I could always give it back later, when I was finished with it. When I found the time. The stall-holder really should have invested in some half-decent security spells.
I WAS HEADING CASUALLY FOR THE NEAREST EXIT, THE KEY TUCKED SAFELY away in an inside pocket, when Holly Wylde appeared suddenly out of the crowd to block my way. She smiled at me winningly.
“I had a feeling you’d be here. And so you are! Aren’t you glad to see me again?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I do prefer my clients to tell me the truth, whenever possible.”
“I didn’t exactly lie,” she said, pouting. “All right, yes, there’s a lot about the rosewood box I didn’t tell you, but I was pretty sure you’d find that out on your own, once you started looking. I didn’t want to scare you off, after all; and I do so want my heart back! I just don’t know what I’ll do without it.”
I sighed. It was hard to stay mad at her. Though probably worth the effort.
“Why would Gideon Brooks put your heart in such a precious and important box?”
“Because it was the only thing he had that he knew I couldn’t get into,” she said artlessly.
“And all you want is your heart back?” I said. “You don’t care about the priceless and important box?”
“Well,” she said, “if it should happen to fall into our hands, that would be a nice bonus. Wouldn’t it?”
“You’re batting your eyelashes at me again,” I said. “Stop it.”
“Sorry. Force of habit.”
“Other people are looking for the box,” I said, shifting onto what I hoped was safer ground. I told her about Sweetman and Gunboy, and she stamped her little foot and said a few baby swear words.
“The fat man and his toy boy; I knew they were sniffing around, but I didn’t know they were this close. We have to get to Gideon before they do! All they care about is that box. They wouldn’t care about my poor little heart.”
“Sweetman seemed very sure the box holds some famous or important heart,” I said.
“Might do. Who knows?” said Holly, shrugging easily. “Who knows how many hearts have ended up inside that box, down the years? I only care about mine. What are you doing here, anyway? Such a tacky place, all full of tat and kitsch. I can feel my street cred slipping away just for being here.”
“I have acquired a useful little toy that will bring Gideon’s door right to us,” I said.
She squeaked excitedly and did a happy dance right in front of me. “Yes! Yes! I knew you wouldn’t let me down!”
“I tell my clients everything,” I said pointedly. “Are you sure there isn’t something more you should be telling me?”
“I don’t think so,” said Holly Wylde, her wide eyes full of an entirely unconvincing innocence.
WE LEFT THE MARKET HALL TOGETHER, AND I FOUND A REASONABLY CALM and quiet place to raise my gift again. I sent my Sight shooting up out of my head into the night sky, speckled with more stars than the outside world ever dreams of, and then looked down at the Nightside streets turning slowly beneath me. All around I could See the subtle flashes and occasional flareups of magical workings, and the more openly dramatic radiations and detonations of mad scientists at play. Giant wispy forms marched up and down the streets, passing through buildings as though they weren’t even there; just the ancient Awful Folk, going about their unknowable business. All kinds of traffic thundered through the streets, carrying all kinds of goods and people, and never ever stopping. And some buildings just disappeared from view, coming and going, replaced by other buildings following their own inscrutable journeys.
Everyone knows a moving target is hardest to hit.
Down in my own person, I held the summoning key firmly in my hand and focused my gift through it; and immediately one particular building jumped out at me with extra significance, as the key locked on to the one special door I needed to find. The building hopped and skipped around the Nightside, appearing and disappearing apparently at random; but more like a fish on the end of a line now I had the summoning key. I chased Gideon Brooks up and down the Nightside, sticking close no matter how many times he tried to throw me off, my mind soaring impossibly fast from one location to another, invisible and undetectable, until finally Gideon Brooks just gave up, and his home settled down in one place and stayed put. It materialized right before me, presenting a quite unremarkable door, and squeezed into place between two perfectly respectable establishments, which rather grudgingly budged up to make room for it. I dropped back inside my head and released my hold on the summoning key. The door before me looked entirely unthreatening, but I checked it over with my Sight anyway, just in case. Heavy-duty protective magics crawled all over the door, and spat and sparkled on the air round the building.
I held up the key, muttered the proper activating Words, and unlocked all the protections, one by one. It took quite a while. Holly squeaked excitedly and clapped her little hands together.
And that was when Sweetman and Gunboy turned up. They were just suddenly there, strolling down the street toward us, Sweetman in his great white kaftan rolling along like a ship under full sail, Gunboy swaggering at his side like an attack dog on a short leash. Holly actually hissed at the sight of them, like an affronted cat, and moved quickly to stand behind me. I carefully shut down my Sight so I could concentrate on the matter at hand.
“My dear Mister Taylor,” said Sweetman, as he crashed to a halt before me. “Well done, sir, well done indeed! I knew I could rely on you to chase Gideon Brooks down, but I have to say, I never thought you’d be able to run his very special house to ground too. You shouldn’t look so surprised to see me, my good fellow, really you shouldn’t. Dear Gunboy and I have been following you ever since you left the hotel.”
“No you haven’t,” I said flatly. “I’d have noticed.”
“Well, not personally following, as such,” Sweetman agreed. “I took the liberty of slipping a small but very powerful tracking device into your coat pocket while you were preoccupied with poor Gunboy. The dear boy does make for such marvelous misdirection.”
I looked at Gunboy. “And how do you feel, being used like that?”
He took one hand out of his pocket and pointed it at me. “I do what Mister Sweetman says. And so will you.”
“Are you going to let him talk to you like that?” said Holly, from behind me.
“As long as he’s pointing that conceptual gun at me, yes,” I said. “Mister Sweetman, as I understand it, and I’m perfectly prepared to be told I don’t, it’s been that kind of a case . . . You want the rosewood box, and the very important heart you believe it contains. You are not, I take it, interested in this young lady’s heart, also inside the box?”
Sweetman inclined his large head judiciously. “No offense, young lady, but I would have no interest in your heart under any conditions.”
“For someone who didn’t want to offend,” said Holly, “I’d have to say you came pretty damned close.”
“The point being,” I said quickly, “that since we all want different things from Gideon Brooks, we don’t have to be at each other’s throat. We can work together to acquire the box, and then each take what we want from it.”
“Are you crazy?” said Holly, hurrying out from behind me so she could glare at me properly. “Give up on the box?”
“You hired me to find your stolen heart,” I said. “Or are you now saying the box is more important?”
“No,” said Holly. “It’s all about the heart.” She looked at Gunboy. “We could use some serious firepower, if we’re going up against Gideon Brooks.”
Gunboy looked at Sweetman, and then put his hand back in his pocket.
“Don’t sulk, boy,” said Sweetman. “It’s very unattractive.”
I smiled around me. “I love it when a compromise comes together.”
AND THEN WE ALL LOOKED ROUND SHARPLY, AS THE DOOR BEFORE US opened on its own. I felt a little disappointed that I wouldn’t get to show off what I could do with my gi
ft and the summoning key. We all stood looking at the open door for a long moment, but nothing menacing emerged, and there was only an impenetrable gloom beyond. We looked at each other, and then I led the way forward—if only because I didn’t trust any of the others to react responsibly to anything unexpected. Sweetman and Gunboy fell in behind me, and Holly brought up the rear.
Beyond the door lay a simple, dimly lit hallway, with no obvious magical trappings. It could have been any house, anywhere. The door closed quietly behind us, once we’d all entered. The four of us pretty much filled the narrow hallway. A door to our left swung slowly open, and I led the way into the adjoining room. When in doubt, act confident. The room was open and warmly lit, with no furnishings or fittings; just bare wooden floorboards, and one very ordinary-looking, casually dressed middle-aged man, sitting on a chair surrounded by a great pentacle burned right into the floorboards. He was holding a simple wooden box in his hands; perhaps a foot long and half as wide.
The lines of the pentacle flared up abruptly as Sweetman approached them, and he stopped short. The lines shone with a fierce blue-white light, blazing with supernatural energies. Sweetman stepped carefully back and gestured to Gunboy, who smiled slowly as he took both hands out of his jacket pockets. And then he stopped, looked almost abjectly at Sweetman, and put his hands away again. Apparently conceptual guns were no match for older and more established magics.
I looked at Holly. She was staring unblinkingly at Gideon, but I couldn’t read the expression on her face. She didn’t look angry, or scared; just utterly focused on the box in his hands.
“You’re a witch,” I said to her quietly. “Can’t you do anything?”
She scowled suddenly as she looked at Gideon. It might just have been the scowl, but she didn’t look pretty anymore. “If I could break his protections, I wouldn’t have needed your help.”
“You never did like having to depend on other people,” the man on the chair said pleasantly. “And you really couldn’t stand someone else having power over you, even when you came to them to learn the ways of magic. You were the best student I ever had, my dear—until you grew impatient, and tried to steal my secrets. And when that failed, you had to go looking for power in all sorts of unsuitable places.” He looked at me. “Whatever she’s told you, you can’t trust it. She’ll say anything, do anything, to get what she wants. She slept with demons so they’d teach her the magics I wouldn’t, she stole grimoires and objects of power, and she would have stolen my heart . . . if I hadn’t taken precautions.”
“No one tells me what to do,” said Holly. “With your heart in my hands, you’d have taught me everything I wanted. And as for the demons, every single one of them was better in the sack than you.”
Women always fight dirty.
“I kept my place moving so you couldn’t find me,” said Gideon. “I should have known you’d go to the infamous John Taylor, the man who can find anything. What did she tell you, Mister Taylor? When she wasn’t smiling her pretty smile at you?”
“She said you stole her heart,” I said. “And put it in the rosewood box.”
“Oh, Holly,” said Gideon, and he actually laughed briefly. “It’s my heart in the box, Mister Taylor. I put it there after she tried to steal it. Because she couldn’t stand the idea of anyone having a hold over her.”
“So . . . you don’t have any feelings for her?” I said, just to be sure.
“Ah,” said Gideon. “I should have known that would be the heart of the matter, so to speak. Is that why you’re here, Holly?”
“You never loved me!” said Holly. She stood directly before him, just outside the pentacle, both her small hands clenched into fists. “I did everything right, and you still never loved me!”
“You never loved anyone,” Gideon said calmly. “You always loved power more. I was just your mentor.”
Holly turned suddenly to me. “You believe me, don’t you, John? You’ll get the box for me. And then we can make him do anything we want!”
“Sorry,” I said. “But I never believed you, Holly. You hired me to find the rosewood box. Well, there it is.”
“She was the one who let word get out that I had the box,” said Gideon. “So that avaricious men from all over would come looking for it, and she could set them against me. Just in case you didn’t work out, Mister Taylor. How does it feel, being used?”
I shrugged. “Comes with the job.”
Gideon Brooks turned his attention to Sweetman and Gunboy. “It’s really nothing more than a simple storage box, you know. Perhaps a little more famous than most. It may have contained any number of important or significant items, in its time, but the only heart it contains now is mine. Where Holly can’t get at it.”
Sweetman’s brief bark of laughter held even less real humor than usual. “My dear sir, you don’t really expect me to believe that? I have followed the box through unknown cities and blood-soaked streets, and I will have it. Gunboy, point those marvelous hands of yours at Mister Taylor and the little witch. Now, Mister Brooks. Give up the box, or everything my enthusiastic young associate does to these two young people will be your responsibility.”
Holly looked at Gunboy, and then at Gideon. “You wouldn’t really let him hurt me, would you, sweetie? You did say I was the best student you ever had . . .”
“I had students before you,” said Gideon. “And there will be others after you. Though hopefully I’ll choose a little more wisely next time. I am still quite fond of you, Holly, against all my better judgment. But not enough to put my heart at risk.”
“What about me?” I said.
“What about you?” said Gideon.
“Fair enough,” I said.
“Ah well,” Holly said brightly. “Plan B.” She turned her most charming smile on Gunboy and took a deep breath.
Sweetman chuckled. “Trust me, young lady; you have absolutely nothing that dear Gunboy desires.”
“But he has something I want,” said Holly. “I want his heart.”
She made a sudden grasping gesture with one outstretched hand, and Gunboy screamed shrilly as his back arched and his chest exploded. His black leather jacket burst apart and the bare flesh beneath tore open, as his heart ripped itself from its bony setting and flew across the air to nestle into Holly’s waiting hand. Blood ran thickly between her fingers as the heart continued to beat. Holly’s pretty pink mouth moved in a brief moue of distaste, and then she closed her hand with sudden vicious strength, crushing the heart. Gunboy fell to the floor and lay still, eyes still staring in horror, his chest a bloody ruin. Sweetman let out a single cry of absolute pain and loss and knelt down beside Gunboy to cradle the dead body in his huge arms. Blood soaked his white kaftan as he rocked Gunboy back and forth, like a sleeping child. Silent tears ran down Sweetman’s face.
“So,” I said to Holly. “That’s the kind of witch you are.”
She dropped the crushed heart to the floor and flicked blood from her pale fingers. She smiled at me sweetly. “I’m the kind of witch you don’t want to disappoint. I did tell you Gideon dealt in forbidden knowledge, and I was such a good listener. Now be a good boy, and go get the box for me. You can find a way past Gideon’s defenses. It’s what you do.”
“Yes,” I said. “But there’s a limit to what I’ll do.”
She gave me a cold measuring look, and I met her gaze unflinchingly. Never let them see fear in your eyes.
“I bought your services, for a thousand pounds a day,” Holly said finally. “And the day isn’t over yet.”
“I found the box for you,” I said. “Not my fault your heart isn’t in it. Still, after all my investigations, I probably know more about the box than you do. It was originally made to contain all the pain and horror of a man’s broken heart; and it’s still in there. Trapped inside the box for centuries, growing stronger and more frustrated. It’s been alone so long, it must be very hungry for company by now. You may know the box as Heart’s Ease, and perhaps it was, originally; but
it has another name now. The Hungry Heart.”
I raised my gift, found my way past Gideon’s protections, and used my gift and the key to unlock the rosewood box. The lid snapped open, and the Hungry Heart within reached out and grabbed Holly and pulled her inside, all in a moment. It might have taken me too, if Gideon hadn’t immediately forced the lid closed again. We looked at each other, in the suddenly quiet room.
“She wanted my heart,” said Gideon. “Now she can keep it company . . . forever.”
Sweetman looked up, still cradling the dead Gunboy. “What is that . . . What’s really inside the box?”
“The stuff that screams are made of,” I said.
STYX AND STONES
by Steven Saylor
Bestseller Steven Saylor is one of the brightest stars in the historical mystery subgenre, along with authors such as Lindsey Davis, John Maddox Roberts, and the late Ellis Peters. He is the author of the long-running Roma Sub Rosa series, which details the adventures of Gordianus the Finder, a detective in a vividly realized Ancient Rome, in such novels as Roman Blood, Arms of Nemesis, Catilina’s Riddle, The Venus Throw, A Murder on the Appian Way, Rubicon, Last Seen in Massilia, A Mist of Prophecies, and The Judgment of Caesar. Gordianus’s exploits at shorter lengths have been collected in The House of the Vestals: The Investigations of Gordianus the Finder and A Gladiator Dies Only Once: The Further Investigations of Gordianus the Finder. Saylor’s other books include A Twist at the End, Have You Seen Dawn?, and a huge non-Gordianus historical novel, Roma: The Novel of Ancient Rome. His most recent books are a Gordianus novel, The Triumph of Caesar, and the big second volume in the Roma sequence, Empire: The Novel of Imperial Rome. He lives in Berkeley, California.
With the suspenseful story that follows, “Styx and Stones,” he introduces a whole new series of tales that will take a teenaged Gordianus to visit the Seven Wonders of the World; his traveling companion is the elderly Greek poet Antipater of Sidon. The Seven Wonders stories take place in 92–90 B.C., and so serve as a prequel to the first novel in the Roma Sub Rosa series, Roman Blood, which is set in 80 B.C. Here, venturing far beyond the world of Rome and Greece, Gordianus and Antipater discover that the fabled city of Babylon is a mere ghost of its former glory, haunted—and menaced—by its wanton past.
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