by Ben Galley
‘Come here,’ she said, beckoning to him.
Merion rolled his eyes. ‘Are we not saying hello anymore?’
Lilain was obviously not in the mood. ‘Just get over here and look at this.’
Merion grumpily obliged her. ‘What is it?’ he asked, staring down at the pale skin of the dead man. Peter was also a large man, and wore a mop of jet-black hair. A husband or brother, Merion wasn’t sure.
‘Look at that,’ Lilain replied, pointing to three tiny cuts in the side of his neck. The veins around the wounds were black and swollen. ‘See that?’
‘Snake?’
‘Since when have you ever seen a three-fanged snake?’
Merion sighed. ‘Never, but seeing as there are also ghosts in this desert that can rip up rail, I thought I would venture a guess.’
‘Well, you’re wrong. No snake did this.’
‘Then what did?’
Lilain didn’t seem sure of the answer. She hummed to herself as she poked and prodded. ‘Something small, and something sharp.’
‘Like a little knife,’ Merion offered. He saw the flicker in the corner of his aunt’s eye, and realised he had chosen his words poorly.
‘Whilst we’re on the subject,’ said Lilain, reaching to the foot of the table, where two dented trays and one chipped bowl sat. ‘It seems you knocked these over when you took the bat blood. Wise of you to make noise, to get my attention. You might not have survived.’
Merion nodded. He could see where this was going.
‘You must have thrown them with a lot of force,’ Lilain added. She picked up the bowl and showed him a sharp dent and a long scratch through the enamel and tin. ‘Must have hit something small. And sharp.’
Merion tried his best to shrug, but somehow it did not feel as convincing as he hoped. ‘I was in a lot of pain. Can’t really remember.’
Lilain showed him the two trays next. ‘See? Something small and sharp,’ she hummed.
Merion wanted an escape, and badly. This line of talk was a dangerous one. ‘Corner of the table, maybe,’ he tried.
‘Maybe,’ Lilain whispered.
Merion began to back away, trying to extricate himself from this awkward conversation. ‘Well then,’ he smiled. ‘I will leave you to it. Going to pick out my clothes for tomorrow evening.’
Lilain sniffed. ‘Still going then?’ she asked.
Merion nodded. He had feared his aunt’s behaviour at the door had cost him his invitation, but as luck would have it, the details had arrived that very morning by courier. Merion was still in favour. Castor Serped was only a day’s wait away. ‘Well, I am still invited. It would be rude not to go,’ he replied.
‘Yes, rude to ignore Calidae Serped,’ his aunt retorted. Merion was not sure if she was angry or disappointed. In any case either would have been unfair. His aunt would have to put her grievances aside for now. He had business to attend to.
‘Yes, well,’ was all Merion could think of to say. He clasped his hands together, shook them at his aunt in some sort of gesture of summation, and then quickly escaped upstairs, to go bother a moody faerie. With the bedroom door double-locked.
Chapter XXII
BLOOD AND IRON
‘I haven’t left the tower in days. Visitors come and go like fawners around a new king. I imagine Karrigan sitting in his grand study, bathing in the horse shit, smug and smirking. Merion will never become such a man, not if I have anything to do with it.’
2nd June, 1867
No railroad on a Sunday, they’d said. Day of the Maker’s rest, they’d said. But Fell Falls had no need of Sundays, it seemed, and the Maker’s rest had been well and truly trampled under the cartwheels of ambition and profit. The town was ablaze with activity.
Merion noted the sour faces, looking as though they’d been cheated. Cheated out of a good morning’s rest, or one last roll around with the mistress, or one last shot of whiskey, depending on the make of the man. Not a single laugh echoed through the bustling streets. Not a chuckle either. Just that slow leaden grumble of conversation, some in the common tongue, or else in the tangled tones of Cathayan dialects, with a sharp order here and there for good measure.
The whole air of the town made Merion want to tiptoe. He felt out of place somehow, as if the disgruntlement against the Serpeds would at any moment be turned on him, the only other high-born in sight—another gold-plated foreigner, throwing his weight around. Merion had already caught more than a few dark looks that morning. Better not mention the dinner invitation, then.
Merion was hunting for Lurker. The prospector had promised to come by at ten to continue Merion’s training. It was now eleven, and Merion was already bored of traipsing through the dusty, busy streets and peering into even dustier saloon windows. Lurker, for all intents and purposes, had vanished off the face of the earth. It did not help that the town was full to bursting with people and sweaty bodies. Merion felt drowned.
Lord Castor had almost doubled the population of Fell Falls in just over a week. Safety in numbers, some whispered. More food for the wraiths, said others.
Merion spied a few saloons he had yet to try, a handful which lingered near the end of a long street, where the shining tracks carved a path across the dirt and out into the dust and desert. Merion glimpsed them through the forest of legs and pickaxes. Two of the saloons were bright and cheery affairs—well, as cheery as Fell Falls got with a bucket of lavender paint and a sloppy eye for detail. They were quiet, barely a man or two from empty, but there was no Lurker in sight.
Merion traipsed to the last saloon, a dingy affair with a bowed roof and dark windows. The darkness beyond its pair of lopsided swing-doors was smoky and thick. Merion rolled his eyes. With a hop and skip across creaking steps and boards, he stood at the entrance and peered inside. But the day was bright, and the bar area gloomy, and Merion had a hard time seeing anything besides an array of dark furniture, an equally dark bar, and an assortment of shadowy figures, all with hats and coats and hunched postures.
Once he had stepped through the doors and blinked his eyes, he realised he had about four Lurkers to choose from. They sat at separate tables with their shoulders tucked into their necks and their hats low over the half-empty glasses. Each one could have been Lurker in the right light, until you saw the colour of their skin. Even so, Merion felt like he had just barged in on an official meeting of the Grumpy Old Prospectors-with-a-Fondness-for-Leather Association.
‘Hey, no children in the bar!’ came the shout of a rotund man with red cheeks and slicked-back hair, obviously the owner.
‘He’s with me,’ replied the real Lurker, who was sat at a stool at the far end of the bar, nursing a large glass of orange liquid.
‘Well you keep him quiet, and no drinking,’ ordered the barman. Merion quickly moved to join Lurker, lest he changed his mind.
Merion dragged over another stool. ‘You’re late.’
‘I was busy.’
‘Busy with what? Drinking?’
‘For the most part.’
‘Most of the morning, no doubt.’
Lurker took another sip of his strange-coloured whiskey. ‘You sound like your aunt.’
Merion lowered his voice. ‘You were supposed to come and train me at ten. It’s now well past eleven.’
‘Well I got distracted,’ he said, waving his glass around in little circular motions. ‘Anniversaries. They come every year, even when you don’t want ’em to. Come to fuck up your day.’
‘Anniversary of what?’
Lurker knocked back the rest of the glass and put his hands flat on the sticky bar. ‘You don’t want to know, boy, and I don’t want to waste breath day sayin’ it, so let’s put a cork in your questions for now.’ The look in Lurker’s eye was hard and dangerous, one that Merion found very difficult to ignore. ‘All you need to know is that you’re a welcome distraction.’
‘I could have been a distraction an hour ago.’
Lurker swivelled in his seat and then eyed the f
loor as if it planned to swallow him. ‘You brought any shades?’ he asked.
‘Several.’
‘Great,’ Lurker grunted. Finally he summoned the courage to stand on his own two feet. He swayed like a pine in a gale, but he stood nonetheless. He took a long, deep draught of air in through his nostrils and sighed. ‘Come, we’re going for a walk.’
Merion was not so sure they were, judging by the course Lurker plotted through the tables and stools, nudging a few shoulders here and there for good measure. Merion followed him, handing out apologies where necessary. Lurker finally made it through the doors without cartwheeling onto his face, and Merion hurried after his drunk mentor, inwardly groaning about how torturous the next few hours could be.
Little did Merion know, all the best mentors are drunkards. There comes a certain clarity when one is inebriated. While some abilities—such as the ability to enunciate, or even to balance—fade away and become muddled, one stands out true and strong amid drunkenness’s lopsided mire: honesty.
When alcohol loosens both the mind and tongue, the truth, no matter how acerbic it may be, finds it delightfully easy to slip out. It is a wonderful way of finding out what people really think of you. Merion was swiftly learning that. Lurker was a veritable truth-cannon, firing off awkward comment after awkward comment as Merion worked his way through his aunt’s shades.
‘And it ain’t as if I can move on, not with the memories so fresh,’ Lurker was muttering. Merion had never seen him this drunk before. ‘I’m still a wanted man, you know that? In Denn’s Folly.’
‘Mhm,’ Merion hummed, trying to indicate his disinterest for the tenth time already.
‘You slouch too much.’
‘Thank you.’
‘No, stand up straight when you rush. Helps the red settle,’ Lurker waved his hand. He had his flask in the other. ‘It’s not as if I don’t think about other women …’
‘Okay,’ Merion said, uncorking the vial.
‘Squirrel, is it? You look like a squirrel. A blonde squirrel.’
Merion sighed. The vial was hovering near his lips. ‘Again, thank you.’
‘You ain’t going to be a little girl today, are you?’ Lurker coughed.
‘Excuse me?’
‘With the blood. Like a little girl who’s just pissed herself, that’s you. You were afraid to drink it.’
Merion had flushed red. He narrowed his eyes at the belligerent drunkard. ‘It’s blood. It’s not natural to go gulping it down.’
Lurker got to his feet. ‘It’s more natural than you’ll ever know, boy, unless you open your eyes,’ he said, wagging a finger. ‘You’re rushing for the wrong reasons. It ain’t a tool you can bend and break, it’s a partnership. It’s a bond with something older and deeper than you. When we drink it’s with respect for the animal that gave it to us. Every sip is a burial, of sorts. Got to take this serious, Merion.’
Merion had little to say to that. ‘I do,’ he mumbled.
Lurker sat down before he fell down. ‘Now drink up, boy. Shit. It’s getting hotter out here. I’m sweating like a glass-blower’s ass.’
Merion was too busy mulling over the man’s words to take notice of his colourful descriptions. Every sip is a burial. What a strange way to put it, he pondered, but it somehow made sense to him. Drink with respect. A homage to the dead thing that provided it. Merion held the vial up as if he were making a toast, and then poured it down his throat in one single gulp. He forced himself not to shrink or shiver, instead managing to stand there with just the tiniest hint of a grimace on his face.
‘See? Drink like a man now,’ Lurker said, waving his own flask and taking more than just a sip of whatever liquor kept inside it.
Merion did not feel any fire growing, but he tensed all the same, just in case it was trying to catch him off guard. He felt a little warmth trickling up his spine, but that was all.
‘Now,’ Lurker took a deep breath, ‘this is what Lil likes to call a wash, or a “base coat” of a shade. Stronger rushers can drink one drop in the morning and feel its effects all day, if they’re lucky. Some rushers can develop it over time, becomin’ so used to a shade that it becomes a wash. Like me and my magpie blood.’
‘I don’t feel anything.’
Lurker smirked. ‘Squirrel blood, right?’
Merion held up the vial and checked to make sure. ‘Squirrel. Yes indeed.’
‘Good,’ said the prospector. He slid from his rock like a dead man from a saddle and then began to walk in circles, casting around for something. ‘Ah,’ he announced, snatching a round pebble from the ground, narrowly avoiding pitching heels over nose as he did so.
‘Now the thing about squirrel shade is …’ But the explanation never came, just a madly hurled pebble instead, aiming straight for Merion’s face. Lurker may have been drunker than a skunk, but he was still a crack shot.
Merion already knew it was too late to duck. All he could do was scrunch up his eyes and throw out a hand in a feeble effort to fend off the missile. That was when he felt the stone, hot and heavy, thwack against his palm. He opened his eyes to find his fingers had already curled around it, gripping it tight.
‘It’s a subtle little shade, but it works just fine. Known a few Buckteeth in my time.’
Merion probed his teeth with his tongue, confused. ‘Buck teeth? I’m not buck-toothed,’ he complained.
Lurker shook his head. ‘No, but if’n you kept on drinking shades of squirrel, chipmunk, or mouse, then you’d be in for a surprise. Jus’ be careful now. When it’s a subtle shade like this, you don’t know when it’s run out. Don’t go try catching any bullets later, jus’ in case.’
‘I’m going for dinner with the Serpeds at six o’clock. I can’t imagine any such situation arising.’
‘You sure ‘bout that? Heard Castor shot one of his slaves once, all ’cause the poor bastard spilt hot soup onto her ladyship’s lap.’
‘Calidae?’ Merion asked.
‘No, the mother, Ferida.’
‘But Castor doesn’t have any slaves. Slaving has been banned by Lincoln.’
‘Slavin’ may have been outlawed, boy, but that don’t mean it’s stopped for good. Any servant is a slave, when you look close enough. The chains might be finer, but they’re there alright.’
‘Well,’ Merion began, treading carefully, ‘no offence, Lurker, but I am neither. I don’t think Castor will be shooting me any time soon.
‘Jus’ be careful.’
‘You sound like my aunt.’
Lurker snorted. He caught a scent then, on the breeze, and turned to face the giant crowd of workers that toiled in the desert off to the north and west. They swarmed over the silver rail like huge green ants. Steam and smoke billowed from the dozen little engines that chugged along the fresh tracks, ferrying rail and rubble to the construction front. The faint chiming of hammers hitting iron railspikes lingered on the breeze. They caught the sound of horses whinnying too, and men shouting. It sounded like chaos.
‘What can you smell?’ asked Merion.
‘Nitroglycerin. Devil’s whiskey. Must be blastin’ rock,’ Lurker sniffed. He and Merion shielded their eyes with their hands and stared out at the spear of rail reaching out for several miles into the desert. A small group had splintered off from the crowd and seemed to be planning the future path of the railroad. Merion could imagine them pointing and poking and discussing, bending fingers to their underlings and demanding nitroglycerin as if it were a cool glass of water.
Merion’s curiosity began to unfurl. ‘Can we get closer?’ he enquired, longing for a yes.
Lurker shrugged as he took another sip from his flask. ‘Should be safe, if we stay south of the rail. Wraiths always come from the north, or the west. Keep your wits about you boy,’ he said, in a way that made Merion realise that this was probably not the best idea, and that whatever happened, Lilain could not hear a single whisper of it. That would spell the end of his training.
Lurker had no such reservati
ons. He marched on with the confident swagger of a man with a headful of whiskey. Merion followed like a hound, shaking his head. This was a dark day for the man, he thought to himself. Perhaps a strong coffee and a lie-down would be best, after this little jaunt.
‘How close are we going?’ Merion asked, half-curious, half-concerned.
‘Just a little farther now,’ Lurker belched his reply.
Merion quickly rummaged through his satchel of vials, hoping to see something that might help in a tight spot, something that might save the day, if it came to it. He was a leech, after all, and there was no point fighting like a man when he could fight like a leech.
Salmon.
Squid.
Otter.
Fox.
His aunt had written the name in common underneath their symbols. None of those sounded remotely helpful. Where was the bear, the lion, or the shark?
‘Hey, Lurker. Is there a blood that makes you turn invisible?’
‘Ha,’ Lurker hawked and spat. ‘Better ask that faerie friend of yours.’
Merion hummed thoughtfully. ‘Ah, so that’s why Lilain wants to find a faerie …’ he guessed. ‘Invisibility.’
Where was Rhin when you needed him? Merion cursed the little bastard.
The roar of work and industry was louder now. They were close enough to see the coats of arms on the men’s green overalls. The Cathayan workers were busy beating the railspikes into the rock with hammers. They worked at a frenetic pace, attacking the spikes with fast and vicious hammer blows. They did not miss a single strike.
More hammering rang out from the end of the line. Holes were being hammered into an inconvenient rock. Holes for nitroglycerin. When the hammering stopped, there was more shouting, and three slim vials were brought forth by young runners, barely older than Merion himself. They ran with their arms straight out in front of them, legs wobbly. Everybody else in the group took a long step back, then another, and another.
Merion almost wanted to do the same, even though they were still quite a distance away, and standing behind some scrub bushes. Lurker was currently relieving himself on a nearby rock, ambivalent to the fact he was splashing his boots.
