Children of Artifice

by Danie Ware

  ‘Caph?’ Austen let go, his face cracking to a faint smile. ‘Was he there with you?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Proteus said. ‘But they knew him too – he’s mixed up in all of this. Somehow. And I… I…’

  Austen said, very gently, ‘You fell in love with him.’ The words were amused, kind.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Proteus snapped the denial, broke away to pick up his tea.

  ‘And don’t be ashamed,’ Austen told him. ‘It happens to all of us, if we’re lucky.’ His smile was almost wistful, a touch of a memory long-lost. ‘That person who touches your soul as well as your body, whose presence makes you catch light.’

  ‘Leave it out, will you?’ He turned back to the attack. ‘You’re the one who told me not to trust anybody. This is all some huge hellsdamned mess and Lyss may be dead and I’m seeing things and you’ve just left your rooms for the first time in ten years…’ He drew in a breath; spread his hands wide and helpless. ‘Everything I understand is coming apart – people summoning hellspirits and who knows what else. And who did you even go and see, anyway?’

  But Austen was still smiling, a whisper of wisdom and gentleness that he rarely showed. Proteus glowered at him, and the smile broadened to a grin, the expression indicating that he wasn’t fooled for a second.

  Proteus said, ‘He cost me my face. If Caph’s anything, he’s a hellsdamned liability. And if I had half an ounce of sense, I’d drop him in the harbour. Be done with it.’

  Austen gave him a long amused look, then chuckled, let it pass and followed the change of subject. He said, ‘I’ve been tracking your friend Galeas.’

  ‘Galeas was a customer?’ Proteus gave him a sharp glance.

  ‘I thought I knew the name,’ Austen told him. He sat back down and picked up his tea. ‘And if he was just a scrimshander, then I’m a Builder’s uncle.’ He grinned. ‘Why don’t you sit down and we’ll try and work this out?’

  *

  Raife had a fine metal powder in a soft drawstring bag, a bag he’d carefully opened in front of Caph.

  His attitude was conspiratorial. He said, ‘You probably know what this is without me telling you. Iron, mostly, a little copper, traces of cobalt, fluorine, manganese, selenium. It mimics the composition—’

  ‘Of human blood,’ Caph said.

  ‘Quite so.’ Raife smiled like a pleased teacher. ‘It has a scattering of other components, and some… ah… additions of my own.’

  Unable to help himself, Caph looked into the bag. It contained a fine, metallic glitter, oddly fascinating. He half-expected Raife to tell him some distillation-horror-story about its creation, but he only pulled the bag open further, so that Caph could see clearly.

  ‘This,’ he said softly, ‘is the herald of the real change.’ He shook the bag. ‘You’re the metallurgist, you should understand.’

  Raife had touched a finger to the dust. Following the gesture, Caph did likewise, lifted it to the glasslight, and rubbing at it. It glittered on his skin, like tiny points of stars.

  Raife closed the bag, and stood up. ‘Have a think about what you’ve seen,’ he said. ‘And what I can do for you. I’ll come back in a while, and see if you’ve had any… insight.’

  He left the light, and closed the door.

  Caph wondered what the hells he’d meant.

  But before long, he found himself thinking about his music, about his performance at City Hall. He could hear the piece he’d played, complex and classical, music leftover from the Builders themselves and a score he’d adapted himself. He found he was caught by his own dreams, filled with a craving to be what he’d once been, a need to break through his silence and play with enough passion to bring the whole city to listen… he could feel the resonance of it in the stone, the surge and the swell of it…

  Adulation, Raife had said. And maybe there was truth in that, too – a need for attention, or for validation, or to feel valuable.

  He found he had the actuators back on his hands, their wires trailing, and all he could hear and see and feel was the sound he could make with them. They were agile, had a swiftness and precision to them that even his fingers could never have matched; his mind soaring, he held the imaginary zanyar in his lap. He closed his eyes and let his touch ripple over strings that were not there. He sang the tune, wordless in its woven harmonies; he felt and lived it, tried to remember its rise and fall, the rhythm and pulse in his blood. He had existed within it; he remembered that much, he’d been lost to himself, to the city entire as it had carried him away…

  He felt as through the room were listening. As though the great metal serpent he’d seen was coiled and watching him. As though the music reverberated in the stone, in the sprawling metal monster of the Caphen machine. He lost the time, lost the fear, lost everything but the music.

  And when the rush finally began to fade, he couldn’t bear it. Like the world was suddenly black and white after being full colour, monotone after its voiceless song, he was broken and bereft all over again, and it was almost too much.

  But he understood. Oh yes, he understood all right.

  The play Raife had made was bitterly, poignantly clear – tell me who the man was, and I will give you back your life. Refuse, and…

  The threat of Ganthar returned. He lifted the useless metal hands to the light; curled them into fists.

  Next time, it won’t just be your fingers I’ll leave broken.

  With a spasm of anger, he pulled them off and threw them down, left them like delicately tangled metal spiders. He wished, he wished, that he had Raife’s answer, that he could watch as they were wired to his nerves, as they came alive. That he could take his new hands home and say ‘Look! They work!’ He wished he could pick up the zanyar in his father’s study; maybe even stay at the University until he could teach, as well as play, be a patron to the building as his sister was to the upper city Theatre…

  He found himself biting his lip. For a moment, it was all overwhelming, not real, too real, a heap of huge rock like the crater itself, and something he had no idea how to climb. Everything had gone wrong, and it had all landed him here, trapped in this room, his face all swollen, without as much as a bucket to piss in, held hostage against an answer he had no way to give.

  He leaned down, picked up the actuators and shook them like captured prey.

  He wished he knew who the man had been, the man who’d had enough skill and power to break Ganthar’s nose, and had got his ass kicked for his trouble. He’d been fast, strong. He’d have taken anyone but bloody Ganthar to pieces.

  Anyone…

  By the hells.

  Caph lowered the actuator, staring at nothing.

  By every hell and spirit.

  Because there, there in the silence, there in the cold stone space of that little room, he had suddenly understood something.

  Something monumental.

  That man – Ganthar had beaten him. Had slammed him backwards, relentless, blow after blow; the man had been blocking them, but they’d hit him anyway, cracking at his face and shoulders, beating him down.

  He’d been good, whoever he was, fearless and fierce. But not good enough. He couldn’t have won.

  Couldn’t have stopped it.

  Couldn’t have ‘stood up to him’.

  By…

  Caph was on his feet, actuator forgotten. The memory was suddenly sharp, so close – he and Ganthar had fought about his music often, about how it took up too much of his time. Pure jealousy.

  And now, for the very first time, Caph was staring at a truth he’d never dared acknowledge – he genuinely understood that there was nothing he could have done. That he wasn’t weak, or helpless, or less than a man, or not trying hard enough. That he didn’t need to be ashamed. That he couldn’t have stopped what had happened to him. That there was no way he could have fought back, ‘stood up for himself�
�.

  That it wasn’t his fault.

  The understanding was huge, overwhelming. And it felt like a release, like the sun coming up over the wall of the caldera, lighting his skin as he closed his eyes to welcome the warmth. It made him fall back onto the boxes, made him pull his hands back on and stretch them to the light like hope.

  It wasn’t his fault.

  None of it.

  He still had no answers, and if Ganthar was coming for him, then there was nothing he could do.

  But, for the first time in two years, he was able to stop blaming himself.

  CHAPTER 13: FORTUNE

  Distracted and not paying attention, the hand on his shoulder caught Proteus by surprise.

  ‘Sir? Your tag.’

  Back in Aden’s familiar ink, his scruffy hair hanging loose past his ears, Proteus halted in the shadow of the district gate. His surprise was momentary; he lifted his wrist, gave his name and district and destination.

  Nodding at him, the young officer let go, and waved him though.

  ‘Thank you, sir. Enjoy the harbour.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘I will.’

  He crossed under the archway with reflexive confidence, but the shock of the failure bothered him. It felt symbolic, somehow, as if even his quintessential skills were being steadily eroded. His skin crept with the feet of little, metal insects.

  He had to end this. Cloudglass had Lyss, they wanted him, they threatened Austen. Hellspirits were real; Austen had faced one. And now it was returning, and Proteus needed all of the knowledge he could find.

  ‘Listen,’ Austen had told him. ‘We’re running out of time.’ The old man had picked up Lyss’s ring, had looked into the eyes of the stone for himself. He hadn’t spoken of what he’d seen, but it had brought him to his feet with his expression grim and all the resolution of a newly forged blade. ‘And you’re right, if they know where I am, they’re going to pay me a visit. And soon.’ His tone was dark. ‘So: I want everything you can put together. After what I’ve just told you, I want everything you can get on Galeas and the drug. Everything you can get on Ganthar, Anatar and Raife. Go to Caphen, get everything you can out of him, too. Metallurgical theory, the secrets of City Hall, the lot. All your skills, Ro, everything I’ve ever taught you – it comes down to this. Raife and his friends – they were the kids at the fire, the ones who survived. They hold the pieces of the summoned spirit. And we need enough information to know what they’re going to do next.’

  ‘And where are you going?’

  ‘I’m getting the hells out of here, for a start.’ He’d grinned, all smoke and filth. ‘Meet me at the Torquar Theatre in thirty-six hours. At dawn, just after the gates open.’ He’d closed his hand around the crystal, as if he could shatter it to powder with his grip alone. ‘If we’ve got enough info, we go in. If not, we wait and we watch. And no messing it up this time.’

  And Proteus had looked at him, at his focus and energy and resolve, and it had somehow made it worse. The old man had faced a hellspirit – he was different and unfamiliar, the faith of years somehow betrayed. And Proteus couldn’t trust his mentor, his childhood, his training, his face or his detachment…

  Hells, he couldn’t even walk through a hellsdamned gate without getting stopped.

  As he ventured towards Vowen harbour, though, on route to the first of his contacts, he found his attention caught by something else.

  In amongst the chaos, he’d forgotten about the Selection, and now it all returned in a rush – the streets of the harbourside had changed almost beyond recognition. Gone were the huddled figures of the deprived and homeless; gone the whores who’d lounged at the wall-sides and called to passing opportunity. Gone was the cocky loiter of the sharp-eyed dealer and her casual enforcer; gone the beggar with his hands held out. Many of the buildings were now sealed and eyeless, denied to all; others were being pulled down. Still more were re-occupied, and not by the locals. Even the lurkers’ graffiti-dawn symbols were missing.

  And this wasn’t just Claisal’s property – more than one high family owned property down here. City Hall was taking the official opportunity to rid itself of the deprived, the vagrant, and to clean up the illegal trade of the wharfside…

  Now, instead of the blanket-huddled poor, there were greycoats wherever he looked. They were armed with long blades and patrolling in pairs and threes, sharp and relentless. In some places moved the robed figures of the local council, or officious men and women who bore the nine-pillared brooch of City Hall. Some of the smaller thoroughfares were cut off completely, and at the end of one tumbledown street he saw three figures holding a man against the wall, a thin child huddled at their feet. They were angry, and the child was crying.

  Proteus paused, stopped by an odd pang of conscience – but Aden had no rank or authority, and the risk of apprehension was too strong. As the figures pressed the man closer, blades drawn, Proteus turned and he walked away, abandoning scene and conscience both.

  He didn’t wait to listen to the end.

  Instead, he took two more corners and stopped at a familiar, silent doorway.

  His quiet knock brought no answer. When he knocked louder, there was a curse and a shamble, then the crash of someone tripping over something.

  The door cracked an inch, and stopped.

  ‘Aden.’ A surprised Ebi blinked out at him. She was blanket-bundled, her hair awry and her face all creased with sleep. ‘What do you want?’ She made no move to let him in.

  ‘Ebi.’ He glanced back at the roaming greycoats. ‘Bad time, I guess. Sorry. Can I come in?’

  ‘Jay’s not here,’ she said. Her voice was tight with fear; she went to close the door on him. He moved a foot and stopped it.

  ‘Where is he? Will he be back?’

  She paused, glaring. Eventually, she said, the words a challenge, ‘The greycoats took him. They closed the station, confiscated the ledgers, everything. They said he was smuggling substances from the Hospital, selling them, treating people without the proper approval. I was half the night trying to find out what they did with him.’

  ‘Shit.’ Proteus moved his foot, his startlement genuine. ‘Ebi, he’s my friend.’ The words were almost genuine. ‘If I can help…’

  She eyed him a moment longer, then opened the door and stepped back.

  Checking back for curious greycoats, he ducked into the gloom.

  Jay’s rooms were lazy and lived in, almost unchanged from the last time he’d been here. A huge painting of Kei and Vei curled on one wall, a line of shelves occupied another, still laden with the ledgers and medical bottles from the Hospital. The guards, it seemed, had not yet raided the house. A scatter of figures sat by the fireplace – Ebi’s, he guessed, as he’d not seen them before – and a brass urn overflowed with the smoked ends of reeds.

  She rounded on him, bristling with confrontation. ‘Why are you here?’

  Proteus managed Aden’s rascal grin, and flumped onto a cushion with an innocuous confidence that he really didn’t feel. He’d come to follow up on what Austen had told him about Galeas and the drug – but Jay had gone. Aden’s friend, someone Proteus had known for three years and more… the greycoats could not have taken a more unlikely criminal.

  And the loss bothered him. Like Caph, like Lyss, like his failure at the gate. Like Austen…

  It all wound through him like creeper; it was becoming harder and harder to untangle himself from his emotions and think clearly.

  He said, ‘You know if they took him into protection? They didn’t…’ He let the sentence hang.

  Ebi shook her head. ‘Too well connected,’ she said. Her tone was fierce. ‘But he’s one of the lucky ones. So many of the faces from the station, the people we’ve fed and taken care of… they just didn’t come back. Jay started asking questions. And then he didn’t come back either. When I tried to find out what he’d done, th
ey threatened me.’

  Proteus said, ‘You’re safe, Ebi, and that’s good.’ Somehow, the weave of words that usually came so easily to him felt clumsy, forced. He tried again. ‘You stay that way. Do you have anywhere else you can go? Away from here?’

  She glowered at him. ‘You ever loved someone? Really loved someone? I’m not deserting him—’

  ‘No, and neither am I.’ He offered a faint smile. ‘But I do have at least one friend in a high enough place to help.’

  She blinked at him.

  ‘His name’s Caphen.’ He grinned with as much reassurance as he could muster – whether he spoke to Caph or not, Ebi needed to believe him. ‘And I can at least ask.’

  She stared at him. ‘Caphen… Do you think he would?’

  ‘I don’t know. But…’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t have too many friends, and Jay matters to me too.’

  She nodded, her relief and hope so radiant that he felt slightly guilty, then she dropped onto the cushion opposite like something had given way. With a hand that shook, she reached into a leather roll for a smokereed. She said, ‘If he could…’

  ‘He’s a good guy, I’m sure he will.

  She nodded, biting her lip. He gave a moment to gather herself, then said, ‘But maybe you can help me with something.’ At her curious look, he went on, ‘I wanted to ask you about our friend Galeas.’

  ‘What about him?’

  Proteus raised an eyebrow in request, then picked up one of her smokereeds, and outlined what Austen had told him the previous evening. ‘Ebi, Galeas had a forged tag. He wasn’t a scrimshander, he was a moneylender, with contacts all across the merchants’ and artisans’ districts.’ And now, he let the urgency into this voice. ‘I don’t think he was just some unlucky recipient – I think Galeas was the distributor.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So,’ he said, ‘I think this stuff is spread wider than we realised.’ He thought about the crowd at Cloudglass. ‘Maybe a lot wider.’