At its end, the tunnel opened into a cave that was black from Dragon fire. Only in some places a little gold gleamed through the soot. The treasure cave. Better preserved than most Nerron had seen. He pressed himself against the cool rock.
And there he was, his skin like petrified fire—even in the darkness. The King of the Goyl.
Kami’en had his back to the tunnel. Just one well-aimed bullet. Or a poisoned arrow between his shoulder blades. How many assassins had the onyx hired in vain to stand right where he was standing? And it had been so easy. Yes, you’re the best, Nerron. Nevermind that you haven’t found the damn heart yet.
“How long will it take?” Kami’en’s voice sounded calm, as usual. As though he had nothing to fear in this world.
“The architect tells me two months, but I can make sure work is completed earlier.” Of course. Hentzau was standing next to the King. Only a few years earlier, he would have caught Nerron’s scent, but the years spent aboveground had made Kami’en’s loyal dog half-blind and had dulled his sense of smell until it was barely better than that of a human.
“Hire some Dwarfs. They work fast.” Nerron stepped out of the tunnel.
Hentzau spun around and positioned himself protectively in front of Kami’en.
Good dog.
“What is this?” he barked at Nerron. “You want me to put a bullet into your speckled skin?” His jasper face had turned even more craggy since the Blood Wedding. Compared to Hentzau, even Nerron could pass as attractive. Nerron bowed his head with a smile and pressed his fist over his heart, a gesture of obedience he usually had problems with, but not in front of this King.
“Be grateful, Hentzau. He’s just demonstrating my need for better bodyguards.” Kami’en turned around as leisurely as only one could who owned half the world. He was wearing the same uniform in which he’d survived his wedding. Moonstones for the human bloodstains, rubies for the Goyl blood. The Dark Fairy knew how to turn horror into beauty.
“He’s right. Hire Dwarfs,” Kami’en said to Hentzau. “I want work to begin immediately. I’m tired of that human palace. This will be my study. The guards in the sleeping cave. One tunnel to the palace, one to the train station, and a third one connecting to the road beneath the river.” He shot a cool glance at Nerron. “You still haven’t found the heart?”
“No. But I have the hand and the head.”
“Good.” Kami’en rubbed the sooty wall until the gold appeared beneath. “The Witch Slayer’s crossbow. Maybe I should send my airplanes to the Dwarf mines. Teach them not to keep secrets from me.”
“There are many places we should send them to,” Hentzau growled. “Even in the east, the Doughskins are now joining forces against us. Ask him who’s getting them all to sit around the same table. Without the onyx, they’d still be killing each other.” He stared at Nerron. Like all soldiers, Hentzau never trusted anyone not in uniform, and especially not an onyx bastard who had the trust of the King’s enemies. Maybe he sensed that Nerron, despite all his admiration for the King, served nobody but himself. Yet they owed him for the names of many spies, and his information had helped thwart two attempts on Kami’en’s life. Even Hentzau realized they needed the Bastard, though he didn’t trust Nerron as far as he could spit.
“Hentzau’s spies tell me you have some serious competition for the crossbow.” Kami’en’s face was as impassive as the likeness they minted on his coins. Only once had Nerron seen the King less composed, and that was when he’d first heard from Nerron how far-reaching the onyx conspiracy against him was.
“It seems you don’t just need better bodyguards but also better spies.” Nerron brushed Hentzau with a taunting glance. “That competition is no more.”
“Indeed?” Hentzau’s thin mouth moved. It nearly smiled. “My useless spies are reporting that your competitor is in Vena and very much alive. Jacob Reckless has a penchant for rising from the dead.”
Nerron caught his heart doing a few extra beats.
Surprise. On the other hand… how disappointing would it have been if Jacob Reckless had let himself be devoured by wolves just like that?
The best…
“Reckless paid a visit to the history museum.” Hentzau’s left eye had that milky sheen that came from too much daylight. “I assume you know why?”
Nerron hadn’t the faintest idea, but he hoped his face didn’t give him away.
“I put an old friend on his trail. He’ll take care of Reckless.” Kami’en leaned down and inspected the gouges left by the Dragon’s claws. “What a waste to exterminate them,” he said, running his fingers through the crevices. “They were such great weapons. Though never very obedient. Machines are easier to control.” Kami’en stood straight again. The gold in his eyes was brighter than that of the onyx. “Hentzau would like to kill Reckless, but since the wedding I’ve developed a weakness for him. Who is he hunting the crossbow for?”
Nerron shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. Because it’ll be me who finds it.”
“Together with Crookback’s son?” Hentzau’s voice sounded harsh, as when he spoke to his soldiers.
Watch yourself, old man.
“We have to get back.” Kami’en turned around. “Hentzau’s right. From now on you search alone.”
Hentzau threw a purse of silver toward him. Expenses. The King of the Goyl was a less generous employer than the onyx, but Nerron would have worked for him for free. Not everything was for sale. He listened until their steps had faded into the Dragon’s breathing tunnel.
The parade would begin soon for the grumbling people of Vena. The Goyl showing off his pregnant human wife. Her subjects had already come up with many names for the child. “The monster,” “the skinless prince”… everybody seemed to assume the child was going to be a boy. Human-Goyl mongrels didn’t live long. You could sometimes see them in freak shows at country fairs. Some were so stony they could hardly move; others had a skin through which one could see the bones and organs, as through glass; some had no skin at all. But Kami’en was determined to keep this child alive. There were rumors he’d even asked the Dark Fairy for help.
What did Reckless want in the museum?
Nerron leaned against the claw-gouged stone. The darkness around him reeked of the Dragon’s odor. He opened the medallion, and the spider crawled sleepily on his hand. Why hadn’t he asked her earlier whether Reckless really was dead? Because he hadn’t wanted to know the answer? Interesting…
He had to feed an extra helping of lapis lazuli to the spider before she began her dance.
No carriages… damn… roadblocks… flowers everywhere…
Nerron felt a smile sneak onto his face. Yes, Reckless really was alive. The spider kept dancing. Cabby! What? No. To the spiny gate…
He’d be damned. Maybe the Witch’s tongue wasn’t going to be needed after all.
36
DISAPPEARED
The gate to the jewelers’ quarter only truly earned its name by night. Jacob’s flesh had already felt the spikes the gate grew in the dark, but now it was midday and so the iron wings stood wide open.
The jewelers’ quarter was one of the oldest parts of Vena. Its alleys were too narrow even for the lightest cabs, and its backyards still contained clusters of tiny houses from the days when jewelers used to employ Elves and when Heinzel were regarded as good-luck charms.
Hippolyte Ramée had driven his Heinzel away years ago after he’d caught them stealing. But he still worked with Elves. He hid them in his back room so he wouldn’t be thought of as old-fashioned, yet the silvery dust they spread when they flew immediately settled on Jacob’s coat as he opened the door.
The jewelry Ramée crafted was famous beyond Vena. The jeweler originally came from Lotharaine, where he’d trained under the infamous goldsmith of Pont-de-Pile. There were many stories, each more gruesome than the next
, about how Hippolyte had lost both his feet in the goldsmith’s service. Ramée maintained his silence about it. Jacob had actually seen the golden feet Ramée had wrought to escape his master. On this morning, however, they were tucked inside buttoned boots.
For the past thirty years, Hippolyte Ramée had been the official goldsmith to the imperial family of Austry, and as far as Jacob was aware, the Goyl had not changed that. The many years of setting tiny stones in gold and silver had not been kind to Ramée’s eyes. The lenses on his spectacles were so thick, they made his rheumy eyes look as big as a child’s.
“Do you have an appointment? If not, you may leave immediately.” Ramée’s temper was as famous as his jewelry. He was known to have thrown even emissaries from the Empress out of his shop. Yet the beauty of the pieces that were on display in glass cabinets all around the shop made most aristocratic treasure chambers look shabby in comparison. Necklaces, bracelets, tiaras, and brooches; rubies, emeralds, topaz, and amber, wrought so delicately into gold and silver that it looked as though they had simply grown from the fingertips of the old man behind the simple wooden table.
“It’s me, Hippolyte.”
Ramée lifted his head and put down the palm-sized magnifying glass through which he’d been inspecting a diamond the size of a pea. The suspicion on his face disappeared only after Jacob went to stand right in front of him.
“Jacob, of course,” he observed. His mottled hand closed around the diamond. Ramée always expected to be robbed. The Empress was the only person he’d ever exempted from his suspicion. “Are you in need of another brooch to impress some imperial maid?”
“No.” Jacob glanced at a tiara that looked like a web of silver woven around blossoms of carnelian. Ramée had adapted his craft to the new masters of Vena. “I presume you’re still in charge of maintaining the imperial jewels?”
Ramée adjusted his glasses. “Of course. Say what you will about the Goyl, but they do recognize a man who knows his stones.”
Jacob suppressed a smile. Hippolyte was a vain old man.
“A shame they don’t like gold,” Ramée added. “It means I have to work more with silver, but their King only recently ordered a few very tasteful pieces. The bracelet, he…”
“Hippolyte!” Ramée could ramble on for hours about the cut of a stone or the value of flawless elven glass, but Jacob was done wasting time he didn’t have. Yet the old man carried on, in the heavy Lotharainian accent he’d never lost through all the decades of exile. He was obviously not only half-blind but also quite deaf by now.
“Hippolyte! Could you listen to me for a moment?”
Ramée abruptly fell silent, as though he’d swallowed one of his diamonds. “What?” he barked at Jacob. “I’m three times as old as you. What’s the rush?”
“We never know when death might claim us, right?” Jacob flicked a spider off his sleeve. Her body was blue, like the amethyst rings Ramée was so famous for.
The old man swatted at the spider as she dropped between his fingers.
“Spiders, mice, cockroaches!” he muttered, wiping the spider off the table. “The cats can’t keep up with them! I might have to get some of those thieving Heinzel back after all.”
Another favorite subject. Heinzel.
“Hippolyte, can you tell me something about a piece of jewelry? I saw it in a portrait at the history museum. The stone is black, slightly larger than a grape, set in a mesh of golden tendrils.”
Ramée stared at him aghast. Then he dropped his head, and his shaky hands began to sort the tools on the table in front of him. When he lifted his head again, the eyes behind the thick glasses were swimming with tears.
“Why are you doing this?” he panted at Jacob. “Is that some kind of cruel joke? I confessed everything to the Empress back then.”
He stood up so abruptly that the diamond he’d been working on was knocked off the table. “Did Amalie send you? Sure! What can you expect from a princess who gets herself knocked up by a Goyl!”
Ramée pressed his hand over his mouth as though he could stuff the words back inside. He shot a quick glance at the window, but the only one outside was a Dwarf standing in front of the shop window opposite.
What was the old man talking about? Jacob picked up the diamond and put it back on the table. It glistened like a frozen tear.
“Nobody sent me,” he said. “I’m looking for this piece myself. I just wanted to ask you whether you could get me a look at it.”
Ramée took off his glasses and agitatedly wiped the lenses with his sleeve. “Forget it!” The words burst out of him. “The stone is lost. Just like Marie.”
Jacob took the glasses from his hands. He polished the lenses and handed them back to the old man. “Marie?”
Ramée’s hands were trembling as he took the glasses. He pointed at a photograph on the wall next to the door. A black ribbon was tied to the frame. The picture showed a young girl, maybe eighteen years old. Jacob went to the picture. Past reality, frozen by light, acid, and silver. Behind the mirror you were still reminded what a miracle a photograph really was. The girl Jacob was looking at had hair so dark that it nearly melted into the sepia brown background. She looked a little stiff—after all, one had to sit still for a long time for a portrait like that—but her eyes were saying, ‘Look at me. Am I not beautiful?’
“It was her first ball.” Ramée stood by Jacob’s side. Only the heaviness of his steps hinted at the golden feet. “I’d just received the necklace, together with a few other pieces from the palace. I still don’t know what kind of stone it was. It had a strange consistency. But it looked so beautiful on Marie’s white skin. ‘Like a piece of night caught in gold, Grandpapa’ is what she said. Who can refuse his own granddaughter? And it was only for the ball. She never returned. Gone. Just gone. As if she never existed. Her mother grieves so much, she now barely leaves the house. She tells herself Marie ran off with one of the officers who like to hang around those balls. She probably knows that the truth is far more unbearable.”
Ramée pulled back his sleeve. He was wearing a golden bracelet. The fine links looked tarnished, black. “You’ve heard about bracelets like this?”
Jacob nodded. Not many goldsmiths knew how to make them. You added a drop of blood to the gold. If the one whose blood it was, was well, the metal stayed bright; if it turned red, the person was in grave danger. And black could mean only one thing.
“Dead.” Ramée stared at the photo. “These photographs are a disconcerting invention, are they not? One always looks like a ghost in them. But at least I have her picture.” He pulled his sleeve back over the black bracelet. “On that last day, when Marie came here, she had a flower pinned to her dress, and she was gushing over some stranger who was as beautiful as a prince. And of course he was clean-shaved. I don’t have to tell you why she never came back.”
No, he didn’t.
A flower on her dress. Jacob felt his heartbeat quicken. Have you gone blind, Jacob?
“Bluebeards.” Ramée rubbed his rheumy eyes. “You think they only exist in fairy tales, until one of them gets your granddaughter. Should you ever find the necklace you’re looking for, shoot the one who has it, and then go and see whether there’s a dead girl in his red chamber, with a ruby brooch. I made it for Marie’s sixteenth birthday.”
His red chamber. Jacob had seen such a chamber once. A memory he’d rather have forgotten.
How long since Fox had left with him? Three hours?
Ramée shouted something after him, but all Jacob heard was the blood rushing in his ears. Troisclerq had pinned the flower on her right in front of his eyes! They soaked them in forgetyourself oil.
He stumbled out into the alley. Damned fool. Had he forgotten everything Chanute had taught him?
Move, Jacob.
But he didn’t get far. An arm came around his neck from b
ehind, and someone dragged him through the next alleyway into one of the dark backyards that dotted the jewelers’ quarter.
“And? Are you enjoying Vena under your new friends?” Donnersmarck was no longer wearing imperial white but the gray uniform of the Goyl. The last time Jacob had seen him, he’d been a prisoner. Now his old friend was the personal aide to the new Empress. She obviously didn’t hold his service to her mother against him.
Donnersmarck had been drinking. Not a lot, but enough to lose control. He hit Jacob in the face so hard that he tasted blood on his tongue. Jacob responded by ramming his knee into Donnersmarck’s stomach. Jacob struggled free, but again he didn’t get far. Blocking the alleyway was Auberon, the former Empress’s favorite Dwarf. He aimed a pistol at Jacob’s head. Auberon loved to show off his marksmanship by shooting people through the forehead. The Empress’s Dwarfs were all excellent shots, but Amalie preferred to be guarded by her husband’s men, and so her mother’s former bodyguards now protected jewelers, bankers, and rich manufacturers.
Jacob raised his hands.
“Let me go, Leo!” He was going to be too late.
Donnersmarck pushed him against the nearest wall. “You’re not going anywhere. I made a promise to the Empress, in that filthy hole the Goyl have locked her in: I will find Jacob Reckless, and he will pay for what happened in the cathedral.”
“Why don’t we shoot him right here?” Jacob remembered Auberon’s swollen face as he’d stumbled out of the cathedral. Yes, the Dwarf would probably love to pull the trigger, but Donnersmarck ignored him.
“For months I’ve had the train station and the coach stations watched for you.”
“Really? Yes, I can see you’re still a powerful man. Congratulations on the Goyl uniform. It suits you!”
Jacob knew Donnersmarck would hit him for that remark, and that he was drunk enough to lose his footing. Before Donnersmarck could regain his balance, Jacob already had his pistol to the man’s head. Auberon proved once more that nobody was as inventive at swearing as the Dwarfs. He tried to get a clean shot, but Donnersmarck was very tall and provided excellent cover.
Reckless II Page 17