Lian Tanner_Keepers Trilogy_02

by City of Lies

  In the wall beside her, a battered tin door swung open. A small hand beckoned urgently.

  “Mouse!”

  Toadspit grabbed Goldie’s arm. “No. We can’t trust him.”

  “They didn’t go this way, Cord,” shouted a voice from the mouth of the lane. “I’m not right on their tail. Woohoo!”

  Goldie wrenched her arm out of Toadspit’s grasp and leaped for the doorway, with Bonnie right behind her. Toadspit hesitated, then jumped after them.

  They raced through the derelict rooms and down a flight of stone stairs to a small damp cellar. In front of them was the entrance to a tunnel with a barred gate across it. Goldie could hear running water.

  “Another—old sewer?” gasped Toadspit.

  Mouse nodded.

  “Is there a way—out—the other end? No lies!”

  The little boy nodded again.

  The gate was rusted into position, but there was a gap that Bonnie and Mouse could slip through easily. It was more of a struggle for the two older children. Goldie heard Smudge’s heavy feet pounding down the stairs toward them.

  “Quick,” she said, and she squeezed through the gate after Toadspit.

  The tunnel was pitch-black and narrow. The children felt their way down it, sliding their hands over the brick walls and brushing spiderwebs from their faces. They had not gone more than ten paces when the tunnel turned a corner. They hurried around it—and ran straight into a rockfall.

  Mouse yelped. Toadspit and Bonnie shouted with the shock of it. Goldie fumbled at the pile of rocks and broken bricks, trying to find a way past them. But they filled the tunnel from top to bottom. There was no escape.

  She leaned against the wall, trying to catch her breath. Toadspit turned on Mouse. “It’s a trap,” he snarled. “You brought us here on purpose.”

  Somewhere near Goldie’s feet, the cat hissed a warning.

  “Listen,” whispered Bonnie. “It’s Smudge. He’s trying to get through the gate!”

  Smudge grunted and swore, but the gap was too small and the gate would not open wider to let him past. After a minute or two he gave up. Goldie heard him shout. “Hey, Cord. I think I ain’t got ’em trapped.”

  There was an answering shout from Cord. “How many?”

  “I didn’t see four.”

  Cord’s feet thumped down the stairs, and the glow of a lantern seeped into the tunnel. “Ha! They don’t keep multiplyin’.”

  “Where’s Flense got to?” said Smudge. “Don’t tell her that it were me who caught ’em!”

  Bonnie was shivering. Goldie put her arms around the younger girl. “Don’t worry, Princess Frisia,” she whispered, “Morg’ll find us. She’ll get into the building somehow. She’ll chase them away.”

  Toadspit grunted. “They’ll be expecting her this time.”

  “We’re not going to give up, are we?” said Bonnie.

  “No,” whispered Goldie. “Harrow’s far too dangerous.”

  Mouse nodded and drew his finger across his throat in a gesture that made her skin crawl.

  “Goldie, are you sure it was Guardian Hope you saw?” whispered Toadspit. “It doesn’t make sense. What would she be doing here? Why would she be working for someone like Harrow?”

  “I don’t know—” Goldie stopped. All the things she had seen and heard over the last few days tumbled through her head, making unexpected patterns.…

  She let go of Bonnie. “The bomb!”

  “What bomb?” whispered Bonnie. “You mean the one in the Fugleman’s office?”

  “Yes. That was Harrow. At least, someone told me it was. But why would he do such a thing?” The patterns shifted. The bits clicked into place like pins in a padlock. “Who gained from it?”

  “No one,” said Toadspit.

  Goldie shook her head. “Don’t you remember? Before the bombing, there was a rumor that the Protector was going to halve the number of Blessed Guardians. And everyone was really pleased. But after the bombing, they were so frightened that they wanted more Guardians, not fewer. They almost doubled their numbers overnight.”

  “But—” said Toadspit.

  “Listen,” breathed Goldie. “Guardian Hope is Flense. I saw her! So who’s Harrow? Who would she work for? Who is the only person Guardian Hope would work for?”

  For a moment there was complete silence except for the sound of running water. Then Toadspit said, in a shocked voice, “It’s—it’s the Fugleman! It must be. He’s still alive. He had Bonnie stolen. He bombed his own office!”

  At the entrance to the tunnel, someone cleared their throat. Iron shutters scraped and lantern light splashed across the children’s faces.

  The blood froze in Goldie’s veins.

  “Well, well,” said Guardian Hope. “Have you noticed, Cord, how these old sewers magnify the slightest whisper? If a person happened to be listening, a person could hear the most interesting things.”

  The Fugleman was having trouble with all this humility. It rubbed against his skin like sacking. He loathed it.

  He loathed the dungeons too. And so, last night, he had set out to persuade his guards to let him sleep in the office for a change. He had smiled his charming smile, and twisted the truth this way and that like toffee. Before five minutes had passed, the guards were smiling back at him. Before ten minutes, they thought the whole sleeping-in-the-office thing was their idea.

  It was wonderfully easy when he put his mind to it.

  As a result, he was dozing in a comfortable chair when the runner from the semaphore station arrived. He heard his guards jerk upright. He raised his own head more slowly.

  “Your Honor,” said the runner. “An urgent message has come through.” She thrust an envelope into his hand.

  The message was coded, of course, like all the others he had received. It was a simple code, one that he had worked out with Guardian Hope several weeks ago.

  Think we have found children meant Have brats under lock and key.

  Closing in on villains meant All goes according to plan, no one suspects us.

  They had allowed for things to go wrong. But he had never seriously expected to see the message that now lay before him.

  Children not sighted since last report. Believe they are still alive, but extremely ill. Please advise.

  His gorge rose, so that he felt as if he might vomit. He forced himself to be still.

  “Are you sure of this wording?” he asked the young woman. “I know the semaphore is difficult at night. Perhaps not all of the lamps were lit.”

  “They ran the check code, Your Honor, just to be sure. All the lamps are working.”

  “Is there a problem?” said one of the guards, leaning over to peer at the bit of paper.

  “Read for yourself,” said the Fugleman, keeping his face blank only by an enormous effort. A terrible fury was growing inside him, and he wanted to leap out of his chair and scream at the man.

  Of course there’s a problem, you moron! The brats escaped! They’ve been recaptured, but somehow they have discovered the truth. The WHOLE truth!

  The guard read the message out loud. “Extremely ill? I don’t like the sound of that.”

  “Neither do I. But we must—we must not give up,” said the Fugleman. He grabbed a pen and paper and began to scratch out a coded reply, his hand pushing so hard on the pen that the nib broke.

  He took a new one and started again. “Here,” he said, “I’ll read it aloud as I write.” He cleared his throat. “Use all available resources. Rescue … them … tonight. Repeat … tonight. Repeat … rescue.”

  He blotted the ink, put the message in an envelope and gave it to the runner. She ducked her head and mumbled, “Um—I just wanted to say, Your Honor, we all appreciate your efforts to save the children.” Then she dashed out the door.

  As the sound of her footsteps receded, the Fugleman leaned back in his chair. “Now,” he said, “it is up to my informants—and the will of the Seven Gods.”

  The guards flicked their fing
ers. “It was good, Your Honor,” said the youngest one, “the way you repeated bits of it. That’ll get them moving.”

  “I certainly hope so,” murmured the Fugleman.

  In his mind, he was replaying the message he had sent. Use all available resources.

  That was the important part, the bit that would set his backup plan in motion. He was glad now that he had decided to have a backup. Of course, it would have been so much more satisfying to do the whole thing by his own wits, and the Southern Archipelago mercenaries were appallingly expensive. But they were about to prove their worth. With luck he would be free within a day or so, and the city of Jewel would be under his heel at last.

  The second part of the message was really just an afterthought. But it was important to tie up loose ends. And the children were a very loose end.

  He chuckled silently to himself, his rage entirely gone. The youngest guard would be surprised if he knew what the real message was. The one that Hope would act on.

  Kill them tonight. Repeat—tonight. Repeat—kill them.

  The light from Cord’s lantern seeped into the tunnel like a false dawn. Mouse’s face was white with misery. His little pets huddled on his shoulders, pressing themselves against his bare neck as if they were trying to warm him. The sound of running water was growing louder.

  “I think Morg’s forgotten about us,” said Bonnie. She was shivering. They all were, except for the cat, which was crouched on a ledge three-quarters of the way up the tunnel wall, cleaning its paws.

  Goldie touched Mouse’s arm. “Did Pounce send you?”

  “Yeah,” growled Toadspit. “Sent him to trap us.”

  Mouse shook his head. He mimed waking up and finding that they had gone. He pretended to be Pounce, a gleeful Pounce, counting out a pile of coins from his britches pocket—more coins than Mouse had ever seen. He mimed himself discovering the map on the wall, and running desperately down to the deserted stableyard to warn them, only to find that the trap had been sprung.

  He touched the rockfall, and showed them how new it was—how it must have happened in the last day or so.

  Toadspit grunted.

  “I believe you,” said Bonnie, glaring at her brother.

  “Does Pounce know you came after us?” said Goldie.

  Mouse shook his head.

  “I don’t understand why—” began Bonnie.

  “Shhh!” said Toadspit.

  Goldie heard sharp footsteps on the stairs and saw the light of a second lantern brighten the mouth of the tunnel. She quickly adjusted her mask. Guardian Hope had been gone for an hour or more, but now she was back.

  “Hey, Flense,” said Smudge. “The snotties have disappeared, look. Did ya tell Harrow it weren’t me who caught ’em?”

  “Stop your stupid lies, idiot,” snapped Guardian Hope. “The Festival is an abomination in the eyes of the Seven Gods. I may wear a mask for my own holy purposes, but that is all. You will speak straight, both of you. Do you understand?”

  “No. Er. Um. Yep,” mumbled Smudge.

  “And you, Cord?”

  “It’s no skin off my nose,” said Cord.

  “Any sign of that bird while I was gone?”

  “Yeah. I mean, nah,” said Cord. “But if it comes, we’re ready for it.”

  “Good,” said Guardian Hope. She tugged at the gate. “Are you sure this thing won’t open any farther?”

  “Won’t budge,” said Cord. “And we can’t get through that gap.”

  “Mm. That makes it interesting.… ” Guardian Hope raised her lantern so that the light splashed across the children. “Why are there so many of them? There are only supposed to be two. Who are the others?”

  “See that little snotty with white ’air?” said Cord. “ ’E tells fortunes in the Spice Market. I dunno ’oo the one with the mask is, but ’e ’elped ’em escape last night.”

  “Who are you, boy?” called Guardian Hope.

  Goldie said nothing. A drip of water ran down the back of her neck.

  “Well, whoever you are,” said Guardian Hope, “you’re going to be sorry you got mixed up in this.”

  “What are you going to do with us?” called Toadspit, wrapping his arms around his sister.

  “Well now, we were going to send you back home. And what a joyous occasion that would’ve been.” Guardian Hope laughed sourly. “The lost children back in the arms of their frantic parents. Oh, there would have been dancing in the streets. There’s nothing the citizens of Jewel care for so much as their brats.”

  “What’s the use of stealing us and then taking us home again?” Bonnie peered out from underneath Toadspit’s arm. “That’s stupid.”

  “Stupid?” snapped Guardian Hope. “It was a beautiful plan! His Honor the Fugleman worked it out so carefully.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Toadspit, shivering.

  “Of course you don’t. That’s because the real game is being played out in Jewel. You’re just a tool.”

  Guardian Hope’s voice echoed up and down the tunnel. “A tool … a tool … a tool …” Goldie hardly noticed. Her mind was stuck on those eight terrible words. “We were going to send you back home.”

  She put her hand over her mouth to stop herself from crying out. If she hadn’t rescued Bonnie and Toadspit, they would have been safe! They might even have been on their way home already!

  But Hope couldn’t let them go now. They knew too much. So what would she do? Keep them locked up? Sell them to one of the slavers who roamed the southern seas?

  “You see,” continued Guardian Hope, “His Honor is in Jewel at this very moment. He gave himself up, asked to be punished for his crimes. Poor shattered creature.”

  She sniggered. “He was the one who traced you to Spoke, you know, after you were ‘stolen.’ If it wasn’t for him, you would have been lost forever. Now tell me, do you think the citizens of Jewel would let the Protector imprison the man who got their lost children back? No, of course not. They’d forgive him. They’d want him in his old job, keeping their brats safe. Because the Protector couldn’t keep them safe, could she? Why, there have been all sorts of incidents in the last few weeks. A broken leg. A near drowning. And if this missing-children business didn’t do the trick, I expect we would have had a proper drowning soon. Perhaps even a murder.”

  Her voice rose angrily. “All the changes the Protector has made, and look what happens. Get rid of her, I say. Bring back the Fugleman! Bring back the Blessed Guardians—”

  She stopped and cleared her throat. “But now, because of your oh-so-clever guesswork, His Honor will be forced to use his backup plan instead. An army of mercenaries from the Southern Archipelago. How Jewel will tremble!”

  She laughed. “As for you children, the Fugleman has sent new orders. It seems that you’re not going home to your loving parents after all.”

  Goldie’s legs began to shake. Slavers. It must be the slavers.

  In the back of her mind, the little voice whispered, Squeeze around the corner where she can’t see you.

  “Shut up,” said Goldie under her breath. “I should never have listened to you in the first place! I should have left Bonnie and Toadspit where they were!”

  Squeeze around the corner—

  “Shut up. Shut up shut up shut up!”

  Squeeze around—

  “Shut up!”

  The sudden silence in the back of her mind was a shock. But a good one, she told herself. She had trusted the little voice, and it had betrayed her. It had betrayed all of them.

  She found herself thinking about Ma and Pa, and how they had suffered because of her. A spasm of self-loathing shot through her.

  On the stairs outside the tunnel, Smudge seemed to be arguing with Guardian Hope and Cord. “What, all of ’em?” he said, in a puzzled voice. “Even the snotty with the mice? ’E told my fortune once. I don’t reckon we should—”

  “Yer not paid to reckon,” interrupted Cord. “You just keep yer trap shut and do what yer told. If
Harrow wants ’em shot, then we shoot ’em.”

  Shoot us? The air in Goldie’s lungs turned to ice. Beside her, Bonnie, Toadspit and Mouse gasped with shock.

  “I didn’t say shoot them, you fool,” snapped Guardian Hope. “I said drown them.”

  “What’s the difference? They’re just as dead.”

  “If we shoot them, it’s murder. And it will raise far too many questions when their bodies are found. But if they drown, it’s just—an unfortunate accident.”

  “How we gunna drown ’em if we can’t get at ’em?” said Cord.

  “That’s the beauty of it.” Guardian Hope sat down on the stairs and raised her voice so that Goldie could hear every awful word. “There was a time when the city used these old sewers to drown pirates. A bit of rain and a high tide, and the water comes pouring in. It fills the whole cellar. Well, we’ve had the rain, and high tide is just after sunrise. All we have to do is wait here and make sure they don’t escape.”

  “T-too much water!” whispered Bonnie.

  Goldie’s legs were shaking more than ever. She tried to control them and couldn’t. This was her fault. This was all her fault.

  “But I don’t—” said Smudge.

  “Quiet!” Cord’s voice was urgent. “I ’eard somethin’ up near the roof. I think it’s the bird.”

  Toadspit shuddered, as if he were trying to fight his way out of a nightmare. He grabbed Goldie’s hand. His fingers signed an urgent message against her skin. This our best chance. Come on.

  Goldie stared at him. She felt as if a thick fog were pressing in on her from all sides. Or perhaps it was a chain, an invisible chain, wrapping its links so tightly around her that she could not move.

  Her friends were going to die. And it was her fault.

  Come on! signed Toadspit.

  Still Goldie could not move. Toadspit stared at her, puzzled, then turned and threw himself down the tunnel, crying, “Morg! Morg! We’re here!”

  There was a great flapping of wings outside the bars. One of the lanterns fell over, and Smudge shouted in fright. Guardian Hope screamed, “Get it! Shoot it! Catch it in the net!”

  Goldie heard a pistol shot. “Aaaark!” screeched Morg, and fell to the ground with a thump.