Another grunt.
But Marielle was distracted. How could the scent have just stopped? She could have sworn she could have followed it anywhere, but it didn’t lead to the inn storeroom or out of the little docking area under the inn. It didn’t even lead to the brick wall. It just stopped with the gondola.
“I’ve lost it. It’s gone,” she said disconsolately.
“Dragon’s blood and ashes!” Carnelian cursed.
The stone in Marialle’s belly grew again. The massacre in the Temple District there was her fault. She was the one who had let Tamerlan slip away. She was responsible for what he’d done. And now she couldn’t even bring him to justice. His scent had grown cold.
And it was all her fault.
29: The Others
Tamerlan
TAMERLAN SUCKED IN a long breath as Jhinn scrambled back into the boat. Sucking air through a hollow reed just wasn’t the same.
“See?” he said, “next time I say ‘strip’, you strip fast! You don’t want to get your pretty new guard clothes wet!”
Tamerlan sputtered, he’d sucked in some water with that breath. He wasn’t used to staying submerged so long and that reed had barely brought enough air into his lungs to keep him from drowning. It had only been Jhinn’s vice-grip on his shoulder that kept him underwater for as long as he’d been under.
“They might be back,” he said, still gasping, handing the reed back to Jhinn who stashed them in his hidden compartment.
“I don’t think so. If they knew we were here, they would have stayed. Waited us out.”
Jhinn was almost fully dressed by the time Tamerlan pulled himself back into the boat, shaking the stinking canal water off and hurriedly dressing, too.
“Where are those scars come from, hey? Someone beat you good.” Jhinn arranged a wide red cloth around his waist. It gave him a buoyant look that fit well with his wide loose pants, and bare feet.
“Not for years,” Tamerlan said. He didn’t like to talk about his father.
“My uncle used to beat me like that. ‘No more stealing wood and rope,’ he would say. ‘That boat you built is stupid. It’s too short to be a proper gondola and the bottom is too dished!’”
“But you still built it,” Tamerlan said, tugging on the cloak that matched his uniform. “It’s a pity this doesn’t come with a sword.”
“I have a sword in the hideaway. You need it?” Jhinn asked.
“I won’t look like much of a guard without one,” Tamerlan said with a laugh.
Jhinn pulled the gondola up to the side of the wall, opening his secret compartment again. “That red-haired Watch Officer couldn’t find it. I bet she doesn’t find much. All storms and no lulls.”
“Why did you build your boat with a ‘dished bottom’ anyway?” Tamerlan asked.
“See how I built a cap over the stern and one over the bow? You can store gear in there and close the little door. If the boat flips, it pops right back up again. Your gear is safe. Yeah, you’re wet, but you don’t lose the boat. Good, right?”
“It is.” Tamerlan’s eyebrows rose as he took the sword Jhinn handed to him, strapping it onto his belt.
“Yeah, well, my uncle didn’t think so.” There was a long pause as they contemplated their scars. “Let’s talk about tonight.”
“I have to try to save my sister,” Tamerlan said. He was already looking down the tunnel. Maybe he should be going already.
“Don’t even think about it,” Jhinn said. “They’re looking for us. We should stay here until it gets dark. Do you think anyone saw you last night when you were in the world of the Satan?”
A lot of people had seen him. Not many of them had lived. But that wouldn’t matter to Marielle. He’d recognized her as their heads slipped under the water when her gondola turned the corner. She’d been sniffing the air. She was clearly a Scenter for the Jingen City Watch. What must she be thinking this morning, knowing she’d let him go, smelling him all over the wickedness of the night before?
“Probably,” he said.
“Then you need to wait here until it is dark enough to go. Then you will slip into the Seven Suns Palace and I will wait in the moat. You’ll smoke that stuff rolled in paper. I’ll show you how. Then, you grab your sister, get back to the boat and we row downriver to the stash, yeah?”
“Why are you helping me?” Tamerlan asked. His hands were shaking again at just the thought of trying the Bridge of Legends again. He felt like he might be sick.
“I told you. I can see them. The others.”
“What others?” Tamerlan asked.
“The night you saved me it wasn’t just you. It was a man with a bow and a hood. And then when you woke up, he was still there, but fainter. And a woman with red hair and a wicked smile. And now there’s one with golden curls and a cruel red mouth. They’re looking over your shoulder like carriage drivers looking over the back of the horse. And I can’t tell who is going to drive the carriage next.”
“Then you should row away and leave me. You shouldn’t be mixed up in this.”
The boy shrugged. “I could. I don’t want to.”
“Why not?” Tamerlan asked. He felt so tired. He wished it was all over, that the worst had already happened. The waiting was the hardest part – the not knowing and the hoping it wouldn’t be so bad next time. It was killing him.
“I want to see what happens next. This is more interesting than fishing or paddling people around for copper coins.” He shrugged. “Maybe if I hang around long enough, I’ll be in a story, too.”
“You wouldn’t like it,” Tamerlan said gently. He hated it. He wished he didn’t have to do it.
“You’re just saying that because you’re a nice boy and nice boys don’t like doing wild things. I’m a wild boy. I don’t like doing nice things.”
Tamerlan snorted a laugh and Jhinn joined him.
“Now,” Jhinn said. “Grind up those weird ingredients in your stone dish and I’ll show you how to roll them up.”
Summernight
(Last Night of Summernight)
30: Summernight
Tamerlan
THE FEELING OF THE city as the gondola slid down the canals was a strange one. The colored lights were still lit along the canals. Roses still hung in bunches, drooping a little now, their petals falling to float on the canals like red teardrops. The smells of toffee, fragrant teas, and fruit pies still drifted in the air, but the spirit of the city felt like nothing Tamerlan had ever felt before.
The celebrations in the streets above and spilling down into the canals and gondolas below were almost manic in their intensity, as if by jubilant celebration the party-goers could erase the turmoil cast over the city last night. Everyone was wearing their costumes tonight. Even the gondoliers and the Waverunners in their strange houseboats were decked in the garb of the Legends, honoring the spirits of the dead heroes.
But there was another strange note to the celebrations. A note of violence.
Tamerlan saw more than one wicked glare from a gondolier as they swept up the canals. When they passed the smoking wreckage of the Temple District and the heart-rending wails from above, the gondoliers rowed twice as fast with steely faces. Their passengers laughed doubly loud, their eyes glued to the water or each other but not, definitely not, to the wreckage in the streets above.
“The celebrations at the Seven Sun Palace are going to be the best of all time,” a girl dressed as Queen Mer said in the gondola beside theirs.
Tamerlan rowed harder. Jhinn had given him an oar, too, and the tiny craft zipped up the canal like a thrown dart. They weren’t fast enough not to catch snippets of conversations that Tamerlan wished he didn’t have to hear.
“It’s going to be lavish. The feast alone has emptied the Trade District of fresh fruits and I heard the Artificers have a special surprise!”
“Better than those golden cages? Those were sublime!”
Whatever the Lord Mythos had planned tonight was only a cover for the main e
vent – the sacrifice of Tamerlan’s sister. And no amount of fresh fruit or fascinating displays could distract Tamerlan from that.
He watched the crowd, though, as it made its way up the canals in a flotilla of gondolas as if the partygoers were laying siege to the Seven Suns Palace. He was invisible to them in his uniform, just another piece of the city.
Dragon-send that was true when he arrived, too.
He and Jhinn rowed in silence. They had their plan. And Jhinn was set on helping. Nothing Tamerlan had said could turn the boy around. In all likelihood, Tamerlan would fail again. But this time if he failed, he would die doing it. And then, hopefully, Jhinn would get safely away.
And even though that was almost assured, he couldn’t stop hoping that he would succeed and that in just a few hours they would be shooting down these channels with Amaryllis tucked in the little hollow in the front of the gondola.
They paused with the other boats, waiting for the lock workers to raise all the boats up to the next level of the canal. The hydraulic pumps worked in the background and they rose upward to the next level, the level that would bring them to the Seven Suns Palace.
Tamerlan’s eyes drifted over the crowd, taking in the elaborate costumes. No expense had been spared on these. Dyed feathers, swaths of silk, ruffled tulle, bright shining glass-work – even some real gems – bedecked the party-goers and the overly-merry looks on their faces brought out a glassiness to their eyes and redness to their cheeks that was visible even in the twilight.
When, finally, the lock was opened again, they rushed forward, racers in an exhibition no one had planned.
Was that – ? No.
His mind was playing tricks on him. He had almost thought he’d seen someone dressed as the other Legend. The one no one spoke of. The one – if history was true- who had made all of this possible – the five cities of the Dragonblood Plain, Jingen itself, the peace of the five cities. None of it would be possible without him, and yet no one would speak his name. Not just because he had gone insane after his great deeds but because no one wanted anyone to get ideas. After all, in a city built on an ancient dragon – even a mythical one only true in the minds of the religious – a dragon slayer was a terrible thing.
They were in the moat now, jam-packed among the other gondolas. Tamerlan glanced back at Jhinn who lifted a single eyebrow. But the bare hint of a smile on his lips spoke of his excitement. They were there. It was now.
Tamerlan took a deep breath, patted his pockets, and this time when they slid through the portcullis with the others and skimmed to the dock, there was no Byron Bronzebow stealing away his chances. This time, he leapt from the gondola to the dock with a quick wave to Jhinn and joined the jostling crowd.
Jhinn eased his gondola into the shadows. It wasn’t going to be easy for him to sneak into the Palace moat to wait.
Tamerlan’s heart was racing. His breath coming so fast that he had to fight it back to a normal rhythm. He was here. He was further than he’d managed to get before. No one noticed him as he strode through the crowd, his blue cloak and guard uniform making him just a usual part of the celebrations.
Now, he had to find the tower, free his sister, and end all of this.
He followed the crowd to the entrance of a Grand Hall. On either side of the entrance, musicians dressed like the Legends played a tune so frenetic and wild but compellingly beautiful that the crowd pressed ever forward, ignited by the music.
Tamerlan pressed forward with them. He wasn’t looking at the soaring pillars or the scenes painted on the ceilings. He wasn’t marveling at the polished marble beneath their feet or at the frescoes and inlays. His mind was racing on what to do next.
Once he reached the Grand Hall, there would be more chaos. Perhaps there he could slip away through one of the doors and find his way to the Sunset Tower. He took a deep breath as he reached the entrance.
“Landholds Chee G’hing and Sha’lain G’hing!” the steward announced, his voice ringing into the Grand Hall – as if anyone in the party could even hear it over the roar of voices.
Music poured out from the orchestral arrangements, and couples danced in the ballroom, while on the edges of the dance floor the other party-goers feasted at over-laden tables or viewed the wonders staged around the room – set in alcoves or hanging from the ceiling on golden chains. There were strange birds with plumage that rivaled the Legend costumes with their bright colors. There were caged creatures with sharp claws and sharper fangs. Statues that sprang to life when people passed, tattooed fortune tellers, panes of colored glass in diamond patterns with light shining through while dark silhouettes behind the glass mimed the stories of the Legends. It was more than a man could take in with a single glance – and it made it hard to see the entrances and exits of the room. It obscured where his attention should be focused.
At the very center of the room, a massive, gilded grandmother clock – a diamond shaped face and gem-encrusted hands, held up on four gilded pillars – was encased in a glass dome. Around it, whirled and spun gears of every size and shape, a massive tribute to the Timekeeper religion and a reminder to Tamerlan that time was short. There were more gears than he could count ranging from the size of a gondola to the size of a marble. It glowed in a way that suggested magic was at work in the careful tick of the sparkling hands as they danced around the face of the clock.
Shaking himself, he dragged his gaze away from the clock and tucked in behind a group of five people in costumes so flamboyant that no one would notice a mere guard behind them. As the steward announced them, he slipped into the Grand Hall, skirting behind a golden cage occupied by a very life-like Deathless Pirate and a dozen colorful birds with magnificent plumage. Smoke and secrets seemed to drift out of the cage as if by magic, whispering to Tamerlan of the gold on islands far beyond the horizon.
The pirate winked as he hurried past and he jumped with surprise, dodging behind an elaborate gear-and-weights display that moved in a steady metronome rhythm as if it, too, was a time-telling device. Maybe it was, though it rose so high in the vaulted ceiling that the tip of it was completely obscured by the darkness above the chandeliers.
Laughter from golden balconies above the Grand Hall spilled down into the room as waving silhouettes pointed down at the wonders below.
He needed to find a place to wait where no one would be suspicious.
There. At the other end of the room a row of guards stood in front of a massive black curtain covering most of the back wall and reaching as high up as Tamerlan could see in the shadows above the chandeliers. On either side of the curtain, open braziers – as wide across as Tamerlan was tall – were alive with leaping violet flames and popping sparks. Dragons cast in metal were wrought around the sides of the braziers, standing as tall as he was, and the flames inside their silhouettes made it look like they danced and swayed. They also cast long shadows.
Tamerlan strode through the partiers, standing aside politely for anyone in his path until eventually he found one of the dark leaping shadows behind the brazier to the right of the curtain and carefully stood so that it swallowed him up.
He patted his pocket with the rolled-up spices – the recipe for the Bridge of Legends. When the time came, he could use the brazier to light it. Patience was key. It was not midnight yet. He had time to wait for the right moment if he didn’t act too soon.
This was his last chance.
Somewhere, behind that black curtain, was Tamerlan’s sister.
And somehow, he was going to get her out of here.
31: Silk Dresses and Swords
Marielle
MARIELLE’S MOTHER LOVED pretty dresses. When Marielle was small, her mother would sometimes dress her up in them and paint her face with bright colors to make her “pretty” and they would take canal rides through the Trade District with all her mother’s friends ‘to remind people we exist’ her mother had said. Marielle still blushed at the memories. And when people insisted that she wear a dress, she still wondered
if they were trying to remind people of something.
“You’ll wear the dress he sent, and you’ll go to the party at the time the card says, or so help me, I will throw you out of the Scenters,” Captain Ironarm had said when the dress arrived at the Watch House. “We have a District half-burnt to the ground, hundreds of dead, a band of killers on the loose who have disappeared and left no trace, and Jingen Watch Officer funerals to plan. This is not the day to test me.”
“I’m a Watch Officer,” Marielle had insisted for the third time, “not a doll to be dressed up and sent to parties on the whim of a noble.”
“You were fine with it last time.”
“Last time was different.”
Captain Ironarm had sighed. She’d been up all day sifting through the Temple District, just like Marielle and Carnelian. And just like them, she’d come back to the Watch House to find the wrapped box with the dress and the invitation.
“Marielle, I’m a fair Captain. I keep a fair rota. I don’t give out punishments lightly or turn a blind eye to bribes. But Marielle, when the leader of the city asks for assistance from a Watch Officer, I don’t say no. I don’t care if he wants you to dress up as a rat and run through a maze, you put on the clothes he sent and you go and do what he asks you to do. And you do it because you are grateful to help the city. It’s not like he’s asking for anything that might ...” she had waved her hands as if looking for words, “disrespect you. The note clearly says he wants you there close to the Lady Sacrifice in case you can smell a hint of the people who rampaged through the Temple District last night.”
“In a dress? Why can’t I at least wear my uniform?” Marielle had felt her lower lip trembling. There was something wrong about this. You didn’t ask a girl to wear a pretty dress to investigate a crime. You didn’t send it with rose petals thrown on top to make it smell nice. The whole thing made her skin crawl. Besides, if she had to stand next to the Lady Sacrifice then she’d have to see with her own eyes the one crime she wasn’t brave enough to stop.
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