by Anthony Ryan
“If you wouldn’t mind, Miss,” Sigoral said, crouching to offer her his hand.
CHAPTER 25
Lizanne
“Seems too small,” Demisol said, peering at the spherical device she had placed on the defaced table. It was a little larger than an average-sized apple, constructed from a mix of iron and copper components. A small key lay alongside it, ready to be inserted into the slot on the top of the device.
“I’m assured it’s more than adequate for the task,” Lizanne said.
“So you didn’t make this?” Helina asked, her perennial suspicion as yet undimmed by Lizanne’s reappearance with the promised proof of her intent.
“I was fortunate enough to secure the services of someone sympathetic to our enterprise,” she replied.
“The wider this plan is known the greater the risk.” The diminutive radical stared down at the device for a long while before adding, “I know of only one inmate with the skills to construct something of this complexity.”
“The Tinkerer?” Demisol asked Lizanne, who shrugged.
“What does it matter?” she said. “The device will work and he is in the process of producing more.”
“We’ve had a few dealings with him in the past,” Demisol said. “Enough to know he cares nothing for our cause.”
“I promised him escape. He’s not particularly skilled in detecting lies.”
“But you are skilled in speaking them,” Helina observed.
“What revolutionary isn’t?” Lizanne nodded at the device. “Citizens, I require your decision. Once this is primed and placed there can be no turning back.”
Demisol gave no immediate reply, instead moving to the head of the table and sinking into a chair where the owner of this house once sat and entertained guests. “What have you told the Electress?” he enquired.
“That you’re reluctant to trust a new-comer,” Lizanne replied. “However, whilst I have not yet discerned any evidence of your involvement in the attempt on her life, certain passing remarks lead me to conclude there is more to learn here. Also, you have intimated a desire to have me spy on her, as she would expect.”
“So,” Helina said, “you haven’t given up the fop yet.”
Lizanne gave a thin smile. “Play a high card at the wrong moment and you risk losing the pot.”
“How does it work?” Demisol asked, nodding at the iron-and-copper apple on the table.
“Insert the key and turn it fully to the right. The delay is fifteen minutes. I will have a dozen more ready by next Ore Day, and a much larger device I’m assured will achieve our principal aim.”
“And then,” Demisol said softly, “Scorazin goes to war.”
“Yes.” Lizanne looked up, eyes tracking from one to the other. “Your decision, citizens?”
“We were obliged to . . . disenfranchise one of our number after putting your scheme to the group,” Helina said. “The Holy Leveller, ironically. Despite a lifetime lost in religious delusion, he proclaimed the plan a murderous and insane folly. But the vote went against him.”
“Unanimously,” Demisol added, rising and coming around the table to retrieve one of the timepieces. “We’re with you, citizen. It’s time to wipe the blot of this city from the soul of humanity.”
• • •
Earless Jozk was by far the worst gambler Lizanne had ever known. He would sit at her Pastazch table whenever he had money to spend, one hand twitching on his diminishing pile of chits as he peered at the hand she dealt, the value of which could be easily read in the various tics of his unwashed face. Tonight, the unalloyed glimmer of joy in his gaze told Lizanne he had drawn at least two cards of the Imperial Suit on the first throw of the die, a fact also plain to the four other players at the table who promptly folded.
“Cowards,” the stocky Fury muttered, reaching for the meagre pot. Despite the poor haul, this was in fact the most Lizanne had seen him win in a single night. Usually he would sit playing out hand after hand until his chits were exhausted, whereupon he would disappear from the Miner’s Repose until labour in the sulphur pit earned enough to buy a chair at the table, and the entire fruitless exercise would be repeated.
“It’s still a decent haul, Mr. Jozk,” she told him as she gathered up the cards and shuffled the deck. “Enough for a full cup of the good stuff and an hour upstairs, if you’d like.”
“I’m far from done,” he growled in response. “Just work those dainty hands, m’dear. I’ll decide how best to spend my wealth once I’ve cleaned the pockets of these craven dogs.”
The other players gave voice to some restrained laughter, but no open mockery. Jozk had earned his name not from losing an ear, but from his habit of biting them off those foolish enough to rouse his temper past breaking point. To his credit, however, he never became violent at the table or fell victim to any unwise notions regarding Lizanne’s person.
“Chits on the table or fold, please, gents,” she said, dealing one card to each player. “Mr. Semper, first throw to you when you’re ready.”
Semper, a member of the Verdigris, was another regular at her table, drawn by a quickly acquired reputation for honest dealing. She could tell from his style of play that Pastazch had been his principal occupation before being consigned to Scorazin. He judged the odds with practised swiftness, never allowed emotion to colour his judgement and tended to leave the table richer than when he sat down. Unlike Earless Jozk, he had no aversion to spending his winnings on the ladies upstairs or on the establishment’s most potent drink. Lizanne suspected such indulgence was due to a wasting illness that made his visage more cadaverous with every game and would surely see him cast onto the midden before the year was out.
Semper tossed his chit into the pot, glanced at the card she had dealt him then reached for the die with a bony hand. Some players liked to blow on the die before the throw, or offer it to Lizanne to do the same. “For luck,” they said. Semper had no truck with such superstition and always threw without preamble, on this occasion turning up a four.
“Four cards to Mr. Semper.” Lizanne dealt the cards and turned to the man on his left. “Your throw, sir.”
The three other players all folded after their throws, leaving Semper and Jozk to battle over the pot. The Fury’s throw earned him only two more cards, making this game a somewhat hopeless prospect, and yet his eyes betrayed the same excited gleam as before.
“Second throw,” Lizanne said. Semper’s next toss of the die earned him three more cards meaning Lizanne could only deal two in order to bring his hand up to the maximum of seven. Jozk’s throw earned him one card, at which point his brow began to shine with sweat.
“Bet or fold, gents,” Lizanne said.
The two men matched stares as the murmured voices from surrounding tables mingled with the lilting notes of Makario’s pianola.
“You don’t have it,” Semper told Jozk, weary certainty colouring his rasp of a voice. Lizanne knew his meaning. There was only one hand in Pastazch in which four cards would be sure to triumph over seven; the rarely seen Imperial Quad.
“You don’t know what I got,” Jozk returned and pushed all of his chits into the pot.
“You had two Imperials on the last deal,” Semper said, brows raised in an oddly sympathetic gesture. “The odds of having four in this one are . . .” He laughed and shook his head. “It’s a poor time to choose for a bluff, Jozk. Take your money back and fold. I’ve no desire to make you an enemy.”
“You won’t.”
Semper’s gaze narrowed a little, Lizanne detecting a small flicker of uncertainty. He doesn’t have any Imperials, she realised. Meaning there’s still a chance this is no bluff, however small.
“As you wish,” Semper sighed, pushing his impressive stack of chits to the centre of the table.
“Mr. Semper bets his entire stake,” Lizanne said, reaching forward to count the v
alue of the pot. “Mr. Jozk, you require . . .”
“Waiver,” Semper cut in, offering Jozk a humourless smile. “Let’s play it out. If this comes off it’ll be one for my memoirs.”
“Mr. Semper waives the matching bet,” Lizanne said. “Gentlemen, show your cards.”
A small crowd had gathered by now, a dozen or so patrons sidling closer to watch the outcome. Semper’s slender fingers tapped his cards briefly before flipping them over, the onlookers voicing a collective gasp at the revealed hand.
“Seven-card flush,” Lizanne said, raising an eyebrow. “Roses, no straight. Double points value makes for a total of one hundred and two. Mr. Jozk, you require one hundred and three points to take the pot.”
Earless Jozk for once maintained an unreadable visage as he rested a hand on his cards, remaining still and silent as the moment stretched. Lizanne couldn’t decide if he was enjoying the moment of triumph or contemplating his worst humiliation to date. She allowed him the time and let the tension draw yet more eyes to the table. A game like this had a tendency to stir the patrons up, making them more inclined to part with their chits, something the Electress always appreciated.
Finally a ghost of a smile flickered across the chapped lips of Earless Jozk’s besmirched and prematurely aged face as he gave a wry shake of his head and began to turn over his cards.
Glass shattered off to Lizanne’s right and something small and fast buzzed the air an inch in front of her nose. Her eyes instinctively followed its course, drawing up short at the sight of Jozk with a metallic dart embedded in his forehead. He met her gaze for a second, wet lips fumbling over final words no one would ever hear, then slumped face-first onto the table, leaking copious blood over the faded green baize. More shattered glass and the air was filled with a swarm of buzzing darts and the shouts of patrons.
Lizanne slipped from her chair and crawled under the table, watching men fall around her amidst a cacophony of panicked voices and stampeding feet. One of her regulars collapsed near by, clutching at a dart in his shoulder. She watched as his hands spasmed and bloody foam began to seep from his mouth before he slumped onto his back, still twitching. Poison on the darts, she reasoned. Clever.
She realised Makario’s music had fallen silent and looked up to see him still sitting at the pianola, gazing about at the unfolding massacre in wide-eyed bafflement. Lizanne rose to a crouch and scurried to the musician, feeling a dart flick through her hair. She grabbed Makario’s arm and dragged him from the stool just as a dart embedded itself in the pianola, birthing a discordant howl of breaking strings.
“No,” Makario breathed, rising and reaching out to the ruined instrument, face riven with grief.
“Don’t!” Lizanne wrapped her arms around him and held him down as darts continued to streak through the shattered window above their head. Patrons littered the floor, dead or dying, whilst a thrashing knot of survivors jammed the stairwell in an effort to flee. Lizanne’s attention was soon captured by the sight of Semper, standing upright as the darts thrummed around him. She could see one embedded in his arm and knew he wouldn’t be long in joining the dead. He paid no mind to the injury, however, his gaze fully occupied by the four cards he held in his hand. Another dart slammed into his chest, making him stagger, but he stayed on his feet, his gaze slipping from the cards to find Lizanne.
“Emperor’s balls!” he called to her in cheerful amazement, holding up the cards; the Chamberlain, the Landgrave, the Elector and the Emperor, all four cards of the Imperial Quad. “He actually had it!”
• • •
“What is it?” the Electress asked, looking over the device Anatol had placed on her desk. It consisted of two main components, a wooden stock joined at one end to a strip of sprung steel. The steel strip was curved thanks to the length of thick twine attached to both ends. The stock featured an ingenious modification that couldn’t help but stir Lizanne’s professional admiration.
“A cross-bow,” she said. “But not a design I’ve seen before.” She tapped a finger to the mechanical fixed to the stock. “A geared-lever arrangement and box magazine for the darts. The lever enables the user to draw back the string and reload in one movement, allowing for rapid fire. It would require a strong pair of arms to work, though.”
“The Scuttler we found it on was strong enough,” Anatol said. “Took three knife blows to bring him down.”
“You get any more?” the Electress asked.
Anatol shook his head. “They were already running when we got there. Counted about a dozen, less the one who had this.”
“Eight dead customers, and the loss of a night’s takings, for one Scuttler.” The Electress sank into her chair, match flaring as she lit the inevitable cigarillo. “That’s a poor rate of exchange, I’d say.” She looked at Melina and inclined her head at the cross-bow. “Tinkerer’s work, would you say?”
“It’s certainly clever enough for him,” the tall woman replied with reluctant honesty. “But I’d say not. His mechanicals tend to have a more refined appearance. Besides, he never makes weapons. Not for anyone else, at least.”
“King Coal must have gotten them from somewhere,” Anatol said.
“Most probably from the same hands that crafted that bomb,” Lizanne suggested. “I’m starting to think he managed to find himself a talented new-comer.”
“Him and me both,” the Electress replied, without much conviction.
“I’ll gather the lads.” Anatol started towards the door. “Time we finished this.”
“I’d best go too,” Lizanne said, moving to follow.
“You’ll both do what the fuck I tell you to do!” the Electress snapped, smoke blossoming in an angry cloud. “When I tell you to do it.” Her face took on a stony aspect as she calmed herself before turning to Melina. “What do you know?”
“A bomb went off in the Pit Number Three winding tower about three hours ago. Wrecked the gear and left two Scuttlers dead. Any coal they get from that seam will have to be hand-carted up from now on.”
“Meaning most’ll starve before long,” Anatol said with a satisfied grimace. “The constables won’t give two turds about their problems. No coal, no food. Saves us a good deal of killing.”
A thin sigh escaped the Electress’s lips as she closed her eyes and rubbed stubby, yellow-stained fingers into her temples. “Starving men are desperate men,” she said. “And desperate men have no fear when it comes to a fight. Two Verdigris died here tonight, which means Chuckling Sim will feel obliged to respond, which means the Wise Fools will start itching to take advantage. When the whole city gets to fighting it’s a safe bet the constables will have more than two turds to give.”
She sat back, clasping her meaty hands together, brow furrowed in contemplation. “Send word to the pits,” she muttered. “Triple guard tonight. Make sure everyone’s armed up. No one sleeps. Now piss off downstairs and let me think.”
• • •
Makario sat at the pianola, shoulders slumped as his finger tapped a dull thunk from one of the keys. The bodies had been cleared away, after a thorough looting, and efforts made to mop up the blood, though the worst stains still lingered on the boards. “I’m sure it’s fixable,” Lizanne said, moving to the musician’s side. “Just strings and wood, after all.”
His eyes flashed at her in momentary resentment, his normally fine features twisting into something she hadn’t seen before. “What do you know about music?” he demanded in a harsh whisper. “You can name tunes, but what does your killer’s heart really know?”
Some measure of surprise must have shown on her face for he sighed, closing his eyes and turning away. “I’m sorry,” he said, splaying his delicate fingers over the keys. “It’s just . . . She was a wreck when I found her, the last surviving pianola in the whole of Scorazin. It took months of work to nurse her back to health, make her sing again. The Electress’s little project to b
ring music to the Miner’s Repose. It kept me alive. Now . . .” He played a short melody, still recognisable despite the dull thud of keys on ruined strings. “What am I without her, Krista?”
Dead, Lizanne thought. Like everyone else in here. But then, you always were.
She was tempted to lean closer and whisper her knowledge into his ear; I know what you did. His reaction would be bound to reveal something useful, but she resisted. Not out of sentiment, she told herself, only partially feeling it to be a lie. A card to be played when the pot’s swollen to its fullest.
She had been calculating the likely effect the bombing and subsequent massacre would have on her plan and knew the Learned Damned would be making their own calculations. It was possible, of course, that they had taken the bomb she gave them and put it to this unexpected use. However, she could see no reason why they would. Wrong time, and the wrong kind of chaos. A gang-war avails us nothing since the constables will simply let us starve until it quiets down. She considered slipping away to confer with Demisol and Helina, but knew it could well prove a fatal gamble. A dozen more Furies had been drafted in from the mines as additional security. They were a contrast to the slothful guards she had evaded to contact Tinkerer, experienced and keen-eyed veterans of gang-wars within and without these walls likely to notice her absence. So the Learned Damned would have to wait as she suffered the unwelcome sensation of being unable to influence events.
She let her hand fall to the keys, tapping out a tune and humming the accompanying melody, one she had last heard drifting out across shell-blasted trenches half a world away. “The Leaves of Autumn,” Makario said, his lips forming a faint smile of recognition. “My old grandmamma’s favourite.”