The Blood Debt: Books of the Cataclysm Two

by Sean Williams

  “Yes, Magister Considine. He's one of the people Shilly's talking about.”

  “I see.” The Magister's gaze hadn't shifted from Shilly. Her voice was as leaden as tombstones. “What do you expect me to do about this, Shilly of Gooron? If your friends are in the Divide, there's no succour I can send them. Their fate is sealed.”

  “I refuse to believe that. Sal is alive. I know that beyond doubt. And while he lives, I will fight to save him.”

  “With or without my help. Or my permission, no doubt.”

  “Yes.”

  “Intriguing.” The Magister took a deep breath and set it free as a sigh. Her attention shifted to Marmion, and her eyes narrowed down to gleaming, hard points. “You may come and go as you wish. All of you may. A healer will be provided for your injured companion. Accommodation expenses I will meet, within reason. Members of my staff will contact you to discuss how best to deal with this—what did you call it—this Homunculus?”

  “Yes, Magister Considine.” Marmion bowed a second time. “Thank you.”

  “I'm not finished. I have no resources to offer you in your search for your friends outside the city. That will be entirely up to you. And there is a condition.”

  “Yes?”

  “You will accept the Blood Tithe, Sky Warden. Without argument.”

  Shilly waited for Marmion to refuse, but she was surprised. “Of course, Magister. We will abide completely by the traditions of your city. At the conclusion of this meeting I will be happy to offer what is due.”

  The woman crooked an eyebrow at Marmion's obsequious tone. “Good. Now, tell me one thing, Eisak Marmion, before that is taken care of.”

  “Of course.”

  “My boundary riders send feverish reports of mass migrations from the east. Not only am I beset upon by foreigners with their begging bowls, but I have man'kin to contend with as well. The Wall has not seen such a concerted assault for many generations. Should I be preparing myself for invasion?”

  “Alas,” said Marmion, “of this I know nothing. We encountered two groups of man'kin in the Divide. Their loyalties were inconsistent, but they definitely travelled en masse. We were clearly not the first humans they have encountered in recent times.”

  The Magister nodded solemnly. “If the man'kin have united, for any reason, that is cause for grave concern. They are dangerous enough without organisation or strength of numbers behind them.”

  “I am convinced,” Marmion added, “that it has nothing to do with our quest. The timing is simply unfortunate.”

  “I see.” Her teeth flashed again. Shilly was put in mind of a waiting shark. “I have learned never to convince myself of anything. Time offers the best counsel. I shall await what it tells me.”

  “Indeed, Magister.”

  “Gwil Flintham.”

  The young guard straightened so quickly he almost lost his balance. “M-magister?”

  “I assign you to the service of our guests, since you have proven so incompetent at gatekeeping.”

  Flintham looked like he was about to wet himself with relief. “Thank you, Magister,” he said with a hasty bow. “It's more than I deserve.”

  “Indeed.” Her dark gaze swept the room. “Now, you will all leave me so I can return to my evening's schedule. Do not attempt to barge in on me again, or my patience will be severely stretched.”

  “We understand.” Marmion bowed a third and final time. “I will convey to the Alcaide that Laure's hospitality is undiminished.”

  “Just get out of my sight,” she said crossly. “Your machinations weary me.”

  Marmion seemed startled by her sudden ill grace. He turned and hurried for the door, waving the others after him. As they left, Shilly was sure she heard the sound of crumpling paper.

  A functionary showed them to a spare antechamber where the rest of the wardens waited in a nervous huddle, watched over by a dozen red-robed yadachi. A dish of razor-sharp knives and wicked-looking needles rested on a bench in one corner. Marmion reassured his charges that everything was in order, and presented himself first without the slightest visible qualm to the official who had come to take their Tithes.

  Shilly watched anxiously as the robed woman nicked Marmion's skin just above the wrist and collected the blood in a slender glass tube. The tube was corked and handed to another yadachi, who affixed a label to it and put it on a table nearby.

  “Where does it go from here?” asked one of the wardens as Marmion stepped back, pressing a clean white patch to the small wound.

  “Into the Blood Library,” said one of the attendants. “It's stored there until needed.”

  “For what?”

  “That depends. If you should require a flying licence or medicine, it will be brought out of storage and the charm tailored to fit you exactly. Otherwise the Tithe will be employed in the usual way: to power the pumps that draw water up from the depths below us. The chimerical energy blood contains makes up for what we lack in stone or sea. All contribute annually to the Tithe; the Tithe in turn keeps us all alive.”

  The explanation sounded as though it had been learned by rote.

  “Aren't we…?” The warden who asked the question looked at the yadachi surrounding them, then lowered her voice. “Won't this give you power over us?”

  “That's just a myth,” said the yadachi with the knife, waving Shilly forward. “Bloodworkers only succeed with the consent of the donor. We can no more hex you than you us.”

  “Is that true?” Shilly asked Marmion, averting her eyes as the blade descended on her wrist.

  “Yes,” he said.

  So why did you refuse the Tithe earlier? she wanted to ask, but the pain in her wrist distracted her. The blade was exceedingly sharp, and its sting brief. She didn't cry out as some of the wardens had, or feel faint. Apart from a slight lightheadedness, she felt no different afterwards. Her sample joined the others in a growing line. She hoped never to need to see it again.

  Chu looked bored when the time finally came to leave. The two guards waiting at the gate looked up expectantly, but turned quickly away. Marmion's triumphant bearing left no room for ambiguity.

  “Here are your temporary papers,” said the functionary accompanying them. She pressed a thick wad of documents into his hands. “There are several forms you must complete and return here no later than tomorrow morning. We will require daily updates on your situation and plans, and prompt notification of any change of address or circumstance. Failure to honour these requests will incur immediate penalties. Do you understand?”

  Marmion nodded. “Of course. I'll see to the details myself.” He gave the papers to Banner, who pressed them onto another, younger warden. The functionary bowed and went back into the building.

  The two on the gate watched stonily as Marmion prepared the convoy for departure.

  “Accommodation first,” he said, “then we'll meet to discuss our plans. Chu, do you have any suggestions?”

  “Somewhere clean,” put in Shilly, crinkling her nose. “We don't want to make Highson more sick than he already is.”

  “The Black Galah,” she said. “That's where Skender was staying.”

  “Show us there, then. I trust your judgment,” Marmion said.

  “Why?”

  “It's not as if I have much choice.”

  “But you do have a choice. You've got the run of the city, now. You can do whatever you want.”

  “It's not that simple.”

  “Isn't it? You waltz in here and order people around as you like. Even the Magister is doing what you tell her to. Why can't you just produce another letter and have things exactly the way you want?”

  Marmion glanced over his shoulder, then walked Chu and Shilly away from the functionaries.

  “You two must think me stupid,” he said, sotto voce, “and so must the Magister. I know a bureaucratic stall when I see one.”

  “What?” Chu blinked, startled.

  “I have no idea what's in the letter. The Alcaide simply to
ld me to show it to the Magister if we needed her help.”

  “But you didn't—” Shilly stopped in midsentence, seeing Marmion's ignorance over whether the ruler of Laure was called a Magister or Magistrate in an entirely new light. “It was an act.”

  “Of course. A power play. Do you think we would've got this far if Magistrate Considine hadn't wanted us to—if she thought us a threat? Right now, she believes I'm nothing but a fool and a nuisance. If I let her have her way, she'll bog me down in paperwork for days, and we'll lose any chance of catching the Homunculus. Obviously, I'm not going to allow that to happen.”

  “What are you going to do?” asked Chu, staring at him with new respect.

  “Go about my duty, of course—and you will help me. As well as being a local, I want you with me because you've seen the Homunculus. The fewer people who know about it, the better. We don't want to cause a panic. Understood?”

  Chu nodded.

  Marmion clapped her on the shoulder and went off to organise the wardens.

  “Is he for real?” Chu asked Shilly.

  “It appears so.” Shilly felt like she had been hit by a bus. Chu didn't look much better. The young flyer's face was pale and the bandage on her head was tinged with crimson.

  “You don't really have to stick with us any longer, you know.”

  Chu looked at her in surprise. “What?”

  “You got us across the Divide as you promised. No one would blame you if you went home now. Not even Marmion could force you to stay if you really didn't want to.”

  Something dark and complicated passed across the flyer's features. For a brief moment, Shilly thought she might cry again.

  “My wing,” she said. “I can't leave until I've got it back.”

  Shilly nodded, thinking: Gotcha. That's as good an excuse as any. Even when prompted, Chu had made no noises about family or home, and Shilly was certain now that she wasn't hiding anything on that score. There was nothing to hide at all.

  “Why don't you crash in Skender's room?” Shilly said. “It's getting late, and it's not as if he'll need it for a while.”

  Chu only nodded, but Shilly thought she saw a look of gratitude cross her face as she climbed aboard the buggy and gave Tom a new round of directions.

  “There is no depth that has not already been plumbed by Humanity.”

  THE BOOK OF TOWERS, FRAGMENT 358

  Sal didn't know what woke him. One moment he was sound asleep, not even conscious of the hard stone floor on which he lay, the next his eyes were open, trying to glean a single detail from the absolute blackness around him. His confusion was complete, but his reflexes were keen. Even as he tried to work out where he was, he lay absolutely rigid, hardly daring even to breathe.

  He was in a room. A stark rectangular doorway let in a faint glimmer of starlight. The smell of dust reminded him that he was in the Aad. His first thought was that Skender had woken him—but if that were so, why was Skender being so quiet?

  The more Sal listened, the more certain he became that someone other than Skender was in the room with him. He didn't move lest he betray his presence. The night was utterly silent and still. He couldn't hold his breath forever. Something had to give, and soon.

  The sound of footsteps came from outside the room, growing louder on the cobbles.

  “Don't make a noise,” whispered Habryn Kail from the darkness. “I know you're awake. Stay quiet and I'll explain when they've gone.”

  The tracker was invisible, one with the shadows. Sal had no idea who “they” were, where Skender was, or how Kail had got there. He felt utterly disoriented.

  The footsteps came closer, slow and methodical, right up to the entrance to his hiding place. A faint silhouette appeared in the doorway, and held there for a heartbeat. Sal didn't move even his eyes. The pounding of his pulse seemed loud enough to give him away.

  The figure moved off to check the building next door. Sal let out his held breath with a hiss. As the footsteps receded up the street, checking each doorway, one by one, he felt Kail approach. Sal went to sit up and found the water bottle propped beside him. He opened it and drank cautiously, even though his thirst was profound.

  “I don't know who they are or what they're looking for,” the tracker breathed, easing down to squat lightly beside him, exuding a smell of well-worn leather, “but they've been at it ever since I got here.”

  “When was that?”

  “An hour ago. I followed your trail from where you landed. You weren't even trying to hide it.”

  “I didn't know we needed to.”

  “Well, I erased it as I went, so no harm done.”

  “Where's Skender?”

  “I was hoping you could tell me that. His trail leads away from here, deeper into the city, but I didn't get a chance to follow it. If I had, that fellow just now might have found you. Instead I hid, ready to offer you my assistance should you need it.”

  Sal looked at the dark shape crouched next to him. The tall tracker radiated an unnerving intensity in the darkness.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Marmion told me to find you. I don't think he much cares for the idea of you roaming around at will.”

  “And he'd like to know if we get lucky and find the Homunculus.”

  “I'm sure that possibility has occurred to him.”

  “Where did you last see Shilly?”

  “In the Divide, on the way to Laure. They should be there by now, barring mishaps.”

  Sal absorbed all this news. Skender was missing; there were people in the Aad; Kail had been sent to help and keep an eye on them; Shilly was safe.

  “Did you bring any food, by any chance?”

  Kail rummaged in a pack and pressed something into his hand. Sal unwrapped the small bundle. The slightly bitter smell of dried bloodwood apple filled his nostrils. He concentrated on nothing but eating for several mouthfuls, the aching emptiness in his stomach demanding to be filled.

  “We have to find Skender,” he said when some of the urgency had passed.

  “I agree,” said Kail out of the darkness. “We will need to be very careful, though. If he's been caught by those people out there, we don't want to join him.”

  “They are people, then? They're not anything else?”

  “No. They stink of sweat and hide, just like us. And alcohol fuel, too. Some of them have been driving recently.”

  Sal remembered Skender saying that before he and Chu had crashed on top of the Homunculus they had seen vehicles driving along the edge of the Divide. It hadn't sounded likely at the time, but here was evidence that it might be true.

  Kail described what had happened after Sal and Skender disappeared: the group of wardens had been buzzed by three busloads of strangers who hadn't stopped to introduce themselves. Shilly had reasoned that there was a connection between these strangers and the Homunculus, and Kail was convinced, now, that she was right.

  “The Homunculus missed them at the rendezvous,” he said, “and it came here instead. How could that be a coincidence?”

  “So if we find them, we find the Homunculus?” said Sal. “And maybe Skender, too?”

  “Correct.”

  “Then that's what we'll do. They're all over the Aad, you said. They've found Skender, so they'll be checking to make sure there's no one else here with him. They might search all night. All we have to do is follow one of them back to their lair and we've got them.”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  “Well, we'll know where they are, anyway. Once we know that, we can get away, call for Marmion and the others, and it's all over.”

  “You make it sound simple,” rumbled Kail. “I can think of a number of things that might go wrong.”

  “Sure, but do you have a better plan in mind?”

  “No. I just wanted to make certain that you're going into this with your eyes open. A single slip could give us away.”

  “I know. Don't worry. I'm very good at keeping my head down. I've had t
o be, to keep out of the Syndic's hands all these years.”

  “Indeed.” Kail emitted a single exhalation that might have been a laugh. “As one of the people who tried to find you and your parents all those years ago, I can fully attest to that.”

  Sal wished he could see the tracker's face. Kail's words could be taken many ways. Knowing how they were intended might make a great deal of difference one day—when their quest was over and they returned to their normal lives. Sal had no intention of being taken into custody again, even by people who had, for a time, been his allies.

  He moved across the room to tuck Chu's wing behind the door, so that a casual glance during the day wouldn't see it. If he'd managed to sleep half the night without disturbance, he felt confident that it would be safe for the time being.

  “Let's just do it,” he said. “Let's find Skender and the Homunculus and get out of here. This place gives me the creeps.”

  “I think,” said Kail, coming to stand beside him, “that's the point.”

  Skender sat in a cage and stared at his mother. She lay on her side in another cage on the far side of the room. Her braids had been cut off, exposing grey roots; one eye was blackened and swollen; bruises ran up her jawline to her left ear, where a trickle of blood had left splatters down her neck. The arms of her rust-red travelling robe had been torn away, exposing thick lines of tattooed symbols and more bruises. Skender couldn't see her hands; they had been tied behind her back. Her knees and feet were drawn up, like a child sleeping. She looked very thin and frail.

  “She's going to be pissed when she sees you,” said the large albino occupying the next cage along. “You idiot.”

  “It's good to see you, too, Kemp.”