The Wonder Engine Read online

  The magnitude of his former naiveté astonished him.

  This place had boxes instead of chairs and the beer appeared to be made entirely of dregs. The bar was made of unfinished wooden boards thrown over sawhorses. There were bodies in the corners, and not all of them looked like they were merely asleep.

  “Now what?” Brenner would let him talk if he didn’t move his lips.

  “Now we sit here and wait for a prostitute.”

  Caliban stared morosely into his beer. “I thought we were avoiding brothels.”

  “Freelance prostitution is regulated by pimps. Pimps pay protection money to gangs. Gangs report to crime lords. Do I have explain the entire crime food chain to you? We have to start at the bottom.”

  Caliban glanced around the room, then back down into his beer. “I’d say we’re there.”

  “See, this is why I never take you anywhere.”

  They sat in stony silence for a while. Caliban stopped even pretending to drink whatever the stuff in the mug was.

  “Okay,” murmured Brenner, barely moving his lips, “We’ve got a mark. Try not to lose your head.”

  The woman who wove her way toward their table had probably been lovely at one point, but had been worn down to a kind of haggard prettiness. Her clothing left little to the imagination, but Caliban found the deep lines scored around her eyes more unsettling than the amount of flesh on display.

  Brenner, however, held out an arm and grinned like a shark when she sat down next to him. “Hello there, darlin’.”

  “Don’t think I’ve seen you boys here before,” she purred.

  “It’s been a while, darlin’. My friend’s new in town. Thought I’d bring him around…show him the sights...”

  The downward direction of his eyes left no doubt as to what sights he’d meant. Caliban stared into the middle distance and prayed for death.

  The prostitute leaned forward across the table. “Really?”

  Anyone’s death. Brenner’s would do.

  Brenner kicked him under the table. Caliban transferred his gaze to the prostitute and tried to look politely interested.

  “Your friend doesn’t say much.”

  “He’s the strong silent type.”

  Caliban grunted.

  “I can appreciate that in a man,” she said, smiling, and slid across the crates until her hip pressed against his.

  I am going to need to bathe in boiling water.

  Brenner’s grin seemed to stretch beyond the confines of his face. The prostitute ran a sharp nailed hand down Caliban’s thigh.

  I’ll burn these clothes. On the end of a stick. Without touching them.

  “You’re a big one, aren’t you?” she murmured.

  Sweet Dreaming God, do people actually say that? Caliban took a recklessly large swallow of the awful beer.

  “So tell me, darlin’,” Brenner said, with a purr of his own, “what’s new in town since I’ve been away?”

  “Well, that depends. How long’ve you been away?”

  “Oh, coupla years now…”

  The prostitute apparently decided her current approach wasn’t working, and ran a fingertip over the rim of his ear instead. He jerked, startled, and tried to cover it with more beer. She chuckled.

  I’m going to have to burn this ear, too.

  Brenner had the beatific expression of a man whose dreams have all come true.

  “Well, let me think…” She rattled off a string of names and relationships that made no sense at all to Caliban, but Brenner nodded gravely and made appropriate exclamations. “Really? Oh, you’re kidding me, darlin’… He did not!”

  Granted, it was probably easier for the assassin to concentrate. He didn’t have fingers curling up the back of his neck with professional ease.

  Two baths. Ten baths.

  “…then the Old Crows got wiped out by the Black Friars a year or two ago, practically a war in the underground. Got very hot down here, let me tell you.”

  It was getting fairly hot somewhere else as well. Even if he found the prostitute more sad than attractive and the surroundings repellant—well, it had been a long time. Caliban didn’t know if he should be deeply disgusted with himself or resigned to the fact that flesh was only flesh, and it could only take so much.

  The last woman to touch you was a demon. The last one before that was…was…

  Dreaming God, I can’t actually remember.

  He tried to take another slug of beer and discovered that his mug was empty, and thus, to his unutterable relief, he could get up and get another one.

  “Excuse me,” he muttered, getting hastily to his feet and making his way to the bar.

  Once there, he remembered that he had no money. “On his tab,” he muttered, jerking a thumb at Brenner. The bartender, a grim man in a stained apron, nodded silently.

  He returned to the table as slowly as possible, holding the awful beer in front of him like a shield.

  There was a shriek of metal from above. A few heads turned.

  One of the crow cages was being raised. The others sways and jangled on their chains.

  It was dim in the Grey Church, but Caliban could tell that the empty cage was no longer empty.

  The figure inside was slumped, unconscious, or dead.

  Caliban measured the distance as best he could from the ground. Twenty yards, perhaps, across the Shadow Market to the chains that raised and lowered the cages.

  And then what? You fight and you die and no one gets saved.

  He forced himself to look down. This wasn’t his world.

  “Still keeping up the old crow cages, I see,” he heard Brenner say pleasantly.

  “Oh, yeah, wouldn’t be the Grey Church without ’em. Boss Horsehead’s very fond of his crow cages, y’know.”

  A predatory light gleamed briefly in the assassin’s eyes. “Ah, yes. Boss Horsehead’s still…?” He made a kind of vague gesture with one hand that could have meant anything.

  “Oh, yeah, yeah. They keep waiting for him to die, but he’ll outlive all of us.”

  Caliban sat down partway around the table from her, hoping to gain a reprieve, but she scooted up next to him immediately. He stifled a sigh.

  She brightened. “Oh! If you’ve been out for a few years, maybe you missed it. Did you know Boss Horsehead was going to get married?”

  “I vaguely recall something about that right before I left…” Butter wouldn’t have melted in Brenner’s mouth.

  Someone seemed to be drinking Caliban’s beer at a shocking rate. He wasn’t sure why, since it did not improve at all upon repeated exposure.

  “Oh, yes!” She rubbed her hands together. This was sufficiently juicy to make her forget Caliban, which made him very happy.

  “He was going to get married to this very posh lay-dy—very upper crust, born with a silver spoon up her ass—”

  I could excuse myself to go to the privies. But then I might actually find the privies. Given what the rest of the place looks like, I don’t think I dare.

  “No!” said Brenner. “You don’t say!”

  “And her family! So high in the instep, you’d think their shit didn’t stink!” She fanned herself. “But they’d been running low on money, and Boss Horsehead thought maybe he’d like to marry into high society—”

  “We’re not good enough for him?” asked Brenner, grinning.

  You’d never know that he’s never heard of most of these people in his life. Damn. Caliban was impressed despite himself.

  “I know, right?” The prostitute laughed out loud. “But—this is the best bit—” She lowered her voice and looked around. “Only not so loud, ’cos he’s still touchy about it. She wanted a big church wedding, right? Full temple, bells, carriages—and he gets there, and pulls out the marriage license to give the priest—”

  Caliban had a sudden premonition. He met Brenner’s eyes, and knew the assassin felt it too.

  “And it’s a warrant for Horsehead’s arrest! For human trafficking and—�
�� she had to slap the table a few times to get her breath back, “—bestiality!”

  Oh Slate, Slate, you never do anything by half measures, do you?

  Brenner let out a low whistle. “He never!”

  “Hell of a scandal.” She sat back and wiped her eyes. “Priest nearly had a heart attack. Wedding cancelled right away, o’ course, and the bride went off to a nunnery. They think it was Coney, who ran the Black Friars, hired it done. He’s dead now, rest his soul, but they never did catch who did the actual papers.”

  “He must have had some suspicion,” said Brenner.

  She shrugged. “Ah, well. People said it was Grey Hemlock, but Boss Horsehead’s been seen with her since, so it couldn’t have been. He’d have killed whoever it was.” She leaned in closer. “Between you and me and your friend here, I say it was Mistress Slate. She ain’t been seen around here since it happened, and Johnny the Hand, who was rookery-master over in River’s End, says that he never knew anybody else could’ve forged it so well.”

  “You don’t say!” said Brenner.

  She grinned and leaned back. “I do say. And she dropped outta sight right then, and a good thing for her, too. Boss Horsehead ever catches who done it, he’ll put ’em in the highest crow cage and take their eyes out himself.”

  Fifteen

  “Well,” said Brenner.

  “Well,” said Caliban.

  “That’s a helluva thing.”

  “Bestiality, no less.”

  The two men were sitting on a low stone wall, well away from the Grey Church. Neither of them could think of anything to say. Possibly there were so many things to say that it was hard to know where to start.

  “You paid the girl, I assume?” asked Caliban finally.

  “Yeah, and not very chivalrous of you to pretend to get sick and run off to the privies, might I add.”

  “Who says I was pretending? That beer was an affront to decency.”

  “And left me with the tab.”

  “Which you paid with my money.”

  This seemed to pretty well thrash out the argument. They sat in silence.

  Brenner started to laugh, softly, and shook his head. “Stole the marriage license! Dear god. Great big brass ones, our Slate. Who’d have thought?”

  “You can see why this Horsehead gentleman is not inclined to forgive.”

  “Yeah, money’s one thing, but public humiliation is forever.” Brenner drummed his heels against the wall. “I hope it paid well. He gets his hands on her now, it’s going to be…ugly.”

  “He’ll get to her over my dead body,” said Caliban, with no humor at all.

  “You say that as if you think it’ll stop him.” Brenner pinched the bridge of his nose. “Damn. From what I’m hearing, he could field enough warm bodies to bury us both.”

  Caliban stood up. “Well. I suppose we should go and speak to Slate. I wish she’d told us. Clearly it is not safe for her to walk about alone, even disguised.”

  “Clearly,” said Brenner. “And I just can’t wait to hear what she has to say about it…”

  * * *

  What Slate had to say about it came with a lot of obscenities, but boiled down to one major point.

  “You took him to the Grey Church?!”

  “Over protest,” Brenner said, raising his hands. “And anyway, my behavior isn’t the really interesting bit here—”

  “He’s a paladin!”

  “You’re wanted by a crime lord!” said Caliban.

  “Not that it’s any of your business,” snapped Slate. “And that was years ago! He’s probably forgotten.”

  “Oh no,” said Brenner. “Dearie, dearie me, no. You don’t forget being jilted at the altar because you just handed the priest a warrant for your arrest on the charges of horse-buggering.”

  “Sheep-buggering,” muttered Slate. Caliban could see a grin fighting to get out. “The warrant was very specific. And you still shouldn’t have taken a paladin down there.”

  “I am curious,” said Learned Edmund, “as to how you actually managed it. There are seals on a warrant, as I understand it, and those are kept entirely by the judiciary.” He steepled his fingers. “Even assuming that the entire thing was prepared in advance, you would still need access to the seals—”

  Slate’s grin broke through, and she beamed at Edmund. “Thank you. I have been waiting for five years for somebody to appreciate that.”

  “You didn’t just lift one?” asked Brenner.

  “They keep closer track of those things than the Crown Jewels. The gods themselves couldn’t get at one. No, I had to steal some arrest warrants and make copies based on the seals, which is not easy. I had to get this filler—they make it out of quicksilver, nasty stuff—and pour it in. And the only place to get the filler is the barbers—they use it on bad teeth—and since they use such small quantities, I had to break into every barber shop in the city to lift it. And we didn’t have much time because the wedding was a rush job, so I was doing three barber shops a night for a couple days, and then you get the imprint and harden it off—and it takes real silver, let me add—and then I spent two days making practice seals to get the hang of it.” She lifted her chin. “As thievery goes, that was pretty much my magnum opus.”

  “Very impressive,” said Learned Edmund. “One could wish such genius was directed to more…deserving…channels, but nevertheless…”

  “Oh, he deserved every bit of it, I assure you.”

  Caliban leaned back in his chair. Watching her pace around the room, explaining the heist, he couldn’t help but admire the expressiveness of her gestures. She told the story with both hands.

  She’s still not beautiful. I think I may be half in love with her, and I still wouldn’t call her beautiful. And it doesn’t seem to matter at all.

  He had known a fair number of beauties, and he could not remember enjoying the way one told a story half so much.

  I just wish Brenner wasn’t also watching her in quite that way.

  When she finally reached the end and flopped down on a footstool, the paladin stirred.

  “Well. I never had any doubts about your skill, but if I had…” He spread his hands. “However, that’s really not the most important issue, is it?”

  Slate wrinkled her nose. “I probably took a year off my life, fooling with quicksilver like that!”

  “Yeah, and if Boss Horsehead catches you, he’ll take all the rest of the years off for you,” said Brenner. “He wants to put you in a crow cage.”

  Slate turned a little too fast. “He has to catch me first!”

  Her voice was too loud for the small space. She scowled fiercely into the silence.

  “Brenner makes a valid point,” said Caliban. “You shouldn’t go out alone. If someone recognizes you—”

  Slate’s eyes narrowed.

  Uh-oh.

  Don’t say “It’s for your own good.” Don’t say it. Don’t.

  Among the many skills paladins required was the ability to convince people to evacuate dangerous areas.

  This was sometimes difficult. People were reluctant to admit that, say, the ancestral family farm was now an open portal to hell. There were phrases you used and phrases you very much learned to avoid.

  Saying “It’s for your own good” pretty much guaranteed that no one was going anywhere.

  “Really, it’s for your own good,” said Brenner.

  Damn it all to hell…

  “It’s for all our goods,” said Caliban hurriedly. “We can’t do this without you, Slate. If we have to steal somebody’s notes about how the Clockwork Boys work…”

  “I am hardly equipped to climb up rain gutters,” said Learned Edmund earnestly.

  She exhaled. “I’m not sure when exactly this became a democracy!”

  “Ah…” Caliban looked down at his hands. She had a very valid point. But then, so did he.

  “I suppose you plan to follow me around? Clanking?”

  “Ah, don’t worry about it,” said Bren
ner. “You know I’m always here for you, darlin’…”

  Slate curled one corner of her lip. “I’ll take Grimehug with me,” she said. She met Caliban’s eyes. “Will that be good enough for you, Mister Knight-Champion?”

  Better the gnole than the assassin… He inclined his head.

  “Then I’m going to bed. Unless you’re afraid the trip down the hallway would be too dangerous?”

  Caliban knew better than to touch that one, and was glad to see that Brenner did too.

  Sixteen

  Slate was half-expecting the knock on the door, and hadn’t bothered taking off her boots. She sat on the bed and glared at the man in the entryway.

  “Come to apologize?” she asked. “Or do paladins not do that?”

  Caliban shifted on his feet. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I still don’t think you should go out alone, but you are the one in charge.”

  “A fact that you seem to forget when it’s convenient for you,” she snapped. “I can’t imagine that you’d be mother-henning over Brenner, if he’d managed to piss off Boss Horsehead.”

  “I wouldn’t care as much if he ended up on a crow-cage. Not like you,” said Caliban quietly.

  The statement seemed to hang in the air and make a space around itself. Slate felt her stomach turn over.

  Oh, this is very sensible. I’m getting all woogly because he just said he doesn’t want to see me pecked to death by crows. How romantic.

  He made the situation worse by the fact he was standing in the exact spot where lamplight from the hall made a halo of his hair, and Slate knew he wasn’t doing it deliberately, but it infuriated her nonetheless. She had a strong urge to kiss him, and then perhaps beat him about the head and shoulders with his own sword.

  She struggled back to the conversation. “Fine. I’ll accept that you might be right. I may be in more danger than the rest of you, and my skills may be harder to replace.” A good commander listens to people when they’re right. Even if it pisses her off. Right. I’m being good about this.

  Dammit.

  She was just feeling pleased with her own resolution when—predictably—Caliban said something stupid and she lost her temper again.