Heart of Veridon bc-1

by Tim Akers

  “I don’t know. A while.” On stage the ascension was continuing. Camilla had extended into something ridiculous, her ribs a broad and white cage that held the machinery of ascension. The Wright was below her, carefully snipping off her legs with garden shears.

  “A while.” Matthew nodded. “Quite a while. The better part of your life, I suspect. And in those years, I have seen some things.”

  He drank from the nearly empty glass of wine by his hand. The play had gotten very loud, the Ascension Song crashing down from the stage. Camilla’s heart levered onto the stage, shattering into cogs and wheels that magically arranged themselves into patterns. The ruins of the girl grew.

  “Some of these things, I never expected to see.” Matthew said, almost too quietly to be heard above the music. I leaned close to him.

  “Tell me, Four. Did you ever expect to see this?” I took out the paper, lay it out flat and slid it in front of him. He squinted down at it.

  “If I go for my glasses, are you going to shoot me, Mr. Burn?”

  “I’ll save you the tension. That’s a list of names, Matthew. People who are supposed to be dead, people hired by the Council to do a job.” I took the paper back. “Your name is on this list.”

  “Hardly shocking, Jacob.” He settled back into the plush leather of his seat and looked at me. “We both know the services I provide to the Families, as well as the Council.”

  “This specific list is causing me a lot of trouble. I’d like to talk to these people, but like I said, most of them are dead.”

  “Are you saying I’m about to be dead?” he asked, smirking.

  “That’s not my call. I have no beef with you, if that’s what you mean. I just want to know what these folks were hired to do. And you seem to be the man to have hired them.”

  “Well, in matters such as these, Jacob, the confidentiality of the client is of utmost importance. I couldn’t possibly-”

  “You know a guy named Sloane? Malcolm Sloane? He’s on this list.”

  “Ah. Oh, well. In that case, I’m positive I shouldn’t discuss this matter. Please, Jacob, don’t make me tell you no.”

  “I guess I’m not asking, Four. These people… Marcus Pitts, Wellons, Sloane… they did something, went to find something, and they’ve kicked up a whole world of trouble. The kind of trouble you wouldn’t believe. It’s not just my own skin we’re talking about here. Lotta people could die, this doesn’t get settled.”

  He looked at me coolly, his hands still flat against the table, his face emotionless.

  “And now I know you’re threatening me, Jacob. But because we’re old friends, because we go way back, I’ll tell you this. I’ve never met Mr. Sloane. But I know the deal you’re talking about.”

  “Couple years ago?” I asked. He nodded.

  “Angela Tomb enlisted my services. She needed a group of people who wouldn’t be missed, men who could handle themselves in a fight. Preferably men with some out of doors experience.”

  “Did she say why?”

  “I’m smart enough to not ask. But that Sloane fellow, he was the one I was supposed to send them to. I was to keep the Tomb name out of it.”

  I chewed my lip and looked around the theater. No one was paying us any mind.

  “You’re causing me a lot of trouble, being here,” Four said. He hadn’t taken his eyes off me, hadn’t moved his hands.

  “Why? People tell you not to talk to me or something?”

  He nodded slowly. “Valentine, for one. I suspect you know why. I’m risking my standing with the old clockwork, talking to you like this. People are talking about you, Jacob Burn.”

  “What are they saying?”

  “That you killed a bunch of people up on the Heights. A bunch more at the Manor Tomb, the other day. The Council is cutting itself up, trying to get to you.”

  “Yeah, well. I’m the kind of guy people want to talk to. You should feel privileged.” I slid my hand under the table, loosened the pistol in my holster, then tried to look real casual. “Anything else? Any idea, for example, why Angela Tomb would want to kill me?”

  “Kill you? Gods, no. If anything, she wants to keep you alive.”

  “She has a funny way of expressing that. And how do you know what she wants, anyway?”

  He swallowed, glanced around. “Because I’m an old friend of the Families, you understand. When she asked me to hire those people, she made a point of saying that you weren’t to be involved. And I should avoid hiring people you might know.”

  “Well,” I said. “Well. That’s funny. I don’t like it. But I’ve got reason to think she’s changed her mind about keeping me safe. Reason and a bullet they had to dig out of my chest.”

  “She shot you?” he purred. “Dramatic.”

  “Do you know where I can find this Sloane guy?” I asked.

  “I could probably scare something up,” he said. He was much calmer now than when we first started talking. He drank a bit of his wine, then dabbed his lips with a napkin. “What do you know about him?”

  “Not much. Met him at that party up on the Heights. And he talked to Emily, once.”

  “Up on the Heights? He was there?” Four folded his napkin and lay it on his lap, then leaned closer to me. “Does Angela know that?”

  “Why wouldn’t she? I assume they’re working together in this.”

  “Mm. You should pay better attention to the matters of the Council, Jacob. It’s your family’s business, after all. The forces that align with Sloane are, distinctly, no longer friendly with the Family Tomb.”

  “Did he have something to do with the Badge kicking in her front door?”

  “Sounds his style. If I were to postulate, Mr. Burn, I would say that it is this matter, this list, that drove them apart.”

  I looked back up to the stage. The ruins of the girl had become a tableau of the city of Veridon. Gears and levers fluttered into buildings. Camilla’s face appeared briefly in the streets, the canals, the skyline… only to disappear like a ghost. I shivered. If Sloane and Angela weren’t working together, it just meant more groups aligned against me. There might be some way to play them off one another, but for now it just meant more trouble for me.

  “Jacob,” he said quietly.

  “Four, I need to know who stands with Sloane, and who stands with Tomb. And what they want with me, for that matter.” I turned to him. There was a pistol flat on the table, his hand folded around the grip.

  “You had to know, son.” He sounded legitimately sorry. “And I’ve heard all about your remarkable stamina.” He wiggled the gun. “Bane.”

  Bane was one of the things that got the original Guild of Artificers disbanded and its Elders hung in the public square. A living bullet that took itself apart inside you, then ate its way out in a thousand pieces, in a thousand directions.

  “That shit’s illegal.”

  “We’re all illegal, Jacob. And I thought you might be coming by. Now,” he folded his napkin with one hand and nodded to the nearest exit. “I have an arrangement with the guard. If you’d be so kind. And leave your piece on the table.”

  I laid my pistol among the ruins of his dinner and stood. He slipped my gun into his coat and followed me out. As we walked, he stayed far enough behind to keep me from taking him by surprise, but close enough that he was sure to hit with his first shot. No one looked at us as we left. He’d done this before.

  “So, all that stuff you told me before, you make all that up?” I asked.

  “Of course not, my boy. More of an investment. I suspect the people we’re going to see will have some questions for you. You’ll serve as a fine messenger. Let them know what I know, what I’ve managed to connect. Maybe I can sell them something.”

  “I’ll just lie. They won’t hear what you want them to hear.”

  Four chuckled. “The way they ask questions? No, you will tell them what you know. Everything you know.”

  We went outside. The guard even held the door for us, smiling, then loc
ked up behind us. There was a carriage in the alley, its engine already alive. We got in. The driver’s compartment was separate from the passenger’s seating. I sat across from Matthew. He drew the curtains and we rumbled off, the driver going faster than was wise on Veridon’s narrow roads.

  “So,” I asked. “Who’s buying me?”

  “Patience, Jacob. You’ll have plenty of time for questions once you’re delivered.”

  “Sounds like they’ll be asking the questions, and I’ll be in no shape to ask my own.”

  “Oh, no, no. You misunderstand. They’re not going to beat the answers out of you. Nothing so primitive, my boy.”

  I sat with my hands in my lap.

  “They’re not going to hurt me? Did they tell you this, or is it just a lie you need to believe, to salve whatever conscience still survives in that powdered skull of yours?”

  He grimaced and poked the pistol in my direction.

  “You won’t be hurt. Not your body at least. They’ve been very clear about that.”

  “They’ve been clear. Because when they told you to take me, they also told you to bring me in unharmed.”

  “Well…” he flexed his fingers around the trigger of his pistol. He was holding the grip white-knuckle tight.

  “Which means you won’t be shooting me with a load of Bane. Will you?”

  He raised the pistol. “Is that a risk you’re willing to-”

  I was. I lunged, ducking down. By the time he realized his error, finished calculating the risk of displeasing his masters versus the imminent threat of my attack, it was too late. I had my hand on his shoulder. The shot went wide. The metal wall of the carriage sizzled. I punched the old man twice, then hissed as a blade went into my shoulder. I batted the pistol out of his hand and looked down to see the other wrapped around the hilt of a knife that was digging around for my lung.

  “I’m sorry, Jacob,” he said through gritted teeth. “Things change. We have to move with the tide.”

  I broke his wrist, broke his arm and then plucked the knife out of my shoulder and put it into his throat. His powdered face flushed, then drained of color and he went limp. The driver was yelling. I banged on the wall of the carriage and we slid to a halt. By the time I got out, the driver had ditched and was disappearing around the corner of the nearest darkened alleyway.

  The side of the carriage was brittle from the Bane. Not much good against inorganic material, certainly not as dangerous as it was to flesh. I picked up the pistol and checked the cylinder. The rest of the load was normal shot. It rarely took more than one. I fished my gun out of Matthew’s pocket, then leaned over the carriage wheel and threw up. I left Matthew his pistol, crossed his jigsaw puzzle arms over his chest and closed his blank eyes.

  I ran. It wasn’t more than a block before the blood stopped leaking out of my shoulder, and in another block the wound didn’t hurt at all. I tried the arm out, twisting it back and forth. I was fine. Wilson was right. Whatever artifact had been installed in my chest was mending me, and it was doing a better job of it. I felt less real every day.

  The ease with which I’d killed Matthew was still settling in. I’d known the old man since before I went into the Academy. He had betrayed me, fair enough, but to throw him away like that… it didn’t matter. I could feel the desperation nagging at my heels. I didn’t like being desperate. I was done being desperate.

  I stumbled into our hidden cistern and started gathering my things. Wilson was back, busy in his corner under a frictionlamp, Emily peering over his shoulder.

  “Any luck?” Emily asked. Her voice betrayed none of our earlier awkwardness.

  “Kind of. Had to kill an old friend. But I found out some interesting stuff.”

  “That your method now? Beating secrets out of old friends?”

  “Hardly. He forced my hand.”

  “Who?”

  “Matthew Four. He pulled a gun on me. Bane.”

  “Shit,” Emily said. Wilson looked up.

  “He wasn’t bluffing?” Wilson asked.

  “Nope. He only had the one round, but it was the true thing.”

  “Shit,” Emily said again, just to be clear. “Valentine’s not going to like that. Four was a resource.”

  “I’m getting tired of other people’s resources, Em. Right now I’m taking care of myself.” I finished packing my things. “But like I said. Learned some good stuff.”

  “What, exactly?” she asked. Wilson had turned back to his work.

  I told them about Sloane and Tomb, and about the split that seemed to be forming in the Council. If the Founding Families were aligning against the new Councilors, the industrialists and the commercial mavericks who had been buying out the Council seats for the last twenty years, then things were going to get difficult. If that split centered around Marcus’s mission downfalls, and this Cog, then the complications were just going to get worse and worse.

  “One thing’s for sure. If there’s a fight brewing in the Council, there aren’t going to be any neutral parties. In the city, or in the Council.”

  “You think it’s that serious?” Emily asked.

  “Maybe not yet,” I said. “But soon. Council trouble always spills out on the streets.”

  “That’s how it was with the Guild,” Wilson said. “Disagreement among families, and a new ally in the Church of the Algorithm. They took a vote, and by the time the ballots were tallied there were Badgemen kicking in doors all over the city.” He nodded absently, not looking up. “It can get bad fast, Emily.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  I straightened my jacket, did the best I could with my hair. Living under the streets was doing nothing for my reputation as a rogue noble.

  “Time to talk to the Family, dear.” I sighed. “Time to make a little call home.”

  Emily appeared thoughtful, as though there was something else she wanted to add but couldn’t decide if she should. I filed that.

  “Stay safe,” she said, eventually. “And be careful who you believe.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I will.”

  “I was hoping to beetle you again,” Wilson said, turning to face me. He had a small vial in hand. Something brown and shiny scuttled up its length.

  “Gee, sorry to miss that,” I said. I checked the load in my revolver one more time and headed back up to the streets.

  Chapter Ten

  Water Like Air

  When the Manor Burn was planted, generations ago and gone, this part of the Veridon delta was nothing but mossy stones and waterfalls to carry away the heat. Steam used to billow up in halos around our house. Now we piped it away, piped it and harnessed it and sold it by the pound of pressure. The ancient, deep furnace that was our family’s ticket into the circle of Founders still burned, would always burn. Its heat blistered the rock under my feet. Most of the family’s early money had gone into making the Manor livable in the presence of such incandescent fury. The high tower of the vent stacks glittered against the sky, spilling out flakes of burning ash and coiling sparks. My mouth filled with the scent of burning air and charred stone. Good to be home. Hard to forget a taste like that.

  They let me in my own house. That was unexpected. I was nervous, walking into the dusty marble foyer. They had done a bad job of fixing the banister I’d busted up, the day I walked out. The day everything changed.

  “Master Burn is in the library, gathering his morning thoughts and taking breakfast. He will attend you shortly.”

  “Thanks, Billy.” I surrendered my coat, but not my holster. Billy disapproved, but that was okay. Billy usually disapproved in my presence. He disappeared.

  The tower looked much the same. Older. Emptier. It reminded me of a store struggling to make the lease. Sell what it had in stock, not able to replenish its wares. Starving itself off, dying, but still alive. Hoping for some desperate gamble to pay off, to turn the corner. Failing in slow motion.

  “Boy,” Alexander Burn said as he walked in. He was wiping his hands on a
well soiled napkin, bacon grease on the carefully trimmed curls of his mustache. His hair was falsely black. Still fat, too, but at what cost. “Haven’t seen you on the grounds in a while. Here to beg for your allowance, perhaps?”

  “Doesn’t look like you could provide it, even if I asked.” I looked around the room. “Nice of Billy to answer the door, let me disturb your meal. You hoping I’ll offer a loan?”

  “Careful. You’re little more than a guest here, Jacob.”

  I put my hands in my pockets and did a turn around the room. He watched me walk, chewing the last of his breakfast.

  “Are you going to tell me why you’re here?” he asked. “Or is this just an opportunity to show off that remarkably gaudy pistol and rub your father’s face in your new lifestyle?”

  I smiled and turned to him. “Going to make me stand in the foyer all day? Father?”

  He grimaced, finished wiping his fingers with an obsessive twist and tossed the napkin onto an empty coat rack.

  “Fine. In here. Williamson, a coffee. Jacob?”

  “Of course.”

  “Two, Williamson,” he said, then left the room.

  “Thanks, Billy,” I said over my shoulder, then followed the elder Burns into the ballroom.

  The place was done up. Sconces hung with holly and beads, the walls draped in bright fabric. A massive automaton was suspended from the ceiling, the sort of thing that would tell a slow, syncopated story when it was in full swing. Everything was thick with dust, even the bowls of wax fruit and most of the floor space. I remembered something about the family hosting a Beggars Day ball last year. Maybe they were hoping to reuse the ornaments next year. Or they couldn’t afford the workers to take it all down.

  It had just been starting, when I left. My childhood was awash in trivial wealth. Nothing about those days of summer estates and lavish meals had hinted at this end. Though, thinking back, perhaps the signs had been there; the first desperate thrashings of a dying house.

  There were chairs, mismatched, pulled into a tight circle by the grand window. A newspaper rack sat off to one side, and a cart with the cooling remains of breakfast. So this was the library now. I wondered what that other room looked like, the walls of dark wood and leather spines. Did father eat here so he wouldn’t have to face those empty shelves?