The Blood Debt (32 page)

‘I have no idea what’s in the letter. The Alcaide simply told me to show it to the Magister if we needed her help.’

‘But you didn’t —’ Shilly stopped in mid-sentence, seeing Marmion’s ignorance over whether the ruler of Laure was called a Magister or Magistrate in an entirely new light. ‘It was an act.’

‘Of course. A power play. Do you think we would’ve got this far if Magistrate Considine hadn’t wanted us to — if she thought us a threat? Right now, she believes I’m nothing but a fool and a nuisance. If I let her have her way, she’ll bog me down in paperwork for days, and we’ll lose any chance of catching the Homunculus. Obviously, I’m not going to allow that to happen.’

‘What
are
you going to do?’ asked Chu, staring at him with new respect.

‘Go about my duty, of course — and you will help me. As well as being a local, I want you with me because you’ve seen the Homunculus. The fewer people who know about it, the better. We don’t want to cause a panic. Understood?’

Chu nodded.

Marmion clapped her on the shoulder and went off to organise the wardens.

‘Is he for real?’ Chu asked Shilly.

‘It appears so.’ Shilly felt like she had been hit by a bus. Chu didn’t look much better. The young flyer’s face was pale and the bandage on her head was tinged with crimson.

‘You don’t really have to stick with us any longer, you know.’

Chu looked at her in surprise. ‘What?’

‘You got us across the Divide as you promised. No one would blame you if you went home now.

Not even Marmion could force you to stay if you really didn’t want to.’

Something dark and complicated passed across the flyer’s features. For a brief moment, Shilly thought she might cry again.

‘My wing,’ she said. ‘I can’t leave until I’ve got it back.’

Shilly nodded, thinking:
Gotcha. That’s as good an excuse as any.
Even when prompted, Chu had made no noises about family or home, and Shilly was certain now that she wasn’t hiding anything on that score. There was nothing to hide at all.

‘Why don’t you crash in Skender’s room?’ Shilly said. ‘It’s getting late, and it’s not as if he’ll need it for a while.’

Chu only nodded, but Shilly thought she saw a look of gratitude cross her face as she climbed aboard the buggy and gave Tom a new round of directions.

* * * *

The Cage

‘There is no depth that has not already been

plumbed by Humanity.’

THE BOOK OF TOWERS,
FRAGMENT 358

al didn’t know what woke him. One moment he was sound asleep, not even conscious of the hard stone floor on which he lay, the next his eyes were open, trying to glean a single detail from the absolute blackness around him. His confusion was complete, but his reflexes were keen. Even as he tried to work out where he was, he lay absolutely rigid, hardly daring even to breathe.

He was in a room. A stark rectangular doorway let in a faint glimmer of starlight. The smell of dust reminded him that he was in the Aad. His first thought was that Skender had woken him — but if that were so, why was Skender being so quiet?

The more Sal listened, the more certain he became that someone other than Skender was in the room with him. He didn’t move lest he betray his presence. The night was utterly silent and still. He couldn’t hold his breath forever. Something had to give, and soon.

The sound of footsteps came from outside the room, growing louder on the cobbles.

‘Don’t make a noise,’ whispered Habryn Kail from the darkness. ‘I know you’re awake. Stay quiet and I’ll explain when they’ve gone.’

The tracker was invisible, one with the shadows. Sal had no idea who ‘they’ were, where Skender was, or how Kail had got there. He felt utterly disoriented.

The footsteps came closer, slow and methodical, right up to the entrance to his hiding place. A faint silhouette appeared in the doorway, and held there for a heartbeat. Sal didn’t move even his eyes. The pounding of his pulse seemed loud enough to give him away.

The figure moved off to check the building next door. Sal let out his held breath with a hiss. As the footsteps receded up the street, checking each doorway, one by one, he felt Kail approach. Sal went to sit up and found the water bottle propped beside him. He opened it and drank cautiously, even though his thirst was profound.

‘I don’t know who they are or what they’re looking for,’ the tracker breathed, easing down to squat lightly beside him, exuding a smell of well-worn leather, ‘but they’ve been at it ever since I got here.’

‘When was that?’

‘An hour ago. I followed your trail from where you landed. You weren’t even trying to hide it.’

‘I didn’t know we needed to.’

‘Well, I erased it as I went, so no harm done.’

‘Where’s Skender?’

‘I was hoping you could tell me that. His trail leads away from here, deeper into the city, but I didn’t get a chance to follow it. If I had, that fellow just now might have found you. Instead I hid, ready to offer you my assistance should you need it.’

Sal looked at the dark shape crouched next to him. The tall tracker radiated an unnerving intensity in the darkness.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘Marmion told me to find you. I don’t think he much cares for the idea of you roaming around at will.’

‘And he’d like to know if we get lucky and find the Homunculus.’

‘I’m sure that possibility has occurred to him.’

‘Where did you last see Shilly?’

‘In the Divide, on the way to Laure. They should be there by now, barring mishaps.’

Sal absorbed all this news. Skender was missing; there were people in the Aad; Kail had been sent to help and keep an eye on them; Shilly was safe.

‘Did you bring any food, by any chance?’

Kail rummaged in a pack and pressed something into his hand. Sal unwrapped the small bundle. The slightly bitter smell of dried bloodwood apple filled his nostrils. He concentrated on nothing but eating for several mouthfuls, the aching emptiness in his stomach demanding to be filled.

‘We have to find Skender,’ he said when some of the urgency had passed.

‘I agree,’ said Kail out of the darkness. ‘We will need to be very careful, though. If he’s been caught by those people out there, we don’t want to join him.’

‘They
are
people, then? They’re not anything else?’

‘No. They stink of sweat and hide, just like us. And alcohol fuel, too. Some of them have been driving recently.’

Sal remembered Skender saying that before he and Chu had crashed on top of the Homunculus they had seen vehicles driving along the edge of the Divide. It hadn’t sounded likely at the time, but here was evidence that it might be true.

Kail described what had happened after Sal and Skender disappeared: the group of wardens had been buzzed by three busloads of strangers who hadn’t stopped to introduce themselves. Shilly had reasoned that there was a connection between these strangers and the Homunculus, and Kail was convinced, now, that she was right.

‘The Homunculus missed them at the rendezvous,’ he said, ‘and it came here instead. How could that be a coincidence?’

‘So if we find them, we find the Homunculus?’ said Sal. ‘And maybe Skender, too?’

‘Correct.’

‘Then that’s what we’ll do. They’re all over the Aad, you said. They’ve found Skender, so they’ll be checking to make sure there’s no one else here with him. They might search all night. All we have to do is follow one of them back to their lair and we’ve got them.’

‘In a manner of speaking.’

‘Well, we’ll know where they are, anyway. Once we know that, we can get away, call for Marmion and the others, and it’s all over.’

‘You make it sound simple,’ rumbled Kail. ‘I can think of a number of things that might go wrong.’

‘Sure, but do you have a better plan in mind?’

‘No. I just wanted to make certain that you’re going into this with your eyes open. A single slip could give us away.’

‘I know. Don’t worry. I’m very good at keeping my head down. I’ve had to be, to keep out of the Syndic’s hands all these years.’

‘Indeed.’ Kail emitted a single exhalation that might have been a laugh. ‘As one of the people who tried to find you and your parents all those years ago, I can fully attest to that.’

Sal wished he could see the tracker’s face. Kail’s words could be taken many ways. Knowing how they were intended might make a great deal of difference one day — when their quest was over and they returned to their normal lives. Sal had no intention of being taken into custody again, even by people who had, for a time, been his allies.

He moved across the room to tuck Chu’s wing behind the door, so that a casual glance during the day wouldn’t see it. If he’d managed to sleep half the night without disturbance, he felt confident that it would be safe for the time being.

‘Let’s just do it,’ he said. ‘Let’s find Skender and the Homunculus and get out of here. This place gives me the creeps.’

‘I think,’ said Kail, coming to stand beside him, ‘that’s the point.’

* * * *

Skender sat in a cage and stared at his mother. She lay on her side in another cage on the far side of the room. Her braids had been cut off, exposing grey roots; one eye was blackened and swollen; bruises ran up her jawline to her left ear, where a trickle of blood had left splatters down her neck. The arms of her rust-red travelling robe had been torn away, exposing thick lines of tattooed symbols and more bruises. Skender couldn’t see her hands; they had been tied behind her back. Her knees and feet were drawn up, like a child sleeping. She looked very thin and frail.

‘She’s going to be pissed when she sees you,’ said the large albino occupying the next cage along. ‘You idiot.’

‘It’s good to see you too, Kemp.’

‘What are you doing here? Haven’t you ever heard of the Surveyor’s Code?’

‘Are you saying you don’t want to be rescued?’

‘I’m not saying that at all.’ Kemp thrust an arm through the metal grid separating them. ‘I just don’t think you’re in much of a position to make it happen.’

Skender rose unsteadily to return Kemp’s clasp. Kemp’s hand was broad and very strong. Skender could see scrapes and cuts where he must have tried to free himself, to no avail. No amount of rough bluster could hide the intense worry in the albino’s pale-as-glass eyes.

After dumping him, dazed, in the dungeon with their other prisoners, Skender’s captors had left him alone. It was easy to see why they wouldn’t worry about him escaping. The dungeon had only one exit and no vents, the latter explaining its powerful smell. Two flickering gas lamps cast shadows that danced and writhed across the walls. There were ten cages, each secure enough to hold a full-sized man’kin, but only five were definitely occupied. The metal bars surrounding Skender on three sides were crosshatched and thick. The fourth side was a wall of solid stone, as were the floor and ceiling. The other cages currently contained Skender’s mother, Kemp and one other of her companions — the disgraced Sky Warden Shorn Behenna, also unconscious. A stone bust that might have been Mawson leaned against the bars next to his mother, but the Change-sink enfolding the town had turned him back into dead stone. The rear of one of the corner cages was shrouded in darkness. Skender couldn’t tell if it was empty or not.

His mother hadn’t moved since his arrival.

‘Is she all right?’

Kemp’s worried look deepened. ‘At first they thought Behenna was in charge, but she owned up after the first beating they gave him. The bastards. They’re going easier on her, but it’s all relative. I don’t know how much more of this she can take.’

Skender couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
Beatings?

‘Do you mean she might...?’ He couldn’t finish the sentence.

‘Either that,’ Kemp said, ‘or she’ll just tell them what they want to hear and take what comes next. They won’t believe we’re ordinary Surveyors. They think we’re here to steal something from them.’

Skender thought of his mother’s mysterious mission.
‘Are
you?’

‘Of course not. We didn’t even know they existed until they ambushed us a week ago.’ Kemp looked defeated and haggard. His pale skin was dirty and his colourless hair lank. He slumped heavily against the stone wall of the cell and sank down into a sitting position. ‘The leader is a prick called Pirelius. You don’t want to get on his bad side. When Behenna tried to stand up for your mother, four days ago, they stopped feeding him. They smack him around occasionally, for the fun of it.’

Skender looked at where the ex-Warden lay in his cage, two along from his. Shorn Behenna had shaved his head and begun tattooing it in the style of a Surveyor. He too wasn’t moving.

‘I do what I can to distract them,’ said Kemp, ‘but they’re not falling for it. They know that making me watch is just as bad as an actual beating. Worse, even. They probably know your mum won’t talk but are hoping I might. If that doesn’t work, they might try the other way around, with someone else. They’re certain to, once they work out who
you
are.’

A river of ice-cold water flooded through Skender’s gut at the thought that he might be tortured to make his mother confess to something she wasn’t guilty of.

‘We have to get out of here,’ he hissed.

‘Tell me something I don’t know.’ Kemp rolled his eyes and nodded at the cage in shadow. ‘If the thing in there can’t escape, I don’t know how
we
can.’

Skender turned to stare at the corner cage. The chill in his veins only intensified as he realised what it contained.

‘They brought it in a few hours before you,’ Kemp explained. ‘Strangest thing I’ve ever seen.’

‘Was it awake?’

‘If it was, it wasn’t moving. Not at first. It crawled into the shadows an hour or so ago.’

‘Have you tried talking to it?’

‘I don’t know if it
can
talk.’

Skender thought of Tom’s warning.
Find the Homunculus, and you’ll find your mother. If you don’t, you’ll never see her again.
Tom had been right on that score. Unfortunately, he hadn’t said anything about being unable to escape afterwards.