Maybe that was true tonight, too. Not a mistake to try to save Amaryllis. Only an opportunity.
He waited until he reached the ground floor to draw a deep steadying breath – even with enough tension to make his hands shake he wasn’t fool enough to inhale that acid – and then clenched his jaw.
He wished he was someone else. Good-natured Tamerlan wouldn’t be enough tonight. Tamerlan the buddy. Tamerlan the good-hearted. If his friends had been asked if he could penetrate the defenses of the Sunset Tower they would have laughed.
He would have laughed if you asked him yesterday. But this wasn’t yesterday.
If only he could be someone else. Someone strong and brave. Better yet, someone who knew how to break into towers and save girls from fates worse – well, at least as bad as – death. A hero.
He clenched his jaw and quickened his pace.
The sun was sinking over the horizon and even though the costumes weren’t really supposed to be worn until tomorrow, there were still some people in the crowds already dressed up. The knots that moved from tavern to inn in laughing huddles contained their fair share. In one he saw a specter of Queen Mer, her face painted a sickly green and hair styled in green clay to look like she was underwater even now. He didn’t want to even guess what she’d paid for the clinging translucent dress that swirled around her. More than he made in a six-month if he had to guess.
But that was good. He clenched his fists to steady them until the nails bit into the meat of his palms and hoped he would be taken for a reveler in costume. No thief – or at least, not a real one. Just a reveler like everyone else moving through the sunset streets and waiting for the Nightbursts to announce that the Summernight festival had begun.
It was dark by the time he reached the Government District. Even the darkness didn’t help him hide here. Large lamps were already being lit by the city workers. They carried oil up to them in massive gourds carried on poles over their bowed shoulders. And just like every time he’d smelled the fishy scent of the oil, he wondered if it was really true that they came from oilfish out in the sea – creatures so large that a single one could smash a ship in two. Queen Mer herself wasn’t so fearsome.
Small lights were lit in colored lanterns on strings along the canals – red, orange and gold for Summernight, though the colors changed depending on the season. Their tiny fires reflected again and again over the water while the haunting sounds of the Waverunner’s nightly songs echoed back and forth over the water, the cadence oddly reminiscent of the slowly poled gondolas they manned.
But now was not the time to daydream about the wonders of the world. This was not the night to be sensitive to the beguiling colors of the paving stones that made wave patterns through the square as if designed to look like the sea or to marvel at the smooth stone of the government buildings. Or wonder what it would be like to be a Waverunner and live his whole life in the rocking embrace of Mother Water.
He pulled his dreaming self back, deeper into the recesses of his mind, the sound of Master Kurond’s voice echoing in his mind.
“You’re smart enough, boy, if you could only stop dreaming. The world is a wonder. But it’s only useful to us if that wonder can be tapped and sold.”
It wasn’t useful to him at all right now. He didn’t dare be that day-dreaming Tamerlan tonight.
The Sunset Tower stood at the center of the Government District, perched on the highest point of the city, the crest of the Dragon’s Spine. Tamerlan shivered as he clung to the shadows, skimming from one to the next like a water strider over a pond.
The night birds began their wistful songs but here in the Government District, the crowds were scarce. There were no good taverns here. And the view of the Nightbursts would be poor unless you were on the roof of the palace. Or perhaps locked up in the Sunset Tower. Oh, his sister’s view would be perfect. He bit his cheek to keep from thinking about it, frowning at the metallic taste that filled his mouth.
The wall surrounding the Tower and the Seven Suns Palace was taller than he remembered.
Of course, he hadn’t been planning to infiltrate it the last time he’d been here. The walls, purple in the descending twilight, rose like cliffs, a moat of dank water surrounding them. There were no gondolas in the moat. No fairy lights of their lanterns or murmur of their voices. The fecund scent of still water and algae filled his nose.
He could swim it.
And then what?
He hadn’t thought this through well enough.
The guards passed one another on the wall above, calling their signs to one another. All was well and all would be well, and all manner of things would be well.
Maybe for them.
Maybe for anyone whose sister would not die in five nights.
There was nothing for it. He circled, looking for the best place to breach the wall. There was a small door across from him here with a large padlock. He could swim across and try the door. It looked like a storm drain. Even palaces had to contend with weather, didn’t they?
And he’d brought lockpicks. He might as well use them.
Quietly, checking his pockets to be sure he hadn’t lost anything, he slipped down to the edge of the water. It wasn’t a far swim. It was the length of one of the ponds he’d practiced in as a boy and about as clean. He’d swim it. He didn’t even need to remove his cloak or boots.
The storm drain would be perfect.
He held his breath and slipped silently into the water.
7: To Catch a Thief
Marielle
“THAT’S THE FIFTH PAIR of thieves we’ve caught tonight!” Carnelian said, clapping Marielle on the back as they handed the pair off to the patrol wagon. “I knew patrolling with you was lucky. My last two Scenters never would have picked up on a whiff so faint!”
Marielle allowed a small smile at the praise. Dusk swallowed the long shadows around them and bled into night. Howls of delight and the faint sound of music tumbled through the breeze to her ears. But to Marielle the rising of the moon was not a time with less to notice, but more. As the heat left the ground and rose into the cooling air, the scents rose up with it, causing almost a reverse sunset as the myriad colors hovered in the air over the cobblestones.
She caught her breath just as she had a thousand times before. The smell of a city nightrise never stopped bringing wonder to her senses.
“Wind that scarf up if it’s getting to be too strong,” Carnelian suggested. “Things will die off when we get to the Government District. That’s where the route takes us next and those streets are as tan-bland as anywhere in the city – or so my Scenters always said.”
Marielle followed Carnelian’s lead through the wide arches that led to the Government District and over the narrow bridge that spanned the canal. There might not be the same potent smells here of cinnamon, cloves, or thyme that were in the Spice District or the acrid smell of chemical concoctions from the Alchemist’s District, but the Government District had its own bouquet.
Fear was usually strongest here. Sometimes tinged with royal-blue and gardenia scented power and the bronze flecks of morning dew scented hope. Other times it hung heavy on the air, mixed with the bitter mustard-yellow and white vinegar of failure, or worse – that pulsing orange ginger desperation that clung to every ripple like mud to the soles of boots in mid-spring.
Marielle wrapped a second layer of scarf around her face, cinching it to keep it in place. She should be proud of having caught the thieves tonight. She should be exulting in her success – they were certainly going to win the pot that Carnelian was so desperate for.
But that was the problem. Marielle loved justice. Who wouldn’t love the law? It was so certain of itself. It divided right down through nuances to specifics. Cleaving through the difference between maiming or injury or theft and robbery. One sentence for one. One for the other. Sometimes divided by a hair of difference, but that hair was written down and codified.
Who wouldn’t love a world so stable, so black and whi
te, so definite that it could be written entirely down in laws and codified and enforced?
If only Marielle’s own feelings could be codified like that. If only the constant gumbo of scents swirling around her in the fog of night could be so definite. But they never were.
Take that man with the startled eyes she’d bumped into on the street today. He’d been barely older than her. That apron and the alchemical smells surrounding him made his profession plain. And yet.
That pulsing orange ginger of desperation around him had clung like the scent of death. The tiny brazen flecks of hope weaving in and out of it had been matched equally with inky black bursts of licorice despair. He was on the edge of something. Hovering. Waiting to fall one way or the other.
And then take her reaction. She shivered at the memory. She’d been overwhelmed by the golden honey scent of her attraction to him to the point where it bled into the pulsing orange ginger smell and mixed into a cocktail so potent it rivaled the stories of lovers dashing themselves from cliffs for the sheer love of one another – if you could call such a thing love.
And it was puzzles like that that filled Marielle with the very uncertainty that she so desperately wanted to avoid. If she was uncertain, then she couldn’t predict the future. And if she couldn’t predict the future, she couldn’t prevent the worst. And if she couldn’t prevent the worst, then she’d be swept away on it like a child swept away by a tidal wave.
No. Marielle was much happier with certainties. And she was certain that tonight they were on these streets to catch people violating the certain and sure code of the law.
They patrolled the dark Government District more slowly than they did other streets. It was hard for Carnelian to see between the pools of light provided by the high towering lanterns still being lit at intervals through the district. She had only her eyes to guide her, scent-blind as she was.
Marielle didn’t mind. The architecture of the Government District was all certain lines and precise arcs. Clean cut corners, smooth stone, level steps, and uniform cobbles made her heart glad. Someone had thought this area of the city through. Someone had been certain.
Their patrolling took them around a turn to stride past the palace moat. Crowds were gathered on the roof terraces of the palace under the Sunset Tower and their cheers and calls tumbled down to Marielle. They were welcome to their fun. The ladies bright ballgowns caught the light and even from so far away – even when Marielle couldn’t see their colors – they looked like jewels strung for a queen.
“Landholds. I’d like to see them work for once,” Carnelian said just as she did every time they passed the Seven Suns Palace. She spat in the same place she spat every time. Patrols were easy with Carnelian. She was so predictable that she was almost a certainty.
But there was something different here in the street tonight. Marielle paused. It wasn’t the Landholds clustered above. It wasn’t the first Nightburst that had just erupted over the city in a shower of brilliant sparks to the cheers and amazement of the party high above. It wasn’t the guard seen meeting on the top of the wall in the light cast by the Nightburst.
What was it?
Pulsing orange spun with gold. Just the barest trace. But combined with that slight alchemical scent of acid ...
Yes! The man from earlier. His face flashed into her mind as if carried by the scent of him.
What was he doing in the Government District tonight?
“Don’t tell me you’ve stopped to watch the Nightburst!” Carnelian laughed. “I thought you Scenters were practically blind. Can you even tell that it’s bright gold?”
Where was he? The trail was so faint. And yet she couldn’t get it out of her nose. She was drawn to it like flies to lit torches. It didn’t matter how dangerous it might be, she couldn’t stop looking for it.
But that faint smell had faded almost as if it had been swallowed by water.
Marielle spun to look at the moat. There was no scent to guide her. Not if it crossed the water. Water hid scent too well – except for the grass-green scents of life growing in the rancid water.
She was watching for movement. Any flicker. Any at all.
Something moved in the corner of her peripheral vision and her head jerked to follow it. Nothing there.
Where was it?
“There!” Carnelian yelled, her hand pointing in the direction Marielle had seen the movement. “Stop! Stop by order of the Jingen City Watch!”
Carnelian cursed and took off like a dog after a cart, stumbling after just three steps over a curb Marielle saw easily. To her, it was bright yellow where a cur had told the world his life’s story.
Marielle dashed past, still not catching the scent of their prey, just hoping Carnelian had really seen something. Her dull curses were fading behind as Marielle’s heart pounded loud and feet pounded louder where she sped along the cobbles.
There was a squelching sound and then it was as if the scent of the moat had grown legs and was darting along the streets in front of her.
She chased the scent, her feet light on the cobbles.
This was the heady part. Just Marielle and the scent and the chase.
She ripped one layer of veil off as she sped up, the scent growing sharper and stronger. She could see a man-shape in the smell. A man in a cloak. His cloak tangled around his legs and fell as if he’d shed his skin like a snake.
Marielle stumbled, her nose temporarily demanding she follow the cloak and the man both at once. It took a moment to override the nose.
Follow the man! Follow the man!
Behind her, Carnelian’s cry of discovery rang out as she scooped up the dripping cloak. And came then the wild feeling of scents blurring as she sped past them. She fumbled at her waist for the strap of her bell, pulling the clapper free so that her chase would sound itself to the Jingen City Guard everywhere.
Ding – a – ling – a – ling – da – ling!
She darted around a corner, following the scent. He’d clearly hoped to lose her here where he ducked under the footing of a bridge and then turned as soon as he was clear of it down the steps and along the rocky ledge that ran the length of a canal toward the river.
Ha! It was not so easy to lose Marielle.
His pulsing orange scent – harsh on the nose, blurred by her golden hot-honey attraction, was mixing with the canal scent now, pulsing orange ginger leaking into grass green but the bronze of his hope was gone. Flecks of black licorice replaced it. Marielle sucked in a breath, sadness washing in with air.
This was the part she hated. The part where she tasted the pain of the criminal. Because criminals were victims too. Some of circumstance. Most of their own selves.
It wasn’t for Marielle to determine which this poor man was. It wasn’t for her to wonder if he labored over his work, muscles straining and despair slowly building like sawdust in a mill.
It wasn’t for Marielle to wonder if his beautiful features twisted with pain in the night as his mind drifted over broken dreams.
It was only for Marielle to chase.
Justice would be satisfied. Marielle would satisfy it.
She couldn’t hear Carnelian’s footsteps behind her anymore. It took a moment to realize why. They’d run under the arches leading from the Government District and into the Spice District.
Her quarry was not far ahead now. And his options were limited. The steps back up into the street were coming up and if he didn’t take them, there wouldn’t be another chance to run up to street level again. She would be able to corner him when the canal reached the river. Marielle picked up her pace, clutching at her side as the ache began to form there. She needed to run more often.
His scent swirled with a sudden burst of periwinkle and celery intelligence and then he leapt to the side toward the canal, leaping into a gondola despite the cries of the gondolier and passenger. Without pause, he leaped again onto a passing barge.
Cursing, Marielle screwed up her face and followed, her first leap into the gondola
earned her a slap on the back.
“Out! Out of my gondola!” A man in a conical hat shouted.
“Jingen City Watch!” Marielle yelled, her bell jangling and her nose filled with his puffs of mauve and sulfur irritation. She scrambled to the edge of the gondola, kicking into a leap she wasn’t sure she could make.
She barely managed to grab the side rail of the barge, pulling herself into the larger craft to the cursing of the driver and the commotion of his cargo – a reeking mass of goats, their voices baying into the night and their organic smells a pleasant break after so much high emotion.
Where had he gone?
She pushed through the goats, her bell jangling.
“The Watch will hear from me!” the driver of the barge screamed, but she paid him no mind.
She could see where the golden-pulsing-orange scent had leapt to the next gondola, but the gondola was too far away for her to make that leap now. Fortunately, a Waverunner family boat was right behind it in the canal. Marielle leapt from the rail of the barge onto the flat deck of the family boat.
A woman shrieked as Marielle scrambled across the deck, narrowly avoiding a burning brazier where a small chicken was roasting, ducking under the lines of wash and past a gaping child cradled in a hammock. Curses and shouts followed her as she leapt from the boat to a gondola and from there to the next gondola.
She was losing her quarry! By the time she reached the other side of the canal, his scent was already up the steps and into the street beyond. Marielle paused, gasping for breath and then she clenched her jaw and ran again.
Up the steps.
Into the streets of the Spice District.
The sound swelled loud as the revelers ran from tavern to tavern, swinging with laughter from the center fountains in the squares, kissing with a lover in a hidden corner, their eyes sparkling with love or excitement or just Summernight, dancing in long swaying chains through the streets with their songs swelling loud into the night.
There was no way to chase now but with the nose.
Summernight Page 5
