Shadow Dance

by A. E. Pennymaker

  That impression lasted until the sound of bolts clicking shut inside the wall made me turn around. A solid metal door was sliding over the inside of the wooden one we had come through. The curtains rippled as similar sheets of metal closed over the windows.

  "It's a soundproof barrier," NaVarre explained. He had opened a hidden compartment in the entryway paneling and was fiddling with a bunch of levers and gears. "I have learned that I cannot be too careful when I'm off the Island," he added, flipping a switch down and closing the compartment. "Now." He dusted his hands off and crossed to his desk. "Let's see what you found."

  A tiny flicker of surprise registered on Arramy's face as I moved to stand next to him.

  I placed the pen-box in the middle of NaVarre's writing mat, hoping that would make my point for me. There was no binder, but this hadn't been for nothing.

  NaVarre regarded the box, his brows drawing together as he got a better look at it. Then he used his letter knife to slice the seal holding the cotton-paper wrapper together. Dried wax crumbled onto his desk as he pulled the edges apart, revealing the object inside.

  It wasn't a pen-box. I didn't know what it was. To my knowledge Father had never owned anything like it. It was rectangular and made of metal, painted a milky blue-green and obviously worn with use, but there were no hinges, and there didn't seem to be a lid.

  NaVarre's eyebrows rose. "Captain, if you would care to do the honors..."

  With a sidelong glance at me, Arramy picked the thing up, examining it closely before running his fingers along the edges. Then he pushed on the top, and an outer sleeve slid forward, separating from an inner container.

  What looked like a claims-ticket dropped into his waiting palm. A slender blue stick also tumbled free, coming to rest on the blotter.

  It hadn't been a pen box, and that wasn't a stick. My throat aching, I scooped the little blue thing into my hand and carefully peeled off the bit of gummy string wrapped around it. A tightly rolled strip of blue superfine paper unfurled in my palm. Slowly, I unrolled it all the way, fully aware that I was probably about to read the last thing my father had left for me.

  Two lines of poetry written in Old Kareshi-Auri:

  Till stars become dust, my darling, I do

  Love you, I love you, my darling so true

  Followed by one line of code.

  Quietly, NaVarre handed me his fountain pen and a few sheets of paper. I scrubbed at my suddenly watery eyes, then went to work.

  Twenty minutes later I had it solved. After replacing every letter with its direct Altyran equivalent, the first letter of the first line was the starting point, and since there was no number indicated, I had to take every third letter. I lined those letters up with each of the eight symbols created by my pendant with North over South and continued until I had used up every letter in the Altyran alphabet. Then I took the coded line Father had written and began using the groups of letters under each symbol to solve it. This was the 'easy' version; the one he had taught me first before introducing the other variables. It was also the hardest for an outsider to crack.

  "Stalwart," NaVarre muttered when I held up the finished solution. He sighed, frustration plain on his face as he let his head fall against the back of his chair. "Stalwart what?"

  I went over the proof again, but that was the only word combination that made sense in Altyran. The other possibility was STAL and WARN, but that didn't quite fit. Father had written the code out as one word. My gut said it would be the most obvious solution. Unless Stalwarn was a surname.

  "Is there a financial district in Nim K?" Arramy asked suddenly. He was looking at the ticket. He turned it around so we could see the front – a coat-of-arms with a money-safe pictured in the upper right field and a pile of coins in the lower left. The letters 'S.V.S.' were emblazoned on a scroll across the top. There was also a name, Sarri Jannes, printed in blotchy typepress at the bottom, followed by a four-digit number.

  NaVarre squinted thoughtfully across his desk at the two of us. Abruptly he spun his chair around and scooted over to the bookshelves behind him. He pulled out a fat leatherbound annual and thumped it open on his desk, then skimmed a finger down columns of text. After a moment, he found what he was looking for and a slow grin lit his face. "Stalwart Vault Services. 10th block on Calderwodde."

  5. Hunting Puckmucks

  26th of Nima

  Last night ended in a blur. The captain and NaVarre decided they would do a reconnaissance run of the vault in the morning, and then Arramy announced that he was going to go get some sleep and tromped off to bed.

  I couldn't really remember walking back up to my guest suite. It was more a vague impression of dragging my exhausted self up a flight of stairs and down a hallway. Then I was sitting in the mound of pillows on the bed, hugging my knees to my chest even though there was enough room on the mattress for five of me. There was a luxurious silk bedspread that I could have burrowed under, too, but the thought of being that relaxed made me feel horribly vulnerable, so I just sat there staring at the frieze sculptures on the walls.

  They were etched with scenes of various rustic situations – field workers eating a meal beneath a tree; women and children harvesting grapes; men and women reaping hay. The marble was pockmarked by exposure, streaked by rain, as if they had been salvaged from an old-world ruin somewhere. If they were, it must have cost a fortune to bring them across the sea to this place. Once again, I found myself wondering how much money NaVarre really had.

  Montlander sheepskin rugs were scattered over the sunwood floor, their delicate, perfect ringlets gleaming soft ivory in the light of several gold-flecked spun-glass star lamps suspended from the ceiling. I had seen similar lights in specialty import shops in Porte-d'Exalle. They were handblown by the Hermidians in Jovald, and they usually sold for a few hundred marks apiece. I did the math: there was roughly five years' wages for ten people hanging up there above my head.

  Sleep was still slow in coming, so I kept looking, taking in the sheer opulence around me. The fireplace had a copperlip. There was a towel warmer built into the ornately carved chimney surround, with a stack of fat, fluffy white towels in it. The tub was huge and made of beaten copper, double walled to hold heat longer.

  It was a beautiful room. Stunning, even, but nothing felt safe, not even NaVarre's extravagant wealth. I was surrounded by comfort and warmth, and still I felt small. Weak. Humiliated. Broken. I wanted to hide. It was over. I was alive and breathing thanks to Arramy, but that didn't quite silence the swarm of wicked, needle-sharp little voices of self-doubt coiling through my thoughts. The message had been received loud and clear: the Coventry knew I was in the Colonies, and they were going to hunt me down and strangle me into silence. Not only that, but they were going to take everything before they did – my father, my home, every last scrap of my dignity.

  Shame dragged at my shoulders and hot tears threatened to spill over, only to be followed by a dull stab of disgust, as much because of my own helplessness as the fact that I was letting the enemy take up space in my head. I was not going to cry anymore. They hadn't killed me. That was going to be their mistake.

  ~~~

  Exhaustion must have conquered everything else, in the end. I woke to the sound of the maid pulling the curtains open.

  I was still curled in a ball in the middle of the bedspread. Slowly, I shifted my aching limbs and sat up, squinting against the bright light now streaming into the room. It had to be late morning, if not early afternoon.

  The maid turned to look at me, hands crossed politely at her waist. It was the same girl from yesterday. Ina, I thought. "Miss, I'm that sorry to wake you, but Mrs. Burre says I must put a new compress on your throat and give you some white willow."

  I started to say, "That's alright," but all that came out was a raspy, breathy whisper. I closed my mouth and nodded instead.

  Ina had brought a tray with her, with a plate of freshly baked breakfast pastries and a mug of chilled milk. She also had a bag full of
medical supplies, and she made quick work of changing the compress and dosing ten drops of white willow tincture into a glass of water. Then she busied herself with laying out an elegant sky-blue day dress I had never seen before.

  I raised an eyebrow as I nibbled at a pastry, wondering how many dresses NaVarre had on hand. In my exact size. I pursed my lips and gave the day dress a suspicious squint. Just how had he known my size, anyway?

  The maid stayed long enough to help me into my clothes, then brushed my hair and pinned it up for me while I avoided looking at myself in the mirror, not wanting to find out what I looked like as a nearly strangled person. When she was done, I waved away the velvet tray of jewelry she tried to offer and stood up. I had been coddled enough. There were more important things to worry about.

  A few minutes later I was on my way down to NaVarre's study, intent on finding out if there was any news from Nim K.

  ~~~

  "There's a row of bank clerks here, along this side wall." Arramy bent over NaVarre's desk, a long, tan middle finger tracing a line on the blueprints spread across the blotter. "It's like any normal vault service. You'll walk past all the bank clerks and take your claim ticket to this room here."

  He tapped a square at the back of the lobby helpfully titled 'Vaultier's Office.' "The vaultier will take your ticket, ask for your passphrase, and give you your key, then show you on through to this hallway. There are two guards in the hallway, and two more in the vault room. The vaultier leaves once you're in the vault room, and one of the guards unlocks this big metal door here."

  NaVarre whistled. "Not too shabby for a Colonial bank. Makes me wonder what they have in there."

  Arramy leveled an unimpressed stare at him and kept going. "The vault is one thing. The bigger problem will be outside. There were Magis combing the streets when I went in. Clothbadges, probably deputized just for this manhunt, but they're everywhere. They were flashing a search bulletin around, and they were going after men of my description. If I show my face again, they might take a bigger interest. I can't go in with her."

  NaVarre nodded once. "Then I'll go. You can watch the door from cover outside."

  Arramy shook his head. "That won't be good enough. There are two entry points and multiple angles of attack in the lobby, but only one way out of the vaultier's office. If they come after you in there, it'll be hunting puckmucks. You won't have anywhere to go but back into the vault, and that place is a fortress. I won't be able to get to you from outside the building."

  "So, what do you suggest, then?" NaVarre snapped, his harsh tone making me flinch. "A heist? It takes months to plan a job like this. It looks like an ex-convict designed this place. There aren't any shared walls, there aren't any sewers or pre-existing sub-structures to tunnel up from, and with the descriptions you've given, I'd guess the safe is a Kreighammer – solid-poured carbonic steel, with a shell of plates that can handle several hundred thousand pounds of pressure per centimeter. I could blow the whole building and that safe would still be standing."

  Arramy gave NaVarre a disgusted look. "Does your brain always go around the sides of a thing? We need more people. Five or six in the lobby, more outside, enough eyes to watch the front and back, enough guns to take on a bunch of armed civilians. Miss Warring wouldn't even need to be there. One of your female pirates could take the ticket in – "

  "Not with a passphrase," NaVarre said bluntly. "Bren is the only person who has any hope of figuring out what that passphrase is, and the vaultier might have another sylvograph. We can't afford to botch this up. There won't be another try, not with the Coventry this close on our tail. She has to go in."

  Arramy's jaw tightened. "She can't even talk." He didn't bother looking at me, as if I wasn't sitting right there.

  I sat back hard in my chair, silently glaring a fiery hole in the side of his head.

  "Sure she can." NaVarre glanced deliberately at me, flashing a big, glittery smile that was probably supposed to be encouraging, but made him look predatory. "It's a question or two, tops."

  "And maybe a bullet," Arramy muttered, crossing his arms over his chest. He looked awful – like he had fought four hired hitmen. Bruises were forming from several blows he had taken to the face, and he was still favoring his left leg, courtesy of a knife wound from that last Coventry goon. Grudgingly, I stopped glaring.

  "Look," Arramy went on, his voice weary. "I'm not in the habit of sending my men on suicide missions. If you don't take enough backup to get yourself out of that lobby, I'm done."

  NaVarre's mouth curled into a sardonic sneer. "But it will mean detailing more people on the plans. We won't be able to go in until tomorrow, and like you keep saying, the longer we wait, the bigger the target on her back."

  Arramy nodded slightly, then turned on his heels and started for the door.

  I couldn't tell if he was calling NaVarre's bluff, or if he really was going to walk out. Just like that. Just... leave. Sail off without so much as a backward glance.

  I didn't even think. I was lurching out of my chair to stumble after him when NaVarre suddenly yelled, "Fine!"

  Then he tried again. "Fine. Alright. We'll bring backup. Ten of yours, ten of mine."

  Arramy had already opened the metal barrier, and a tiny hesitation was the only sign that he had heard before he put his hand on the door pull. Then he was gone, leaving NaVarre and I alone in the silence of the study.

  I sat back down, my heart in my throat.

  Without warning NaVarre snatched up a conch-shell paper weight from his desk and sent it hurtling across the room, where it crashed into one of the bookcases, splintering a shelf and shattering a vase. "If you weren't so good at marching into hell, you'd be nothing but a loose end!" he snarled at the empty doorway. "But hell is where we're going, and I need someone with experience getting out!"

  ~~~

  Puckmuck: A flocking, flightless ground bird that huddles tightly together in a group when threatened, making it extremely easy to shoot more than one. The phrase 'hunting puckmucks' implies that a situation is a sure thing in favor of the hunter, and an inescapable death for the prey.

  Copperlip: a copper shelf along the inside of the fireplace specially designed to keep kettles of water hot without boiling so that a bath could be refreshed quickly without having a servant lug buckets up from the boiler room.

  6. Stalwart Vault Services

  27th of Nima

  Nimkoruguithu didn't operate under the same social cues as the Provinces. The vaultier was a short, fussily dressed middle-aged woman who seemed only mildly surprised to see another woman coming into her office alone. She blinked at me from behind a pair of round yellow-glassed spectacles, then gave me a small smile. "What can I do for you?"

  I drew the claims-ticket box out of my cloak pocket. "I would like to open my personal vault, please," I croaked, swallowing to ease the ache in my throat. My voice was low, almost as low as a man's, and raw, but at least I could make sounds.

  She took the box and opened it with an ease born of practice. "Name?"

  "Sarri Jannes," I whispered. "I'm sorry... I've had a bit of a cold lately." I smiled apologetically when she looked at me. "Sarri Jannes. Box 2458."

  The woman turned and went flipping through a rollafile set up on her desk. She found what she was looking for and double checked the information on it. "Finish this line for me," she said. "My favorite pie is..."

  I swallowed again, instantly seeing my father's face as he lovingly demolished a slice of Mrs. Bett's homemade pie, relishing every last crumb and leaving a spotless plate. "Apricot raspberry."

  The woman smiled, got up, and unlocked a cabinet behind her desk. She found the key to 2458, then came around her desk, beckoning for me to follow her. "Right this way."

  I was in, and NaVarre had been right. There wasn't any way anyone else would have known that answer. Betts only ever made that pie for my father. We would have gotten this far, and then lost everything.

  I followed the vaultier as she unlock
ed the first metal door that Arramy had mentioned, then locked it behind us, calling a cheery, "Hello, Kanosh," when we passed a guard station recessed into the wall. One of the guards glanced up and nodded as we continued on down a narrow, windowless hallway to another metal door at the far end, our footsteps echoing off white-glass tiled walls.

  "This is Miss Jannes, here for box 2458," the vaultier informed the guards stationed in the vault room, then she turned to me. "If you have any questions, just use the green sonulator." She gave me a bright grin as she left and shut the hallway door behind her.

  One of the guards – a large, heavily muscled man with a tattoo of a fish on his left arm – manipulated a bunch of levers and pushed several buttons on a gigantic, welded-metal door set into the far wall. The thing sprang open with a hiss of hydraulics, and he pulled it wide, gesturing me inside with a flourish.

  I offered them both a thin smile and stepped into the vault, trying not to jump as the door chunked closed, six massive carbonic steel bolts sliding into place with a whir of gears.

  The walls of the vault were actually a gigantic hexagon, not a square, with a catacomb of smaller hexagonal columns inside it. In each facet of every wall and column there were personal lockboxes. Every wall looked exactly the same with the exception of the one with the door in it.

  Once you're in, count two wall panels to the right.

  I set off to the right. One. Two.

  Turn to face the opposite side.

  Opposite side. Got it.

  There will be three columns in front of you, you want the one in the middle...

  And there it was: box 2458.

  I took a breath. My fingers trembled. I fit the key into the lock plate and rotated it all the way until the catch popped apart with a little mechanical snick, and then the lockbox slid out of the wall on spring-loaded runners.