Kudshayn doesn’t know his way around Falchester, so he only nodded. “What is along that street? Next to the river?”
“I have no idea,” I said. “We have to go find out. It isn’t far from here.”
He caught my arm before I could set off. “By ourselves?” he said. “Audrey—you just saw Hallman’s body. We could be in a great deal of danger.”
I yanked at his grip, but however scholarly Kudshayn may be, he is still a good deal bigger than I am. I wasn’t going anywhere until he released me or I used jujutsu on him. “The tablets could be in danger.”
“I don’t care about the tablets!” Kudshayn’s wings mantled in his distress. “Whatever they may say is not more important to me than your life.”
That stopped me. I suppose I should not include this part, because I’m supposed to be writing my statement and personal affairs do not enter into that . . . but Kudshayn’s words took all the breath out of me. We’ve been so focused on this epic for months and months, all the implications it may have for history and my career and the future of the Draconeans, that I had fallen into thinking that it mattered more than anything. That was why I ran into the annex, and why I was about to run to Fibula Street.
But just because I’ve decided a thing is important to me doesn’t mean that I have to throw self-preservation entirely out the window. Given a moment to think—forced to stop for a moment and think, I should say—I managed to scrape together a few shreds of common sense. “We’ll tell Corran,” I said, and started back in the direction of Cressy Street and the morgue.
When we got there, though, the doctor was locking up. “Constable Corran left just after you did,” he said.
He had far too much of a head start for us to chase him. “Let me use your telephone, then,” I said. “I’ve just figured out something vital.”
I rang the Western New Central station, but of course Corran wasn’t back there yet. I told the constable on duty what Kudshayn and I had figured out about the poem, and that we were going to investigate Fibula Street; we would be obliged to the constable for heading there at his first opportunity. That was my compromise for safety—and I won’t pretend it was really adequate, but it was all I was willing to concede at the time.
“He’ll meet us there,” I told Kudshayn when I came back. Which implied something more like coordinated timing than was strictly true, but he doesn’t have a very good sense of distances in the city, so he didn’t argue.
Then we set off for Fibula Street on foot. It was not all that far away—but as we walked, I realized that it was upriver, and a chill went down my spine. Quite a lot of the city is upriver from Cressy Street, of course; Hallman’s body could have been dumped anywhere. Still, it made me nervous.
It didn’t help that we attracted a lot of stares as we went along. By then it was well after ten, and there isn’t a lot of nightlife along that part of the river, so not many people were on the streets—but every single one of them stopped when they saw us. We’ve gone everywhere in the city via cabs since Kudshayn came here, precisely because of this (and because I have never learned how to drive), so this was the first time Kudshayn had really been out and about in Falchester. Nobody approached us, though—and after a little while I was glad of it. Upper Fibula Street is respectable, but the lower part is not, and a Draconean looks just menacing enough to the uninitiated that men who might have challenged a strange man or accosted a strange woman decided they could content themselves with threatening scowls.
We followed Fibula Street down toward the river. At the last intersection before the water, where Rope Lane crossed our path, it was my turn to catch Kudshayn by the arm. Wordlessly, I pointed at the rusted sign that arches over the entrance to the last block of Fibula Street: Crown Wharf.
“The Crown of the Abyss,” he said quietly.
The last of my doubts vanished. I had correctly parsed Aaron’s message; whatever he was sending me toward lay in the dark alley ahead. That is the oldest part of the city, where the streets are still built to cramped medieval dimensions; what used to be a royal wharf, centuries ago, is now packed with warehouses. Treasure-houses, one might say . . . filled with “all the glories of the past.”
“Dorak,” I said. “I will bet you ten guineas that he has a warehouse at the bottom of Fibula Street.” One that he owns under some false name or other deception, so that the police never find his smuggled antiquities when they raid.
“Why would Mornett hide the tablets there?”
“I don’t think he would. I think he is offering up Dorak.” As compensation for the wrongs he had done to me—or revenge against the people who wanted not simply to lie about the past, but to destroy it. Perhaps a little of both.
Kudshayn shifted uncertainly, looking around. Rope Lane and Fibula Street were both deserted. “I don’t see the constable.”
“I’m sure he’ll be here soon,” I said, though I wasn’t sure of anything of the sort. “In the meanwhile, I’m going to go take a look.”
I was off and across Rope Lane before Kudshayn could catch me. He didn’t shout, probably for fear of drawing attention, so by the time he caught up I was halfway to the river. The alley was the next best thing to pitch black, but the moon cast enough light on the surface of the Twisel to silhouette the weather-beaten sign hanging from the side of the left-hand warehouse: a pair of wings.
“Aaron?” I whispered hesitantly. But I will stand alone, outside the shelter of her wings . . . It might have meant he was waiting out there. But no answer came, so I advanced another few steps—then stumbled over an unseen box and lurched against the door, which proved to be slightly ajar.
I caught hold of it too late to keep the hinges from creaking, but since the winged sign kept creaking on its own hinges, I hoped the sound would pass unremarked. Kudshayn, who has much better night vision than I do, made it to my side without stumbling over anything, and I breathed, “Listen.”
There were voices inside the warehouse.
Too muffled for me to make anything out, but unmistakably coming from inside, not somewhere along the wharf. I put one hand on Kudshayn’s arm, not quite daring to say anything more, for fear we’d be overheard. We stood like that for a long moment, and I willed him to understand what I couldn’t say: that he needed to go back out to Rope Lane and wait for Constable Corran, while I went inside. And that it had to be that way, not vice versa, because a lone woman standing in a dark street in this part of Falchester would possibly be in even more danger than a lone woman creeping into a smuggler’s warehouse.
His weight moved, and then I felt the pad of his thumb against my forehead, heard a whisper almost too quiet to even reach my ears. It was a Draconean blessing: if this had been a proper ritual, he would have placed a “sun mark” on my forehead in yellow pollen, and the words were a prayer that, just as the sun descends into an abyssal cave every night before re-emerging the next morning, I would come through this trial safely.
Then he was gone, moving silently up the street, and I slipped into the warehouse.
I had to move slowly, lest I trip over or slam into anything else. The warehouse had some high clerestory windows, which admitted just enough light to let me make out where the aisles were, nothing more; the crates next to me could have been filled with all the treasures of the Watchers’ Heart and I would never have been able to identify them. But that wasn’t what mattered just then. I inched my way toward the voices, which were coming from closer to the water. The air grew brighter as I approached, and I realized the river doors were open, where lighters would ordinarily bring in goods from ships moored farther out.
And one of the voices was Aaron’s.
I recognized it even before I was able to pick out words. Two male voices, the first one Aaron’s, the other rougher and unfamiliar to me—I surmised that was Dorak. The former seemed to embark on a speech as I crept closer, but I only came within range to understand him at the tail end of it.
“. . . when I arrive in Chiavora,”
Aaron said. “I’ll write to you then.”
My heart lurched painfully. All this time I’d spent worrying about him, and he was planning a trip to the Continent?
Then someone else answered him. Not Dorak: a woman, much crisper and colder than I’d ever heard her. “I’m well aware that you believe yourself to be smarter than everyone else in the room—but I am not so much of a fool that I’m going to send you off to Chiavora with absolutely nothing in return.”
“And I’m not so much of a fool as to tell you where it is when you have me tied to a chair.”
The entire situation reconfigured itself in my mind, back to something even worse than my original image. Aaron wasn’t preparing for a holiday; he was bargaining for his freedom—with, I suspected, the missing ending of the epic.
He went on talking. “I have a healthy respect for your intelligence, Mrs. Kefford, and even more respect for your wealth and influence. If I try to dis appear in Chiavora without upholding my end of the bargain, you’ll have me hunted down. I’ve never been out of Scirland; I’m nothing like capable of a vanishing act. The only way I get out of this safely is if I get beyond your immediate reach, then tell you where I put it.”
“And never return to Scirland,” she said.
His response, when it came, was almost too quiet for me to hear. “There isn’t much left for me here now.”
Mrs. Kefford gave a mocking laugh. “Poor dear. What did you think would happen? That a few years down the road you would ‘discover’ another text that gives the epic a different ending? That you would publish it, restore your tarnished reputation, and win back her heart?”
Silence. I was straining so hard to hear what came next that the creak from behind me nearly made me jump out of my skin—and then the cold tip of a gun barrel pressed against the back of my neck and I shrieked.
I wish I had kept my head. One of the things my jujutsu instructor taught me was that it’s a mistake to put your gun right up against somebody’s back; you make it too easy for them to twist away and grab your arm before you can make up your mind to fire. But Dorak took me by surprise, and my instinct was to lurch forward, out of reach—but not, of course, out of range. I wound up facing him, and there was just enough light to see him gesture with the gun, the motion too small for me to take advantage of it. “Move,” he said.
Toward the river doors, and the other two. I went, shaking from head to toe. Grandmama has been kidnapped, captured, or held hostage more times than I can count, but it has never happened to me before. Then I came onto the open planks where lighters unload their cargo, and there were Mrs. Kefford and Aaron Mornett.
When he saw me he jerked furiously against the ropes holding him, but it did no good. There was blood on one ear and the side of his head where someone had struck him, and he looked haggard. “I got your message,” I said unsteadily.
“God damn it, Audrey,” he snarled, “you weren’t supposed to come here like this!”
“You know me better than that,” I said, keeping my gaze on Dorak and Mrs. Kefford. The former was expressionless and the latter looked like she was watching a rather tedious comedy. “Common sense has never been my strong suit.”
It was ridiculous to banter like that, but it helped me settle my nerves. Dorak hadn’t shot me yet, and while that wasn’t much, right then I was grateful for every shred of good fortune I could snatch. How long would it have taken Constable Corran to get back to the police station, and then to reach Fibula Street? Had Kudshayn heard my shriek? I almost hoped not; if he came charging in, we might all wind up like Hallman.
But if I could buy time, the cavalry might yet arrive. So I transferred my attention to Mrs. Kefford and said, “I’m surprised to see you getting your hands dirty like this.”
“I will do nothing of the sort,” she said, and nodded toward Dorak. “That is what he is for. Aaron and I have just reached an agreement, as you no doubt overheard; he will trade his precious tablets for his life. But you, my dear . . . you present a more difficult problem.”
“Don’t I always.”
Aaron made a strangled sound. “Audrey—”
“Hush, dear,” Mrs. Kefford said to him. “You have only one bargaining chip, and you have already used it. Unless you would like to trade it for her life instead?”
“Bollocks,” I said before he could respond. “That wouldn’t work and we all know it. Let me walk out of here, and I’ll be off to the police like a shot.”
Her lip curled. “If you’re trying to persuade me not to kill you, that’s not a very good way of doing it.”
I clamped my mouth shut, fumbling for something better to say. For all her cold manner, I had a feeling Mrs. Kefford was posturing—playing the role of criminal mastermind. A politician’s wife is used to manipulating people, not murdering them. She kept casting sideways glances at Dorak’s gun, as if it made her uneasy. I doubted she’d been there when Hallman was shot.
That suspicion grew stronger when she said, “No, if I’m to keep you silent, I need some kind of leverage. Something I can destroy at any time if you cross me.” She cocked her head to one side, finger tapping theatrically against her cheek. “I wonder, which would exert greater force over you? These tablets and their silly tale? Or the man before you?”
She genuinely believed I still cared for him. And in a way, I did—because I heard Kudshayn’s voice in my head, as if he were standing there with us. Whatever they may say is not more important to me than your life.
The tablets were not more important than anyone’s life. I would give them up for Aaron Mornett, not because I loved him, but because he didn’t deserve to die.
Wasn’t that precisely the lie he had tried to sell with his forgery? That the Draconeans sacrificed human beings for their god. I would not sacrifice him, or anyone, for the Light of the World—nor for the nameless god of knowledge and history, to whom I have dedicated all my effort.
Self-sacrifice is a different matter. But I wasn’t about to offer myself up, not least because I didn’t trust Mrs. Kefford to bargain as fairly as the Crown of the Abyss.
Then a shadow eclipsed the moonlight coming through the river doors.
Draconeans cannot properly fly, but they can glide moderately well, if they start from a high place and curl their legs in tight. The roof of the warehouse gave Kudshayn enough altitude to soar out over the river and then bank toward us, can noning through the open doors like a dragon. Dorak whirled to meet this new threat and fired—I shrieked again—and then Kudshayn hit him, all eighty-odd kilograms of scale and wing and claw, and the two of them tumbled across the planks into the nearest stack of crates with enough force to break human bones.
Mrs. Kefford couldn’t possibly have known Kudshayn was coming, but she wasted no time. She hiked up her skirts and bolted for the door—or tried to. I slammed into her, and this time I did remember my jujutsu. I just didn’t remember how close we were to the edge of the water.
We fell in with an almighty splash. That wasn’t a problem for me, because I’ve spent half my life at sea. Mrs. Kefford, on the other hand, seemed to have no idea where to begin. While I shucked out of my skirt so it wouldn’t tangle my legs, she flailed around and made glugging noises, interspersed with cries for help. So I swam over to her, blocked her panicked attempt to grab hold of me (which would have dragged us both under), and got her turned around so her back was to me; then I slid my arms under hers and grasped her shoulders. I took a skull to my nose for my pains, because I forgot to keep my head to one side—I’m lucky it didn’t break again!—but then I was able to drag her over to the supporting beams for the dock above and persuade her to cling to those.
After that I scrambled back up onto the dock, trusting that Mrs. Kefford wouldn’t be going anywhere. Kudshayn was standing with one foot on Dorak’s back, pinning him to the ground, and panting more than a little; he also had one hand pressed to the opposite arm. “You’re hurt!” I said, leaping for him.
“His shot grazed me,” Kudshayn
said. More than a graze, I saw, once he lifted his hand to let me see, but it wasn’t bleeding too badly as long as Kudshayn kept pressure on. I wanted to tear some cloth from my skirt to bandage it, but I’d left my skirt in the water (and the Twisel being what it is, I wouldn’t want that fabric touching an open wound anyway). I looked around for something to use, and that’s when I realized that Aaron Mornett was still tied to the chair, and I was in my soaking-wet knickers.
He had his eyes closed, I think out of manners. I went over to see if he had a handkerchief or anything else useful, when a sudden commotion at the Fibula Street door heralded the arrival of Constable Corran and several others for reinforcement. I dodged behind Aaron’s chair, using him as my fig leaf, and that’s why we made such an odd tableau when the cavalry came charging in.
I realize, much too late, that this is not exactly the cool and factual account I was probably supposed to write when they asked me for my witness statement, but it is true to the best of my knowledge and belief and I made this statement knowing that, if it is tendered in evidence, I will be liable to prosecution if I wilfully stated in it anything I know to be false or do not believe to be true.
Audrey Camherst
5 Acinis, 5662
DISSENTING SPEAKER REMOVED
Kefford’s Party Disavows Leader
Tablet Scandal Grows
Charges “Preposterous,” Kefford Insists
In a move many have been predicting for days, the Mairney Party have removed Mr. Henry Kefford from his position as Dissenting Speaker in Her Majesty’s government. This follows in the wake of the Tablet Scandal, which connected Mr. Kefford’s wife with the notorious antiquities smuggler Joseph Dorak, the bombing on Hemminge Street, the murder of Hadamist leader Zachary Hallman, and the forgery of a Draconean text meant to discredit that people in advance of the Falchester Congress, which will begin in two months.
At present the police deny any intention of charging Mr. Kefford with criminal offense, but he has been brought in for questioning in connection to his wife’s activities.
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