The Book of Swords

by Gardner Dozois (ed)

  “Merin failed to mention the man was a virtual colossus,” Crane said, watching closely as Riker, accompanied by a swirl of attendants, strode toward the factory doors.

  “Moves light,” Gilchrist said, watching his gait.

  A tremor of anticipation moved through the queue as the other two barrels passed by. One of the men whose thumb was stained from snuff broke into a gapped grin. “Big shipment,” he said. “Heard it’s purer than last one. Pure, pure.”

  Crane sucked air between his teeth. “That is a rather extravagant quantity of narcotic, Gilchrist,” he murmured. “Three barrels, already processed. Worth a small fortune, I imagine.”

  Gilchrist calculated. “Double and a half the weight in silver.”

  “How the conflagration still haunts me,” Crane said mournfully.

  “Only pennies to what’s in the strongbox,” Gilchrist reminded him.

  One attendant handed Riker a manifest on thick parchment; another stretched to mutter something into his ear. Riker turned toward the line of workers, all of whom fell dead silent. “Fifty only today,” he said, in a voice thinned by the filter mask. “Preference to those already marked. Rest of you, fuck off.”

  Half the queue surged forward excitedly, nearly bowling Crane and Gilchrist over in their hurry to bare their wrists, scratching away grime to expose the blotted red ink stamped there. Others howled in disappointment; a few furtively tried to spit and rub the ink from a neighbor onto their own skin. Small scuffles broke out where the guards moved to establish the cutoff point.

  An emaciated woman with wild gray hair broke through and darted at Riker. “My Skadi, my little Skadi, where is she?” she wailed, grabbing for him. “She has a cough, let me in, I’ll work harder than anyone, I swear, I swear I will…”

  Riker half turned and swatted her away with the back of his fist, sending her sprawling. Her skull bounced off the cobblestone with a wet smack. He looked down at her for a moment, watching impassively as she moaned and babbled. Then a guard hurried to drag her away, and Riker continued through the factory gate, returning his attention to the parchment.

  Crane and Gilchrist stood still a second longer, then melted back through the clamoring workers, back the way they’d come. Gilchrist’s hands were clenched to fists.

  —

  They were around the corner and out of sight, moving down a dirty alley, when Crane spoke.

  “There is no ledger, Gilchrist.”

  Gilchrist looked up. “Meaning what, Crane?” His voice was brusque.

  “You have a marvelous way with accounts and balances,” Crane said. “But in matters of morality, there is no ledger. You cannot wash one man’s blood off your hands using another’s.”

  Gilchrist’s broad back stiffened. He stopped walking. “You think that’s what I’m doing.”

  Crane yanked the filter mask down from his mouth. “Assuaging your guilt, yes, by assuring yourself there are men far more evil than we are and by removing one from existence,” he said. “It’s delusional. Self-indulgent. It doesn’t become you.”

  “It’s how we get the strongbox open,” Gilchrist said.

  Crane scoffed. “You were ready to force her to do it,” he said. “At knifepoint. It was her tragic tale that swayed you. That and the fact that our target employs children. Or do I misremember?”

  Gilchrist gave a tight shrug. “I saw threats wouldn’t work. Not on her. She has nothing to lose.”

  “So she would have us believe,” Crane grated. “Yet she was unable to correctly describe the effects of cyanide poisoning. Why is that?”

  Gilchrist started to walk again. “Not everyone knows poisons, Crane.”

  “We would do better to take the strongbox elsewhere.” The blue veins of Crane’s neck were taut and his voice was ice. “We are working in unfamiliar territory with an ally who, I believe, is not entirely forthcoming.” He strode after his companion. “Dealing with the individual we just observed, I suspect any error at all might be disastrous. Riker does not strike me as a man one attempts to kill twice.”

  Gilchrist kept his eyes forward. “Lucky we only need to do it once.”

  Crane’s long legs overtook him. “Your reticence is growing tiresome,” he snapped. “I want to discuss what occurred during our escape from the Thule Estate.”

  “I remember what happened.”

  “You slit a man’s throat before he could cry warning,” Crane said. “Had you not, we would both be dangling from the gallows even now. You exchanged his life for ours, as I would have done in the same situation.” He reached to seize onto Gilchrist’s shoulder.

  Gilchrist whirled and locked his arm, slamming him into the soot-stained brick of the alleyway. His lips pulled back off his teeth. “The watchman had children,” he said. “I saw their shoes after. Outside the guardhouse. You did the reconnaissance. You never mentioned it.”

  Crane blinked down at the unfamiliar sight of Gilchrist’s forearm under his windpipe. Rage twisted across his face for a moment, then receded. “It wasn’t pertinent,” he said, enunciating each word.

  “To you,” Gilchrist finished. “And he had ash on his forehead. Saw it while I was stashing the body. That means no mother for them. That means they end up in the street or sold off to some factory.”

  “There are worse fates,” Crane said defiantly. “You survived similar beginnings.” His expression was calm but his ears were scarlet red.

  Gilchrist stepped back. Dropped his arm. “That’s what I mean, Crane.” He croaked a half laugh. “The last thing I want is to make more of me.”

  Crane rubbed his throat. He said nothing.

  —

  When they arrived back at the lock shop, Gilchrist forewent the knocker and rapped out the agreed-upon pattern against the door with his fist instead. This time Merin was quicker to let them inside. There was new ash on her forehead.

  “You saw him? Saw his mask?” she asked, pulling a rubbery cup away from her ear and flopping its attached tube over her shoulder. The strongbox was sitting in the center of the workbench, surrounded by an array of skeleton keys and picks, one of which was sticking out from the locking groove. “Been listening,” she explained, shutting the door behind them. “It’s sticky in there. Something spilled on it.”

  “Wine,” Gilchrist said. He took a seat on one of the stools; Crane stood, pale hands sunk in his pockets. “We saw the mask.”

  “He hardly takes it off,” Merin said. “Had it specially made by an artisan from Lensa.” She reached under the workbench and produced a thin tracing in carbon. “This wasn’t easy to nab. Don’t spill no wine on it.”

  Crane and Gilchrist looked down at the tracing, which showed the mask’s design from the front, then in profile, then cross-sectioned.

  “It’s bigger than it needs to be,” Merin said. “Room to make improvements.” She overlaid the sheet with another, this one bearing her own pen strokes. Coiled springs and wedges folded against themselves, some sort of trigger mechanism. It was only when she brought the realized product from under the workbench, unwrapping wax paper from its metal shell, that they saw the sharpened spikes studding the inside.

  Crane touched his wrist where the spring-loaded knocker had clamped down on it the night before. “How ingenious.”

  “These won’t be visible after I line it,” she said, running a finger down one of the spikes. “Hand me that bowl, would you?”

  Gilchrist passed her the thick-bottomed clay bowl without speaking. She flipped it over, then set the metal shell down on top of it. The spiked jaws snapped with a deep crack. When she lifted the shell, the bowl fell to the bench in fragments and powder. Her expression was both eager and slightly ill.

  “How do we get ahold of the mask?” Gilchrist asked.

  Merin chewed the inside of her cheek. “Not from his quarters,” she said. “Where he lives, it’s a fucking labyrinth and it’s locked down tighter than anyplace I’ve ever seen.” She swept the remnants of the bowl off the bench’s surface w
ith one hand. “But there’s a bathhouse he goes to. That’s where you plant it. Then you leave without him ever even seeing you.”

  Crane looked down at the device. “Remote assassinations do not always go as planned,” he said. “What if the mechanism were to fail?”

  “It won’t,” Merin said firmly. “It’s been tested plenty.”

  “Very well.” Crane looked down at the schematic, avoiding Gilchrist’s eye. “But leaving the sabotaged mask in its proper place, without arousing suspicion, fulfills our contract. If your device fails, it is no responsibility of ours. You will open the strongbox regardless.”

  “It’ll work,” Merin said, running her tongue along her gums. “But yes. I open the box regardless.”

  She inserted a crank into a slot in the metal shell and began to wind it tight again, click after rasping click.

  —

  The bathhouse was an incongruous slab of gleaming black stone amid the scab-colored brick and slant roofs that surrounded it. Geometric hieroglyphs carved over the doorway and the roof’s beveled edges evoked the abandoned ziggurats of the New World, as if the building had been cleaved whole from the rain forests and dropped in the center of Colgrid.

  It was a clumsy imitation at best—Crane and Gilchrist had seen the sleeping cities, with their towering temples and intricate catacombs deep under the earth, and knew no living architect could ever approximate them. But perhaps Riker had seen them too, and the bathhouse served him as a small reminder.

  “Strutter’s coming,” Gilchrist said.

  Crane drew himself up to his full height, adjusting the brim of a scooped hat with a sewn-in filter mask. The stolen clothes were slightly baggy on his frame, but of good quality, and Merin had assured him many gentlemen’s clothes were ill fitting ever since shiver caught on in the courts.

  The two of them had spent the better part of the day observing the bathhouse comings and goings, checking its exterior against the stained parchment where Merin had sketched a layout, all with a garrote-wire silence stretched between them.

  It was a simple enough plan. According to a former attendant they’d bribed, Riker always went to the steam rooms first, near the back, then made a quick cold plunge before leaving—the whole visit took no more than fifteen minutes. That was time enough for Crane to crack the locked cupboard with Riker’s effects in it, especially with Merin’s superior tools. Gilchrist would be monitoring the steam room from the outside, ready to call warning should Riker leave early.

  Now the distinctive black strutter was rounding the corner, and it was time to part ways: Gilchrist into the alley, Crane toward the bathhouse entrance.

  —

  As he swaggered toward the entry, Crane put a thumb to his reddened nostril and snorted sharp. The rush of powder through membrane made him shudder. It wasn’t his drug of choice, but shiver was cheap and temptingly plentiful here. He’d bought a pinch in the factory queue and another behind the bathhouse while Gilchrist was otherwise occupied.

  Colgrid’s dirty streets turned clear and bright and slightly vibrating, the effect that gave the narcotic its name. He felt the high like a razor blade, like his every step and motion was slicing through a slower, thicker world. Riker seemed to move through syrup as he stepped from the strutter, trailed by a sole attendant carrying a fabric bag.

  At the entrance, Crane paused his stride, bowed at the precise angle that hid his face entirely, and let the giant man pass first. He managed to seem even larger on shiver, as if the bunched muscles of his arms and shoulders were swelling and straining to escape his skeleton. He gave Crane a brief glance through the lenses of his filter mask.

  Crane had an unbidden image of Riker’s head imploding and spattering the insides of the lenses with greasy blood and gray matter. He had to lash down his chemical smile as he followed him into the antechamber, flicking a coin to the boy waiting by the door and receiving a cupboard key in return. He took one side of the coal-heated benches and Riker took the other. Riker was half-shielded by his attendant as he stripped down, but from the glimpse Crane caught, the whole of his bulk was netted with scars.

  —

  Gilchrist wedged himself into the corner of the furnace room and steam room, cramming low and yanking off his filter mask to put an eye against the knothole he’d drilled earlier. He breathed through his mouth; the back alley had a strong stink of tanning chemicals that he hoped would keep passersby to a minimum. If anyone did see him, the ragged coat he’d fished from the gutter would make him look like a beggar seeking warmth as the sunlight waned.

  He blinked. He could see a few silhouettes lounging on the benches, steam swirling around their midsections, but none with Riker’s size.

  “What are you doing?”

  Gilchrist whirled. There was less soot on the child’s face this time; he could tell she was a girl. She rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet. Rubbed at her left shoulder.

  “You gave me the coin, didn’t you,” she said vaguely. “Think it was you. Not the tall one.” She peered between him and the hole in the wall, then made a wanking gesture in the air. “You a pervert, then?”

  Gilchrist took another coin from his pocket. When she snatched for it, he closed his fist and put a finger to his lips. Tapped his wrist where a timepiece would sit, once, twice, three times. She nodded solemnly and clapped a dirty hand over her mouth.

  He hunkered down again, squinting through the knothole.

  —

  Crane peeled off his stolen clothes and walked to the warm baths, smooth stone whispering against the soles of his feet. He nodded to the other occupants, then lowered himself in at a stretch of gleaming black wall polished reflective. The hot water tingled and stung at his cold skin. His reflection was ghostly, distorted. Deep dark circles beneath the eyes and a bruise blooming at his collarbone where Gilchrist had pinned him.

  He traced it gently with one finger, then dug into it and made it sear. Behind his reflection, Riker passed by like a thunderhead, the attendant trailing behind with towel and scrubber. No bather looked up. Crane waited a beat in the water, was tempted to wait longer. But he got out and doubled back to the antechamber. Empty, aside from the boy wiping down the benches.

  “What slobbering ignoramus runs the furnace today?” Crane demanded, punching out his syllables in the harsh Colgrid accent.

  The boy flinched, nearly dropping the rag.

  “I could better warm the baths with my piss,” Crane said. “Tell them: more coal. Tell them: a fucking plenitude of coal.”

  The boy scrambled away. Crane went to his own cupboard first, pulling on his oversized trousers and knotting them with one hand. He took Merin’s picks from the inside of the hat, where the skull-crusher was concealed, and moved to the cupboard he’d watched Riker’s attendant wrestle shut. The shiver had receded to a clear singing focus that would keep his hands smooth.

  Crane eyeballed the lock and selected the second-narrowest pick.

  —

  “Were you born in the desert?” the girl asked, for the third time. “You’re dark all over.”

  Gilchrist wiped a trickle of sweat before it could slide into his eye. He focused through the steam. Riker had the room mostly to himself—the other bathers had drifted away when he entered, their body language twitching nervous. Through the other wall, he could hear voices arguing in the furnace room about the definition of a plenitude.

  “You and the tall one, you staying in the widow’s shop,” the girl said, scratching her shoulder. “Followed you from there. Best be careful.”

  The words prickled the back of his neck, but Gilchrist kept watching the knothole. “Why’s that?” he asked, keeping his voice low and even.

  The girl’s reply came in a solemn whisper. “Because she got a musket, and she shot her husband dead.”

  Gilchrist looked up. The girl made the shape of a muzzle with her fingers.

  “Bam. His skull went all apart like an old fruit.” She screwed up her face. “So, best be careful.”<
br />
  “Who told you that story?” Gilchrist asked.

  “It’s not a story,” the girl said scornfully, scratching at her shoulder again, more vigorously. “I seen it. Papa Riker sent me to keep my eyes on her. I seen it happen.” She gave a devilish smile. “Made an awful mess on the wall.”

  Gilchrist stared straight ahead for a moment, recalling the interior of the lock shop. “Crane’s a bastard when he’s right,” he muttered, then put his fingers to his mouth and whistled three long, mournful notes.

  —

  Crane was a tumbler away, two at most, when the faint but unmistakable call of a New World carrion bird reached his ears. He froze. Cursed. The clear-out call meant something had gone wrong, meant Riker could be barreling in at any moment, but he was so close. He steadied his hands and leaned in, feeling for the next catch.

  The wet slap of approaching feet sounded from the corridor. Close. Crane gritted his teeth. He tore the pick free, seized his shirt and shoes and hat last as he slipped out the door.

  —

  The inside of the lock shop was thick with shadows. Merin had only lit one lamp. When Gilchrist set the skull-crusher down on the workbench, just inside the pool of light, she stared at it blankly for a moment before she spoke.

  “What happened?”

  “We have a similar query,” Crane said. “Regarding your husband’s death. Your version of events is under dispute, and if we cannot trust your information, we cannot trust you to maintain your end of our bargain.”

  “Why did you kill him?” Gilchrist asked.

  Merin gave a choked laugh. “The fuck are you talking about?”

  “A musket ball at close range,” Crane said. “Here in this very shop.” He circled the cramped room in a few long strides, stopping at the threadbare rug hanging on the wall. “Such a death would leave traces.” He reached for the corner of the rug.

  “Don’t.” Merin’s voice came in a snarl. She was standing, breathing hard, her hands balled into fists. Then all at once, her face crumpled. She dropped back down onto the stool, laying both hands flat on the bench. One of her fingers jumped. “I never meant to fire it,” she said, looking at her hands first, then up at Crane and Gilchrist. Her black-rimmed eyes were hollow. “Only to keep him back.” She blinked. “He was given laced shiver. That was the truth. But it wasn’t laced with poison. It was ichor.”