The Wonder Engine Read online

  Her fingers, when they touched his, were cold as ice. He looked up, startled.

  It was impossible to see her expression under the veils, but there were lines around her eyes that Caliban didn’t like at all.

  He wanted to hold her hand between his until the heat of his fingers warmed her.

  He wanted to say Don’t go.

  He wanted to say Let me come with you.

  He said, “Be careful…my liege.” The tattoo on his arm throbbed like a burn.

  She took a deep breath and let it out. “Wish us luck,” she said, nodding to the knight and the scholar.

  “Dreaming God go with you,” said Caliban.

  Learned Edmund looked up long enough to sign a benediction. “Good luck.”

  They went down the hall, twin shadows, dark and dark, gliding like oil. Caliban heard Brenner say something. He could not make out the words, but it made Slate laugh.

  His hand twinged, and he looked at it, vaguely surprised, as if it belonged to some other person. He was holding onto the doorframe so hard that his knuckles had gone white.

  “Worried for them?” asked Learned Edmund.

  For her, anyway. He dropped his hand.

  “Yes,” the paladin said.

  Eleven

  It was a long evening. Learned Edmund read and muttered and scribbled notes. Caliban helped Grimehug down the rain gutter and the gnole went off on some errand of his own, humming tunelessly to himself.

  Caliban did sword forms until his arms ached. Then he did a few more.

  Learned Edmund continued to write. The scratching of the pen across the page scraped on Caliban’s nerves.

  It’s not his fault. It’s good that he is usefully occupied, not sitting here fretting like I am. And nothing will happen. Slate will be fine. Slate is with—well, she’ll probably be fine, anyway.

  He went out and got food from a vendor selling some variety of spiced meat on a stick. Learned Edmund thanked him and went back to scrawling notes.

  She is fine. They are fine. Even if someone from her old life recognizes her, there is no reason to think they will be hostile.

  This would have been a more convincing line of argument if Caliban had any idea what Slate had done to make enemies.

  Surely she couldn’t have turned the entire underworld against her…

  He could still feel how cold her hands had been.

  He took a bath. The hot water soothed his muscles and did nothing at all to soothe his mind.

  They won’t recognize her.

  Brenner will take care of her.

  He grimaced at the thought.

  Finally, for lack of anything better to do, he leaned his head back against the rim of the tub and prayed.

  There were several long-form prayers that temple paladins learned. Caliban knew them all backwards and forward. He recited each one carefully, forming the words in the dark place behind his eyes, letting each word die away into silence.

  There was no heat, no light, no sense of divine presence. Caliban no longer expected one. Perhaps the words were still enough.

  I can do nothing more. Dreaming God have mercy.

  Bring Slate back to me. Please.

  He knew it was the wrong prayer. He knew he should not dare to ask for such a thing.

  My brothers and sisters whom I killed, forgive me. I should have made my life into a penance for my sin against you. I should not be…I should not have allowed myself to feel what I do for Slate…

  But he had and here he was and he was afraid.

  His demon was quiet inside his head. It had never cared for prayer, but it had been small and silent since the encounter with the rune-demon in the Vagrant Hills. He did not know if it had been frightened or exhausted.

  He did not want to be grateful to the rune-demon, but the absence was welcome. And yet, he could not keep from poking at it, like a tooth that should hurt. It had been his constant companion for too many months. He did not trust its silence.

  The water cooled around him. Eventually, there were no more prayers. He felt hollowed out, balanced between dread and resignation.

  If the water got cold, it would stop being soothing and start to carry old memories. Caliban sighed, opened his eyes and found himself looking into Grimehug’s badger-like face.

  “Hey, big man,” said the gnole.

  “Hey, Grimehug. Did Learned Edmund let you back in?”

  Grimehug dipped his head in a nod. “Yeah, yeah. Want to tell you that Crazy Slate’s coming back. With dark man.”

  Caliban sagged with relief, then grabbed for a towel. “You were watching her?”

  “Some gnole watches, yeah. Bad place, big man. People go in, don’t always come out, you know?”

  “I know.”

  Grimehug nodded. “Scared,” he added. “Good to be scared, though. Scary stuff.”

  With this cryptic utterance, the gnole went back into the shared room of the suite. Caliban hurried into his clothes and followed.

  The door opened a few minutes later and Slate came through it, limping badly.

  “Good lord! Are you hurt?” Caliban leapt to his feet.

  “It’s these shoes,” she growled, going to the sitting area and dropping gracelessly into a chair. Her voice was rough, as if she’d been crying or inhaling smoke. Brenner followed, closing the door behind her. “Apparently this cobbler believes Chadori women have eight toes and no heels.” She pulled her veil and hood off, revealing a disgruntled expression.

  “Did you learn anything?” Learned Edmund asked, setting his notes aside.

  “Mmm. Some.” Slate yanked the hated shoes off and laid a foot across her lap. “I’m going to have a blister the size of a goddamn grape.” She began kneading her calf with a grimace. “Right. This is a tricky business. People are wary of discussing military matters. We’re skirting the edge of treason.”

  “They’re criminals,” said Caliban.

  “Well, yes. But the clocktaurs are fighting for Anuket City, and these are Anuket City thieves.”

  “You’re telling me most of the thieves are patriots?” Caliban didn’t bother to keep the disbelief out of his voice.

  Brenner looked up from rolling a cigarette. “My dear paladin, you won’t find anyone who cares more about a country than its underworld. If the wolves eat all our sheep, where are we going to get mutton?”

  Caliban snorted. He would probably have had more to say on that particular topic, but his eyes were fixed on Slate, who was pounding on her calf muscles with a knuckle and making terrible grimaces of agony and relief.

  He had a sudden urge to go over and kneel before her and run his hands over the offending muscles until they loosened.

  It was chivalrous, surely. He’d be helping a maiden in distress. One’s motives couldn’t get any purer than that.

  He didn’t dare do it because he wasn’t sure he’d stop at the knee.

  No. No. Even such thoughts are dangerous.

  Brenner was saying something. Caliban tore his eyes away.

  “Is there anyone whose loyalties can be bought?” he asked.

  There was a hiss of pain behind him. “Ahhhsonofabitch…what is wrong with those shoes?”

  “Everyone’s loyalties can be bought,” said Brenner. “But we don’t necessarily have the money to buy them. Our budget’s large, but not infinite, and we’re potentially asking them to sell out a sizeable portion of the Anuket City military-industrial complex with this.”

  “So where does that leave us?” asked Learned Edmund.

  “We got one lead,” said Slate. Having beaten one leg into submission, she draped it over the arm of the chair and started on the other one. Caliban glanced over and quickly looked away, directly into the teeth of Brenner’s grin. It was not an entirely pleasant expression.

  If he doesn’t know what I’m thinking, he’s at least got a suspicion.

  “Indeed,” said the assassin smoothly, “we had one lead.” He glanced at Slate.

  She hunched up a shou
lder. “Go ahead, Brenner.”

  “The war effort was dreamed up by a group of Senators…or possibly praetors…”

  “Both,” said Slate. “And a couple of Consuls, too.”

  “Right. Whole bunch of them. Stupid way to run a city.”

  “Representative democracy is considered one of the most enlightened—”

  “Later, Edmund.”

  Brenner lit his cigarette. “So apparently part of the government always wanted war, which wasn’t very popular in these parts because that involves spending more money on the army and merchants hate to spend money on things like armies. Then the clocktaurs turned up and suddenly the Senate falls in line with this idea to send them against people.”

  “This was a few years back,” added Slate. She jammed her thumbs into her calf and wiggled. “Everybody was happy to talk about that. No secret to it.”

  “So who wanted a war?” asked Caliban thoughtfully.

  “Or who saw profit in backing the people who did?” Slate dropped her foot back to the floor and glared at her knees as if they had offended her.

  “What sort of profit?”

  Slate spread her hands. “This is barely more than a guess—people were only hinting—but I suspect the Senate is paying a lot of money to somebody for the Clockwork Boys. Suppose somebody knew they had an army on their hands…they might consider it worthwhile to invest in a pack of Senators willing to pay for that army.”

  They sat in silence, digesting that.

  “They bought Senators so that the Senators could turn around and buy their army from them?”

  “Gotta spend money to make money,” said Brenner.

  “You think it’s the same person,” said Caliban. “Or people.”

  “I’d be very surprised if it wasn’t.”

  “So if we can figure out who that person is…”

  “We may know who to kill,” said Brenner. “Or at least where to start killing.” He stubbed out his cigarette.

  Learned Edmund looked a bit green.

  “It seems like this sort of person would not be easy to find,” said Caliban.

  “Ah, but that’s the lead!” Slate raised her finger. Since she had flipped around in the chair and was now hanging, head down, with her legs over the back, this was perhaps not as effective a gesture as it could be. “Anuket politics are miserable and there’s no reason to assume that just because you’ve bought a bunch of Senators, you’re in charge of the Clockwork Boys. People buy politicians all the time. You aren’t anybody until you own a Senator. But the important bit here is who was behind the excavation that turned up the Clockwork Boys in the first place?”

  “You think the people behind that excavation are responsible?” said Caliban.

  “They’d almost have to be, wouldn’t they? They’re the ones in charge of the clocktaurs, they’re the ones who figured out how to use them, so why wouldn’t they—or one of their backers—be the one doing the using?”

  “A scholar might have worked it out,” said Learned Edmund. “For knowledge’s sake.”

  “Your missing Brother Amadai, for example? Yes. But I doubt he dug up the whole thing single-handed. How rich is the Many-Armed God?”

  Learned Edmund looked blank.

  “It is perhaps safe to say that they are more rich in knowledge than in gold,” said Caliban.

  “Right, so if he was involved, I think it’s safe to say somebody else was holding the purse-strings, and they used his scholarship for their own ends.”

  Learned Edmund pinched the bridge of his nose and looked suddenly rather older than nineteen.

  “We’ll keep going back,” said Slate. “Assuming I can walk. This sort of thing takes a few days—we have to let it be known that we’re interested in information, but not seem desperate.” She stood up, tested her footing, and scowled. The black robes flapped around her like wings.

  “Is that safe?” asked Learned Edmund. “If there is a chance you’ll be recognized…”

  “I’ll keep wearing the damn veils.” She turned and advanced on Caliban. “You!”

  “Yes?”

  “Give me your socks.”

  “The ones I’m wearing?”

  “A clean pair, if you’ve got them.”

  “You want my socks?” Caliban would have laid down his life for Slate, probably with a sense of relief, but a man’s socks…that was asking a lot.

  She glared at him. “Look, a man with an endless supply of clean handkerchiefs has got to have extra socks. If I don’t pad these boots, I’m going to have a permanent limp by the end of the week.”

  “I…suppose…”

  A few minutes later, a heavily veiled woman carrying her boots and wearing a thick pair of wool socks padded out into the hall. She appeared to be limping on both feet simultaneously.

  “That was my last pair that didn’t have holes in them,” said Caliban mournfully.

  Brenner slapped him on the back. “Chivalry sucks, huh?”

  Twelve

  Slate lay in bed with a gnole on her aching feet and stared at the ceiling.

  It was made of pressed tin tile with an elaborate pattern of curling vines. With the lamp off and the shutters open, she could make out just enough of the pattern to let her eyes and mind wander.

  She’d gone to the Shadow Market.

  She was still alive.

  How ’bout that?

  On some level, Slate realized, she had been expecting to die tonight.

  She hadn’t felt terror. Terror was dropping out of a smokehole onto a homicidal deer-person, or huddling in the woods with the Clockwork Boys marching down the road a hundred yards away.

  This was something else, something grey and drab and inevitable. This was a horror that she walked toward with her eyes open.

  She thought she’d been doing well. She’d walked out of the inn and joked with Brenner and told herself that no one could recognize her under the veils and then they’d turned down the street toward the entrance to the Shadow Market and she had only barely had time to rip her veil down.

  Brenner watched her heave her guts into the gutter without comment.

  When she was done, he said, “Better?”

  Slate nodded.

  He asked no questions.

  They walked the rest of the way down the street. They did not try to hide. There were eyes on them and trying to hide would only make those eyes sharper and more interested.

  At the boarded-up door of a church, Slate stopped.

  She went up the broad steps with Brenner behind her, and she touched the door with one gloved hand.

  The gatekeeper opened the door. There were no passwords, no counter-signs, no secret knocks. If you knew the Shadow Market existed, you were allowed in. It was as simple as that.

  They went inside. The hallway was short and unlit, the sort of generic hallway you might find in an inn or a whorehouse or a government building. Slate was vaguely aware that she was shaking.

  Learned Edmund wouldn’t have noticed. Caliban would have tried to comfort her and probably said something horribly stupid in the process. Brenner’s eyes flicked over her and he offered neither comfort nor comment, which was itself strangely comforting.

  They stepped through the doorway at the end and the Shadow Market lay spread before them.

  In many cities, there are places where the underworld elements gather together. Business is transacted. Questionable services are offered for sale.

  In many cities, these places are raided and shut down as soon as they are discovered.

  In Anuket City, where all things are for sale, the Shadow Market was protected by unwritten truce. The guards did not go there. The Senate was officially unaware of its existence. (It was rumored that the rulers of the Shadow Market paid a great deal for this consideration.) In return, the Shadow Market stayed where it was. Neighborhoods did not become dens of crime, open-air markets did not deal in black-market goods, and criminal acts did not become common on street corners.

 
; It was a strange system, but it worked.

  The result was a vast underground flea market where one could buy drugs, whores, bodyguards, weapons, poisons, slaves, or a hundred other things banned by law.

  Slate stood on the steps of the Grey Church, looking down, and part of her said, I’m going to die, and a part that she had never suspected said, I’m home.

  The feeling of homecoming was so strong and so unexpected that for a moment it felt like joy and crowded out the dread. She looked down on the rows of stalls and awnings and her feet turned automatically toward her old spot.

  Three rows down, on the left hand side. She’d had a counter and cabinets full of parchment. Waxes, seals, rows of ink bottles—the tools of the forger’s trade. She would cook books, too, although that was trickier stuff and Slate usually needed to take the books home with her.

  She’d made enough to pay her share of protection money, so that she could arrive in the evening and be sure that her goods would still be where she left them. She’d been good at it. Over the years, the work had turned from forging permits and licenses to complicated accounting. She would take a single commission and spend three weeks hiding thousands of dollars worth of funds, and make enough to live on for the next four months.

  In the Dowager’s city, her dark skin had set her apart—not much, not a great deal, but enough. People like her were everywhere, but they were mostly found in the docks and the labor yards. Eyes slid over her without seeing her.

  We were never anathema. We were simply invisible. And Mother cut all ties with her family long before I was born, because she could not bear to be invisible.

  Perhaps it would have been different if Slate’s mother had been different. Perhaps Slate would not have felt such a strong need to flee from under that particular shadow. Perhaps she would not have married badly and run from it and landed here instead.

  And perhaps I would have stayed home and become a courtesan and gotten knifed by a jealous lover by now. Past is past.

  When Slate came to Anuket City, she found a place where a hundred races came together and no one was extraordinary. In the upper city, she worked very hard to become invisible again.

  In the Shadow Market, though…