She speedily shone her mark in their faces and said, “I bear a message for the Broker.”
One of the shadowmen nodded and led her ahead while his companions melted away into the gloom. Their stealth was impressive. Silently, she and her guide stole across the reservoir, neither of them making the slightest splash in the stagnant pools spotting the floor. She could smell the iron paint of blood somewhere about her, and she mused idly on how many bodies lay outside her circle of vision. As far as Mouse could tell, they were aiming for a massive, irregularly shaped mound; something like a heap of spiny garbage. As they reached the heap, she was taken aback by the grandeur and oddness of it. It was a mountain of cycle-wheels, gears, pipes, sheet metal, bits of stone, cloth, and wire. Pleasingly, she sensed no organic material or accompanying rot in the mix, though it stank of oil and other steely scents. She was contemplating the genius and madness in its creation, wondering why one of Menos’s most influential figures would live no better than a rodent, when she noticed that her guide had not stopped moving. She hurried ahead. In the garbage mound were numerous dim and ragged openings, as if chewed right through, and her guide went into one. She followed not far behind.
A woman less brave than Mouse would have found the narrow passages, the feeble lanterns, and the whistling resonances of the Broker’s nest unbearable, for it was as uncomfortable as treading the throat of a giant metal monster and just waiting to be eaten. On many an occasion, she pulled in her cloak to avoid catching herself on any of the sharply jutted walls—if one could call them that. Once, her shadowy guide stumbled over a metal tooth and cursed; it was good to see that he was a man and not some magikal, reanimated thing, as high-ranking Menosians tended to favor. After a long while, Mouse knew that they had traveled far beyond the confines of the heap that they had entered. Air and noise blasted from a few of the tunnels they passed, and she wondered if under all the spackle, these passage ways were not part of the aqueducts running through the city. Ingenious, she thought. A maze within a maze. He’s using condemned or blocked pipelines to go even where the Undercomb cannot. I bet he could reach right up through the shitter and grab a man’s balls. Not even the Watchers use these paths. Not even the Iron sages are safe from him.
Eventually, space opened suddenly to a wide hollow, and Mouse was washed in the putridness of spoiled meat and urine. The dingy miners’ lights continued here, but they were higher up, and the room was therefore darker than the dimness she’d been traversing. With no assistance from the light, she could still spot the limber thin man in the mantle and cowl of blackness. She caught glimmers of his metal mouth as he whispered to himself or to a shape slumped against the wall. Tables, dully glittering with metal—be it coin or weaponry—and shelving stuffed much the same lined the darkness of the chamber. Apprehension clutched her as they approached the Broker, and more so when she saw the withered, chained figure before him: a man so emaciated that she wouldn’t have guessed him to be alive until she heard a hiss pass from him—the final noise that he was to make, for he slackened against his restraints after that. The Broker crossed his arms with dissatisfaction.
“As weak as they are dumb, this lot. That was the last. We shall need more,” fussed the Broker, his inflections feminine and lisping. “All these years and so few have succeeded. You did, Twenty-two. Wonderfully so, as I recall.”
“Thank you, Father,” said the shadow guide, bowing to a knee.
“Crunched every bone in your wri—”
The Broker noticed that they were not alone. He moved so quickly that Mouse wasn’t sure if she had blinked for too long. A leering face was abruptly in her vision: olive-toned, ringlet-framed, sleek-bearded, and pensive-browed, with cold brown eyes so dark they could be black. It would have been a handsome countenance if not for the mouth and its jarring assortment of needled and picketed teeth, all capped in silver. His lips appeared mangled as well, as if he had chewed on fishhooks, though his facial hair disguised most of the damage. Mouse was quick to react, too. She had one of her daggers out and pressing against his abdomen. Considering the fear that she had held for the Broker, the man wasn’t nearly as terrifying as she remembered. Or she was much more daring herself. He was a lunatic, certainly, but she had dealt with those many a time.
Regrettably, her action didn’t seem to deter the Broker. He studied her for a speck.
“Who…are you?” he asked.
“She bears a message from the Watchers,” answered Twenty-two.
As the Broker withdrew, he snapped at Mouse once, and she almost stabbed him. Having seen her twitch, he was grinning with amusement as he stood across from her.
“Such pluck,” he commended. “You would do well at The Binding, I’m sure.”
Mouse could deduce enough of what The Binding was from the corpse fallen in the shadows behind the madman.
“I am not here for games, only to deliver a message. Will you have it, or shall I be off?”
The Broker placed a hand on his kneeling aide’s shoulder. “A private matter, Twenty-two.”
“Yes, Father.”
Obediently, Twenty-two rose and slipped into the darkness. Mouse didn’t think that the Broker was really the man’s father. That being said, there was a respect to the cutthroat’s manner, a sincerity to his exiting bow that was uncommon in Menos, where men cared only for coin. Mouse guessed that this numberman, and perhaps the other digits of his brotherhood, were true devotees to their master; though whatever perverse rituals or punishments bred such fealty she didn’t care to know. When they were alone, the Broker waved at her to speak.
“I am told that this will make sense to you. We do not decode, only transmit the whispers of our clients,” she said.
The waving became agitated. “Yes! Yes! Go on! Go on!”
“A raven flies to the west to pick clean the whitest, oldest bones in Kor’Khul. Follow it,” recited Mouse.
“A raven,” muttered the Broker, pacing the chamber.
Mouse waited for the madman to excuse her; however, he seemed to be in no rush to do so. Possibly, he had even forgotten that she stood three paces away.
“Do excuse me, but our business is concluded, and I have other tasks that require my consideration,” Mouse said most courteously. “If you can tell me which way to go, I can find the exit.”
The Broker’s attention whipped to her, his dark eyes manic. “Oh, I doubt that. But maybe…oh, maybe you could. So crafty…I can see it in you. Are you certain you wouldn’t like to try yourself at The Binding? I think you could be a fine Thirty-three. Wait, we lost Thirty-two, so you would have to be him. He didn’t like to listen to his Father, so we had to cut his ears off and let him wander about dumb as a boxed mule. What dreadful bleating the deaf make. I do wish he would shut up.” The Broker harked as if hearing a cry that Mouse could not and then shook his head. “I doubt he’s found the way out, and neither will you.”
A trickle of fear ran down her spine as she realized how alone she was, down here in the darkest pit of Menos with this silver-fanged lunatic.
“I am certain I shall stay no longer. Just as I am sure that my masters”—she despised trotting out the word, but it was necessary to stress in this instance—“would be concerned if my business was delayed. Quite concerned.”
“Eight! Eight!” shouted the Broker, and his cry echoed into the passage ways beyond. While they waited, the Broker made the unsettling silence even worse by pacing around her like a hunting cat. He concentrated intently upon Mouse. She fondled her weapons in plain sight and waited for Eight to make himself known. Finally, her new guide arrived. He looked exactly the same as Twenty-two did, though a bit broader and shorter than his “brother.”
Disgusting little family you’ve made for yourself, Broker. May the Watchers never send me here again, she silently bid. Eight seemed to understand the reason for his summons and started moving from the chamber, expecting his charge to follow, which Mouse eagerly did.
“Wait!” hissed the Broker.
He did that curious trick where he was suddenly before Mouse again; it wasn’t magik, but it wasn’t natural, either. He leaned in close, squinting and clacking his teeth. She prepared to stab him if necessary.
“I never forget a face. Delicious—every one,” said the Broker. “Such warm hazel eyes. A little sadder…a little weaker…a little more scared. Yes. That was you, all right. I passed you over for The Binding, but I should have taken you instead. We’ve never had a sister; not for long. The boys tend to break them quickly. But you…you would be a fine daughter. How did you do it? How did you buy freedom when all that lay before you was death? You have conquered your own Binding once already. Clever, clever.”
Great fuking kings! He knows me! Mouse had not endured the harrowing and generally short life of a pleasure maiden without knowing how to conceal her surprise. Through wit, will, and self-preservation, she had survived. She had a stunning mind for observation, too, and did not fail to notice even the smallest particulars, as it was often such details that kept one alive. Like the dimpling of scar tissue around the Broker’s clavicle that she spotted as the madman stretched his neck out to inspect her—sniffing her, too, it seemed. She slid her dagger up his chest. He smiled until she tapped the chain of scars with the weapon’s tip.
“Some memories fade with time,” she whispered. “Such as the details of a face, so perhaps you are confused about what you have seen. Other things, like the scars we bear of shackles that once held us, never fade and are never forgotten.” The Broker’s smile warped into a grimace and he distanced himself from Mouse as she continued. “Sometimes we defy our destinies for lesser ends and rise to something greater. It is best not to look back.”
Not waiting for a response, she turned and shoved Eight into motion again.
An ominous farewell chased after her.
“I shall see you again.”
Not likely, she thought, scowling, and chose not to resheathe her daggers until she was free of the Broker’s filthy pit. Seeing the markings around his neck, the brand of a long-worn chain, did not excuse the man for his madness or brutality, though at least it helped her to understand it. So, you too were a slave before you became a master? Good for you, I suppose. Though there’s not much left of you to fill the smallest glass after. I may be dark, but I am not broken. Or so she tried to convince herself. Down here, in the unholiest of places, she wasn’t always sure.
III
The instant that she was out of the reeking underground and into the flatulent streets, the skies gurgled with upset and then unloosed buckets of rain. Hastily, less she be smitten with stinkeye, she leaped for cover under the tiny awning of the nearest stoop, and warded off fellow huddlers with her knives and promises to gut them if they came close. The sincerity of Menosian threats was not to be taken lightly, and she was left in peace. She managed to hail a carriage by running into the street and holding her Watcher’s sigil before the coach master, which got him to stop. In typical Menosian gratitude, she ordered the sourpussed master and his concubine from the carriage—leaving them to flail for cover in the sizzling rain—and was soon on her way to her next appointment.
At least this meeting was to be in finer surroundings than the last. To Blackbriar Lane in the Evernight Gardens of Menos she was headed, a neighborhood of prestige and influence. She reclined against the warm leather seating of the carriage, still fresh with the concubine’s vanilla perfume, and watched the city roll by. People scattered in the streets; it was pandemonium whenever the skies decided to weep. One poor fool wasn’t watching his step as he raced across the slick road. He tripped, cracking his head on the cement, only to be trampled by a speeding reborn horse a moment hence. Those nekromantic animals were no better than machines, so they couldn’t be expected to stop—or so Mouse told herself. She didn’t even turn to watch the rain wash the blood away or to say a passing prayer for the man.
She ruminated on the austerity of her city, and to a lesser degree, herself. How unusual it was to live in a city where so much life held no meaning. She knew of other places in Geadhain, nations that promised freedom and equality, and as an agent of The Watchers, she had been to many of these libertine states. But no matter how prettily they dressed up the virgin for the slaughter, she was still bound to die. There were still unbreakable authorities, clandestine maneuverings, and subterfuges in place that ensured that the strong presided over the weak—that the natural order was preserved. Eod and its eternal king, who only loosely governed and left men to deal with themselves under the Nine Laws as laid out by him and his sages, were the only exception. As if the wickedness of men could be so easily curbed, the desire to overpower, pillage, and harm, by nine small statements. She recalled hearing one of the Nine Laws once, in a tavern here in Menos, before the drunk shouting it was punched free of his teeth for his unwanted rambling.
No man shall live as a king. All kings shall live as men. To be revered only if their honor demands. Only if their deeds are worthy of worship, which the voices of all who witness them will decide.
What a faery story you live in, Everfair King. With your noble sages and their laws, your golden queen, and your nation of riches in a land where there should be none. How effortless for you to preach from your ivory palace, you who have lived for thousands of years and would tell us the virtues that we mortals should aspire to have. What would your kind know of mortal suffering? Of what we do or do not need? You, who have never suffered or known fear, scoffed Mouse.
The rest of the Nine Laws sounded just as misguided, and she could not fathom a nation of simpletons that would obey them. Yet King Magnus’s realm prospered, far more gloriously than Menos did. As did Zioch, the Sun King’s wooded domain in the South that bowed to the same Nine Laws. No wonder the people of Menos loathed these pristine princelings, these half-men who declared themselves kings, but lived by rules that mortals did not. For centuries now, the three countries had been engaged in a covert warfare with one another. Well, to be fair, reasoned Mouse, the aggression was mostly on the side of the Menos. Though who could blame the Iron sages and their covetousness toward the stores of wealth, magik, and elemental power that these kings had amassed in their eternal existences. Dangle meat in front of a starving dog and it might bite your hand off to get at it. The diplomatic relations between Menos, Eod, and Zioch were strained and delicate, with Menos ever anxious to bite the meat, the hand, and the throat of the master, after having been denied it for so long.
No war yet, dear kings. But soon, if the Iron sages have their way, she reflected.
The Crucible rose over the black peaked roofs of the city, catching her attention. The fortress of the Iron sages never lacked for intimidation, this ebony edifice towering from the heart of Menos as if it were a pillar supporting heaven and earth. Taller than any building in the city, almost as tall as the peaks of Kor’Keth, which Mouse had seen, the Crucible’s majesty was humbling and unquestionable. And with a smooth, rain-slicked, windowless exterior and the emanation of an insectile hum of the sorcery that could be felt vibrating in Mouse’s groin even this far away, it made one think it was truly an artifact left by giant creators and not of this world. Dark metal sky carriages—Menosian Crowes—buzzed over the Crucible, disappearing into the clouds to docks that could not be seen. She watched their transit, wondering what they ferried, before turning her eyes back to the neighborhood her carriage traveled.
She had reached the Evernight Gardens. Appropriately named, for the carriage fell into the sudden dusk of the Crucible’s shadow. The estates of Evernight Gardens were among the fanciest in Menos: rambling properties and black manses fenced in ornate thorny gates. Real thorns, she knew, which made them even more interesting to stare at; thinking on the magik that grew such plants to monstrous dimensions, sculpted them, and then transmogrified them into metal. There were few people on the streets here, but many carriages, and traffic slowed to a crawl.
She didn’t have far to go, however, and the carriage turned into a gated drive hung in
metalized willows, which made steely music on the carriage roof. The carriage stopped outside a peaked iron gate, and two dour guardsmen, unhappy at being pulled out of their cozy booths and into the rain, came knocking on the windows with blunderbusses and scowls. The men backed away as Mouse pressed her signet to the window. A moment later, the coach master was whipping his dead mount forward, through the opened gates.
Quite a master lives here, thought Mouse, as she eyed the dark splendor of the grounds.
Twisted hedge-mazes, with settees and bush-monsters and shrubberies of blue flowers, rolled by on either side. In the middle of each maze—and she glanced quickly from side to side to catch them—were macabre statues of naked women and men twisted together like wire and vomiting water from their mouths amid slate fountains. “The beauty of Menosian art,” she snidely remarked. But there was more, and her snideness became awe as the carriage trotted into the forbidding shadow of a keep ripped straight from a fireside tale. With its sooty bricks caulked in dark moss, its tall draped windows, its grand belfries, and its sharp parapets, it was easy to imagine that an undying evil presence called this place home. About the roof and corners of the manse, freakish gargoyles clustered, baring their fangs and claws to those who would approach. A roost of faceless stone men holding downward spears stood atop the arch over the entrance and watched the circular court beyond where the carriage slowed to a halt. Lightning dazzled the gloomy day as Mouse stepped out of the carriage—not paying the coach master—and bolted through the downpour. The inanimate gazes of guardians and gargoyles were more chilling than the weather, and she debated if this haunted castle was indeed more hospitable than the Broker’s rotten lair.
A city of madmen, schemers, and diabolists, each trying to outdo the vileness of the other. Oh, well, let’s make this quick.
Fleetly, she was up many stairs and under the protection of the stone wardens’ awning. A luxurious set of mahogany doors faced her. They were giant, and no rungs or handles were present to tackle their mass. So she chose to knock. Not long and a churning of gears echoed, and the entrance rattled open.
Feast of Fates (Four Feasts Till Darkness Book 1) Page 11