On the Matter of the Red Hand

by JM Guillen

  Lost gods, I needed to hurry.

  I scrambled in my satchel for Scoundrel’s message kit. Once I had the slip of paper and a stylus, I scrawled four words. My hand was almost impossible to control.

  Alchemy. Paralysis. Temporary. Help.

  That was what I wanted to write. In actuality, I could scarcely make out my own sovereign letters, and the last two words looked more like the chicken scratches of a child not yet in their Lettering year. I was terrified he wouldn’t be able to read them.

  It would have to do.

  Scoundrel hopped over to me; she cocked her head. “Wil?” Her tone was almost musing. “Wil? Wil?”

  “Yes, good girl.” I blinked. “Bring me Wil.” I fixed the message to her leg, my fingers moving like frozen sausages. “Now go.”

  “Smart, smart bird.” Scoundrel hopped twice and then looked back at me. For a long, terrifying moment, I thought that she might not go because she could sense I was in danger.

  Then, after cocking her head at me, she left.

  “She’ll bite you too. Be careful.”

  I tried to get as comfortable as I could, even as I felt my faculties deadening and my limbs grow leaden.

  I hoped Scoundrel would hurry.

  Friends Like These

  Striving, First Bell Dusking

  Soon, it was exactly as my mysterious lady friend had said. I lay in an alleyway, in the winterward side of the Warrens, my cheek against the filthy cobbles. I could see, and the forgotten gods knew that I could smell, but I could not in any way move.

  If I tried, I could speak, but even that came out a garbled mess. For the longest half-bell of my life, I lay there. I knew that, at any moment, some miscreant could wander into the alley and take out a life of frustration on my helpless, prone body.

  Fortunately, a half-bell was about all I had to wait. Say what one will about me personally, but I have wonderful, trustworthy friends.

  “Thom! Good, pretty bird!” Scoundrel hopped into the alleyway followed by a second raven, one that was older and slightly larger.

  “Thom. Thom.” The larger raven looked at me, appearing to disapprove slightly. “Thom, Thom, Thom.”

  “Now this is not something we see every day.” Wil came around the corner, speaking conversationally to the ravens. “I mean, for the man to be drunk every night after work is one thing. I just never thought I’d see him passed out during his patrol.”

  “You can shut your little Molly-kisser,” I tried to say. What I actually came out was much more like, “Yu cn shu yer lil’ M’lli-isser.”

  Wil walked over to me, and crouched. I could roll my eyes upward and see his leering grin.

  “I’m sorry, Susan, did some strange gentleman in the tap room slip something in your drink?”

  “I waa ‘e wrr s’r. Eh wrr sp’r! Aghh. Js yu waa, yu waar’k.”

  He nodded, as if what I said made it any reasonable sense. “Well, that’s what happens when you trust a strange man in a bar. If you’re not careful, they will slip something to you. Next thing you know, Tricia, you’re in an alleyway giving your purity to a group of thugs.” He shook his head. “It’s an awful shame.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him gesture to his bird.

  “Shame. Shame.” Wil’s bird croaked the words gleefully.

  My smart girl, ever obedient, picked up on the cue as well.

  “Shame. Shame. Shaaame!” Scoundrel joined in, practically singing the word.

  I remembered that only moments ago I had been thinking about my ever loyal friends.

  Wil stroked my head, looking down upon me as if I were every bit the wayward girl. “Don’t worry, Brenda.” His smile grew wider. “We’ll get you somewhere safe.”

  I thought he was going to burst if he didn’t laugh.

  It was considerable work for Wil to track down a horse and four in the time that he did. Of course he couldn’t be seen carrying me through the city streets; that wouldn’t do much for the noble judicar reputation. Therefore, he found a man willing to be quiet for an extra slip and had him pull his carriage around.

  From there it was just a matter of dragging me into it.

  “I’m certainly glad you keep up on your training.” Wil grunted as he tried to get me over his shoulder. “Why, if you were a full grown man who spends all his time drinking at revels instead of keeping in top shape, you’d almost break my back.”

  “E wk js fff,” I countered rationally.

  “I’m just thankful that you watch after your girlish figure.” He finally got his feet underneath us, and pushed me into the back of the carriage where I landed like a bundle of old rags.

  Then he stepped outside. I heard him give a low-pitched whistle that called both of the birds over to him. He wrestled around in his pack, and I heard the shuffling of paper.

  “Ely. Go see Ely, good girl.”

  “Ely. Good bird. Good bird.” I heard Scoundrel happily caw.

  “Well, ‘okay bird’ at least.” I could hear the smile in Wil’s voice. Then, he stepped back into the carriage. I heard the flapping of wings as she flew away.

  The next few moments involved Wil trying to sit me up properly and failing. I couldn’t help him at all, as the bones in my body had all gone to mush.

  “What’s this?” He was peering at my lapel. I realized that he was eyeing Sefra’s silver raven.

  “Gfft,” I elocuted gracefully.

  Wil looked at it for a moment and then shrugged. Finally, he dragged me over the seat, laying me there as comfortably as he could. My head was propped up at an angle, which I knew should be excruciatingly uncomfortable, but for the moment I couldn’t feel a thing. Wil pulled the door shut behind him, with his raven settling on top of the carriage.

  “I thought we’d step over to Ely’s.” Wil fumbled in his satchel, pulling out a piece of dried meat. He gestured forward with it as if offering me some. When I made no motion, he shrugged and took a bite. “That’s one lady who we know you can be safe with.”

  I wished at that moment that I could laugh at him. Ely was quite protective of our friendship. Whenever I got banged up while on the job she was typically furious.

  I didn’t know that I was safe with Ely at all.

  For a long moment, we rode in silence. Wil looked out the small window as the carriage bumbled over the rough street. When I started to slide, he grabbed my collar and propped me up.

  “I’d hate for my little girl to have to ride on the floor,” he smirked.

  I could only glare.

  Wil settled back in his seat, a thoughtful expression on his face. “Keep mum if you don’t, but do you know who did this to you?”

  “Yrrrrs,” I garbled intelligently.

  He nodded. “Is this regarding you current case?”

  “Mmmrrm.”

  Wil chuckled. “Well, that’s good at least. I’d hate for you to get doped up by some stranger for no reason at all.”

  The carriage jumped again. I slid a little but didn’t fall. This boded to be a rough tumble of a ride.

  “Do you know how long before this wears off?” He made an inarticulate gesture at my slumped form with his jerky.

  “Nmmm hrmm plll.”

  He nodded sagely. “I think that’s the wisest thing I’ve ever heard you say.”

  2

  Of course I knew that Ely’s shop was less than a bell away, but at the same time it seemed as if it were much farther. By the time we arrived, I had jostled and bumped my way across half the seat. Wil made no move to prop me up but instead just watched me slide, a scut-eating grin on his face the entire time.

  Once at Ely’s, the unique smelling cab-man helped me out. He and Wil carried me through her front door, and Wil tipped the man for his trouble. At no point did anyone mention that this money could be used to buy soap.

  “Let’s get him into the back.”

  I couldn’t see Ely yet but knew from her tone that she was torn between fierce worry for me, and anger for whatever I had st
umbled into. As soon as I could see her, I knew fury was winning. I knew this from the little furrow between her eyes and the way she looked as if she wanted to messily murder something.

  Ely’s shop was old; it had belonged to her father before her. Technically, she was not guilded in the Clokwerks as he had been, but she had enough trade to keep her in food and lantern oil. I had always thought it was odd that she never really sought guild affiliation, because Ely had one of the most brilliant minds I had ever met. It was also curious that the guild itself never sought her out; after all, part of the purpose of the guild system is to help standardize pricing and business practices.

  The fact that Ely operated her father’s store this way, without direct guild affiliation, was an incredible rarity in our city.

  “I think she doesn’t want to admit that her father is gone.” Wil and I had discussed this months ago, sitting inside the Masque and Moon, our favorite haunt. “If she goes for her guild license, then she has to accept that she can’t work under her father’s affiliation anymore. The only reason that would be true is if he’s never coming back.”

  “Won’t his membership run its course at some point?” I remembered the day clearly in my mind. I had been sipping a brown apple bitter while we spoke. “She’ll have to admit the truth sooner or later.”

  “No.” Wil shook his head. “The Clokwerks is an artisanal guild. Her father earned his membership by showing his level of skill at their craft. That’s not something you can take away from a person.”

  I hadn’t thought of that. Many of the artisan guilds, such as smits or sculptors, were a touch more lax about their membership than guilds that were simply based upon association. Whatever their craft their skills were a thing of pride, not something that could be taken away. As long as artisans’ dues were up to date, their memberships were good.

  So, as long as Ely continued to pay her father’s dues, the shop was registered as a location for a guilded craftsman, even if Ely herself was not associated with the guild.

  Quirky things, rules.

  “I think the clokmen know.” Wil gave me a conspiratorial grin. “I think they remember old Silas Quatermain well and choose to look the other way as his daughter mourns in her own fashion.”

  “That’s…” I had smiled at the notion. “That’s a nice thought.”

  I hadn’t known Ely’s father, not directly. Alejandro, the man who had ‘prenticed me when I was young, had taken me around and introduced me to almost every guildman in the Warrens. Therefore I knew that I had met Silas, had probably shook his hand, but unfortunately…

  I just didn’t remember him.

  Ely’s word was that he was meticulous in the way that he kept shop. Everything had a specific place with Silas Quatermain, and the man had a memory like a knife. From what I understood, he could remember where the tiniest tool, the most insignificant gear in his shop had been set last.

  Ely might share his memory, but not his gift for meticulousness.

  As I was toted like a sack of wheat through Ely’s shop, my head lolled to one side. I saw exactly what I expected. The front counter area was clean enough for Ely’s usage. Once we were past the counter, it was a different story. The woman had piles of disassembled gear work, crates of iron gewgaws and more wockls than I had ever seen in one place. It was a veritable storm of iron, grease, and strange little bits of schemata on every available surface. When Wil stepped back through the door to the workroom, it was much the same.

  “There’s a cot in the corner.” Ely’s voice was tight. “Set our oh-so-cautious friend down, and we can figger out what’s next.”

  Wil maneuvered through the labyrinth of detritus, careful not to kick anything over. He leaned toward the cot, trying to be as gentle as he could as he dropped me like a stone. As I fell back into the cot, I could see Ely face in its entire for the first time since being carried inside.

  Oh. This wasn’t good.

  Ely was a slender, young woman, a good head shorter than me, with mussy brown hair and green eyes that were a touch too large for her face. On any given day she was wearing a jacket and work dungarees with four or five tools hanging off her hip. Today, the look was completed by the work goggles on her head and a smoldering anger. She seemed to be trying to set Wil on fire with her scowl alone.

  “I feel for ya, pal,” Wil whispered to me as he adjusted me into the seat. “After all, I get to leave.”

  “Not before we have a word, you don’t.” Ely’s tongue was as sharp as her hearing. “Why don’t you step in here with me, Mister Sommers, and we can talk about what has happened to our mutual friend?”

  The look on Wil’s face was one I would remember for quite a long time.

  Ely held the door open as Wil stepped into her small office. When she shut the door, I heard one small, fateful click.

  “I don’t know what—” Ely’s voice cut low, as she realized that I could probably hear her. However her tone was enough. Luckily for me, she had chosen to take her anger out on Wil.

  For now.

  I heard Wil’s deeper voice but could only catch the end of his sentence. “—even my assignment. You act as if it’s my job…”

  “It is your job!” I could see her, in my mind’s eye, poking him in the chest. “If you think…” Her voice trailed off again, obviously realizing that she was speaking loudly enough for me to hear.

  I attempted to smile to myself and of course failed. After Wil’s smarmy remarks upon finding me in the alleyway, it did my heart good to know that Ely was giving him an earful. Of course, my current state wasn’t his fault at all, but she wasn’t likely to see things that way. She was quite protective of me.

  However, it seemed as if I was safe from her wrath.

  For now. I was certain things would be different later, when I was up and around and capable of responding.

  It seemed wise to remain laid up for a while. Perhaps until winter.

  I drifted into sleep.

  3

  “Do you have any idea how worried Scoundrel has been?”

  “I—what?” I looked up as I stumbled into the workspace at the back of Ely’s shop. I was definitely not up to strength, but I could move. It was the slow, stumbling movement of the half-dead, but I could move.

  Lost gods, but I was sore. The Warren’s Spider had really thumped me.

  Ely’s voice echoed to me from inside the depths of her current machinery project. She was lying beneath something the size of a wagon with more cogs than I could count. Was it a water engine?

  Maybe.

  “Your bird. She’s lost five feathers since she’s been here! I’m just certain that’s bad for ravens.”

  “Bad. Bad Thom,” the raven in question croaked at me from atop a collection of metal parts that resembled an orchestra instrument shoved down the throat of a metal toad. I couldn’t imagine what it was meant to do.

  “Good girl,” I crooned softly. I smiled weakly at her and tapped my shoulder. Scoundrel leaped lightly into the air and landed delicately on my padded shoulder. She snuggled into my hair and began grooming me. I stroked her feathers for a few moments as she continued to scold me.

  “Bad, bad, bad.”

  “Square on.” Ely’s temper, ever quick, washed over me. “Do you know how upset she was when she showed up? I had no idea what was happening; I nearly sent her to the Rookery myself.”

  There was a loud clanking and a slight burnt oil smell from the back of the shop.

  “Didn’t…” My head was still misty. “Didn’t Wil send a note on her leg?”

  “Oh yes,” She repositioned beneath the large mechanism, and I couldn’t help but smile at the condition of her hair. “Mister Wil Sommers did in fact send a note on the leg of your beautiful bird.” Ely glared at me. “Since, however I skipped the week of Judicar school where we discussed the protocols of secret messages, I did not know to look.”

  I stayed where I was. I’d learned personally just how dangerous her mechanisms were while she tinkere
d with them; I had been lucky not to lose my thumb to one of her creations. At this point if I approached, I’d likely end up with a wockl wrench lodged in my forehead anyway.

  “Just how long am I supposed to keep a squawking judicar’s bird when the judicar can’t even get out of a cot? Three bells? Five? Ten? And what am I going to tell the legates, I’d like to know!”

  “Ely, I—”

  She held up one hand and put on a sweet falsetto voice. “Oh, yes, ma’am, Legate, ma’am. This bird is familiar enough with me that she comes to my shop whenever she likes,” her voice dropped its honey-sweet tones, “but her judicar is incapacitated and can’t even tell me what is wrong with him.” She snarled the last two words, and there was a loud, wrenching crank. “And can’t tell me what happened—” Clank! “—or let me know if he will get better—” Crunch! “—or if he’s on assignment—” CLANK! “—or in danger—”

  There was a loud roar and a puff of blue-black smoke. Ely pushed away from the machine, coughing and frantically fanning the smoke from her face.

  Since I prefer that my legs function, I did not laugh.

  Her fuzzy, brown hair had been cobbled into a tail at some point, but now half of it was rucked up in an attempted escape from the contraption she wore pushed high on her forehead. It combined the aspects of a tradesman’s headlamp with a nobleman’s monocle, that is, if the nobleman in question had drunkenly crashed into several of his fellows while attending the opera. So many lenses festooned the leather straps and dangled from small brass hinges that in the golden gaslight, it gave Ely a shining brow as if she were a saint of old.

  That’s perfect. A slight grin tugged at the corners of my mouth at the idea of Sainted Ely. A vision of a marble statue to her popped into my head, resplendent with smut-smeared coveralls, cobb nailed boots, fuzzy hair, and monocle halo, with a wockl wrench in her upraised hand. A giggle escaped my otherwise tight control.