The Ingenious

by Darius Hinks

  Rasnik moaned again, trying to call out for help, trying to lift his arms to defend himself, but it was useless. All he could do was watch in terrified silence as Alzen unfolded the sheet.

  Alzen took one corner and stood up, allowing it to unfurl. It was gossamer fine, rippling from his fingers like smoke.

  Only when it had fully unfolded did Rasnik realize what it was: the flayed skin of a man, complete with arms, legs and puckered holes where the eyes would have been. It was pale and diaphanous and, he realized with dawning horror, still alive. The faint blue lines were veins, and there was movement in them – blood, pulsing through the billowing sheet.

  Alzen draped the skin over the bottom of the bed, like a second blanket, then stepped back into the shadows.

  Rasnik moaned again as the skin began to move, rippling like silt on a riverbed, undulating in little waves and flowing across his body, moving towards his face. His moans grew shriller but no louder as the creature’s face settled over his own. He was paralyzed, but he could feel everything. Coagulus stretched out in every direction, pressing over his chest and limbs, folding around him, embracing him, merging with him.

  “If you died, unattended,” said Alzen, as the skin tightened itself around Rasnik, “your quintessence would be lost, the very spark of your being, the thing some call a soul, would simply die. But Coagulus will preserve your essence. And it is no ordinary essence. Your soul has been ennobled, Rasnik – ennobled by me, even though you did not know it. The cinnabar you bought from the Aroc Brothers came from me, you see, and it was laced with potent elements: flores, mercurius sublimatus, aurichalcum and minerals so rare I have spent a lifetime gathering them. But with you as a crucible they will produce something glorious. And for that, I think the crime of hastening your death seems a small price to pay.”

  Agony exploded across Rasnik’s body as Coagulus melted into him, scorching like acid.

  “It will be quick,” said Alzen, smiling again.

  5

  Even the Sisters could not give Isten what she sought. They cradled her head, wept tears on her cheeks and sang of her beauty, but she knew what she was. The word dragged at her heels and echoed in her sleep. Unworthy. She was the lesser now of a greater then.

  Isten was rocked by a grating cough as she leant over the table and picked up a pile of polished bones. She was shivering violently and her vision was split by torrents of sweat. There was a mandrel-fire somewhere behind her, and the light hurt her eyes and tightened her skull. If she moved too fast, she would fall from her chair. It felt like she was on fire. Things that had been pleasure had turned to pain. Cinnabar would indulge its devotees for a while, circling in their guts, waiting patiently to be fed, but when it sensed abandonment, it raged like a cuckold, flaying nerves it had previously caressed.

  She looked around the table at a circle of unfamiliar faces. She panicked, unable, for the moment, to remember where she was. Athanor was not a city in which a lone woman, crippled by addiction, could survive for long. Then she remembered the warehouse and the Ignorant Men. And the death of Amoria. She stared at the bones in her hand. They had once been a rat, she thought, snaking down the banks of the Saraca, climbing the Golden Chain with all the other scavengers; now they were a game. A game. Of course. She remembered where she was. She had come to Brast’s house. He used to be one of the Exiles, and he was one of the city’s few citizens who wouldn’t leave her headless in the river. No lover ever remembered Isten with fondness, but Brast at least would not see her dead. When she arrived and showed him Gombus’s coins he had smirked in disbelief, but let her in, helped her wash, given her new clothes and let her join a game. Now he was sat in a corner drawing her, documenting her decline with the same mock disdain he always affected in her presence.

  “Throw,” said one of the other players, speaking in a dry whisper. She was so confused, and the room was so gloomy, that she had thought her fellow gamblers were all human, but as the speaker moved into light she saw that it was a weazen. She had never seen one so close before. From certain angles, it might have been mistaken for a gaunt man, but as it turned, the light splashed over its strings of flat, leaf-shaped planes. It was like a puppet made of razor-edged shells, shimmering and iridescent in some places, rough and encrusted with dried muck in others. It looked incredibly fragile, and so flat it barely seemed to inhabit three dimensions, but Isten had heard weazens were harder than iron and sharper than a falcata. This was one of the wingless types, but she could see small, vestigial pinions fidgeting on its shoulders as it grew more annoyed by the delay.

  “Brast,” it hissed, turning to look back at him, clicking and clattering as it moved spilling flies into the air. “The girl. Send her away.” The weazen glared at Isten and raised the jumble of bladed plates that passed for its hand, scraping them together like knives.

  Isten sneered at the creature but she knew she was in danger. The other players looked as irritated by her erratic behaviour as the weazen. Brast would not be able to help her if the whole table turned against her. She gripped the knife in her belt and threw the bones across the table. Then she laughed, despite the agony lancing through her temples. It was a high score. She reached carefully across the table and slid piles of coins towards her lap. After what had happened, she could not return to the Exiles empty-handed. It was her fault. Amoria died because of her. But if she could return to the others with enough money to buy arms and men, they still might listen to her. They could still begin again. She could find a way to help them. It was a faint hope, but it was all she had to cling to. The thought of Amoria, clattering onto the floor of the warehouse, caused her mind to slip away again. She stared into the grain of the table. Whorls and spirals. The armour of the Ignorant Man, sprouting and transforming, reaching towards her.

  The weazen watched her closely with the one eye that was facing her, studying her shaking hands and the sweat dripping from her nose.

  “I have cinnabar,” it said, leaning back in its chair, causing its plates to grind and click. There was a revolting smell coming from it, and fly larvae bubbling in its joints. “Back in my rooms.”

  “I can buy my own,” she muttered, snapping back into the moment and counting the coins. “Another round?” She found herself revelling in the thrill of a winning streak.

  A few of the players muttered and shook their heads, but the weazen was still glaring at her and it nodded.

  The others were slightly more reluctant, but as Isten pushed the rat bones back towards them, they reached into their robes and placed coins on the wine-stained table.

  She caught the look of wry amusement on Brast’s face but refused to acknowledge it.

  The first player threw the bones and grunted in disgust. He left the table and went to sit beside Brast, studying the picture he was drawing.

  The next player threw and, again, it was a low score. Isten recognized him. He was one of the spice traders from Rasbin Street – a tanned, leathery lump with eyes as yellow as his teeth. He shook his head, taking the loss more philosophically than his friend. He lit an oil lamp and heated up a beautiful jade tar-pipe, taking a drag and leaning back in his chair, staring at the ceiling and muttering to himself, filling the room with the sweet, heady scent of burning flowers.

  The next player to throw had more luck and he leant forwards, his sweaty face lit up by the glow of the oil lamp. “Antinomie. You should have taken it while you could,” he said, eyeing the pile of coins on Isten’s lap.

  She picked one up, looking at the design on its face. A circle of flames around a smaller, solid circle. The symbol of Athanor. The symbol of the Curious Men. She said nothing to the sweaty man, placing the coin back on her lap and turning to face the weazen.

  It extended its segmented arm with a screech of grinding joints, still staring at Isten as it lifted the bones and sent them rattling across the table. “Amphiarae,” whispered the creature. It was the highest score so far.

  Isten could sense that Brast
had set down his drawing and walked over to the table to watch, but she refused to meet his eye as she picked up the bones and threw them.

  “Olum,” said Brast, sounding, to his credit, more disappointed than amused.

  Isten thought she might slide from her chair, but she would not make such a fool of herself in front of Brast.

  As she shoved the pile of coins across the table towards the weazen, she saw, rather than the city emblem, the faces of Gombus and Puthnok, cast into the coins, their eyes as dull and lifeless as the scratched metal.

  “One last game,” she gasped, grabbing the creature’s arm.

  She hissed and snatched her hand back, blood flying from her fingers.

  The weazen laughed. “With what?”

  Isten’s pulse was hammering and the fire in her skin was so fierce she could barely breathe. Sweat was pooling beneath her on her seat and the shadows were starting to collapse, fragmented by the flickering oil lamp and the heavy, perfumed scent of the tar smoke. The only thing she could see clearly was the pile of coins. Several of which had been given to her by Gombus – the mark of his forgiveness. At the very least, she had to return with those.

  “There must be something,” she gasped, hands trembling as she wiped the sweat from her eyes.

  “Time to go, gentlemen,” said Brast, stepping to her side and placing a hand on her shoulder. “My friend needs to rest.”

  “No!” she gasped, trying to stand.

  Brast pressed down on her shoulder, keeping her in her seat.

  She glared up at him. His face looked like a skull in the lamplight, pale and angular.

  “No more,” he said, speaking to her as though she were a tiresome child.

  “Let me go,” she warned, gripping the handle of her knife.

  The others laughed and Brast raised an eyebrow. “You can barely walk.”

  “We’ll take care of her,” murmured the man smoking the pipe, a lecherous smirk on his face.

  Isten managed to shove Brast away and stand, waving her knife at the circle of rippling faces.

  “Go,” muttered Brast, shaking his head in disbelief.

  With a chorus of laughter, the players gathered their things and staggered out into the night.

  Isten was still gripping her knife as Brast closed the door and turned to face her.

  She could sense him drawing her, adoring her, even now, with her cinnabar-wasted face and her bone-jangling tremors. For all his pretence of disapproval, she knew he was obsessed with her. Such absurd devotion made her recoil. He was like a net, encircling her, weighing her down.

  “Those coins were all I had,” she said.

  “And you gambled them. Clever.”

  She strode across the room, grabbed his easel and hurled it at him.

  He stepped aside and it smashed against the door. The paper tore as it fell to the floor and she was left facing a shredded portrait of her gaunt, desperate face. She looked like a wounded animal, looming from the darkness, moments from death. She stared at the portrait in shock. Even in tatters, she could see how accurate it was. Brast was a liar, except when he had a pen in his hand.

  He held up his hands in a defensive gesture. “If you really want to stick a knife in me, do it in the morning. If you try now I’ll have to steady the blade for you.” He waved at the door leading to the stairs. “Let’s get some sleep. Maybe in the morning you’ll remember that I saved your life.”

  She could only just hear what he was saying. Her thoughts were fixed on the dreadful portrait. “I’m important,” she said, knowing how ridiculous she sounded, not even sure what she meant.

  He shook his head. “Only to the Exiles. And you don’t believe in any of that stuff.”

  “What do you mean?” she snapped, managing to focus on his face. “What stuff?”

  “Revolutions. Politics. Ideals. That stuff. The things that get in the way of your endless party. Have you forgotten everything you told me when you loved me, Isten?” He came closer, a wraith in the dark, eyes full of bitter love. “You don’t believe we can ever get home. You think Puthnok is a hopeless, naive fool – that they’re all deluded. That there’s no way back to Rukon and that Puthnok will never start her revolution. You just play along with them through guilt. I know you, Isten, better than any of them. Why do you think I left?”

  Isten felt a rush of guilt. She probably had told him those things, while in the grip of a cinnabar binge. She had shared truths with Brast that she had not fully shared with herself.

  He looked away and she saw that he regretted his words. However cloying she found him, at least he still felt something for her. She needed all the help she could get. For once, she had made a good decision. This was probably the only safe place for her in the city outside of the Sisters’ seraglio, and she could never have made it that far tonight.

  Brast waved her to the stairs. “Don’t worry, you can have the bed to yourself. You still smell like shit.”

  Isten had to hold back a smile. He’d want her even if she was still in the sewer, but for once she managed to hold her tongue and not ridicule him. She nodded in grateful silence and let him take her upstairs.

  She woke with a cry of fear, picturing the expressionless face of an Ignorant Man, looming towards her from the darkness. For a moment, she could not remember where she was, then Brast rose from a mattress on the floor and placed a hand on her arm. The lamps had all been extinguished but there were a few fingers of moonlight slicing through the shutters of his bedroom. She was shaking, drenched in sweat, picturing metal faces in the shadows.

  “What have you done to yourself?” asked Brast.

  She gripped his hand, feeling a growing sense of panic. “It’s not me, Brast.” She pictured Gombus’s proud, tired face, and the grotesque shape of Amoria as she died in the warehouse. “What have I done to the Exiles?”

  He sat next to her on the bed, shaking his head, speaking quickly. “Whatever happened, they brought it on themselves. They’re deluded. You said it yourself. They’re killing you with all these absurd dreams. One woman can’t stop the world and make it work again. They expect you to get them home and reclaim their past. Is it any wonder you’ve ended up like this? It’s madness. That’s why I left. I couldn’t bear to watch them any more. What happened this time? What did they ask you to do?”

  “I spoke to Colcrow,” she said, “and he–”

  “Colcrow? Why would you listen to him? He doesn’t have an honest bone in his body. He deserted you even sooner than I did. Why would you trust him?”

  “He told me about a shipment. I thought it would be a chance to get us back on our feet again. But there was something odd going on.” She gripped her head, trying to rid it of visions, trying to think clearly. “There was an Ignorant Man there, waiting for us. Either Colcrow betrayed me or something weird is happening. Why would Ignorant Men be anywhere near a drugs shipment?”

  Brast shook his head, frowning. “Ignorant Men? Are you sure that’s what you saw?”

  “No, of course I’m not sure. I’d never seen anything like it. But it looked exactly how I imagine an Ignorant Man would look. And even if it wasn’t, it was definitely something to do with the Curious Men. Some product of the Art.” She whispered, as though they might be overheard. “It was alchymia, I’m sure. It wasn’t a living creature. It was a machine. An automaton. Wrapped in golden threads and lit up with mandrel-fire. It took one look at us and tried to kill us. Amoria died. I think the others got away, because I led the Ignorant Man away, but Amoria is dead.”

  Brast looked shocked. “Dead? What is all this? What have you got yourself mixed up in?”

  “Not just Amoria. The Aroc Brothers killed Ozero too. They control the shipments into the Caris Docks now, they run the fights on Erkle Street and every brothel near the river is working for them. The city’s theirs. We’ve lost it all.”

  Brast nodded, his eyes clouding over. “I heard about Ozero. Poor sod. Sayal cut his t
hroat while two other Aroc Brothers held him down. Then he–”

  Isten held up a hand. “I’m going to deal with Sayal.”

  She looked around for her clothes and spotted them, folded neatly on a chair. They reminded her of the corpse bundles she had seen floating down the river. She pulled away from Brast. “I have to get back to the Exiles.”

  “They’re killing you.”

  “I saw Amoria die, but I don’t know what happened after that.” She shook her head and reached for the clothes. “The others should have got away, but I have to make sure.”

  “At least wait until the morning,” he said. “Let me give you some food.” He managed a tentative smile. “I’m sure you remember the quality of my cooking.”

  For a moment, she forgot everything and laughed, caught unawares by his unexpected joke, imagining the burnt fish and glutinous rice he would give her if she stayed. “No,” she said, getting dressed. She felt less panicked, but no less certain. Her face was tight with pain, but she forced it into something resembling a smile. “Thanks for not letting me kill you.”

  His expression darkened and she saw that, without even trying, she had hurt him again. She had such a knack for doing that. The warmth faded from his voice.

  “You won’t make it to the Blacknells Road. You’re half dead. You’ll end up back in the sewers.”

  She nodded, still struggling to get dressed, her arms shaking badly. The clothes he had given her were actually hers: a black short-sleeved coat of padded leather, weathered and scarred, but still intact; black hooded robes; leather vambraces, breeches and knee-length sandals. He must have kept them for all these months. “My knife?” she asked.

  He nodded to a pile of sketches on a table. The knife was on top of the drawings.