"That's correct." Harrow pointed at the map. "Here, in the north of the city. A trace-"
"Enough!" Makeblise almost snarled the word. "Stranger, I care nothing for this. I now see you for what you are - the vanguard of an invasion!"
Harrow blinked at him. "I'm sorry, a what?"
Makeblise looked almost sorrowful. "The fault is mine. I was too easy on you, too eager for your alien knowledge. I convinced myself that you could assist our cause, that you were indeed no immediate threat to us. I know better now."
Harrow shook his head slowly. "I don't understand."
"You do, stranger. I think you understand only too well. However, for the benefit of Mistress Verney, I shall spell it out: an hour ago, an act of terrorism occurred at the river docks. The entire area has been destroyed."
Verney started from the locator. "That's impossible!"
"If only that were true but the fires are still burning. Your companions have shown their hand, stranger, and now we will all suffer the consequences." He turned to the guard who stood at the doorway. "Seal the room."
"Makeblise," growled Harrow, "what are you doing?"
"What I should have done some time ago, stranger, but did not have the courage for. Now the time for hesitation is over." He took a step backwards, out of the doorway, and then moved aside so the guard could reach the lock.
"This equipment will be destroyed upon my return. You, stranger, will be induced to provide answers to certain questions once that is done. In the meantime, you and Mistress Verney may amuse yourselves as you see fit."
With that, he nodded at the guard, and turned to stalk away. Harrow shouted once at his retreating back, but then the door closed hard.
A second later, a key was turned in the lock. There was a dull click of latches, and then silence.
"Well," Harrow said quietly, leaning back against the map table. "There's a turn-up."
"Was he telling the truth?" Verney was walking slowly around the table, her exposed eye fixed on him accusingly. "Are you invaders?"
"No. We're travellers who crashed outside your city, just as I told you. However, my friend Red does have a certain talent for demolition." He dropped down to his haunches in front of the door, and peered through the keyhole. "They're leaving. I can see all the guards filing out."
"They'll be back."
He stood. "Not our problem. Verney, I told you I'd get you away from here. Now looks like as good a time as any."
She folded her arms and put her head to one side. "Stranger, maybe you haven't noticed, but there is a solidly locked door between us and freedom!"
"Locked, yes. Solid, no." He tugged experimentally at the handle. "We can't force it, that's for sure but that shouldn't stop us for long."
"You think you can pick the lock?"
"There's a very good chance of that, yes. With the right tools..." He moved away from the door, and began studying the nearest data-engine. "I may need to break up some of the sensorium, to get what I need."
"No," said Verney. "Not yet."
Harrow raised an eyebrow. "Why the delay?"
"Well for a start, those guards have only just left, and we've got no idea of what their plans might be. I certainly don't want to run into any of them if they come back. Secondly, I'm not quite finished with some of these machines."
"I'm not sure if staying around would be any safer."
"Let's find out, shall we?" She moved quickly to one of the broken screens, the one nearest the battery rack, and reached around behind it. Harrow saw her rooting through the forest of cables there. "What are you looking for?" he asked.
"This." She pulled up a long, rubbery lead from the back of the screen, threading it up through a hole in the back of the frame. There was a small plastic shape on the end of the lead, and when Harrow looked closer he saw it was an earpiece.
"A listening device?"
She nodded. "I found it among the stores. It took me three weeks to work out what it was, and a year getting it to work but it's been worth it."
"Where's the pick-up?"
"In his quarters." She looked up at Harrow. "Don't make that face. It wasn't like that." She put the end of the lead into her ear and pressed it home. "It was worse."
Harrow felt a sudden need to change the subject. "You used that while you were under guard? Didn't anyone notice?"
"There wasn't usually a guard here while it was just me working. Makeblise thought I was too afraid to betray him."
"He was wrong, wasn't he?"
Verney was twisting a control behind the screen. Abruptly, Harrow heard a faint chime, and a hiss of static. Verney winced and pulled the earpiece partly out. "Listen."
Harrow put his head very close. "Moon of blood, Verney. That's him!"
Verney nodded, and he saw her smile grimly under the linen. Then she pressed the earpiece back in. "All right, you shaven-headed monster, let's see what you're up to today..."
"Who's he talking to?" asked Harrow. Verney waved a hand, gesturing for silence.
There was a long pause, broken only by whispers from the earpiece. Then Verney began to relay what she was hearing.
"My duty, he said. Will speak with her... Erm, parade? No, persuade. Then... No, he's walking around. I can't hear him."
Harrow put a hand to her shoulder. She flinched, and then relaxed under it.
"If she will not... thinking, she must... other members, and quickly. We cannot afford... invasion... rid ourselves... Oh, this is hopeless. Why won't he keep still?"
"Do you want me to try?"
Verney pulled out the earpiece and handed Harrow the lead.
For the first few moments, he could hear nothing but rushing static and weird, metallic honkings. It was only when he had been listening for a while that he was able to concentrate on the honking sounds and filter them away from the background static. It was hard - the listening device was two hundred years old, and whatever repairs Verney had inflicted on it hadn't done it much good - but he was able to start picking out words.
Lord Makeblise, it seemed, had quite a lot to say.
He mentioned persuasion again, and stressed that someone, a woman, would be needed again. The people needed a face. Static reigned for a moment, and then the voices returned. Makeblise was refusing something, saying "No" with extraordinary vehemence.
"This is not a purge! There will be no blood unless they defy us - the enemy is-"
After that, there was nothing but fizzing and various electrical sounds and then silence.
"He's gone."
Verney seemed to sag a little. "Did you hear much?"
"Some." Harrow told her what he had heard, as accurately as he could. It didn't make all that much sense to him, but as he got near the end Verney suddenly gasped and put her hands to her mouth. "Oh my God, stranger, he's going after the provost!"
"I don't-"
"She's the ruler of the Elect, and the Elect rule Igantia. They make the laws, pass rulings, give policy to both the marshals and the Endura. Makeblise hates them. I've heard him ranting about their weakness, how they should all be brought down... I think he's going to stage a coup!"
It made sense, Harrow reasoned, as he worked at the lock. The marshals were busy with the dockyard explosion, and there weren't enough of them anyway. It wouldn't be that difficult for Makeblise to take the Elect into custody and install himself as leader.
The marshals might oppose him. After seeing what the Endura could do, Harrow didn't like to rate their chances.
His thoughts were interrupted by a sliding click from the lock, and the door jolted. Harrow stood up, and when he tugged on the handle this time, the door swung inwards. He withdrew the pieces of thick wire he had been using as lockpicks, and stuck them carefully in the hem of one sleeve. "It's time."
The woman was gazing disconsolately at the screen he had eviscerated for the wire. "You didn't have to-"
"Yes I did. Now come on!"
He ducked through the door, keeping low, and quickly scan
ned the hallway. He saw no one. "Verney?"
"A moment." She appeared beside him a few seconds later, just as he was about to call again. She was clutching something in either hand. Batteries, fresh from the rack.
He looked quizzically at her, but she simply returned his gaze with that one dark eye, so he shrugged and moved on. Harrow had learned that Verney wasn't someone to explain very much of what she did.
There was no one in the guard rooms on either side of the hallway. The other doors were open too, and Harrow peered through one as he went past. He was surprised to see that it was filled with wooden shelves, racks filled with ancient pieces of technology. Rotting junk, from what he could see, but there was a lot of it. "What's all this?"
"Everything confiscated from captured Daedalus operatives," she replied. "They're supposed to be burned in a public ceremony, after the hangings, but Makeblise has wooden replicas made for that. He's kept everything."
They padded quickly up the sloping passageway. When they got to the top Harrow stopped, and pushed the door open a fraction, squinting through into the open space beyond.
"I think it's clear," he said.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes," he replied, somewhat crossly, and pulled the door open.
As he did, an armoured hand reached out and hauled him through.
An Endura halberdier had been waiting just out of sight. Harrow found himself pulled half off his feet, and swung violently around. He tried to strike out at the soldier, but each of his blows met armour, and did no good at all.
The halberdier shoved him back, stunningly hard, against the stone wall and then reached for the sword at his belt. Harrow saw him draw it, the blade catching lantern-light as it rose. Then the soldier's featureless helmet turned as Verney ran through the door.
"Red-hot acid!" she howled, and hurled a battery at him.
The halberdier brought his armoured hands up reflexively, dropping the sword, but the battery shattered as it struck his fingers, and the fluid within splashed him from helm to belt. He gave a screech of fear and spun away, clawing at himself.
Harrow reached over him, tugged the helmet from his head and planted a boot firmly against his backside. He kicked, hard. The guard stumbled, his hands still tangled in his tunic, and his head struck the wall with a solid noise. He fell.
"Sacred rubies," Harrow cursed. "Verney, what's in those things?"
"Just catalyst," she said, gazing down at the unconscious guard. "Harmless but if you yell something like that and then throw, people don't have the time to think that you might be lying."
Harrow blinked at her. "Is that true?"
"Well, it worked then. Don't count on it working again, though."
"I'll try not to." He looked around, rubbing the sore spot at the back of his head where he had hit the wall. "Verney, the only other part of this building I've seen has been the dungeons. Do you know the way out?"
"I... I don't think so. It's been so long since I was even here, stranger." She shivered, and hugged herself through the robe. "The sanctum's been my home for as long as I can recall."
"All right, Verney. Don't worry - there's another way."
Makeblise's quarters were up at least two levels from the entrance to the sanctum. It took Harrow and Verney several minutes to get there, but they saw few other Endura. Those they did see were hurrying on other business, and easily avoided.
When they got to Makeblise's room the door had been firmly locked, but the lock was the same as on the sanctum door. It took Harrow and his wire picks just as little time to open. He stepped in quickly. "Come on. It's safe enough."
"We shouldn't be here, stranger," Verney hissed. "When you asked me to guide you, I thought it was as part of our escape route!"
"It is." He padded into the room, looking carefully around. "But there's something he took from me that I'd like back, and there's a very good chance it could be here..."
The room was quite bare, with little more in it than Verney had in hers. There were some books, religious and philosophical texts arranged on a shelf along one wall, and a small table at which to read them. A curtained-off area lay to one side, but it contained only a bare washroom. Behind the only other door was a tiny chapel, no more than a narrow closet equipped with a kneeler and a lectern, an open bible atop it. On the wall was a crucifix, but above that and dominating it completely was an eye-symbol, carved from wood and painted. It was large, as wide as a man's torso, and disturbingly realistic.
Harrow blinked up at it. "That tells me much about you, Willem Makeblise," he murmured.
Other than that, the rooms contained no decoration: no hangings, rugs or any particular efforts at making the place comfortable, just plain wood, bare plaster, and a couple of tiny lanterns for light.
Verney was getting more nervous by the moment. "There's nothing here, stranger!"
"I'm not so sure..." Harrow scanned the chapel rapidly. Down on the floor, in a corner where the shadows were deepest, was a small wooden chest. He reached down and pulled it into the light, probing the lock with his fingertips. Again, nothing his wire picks couldn't handle. He set to work.
It took less than a minute. Verney called him twice during the process, once fearfully, once with more warning in her voice. Harrow was concentrating on the lock too much to answer her, though.
Eventually, the tumblers went over. Harrow grinned, put the picks down and opened the lid.
The icons of his comm-linker glowed from within. He snatched it up, and after rooting around the rest of the chest's contents found his light-drill as well. There was no sign of the derringer, though, and that was worrying. He got up. "Verney? Is there anywhere else he might be hiding something?"
"There is not," Makeblise replied, from outside the chapel.
Harrow spun, cursing himself for not answering Verney when she had called him. Makeblise was standing in the doorway, with the plasma derringer aimed right at him. Just inside the door stood a halberdier, with his weapon held at a shallow angle. The blade of it was at Verney's throat.
There was a dark stain on Makeblise's white robe, a crimson splash that glistened.
"You are resourceful, stranger, and skilled. However, you aren't very bright, are you?"
"I'm beginning to think you're right." Harrow nodded at the stain. "Did your meeting with the provost not go as planned?"
The man's expression darkened. "There were complications," he said flatly. "It is hard to make some people recognise the truth, and convincing them can sometimes be... uncomfortable."
Moving as little as possible, Harrow thumbed the power stud on the light-drill to maximum. "For her, I assume," he said.
"Assume all you like, stranger. The affairs of this city are no longer your concern. I think, all things considered, that I can do without the answers you might have provided me - leading Igantia back to piety will take more time than I can spare."
Makeblise stiffened his arm, readying it for the derringer's recoil, and squeezed the trigger. The gun went off a fraction of a second after the contents of Verney's second battery splashed over his face.
Three things happened simultaneously, or at least so rapidly in succession that Harrow, to his dying day, could never have said which followed which.
The plasma bolt snarled past his right shoulder, detonating the wall behind him.
He triggered the light-drill, sending a thread of light into the halberdier's eye-slit.
Verney collided with Makeblise, her pale hands clawing for his eyes.
Harrow hit the ground a moment later. He had dived just as Makeblise had fired, but if Verney hadn't flung the catalyst the bolt would have hit him, he had no doubt about that. He would have died instantly.
The halberdier was toppling forwards. There was an awful sound as the cutting beam found his eye-slit, a wet metallic impact. The beam was searingly hot, enough to cause water to explode into steam on contact. And a man's head, Harrow knew, contained a fair amount of water locked up in muscle and brain.
Crimson vapour was jetting from the halberdier's eye-slit as he dropped to his knees.
Harrow rolled over and darted up. Makeblise was roaring, his eyes squeezed shut against the battery-fluid, but he still had the derringer. He shoved Verney back, hard, and she stumbled away from him. Harrow caught her as she staggered.
Makeblise gave one final, wordless shout of fury, and scrambled away through the door.
Harrow felt Verney sag in his arms. "I thought you said that stuff was harmless."
"Stings a little," she said breathlessly. He felt her breath catch, and then she made an odd sound.
"What's wrong?" He steadier her, and turned her slightly towards him so he could look at her face. "Did he-"
There was something in her hand, something that glittered in the lantern-light. She held it out, almost as if offering it to him, and he could see that it was a dagger, golden and broad-bladed.
Scarlet wetness was already sprawling down her chest.
Harrow swore, and reached forward to catch her as she fell. She was thin under the robes and wrappings, and the strength was already gone from her. She collapsed, totally limp.
He eased her down.
She coughed wetly. "Sorry."
"Don't speak."
"Don't be an idiot, stranger. That would make him right about you, and I couldn't bear him being right about anything." She gave a small moan, and shifted in his grip. "Oh. Where was he keeping that, anyway?"
Harrow shook his head. "Verney-"
"Elspeth." Her voice was a whisper. "I'm cold, stranger."
"My name's Judas," he replied. He heard her chuckle, very faintly.
"Figures," she said. And her eye fluttered closed.
There are few instant deaths, and when the end comes it is seldom as poetic as we would like. It took Elspeth Verney's severed heart some minutes to actually stop, but Harrow held her while she shivered and faded. Even after the last breath had bubbled out through the linen wrappings he stayed with her. The brain takes longer to die than the body.
When he was sure she was gone, he gently took the linen away from her face, and drew her hood back. What he saw saddened him more, perhaps, than her death. That at least had been relatively quick. The pain of her life must have been interminable.
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