He ducked his head respectfully, eyes flicking to where Marielle still held his sleeve. She let go with a gasp. That blasted golden scent! The smell of warm honey and cinnamon of fresh earth and sunshine. How long had it been since she’d smelled that? Had she ever smelled it so powerfully?
“Careful, citizen,” she said through a dry mouth.
He ducked his head again, his slight smile devastating against the visceral pain of his emotions, and then he was walking away, his purposeful strides sliding through the crowd like an adder through the grass. Now, why had she thought of an adder?
“Pretty, I’ll admit,” Carnelian said, her gaze on his retreating figure. “But he won’t get our tally up today. Nose up, Scenter! Find us a good crime!”
Marielle wrenched her gaze away from the young man, her nose sniffing obediently, but it was no use. Her every sense was still drunk on that golden burst of absolute attraction, the hot honey of it sinking into her like the warmth of the noonday sun. She was certain now that she’d never scented anything like it before. And it was hard not to feel disappointed when she realized she probably wouldn’t scent it again. Things like that didn’t happen every day and she didn’t even know his name.
She shook herself irritably.
“I think I smell violence that way,” she gestured at the red swirl heading down the street. It wasn’t much to go on, but it was better than pining for someone she didn’t even know.
First Night of Summernight
6: Desperate Measures
Tamerlan
Tamerlan ran a hand through his short hair. He hadn’t stopped sweating since he ran into the Watch Officer on the street. He’d seen the way that Scenter looked at him – those lovely eyes, so dark they were almost purple. Her gaze bored into him like a drill into softwood. Had she known? Had she scented his intent?
He’d been so shaken he’d nearly forgotten to bring the books to Master Kurond. So shaken he’d almost been caught when he pilfered the toolroom for a set of lockpicks and the laundry for a dark cloak. If nothing else, the Alchemists were great lovers of variety. Their toolrooms and storehouses had every item you could possibly need – even items for a thief.
There was no weapon, though.
He’d debated with himself about what to do about a weapon. He had knives. Knives for preparing solutions, for chopping ingredients, for tooling leather, for sharpening quills. None of them were for killing a man.
Would he need to do that tonight? Why wouldn’t his dragon-cursed hands stop shaking at the thought?
He forced his breathing to slow. He had the evening free for the First Night of Summernight. All the apprentices did. Dathan was already gone. He’d barely stopped to check on Tamerlan before he left. But he had checked. A good friend that.
Tamerlan’s thoughts skittered like butter across a hot pan. With an effort, he forced them to focus.
He tucked his last knife – he’d taken all the ones he owned, of every size – into his belt and patted his pockets. Nothing extra to jingle or give him away. The folded illuminated page fell out of his pocket and he scooped it up again. Best to leave it here. If he failed tonight, there was a good chance it would mean he was captured by the Watch. Or dead.
Either way, he wouldn’t need a fancy page. He tucked it reluctantly beneath his pillow. Wouldn’t it have been nice if this chance page could have been the solution he needed? If it had been a map to a secret tunnel leading to the heart of the Sunset Tower or a page spelling out an old loophole to the laws and customs of Jingen. A fanciful thought, but still one that he clung to. If only he’d had time to try the recipe on it. Maybe it would have granted him extra stealth or power. His fingers itched to gather the ingredients even now. Somehow, he knew that where the ancient scribbler had failed, he would be able to succeed.
The Bridge of Legends, the page said in the runes of the ancients, bridges the gap between life and death.
If anyone was perched on the bridge between life and death, it was Amaryllis.
And tonight, Tamerlan would join her there. With her arrival today, tonight this was his best chance. They wouldn’t expect anyone to try to break her out the very night she arrived, would they? They’d still be sorting out the guard schedule.
Or at least, that’s how it would be at his father’s Grandhouse.
Tamerlan just had to hope it would be the same here.
He trotted down the winding stairs – three flights – from his small closet of a room through the floors of The Copper Tincture. The smell of something acrid filled the second floor. A tincture gone wrong, perhaps. Or maybe it was meant to smell that way. There were no mistakes in the Alchemist’s Guild. Only learning opportunities.
Maybe that was true tonight, too. Not a mistake to try to save Amaryllis. Only an opportunity.
He waited until he reached the ground floor to draw a deep steadying breath – even with enough tension to make his hands shake he wasn’t fool enough to inhale that acid – and then clenched his jaw.
He wished he was someone else. Good-natured Tamerlan wouldn’t be enough tonight. Tamerlan the buddy. Tamerlan the good-hearted. If his friends had been asked if he could penetrate the defenses of the Sunset Tower they would have laughed.
He would have laughed if you asked him yesterday. But this wasn’t yesterday.
If only he could be someone else. Someone strong and brave. Better yet, someone who knew how to break into towers and save girls from fates worse – well, at least as bad as – death. A hero.
He clenched his jaw and quickened his pace.
The sun was sinking over the horizon and even though the costumes weren’t really supposed to be worn until tomorrow, there were still some people in the crowds already dressed up. The knots that moved from tavern to inn in laughing huddles contained their fair share. In one he saw a specter of Queen Mer, her face painted a sickly green and hair styled in green clay to look like she was underwater even now. He didn’t want to even guess what she’d paid for the clinging translucent dress that swirled around her. More than he made in a six-month if he had to guess.
But that was good. He clenched his fists to steady them until the nails bit into the meat of his palms and hoped he would be taken for a reveler in costume. No thief – or at least, not a real one. Just a reveler like everyone else moving through the sunset streets and waiting for the Nightbursts to announce that the Summernight festival had begun.
It was dark by the time he reached the Government District. Even the darkness didn’t help him hide here. Large lamps were already being lit by the city workers. They carried oil up to them in massive gourds carried on poles over their bowed shoulders. And just like every time he’d smelled the fishy scent of the oil, he wondered if it was really true that they came from oilfish out in the sea – creatures so large that a single one could smash a ship in two. Queen Mer herself wasn’t so fearsome.
Small lights were lit in colored lanterns on strings along the canals – red, orange and gold for Summernight, though the colors changed depending on the season. Their tiny fires reflected again and again over the water while the haunting sounds of the Waverunner’s nightly songs echoed back and forth over the water, the cadence oddly reminiscent of the slowly poled gondolas they manned.
But now was not the time to daydream about the wonders of the world. This was not the night to be sensitive to the beguiling colors of the paving stones that made wave patterns through the square as if designed to look like the sea or to marvel at the smooth stone of the government buildings. Or wonder what it would be like to be a Waverunner and live his whole life in the rocking embrace of Mother Water.
He pulled his dreaming self back, deeper into the recesses of his mind, the sound of Master Kurond’s voice echoing in his mind.
“You’re smart enough, boy, if you could only stop dreaming. The world is a wonder. But it’s only useful to us if that wonder can be tapped and sold.”
It wasn’t useful to him at all right now. He didn’t dare be that d
ay-dreaming Tamerlan tonight.
The Sunset Tower stood at the center of the Government District, perched on the highest point of the city, the crest of the Dragon’s Spine. Tamerlan shivered as he clung to the shadows, skimming from one to the next like a water strider over a pond.
The night birds began their wistful songs but here in the Government District, the crowds were scarce. There were no good taverns here. And the view of the Nightbursts would be poor unless you were on the roof of the palace. Or perhaps locked up in the Sunset Tower. Oh, his sister’s view would be perfect. He bit his cheek to keep from thinking about it, frowning at the metallic taste that filled his mouth.
The wall surrounding the Tower and the Seven Suns Palace was taller than he remembered.
Of course, he hadn’t been planning to infiltrate it the last time he’d been here. The walls, purple in the descending twilight, rose like cliffs, a moat of dank water surrounding them. There were no gondolas in the moat. No fairy lights of their lanterns or murmur of their voices. The fecund scent of still water and algae filled his nose.
He could swim it.
And then what?
He hadn’t thought this through well enough.
The guards passed one another on the wall above, calling their signs to one another. All was well and all would be well, and all manner of things would be well.
Maybe for them.
Maybe for anyone whose sister would not die in five nights.
There was nothing for it. He circled, looking for the best place to breach the wall. There was a small door across from him here with a large padlock. He could swim across and try the door. It looked like a storm drain. Even palaces had to contend with weather, didn’t they?
And he’d brought lockpicks. He might as well use them.
Quietly, checking his pockets to be sure he hadn’t lost anything, he slipped down to the edge of the water. It wasn’t a far swim. It was the length of one of the ponds he’d practiced in as a boy and about as clean. He’d swim it. He didn’t even need to remove his cloak or boots.
The storm drain would be perfect.
He held his breath and slipped silently into the water.
7: To Catch a Thief
Marielle
“That’s the fifth pair of thieves we’ve caught tonight!” Carnelian said, clapping Marielle on the back as they handed the pair off to the patrol wagon. “I knew patrolling with you was lucky. My last two Scenters never would have picked up on a whiff so faint!”
Marielle allowed a small smile at the praise. Dusk swallowed the long shadows around them and bled into night. Howls of delight and the faint sound of music tumbled through the breeze to her ears. But to Marielle the rising of the moon was not a time with less to notice, but more. As the heat left the ground and rose into the cooling air, the scents rose up with it, causing almost a reverse sunset as the myriad colors hovered in the air over the cobblestones.
She caught her breath just as she had a thousand times before. The smell of a city nightrise never stopped bringing wonder to her senses.
“Wind that scarf up if it’s getting to be too strong,” Carnelian suggested. “Things will die off when we get to the Government District. That’s where the route takes us next and those streets are as tan-bland as anywhere in the city – or so my Scenters always said.”
Marielle followed Carnelian’s lead through the wide arches that led to the Government District and over the narrow bridge that spanned the canal. There might not be the same potent smells here of cinnamon, cloves, or thyme that were in the Spice District or the acrid smell of chemical concoctions from the Alchemist’s District, but the Government District had its own bouquet.
Fear was usually strongest here. Sometimes tinged with royal-blue and gardenia scented power and the bronze flecks of morning dew scented hope. Other times it hung heavy on the air, mixed with the bitter mustard-yellow and white vinegar of failure, or worse – that pulsing orange ginger desperation that clung to every ripple like mud to the soles of boots in mid-spring.
Marielle wrapped a second layer of scarf around her face, cinching it to keep it in place. She should be proud of having caught the thieves tonight. She should be exulting in her success – they were certainly going to win the pot that Carnelian was so desperate for.
But that was the problem. Marielle loved justice. Who wouldn’t love the law? It was so certain of itself. It divided right down through nuances to specifics. Cleaving through the difference between maiming or injury or theft and robbery. One sentence for one. One for the other. Sometimes divided by a hair of difference, but that hair was written down and codified.
Who wouldn’t love a world so stable, so black and white, so definite that it could be written entirely down in laws and codified and enforced?
If only Marielle’s own feelings could be codified like that. If only the constant gumbo of scents swirling around her in the fog of night could be so definite. But they never were.
Take that man with the startled eyes she’d bumped into on the street today. He’d been barely older than her. That apron and the alchemical smells surrounding him made his profession plain. And yet.
That pulsing orange ginger of desperation around him had clung like the scent of death. The tiny brazen flecks of hope weaving in and out of it had been matched equally with inky black bursts of licorice despair. He was on the edge of something. Hovering. Waiting to fall one way or the other.
And then take her reaction. She shivered at the memory. She’d been overwhelmed by the golden honey scent of her attraction to him to the point where it bled into the pulsing orange ginger smell and mixed into a cocktail so potent it rivaled the stories of lovers dashing themselves from cliffs for the sheer love of one another – if you could call such a thing love.
And it was puzzles like that that filled Marielle with the very uncertainty that she so desperately wanted to avoid. If she was uncertain, then she couldn’t predict the future. And if she couldn’t predict the future, she couldn’t prevent the worst. And if she couldn’t prevent the worst, then she’d be swept away on it like a child swept away by a tidal wave.
No. Marielle was much happier with certainties. And she was certain that tonight they were on these streets to catch people violating the certain and sure code of the law.
They patrolled the dark Government District more slowly than they did other streets. It was hard for Carnelian to see between the pools of light provided by the high towering lanterns still being lit at intervals through the district. She had only her eyes to guide her, scent-blind as she was.
Marielle didn’t mind. The architecture of the Government District was all certain lines and precise arcs. Clean cut corners, smooth stone, level steps, and uniform cobbles made her heart glad. Someone had thought this area of the city through. Someone had been certain.
Their patrolling took them around a turn to stride past the palace moat. Crowds were gathered on the roof terraces of the palace under the Sunset Tower and their cheers and calls tumbled down to Marielle. They were welcome to their fun. The ladies bright ballgowns caught the light and even from so far away – even when Marielle couldn’t see their colors – they looked like jewels strung for a queen.
“Landholds. I’d like to see them work for once,” Carnelian said just as she did every time they passed the Seven Suns Palace. She spat in the same place she spat every time. Patrols were easy with Carnelian. She was so predictable that she was almost a certainty.
But there was something different here in the street tonight. Marielle paused. It wasn’t the Landholds clustered above. It wasn’t the first Nightburst that had just erupted over the city in a shower of brilliant sparks to the cheers and amazement of the party high above. It wasn’t the guard seen meeting on the top of the wall in the light cast by the Nightburst.
What was it?
Pulsing orange spun with gold. Just the barest trace. But combined with that slight alchemical scent of acid ...
Yes! The man from earlier.
His face flashed into her mind as if carried by the scent of him.
What was he doing in the Government District tonight?
“Don’t tell me you’ve stopped to watch the Nightburst!” Carnelian laughed. “I thought you Scenters were practically blind. Can you even tell that it’s bright gold?”
Where was he? The trail was so faint. And yet she couldn’t get it out of her nose. She was drawn to it like flies to lit torches. It didn’t matter how dangerous it might be, she couldn’t stop looking for it.
But that faint smell had faded almost as if it had been swallowed by water.
Marielle spun to look at the moat. There was no scent to guide her. Not if it crossed the water. Water hid scent too well – except for the grass-green scents of life growing in the rancid water.
She was watching for movement. Any flicker. Any at all.
Something moved in the corner of her peripheral vision and her head jerked to follow it. Nothing there.
Where was it?
“There!” Carnelian yelled, her hand pointing in the direction Marielle had seen the movement. “Stop! Stop by order of the Jingen City Watch!”
Carnelian cursed and took off like a dog after a cart, stumbling after just three steps over a curb Marielle saw easily. To her, it was bright yellow where a cur had told the world his life’s story.
Marielle dashed past, still not catching the scent of their prey, just hoping Carnelian had really seen something. Her dull curses were fading behind as Marielle’s heart pounded loud and feet pounded louder where she sped along the cobbles.
There was a squelching sound and then it was as if the scent of the moat had grown legs and was darting along the streets in front of her.
She chased the scent, her feet light on the cobbles.
This was the heady part. Just Marielle and the scent and the chase.
She ripped one layer of veil off as she sped up, the scent growing sharper and stronger. She could see a man-shape in the smell. A man in a cloak. His cloak tangled around his legs and fell as if he’d shed his skin like a snake.
Bridge of Legends- The Complete Series Page 5