by Anthony Ryan
“No point in stopping, dearest,” he said, taking her by the elbow. “There’s no help to be given and none to be had, not in here.”
Were you always so callous? Lizanne wondered. The musician was the only inmate she had met so far to display even a basic level of compassion or civility. She assumed he owed his continued survival largely to his skills, the Electress appreciated the value he could bring to a clientele mostly devoid of music. But she also knew his presence here indicated a dark past, for there were no petty criminals in Scorazin. She had resisted the temptation to simply ask what crimes had seen him confined within these walls, such things were ever a touchy subject for a convict.
Makario guided her to a roof-top where they could watch the unfolding ritual. He scaled the listing wall of a hollowed-out shack with a skilful alacrity that reminded Lizanne of Clay and made her wonder if the musician’s path to Scorazin might have lain in burglary. The distribution of supplies proved to be an orderly if protracted affair. The ore was placed in a dozen large iron buckets waiting at the base of the citadel walls, each one attached by chains to a crane jutting out from the parapet above. Teams of constables hauled the ore aloft then filled the buckets with a commensurate amount of supplies. According to Melina, a number of smaller additional sacks would be included amongst the overall haul and swiftly pocketed by the constables in return for adding a few luxuries to the pile: soap, tobacco and narcotics being the most common. Lizanne had surrendered her full copper chit for a bar of scented soap and a comb.
It took the better part of an hour for the Verdigris to complete their exchange whereupon Chuckling Sim raised his antique hat to the constables and led his people away, hand-carts piled high with bounty. The Furies were next and Lizanne soon formed the impression that Electress Atalina was deliberately prolonging the affair, scrupulously inspecting each consignment before it was hauled up and making sure Melina made a careful note of every item received in turn.
“She’s really bringing him to the boil this time,” Makario observed, nodding at King Coal, whose complexion now resembled an unripe beet-root. He stared at the Electress with fists bunched as the Wise Fools grew more fractious, grumbles turning to shouts as time wore on.
“She does this every time?” Lizanne enquired.
“Only since Kevozan ascended to kingship. Her way of testing his mettle, and he’s failing.”
It took another quarter hour before the dumpy king finally boiled over, face stoked to a scarlet hue as he burst out, “GET A FUCKING MOVE ON YOU POXED-UP OLD SOW!”
Silence reigned in the aftermath, Kevozan standing in quivering rage whilst the assembled Furies fanned out behind the Electress, hands disappearing into the meagre clothing to clutch knives and cudgels. The Scuttlers bridled in turn, massing behind their king in readiness. The Electress, however, betrayed scant sign of alarm, merely glancing over at Kevozan in bland acknowledgment before returning her attention to Melina’s ledger.
An angry growl rose from the Scuttlers as Kevozan took a step forward, then stopped as a rifle bullet shattered the muddy cobbles a yard to his front. Both King and Scuttlers froze, all eyes snapping to the Citadel as a loud voice swept down from above. “Remember what day it is!”
Lizanne soon recognised the source of the voice: Constable Darkanis, standing atop the parapet with a bull-horn raised to his mouth. On either side of him a platoon of constables had lined up, rifles at their shoulders and trained on the crowd below. “Keep it civil!” Darkanis continued before aiming the bull-horn at the Electress. “You’ve had long enough, Eighty-Six! You’ve got ten minutes to get the rest of your ore up here or you don’t get another bean!”
The Electress responded with a graceful bow and soon the exchange was proceeding at an accelerated rate. When it was done she led the Furies back along Sluiceman’s Way, walking past a still-glowering King Coal without a glance as she chatted with Melina. There were some catcalls and insults exchanged between the two gangs but, with the rifle-bearing constables still watching, the simmering violence failed to erupt.
“Not much more to see now,” Makario said, getting to his feet and offering Lizanne a hand. “We’d best get back. She’ll expect us to lend a hand unloading the ale.”
Lizanne took his hand and rose, pausing as her gaze swept over the Miner’s Repose and well-honed instincts sounded a warning bell in her head. “He’s gone,” she murmured, eyes lingering on the stacked ale casks.
“Who?” Makario asked.
Lizanne tore her hand away and started across the roof-top at a run. “The man with the missing fingers.”
She sprinted to the edge of the roof and leapt. With Green in her veins it would have been an effortless jump, but in her current state she barely made it to the next roof, her midriff connecting hard with the edge and legs dangling as she clung on. She grunted and hauled herself up, running across patchy tiles towards the next building. She could see the Electress up ahead, less than thirty feet from the piled casks. Lizanne forced more speed into her legs and leapt again. Fortunately this gap was shorter and she landed on her feet, rolling to absorb the shock. She was only a short distance behind the Electress now, the casks barely twenty feet away. The next roof-top was too steeply sloped to run across so this time she landed painfully on her rump before sliding down the tiles to the street below, landing squarely atop the Electress’s shoulders. The big woman staggered but proved too substantial a person to collapse under the additional weight.
“Get down!” Lizanne shouted before performing a back-flip and sweeping the Electress’s legs away with a round-house kick.
“You two-faced little cunt!” the Electress roared, glaring up at Lizanne with baleful promise. Lizanne threw herself across the large woman’s head and shoulders, covering her own head with her arms, eyes closed tight and mouth open to spare her ears.
The explosion was larger than Lizanne expected, accompanied by a blast of sound that seemed to cut through her from head to toe. A wave of heat swept over them a split-second later, accompanied by a swarm of splinters from the shattered casks. Lizanne rolled clear of the Electress as the heat faded, swatting at a flame on her sleeve and scooping water from a puddle to smooth through her smoking hair. All around her people lay on the ground, most pierced with splinters or blackened with flame, some still, others writhing. Fortunately the ringing in Lizanne’s ears spared her the screams.
Anatol came lurching towards her out of the lingering smoke, face pale but for the blood streaming from a cut to his brow. He held a large cosh in one hand and a curve-bladed knife in the other. The grim purpose in his gaze made Lizanne crouch in readiness, her hand going to the sheathed knife at the small of her back. Anatol’s advance halted as the Electress rose between them. Lizanne couldn’t hear the order she gave but it was enough for the body-guard to return his weapons to the folds of his coat. The Electress turned to regard Lizanne, face expressionless. She had a large splinter embedded in one meaty shoulder but exhibited no sign of pain as she considered her saviour. Lizanne could almost hear the gears churning in her head. How did she know? Was it a ploy to gain favour? Should I kill her and have done?
Finally the Electress grunted and turned towards the Miner’s Repose. She paused for a moment to take in the sight of the shattered windows and blackened timbers before striding towards the entrance on steady legs, waving for Lizanne and Anatol to follow.
• • •
“The Scuttlers,” Melina said. She used scissors to snip off the thread trailing from the final stitch in Anatol’s forehead, then traced an affectionate hand over his mis-shapen face before turning to the Electress, face and voice hardening. “It has to be. We should kill every one of those fuckers.”
The Electress sat behind her desk, a large blood-stained bandage on her shoulder and a cigarillo poised before her lips. There were a dozen extinguished cigarillos in the ash-tray on her desk and she barely seemed to hear Melina’s words
, heavy brows drawn in thought as she smoked.
“It was too clever,” Anatol rumbled, sinking back into his chair and smiling thanks as Melina passed him a cup of brandy. “King Coal hasn’t the wit for something like this.”
“Julesin might,” Melina replied.
“Julesin’s a killer to the core, true enough,” the body-guard agreed. “But not a bomber. A bomb requires a whole other set of skills.” His gaze flicked to Lizanne. “Skills an insurgent might possess.”
“She was with me the whole time,” Makario spoke up. He sat in the corner fiddling with an old viola, occasionally plucking a discordant note from the strings. “Besides,” he added, nodding at the Electress, “I think she demonstrated her loyalty well enough.”
“There are other revolutionaries in this city,” Melina pointed out. “Wouldn’t put it past the Learned Damned to hire themselves out for the right price.” She looked at the Electress expectantly, suppressing an annoyed grimace when she received no response. “I’ll take a dozen lads round to that manor of theirs,” she prompted. “See what they know.”
Electress Atalina’s eyes flicked to her, narrowing in dismissal, holding the stare until Melina took a step back from the desk. The Electress stubbed her cigarillo into the ash-tray before fixing her gaze on Lizanne. She had been instructed to sit on a small couch resting against the wall, too far away from the window or the door to offer a swift escape. “How’s your ears?” the Electress asked.
“Not so bad I can’t hear,” Lizanne replied.
The Electress stared at her for a long moment, gears still grinding behind her eyes. “So,” she said finally. “What do you know?”
“There seems to be a dearth of timepieces in this city,” Lizanne said. She said nothing else and the puzzled silence lasted several seconds.
“So?” Melina demanded.
“It was timed,” the Electress said.
“Yes,” Lizanne said. “I imagine the constituent ingredients for an explosive compound aren’t hard to accumulate within these walls. Sulphur and charcoal would be easy to come by. Saltpetre would be more difficult but there are alternatives, dried bird shit for example makes for an excellent oxidiser. However, the scale of the blast indicates a bomb-maker with extensive experience and expertise. As does the use of a timing device.”
“Which would require a clock,” the Electress said.
“Or the skills to make one from scratch.”
Lizanne watched the Electress exchange glances with Anatol and Melina.
“He wouldn’t,” Melina said, Lizanne noting the defensive note in her voice. “He’d never hurt a fly, you know that. More likely, someone slipped the constables an off-the-books sack in return for a pocket-watch.”
“Which would attract attention,” the Electress said. “After all, who’d spend so much just to tell time in this pit?” She switched her gaze back to Lizanne. “Still haven’t told us how you knew.”
“Burns on his face and fingers missing from his left hand,” Lizanne replied. “Hazards of the bomb-making profession. My guess is he designed the device and mixed the powder, but he would need help to adapt a timepiece and connect it to the detonator.”
Melina stiffened a little, stepping closer to the desk. “Electress . . .”
“I’m not rushing to any judgements, Mel,” Electress Atalina told her. “But, at the very least, I think you should have a little chat with the young fellow.” She returned her gaze to Lizanne. “Take our new employee, see what she makes of the Tinkerer.”
CHAPTER 19
Clay
“So you really saw it?” Scrimshine asked, one of many questions he had voiced over the preceding hours. The revelation of their purpose here had left the old smuggler’s weathered features drawn in fascination, as well as engendering a bothersome curiosity.
“Yeah, I really saw it,” Clay muttered in response, eyes fixed on the seam between the ice and the spire. He had wandered this section of the base a dozen times now, pick in hand, finding no sign of anything that might be called an entrance.
“And drank its blood?” Scrimshine persisted.
“That too.”
Clay crouched and chipped away at the ice with the pick, chiselling out a small depression in the surface. Hilemore had already organised his sailors to hack out a deeper hole on the spire’s south-facing side, getting down to five feet before he called a halt. So far, all their efforts had revealed no way into the spire and no clue as to its origin. Steelfine had tested the surface of the structure with a few hammer-blows, leaving no impression except on the hammer. Attempts to chip out small pieces for close inspection proved equally fruitless. Whatever material had been used to construct the spire was far beyond their knowledge or experience.
“How’d you manage that?” Scrimshine asked.
“I shot it.” Clay gave a small grunt of frustration and got to his feet. “It didn’t die.”
He sighed out a foggy breath and raised his gaze to the top of the spire, seeing the stars twinkling in the darkening sky beyond its pointed summit. What are you? he asked it, once again churning over the alien images in his head. During the journey here he had assumed the fulfilment of his vision would uncover a plethora of answers, a trove of enlightenment to banish his perpetual confusion. Instead, there was only this vast monument, which he increasingly felt was somehow taunting him with its indifference.
He lowered his gaze and trudged back to the camp. Steelfine stood at the stewpot, overseeing the evening meal whilst the rest of them huddled around their fires. The cold had worsened since they got here and Scrimshine was of the opinion that they had perhaps one more week before the chill became severe enough to force a return journey. Although their respective professions made them a hardy bunch, it was clear the party was beginning to succumb to the depredations of the climate. Eyes were bright with a weariness that bordered on exhaustion and their movements exhibited an increasingly sluggish lethargy. Loriabeth was by far the worst off having been reduced to a near-immobile state, swaddled in thick layers of clothing and rarely venturing far from the fire. Judging by the persistent shudders that wracked her and the increasing gauntness of her face Clay was unwilling to wait another day, never mind a week.
“We have two barrels of powder,” Hilemore said as Clay slumped down next to the fire. “Blasting our way in seems the only viable option.”
“Powder won’t even dent that thing,” Clay replied, accepting a bowl of stew from Steelfine. He gulped down a few mouthfuls before meeting Hilemore’s gaze. “We got only one real option now, Captain. I think you know that.”
• • •
“How much can you tolerate at one time?”
Clay took the flask of Red from Hilemore and removed the stopper. They had five flasks altogether, enough to power the Superior’s engine for a full week at maximum speed. “Don’t rightly know,” he said, raising the flask to his lips and taking a large gulp, quickly followed by another. He staggered a little as the product slid into his belly then immediately began to spread throughout his veins. Miss Lethridge possessed plenty of knowledge about how drake blood affected the body but he hadn’t felt any particular need to ask her to share it, something he now had occasion to regret. “Guess we’ll find out.”
He forced down another gulp, then focused his gaze on the semicircular depression Hilemore’s sailors had hacked at the base of the spire. He unleashed the Red slowly at first, the air misting with steam that billowed high before being caught by the wind. The cloud drifted off to the left for a few yards then turned to snow, piling up into a sizable drift as Clay continued to melt the ice. By the time he had exhausted all the Red in his body, the depression had deepened by at least ten feet and widened to twice its former width.
“Still nothing,” Hilemore said, peering down at the revealed surface of the spire. Clay saw that ice had already begun to form on the rising pool of melt-
water at the base of the depression and once again raised the flask to his lips, draining it completely. “Best get a chain of buckets going, Captain,” he told Hilemore. “I’m guessing this is gonna be a long day.”
They worked in relays for the next hour, Clay melting the ice then pausing to let the sailors bail out the melt-water. After three flasks he began to feel decidedly woozy and found his focus slipping, Scrimshine scuttling away amidst a babble of profanity when Clay’s heat-stream strayed from its target to singe the toe of his boot.
“Alright,” Hilemore said, reaching out to steady Clay as he staggered. “That’s enough for now.”
Clay shook off his hand and moved to the edge of the depression. It had grown into a smooth-sided bowl some fifteen feet wide and at least twice that deep. “Still got a few drops left.” He slid down to the bottom of the bowl then crouched to peer at the spire beneath the ice. It was less opaque now, rendered glass-like by the heat, and he could discern the way the spire broadened the deeper it went. Also, another dozen feet deeper from where he crouched, he could see a dark circular shape in the spire’s surface.
“We got something,” he called over his shoulder. “Bring me another flask.”
• • •
Clay was ready to drop by the time night began to fall. Using up so much Red so quickly drained his energy at a faster rate than the cold, but he refused all entreaties to stop. It took another two flasks to burn his way down to the upper edge of the circle he had glimpsed through the ice. It proved to be a deeply recessed and, judging by the curve, perfectly circular interruption in the otherwise featureless surface of the spire. Clay could poke a hand through the gap between the ice and the edge of the circle, but the interior proved too gloomy to make out any detail.