The Ice House

by Tim Clare

  She could not deny that Butler had natural presence. He carried himself with understated authority; customers were compelled both to look up and to drop their gazes as he passed. A little of it rubbed off on her. She felt herself standing taller, letting her gaze rove around the tables. It felt good.

  Perhaps it was unwise to be drawing attention to themselves. Most patrons avoided eye contact, but a couple of gazes lingered, coolly appraising.

  Inside, she squeezed between the backs of chairs as she followed Butler through a noisy, smoky room towards a doorway covered with a felt curtain. On a stool beside the doorway sat a harka orderly with deep cherry-brown hair, a mealy patch about his muzzle, and horns carved in the shape of stone towers. He was laying square cards in a double cross formation on a tray table set on his knees, either playing solitaire or performing some sort of divination.

  He glanced up as Butler approached. One of his eyes had flecks of white in the iris.

  ‘There’s nothing for you back here, friend.’

  ‘I’m here to meet Doyenne Lesang,’ said Butler.

  The guard looked him up and down. ‘Name.’

  ‘Butler.’

  ‘Butler . . .?’

  ‘Just “Butler”.’

  The guard sniffed, tapping the edge of a card against the tray table. He cocked his head and looked past Butler at Delphine.

  ‘Who’s this?’

  Delphine returned the guard’s gaze with what she fancied was an insouciant swagger, dropping a shoulder and sweeping hair out of her eyes.

  ‘His bodyguard,’ she said. Butler flashed her a look but she pretended not to notice.

  The guard licked his fat thumb and slid a card from the top of the deck. He set it down with a snap on the extreme left of the two-cross layout. The card bore an image of a tree in flames.

  ‘And your business with the Doyenne?’ he said, without looking up.

  Butler peeled off his glove, revealing a chunky silver signet ring. Embossed into the ring was an image of eight tentacles linking to form a circle. He held his hand over the guard’s tray table.

  The guard nodded at the doorway. ‘Fair tides.’

  Behind the curtain, a flight of stairs led down, turning at right angles once, twice, until it opened out into a homely basement room with a single large table laid with candles, at the head of which sat a short harka, clay red with a tuft of vanilla hair hanging down over her cranial ridge. She looked up and smiled.

  ‘Ah, hello! Thank you for your message. Take a seat.’ She slid a ribbon into the book she had been reading and slapped it shut. She turned to a human female orderly sitting at the opposite end of the table, the only other person in the room. ‘Ask the kitchen to send down more tea, would you?’ The orderly nodded, rose, and clumped off up the stairs.

  Delphine took a seat next to Butler, a little uneasily. All around the room stood glass cases containing coil upon coil of monstrous taxidermied snakes. On the walls were stylised images of knives, hatchets, hooks and saws made with wire stretched across pins. On the end wall was a small hatch.

  Doyenne Lesang placed both palms on the table and leaned forward, keen-eyed, beaming. She had small, straight horns and a splash of milk-white fur highlighting her face.

  ‘So. Now. To business.’

  Butler performed a small bow. ‘Doyenne.’

  Lesang smiled blankly. It was impossible to tell whether Butler’s show of deference pleased or annoyed her. There was something searching in her gaze – something rather sharper than her amiable demeanour implied.

  ‘I understand you’re interested in godflies,’ she said.

  ‘Acquiring one, specifically.’

  Her smile tightened. ‘Ah. Good. I’m so fond of directness.’

  ‘Best to get to the meat of it.’

  A rattling came from behind the hatch. Lesang stood.

  ‘Did you know murdering Lord Jejunus isn’t technically a crime?’ she said brightly. ‘There’s no legislation, on account of the fact that perpetuum law doesn’t recognise that killing a peer is possible.’

  Butler cleared his throat. ‘I rather think the lack of legal impediment would prove moot.’

  Lesang lifted the hatch and took out a tray with a pottery jug and cups. ‘And who would want to do such a thing in any case, eh?’ She set the tray down and began pouring tea.

  ‘Who indeed.’

  ‘So.’ She sat back down. ‘You realise what you’re asking is both treasonous and involves seeking out one of the most sought-after and highly prized commodities in the world?’

  Butler spooned red spice from a kidney-shaped dish into his tea. ‘Not everyone values them. Some long to see godflies eradicated forever.’

  ‘Which makes sourcing one still harder.’

  ‘But I understand you are very well-connected.’

  ‘Hmm. Yes.’ Lesang cradled her cup. ‘You hear all sorts, don’t you?’

  Butler picked up his tea with both hands, fingers extended. Delphine wondered how he managed to hold the cup like that without burning his fingers, then she remembered. After a clear ten seconds of silence, she caught him looking at her out the corner of his eye. He cleared his throat. Delphine wasn’t sure why no one was saying anything. He glanced at her cup. Then back at her. Then at her tea, his eyes widening.

  Delphine picked up her cup.

  Lesang nodded. ‘Fair tides.’ She waited until Delphine and Butler had taken a sip, then drank herself.

  Butler set his cup back on the table. ‘Can you help us, Doyenne?’

  Lesang squinted at the ceiling. She made funny shapes with her mouth.

  ‘You have my shipment?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘All at the boathouse, ready for collection.’ His signet ring tinked against the rim of his cup as he lifted it to his lips. ‘My employer wishes me to make it plain that it is merely a demonstration of good faith. It by no means represents the limit nor even the majority of our resources.’

  Lesang relaxed back in her seat, grinning broadly. ‘Well, recently we started hearing rumours.’ She licked her thumb with her wide purple tongue and flattened down a lock of hair that had fallen across her eye. ‘Someone has been claiming they have inside knowledge of a secret programme that went on years ago. Illegal cultivation of godflies. Anointing of peers without authority from the perpetuum. Experiments on live subjects. Technology from the War in Heaven.’

  Delphine paused mid-sip. For an instant, Butler’s eyes widened. He reset his features in an expression of professional disinterest.

  ‘Rather light on specifics.’

  ‘Eh. There were a few spicy details. Mind-readers. A man who burned. Technology that suppresses a peer’s—’

  ‘Wait – what did you say?’ Delphine lurched forward, nearly spilling her tea.

  Lesang glanced at Butler. Butler shot Delphine a glare. She returned it, harder. He dipped his head, and his demeanour appeared to undergo a soft reset. When he looked up, the coolly indifferent sophisticate was back.

  He exhaled. ‘Sounds . . . enticing.’

  ‘That’s what we thought. And with the Grand-Duc’s arrival in two days’ time. Too good to be true, right? A honey trap to lure out traitors.’

  ‘An exceptionally sloppy one.’

  Lesang refilled her cup. ‘Wasn’t asking much either. Safe passage out of the city. Fake papers. Enough to make a new start somewhere else. Claimed his notes were with a legal representative who’d been instructed to burn them if he turned up dead.’

  ‘Sensible.’

  ‘Well. Here’s the thing. I think I’ve tracked him down.’

  ‘Ah. Not so sensible.’

  ‘There’s a doctor holed up in a villa in the high town.’ She slid a slip of paper across the table, which Butler took without looking. ‘He went to the city peace only this morning saying he’s been getting death threats. Didn’t say why, of course.’

  ‘How do you know it’s the same man?’ said Butler.

  Lesang sipped her tea. ‘I
have my channels. I expect I’m not the only one who’s heard about it, either. Only now, no one can get to him to do the deal because Sheriff Kenner’s put him under guard “for his own safety”.’

  ‘How might one secure an audience?’

  She chuckled. ‘I’m not sure you can without breaking the law.’ She rose from her chair. ‘It’s the festival tomorrow. Why not join the revelry? Masks and costumes. Lots of noise. I expect Kenner’s staff will be stretched thinly.’ She worried at a spot on the table with one of her short, red fingers. ‘Very thinly indeed.’

  Butler pushed his seat back and stood. Delphine did the same.

  ‘Thank you, Doyenne.’ He produced a small wooden box from his waistcoat, popped the lid, and sprinkled a pinch of what looked like dried herbs on his and Delphine’s chairs. ‘Fair tides.’

  ‘She’s hiding something,’ muttered Butler as they walked back along the quay. Here, buildings were far grander than in the stilt city – bunting hung between unlit gas lamps, ready for the morrow’s festivities. They stopped beside a fountain where the bronze figure of a vigorous young man held one arm aloft, water jetting from the mouth of an eel clutched in his fist. A plaque underneath simply read: JEJUNUS.

  Butler squinted at his reflection in the rippling water. He took out a pocket-comb and began working it through the clumped fur on his scalp.

  ‘How d’you know?’ said Delphine. She had felt it too, but could not separate her churning gut from a greater malaise, a premonition that time was running out.

  Butler grimaced as the comb snagged. ‘Centuries of lying, of being lied to. None of the information was false, necessarily, just . . . incomplete.’

  ‘So she has her own agenda,’ said Delphine. ‘So what? You heard what she said. A man that burns. That’s Da—, that’s my father.’

  Butler dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘This isn’t breaking into the cottage of some cantankerous old lady. These are trained armed guards.’

  ‘I can handle it.’ Even as she said it, she knew she was lying. But what choice did she have? They had to go. She was so close.

  ‘Ugh!’ Butler dropped his face into his palm. ‘Didn’t you listen to her? The man is paranoid. If you charge in and,’ Butler glanced about and lowered his voice still further, ‘try to murder all his guards, do you honestly think he’s likely to come willingly? What are you going to do? Knock him out and drag him?’

  ‘If necessary.’

  ‘And how many miles can you drag a body, eh?’

  ‘Do you want to find out?’ She felt all rushy. ‘What’s the point of all this if we’re just going to give up? My father might be alive. I don’t care if it’s hard. Waiting is hard, Butler. Hiding is hard. I’ll do whatever I have to.’

  Butler turned away, glaring out across the bay. His gaze was fixed on the middle island, where weathered grey towers rose above high cliffs. Vesperi children were jumping off the quay, thumping their wings and swooping low over the water.

  He turned back to face her. ‘All right.’ He smoothed down the front of his waistcoat, tugged at his cuff.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  Butler hooked his toe under a loose cobble. He spent a clear five seconds prising it up.

  ‘Butler?’

  ‘Well,’ he said at last, ‘if you’re serious, there’s someone who can help us.’

  ‘I’m serious.’

  He looked up and met her gaze. ‘I hope so. Because you’re not going to like this.’

  Delphine stood at the end of a jetty, gazing into the bay, breathing hard. Seaweed slopped on stone steps. White light on the dirty water looked like a city seen from a bomber at night. A hot wind washed over her face. She felt utterly vulnerable and furious.

  She heard footsteps and instinctively reached for her gun. She let go. What was she doing? Her heart rate quickened. Anger, every time. It was the only home she knew.

  She couldn’t face Alice now. She couldn’t stand the thought of being seen.

  A slim figure stopped ten feet away.

  ‘Fuck off, Butler.’

  He glanced around. They were alone on the jetty, save for big puncheons of rum stacked in a pyramid and stamped with a marque that looked like a wheatsheaf and weasel. He took a step forwards.

  ‘She’s one of us.’

  ‘She’s a monster.’

  ‘I understand the two of you have history.’

  ‘She’s the reason I lost my father.’ Delphine breathed against a tightness in her chest. ‘She betrayed us. What else haven’t you told me?’

  Butler looked at the ground. Sunlight picked out red capillaries in his ears, like little cracks.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  Delphine blinked. She braced for the sarcastic addendum.

  He ran a fingertip down the edge of his noseleaf, exhaling so the inner gills flared. He looked up.

  ‘What they say about me is true, you know,’ he said. ‘Whatever Patience did, I was a thousand times worse. Murderer. Tyrant. Centuries of it.’

  ‘Then you’re a monster, too.’

  ‘Probably.’

  The breeze was stinging Delphine’s eyes. She dipped her head and rubbed them.

  ‘How do you live with yourself?’ she said.

  ‘I haven’t made peace with my actions, if that’s what you’re asking. I’ve no right to absolution. But I don’t believe hating myself is a moral good either. Not on its own.’ He broke open a fresh packet of cigarettes, took one and offered it to her. ‘I do what I can and it will never be enough. That’s my punishment.’

  She peered at him as she took a cigarette. ‘Am I supposed to be moved? The lonely plight of the tragic ancient. I mean really, Butler. I would’ve thought with all this time you could have come up with something more original than self-pity.’

  He glanced at her sidelong. ‘I might say the same to you.’

  Delphine glared at him. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  He blew a long trail of smoke, dabbled his fingers in it until it broke apart.

  ‘People you love are still alive. You’re wasting time.’

  They smoked in silence. In the lee of the black reef, gulls wheeled and darted above a flotilla of giant turtles pulling a barge.

  Delphine flicked the butt into the water.

  ‘All right,’ she said. Something had shifted inside her. ‘All right. Let’s go.’

  In the undercity, a rowboat carried them through a black, stinking shanty town of tarp and timber. Butler navigated by speechsight. Delphine could hear the slop of oars cutting through the water, rowlocks squealing in their mounts. Behind her sat Alice and, semi-invisible on the bow, Martha.

  Dwellings were made of rafts lashed together, fitted with outriggers and moored to their neighbours. Rushlights lit the shape of sleeping bodies.

  They reached a place where free-standing braziers lit the thick stone pilings. She heard the hubbub of raised voices, arguing, laughter. Gondolas were moored in rows, rough jute blankets hanging on ropes between them to create partitions. At one end, a barge was loaded with kegs and bottles and several rough drawstring sacks.

  Butler brought the boat up to one of the stone pilings, and fastened the painter to a thick iron ring. From an adjacent gondola, a vesperi slouching in a rope hammock cast them an idle look, a sawn-off carbine resting on her belly. Butler hailed her in clickspeak. He flashed his signet ring.

  She waved them through.

  A human serving boy met them, a rag tossed over his shoulder. He was bald except for a few greasy wisps of hair. Coral-white welts blotched his neck and forearms. He led them down a long thoroughfare between blanket rooms, ducking under ropes. Distended silhouettes moved against the translucent walls. Gondolas rocked beneath Delphine’s feet, but weeks on the water had improved her balance.

  She glanced back at Alice. ‘You okay?’

  Alice kept her eyes on the shifting floor. She looked nervous, but she nodded.

  At the last-but-one room on the right the boy
peeled back a curtain and bowed. Butler dropped a few coins into his waiting palm and stepped through.

  The room was made up of three gondolas covered in bits of rug, a board laid over the centre to form a table, and candles burning on clay dishes. In one corner, a figure was half-sitting, half-sprawled, drinking directly from a bottle. He wore a black half-cape that fastened over his shoulders with studs, and a loose hood.

  Butler took out a handkerchief and set it down over the thwart of one of the boats. He sat, nodded towards the figure.

  ‘Mr Gillow. We’re ready for transport.’

  The figure set down the bottle. He picked up a heavy knife. With the tip he pushed back his hood. Underneath was a spray of dirty red hair. Pale skin.

  Reggie Gillow. Delphine had known this was coming, but still her chest cramped. She glanced at Alice. She was watching him, her expression mild, tricky to read. She was blinking rather more than usual. What was going through her mind? Delphine looked back at Reggie. He seemed so young. Just a boy, really.

  He wiped his lips with the back of a gloved hand. He looked Alice up and down, a cursory appraisal, then turned to the group.

  ‘Who’s first?’ His voice was almost too quiet to hear.

  ‘Me.’ Delphine stepped forward. He squinted at her, as if he were not quite convinced she was real.

  ‘Well then.’

  Her hands were shaking. A smell hit her nostrils: peaty, hoppy, tarry.

  She glanced down – black liquid was seeping through the deck, puddling round her feet, smoking. She stepped back in horror. Something snagged her ankle. She staggered – a tendril wrapped round her left arm. It was a raw, wet pink. She felt a jolt of panic, tried to wrench free.

  ‘Easy now,’ said Butler.

  Delphine grasped for him but another tendril snapped round her wrist. She felt the deck dissolving beneath her, her feet sinking into a swamp of godstuff.

  ‘Please!’ she gasped. ‘No!’

  And then – it was as if the floor simply collapsed. She dropped.

  At first she thought she had landed in the ocean, then she felt the godstuff close around her, thick, warm, enveloping.

  Tendrils dragged her through a void of viscous blackness. She lost her sense of down. The tendril round her wrist slipped. The other tendrils immediately lashed tighter, yanked harder. Suddenly, she had the sense that if she broke free, she would be lost forever. They were guiding her, pulling her through. Her lungs were bursting. Colours fluxed across her closed eyelids, fluorescent chequerboards, starfields, auroras. She opened her mouth—