“Walk out the other end of the alley,” I said as the youth stood up straight, my hard-won loot in his hands. “And don’t think yourself any sharp ideas.”
The one holding the girl stared at me. Then he smiled, checkerboard patterns of black and green. “You make sure to keep your preserve well tended now, young warden.”
“If I see you again, I’ll sever your balls from their stalk and leave you to bleed out in the street.”
He laughed his ugly laugh and backed away, the boy following close after him. I watched them off until I was certain they weren’t planning on rushing me, then closed my razor and walked over to the child.
Her almond eyes and dusky hue showed Kiren blood, and her tattered clothes and bruised skin spoke to at least a few nights on the streets. Around her neck was a wooden necklace, the kind you could buy two for a copper in Kirentown, back before the plague shut down their market. I wondered where she’d gotten it. A gift, probably, from her mother or father or a score of other relatives now in the ground.
The retreat of her abductors had done little to calm her nerves, and she still sobbed uncontrollably. I knelt down on one knee and slapped her across the face.
“Stop crying-no one is listening.”
She blinked twice, then wiped at her nose. The tears stopped, but I waited for her breathing to return to normal before I continued.
“What’s your name?”
The thin stretch of her throat expanded as if to answer, but she couldn’t force her lips to form the words.
“Your name, child,” I said again, trying to put some tenderness into my voice, for all that it was an emotion with which I had only passing relations.
“Celia.”
“Celia,” I repeated. “That’s the last time I’ll ever hurt you, do you understand? You don’t need to worry about me. I’m looking out for you, okay? I’m on your side.”
She looked at me, unsure how to answer. The time she’d spent on the street hadn’t left her overflowing with trust for her fellow man.
I stood and took her hand in mine. “Come on. Let’s find you somewhere warm.”
It started to drizzle, then it started to rain. My thin coat soon soaked to my body, so the girl had to make do in her ragged dress. For some time we walked in silence-though the storm pounded her tiny frame, Celia didn’t weep.
The Aerie had been completed, its edifice jutting out into the ether, but the maze surrounding it was still being constructed. We had to struggle through a hundred yards of overturned mud, no easy task for the tiny legs of a small child, though she barely noticed. As soon as we had come within view, her eyes had locked on the tower in awe and excitement.
Five weeks prior the entire population of Low Town, swelled by crowds of outsiders and shepherded by a flock of guardsmen, had celebrated the installment of the Blue Crane in his new surroundings. I’d watched from the back as the High Chancellor honored a lofty figure in extravagant robes. No one from the area had since shown courage enough to introduce themselves. Now seemed as good a time as ever to welcome the wizard to our neighborhood.
The little one by my side, I strode up to the tower with what arrogance I could muster.
A dozen feet above the ground a monstrous statue sat on a small ridge, jutting out from the building proper and marring the smooth perfection of the exterior. Beneath it I could see the outline of a door. I banged on its center and yelled into the night.
“Open up! Open up now!”
The movement of the gargoyle was no small shock, and Celia let out a shriek. I bit my lip trying not to do the same. The thing above the door twisted its heavy features with an ease that was unnatural, and its voice was inhuman if not directly threatening.
“Who is this that disturbs the repose of the evening? The Master is sleeping, young friends.”
I hadn’t lost the savings of a childhood ill-spent to retreat at this gentle remonstration, and there seemed to be no reason to show this construction any more deference than I would his fleshly equivalent. “Then you’ll need to wake him.”
“Sadly, child, I do not arrest the Master’s slumber at the will of a pair of ragamuffins. Come back tomorrow and he might be willing to see you.”
A flash of lightning illuminated the landscape, the spire standing out uncannily against the barren ground surrounding it.
“Will the Blue Crane sleep warm in his bed and awake to the corpses of two children on his doorstep?”
Concrete eyebrows curled inward and the strange creature grew less friendly. “Do not speak such of the Master-my patience is not infinite.”
Things had gone too far to back away, and even then I understood that advance is often the only alternative to retreat. I shouted louder, my voice cracking with the strain. “Does the First Wizard care nothing for the people of his city? Will he rest in his castle while the children of Low Town drown in this storm? Call him down! Call him down, I say!”
The gargoyle’s face glowed in the moonlight, and I was conscious of the danger I was courting. The thing hadn’t shown itself capable of movement beyond its perch, but there was no knowing what forces it might martial in defense of the tower. “Your abuse grows tiring. Leave, else the consequences…” It quieted mid-sentence, its visage frozen, all signs of intelligence absent.
Just as unexpectedly sentience returned. “Wait here-the Master approaches.” It was not lost on me that this offered no guarantee of our safety. The wind screamed its hatred through the night. Celia squeezed my hand.
The stone shifted to reveal a tall, thin man with a long beard and eyes that glimmered even as they shook off the haze of slumber. I had only seen the Crane that once, from a distance, and he had looked more imposing in the midst of a vast crowd of people. I watched an inclination toward geniality combat the appropriate response to being woken late in the evening by a pair of vagrants. Somehow I wasn’t shocked to discover the first winning out.
“I am not used to company after midnight, particularly company I’ve yet to meet. Still, the Daevas bid us show kindness to all our visitors, and I shall do no less. What is it you wish of me?”
“You’re the Blue Crane?” I asked.
“I am.”
“The one they call the savior of Low Town?”
“If that’s what they call me.”
I pushed Celia toward him. “Then save her-she needs help, she’s got nowhere to go.”
The Crane looked down at her, then back at me. “And you? What do you need?”
Water ran down my sneer. “Not a damn thing.”
He nodded and dropped to one knee, lowering himself with an extraordinary lack of pretension for one of the most powerful men in the Empire. “Hello, child. People call me the Blue Crane. It’s a funny name, I know. Do you have a name you’d like to share with me?”
The girl cocked her head up at me, as if asking for permission. I patted her lightly on the back. “Celia,” she barked out finally.
The Crane’s eyes lit up in mock wonder. “That’s my favorite name in the world! My whole life I’ve been hoping to meet someone with that name, and now you show up on my doorstep in the dead of night!” Celia looked like she wanted to giggle but didn’t remember quite how. The Crane held out his hand. “Let’s get a cup of tea and you can tell me all about what it’s like being born a Celia. I’m sure it’s very exciting.”
This elicited a slight smile, the first I had seen from her all night. She took the Crane’s palm, and he stood carefully, leading her into the tower. He turned as he headed into the doorway, his eyes offering entry.
“I’ll be back to check on her soon,” I said.
Celia twisted herself around to face me, realizing now that I wasn’t coming. She didn’t speak but her eyes were trembling. My chest was full of fire and I felt a lightness untie itself from my bowels and rise up through my stomach. I sprinted off in the night, leaving the two of them standing there, together, illuminated by the soft light drifting out from the entrance.
I was think
ing about the last time I had brought an orphan to the Crane’s while I tried to catch the guardian’s attention. It wasn’t working. I punctuated a string of epithets by tossing a pebble against the gargoyle, but it bounced off without garnering a reaction.
“Why are you doing that?” Wren asked, perched on the innermost wall of the maze.
“Normally he responds.”
“Who?”
“The magic talking monster perched above the doorway, of course.”
Wren had the good sense not to antagonize me further. I sat down beside him, then pulled my tobacco pouch out of my satchel and started rolling a smoke. “Fucking magic. We’d all be better off without it.”
“That’s bullshit,” Wren said, oddly passionate.
“Is it now? Name one good thing that ever came from the Art.”
“The Crane’s ward.”
I lit my cigarette beneath a shielded hand. “Now name another.”
“I’ve heard Frater Hallowell has the touch, and heals people at the church of Prachetas the Matriarch.”
“Frater Hallowell ever heal you?” I asked, breathing low-grade poison into my lungs.
“No.”
“He ever heal anyone you know?”
Wren shook his head.
“Doesn’t really count then, does it?”
“No,” he responded, as usual quick to grasp the point. “Not really.”
“Don’t twist it up in your mind-the two in the Aerie are anomalies, exceptions that prove the rule. Start thinking otherwise and you’ll get yourself into trouble.”
The boy considered that while I finished off my smoke. “How long have you known the Blue Crane?”
“For twenty-five years.”
“Then why won’t he let you into the tower?”
Why indeed? Even on those rare occasions when the Crane hadn’t granted me an audience, his doorman had always animated to reject my plea. If the Aerie’s defenses had fallen into disrepair, it meant the Crane’s health was worse than I thought. I picked up another stone, larger this time, and flung it at the guardian. It had no more effect than the first, and I sat back down.
I poured ice water on my temper. There was still work that needed doing. Wren flipped his legs over the white stone. I did the same and we looked out toward the city.
“I like this labyrinth,” Wren said.
“It’s a maze.”
“What’s the difference?”
“A labyrinth only has one path and ends in the center. A maze has many different paths and ends where you find a way out.”
I rose to greet Celia. Her dress looked soft in the afternoon light and she was smiling. “I’m sorry that you had to wait. I’ve taken over running the Aerie, but I haven’t quite figured out how to operate the guardian yet.” She took my hand gently.
“Who is this here?” she asked. I looked down to see Wren had pulled a snarl across his face. I chalked it up to the perverse instinct common among adolescents when presented with a member of the preferred sex, the root impulse that drives young men to rub mud in the hair of their future betrothed. There were few women walking the streets of Low Town to compare with Celia.
“Wren, this is Celia. Celia, this is Wren. Don’t mind the face-he stepped on a bit of rusty metal yesterday. I think he’s coming down with lockjaw.”
“I’m glad he brought you over, then. We’ll have the Master take a look at it.” Celia’s attempt to win over the boy from his opening offering of irrational dislike proved unsuccessful-if anything his grimace deepened. With a graceful lift of her shoulders Celia turned her attention back toward me. “Still picking up wastrels, I see.”
“He’s more of an apprentice. Are we to continue this discussion in the street, or were you planning on inviting us inside?”
She laughed a little. I could always make her laugh. We climbed to the top of the tower, and Celia walked us into the Crane’s drawing room. “The Master should be here shortly. I alerted him to your arrival before I went to let you in.”
We watched the sun fade through the south window. Wren stood close, his eyes scanning the Crane’s treasures with the intensity of someone whose collected possessions could fit comfortably in a rucksack.
The bedroom door opened and the Crane entered, cheerily but with a stiffness that no good humor could hide. “Back for some clandestine purpose no doubt,” he began, before noticing the child at my hip.
Then his eyes lit up like they used to, and years seemed to shed off him, and I was glad that I had bothered to rustle Wren out of the Earl. “I see you’ve brought a guest. Come over here, child. I’m old, and my sight isn’t what it once was.”
Contra the unfriendliness he’d shown Celia, Wren moved forward without further prompting, and again I was struck by the easy grace the Crane possessed with children. “You’re thinner than a boy your age should be, but then so was your master. Chest like a mop handle. What’s your name?”
“Wren.”
“Wren?” The Crane’s laughter echoed through the room, for once not trailed by a hacking cough. “Wren and Crane! We might as well be brothers! Of course, my namesake is a creature of dignity and poise-while yours is a silly fowl, notable only for its rather aggravating song.”
This wasn’t quite enough to bring a smile to the boy’s face, but it was close, awful close for Wren.
“Well then, Wren. Will you grace us with a tune?”
The boy shook his head.
“Then it seems I shall provide the entertainment.” With a youthful burst of speed he moved to a shelf over the fire and pulled down an old creation of his, a strange-looking instrument halfway between a trumpet and a hunting horn, curling bands of burnished copper capped by pale ivory. “You are certain you won’t indulge your musical talents, young Wren?”
Wren shook his head again furiously.
The Crane shrugged in mock disappointment, then put the thing to his lips and let forth with a full-throated blast. It made a sound like the bellow of a bull, and a kaleidoscope of red and orange sparks erupted from the end, eddying about in the firmament.
Wren brushed at the glittering light that swirled through the air. I had loved that thing as a child-odd that I hadn’t thought about it for so long.
Celia interrupted. “Master, if you’d be so kind as to entertain our new friend, I need to have a few words with our old one.”
I thought he would object, but instead he flashed me a quick smile before turning back to the boy. “Each note releases a different color, see?” He blew another tone on the trumpet, and a spray shot out, blue green like the foam of the sea.
We descended to the conservatory without speaking. The glass door was fogged from the heat, and Celia opened it and ushered me inside. Before I had time to appreciate the new suite of flowers that had taken bloom, Celia jumped into it. “Well? What of our investigation?”
“Shouldn’t we include the Master in this?”
“If you want to tear a dying man away from one of the few pleasures left to him, it’s on your head.”
Having seen the man, it didn’t come as a complete shock. But still, I didn’t like hearing my suspicions confirmed. “He’s dying?”
Celia sat on a stool beside a pink orchid and nodded sadly.
“What’s wrong with him?”
“He’s old. He won’t tell me exactly, but he’s seventy-five if he’s a day.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So am I,” she said, but moved on quickly. “It upsets him, this business with the children. He’s always been… softhearted.”
“I’m not sure you need to be oversensitive to find child murder distasteful,” I said, brushing a grain of pollen out of my eye and trying not to sneeze.
“I didn’t mean that. What’s happened to the children is terrible. But there isn’t much the Master can do. He isn’t what he was.” Her eyes were firm. “The Crane has served the people of this city for half a century. He deserves peace in his final days. Surely you owe him that much, at least?�
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“I owe the Master more than I could ever repay.” A memory came to my mind of the Crane as he had been, his eyes sparkling with wit and mischief, his back neither bent nor bowed. “But that isn’t the point. This thing needs to be stopped, and my resources are not such that I can afford to lose an ally.” I laughed caustically. “In a week it won’t matter one way or the other.”
“What does that mean?”
“Forget it-a poor attempt at humor.”
She was unconvinced but didn’t pursue it further. “I’m not cutting you off. If you need help… I’ll never be the Crane’s equal in ability or in wisdom. But I am a Sorcerer First Rank.” She nodded modestly at the ring that testified to this last fact. “The Master has watched over Low Town long enough-having taken over the tower, perhaps it’s time I adopt the rest of his mantle.”
The years since we had seen each other had aged Celia. She was no longer the child I had brought to the Aerie decades ago. Though she still spoke like it sometimes-“adopt his mantle,” the Daevas save us.
Celia took my silence as agreement. “You have any leads?”
“I have suspicions. I always have suspicions.”
“Don’t let me hurry you-if there’s some other matter pressing on your shoulders, feel free to take care of that first.”
“I visited a party thrown by the Duke of Beaconfield, the Smiling Blade. Your gem throbbed against my chest while we talked.”
“And that didn’t seem to you to be information that might benefit from being shared?”
“It doesn’t mean as much as you’d think; as far as the law is concerned, it doesn’t mean anything. If it were just some Low Town bum, it might be enough, probably would be. I could point to him and the Old Man would drag him back to Black House and probe him for stains. But for a noble? Basic jurisprudence needs to be followed, and that means you can’t snatch a fellow from his house and carve him up on the say-so of an ex-agent’s illegally acquired magical talisman.”
“No,” she said, deflating. “I suppose you can’t.”
“Besides, I’m not sure the amulet is right. I spoke to Beaconfield. He seemed like a violent flake, the sort bred in droves by the upper classes. But murdering children, summoning demons… It’s out of character. The aristocracy tend to be too lazy to really commit to malevolence. Easier to spend their inheritance on costume galas and expensive whores.”
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