal attendant to the Lady Tomb. He had high white hair, thin on the sides. He nodded to me as I stepped out of the roaring applause and turned, walking down a hallway, deeper into the estate. I looked around, but no one else left the theater. There must be other exits, though, someplace for the performers to rest and retire without troubling the guests. Harold got ahead of me, so I hurried to catch up.

  Though there were no windows this deep, I could tell it was still raining. The air smelled like water and lightning. The lightning might have been the frictionlamps that glowed along the tight, immaculate hallway, but who knows. The whole place smelled like bad weather. The polish of the dark wood flashed as I walked along it, shinier than silver.

  High and White led me to a parlor, a room carpeted in deep blue with walls of dark wood and old metal fittings. The Lady was waiting, faced away from me. She was still in her black and gray, but in this empty room the get-up looked unnecessarily fancy. The room might have once been a library or shrine. There were walls of shelves and glass display cases on three sides, but they were all bare. Nothing but dust and the Lady. She held a glass of wine and gazed at a plaque on the wall. There was another glass on a shelf by the door, condensation beading on its side and running down the fragile stem. The servant nodded to Tomb and left, closing the door behind him. I took the wine and went to stand by her.

  “Did you enjoy our show, Mr. Burn?” she asked. Her voice was soft, none of the mocking formality from earlier.

  “I did. It was chosen well.”

  She nodded absently. “I thought Mr. Valentine might send someone, eventually. When I saw your name on the guest list, I thought it might be you.” She took a drink of wine and turned to face me. “Is it?”

  “I can’t visit my childhood haunts? Have dinner with some of my old Corps mates? See a show? You offered me an invitation. I accepted.”

  She snorted and looked back to the plaque. It was old brass, set in a stone that had probably been hauled here from Veridon in secret. It was the Tomb Writ of Name. We had one too, somewhere. I hadn’t seen it in years.

  “It doesn’t seem like much, does it? Just metal and words.”

  “Metal, words, and power, my Lady.” I put my hand on her shoulder. “We do many things for that, Angela. We do what we must.”

  She turned her head to me. “So why are you here then, Jacob Burn? Here to visit old friends?”

  For a moment I wished it was true, that my visit was just social, that my invitation had come from her, rather than Valentine. I gave her the music box. She opened it, glanced over at me as the music filled the room. She set her wine down.

  “Well,” she said, quietly. She placed the music box on the shelf by her head and stared at it absently. “Such a thing. Not what I was expecting. I suppose I see why they sent you.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Oh… it’s nothing. A bit of nostalgia. Someone is playing a bit of a trick on me.” She closed the box almost sadly, then turned to me.

  “It is good to see you again, Jacob. Even in these circumstances.” She leaned casually against the plaque, her fingers brushing the ancient metal. “Even if you are on the job.”

  “Good to see you, too. How are things in the Council?”

  “More interesting than they’ve any right to be. You should visit more often. The Families, I mean.” She giggled quietly. “I can’t imagine you wanting to visit the Council sessions.”

  “Not someplace I’d be welcomed, anyway.” I smiled. Angela and I had never been that close, but it was nice to be remembered.

  “Yes, your father. And those horrid factory people, buying out so many of the Families. But I’m glad the Burns have stayed with us.”

  “Well. None of my doing,” I said. She shrugged.

  “Perhaps. Will you be staying the night?”

  “What, here? I hadn’t known it was that sort of party.”

  She laughed again, and years fell away. She suddenly looked overdressed, like a noble daughter in her mother’s finest, awkward.

  “It’s not, not yet. We’ll see how things end.”

  “I can’t stay. Business in the city. But perhaps some other time. It’d be good to spend some time in the country again.”

  “Hm. Yes, perhaps.” She closed the music box and took up her glass of wine. “You’ll forgive me, but I have a party to attend. Um.” She paused as she crossed to the door. “Perhaps you should stay here for a bit. You know, for propriety.”

  “Of course.” I drank from my glass of wine and
nodded.

  She left the room by the same door I had entered. I waited, listening to her tromp down the hallway. I looked again at the music box, shrugged, and drank my wine. When it sounded as though the Lady Tomb had left the immediate area, I nodded my respects to the lonely plaque, left my wine glass on a nearby shelf, and went into the hallway.

  I walked quickly, anxious to make my exchange with Prescott. I was lost in thought, my mind on the strange man in the theater and trying to decide how to make the deal with Prescott discreetly so I could get the fuck off this mountain and back to Veridon, when Harold slipped silently from a side passage and began walking beside me. He was carrying something under his arm.

  “Mr. Burn. Was your meeting satisfactory?”

  “I suppose. I’ll be needing transport down to the city at the earliest convenience.” I wanted to get back to Emily, find out what else she might know about the deal with Prescott. “I need to be in Veridon within the hour.”

  “I’m afraid that will be impossible, sir. The storm has grounded the fleet. Not even our private ships are willing to brave it, sir.”

  “I’ll take a cab. I trust the roads are still open.”

  “Perhaps. But other arrangements have been made, sir. The Manor Tomb has been opened for the evening. The party will be staying the night, to return to Veridon in the morning.”

  “Just arrange the cab.” I turned to go, to find Prescott and make the drop. Harold put his hand on my elbow.