The equivoque principle cq-1

by Darren Craske

  'Twinkle's death, Prometheus taking the blame…Hawkspear was the one that did the killing…but you were pulling his strings all the time?' asked Quaint. 'Why Hawkspear specifically?'

  'That maniac's appearance on the scene was engineered for one reason and one reason only-to occupy you, the great Cornelius Quaint, to keep you out of my way. I needed someone with the right amount of passion to become our killer, and once I'd discovered that Hawkspear shared a history with your strongman, it was too deliciously perfect to believe. Your man was nothing more than a very visible target. With your mind focused upon him, I knew it would be off the Bishop's plan.'

  'So you were working for this Bishop character all along?' Quaint asked.

  'When it suited me.'

  'And the rest of the time working for the Hades Consortium, eh? No wonder you dragged poor old Oliver into this scheme of yours. Tell me; is Sir George still in the inner circle of the Consortium?'

  'My, it seems you are remarkably well informed after all, Cornelius. I almost wish I had time to find out exactly how much you do know…but I've got a schedule to keep. Hurry up and drink the poison will you, there's a good chap.'

  Quaint gritted his teeth, and measured up his situation. To save Destine, he would have to forsake his own life-that much seemed clear now. Renard was right; there was no choice, and no way out. The Frenchman was watching him like a hawk, his pistol trained at Quaint's head. There was only one way this would end, and both men knew it.

  As Quaint raised the deadly vial to his lips, the stench of the acidic poison staggered him, scorching at his nasal canal. With one last glance in Renard's direction, he tipped the contents of the vial into his mouth. He instantly tasted the harsh, metallic-tasting liquid flow upon his tongue, tingling against the roof of his mouth. With a sideways glance at Renard's smug face, Quaint threw the glass vial onto the ground.

  'Satisfied?' he asked bitterly.

  Renard nodded. 'Very much so! I applaud your bravery, Cornelius.'

  'The antidote, Renard, give it to me,' demanded Quaint.

  'Take it…for all the good it'll do you. If Mother doesn't get that soon, she's dead, and you'll be following her not much later, so either way…I win,' he said, tossing the glass vial high up into the air. 'Catch!'

  Suspended for an eternity, spinning in circles in the air, the antidote finally began to descend and Quaint threw himself onto the cobbles, and snatched up the vial before it hit the ground. He slowly unfurled one finger at a time to make sure the vial was intact.

  'One day, it'll be just you and me, Antoine,' he said, watching Renard walk casually away towards the waiting coach. 'No tricks.'

  'Coming from a conjuror, that's quite rich,' said Renard, skipping into the horse-drawn coach. 'I'll await your resurrection with bated breath, monsieur. I think I shall almost miss sparring with you. Wherever will I find a nemesis as worthy as you? Melchin…let's get going.'

  Quaint winced as he felt an electric twinge wash over him from the pit of his stomach. The poison was already taking effect, as it had done so quickly with Destine. She was a woman in her seventies, more frail than she let on. She was in no position to put up a battle that was more about stubbornness and will-power than anything else. Fortunately for Quaint, he had those qualities in droves.

  He rose unsteadily to his feet and stood in the centre of the street like a lost child, looking towards the area of Hyde Park, and then back down the street, as Renard's carriage melted into the shadows and faded from sight. Quaint watched his foe depart, with full knowledge that he was about to kill hundreds of people. Scratching furiously at his mop of curls, feeling the poison crawl slowly around his veins, Quaint looked up at the sky, feeling scattered raindrops pelt his face. He begged the grey clouds for guidance.

  Quaint checked the time on his pocket-watch. 'Oh, well-in for a penny, and all that.'

  CHAPTER L

  The Rooftop Highway

  CORNELIUS QUAINT IGNORED the acidic rush that flowed down his throat, and gripped the rope around the shire horse's neck tightly, literally as if his life depended on it. The word 'Az-Toray' had an amazing effect on the horse's stamina once more, and the thunderous beast galloped down Spinnaker Street like a streak of lightning, much to Quaint's discomfort.

  Renard's coach was in sight, and had been far ahead for a good five minutes, but Quaint was unable to shorten the distance, despite the horse's best efforts. The chill wind grew more bitter the closer he got to the Thames, which Quaint took as a good sign, for it meant Whitehall was only minutes away, as was the Frenchman's plot to poison the river. The sooner Quaint caught up with him and defeated him, the sooner he could get back to Hyde Park. It was a credit to Quaint that it all sounded fairly straightforward-but then again, it wasn't as if he had spent any time actually thinking about the magnitude of his task. His mind was busy elsewhere, trying to guess where Renard might do the most damage with that foul poison in his possession.

  Whitehall was a large district, often regarded as the heart of London, the main location for most of Parliament's ministries and governmental offices. A teenaged Quaint had spent some time there as a young clerk, working for one of the many Thames trade ministries, and his familiarity with the area enabled him to make a sudden rash decision. He wrenched hard on the horse's rope, stopping the animal clumsily as its hooves skidded on the wet cobbles.

  'Sorry, old chap, but I can make better progress on foot from here,' Quaint said. He leapt from the horse's back and darted down an alleyway, his long coat trailing behind him like a pair of dirty wet wings.

  The shops and merchant stores dissipated the further he moved into Whitehall itself, making way for row upon row of terraced housing buildings and waterfront storage facilities. If you knew where you were going and had a head for heights, by traversing across the rooftop highways, a man could easily shave valuable minutes off his journey and, if he were in pursuit, every second counted.

  Taking advantage of the warren-like layout of the Thames-side buildings, Quaint sprinted through the narrow lanes, past delivery entrances and rear gardens strewn with rubbish. Using a stack of wooden planks, he vaulted up over a wall and his feet landed with a slap against the lane at the rear of a terraced tenement building. The sudden jarring of his uneasy landing sent a shock-wave of queasiness around him. Quaint wheezed, feeling every intake of breath bringing further waves of stinging pain. He leaned against the wall for support, desperately trying to catch his breath as a kaleidoscopic display of fireworks flashed before his eyes. The poison was spreading fast throughout his system now and he knew it. Was this to be his fate, then? To die a quivering mess in the garden of a squalid, urine-smelling building…and for Destine to die just as horribly in Hyde Park? Cornelius Quaint forced the pain to retreat behind his clenched teeth in stubborn defiance.

  'I…won't give you the…satisfaction, Renard,' he hissed, coughing a spit-ball of bloody phlegm into the gutter. He palmed the spots from his eyes and regained his composure. He needed to conquer this ravaging beast before it consumed him from the inside out.

  The touch of the cold glass vial in his breast pocket was small consolation. He reached into it, and pulled out the antidote. With just one mouthful he could put an end to Renard's plan for good. The Thames, and the Nile also, would be safe. Finally, Quaint would be able to close a chapter that had remained stubbornly open. But the price he would have to pay was steep…for it was nothing less than Destine's life.

  A thought suddenly struck him, and he allowed it to wallow around his addled mind undisturbed. Unsure exactly what he was doing, Quaint quickly uncorked the vial and raised it to his lips. Surely half an antidote was better than none, and the liquid might just give him the extra push he needed to keep up the chase. He paused. If he drank the antidote…did that not prove that his hatred of Renard eclipsed his love for Destine? He hoped not. He could not allow the darkness to consume the light. But then the thought of Renard's plan drove into focus clearly in his mind. Many more could die-would
die-if Renard had his way. Quaint was probably the only man alive who knew of it, and definitely the only man alive who would pursue Antoine Renard to the ends of the world to defeat him. He had no choice. He had to do something.

  Quaint's decision to pursue his foe rather than race to his guardian's side would have bothered him more had he not been preoccupied with trying to keep from collapsing in a bloodied heap on the floor. He swallowed a metallic clot of blood back down his throat, raised the vial to his lips once again, and tipped half the antidote down his throat. Within seconds it was fluttering around inside him. Quaint felt partially revitalised in moments, and grabbed hold of the iron railings at the bottom of a weatherworn staircase that snaked up the side of the building.

  As he reached the flat roof of the tenement, Quaint heard a strange yet recognisable noise, and he ran to the edge, scouring the dark lanes below that ran towards the River Thames. He could see the flaking whitewash on the embankment wall, and briefly, for a split second, a horse-drawn coach flashed into view beneath him. Quaint's ploy had worked; he had decreased the distance between himself and his quarry.

  Renard's coach was slowing down. He must be nearing his destination, thought Quaint, but where the hell could the man be going? He used his hand as a visor and squinted into the distance, when the penny dropped. Quaint recognised the large, pale building that nestled upon the banks of the Thames in the distance.

  Situated a mile or so along the road, the Whitehall Weir House was a sugar-white building on the north side of the Thames, housing a collection of weirs-the perfect place to administer Renard's poison. Quaint had been there before, and the memory of the roofed jetty that jutted out into the Thames was still fresh. A large watermill made use of the constant rush of water flow that the weirs provided to grind the flour at the neighbouring Grist Mill. The mill's location on the banks of the Thames enabled easy access for the huge grain cargo ships that trawled up and down the river from all points on the compass-but of more importance today was the knowledge that if someone wished to to poison the river, a collection of weirs would do a most admirable job.

  Fuelled by this recognition, a re-energised Quaint began to feel like a man half his age, and his full strength returned to form a barrier around the poison's effects, pushing it down into the recesses of his body. He needed to cut a swift dash to the Weir House, and the rooftop highway thankfully provided him with a shortcut. With slim gaps between each tenement, Quaint could traverse across each one in a straight line, unlike Renard's coach, following the slower, snaking road. The building opposite the one where he stood was a good ten feet away, an easy jump for Quaint at the best of times-but this was not the best of times-as his swaying vision reminded him. One miscalculation or misstep, and he would plummet to the ground below. Well, he couldn't have that. If he died, who would stop Renard? There was no stand-in, there was no replacement, no Plan B. It began and ended with Quaint-the Alpha and the Omega.

  'Oh, well,' he muttered to himself. 'Nothing ventured…'

  He clenched his fists, and ran at the edge of the roof at full pelt, his heavy steps pounding away at the felted roof of the building. His feet touched the edge of the roof, and he propelled himself upwards with all his strength, soaring through the air towards the other building. Time seemed to slow to a crawl. Quaint could see his destination; he could almost imagine himself landing confidently. His feet slapped down hard on the tenement's roof with inches to spare, and Quaint rolled into a ball, skidding across the rooftop. He gathered himself together, and scrambled over the cluttered chimney stacks of the densely populated building towards the next edge. Placing himself parallel to Renard's position, Quaint ensured he never let the man from his sight.

  'Feet, don't fail me now,' he said.

  Staring down at the road below him, Quaint caught another glimpse of Renard's coach. If he wanted to stop the Frenchman before he reached the Weir House, he probably had less than a mile in which to do it. Realising this steeled him to go forward, and he launched himself over the chasm again, across the rooftops from one building to the next. Cornelius Quaint was panting and wheezing but his momentum was locked on course now, unable to deviate.

  As he motored forward like a steam train from the edge of the building's rooftop, Quaint suddenly realised something quite horrifying-he had just run out of buildings…

  This notion was extremely bad news primarily because he had already launched himself into the air. He had just leapt from the end of a terraced house, and it was a long, long way down.

  Quaint's fingers groped the air around him, miraculously finding purchase on the edge of a massive brick chimney stack. His body lurched erratically in an arc through the air, but his grip held against the rough stone, and he was snapped back. His body slammed against the side of the building, but still his grip did not falter. Hanging by his fingertips, he managed to twist his body around, and swung himself towards the building's window frames. At least there he would find shelter from the searing wind that threatened to rip him from the building like tissue paper in a cyclone.

  His heart pounding fit to burst, Quaint began to scale down the stone window-sill ledges at the tenement's front, ledges caked in pigeon excrement that assaulted his senses with the stench of ammonia. Pressing himself tight against the glass, he manoeuvred into the next window, and down, working his way towards street level via the grid-like windows.

  Quaint looked down at the road below. His error had cost him dearly, and Renard's coach was now seemingly just out of reach. He had to reach street level fast, and straight down was the quickest route. He ripped off his scarf, and snagged the drainpipe of the end of terraced house. He gripped both ends tight, and threaded his wrist around it. Stepping off the building's third storey, he cascaded down the drainpipe at a tremendous speed, with gravity as his transport. His knees and elbows were getting torn to shreds as he rocketed straight down, and the metal-tipped heels on his boots were throwing off sparks like a blacksmith's forge. Quaint suddenly hit the street with a touch more force than he had hoped for. He curled into a ball and clutched his stomach, his guts feeling like the squashed bellows of an accordion.

  'Not now…' he snapped, as he felt a course of pain flooding his guts. It was not simply the fall that ailed him-it was the poison making itself known once more. Using the pain of the sudden itching beneath the surface of his skin as fuel, Quaint thrust himself forwards and thundered down the street in pursuit. He had to make up some valuable time. Then he saw a most invigorating sight. There was a coach…and it had just sped past his position. Quaint pulled himself to his feet.

  The low moon animated his shadow across the tenement fronts, as the slap-slap-slap of his boots echoed around the lanes and alleyways. Renard's coach was now only six feet away and, with a final burst of speed, Quaint propelled himself forwards. He stepped up onto the metal rung at the rear of the horse-drawn carriage, and propelled himself up onto the roof. Instantly, the carriage lurched to the side, and a cacophony of voices shouted and screamed in alarm, most notably the driver, Melchin, who struggled hard to control the startled beast dragging the coach.

  'Stop this damn coach, Renard!' yelled Quaint into the wind, clutching onto the coach's roof with all his ebbing strength as it swerved from one side of the road to the other. 'With my dying breath, I'll see you dead!'

  'You first, Cornelius,' called Renard from inside the swaying carriage, responding with a volley of shots from his revolver, each one slicing up through the craft's roof mere inches from Quaint's sliding body.

  It was only sheer dumb luck-thanks to the momentum of the careering vehicle-that all five of the bullets missed their mark, but Quaint knew he had only seconds. The exploding cracks of thunder sent the already manic horse into overdrive, and the carriage swayed even more violently across the breadth of the road. A quick glimpse through a seared bullet hole in the roof showed Quaint's assailant's position-brandishing the six-shot.32 calibre Adams and Deane pistol-and Quaint leaned into the veer of the carriage,
landing a solid punch to Renard's head through the open window. Batting Quaint away with his elbow, Renard gripped the window frame and lunged up with the barrel of the pistol, catching Quaint a glancing blow to the cheek.

  Ignoring the blazing pain, he stared through the mist, spying the Weir House just up ahead. He knew that Renard still had one bullet left-more than enough to send him on his way to his maker. He had to move quickly, for there was something else of concern to him. Like a tremendous undulating acidic wave, something stirred within his guts, causing a nauseous cloud to blur his vision. That damn poison was nothing if not persistent. Just when his strength of will had forced one intense attack to dissipate, another was waiting in the wings, ready to pounce upon him. It was akin to being blindfolded in a boxing ring whilst your opponent was free to hit you at will. He knew the punches were inevitable, but had no idea from which direction they would come.

  Quaint knew that Renard getting an accurate shot off whilst he was being thrown around the confines of the carriage was next to impossible. But his recognition of that fact was quickly dashed as the younger and fitter Renard hoisted himself up and out of the window, clawing his way up out onto the roof.

  'Hold her steady, Melchin!' screamed Renard.

  'What d'you think I'm trying to do, mate?' replied the driver over the din of the carriage's wheels. The short, stout man was wrenching on the reins as hard as he could, and the fight against the startled horse was lifting him clear out of his seat.

  'You're as stubborn as ever!' Renard said, thrusting his palm hard towards Quaint's jaw, sending the conjuror skidding across the roof.

  Quaint landed with a painfully unceremonious thump onto the large fender of the carriage's rear wheel. He was inches from the wheel, and the constant buffeting against the small of his back was sheer torture. Just as he reached for a handhold on the roof, the carriage hit a large bump in the road, and Quaint was cast aside, bouncing with the ricocheting vehicle. The vibrations of the wheel against the hard stone cobbles reverberated through his body, shaking the very teeth in his gums. His head was less than six inches from the whitewashed Thames wall and, with one last spurt of strength, Quaint reached out with all his body's remaining effort. His fingertips brushed against the luggage rack affixed to the roof, and the man clung on with all his might. Quaint threw his other arm up, gripping onto the rail, just as the Frenchman threw his weight towards him. Both men tumbled over the side of the transport onto the rear luggage rack in a jumble of awkward limbs. With a jab of his elbow towards Renard's throat, Quaint regained a handhold. The cobbled stone streets streaked past, inches from both Renard's and Quaint's heads. All it would take was one minor graze at that speed, and the flesh would burn off to the bone. With a well-placed punch to his foe's solar plexus, Quaint managed to gain the upper hand, and clambered back up onto the carriage's rooftop.