“The keynote was supposed to have been yesterday. That’s got to have caused a stir. Whatever EC confederates Regenzi has are probably off with the other huggins and muggins spreading gossip to keep eyes away from here.”
The Alchemist reached under his coat, drew the hand blunderbuss, and checked the pepperbox-sized cartridge jutting down in front of its trigger. “That story requires more luck than I remember us having. Take the right, Ann.”
Then the Alchemist put a shoulder into the door. He used its cover against whatever might be up the hall, training his heavy pistol past its edge.
Meteron stared up the right side of the passage, right hand holding the torch at his shoulder height and left holding the gun at arm’s length. He gave only the side of his body as a target, Rowena saw, shoulders pointing in a line back toward the Alchemist.
“All clear.”
“Lights down this way,” the Alchemist said. “Globe lamps, fifty-foot spacing.” He flashed a quick look back into the storage room. “Stay close, girl.”
Rowena padded into the hall. Meteron took the lead again, but the Alchemist stood between him and Rowena, blocking her view of much of the hall—and, she realized, anyone else’s view of her.
“Um . . . excuse me?”
“No chatter, remember?”
“I know, but . . . why’re we going toward the lights? En’t that where people will be?”
“It is,” the Alchemist allowed, his voice a murmur. “Human beings need light. The captors will use them as they stand watch, and Chalmers will need them to do whatever work they expect of him. The lights will lead us to him.”
“And if they lead someone to us?”
“Just stay close and remember the rules.”
They put away the magnesium torches. Eventually there were doors to rooms dotting the hall and beyond them a little stairwell. Meteron kept watch over the passage, his flint eyes flicking this way and that, while the Alchemist listened at the doors. It seemed to take longer than it should, until Rowena considered that the old man was probably listening with more than just his ears.
She heard the footsteps coming down a moment too late. When Rowena opened her mouth to cry out, the two men wearing the black-and-gold livery of EC security drew their pistols on her.
Meteron had been facing the opposite way, but he heard the guns as they were drawn and whirled.
For a moment, no one moved.
Meteron aimed for the guard standing nearest Rowena. The other man trained his weapon on her, pacing closer, his eyes on the thief.
The Alchemist crouched by the door, the blunderbuss pointing down. He could never raise it and take aim before the guards fired.
“God’s balls,” Meteron sighed. “Bear?”
The man watching him put the barrel of his gun between Rowena’s shoulders. For the first time, she noticed her heart racing. The room swam. She felt too hot, as if she might be sick.
“Drop it, Ann,” the Alchemist said.
His partner spat a curse and opened his hand. The gun dangled from its trigger loop before clattering to the floor. The Alchemist set the blunderbuss down, put both hands in view, and stared at the man with his barrel in Rowena’s back.
“Take the gun off the girl and we’ll come quietly.”
Over the blood pounding in her ears, Rowena heard a metallic noise, something coming from the gun pressing into her spine. The caplock hammer being thumbed back.
The guard aiming for Meteron frowned at the blunderbuss and its flaring snout. “Kick that thing over.”
The Alchemist rose slowly, hands by his shoulders. He kicked the gun. It spun away. The guard watching Meteron bent to pick it up. His eyes widened as he weighed the huge pistol in his hand.
Then he pointed the blunderbuss at the Alchemist. The barrel in Rowena’s back dug deeper.
“Now, how about you come quietly anyway?”
28.
The man who had to be Smallduke Regenzi sat at a long trestle table in the center of a room full of cabinets, shelves, and spiral indices. It reeked of the sweet, archival decay only very old libraries can perfect, full of things priests and parsons used to catalog when the Old Religion held sway—birth and death and marriage records for people hundreds of years gone. Regenzi wore a fine jacquard-trimmed doublet with knee-length britches, all jade green and dark, opalescent blue. He looked pleased by whatever was spread out on that table, a smug, hungry expression sitting between his side-whiskers.
Maps. They lolled off the table’s edges, their surfaces scrawled with hasty notes in crimson ink.
The florid man standing beside Regenzi was dressed like a deacon. He looked near as pleased as his lordship. Both watched the guards herd Rowena through the doorway, gun still grinding between her shoulders. The Alchemist and Master Meteron followed after, the second guard covering both men. The hand blunderbuss was tucked into his belt.
Regenzi stood, his eyebrows rising. “The Alchemist. I was unaware you made house calls.”
Meteron rolled his eyes. “Oh, for God’s sake.”
In a blur of motion, he drew his knife and kicked the knees of the guard covering his back. The guard cried out, buckling, and dropped the weapons to clutch at his leg.
The guard threatening Rowena whirled but stopped short of shooting when he saw what was happening.
Anselm Meteron pressed his knife to the Alchemist’s throat.
The room fell still.
“I can cope with being marched to your inner sanctum, Regenzi,” Meteron said, eyes locked on the Alchemist’s shocked face. “I can endure the requisite gloating. But really, puns are the lowest conceivable behavior. You might hold yourself to a higher standard.”
Regenzi’s face was at least as puzzled as the Alchemist’s. “I . . . see. And you plan to intimidate me out of the habit by threatening to murder your ally? Ingenious.”
“Ann, what the devil are you doing?” the Alchemist growled.
Meteron’s eyes flicked to the far corner of the room. Rowena followed his gaze into the shadows and felt her knees tremble.
The aigamuxa who robbed her had been big. This one stood a head taller, even in its crouch. She could see the white trails of old scars snaking down its shoulders, reaching up its back. As it balanced, its long, taloned fingers flexed, drumming the floor. Impatient. Its gaze touched Rowena. The drumming stopped. Slowly, the aigamuxa’s head tilted to the side. Its teeth bared, and Rowena realized the aiga was smiling.
And that she knew its name.
The Alchemist groaned. “Ann, you stupid bastard—”
“My lord,” Meteron called, “I am offering you a trade.”
Regenzi frowned skeptically. From Nasrahiel’s dark corner came a rattling growl.
“Before you make the offer, it might help if I knew who you are.”
“Anselm Meteron.”
“Really?” Regenzi clucked his tongue. “Tch. My condolences. I’ve heard you suffered a loss. I had hoped it might dispirit your interest in this whole affair, for reasons of your own health.”
“My friends always told me I’m rather cavalier about my health. Do you still have Chalmers?”
Regenzi’s face was unreadable. The deacon beside him looked damp and nervous.
Meteron watched the Alchemist carefully as he spoke. “If you’re going to kidnap a man and litter Corma with bodies, Regenzi, you’ll need to learn to stand by your work. If you’re keeping Chalmers, it’s because you want something from him. I imagine you’d like it quickly.”
“Ideally,” Regenzi admitted. “But if you expect good work, it can only be done so fast.”
Meteron shrugged. The movement turned the knife against the Alchemist’s skin. A trickle of blood ran down its edge. The Alchemist hissed, tilting his chin to evade a deeper cut.
“Pain can be a great motivator,” Meteron observed mildly. “Even someone else’s.”
His eyes found Rowena. She felt their bite like the heads of two arrows.
She was the w
ay to get to Chalmers. That had been Meteron’s plan—why he’d fought to have her along.
“You bastard,” Rowena whispered. “You can’t.”
“For all practical purposes, cricket, I already have.” Meteron addressed Regenzi again. “This is the girl who delivered the book to Chalmers. He knows her—even let her have a spot of tea in his study. Very cozy. I imagine he would be motivated to operate efficiently and transparently if he were given reason to believe her welfare was at stake.”
Regenzi looked doubtful. “Possible. But he has been cooperative.”
“It won’t last. I’ve done the captive experience before, from both sides. There’s a rather brief shelf life on what passes for cooperation.”
“So you’re trading the girl . . . for what, exactly?”
“Satisfaction of my curiosity about your motives, and of a grudge.”
“Two things in exchange for one?”
Meteron gestured to Nasrahiel, almost inviting. “Two for three. I’m trading the girl and consequently tying off two loose ends. All that in exchange for ten minutes alone with your overfed monkey.”
Nasrahiel made a sound—the sandpaper slither of a desiccated laugh.
“I take it,” mused Regenzi, “you weren’t hoping to have a thoughtful conversation?”
“I imagine it will involve a lot of screaming. His.”
“Your friends are right about your being cavalier, Master Meteron.”
“Perhaps. But those people are dead now. If my outliving them is any measure of their judgment, I like my odds. Besides, if it’s a bad bet for me, what loss will you suffer? You keep your killer monkey bastard, and your street urchin hostage, and I’ve tied up yet another loose end for you.”
“Ann,” the Alchemist said, “the aigamuxa will take you apart.”
Then the old man looked to Regenzi. The guard Meteron had disabled limped to the smallduke’s side, showing him the blunderbuss and murmuring something. Regenzi noted the Alchemist’s stare. He lifted an eyebrow indulgently.
“Something you wish to say?”
“Let the girl go. She’s harmless.”
“Before you brought her here, arguably so. Now she’s seen things that worry me. And your friend has a point about leverage.” The smallduke weighed the blunderbuss in his hands and shrugged. “As for you? Well. You understand I will need him to demonstrate the sincerity of his convictions.”
Meteron pressed the point of the blade to the Alchemist’s flesh again. He reached a hand toward Rowena’s guard, fingers riffling the air in request.
The man looked at the dumbstruck deacon. Slowly, he nodded. The guard turned the gun and offered it to Anselm.
Rowena sprang forward, shrieking. Then the guard had her by her collar, wrapping his arms under hers, hands knitted behind her head. Her neck screamed in pain as she thrashed and spat. With a grunt, the guard tried hauling her away.
“Rowena!”
She stopped shouting because the voice belonged to the Alchemist. Rowena’s heels bucked above the slate floor. His gaze held her fast, its grip stronger than the guard’s hands.
“Close your eyes,” he said.
Rowena’s throat tightened. She shook her head.
If I close my eyes, it’ll happen. Master Meteron can’t do it if I’m watching him. If I close my eyes, the Old Bear will die and I could have stopped it. I won’t close my eyes.
“Rowena, please.”
“I’d listen to him, cricket.” Meteron thumbed the caplock’s hammer. Its black nose hovered over the Alchemist’s coat.
The girl mouthed the curses she couldn’t choke free, her eyes stinging.
“Or you can have it your own way,” Meteron sighed. He turned to the Alchemist. The old man looked sick. “Ready, Bear?”
The Alchemist nodded.
“Give Leyah my love, then.”
The revolver was small, but it filled the room with a thunder that rattled Rowena’s teeth. For a moment, there was only its roar and the pale, trembling silence after. She was aware of her own screaming through the pain in her throat, the feeling of something tearing free of her heart.
The bullet punched a hole between the Alchemist’s lapels. There was a thin, red mist, then an arc of blood bursting forth. He lay on his back in a red pool, the grooves between the stones drinking deep.
Sound seeped back into the room. The rest was a blur.
Smallduke Regenzi stooped by the Alchemist’s corpse and put his fingers to his neck, waiting. The first guard was gone, and then he was back, an aigamuxa lumbering on his heels.
There were gestures. Words. Some searching around the Alchemist’s body. The aigamuxa hauled the big man over its shoulders. Meteron had passed the gun back to Regenzi, or perhaps the guard with the aiga had taken it from him, or perhaps the deacon, or perhaps—Rowena just didn’t know. Her head hurt. She was crying, airless and gasping. She stopped bucking in the guard’s grasp, her vision smearing about the edges.
Rowena thought she saw Meteron speaking to the smallduke, but her eyes swam, and her ears were so full of her own pounding heartbeat she barely noticed the guard dragging her down the hall.
They followed the shadow of the aigamuxa bearing the Alchemist. A wet, red trail marked its passage.
29.
The Reverend Doctor Phillip Chalmers was making remarkable progress deciphering marginalia on the exploits of Subject Three when his cell door banged open.
The guard shoved a snuffling form with a ragged mop of brown tangles into the room before checking the lock and stalking away. Chalmers sat on his stool, blinking in owlish confusion. The girl’s clothes were sodden and foul-smelling, shirtsleeves torn in a struggle. She knelt where the guard had dumped her, staring at her hands. Chalmers chewed his pencil. Twice, he rose to offer some assistance. Twice, he thought better of it and sank back down again. Then he noticed her pale, dirty hands, the knuckles white with scars.
He’d seen them before, holding a teacup and lemon cakes.
“Downshire,” he announced suddenly.
The girl looked up. Her face was a soggy, red blur.
“It is Downshire,” Chalmers repeated. He dug about his waistcoat for a handkerchief and began folding what he found in search of an unsoiled square. “Rowena Downshire, isn’t it? I’m rather good with names.”
She nodded. He approached with the same furtive care he might use around a strange cat, crouching beside her and offering the handkerchief. Chalmers winced as she wiped her dripping nose then smeared the sodden cloth all about her eyes.
“When the brutes gave me back the book, I had thought they must have—well.” He had meant to say something about being sure she was dead, and finding relief in her being all right, but it was evident the girl wasn’t all right.
“Bless the Proof, you’re a mess,” he tsked instead. “What on earth are you doing here?”
Rowena blinked at the handkerchief, wringing and balling it by turns. She gulped air, seemed about to marshal a response, and yet nothing came. And nothing came. And, still, nothing came. Chalmers fidgeted, wondering if there was some way to nudge her along.
“We were going to save you,” she said finally. “But now he’s dead.”
Chalmers blinked. “I’m . . . sorry?”
“It isn’t fair,” Rowena shouted. He recoiled from her snapping face. “I followed the rules, and I did what he said, and it shouldn’t have happened because I didn’t . . . I didn’t . . .” Her lower lip trembled. “I didn’t close my eyes.”
The girl hugged her knees and sobbed as if she might split down her seams. Chalmers watched. He felt he ought to do something. People did things at such moments, buoyed each other, offered solutions or comforts.
Inspiration struck. He reached out, patting the girl’s shoulder. “There, there,” he said. It produced no effect, but, he supposed, he might have used the wrong tone. “There,” he added, sweetly.
For a long while, Phillip Chalmers sat dutifully by, offering up adverbs at cautiou
s intervals. Or would “there” be a noun—or an adjective—in this situation? Perhaps merely an interjection? His gifts were not in letters, much less gentling, and so he fetched bits of gauze or muslin for the girl once the handkerchief was utterly exhausted and experimented with the parts of speech until, at last, she peered over her kneecaps, taking in the room. Her bright eyes lingered at turns on the shelves of laboratory glass, the centrifuges, the drafting table, the treadle-powered dynamo trembling beside the particle detector’s darkened face.
“It’s just like we’d thought it would be,” she said, sniffling.
“Beg pardon?”
“Is any of this stuff actually good for anything?”
Chalmers felt a flutter of relief. Perhaps the worst was over. If the girl was of a mind to tour the room, that could prove a fine distraction.
“Well,” Chalmers said, standing. He gestured about with a proprietary air. “It’s all good for something. I don’t have need for very much of it under the present conditions, but—Oh, dear me.” He remembered himself, offering the girl a hand up a moment too late to actually perform the courtesy.
She was stepping hesitantly toward his table and notes, touching things with curious, light fingers. “This writing looks . . . funny. Is it Amidonian?”
“Um, no. No, I’m—I’m really not sure what to call it. Doctor Pierce liked the term ‘Enochian,’ but that struck me as melodramatic. Very Old Religion, you know.”
Rowena scanned the writings, her face blank.
Chalmers frowned. “You . . . don’t read?”
“Can’t.”
“That’s dreadful.”
She gave him a sour look. “Well, sorry.”
“No, no, I didn’t mean that you . . . or that . . .” He bit his lip and began hurriedly straightening his cot, feeling a sudden impulse to improve upon his missteps through better housekeeping. “That’s not what I meant.”
Chalmers stole a glance over his shoulder. The courier girl walked the room in a slow circuit, always touching, sometimes lingering. Beside the dynamo and the particle detector, she paused. The apparatus growled as she circled it, throwing up a handful of white sparks.
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