by Jordan Reece
“What am I going to do for you?” Westen asked. “At present: I will do nothing. I can do nothing. A dead man cannot be seen walking the streets of the town where he was hanged an hour ago without spurring pandemonium. Why did your uncle not send me the dragon’s eye directly? Hydon must have chosen to send it to your father because of a letter I posted to him months ago, advising him to act with utmost caution. The presence of soldiers increased without explanation in Drouthe. I was being watched; strangers attempted to befriend me in the taverns and at the counter of my own haberdashery. It may be, I surmised, that the military personnel in Rathgate suspected Hydon of trying to acquire a dragon’s eye, and were examining his connections. As I have supplied him over the years with goods to trade with the Hethai, I became of interest. But all they found were buttons, threads, ribbons, and hats within the shop, and barrels of wine below that I distribute to traders going west all the way to the mountain towns.”
“And ill-gotten jewelry from noble homes!” Elario added.
Westen scoffed. “You cannot hang a man for nothing, you fool farmer! They had to come up with some pretense to overturn my shop and dangle me from a rope. It was clever, wasn’t it, Hobbe?”
“What was clever, sir?” Hobbe inquired.
“To accuse me of grand theft. Had they denounced me as a murderer, they would have had to name a victim and produce grieving relatives. Had they said I interfered with a man, woman, or child’s bodily autonomy, the populace of Drouthe would have routed me from the cell and torn me to pieces on their own. But to thieve from nobles! Nobody here knows a noble to feel a personal grievance for, and the jewelry was in large part already sold upon the secret market, so to show proof was unnecessary. Clever! Even the stupidest of people will occasionally make a clever decision, and stupid the soldiers of the Crown most assuredly are.”
Hobbe’s head turned. “Someone comes, sirs.”
Several people on foot had entered the far side of the graveyard. From their direction, the destination was Westen’s grave. Westen scrambled to his feet as Hobbe clambered upright. Elario, in anger and frustration and helplessness, followed them into the shadows.
Chapter Nine
The taste of rain was in the wind by nightfall, a wraith of a moon shining through the thickening clouds. As Elario waited with Westen behind a broken-down wagon in a ditch beside the road, Hobbe went ahead into Drouthe to scope out the positions of the soldiers and the chances of reaching the haberdashery unmolested. It was good luck that the shop was close to the edge of town, yet poor luck to be situated across the street from a popular tavern. As Hobbe was known to belong to Westen, he had to travel with care. The soldiers wanted to question him about Westen’s activities and contacts.
A mechanical man belonging to a mechanical man, who was pretending to be human. It boggled Elario’s mind.
He and Westen spoke little in the hours they sat against the rough, rocky side of the ditch. The traffic numbered one upon this road, a man on horseback who was so intoxicated that he could barely stay in the saddle. A lantern hung unlit from the pommel, and the flap of his saddlebag was open. A metal arm and a tool case jutted out. The drunk man riding into the darkness away from Drouthe was a traveling tinkerer.
Once he was gone, Elario made a tiny supper from the last of his rations. He offered none to Westen, remembering before he made an idiot of himself that a mechanical man had no requirement of food. It was only from politeness that he would have offered anything, had Westen been human; there was no comfort in his company, and he did nothing to alleviate it.
“I thought the dragons were dead,” Elario said when their silence grew overlong.
“They are dead,” Westen sighed, and Elario bristled at the snappishness in his voice. “Dead before the first crude hut lifted on the northern shore of Phaleros.”
Wonderful. Elario had the eye of a dead dragon stuck in his head. The bandage was irritating his skin so he pushed it up to his hairline. Through two eyes he looked over the wreckage of the wagon. It had not been in this ditch long, gauging from the lack of green to grow up around it, but the wood was old and worm-eaten. Plunging into the ditch had snapped the bed and two of the wheels. It was not worth the effort of saving.
Something made him turn to the field at his back. There was queerness nearby; he had been vaguely sensing it since he first sat down. To look at the field, however, nothing was out of the ordinary. It was harvested of its corn, the stalks cut and drying along the acres. The farmhouse was a quarter mile in the distance, and quiet with the lengthening night.
For no reason, he got up and walked into the field. The queer sensation guided him gently along. Deep in his mind, he felt a pleasurable flicker. It was the same flicker that one had upon arriving at home after a long journey, not just of the reawakened kinship with the people who lived there, but for the familiar dearness of the land itself.
Here. Several hundred paces from the wagon, he stilled in one spot that looked like any other. Stalks rustled under his shoes. He startled when Westen stepped to his side. The mechanical man had made no sound in following him across the field.
“There are few knackers produced in Drouthe,” Westen remarked.
“There are few knackers produced anywhere,” Elario said. Some towns along the Hopcross never produced any, such as Goat’s Peak.
As if he had not spoken a word, Westen went on. “And they are, to the last, of the scientific variety. They are recognized for their ability in their school years and given a seat at any university of their choosing. Those universities woo and fete them in the hopes of being chosen, as they do with any boy or girl in possession of a scientific knack. But many of those scientific knackers return to Drouthe after burning themselves out. It is hard not to burn oneself out, those that have knacks.”
Elario knew all about that, the burning line that he could not cross no matter how desperate he was to save the one beneath his hand. If he had reached home during the contagion to find either his mother or father sick but still alive . . . he would have emptied himself of his knack to heal, and without a moment to consider the consequences.
These were odd things to speak of in the darkness. “Why are you telling me about Drouthe’s scientific knackers in the middle of the night?” Elario inquired.
“Why are you standing out here in a cornfield?” Westen threw back.
“I . . .” There was no explanation that sufficed. He disliked whatever rogue programming it was to seize control of this mechanical man, nor should he have to justify his actions to a concoction of metal parts, skin wrap, hair, and aithra! “I needed to stretch my legs.”
The scratch-and-scuffle of footsteps caught their attention. It was Hobbe, who jumped the ditch and jogged to meet them in the field. “The tavern is quieting, sir,” he said to Westen. “There are still four men at the tables, but deep in their cups, and the tavern-keeper has dismissed the merrymaker and the servers for the night.”
“What about the soldiers?” Westen asked.
“There are no soldiers at the shop, sir, or anywhere on the roads. I spied three of the Red Guard at the station. They were concluding their search of the last crawler for the night with the assistance of the jacks. I followed them to the Plow and Horse Inn where the rest of their company is staying. As to the Dragons of the Blood, I saw only two in the common room with the Red Guard. There were many more than that yesterday.”
“The majority must have left Drouthe on the afternoon crawler,” Westen replied. “Since I am dead, they will turn their attention to locating Elario, and leave a few soldiers behind to intercept him should he arrive on a crawler.”
Hobbe stared at Elario’s face. Elario lowered the bandage to shield his dragon’s eye. “How can you see it in such poor light?”
“It glows, Master Elario. It glows just a little,” Hobbe explained.
“Great Elequa,” Elario swore. “It’s bad enough I have it at all, but it glows in the dark? I wish to be rid of this thing!”
“Do you think we can get to the shop unobserved, Hobbe?” Westen asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Then let’s be off.”
They slunk down the road and into town. Shutters were closed over the windows, or curtains drawn against the chill. The laundry lines overhanging the alleys were bare. Of the scarce people in the streets, all were in no better state than the tinkerer and stumbling towards home. Elario and his companions huddled in the shadows until they passed.
Very soon, they arrived at the street upon which the haberdashery was located. All of the shops were dark upon this block, and the tavern was now closed for the night. The only sound was from the haberdashery itself. A light breeze was shaking the door, which had been nearly broken off its hinges. The scent of wine was thick in the air.
Westen went up the steps and caught the door to silence it, motioning for Elario to go through. Obeying, he entered, but could go no further in the pitch black. The floor was uneven under his feet. “I cannot see!” he whispered.
Hobbe and Westen crowded in behind him. “Give us a little light and draw the curtains, Hobbe, if they’re still on the rods,” Westen ordered. “Then we have to do something to quiet the door.”
“Yes, sir.” A mechanical whir commenced and ceased in seconds.
A faint beam shot over Elario’s shoulder, dimly illuminating a destroyed shop. Glass cases were smashed to bits. Bolts of cloth had been unrolled and dropped, putting Elario’s shoes on two different levels. Stepping off the bunched fabric, something cracked under his foot.
“Shh,” Westen scolded as the beam swiveled away. Hobbe lumbered past them to the window on the left side of the door. A square panel of light was shining from the mechanical man’s forehead. He pulled the curtains and assisted Westen with the door. They succeeded in closing it by some means and then Hobbe brightened his light, training it upon the ruins of the shop.
The soldiers’ search had left nothing untouched. A sea of spools and beads and buttons were mixed into the fragments of glass on the floor. Ribbons unfurled like snakes amongst it all; decorative pillows were gutted of their feathers, the fabric covers tossed about and walked upon. Pincushions were stomped flat, and pins stood up as tiny lances in the mess, as did snapped scissors. Hatboxes were sprinkled everywhere, lids parted from them; the hats themselves were slashed to pieces, as if the soldiers thought something might have been sewn within the seams.
A curtain, ripped almost completely free of a rod over a doorway, was all to separate this shop from living quarters in back. The destruction continued on in there, Hobbe’s light shining briefly upon upended furniture, strewn clothing, torn cushions, and broken kitchenware.
Westen crossed the shop to a side door. The smell of wine intensified when he opened it, so strong that it was an assault upon Elario’s senses. “Did they dump it all out down cellar?” Westen asked.
“No. I saw them taking out the barrels on the dolly, sir,” Hobbe said.
“Decided not to waste it all, eh?” Snorting in derision, Westen started down the steps. “Let’s see what they found. Come along, Elario.”
Elario was not a child to be scolded or a dog to be ordered. Yet he descended to the cellar with Hobbe’s beam shining over his head. At the bottom of the staircase was a plank floor stained with wine, racks empty and overturned, and the remnants of a single oak barrel hacked apart.
Westen shook his head. “For all the tape measures they tossed about upstairs, they did not think to bring one down here, did they, Hobbe?”
“You sound like you are making a joke, sir,” Hobbe replied. “Allow me to remind you that my emotional programs are rudimentary, and-”
“That’s all right. If I wanted a merrymaker for a mechanical man, I would have purchased one instead of filching you from an industrial waste pile. Have you ever seen a mechanical man menagerie, Elario?” Westen slid a rack away from one wall. It made noisy scrapes on the floor.
“I have not,” Elario said.
“No, not as a farm boy south of the Hopcross, where people scratch and peck in the foothills while the golden ring enjoys technological wonders and luxuries of which you can hardly imagine. Did you know they have no crawlers or snakes that far south, Hobbe? They have no aerials in the skies by day or aithra lamps lighting the street corners by night; they have no trolleys, no factories, no universities, no libraries, and they employ few to no droids of any variety. Drouthe is behind the times in many regards, but ever it stretches after the golden ring’s amenities, and eventually it will acquire them. If you wish to truly step into the past, then you only have to travel down the Avys to see that it still lives in Phaleros! Yes, below the Hopcross, where time stands utterly still! Of all the advances made in the last five hundred years, scant few of them have trickled down to the children of the rebellion in the shadow of the Daine. They are not even allowed a noble representative in court. No, the Crown demands their taxes, yet denies them what the rest of the country accepts as their due.”
Shoving aside another rack and kicking away the staves and hoops of the broken barrel as he spoke, Westen brushed his hands over the wall. Then two of his fingers dipped into the wall, in a place that looked like any other. It was unhardened clay, and there was a click as his fingers met some invisible contraption. An entire panel of the wall, in the shape of a narrow doorway, swung into the room from Elario’s dream on the deck of the Flasing.
With a cry of recognition, he leaped past Westen. There were the books upon the shelves, and dozens of candles in holders, and the table where the map had been stretched out between Westen and Hydon. It was not laid out now. The surface of the table was dusty. Many rolled maps were inserted into an umbrella stand before a bookcase.
Circling the table, he stopped in the exact spot where Hydon once stood while inspecting the Gates. “You told him spirits!” Elario said. “Spirits and produce were what my uncle was to trade with the Hethai. He was to befriend them with sweets and kind words for the children and deference to the women so they learned to overlook him . . .”
“Strange to hear my words from more than twenty years ago recounted,” Westen said, stepping inside. “Hobbe, light the candles.”
“It is this dragon’s eye,” Elario said as the mechanical man produced a strike-stick. “That’s all it can be. It gives me memories that are not mine, and allows me to dip into the present belonging to other people.”
“Do you control it?”
“No. At times, what I see and hear are relevant to the situation at hand. At other times, it comes in dreams. I heard your voice upon the aerial when we were flying over towers of bone. You were speaking of a dervesh called-”
“Yorsa.” Westen pulled out a stack of books from an upper shelf in the bookcase behind the umbrella stand. As he set them on the table, the remaining books upon the shelf fell into the gap. He cleared those, too. “Nasty creatures, yorsa dervesh.”
Flickering light illuminated the room, Hobbe methodically lighting the candles until all of the wicks were blazing. “Creatures?” Elario repeated. “Are there many gods within Yorsa, or are all of his children named Yorsa?”
“The dervesh aren’t gods. They are corruptions of energy and matter. Though one yorsa looks much like any other, I have seen twenty distinct dervesh of that type in the Great Cities. I have always assumed there are many more.” Helping himself to a candle from the side table, Westen brought it to the exposed wall behind the shelf. A safe was embedded within it.
He rotated the dial between a ring of incomprehensible insignia. “Hobbe, head upstairs to rout out whatever still exists of my clothing and personal items. Pack it into a bag. See if you can find that old eye patch, too, and the pot of clay. We can’t take all of these books and maps with us.”
As Hobbe retreated to the cellar and up to the ground floor, Elario spluttered, “How are the dervesh not gods? How many times have you been to the Great Cities? And where are we going?”
The door to the safe opened. The inner chamber
was crowded with small leather pouches. Taking out a handful, Westen tossed them to the table. They landed with heavy clunks. “Check the kings and queens upon the golds; we can’t drop three-hundred-year-old coins or older without starting talk. They’re mixed in together. If not Crucien, Andra, or Fortimer gold, discard. Keep a few silvers, too, but only Inora and Grathe bits. There should be plenty of each.”
“Are you not going to answer me?”
Collecting another handful of pouches, Westen dropped them on the table beside the first batch. Then he swept some object from the safe and squirreled it away in his pocket. “I will not waste time arguing matters of faith with one whose ears are blocked with wax, as yours appear to be, and that is a shame. Your uncle had a much more open mind. I assume he was killed for that eye you wear, so do not be so hasty to throw away what a man gave his life to acquire. As to the Great Cities, I have been to them a hundred times at least. Perhaps two or three hundred; I have not kept a count. It is how I met your uncle, where a dervesh was making breakfast of him. As to where we are going, all that matters for now is that we get out of Drouthe. I am dead, and you are a wanted man.”
Elario undid the ties of a pouch and overturned it. Gold and silver spilled over the table. In disbelief at the amount, he turned over a second pouch. It was also full of gold and silver coins. Five more bulging pouches rested beside his hand. Plucking out the gold coins engraved with the profile of King Crucien and the silver bits marked with an I for Inora, he slipped them back into the pouch. Westen claimed another pouch and spilled it.
“My ears are not blocked with wax,” Elario said resentfully. “You cannot say something so contrary to good sense and expect every head to nod along. It is known that Elequa threw open the doors of the prisons to release their warped progeny upon the Great Cities.”
Westen picked up two Queen Andra golds and nudged aside a stained Dosenec. “It is known because it was said to you, and you repeat it like a mockingbird and assume it is truth.”
