by Kali Wallace
A bird squawked loudly, and Mara startled. She could scarcely take it all in. There was too much noise, too much motion, too many colors.
And in the center of the room was the Lord of the Muck.
He stood at a table, his back to Mara and the gray man.
He was still wearing the stained apron over his clothes. He stood beside a broad table, holding a quill in one hand, a notebook in the other.
Without turning he said, “Bring the specimen over here.”
The tall man dragged Mara over to a chair. She didn’t even have time to jump to her feet before the Muck said, “It would be unwise to flee. You’ll never find your way out.”
Mara said nothing. He might be right, but she wasn’t about to tell him that.
Something pressed against Mara’s bare ankle. She looked down. It was a green lizard about as long as her arm from nose to tail, similar to those that lived among the flowers and trees at the Hanging Garden.
But this one had wings.
Mara’s mouth dropped open in surprise. The wings were black and bat-like, protruding from the lizard’s back just behind its front haunches, with neat rows of stitches around each base. The lizard nudged its blocky head against Mara’s leg and looked at her expectantly; she felt a puff of air when it beat its wings.
Mara tore her eyes away from the winged lizard to look around the laboratory again.
In one large tank a turtle swam lazily back and forth, but one of its flippers had been replaced by a furry paw. Perched above the tank was a monkey that had a parrot’s crest of white feathers growing from the top of its head. In a mesh cage there were several little animals Mara had assumed were geckos, but when she looked closer she saw they were actually mice, except instead of fur they were covered with grass-green scales. Beside the mice cage was a skeleton strung together with bits of wire: it had the body of a goat but the head of a bird and large claws like those of a hunting cat.
The laboratory wasn’t just full of animals. It was full of magical hybrids.
“My garbage dump,” the Muck had said.
A low, panicked buzz grew in Mara’s mind.
She hadn’t found the remains of glorious ancient creatures on the seafloor. She had found the remains of the Muck’s magical experiments.
Tears of disappointment and anger stung her eyes. She had been wrong. The Lady had been wrong. Her stomach turned. Mara and Izzy had brought up parts of at least a dozen creatures, maybe more, so excited about what they’d found, so happy to have uncovered a piece of history. But they had only been cleaning up the Muck’s trash.
That trash had included one human femur.
There were leather cuffs dangling from chains on the sides of the table. One at each corner.
“The man they took away,” the girl in the dungeon had said.
With trembling fingers, Mara scratched the lizard’s head gently. The Muck wasn’t looking at her. She was terrified of drawing his attention to her. She kept glancing at the leather cuffs on the table, tearing her gaze away, looking again.
If she didn’t say anything—if she didn’t try—she might not get another chance. She knew what he was doing, but she had no idea why. If she found a way to escape— No, she couldn’t think like that. When she found a way to escape, she needed to tell the Lady everything. That meant she had to make the Muck talk to her.
“Excuse me,” Mara said. The words came out as a trembling whisper. She licked her lips and tried again, louder. “Excuse me, sir?”
“One moment.” The Muck was absorbed in his writing.
“If you please, sir, what are you doing?”
The Lord of the Muck lifted his gaze from his notebook and gave Mara a surprised look. “Oh, it’s you. This is the wrong one.” He snapped his fingers at the gray man. “I told you we couldn’t use this one yet. Go back for another—a few years older, not a child.”
“Sir,” Mara said, her voice rising with fear. “What are you doing?”
The Lord of the Muck turned a page of his notebook decisively. “My work is far beyond your capability to comprehend.”
“That’s not what my mistress says,” she said.
That got his attention, exactly as she wanted. He spun around to face her. “What does Renata say?”
Mara’s mind raced to come up with an answer. “She says that you’re a lesser mage with no real talent.”
The Muck narrowed his eyes. “Yet she sent her servant to steal from me. Do you think I am an idiot, child, or does your mistress merely think that of you? Do you see what I am accomplishing here?”
“You’re trying to . . . make animals like the ones the founders used to make?”
“Ha!” The Muck’s sudden laugh startled a parrot into squawking. “How quaint that would be, to use all my skills and knowledge to create charming little pets. No, I’m afraid each of these tiresome creatures represents only a single step toward my ultimate goal. Come look at this.”
The Muck tapped a long finger on the open page of his journal. Mara stood to approach the table.
On the page was a set of detailed anatomical illustrations. The drawings showed the strangest creature Mara had ever seen. At first glance it looked like a founder with beautiful fins and round fish eyes, but upon closer inspection she saw it wasn’t a founder at all, but neither was it human. It had two arms and two legs, but instead of hands and feet it had long, trailing fins at the ends of its limbs. It was covered from knee to toe and elbow to wrist in scales of blue and green, but the rest of its body was normal brown skin. It had a collar of spiky fins around the back of its neck like a founder, but no dorsal fins down the spine. Its round eyes were too big for its human head.
The drawing made the creature look predatory and fierce, but it was beautiful too, in a cunning, unsettling way.
Mara leaned in for a closer look. There were arrows and annotations on the drawing, and notes written in small script. Cut. Stitch. Slice. Tiny hash marks indicated where fins attached to the arms and legs. Accompanying the diagrams were lines of spell-songs, with instructions for how they were to be sung.
The cold feeling in Mara’s gut was only growing colder. She knew what she was looking at.
“But . . . why?”
“Why?” the Muck repeated incredulously. “Why? Look around you, child. Look at this chamber. Look at this city. Look at what it used to be, and how much less it is now. The founders could carve fortresses from solid stone, call up storms on a whim, command the creatures of the sea to obey them. And what can we do? We believe it an accomplishment to light the smallest candle, to stir the weakest breath of air, to frighten the tiniest fish into a net. We are pathetic.” He spat the word as though it tasted bad. “You ask why. But surely even your small mind can comprehend the desire to elevate ourselves above the scrabbling, squabbling, inferior creatures we are?”
He wanted the power the founders had once had. He wanted their magic. He wanted to be able to shape and topple islands, call and control storms, and so much more.
He wanted to turn humans into founders.
It was impossible. It was worse than impossible. It was mad.
But he spoke with a calm sort of fervor that made Mara’s skin crawl, as though he couldn’t imagine anybody would disagree with him.
“Sir,” Mara said, licking her lips nervously. “Can you really do that?”
“Of course I can do it,” the Muck said, his voice sharp. “Do you doubt me? Here, with the evidence all around you? I have achieved great success in my initial experiments. I’ve had to use bits of the ugliest old spells, nothing anybody besides a wretched bone-botherer would care to sing, but they have their uses.”
He gestured across the table to a stack of books. Mara gasped when she looked at them. They weren’t just books. They were Bindy’s books, her spell journals, where she had written down her bone magic. After getting caught and being tossed in the dungeon and finding Izzy among the prisoners, Mara had forgotten all about Bindy’s journals. But they were ri
ght here in the Muck’s laboratory. He was consulting them as he worked.
“But, sir,” she said, breathless with surprise, “where did you learn magic like that?”
“Irrelevant,” the Muck said, returning his attention to his own notes. “Look here—I am ready to attempt the next step of the transformation.”
Mara’s fear was twisting around and around in her gut, tightening into hot anger. “What do you mean? What’s the next step?”
“It will become clear as soon as my servant returns.”
“You want to turn your servants into founders?”
“Of course not,” the Muck said scornfully.
For a second, the briefest flicker of a second, Mara felt a pang of relief. She had gotten it all wrong. Nobody could be that cruel. Not even the Lord of the Muck. Not even for the magical powers of the founders.
Then he went on, “They were merely early trials, but unfortunately the gills are largely decorative, and they can’t speak a word. No great loss. They were dull conversationalists anyway. I realized it is best to perfect each step on individual subjects before I attempt a complete transformation. That’s why I work in absolute secrecy. You’ve noted the mirrors, of course. I must be certain nobody is mimicking my work. When every step in the process is flawless, I will perform the first—and only—complete transformation on myself.”
“You,” Mara said faintly. He was going to operate on himself? With the knives and the songs both? “But—but—how? Why?”
“As I am the only one to have conceived of such a step, does it not follow that I am the only one worthy to wield such powers?” the Muck asked. He didn’t wait for an answer. “You see, it is both a physical transformation and a magical one. Neither by itself will allow me to shed my human form and take on one far superior. Only when both changes are achieved will the complete breadth of ancient magic be available to me, and I will reveal my improved nature to the city. Ah, here he is. I’m afraid I must return to my work now.”
From the corridor outside the hallway Mara could hear the gray man’s scuffling steps. With those steps came the sounds of somebody fighting: slapping, cursing, frustrated cries in a familiar voice. Mara’s chest ached as though she had been holding her breath. She was supposed to have gotten away by now. She was supposed to be going for help.
The gray man bent through the door, dragging Izzy behind him. She was fighting hard, clawing at his arm and face, trying to break free, all the while shouting words Mara didn’t know but was pretty sure would make a dockhand blush. She cast her gaze wildly around the room, taking in the jars of specimens, the cages and tanks of living creatures, the Muck at his laboratory table, at Mara, and she snarled, “Let go of me, you filthy worm!”
But he was too strong. He dragged her across the room to where Mara and the Muck stood beside the table. Through her twisting and turning and shouting, Izzy caught Mara’s eye. She looked toward the door, toward the cages, back at Mara. She stopped spewing insults long enough to mouth a single word: go.
Mara couldn’t move. The Muck was going to hurt Izzy. Mara couldn’t leave her. She didn’t know what to do.
Run. Fight. She had to do something. Attack. Escape. She didn’t know. She didn’t know.
Izzy said it again: go.
“Put her up here,” said the Muck. He tapped his fingers on the worktable. “Then hurry along to meet our guests. It will be dark soon, and we have much to do tonight.”
He wasn’t paying attention to Mara. She took two steps toward the door. The winged lizard scampered around her feet. The Muck and the gray man didn’t notice, but Izzy did. She went limp and slumped to the floor. “Oh, please! Please, sir, don’t hurt me!”
The gray man looked down at her. He tugged at her arm, confused that she wasn’t fighting anymore.
“Carry her if you must,” the Muck said impatiently.
The gray man tugged; Izzy slid a few inches across the floor. “Oh, please! I’m so scared! What are you going to do? I’m so scared!”
Mara inched farther from the worktable. There were only about twelve feet between her and the door, and all along that distance were jars and tanks full of specimens, shelves and tables of the Muck’s carefully preserved work perched precariously over his valuable books and drawings.
“Girl,” the Muck said, “where are you going?”
He hadn’t even finished his question before Izzy shouted, “Mara! Go! Get out of here!”
Mara sprang to action. She sprinted toward the door, pulling over cages and toppling specimen jars, sweeping piles of scrolls and tipping heavy books into the growing puddle. She didn’t want to hurt the living animals, but there were plenty of other things to knock over. She shoved at a stool, threw a stack of books, and knocked a large vat to the floor, sending a wave of cold water and a slithering mass of preserved eels across the room.
“Catch her!” the Muck bellowed.
Mara slipped on an eel, jumped over the little winged lizard as she regained her balance, and she ran.
13
Sea Above and Sea Below
Mara ran like she had never run before. Candles flared and faded as she raced past. Behind her the Muck was shouting at his gray man, Izzy was shouting at the Muck, a parrot was shouting impolite words at both of them, and animals were twittering and bleating in a cacophonous racket.
Mara had to find her way out of the Winter Blade. She had to go for help.
She would get lost in the dark, so she kept to the passages lit by spelled candles. Those were the hallways the Muck used the most, which meant they had to lead somewhere. She could hear the gray man shuffling behind her, but she didn’t look back. She only ran faster, her breath coming in ragged gasps, the ends of Izzy’s shawl fluttering, until finally, finally, she found a staircase winding upward.
Up, and up, and up. She was climbing awfully high—how far down was the laboratory? Was she at sea level yet, or above it? She passed five, six, seven locked doors. The gray man was getting closer.
Mara charged through the first open door she found. On the other side was a dark corridor. She looked frantically to the left and right. She didn’t know which way to go until she saw the faintest glimmer of light to the left.
She sprinted toward it—but it wasn’t a candle. It was a window. It was a whole wall of windows. She was in what had once been some sort of gallery or sunroom; the chamber faced east, overlooking the distant city, but the dirty glass was aglow with the indirect light of the setting sun. She had lost an entire day in the Winter Blade.
The first window didn’t open, nor the second, but the third had a broken latch and swung outward when Mara shoved it. She leaned over the sill to look down.
Waves crashed against the black rock a hundred feet below.
She was too high. Mara wanted to shout with despair. She couldn’t jump from here. She would dash herself to pieces on the base of the Winter Blade. She had ruined her one chance, the chance Izzy had fought so hard to give her. The gray man would catch her and put her back in the dungeon, and then how could she help anybody? Izzy was in the Muck’s laboratory. He could have overpowered her and bound her to his table. He could at this very moment be sharpening his scalpels and consulting his notes while Izzy fought and screamed. Mara shouldn’t have left her.
There was a scuffle of footsteps behind her. Mara whirled: the gray man had reached the sunroom. The gills in his neck flared when he spotted her.
She had no choice. She couldn’t help Izzy if she was frozen by fear.
Mara tightened Izzy’s shawl around her waist and climbed out the window. The stone was cool and slick. Mara pushed her fingers into a crack and searched with her toes for a foothold, then stretched down as far as she could for another, and another. She had climbed stone walls before, all over the steep streets of Quarantine Isle and in the Ossuary crypts. Those walls were never more than ten or twenty feet high, but if she could climb down twenty feet without falling, she could climb down a hundred feet without falling. It was
just like descending five twenty-foot walls, one after another. She could do it. She had to.
That’s what she told herself, in between thinking very hard some of those words she had just learned from Izzy.
She looked up. The tall man was lurching out of the window. He didn’t lower himself as Mara was doing, with his feet below and his hands above. He climbed down like a spider: headfirst, very swift, his long limbs spread wide. She had to go faster. Her arms and legs shook with the effort of holding on, and her toes and fingers were soon scraped bloody from jamming into the slightest cracks.
Every time she looked up the gray man was closer.
She could not let him catch her. If he caught her, Izzy was doomed. The angry girl in the dungeon, the scared boy, the old Roughwater woman who was worried about her grandson, all of them were counting on her, but most of all Izzy, who was so happy to be getting married and teased Mara like a sister and had fought the Muck to give Mara a chance to escape.
Mara glanced down. Waves crashed on the rocks far below. The motion of the sea made her dizzy. The sun was ducking beneath the clouds on the horizon. There was no way she could make it. It was too far.
Something grabbed her hair, and pain burned through her scalp. The gray man had caught up to her.
Mara smacked his hand away, but the motion made one of her feet slip, and she slid several feet down, out of the man’s reach. She couldn’t catch herself—she was sliding too fast, too far—she was going to fall—
Her toes caught on a ledge. Mara gasped in surprise and grabbed at the stone, fingers scrabbling until she found a crack to hold. She leaned into the rock and held tight, breathing heavily, not daring to move a single finger or toe until she was sure she wasn’t going to fall. Her arms and legs were shaking, the evening air stirring all around, the waves crashing below, and the gray man was still coming. She could hear the rattle of his breath. He was only a few feet above her.
