The Wonder Engine

by T. Kingfisher

  Twenty-Nine

  Sparrow smiled when she saw Slate. “You’re back,” she said.

  “I said I would be.”

  “Yeah, but you know how it is. Everybody says things.” She beckoned Slate into her stall. It was separated from the rest of the Shadow Market by heavy curtains which muffled sound. The milling crowd because a distant background noise, like water flowing over stones.

  “So the people you’re asking about…” said Sparrow, sitting down at a low table. Slate sat across from her. “The ones with an interest in archaeology?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “Big names, some of them.”

  “Doesn’t surprise me.”

  Sparrow quietly took a slip of paper from beneath the table and passed it across the table. Slate unfolded it.

  Keep your face absolutely still. Keep it still. Don’t give her information to sell to someone else.

  Three names she knew. Two names she didn’t. One surprised her.

  The three familiar names were merchant houses. Their presence was honestly not particularly significant. They were silent backers of nearly every politician in the city, giving money to make certain that their particular business interests were never encroached. She’d have been surprised if they weren’t on the list.

  She tapped one of the unfamiliar names and raised an eyebrow at Sparrow.

  “Former head of the Courtesan’s Guild,” said Sparrow. “She spread a lot of money around.”

  “Didn’t think archaeology was her style.”

  Sparrow shrugged. “Doubt it is anymore. New one got elected last year. She’s been acting like Horsehead’s personal piggy-bank ever since.”

  Slate worked very hard not to grit her teeth. “Boss Horsehead,” she said. “He’s not on the list.”

  “Don’t think he cares about archaeology much. He wanted power, not artifacts.”

  “Didn’t figure Horsehead for a war-monger,” said Slate.

  “He ain’t much of one. Didn’t so much back the war as he was backin’ the people who backed it, if you know what I mean,” said Sparrow. She glanced at the curtain as if expecting eavesdroppers. “Horsehead always wanted to be a Senator. He wanted to marry into it, but when that went south—”

  Slate hoped that the other woman didn’t see her wince.

  “—he had to get to it another way. So he started bankrolling Senators. They needed money and he had it.” Sparrow scratched herself vigorously, reminding Slate vaguely of Grimehug. “They all know he holds the purse strings. Sooner or later he’ll call it on in.”

  Slate nodded. “And the…err…the clocktaurs?”

  Sparrow shook her head. “Dunno. That place is locked up tighter than a nun’s ass. They ain’t answering to Horsehead, I know that.”

  Slate raised an eyebrow.

  Sparrow laughed. “Come on, if Horsehead had an army, he wouldn’t waste it on a different town. He’d point it at the Senate and make hisself Boss of the whole damn place.”

  Slate laughed at that, shortly. “You’re right there. Thanks, Sparrow.” She dropped a handful of coins in the jar.

  “No worries. Those things give me the willies.” She shuddered theatrically.

  “You and me both…”

  “What I’ve always wondered,” said Sparrow, as Slate rose to her feet, “is how they’re giving them orders. They never send anybody out but a handful of gnoles, and you can’t tell me they’re doin’ it. Unless they are.”

  “You don’t know?” asked Slate.

  “Nah. Not my business. Not my business why you care, either,” said Sparrow, leaning back. “Big damn things stomping through the city, no reason not to wonder. Been turning all the traffic on its ear ever since they dug ’em up.”

  Slate was glad that the Chadori veil hid most of her face.

  She had no real memory of leaving Sparrow’s stall. She must have said the correct things. She walked through the crowd with her head down, looking for Brenner. Her nose was itching abominably under her veil and she didn’t dare lift it to scratch. She kept smelling something, but whether it was rosemary or one of the various smells from the Shadow Market was anyone’s guess.

  Brother Amadai.

  He had been the last name on the list.

  What is a scholar of the Many-Armed God doing mixed up in this? And where is he now?

  Learned Edmund had been on the right track. The box of notes she’d pulled out of the Guild might be the answer to everything…if they could just figure out how to read them.

  I’ve been obsessing over Boss Horsehead because he wants me dead, and what does he matter? He just wants power. He doesn’t control the clocktaurs. If we get rid of him, the Senators are still going to have an army. I might feel better, the world might be a better place afterwards, but it’s not gonna help with the war.

  Her tattoo twinged. She gritted her teeth.

  Amadai dug up the clocktaurs and then he vanished. The Artificer’s Guild locked up his notes. Why?

  Did he vanish because the other people involved decided he was inconvenient?

  What did he know?

  Slate caught a glimpse of Brenner’s profile in the crowd and made toward it. She started to lift a hand to wave to him.

  An arm went around her neck.

  She was not surprised. That was the bit that got her. A cool wash of dread filled her body, but she was not at all surprised.

  On some level, she’d been waiting for this all along.

  “Little Miss Slate,” crooned a voice in her ear. “We know it’s you.”

  There was a knifeblade just pricking her back, above the kidneys. Slate wasn’t worried. If her attacker meant to kill her, she’d already be dead. She pulled at the arm, but that was reflex, her body fighting back.

  Sparrow must have guessed, and saw the chance at a really big payoff. Damn.

  Damn, damn, damn.

  She saw Brenner look over. For a moment she was afraid he’d run to the rescue, and then he did a fast fade into the crowd.

  Well, obviously. It’s not like he’s a paladin.

  “Horsehead wants to see you,” whispered the voice.

  The crowd was making room. No one was looking at them. When things like this happen in the Shadow Market, people made a point not to see it.

  “Fine,” hissed Slate. “Let’s get it over with.”

  The voice laughed.

  Someone pulled a bag over her head, and Slate’s world got dark and hot and unpleasant.

  Her last thought, as her assailant slung her over his shoulder, was to hope that Learned Edmund would eventually think of the question that they’d all been too blind to ask.

  Thirty

  There was a loud pounding on the door. It was not a knock. It sounded like the door was about to come off.

  “The guards?” Learned Edmund asked, pulling his book against his chest as if to depend it.

  “I don’t know.” Caliban drew his sword. Friendly people did not knock like that.

  The pounding came again, a frantic hammering, someone determined to take down the door if it didn’t answer to normal means.

  The Knight-Champion caught the doorknob and flung it open, the point of his sword level with an intruder’s chest.

  It was Brenner.

  The assassin ducked under the point of the sword and came up on Caliban’s other side like a black eel. The paladin recoiled, startled, and heedless of the steel in his hand, Brenner reached out and caught his shoulders in a grip like iron.

  “It’s Slate,” Brenner gasped. “She’s been taken.”

  “Boss Horsehead?”

  “Who else?”

  “What is he going to do to her?” asked Caliban. His voice was very calm, and he was taking the time to put his armor only because Brenner flatly insisted on it.

  The assassin raked a hand through his hair. “Oh, he’ll kill her. Eventually.”

  “Is she dead now, then?” He was calm, calm. He had never been so calm.

  If she is de
ad, I will take this city apart stone by stone.

  “No. He’s not a rash man. He’ll want to know why she’s here.”

  “Will she tell him?”

  “I don’t think she’ll have much choice.”

  Learned Edmund made a ragged sound from where he sat on the bed. “You mean he’ll torture her?”

  “Probably not to death,” Brenner assured him, never taking his eyes off Caliban, who was sliding his hands into his gauntlets. “He’ll want enough left to make an example of.”

  The gauntlets clenched convulsively into fists. “What sort of example?” said Caliban softly.

  Brenner backed up until his spine touched the wall. For a moment, Caliban thought the assassin might break and run. Almost, it was amusing.

  “What sort of example, Brenner?”

  “He’ll hang her from the rafters of the Grey Church. That’s what the cages are for.”

  “I see.” The paladin shrugged into the sword harness. He was calm, so very calm. He reached out a hand and caught Brenner calmly under the chin. “Show me where this man lives.”

  Brenner’s throat worked against the gauntlet as the assassin swallowed. “You can’t just walk up there and kill him!”

  “Show me, Brenner.”

  “What about the mission?”

  “Ngha, ha, rhea-rhea-ha!”

  There was a little silence. Caliban licked his lips. The demon voice had burned his throat, and the creature roiling in his soul didn’t feel much like a corpse at all.

  Brenner’s eyes flashed. For a moment, Caliban almost expected the assassin to answer him back in a demon’s voice of his own.

  “All right,” said Brenner, human-voiced and very calm. “All right. Let go and step back, paladin.”

  Caliban looked down and saw the knife. The point lay against his belly. One good thrust and he’d die by inches.

  He loosened his fingers.

  The assassin pried the offending hand away from his throat and made his knife disappear. “Listen to me, Caliban. We can’t storm his mansion, because that’s stupid. She’s not going to be there. Nobody tortures people at home. It ruins the carpets.”

  “Where will she be?”

  “I don’t know! He’s got to have a place for this sort of work.”

  “Gnoles will find out,” said Grimehug. “Gnoles saw Crazy Slate get taken, they know she’s a gnole-friend. Came and told me.”

  All three humans stared at him. Grimehug shrugged. “Gnoles’re crazy, maybe, but we’re not stupid.”

  “Who knows?” said Caliban. “Who can tell us?”

  “When gnoles knows, gnoles come, big man,” said Grimehug. He looked up at Caliban, oddly fearless, as if the paladin had not had his hand around Brenner’s throat bare moments before. “Gnoles can’t follow below the church. But gnoles will watch.”

  “It’s not soon enough,” said Caliban. “He could kill her. He could be killing her now.”

  Brenner shook his head. “He’ll hang her in the crow cage first. She made a fool of him, and he’ll make an example of her.”

  “So she’ll be there,” said Caliban. “She could be there right now. We can get her out.”

  “And we can all die in the Grey Church,” snapped Brenner. “There’s at least fifty guards and probably two hundred people who will join in a brawl just for fun. And they’ve got crossbows, so even if we get the cage down, she’d be a pincushion before she hit the floor. Dammit, paladin, stop acting like an armor-plated idiot and think!”

  “Nghaai!”

  Brenner sighed, took off his gloves, and slapped him across the face with them.

  Caliban blinked.

  “Are you…are you challenging me to a duel?”

  “No,” said Brenner. “Because that would be stupid. Just like you’re being stupid right now.”

  “Listen to the dark man, big man,” said Grimehug. “You think Crazy Slate wants to watch you die?”

  Caliban blinked again. Then— “All right. All right. Not the crow cages, unless there’s no other way.”

  * * *

  They did not take Slate immediately to the cage. She hadn’t expected it, really. Instead she was slung over someone’s shoulder and carried, uncomfortably, through the Grey Church.

  Her hearing was muffled inside the sack, but she didn’t hear any uproar. Well, she hadn’t expected that, either. If the enforcers grabbed someone, you didn’t raise a fuss. That was a good way to get your own head shoved into a sack, or failing that, just be stabbed for interfering.

  They left the large, echoing reaches of the church and entered an enclosed tunnel. Her heart sank a little, which was impressive, since she would have sworn that her heart was already somewhere in the vicinity of her borrowed socks.

  Several twists, several turns. Slate got very tired of the shoulder that was rammed into her side. She didn’t fight, because fighting would just get her hit, so she breathed shallowly and lay like dead weight, waiting.

  A door slammed, then another. Her world lurched as her captors dropped her roughly into a chair. Someone yanked her hands around behind her and tied them with what felt like a strip of cloth.

  At least they don’t have rope lying around the room. That’s good, right?

  They pulled the sack off her head. She knew that was less good, even as she gasped fresh air.

  If they don’t care if I see them, then they’re going to kill me.

  Well, it’s not like that’s a surprise.

  With the sack off her head, she could see that she was in a small room hung with oil lamps. It was reasonably clean, with several chairs and a table. It was the sort of room where people conducted private meetings, if they could afford to pay for such privacy, instead of relying on the noise of a crowd to keep them anonymous.

  Horsehead, of course, would have no trouble paying for such a room.

  If Slate had been innocent, she might have blustered or demanded to know what they meant by kidnapping her and dragging her into the back tunnels of the Grey Church. As it was, she said nothing. What was there to say? She knew why she was there, they knew why she was there, and the less talking she did, the less chance someone was going to smack her around for not show proper respect.

  Instead she waited in silence. So did the guard.

  Horsehead did not show up immediately. He was a busy man.

  I suppose it’s nice that he didn’t drop everything to come deal with me? Maybe?

  I know I’m going in a crow cage. I suppose now it’s just a matter of how many body parts I’m missing before I go.

  …way to stay positive, there.

  The door opened. Slate’s stomach lurched, but it was a tall, thin man that Slate recognized from years ago. One of the old enforcers. He’d come up in the world a bit, judging by his clothes.

  “Yeah, that’s her,” he said to the guard. And: “What the hell’d you come back for, Slate?”

  Slate shrugged. “Seemed like a good idea, Marez.”

  Marez shook his head. “It wasn’t,” he said.

  “Getting that impression, yeah.”

  “The boss has wanted your guts on a plate since you ditched town. You know he’s gonna hang you from the rafters.”

  Slate shrugged again. “Looks like it.”

  Marez sighed. “What a waste,” he said. “You were a helluva forger.”

  “Don’t suppose the boss is looking for a forger?” said Slate hopefully. “Willing to let bygones be bygones?”

  Marez snorted. “Yeah, right.”

  “Worth a shot,” said Slate.

  The enforcer shook his head and turned away. “I’ll tell him you’re here.”

  “No rush.”

  An hour or two passed. Slate had to go to the bathroom, but she doubted that the guard would be sympathetic. She considered the merits of simply pissing herself, but Horsehead would probably think it was terror. Also, there was a slim chance that if she waited, she might be able to get some on him.

  It wasn’t like he was
going to kill her less dead for being agreeable.

  The door opened again. The man in the doorway was large, broad in the shoulders and thick through the middle. He had thin, silver-shot hair and his hands were studded with rings. One of them, most prominent, had a horse’s profile picked out in gemstones.

  He’d aged in the years since Slate had seen him last, but there was no mistaking his identity.

  “You,” said Boss Horsehead. “You, at last.”

  Thirty-One

  “Why are you even here?” said Horsehead. “I never figured you for an idiot.”

  Slate shrugged. “Ah, you know…”

  He struck her across the side of the head. Slate’s head rang, and when it stopped ringing, her ear felt very hot.

  Oh, lovely…

  “Last I heard, you were holed up in the Dowager’s city. I sent a couple assassins, for all the good it did me.”

  Keep him talking…if he’s talking, he’s not killing you…

  “Good help is hard to find,” said Slate. She’d only known about one assassin. Brenner had killed her, which had actually led to Slate falling into his arms in gratitude.

  Another mistake I can lay at Horsehead’s feet. So that’s nice, anyway.

  He leaned over her. He didn’t have to lean, he was already a lot bigger than she was, but he did it anyway. “Someone paying you to come back?”

  The tattoo clamped down, which was exactly what she didn’t need right now.

  Slate rolled her eyes. “I was in the capitol, yeah. But you’re sending legions of bloody clocktaurs at it, if you hadn’t noticed. Figured the safest place to be was back here. At least they’re all pointed the other way.”

  Boss Horsehead snorted. His breath smelled like his last meal, which had apparently been heavily spiced. “Those damn things.” He shook his head. “Still, if they drove you back here, at least they finally did me some good.”

  “And here I figured you’d be war profiteering off ’em.”

  Horsehead hit her again, not as hard. Slate got the feeling it was more of a reflex than actual malice. This did not make her ear feel any better.