by Frank Tuttle
I tried to take the luminous sphere away from Buttercup, but she did a little banshee hop-step and appeared all the way across the room.
“Oh, calm down, finder. Trolls could blast the House down around us, and we both know the banshee wouldn’t suffer a hair out of place.”
Gertriss handed me a cigar, and a flame appeared in her hand.
“Boss. It’s all right. Tell us what you’ve been up to. And what’s that you’re holding?”
I sucked in a long draw of very expensive tobacco.
“This is the stuff of Lethway’s nightmares. Evis, I’d like to keep this here. But before we get into that, tell me about the celebration.”
“The House agrees that blowing up the bluffs is cheaper than fighting a new war. In fact, they’re pulling out all the stops.” He leaned forward, his dead eyes almost gleaming. “We might actually make this work. I was hoping for grudging support, at best. I had no idea they’d hand me the keys to the treasury.”
“Good way to get on the Regent’s Yule list, keeping his city nice and intact. If it works, you’re heroes of the realm. If it fails, oh well, money will be the least of everyone’s problems, won’t it?”
Evis laughed. “Money is never the least of any problem. But look here, Markhat. Remember when I said it would take us a week to get the wagons and the gunpowder up the Brown?”
“I remember.”
“They’ve a got steamboat,” said Gertriss. Her eyes were wide, and I wondered how many of those tumblers of brandy Evis had offered her. “It’s amazing, boss. You have to see it.”
“A steam what?”
“Another line of research the House pursued during the War,” said Evis. “It’s a shallow-keeled, flat-bottomed boat. Burning wood heats water. The hot water turns to steam. The steam drives an engine. The engine—”
“Oh bloody hell,” snapped Gertriss. She grabbed my arm. “Boss, the thing can go upriver. No sails. No oars. No pulling it with chains and donkeys. You just point it north and feed it logs and it goes. Fast.”
“How many of those drinks have you finished, young lady?”
She shook her head violently. “Three. But I’m not drunk, boss. Evis, how fast did you say it could go?”
“Eight knots. Ten if she’s pushed, and she will be.”
“For how long?”
“The whole way. With luck. The steam engine is not without its problems. But our engineers say she’s ready. The House has issued its blessing. We set sail in two days, finder—steamboat and barges and gunpowder and all.”
I finished my brandy in one quick gulp. It burned all the way down.
“You’re serious.”
“Dead serious. Pardon the pun. We have a navy, finder. Hurrah for Encorla’s Irregulars. We fight on land and sea.” He lifted his glass. Gertriss did the same, and they clinked together, and vampire and partner drained their glasses.
“And this steamboat of yours can do ten knots, day and night. That’ll put it at the bluffs in, say, two days.”
“Less. But say two.”
“Hauling enough gunpowder to level a few thousand tons of solid rock.”
“We’ll be towing that on a barge well behind us, but yes.”
“Just how big is this thing, Evis?”
“Huge,” said Gertriss.
“She’s a two hundred and ten feet from bow to stern. Forty-two feet wide. Her draft is only six feet, under a full load. We’ll be seeing four. She’s down at the docks now, getting prepped. The paddle-wheel is under wraps, but it won’t be a secret much longer.”
“No sails.”
“None at all.”
“Did you think to add a couple of cannon?”
Evis froze, face blank.
“Angels and devils, finder. No. No, we didn’t. But we will. We will.”
Buttercup squealed. She was rolling her ball across the floor, where it trailed a twisting nimbus of light.
It reached an empty spot on the floor, and then it stopped, wobbled around for a bit, and rolled back to the little banshee—on its own.
I held out my tumbler for a refill. Gertriss obliged, filling her own glass as well, and chuckling at some secret joke with Evis.
I stayed for quite a while, drinking and smoking and plotting. I laid out my day with Fields, my plan to loosen Lethway’s clenched jaw, my hope that Mama would put a stop to any further hexed visitors before one of them put a stop to me.
All the while, I watched Buttercup play a spirited game of roll the glowing magic ball with a playmate who wasn’t there while Gertriss made googly eyes at Evis and he taught her how to blow a passable smoke ring.
Some days are just strange that way.
I didn’t see the steamboat, that night. Evis offered to take me, but a couple of glasses of his aged brandy left the weight of my day dragging me quickly toward sleep.
He did convince me to spend the night under Avalante’s roof. I didn’t relish the thought of a strange bed, but for all I knew half a dozen irate Sprangs or a pair of Lethway’s bully boys were waiting by my door. I couldn’t have fought off an assault of determined laying hens, and I knew it, so in the end I allowed myself to be domiciled in a guest room slightly smaller than a city block.
They even had a fancy bath with hot and cold running water. I managed to clean myself without being scalded or drowned, and after that I slept the sleep of the truly weary.
Being surrounded on all sides by vampires troubled me not at all.
Morning in Avalante feels like midnight. The halfdead are bleary-eyed and grumpy, disheveled and weary in their tailored clothes. Even taciturn Jerle was jovial by comparison.
I shared a sparse breakfast with the day folk cleaning staff. Their talk was of the trouble heading Rannit’s way, and was mostly filled with wild speculation concerning the Regency’s plans to defend the city and whether or not they would accept Avalante’s offer to take in the human staff and their families, should war reach Rannit’s gates. Most were only too eager to seek refuge beneath Avalante’s walls. A few planned to ride it out close to the Brown and flee by boat, barge and bathtub should the Regent fail to win the day.
Afterward, I went to see Gertriss and knocked, but after a long while she threw a pillow at her door and told me in rather harsh terms to go away. I heard Buttercup giggle once, but she never did more than that.
Evis was long abed. I stopped by my borrowed room and sat on the feather bed and plotted out the day. I’d need to find Pratt, and set a time and a place to corner Lethway. I needed to swing back by my office and see if it was surrounded by hillbilly thugs. And I hoped I could pay Master Sergeant Burris another visit—I might not have Darla’s keen eye for accounting fraud, but I could certainly take her a fresh box of old records to inspect, if the Sergeant could be persuaded to let his precious files leave the Barracks.
I hauled myself off the feather bed and headed out, availing myself once more of a sleek Avalante carriage. I bade the driver to swing by the docks before we crossed the bridge. I wasn’t sure, but I guessed that Evis’s steamboat was being made ready on the Hill side of the River.
I was right. Finding such an odd craft wasn’t hard, and my carriage was waved on past a makeshift barricade after a scowling dockmaster checked my name against his list.
I can always count on Evis to pay attention to details.
I left the carriage right by one of the three wide gangplanks that spanned the sluggish waters of the Brown and led onto the deck of the steamboat herself.
Being a landlocked Rannite, my familiarity with watercraft is mostly limited to barges and fishing tubs. I’d probably know what a mast was, if I saw one. And I could likely pick out a mainsail from a bed sheet three times out of five.
So when I say Evis’s steamboat looked more like a wedding cake than a ship, please take that statement as the opinion of one wholly unfamiliar with either subject.
But there you have it. Her hull was simply a shallow, flat oblong with a slight bow at the front and an enorm
ous cylinder lined with long rectangular paddles at the rear. Sprouting up from this shallow hull was two stories of white gingerbread festooned with windows and doors. A balcony ran the circumference of the upper decks. Chairs and benches were scattered about it, behind an ornate iron rail.
Amidships, two enormous white cylinders rose above it all. I recognized them from Evis’s description as the smokestacks through which the exhaust of the steam engine was routed. Someone had painted a face on the front of the forward smokestack. It had angry eyes and an open toothy mouth.
The whole craft smelled of wet paint and fresh-sawn pine. A gang of men swarmed over her, furiously painting decks and bulkheads and her other assorted nautical bits with thick white paint. The painting crew exchanged shouts and curses with an equally frantic crew of mechanics with urgent business wherever the painters were working. Through it all lumbered ogres with armloads of split wood, which they hauled into the depths of the steamboat.
Neither painters nor mechanics raised their voices at the ogres.
I decided to keep my landlubber boots firmly on the docks. I did walk the length of the craft, paying special attention to the odd contrivance at the rear. The tarp Evis had mentioned was nowhere in sight. I could see how the paddlewheel might propel the boat forward. What I couldn’t discern was how such a heavy assembly was going to turn at all.
Men shouted. Smoke puffed from the smokestacks. The puffing became a billowing, and from deep within the vessel, a deep thump-thump-thump began to sound.
With a screech and a groan, the paddlewheel turned. The first revolution was slow, so slow I was sure Evis’s mighty boat was destined to remain moored at that dock forever.
But the next turn was faster. The paddles bit into the water with great wet slaps. Spray flew.
The steamboat began to pull against her moorings.
The next turn, and the next, were faster still. The spray of water became a furious downpour. The thumping of the engines became a roar.
The dock began to tilt and groan.
A mighty blast issued from the smokestack, a whistle made loud as thunder. Mechanics and painters alike cheered and waved their tools.
Then the turning of the paddlewheel slowed, the dock settled level and the troubled waters began to calm.
“I’ll be damned.”
An ogre turned and looked at me.
That was the first time I’ve seen an ogre wide-eyed.
“It’s called a steamboat,” I said to him. “Burns wood to make steam. Nothing to it.”
The ogre rushed away.
I stayed a few more moments. Long enough to watch two men paint her name across the bow. Evis hadn’t mentioned a name.
The Regency. Nice touch of political flattery. Suddenly the angry face on the smokestack made perfect sense.
I clambered back in my carriage and headed for my side of the Brown, while a small army of painters and mechanics and oddly subdued ogres made the Regency ready for war.
Much to my relief, the only stranger idling by my door was one of Mama’s street kids, a hard-eyed ten-year-old named Flowers.
He rose and stretched while I bade the driver to wait.
“Got something for you, mister.” He proffered a grubby envelope, along with his empty palm. “Mama said you’d pay two coppers.”
“Mama said nothing of the sort. She’s already paid you or you wouldn’t be doing this.”
“Awww. C’mon, mister. One copper?”
I fished in my pocket. “Done. Now hand it over.”
Copper and envelope changed places. The envelope bore Mama’s familiar scrawl, and I wondered how the devil she’d managed to get a letter back to Rannit so quickly.
I’d have asked Flowers, but he was away, heels and elbows pumping.
I stuck the letter in my jacket pocket and unlocked my door. I stepped aside as I opened it, just in case clever persons inside sent crossbow bolts whizzing toward the sudden sunlight.
They did not. Three-leg yawned atop my desk. The layer of flour I’d left just inside the door was undisturbed.
I closed my door quickly behind me, shook some food out in Three-leg’s pan and then settled into my chair to read.
Boy, began Mama’s letter. I reckon you’re all done being mad. I hope so. What I done is what I had to do, and ain’t nobody can do it but me, so I left. Tell your vampire friend Evis that fancy house of his ain’t locked half as tight as they thinks.
I’m back home. I’ve set a fire in my fireplace and my cook-stove. The Plegg House is lit and lived in, and I tell you, boy, that shook folks up a might, and then some. There was some that thought the Hog name was done hereabouts. There ain’t so many of them now.
I ain’t been here long, boy, but I’ve learnt a few things. First off, that Sprang boy what the ogre threw is going to live. He ain’t right in the head and he’s got a limp, but I reckon he wasn’t right to begin with so that ain’t much of a loss. There was a couple of other dunces that lit out of here swearin’ they was gonna get some vengeance on you and my niece. They ain’t been heard from again. Not that anybody is particular worried. They wasn’t held in much regard, save for being drunks and pig thieves. I reckon it’s a mite easier to hex the weak-minded into charging off to Rannit on some fool’s errand.
Next, this here hex-caster I’ve been hearin’ about—oh yes boy, I barely had them fires lit ’til I had people come scratchin’ around—he ain’t no local. I ain’t got a name yet, and I ain’t got no idea where he lives. But that don’t matter, cause I ain’t going to see him. No, I reckon he’ll be coming around to see me directly. And that there, boy, is going to be his un-doing. I aims to end this, and end this permanent.
Boy, them not being a local puts a new light on this mess. Now, there’s all kinds of magic, whether you believes in it or not. And this don’t smell nor look like the kind of magic we favors hereabouts. It does raise a stink like that kind of wand-waving Army types used during the War. I reckon we might be dealing with one of them, a small-timer, probably got hisself kicked out of Rannit or Prince or somewheres and came to Pot Lockney to earn a little money by taking on curse-works for the country folks.
If’n they was a wand-waver in the Army, they might still be using them same kind of spells and what-not. Watch out for them things. I reckon you know what to look out for.
Now, I aims to send letters once a day. If Mr. Pitcher’s pigeons fly straight and true to Granny Knot, you’ll be a getting them soon after. Don’t you be charging out here if I miss a day or two, Mr. Pitcher ain’t got but three of these extra-smart pigeons and I ain’t the only one sending letters to Rannit. I told him I takes priority but he’s a young man and he ain’t learned proper respect for the Hog name just yet. I reckon he will soon enough as I may have let a tiny little hex slip yesterday when he got all uppity about telling me his birds was first come, first served. See how he likes spending the night in his outhouse, we will!
I will write again on the morrow. Keep that niece of mine and that other one out of trouble.
She’d signed it simply ‘Mrs. Hog.’
I put the letter in a drawer. Three-leg licked his stump. Traffic rushed by outside, no more and no less hurried than usual.
Pratt, I decided. I’d go find Pratt first. Getting Lethway talking was the surest way forward, and it might be the only chance Carris Lethway had of getting home alive. I wanted to check on Tamar, too, but I didn’t want to put unnecessary strain on my newfound relationship with her father. If he’d had a chance to think about what he’d handed me yesterday, I didn’t want to know about it.
I rose and patted Three-leg’s ugly head, and I got a swipe of his claws across the back of my hand for my trouble.
“Good morning to you too,” I said as I left. He just glared and kept licking.
I reflected, as I rode, that I was getting far too familiar with Avalante’s largess with carriages. But I pushed such thoughts aside, and concentrated on how to lay my plan out to Pratt.
All I nee
ded was a quarter of an hour in a place unsuitable for murder. Somewhere public. Somewhere that a few raised voices would go unnoticed. Somewhere that would throw Lethway off balance, someplace that would cause him to pause as soon as he realized who I was, what I knew.
I had a few such places in mind, but getting Lethway inside them would require a bit of kidnapping on my part, and that wasn’t anything I cared to do. So I needed Pratt, who knew Lethway’s habits and haunts intimately, to suggest something more suitable.
Of course, that would also leave me open to a double-cross on Pratt’s part, but if I failed to see that coming I deserved whatever I got.
Finding Pratt turned out to be easy. I asked my driver to roll by the Lethway offices without stopping, just to see who might be milling about. And, praise whatever Angel handles wild strokes of good luck, there was Pratt out front, hands in his pockets, talking with three other suited musclemen right by the bench we’d shared. I didn’t dare stop or wave, and I didn’t think he’d seen me. But when I signaled the driver to turn around, there was Pratt, neither huffing nor puffing, tapping at my door.
I flung it open. He was inside before the carriage even slowed. Away we went, just another black carriage rolling down a busy street.
“I’ve got something,” said Pratt.
“Letter from the kidnappers?” I kept my voice low. I trusted the driver but Pratt had no reason to do so.
He nodded and produced an envelope. I gathered from the size of it there was more than one page.
I took it, but didn’t open it. “Lethway seen this?”
“Not yet. Since it’s opened, he won’t ever see it. I’m taking a huge chance here, finder. Tell me it was worth it.”
“Oh yes. Because, Mr. Pratt, I’ve got something too. Something that’s going to get Lethway talking, whether he likes it or not.”
Pratt raised an eyebrow. “They sent his son’s severed ear, and he didn’t blink. What have you got?”