by Ben Galley
Fever raised his curved knife, no doubt forged specifically for this sick purpose. ‘What does the key unlock?’
Witchazel just seethed, foaming at the mouth now, his eyes locked on the blank ceiling, praying it would just crush him.
‘One …’
‘ALRIGHT!’ Witchazel roared. ‘I’ll tell you! I’ll tell you.’
Fever withdrew the clamp and leant closer. The fervour in his eyes was nothing short of alarming. Witchazel could almost hear his thoughts. They seemed to seep out of his mad gaze. An answer, the first in days. Dizali will be pleased. ‘What does the key unlock?’ he repeated.
‘Hold it up,’ Witchazel whispered. ‘With the teeth held in your hand. Match it to the window.’ The bastard words slipped out of him. He bared his teeth and scrunched up his eyes in pain and despondency. Death, all of a sudden, did not seem so alluring and peaceful. His carnal heart had spoken up, and demanded to be heard. He felt the cold fear flush him.
‘Well, well!’ Fever announced, getting to his feet. He placed his tools back in his briefcase, all the while shaking his head in wonder. ‘We finally have you cooperating, at last. Twelve long days it’s been, but we have got there. Dizali will be most pleased.’
Witchazel said nothing, only groaning.
Fever was already making for the door. ‘Patch that wound up, gentlemen, and fetch him something to eat. He’s earned it.’
Slam, went the door, and Sven and Sval went about their tasks. Bandages were brought, some stinging alcohol too that burnt and bubbled and set him writhing on the cold floor, as naked as he had been when he first entered the world. Food came next, when they had finished: a mealy slop and a stunted apple, teetering on a cardboard tray. No cutlery. Fever had learnt that lesson. Witchazel watched it all through half-closed eyes, his face still wrinkled in pain.
Only when the door closed with a muffled thud, and the bolts were shoved into place, did Witchazel move. More slowly than a corpse, admittedly, but he moved all the same, propping himself up against the cold wall.
‘Twelve days,’ he whispered to the silence. Enough time to cross an ocean, surely.
Witchazel just hoped he had held out long enough to give Gunderton a chance of finding the boy. This whole play of his hinged mightily upon it.
That, and the Orange Seed.
*
Had Witchazel had possession of a window, and the strength to haul himself to it and look out upon the sunlight and patchwork cloud of a day, he would have found his hope dashed against rocks. Gunderton was, in fact, nowhere near the boy. Not rocking back and forth with the sway of a ship. Nor was he striding across a landscape, drenched in hot sun.
He was in fact standing on the street corner, hands in pockets and hat low, staring with half-closed eyes at the black carriage parked on the cobbles, outside the featureless building. It was an old storage building, most likely, all brick and windowless. In any case, Gunderton had been watching it for the last hour. He had seen the carriage arrive. He had seen its occupants step onto the kerb and dart into the building, quick with eagerness. He had even managed to brush past it without the driver or guards noticing, noting the fresher paint over its door. It was the same carriage he had followed, and subsequently lost, not three days before. The Prime Lord was a slippery one.
Gunderton stretched, kneading his aching shoulder. He wrestled again with his choices: to walk away, and leave the lawyer to his awful fate, or to do what he had been told, what Karrigan would no doubt have asked of him, had he not been food for the worms.
Gunderton snarled to himself as he juggled that same old question. He found a moment of distraction as a fat cargo ship droned overhead, battling the breeze that had sprung up from the muddy estuary. Gunderton stared at its white underbelly, at its shining engines, shaking with the twist of the propellers. He watched it until it had disappeared behind the chimney pots, off to Francia, or Prussia. Anywhere but here.
Where that damn Witchazel should be heading, Gunderton grunted underneath his breath. And I too. But Gunderton had never been one for right decisions.
There was a muffled thud from across the street and he spied the guards snapping to attention. Whether he bade them to or not, he did not know, but his feet began to move, striding across the cobbles towards the carriage. He barged past several people, ignoring their curses, his hands already slipping inside his coat.
It could have been his arrow-straight course or the dark look plastered across his face, he was not sure, but in any case, the guards spotted him within moments. One stood up on the driver’s seat and yelled. Another appeared from behind it, clad in a dark suit and grey hat, tattoos on the bones of his bare hands.
Gunderton threw his head back and let the blood run down his throat, a crimson surge. It was in his veins in a second, already swirling up to his skull. But these men were fast. Faster even than he was. Gunderton cursed as the nearest stamped his foot on the street. A wave of magick ripped outward, splitting the cobbles with a thundercrack.
Gunderton rolled to the side, cursing his old bones as they protested. The rippling wall of air flew past him, breaking the windows of the shop he had been leaning against. Screams and cries began to rise as the street descended into panic. Gunderton retaliated, pushing his magick into his legs and bursting forward. His fist caught the nearest man in the stomach with blistering speed. He crumpled to the ground with a gurgle. Gunderton left him to curl up in the middle of the street as he sprinted for the carriage.
Horses could always be trusted to run at the first whiff of magick. Gunderton had cursed them before for it, and he cursed them now as the carriage jolted forward. Doors slammed. Hooves clattered against the cobbles. The driver’s whip cracked.
‘Dizali!’ Gunderton bellowed, as the carriage evaded his grasp by inches. The second guard had found a revolver and was now firing wildly over the carriage roof as it escaped down the street. Gunderton dodged and ducked as the bullets ricocheted off the cobbles. One grazed his knee and he threw himself into an alleyway. It was over as swiftly as it had begun. Gunderton lay on his back, breathing hard, letting the magick die away. It was only when he heard the creak of a door and boots on the pavement that he moved. He slipped deeper into the shade between the buildings and found a spot behind empty ale barrels.
Two blonde giants of men prowled the street behind him. One had a rifle in his huge hands, the other a large knife. Gunderton hissed and sank lower behind the barrel, cursing his luck and timing. He stared up at the sliver of sky between the roofs and angrily clenched his teeth.
‘You’re a fool, Dow, a damn fool,’ he hissed to himself. He could hear the screeching of the police whistles now, inching closer by the moment.
Another airship slid into view, its bulbous hull crossing the patchwork sky like a bridge fording a river. Gunderton stared up at it, arguing with himself, back and forth, back and forth, until he forced himself from the stone and deeper into the alley.
With the whistles and shouts ringing in his ears, he hobbled east, to a spur of the docks he knew very well indeed. Where the airship captains drank their land-borne boredom away, pint by pint, until it was time to fly again.
Witchazel was right. ‘Almighty’s balls, he was right.’
Chapter XVIII
THE FINER POINTS OF CRIMSON
12th July, 1867
Merion had never understood the phrase ‘second guessing’. Especially not now. They should have called it ‘third guessing’ or, in his own case, ‘umpteenth guessing’. His brain had never worked so hard in all his life.
As the tangle of countryside rattled past his greasy window, he once again tried to unravel his thoughts and suspicions, knitted as they were after two days of toying with them.
To his own surprise, he had managed to keep silent on the matter, even to Rhin. The faerie was with Nelle Neams in the seat behind, and they were murmuring back and forth about the faerie’s next performance. He seemed far too preoccupied with thoughts of banshees and circus cages f
or Merion to think of bothering him with further suspicions. Merion knew better than that.
Lilain was far too engrossed in chatting about the finer points of crimson with Sheen, several seats down, where she had set up camp for most of the last day or two.
And Lurker was also immersed in his own world, only his consisted of dozing beneath the brim of his hat and occasionally mumbling something bitter whenever laughter rang out from the seats behind.
Merion had spent the best part of an hour staring at him. Out of the members of his strange little family, only Lurker might have had the inclination to listen, and better yet, agree. He wasn’t exactly a fan of Kadabra’s famed hospitality at this very moment. Merion needed help. This young Hark would not be duped twice, and this time he held matters in his own hands.
He had carefully moulded and pummelled an idea into being. Underhanded, indeed, but with Lurker’s flask and reserves of patience empty, and another few hours before they stopped, it was all too easy.
The young Hark bit his lip as he leant forward, prodding Lurker in the knee. Nothing. Merion poked again, and was rewarded by a snort.
‘What?’ It was more of a statement than a question, really, more of a grunt than a word. Lurker kept his hat low and his arms crossed.
‘Fancy a walk?’
‘We’re on a train, boy,’ came the gruff answer.
‘I’m aware of that, Lurker. A stretch of the legs, then, up and down the carriage?’
‘No. An’ we call it a car.’
Merion knuckled his temples and looked out at the countryside, which had grown decidedly greener over the past few hours, broken only by the tentacles of silver rivers reaching across the flat, seemingly endless landscape. To eyes seared with hot sands and rugged deserts, the landscape was an odd but welcome sight, even if it was still barren in its own way. He had heard the name Indiana mentioned more than once that morning.
‘I heard Itch say something about some moonshine in the animal car …’ Merion muttered, half to himself.
A gloved hand rose up to tilt the hat, and Merion met Lurker’s dark and curious eyes. He shrugged for effect. ‘That’s what I heard anyway,’ said the boy.
‘A walk it is.’ Lurker slapped his knee and got to his feet, grunting as if it irked his bones to do so.
Merion led the way, weaving in between the wooden seats and out through the door. The hot wind harried them as they stepped out between the carriages—or cars. Lurker had to hold onto his hat.
With care, they stepped between the couplings and in through the door of the next carriage, and so on, until they came to a wide wooden carriage at the back of the train, taller and wider than the others, jolting up and down with the railroad’s every wiggle and bump.
It stank inside. The stench of animals and their assorted dung, along with the bitter-sweet smell of straw forced them to breathe through their mouths. Merion was careful not to tread too close to the irritable beasts, pushed so close together in the carriage that the big cats could trade swipes between their bars. Sunlight snuck in sheets and spears through the myriad gaps in the wooden cladding, illuminating a furry face here, or a snarling mouth there.
Merion led them to the rear of the carriage, where barrels and boxes had been stacked high in front of the last door. The boy hopped onto one and let his legs dangle. Lurker cast about, sniffing. ‘I don’t smell any moonshine, only shit and animals.’
‘That’s because there is none,’ Merion confessed.
Lurker crossed his arms with a squeak of leather. ‘Then I’ll take an explanation instead. I was havin’ a good dream.’
The boy sighed. ‘You’re the only one I can talk to about this.’
Lurker made a face. ‘Look, Merion. I ain’t no good for that. If you’re goin’ through changes, then your aunt …’
Merion held up his hands. ‘No, Lurker, you idiot. I need to talk about the circus.’
‘Oh,’ Lurker huffed. ‘Fine, spit it out, boy.’
‘Have you noticed anything strange about this place?’
There was a pause. ‘It’s a circus …’
Merion prayed for patience as he glanced up at the creaking roof. ‘I mean deeper than that, something odd going on. Something that doesn’t feel right?’
‘The people are a little strange, I suppose. Especially that Sheen,’ Lurker grunted.
‘I mean everybody. It’s like they’re holding back a secret they don’t want us to know. Or as if they have some other purpose about them. I’ve come to notice it, and it’s bothering me.’
‘You’re probably just tired, Merion. Been a long few weeks.’
‘No, listen. I think Ms Mizar knows I’m a lord. Knows exactly who I am, but she won’t admit it.’
Lurker took a seat on a barrel. ‘Mmhm,’ he rumbled.
Merion illustrated the scene with his hands. ‘I showed her a paper. A newspaper I found in Daeven Port. The Empire Watchful, straight from London. My father has been framed as a traitor to the Empire, just as I have. They say they found letters in my house, letters between him and Lincoln.’
‘An’ is that true?’
‘It doesn’t matter if it is. She saw my name in the paper. “Tonmerion Harlequin Hark.” It wouldn’t take a genius to figure it out, and yet she said nothing. I could see it in her face. And that’s not all. I saw a letter on her desk with a coat of arms on it, Empire arms.’
Lurker sniffed, taking time over his answer. He stared about as Merion fixed him with an urgent look. ‘You sure you ain’t just paranoid? I mean, after what happened with those Serpeds?’
Merion jumped down from the barrel, holding his hands up claw-like. ‘That’s exactly why I’m suspicious! I let them play me like a violo, and I am not about to let that happen again. There’s something rotten at the heart of this circus, and I can feel it. I just need you …’
There was a slam of a door at the front end of the carriage. Merion clamped his mouth shut.
‘Who’s there?’ came a gruff shout. ‘You’d best not be botherin’ these animals, you hear?’
‘Mr Magrey,’ Merion called out, swapping a glance with Lurker. The prospector still did not look convinced. ‘It’s just us. Getting a bit of peace and quiet.’
The wiry form of Itch Magrey appeared from behind a cage, his face scrunched up with suspicion. ‘Plenty of that outside, if’n you ask me, Harlequin,’ he murmured. He still had not quite warmed to the boy, as Yara promised him he would.
Merion shrugged. ‘Too windy, if you ask me. What are you up to?’
‘Doing the rounds, not that it’s any of your business. People in this circus get on a train and forget their duties, just like that.’ He clicked his fingers. ‘Neams is busy with your faerie. Thought I’d come do his job for him.’
Merion just shrugged, watching Itch’s narrowed eyes wander from him to Lurker, who was busy looking nonchalant and utterly bored.
‘Well, enjoy your peace and quiet. Don’t go pokin’ ’round, or I’ll have Yara leave you at the next water-stop. Jus’ you see.’
‘No poking, understood,’ Merion replied, watching him walk away. As Itch placed his hand on the door-handle, he shot him a question. ‘Say, Mr Magrey, did Devan ever find that girl?’
Itch threw a look over his shoulder. ‘What girl?’
‘The one that went missing in Daeven Port? Devan was looking for her.’
‘How should I know? Happens all the time,’ Itch grunted, before taking his leave.
Once they were alone again, Merion tossed his arms in the air in exasperation. ‘What do you think of that?’
Lurker had narrowed his dark eyes. ‘What girl?’
‘A girl called Sanja. And that’s not the first time it’s happened. Every time I ask, I get told “It happens all the time”, as if a child going missing were nothing.’
Lurker mulled that over for a moment, muttering to himself under his breath. ‘That ain’t right.’
‘Thank you!’ Merion tugged at his mop of hair.
/> ‘Now wait just a minute. I’m sayin’ it ain’t right, not that the circus is to blame. What exactly are you sayin’?’
Merion kicked the crate with his heels. ‘That there’s foul play at work,’ he said, clear and as stark as the disappointment that abseiled into the wallows of his gut. He might as well have flown for all the chance of denying it.
Lurker sniffed. ‘I’m guessin’ there’s no sense in arguin’ with you.’
‘No, sadly not.’
Another sniff. ‘Well, guess I better play along, see what happens.’
It was so unexpected, Merion almost missed it. ‘I’ll take that as a yes,’ Merion grinned. ‘Now for evidence.’
There was a pregnant pause in which Lurker looked about. ‘And here was I thinkin’ you had some already.’
‘I need to look in Yara’s compartment, somehow. Can you distract her?’
‘What, you want me to juggle outside her compartment?’
‘Why don’t you just ask her to come for a walk or something?’
‘Merion …!’
‘Fine, I’ll sneak in.’
‘Why don’t we get Rhin to do it?’
‘He won’t help us. He’s too invested in his act. He’s using this place to forget …’ Merion trailed off, words stumbling over the cliff-edge.
Lurker narrowed his eyes. ‘Go on.’
‘To forget home. The Fae Queen is still after him. He’s had a letter, a threat,’ Merion lied. He did not need complexity poking its head into the matter. ‘It’s best just to let him pretend.’
‘Bullshit,’ grunted Lurker, making the boy flinch. He flicked the brim of his hat. ‘If’n you’re right, and there is somethin’ rotten here, then he’s in trouble too. We ain’t gonna do it without his help. Just tell him everythin’ you know. He won’t be able to resist a sneak, trust me.’
‘Fine. What about my aunt?’
Lurker snorted. ‘She won’t agree. Too into that lupus-lookin’ fellow, Sheen.’ He said the name like the slow draw of a steel blade.
